<p>“Mini is so on the money…”</p>
<p>Mr. B, I applaud your sense of sarcasm and humor. Or was that cynicism?</p>
<p>Re: #80
As I said, it’s all about the ethos, and money can’t buy that.</p>
<p>The private school you could hire and fire teachers- unfortunately you would practically have to catch a public school teacher in the sex act with a student and then they would go on paid leave while it was investigated before they were fired. ( which I beleive happened at my daughters current high school- not with the current principal but a few back)
While some communities are able to put pressure on public schools to have exemplary teachers, other communities, either because they aren’t as aware of what is going on in the classroom, or because their complaints are treated individually and they think that they are the only one with the problem, have bad principals and teachers for years.</p>
<p>One principal at my daughters former school, gave a classroom position to a teacher that was clearly incompetent- ( she had been LAP teacher) she was trying to get her out of the building but she couldn’t so instead she was given a classroom of 6th graders. She lasted about a month before she left, but the students had to put up with her and then be taught by substitutes all year, while the other teacher was contemplating quitting or going on sick leave.
My daughter was eligible for LAP for several years, ( help for students in basic skills) but because the teacher was unstable I allowed her to opt out of the class. Many parents made the same decision as we did,but the district either didn’t want or couldn’t do anything about it.</p>
<p>My daughter also had a 5th grade teacher who reported to work for the first month or so, laying out her vision for the school year, sounded great , had the kids all excited. BUt then her mother who was in a residential care facility took a turn for the worse, and she took personal leave to visit her. Because she was not obligated to let the school know what was going on, the students had rotating temp substitute teachers all year, interspersed with this other teacher coming back for a few days every couple of months.
In the 6 years my daughter was there- they had 3 principals, none who were interested in improving the staff as their minds were on other things. She left after 8th grade, she is now in 10th and they are on the 2nd principal.
This turnover would never be tolerated in the private sector and does a disservice to the children. I understand about teacher and principal unions serving their members, but what about a student union? Who looks after the needs of the students?
I am all for public schools, I don’t think vouchers are the answer. If a private school has equity as a value they will be offering aid already, without being forced to by govt. However there must be more accountabilty to the consumers of public education, and there must be some mechanism to get rid of bad teachers and principals, and by that I don’t mean giving them an administrative position where they are in charge of a lot of money- that has happend too :(</p>
<p>There are school districts where the gap has closed substantially and is continuing to close. One such district is the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. They have made steady progress in equalizing facilities and programs throughout the district. They have one of the top rated IB programs in the world, and have a high number of students taking AP courses, including minority students. </p>
<p>They did this by having a comprehensive plan that uses data collected on class success to identify practices that work and teachers who get results. They found that that the number one reason for student success was teacher quality. When top teachers were identified and transferred (with substantial extra dollars for doing so), students who previously were not successful rapidly became successful.</p>
<p>Supporting this approach is research conducted by June C. Rivers & William L. Sanders that found that the primary reason minority students do not do as well as majority students is teacher quality, not most of the social economic reasons typically given. Where teacher quality is the same as measured by Rice & Sanders, minority students do just as well or better than majority students. Working hard, though admirable, is not the same as having the qualities Rice & Sanders identified (<a href=“http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/books/fulltext/teacher/13.pdf[/url]”>http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/books/fulltext/teacher/13.pdf</a>).</p>
<p><a href=“Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools / Homepage”>http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/discover/goals/equityScorecard2005/toc.asp</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/browse_district/133/nc[/url]”>School Ratings & Reviews for Public & Private Schools: GreatSchools;
<p>Mozingo, T. (2003). Project acceleration: The advanced academic story. Presented at the Council on Great City Schools, 47th Annual Fall Conference, Chicago, IL, October 2226.</p>
<p>Muffet, G. & Wimberley, L. (2003). Decreasing the achievement gap: What works now? Presented at the Council on Great City Schools, 47th Annual Fall Conference, Chicago, IL, October 2226.</p>
