A New Deal for Teachers

A New Deal For Teachers: Response The teacher quality of today is much weaker than what it has been in the past. In his article A New Deal For Teachers , Matthew Miller explains the demand for good teachers. He informs his readers that many teachers aren’t actually teaching because that was their desired profession, but because it was a last resort, so they don’t care as much for the students learning. Another issue of the teacher quality is salary. Miller explains that in the 1960s and 1970s school teachers were all very talented women but higher paying careers were not open to them. Now that those careers such as a doctor or a lawyer are open to anyone they are often taken over teaching because of the huge difference in salaries. The difference of a lawyer compared to teacher is around $2,000 starting out but topping out at around a difference of about $110,000. However some teachers who actually choose teaching as their top profession don’t mind the salary difference, they look at the greatness of the students to be fulfilling enough for them with the addition of free summers. An additional issue is that not many of these types of teachers are in the poorer and urban school districts. A shocking statistic was that half of the new teachers will actually quit within three years and they are usually the smarter teachers. How do we fix this? Matthew Miller believes proposing a “New Deal” for the teachers is the best way. He believes that in order to have a better quality of teachers is to make teaching a profession that college students strive for not that they fall onto. By doing so he first suggests that their needs to be a better system to fire the teachers. It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars plus a few years to dismiss a Tenured Teacher and the whole time it is being decided upon this teacher is being transferred between multiple different schools. The percentage of the ones who actually get dismissed is unbelievably low. Miller’s next step would be to drop the “lockstep” pay scale which has everyone having equal pay no matter their skills in teaching, to a 50 percent increase to those who work in urban and poorer districts. The better teachers will be determined by student test scores, but will receive higher pay accordingly. I completely agree with this proposition for teachers. I feel as if the money that is usually used taking years to decide upon the dismissal of a teacher was used instead on raising the salaries of all teachers the increase of money wouldn’t really be as high as what many might think. I also feel as if the “lockstep” pay scale is unfair to teachers who have multiple degrees who can teach many different subjects but get paid the same amount as a single degree teacher that went to school maybe a third of the time. By using the students test scores and abilities it makes each teacher have a fair opportunity at making a good living and teaching their students well. The best way for it to be decided on the “better teachers” would be testing the classroom before and after their time spent with the teacher. This way its not focused on the students failures but what they have learned from the teacher. Matthew Miller proposed a great New Deal for Teachers and I hope that it will soon come into play. If it does it will make teaching a higher profession which will result in more college graduates becoming teachers, which will hopefully fuel the fire to poor and urban district students to be above average instead of below. It will also improve the lives of most teachers with higher pay for doing a better job in the classroom, and help out families to know that their children are safe at school, because the teachers who should be dismissed will be. Id like to see this as a proposition on a ballot, it would have my vote.