# Solution to Failing Schools Problem. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solution-to-failing-schools-problem/533243 "2010-03-21T16:23:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solution-to-failing-schools-problem/533243/61 "2010-03-25T15:36:30Z")
If you will permit me 🙂 I work as a statistician and in very ‘squishy’ hard to evaluate environments. Heck, most statisticians would run screaming from what we do. All I can say is that it seems to work…and I have been doing it for a long time now. One thing I have noticed is that people like to spread their efforts over many clusters. It is natural to do this. Many times it is the correct thing to do. However, not often but not rarely, this is wrong. There really is one huge rate limiting cluster that needs to be demolished to make huge gains. This goes against peoples’ grain especially because, in order to get that way, they had to underprioritize it for so long. They see it as an issue but maybe not the most important or as part of larger group of important things. Also, for such a roadblock to develop, it has to have happened slowly over a long period of time. Also, because it was allowed to become this…it is something that is difficult and/or costly and or uncomfortable to fix. However, the data screams out that, at this point in time, this one thing is the main issue to be resolved…and requires huge effort on this one thing…to destroy it and see where we stand then. I’m not saying teacher salaries are this…but I have a very strong suspicion it is. Now, you can decide that doubling teacher salaries is unexceptable. That is fine. However, don’t expect the best and brightest to go into the field and don’t expect urban school kids and their parents to take it more seriously because, and they would be very right, they don’t see education as valued by society. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solution-to-failing-schools-problem/533243/62 "2010-03-25T15:59:43Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > I mean…come on here! I am not making some extreme point. Why would any bright person want to get a college education so that they can have a stressful, low status job where, if they stay with it and after many years…can attain the exalted status of slightly above the median wage and no opportunity to increase it unless they leave teaching? You seem to have missed a point - that’s the _starting_ salary. Which is not barely above average: It’s 20% above the average. If you view 20% more of anything as barely different from it you and I have very different definitions of what barely means. The average teacher’s salary for the district is about $52,500, which is about 70% above the median family pay in the city. I don’t deny that the opportunities for advancement are not as great as with other potential career tracks. I certainly am not arguing that teaching is a path to luxury. But, it’s not the barely above the poverty line you’re trying to claim for it, either. > [@](#): > > You say throwing money isn’t going to help. I say it really hasn’t been tried. > > DOUBLE the teachers salaries. Keep it up for a generation. I bet you see huge results. Let those urban kids see teachers showing up in Lexus’s and where there are wearing nice clothes 😃 So, your solution now is to double the salaries for the same near useless candidates you claim we have teaching, now? And this is going to benefit things, how? It might start changing things 20 or 30 years down the line. I don’t find that acceptable. It means that to get to your promised land, we have to write off half the next 20 years of students. That is unacceptable to me. It seems to me that simply doubling teacher’s salaries would _encourage_ the current teaching and administrative policies that we have now. Which are not working, and I think many of them are crippling the chances of success for many students. This is the same school district where at least one school had made an administrative decision to forbid students from taking texts home at night. Not some students, not students who have had texts destroyed - **all** students. I have [other reasons](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=441008), even more compelling, for mistrusting the competence, wisdom, and simple humanity of the local school administration and teacher’s union. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solution-to-failing-schools-problem/533243/63 "2010-03-25T16:55:07Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > You seem to have missed a point - that’s the _starting_ salary. Which is not barely above average: It’s 20% above the average. If you view 20% more of anything as barely different from it you and I have very different definitions of what barely means. The average teacher’s salary for the district is about $52,500, which is about 70% above the median family pay in the city. > > I don’t deny that the opportunities for advancement are not as great as with other potential career tracks. I certainly am not arguing that teaching is a path to luxury. But, it’s not the barely above the poverty line you’re trying to claim for it, either. > > So, your solution now is to double the salaries for the same near useless candidates you claim we have teaching, now? And this is going to benefit things, how? It might start changing things 20 or 30 years down the line. I don’t find that acceptable. It means that to get to your promised land, we have to write off half the next 20 years of students. > > That is unacceptable to me. > > It seems to me that simply doubling teacher’s salaries would _encourage_ the current teaching and administrative policies that we have now. Which are not working, and I think many of them are crippling the chances of success for many students. This is the same school district where at least one school had made an administrative decision to forbid students from taking texts home at night. Not some students, not students who have had texts destroyed - **all** students. I have [other reasons](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=441008), even more compelling, for mistrusting the competence, wisdom, and simple humanity of the local school administration and teacher’s union. If you are going to insist that teachers are well paid and that people respect them for their pay, we should stop talking now. If they make 70%+ above what other educated professionals make then doctors, lawyers, biz folks and everyone would be flocking to teach. You keep nibbling around the edges of the problem and avoiding the road block…and we can write off those kids forever. I also doubt your stats. I refuse to believe that those teachers make 70% above median pay…OHHHHHH…you are taking population…not college grads. Shit, you should not even be taking college grads but with advanced degrees (like Masters, MBA, Law etc) Why the hell would you be comparing a job that requires advanced education with the general pop? This shows EXACTLY what I am talking about. You would never compare other professionals to general pop…the fact that you do shows the respect you have for teachers. Don’t worry though - this disrespect is common which is why I no longer teach (left 20+ years ago) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solution-to-failing-schools-problem/533243.md?page=3)