Posted on 05/03/2018 3:25:54 AM PDT by ImaGraftedBranch
The latest screamfest from the various teacher's groups is that they're "grossly underpaid."
Well, no.
First, let's not forget that teachers are paid for 12 months but work 9. Indeed the "standard" school year is 180 days. The standard man-year of work is 2,000 hours -- 40 hours across 50 weeks.
But 180 days is 1,440 hours, not 2,000, or 72% of a standard work-year.
And before you talk about "overtime" do realize that professionals don't get paid overtime. I never did as a professional writing code or building networks for other people. It's a professional job, and is exempt -- just as is being a teacher.
So that "horrible" $40,000 salary (which, I remind you, typically comes with 100% health care coverage for the entire teacher's family, an expense that is nearly always over $10,000/year) is actually $50,000 / 0.72 or approximately $70,000 in salary.
That's underpaid?
Uh, no. It's grossly overpaid, especially considering this:
Earlier this month, the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka The Nation's Report Card, was released. It's not a pretty story. Only 37 percent of 12th-graders tested proficient or better in reading, and only 25 percent did so in math. Among black students, only 17 percent tested proficient or better in reading, and just 7 percent reached at least a proficient level in math.
Leave the racial disparity behind for a minute.
Exactly why would anyone get paid anything if only one quarter of those who were the "product" of that work met the objective requirements to be considered acceptable?
Why is not that the question put to these "teachers"?
Is there some "reject rate" acceptable in any production of anything? Certainly. Some percentage of parts made in a factory fail to pass inspection, some percentage of wafers in a fab don't make it into the final output as a computer chip, etc.
But if your success rate is only 25% on the basic facts that define the ability to function as an adult in society, say much less understand the physical and economic world around you then you have no right to be out pounding the street demanding more money.
You ought to be cleaning toilets with a toothbrush and the taxpayers should be taking up arms at the rank theft you demand from them to produce defective output on an everyday, every year basis -- and have been for decades.
This is not a new problem. When I ran MCSNet after a series of bad experiences with so-called "graduates" with nice, polished resumes who couldn't make change for a $20 without a computer telling them exactly how much it was it became obvious that (1) they didn't write their own resume and (2) they were functionally illiterate and innumerate.
Yet they had in their hand a credential that said they (1) could read and write and (2) could perform mathematics both at a 12th grade level.
Those credentials were lies.
I instituted two tests before you could get an interview; when you came in and presented a resume you were shown the conference room and given a pencil, piece of paper and the two tests; nothing else was allowed inside. The first was a request to write a basic business letter informing a customer that his account was disabled because he hadn't paid his bill, and to please remit the balance to continue service. The second was a four-function (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) mathematics screening with 20 questions on it. You needed a 90% on the math to pass and the letter had to be grammatically correct and formatted as a reasonable business letter.
90% of the applicants failed one or both and more than half failed screamingly, either being completely unable to compose a business letter that could be read and understood as reasonably correct English or failing to get even half of the math correct. More than a few applicants literally walked out leaving behind two blank pieces of paper for "answers", unable to do any of it. A couple actually wrote things like "**** you" on the test before walking out, clearly unable to do any of it.
Most-alarmingly was the fact that more than a third of those who claimed to be currently enrolled in college, including at UofC, applying for a part-time job while in school, were unable to pass these screens.
I kept every single test and associated resume in a large horizontal file for what I expected would eventually be an inevitable allegation that I was "discriminating" in some form or fashion. This was downtown (2 Prudential Plaza) Chicago. Let me point out that of those who were unable to write said business letter not one of them could have possibly also written their own resume and as such they had already lied in the application process (and thus were not going to get hired) before coming in the front door.
The enabling liars who issued these people their diplomas are the same people pounding the streets right now. They were the ones who gave out the "As", "Bs", "Cs" and even "Ds" to these students -- but passed them instead of handing out well-deserved "F"s for years from one class to the next without actual achievement having taken place.
These very same teachers are openly and publicly being paid to commit fraud upon the taxpayer and the US marketplace on a literal daily basis. Three quarters of those who they deem "competent" through a 12 year cycle of fraud are in fact not competent and this number includes high-achieving areas.
In most major cities I assure you that the actual percentage of incompetent "graduates" is at or above 90% because it was in the 1990s and this report's statistics make clear that it still is.
Think about this folks because everyone's excuse is that oh, there are a few bad teachers, but most are good.
What are the odds of someone getting through 12 years of schooling, the first six or so taking place with one or two teachers for the entire year, then in the subsequent six year or so with a half-dozen teachers each, 75% of said students are incompetent when they graduate, and it is not true that basically every single one of them is guilty of fraud?
Let's put some math to it -- if three out of four students are incompetent at graduation then with a single teacher for a single year a minimum of 75% of all teachers must be committing fraud by certifying acceptable performance when it is not true.
That is, only 25% are performing honest work with a single year of experience -- that is, a single trial.
But it's not one year. It's 12 years, and for roughly six of them the student has a half-dozen teachers each year, not one. So we have 6 instances in the first six years and then 36 more over the following six, for a total of 42 instances, any one of which could fail said student and prevent them from going forward.
