How much should teachers earn relative to the local professional community?

Financial incentive for teachers! That's we can solve the decline in the American Education system! Christ we have tax insentives for giving brith and joinging the military, and soon we'll have them for driving fuel efficent cars, why not for teachers? I mean geez, they pretty much hold the future of america in their hands and we pay them less than the guy who owns the Krispy Kreme out in Aurora.

Based on training, degrees, experience-I would say top 10%. If you want to retain good teachers, you must pay them well. We pay entertainers (sports,actors) far more. They are responsible for teaching young minds, so we must pay them accordingly. We also need to weed out the bad & imcompetent teachers-some people were never meant to teach.

I have no idea.

I don't know - but I think that performance related pay is a good idea.

They should be paid what they are worth. It shouldn't depend on what other people are getting paid... or am I misunderstanding the question?

Well, everything sounds so average in the explanation, it was hard for me to choose anything other than an average salary for them.

About 80th percentile. Teaching is a very noble and important profession, and the only reason I didn't say a higher percentile is because some profeesions require more schooling (such as doctors).

I really don't know how to answer this as a percentage of what other professionals make, but I do know that we should offer higher salaries for teachers and also expect higher standards from them than we do. If teachers made more money, perhaps we'd have better than average teachers.

It depends on how good the teacher is.

Teachers should be paid at whatever level will attract sufficient people of sufficient quality. In other words, let the market decide.

There's no such thing as a "right" salary for a particular job. As with everything else, it's all about supply and demand.

i know that this is a difficult question to word but the salaries of "local professionals" are soooo variable. i chose 70-80% of because of the decreased number of work days. most business professionals i know work 60-80 hrs a week but they are the "above average" professionals. and the excellent teachers that i have know work many hours at home and after hours at school.........but you are asking for average, nothing special. so very difficult to answer in this form, for me at least.

i like brian's idea...... incentives and end the tenure of teachers who are just riding their time out and not contributing. excellent teachers put in the time necessary, just as in all other professions, to do the job right!! we should pay those that are the best, high salaries!

I marked '30th-40th percentile'. They work 9 months a year, 8 hours a day, what other choice is there? They should find their way into more challenging, rigorous, and competitive fields if they don't like it.

I definately agree that teachers should be paid based on such important factors as Education, Experience, Interview Performance, History, References, etc. In fact, everyone agrees.
Except the teachers. They strike every time the idea is mentioned.

The teachers I know teaching elementary school barely seem to know about what I graduated highschool with. I wonder how they're supposed to teach English when they don't even know how to use a comma themself.
Still, 50% if not better.
What is meant by not credentialed though? You can't teach (at least in california) without taking the C-Best, and preferably having a BA with ECE (Early childhood education) courses.
Perhaps my early teachers weren't that great though, because they thought I was quite backwards until they figured out at the end of fourth grade that I was a genius.

Perhaps they don't like the idea because the ability to to teach is almost impossible to measure. How do you know to what degree a teacher has inspired students to learn for themselves or understand the utility of the skills they are learning?
I believe this question was not so much about the personal lives of teachers as much as the sociological implications. It doesn't sound good when garbage truck drivers (who work even fewer hours) are making more money. I know you are so fond of your 'everyone fend for themself' policy, but does it apply to children as well? Third graders should petition the state for better teachers? In spite of the fact that I am mostly self taught, my teachers were most often responsible for imparting the seeds of thought that inspired me to study so many fields.
Experience has proved I would make a great teacher, but I doubt any technical benchmarks would give me high marks. My point though is don't you think our best teachers belong in schools where they can assist people like us rather than being forced to find other more lucrative jobs? I have one friend who was really gifted at teaching at all levels from pre-school to physics and architecture. He added some courses to his degree and took up teaching as a career, but had to go back to working on cars instead because he needed the money. Apparently cars and garbage removal are imperative, but education of our children is optional. It's like those people who hear that we are losing our oceans fish and comment "well, it won't happen in my lifetime."
Opinions?

Unfortunately, the vast majority of teachers aren't any good. There is something about the psychology of the person who decides to become a teacher, that also makes it so that person isn't any good at their job.

