This right here. It’s teaching to the lowest common denominator. Too much focus is placed on the kids who “aren’t quite there” vs the more gifted students. It seems the reason for this is so they get every student they can past the minimum test score on their state/federal tests.
If you’re the parent of a student who needs extra help this is, of course, welcomed. But if you’re the parent of a gifted student, this can be very frustrating.
My 10 year old son (5th grade) is very sharp and does well in school. Thankfully, as he’s gotten older I see the teachers having breakout sessions regularly for certain subjects (math mostly), where the more advanced kids can focus on some higher level material while the other kids focus on really grasping the grade-level curriculum.
We’re in a good school district for our area (in Ridgefield WA just north of Portland) and it seems we have a good administration and caring teachers, but the “teaching to the test” is still evident.
Exactly. I actually considered it for a while, and then I specifically remember the phrase “Fuck that shit” popping into my head numerous times. I will only teach college. Period. There’s no way you could pay me to put up with the bullshit a HS or middle school teacher has to. I am not a waiter for a reason: I don’t put up with shit. That’s why I was bouncer, bartender, and business operations manager during college–“oh, you don’t like that? Sorry, you gotta leave. No, I don’t give a fuck what you think, you’re leaving. There’s 30 people lined out the door waiting to get in, you can’t behave so fuck off, we are going to let people in who tip well and behave.”
Pretty much my attitude. I actually really love teaching. It’s one of the biggest perks of coaching strength and conditioning.
However, I’m not going to bend over for anybody. And that means there is exactly zero chance in hell–not even a snowball’s chance–that I will ever teach secondary classes.
This is the other thing that occurs to me, and why I said that I couldn’t figure out which part of the 3 aspects had to take the lead but knew they should work in tandem. You can’t remove rules because of dumbasses. But you can’t attract the best because of rules. And you can’t raise the salary without increasing the difficulty of the degree, because that would also lead to more dumbasses. So these things have to happen in tandem.
Best as I can figure it, assuming the political will to fix the issue there’s going to be a bad period of transition either way.
Would be nice if the situation were such that our best and brightest sweated getting into ‘education school’ the way they now sweat getting into med school, or a top law or business school, etc.
Upon reflection, I felt an explanation and some clarification might be appropriate.
When I wrote that I [quote=“The_Myth, post:1, topic:226179”]
welcome all opinions
[/quote]
I might have been delusional. I don’t think I recognized how sensitive I am to criticism of my profession.
For example, I took this
as criticism of the profession. I know that was not the intent, but it’s how I felt.
This
is actually pretty common and to clarify why it was offensive to me, I would provide the example of Erin Gruwell from “Freedom Writers” fame. She was so “great” that she couldn’t wait to get out of secondary education and move on to teaching college - actually, her methods were so unsustainable she burnt herself out and abandoned ship, but holds herself up as being an ideal teacher.[quote=“dchris, post:10, topic:226179”]
However, if you take their salary and extrapolate based on a 9 month, 180 day contract, they usually make more than they think. They also have retirement, paid summer off, and fully health care.
[/quote]
This also bothered me. Most teachers don’t make enough money to afford a home in the community in which they teach, and I think that’s problematic. Granted, I like teaching and am quite happy with the benefits, and I think teachers should shut up about their pay, but I also find it weird that everybody seems to have an opinion on teacher’s salaries, but doesn’t seem to care that a state trooper makes a quarter of a million dollars, or that a custodian for BART made $250K last year, or that college football coaches make what they make.
For me, it you’re a teacher and not happy with your pay, you should get out of teaching - albeit there is a lack of competition for hiring teachers due to salary schedules. It would be stupid for me to move to another district for a slightly higher salary when it would mean giving up tenure and seniority. And believe, me, I have problems with tenure as well.
My response to @SkyzykS was based solely on my teaching experiences in California and New York, where I was warned finding a job would not be easy. But I was willing to do what I needed to do to get a job and experience. Many new teachers here on Long Island are unwilling to commute to NYC and teach in an inner city and do long term subbing waiting for an opportunity - because they feel entitled and aren’t willing to do what it takes. I totally projected my experience onto that of his wife and that is the context of my response. It was parochial at best, and his response was probably more appropriate than mine.
There were several other posts that were also offensive, but not intended to be, but I feel like I made my point - I’m too sensitive to effectively contribute to this thread.
My apologies for starting something I can’t finish. I’ll keep reading, but will refrain from posting so I don’t act like a dick again, lol.
PPS’ Superintendent will make $250,000 next year. Can’t recall why, but there was a bump after a certain amount of time.
RE: Salary based on student. I don’t know if that is an accurate measure. For several reasons:
PPS has a very large support staff, assistant superintendents, assistant principals (at each school), etc. I don’t know if yours does, but job responsibilities may not be apples to apples.
The cost of living in NY is far greater than here. Although, PDX may be getting closer.
I don’t understand this post. Property taxes are a function of accessed value and general obligation bonds that are still on the rolls.
I think about this fairly often, getting a job in a smaller district as a Math and PE teacher. As well as coaching baseball. I have a great job now, though, and wouldn’t give it up because of some of it’s benefits.
That actually seems pretty fucking awesome. Haha. That salary would do very well where I live.