What are the statistical odds of running that gauntlet where only 25% of the teachers do honest work against 42 trials?
The answer is in scientific notation and has 25 zeros to right of the decimal. To put not-to-fine a point on it you're more likely to be hit by an asteroid while getting your mail this afternoon, then struck by lightning on the walk back to your house by a factor of several orders of magnitude than to encounter a string of honest teachers given these rates.
Bluntly: Essentially all are guilty of fraud upon the taxpayer and the public.
This is one of the largest and longest-running frauds perpetrated against the American population and taxpaying citizen ever and anyone in this profession deserves to be consumed by a rabid coyote.
Not only should every one of these "teachers" be fired they should all be criminally prosecuted and tossed in prison; the United States would be better off if the kids of this nation spent an hour a day in the library doing whatever they wanted instead of attending school.
My kid is going to after school tutoring...it isn’t free.
Set aside everything that this article talks about, and what I’m sure following posts detail... “Teachers only work 9 months a year.” “great benefits” “etc”. Let’s talk about pay, because THAT’S what everyone says they need.
I did a little homework, my state had this argument awhile back (looks like it’s coming around again, too...)
IMO, pay is lousy, and raises are worse. The pay difference between a new hire, and a 20-year teacher, isn’t much.
However - and you knew that a however was coming - The pay scale is public knowledge. You could easily look it up, and say, “OK, if I start teaching, my salary will be X. After 10 years, it will be X + a percentage. If I get such-and-such a certificate along with this specified degree, it goes up another specific percentage.”
No secrets and no surprises. 5 minutes worth of online looking will tell a prospective teacher *exactly* what they’ll be making, and when, and how to increase it if they so desire. If they don’t like the plainly spelled out roadmap, then they need to work elsewhere. I’d no idea what they’re complaining about - it’s all right in front of them, right from the start of their college career.
Wish that I had it mapped out like that in the private sector, would help me make plenty of decisions. “Gee, WBill, you’re getting a 3% raise when you get your MBA. Is it worth going 60K into debt?” Nope, I gotta roll the dice, just like all the other schmoes in the private sector.
But it overlooks the fact that, in the factory production example (an industry where I work), we get quality certified raw material and parts to work with and teachers, in most districts, do not. Many of their charges come from households where parenting is a joke if, indeed, it exists at all.
And teacher pay is very much a function of what the local district wants to spend. Here in SW Pennsylvania, most districts will get 100 applications or more for every opening advertised because the pay is great, probably more than they deserve in many cases. This is because the system is rigged to the point that they essentially elect their own school boards.
Meanwhile, go 100 miles or so away into West Virginia, and anyone fresh out of college can land a job in teaching because the pay is not so great and the openings to applications rate is not so skewed as it is here. They don't elect their own school boards either.
I did beginning, intermediate, and advanced algebra like that in community college. It was called a Math Lab. We had a great book that explained everything in detail. We advanced at our own rate as long as you took a quiz weekly and then after so many quizzes a test. There was someone there to help you with something if you needed it.
I finished each class early because sometimes I’d take a couple of quizzes a week. I stayed ahead of schedule the whole time. Was a great way to learn algebra.
It was the only book from college that I kept and didn’t resell. My granddaughter used it to get through her high school algebra classes because it was a better teacher than the teacher.
Hubby is a retired firefighter. They do the same thing to them. I just ignore all the comments.
The American educational system was destroyed by Communists. Our colleges are a bastion of Communist, Socialist and other Anti-American dogma going back 100 years or so. These colleges churn out the teachers through idiot professors and the typical moron adjunct. The Pedagogy is mostly leftist garbage and the sex and alcohol fueled Universities actually regress the young adult. Debauchery, sewage Social Media, and decline of morals and culture has also turned many teachers into sex deviants which quite compounds the insanity. The union system in the USA is now nothing more than a leftist system that is all about money and power.
The one caveat to take from the claims in this - most of which I agree with - is that not all students are equally teachable, equally studious, equally diligent nor of equal intelligence.
As much as it would be nice to think that teachers of equal worth can teach a class of the same number of students and those students produce equal academic results is simply not reality. I heartily believe that teachers comprise no more than 1/2 the effort in attaining the academic result of any student and by that I mean that student’s potential which is not 100% the same as another student’s. I would also add that while all teachers are also not equal, not all students put in their half of the effort to get an education.
In sum, while I think there is a lot wrong with K-12 education - in the institutions, many teachers, and the curriculum & teaching methods, improving all of that will still find some great portion of students who will not do above the median and an equal number who will never perform as well as their potential, due to no fault of the teachers.
I think there is a lot wrong with K-12 education, but a lot what is wrong with K-12 academic results is only partly due to what’s wrong with education. A good part of the problem is in society itself, a good deal of which education institutions will not solve.
“Terrible article.”
How so? And by the way, you neglected to properly punctuate your sentence.
L
Baby Boomer teachers and retirees are the ones living the good life. Generations after don’t have it that good. Of course boomers singlehandedly ruined this country in all sectors of society. A disastrous group of people!!!
