Speaker 1: Joining us right now from the Boston Globe is Karen
Speaker 1: Miller talking about the fact that people just don't want
Speaker 1: to be teachers anymore.
Speaker 2: And this is it bums me out, Kara, thank you.
Speaker 3: For joining us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great peace. By the way, in the Globe, disturbing
Speaker 1: numbers to me. My sister was a special ed teacher
Speaker 1: for thirty five years. I had two cousins that were
Speaker 1: both educators at one point in time. It was a
Speaker 1: position of status certainly. You know, I come from a
Speaker 1: small town of Maine where teachers were respected.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say feared.
Speaker 1: Even though I did have a second grade teacher that
Speaker 1: still brought out the belt, which is kind of crazy
Speaker 1: when you think of it, just goes to show how
Speaker 1: old I am. But nonetheless, it's a real problem. And
Speaker 1: I have kids in school, and I live in a
Speaker 1: great community that and you talk about that too in
Speaker 1: your piece where you know, communities that have the taxable income,
Speaker 1: you know, can put forth qual any educational systems.
Speaker 2: But even then, Kara, it's hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're sitting here, what would you tell
Speaker 1: how do you convince somebody to be a teacher?
Speaker 3: Now, I mean as you say, I think it's hard.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I start the piece a little
Speaker 3: bit like this, but but I'll sort of like go
Speaker 3: back and tell this little story. I didn't include the
Speaker 3: personal part of it. But in the nineteen sixties, my
Speaker 3: mom graduated from college and she became a teacher. And
Speaker 3: one of the things that was true, and this kind
Speaker 3: of ties into this is the you know, kernel of
Speaker 3: where we are today. But one of the things that
Speaker 3: was true in the nineteen sixties is that if you
Speaker 3: were a woman who was educated and you wanted to work,
Speaker 3: there were very many jobs that were available to you.
Speaker 3: So educated women generally went into three buckets of jobs.
Speaker 3: One was clerical work, one was nursing, and one was teaching.
Speaker 3: When you looked at teaching, compared to other white collar
Speaker 3: jobs that women did, teachers made a fifteen percent pay premium.
Speaker 3: So like, of the choice is available to you, a
Speaker 3: pretty good choice. So and I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people when they think, not you know, not everybody, but
Speaker 3: a lot of people when they think back to the
Speaker 3: teacher they had who like you know, changed their life,
Speaker 3: was like a great chemistry teacher or whatever it was
Speaker 3: a woman. But over time, that pay bump that women
Speaker 3: got for being teachers. That has collapsed. So women now
Speaker 3: get a twenty one percent paid penalty for being a
Speaker 3: teacher compared to some other college compared to other college
Speaker 3: educated women. And then men have a thirty six percent
Speaker 3: pay penalty compared to other college educated men, because college
Speaker 3: educated men tend to make more than college educated women.
Speaker 3: So to like come back to your question of how
Speaker 3: you convinced somebody to be a teacher, it's pretty hard
Speaker 3: because when you're twenty years old and you're sitting around
Speaker 3: in college thinking what do I want to do? You
Speaker 3: generally do not want to make twenty or thirty percent
Speaker 3: less than everybody else.
Speaker 1: You know, Well you could, that's right, I mean, that's it,
Speaker 1: but you could take a little bit of a hit
Speaker 1: because the argument always was you get the summers off,
Speaker 1: you know. And I remember my teachers, you know, I
Speaker 1: still like. You know, one I still talk to today
Speaker 1: was my baseball coach. I talked to him all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, he would have the summer off and they
Speaker 1: would teach driver's ed or you know, they'd work at
Speaker 1: a summer camp. And my mother in law was a
Speaker 1: teacher for years and in the summer. She was the
Speaker 1: director of a girl summer camp make a little extra money.
Speaker 1: So it was a terrific lifestyle. But when you're talking about,
Speaker 1: for example, in your article Arlington with a bachelor's degree
Speaker 1: and a master's degree, y and a master's degree, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you make fifty nine grand, How the hell can you
Speaker 1: live on that?
Speaker 2: You can't?
Speaker 3: I mean, that was twenty twenty three. But I think
Speaker 3: a few things are her crew about teaching. One is
Speaker 3: that you're say, that's a lot less than the average
Speaker 3: person in Arlington is making. So you're probably not living
Speaker 3: in Arlington, so you're probably having to like fight traffic
Speaker 3: and get up even earlier than you normally would would
Speaker 3: get up. But the other thing that teaching does is
Speaker 3: that the pay bumps. So let's say you become like
Speaker 3: a history teacher in Arlington. Well, you know, when you're
Speaker 3: a first year history teacher, your life is probably not
Speaker 3: that different from somebody who's in their fifteenth year of
Speaker 3: teaching history at Arlington. You're probably teaching four or five
Speaker 3: classes a day, you're prepping, you're you know, correcting papers,
Speaker 3: whatever you're doing. But the person who's fifteen years in
Speaker 3: is making a lot more than you probably you know,
Speaker 3: well over one hundred thousand dollars a year. And so
Speaker 3: one of the things about the pay structure is the
Speaker 3: pay bumps that you get for being a teacher comes
Speaker 3: well into your teaching career. And again, a lot of
Speaker 3: like twenty five year olds don't want to be told like, well,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna you're gonna be really poor are now,
Speaker 3: But don't worry when you're thirty seven you'll make money.
Speaker 3: Not when they're friends, I have, you know, a different
Speaker 3: reality that they're that they're looking at.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things that has happened in Sebruary,
Speaker 1: I won't pour It's not like I'm calling him out.
