The future of writing?

[Cabbages and kings]

[Jeff Tanyard]

I've watched a few of her videos.  One of them popped up in my YouTube recommendation sidebar one day, and I decided to give it a try.  Also, she looks like Agent Scully, so I couldn't really not give her a chance.  ;)

As a long-time critic of the public school system, I completely agree with her about the "whole word" stuff that the schools taught for a time (and that some might still each).  I can't imagine how many kids have had their brains stunted by that garbage.

And, of course, I agree with her about AI usage causing people's brains to atrophy.  AI is like fire: a useful servant, but a fearful master.

[Cabbages and kings]

She does look similar to agent Scully from "The X-Files". 

[Hopscotch]

I learned to read in the Stone Age of Dick and Jane.  My Millennial daughter learned from Dr. Seuss.  Both worked.  Perhaps not for every kid in the classroom.  But the key for both of us was parents who read to us at bedtime, pointing out the word-sources for their reading, firing the child's curiosity.  Lincoln had barely a year of formal schooling on the frontier but an illiterate mother who pushed him to learn reading.  He did okay.  We need some new teaching scheme less than we need parents to just read to their kids at bedtime.

[Bill Hiatt]

"When in doubt, blame the schools."

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't watched the whole video yet. (Edit: I listened to the rest as I typed his response.)

The presenter assumes a remarkable degree of homogeneity in American education. I taught for 36 years, the last one being I think school year 2014-2015. Among other things, I was a department chair, the coordinator of the honors program, BHEA (union) director-at-large for the high school, and a member of the superintendent's advisory council or similar under three different superintendents. In other words, I have a lot of experience, not only in English teaching but in the larger school in general.

When was the first time I heard about critical literacy? Today. Yes, the philosophy that the presenter claims was dominant since the 1990s and seemingly more or less universal, I had literally never heard of.

Are there controversies in education over the best way to teach reading (and many other things)? Yes. But phonics has always had its defenders, and though I wasn't involved in teaching reading in elementary schools directly, I certainly taught thousands of people who were the product of the supposedly homogeneous educational system the presenter denounces. They were almost all functioning above the level that the presenter assumes is pretty much all our schools produce. They almost all read whole books, wrote coherent essays, and though some used Spark Notes, they could also perform on spontaneous reading tasks and/or read books for which such aids were not available.

The high school I worked in was a good one, but it was by no means the best. Yet according to the presenter, such schools literally do not exist.

The truth is that the federal government, even if it wanted to, has few mechanisms for enforcing a particular teaching method. The states have a wider range of options but are much more diverse in their attitudes. Local school boards are the same way. And ultimately, teachers have much greater influence over the way in which things are actually taught than the video suggests.  As one of my colleagues once said about what to do if an administrator is pushing you to move in a way you know isn't optimal, "Smile sweetly, close your classroom door, and do whatever you damn please." Now, this isn't always a good situation, but it does make possible a teacher being able to teach effectively even if there were hypothetically some constraints on best practices.

In addition, good modern schools are also heavily reliant on data-driven decision-making, which means that the teachers involved in the teaching of reading would have more exposure to the related research than the presenter assumes. Also, the efforts to construct standardized tests that measure critical thinking (in the correct definition of the term) are having positive effects. Teacher practices will sometimes be informed by high stakes tests, which can sometimes be a bad thing, but which in this instance should force a move toward more effective teaching of reading where such teaching doesn't already exist. For better or worse, everybody does the public accountability dance.

As far as writing is concerned, I run across excellent examples of it every single day, many by people young to have supposedly been stunted by critical literacy.

Are there bad schools? Sure. But is the pattern universal and government promoted? Not as far as I can tell. The relatively decentralized nature of the system would mitigate against such an outcome.

Also, there are other explanations for the gaps that the presenter notes:
erratic funding for schools
the tendency to fund through local property taxes, which means that students from poor families are more likely to attend poor schools
the rise of entertainment alternatives to reading, like TV and video games, as well as an internet structure geared to short attention spans
and many other things...