<p>An appropriate school ethos comes from clear expectations, accountability, and consequences…for everyone involved.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4: At a middle school where one of my son’s attended the math teacher was so bad my wife put together a study group for the kids in the class so they could learn some math for the year, and this was the accelerated class. She also complained mightily. The next year the teacher was replaced, but now was teaching the more difficult kids… Not so many parental complaints perhaps.</p>
<p>Amen, idad! Teacher quality makes a HUGE difference in schools. I remember hearing of a study that said one bad teacher takes three years to recover from in a child’s progress. The problem is that teachers avoid the very districts we are talking about because it’s extremely hard to work there and you get no more pay than in a suburban district. It almost has to be like a calling. Teaching in a school where students are verbally and physically agressive is draining and many teachers become frustrated with circumstances they feel they can’t control. </p>
<p>Mr. B is also right on the money when he says top students tend to pick law, medicine, etc. and not education…which certainly impacts that teacher quality issue we are talking about. I think a big part of the decision is money. They see that they will never have an opportunity for a six figure salary so they don’t go into it. Heck, my salary scale tops out in the low sixties so regardless of the job I do I can never make more than that. (with just a bachelor’s or a master’s it would be less) My boyfriend only has a bachelor’s degree, but he’s in the field of business. He makes more than three times what I make. This isn’t a problem for me because I love what I do. However if I’m 18 and see the difference in salaries, you can bet I’m headed to business school rather than to the education department. I also think there’s a certain stigma attached to education among bright students. They see the need to have great teachers, but they feel it would not be an adequate profession for them to choose. My high school calculus teacher actually said, “What a waste,” when I told him I wanted to be a teacher. I was discouraged from going into education by several adults who told me I could “do so much more.” Luckily I was called to teach and ignored that advice, but I think it’s comments like those that keep top minds out of education. We need bright people in schools because they are needed to teach the bright students. No one wants a teacher who can’t keep up with them!!!</p>
<p>I don’t think 18 yr old are necessarily looking at salaries before they even start college- but I do think my daughter has picked up on that education is important, and is necessary in this society to have a decent job. Salary is not why my daughter decided not to go into teaching for now- her major is in science- she wants to do science- not go to a school of education.
FOr her dad to work as hard as he does, but have to go through the cycles of layoff and strikes every few years, not to mention having to spend all of her childhood working 2nd shift so that she didn’t see him except occasionally on weekends is not something she wants to repeat in her own life.</p>
<p>( Incidentally- where do you teachers work? Washington is 47th in the nation in pay for teachers and a teacher with a bachelors degree and 15 years experience and the minimum hours that are required each year to maintain your certification, costs the district $59,135.
so I am assuming other states generally pay quite a bit more.- I can think of many other “professionals” who don’t make as much- I value teachers- but the quality is too inconsistent- I also do not think that a school of education makes for a strong teacher)
Also- I think that siphoning off the strong teachers to teach the “bright” students is why our schools are in such sad shape. Teachers with seniority and experience gravitate to the new buildings, the schools with strong PTAs who accomodate teacher needs, and teachers with little expereince or who have been moved from other positions end up teaching students who most need a good teacher.
My daughter had three years in a row where she had really weak teaching. I have been paying for outside tutoring, and quit my job so that I could attempt to change the structure from within to help other kids. Only now after changing schools, continuing tutoring , is she really coming out of it. What is happening to those kids whose parents don’t work the system as for years I tried not to do? The low teachers on the totem pole gets the kids no one else wants. Yes sometimes there are some really gifted teachers among them, but because seniority and not quality is what keeps teachers in the system, it is really a crapshoot whether these kids will get anyone who is able to help them learn.</p>
<p>Table 1
Average Teacher Salary in 2002-03, State Rankings
Rank State Teachers
2002-03 Average
Salary
2001-02 Average
Salary
Percent
Change
1 California $ 55,693
2 Michigan 54,020
3 Connecticut 53,962
4 New Jersey 53,872
5 District of Columbia 53,194
6 New York 53,017
7 Rhode Island 52,879
8 Massachusetts 51,942
9 Illinois 51,496
