Working my ass off, and still getting the blame...
Two vastly different newspapers have recently blamed me for the problems in education. I am too greedy, too selfish and out for all I can get. I am apparently, not at all interested in teaching children and ensuring that all of my students succeed. I am, instead, interested in getting all the grant money I can grab and avoiding effective parent communication.
A large district in the area where I live and teach eliminated their parent/teacher conference days this week. The two days, traditionally held this week before the Thanksgiving holiday, were part of the 5 day cut the district and school board decided on as part of one-year budget cuts. This 5 day cut was accompanied by a salary reduction to the teachers. Teachers were no longer getting paid for holding the conferences, nor would participate in staff-development days. These cuts were made, after much debate, by the school board. The collective bargaining unit the teachers belong to in this district (it is not, technically, a 'union') agreed to these budget cuts - and others - on the stipulation these were one-year only cuts, and had to be reinstated after this school year.
Teachers were instructed, as these cuts reflected in their salary, to only hold conferences for students who were in danger of being retained or not receiving credit for a class. At the elementary level, where parent/teacher conferences had always been a good way to have a brief face-to-face discussion with parents about all the students, was now just a notification process for students who were 'at risk'.
This change in policy angered parents when they realized the teachers were not meeting with them. It was reported in the local paper as a refusal by the teachers to meet with parents. The article includes an interview the union president, but ends on a decidedly negative statement by a parent, who accuses the teachers of 'strong-arming' the district. The article clearly presents it as if teachers just can't make the time with all the other things they have to do, and they are meeting with students who are at risk of failure isn't fair to those students who are doing well.
Teachers have had to take on more and get compensated less. Teachers not meeting with parents has nothing to do with not wanting to make time to meet with all the parents, but is completely because that time was taken away from teachers. The school board made the decision that this wasn't a priority, not the teachers. The reason that the district had paid the teachers those two days in the past is because it made meeting with parents possible.
Out side of the local area, far away in New York City, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial about an announcement by the Ford Foundation's announcement that they would grant money to improve achievement at low-performing secondary schools. The editorial, which is critical of Ford's lack of funding to programs like Teach for America and charter schools, says Ford is giving money to those greedy teacher's unions. If you do a google search on this article, it is listed as "Ford Gives Money to Teachers Unions". While it is true that one recipient of an early grant was the AFT, one of the two teachers unions, several other groups received money and will receive money under Ford's giving program.
So what is wrong with funding research and reform done by a teachers union? Teachers are at the front line of education. We are the ones responsible for teaching the state and federal standards to our students. Who better to participate in education reform than those people who are actually practitioners? Everyone involved in educating children should be involved in reform, including teachers, community members, and educational research institutions. The people who should not be involved are those who are profit motivated.
Teachers unions are teachers. They are made up of teachers who are working in the best interest of children, and who have found the need for support and the collective strength of the group. The AFT has traditionally fought for education reforms and civil rights. They have also protected teachers from discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation.
I don't know a single teacher who wanted to teach because it was a great way to make money. I don't know any one whose interest isn't motivated by student success. Every teacher I know wants to do whatever he or she can to ensure that every child in their classroom succeeds. Every teacher I know wants to communicate with parents, both the good and the bad. Every teacher I know wants to teach in an environment with the best education policy and curriculum, based on sound, thoughtful research. Teachers want thoughtful reforms.
And I, for one, am tired of being demonized, either alone or as a union member. As a teacher, I am blamed for systemic failures including low test scores and the lack of resources, as well as accusations of being greedy and selfish.
I give my all to my students, and I resent the implication that I do not, either collectively with my union, or as I send an email instead of meet with a parent face to face. I, as a teacher, do not have the power. I am along for the ride with the kids. I am not the bad guy here. It is time to find someone else to blame.
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I am sick to death of all of the outrage directed at teacher unions, and you explain beautifully here why that outrage is so misdirected.
As a staff member of a local NEA affiliate, I have some understanding of what you have to deal with on the front lines, and I'm glad to be working for an organization that puts the welfare of teachers first and foremost.
Teachers unions are teachers. And teachers want their students to succeed. That needs to be repeated. Although staff assist in carrying out the goals of the organization, those goals are determined by the membership of the organization. I don't know why some people have such a hard time understanding that.
I also don't know why people don't seem to have a problem with firefighters or police officers being union members. But teachers? Heaven forbid!
To the union leadership to play politics for one party while practicing history revision and textbook indoctrination.
It is incredible the short memory of you libs and teachers. For eight years you demonized a president even worse than the Republican party you've been bashing since 1980 and Reagan. We won't even get into Nixon.
If you look at the money spent on education in this country it is unbelievable what we get in return.
Your blind rejection of arguments that expose unions motivation, and then your finding blame with the school board is defending the indefensible.
Like every other union, the teaches unions are an embarrassment, prohibit progress and an affront to learning in general. Like any successful system, our education system should be completely results and merit based.
Even if this one incident could be argued in your favor, it's a straw man compared to what unions stand for.
I have a friend who is a principal in a hispanic area of Chicago. Getting students to school is a challenge, let alone listening to the gun shots from the neighborhood all day long. Many of her student's parents are drug addicts or dealers. How can anyone begrudge anyone willing to teach under these conditions?
When student teaching in a kindergarten class, the teacher told me there this class had experienced a lot of violence that year. Stupid me! I thought they were beating each other up on the playground. I could not have been more wrong. At least ten students out of 23 had actually witnessed a parent either getting beat or shot to death that year. And this was in Peoria, Illinois! I can't imagine what it must be like to teach in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.
Then there was teaching in the "good" neighborhoods, where both parents worked and lived in upper middle class homes. Frankly, those kids were the mouthiest, most disrespectful of all. Children from low income homes were bussed into this neighborhood. Some came without coats and were provided by the principal. Then, there were the rich parents who would call to complain that Julie's orange juice was frozen at lunch the day before and why couldn't we figure out how to keep the refrigerator at the proper temperature.
People expect teachers to fix all of societies ills. It's not going to happen. I did not get my education degree until I was in my 40s. I taught for one year and decided it wasn't worth it. How many others have left teaching to go on to better paying jobs where they are treated with respect? I know I did.
Teaching someone a test is not education. You can teach a chimp sign for what he wants. You can teach a dog to come when he hears a whistle, but that's not education.
The problem with "completely results and merit based" is that teachers have no control over the raw materials - the students - they must use.
Allow teachers to choose their students and you can guarantee success.
But fill a class with students who don't speak English, students with very special needs, students without any school supplies - ever - students with one parent in jail, more than half of students on the free or reduced lunch program, toss in a couple of quiet average students and a few spirited gifted, oh, and don't forget the behavior problems. The soon-to-be felons?
And make the class sizes larger. And reduce funding for the special programs like after school tutoring so the school can manage No Child Left Behind issues.
And don't forget the parents who protest every time a teacher disciplines or gives a child a low grade, and the spineless administrator who easily caves.
It's never as simple as merit based. Even the highest skilled teacher cannot reach every child.
Good teachers do have it really rough. I know a great teacher who teaches in a really difficult area. The kids come to school tired, hungry and have real problems. She once said to me "No matter how much I give them, it will never be enough"
It's a complicated problem - property taxes (school taxes) are sky high and everyone is getting squeezed. I think we need thoughful dialogue and you are right - outrage directed at teachers and teachers unions is misplaced.
A politician can blame a teacher and only lose one vote. If the parents are blamed they lose 60 votes.
There are less than adequate teachers. I know because I sat in their classes once upon a time.
But the main cause of poor results is bad parenting.
Knee jerk ideologues always blame unions, so nobody here mentioning unions said anything worthy of attention.
We, the teachers, can't control a lot of things we are held responsible for, and a lot of these fiats handed down from lawmakers and school boards (No Child Left Behind is a prime example) just make our job harder and, more importantly, make it more difficult for students to learn.
If teachers could just teach, and not have to play parent, cop, therapist, nurse, etc., we would find the system functioning infinitely better. As it is, we don't put enough pressure on some people (parents, for example, how can you NOT know/care when report card day is?) to uphold the social contract, and too much pressure on teachers.
No teacher is a miracle worker. We are not wizards. We are not magicians. I can teach my heart out, I can care for my students and support them, but I cannot feed and house them (I can barely afford to feed myself with these pay cuts), I cannot make up for 15 years damaged years of childhood spent in front of a TV, I cannot reverse the damage wrought by growing up in a culture that does not value education (I'm in Georgia); all I can do is present myself and other educated people as role models.
That having been said, I have seen my share of bad teachers, and I am sensitive to the criticisms of blind support for teachers' union positions. I think it's foolish to dismiss the thoughtful suggestions for reform that come from myriad places, whether the Gates Foundation or the Ford Foundation or even from think tanks. It's true that the results are dismal in many districts, that something's just not working. While I agree with whoever said that most of those issues stem from societal ills that a classroom teacher is not equipped to solve, and while I think that the way we measure success is severely reductive in the form of standardized testing, I don't think it's automatically wrong to question some of the priorities of the teachers' unions, one of which I belong to.
You say this: Every teacher I know wants to communicate with parents, both the good and the bad.
