Teaching/education In The Us

[TrueFX 0]

Why does everyone think paying teachers more will fix the problem ?! Teachers already make a minimum of 30K a year to start. Sure, that isn't as much as a doctor or executive, but it is a starting salary. Teachers are GUARANTEED raises every year regardless of skill level. Teachers can not get fired. Teachers also get 3 months of paid vacation PLUS all school holidays off. Now on top of that, they also do not work 8 hours a day anymore in most places. More and more schools are changing over to the block schedule with 4 two hour classes per day, and one of those blocks is spent in the Teachers Lounge. So in essence, teachers are paid their salary for 180 - 6 hour work days. I know, I know, they have to grade papers and all kinds of other things, but once a teacher has been in the same subject for two years, it is all the same thing, same lesson plans, same Scan-Trons, etc...Another problem with American education is the education of its educators. I went to a 4 year university that had 60% of its students in the Education Program. Let me give you a run down how half of those people wound up in the Education Program... The Engineering Student would flunk out of Engineering and change his track to Math. This student would then flunk out of math and realize that he only needs a few more education credits to become a math teacher and be guaranteed a job upon graduation with benefits and lots of holidays. Now this student has absolutely no interest in becoming a math teacher yet sees it as an easy out. I am speaking from experience here. Almost all of my friends followed this path as well as a lot of their acquaintances in the program.As far as the education in this program, the department consisted of the same group of teachers it had the past 30 years as they all had tenure and no reason to leave (don't even get me started on tenure / education). Sooooo since ALL the tests, projects, and group work had rarely changed if at all, the cheating was rampant. There were copies of every exam and project assignment all over campus, and if for some reason you couldn't find one, just ask a TA for it, they would be happy to see you pass with flying colors.So now, you have a person with little interest in actually teaching wanting a raise ?! You've got to be kidding! As others have mentioned, salaries should be dependant on merit! If you are good at what you do, you get paid better. This is of course a "professional" position as many others have mentioned and should be treated as such versus a government job where you can't get fired and are guaranteed raises no matter what.I have more friends than I can count that are currently teachers, as well as 2 of them that are principals. My principal friends are always coming to me with stories about how helpless they are when it comes to incompetent / lazy teachers. Both friends have employed the same strategy: make the teacher as uncomfortable as possible and give them a rave recommendation when another school calls for a reference on them. They can do nothing more than pass the horrible teachers off to other unsuspecting schools. I understand teaching is a difficult job, but so is mine, and yes I WANT MORE MONEY. But how do I do that?! I get side jobs, I expand my knowledge / skills, etc... I don't tell the government that I deserve it. Yes, as with everything, there are exceptions to the things that I have posted, but after being so close to our education system, it is hardly the salary that is the problem here.One funny thing I read not too long ago in the local paper, only 37% of all High School Teachers in our area could pass the state tests given to the students. That is sad, the people teaching our students don't even know the material!To sum it up, money is not to blame, lack of educated educators and motivated people in the field hurt it more than anything. Parents, that is a whole issue in itself!

[dlingdling 0]

>Why does everyone think paying teachers more will fix the problem ?! Because paying teachers a professional salary recognizes that society is entrusting its future generation to them. Because paying teachers a professional salary acknowledges that they should not only be able to pay their rent - $30k a year doesn't break even in most metropolitan areas - but that they should have some possibility of owning a home somewhere within 50 miles of their job. Teachers do not get guaranteed pay raises. In my district, there were no raises from 2001 to this school year. Most raises are earned by professional development and they are miniscule.Teachers do not work a 6 hour day. Most teachers arrive around 7:30 and leave at 4 or later. They get 30 minutes for lunch. That's a full work day. They don't get water cooler/football talk/goofing off on the internet time. On their prep time, they don't sit around the teacher's lounge. They are preparing for their classes - making reams of photocopies, deciphering the ridiculously organized "approved" textbooks - or following up on previous classes. Nurturing students takes more than classtime. Any assignment needs to be evaluated to make sure the student is on track. Absences need to be followed-up with families. There are also committees that each teacher participates in for curriculum and professional development. And in school districts like mine, there are sometimes situations of familial abuse, and we are required to confront those.Lesson plans are not the same year to year, and NCLB is one of the reasons. It actually serves the students when teachers can get into a groove and do lessons on autopilot, because they can focus more on the students as people. The best learning happens with a personal connection to the child rather than through rote test preparation.When I read these emails criticizing the education system, there is so much underlying hostility, resentment of the teaching industry for some reason. Parental involvement and really horrible home lives are probably more of a contributor to any problems in education. I wish this hostility would be directed toward more pressing problems that are actually tearing this country apart.There is an excellent summary and critique of NCLB at Wikipedia. Documentation of the underfunding and the many unrelated provisions attached to it, like the requirement that schools allow the Boy Scouts on campus and the requirement of high schools to turn over private information to the military for recruiters. It's a monstrous law. I wish America's leaders were brave enough to admit their mistakes and try for something better.