(When I say 'teacher' I usually mean secondary... 7th-12th.)
It really isn't that tough to measure a teacher's performance. Colleges do it all the time. There are 'Course and Instructor Review sheets'. It isn't that tough to read 150-180 student reviews about a teacher, and decide whether or not that teacher is any good. It is well understood who are the good teachers and who are the bad ones. Unfortunately, the teachers are against reviews, because, the vast majority of them would be declared professionally incompetent were their performance to be reviewed. Most teachers find their way to the field after having decided that their current course of study was too difficult. For instance... a biology major is getting a 2.1, working really hard, and his junior year he can decide 'Maybe I will be a biology TEACHER, instead!'.. and still graduate on time due to the way the education degree is set up.
Another CLASSIC case, is the psychology degree holder who doesn't get accepted to a good graduate school, and decides to get a teaching certificate (an additional 1 year and 1 semester in most states. (At most it is 2.5 years to pick up a second degree)).
And then there is the 'I want to only have to work 3/4 of the year and this is the only job where I can do it'. I know about 20 of those.
And then there is the 'I got accepted to a good university, but I DIDN'T get accepted to the program I wanted (Or I did, but then flunked out of it)... I guess I will become a teacher!'.
And then there is the (usually female), who says 'I just love Jesus. He is such a great and noble man. I don't want to go into any of the challenging, rigorous, stressful and anti-godly fields, I think I will teach school-children!'
Needless to say, most people who fit that description are airheads.
And then there are the 'Well, sure, teachers don't make much money, but money doesn't really matter!'. (AKA... the hopelessly naive, who have a view of money that is common among 8 year olds who don't understand it.)
And then, there are the 'I want to get into the EASIEST program in college I can. I think I will ask my older friends which one it is.' Naturally, these people end up in the education major.
And then there are the 'I became an accountant, but I wasn't any good, and I got stuck at an entry level position for 5 years because I didn't have the skills or ambition to make it anywhere, and it was starting to bog me down, so I went back to school to become a teacher.'s
And lets not forget the 'I am rich and retired early at age 50, but I am in poor health and would like insurance (which I can't get because of my medical history), so I decided to get the easiest job I could that gave health insurance.' (Yes, I know one of those, too.).
And then there are the 'I never really made it anywhere in life, the work-world isn't fair, they don't respect the skills that I have.. (blah blah blah). I think I will become a teacher, that will get me respect, it is a noble profession.'
And then there are the hopelessly underconfident...
'I could become a Lawyer but people hate lawyers. I could become an accountant but accountants are boring. I could become a doctor but doctors aren't very popular either. Hey! I've got an idea, I'll become a teacher! Everybody likes teachers!' (I know one of those, too).
And the power hungry 'I want to have control over little kids!'.
And the child-rearing 'I want to have 20 babies. But if that doesn't work out I can teach other people's kids too. I LOVE children!' (Yes, I know one of those too... a mormon, so this may not happen in other places).
And then there are the 'I want to save the world, and make it a better place by becoming a teacher and spreading my political and social beliefs to a captive audience which would run away otherwise.'
And lets not forget the 'I want to be in a highschool with a bunch of cute highschool girls'... Honest to god, there are people who think like that. (5 of them have been arrested in Nevada in the past 2 years, and I know a few of them who are clearly 'lookers', but maybe aren't interested in doing anything (yet).)
And then there are the 'I went to college and I got nostalgic for highschool so I majored in secondary education'.
(There are LOADS of those.)
And lets not forget the
'I want to be a government employee! You are set for life when you get a government job! Pension! Benefits! Steadily increasing pay-scale! Can never be fired!! This is a guaranteed way to do it!' s.
The truly intelligent people in the world, became doctors, lawyers, ph.d.'s (sciences, mostly), business-people... etc.
Its mostly the flaky, naive, 'world-saving' type, who become teachers. As they get older and their naivety fades, they become bitter and mean.