10 Pennsylvania 51,425
11 Maryland 50,410
12 Delaware 49,821
13 Alaska 49,694
14 Oregon 47,463
15 Ohio 45,515
16 Georgia 45,414
17 Indiana 44,966
18 Washington 44,961
19 Minnesota 44,745
20 Virginia 42,778
21 Hawaii 42,768
22 Colorado 42,679
23 North Carolina 42,411
24 Vermont42,038
25 New Hampshire 41,909
26 Nevada 41,795
27 Wisconsin 41,617
28 South Carolina 40,362
29 Florida 40,281
30 Texas 39,972
31 Arizona 39,955
32 Idaho 39,784
33 Alabama 39,524
34 Tennessee 39,186
35 Maine 38,518
36 West Virginia 38,497
37 Kentucky 38,486
38 Utah 38,268
39 Kansas 38,030
40 Iowa 38,000
41 Nebraska 37,896
42 Wyoming 37,789
43 Missouri 37,641
44 Arkansas 37,536
45 Louisiana 37,116
46 New Mexico 37,054
47 Montana 35,754
48 Mississippi 35,135
49 North Dakota 33,869
50 Oklahoma 33,277
51 South Dakota 32,414 </p>
<p>I realize that this table is a few years out of date but I couldn’t find a more current one and it’s not THAT out of date. It came from the AFT website. You’ll notice that Washington is actually 18. I teach in Alabama (33) and also taught in Mississippi (48) for three years. When I lived in MS, I made $31,000 with a master’s degree. I’m not complaining about my salary. I’m just saying that it is inaccurate to reflect teachers as wealthy and lazy human beings. I went to college for eight years in order to make less that you quoted your husband to make.</p>
<p>I also did not want to imply that only bright students need good teachers. ALL children need good teachers. My remark was meant to say that a lot of bright kids are discouraged from going into education and it’s a shame because then some kids end up with teachers who cannot relate to them at their level. I teach gifted students which might be why this tends to be my focus. We need just as bright special education teachers.</p>
<p>I remember remarking years ago that someone should study the effects of the women’s movement on elementary school teaching. Prior to the movement, my guess was that teachers were much better educated and had higher GPA’s etc. I don’t know if it is true, but it seems logical. Looking back at my own (pre-movement) elementary education, I had several teachers from private (mostly women’s) colleges and top State Universities. Those teachers would now, with a few exceptions, be Dr.'s, lawyers, business leaders, etc.</p>
<p>that chart was interesting.
I assumed that the 47th % that the district is always quoting was accurate- I suppose it is case of lies, more lies and statistics- it just depends on what study you quote
I didn’t say that teachers were wealthy- just because someone with 20 years experience has more time and money than we do, doesn’t make them wealthy. And being ineffective doesn’t make them lazy, but it does suggest that perhaps the time has come to find a different field, if students who need the services your class offers, are opting to recieve zero services as their only alternative.</p>
<p>I am wondering if there is a per student comparision- we are also often told that we have some of the highest class sizes in nation- which I think would make at least as big of a difference than raising pay.
In our district- principals have site based management- so they determine where money is spent- and money that is earmarked to lower class size can also go for “teacher training” and be distributed to the teachers while keeping class size the same.</p>
<p>I think one of the biggest problems with the public education system is tenure. Because of tenure, there is no incentive to excel. In fact there is no incentive to even be mediocre - just don’t be downright awful/criminal. I’m not saying that there are a lot of teachers who accept mediocrity or less, but they definitely exist and spoil the environment for those who do really care for their students and are very good at what they do. If schools could hire and fire like private industry, there may be more of a willingness by the taxpayers to pay like private industry. With the current situation, the parents see teachers that take advantage of their unnatural job security and use that to rationalize voting down tax increases for schools.</p>
<p>Fundingfather:</p>
<p>I don’t know about other schools or districts, but in my S’s school, I don’t think tenured teachers have worked less hard or cared less about their students. The biggest problem I had in k-8 was the lack of early specialization, so that my S’s needs in math were not adequately served by a teacher who was wonderful in the humanities but not sufficiently strong in math; and a weak middle school curriculum–and that is a national problem, not a local one, and not caused by lack of qualified, dedicated teachers. In fact, the most disappointing teachers were the untenured ones: they were inexperienced, and, though incredibly hard-working, they were also overwhelmed. Several burned out by the time they were up for tenure and switched careers.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that there is not a shortage of teachers or even of qualified teachers. The problem, nationally, is the high turnover of teachers: teachers who enter the profession and leave it after 2-3 years.</p>
<p>in our district- you might have heard that we "lost track of " millions of dollars. The last estimate i heard was $45 million.
