Valuing Education

This month one of America's largest school districts emailed all of its thousands of substitute teachers a link to a great opportunity. They could get raises of $2.07 per hour, regular hours and great new benefits including health insurance, sick leave a retirement account if chosen for this promotion. The title of this exciting new position: bus driver.

Upon reading this I called up my favorite scholar of health-care inequalities in a controlled outrage. "Does this really mean," I simmered, "that for all those times I got pulled over for speeding on the way to college classes, I was hurting my career both ways?"

"You're not missing out," she told me. "All the studies of bus drivers' health data show they have a very short life expectancy and lots of heart trouble due to all the stress."

"Well that's just it," I said. "There are studies of data about bus drivers, because they have insurance. The insurance company has hard-drives full of data about how unhealthy bus drivers are, and how stressed they tell their doctors they are every time they drop by just to take off their shirt for another check-up. Nobody studies substitute teachers because we don't have health insurance and we don't visit doctors. No data exist."

And upon that analysis, I decided not to grade chemistry quizzes over the weekend this weekend, saving them instead for my paid planning time on Monday. Last weekend I was so excited by the opportunity to teach something interesting that I was grading in my downtime at my other job. After reading what the Human Resources department thinks of me, though, I think I need a couple days off. My favorite scholar was right about one thing, though: no matter how hard my job is, I really am glad I don't have to do it in traffic.