What's wrong with our Nation's Educational system

Would you like to be a teacher? Do you think we get the best people in the teaching profession? Why aren't you willing to consider being a teacher? Does it have anything to do with the Salary teachers make? What would it take to get you to consider becoming a teacher? If you have answered these questions for yourself, here's some interesting data. How much would it cost us to really make a change in the teaching profession and once again be the best-educated citizens on the planet?

There are 2,997,748 teachers in Public schools. Their average base salary is $39,857 although some can make double that after many years in the job but it is rare.

Total Funding for Public Schools is broken down as follows:
The Federal Government pays about 7.3% of all the costs.
Your State pays 49.7% and your Local government pays about 43.1% through Property taxes.

Now here's how to change the system. If the Federal government picked up the costs to double the base salary for teachers from $40,000/year to $80,000/year as a base salary, the costs would be an additional $240 Billion dollars. If at the same time teaching became a year round job, with generous vacations but still not as much as they get now, we would attract a very capable and motivated work force where the standards for the teaching profession could garner the best possible people teaching. To put these costs into perspective, the cost of the Iraq war is $415 Billion dollars so far, not including related costs due 25,000 Iraq Veterans because of sustained serious injuries and understandable mental illnesses, as a direct result of the Iraq war. Where are our priorities? What do you think?

For more data on teaching and the source of the data above click here.