So since union contracts require that that money be spent, the money has to be cut back in other ways. They didn’t intend for it to impact the classrooms but it does. </p>
<p>At my daughters previous school, we wouldn’t be able to hire teachers till we were sure about what our money from district would be. THis meant several very good teachers who had only been working there a year or two, knew that they could get bumped by other teachers in teh district, and so several of them went someplace else when we couldn’t hire them by august. ( in october we had the money but by that time naturally they had found something else)</p>
<p>If one teacher was bumped by budget cuts in one school across the district, they could bump someone else at another school if they had more seniority, even if the school structure was very different.
That was how we had the next to the last principal. She had been hired by the district as a principal,and they had to find her a job someplace,even though she did some real damage to long standing programs at the school during her year there.</p>
<p>I think a lot of schools don’t ahve very good support for principals or teachers. Not a lot of collabrative time, or else it isn’t utilized effectively. Some schools pair up new teachers with experience ones, but other schools have student teachers teach the last semester on their own, with very little input or support from the classroom teacher.</p>
<p>at my daughters current school, some of the most successful teachers are those on their 2nd or 3rd career. While some teachers always knew they wanted to be in education ( her principal is from a family of educators, his father only recently retired as a very successful principal), others didn’t realize till later in life that they enjoyed teaching and were good at it.</p>
<p>I am hesitant to say- but I think there are still young people especially young women, who look at teaching as a nice career to have while raising a family. Similar work hours as the kids, etc, but they don’t really have an interest in teaching, but they like kids and … Then they get a classroom, they lack confidence and the kids walk all over them.
teaching can really be a great career from what I have observed for someone who can control and lead a classroom. We know teachers who have second careers as a choice not a requirement, during the summer months. They lead workshops in exotic places in fields completely different than what they teach during the year. ( her high school biology teacher leads poetry workshops for example) They can explore other interests and be paid for it. ( a teacher who coaches will get a stipend, while a volunteer from teh community who does the same thing won’t)
There must be something that attracts so many to the profession, but I think that the administrative hoops which bog down especially large districts need to be eliminated.
we need accountability.
OUr school board recently discussed the repetition of citizen complaints at public testimony. Some of the same issues continue for years, and the board is tired of listening to it.
One wag pointed out however, that if they directed the superientendent and his staff to address these issues and report on it- then they wouldn’t have to hear about them again. ;)</p>
<p>emeraldkity4: According to the NEA, Washington was ranked 31st in per student funding in 2004: <a href=“http://www.nea.org/edstats/images/04rankings-update.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nea.org/edstats/images/04rankings-update.pdf</a></p>
<p>I do remember Seattle had a big scandal re: school budget. Funding is not even across each state. Seattle was in a category by itself, if I remember correctly.</p>
<p>It is a scandal only if one considers losing between $35 $ $45 million, and never figuring out where it went, a scandal.</p>
<p>Well, it was enough of a scandal that I got to read about it on the East coast.
Now, we are having a reverse situation. We don’t know why about $3millions that were in the school budget did not get spent. Where did the economies come from?</p>
<p>I was, of course, kidding about asking if it was a scandle. </p>
<p>Not spending is also a major problem. A HS I worked with in Chicago spent a total of $3000 in staff development out of an allocated budget, are you sitting down?, of over $1 million. The principal did manage to build himself a shower in his office for $14,000, though it was not big enough in which to stand up! He was removed.</p>
<p>Marite:</p>
<p>I wish that what you say is true, but around here most teachers are tenured and some of them definitely act like it. They realize they are virtually untouchable. </p>
<p>One measure of this is the number of days that are taken as “sick” days. When my son was in school, it seemed like he had subs all of the time. Certainly some absences for meetings and legitimate sickness are warranted, but I was dumbfounded by the number of times he said that he had a sub. In private industry it is not uncommon to go multiple years without taking a sick day.</p>
<p>You are right that there is not a universal teacher shortage. I know people who are desparately trying to get into teaching but they can’t find a job. It’s a shame that the administrations are not allowed to unload some of their dead wood (every organization has plenty) and bring in some new, motivated and energized teachers.</p>