There is a great article in the New York Times magazine today, A Ready-To-Assemble Business Plan Adam Davidson

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/magazine/thinking-outside-the-big-box.html?ref=magazine&_r=0

It reports on studies done on “how to make low-paid work more rewarding for employees and employers alike.” Zeynep Ton argues that “Even the most coldhearted, money-hungry capitalists ought to realize that increasing their work force, and paying them and treating them better, will often yield happier customers, more engaged works, and – surprisingly – larger corporate profits.” Although the article is about workers in big box stores, we think that there is relevance for the way we treat teachers. If we treated teachers with more respect (as they do in countries like Finland), have more fully-staffed schools,  and pay teachers a decent (competitive) salary rather than trying to “teacher proof” the curriculum and impose draconian measures on them (pay raises linked to student achievement on standardized test) we may actually improve education! Perhaps, it is time to flip the approach from controlling teachers to respecting  and supporting them. Let’s try this experiment in 2014! Clive and Clare