Merit based opportunity

 What if we let people get training in the field they were interested in and let them progress as they showed competency?  How many Doctors and Lawyers would have chosen to get that training if the paycheck had been merely two times the average income?  When you have people training to be Doctors because they will make 5-10 times the average income, and you make it so expensive to get the training, are you getting the best doctors?

Some jobs are nasty and nobody wants to do them.  But some jobs are nasty and require skill.  Would anyone really study Urology if the financial incentive wasn't so steep?  Maybe if interest was the deciding factor, you would only get creepy people studying Gynecology, but what's to keep creepy people out of the field now?

If we had more dentists, would they have to lower their costs and more of the population would get dental care?  If we paid teachers more, would more talented men and women choose to do what they love?  

I'm reading "The thread that runs so true".  Jesse Stuart teaches in rural schools and is able to have a tremendous impact on the children, families and community.  Teaching is awesome.  Teaching is also incredibly undervalued in America.  

A child spends 86,400 hours in the care of a teacher up to age 18.  They hopefully spend 0 hours in the care of police, lawyer, or military personnel.   Over the span of our lives maybe we spend 3 hours with doctors or dentists per year, 300 hours total if we're lucky.  I've been pretty lucky so far. 

Sometimes I hear people claim that teachers have to be low paid so only people who love it will do it.  Shouldn't that be true of Police, doctors, and any field where you work with people?  If teachers made more money, there might be people who tried to go into the field for the money, but there would be competition from people who were good teachers, who hadn't left the field to support their families, that would drive bad teachers out of the field.

We need a lot of teachers, because children spend more time with them than any other professional.  But we don't have to lower the standards to get more teachers.  Increase the incentive, and you will get more teachers, and the competition to be part of a great work, that supports a family, will drive the profession to excellence.  I believe almost anyone can teach, and if they don't teach well, they loose the job.