<p>marite, very well said.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>“It is disrespectful for an individual student to assume that teachers will be willing to write recs for him/her. That’s entitlement. It is not disrespectful for students to assume that teachers will write recs for students.”</p>
<p>“It IS part of a teacher’s job …”</p>
<p>OK, we are getting pretty close now with the distinction that you made, but I still won’t accept the use of the word “assume” in your third sentence above. (Try “hope” instead.) And frankly, I will not accept, nor do I appreciate, you telling me what my job is, either. I am accountable to my principal and school district, and not the whims or opinions of you or any other parent. (However, you can certainly vote in school board elections, and I am accountable to you in that sense.)</p>
<p>But in the end, I’m doing exactly what you and others here want me to do, i.e., write the letters, and I do so with hope that they will help my students with college admissions. Your original post asked about receiving compensation for writing letters of recommendation, and of course I agree with you that such a practice is wrong.</p>
<p>Well, my superintendent, school board and principal all seem to assume that teachers will write recs. If the issue of writing rec has not come before the School board in a district, it’s likely because all parties involved assume it is part of a teacher’s job to write some recs.
There is a difference between the kinds of things a job entail (lecturing, preparing for classes, giving and marking tests, etc…) and the workload (eg. class size). </p>
<p>I have never taken for granted that specific teachers would write recs for my kids. I could only hope so. But if teachers as a whole cannot be expected to write recs for high school students, someone had better let colleges know.</p>
<p>I see the letter writing as part of the job. As marite points out, every teacher doesn’t have an obligation to write a glowing letter for every student, but teachers do have an obligation to summarize the studen’t strengths and weaknesses for the college to consider. Similar practices take place in other realms. In the business world, no employee moves between assignments without an appraisal. It’s only fair for those who held responsibility for an employee to share their opinions with the receiving organization. </p>
<p>My D, a first grader, was given a readiness assessment before entering first grade. The kindergarten teacher took the time to detail her strengths and weaknesses for the first grade teacher. </p>
<p>Why is this any different? A teacher has been engaged with a student for at least 1 year. That student is now in the position of needing to make the transition to another level of education. Is it not the teacher’s job to document the student’s strengths and weaknesses for the potentially receiving party? Colleges require this. Why, then, wouldn’t high schools consider it a requirement? Do we have a lack of cooperation between some high school teachers and institutions of higher learning? </p>
<p>Westerndad - not sure if you teach in a private school or public school. either way, I’m surprised you don’t think you have to consider the desires of the parents in your school. Your attitude is very alarming and I would hate to think too many teachers think like you. </p>
<p>When teachers and parents cooperate, students win.</p>
<p>This has been interesting, I think the majority of us, teachers, students, parents and others agree that a teacher should not charge for writing letters. The disagreement lies in whether or not writing a letter is part of the job. Legally, of course it is not; ethically a teacher can choose, just as the rest of society can choose, when to write a letter or not.</p>
<p>I come early, stay in for lunch upon request, and stay after for tutoring 4 days a week, the fifth day is for faculty meetings. I have my home phone number posted in my room, so I can help kids with homework and other problems. I have stood at school with students waiting for rides for hours after school functions, volunteer to go to games, dances and concerts. I take classes or teach summer school during the unpaid “vacation” attend Saturday meetings or forums about once a month, plus school events.)</p>
<p>As for teacher appreciation, it is spotty at best. Administrators, parents, students and a lot of other people seem to think it is reasonable for teachers to take time to do what ever it is they think teachers should do. Once a year, someone makes us a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon (I’m a vegetarian.) The Governor is trying to take away my pension, the district wants my health insurance, and the federal government describes me as not highly qualified until I fill out more forms and get copies of transcripts. This week is spring break, I will be attending one of my student’s funeral service.</p>
<p>If you really appreciate teachers, get the school boards to let us teach, protect our benefits and allow us a decent retirement when we are done.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>“I have never taken for granted that specific teachers would write recs for my kids. I could only hope so.”</p>
<p>So, actually, we are pretty much in agreement. I have a son who is a senior and I looked at this in exactly the same way as you: I hoped that some teachers would write letters, but I certainly did not assume that they would. It was entirely their call. My experience is that teachers are quite willing to do so.</p>
<p>And, Marite, if I have been a little tough on this issue, I apologize. As I have said, I’m overly sensitive. I want you to know, though, that I care deeply about my students, and I give them 100% each day. It is a joy when they come after school and tell me about their acceptances, and I commiserate with them when the news is not so good. I hope that your son received stellar recommendations and that he was admitted to the school of his first choice.</p>
<p>Westerndad:</p>
<p>Thanks. My S was admitted EA to his #1 choice. I assume he got stellar recs from his teachers who expressed eagerness (Yes!) to write for him. We tried to minimize the number of recs that would be needed by informing the teachers as soon as he received his acceptance, though he’d already provided them with stamped, addressed envelopes, etc… This way, they did not have to send out the other letters.
