[quote]saveski wrote:
Getting the government OUT of controlling the schools would be a sure-fire way to improve schools. For an example of how government has perfectly fucked up schools look at the Detroit Public Schools.
[/quote]
Hmmmmmmm yes that definitely sounds like a realistic and implementable project for a schoolkid.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
The first and best step in improving and prolonging public schools is to de-unionize them.
No technology needed except the stroke of a pen.[/quote]
I would say the first step is to start kicking the little cunts out the fucking door if they can’t hack it instead of letting the assholes and morons drag down the kids that are actually there to learn.
Boh im really stressed out, hope the teachers will be this openminded
kinect in the classroom is retarded… if you want to propose something… figure out a way to make teaching more prestigious in the states… then our teachers won’t suck ass because capable people will pursue the career.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
The first and best step in improving and prolonging public schools is to de-unionize them.
No technology needed except the stroke of a pen.[/quote]
Well thats one idea.
But then who is going to want to teach when any student can make one claim that you touched them and your on your own for legal fees. And since you don’t make much one case is going to ruin you forever.
Who is going to look at due process for hiring and firing? Yeah some teachers should be easier to fire, but some can get dicked for no reason.
You would be making what is widely considered a shit job (and my future vocation) a lot less attractive.
See what kind of job applicants you get after you de-unionize with no additional protection for teachers.
[quote]Eli B wrote:
See what kind of job applicants you get after you de-unionize with no additional protection for teachers.[/quote]
You get the fucking awesome teachers we have in the local private schools who do more in the classrooms with about 10-20% of the dollars per pupil than the local public schools and out perform by large margins.
For the record, several of my family members and my wife are/were public and private school teachers.
You sound like you’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid before you’ve even begun your career.
I sincerely wish you well.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]Eli B wrote:
See what kind of job applicants you get after you de-unionize with no additional protection for teachers.[/quote]
You get the fucking awesome teachers we have in the local private schools who do more in the classrooms with about 10-20% of the dollars per pupil than the local public schools and out perform by large margins.
For the record, several of my family members and my wife are/were public and private school teachers.
You sound like you’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid before you’ve even begun your career.
I sincerely wish you well.[/quote]
Well I’m a product of private schools and have taught in them as well. Its pretty easy when you get to pick the students. Teachers want to teach there and the kids for the most part want to be there and you can be damn sure theres going to be parental involvement when the parents are paying 15,000 a year (or easily more). None of those are assumptions you can make about the schools that need the most help/innovation
I haven’t sipped any cool aid. I’ve seen some awful teachers in my field experience. Theres are lots of problems in schools and the unions may be part of them, but you can’t erase them without putting some other kinds of protections in place.
Edit: I cannot stress this enough. The only reason I would want to be part of a union is for union representation in court. I would like to have due process if I’m going to be fired, but I’d count that a luxury.
If some student wants to make a ridiculous claim about sexual misconduct I would be fucked forever without legal representation. Seems like their are very few jobs where you face that kind of responsiblity for such low pay.
If you want anecdotes, I got anecdotes.
[quote]Eli B wrote:
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]Eli B wrote:
See what kind of job applicants you get after you de-unionize with no additional protection for teachers.[/quote]
You get the fucking awesome teachers we have in the local private schools who do more in the classrooms with about 10-20% of the dollars per pupil than the local public schools and out perform by large margins.
For the record, several of my family members and my wife are/were public and private school teachers.
You sound like you’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid before you’ve even begun your career.
I sincerely wish you well.[/quote]
Well I’m a product of private schools and have taught in them as well. Its pretty easy when you get to pick the students. Teachers want to teach there and the kids for the most part want to be there and you can be damn sure theres going to be parental involvement when the parents are paying 15,000 a year (or easily more). None of those are assumptions you can make about the schools that need the most help/innovation
I haven’t sipped any cool aid. I’ve seen some awful teachers in my field experience. Theres are lots of problems in schools and the unions may be part of them, but you can’t erase them without putting some other kinds of protections in place.
Edit: I cannot stress this enough. The only reason I would want to be part of a union is for union representation in court. I would like to have due process if I’m going to be fired, but I’d count that a luxury.
If some student wants to make a ridiculous claim about sexual misconduct I would be fucked forever without legal representation. Seems like their are very few jobs where you face that kind of responsiblity for such low pay.
If you want anecdotes, I got anecdotes.
[/quote]
A little parental involvement goes a long way. And by the way Steely- you do realize that private school teachers aren’t required to have an education degree, so you can’t tell me that all private school teachers are awesome, the kids they get are awesome, just about any schlub can teach a kid who has opportunity, and whose parents are involved and pushing them to succeed.
The majority of the problem with the education system in America is that it relies on the parents to be parents, and them to take the responsibility to be engaged and knkow if their kid can’t read or add 4+4 when he’s 14 years old. A big secondary problem is that a large basis of funding is on test scores and graduation rates. My wife teaches 9th grade science and she routinely has kids that are functionally illiterate, don’t realize that P+V=kids, and has a story a week about how uninvolved parents are with their kids. Teachers are supposed to “teach” but if parents don’t reinforce the lesson, don’t follow up, you just end up with a repetitive cycle of ignorance, illiteracy and poverty. Kids get passed along when they haven’t been able to demonstrate that they have achieved because parents won’t let their child be held back and repeat a grade level (it might hurt Jr’s self esteem).
Having seen first hand the idiocy, abuse of power and mismanagement of administrators in several school districts(many family friends, mom and sister are all also in education), the unions actually protect teachers from some of this.
Tell me what happens without a teachers union in this situation: Kid inappropriately touches a teacher, files a report with the principal, and the principal says “I’m not sure what to do, would you feel comfortable approaching him about it?” Teacher doesn’t feel comfortable, so they speak with their union rep, and before further action is taken another situation occurs, teacher approaches the student with another teacher. Student reports being threatened by teachers to the principal. Principal approaches teacher with report and that lawsuit is a concern. Principal is then informed that the union rep has been notified, union rep meets with principal, before the principal has the student in his office, student gets in a fight with another student and is sent to juvie for assault, when he returns he is disciplined and relocated to another class per union rep recommendation.
Should the principal have done his job originally? Yes. Has the student learned appropriate/inappropriate boundaries at home- obviously not or he wouldn’t have assaulted the teacher or other student in the first place. Does this get effectively resolved without another party with the power to protect the teacher? I’m not sure how
[quote]Theface wrote:
A little parental involvement goes a long way.
[/quote]
Agree completely.
National scoring, graduation rates, etc would show you that this is a non-issue in that the numbers consistently outperform public schools. Homeschooling requires no degrees either-- also high success rates.
No argument here.
Yep, the system full of top heavy administration and unionized teachers who don’t teach but are protected by unions have failed those kids. Your wife will no doubt do what she can and pass them along as the others have.
Yep. Private schools often mandate parental involvement (ie. “in class time”). Some public schools encourage it, not doubt, but do not mandate it (that I’ve ever heard)-- I’ll give the benefit of the doubt.
I agree that public school administrations are top heavy, over financed on the admin side, and that no doubt there is some abuse as there are in all industries and job sectors. There are abuses on the teacher side of things, too, so effectively they cancel.
The union exists to perpetuate the union. Period.
Lawyers get involved. This sort of thing can happen anywhere. “Pro-Union” folks always, always go to this scenario. Frankly, it’s a weak argument. I can make pretend, too. Fact is, if ‘protection’ and collective bargaining were the only things the Union did, it would be much smaller, more effective, and wouldn’t effectively function as a Democrat Party PAC.
Lawyers/mediators like in every other industry/sector.
OP, apologies-- didn’t intend to derail your thread. Others, I’ve hashed this shit out before on these boards.
Feel free to take it here:
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]Theface wrote:
A little parental involvement goes a long way.
[/quote]
Agree completely.
National scoring, graduation rates, etc would show you that this is a non-issue in that the numbers consistently outperform public schools. Homeschooling requires no degrees either-- also high success rates.
No argument here.
Yep, the system full of top heavy administration and unionized teachers who don’t teach but are protected by unions have failed those kids. Your wife will no doubt do what she can and pass them along as the others have.
Yep. Private schools often mandate parental involvement (ie. “in class time”). Some public schools encourage it, not doubt, but do not mandate it (that I’ve ever heard)-- I’ll give the benefit of the doubt.
