Michigan's meaningless teacher certification reform

An article I wrote about alternative teaching certification appeared yesterday in the Michigan Education Report, a publication of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

The article - "Michigan's meaningless teacher certification reform" - can be found here. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Michelle Rhee and teacher tenure

A story about Michelle Rhee, the reform-minded superintendent of Washington, D.C.'s public school system, made its way onto today's New York Times most-emailed list. It's a fascinating story about Rhee's attempt to do away with the tenure system in her district. Check it out here.

There are strong arguments for and against the tenure system, but I lean strongly toward scrapping the tenure system and replacing it with alternative (but very strong) protections for teachers against arbitrary or political firings.

Book review: "Teachers Have It Easy"

Over the past week, I've been reading Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers by Daniel Mouthrop, Ninive Clements Calegari, and Dave Eggers. The book is one of the most powerful arguments for paying teachers more that I've read, but it has the potential side effect of scaring readers away from the profession of K-12 teaching.

The case for paying teachers more is relatively easy to make, and the authors make it very well. However, whether the book overstates the severity of the monetary challenges K-12 teachers face is a debatable question. It is indeed a crime that public school teachers in some districts have starting salaries in the low 30s, but in other metropolitan areas, the median salary for teachers is in the 60-70k range, and that is a different story. The reader is left with the impression that it is nearly impossible to make a decent living as a teacher, and that doesn't seem accurate to me.

According to the U.S. government's Bureau of Labor Statistics' May '07 occupational outlook data for secondary school teachers, the top five metropolitan areas for teacher salary at the secondary level are:

1. Nassau / Suffolk, NY - 78k
2. Ann Arbor, MI - 75k
3. Lake County / Kenosha County, IL/WI - 71k
4. Chicago / Naperville / Joliet, IL - 69k
5. Santa Ana / Anaheim / Irvine, CA - 68k

The top five states for secondary teacher pay are New York, Illinois, Connecticut, California, and New Jersey.

Of course, these numbers mean little without factoring in the cost of living; CNN Money has a useful cost of living comparison calculator here.

With that caveat, I highly recommend Teachers Have It Easy. You can order it online here.