Warning: This started as a comment for teacherken's diary but got too long.
A new, young and inexperienced teacher is becoming what many educational polices favor. New/young teachers can be paid less for many reasons. They don’t have years of experience behind them, are less likely to have graduate degrees and don’t complain about having to support a family on a small salary. Health care for younger teachers cost less because many health problems crop up with age. Like many young workers they are willing to take abuse and mistreatment that would not be tolerated by seasoned workers. Also like many young workers they are often not as effective as older, more experienced workers. Also like many young workers, they are willing to work crazy hours for the first few years of their career in exchange for gaining the tools they need to be effective doing the job with less hours.
The war on public education has teachers at the front line because many cities and counties want to replace older teachers with younger teachers to save money. This is just true. No place has ever come right out and said it but their policies do just that—encourage experienced teachers to "retire" so they can be replaced with less experienced teachers who "cost less".
However, there has never been a real way to quantify the "cost" of any particular teacher. Let me put it another way,
How much would a parent pay for a teacher who is so experienced she knows exactly what kinds of modifications work best for a child who has a slight attention problem and puts those modifications in place without needing 20 phone calls and 6 meetings with the parents and the school nurse?
How much would a parent pay for a teacher who knows the curriculum so well that she fills in the gaps from the new textbook because she remembers everything the old text book covered, plus is very familiar with exactly what her students will need to know by the next school year?
How much would a parent pay for a teacher who has become like a part of the family because she was the second grade teacher for all of the children in that family?
How much would a parent pay for a teacher who recognizes that although Susan struggles with math and therefore is a "liability" when it comes to the state-mandated exam (and now most states have one); she is a fantastic artist and should never be made to feel as though her math difficulties define her existence?
Instead of the conversation turning into experienced teachers vs. inexperienced teachers I would like for the conversation to really discuss the value of teachers and the value of public education. In reality, all schools have both kinds of teachers and all teachers were inexperienced at some time. I am just perplexed and amazed by the comments I read on teacherken’s diary where people vent about a supposed huge teacher salary.
The highest salary in my school is made by the PE teacher. She makes 72K/year. (I know this because our lovely local newspaper publishes all the school salaries with names each year) She has been teaching since 1980. She knows the name of every student in my school, she knows most of the families on a first name basis, she has taught the children of her former students, she is a fixture in the school. Her friendly smiling face has mentored many new teachers, in fact she was an unofficial mentor for me when I first started teaching. After 29 years of teaching and a M.Ed, should she not make this salary?