How to Attract More Teachers to Education

I’m normally quite patient. However, I tire of the continuing questions surrounding how to attract new teachers to the profession: incentive pay, merit pay, favorable schedules, allowances, priority housing, signing bonuses, and more.

Pay them more! Start all salaries at a level comparable to other professionals, and the applications will pour in.

A teacher at the NEA-RA recalled speaking at the general assembly 25 years ago about this very topic. She related that her solution was to raise all salaries 50%. Last week she again said raising salaries is the only sure way to do it. 25 years and the problem remains the same, and the solution–granted, very expensive and unpopular–is known.

Pay them, and they will come.

The Purpose of Assessment

During my student teaching my mentor teacher asked a seemingly straight-forward and simple question: why did you give a test after reading that novel?

My response, an obviously silly and meaningless one (even after some thought), was “because it ends the unit.” I thought that unit closure required a test. A test meant we are finished with this; now let’s move on to something else. My mentor teacher said to me, “once you know why you test, you will be ready to assess.” I felt like I was in one of those far east kung fu movies where the novice tries to grab the stone from the old teacher’s hand.

“Ah, grasshopper. Now the learning begins. You must know how to punch, so you don’t have to punch.”

Here’s what I know now: