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This is Anna.
这是安。
She just graduated from college in the United States.
美国某大学的应届毕业生。
And this is Sophia.
这是索菲亚。
She also just graduated from college in Finland.
芬兰某大学的应届毕业生。
Anna and Sophia both want to be middle school teachers.
安和索菲亚都想当一名中学老师。
But it turns out, there's a good chance their experiences will be very different.
但二人的工作经历可能会截然不同。
So different that Anna is twice as likely as Sophia to leave teaching for good.
有多不同？安永远离开讲台的可能性足足是索菲亚的两倍。
That's causing a problem.
这就带来了一个问题。
The supply of new certified teachers in the United States is shrinking,
美国认证教师的师资正在萎缩，
but the number of public school students keeps growing.
公立学校的学生人数却有增无减。
"Massive teacher shortages."
“大规模的师资力量短缺。”
"Warnings about teacher turnover."
“大量关于师资流失的警告。”
"Educators call Colorado's teacher shortage a crisis."
“教育工作者称科罗拉多州的师资短缺问题已经上升成了一场危机。”
So what makes Sophia stay and Anna leave?
那么问题来了，究竟是什么因素促使索菲亚留下而安娜离开的呢？
And how can the United States keep more of its teachers in the classroom?
美国怎样才能将老师们留在讲台上呢？
In the US, teachers work about nine and a quarter hours a day.
美国的老师一天要工作9.15个小时左右。
That's an hour and a half longer than the average for teachers in other countries in the Organization for Economic Development or OECD for short.
比经合组织（简称OECD）其他国家的老师的平均工作时间多出了足足一个半小时。
That's a group of mostly wealthy countries that economists often compare to one another.
经合组织的成员国大多为发达国家，经济学家们经常在它们之间互相比较。
Teachers in the US work more than two and a half hours longer than their colleagues in South Korea, Finland, and Israel.
美国老师工作的时间比韩国、芬兰和以色列的同行多出了两个半小时不止。
There are some countries with similar teacher work hours to the United States, like New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK.
不过也有一些成员国，如新西兰、新加坡和英国的老师的工作时间与美国老师差不多长。
Teachers in Japan for example work nearly two hours more per day than teachers in the US,
日本老师每天的工作时间甚至比美国老师的还要多将近两个小时，
but in all of these countries teaching hours are much lower.
但所有这些国家老师的教学时间都要比美国老师的短得多。
Of the nine and a quarter hours that American teachers work every day,
在美国老师每天工作的9.15个小时中，
they spend about five and a half of those hours actually teaching.
他们花在教学上的时间大约占到了5个半小时，
That's more than the OECD average
已经超出了OECD成员国教师每天的平均教学时长，
and significantly more than teachers in New Zealand, the UK, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore.
且明显超过了新西兰、英国、韩国、日本和新加坡教师每天的教学时长。
Teachers in these countries get more time for planning, grading, and collaborating with each other.
这些国家的老师有更多的时间备课、改作业，和其他老师开展教学协作。
So do all those extra teaching hours translate to better results?
那么问题来了，所有这些额外的教学投入是否得到了更好的产出？
Students in the US score slightly above the OECD average on the PISA exam,
事实表明，美国学生在PISA考试——该考试考察的是各个国家15岁青少年的阅读、科学及数学能力——
which tests 15 year-olds all over the world in reading, science, and math.
中的得分仅略高于经合组织各国学生的平均水平。
But they score lower than students in countries like Finland, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore,
更是低于了芬兰、韩国、日本和新加坡等国学生的得分，
where teaching hours are much lower.
尽管那些国家老师的教学时长明显更短。
If we look inside Anna and Sofia's classrooms in the US and Finland,
如果我们将目光投向安娜和索菲亚分别位于美国和芬兰的教室，
we'd see Anna teaching an hour and a half more per day than Sofia.
我们就会发现，安娜每天的教学时长要比索菲亚的多出一个半小时。
Anna also spends more time planning lessons, grading student work, and leading extracurricular activities.
安娜花在备课、改作业，带领学生们参与课外活动的时间也比索菲亚长。
But those extra hours aren't necessarily reflected in Anna's paycheck.
但这些额外的工作时间并不一定会反映在安娜的工资上。
If you compare Sofia to other people in Finland with college degrees,
比较索菲亚和芬兰拥有大学学历的其他同龄人的工资会发现，
she makes about 98 cents for every dollar that they make.
她的工资是后者的98%。
That's on par with the pay ratio between teachers and college graduates in similar countries.
与同等水平的其他国家的教师和大学毕业生的薪酬比率持平。
But Anna and other American middle school teachers only make about 65 cents for every dollar that their college-educated peers make.
但安娜和美国其他中学老师的工资只占到了美国同龄大学毕业生的65%。
Still, as politicians in the US never tire of pointing out,
尽管如此，正如当权者乐此不疲地指出的那样，
"we spend more per student..."
“我们在我们的学生身上投入的钱……”
"than almost any country I think..."
“比几乎任何国家……”
"than nearly every other country in the developed world."
“比其他任何一个发达国家都多。”
But that figure varies a lot by state.
问题是，这一数字在州与州之间的出入是非常大的。
New York spends twice as much as California on each student.
纽约州在每个学生身上的投入是加州的两倍。
Mississippi spends less than half as much as Alaska.
而密西西比州的还不到阿拉斯加的一半。
And American schools generally spend a lot more on security and other non-instructional costs than schools in other countries.
而且，相比其他国家，美国学校在安全和其他非教学投入上的花费也要多得多。
Plus, if you look at the share of its national wealth or GDP that each country spends on education,
不仅如此，比较各国的教育开支在其国家财富或GDP中的占比，
you can see there are plenty of countries spending a bigger share than the US.
你就会发现，有很多国家的教育支出份额都比美国大。
There's one other difference between Anna and Sofia.
此外，安娜和索菲亚二人还有一个不同之处。
When they're asked whether people in their country value teachers,
当被问及她们国家的人是否重视教师时，
two out of three Finnish teachers say yes.
芬兰有2/3的教师的回答都是“重视”。
But just one in three American teachers agree.
美国却只有1/3的教师作此回答。
There are a lot of reasons why teachers like Anna leaves a classroom,
如安娜一样的老师离开讲台的原因有很多，
but if the US wants to keep more of them around,
但如果美国要想留住更多的老师，
we might want to take a few pages from Finland's book.
就不妨跟芬兰取取经。