My kids have been blessed with wonderful, excellent teachers. Several of my S’s coaches often spend entire saturdays at events (yesterday was from 6am to midnight). One drove him to another state for a competition.
By the way, I’ve been on hiring committees for teachers, principals, and superintendent (once). Reference letters have been an invaluable and expected source of information. In turn, I wrote a letter of appreciation for a wonderful student teacher my S had in 9th grade. I thought that would be helpful in her job search.</p>
<p>Mr. B: I couldn’t have said it any better. You described things very well.</p>
<p>Mom’s dream: “I’m surprised you don’t think you have to consider the desires of the parents in your school. Your attitude is very alarming and I would hate to think too many teachers think like you.”</p>
<p>If you read my post, you would notice that I say that I am not “accountable” to the whims and opinions of parents. That is a far cry from saying that I do not consider the “desires” of parents at my school. I factor that in all the time. But it is impossible to be accountable to 175 parents who may have wildly different points of view on what my job involves. That is why we have principals and school board members. I certainly am accountable to them.</p>
<p>And you would hate to think that there are many teachers who think like me, eh? Well, there are quite a few parents at my school who like me just fine, thank you. I won’t bore you with my qualifications, but parents tell me that they would like to see more teachers like me, and they put all sorts of pressure on the administration to get their children into my classes.</p>
<p>I think that westerndad represents a solid group of teachers who do take on writing recommendations as part of being a mentor to high school students, however as it is not explicitly stated as something that is covered in curriculum, he fears that this duty is taken for granted by administratiors, parents and students.
Unfortunately his responsible behavior is not mimiced by many of the teachers in my younger daughters previous school. WHen a teacher doesn’t collect papers on the day they are due, when papers are not handed back after being graded, and when teachers don’t show up when prior arrangements have been made for tutoring- parents lose faith with their ‘professionalism’ thank goodness she is not attending there anymore- they probably would put the same care into writing recommendations that they did into her IEP.
Teachers seem to fall into two camps around here. We have teachers who barely scream into the parking lot minutes before school starts and are the first ones to leave, sometimes early if they they have a free period at the end of the day. Assigned work is often done in class, with little to no homework. The level of work seemed low with the high school English dept expecting accolades because students were reading “Lord of the Flies” or “The Pearl”
alternately, when my daughter switched schools we found teachers that passed out their home phone numbers. Coaches who hosted dinners for students before games, teachers who responded to email concerns immediately without parents having to go to the principal/superintendent/state after months of stonewalling. It is really quite shocking! I certainly do not expect staff to spend their own money on students, I do expect them to let parent groups know what is needed so parents can pick up the slack. parents are often more than willing to help if they have specifics. Parent support at college application time allowed counselors to spend more time writing recs because they had to spend less time helping students with essays and selecting colleges.
I don’t take teachers for granted- but I do expect a high school teacher to want many of her students to go on to college and to try as hard as she can to prepare them for that. Part of applying to college is having recommendations- some of them from teachers.