Speaker 1: I'm actually paying him a compliment. But my kids have
Speaker 1: a teacher who is a retired attorney. So I see
Speaker 1: him every day at car pickup, you know, I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, he must be late fifties, early sixties, and
Speaker 1: he you know, as successful lawyer. I'm sure is comfortable
Speaker 1: and likes to teach. That's a gift, I mean, that
Speaker 1: is a gift for our school system right there, you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, is there a way and thinking outside the
Speaker 1: box that you can bring in hybrid teachers can you
Speaker 1: bring in a professional, a scientist to come in and
Speaker 1: teach one horse a week. Of these the types of
Speaker 1: things you're going to have to look at. Because I've
Speaker 1: taught at Emerson, I've gone over and I've enjoyed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: after working in the business for thirty five years or whatever,
Speaker 1: you go over and you know, you get you get
Speaker 1: it when you teach, you definitely get Ah, it's the
Speaker 1: fountain of youth.
Speaker 2: You know, there's no doubt, there's no doubt.
Speaker 1: Is there a way to do that where somebody you
Speaker 1: bring in some hybrid situations?
Speaker 3: I do think that there are, as you say, some
Speaker 3: alternate paths in. You know, like one of my favorite
Speaker 3: English teachers I think I was in seventh grade, Missus Davis.
Speaker 3: She was basically retired. She was like teaching part time,
Speaker 3: but she was so amazing that, you know, teaching part
Speaker 3: time was great. I mean anything she could offer was
Speaker 3: was great. But I do think that it is such
Speaker 3: a large workforce, right You're talking not a few people,
Speaker 3: You're talking millions of people. And I also think that
Speaker 3: some of those, you know, the retired attorney, that sort
Speaker 3: of thing. I think that's also more likely to happen
Speaker 3: in the more affluent communities, you know, where a mom
Speaker 3: doesn't have to work, but she maybe does have a
Speaker 3: background in science or math, and so she does something
Speaker 3: two or three days a week. I think the really
Speaker 3: where the rubber really meets the road, and I think
Speaker 3: it's really already starting to happen. And when you think
Speaker 3: about like teacher shortages, which I think are coming, is
Speaker 3: that in poorer communities, the ability to daff up with
Speaker 3: those you know, with those kinds of people that we're
Speaker 3: talking about, it's it doesn't really exist. And so when
Speaker 3: you're talking about things like math and science, where people
Speaker 3: make much more money with a science background or a
Speaker 3: math background or computer science background, when they're not in teaching.
Speaker 3: I had teachers tell me the ability in poorer communities
Speaker 3: to get good math or good science or good computer
Speaker 3: science teachers, they're almost non existent. And I think that's
Speaker 3: it's going to get tougher.
Speaker 1: You also made a very good point in your article,
Speaker 1: and my kids have done it. You mentioned the tutoring
Speaker 1: services that are available, and it costs money, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it's just in my too. You know, my
Speaker 1: kids needed them, but they got they definitely became better
Speaker 1: at math and science because some of these private tutoring
Speaker 1: services were people like me would go and you'd pay
Speaker 1: an hour for you know, some some college kid or
Speaker 1: some math guru whatever to sit there with your your
Speaker 1: kid on a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 3: And that's a luxury, yes, And I think one of
Speaker 3: the saddest things is that there's great research out of
Speaker 3: BU and Harvard that that chronicles like the rise of
Speaker 3: Math Museum and Kuman in these these different places that
Speaker 3: have just exploded over the past twenty or so years,
Speaker 3: mostly in wealthy areas, right, And so what you see is,
Speaker 3: you know, if wealthy parents realize that there's a deficit
Speaker 3: in their school like that you know that CS is
Speaker 3: not being taught, that math is not being taught. But
Speaker 3: they know that to be successful or to have certain
Speaker 3: kinds of jobs, which are often very lucrative jobs, you
Speaker 3: really need a very solid math background. They go out
Speaker 3: and buy it, right, And we know not everybody is
Speaker 3: going to do that because it's just like not available
Speaker 3: to everybody. And so I pointed out in the piece
Speaker 3: you In December, I believe there was a recent round
Speaker 3: of you know, international math scores released, and not only
Speaker 3: were our math scores bad, which is probably not super surprising,
Speaker 3: but the gap between our top ten percent and our
Speaker 3: bottom ten percent is one of the biggest in the world.
Speaker 3: There's maybe three countries in the world or something that
Speaker 3: have a bigger gap. I mean, we are just we're like,
Speaker 3: you know, right right right at the bottom there.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to get you to talk about that
Speaker 1: where we are as a country when it comes to
Speaker 1: education and how I think it in the next fifty
Speaker 1: to one hundred years. It could change the power of
Speaker 1: balance in the world. Karaen Miller is our guests Boston Globe.
Speaker 1: The pipelines are drawing up. White teachers salaries are catastrophic
Speaker 1: for the profession. I got a ton more to talk
Speaker 1: about with Karen right after this in wbz's Nightside. Now
Speaker 1: back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night
Speaker 1: Side Studios on WBZ News Radio. White people don't want
Speaker 1: to be teachers anymore. Karen Miller, Boston Globe, joining us
Speaker 1: here on wbz's Nightside. Gary Tangling in for Dan. Right,
Speaker 1: So let's get to it here. I'm worried about the
Speaker 1: future of the country when you talk about how we're
Speaker 1: dropping down in these areas. When do we start to
Speaker 1: see it affect our status internationally as a country, as
Speaker 1: a world power.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a good question. It's a really have questions.