I agree that public school administrations are top heavy, over financed on the admin side, and that no doubt there is some abuse as there are in all industries and job sectors. There are abuses on the teacher side of things, too, so effectively they cancel.
The union exists to perpetuate the union. Period.
Lawyers get involved. This sort of thing can happen anywhere. “Pro-Union” folks always, always go to this scenario. Frankly, it’s a weak argument. I can make pretend, too. Fact is, if ‘protection’ and collective bargaining were the only things the Union did, it would be much smaller, more effective, and wouldn’t effectively function as a Democrat Party PAC.
Lawyers/mediators like in every other industry/sector.
OP, apologies-- didn’t intend to derail your thread. Others, I’ve hashed this shit out before on these boards.
Feel free to take it here:
Sorry not sure how to do the fancy in quote responding without turning it into a jumbled mess
Again, you’re missing the boat- When the parents are driving the ship, and pushing their kids to succeed, the credentials of the teacher don’t matter-any schlub can do it. Here’s a training analogy for you- Is it easier to get gains from an athlete who has had the opportunity to train, has a great support system like mom cooking healthy meals, dad working with them on basic drill work, and had the best access to coaching(good or poor), or is it easier to get gains from someone who is forced to be there, has no support system, goes home eats like crap, and doesn’t put forth effort. (Sorry I know you didn’t want to play pretend, but I’m trying to illustrate my point) The deck is stacked against the public school in terms of raw materials. The more affluent public school districts (in Ohio anyway) have grad rates and test scores on par with the private schools, because parents are engaged and involved.
Wow, thanks for attacking the wife, unfortunately the problem is that high school is when the failure starts, so she doesn’t “Pass them along,” they fail, repeat the class, and either push themselves and pass, or say school is dumb and end up dropping out. She has had several students 3 years straight, but that’s ok, stick to the widespread generalizations and base judgements, no worries.
That’s quite the solution, lawyers get involved, the innocent teacher foots the bill against a kid who hasn’t been taught that there are consequences for his actions. So instead, would you propose “harassment insurance” like malpractice insurance for this situation, leading to spending in another form? Not that you’ll believe me, but I’m not playing pretend, this was an actual situation a family member was involved in, but since we’re just going to end up playing the I’m right, you’re wrong game, I’ll just drop it.
Unions are sometimes a necessary evil, but in most industries they have outlived their purpose. I do disagree that they shouldn’t be politically involved, but then again we don’t want to go down the slippery slope of all that is wrong in campaign finance in America. In many situations the unions protect terrible teachers too much, I went to school with quite a few people who have no business in a classroom, but they’re doing so so they can coach, or even worse, they’re teaching because “It’s an easy job” and it’s “always going to be in demand”. These are the teachers who do not deserve to be protected by the unions, but still are. There are a TON of broken pieces to the education system, the Unions are way down the list though. Perhaps having more rigorous standards before one has the opportunity to teach is one way, but those in charge of hiring will still want to hire the football coach who has won state but teaches joke classes over the teacher who challenges the students and has a great track record in the classroom.
To OP- Engaging through technology is being investigated to a great degree throughout the states, and the different directions it is going is pretty amazing, so good luck.
“My girlfriend recently got her first teaching job, geometry at a high school in California. Yesterday the principal called her into her office to tell her she will be dismissed at the end of the year, and her record will reflect that she was not recommended for another year of employment, unless she signs a letter of resignation. The principal refused to explain why she’s being fired despite my GF’s repeated pleas for any explanation. She signed the form. Later she found out the HS is laying off all 1st-year teachers, and that because she ‘resigned’ she will not be eligible for unemployment claims. She still prefers this to having a boss that will tell future employers she was ‘not recommended’ without further explanation, but I think my GF is entitled to a record that reflects that she was laid off, not fired or resigned. Any advice?”
Yeah buddy. Call the union lawyer.
There is a difference in a Union as in the Teamsters and what we have in Texas. We do not have Unions in Texas in the traditional meaning. We as teachers can join an organization of teachers. We pay a yearly fee and are offered benefits that a typical Union would offer. They lobby, provide legal help, etc. they represent us. Much different than what is going on in Wisconsin.
[quote]BlackLabel wrote:
Wolves. Entire packs of them, it will keep schools from becoming over-crowded, thus saving money.[/quote]
I agree.