<p>It seems to me that the whole idea of “tenure” for K-12 is ridiculous anyway. There’s an argument to be made for it at the college level. I see that Arnold is taking on the California teachers union right now–trying to make K-12 teachers wait 5 years for tenure instead of the current 2. Sounds reasonable to me.</p>
<p>In our state, it’s 3. Five years also seems reasonable to me.</p>
<p>Fundingfather:</p>
<p>Every district is different. We did have some deadwood, but the school committee worked hard with the teacher’s union to find a formula that would enable those teachers to be retired. They used to be taken off classrooms but were still on the city payroll. Now they are no longer on the payroll. Teacher quality has improved markedly.</p>
<p>Our high school recently adopted block scheduling; this was preceded by a full year of staff development (twice a week meetings). I have been told by some parents that the move has been very smooth (unlike our previous foray into heterogenous classes, introduced without any preparation whatsover because the hotshot new principal was afraid the teachers would not buy in).</p>
<p>In terms of teacher shortage, what I read is that the turnover is highest among new teachers, the ones one might think are new, motivated and energized. In fact, that is what happened in my S’s school. They quit teaching altogether. I was told by one such teacher that it is common for teachers to wait until they have tenure to resign. They therefore teach for one year and one month, and out they go. This is exactly what she did. She used to teach in one of Boston’s posher, and very homogeneous suburbs, but could not stand the students’ lack of motivation and discipline. She was a graduate of a top LAC. One of my S’s teacher, an MIT graduate, did not even last 3 years before deciding that teaching was just too tough.</p>
<p>EK, thank you for acknowledging that private schools benefit from being able to focus on learning verses taking tests. They also benefit from having any selection process that involves an adult. Students who have family members who care about education are almost always better off than the kids whose families just take what comes along with minimum involvement. Part of the problem of working with low income families is that it can be hard to find an adult at home who understands the value of education and how to successfully achieve it. Sometimes it is because parents are in and out of jail, other times it is because the work two or more jobs and of course there are families that just don’t think it is important.</p>
<p>No one wants a poor teacher in their school, but teachers, just like your husband’s union, expect a process to protect them from unfair practices. Not sometimes, but every time I have witnessed a drawn out fight over removing a teacher (or principal) it has been because administration did not follow the fair process. They did not follow through on a meeting or meet a reasonable deadline. Lousy educators screw things up for everyone in the school. I know, because I have filed complaints against teachers and had to walk administrators through the process. I agree with marite, when unions and administration cooperate good things happen.</p>
<p>The “five year” tenure is not a good thing and will result in more people quitting. The only reason to go to five years is if in the state that has it, teaching was superior. Only one state has a five year tenure and I think that state is Missouri where there is no significant improvement of teaching. That proposition is almost as popular as our governor so it won’t pass.</p>
<p>Tenure started for a reason, amature school boards pressured teachers to join their churches, contribute to their causes and in some cases who or when they could date, or else. You think there is a teaching shortage now. </p>
<p>Absenteeism is a problem. Last year I was out about six days, five of them mandated by the district for in service training that could have been provided during the week before school or after school or on weekends. Three training days were spent on a computer program that my administrators purchased but can’t find now. There is more and more of this. The first year I taught I used every sick day after catching every cold, flu, and sore throat those cute little kids bring with them to school. Parents keep your sick kids home.</p>
<p>Some background:
A little over a dozen years ago, I decided to leave a different profession to teach, I thought I could make a difference and have more time to spend with my family. I believed that schools were failing to a great extent because teachers were lousy, after getting my masters degree, I became a teacher, took the big cut in salary and benefits, (no more valet parking or invitations to the openings of museum and zoo exhibits.) I traded that willingly to have breakfast and dinner with my family and to get to their concerts and games and because all my life I have been a teacher. I taught my first student to read when I was in high school, and I was active in literacy volunteers and Sunday school for years before I ever unlocked a classroom door. I have no regrets, but do have a different perspective than many people in and out of the teaching profession. </p>
<p>There is a difference in the education most low income students recieve compared to upper income. Part of that difference is in programs and equipment, part of it is family expectation. Poverty impacts both of those and needs to be addressed in this country.</p>
<p>Our private school teachers have no union. They make half what the public school teachers make. They have no tenure. They never go on strike. We have very low turnover. The problems in education are elsewhere.</p>