Speaker 3: I mean, just on the first part of like when
Speaker 3: do we see teacher shortages? I asked a bunch of
Speaker 3: experts this, and I think a lot of people think
Speaker 3: in the next five to ten years this is really
Speaker 3: going to start to manifest itself in very unpleasant ways.
Speaker 3: I'll just give you one statistic, which is in just
Speaker 3: the last decade, we've seen about a twenty five percent
Speaker 3: decline in the new teacher supply in a decade, right
Speaker 3: when people don't want to be something. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: like the inverse of you know, if you go back
Speaker 3: to nineteen eighty there were not very many computer science majors,
Speaker 3: but people respond pretty quickly to incentives, so by two thousand,
Speaker 3: there were a lot of computer science majors, right, And
Speaker 3: this is this is like the you know, inverse story
Speaker 3: of that. You know, how does it affect our country?
Speaker 3: I think it's Here's why that's a hard question to answer.
Speaker 3: If you go back to what we were talking about before,
Speaker 3: which is like that the people at the top have
Speaker 3: a lot of money, they understand that, you know, learning
Speaker 3: math and science and all sorts of things are very important.
Speaker 3: And whether it's through private school or it's through tutoring
Speaker 3: or whatever, they're going to get their kids in education rights.
Speaker 3: That's important to them and they're going to do it,
Speaker 3: and they have the money to make it happen. And
Speaker 3: so the part of the question is like what do
Speaker 3: you need for a successful country? I mean, if all
Speaker 3: you need is a few people who have all the
Speaker 3: money and power and start the companies and the other
Speaker 3: people are kind of, you know, sort of eking out
Speaker 3: a living or doing what they can, then we might
Speaker 3: be able to have a fine country, like in aggregate
Speaker 3: if we're talking GDP. But it doesn't mean that there
Speaker 3: might be a lot of people who are left behind
Speaker 3: because they just never got the education that they deserved.
Speaker 1: Well, then, and I don't want to get off topic here,
Speaker 1: but what the hell it's a four hour show. Then
Speaker 1: you get into work ethic, and this is a I've done.
Speaker 2: I've done hours on this as well.
Speaker 1: Where you have a family that has the means to
Speaker 1: send their son or daughter to private school, and they're
Speaker 1: set up in certain situations where they didn't have to
Speaker 1: work their way from the ground up. So now it
Speaker 1: comes to work ethic. It comes to are you willing
Speaker 1: to work six days a week? Are you willing to
Speaker 1: work twelve hours a day? And I hear things from
Speaker 1: the students at Emerson and various young people that I've
Speaker 1: talked to that, you know, I don't want to work
Speaker 1: six days a week like my dad did, or I
Speaker 1: don't want to work twelve hours a day like my mom.
Speaker 1: Like my wife works twelve hours a day. My wife
Speaker 1: is a corporate executive. Okay, she is. She kicks ass.
Speaker 1: She works twelve hours a day. That's what she does.
Speaker 1: So it's not just men or women, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to be clear on that. But you know, my
Speaker 1: kids generation the idea of working twelve hours a day,
Speaker 1: or the idea of having two jobs, or the idea
Speaker 1: of over time or getting ahead. For some they talk
Speaker 1: about the quality of life. And what I want to
Speaker 1: say to them is, listen, knucklehead, the quality of life
Speaker 1: is because you've been able to put money in your pocket.
Speaker 1: And I hate to make it that simple, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of truth in that because a lot of
Speaker 1: these kids have lived very good, comfortable childhoods and they
Speaker 1: need to understand that if you're going to maintain that,
Speaker 1: you got to kind of be a workaholic.
Speaker 2: You do, you just do. And I don't see the
Speaker 2: work ethic. That's what I don't see.
Speaker 3: I mean, And do you think that that and you
Speaker 3: think that that is also like manifest itself in schools?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I mean, because now one of the things that drives
Speaker 1: me crazy. And believe me, I'm not gonna call it.
Speaker 1: My school system where I live. It's awesome. I've had
Speaker 1: three kids go through it. It's terrific. I support it,
Speaker 1: and this is but this is one of my beats.
Speaker 1: You get to retake a test. What'd you get on
Speaker 1: the math exam? I got an eighty? Well, I got
Speaker 1: a chance to book move it up to an eighty five.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, excuse me, come again. What you get
Speaker 1: to retake the test? That's a problem. I don't get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's such an interesting thing. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think there's probably even amongst people who are affluent,
Speaker 3: I think there's probably a bifurcation because I think that,
Speaker 3: you know, another piece I wrote a few months ago
Speaker 3: was about the considerable increase in people going to private
Speaker 3: school in Newton, Brookline and Cambridge. And I think some
Speaker 3: of that, you know, you've seen like these debates, sometimes
Speaker 3: very bitter debates about should we offer like advanced math
Speaker 3: in these schools, because then you have then you're pointing
Speaker 3: out sort of who's in advanced math and who isn't
Speaker 3: right that kind of highlights these differences. And I think
Speaker 3: in part, you do have a group of people who
Speaker 3: are voting with their feet and saying, well, I want
Speaker 3: my kid to be in a very competitive situation, like
Speaker 3: I don't want them to be in a situation where
Speaker 3: the advanced classes are taken away and people are in
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, and people are all together.
