Teaching Wages and Student Lunches Not So Good

Did you ever want to teach, but once you learned what kind of paycheck you'd be getting, you jumped into Corporate America instead? Well, Gov. Romney is going to attempt to make teaching in the state of Massachusetts more attractive by creating a bill, which would give public school teachers merit bonuses depending on their students' progress. If this bill gets the okay on Beacon Hill, 25,000 teachers or so could be getting up to $15,000 in bonuses each school year. While Bostonist believes that good teachers should be paid on their good teaching, Romney is proposing that the merit bonuses will depend on how the teachers' students perform. Three ways to get the bonuses: have your students do great in math and science; have your students do well on A.P. tests for math and science; or, actually have your students improve overall, along with a nice review from the principal.

Now Bostonist has been stuck with a few aging teachers, who had been teaching for decades and got very comfortable with their decades old teaching routines. Currently, the longer the teacher has been working, the more they make in salary. We don't think Romney's idea is half bad, since it stresses math and science, which we all know Americans could use some improvement; others, like the state teachers unions aren't so keen on the idea since they've seen previous merit programs self-destruct. We'll all have to sit tight to see if this bill even gets approved, before we can see if it will actually do any good.

As if the state education system doesn't have enough to think about, the Boston public school lunch program is also being discussed. Bostonist came across an opinion piece in yesterday's Globe written by Christopher Kimball. For those that aren't tuned into PBS on a regular basis, Kimball hosts the television program, "America's Test Kitchen." He decided to air his frustration about his own kids' lunch options through a column, which informs us that 30,000 Boston public students all eat meals that are made in a former auto-repair shop in Dorchester, known as Central Kitchen. The meals are made there and then shipped out to the schools. Gone are the days of anything prepared on campus; worse news is that Central Kitchen is closing next year and students will be getting lunch shipped in from Pennsylvania. How good will that mac and cheese taste after a 5 hour truck ride?

While the movie "Super Size Me" definitely brought up the issue of what our school aged kids are being served up cafeteria style, Kimball does make note of Mayor Menino and his proclaimation of being an "education mayor." Bostonist thinks that eating a freshly peanut butter and jelly sandwich all the way from Pennsylvania might get Menino rethinking the plan to outsource Boston public lunches.