Re: Re[2]: Educational brainstorming
Janice Wallace (jwallace@oise.utoronto.ca)
Wed, 20 May 1998 15:26:50 -0400 (EDT)
It was my experience while living in Minneapolis a few years ago that there
were major discrepancies in pay between board jurisdictions within the
city itself. As a teacher from Ontario, Canada, this was a strange
phenomenon to me since teachers are relatively well paid throughout the
province. While there are some differences between boards, they are
comparatively minor. However, Ontario has also had a long history of
collective action and a women's federation (now amalgamated with the men's
federation after a long court battle) which provided tremendous political
clout around specific women's issues--equal pay scales, pregnancy leaves,
equity issues around job distribution by gender (70% women teachers/30%
women principals), etc.--for teachers at the elementary level. I'm curious
whether there has been similar collective action with regard to teachers'
salaries in the U.S. That is, are there structural restraints which
discourage better salaries for educators in the U.S.? Still, even though
salaries are relatively good for educators in Ontario, inequities remain
with regard to the gendered distribution of positions within educational
hierarchies, even after several years of quite proactive policy to
encourage more women in administration and more men in P/J.
Janice Wallace
Faculty of Education
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada
jwallace@oise.utoronto.ca
On Tue, 19 May 1998, Marty Henry wrote:
> Interesting, Bob, that you raise the issue of pay being a major
> determinng factor in male's choices. I know a female who was strong in
> both math and science who considered teaching, but wanted a profession
> in which she could support herself without having to depend on anyone
> else so she chose engineering. After a few years in the
> female-unfriendly field, she opted back into teaching. I believe the
> pay issue is more widely spread than just being an issue for males.
> There are also factors that impact job choices such as the environment
> of work that affect job retention. With more females opting not to
> marry or not to have children, pay may be a factor in fewer people
> (females or males) deciding not to enter this profession. In that case
> we have more problems than just the gender of who teaches!
>
> Marty
> mhenry@mcrel.org
>
>
> ______________________________
>