There are many ways in schools could certainly improve. But my experience suggests that the dystopian view espoused by the presenter is, at best, an overgeneralization. 

[Anarchist]

Also, she looks like Agent Scully, so I couldn't really not give her a chance.  ;)

There will always be only one Scully.

[elleoco]

My experience with modern education is strictly in observing a lot of the results in places like forums dedicated to other interests, and I've got to tell you a lot of modern people are close to illiterate. They make posts so bad it's almost impossible to figure out what they mean. Then I also remember a sheriff's deputy of my county bemoaning the fact that most of the young people they have to deal with can't sign their names. To a lesser extent it's also in online articles authored by people you'd expect to be wordsmiths.

Younger people are also ignorant of history to an alarming degree.

My grammar school experience was back in the Dark Ages, but my mother used to say how lucky I was in my first grade class. There were only two in my school, but one teacher - mine - started our reading experience using Phonics and the other used whole word recognition. At the time I didn't understand why Mom said that, now I do, and effects of one over the other seem to still haunt schools today.

Since I bought a new car this past September, I joined some car forums, and there you see the startling inability of people to do basic math concerning things like car loans and negative equity. A lot aren't too bright about reading things before signing them either. Is that because reading a multi-page contract is too difficult? Ages aren't so apparent there, but still ...

[Jeff Tanyard]

"When in doubt, blame the schools."

Who's in doubt?  I'm certainly not.   

Don't make the mistake, Bill, of thinking you're the only former school system employee here.  You're not.  I've never been a teacher, but I've worked in the bureaucracy.  I've seen how the sausage is made, and I made some of it myself.  I'm familiar with the educational-industrial complex, a creature most people don't know exists but is just as slimy as the more widely-known military-industrial complex.  And no, I'm not talking about textbook publishers.

I've also seen teachers with decades of experience look like wide-eyed children when they visit the central office and really see the behind-the-scenes stuff for the first time.  Most teachers simply have no idea how the system actually works outside of the actual school buildings.

The system exists for those who are profiting from it, and I don't mean the teachers.  Any actual learning that occurs among the students is a nice bonus but still incidental.

My grammar school experience was back in the Dark Ages, but my mother used to say how lucky I was in my first grade class. There were only two in my school, but one teacher - mine - started our reading experience using Phonics and the other used whole word recognition. At the time I didn't understand why Mom said that, now I do, and effects of one over the other seem to still haunt schools today.

Your mother sounds like she was wise beyond her years.

The whole point of a written language is to codify the spoken language.  We all learn to talk before we learn to read, and even illiterate tribes have spoken languages.  Phonics, by turning spoken sounds into symbols, enables the easiest possible transition from the spoken word to the written word.  A hieroglyphic system, which is what "whole word" essentially boils down to, makes that transition needlessly more difficult.  In fact, it's not really a transition at all; it's more like a completely separate venture.  Kids can learn to read that way, but it's harder, and more kids will fall by the wayside.

I learned to read in the Stone Age of Dick and Jane.  My Millennial daughter learned from Dr. Seuss.  Both worked.  Perhaps not for every kid in the classroom.  But the key for both of us was parents who read to us at bedtime, pointing out the word-sources for their reading, firing the child's curiosity. 

Parents reading to their kids is absolutely crucial.  I was also fortunate in that regard.   

I learned the alphabet from Sesame Street.  I was probably two or three years old.  When Mom heard me singing the alphabet song along with the characters on the show, she decided it was time to start teaching me how to read.  I particularly enjoyed the Berenstain Bears and the "read-along" books with 45-rpm records that I would play on my Fisher-Price record player.   

[Lorri Moulton]

Schools are great, but the one-on-one we get at home makes a HUGE difference. 