Limit the reqs you write- Require a resume to aid in writing them- do whatever you want to make it easier but don’t refuse to write any and don’t charge for them. Teachers that refuse to write reqs and who charge for reqs seem to put more of a burden on teachers who do want students to go on to college without paying for the priviledge.
( However I do feel that in the circumstance of the teacher who wasn’t at the present high school- and who was tutoring that it was appropriate to charge. It would have been very generous not to charge- and I can see how that was very frustrating for the student, but as her job was quite different now- I can see why she chose to bill)</p>
<p>westerndad, yes it is obvious that you are overly sensitive to this subject and i can understand that it is because teachers, in general, are not given the respect and appreciation they deserve. often, though, it is not the students who are disrespectful and unappreciative but the bureaucracy of the whole education system. you seem to be picking apart words(ie assume) to defend your view, i think emarldkity said it very well-
"I don’t take teachers for granted- but I do expect a high school teacher to want many of her students to go on to college and to try as hard as she can to prepare them for that. Part of applying to college is having recommendations- some of them from teachers. "</p>
<p>“However I do feel that in the circumstance of the teacher who wasn’t at the present high school- and who was tutoring that it was appropriate to charge. It would have been very generous not to charge- and I can see how that was very frustrating for the student, but as her job was quite different now- I can see why she chose to bill”</p>
<p>I honestly don’t see why she chose to bill. After I stopped teaching college, and started doing other work, even years later, I still got requests from former students to write letters of recommendation for them.</p>
<p>Even though it ate into my time, I liked the students and believed in them, so I wrote the letters. I can not imagine charging them for this.</p>
<p>It is very, very hard for me to believe that the teacher whom the poster described honestly had no time to write a recommendation letter. I also feel that by offering to do this when she was leaving the school, she essentially was simply trying to line up more business for herself, not offering to help the student.</p>
<p>Frankly, I would not trust a teacher who did that.</p>
<p>I also think that asking $150 for a recommendation letter is ridiculous. Writing a good letter takes about an hour. Even if the teacher had to do this on time that normally she would have been using for her business, I doubt that she was earning $150 an hour from her business. </p>
<p>To me, the woman simply seemed to be sleazy – trying to milk a doctor’s kid for all she could get. I would not trust any letter that she’d write. I suspect that anyone so allegedly time and money conscious would simply kiss off the letter as quickly and simply as she could and then run to the bank to cash her check.</p>
<p>Northstar, thanx for the post. I also disagree with the poster who “can see why she chose to bill”. First of all, I go to a private school, she had about 45 students. Secondly, my parents and I are very close to her(she invited us to a play she had written, we went to her book signing…) and she taught I and my brother. It was the night of my brother’s graduation when i was finishing 11th grade that she told my parents shed like to stay in touch and would be happy to write me a rec. so it is very sleazy; i could maybe mabye understand if a student she didnt have a very good relationship asked her but tht wouldnt happen. im sure the letter was really great; shes a very nice lady but her head is sometimes in the cloud, i dont think she, herself, is a sleaze. im kind of mad at myself for not saying anything to her but then of course, i would be losing a great rec.</p>
<p>“He fears that this duty is taken for granted by administratiors, parents and students.” (Emerald)</p>
<p>“I have never taken for granted that specific teachers would write recs for my kids. I could only hope so.” (Marite)</p>
<p>Both of you hit it right on the head. There is a world of difference between those who ASSUME that teachers will write letters, and the points of view that you two expressed. </p>
<p>Emerald: I’m sorry that you had those experiences with some teachers at your daughter’s previous school. I am glad that your daughter is in a much better situation now. </p>
<p>I’d like to throw a question out to the board: Emerald and others have suggested that teachers might place a limit on the number of letters that they write. I’ve never done that, but I’m curious:</p>
<p>1) How would that fly with parents?</p>
