Seriously. My buddy doing echo tests of drainpipes a few hours a day for a water company (which took only a few hours of training to start doing) earns double that of a teacher with several years of crippling university debt.
If we want an intelligent, productive workforce in the future, it starts with good teachers being rewarded for taking on the huge amount of stress and time that is teaching. We shouldn’t be relying on the altruism of good teachers putting up with hell for the benefit of our children and leaving only those who don’t aspire to paying their bills or affording a holiday to enter the profession.
How on earth we ended up with teaching being so disgustingly undervalued is beyond me and must change.
Politically also a non-brainer, right? I would think the vast majority of voters would be in favour of higher wages for teachers. All over the world teachers don't get paid enough and I don't understand what the objections are to paying them more. Sure it costs money, but a highly educated new generation will pay that back manifold. Not to mention it's obviously the right thing to do to pay people a decent wage.
I don’t understand what the objections are to paying them more.
Because they can get away with paying people less in professions with idealistic world views about their job. That is the reason people in care professions are not paid as much as they should be too.
That's part of it, but can be applied to all jobs under capitalism, but specifically with education - they don't want a population that can analyse the bullshit we're fed, because once you do you can't help but fight against it.
Our education systems are bad by design because that's what serves the system and the few benefiting from it.
The objections are from right-wing parties who want to destroy public education and replace it with privatized options that make money for themselves and their cronies. They are also keenly aware that it would be harder to get votes if the populace was not ignorant.
Because that's exactly how the capitalists that run our governments think - they see kids as future worker drones, not humans with different needs and interests.
Which is also exactly why the education systems are as bad as they are, by design - they don't want a population that can see through their bullshit.
And you can't argue against that bullshit, while maintaining their goals.
You’re conflating things. The definition of productive and unproductive labour is specific to a type of society (capitalist, socialist, feudal, etc) and “productivity” is determined and depends upon the relations of production / Produktionsverhältnisse.
I'm not conflating anything.
Education should be about knowledge and interests, not "productivity" no matter how you try to twist the definition of the word.
I agree with this. Even more so if you add in that we need to make education cheaper for the younger generations. If you are not investing in the future, then you can really expect to have one.