Teacher of the Year and No Electricity

Last night Brian Lamb did an interesting interview with the Teacher of the Year, Jason Kamras of DC. See the transcript here. It touched on a number of questions, from Israel to idealism. Jason is a very good interviewee. Lamb has little tolerance for a long answer. Often he'll come in with a new question when the subject is just a few sentences into the answer. (Keeps the interview lively and interesting, but is frustrating when you really want to hear the whole thing.) Jason was one of the few I've seen who could smoothly answer the new question then switch back to the prior subject.

Jason has taught for 8 years, and spent his summers writing for grants, so he now has $50,000 of audio-video, computer, and other extras in his room But down the hall, in the same building:

"But back to your question. I have a colleague that does not have electricity in her classroom, and so she can't even use technology if she wanted to." (She has lights but no live electrical outlets.)

That's revealing, of a number of things. First, bureaucrats like Jason can be entrepreneurial. It's an unsolved mystery why Jason has power for his goodies and his colleague doesn't, but I've no doubt he would have scrounged a generator if he had had to. Second, most people see their job as doing their job. His colleague reasonably assumes she's not responsible for diagnosing problems in electrical circuits. Third, the school system is good enough to attract and keep a Jason and bad enough to tolerate the dead outlets. Fourth, I'd generalize and say that maintenance is almost always treated as something to be put off. That's true whether it's kids picking up their clothes, or Congress appropriating money for bureaucracies like the Park Service, IRS, or the military: money goes for new historical sites or new weapons but not for maintaining the old, collecting revenue or training and repairing weapons.

Another interesting item was touching on salaries. Jason started at $28,000. Lamb asked whether you could buy a home in DC on a teacher's salary and Kamras said it was getting difficult. Trying to find current DC salaries I stumbled on this piece. It seems to be very thoughtful, though I've not digested it. One figure I'd point out is that 1995-6, DC paid its teachers about 3 percent more than the average DC worker, which ranked 51st in the nation.