<p>At our school I believe teachers receive stipends for sponsoring groups/clubs after school or at lunch. While I disagree with charging for recommendations- I don’t have a problem with the school( or parent group) giving a stipend to the teachers who write the most recommendations- or in some other way making it easier for them to do so. Our parent group writes mini grants- $40,000 was budgeted for this year- for teachers- most are probably for things in the classroom, but I imagine that consideration could be given to teachers that do more than classroom work.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4, your school is lucky to have involved parents. As you know that is not the case in many inner city schools. I don’t think teachers should be paid to write recs. No one should write a recommendation for money, a heartfelt thanks should be enough. People should recommend someone because they respect a them enough to want to write them a letter. In other words, because the student has earned a recommendation from them.</p>
<p>I agree with Mr. B.<br>
There are many different types of issues teachers face. For example, some teachers in my S’s school suggest that AP teachers have an easier time of it because their students are motivated and, by and large, do not have discipline problems. As well, the range of academic skills they have to cope with is not as large as those teachers of 9th and 10th graders face (especially when we had heterogeneous classes). So it would be far better for teachers to discuss among themselves what is an equitable workload, rather than individual parents or the PTO inserting themselves in their discussion.</p>
<p>i agree that AP teachers can have an easier time. My daughters school is “inner city” and average class size is 32. However some teachers have allowed overenrollment of up to 42 students ( while recieving extra $ as required by union) But still an AP class of 42 students in Calc A/b is probably going to be easier to manage than a class of 30 students in 10th grade English where some students may not even be at grade level, and are barely willing to stay in the room the whole period.</p>
<p>I know that not all schools have supportive parent groups or even have parent groups at all. Some districts have looked at making fundraising more equitable, although I don’t know how that has worked out. We have schools in our district that don’t even have a PTA but then we also have schools whose groups raise hundreds of thousands of $$.
I know students need to deserve the recommendations, my daughter was lucky in that she had a very small class size- so that teachers had a relatively smaller classload than other schools. She had recommendations from her college counselor ( didn’t read) and from her history and English teacher ( so I agree that humanities do bear disproportinate burden). She also had reqs from her volunteer job- cause it seems like one school required an outside reference, but it also seems like some schools don’t require references, just grades and scores or is my memory failing me?</p>
<p>In our school, classes are capped at 30. That’s it. My S wanted to take a second-semester English elective class, but could not because of the cap. When my older S took AP-French, however, there were only 9 students in the class. In AP-Chem, there were two sections, one with 18, one with 12 students.</p>
<p>Just a reply on AP teachers having an easier time. This is not necessarily so. Certainly in the area of discipline, AP teachers do not face as many challenges. In other areas, though, we have far more work to do. This is especially true for AP English and AP History courses because of the essay grading load. I teach five AP classes with as many as 36 students per section. I love teaching those classes, but I sure would not call it easy.</p>
<p>Again, like Mr. B., I would not feel comfortable taking money under any circumstances, but I sure appreciate the suggestions you folks are making regarding etiquette. (Especially you, Marite)</p>
<p>Must run now. One of those AP classes is now coming in!</p>
<p>Westerndad:</p>
<p>Each class has its own set of challenges! I once sat in in a discussion among teachers about equity (thinking it was about equity among students). Teachers who were present were making allusions to different workload, class sizes, etc… It was quite an eye-opener for me. I think our school has tried to even out the workload among teachers of academic subjects by requiring teachers to teach a range of classes.</p>
<p>That is horrible, charging for recs. Maybe if he’s getting too many people asking him for recs, he should just be a little more selective about who he gives them too.</p>
<p>This is one of those examples of a teacher who isn’t even as smart as the students.</p>
<p>Whiz,</p>
<p>And why do you suppose there might be teachers who are not as smart as their students?</p>
<p>Logically, I think it’s because they may have parents more intelligent than the teacher who have taught them a lot. Or they may have had teachers previously that taught them more than the teacher knows. I don’t know, what’s the point of that question?</p>
<p>he’s a teacher and you hurt his feelings.</p>
<p>Well I didn’t mean all teachers are dumber than their students. I go to a school with a surplus of arrogant annoying teachers. I have however had some very intelligent teachers.</p>
<p>My Chemistry teacher, I’m convinced he’s a genius, seriously. Westerndad I am very sorry if you were offended by that comment, I’m sure you’re a great teacher.</p>
<p>Whiz,</p>
<p>Actually, I’m not offended. I tried to get you to draw the conclusion that the “best and the brightest” don’t go into teaching because the job is not an attractive one. Make the job more attractive and there will be fewer cases in which the students are smarter than the teachers.</p>
<p>Oh, somehow I didn’t catch that. Yes I agree. The problem with teaching is that it doesn’t have an attractive salary and all the things other jobs have.</p>
<p>So you take a guy who’s really smart in economics or something, he’s gonna go work on Wall Street for the big bucks. It’s the guy that wishes he could have done that who ends up in the classroom.</p>
<p>I’m in a business ownership class and we were all wondering if the teacher had any experience owning a business because he told us in programming class that he had worked for Nortel. So he says he owned a business for a year. What does that tell you, considering the size of his current house he told us, 1300 square feet in Texas, I’m guessing that business failed.</p>
<p>I think it’s the older teachers who don’t fit this profile most of the time. For example, my Chemistry PAP teacher. He worked at a research form doing organic chemistry, but he wanted the pension for retirement so now, 65 years old, he’s going to teach for a couple years.</p>
<p>Whiz,</p>
<p>Regarding your example of the econ whiz: how can I possibly disagree with that? However, there is a factor that helps to explain why there are in fact some bright people in teaching: social class. Many teachers (like me) grew up in lower/lower-middle class families where college and opportunities beyond college were not even known, much less stressed. So, a number of bright people just gravitated towards a teaching career, not knowing there were other more lucrative avenues to pursue.</p>
<p>Good point, I guess I’m lucky to know about all these options I have.</p>
<p>That was the conclusion that I was hoping you would draw.</p>