Now, don't get me wrong. There was a time, and in fact, I'd even bet that in many areas today it is still the case, when the vast majority of teachers were doing it for all the right reasons.
There was a time, when people weren't so damn money-hungry, and all they wanted in life was a job that would get them a house with a 30 year mortgage, and give them enough money to raise a kid or two. It is still like that in the smaller towns today, and maybe even in some other isolated areas. Teachers used to be, overall, a pretty good group of people. If you teach at a k-12, you are basically guaranteed to be a good person. But there aren't many k-12's any more. The good old days are over and done with. Now there are 9-12s and even the dreaded 'eigth grade centers', that teach only eigth grade.
There was a time, when, and there are places today, where, 7/10 of the graduating class had known each other since kindergarden or before. The teachers went to the school that they now teach at. The parents of the school-kids went to the same school with them. Graduating classes ranged from 3 students, to 150. There was a time.
And it wasn't everwhere, even. And it isn't nowhere now. But it WAS most-where, and now it is only somewhere. Hardly anywhere.
The teachers from THOSE days, were good people. Today, they are by and large flakes, idiots, fudge-ups, sadists, and other lowly sorts.
Here is a for instance. My sister graduates this year. She is valedictorian (along with about... 6 other people). Their graduation is going to be at Thomas and Mack. (UNLV's very large sports stadium). They have threatened to PROSECUTE, IN REAL COURT, anyone who throws their cap (On what charge I have no idea...). There are 700 people 'walking', from a class of 900. The ceremony will last precisely 1 hour (That is 6 seconds per student, assuming things go right). That is to say, they only have the stadium for an hour. They cut my sisters speech from a minute and a half to a minute, AFTER she had already written it. It now makes very little sense and the response of the vice-principal was 'It doesn't matter.'.
They don't have enough time to give out awards. That was last night instead. School isn't even out, it wasn't declared until last friday, and nobody went. They just don't give a crap about the students any more. Schools have gone from being 'community centers of education', to institutions that hold 4,000 students. And it is TEACHERS, who have caused these changes to occur.
The education system is very strange. It operates, for the most part, independent of the local government. They take care of their own affairs with very limited interference from local and state legislative bodies. And, of course, the education system is FILLED WITH, and RUN BY, teachers. Somewhere along the way, it went to hell. It has nothing to do with pay. It has nothing to do with politics, or cities, or the times. It has to do with the people.
The people. The teachers. They have fudgeed it up beyond any belief.
They have destroyed our education system. Stolen the sense of community from the kids. Ruined our Proms and Graduations.

There are 3600 kids at a local highschool, but still only 3 football teams... there used to be only one or two, granted... but no matter which way you look at it, all but the best kids are being denied access to sports!

And it isn't the government, because although the government theoretically does have direct power over the school districts, they cannot afford to micro-manage them... They have no choice but to appoint EDUCATORS, to run the system. And the educators go off and screw it up. Time and again. Slowly but surely. In all but the smallest and best of communities, the educators destroy the school system, both from the top down, and from the bottom up.

I hate teachers. Overpaid scum-bags if you ask me. (Certain Exceptions apply).

Teaching is the most important job in society.

It's silly how this world works.

Wow, I am really impressed about how comprehensive your report on the dark side of teachers motivations is. It seemed to me you missed "Because teaching is the least selfish, most giving use of ones talents." 4 out of five of my grade-5 through college teachers were top-notch dedicated, inspiring, effective experts. My sci-fi & speech teachers class was really a platform to teach about society, economic policy, and many other high-minded but practical applied living concepts. I graduated in 1981, and perhaps I was lucky because it seems that only a couple of my teachers had motivations on your list. I have heard of most of the motives you mention, and the grade school teachers I have met in recent times do more resemble your list than my experience. In fact, one of them sends her own children to a private school which I felt terribly disconcerting. There is a spiritual paradigm: the world is as you believe it to be. For you this means that as long as you maintain your hard edged view of reality, the facts and experiences that come your way will match your expectation of that.

I think metrics (other than subjective reviews {and preferably by students who have had 4 years to look back at the lasting value}) would create a prison system that is a far cry from the ancient Greek colleges of inter-disciplinary higher learning. The hometown model of community support motivation and involved feedback is indeed an unfortunate loss. Given your world view (I think you can concede that my reality does not fit prototypical experience), your skills at analysis are impeccable. I look forward to the day you can apply it to creating comprehensive quality of life solutions. What are you planning to do with your life? {my memory is mostly subjective} Back to this example, instead of an analysis of why what we have sucks, how do we make it not suck? What would make education a revered institution again? Perhaps we should pay to have people like Spielburg run it?
Congrats to your sister. Does she have (her own) goals yet?

Your paradigm seems to reflect a spiritual opinion on what a psychologist would call 'confirmation bias'.