I could not make the same statement. I know way too many teachers who are not interested in parental input. One I worked with last year, as a matter of fact, said baldly that the only kind of parental input she wants is the kind that has a parent confirming her own assessment and then punishing the child more at home. She was reacting to a parent who wanted more information about an incident at school in which her child was involved. (Yes, I know that many parents automatically take their child's version of things without considering anything else. Of course I'm not talking about that).
Here's what I think needs to happen: (1) Teachers' pay needs to increase dramatically, to the level of the best paid professions out there. That will have the effect of enticing the cream of the college crop to getting into education. Before you become offended at that, please know that I think many, many teachers--including myself--are excellent. But it's a fact that the colleges of education in the country accept the lowest performing high school students on every measure as compared to the other academic colleges. (I think the data come from the early 2000's so the situation might be improving since then. Anecdotally, I would guess it is).
(2) Class size should be reduced dramatically. I'm talking about no more than 10 students per classroom.
(3) Standardized testing should be de-emphasized. Other means, which include a combination of qualitative and quantitative measurements, should be created and put into place.
As for the particular issue you're facing in CA, I think it's silly to put so much stock in those formal conference days. Good teachers meet with students and parents whenever problems arise, and good parents call or email teachers when they see a problem at their end. As for the students with no particular issues, I have never met a teacher who did not relish a chat or email from a kind parent who just wanted to touch base. Sure, there are times when a parent inconveniently wants to do so (I missed many lunches last year--my precious 25 minutes alone--because that was the moment a parent came in just to chat), but mostly it can be arranged.
Thanks for this important post, and keep up the good work. I agree wholeheartedly with the major message of your post--that teachers work enormously hard for very little credit or pay. I think hard on this stuff, more than you can imagine, and feel that the system itself is cracked in permanent ways. The teachers are often the first line of blame.
Amen.
Lainey, I think that's a good point, and I don't think it's automatically wrong either. As long as it's the teachers who are doing it. From what I can see, most of the outrage directed at teachers' unions is coming from people who are not teachers, and who probably wouldn't surive one day in an actual classroom.
After 8 years, I quit. Luckily, I taught long enough to be eligible for retired teachers health insurance (I have to pay $400 a month for it but at least I'm eligible) and I will be paying back school loans until the day I die. What I'm doing for income now is an entirely different issue.
So true. I remember the very first day I taught in an urban kindergarten (after more than a decade teaching English at a community college). At some point--after shenanigans I couldn't begin to describe well here--I stood there and thought about which people I knew who would stay here and continue teaching here. This was not an abstract interior conversation; I actually stood there and tried to think of any of my friends who would not only not quit after this day but who would not actually walk out before the day was over. I specifically thought about and rejected my psychologist, court reporter, engineer, and lawyer neighbors. I really never came up with anyone.
And we wonder why the Asian countries routinely kick our asses in all sorts of measures of educational success.
Hats off to you as a teacher. I appreciate you and your colleagues every day of my life. I have a special needs kid... I'm on email with his middle school teachers every day. I bust my butt to keep up with all of his assignments, make sure he is turning things in, make sure he is meeting everything he should be, and sometimes it's still not enough. I know how hard I'm working and his teachers are working.... and how hard he's working. I can't imagine what it must be like for kids whose parents are checked out, or don't speak English, or are working three jobs just to keep everyone fed.
I think the teacher bashing goes hand-in-hand with general parent-bashing (see the article on Big Salon about "Stroller Nazis"). There are a vast swath of people, whom I assume sprang from the earth as fully fledged adults and were never children themselves, who think children in any form are an expensive hobby. We're "breeders." Having children is akin to taking up scuba diving or helicopter skiing. Any tax money (and that includes all forms of education) spent on children is a waste. Any social programs that benefit families and children is stealing money from those said hardworking Americans. Who were never actually children themselves. And if they were, I assume their parents paid full price for private educations, never needing a dime of public money in any form.
Somehow society has disconnected from itself. Those same people who consider parents as "breeders" have lost sight that those annoying expensive rugrats will be their surgeons, their caregivers, their roofers, their accountants, their attorneys, and their Wal-Mart clerks. When they're old enough to need care and help from the next generation, who is going to be doing it? I hope someone with an education.
The reason education colleges now have to take some of the lowest performing students to fill their rolls is because of supply and demand. College-educated women now have career options beyond nurse and schoolteacher. Back in the day when nearly all your female students were going to be competing for jobs in only two different fields, the colleges of nursing and education had their picks of the best and the brightest and didn't have to worry about the paltry salary turning them off.