Speaker 3: So while I do take your point that I do,
Speaker 3: I definitely think you've got a surgeon people saying I
Speaker 3: want work life balance. And in fact, one of the
Speaker 3: teachers and the piece says to me, you know, teaching
Speaker 3: is not something you can do two days a week
Speaker 3: from home.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, it's hard, right. Teaching is hard.
Speaker 3: It's hard, right, and you have to show up early
Speaker 3: in the morning and night, the long lunch.
Speaker 2: And in some of them now, I mean even in
Speaker 2: my town, when I.
Speaker 1: Hear that they have to buy supplies, or if they
Speaker 1: want to do something special when my taxes, I go,
Speaker 1: We'll wait a minute. Or they'll have to say, you know,
Speaker 1: can you contribute? You know, I have to buy some
Speaker 1: market I got to buy this or that. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's crazy to me. Oh, teachers, believe me.
Speaker 2: It's hard.
Speaker 1: To be a great teacher is hard to do. It's hard,
Speaker 1: and I applaud the people that do it. I really do.
Speaker 1: But I interrupted you. I'm sorry you were on a roll.
Speaker 2: What will you say?
Speaker 3: I go, no, no, Well, I mean I think that
Speaker 3: there's I agree with you to some degree that I
Speaker 3: do think there's like this increased focus on work life balance.
Speaker 3: But I also think that there are quite a few
Speaker 3: people who are in these competitive jobs who are who
Speaker 3: are very insistent, maybe you could argue to insistent, like
Speaker 3: over schedule their kids, but are very clear on that
Speaker 3: they want their kids to be you know, if it
Speaker 3: takes like extra math classes, they want them to be
Speaker 3: stars in math, if it takes extra whatever, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. They want them to be stars in sports.
Speaker 3: So I think you've got like a little bit of
Speaker 3: a buyer, right, You've got the You've got like the
Speaker 3: hard driver type of people. And then and then I
Speaker 3: hear what you're saying. And I actually experienced that in
Speaker 3: school something too, where you could do some extra credit
Speaker 3: to make up for the fact that you didn't do X,
Speaker 3: Y or Z, which is you know, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think it's a policy one could argue about, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think I think the parents want the
Speaker 1: kids to do it, but you have to motivate the
Speaker 1: kid to do it like that's and you also have
Speaker 1: to be able to as I have two young people,
Speaker 1: one in college, one now leaving the next where I
Speaker 1: said to my you know, we got to just back off.
Speaker 1: You know, they got training reels are gone. Man, you
Speaker 1: know you got And my eldest is busting her She
Speaker 1: is working her tail off, she's working a couple jobs.
Speaker 1: She's really focused. She's and we haven't had to give
Speaker 1: that speech. We're very fortunate, very locked in. But back
Speaker 1: to the private school thing.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I was anti private school until my son went okay,
Speaker 1: because I mean I listen. I was raised by a
Speaker 1: nurse and a mill worker. We had one used car.
Speaker 1: The house was nine hundred square feet in Rumford, Maine.
Speaker 1: Great life, middle class, main no problem, but you know,
Speaker 1: private school forget it. You know, paid for half my college,
Speaker 1: but spending you that amount of money to send somebody
Speaker 1: to a non college was very foreign to me.
Speaker 2: So my son did a prep year. It was the
Speaker 2: best thing he ever did.
Speaker 1: And I do see the value if you have the means,
Speaker 1: And I've talked to parents about this. I've talked to
Speaker 1: parents who have one kid in public school one kid
Speaker 1: in private school, and the parent will say, well, the
Speaker 1: kid in private school needs needs the attention because if
Speaker 1: you go to a private school, you get twelve kids
Speaker 1: at the class, and the teachers make more money and
Speaker 1: so therefore you're probably going to get a better quality
Speaker 1: with t teacher and the teacher only has to teach
Speaker 1: twelve kids so as opposed to thirty five.
Speaker 2: Because I get it.
Speaker 1: When May comes around and I could see the teachers
Speaker 1: at my kids' school, they got thirty five kids every
Speaker 1: period and May comes, they're done, and I understand it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I get private school now, I never did before,
Speaker 1: but I get it. But it's expensive as hell, I
Speaker 1: mean right, not everybody can do it.
Speaker 3: Yes, And you know, I did a piece of the
Speaker 3: Globe magazine several months ago on gifting talented programs and
Speaker 3: why we don't have them in Massachusetts so much. And
Speaker 3: one of the interesting things that came out of that
Speaker 3: was I talked to all these students who are way
Speaker 3: ahead in school, you know, like they're a year ahead,
Speaker 3: two years ahead in math. I mean some of these
Speaker 3: kids were only like fourth fifth grade, and I was
Speaker 3: talking to their parents. Many people wanted to go to
Speaker 3: private school, but it was impossible. I mean, they were
Speaker 3: an entire family living in a little apartment. They checked
Speaker 3: on how much which the private school was. It was
Speaker 3: like thirty two thousand dollars. It just couldn't it couldn't happen.
Speaker 3: And so I think, I mean, you know, this kind
Speaker 3: of fits in with a lot of the divergence we've
Speaker 3: seen in like terms of the haves and the have not.
Speaker 3: But I think I think what we really don't want
Speaker 3: is a situation in which really great education is available
Speaker 3: to rich people.
Speaker 2: Oh, you're right, and right now, that's where we're.
Speaker 3: Headed're available to everybody else.
Speaker 1: That's where we're headed. But here's the other We're definitely
Speaker 1: we're there, man. And I'll tell you something that's terrible
Speaker 1: worries me is that, first of all. I discussed this
Speaker 1: with my kids too. The trades are underutilized. There was
Speaker 1: such a push my kids got to go to college.
