Ben Hatten
I'm in charge of the school network for EverFi and a die hard Notre Dame fan.
All of sudden, starting to see a lot more activity on the tumblr blog
Definitely drop me a note ben(at)benhatten.com
Pay The Teachers
There was an interesting article this morning in the NYTimes about budget shortfalls in New Jersey. Many New Jersey residents are pointing their fingers at New Jersey teachers (specifically their union) as the culprit – and claiming they are overpaid. The average salary for a NJ teacher is $66,597 a year. This is New Jersey, the state with second highest income level in the country – $66k a year is still below the median pay of the state.
With all of the articles and statistics coming out with how the US is falling behind in terms of global education – why not actually recognize the state that is trying to pay educators a fair salary. I do understand that to balance New Jersey’s state budget other state employees are going to have to make cuts and sacrifices – but I believe teachers should be the 3rd rail. It is not a far leap to believe that by cutting the salary of teachers, New Jersey is going to start losing talent to the private sector. Looking at the resume pool that flows into EverFi – anecdotally there are a lot of teachers (and very talented ones) who are looking to leave teaching.
Singapore’s model of paying teachers competitive salaries is something that US should try to emulate. I know that scaling a country’s system who’s geographic size doesn’t compare to most of our larger cities would be incredibly difficult – but continually short changing our youth should not be an option. When trying to fix budget shortfalls in New Jersey – targeting the teachers’ salaries should not be the solution.
Dinner
Made this last night for Erin - very, very good. I added a few spices, but highly recommend.
Congrats to the Tumblr Team.
We did it! You’re looking at a Top 50 site. :)
And thank you for the shout out, TechCrunch!
Wow - the fact that Tumblr is top 50 site is just incredible - and the fact that they do it with a team of less than 15 is unreal.
You hear people in the Valley always say ‘I want my entrepreneurs to be hungry.” I agree with that, but think there’s a difference between being panicked and being hungry. And I think too often founders find themselves with negative net worth, credit card bills, etc and they get freaked out.
–Video: Chris Sacca Helps Founders Cash Out Shares Early
Love that Sacca.
(via secondverse)
(via hiten)
the funniest world cup sign i’ve seen thus far was shown during N. Korea’s match last week
Innovation is almost insane by definition: most people view any truly innovative idea as stupid, because if it was a good idea, somebody would have already done it.
– Why We Prefer Founding CEOs // ben’s blogTwo-Sided Markets: Which Side First?
I found myself speaking to an entrepreneur recently about how to develop a two-sided market. I thought I would relay some of our thoughts on the topic.
Note that there is a decent bit…
