Like Archie said, the point of raises isn't to make the teachers teach better. We must start attracting higher quality teachers to SC schools. The problem is, the areas in SC where that is a truly significant issue are also places where not many bright, motivated 25-35 year olds would want to live. Channel the 25-35 year old you...now, raise your hand if you would take $40k to teach at Dreher HS over $46k to teach and live in Kingstree. Even though all of you raised your hands, we still have to figure out a way to make it work. Organizations like Teach for America is a great place to start. Need to start getting more state dollars into similar programs.
With the mindset of today's society being that EVERYONE can earn and should be entitled to a 4 year college education, public school admins have been foolishly placing far too much emphasis on imploring means to assist students in that pursuit. There is absolutely no shame in earning a technical degree these days, and someone needs to do a better job of conveying that to message to our students, teachers, school administrators, state leaders, and federal government. No Child Left Behind, O'bama's student loans...all "right-hearted, wrong-headed" endeavors. (Yes, Archie, I did a little research re: our admissions standards convo and stole that from one of the 2007 articles, ha.)