Speaker 1: My kids got to go to college. And I'm looking
Speaker 1: at my electrician who's making two hundred thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year or more so the trades. I've heard there's a
Speaker 1: rebirth in the trades, which I think is great because
Speaker 1: we certainly need it. But also when I think it
Speaker 1: comes to college education, you know, or what people need
Speaker 1: to do in the workplace, it's a different world.
Speaker 2: You know. A lot of it is technology.
Speaker 1: You have to be computer oriented, and maybe these kids
Speaker 1: are because they grow up with it, you know. But
Speaker 1: I think to be an average American worker now you
Speaker 1: have to have a lot of tools in your toolkit.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I think that, you know, I feel like
Speaker 3: knowing how to navigate the kind of things people know
Speaker 3: how to do, you know, navigating Instagram, that's not quite enough.
Speaker 3: I think you need, you know, some mathematical foundation. You
Speaker 3: might need to know a little bit about coding. And
Speaker 3: I think, as I said, those are the hardest things
Speaker 3: to staff. I mean, those are the places where the
Speaker 3: competition for teachers is intense, right, And the thing.
Speaker 2: Is Cara started to cut off here.
Speaker 1: But you know where you could make a living doing
Speaker 1: manual labor and make a good living doing manual labor.
Speaker 1: Now you've been replaced by automation. So you need to
Speaker 1: know how to program the automation. You need to know
Speaker 1: how to manage the AI. I guess that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Is I think that, And I don't consider necessarily the
Speaker 1: trades like the trades like electricians, plumbers, and so forth.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily can consider that blue collar.
Speaker 2: I don't think it. I don't think it is because
Speaker 2: those guys crush it.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you talk about somebody that just
Speaker 1: graduates from high school and gets a plue collar job,
Speaker 1: are those jobs around anymore.
Speaker 3: Well? And also how good I mean, as you say,
Speaker 3: being an electrician you can make a lot of money,
Speaker 3: But how good are the systems that we have to
Speaker 3: funnel people into those jobs? And how many really great
Speaker 3: electricians are People also have to be taught to be
Speaker 3: electricians or plumbers are an HVAC and so you all similarly,
Speaker 3: you need some level of instruction. And I think one
Speaker 3: of the things that was shocking to me reporting this
Speaker 3: piece is that some people have very different ideas about teachers.
Speaker 3: Some people think they're the greatest, some people don't respect them.
Speaker 3: Almost if you ask people what do you care about
Speaker 3: in life, almost everybody's first answer will be their children.
Speaker 3: And so one of the incredible things to me is,
Speaker 3: no matter what you think of teachers, we are clearly
Speaker 3: facing a problem in which the pipeline is diminishing for teachers.
Speaker 3: There's just not enough of them now. I mean, these
Speaker 3: are the people who are going to be working with
Speaker 3: your kids, who are going to be helping them to
Speaker 3: succeed hopefully in life, and they're going away that no
Speaker 3: matter what ideological background you come from, that should probably
Speaker 3: concern you if you have children or care about any
Speaker 3: children in your life.
Speaker 2: We are going to workshop that coming up next. Can
Speaker 2: you hang on for one more segment?
Speaker 4: That's good, thank you.
Speaker 1: We're going to workshop that with Kara Miller because I
Speaker 1: don't think there's like one easy answer for that.
Speaker 2: Teachers, where are you?
Speaker 1: That's and also I'm going to take a shot at
Speaker 1: us the parents next.
Speaker 2: To WBZ, It's Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 1: Welcome back Gary for day and tonight. Where are all
Speaker 1: the teachers going? Karen Miller joining us from the Boston
Speaker 1: Globe having a group a great chat. So what's the solution, Kara,
Speaker 1: how do we get them back?
Speaker 3: Gosh? I mean it's hard not to put money front
Speaker 3: and center, because I mean, you do. I mean, I
Speaker 3: remember graduating from college and you know, like the consultings
Speaker 3: firms came around and interviewed people, and you know, people
Speaker 3: were interested in doing things on Wall Street, and you know,
Speaker 3: these are these are difficult jobs to get right. But
Speaker 3: I've never heard people say, you know what, I want
Speaker 3: to be a con I think it would make me
Speaker 3: so happy. That's not what I think. You know, money
Speaker 3: is a big driver of decisions, and so I do
Speaker 3: not think that, you know, to come back to the
Speaker 3: numbers we were talking about the beginning teachers can make
Speaker 3: twenty seven percent on average less than other college graduates,
Speaker 3: and you can get almost anybody to do it. I
Speaker 3: think that is you have to face that and and
Speaker 3: and again. You know, we were talking about wealthy towns.
Speaker 3: There are wealthy towns, and I heard about this on
Speaker 3: the West Coast several years ago. I remember being at
Speaker 3: a meeting several years on the West Coast and people,
Speaker 3: I don't know, if you've heard of this. Maybe this
Speaker 3: happens on the East Coast. I haven't heard about it,
Speaker 3: but people in their public school districts, in wealthy places
Speaker 3: would all contribute like eight thousand dollars a year or something.
