Why Most Teachers Suck

My sister starts teaching her first class on Thursday. From talking to her about her views on education, I think she'll make a great teacher, a rare commodity in the K-12 system.

With a few exceptions, most of my teachers were not very good. For example, one history teacher said that B.C. stands for "before Christ" (correct), and A.D. stands for "after death" (not correct--what about all the years in between Christ's birth and death? A.D. is short for a Latin phrase meaning "after the birth of Christ"). A lot of the rest of the time was spent coloring maps, great for preschoolers, except this was 9th grade.

The way teachers are compensated explains why there is little incentive for them to do a good job. They aren't paid to do a good job. Take these two teachers, Teacher A and Teacher B.

Teacher A is the guy from "Stand and Deliver." For those who haven't seen the movie, he takes students from a school in a poor neighborhood and changes their lives, getting them all college credit for Calculus. He gives hope to kids who have almost nothing. Unprecedented performance for a teacher.

Teacher B is my high school economics teacher. He teaches economics straight out of the (boring) book and runs a monotonous class with horrible lectures. In fact, after the class is over many students think economics is a boring subject (it's not) and will never again open their minds to it, no matter how much the subject might have interested them if presented any other way.

But the way things are, if teacher A and teacher B have the same experience, teach at the same school, and have the same degree, they are paid the same amount. Does that sound like a good system? Let's say you're running a factory, and two factory workers have a high school education but one is harder-working and does twice the work of the other. Is paying them the same a good idea?

We don't need "more money for education" to help its lousy condition, we need a system that encourages teachers to be great because of cash incentives for actual performance (and that conversely withholds these incentives from the poorly-performing teachers).

Q & A

"You imply that you had good teachers. Doesn't that totally ruin your argument?" No. A few people are motivated by pride in their work or are naturally good teachers, but the fact is most people are strongly motivated by money and will only improve if it's in their self-interest. That is a powerful and positive thing if harnessed effectively. Obviously the system acknowledges this to some small degree, because it does pay more to teachers with more advanced degrees. Unfortunately, what you do to get a degree is different from what you do to make students more effective, educated people in life.

"You seem to have turned out OK, and you are a product of the educational system." Just because someone slips through without being a total loser doesn't mean the system made him, or is even any good. Face it--the K-12 educational system is lousy and should be improved. Even if it worked great, though, I would still look for ways to improve it.