<p>Xiggi,</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to accuse you personally of anything. I can understand why any parent would choose the “best” available education for their child. But I don’t believe that educated upper middle-class people with kids in private schools will succeed in improving the public schools unless they have a personal stake in them by teaching and/or sending their kids there. The educational apartheid must be recognized as an outgrowth of a wider social apartheid and the fact that we have allowed the continuance of a permanent underclass by our political choices and social-economic policies. I don’t have a solution --only wish I did-- but as long as we see minority kids as “them” instead of part of “our children” the problems will persist.</p>
<p>I wanted to be provocative here because I think there are a lot of concerned, smart people on this forum and maybe some of them can start at least a small ball rolling in the right direction.</p>
<p>Driver if that was true, are you proud that educated people in charge of educating children are paid 20,000 a year or less than a garbage collector? I have heard the comparison of public and private schools before. My experience with private schools is limited to the one year my son attended a private school while we waited for the new public highschool to be built. A kid in his school got caught with a joint. The corporate jet flew from Hong Kong to pick him up the next day. In my public schools if a kid gets caught with drugs outside of the school he goes to ju v hall for a week or so and then comes back to school a week or more behind with no program to catch him up. The same would happen to a kid failing at the private school the end of the semester, so long, good bye.</p>
<p>I think it would make an interesting tv series… a private school teacher is sent into an inner city public school to show us how to teach…it would make for a fantasy comedy or a very dark drama. You do know that Kindergarten cop was a fantasy, right!</p>
<p>Mr. B, our public school district has teacher salaries along the lines of what Mini was describing for his niece. Half of that would at least equal that of a very senior sanitation crew member in our town.</p>
<p>But no, of course the goal is not to improve education by lowering teacher salaries. The point is that money in the school system isn’t the panacea so many seem to expect it will be. (I’m not surprised no one has yet addressed the very extensive article on the Kansas City schools that I linked earlier. It’s pretty much dispositive of the utopian school line.)</p>
<p>I also realize that the needs of the students you and Teach2005 have been describing can’t be met in our private school. You are talking about kids–entire families, really–that need to be checked in to what amounts to a rehab clinic. Not just a drug/alchohol rehab. Their whole lives. But they will need to check their independence–such as it was–at the door. Just like rehab, just like boot camp. I could support throwing a lot of money at a system like that.</p>
<p>it isn’t that this administration doesn’t have the same idea of education as a priority as what educators do.
But what bothers me- is that our schools have little accountability- the test scores are not competitve with other developed nations and that teacher salaries are often used as a reason why our schools are doing poorly-* pay the teachers more and we will get better work out of them*</p>
<p>In this economy many people, are being paid much less than teachers, with less job stability, and longer hours.
I am all for volunteering in the schools- but when I had to quit my job when my daughter was attending her last school, just to have the time and energy to fight the district to get some accountability, when the teachers expected parents to put in time in the classroom, raising money, driving on field trips( spending my own money for parking and gas), buying supplies, I get resentful.
Our district agreed to give teachers such a large raise that budget cuts had to be made in other areas. They knew this at the time that they negotiated the deal, but apparently thought Mr Wizard was gonna pull money out of a hat. If the increase in pay would have allowed schools to even release one or two teachers per school who were not effective in order to hire two new promising teachers I would have felt that it was worth it, but when I see teachers who should have retired long ago still in the school, when parents fight to keep their kids out of their classroom, and when parents like us who can’t afford to hire tutors to supplement “classwork” are forced to spend $40 an hour to hire a teacher when we make $20 an hour- people are going to be pretty ticked.</p>
<p>there are always going to be pockets of money and people fighting over them- but I guess I don’t feel like the system we have is working for a lot of people-</p>
<p>A timely article about an academic success story for an NC district: <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/education/25raleigh.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=ffa8752b9998590a&ex=1285300800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/education/25raleigh.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=ffa8752b9998590a&ex=1285300800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss</a></p>
<p>EK how do you feel when a 50 year old is climbing in and out of planes slower than a 23 year old, but drawing a bigger salary?</p>
<p>Two relevant articles, both book reviews. One from a reliable lefty, one from a reliable righty. Similar conclusions.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/books/review/25glazer.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/books/review/25glazer.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8999[/url]”>http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8999</a></p>
<p>Unions have fought for workers to get some sort of ranking according to their longevity with the company- if they do their job, I don’t have a problem with that.