Speaker 3: And I remember saying, really, for public school, how do
Speaker 3: you get people to do that? And they said, basically,
Speaker 3: I don't know. Everybody does that. You're kind of like
Speaker 3: shamed into doing it. But it provided an additional pool
Speaker 3: of money to boost salaries to get good people. So
Speaker 3: I do not think until we come up with a
Speaker 3: way to pay teachers competitively, you're not going to get
Speaker 3: the best enough people, and you're not going to get
Speaker 3: the best people to want to be teachers.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt it starts with finance. Missus X blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah did this to me? They will, Well,
Speaker 1: let's say, you know, made me stand in a corner
Speaker 1: or gave me an app for it while you deserved it.
Speaker 2: That doesn't happen. Now. See, this is my whole philosophy.
Speaker 2: Care that today's parent.
Speaker 1: Feels how their child performs is a reflection of them,
Speaker 1: which is crap. But they do like, oh, if my
Speaker 1: child is struggling that makes me look bad. That's what
Speaker 1: I feel. That's especially in my town. That's what I
Speaker 1: feel is like, you know, keeping up with the Joneses.
Speaker 1: You know, if my kid is a C student in
Speaker 1: the the kids an A student, that's like they that's
Speaker 1: the same as somebody having a bigger house than me,
Speaker 1: And that's just ridiculous. So I think that parents blame teachers,
Speaker 1: and I think they blame the school system as opposed
Speaker 1: to being more supportive. And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why people don't teach, because parents are paying
Speaker 1: in the ass.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're certainly right that parents are more
Speaker 3: sort of aggressive and as you indicate, like they push
Speaker 3: back a lot more than they would have a generation
Speaker 3: to go instead of sort of accepting like, oh well
Speaker 3: you got to see on that. I guess you better
Speaker 3: study harder next time. I wonder, though, if the finance
Speaker 3: piece of it, you know, I think that money and
Speaker 3: prestige often go hand in hand, and I kind of
Speaker 3: wonder if teachers were paid more it was a very
Speaker 3: elite job, very hard to get, if there'd be actually
Speaker 3: parents would like uh, feel less inclined to do that,
Speaker 3: and teachers might also just be like, listen, don't bother me, Like,
Speaker 3: you know, you're lucky this kid has.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I wonder if the dynamic would change. And I know,
Speaker 3: like in Finland, I think maybe twenty years ago, they
Speaker 3: completely revamped teaching. It's it's now incredibly hard to get
Speaker 3: to be a teacher. It's like getting into an Ivy
Speaker 3: League school. And and so I think these things, like
Speaker 3: the money, the prestige, the respect, they're kind of all
Speaker 3: wrapped up in a package. And I think when you
Speaker 3: can't really have one of them without the others, in
Speaker 3: some ways, I that's.
Speaker 4: What I worry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think so too, because then if you're
Speaker 1: going to get paid more money than you're going to,
Speaker 1: the quality of the teacher will be better, you know.
Speaker 1: And I understand in that, But that's that's what I
Speaker 1: see now. Like I feel teachers need to have more
Speaker 1: power in the classroom. I think sometimes they're worried about
Speaker 1: getting sued. I think the principals have to sit there
Speaker 1: and they have to balance the parents and they have
Speaker 1: to deal with the teachers. I mean, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're before you know, hey, if you get sent to
Speaker 1: the principal's office, if I got sent to mister Down's
Speaker 1: office or missus Knauer. I mean, oh boy, and that
Speaker 1: got back to my house. Oh, there'd be hell to
Speaker 1: pay now. It's like you get sent to the principal's office.
Speaker 1: Let me call my lawyer.
Speaker 4: Yes, no, I agree.
Speaker 2: I think it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's gotta be there's gonna be something else there.
Speaker 1: It's a problem, and it's gonna hurt the country. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. And unfortunately, I don't think our
Speaker 1: government views this as an issue.
Speaker 2: I really don't. I don't think there. I don't.
Speaker 1: I I'm not gonna say it's like a pandemic or
Speaker 1: it's catastrol. But you know, we have to worry about
Speaker 1: the environment. We talked about the ozone level, the ozone layer,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. We have to take care of
Speaker 1: the environment. The West Coast is burning. We have to
Speaker 1: be more aware of these things. And the same thing
Speaker 1: with education because probably not my generation, maybe not my
Speaker 1: kids' generation, but it's going to screw this country, there's
Speaker 1: no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: It's going to screw us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, to your point, we just
Speaker 3: went through a presidential election, and how much did you
Speaker 3: hear anybody talking about education.
Speaker 4: No, they don't twelve education.
Speaker 3: You didn't hear it. I think I think you're right,
Speaker 3: and it there's so much good evidence that people's lives
Speaker 3: are profoundly affected by the kind of education they get,
Speaker 3: so that if you have somebody who's poorer, who's more disadvantage,
Speaker 3: but they get great instruction, it can change the trajectory
Speaker 3: of their lives in some ways. It's so it's crazy
Speaker 3: that we look away from that and say whatever, like,
Speaker 3: let's just let the card, let's not pay people very much,
Speaker 3: let the cards fall where they may, because we know
Speaker 3: where the cards are going to fall. But it's so,
Speaker 3: as you say, it's so essential to the future of
Speaker 3: the country, and so the fact that we will go
Speaker 3: through an election and nobody even talks about it, it
Speaker 3: seems not good.
Speaker 2: We had a teacher and I'll wrap it up here.
Speaker 1: I won't mention any names, but with our family structure,
Speaker 1: we had one teacher that made a call to us
Speaker 1: that said something's up, like something's going on, and we
Speaker 1: were able to it was fine.
Speaker 2: It was typical high school stuff.
Speaker 1: But we but this part and this person noticed the
Speaker 1: behavior change. And we know with the stresses and the
Speaker 1: insecurities and the pressure of high school and so forth.