You said it Kristal, you graduated in 1981. That was 20 years ago.
My mom graduated in '64, and she, and everyone else, loved school. My dad went to a big-city highschool, so he didn't have as positive of an experience, but it is clear that he and the other students also liked it more than they do now adays.
Things are different now, much much different now. What I am saying is that back then, people didn't think like they think now. They jsut wanted a job that would pay them good enough to have a house and raise kids, and they wanted it to be a job they like. That mindset, a mindset of the times, really, generates good teachers. Don't get me wrong, there is another fundamental difference too, and that is the behavior and attitudes of the children, which, was more... conducive... to being a good, happy, teacher... back then, and is mroe conducive to being a bitter butt-hole, now adays.
Now adays the mindset is entirely different than it was back then.
Don't get me wrong, there are teachers out there who are alright, and I continually word exceptions into my comments.
The teachers who were around when you were in school, the vast majority of them are no longer teachers any more. The ones that still are, many of them are bitter and angry at how the students have 'Gotten worse over the years'.
Not to say that they are wrong... but so have the teachers.
There is just something about the world now adays. There is so much emphasis on the CONSUMER, that no one really cars about the significant things in life any more, and everyones emphasis is on money. In this age of the consumer, of excessive and expected luxury, of the motivations of greed and laziness, instead of the motivations of passions and benevolence, teachers picked bad reasons to become teachers, and the personality that breeds a good reason to become a teacher, that personality moves to a small town.

I would love to move to a small town except for my feeling and that of which those I admire carry, that "The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance". That means we don't move to a like-minded cushy geography, but stay where we are needed. My friend who believes in legalzing grass could move to a Guatemala commune; I could speak about spiritual matters at a spiritual chat site where people would easily digest what I had to say.
Greed and laziness of the American Dream Variety were still motives in my time, but not instant gratification. That sci-fi/speech teacher I mentioned recommended getting into real-estate; He said that our generation was the last which could easily attain the American dream, and that future students would be different (possibly bitter & jaded) because they could not look forward to such a simple, well defined, goal oriented life. Todays student probably has far less idea what professional jobs will exist in ten years. In my day, we were trained to be engineers; now people are trained as techs (don't figure it out, follow procedure). Todays phone installers don't whip ohms law, they plug in a scope which says install line amplifier, without a clue why. From the onset of the industrial age, the general populace believed that in the future we would not have to work or think, and that would make us happier. We would fill our lives with higher causes. As you can see, we only find other things to fret about and burn time. Is consumerism philosophy somehow imparted in school as well as outside of it these days?

'Confirmation bias': I believe what I experience? I love it.
Did I give you to many questions in the prior comment or were you simply not interested in those threads?

I wasn't sure of a good way to answer most of them.
I'll start with the simple one.
My sister has an anxiety disorder, but because it seems to 'benefit' here (because she has a 4.7 GPA), no one is willing to send her for treatment. It will fudge up her life. Because she is 'Crazy' (to a limited extent), she is unpredictable. She has goals but it is unlikely they will persist.
'Management', right now in schools, is the problem. They are trying to 'save money' and that is just a bad idea. (Period).
The solution to the education system is simple. It comes in three parts.
Part 1) Take the economic advantage out of big city life by setting HUGE 'construction' taxes that are exponential (not proportional) with population density. This is the solution to all other social problems, too. Exceptions for high-density, non-urban housing. (Which doesn't exist YET, but will when that exception is made)
Part 2) Make all schools k-12's. Every last one. Maximum of 1000 students. For Financing, see 1.
Part 3) Pay better teachers more. (Insert largely irrelevant technical details of one of the hundreds of ways to do it here).

I don't believe that life sucks. By and large, it is pretty good. HOWEVER, I do believe that some things are just plain fudgeed up, and the reason they are fudgeed up is because hardly anyone realizes that things are fudgeed up! It sucks to think about bad things, so we don't think about them. We deny the things which make us feel bad, the bad things, and by denying them, this, this makes us feel better. We get angry at the truthtellers, for telling us the truth, the bad truth, which makes us feel bad.

