ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with firmly asserting that teachers have important effects on student achievement and addresses the media’s influence on public education. Teachers are important but underpaid. Within this paradox there are conflicting riptides of opinions. Some say that teachers have easy jobs, they have their summers “off,” and they are protected by strong unions, meaning that ineffective teachers remain and consequently our students achieve less. American teachers are paid considerably less than teachers in European countries such as Denmark, Germany, and Norway. In contrast to the United States, in almost all other countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), teachers’ salaries have increased since 2005 according to an OECD 2018 report that compares teacher wages between 2005 and 2017. In 2014, Good noted that the explanations for the poor achievement in American schools were about things that were outside teachers’ control.