Speaker 1: And this teacher called us, And I'm telling you, man,
Speaker 1: I mean, this dude was a difference maker, a difference maker.
Speaker 2: And to keep those peace people, you gotta pay them.
Speaker 1: You gotta pay them because sooner or later they're gonna go. Well,
Speaker 1: I can't keep doing this, you know, because I have
Speaker 1: my own family to take care of. But I've seen
Speaker 1: it where they make a difference. I've seen it with
Speaker 1: this teacher called us and said I'm seeing something. We
Speaker 1: were able to nip it in the butt and take.
Speaker 2: Care of it.
Speaker 1: So it matters, and it's and it's a problem, and
Speaker 1: it's just not it's not an electable thing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not a hot button. It's not make America great again.
Speaker 3: You know, should be right, of course, it should beat again.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, if you think about it, if you
Speaker 1: think about some of the foreign powers, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: why why are they Why.
Speaker 2: Are there other powerful countries in the world. It's not
Speaker 2: because they have bigger missiles or they may have the bomb.
Speaker 1: It's because their kids are smarter, people are smarter, people
Speaker 1: are working. There's a work ethic, there's it, there's there's
Speaker 1: it's brain power.
Speaker 2: That's the thing that's going to control the world. Anyways,
Speaker 2: I'm done. You brought the best. Yeah, thank you, Kara.
Speaker 3: No, you're tortually right. And I have to say, one
Speaker 3: of the lucky things we've had up to this point
Speaker 3: is that we've been able to poach a lot of
Speaker 3: those smart people from other places. It's not just American smart.
Speaker 2: There's no question you are.
Speaker 1: No, they don't know no, right right, absolutely, because it's
Speaker 1: a democracy and the lifestyle is better here. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: if you have if you have a brilliant person that
Speaker 1: graduates from China, comes from China or kind of maybe
Speaker 1: comes from various countries and they're.
Speaker 2: Brilliant, of course they want to live here. So is
Speaker 2: that what we're going to do.
Speaker 1: We're just going to keep I mean, I don't well
Speaker 1: outsource our teachers or you know, I don't know, which
Speaker 1: is fine. I mean, that's what that's what this country
Speaker 1: is built on. You know, Oh my god, let's not
Speaker 1: get an immigration will be here all night. But I mean,
Speaker 1: but but you're right. I mean, it's a land of opportunity.
Speaker 1: Will you come here and you can you can you
Speaker 1: can make a life here. But you're right, there's no doubt.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm a teacher in China and I'm brilliant,
Speaker 1: I'd rather be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But but I also think I do that. I
Speaker 3: mean for our tech I mean, you look at who's
Speaker 3: in Silicon Melly, if you know, for our tech companies,
Speaker 3: we can get leaders from other places, and we often do.
Speaker 3: But I don't think we don't want to foreclose the
Speaker 3: opportunities from you know, over people from Missouri and Course
Speaker 3: and Springfield, And I mean, you don't want to do that.
Speaker 3: And that's that's kind of the path we're on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, we got to make teaching cool again.
Speaker 1: Karen, a great job, Boston Globe, Karen Miller, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us, and you have a good night.
Speaker 4: Thank you you too.
Speaker 1: Okay, care take care. Wow, I need that was a lot.
Speaker 1: I had a lot to say about that. If you
Speaker 1: guys want to jump on, I got a few minutes
Speaker 1: at six one, seven thirty. If there are any teachers
Speaker 1: out there, if there are people that were thinking, if
Speaker 1: you were you thinking about being a teacher and now.
Speaker 2: You oh, I need to make a little more money
Speaker 2: than that.
Speaker 1: Or you were a teacher and you gave it up
Speaker 1: or you are a teacher and you love it. I
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you at six, one, seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 1: ten thirty right here on WBC. Still to come, Dan
Speaker 1: Shaw want to see the Boston Globe at ten thirty
Speaker 1: talking about Bob Buker and our correspondent from the West Coast,
Speaker 1: Sam Metler on Trump and the fact that this country
Speaker 1: is on fire and that's just that's literally, that's all
Speaker 1: coming up tonight on wbz's Nightside.
Speaker 2: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 2: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Karen Miller joining us at Boston Globe and white people
Speaker 1: don't want to be teachers anymore.
Speaker 2: It is a problem, folks.
Speaker 1: Big Time sixty coming up at ten o'clock. Tory Champagne
Speaker 1: joins us from ESPN Entertainment. Uh Toy is a television director,
Speaker 1: a producer. We're going to talk about some cool things
Speaker 1: that you can watch. Just a couple of guys talking
Speaker 1: about some severance. We're gonna talk about severans. I don't
Speaker 1: get it. The show scares the hell out of me.
Speaker 1: He loves it. We'll discuss it. SNL fifty I did
Speaker 1: see that and I loved it. So we'll talk that
Speaker 1: about that coming up at ten o'clock right here on WBC. Okay,
Speaker 1: what do we do? What do we do about the
Speaker 1: teaching situation? Let's go to Paul in Watertown if I
Speaker 1: can get this right. Hey, Paul, you're up on WBZ.
