Posted on 03/26/2012 2:45:35 PM PDT by MichCapCon
More teachers nationwide are unsatisfied with their jobs and more are likely to leave the profession, according to the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher.
The survey, which was released this month, reports that one of the “most dramatic findings” was that teachers have the lowest level of job satisfaction in more than two decades and there was a large increase in the number of teachers who are likely to leave the teaching profession.
However, the sheer number of applicants for teaching jobs in Michigan casts question on just how miserable a profession teaching can be.
For example, Davison Community Schools recently posted an opening for an elementary school teacher. Michelle Lee, director of public information for the district, said the district received 120 applications for the position.
Ionia Public Schools recently posted an opening for a high school math teacher. Ben Kirby, associate superintendent at the district, said the district received 28 applications for the job.
Last fall, Chippewa Valley posted 21 potential teaching positions and received 2,211 applications, said Diane Blain, spokeswoman for the district.
“If the teaching profession is so terrible, why are there dozens, hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications for each open position?” said Michael Van Beek, education policy director for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, in an email.
Van Beek also questions the effectiveness of teacher unions, which he says are responsible for the workplace conditions of teachers that led to such dissatisfaction.
“The fact that a large percentage of teachers say they are going to leave the profession within a certain number of years should be the fault of the unions,” Van Beek said. “They’re the ones that mandate all teachers get paid exactly the same (and for some of them, this means getting paid less than what they would otherwise) and the unions are the ones negotiating working conditions. If anything, this survey is a signal that the teachers unions are failing their members.”
For example, teachers’ contracts in Michigan base salaries on seniority and level of education.
The leads to situations like what happened in Troy Public Schools, where seven gym teachers earned more money than a biology teacher who was selected as a national teacher of the year.
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The article doesn’t support its point. It just doesn’t follow that because teacher morale is low, there wouldn’t be many applicants for a job that pays well and has excellent benefits.
Sewage engineer and garbologist are pretty high paying positions and complaints are hard to find.
Hospital sanitary worker or combat soldier are options too if a teacher lacks job fulfillment.
Without a doubt, my wife made more money as a teacher in MI than she does in VA.
And the benefits were better.
But, between the union stuff and the taxes - no, thanks.
Based on what I see from the kids getting OUT of school, most teachers are extremely miserable. They can’t teach and haven’t got the ability, morals or common sense to know propaganda from true education.
The ones who leave the “profession” (a nice name for the joke they have made of education) won’t be missed!
She would have the choice of paying her dues here now.
Back in 85 or so I was a garbage man for a while and I my starting wage was around $7 an hour which wasn’t bad money back then.
The “public school” is BY FAR, the largest, most expensive, most subversive, and most destructive entitlement program in the country.
The “public school” is better understood as the “government school collective”.
It is silly to imagine that you can fix the public schools, because the very concept itself is communist.
Any child that comes out of the government school collective with their moral compass and common sense intact does so in spite of the government school indoctrination, not because of it.
If you want to win the culture war, have lots of children (see my tagline) and homeschool them or form your own school cooperative with your church or synagogue and like-minded friends and relatives.
Nobody loves your children more than you do.
Nobody can teach your children like you can.
Your children would love nothing better than to be taught by you, if you start doing so before they are corrupted by the government school collective.
It is hypocritical for you to submit your children to an authority with whom you fundamentally disagree. And your children will know it.
If you have children, make whatever sacrifices you must to get them out of the public schools.
DO NOT FEED THE BEAST!
Especially not with your own children.
What do you do with people like me? I agree that public schools are far worse for this country than Obama care, but what about those of us that have already been indoctrinated?
Sterilization? Execution?
At a minimum, we should abolish government funded schools, and let the parents pay for their own children, as God wanted it.
The dues were an issue, but the real problem was the seniority system.
My wife is excellent at her job - she takes SpED kids in pre-K, and teaches them coping strategies, so that by 2nd grade they can be in a regular classroom, and keep up.
Frankly, it is a job I could NEVER do.
And every year, they would bump her out of it, because Ms. DiedLastYear had seniority, but no experience in it.
Idiot system.
> what about those of us that have already been indoctrinated?
>
I’m sorry you were brainwashed in the government school collective. The fact that you are here shows that you are on your way to recovery.
I also was brainwashed in the public school and university system.
It took about 20 years to recover, but I’m much better now, thank you.
> Sterilization? Execution?
Not necessary. The Leftists are voluntarily aborting, birth-controlling, and sodomizing themselves out of the gene pool.
We just keep having more children and homeschooling them (see my tag line).
I say we look to the past for the answers.
My great grandmother went to a “public” school but it didn’t resemble anything we would recognize today. Basically she had 20 or 30 classmates of all ages who went to the same one room school. The school was built and maintained by locals and required very little money to operate. There we no lunches provided and there was no transportation to school which meant that only kids within walking distance attended. In wealthier communities a teacher might be provided with a house and a small salary. My grandmother’s teacher lived with them and was provided with meals.
I enjoyed the job, I had my own little empire in the classroom and took many skills that I learned from the real word into the operation of the classroom and as subject matter for the students.
I left because of two reasons
My peers. My opinion of them declined over the years as it became obvious that they were less and less qualified as the years went by. In my state, a teacher was assigned a subject by their principal. Someone with a BA Ed might teach math one year then social studies the next. Instead of learning their subjects, most teachers bought into standardized lesson plans sold by textbook publishers or the NEA.
The decay in quality and the politicization of the subject materials was painfully evident over time. Only one example needs to be cited: The American History book, selected by the teachers, used the phrase "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all persons are created equal..." The real travesty is that how it was taught, without question or qualification. When I told the students the correct term was "men" I was reprimanded by the chairman of the social studies department and told to mind my own business.
Many of the teachers , in my opinion, have a peter pan complex. They liked school so much they never wanted to leave so they came back as teachers. Many of these individuals lived their own school fantasies vicariously through their students. To some, the line got so blurred, they engaged in physical relationships with the students. In my tenure four were caught and are serving jail time and a fifth escaped prosecution by marrying his female student.
The Students. The second factor is that the students became so sheltered and protected, they had more rights than I did as a teacher.
My students would routinely complain about the difficulty of my class and would rely on their parents to bring pressure on the administrators to change their grades. I resisted and won all of the contests (about ten a school year ) but eventually grew tired of repeating the same battles with the administrators going through with the charade. They never defended me but always knew what the outcome would be. In fact they had me coach other teachers on dealing with these challenges.
Finally in the last years it became evident that whenever a student made any kind of allegation they were always assumed to be the aggrieved party and a teacher would have to prove their innocence rather than have the student prove guilt. The risk of a vindictive parent or student bringing false charges became too much of a reality and I decided it just wasn't worth the risk to me or my family.
LOL.
Ah yes, '85 the good ol' days.
$13.85/hr working for the railroad in communications. ".... .."!
Do we agree we abolish government funded schools, and let the parents pay for their own children, as God wanted it?
Yes! A thousand times, 'Yes!'
SEIU and NEA would frown on such ideas...
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