In terms of doing something with my life, I've got more ideas than I do lives to live, too many to list, so diverse as to cancel each other out.
Right now, I am feeling like I am going to leave Vegas the day I get my degre, and 'investigate' a couple opportunities that have come into my mind. Live in a small town, and try not to be any better or worse than the next guy. If I find somewhere that seems alright, I work on finding myself a job, career, girl, house, family, life, in that order. I want a porch and a rocking chair. Memories, too.
And good ones.
And someone to remember them with.
I have no intent to change the world at the cost of my own happiness. The world, you see, the world has disappointed me, it is unworthy. Had it been better to me, I may have considered helping it, but today I believe it to be undeserving.
Especially if I may not be able to help.
'Darling, I know you hurt. I know that the only thing I can think of to do for you is to entirely sacrifice myself to you. I know that even that isn't going to help. So I am going to do nothing, walk away. Its not that I don't care. Its that there is nothing I can do, and I am not going to give up everything over this if it isn't going to make you better. I am only being realistic.'
So, I'll probably take off, aim for a small town, country music, porch swing, type of existence.
Of course, thats just my optimistic Naivety speaking. We will see if it fades or grows in time.

Does your sister believe you understand her? Does she perceive herself as out of control?
Grading must have changed. 4.0 was perfect in my day.
Part 1) I haven't seen much relationship between social stratification and population density, though I always imagined places like NY & LA would be so imbalanced.There are single family ghettos and posh high rises. I got to experience 2 years of dense LA suburb (Manhattan & Hermosa Beach) Highschool, & 2 years of smaller town (Soquel, Santa Cruz Co, CA) H.S. I was disappointed to find the smaller HS so backwards & lacking in options. The drafting dept taught half as much material, you had fewer choices of languages, & far fewer sports. Some teachers were better, some were worse. LA is not dense. I'm guessing there is about 1.7 apartment bldgs per block of houses. About the same as any california beach town. SF is dense. I bet SF has better schools than LA though. I'd be ok with putting a skyscraper in the town of dog claw and more single family dwellings in LA. I would hate to see dog claw expand it's limits or replace it's undeveloped lots with houses. I've seen so much beautiful country turn into suburbia. We've lost enough greenbelt & rainforest already. Perhaps you have a preference like mine: No suburbia, just a cluster of a few skyscrapers every 20 miles. But, like you, I want a nice old victorian with wisteria and a porch swing. I don't see what density has to do with it all. No redistribution of population could recreate the small town if that's what you had in mind {ok, I just realized I was blinded because I would not want to (nor in 30+ moves ever have) lived more than 10 miles from the coast}. (just recently I've considered a few years maybe.) Mobility is an issue too. We change jobs every year or two, not spend our lives with one or two companies.
Part 2) k-12. I don't get that either. 8th graders don't want to hang out with 3rd graders. 1000 max students? One teacher is supposed to teach Russian, French, Drafting, Chemistry, and Water Polo? Perhaps I retract my regret about the demise of the greek college. In this age you just couldn't find but a few teachers with that collective skill set. If I could get my act together, I'd probably become a teacher and teach at a private school where I could integrate disciplines. I can't (Like your sister?..) live a structured life so the best I might hope for is to write educational books and teach whatever kids I run into (lost my place in line to teach 1st grade spelling yesterday at the social security office; taught applied multiplication - 2¢/day for a month = 31*2 = 2*31 = 62¢, 10 leaves per hand * 25 hands = 25~0 leaves 'estimate'; and why and how to make compost to 7-9 year olds today). {I'm making a side point here: you can't save the world, help where you can. If everyone did it as was done for them, we'd have a pleasant place here.}
Part 3) Pay more? Agreed.
I've always favored the same plan since I became a parent. Collectivize state taxes and distribute these equally as vouchers. Semi-privatize all existing public schools and allow them to sublease classrooms and share other facilities with private schools. Webpost state standardzed reports and reviews on teachers and schools, but still allow anyone to teach, and parents to choose any school, including ones where all lessons are sung in French in swimming pools if the parents so desire, just so long as they know what they're getting for their voucher. Parents with no opinion would get a lottery and bussing I suppose. You've changed your attitudes considerably for the better just over this last year in my opinion. I've seen hippies become conservative engineers, and conservative engineers become hippies. There's no telling what you'll become. I was even thinking to apply to West Point at your age. Best wishes on the porch swing though.

