For a nation concerned with being competitive with the rest of the world we are doing all we can do to gut that competitiveness by gutting education. We refuse to tax those who could afford it, instead we want to gut, gut, and gut a little more in all pursuit of of some idealogical fantansy.
Having dated a school teacher for the last 3 years, I am not sure why anyone stays in the professional. I understand the burn out rate early in the career is high. I’m sure folks get into teaching for many reasons, and I know for many that reason is a need for a socially significant profession. We should reward folks for these occupation.
From what I hear teaching has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. Plus teaching has become an exercise in teaching to standardized tests.
Below is a link to an excellent article and retro video about this issue.
Have You Hugged A Teacher Lately?
If you do a Google search on Teacher Burnout, I came up with close to 200,000 hits.
A couple of interesting quotes from the article:
“Nearly half of all teachers quit during their first five years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but the numbers alone don’t convey the full severity of the problem.”
“It is often the best qualified teachers who leave first because they have the easiest time finding employment in other fields.”
Yet there is a group of politicians (and citizens) trying to make them the scapegoat for our financial problems. Shame on them.