[Cooker 0]

RE: teachers unions. Everybody loves to blame teachers unions for all the woes of the educational system. What is always left out of the picture is why the unions exist. Teachers are seriously underpaid and not respected at all. I appreciate the notion of competition, but the answer is not to make the same teachers who are underpaid, overworked, have too many students, and so on have to take on MORE.

How long have we had teachers' unions? Are teachers still underpaid? I think it is you that doesn't understand why unions exist.

[zimmer4141 0]

Again, from a student's perspective, the tenure system is the absolute worst system ever devised in the history of anything. Last year, I had a great AP Government teacher, but he had only been teaching for a couple years. He came up with great projects, spent time out of class, and our class got the best results on the AP test in almost 10 years. So budget cut time came again, and they had to move people around the school district. So the teacher with tenure who I had for US History stays around when she does nothing but assign reading and shove her liberal rhetoric down her classes' throats. And the new guy? He's now doing god knows what at the Adult Education center, basically teaching all the thugs and lowlifes of our town. Seriously, this system needs to be done away with if we want our schools to improve.

[endo 0]

I would like to see a reallocation of the money that goes into a public school system. Like, switch the Administrators' salaries with the much more important Teaching jobs. I seem to recall the dean at my high school owning a jet, and she didn't do a damn thing. It's a similar (although much worse in the education industry) ailment of corporations I've worked for - too top-heavy with managers and analyzers and report-makers that don't really do anything, and not enough going into actually creating a quality product.If it were up to me, becoming a public teacher would be about as difficult as becoming a doctor, and they'd be paid about the same as doctors. I think this one change would drastically improve the entire world.

[blueodum 0]

How long have we had teachers' unions? Are teachers still underpaid? I think it is you that doesn't understand why unions exist.Don't the unions ever strike? Traditionally that's been the way unions get higher salaries for their members.If there isn't a credible threat to strike (which means there has to have been actual strikes at some point in the past) the bargaining power of unions dissipates.To sum it up, money is not to blame, lack of educated educators and motivated people in the field hurt it more than anything.Why do you think so many unmotivated and uneducated people go into teaching? Don't you think that if the salary was much higher better quality people would be competing for those jobs instead? For example, if teacher's college was as tough as medical school to get through and they were paid 100 grand starting salary, don't you think there would be a fair number of highly-qualified people going for the job?It's because the job is tough and the pay is low that the teachers are of poor quality. And there are still teacher shortages despite it all.

[Cooker 0]

How long have we had teachers' unions? Are teachers still underpaid? I think it is you that doesn't understand why unions exist.Don't the unions ever strike? Traditionally that's been the way unions get higher salaries for their members.