In today’s labor market, we are having to reteach high school graduates basic math skills.
It drives me nuts. A person with a high school degree is unable to add subtract, multiply or divide.
It is always easy - and, to be fair, in many cases, correct - to assign blame to teachers for the education failures. Ultimately, the answer is much deeper. As I wrote elsewhere, the job of educating children rests with the parents.
Marx didn't like that idea:
But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations when we replace home education by social.
And your education! Is not that also social and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.
Marx would be happy today. Public school is serving a troika of societal needs such as training, day care, and indoctrination.
Within public education, the state stands in loco parentis during school hours. That means there is an implicit - if not fully-understood - sanctioning of government (not necessarily the teachers...the rank and file teachers aren't the NEA, much like rank and file police don't support the gun control leanings of the Chiefs) pouring into kids' heads whatever they want. Some parents are OK with this because, well, that worked for their parents and prior generations. Besides, mom and dad gotta both work, right?.
But that's a trap. The issue isn't that we have the wrong types of people teaching or the schools lack discipline or we need more money in schools or we need "pay for performance."
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM is that parents have surrendered their rights.
By extension, you have equally OK'd your child being forced to watch anti-gun films, receive Sex Ed at 6 years old, and attend environmentalist-driven field trips.
Oh sure, there is the School Board, PTA and other flaccid pseudo-levers of power handed to the parent. And maybe after months of fighting and blood, sweat and tears, Johnny doesn't have to go on the field trip.
While Mr. Denniger likes to blame the teachers for the statistics - and it is a fair cop - why are the parents ok wth their own flesh and blood being illiterate? I believe this is because, in the end, we cannot ignore the truth: parents have (in some cases, willingly and even gleefully) surrendered their child to the state.
Until that surrender is addressed, the rest is blather.
For starters, I get paid for 8 hours a day, 196 days a year. I can choose to have my salary spread out over the year, or I can be paid for the 10 months I teach.
In my school district, teachers CAN be covered 100% for their insurance, however, to add on family members is quite pricey. According to a fellow teacher, covering her entire family costs her $735 a month.
As far as pass rates go? Sorry, you just cannot include my rural Va kids in with the Detroit kids. Radically different situations. We are in the middle of our state exams - standards of learning, called SOL's. The pass rate in my rural county school. is over 85% for both reading and writing. The math SOL's will be taken next week. Last year's pass for 90%+ with 95% pass rate for Algebra I and 100% pass rate for geometry. And that 15% failure rate? Fun fact - we can only exempt the tiniest percent from those SOL's and those exemptions are reserved for the absolute lowest functioning kids. My 2 students with a 65 IQ did indeed take, and fail, the 6th grade reading SOL. The student who arrived in March from Mexico knowing no English, he too took the reading SOL, and yes, failed it.
While the article has some good points about poor teaching which applies to only parts of the country, the author is misguided to take a broad brush and include the good with the bad. What makes the difference here? To be plain spoken, it's the parents and working together so that the kids are successful. The school cannot do the job of the home and I suspect in many places that is the expectation.
As far as the current events quiz? I'd fail that flat out. I never watch the news, I never read a paper. I get most of my news from here, Drudge, and on occasion a UK paper.
And no, I'm not cleaning toilets with a toothbrush nor am I going to jail for doing a poor job.
All that being said, believe what you want to believe rather than the facts presented by fellow conservatives doing the work.
I’m not so quick to put it on the teachers. I have a longtime friend who is a teacher at MPS. The bloated bureaucracy around the teachers is more of the issue.
Come on. You are parsing the facts for justification and you know it. At least be honest.
Try doing all of that while corralling 20+ children that have been cooped up for hours with little or no recess. But 6.5 hours? Nope. Class where my wife teaches starts at 8. Last period ends at 3:30 and the kids get half an hour for lunch. Teachers get less.
My wife teaches Reading and Science to 4th graders. She rotates classes with another teacher. 20 students each class. That's 80 sets of assignments to grade if they do only one assignment per class. Rarely do they do just one.
perhaps they should find a REAL job
Perhaps you should try teaching a classroom full of overactive elementary aged kids.
Really? I seriously doubt it. It is not just the teachers that are broken. It is the system and society and lack of all manner of standards.
Many teachers do not get 100% family care, I don’t.
Almost 50% of the “educators” or teachers are; administrators, resource personnel, research, curriculum supervisors/writers, attendance people, data, representatives for specific groups, SPED liasons, etc...Point is, the actual teacher does all the work, the rest of the fat makes more work for us.
I dont’ disagree with most of this article, but I disagree with the lack of understanding of the entire education system. It’S FRICKEN BROKEN.
As a teacher I work hard, and try to avoid all these government bureaucrats who dictate what I need to do in order to justify their jobs.
That’s not my point. My point is the lack of facts in this article. It comes across more as a rant than a legitimate argument against teacher complaints.
Where we live, if it's on campus, it's free. My wife does do some off hours/off campus tutoring during summer and she does get paid. But any after school tutoring is not paid and is the norm from elementary all the way up through high school.
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