First, demonize teachers, then what? Expect to raise teacher quality?

by David Safier

Generally during economic downturns, more men turn to teaching as a profession. You might not make lots of money, but it beats unemployment or asking, "Do you want fries with that burger?" Not this time, though. As bad as the employment situation is for college educated men, they're not turning to teaching.

Teachers have become the scapegoats for everything that's wrong with our kids and our competitiveness in the world economy. It has gone from a noble profession with job security and low wages to a maligned profession with low wages and, courtesy of the assaults on teacher tenure, very little job security.

Did I mention, instead of teaching to the students, you're expected to teach to the test?

I don't want to get sexist here and just talk about men not entering the teaching profession. I have no stats, but I'm willing to bet most of the best and brightest women coming out of college aren't thinking about teaching as a career choice either, even given the weak job market.

The irony is, while we talk about how important "great teachers" are, how we want to weed out the bad teachers, we're discouraging the most promising candidates from even considering teaching as a profession.