Sen. Bennet: ‘It’s Shameful What We’re Paying Our Teachers’ All Over the Country

EXCERPT:

BENNET: “And I am the first to say over the last 15 years, because this is the fastest growing urban school district in America, I am the first to say that all over this country, it is shameful what we are paying our teachers. The reason that we are paying them so little is that we are operating as system of training and recruiting and paying, compensating teachers. It was all designed in an era where the labor market discriminated against women and said, 'You can be a teacher or you can be a nurse.' Based on that we subsidize our education system, based on that discrimination in the labor market. Thank God we are no longer in that labor market anymore, but we have got to update our approach to paying teachers and among other things, we need to pay them much more than we have and we need to acknowledge the fact that people can go do other things."