Schooling to become an R.N. is still pretty competitive and difficult and continues to attract a lot of bright girls (and now more and more, boys) because in addition to the personal fulfillment that comes from helping the sick, R.N.s now make pretty decent money. But a bright student who has the choice between making $50,000 a year as a chemist or $30,000 a year teaching high-school chemistry and taking daily abuse from students, parents, and administrators...you can't really blame him or her for NOT going into teaching.
I also know of very few teachers that don't spend out of their own pocket. However, they can deduct $250 off their taxes (without itemizing, more if they do itemize).
I am sure there are lots of systems with teachers making much less than the average pay for the area, but when you factor in 180 days off even a salary of 35,000 does not seem that bad.
80% of 12th grade students failing part or all of the 9th grade proficiency test for the above mentioned school and people are hard pressed to give more money to the system that seems to be failing at its job. Granted this is in my local school, but state wide even the best school system in the state has a 30% failure rate.
You sound like a great teacher who really cares about your students and your profession, but if you are to look at the decline in education that would mean statistically there are a lot of teachers who are not worth what they are being paid now.
Maybe one solution is merit raises based on performance. Those who do their job well would receive higher pay. Those who are just floating to retirement would be replaced. It is what most professionals face in the workplace. I would think the true educational professionals would want to separate themselves from the dead weight before they pull all of you down and destroy the idea of public school.
I understand that a large portion of parents are not as engaged for whatever the reasons good or bad so that ensuring at least one formal parent-teacher engagement occurs seems rationale but maybe there should be a bigger effort to ensure parents engage and get involved more frequently- not to just complain and rail against teachers- but to find ways to work with them in supporting the best academic experience possible. Every school is different and is often a reflection of the community it supports but my kids have been to both private and public schools and I can say with certainty that where real partnerships exist among teachers, parents and kids, really great results are possible.
We who post here can likely commiserate and demonstrate like mindedness and yet the problems we describe have persisted for years and never seem to change. How can our voices here translate into change and driving towards a desired future state? How do we make academics a priority in US at the federal and state level?
How can we de-invest (versus ensuring entitlement) from students and families within certain communiites that treat schools like a free camp to send their kids off to each day so its 6+ hours of not having to be responsible for them or take interest in doing the work needed for them to succeed? Why does this burden have to fall upon the school only? Even dramatically reduced school budgets might actually address the need for more PE, Fine Arts, field trips, better meal plans etc, if we could reduce the head count of students (and parents) to only those that really want to be there. One of the best ideas ever in CA, was to insist upon students passing exit exams to graduate. The fact that it turned into an issue of discrimination still baffles me- this was clearly not the intent, but it exposed where I think the root cause of weakness is, which is in the communities with students who had difficulty passing the test. If we look back at the history of these students -what exactly does there academic track record look like? How far back do we have to look before we find where the student begins to fall off in academic performance. English and math skills are accumulative. If the exit exams become impassable- the issue is not the exam, the issue is why is the student ill-equpped to pass it? Is it pedagogy? Or is it rooted in deeper issues related to family of origin influences? We never seem to find the press diving too deeply into this topic when it comes to assessing education problems in the country.
Public school can remain an entitlement to the US citizenry but some very practical criteria should be in place to secure it- we can't continue to simply guarantee it. If a kid is known to affiliate with a gang, he should not be allowed in school, period. If trunancy persists, you can't attend the school. If you are a student that habitually disrupts class time, you should not be there. These are all behavioral based issues that must be addressed by the community from which it emerges, not by the school.
We also have the stats to tell us which students by 6th or 7th grade are college bound (at all levels from community and jr college to 4 yr univ) and those which would be better served by entering into a vocational and technical skills education program.
Should we not learn how to teach different students differently?
1) If class sizes were reduced by that much (to ten or less), it would ruin our system. We aren't producing enough mediocre teachers (much less good ones) to do that. I'd rather have my kid in a class with 30 other students with a good teacher, than with 9 other students with a bad one.
2) There are no practical replacements for standardized tests. If I were education czar, I wouldn't eliminate them, I would just make it illegal to specifically prepare for them.
Stellaa,
The union is part of the reason we can't step out of the outdated model.
All,
Part of the problems with unions is that they foster the us vs. them mentality of worker (teacher) vs. boss (principals). My wife is an assistant principal. Her principal is trying to get rid of two teachers (with tenure), one for inappropriate behavior towards students, the other for incompetence. The administration at the school is being frozen out by the teachers for doing this, despite the fact that the same teachers were complaining about the two teachers and wondering why nothing was being done about them. Education of our children is too important to make this an us vs. them thing. Teachers need to band together with principals to get rid of bad teachers, not band against the principals for doing their jobs.