Speaker 4: Thanks for taking the call. Sarah, So, I thought about
Speaker 4: becoming a teacher, but I knew thirty five years ago
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be able to navigate educational politics. But that's
Speaker 4: not really my point. My point is is that it's
Speaker 4: not just an education it's economy wide, the labor shortage,
Speaker 4: and it's not because of work ethic. Okay. Dan had
Speaker 4: on the other night a guy from an outfit called
Speaker 4: Samurai Success, and all they were talking about is, oh,
Speaker 4: just how nobody wants to work. Well, listen here, people
Speaker 4: in the United States of America, we work more hours
Speaker 4: and we take less vacation time than any other industrialized
Speaker 4: country in the world. Okay. The reason why people, the
Speaker 4: reason why white men, particular between their mid twenties and
Speaker 4: the early fifties, don't want to work, it's because they
Speaker 4: would be It's because the American workplace is a seating cauldron.
Speaker 4: Of toxic abuse and nonsense. That's why we have such
Speaker 4: a high workplace homicide rate in this country. I've been abused,
Speaker 4: and I am a commercial truck driver, a driver, a
Speaker 4: track to trailer. I have an awesome work record, Okay.
Speaker 4: I work in an industry without not just with a
Speaker 4: labor shortage. I work in an industry with an acute,
Speaker 4: enduring labor shortage. Okay, what it's just a labor shortage.
Speaker 2: You can't find?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I'll tell you. I'll tell you why that is.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: I love what I'm doing it and I got a
Speaker 4: good gig. Okay, but it's all load pay, piece pay.
Speaker 4: Is very few unionized hourly jobs in the trucking industry anymore,
Speaker 4: and people would rather live in newly impoverished destitution in
Speaker 4: their parents' basements and be subjected to the violence and
Speaker 4: the abuse of the American workplace. I am so sick
Speaker 4: and tired of hearing that people don't want to work.
Speaker 4: I'm tired of it. It's nonsense, and people will do
Speaker 4: everything possible to avoid actually talking about why people don't
Speaker 4: want to work.
Speaker 2: Well, how come they don't? Why? Why? Then?
Speaker 1: Why? For example, the restaurant industry has taken a major
Speaker 1: hit where you will go in and now say I
Speaker 1: was in a place and nothing fancy, just a typical
Speaker 1: restaurant where the waiter said, look, we only have two
Speaker 1: people on tonight.
Speaker 2: We can only serve half the tables.
Speaker 4: Why is that, Excuse me, Because because we're a low
Speaker 4: wage economy, okay, and because people want to be you know,
Speaker 4: paid on honest day's living for an honest day's work. Okay,
Speaker 4: we have we have, you know, three people, three families
Speaker 4: in the country control like seventy percent of the wealth
Speaker 4: that people don't like to hear this, and it's not
Speaker 4: class warfare, okay, well it is class warfare. It's the
Speaker 4: class warfare of the of the morbidly rich against the
Speaker 4: rest of us. Okay, this is this is insane. People
Speaker 4: in this country we work more hours and take less
Speaker 4: vacation time than any other industrialized country in the world.
Speaker 4: People want the dignity of work and livelihood and providing
Speaker 4: for their families, but they would rather be poor and
Speaker 4: have their dignity than be abused. This is why somewhere
Speaker 4: in the United States of America, several times a week,
Speaker 4: almost every day, somebody takes a loaded firearm to their
Speaker 4: workplace and kills, the kills their supervisors and their coworkers.
Speaker 2: Well, Paul, I do think I work for it.
Speaker 4: Do your research.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate the phone call on this, and I
Speaker 1: think that if you were to look at the work ethic,
Speaker 1: I think you have to break it down demographically. I
Speaker 1: think over a certain age group, you still have a
Speaker 1: work ethic. Beneath a certain age level, it's not as
Speaker 1: great as it once was. Michael Shrewsbury, you only get
Speaker 1: a minute or two, buddy, you're on WBC's Night Side.
Speaker 2: Hello, Mike, Oh, I don't.
Speaker 5: I didn't realize I was. I apolog So. I want
Speaker 5: to touch on something that you mentioned a little while ago,
Speaker 5: as far as the kids. Okay, students you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 5: called the principal's opposite. You need to call the lawyer
Speaker 5: or whatever, right right, gips. These some chips, these they
Speaker 5: have done all but some of them they have this
Speaker 5: mentality that because of their age, they're just untouchable, are
Speaker 5: they They kind of slot that.
Speaker 2: Oh there's no doubt. I mean it's.
Speaker 1: There's there's is it accountability is there's a fear that
Speaker 1: doesn't exist anymore. I mean I just remember for talking
Speaker 1: to the library. I got sent to mister Downs's office,
Speaker 1: and it's scared to, you know, crap out of me.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that happens anymore. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that fear is still there. Kids know their rights.
Speaker 1: That's a problem, Mike. Thanks for the phone call, buddy.
Speaker 2: Boy.
Speaker 1: I just when I hear myself sometimes I sound like
Speaker 1: just old bastard radio.
Speaker 2: But I think it's true. I think it's true. That
Speaker 2: wraps up our topic on the teachers. Teachers. I applaud you,
Speaker 2: the teachers in my town. I applaud you.
Speaker 1: I hope that we can fix this situation because I
Speaker 1: think it's detrimental to the future of our country that
Speaker 1: teachers need to be paid appropriately, they need to be
Speaker 1: compensated appropriately, and quite frankly, they need to get.
Speaker 2: Some of their power back, all right.
Speaker 1: Coming up next yere on WZ got to talk to Tory
Speaker 1: Sharpaine about some of the coolest thing Instead of watching
Speaker 1: on that, we're watching a television Dad Shaughnessy, I missed
Speaker 1: just a bit outside.
Speaker 2: Bob Yuker coming up with ten thirty on WBC