"In my experience as a teacher educator, students entering our new 5-year
program are brighter, more enthusiastic, more 'hip' about schooling than
most students in the old program were."
I really hope that's true. But will it hold after 3-5 yrs in the schools.
The statistics I last saw on teacher retention were for the 80s basically
so I don't know if that's changed. Generally an individual has better
earning potential outside teaching than in it for the same amount of
education/training/preparation. The move of intelligent people into
teaching as opposed to other pursuits (MBAs take about the same amount of
time as teaching credentials) could only be welcomed, signalling as it may
the revaluation of what one beret wearing visionary called "moral
incentives" over material ones. Ojala que si!
Nate wrote about the "outliners" (outliers?). That makes me think that,
Phillip and other like minded teachers notwithstanding, a lot of the
pressure for retention must come from the teachers themselves. Has there
been any surveys about teacher opinions?
Paul H. Dillon