Leandra,
You are exactly right. Part of our problem is that teachers are not given respect. IMHO, being union members doesn't help.
Thank you for your blog. More such concern should be voiced by teachers. You are on the front line, but you need to get your voices heard on how to improve education, and not simply reacting to suggested changes that threaten the status quo.
I know of one superior teacher who is retiring because she is exhausted from the paper work that saps her time at the sacrifice of actually focusing on her students and teaching them. I have seen the best and brightest of our teaching force leave public schools because they have to teach the test answers, not teach real content and thought process. I have been told by college professors that by and large, he finds that those students who are education majors are the least intelligent of all his students.
Yours is a singular voice in the wilderness. There is a reason. Address it within your profession and your union.
That said, the entire concept of going to school is so ridiculously backwards, that in fact there is no answer for public schooling.
First, schools exist to perpetuate our economy/evil empire, NOT to help people learn or become "successful". Schools keep kids off the job market (where they were for 100's of years) and make sure they spend their parent's money (teens are the number one supporter of worthless but giant enterprises like movie tickets and Nike apparel).
Second, many of you have referenced grades or performance standards to evaluate schools. These are entirely worthless. By those measures we will NEVER have good students regardless of how much money we spend. That is because the kids have no use for the "knowledge" those evaluations record.
Look, kids effortlessly learn things they have use for (their native languages, cultural rituals, words to their favorite songs). The purpose of schools is to teach kids things they have NO use for (chemistry, math, etc.)...which they forget anyways if it does not become a part of their "career". The kids who have uses for mathematics (like myself) will learn regardless of the school system (in fact, I would argue that every interesting/important thing about Math I learned was on my own). The kids that have no use for it won't...you can't force people into your own definition of success, and your own definition of "what's important"!
Schools rigidly force people to accept "our" goals for them. We don't teach kids about our government installing a dictator in Chile...but we whine when they can't pass a multiple choice test about some "government approved" fact! We feed kids pop and pizza at lunch, and tell them success means certificates and going to the bank every Friday. What a joke!
Most of our solutions for schools are all Utopian: if we only spent more money, if the students were only motivated, if people only TRIED HARDER AND WERE BETTER, THEN the system will work. All of these solutions ignore the basic reasons we send kids to school in the first place: to perpetuate our American lifestyle.
Regards,
-David Logan
The loss of credibility occurred 40 yrs ago, not today, when teachers went on strike like factory workers. I'm a former teacher (5 yrs high school, 3 yrs middle school). I was a union member (primarily for liability insurance). However, I could see that union membership just hurt us with the public, and that the NEA backing primarily left wing politics (unrelated to eduation) was the primary reason for that. The NEA should stick to advocating for education for the best for the student (not just the teacher and not just to advocate for every other issue out there).
Teaching is the most important, most difficult, and most under-appreciated profession!
You are theoretically correct about knowledge. However, in practice, we have to force some unnecessary knowledge into kids' heads, because 1) there are developmental issues (if you don't learn languages, computation or reading by a certain age, it is next to impossible to learn them, even if they are optional at the time; and 2) the future can't be predicted (some of what kids "think" is unnecessary information will be necessary to them).
People are fed up with paying higher taxes to support their wages and their ridiculous pension plans.
My family is a family of public educators going back 4 generations; my father was the president of the NEA in our state. In spite of the fact that they sup on the teat of everyone in the community and nation, the unions continue to regurgitate an endless steam of toxic bile that is becoming increasingly revolting to the general population.
Teacher's unions refuse to include unbelievably rich healthcare benefits, income-guarantee pensions unlike any found in today's corporate marketplace, reduced workdays via 'prep' hours (move outside of the assembly-line jobs and most jobs include significant work from home that is uncompensated), or any of a string of disproportionate benefits that tip the scales; you will only hear them cite and complain about bottom-line wages. Funny thing is, even when you simply compare wages teachers make out above average in many states. Our Fortune-500 company (where the benefits can't begin to compare to those most educators enjoy - lifetime pension after 20 years - HA!) hires chemists and other scientists across the nation. Scientists starting with a 4-year degree start around $26,000-$32,000; Master's degree scientists will start under $45,000 and will fully fund their own retirement with their own contributions via a 401(k) plan, if they hope to retire at all, and it will take a lot longer than 20 - 30 years.
Career opportunities abound - we enjoy a relatively free marketplace when it comes to jobs. If you don't like your 6-period, 8:30 - 3:30 schedule with the perks and benefits and want to complain about students, the system, the school board and whatever else your heart desires, quit and find another job. Stop hoping the world will come to its senses and realize public teachers really are indispensable and we should willingly surrender to whatever terms the educator unions demand.
