Education

   The softball coach at the University of Florida is paid a salary of $250,000 yearly (NY Times 3 Sept 10). On "The View" that same  morning, rapper and actor 50 Cent noted that, "You don't need a master's (degree) to be a drug dealer."
   Compare the coach's salary with others: Starting pay for teachers is less than $40,000 nationwide, ranging from a low of $25,000 in Wisconsin to a high of $39,000 in Connecticut, according to the website teacherportal.com. And the softball coach makes more than even those who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. The chief justice is paid a bit over over $212,000 and the associate justices $203,000 -- levels that have not changed in years.
   Where are the priorities?
   50 Cent makes a good point. Why go to school and cope with dull, boring, incompetent teachers when the dropout down the street drives a new Lexus? Why pursue a degree -- at outrageous tuition levels -- for a job that pays so little? Granted, 50 Cent has come a long way from his own days as a dealer, and is now urging young people to stay in school and enter the legal workforce. But that can be a hard sell when young people see little or no opportunity.
   Critics claim the American education system is in a shambles, and they blame teachers and their unions, as well as parents who are not "involved" enough with their children.
   Consider: The reason for labor unions is to improve pay and working conditions. (If pay and working conditions were good a hundred years ago, there would not have been the need for unions.) The reason for tenure is to protect teachers from politicians who replace good teachers with their relatives and cronies, who may or may not be competent. And yes, parents should be involved with their children; but as parents, not as teachers.
   The solution is in applying Economics 101, the Law of Supply and Demand. The reason the supply of good teachers is not meeting the demand is one of salary. Higher salaries will attract better teachers.  At one time, the primary career paths open to bright, talented women were in teaching, nursing or as airline attendants. The Women's Lib movement rightly changed that, with the result that the bright and talented women who might have gone into teaching went to the higher-paying jobs in corporations and other fields.
   So how to attract better teachers -- both women and men -- back to teaching? Better salaries and working conditions.
   And not as softball coaches.
   Or drug dealers.