Reading with our kids, older kids teaching younger ones (I showed my brother how an equal sign can be a magical portal in algebra), and let's not forget multiplication rock! My dad had already shown us the secrets of 9, but the pool game was great in the cartoon.  Also, music makes it easier to remember.

My mom taught me cursive during an Air Force softball game we were watching (I was 6).  I still remember writing "Mary had a little lamb" on lined paper she found in her purse. 

If I'd had to depend on only what I learned in school, it would have been more difficult.  I wish one of my teachers had explained that words don't follow rules well since so many come from other languages.  Apparently, no one thought that was important in the second grade, but it explains a lot!

[Post-Doctorate D]

If I'd had to depend on only what I learned in school, it would have been more difficult.

There was a drawing technique I learned in a YouTube video years and years after I was out of school that would have made a world of difference had I learned it in school.  And it was something that could have been taught in less than five minutes.

[Bill Hiatt]

I think we all agree with the role of the parents in education is critical. Positive parental involvement has a large impact.

I've also seen teachers with decades of experience look like wide-eyed children when they visit the central office and really see the behind-the-scenes stuff for the first time.  Most teachers simply have no idea how the system actually works outside of the actual school buildings.

I'm well aware that sometimes district-level decision-making is far from optimal. But the classroom is where the rubber meets the road. It's where education really happens. I've seen instances in which the district office was pretty dysfunctional, but education continued to happen, anyway. That's not to say that district administration has no impact. But the classroom has far more. For instance, Marzano studied achievement patterns for students in four groups: those in a bad classroom in a bad school, those in a good classroom in a bad school, those in a bad classroom in a good school, and those in a good classroom in the a good school. To the surprise of practically no one, the students in a good classroom in a good school performed best, and students in a bad classroom in a bad school performed worst. However, the real takeaway was that when school and classroom varied in quality, the classroom was far more important than the school. True, Marzano didn't measure bad vs good school districts, but I think it's a logical inference that if school administration's impact is small compared to the classroom's, then district impact is likely even smaller.

I'm familiar with the educational-industrial complex, a creature most people don't know exists but is just as slimy as the more widely-known military-industrial complex.  And no, I'm not talking about textbook publishers.

I don't doubt it exists, but I question that its impact is anywhere nearly as universal as the presenter alleges. Yes, there are organizations that try to influence educational policy, though they don't all agree with each other in terms of which way they want to move. Yes, there are tech companies and textbook companies that push. But they, too, are hardly a monopoly.  And in the case of the latter, some districts are divorcing themselves altogether from such companies and having teachers with content expertise write their instructional materials instead.

If your experience was in a larger district, it was probably more bureaucratically influenced than smaller ones are. I taught in three different ones (two small and one large), and the large one was by far the least efficient administratively. The smaller ones were less easy targets for bureaucratic manipulation because communities were more directly involved. School district are run, at least in California, by elected school boards, typically five people in the smaller ones, with two or three up for election every two years. The same parents who take the time to read to their kids and otherwise support their education often also keep an eye on school policies. And you know what? A big enough crowd showing up to a school board meeting has changed district policy. I've seen it happen several times. I've also seen board members lose reelection bids when the community was unhappy with them.

Does that mean nothing bad ever happens in the back office? No, it doesn't. Human institutions are inherently imperfect. But without even considering the diversity in state governments and the relatively limited federal role, it's clear that there are a lot of moving parts at the local level that are hard to control by some sinister outside force. (The US has over 13,300 local school districts.) And small districts also have relatively small administrative staffs. That means if something weird is going on, there are only a small number of people who could be responsible. I've also seen administrators, even superintendents, fall because of community dissatisfaction. (And one went to jail, but that's another story.)

Local bodies like school boards end up being more responsive to public opinion than more remote ones. Enough parent and community scrutiny can improve schools that are having problems.

Are there still bad teachers, bad administrators, and bad schools? Yes. But are there also good ones? Yes. The video's monolithic presentation just doesn't reflect reality.