As far as one goes, there is a reasonably direct relationship between population density and social problems. Sure, there are affluent dense areas, mostly because of special aspects of the areas that make them economically desirable. Example: Wall Street, Southern California Beaches, Las Vegas Strip, etc.
But when ultra-rich urban areas pop up, they need to be surrounded by ultra-poor urban areas to support their demand for services. People who earn $500,000 a year on wall-street (or in D.C.), or wherever, REQUIRE large numbers of service industry workers who earn in the $24,000 range, and these service industry workers must live in the immediate area of about 5 miles, or within the range of mass transit.
Now, here is the problem--If there is a wealthy high-rise district with corporate offices, 5 star hotels, condo towers, etc, of 1 sq. mile in size, it is now an economic necessity that there be a minimum of 5 or 6 square miles of significantly less affluent blocks in the immediate area, to house the economically poor service workers who fill the needs of the business class in that area. Unfortunately, although 20-30k a year is sufficient to provide a reasonable level of luxury for someone living in a non-dense area, it is NOT enough to provide a reasonable level of luxury in an area with a high population density, a high population density which is maintained by the high demand for service industry workers in the immediate area. Dense wealthy areas need significantly larger, but only slightly less dense poor areas to support them. A DENSE community of workers earning 25,000 a year, is not going to be an 'economically prosperous area', it is going to be a near-ghetto! And, by necessity, it MUST exist to support the excessive economic and goods consumption of the prosperous high-rise district. As we discourage high-density areas, we encourage the businesses in those areas, necessarily slightly more dense than the areas surrounding them, to move into less prosperous, slightly less dense, service-worker areas, around them, which increases the prosperity of those areas, but due to the discouragement, not the density!!! Tada! No more poor areas!
Basically, there needs to be an entire ghetto of 15 blocks to support every sky-scraper. And it DOESN'T take a ghetto to support a suburb... it takes a slightly less prosperous suburb (PRECISELY BECAUSE the suburbs don't allow excessively dense building! (They learned the lesson by watching the cities go to hell!)). Dense urban areas are the bane of existence, unless the density is caused by economic prosperity in the region due to TRUE environmental and industrial factors, and not just the ILLUSION of economic prosperity as a result of an increase in the ratio of lower economic classmembers to higher economic class members, or as a result of the exploitation of the poor worker to maintain the excessive incomes of the sky-rise worker. Of course, eventually, a poor dense area 'Crashes' to the point that it is not capable of generating workers of high enough quality for the service industry jobs which the richer areas have created, and when that happens... all hell breaks loose. Of course, this inevitably happens at some point.

No, 8th graders probably DON't want to hang out with 3rd graders. BUT, having an 'image' of what one is supposed to develop to is positive for a child. The third grader who is put in the company of only third graders, will develop at a limited pace due to the abscence of an image of what they should be moving towards. The best environment is one in which ages are not segregated, and the segregation of age, to the point that it is almost a fudging crime to associate with anyone out of your +/-2 years bracket, is ridiculous, bad for the development of the child and adolescent (the adolescent, ESPECIALLY, needs older peers around), and part of the growing social problem.
In terms of what eigth graders want-- They don't want to go to school, most of them, either.
The teaching of Russian and French in American schools is unnessecary and ridiculous. Spanish makes limited sense because there is a significant spanish speaking element in the country, but russian and french are truly academic pursuits, and it is not the need of the PUBLICLY FUNDED education system to teach the children things of such a trivial and largely useless nature. It is my opinion, that many times people have the (undefendably silly) belief that 'Learning is good.'. The truth, of course, is that 'Learning usefull things is good, and learning (for the most part) useless things is largely a waste of time, money, and energy, with no more positive value than would be gained from watching a television show and 'Learning' about it.'. For the most part, at my idealic 1000 student school, all current levels of mathematics and english would not only be taught, but also be available to younger students... if the highschool is also the middle school, and the students are not 'differentiated', the task of putting a 7th grade child in an 'advanced' math class is largely simplified... put him in algebra with mostly 8/9/10/11 graders. If the 5th grader is capable of 7th grade english, it is no hassle to place him in a class with 7th graders, where as, under todays system, this would be costly and probably impossible.
The limitations would be largely in terms of what elective classes could be offered at a 'high-school' division of a k-12 with only 100 students, BUT there would be possible the concept of 8th graders taking 9th/10th grade level electives, and 7th graders taking 9th grade electives, so the number, overall, including those advanced students would increase to the 400 student-periods per year range, and at 25 students per period-class, this would still leave the option of somewhere in the range of 16 DIFFERENT electives... of course, with every teacher being required to teach 4 core classes and an elective in order to present the necessity of excessive lesson planning as a result of 'elective' teachers with 5 different electives.