2) There are no practical replacements for standardized tests. If I were education czar, I wouldn't eliminate them, I would just make it illegal to specifically prepare for them.
1. I agree with you that I'd rather have a good teacher with more students, but of course I gave you my druthers, which includes a desire for many more excellent teachers. All of which is much more likely to come about if dramatically more money and status poured into the profession. All of my ideas, in fact, involve pouring money into education. It's a question of priorities, and we can afford this as much as we can afford anything else (wars, etc.).
I'd like to challenge your thinking about the 180 days off for teachers. Although I disagree with the sentiment behind your remark, that teachers do far less--even half--the work of other professionals, I'll set that aside for the sake of argument. I think teachers should be paid more for their value to society. It's not about how much work they do, it's about how thoroughly they shape future generations. You and I are free marketeers. Recognize that, regardless of hours or work, if we dramatically increased pay, the brightest minds--those currently managing hedge funds or building bridges or practicing law--would instead be attempting to solve these complex problems associated with poverty and education. It's simple economics. The more conservatives bemoan how little the current teachers deserve good pay, the more they undermine their own desire, in the big picture, for a thriving, successful, intellectual population of youth. Many of my friends can't leap the hurdle of paying incompetent teachers more money than they deserve. I tell them they need to get over it; they need to overpay the current bad apples as an investment in the future. It's just a good business decision.
2. I wouldn't get rid of standardized testing either. I just would emphasize it so much, make it so high stakes. That's what drives teachers to teach to the test. As for outlawing teaching to the test? That made me laugh out loud. You'd have to define the expression and enforcement would be a nightmare. Not to mention, many conservatives consider "teaching to the test" good educational practice to begin with. They just don't get that education should be about promoting critical thinking, not inserting facts.
As I mentioned, I think a new schematic should be created, one which incorporates both qualitative and quantitative information. I'm talking about performance on some standardized tests, but I'm also talking about administrator assessments, parent and student satisfaction, etc. It's complicated and it would not please everyone, but it's a start. A Univ. of Tennessee statistician created a program about ten years ago--used extensively by several states now, including Ohio--that tracks a student's progress independent of outside factors. Ohio calls it "value-added" and it measures how much academic influence a particular teacher has had on a student (rather than assessing, for example, which grade level a student performs at). That eliminates teachers being blamed for starting out with a student grossly below grade level. But it also allows teachers to be held accountable for not bringing a student forward at least a year. I think it's a good start but it's still too reliant on the standardized testing. There's no component in there to consider that a student's father was jailed that year or mother died of cancer. If we took that particular program and added some qualitative criteria, we would be on to something. As always, interpretation of such data is time consuming and dependent on excellent professionals in the human resources end. That's a place being cut back everywhere. It's always easier to find a test to measure something rather than have a thoughtful and thorough examination by another qualified human being.
I would just NOT emphasize it so much...
Contrary to what you have presented, health benefits are not included in my salary package. If I want health care, I need to pay for it out of pocket - I could purchase it through my school district employer, but I do not.
My retirement plan is a defined benefit plan that I pay into in lieu of paying into social security. I do not pay social security, I pay into a state system (along with all state employees) instead. My 'pension plan' isn't a benefit beyond that. I have to supplement this with a 403(b) (like a 401(k)) in order to prepare for my retirement.
And my job is not babysitting. Prep time is not 'reduced work day' but allowing time in my workday for me to be able to prepare for educating children. "Prep" stands for preparation. It is the time that is required to prepare lessons in order to teach.
I am in my sixteenth year of teaching high school. We had parent/teacher conferences in early October and again last Monday. I see 62 students each day. In October, I saw at least one parent for 18 of those students. Last week, I saw parents for 20 of them. For the second conferences, 16 of the 20 were among the 18 that showed up the first time. And I teach in a parochial school in a small Midwestern city with parents who are theoretically responsible and involved.
We were here. We make the time--four hours between 4 and 8 p.m. that are all overtime we are not compensated at all for (we get a "comp day" in March--8 hours off to make up for 16 hours of conferences for the year). And barely any parents bother to show up. Then they constantly complain to the principal that we do not communicate well enough or often enough with them--one group of five moms has proposed that teachers be required to call a parent and explain any time a student gets a grade below B on a single assignment. Of those five mothers, only two showed up for parent/teacher conferences.
So...it seems to me that our profession can never actually win.
I'm confused about your 180 days off comment to me. I never mentioned anything about vacation time, etc. I know teachers work 190 day school days per year on contract (which doesn't include weekend work that they all have to do at times), and I don't begrudge them their pay. I know teachers aren't being paid for their summer vacations (they are living off of money that the district takes out each month to pay them during the summer). For their degrees, teachers are being paid as if they are 5/6 of a worker. For their time spent on contract, that's about right.