The Military-Industrial Complex has the advantage of being able to work with a number of unelected decision-makers and a president who (since I think Dwight Eisenhower) doesn't have any military command experience. Also, for national security reasons, a lot of discussion is behind closed doors. Contrast this with education, in which much more discussion is public (at the local level by law, at least in California, only personnel matters can be discussed in closed session). You have also a large number of people involved in decisions, from the president and congress to the fifty state governors and legislators to the 13,300 school boards. That could be a problem in that it's harder to make constructive change universally. But it's also hard to corrupt the entire system.

Aside from the nature of the system, as I've said, the video presenter's narrative doesn't square with my classroom experience. And, as both a speech coach and a department chair, I interacted with colleagues in a number of other districts, locally and nationally in the first case, locally in the second. Experiences were diverse, but in no case did anyone have an experience that exactly mirrors what the presenter is talking about. That the issue exists in some places, I don't doubt. I'm not questioning the presenter's own experience--or yours. But that experience is far, far from universal.

I'd have to say the same thing about people being unable to write. I think people turn to something like ChatGPT because of laziness or the desire to improve efficiency (PJ, for example, is in the latter group). I disagree with the use of Ai, but its use isn't proof of incompetence. Other forces are also at work. And I still have no trouble finding good and sometimes even great material to read. is there also garbage? Sure. But again, it's far from universal. One of my students who graduated not that many years ago is turning out beautiful prose, and he's far from being alone. There's a whole flood of younger people on Substack who know how to write perfectly well, some even brilliantly. (And yes, a very few write badly, but not enough to justify the sweeping generalization that no one can write.)

[LilyBLily]

I have no clue what phonics are.

Our parents taught us kids to enjoy learning. They bought us books. They took us to the public library. They told us what key words were across multiple languages. Key words like "book" and "library," actually.

The public school system was good; we were in a rich county and parents themselves were well-educated. Obviously, it makes a difference. But love of learning comes first.

[Jeff Tanyard]

I have no clue what phonics are.

Teaching the sounds made by the 26 individual letters and by the combos like "ou" and "ch" and whatnot.  Kids who learn to read via phonics can read new words by sounding them out for themselves.

Here's a brief but pretty good summary of the controversy:

[Hopscotch]

If I'd had to depend on only what I learned in school, it would have been more difficult.

Vividly recall my surprise when my daughter's first grade teacher discovered she could read.  And told her to stop reading at home and slow down to plod lockstep thru the assigned lesson plan w/the rest of her class.  She saluted, of course, but continued her own march.

[Bill Hiatt]

If I'd had to depend on only what I learned in school, it would have been more difficult.

Vividly recall my surprise when my daughter's first grade teacher discovered she could read.  And told her to stop reading at home and slow down to plod lockstep thru the assigned lesson plan w/the rest of her class.  She saluted, of course, but continued her own march.

I think we'd all agree that teacher was wrong! Admittedly, there are challenges to dealing with a student who is way ahead of everybody else, but it's well worth taking the time to meet them.

There is a related issue in higher grade levels that is brought on to some extent by standardized testing. While emphasis on accountability is good, emphasis on one high stakes test as the sole measure for judging schools is bad. One effect is that students already scoring at the top are ignored. While you would expect struggling students to get more intervention, you'd also hope for programs that encourage already advanced students to keep advancing.

[Bill Hiatt]

I like the second video. I think we all agree on the importance of phonics in reading instruction.

Taking both videos at face value, it would appear that whole language is different from critical literacy. At least, the descriptions in the videos are totally different. The chronology is also different. The first video suggests that we are still in the grip of critical literacy right now (with a little nod to the fact that phonics is sometimes also included). The second video has the pendulum already swinging back. Here is a third chronology that suggests that swing was already starting to happen in the 1990s, when the first video claims that critical literacy achieved total dominance. https://phoneme-graphememapping.com/reading-instruction-a-historical-timeline/.