To clarify, my point wasn’t that teachers don’t make enough. I can’t answer that. My point was that they make more than they think. In your scenario, if you were to add 80 days, the equivalent of a non-teacher work year. Your salary would be $390,000. That’s before you add burden costs such as: retirement, medical, vacation, holiday, etc.
I understand the feeling that having a masters would suggest you get paid more, but that really isn’t the case. Part of the reason there are a lot of english and history majors working jobs as baristas (somewhat of sarcasm in scenario).
I think this might be dependent on where you choose to live. Aside from CA and NY, a teacher’s salary is surely a livable wage.
My earlier point about teacher’s salary, is just that they make a comparison based on total salary, without facing a 180 day contract vs. 260 (or 280).
Government salaries are interesting, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about this. Although, it seems that their salary is related to their lobbyist groups presence. The above quoted are all public employees.
Do you have a sources for those? I ask because I see plenty of articles calling facility directors custodians, or other similar statements that downplay the actual job roles.
This comparison comes up a lot. I don’t watch football or any college sports really. The viewership demands bring in a lot of revenue for the school. An effect of that is paying the coaches relative to what they bring in. If they didn’t get paid proportionally, they probably would not coach at a collegiate level.
I would imagine there are benefits to the university as a whole that college sports brings. Such as the facilities, national attention, desirability, etc. I don’t know, that isn’t a conversation I usually care to engage in. It’s usually an irrational response by both sides.
Doubt it. Keep posting. Unless otherwise stated, people’s posts will be general statements, not to be considered accurate for your particular school. There are thousands of schools, but it would be erroneous not point out the faults, especially when discussing ways to improve the system.
Something to consider though- Is this thread about education or getting paid? Because you’ve put down quite a bit more here about getting paid than teaching.
They get paid exorbitant amounts for certain, but athletics are considered the “Front Door” to the University. Essentially, kids from “birth” are drawn to a university based on it’s athletic reputation and family tradition, almost like religion. They solidify the University’s identity. Think of Duke and UNC here or Alabama & Auburn in AL. The only reason many people know of those schools is because of their athletic (basketball and football) programs. The marketing is priceless.
For smaller universities:
“Entertainment. Enrollment. Community. We provide a great entertainment option to faculty and
staff since they and their families get in free to homegames for the most part. We have 550 student-athletes and that is over 10 percent of the undergraduate population. As far as community is concerned, we want Moon Township to adopt us as their team. To do that, we have to continue to reach out. But the payoff is huge . . . when we win, we hope the community, which may have no real affiliation with us, will be engaged and come out!”
Kudos for apologizing. That takes guts even if it is a forum. I think that you should continue posting however, because you provide excellent insights and how else are we gping to solve porblems of ee can’t get all the view points?
The same experience has been found with the push for assessment in the UK under New Labour.
Do you think a higher wage/ standard for teacher employment would ameliorate the quality issues? I am of the opinion that if teaching was made a very high wage profession, with hiring standards to reflect the wage, this would force better quality applicants. But there is a simultaneous risk of shortages in such a case.
First off, quick disclaimer. After getting through college I’m BEYOND jaded about “higher education.”
Also, knowing a few teachers myself (inner city teachers), I think something that’s underlooked/underappreciated is how much shit (some) teachers have to endure from parents who expect teachers to also be the pseudo parents and raise their children.
Story time, my wife’s family has an aunt that lives in the worst part of town we have. She let her son drop out of HS at 15 to pursue his professional CoD career because “if these teachers can’t motivate my son to want to learn, why should I waste his time making him go.” These stories are a dime a dozen in the city where I currently live.
I think a lot of the problems with the teaching profession is associated with the pay, and a lot of it is associated with the monumental amount of shit teachers have to put up with.
Question for tnation. When it comes to govt pay employees (cops, teachers, mailmen, etc), how do you evaluate what these professions are “worth.” It’s pretty easy in the corp world to associate a number as “this is how much value you bring to your company,” but do people think about social jobs as “this is how much value you bring to society?”
I think the author outlines one of my biggest problems with “higher education.” The concept many profs have that college isn’t about passing tests is straight up wrong. Realistically, going to college is about getting a diploma, so that your resume ends up on someone’s desk instead of in the garbage (this is something I found almost universally denied by college profs).
While I admit I come from the business field, where a formal education is basically worthless beyond getting hired, there’s a pretty big disconnect between Prof mentality and reality.
I’m a big supporter of school choice, vouchers, etc.
This is a great interview with Jason Riley. Worth the 20 minutes.
Go to 10:15 for the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education. Specifically, what happened to graduation rates for Black and Hispanic students when CA ended it’s policy of racial preferences in 1996.
K-12 school choice, vouchers, charters, unions and poor kids who are stuck in under-performing schools, go to 12:40.
Interesting points he makes. I know a young Black lady that was absolutely brilliant in HS, graduated from the IB Program…and went to UPENN in Philadelphia. She struggled like hell (to the point of contemplating transferring) but ended up graduating from the Wharton School of Business (#DonaldJTrump).
Question is, is she better off or worse off as a result? How many like her transferred or dropped out? It’s an interesting debate. We have talked about AA before and how some people see it as the bar being lowered vs. allowing marginalized groups opportunities where there were previously less. I’d be interested to see more data on colleges. I’ve seen data that in the workforce there is no difference, but college could be different.