The old liberal slogan always demanded that we "treat teachers like professionals." That entails some measure of accountability -- we can debate the metrics -- which allows both that very bad teachers be fired and that very good ones can obtain greater pay and recognition. That's the definition of a professional career track, and the current absence of it is what drives most of the best college graduates into other professions.Putting aside the compensation question for the moment, Chait is listing being easy to fire as part of the definition of being a professional. Does anyone else find that a bit odd?
Comments, observations and thoughts from two bloggers on applied statistics, higher education and epidemiology. Joseph is an associate professor. Mark is a professional statistician and former math teacher.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Question for Jonathan Chait
From today's post trying to rebut a movie star's comments (not Chait's proudest moment):
I think that Medical Doctors and Pharmacists would be extremely alarmed to see that being added to definitions of professional.
ReplyDelete