My H has a high production rate with very high inspector approval, I imagine that is why they have kept him on through layoffs of workers with more experience ( well years on the job anyway) they will move him to another job description where he has more seniority, just so they can keep him through the layoff but have him do the job they wanted him to do in the first place. I know that the school system does the same thing- the past school where I was involved, we had people there where they would fight to keep in the building, even though someone else had more seniority. They would change the job description so that they could hang onto the staff.</p>
<p>Speed doesn’t matter so much- accuracy is what matters. When you are building something like a rocket you don’t want to just throw it together, if you have to redo your part, that may mean millions of dollars wasted.
If they had a 23 year old who could do his job, I am sure they would use him/her, they need to hire some thats for sure, the experienced ones are all ready to retire but they don’t have anyone who is trained to do the other jobs. I imagine they will just subcontract it out to Mexico when the current work force is retired. Lots of younger workers there I imagine.</p>
<p>I just reread Jonathan Kozol’s 1990 book “Savage Inequities” which is a sobering description of inner city schools systems in the north. Not only are the description of the schools these children are forced to attend shocking but so are the outcomes. In many of these school systems less more than 50% of students fail to graduate from HS and less than 3% gradate from college.</p>
<p>Think of all the human potential wasted not to mention the long term human and economic costs involved.</p>
<p>As a society we are anxious to invest $60,000 a year to encarcerate 2 million people at any one time in this country. How much of this $120billion wasted every year could be saved by early intervention programs from neonatal care through high school.</p>
<p>Pouring more money into these school systems is not enough and if done in isolation would likely yeild unremarkable benefits. In “Savage Inequities” Kozal touches on the psychological impact on children who early on recognize the injustices which are imposed on them. The impacts are real and massive.</p>
<p>I had a colleague from Sweden remark how hollow the political retoric of “family values” really is in the USA. We do not really care about all our children if we are willing to tolerate the injustices which our least fortunate wee ones encounter.</p>
<p>driver, credit for the book reviews sites. I will look for the books as well. Regarding vouchers, any activity that requires an adult to do something extra will sort students. Any family that cares enough to apply (not to mention pay a tuition) is differentiated from those who don’t and as many studies have concluded, family involvement in education is a leading indicator of success. The more informed their involvement, the greater the success…which I think accounts for higher scores of children in homes with college educated parents effect. So the downside of vouchers could be only kids left in the poorest schools are the ones without any voice at all. Lets improve all public schools.</p>
<p>I was curious about the review of: Sol Stern’s Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice.
Here are two quotes from the review:
</p>
<p>I will be interested in seeing how these two apparently conflicting comments get straightened out…or is featherbedding the path to a prestigious high school?</p>
<p>Paying based on skill level is a great idea, unfortunately most people who support this idea want the evaluators to be the same people who they also see responsible for mis-spending other education dollars (the people who put money into a football field instead of a library or tutoring program.) To avoid being a naysayer, I will make a suggestion for skill or performance-based salary.</p>
<ol>
<li>Three primary salary tiers: novice - a lower salary with a guarantied smaller class size
Experienced - higher pay, larger classes, school management role
Master - highest base pay, more management roles including support of novice and experienced teachers.</li>
<li>Salary adjustments: coaching; tutoring; home visits; newsletters and other forms of communication with the parents, including regular office hours. Steps for academic achievement, masters degrees, doctorates, national accreditation.</li>
</ol>
<p>Let me say that I am pro-union in part because I have taught in a school without union representation. In that school, teachers with masters degrees were paid the same as teachers who hadn’t finished college; there were no benefits, not even sick days; teachers had no paid preps and spent the entire day with the students including lunch. Bathroom breaks had to be fast while a colleague watched two classes. I am also old enough to remember when new teachers in our small town had to join the “right church” and their tithes had to meet with approval if they expected to stay at the school. One single teacher had to pretend to be going home to visit her mother so she could go to a movie with her boyfriend which would have gotten her back too late for the curfew set for single teachers by the lady that rented her her room.</p>
<p>I also support unions because without them workers would be paid less and less and our middle class would disappear. I have been on a three week strike in a district I subsequently moved away from…so I never saw or expected to see the long term benefit for myself. No one in my family would cross a picket line. When grocery workers had informational pickets I walked with them. If I lived closer to EK I would get my coffee thermos and join their line after school. </p>
