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Comment by chrismealy | Hacker News Reader

Finnish teachers make 100% of the national average for their level of education, compared to something like 60-65% for American teachers.

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There really is something to be said for the way the Finnish system has made teaching an attractive and respected profession.

In the US, the decades of weak pay, support and heavy criticism almost seem like a high point compared to the demonization of more recent years.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem, as if you spend some time on an undergraduate campus in the US, you'll notice that majority of those majoring in Education have deemed other, more profitable, majors as too hard.

Finland has free college education. Mainly for that reason, the future profitability of a specific discipline doesn't appear to be a major factor in how young Finns choose their majors (as evidenced by the enduring huge popularity of objectively unprofitable disciplines such as media and design).

It seems to me that those that become teachers in Finland have chosen the career fairly early on. It's a vocational thing. Money doesn't influence the decision, but of course there is the financial baseline that teaching is a stable job that offers an extraordinarily long summer vacation (something like 11 weeks, fully paid).

"Finland has free college education."

Wow -- that alone could cause a number of the effects we're talking about. Anyone who wants to go to college can, versus in the US, there are a number of children who know (or pessimistically assume) that college is just not in the cards for them.

Not saying we should adopt that single tenet. Just that it has surprisingly strong ripples throughout the whole system that should not be underestimated.

That's true but it's not the only problem. Teaching in America is not a high-status profession the way it is in other countries, so people who are capable tend to choose other professions. We need a new cultural value on teaching.

Some assertions w/o citation:

That's partially because many parents see school as free childcare and don't understand the value of education themselves. This in turn is because parents are (in general) spending more time away from their children trying to "make ends meet" which itself has to do with consumer culture and living beyond means. It's a complex problem.

This is the key takeaway for me from the article (and also supports my own beliefs). If teachers in the US started earning like doctors and lawyers ($100K-$200K), then many of our education problems would go away. Why? You'd start retaining good teachers, and attracting new, good teachers. Then these folks would continue to solve education problems. You'd be amazed at what highly paid, motivated professionals can accomplish. But low-paid teachers, no matter how dedicated, get burnt out a few years into a career. Bad teachers would eventually work their way out, due to increased competition. (Read the article about how applications shot up.) Some of the money (thought not all) for higher salaries is in education, but it's just not being spent in the right places.

The 2nd interesting point I took away is the ability grouping. Not grouping by ability works for young children, say K-6. But once older, the gap is too much for a unified curriculum. Taking this concept further out, Americans need more vocational high schools, like Finland. College is overvalued in this country, and a large segment of high school students are being misled by the college myth.

$100k-200k would probably bankrupt just about every US school system.

Why do you think bad teachers would work their way out of the system due to competition? Ontario pays teachers generously and as a result has a glut of teachers (widespread unemployment amongst new teachers, people going abroad, certainly many of these people would be good teachers). There's no "competition" because the challenge is to get on the supply list, and then get hired into the unionized workplace. Once you're there, don't worry about getting fired. The main struggle is getting in, not avoiding getting out. High pay does necessarily lead to the sort of competition that I think you have in mind.

Re: competition. When I mean work their way out, I mean retirement. Ineffective teachers will retire, and with higher pay, the increased number of applicants for teaching positions will raise the bar for new teachers. In the article, it said like 6000 applicants applied for 600 spots. That's the kind of ratios we need in the US.

Not to go pop commentary on you, but Malcom Gladwell once wrote a piece on this very thing. <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_...;

Do you have a source for your claim that US teachers make 60% of the national average for someone with a masters in education? (A degree which doesn't qualify one to do anything but teach.)

Average US salary $40,711.61:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html

Average US salary for those with any sort of Masters $53,000:

http://www.salary.com/learning/layouthtmls/leal_display_noca...

Average salaries by type of teacher for their 9 out of 12 months of work:

http://resource.educationamerica.net/salaries.html/

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