Since I didn't teach elementary school, I can't bear firsthand witness to how reading was being taught in my district. I will say that I didn't see a drop at the high school level, as one might expect if the district had abandoned phonics. But as I've mentioned, the system is pretty decentralized in some ways. Not all schools march to the beat of the same drum.

[PJ Post]

21% (possibly as high as 28%) of the US population are functionally illiterate (2024). And over 50% read at a 6th grade level. I think the problem may be a little deeper than phonics.

For grins and giggles, the first survey done in 1870 reported a US illiteracy rate of 20%*. So, after 150 years of progress, research and education systems analysis, we've lost a percentage point to a period just after the civil war and without any real schools to speak of. /slight-hyperbole

When folks talk about inherent or systemic inequality, this is one of the datums that supports their assertion.

In the Chicago School District, 69% of students read below proficiency standards. In 2024, only 23% of Juniors met those standards. The graduation rates have improved over the last ten years, from 77% to 84% in 2024.*

Scarsdale, a super wealthy NY town with one of the best school systems in the country, boasts a 99% graduation rate and a high school reading proficiency of 99%, as well.*

They're both generationally, deep-blue Democrat cities.

Raise your hand if you can spot the underlying causation.

___

*Although the data analysis may vary from study to study, the underlying trends remain unchanged. Also, while Scarsdale's performance is at the top, Chicago's is middle of the road.

[Lorri Moulton]

If I'd had to depend on only what I learned in school, it would have been more difficult.

Vividly recall my surprise when my daughter's first grade teacher discovered she could read.  And told her to stop reading at home and slow down to plod lockstep thru the assigned lesson plan w/the rest of her class.  She saluted, of course, but continued her own march.

My brother had the same issue.  Apparently, I was teaching him too much when I got home from school.  By the time he got to kindergarten, I had been sharing things from 2nd grade.

[cecilia_writer]

My older son used to read whole books such as the Swallows and Amazons series to the younger one. There's 6 years between them so it was really nice to see that.
I remember one of the older one's early teachers saying he would never get anywhere unless his handwriting improved! I felt like writing to her to gloat when he graduated with a 1st class honours degree and class prize.

[Bill Hiatt]

Scarsdale, a super wealthy NY town with one of the best school systems in the country, boasts a 99% graduation rate and a high school reading proficiency of 99%, as well.*

One of our consistent educational problems is the way we fund schools, though we have made some progress in that area. There is still much to be done.

As I've mentioned before, when schools are funded based on local property tax, the result is a system in which the people living in poverty have to send their kids to impoverished schools. The situation is complicated by the fact that these parents often had a similar educational experience themselves, so they are less able to fill the gap left by a less functional school (and certainly unable to send their kids to private school).

It's not that miracles don't sometimes happen in poor schools, but the odds are certainly against it. Parent support, as I just mentioned, is also typically far less in such schools. And aside from parental influence what are the factors most strongly correlated with student learning? Teacher quality and class size--both heavily dependent on financing.

While there are teachers who deliberately go to work in struggling schools, it's hard for a teacher supporting a family--as most of them do--to make that choice. Practically speaking, most applicants for teaching jobs have to consider salary and benefits packages pretty seriously. The result is a situation in which an economically challenged school has to scrape the bottom of the barrel--if there even is a barrel. Last I checked, we were still in a nationwide teacher shortage. When other professions have trouble recruiting, employers find ways to make the positions more attractive. When states have difficulty finding enough qualified teachers, they tend to lower standards instead.

[PJ Post]

It's sad when the most meaningful predictor of future happiness is the zip code you're born into.

[Lorri Moulton]

I have never understood why schools don't go by county or state.  It's so unfair that wealthy areas (which usually have access to supplemental help for their kids) get more money than the areas that really need it.

[Post-Doctorate D]

When I was in school, I had lower-performing classmates that could tell you the stats for baseball or football players, and team records and all sorts of useless sports information, but they couldn't remember historical events or math formulas or whatever.

