No doubt you have often wondered, as have I, how it has come to be that P-16 educators are paid so little in our country. The main reason, I believe, has something to do with how career educators are attracted to the human-improvement project; in love with both the ideas and with the people likewise attracted to the project. Now, if food, clothes, shelter and books were just not so darn pricey. 
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I thought it was because education, as an American priority, has lagged behind being a military powerhouse. When you compare spending in the areas it seems like priorities are obvious. But your explanation is good too!
You must be an alien, we natives no better than to speak against the war machine. Our national philosophy appears to be, if you can’t out think em, kill em.
I think you are correct Angie. The fact that educators often love what they do is also used, wrongly, to justify the low pay. The thinking goes: Don’t pay teachers a lot because then they will have the wrong motivation, right? We want them to be in this profession for the love it, not for the money.
Thing is, there are so many incredibly gifted educators who get out of the profession because of economic pressures.
Leslie, I agree of course, but I guess my explanation is for how it is that with pay so low, our P-16 educational system has not collapsed entirely.
I do have to back up a bit because the US throws more money, per person into health care than a lot of other countries, but they do a sucky job at that too, so monies are not the only consideration.
I think it helps when you can afford to do what you love to do, but you are right Leslie about economic pressures playing a large role in what we can do. I think that it is a shame in a country with such potential like the US of A that the middle class is disappearing slowly and you are left with the haves and the have nots. I think this mainstreaming will come back to bite lady liberty in the ass because education, especially math, will be the key to uber world super power. Maybe then education and health will be revisited and a different tune will ring out…..but maybe not.