When I was growing up, teachers were revered. Now we are being challenged and questioned all the time. In America, teachers have nearly always been short-changed relative to other professionals. Now, with the nation in its longest economic expansion on record and the New Economy creating new levels of wealth and new class divisions, the ignominy is only worsening, financially and in other ways. The pay stinks.
Parents are often pushy.
And social status is slipping. In part, many parents' frustration reflects the sinking performance of schools across the nation. And that frustration has only grown when teachers, backed by strong unions and hidebound by bureaucratic attitudes, are inflexible and unresponsive to suggestions for change. That resistance has prompted the recent boom in charter schools, the growing popularity of private and parochial schools, and the support for vouchers that would give parents more choice in choosing schools. Here in Silicon Valley, where millionaires are multiplying apace, the division between newly wealthy parents and struggling teachers is all the wider.