I don't believe it is necessary to maintain the current environment of highschools offering more elective courses than most colleges do... It is necessary to note, btw, that the trend towards an increase in elective course requirements is largely an attempt by the school systems to hold onto the students for that twelfth year, which is superfluous and unnecessary given the fact that many students would be fully capable to have completed the 'core' (but not elective (AKA, learn bullcrap so we can keep you here longer)) credits necessary for graduation at the end of their SECOND year.

Basically, the development of the 'elementary/middle/high school' system has been largely a terrible idea, not in terms of the effectiveness at which the students are educated, (which may be superior), but in terms of the happiness, social adjustment, sense of community, emotional and opinionative state about 'how the world is' (start off in an institution, end up in an institution) that students experience in those different environments. Its about the emotion really, and the emotion is much better surrounding a k-12, it is much more positive. (If you don't believe me, stop by one, ask some students a few questions, then stop by a high school, elementary school, and middle school... notice the difference in their apparent levels of happiness and positive regard for their environment, school, teachers, community, and peers. )

I can compare LA to SF and not see the service level distinction you speak of. {I'm familiar with the pattern, for instance how chicago became a hub with rail support taking in agriculture until the hub became a factory and everyone poured in as agriculture became more mechanized} The quantity of maids, gift shop and super market clerks, security, airline workers is no different in LA or SF, and for that matter, in both communities, the wealthier tend to live in houses with yards and not the highrises. What you might call a ghetto that I live in might just as well be it's own small town, occupied with grocery, hospital, and such. The neighbors I have range from welfare recipients to administrators for the recording industry or artists for comics, as well as the prior occupations. LA is what you'd call homogenous. There are entire communities that are detached from international administration capacity, and work in trades like oil. There are places like Santa Monica (one story with yards) where political and digital production seem to center. The skyscrapers of LA are the either the classic buildings of retired leisure class making way for new arts cultures, the gleaming businesses of int'l trade and banking, tourist hotels, or crowded chinatown sort of living. SF is banking, Palo Alto is computers, LA is entertainment. I think the support network model of urban architecture you speak of is already a relic of history.
As you might now guess, I never meant to indicate social economic stratification in the plan of distant greenbelted vertical towns. F.L. Wright with his mile high skyscraper, and Bucky with his domes, both had in mind integrated living-working communities.

Does school exist to form thinking social contributers at the local and global levels, or merely to create service robots? I like your idea to be able to skip classes as suits the student. In elementary school I often spent recess hanging out with my teachers. In 6th grade I hung out with 8th graders. And I started college in my Junior year of H.S. I think my German helped me better understand European culture, and my 2 years of French helped since I ended working 10 years in a French car garage and still meet many French people and often listen to French radio or movies. Foreign languages go a long way towards understanding English by comparison. I don't understand what you mean by the electives differential. It seems for every H.S. class, there are a dozen college courses. A H.S may teach 3 languages, but college teaches a dozen. HS teaches 2 art classes, college 40; wood shop - all the industrial trades; drafting - departments of architecture, engineering, and interior & industrial design. I could say the same of sports, physics, geology, health sciences, anthropolgy, religion, literature, music, theatre, etc. etc. etc. My son wants to get into the tourism industry, so he is quite fortunate that his HS just started offering a tourism class with a trade involvement program in time for his senior year. My fear that people with your sentiment towards core curriculum would administrate the public school system is what made me always fond of the voucher system. In LA, elective entertainment is our int'l export. Any of the arts or social sciences could be said to have more vocational value than chemistry, and I'd probably rather speak to a gas station attendant that learned guitar instead of algebra. Fortunately, though I was considering Montessori schools and such, my children have got a public education that equally prepares them for any profession.
I have never even heard of a contemporary k-12. Perhaps you are right. For someone as educated as yourself, I find what seems to be an anti-education stance very curious. It seems you found it an imposition, and will probably consider your career in the same light.