If the purpose of the teachers' unions is to raise salaries, and virtually ALL teachers still feel underpaid, then clearly the unions are not performing this task.The truth of the matter is that unions simply insure that everyone gets exactly the average salary no matter what the qualifications or performance. They also insure that raises are based solely on seniority, because coincidentally those in charge of the unions are most senior. They also make it exceedingly difficult to remove poor performers.Without unions, the best teachers would probably make much more than they do now and the above average teachers would make somewhat more than they do now. The merely average and below average would make less and some would probably be fired to pay the higher salaries of the better teachers.Of course, the union is not the only problem. The whole administration level needs to be streamlined. It probably uses the majority of money in any given district and has less value to the students than the cafeteria workers. This is why you can't throw money at the problem to fix it. All the money ends up in worthless bureacracy. However, the unions are even somewhat to blame for this. Administration is made up of teachers fed up with not getting paid what they are worth and so they look for a way out of the communist system created by the unions and end up "moving up" into administration. It is no coincidence that administrators negotiate contracts individually and are not unionized. Its funny really. They are less useful and less needed, but they make much more money, get better healthcare plans, and have no union "protecting" them. It is shocking how many people miss the totally obvious.

[blueodum 0]

If the purpose of the teachers' unions is to raise salaries, and virtually ALL teachers still feel underpaid, then clearly the unions are not performing this task.Well of course. Solution - get stronger unions.If there were no teacher's unions, what you'd see is schools hiring university students and other underqualified people at half the wages of current teachers. Why? Because they would have severe shortages of teachers , worse than now, and they'd be reduced to hiring warm bodies.I worked in ESL for 6 months at a private firm (In Canada) - no union. While people in unionized jobs were getting 30 bucks an hour doing similar work, I was getting 10.

[chrozzo 19]

my 8th grade physics teacher was hot

[MasterLJ 0]

Thanks for your post. I'm curious, just thinking about how things work, don't you feel that the GOOD teachers who are VASTLY underpaid suffer because of the teacher's who don't do a good job? I agree with you 100% that teacher's don't make enough money at all. What I'd like to see, is a system where if teachers like yourself, who DO work hard, have an opportunity to move up the pay scale. Maybe, this is just a thought, start teachers out at a lower yearly income and then give them significant raises as they prove themselves? For those that don't qualify for the raises, great. They'll be forced out of the profession since they won't be making enough money, and thus the weeding process begins. I just think it is a HORRIBLE mistake in this country for teachers to have no financial interest in doing a good job. It's just not the "American Way."

Teachers do have opportunities to move up the payscale, but the problem is that teachers move up in grade to do so. A first grade teacher has very little choice on where they can go to up their payscale if they want to remain first grade teachers. This means all of our best teachers are in our higher grades... where they are less necessary. Our children are not being taught to read and write early enough.Our top-heavy education system favors the self-starters. It's not a bad thing. In fact, there is an overwhelming sense of entitlement in this country that I'm sure you (Daniel) can relate to being from a different country and having parents from a different country as well. In that sense our current system is good. It's not fair, but our system has designed a template that best prepares entrepeneurs with higher education.

[cu in 4years Dan 1]

lol i watched 20 20 on sky news one night and forgot it was the one daniel was talking about. he ruined the whole show for me lol jks.

[chrozzo 19]

my teacher done learned me super good

[TheMathProf 0]

It is no coincidence that administrators negotiate contracts individually and are not unionized. Its funny really. They are less useful and less needed, but they make much more money, get better healthcare plans, and have no union "protecting" them. It is shocking how many people miss the totally obvious.

I know in our area, the administrators actually are unionized.Also, in Illinois (where I see you're from, and I know this is especially true in the Chicago suburbs), teachers actually have the opportunity to get paid something (I've seen six figure salaries out there). We've had a large number of teachers leave our area to go out there to get some significantly improved benefits over what they get here in the Pacific NW. And my retirement benefits from Wisconsin from my brief stint there are amazing.

[gkunit20 1]

I have a question:Why is it when a student does bad it's the student's fault, but when a student does good, it's because of the teacher?

[TheMathProf 0]

I have a question:Why is it when a student does bad it's the student's fault, but when a student does good, it's because of the teacher?

[thread necromancy]It depends on the students, of course. I have a couple of my students in AP Calculus that are auto-fives unless I **** them up with my teaching, and I take absolutely no credit for their results other than to say, "Indeed, I did not **** them up."Besides, I thought NCLB was making it very clear that when a student does bad, it is the teacher's/administrator's/school's/district's fault entirely and has nothing to do with individual student accountability, and that when a student does well, it's because we've finally given children the education they so desperately need and deserve.