I haven't seen reducing class sizes doing much other than allowing unqualified teachers into the classroom and stretching school budgets thin. We have mandatory class size reduction in FL, and IMHO, it has done no good. We had an influx of a lot of uncertified teachers in classrooms, half of whom are miserable teachers and were just taking up space. Thank God for the recession, which is attracting better people to teaching.
In terms of teaching to the test, my definition of it is teaching by way of worksheets and handouts that resemble test materials (in FL, they call it FCAT review material). Of course the content on the test should be taught, I just think it should be taught by good teaching methods such as hands-on, project-based and/or cooperative learning, rather than repetitious worksheets.
My contracted work day is 7:45 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. I get a 24 minute lunch and no break time. Our students attend from 8 to 3:20. I teach six 45 minute periods and have students in the room to supervise for an additional 30 minute study/activity period (some go to things such as student council meetings and tutoring at that time). I have two 45 minute prep periods. During that time, I work with my department on our subject area assessment, plan lessons and prepare materials for the five different courses I teach, and often am called on to substitute teach for an absent colleague. On a typical day, I arrive in the building around 7:30 and leave after 4 p.m. When there are students in the room, I am not, by state law, allowed to leave the room for any reason without getting another adult to come in. This means, in practice, that I am not allowed to go to the bathroom from 8 a.m. to noon on an average day.
We get days off around major holidays. Those are nice. However, we are only allowed two days off for any reason aside from illness for the rest of the year. This includes things like funerals, weddings and family events. It is not uncommon for us to have to miss these sorts of occasions. I am required to attend our graduation ceremony each year, on a weekend. If I have a family member graduating someplace else at the same time, I can only be excused if it is an immediate relative such as my own child or a sibling. Two dear friends missed my wedding because they are teachers whose school year had not ended yet (mine had) and their districts both do not allow teachers to take personal days for weddings if they are not immediate family members (siblings or children).
And, now, having used my paltry lunch time, I have to go sub for a colleague.
For a good teacher (like I think you are), prep-time is work-time. For a bad teacher, prep-time is break-time.
When you look at teacher contact time vs. planning time, U.S. teachers have the least planning time per hour of contact time with students. IMHO, that is part of our problem. U.S. teachers don't have the time to plan adequately, because somehow in teaching, planning time is viewed as a break. (one example of this, German teachers work 8 hr days, but students are only present for 5 hrs of those days--they generally get out of school around 12 or 1. The rest of the time is spent planning and grading).
The personal leave rules you describe differ district by district (or state by state). My wife works in a system that allows 6 personal days (and they use that as a recruitment tool) out of their 10 sick days a year to be used for any reason. The only restriction being that less than 10% of staff can be absent due to personal leave on any day (prevents mass substitute teachers on days before holidays).
If you teach only 62 kids a day, unless you are teaching on the block schedule, you are extremely lucky. I never taught high school with less than 100 kids a day (and as a science teacher, I was limited to 28 students per class at most. Other subjects had up to 32 students)
You (along with probably every other teacher adding to this discussion) and I disagree on the value of uncertified teachers. I am one of those people who think that teachers should train more in the content areas rather than in education courses. I think it's ridiculous that someone with a PhD in history (just to give an example) isn't qualified to teach 6th grade social studies. Please don't anybody come at me with the old saw that someone can be brilliant in their subject but horrible at teaching it. Of course that's true. But taking education courses doesn't change that. Being an excellent teacher is in the blood. It's a personality. Getting a license doesn't magically turn someone into a good teacher. I realize I'm in the minority on this one, of course.
That was M Todd who said that "For 180 days of work, their pay isn't bad." I said that they are being paid for 5/6 of a year work, which is what they do (and what I did for years). Teachers get paid about 5/6 of what the "average" worker with a certain degree make. They work about 5/6 of a year. That's about right. Personally, I think teachers should have longer work years with better pay.
First, if it's a choice between knowledge of content and of pedagogy, I side with content (although some of the worst teachers I've ever had had Ph.D.s in the subject they taught). If I were ed. czar, I'd require a Bachelor's degree in content area and a Master's in education of all high school/middle school teacher. The thing is, though, teachers need both content knowledge and knowledge of pedagogy. One without the other is useless. My wife works in a system that hired a lot of uncertified folks before the recession. Most of them turn out bad--either they are incompetent or they get tired of the B.S. in the system. They rarely last 2 yrs.
it may be that teacher unions sometimes look out for their members, why should they be any different? but they are more sinned against, as some of these responses make clear.
in a society where many children don't get to eat regularly, complaining about teacher performance is either hypocrisy or psychosis.
