Decline in teacher status traced to seniority rules

In a NY Times article titled Teachers Wonder, Why the Scorn?:

Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education policy group, said the decline in teachers’ status traced to the success of unions in paying teachers and granting job security based on their years of service, not ability.
“They are reaping a bitter harvest that they didn’t individually plant but their profession has planted over 50 years, going from a respected profession to a mass work force in which everyone is treated as if they are interchangeable, as in the steel mills of yesteryear,” Mr. Finn said. 

As a school principal opposed to LIFO rules expressed to me recently, it's difficult to view teachers as true professionals with these types of work rules.

If merit pay is introduced for teachers, will we see more male teachers?

Men are more likely than women to seek jobs in which competition with coworkers affects pay rates, a preference that might help explain persistent pay differences between men and women, a study at the University of Chicago shows.

Advertisements were listed on internet job boards in 16 of the nation's largest cities.

“When the salary potential was most dependent on competition, men were 94 percent more likely to apply than women,” List said.
The study found that although women were much less likely to pursue jobs where individual competition was a factor, the deterring effect on women could be overcome by having workers compete in teams, rather than individually.

Teacher merit pay would be based on comparative performance, which might act as a draw to attract more men to careers in education.

Linda Darling Hammond on teaching as a profession

Linda Darling Hammond, Professor of Education at Stanford University and former education advisor to President Obama's presidential campaign:

Q: How does teaching compare to other professions?

In this country, teaching is not yet a profession. A profession really has at least three features. First of all, everyone who is admitted to entry into the profession commits themselves to practice with the welfare of clients first and foremost as their major goal. It's like the Hippocratic oath in medicine. Second, everyone who's admitted to practice in a profession has demonstrated that they've mastered a common knowledge base and that they know then how to use that knowledge on behalf of the clients that they're there to serve. And third, a profession takes responsibility for defining, transmitting, and enforcing some standards of practice to protect the people who they're there to serve. Teaching has not acquired those three traits yet.

http://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/today2.html

Should an AP Chemistry teacher be paid the same as a second grade gym teacher?

From an article about the downsized New York State budget, a comment critical of public education's teacher compensation structure raises a sometimes controversial point.

...an insane and indefensible compensation philosophy that pairs a 2nd grade gym teacher as an equal of an AP chemistry teacher...

It's hard for me to accept that both teachers should be compensated the same.  Market conditions should play a factor in teacher pay; otherwise, excellent math and science teachers are difficult to recruit.  On the other hand, some argue that early elementary teachers are performing such an important job that they should be compensated at the same level as the AP chemistry teacher is.
 
Here's the complete comment:

"It is not enough to solve all of our problems," said Kim Foskew, president of the East Ramapo PTA Council." How apt.
Yup, it's your problem ... not the problem of the taxpayers. And the problems? Unrealistic salary schedules, unreformed pension programs, pro-level athletic facilities and sport expenses, idiotic elective classes, nonsense phys ed programs, social engineering efforts of all sorts, out-of-control special education expenses, total addiction to every asinine educational whimsy, relentless waste of technology of all sorts, teacher union domination of the entire institution, waste of all sorts ... from textbooks to paper to talent, an insane and indefensible compensation philosophy that pairs a 2nd grade gym teacher as an equal of an AP chemistry teacher, palatial educational plants, meal give-aways, a school calendar that hasn't changed since Rip Van Winkle, and a total, never-ending "screw you" to taxpayers year after year.
Yup. You do have problems.

“Teaching in the U.S. is unfortunately no longer a high-status occupation,”

Andreas Scleicher, who oversees PISA, recently commented on the teaching profession.  In the United States, there is wide disagreement about the definition of a "successful" teacher.

“Teaching in the U.S. is unfortunately no longer a high-status occupation,” Mr. Schleicher says in the report, prepared in advance of an educational conference that opens in New York on Wednesday. “Despite the characterization of some that teaching is an easy job, with short hours and summers off, the fact is that successful, dedicated teachers in the U.S. work long hours for little pay and, in many cases, insufficient support from their leadership.”...

University teaching programs in the high-scoring countries admit only the best students, and “teaching education programs in the U.S. must become more selective and more rigorous,” the report says....

...the point was not that the United States spends too little on public education — only Luxembourg among the O.E.C.D. countries spends more per elementary student — but rather that American schools spend disproportionately on other areas, like bus transportation and sports facilities. 

“You can spend a lot of money on education, but if you don’t spend it wisely, on improving the quality of instruction, you won’t get higher student outcomes,” Mr. Schleicher said. 

U.S. Is Urged to Raise Teachers’ Status - NYT

For the entire article: