THE $100,000 TEACHER: The Solution to America's Declining Public School System

Intellectually competent, high performing, well-paid teachers are the answer to today's educational woes, says veteran high school English teacher Crosby. Yet it is "not that much of an exaggeration to claim that public schools today are America's sweatshops," he argues, painting a bleak picture of the daily lives of many educators. If parents and policy makers really want top-notch teaching, Crosby insists, they need to eliminate crash courses in education designed to get certified teachers into classrooms; fix dilapidated buildings; provide teachers with the tools they need to do their work (phones, copy machines, adequate textbooks and computers); and most important, pay them a wage equivalent to what other professionals with graduate degrees, like those in law, business and medicine, earn. Crosby is certainly aware of the many proposals that have been advanced to improve education—school vouchers, charter schools and a host of programs designed to teach everything from basic reading to particle physics. Parents and teachers can forget about most of these, he says, and get the same results by improving teachers' working conditions. Crosby doesn't really address the complexities of implementing this proposition, however, and ignores thorny issues such as merit pay, which many teachers oppose. This book began as a controversial syndicated op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times in 1998, and it still reads like a one-sided polemic. There are some important ideas here, nonetheless, and a strong argument for awarding teachers—good ones—the status they deserve. (Apr. 1)