The demise of the public education system is mainly the fault of the education system. For most of this decade they have had almost a lock on the education of this nation's children.
There are several other factors. One as the adult population ages they do not fund local tax levies. That is a shame because when their children were in school retired people paid their share of taxes. But, even if the schools received double the money, I doubt there would be any real increase in the level of education for K-12. The same people running things now will not magically get better.
I attended public school 35 years ago. I would say the ratio of good to bad teaches was about 4 good vs. 1 bad. My children never went to public school so I have no idea what the ratio is now.
Teachers are part of the blame, just like everyone else in the system. I do agree that they have less of the blame than a lot of others, but they are part of it. The main problem, IMHO, is that we have a culture of blaming others for our own shortcomings. Teachers, as they are employees, are the easiest ones to blame.
low-performing schools tend to have the least-qualified, lowest-paid (in our system, this equals least-experienced) teachers with the highest turnover. You may not have been around when Latino parents in San Jose had to file a class action suit and fight for it for 20 years to get San Jose Unified desegregated. All the funding for books, labs, instruments, and experienced teachers had been going to schools in the white south rather than the neighborhood schools in Latino, African American, and Asian neighborhoods in the downtown areas. That's your history; generations of families not served here!
I'm sure it's very frustrating, but it would be a good idea to inform yourself about the long-time struggles of people of color and poor people to obtain a decent education. Also, please struggle with your prejudices about poor and working people. Just because they are struggling does not mean that they do not care about education as much as you do. You may not remember the recent statewide class action suit filed by students and families in Los Angeles to get the state of California to clean up dilapidated schools that had leaking buildings and rats. Please inform yourself before allowing your prejudices to jump to all sorts of conclusions and solutions to deny a quality education to all American children.
The whole part about rough schools having problems keeping teachers is a double-edged sword. On one hand, rough schools have a hard time attracting good teacher. On the other hand, rough schools also require good teachers, due to the rough conditions.
Even in good schools, parental involvement (for both good and bad reasons) decreases with the age of the child. I've watched it in the lives of my sons--who are now in 4th and 5th grades. For a first grade field trip, if a parent didn't sign up to be a chaperone on the first day after the trip form was given out, all the spots would be taken. By the 5th grade, the teachers are begging for parents to show. Some of this is burnout, which is bad. SOme of this is natural, as children grow, they need and want less parental supervision.
In terms of children and future careers, the idea of a European style system where kids are tracked in about the 8th grade into either vo-tech or college bound sounds good (and is logically very good), it won't fly in America. We like the idea of kids being able to change tracks at the last minute. We also don't like the idea of different classes of people.
You need help, dude. I'm serious.
For the complainers here are some sources of real news: democracynow.org, indymedia.org, even pbs.org. I'm sure any of these fine organizations would be more than willing to hear your story, MsThirteen. Stop expecting corporate media to give a damn or be fair. It's a childish fairytale.
You must not be a teacher or have young children. All of those conditions that impact learning, which used to be in every classroom, are now evaluated and considered while establishing curriculum. While many problems such as classroom sizes exist, those problems would all go away if there was a free market voucher system were in place which allowed parental choice and incentivised performance for schools. Parents wouldn't be forced to continue to pay for schools that don't work, comply with regulations that don't consider their childrens needs, and support teachers who aren't represented by unions that have a political agenda.
A voucher system would pay qualified teachers more, and a results and merit based pay system is the only way to guarantee continued progress, advancement and filtering of the education system.
Bust every union in the country now. Regulate safety and health issues only. Allow the market to define itself. That's freedom.
Most Asian cultures put a premium on education and the respect you experienced was obviously an example from good parents to their children, but one that has been largely lost in the U.S. We now expect too much from our teachers and no amount of money or any union policy will fix it.
Our civility was lost when we allowed third world ideologies a place at the cultural table. All "men" are created equal, but not all cultures are equal. America should hang her head in shame.
As P.J. stated, the lack of parental involvement almost always is at the core of a school district's problems. Parents find it too easy to blame the "baby sitter." And those whose kids have gone on to college are the first to complain about high taxes that support education, seizing every possible moment to cut the budget.
California is a petry dish for this kind of thinking. Indeed, it's ironic that a state with such a lauded state-supported university system can have such a disastrous public-school system.
I fear demographics is a force that weighs in against teaching over time. As our population in this country ages on average, the cry will grow louder to cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes. Anyone, such as teacher, that is perceived as a cost center is doomed to have a bull's eye painted on his/her forehead.
I cheer my daughter, an elementary ed major, on; but I will whisper ever louder in her ear to have a backup plan.