An analysis of teacher compensation in America
Educators are essential to America’s future, so why don’t we treat them as such?
In the United States, public education typically finds itself in the news for all the wrong reasons: American students testing poorly against its peers; stark inequities between schools based on neighbourhood; teachers — across an increasing number of states — constantly on the verge of striking.
Many of the issues in the US education system are systemic, which is a major reason why actual change, as is so often the case with policy in general, is far harder to come by than talked-about change. States may flip colours, administrators may get reshuffled, and new acts may bring forward some structural reform, but at the front-line, the insidious decline of K-12 education steadily continues.
Although the issues may be systemic, they are also interconnected in such a way that a marked improvement in one area could lead to a cascading of additional benefits elsewhere. So instead of focusing on complex, multi-faceted education reform — which just leads to endless bickering and minimal action — the conversation should be about centring efforts around the single area that could impact the most across the entire system. After all, you can get a paint job, buy top-of-the-line tires, and even…