<p>Perhaps this is in part what this thread is about, the loss of and the lack of middle class and the opportunities that it offers to families. Where executives once earned 10, 20 or 40 times as much as a worker now they earn 100 or more times the wages of their employees and that is bad for this country.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s my understanding that Sweden has its own problems with rising crime and a budget deficit that will impose an increasing tax burden on the next generation, so I’m not sure that someone like me in the land of the Swedish diaspora should imitate all of Sweden’s policies without first looking at their results.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>this is one of the very issues that is on the table now as the union renegotiates their contract with the city. Because of the way the current tenor plan is set up a tenured teacher can essentially knock a more qualified teacher with less tenure out of the box for an opening at Stuyvesant or a more desireable school. </p>
<p>One thing I do notice as the NYC board of ed still has a big shortage is that other than bumping some one due to tenure, you really have to know some one or be well connected to get a spot in manhattan. Schools where there are shortage areas: the bronx and the less affluent parts of brooklyn and queens remains unfilled despite added “perks” to take fill those positions.</p>
<p>Tenure is an interesting issue. I started teaching in Mississippi where there is no tenure. We also are not unionized unless you count Mississippi Association of Educators which is really a professional organization. It is illegal for teachers to go on strike in Mississippi following a 2-4 week strike back in the 80’s. I now teach in Alabama where tenure does exist. We use the 3 year system. I am currently not tenured because I have only been teaching in Alabama for 2 years. </p>
<p>I’m not really sure that the problem is with tenure as much as it is with the way teachers are paid. We are paid solely based on the number of years we have taught and the highest degree earned. You could call my school district today and find out exactly what I make by looking at the salary schedule they’d provide for you. (For the record, my mom teaches at a community college in MS and they do salary the same way) The problem with this is that it doesn’t motivate people to do more than the minimum. It doesn’t matter if I’m the best teacher at my school or the worst in terms of pay. In fact, the worst teacher might be making more money than the best depending on experience and degrees. Similarly, the environment is not taken into account at all. Working in a low income school district requires hazard pay (and I’m not kidding). I’ve been in a school where we knew of at least two guns brought to school that year and it was not unsual for kids to get arrested and hauled away from the school due to excessive fighting or weapons or drugs. However, what’s the incentive to teach in that environment over a more pleasant one? I taught in that environment for several years because I felt like I was needed there…but not everyone is going to feel that way. They see a job open in a nicer environment and they grab it. Therefore, we ended up with a lot of teachers who were turned down by the nicer districts. We had a lot of EXCELLENT teachers, but we also had some real duds. </p>
<p>I suppose my point is that most professions give bonuses or performance raises that inspire people to give their best. That doesn’t exist in education except at the college level (My father is a professor…we really span the education spectrum in my family: K-12, CC, and University). Many teachers are going to work their hardest just because the job and the kids are important to them. I like to think I’m one of them. However, some others take advantage of the system because they know they’ll get paid the same whether they do a great job or a lousy one. I’ve witnessed this to be the same both in a tenure state and a non-tenure state.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/education/25raleigh.html?ex=1128484800&en=561aece7b7191cd5&ei=5070[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/education/25raleigh.html?ex=1128484800&en=561aece7b7191cd5&ei=5070</a></p>
<p>An interesting article showing the progress one NC district made by ending economic segregation. This is what our district did some 20 years ago. There is still a much-studied achievement gap, but it is shrinking.</p>
<p>I don’t know where to begin. I appreciate many of the perspectives shared here. Let me talk about what I know; New Jersey.</p>
<p>As was said, we have a longstanding and tremendous educational battle here in the Garden State regarding race and achievement. Many of the opponents of the special aid to the needy districts just have their head in the sand, or simply use the schools issue to vent about the general state of poor administration by all levels of government New Jersey. Yes, NJ teachers are among the highest paid in the nation. Yes, there is a property tax crisis. Yes, districts like Newark absolutely waste tons of money, and yes we have some of the best public schools in America and they are largely in the low-density suburbs. But…something must be done about the galling inequality. I am sad to realize finally that in many NJ communities, parents just are not up to the job of motivating their school-age children. But I don’t think that G.W. Bush’s imposition of a Sparta-like culture of rote educational indoctrination, i.e. testing, is the answer.</p>