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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 2049270" data-attributes="member: 177">The original thesis was not, "The thing over which we have control that most impacts classroom performance is X."  Nor was any mention of money made in the thesis.  So I dunno where you get the idea that I'm suggesting pay for parents.If there were a good way to do it, though, it might not be a bad idea.  I doubt a good way exists, though.Yes, but the point is that perhaps we ought to find some ways to improve the parenting.  We don't have control, but maybe we can have influence.Of the things over which we currently have direct control, perhaps.  Certainly, a good teacher is more valuable than a new book, or a improved building, sure.  But among things that we don't control with school budgets?  My own teaching experience leads me to severely doubt that teachers are still the big thing.  Parents and the culture in which the student lives probably have larger impact.As you yourself say, teachers have to work with what we are given as students.  And if we are given students who have no interset in learning, we cannot do much.  Inspiring teacher movies make nice cinema, but they don't reflect reality well at all.I also wonder about the idea that we have real control over teacher quality.  We certainly don't have a direct objective measure of it.  The only real indirwect measure we have is student performance.  And we've yet to come upon a good, solid, objective way to measure that, either.  Without a measure, how can we claim to have reliable control?The fact of the matter is that since students are those wonderfully complex critters called human beings, teaching is an art, not a science.  Measures of art are by necessity subjective.  And that makes controling the quality difficult, if not impossible. If things were that simple, there'd be no funding shortage.In the end, willingness is irrelevant, because the parents alone don't have enough money to support the school system.  Even if they were willing they are unable, because they're already paying the expenses of living and raising children.  And many aren't even willing, because they don't value educaton highly.In Massachusetts, the retiring folks have already been in the system for 30 years, and they can retire at 80% of their highest salary.  Work for 100%, or retire from a hard job at 80%?  No brainer there.  Many of them are going home of their own volition.  Especially when they can then go get another job they enjoy to supplement their income.In MA, the pay isn't as bad as in many places, but the retirement plan has been a disincentive to new teachers.  It was set up by teachers who were already in the system for a decade, and they're making out like bandits.  But studies show that new teachers could do better for themselves using very modest investment strategies rather than entering the MA teachers retirement plan.I'm hoping the mass-retirement of teachers in MA will change that.  I'm also hoping it means higher pay for teachers.  In the shorter term, I'm just hoping it gets me a job <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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