But doesn’t the low prestige of that also have to do with the fact that it’s long been considered a “women’s profession”? (Hence the low salaries, hence the lack of male teachers, etc.)

Absolutely, but the same used to be said about nursing, and those attitudes have certainly changed [although not enough].

And as far as how teachers are treated: at the same time you’re reforming how you recruit faculty, you have to reform administration. The good thing is that the US has a surplus of management talent that it can put to good use.

For the record, I’m not currently teaching. My experience with the system and politics is that they do not foster, at the high school level, and environment where a teacher teaches. A high school teacher manages discipline problems and paperwork, attends meetings on “workdays” and turns in lesson plans. After all else, if there’s time, and the students are in the right mood, and Saturn is aligned with Jupiter, you might have a moment where the students forget they hate learning.

I think that happened a total of four times…maybe five.

The system is certainly broken, Brian. I think that a large part of the problem is that primary education is so poor that asking for focus and motivation in secondary education is such a laugher—if you haven’t built the foundation, you’ll not build a good house.

I think that happened a total of four times…maybe five.

Is the exclusivity of education training in those countries the root cause or merely an effect of societies that value teachers more than ours does? Can you really cause society to value teachers more merely by restricting the supply?

From another direction… let’s take doctors. It’s true that medical schools tend to be very selective, and many more want to to get in than actually do. Why is that? I don’t think it’s so much because those schools simply decided to be selective. I think it’s more because it’s very difficult to get through all the training and requirements to become a doctor. Doctors are held to a higher standard than most other professionals. If I ran a medical school, part of my success would be tied to how many of the people I let in became successful doctors. That’s a big incentive for me to be selective.

So… is the root of this “market” equation really a matter of raising the requirements necessary to become a teacher? I think that’s probably what it would really take to bring about the exclusivity you’re talking about. Otherwise, I don’t see the incentive for schools to restrict enrollment.

The problem, of course, is that I’m speaking entirely in the abstract. One effect of doing anything like what we’re talking about is that there are fewer teachers to go around. We don’t have enough of them as it is, so who gets screwed if the numbers get turned down even more? Probably exactly those poor schools you’re talking about.

*sigh* I don’t know how to fix it.