If you knew that kind of sports stuff, you were cool and awesome.

If you knew actual science facts, historical facts, math formulas, proper spelling and grammar, you were basically an outcast.  Something was wrong with you.

And, not just sports, but pop culture or celebrity news and gossip and whatever.  You know that stuff, you're cool.  You know actual, practical, useful information and you're weird and lame and all sorts of names.

Throwing more money at schools is not going to solve any of those problems.  There are people that have had fewer resources, less access to information, and even were discouraged from learning, yet they excelled anyway because they were determined to learn and found ways to do it.  If you value education, if you get kids to realize the value of education, you'll find a way to make it work even with limited resources.  If you can't get people to value education, if you can't get kids to realize the value of education, it won't matter how many resources you have.

I think that is the bigger problem than funding.  There are too many people that don't think they need to learn certain things, that don't value it, and even will discourage others from the same.

And then, too, I think perhaps more time needs to be spent on basic life skills.  I think we spent more time learning to sew than learning how to balance a checkbook or balance your bank and credit card statements.  We didn't spend much time at all on money skills compared to lots of other things.

[Cabbages and kings]

"Because nothing lifts people up more... than lowering standards."

[PJ Post]

When I was in school, I had lower-performing classmates...

We don't all have the same mental horsepower, but the education system should account for that. Reading is a pretty low bar. And while we should definitely promote the positives of learning in general, much of our educational problem is, in fact, related to disproportionate funding, as well as managing the investment of that funding.

[Bill Hiatt]

Throwing more money at schools is not going to solve any of those problems.  There are people that have had fewer resources, less access to information, and even were discouraged from learning, yet they excelled anyway because they were determined to learn and found ways to do it.  If you value education, if you get kids to realize the value of education, you'll find a way to make it work even with limited resources.  If you can't get people to value education, if you can't get kids to realize the value of education, it won't matter how many resources you have.

That there are also cultural variables working against education is undeniable. Can you find examples of people from impoverished backgrounds who still got themselves a good education? Sure! But does that mean that money is completely irrelevant? No!

There are some students who could find ways to educate themselves if they wanted to. But that's a small minority, and we can't easily inculcate better values into everyone rapidly enough to change that part of the puzzle. Such a paradigm shift tends, by its nature, to be gradual.

Most students need the guidance of a good teacher--or teachers at the secondary level. That's why teacher quality repeatedly comes up in studies as the most significant variable schools can control. A lot of people, consciously or unconsciously, want teachers to all be self-sacrificing saints who will soldier on regardless of their personal financial status. And it's certainly true that most people who become teachers aren't doing it to become rich. . But surprisingly, most teachers do feel the need to consider their own financial situation.

One of the effects of inadequate funding is stagnating salary levels, which in turn result in fewer people going into teaching. When I first got my credential, states like California had an excess of teachers. That rapidly became a deficit within a few years. Quality took a hit as well. I can remember a colleague and I comparing notes a long time ago. When we were in high school, a fairly large number of people were interested in careers in teaching, including some of the strongest students. Flash forward a couple of decades, and few of our own students were interested--and often they were among the academically weakest. That's not to say that those are the only people left in the teaching pool by any means. There are a few saints, plus people whose spouses are the primary breadwinners and people who are single and childless (like me). But it does illustrate that teacher compensation in many areas is a factor impeding teacher recruitment.

Figures vary, but it appears we have 55,000 open positions and around 400,000 staffed by unqualified or underqualified teachers. Guess where these issues are the most acute? That's right--schools with less money to spend. And who gets the best teachers in the pool? Generally, schools with the most money to spend.

Even places like California, which got away from the reliance on local property taxes (by having the education portion of the tax paid to the state, which then redistributes it), haven't really solved the issues of inequality. That's partially because the formula takes into account cost of living in the different areas on the assumption that school employees either need to live nearby or have commuting expenses. There is truth in that, but it somewhat perpetuates the pattern that schools in affluent areas (with high housing costs) get more money. Also, most districts have education foundations to raise donations, but their success is largely a function of how affluent their community is. And there are also various ways for city governments (who are still funded by local property taxes) to legally funnel some of their money into the local school districts.