<p>2) What is a reasonable number to write?</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that all the recs are due pretty much at the same time; this puts a huge burden on teachers. If the guidance department issued guidelines to juniors, suggesting that they ask for recs at the end of the junior year or at the very beginning of the senior year, it might ease a bit on teachers’ load. Another way to make it easier for teachers is to require students to fill in as much of the information as possible. If I go by my S’s teacher, who warned that she would not entertain requests for recs after Thanksgiving, I would say she probably wrote 20-30. Although she had many more students than that, she taught at all levels, not just juniors and seniors; this is the basis for my guesstimate. How do you feel about such a number?</p>
<p>My son’s school let everyone know that transcripts and counselor recs required before the Christmas break should be requested before Thnaksgiving (along with a fee, addressed envelope and postage, I might add). We just sort of followed the same time table with the teacher recs. There was no quantity limit, though. How could a teacher help some kids and deny others? This would give an edge to anyone applying EA or ED, which is often a financial issue for the family. </p>
<p>My son chose three teachers and approached them early about writing recs. I’m sure that they just composed one letter and enclosed a copy in our pre-addressed, stamped envelopes for each school and scholarship. I think that writing these letters for the kids is just the decent (if not the “moral”) thing to do. I also believe it would be proper etiquette for the student to send a nice thank you note and perhaps a token gift for the teachers who took the time to help with the college process.</p>
<p>I agree and would have no problem with the above. If the school and teachers could work together with parents (through the parent’s council/PTO/PTA, etc.) to develop some guidelines that are consistent, it would make a world of difference. This should also require that students show respect when asking for recs, and should impose some duties on the students such as adhering to reasonable timeframes, supplying the teacher with a resume or some other document, etc. </p>
<p>The only potential roadblock I see is that if the guidelines are seen as imposing additional responsbilities that aren’t already there, they would have to be collectively bargained for with the teachers (for those operating in a unionized environment).</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>I could certainly live with 20-30, though it would be difficult to tell #21 or #31 that he/she had just missed out. I sure like your idea about end-of-year juniors approaching teachers. I would then get the letters done over the summer and not feel so rushed. That would take the load off during the fall.</p>
<p>lfk,</p>
<p>Thank you for suggesting proper etiquette for students. I might add that teachers who write letters enjoy being informed about admissions decisions later on in the senior year. It would be nice for students to share the news, good or bad.</p>
<p>Iderochi,</p>
<p>Consistent guidelines that are well-publicized would definitely help.</p>
<p>Mr.B asked about good guidance websites.<br>
I would think that providing guidelines about recs would be a very important function of a good guidance department. This would include when to ask for recs, what information to provide the teachers (resume, intended major), what to include (stamped, addressed envelopes), and proper etiquette (thank you notes, informing teachers about outcome). For a Nov. 1 deadline, my S asked the teachers in late September/early October. He told teachers and the GC of the outcome as soon as he heard it, so that they did not need to send out recs for RD applications. He also sent a thank you card and a different book for each of the teachers and his GC (who’s done a phenomenal job over the last 3 years to build an appropriate schedule and set of classes for him).</p>
<p>My daughter was in a graduating class of 18. She waited till November to ask her biology teacher/advisor for a rec- it was too late- I believe her teacher wrote 5- 7 recs.
I think it should be up to each teacher how many recs to write but I think that 10 - 20 should be plenty if it is a school of about 1500 with plenty of teachers to choose from.
I also dont think it is unreasonable to require students to ask in spring of junior year when they take SATs or at least by end of sept.</p>
<p>Ek:</p>
<p>The burden of writing letters falls primarily on Humanities and math/science teachers. If teachers teach mostly juniors and seniors, they get the most requests. I could envision teachers in a school of about 1500 students getting more than 10-20 requests. It also makes for a very lopsided distribution of workload among teachers.</p>
<p>westerndad:
My S’s teacher was a real softie. I would be willing to bet that if a student asked for a rec after the deadline had passed, she would write the rec. What the announcement accomplished was that most students put in their requests before Thanksgiving.</p>