Sunday, July 03, 2005

Who's worth more?

Who is worth more? The teachers who taught the boy, or the boy himself?

Given the discrepancy between salaries of, well, lets say the average tenured veteran teacher and just the bonus for signing rookie baseball players, the market speaks volumes and, of course, its the boy.

Slice:
The happiest day of his life thrust 18-year-old Michael Durant toward a manhood for which he did not feel ready. Even a dream come true, he learned, has untold consequences.

On June 7, the Philadelphia Phillies selected Michael -- a 6-foot-5, 240-pound senior at Berkeley High, whose raw power, agility and baseball intelligence had attracted a flock of major league scouts -- in the fourth round of the first-year player draft, fulfilling a dream the young man had nurtured since fourth grade. Within 24 hours, the Phillies offered him a $245, 000 signing bonus to turn pro, and if he accepted he would report to their rookie league club in Clearwater, Fla., by June 24.
End Slice:
And the American population wonders why there is a problem with recruiting high quality teachers.

3 comments:

zandperl said...

This is why I hate Massachusetts Governor Romney. I am a public higher education professor in MA, and he is constantly acting to decrease our pay or benefits, and so on. The most recent thing he did that I dislike is he vetoed a budget amendment that would have decreased my health insurance contribution from 25% of the total cost to 20%. He has also been sitting on our raises since fiscal year 2000. One of my students told me he is already making more than I am.

Ken Grandlund said...

as long as society views entertainment to be more valuable than educating or public service, this is the result we will see. but i don;t think we really feel this way, only that we've been led down this path and have chosen the course of least resistance. time to stand up, speak out, and revisit our priotities!

Anonymous said...


The whole is more than the sum of the parts

Instruction is diffuse, making it difficult to place credit for outstanding students. Coaches make more money than professors. But this might be because they're dealing with better material, genetically endowed and highly motivated. They also get to deselect underperformers, and recruit players.