Terrible article
Ping!
Salaries are less of a problem than pensions and health bennies.
Teachers, no matter how good, have become unaffordable.
For later.
I remember sitting in a 9th-grade math class in 1974, and the idiot teacher could not get formula-type algebra (basic stuff) across to the group. We were supposed to spend no more than three weeks on this chapter, and move on, with a big test. At the end four weeks, less than sixty percent of the group were grasping this. We wasted another two entire weeks on the subject, with only three-quarters of the group understanding this. The teacher just gave up, and skipped a chapter or two for something else.
The next year...different school....different book...different type teacher. We were simply handed the book, and advanced on our own speed. The book was well-designed and made sense. At the end of each chapter, we tested, and proceed on. The teacher was just there to answer one-on-one questions.
I put a great deal of the fault in the marginal skills upon poor math books and individuals who should never have been math teachers.
I watched a German documentary ten years ago...a baker trying to hire 15-year old apprentice kids. Like this guy mentioned....the baker had gone to two tests. One was about proportions and adding/subtracting. The other was a 10-question current events test. Out of fifteen kids who applied, and he could have hired five....he had only one kid with appropriate math skills (something you need as a baker), and that one kid marginally passed the current events test.
The whole system has turned into a failure...it’s just a baby-sitter service that hands out certificates.
Chicago, Chicago, that ‘codding’ town.
The author’s two tests reminds me of requiring a standard company job application had to be completed by the applicant on site, no take homes IOW. The jobs were definitely blue-collar but still needed some level of literacy to understand work instructions and blueprints.
FACTS...can be such a horrible truth.
I teach and my insurance costs $250 a month, just for me. If I were to include my family in my insurance plan it would be a little over $950 per month. I’ve never heard of teachers getting 100% free insurance. Would I like to be paid more? Of course. Who wouldn’t? I’m not protesting at the state capital though. We don’t unionize in my state either. so the notion that all teachers are beholden to the NEA is also false. For a site that is about individual liberty and responsibility a lot of people sure love to lump all teachers into on big group to be hated.
Actually ... no. They are paid for the months they work but that pay is distributed over 12 months. In Texas, they have the option to be paid only during the school year, but I don’t know any who choose that option.
That’s assuming they work only an 8 hour day and no more. This doesn’t take into account the teacher work days (required) during many of the days through the year when students don’t go to school, evenings and weekends spent grading papers, summer workshops, after school tutoring (required), etc.
ROFLOL!!! Benefits for Texas teachers are so horrible that my wife always denies it and we cover her under my employer’s plan.
In the teacher’s defense, I’m sure they would start teaching the kids with all the vigor and enthusiasm you would expect of teachers if we just paid them another $5,000 per year.
I never understood the teacher hatred some people have, if the author really believes what he writes, maybe he should try being for a teacher for a while.
I think teachers are, in general, overpaid, and that their “deal” (the whole package) is much, MUCH better than most workers get.
But using outcomes of the “product” is unreasonable and unfair.
Education is not something you can GIVE, like a shot of penicillin. It’s something that a well-prepared and well-disposed student TAKES. There are schools all over the world, even in Africa, which graduate outstanding, well educated pupils.
But no school tasked with universal, mandatory education after age 11-12 can accomplish this unless it serves an exclusive community with much, much higher than average incomes. It’s much better if the population has a large representation of Jews and East Asians.
The reason the scores are so low is not the teachers. It’s the students. And that’s not a problem that teachers can, or should be expected, to fix.
End mandatory schooling at eighth grade, and everything will get better, instantly.
"I've been in the real world, they expect results."
Consider the same teacher and an office worker. Both earn 40k per year. Both work 8 hours per day.
The teacher works 1,440 hours per year....the office worker 2,000 hours per year. Presume equal benefits.
The teacher earns $27.78 per hour and the office worker earns $20.00 per hour....for three months additional work.
Now who is underpaid??
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.