I don't blame the more affluent for wanting the best they can get for their children. Any parent wants that. But in the current climate, where budgeting is basically a zero-sum game, every dollar that goes one place takes a dollar away from another. That means any attempt to equalize educational spending is met by opposition from people who can better afford to donate to political campaigns, have the time to be politically active, and vote at a much higher percentage rate. And the worst part? We probably should be spending more money on students in poverty to try to reduce existing gaps.

One other issue needs to be addressed--the disparity between teacher responsibility and teacher pay. Back in the day, teachers were primarily dispensers of information and coaches for skill practice. Naturally, those responsibilities still exist. But today's teachers are also expected to be psychologists, social workers, nutritionists, first-aid providers, emergency responders, surrogate parents (in extreme cases), and (in schools who think the best security plan is to give all the teachers guns) expert marksmen. In other words, teachers are expected to fill any gap in the lives of students or the functioning of the school that comes up. If a student is having any kind of problem, even if it's not caused by the school, teachers are expected to fix it. (And at least in California, in the event of a disaster like an earthquake, teachers are expected to stay with their students until every single one is claimed by a parent--whether the process takes hours or even days. That means teachers have to make emergency plans for their families in the event that the teacher is trapped at school.)  Yet as responsibilities increase, pay does not increase in a commensurate way.

A typical teacher contract pays on the basis of a seven and a half hour day. Two separate national studies have shown that the typical teacher work day is ten hours, the difference being grading, preparation, parent conferences, student conferences, etc. And that doesn't even count days on the weekend. At the peak of my career, I was doing 10-12 on weekdays and 4-5 on Saturday and Sunday. In other words, I was doing a 58-70 hour work week and getting paid for a 37.5 hour week. Oh, and then there was the all the time I spent, mostly during winter break, writing college recommendations, or the time I spent during summer prepping for the new school year. Call me crazy. (People did, even at the time.) I don't regret doing it, and if I could go back in time, I wouldn't change my career choice. But when a community member said that teachers just needed to put more effort into the job, I described my typical day and added, "There's no such thing as more."

Do all teachers work that hard? Of course not. Some do the bare minimum. But if the average is a ten hour day, you've got to figure that the slackers have to be fewer in number than the workers. The prevalence of stress-related illnesses among teachers is also an indicator. And in my own English department, there were a high number of divorces, one full nervous breakdown and some partials. I never broke down completely, and I dodged the divorce because I never married in the first place. But I did gain an understanding of why education in medieval Europe was mostly handled by monks. 

I'm sorry for the avalanche of detail. But it's the kind of thing that, if you haven't taught, you aren't going to realize. Even I didn't realize what teaching was like until I did it. (I actually thought I could teach during the year and write during the summer. LOL. That didn't happen except for the very first summer and the three at the very end. 

So no, money isn't the solution to every educational problem. Sadly, there are many contributing factors, and just having more money doesn't necessarily produce a better result if the money isn't spent wisely. But not having the funds to encourage people to go into teaching and compensate them a bit more like they should be is certainly part of the problem.     

[LilyBLily]

Where I live, rural West Virginia, there is an endemic culture of scorning education. It's just as bad here as we are told it is among city ghetto families and peers. Sneering at students who excel puts a definite damper on individual ambition and confidence.

Put that into the equation, along with the fact that it used to be that really smart women didn't have many career options, so a lot of them chose to teach. Along with the usual duds, we had a significant cadre all across the country of women who put their very real intelligence into raising up students. Now, a lot of those women choose to work in other fields, because at last they can. Efforts to raise teacher salaries to encourage gifted people to turn or return to teaching haven't been successful as far as I know.