I have a degree in computer information systems that I got late in life and never worked in. Also, I'm glad I stayed with Phoenix Union High School District PUDHS as a mechanic because I now have a pension and health care. It is a long story of how and why I got my degree, but I never intended to get into programming or systems analysis. IT people today are usually hired as contractural temps with no benefits. They are often treated badly, and it is a tough row to hoe. However, I eventually rose to an administrative level at PUHSD, and it was my degree that help me get the position. Thus, I cannot say I never used it.
In response to Bill B.'s post about his wife being in education I have a few things to say. First off both of my parents were in education. I too went to work on the support side of education in 1978 as an automechanic, became the Chief/Lead Mechanic, and later became in charge of all skill trades such as plumbing, electrical, alarms, etc. I also sat on the district's budget committee and had a good understanding of how a school's budget works. My point is I saw what educators are like from a suppportive position.
First, not all but for the most part educators are socialist. They would never admit this because they really don't even know it. In education, pay scale is generally determined by years of service and education level and nothing else. The reason I say generally is because just recently they are now giving performance pay bonuses that the Principle awards. However, I would bet that 98 percent of the teachers get the bonus. Only the worst of the worst would not get the bonus. Believe me, I say this with confidence because I know how the systems work. Administrators generally started out as teachers and all they know is education. Underneath they have developed socialistic tendencies. They have never worked on the outside and don't understand market forces. The work load on teachers is anything but fair. An accelerated english teacher has tons of research papers to grade almost every week while a wood shop teacher only has to grade a shop project that may take the whole year to complete. Science and Math teachers have highly marketable skills outside of education, but the drama teachers would probably starve to death. Despite the variation of marketable skills and amounts of work teachers have to perform off the clock, they all are on the same pay range. Sounds like socialism to me.
Teachers also claim they are underpaid. It may be true for the science and math teachers, but probably not for the rest of them. Teachers get two weeks off for Christmas, a week off in the spring, at least ten weeks off for summer vacation, everybodies bithday, the friday after Thanksgiving, and on average ten days of leave that can be accumulated or used as desired whenever they need a day off. For the record, I accumulated(classified and administrators didn't get leave but sick leave only) my sick leave and had about 200 days when I retired. Also, teachers are only teaching about six hours per day. Of course there is a huge difference in the amount of time spent after hours depending upon the subject the teacher teaches. My point is here is that generally speaking teachers are not underpaid. If so, market forces would have reduce their ranks to the point the tax payers would have gladly increase the taxes that support education.
I firmly believe something needs to be done to improve education and smaller is better than bigger. May dad who was a science and math teacher said the same thing. There is so much waste in the larger districts compared to the smaller districts. There is a movement to unify all of the disticts in the phx metro area and make 9 large unified districts. They claim there will be a huge savings because of consolidation of the district offices. Believe me this will be a huge mistake. Large is very inefficient because the various departments don't communicate effectly and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. I've seen millions wasted because of this.
NOW THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE COULD DO TO IMPROVE EDUCATION: OUTLAW THE NEA AND ANY OTHER UNION OR QUASI UNION GROUP THAT REPRESENTS ALL EMPLOYEES OF OUR SCHOOLS.
Just my 2 cents on a subject that I've lived for most of my career.
