<p>“As for blame…I’ll chip in my 2 cents.”</p>
<p>Me too. When it’s everyone’s responsibility, it’s no one’s responsibility. (Yes, that’s an old business adage.)</p>
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Yes, that’s right. </p>
<p>If a student has above a certain score on the SAT section or on one of the Regents exams, he or she is deemed qualified to take the college level class and is placed accordingly. Also, all students must take a placement test and even if they don’t meet the other criteria, they can succeed in placing into college level courses on that test.</p>
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<p>The whole situation involving my client’s granddaughter’s school district is absurd. Stalker physically assaults and threatens granddaughter with more violence. Stalker was changed, found guilty, found to have a prior criminal record, and was ruled too much of a safety threat to remain in the general school population by a court. School district appealed the decision and in so doing, took the stalker’s side. Higher court upheld lower court ruling which prompted the school district to appeal again wasting school district money, not caring their actions signify that they’re happy to put the rest of the students’ safety in jeopardy, and exhibiting a distinctly callous attitude towards my client’s granddaughter. Did I mention this takes place in an upper-middle class Midwest suburb? </p>
<p>Incidentally, one great thing about my NYC public magnet was that exhibiting disruptive/violent behaviors which threatened student/school safety was one of the few grounds where the school can immediately involuntarily expel a student…and without appeals after the fact. A reason why students didn’t have to fear for their physical safety at my public HS.</p>
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<p>More changes on the horizon:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/nyregion/with-new-standards-going-beyond-paper-and-pencil-to-license-teachers.html?pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/nyregion/with-new-standards-going-beyond-paper-and-pencil-to-license-teachers.html?pagewanted=all</a></p>
<p>PS I believe that the definition of “having a degree in that discipline” is quite liberal. I could be wrong but I think that a student with a degree in communications can be certified to teach English Arts. And a graduate with a degree in Spanish certified to teach any LOTE.</p>
<p>Xiggi, that’s not the case in NYC, at least not anymore at the middle or high school levels.</p>
<p>xiggi-- I was facinated by the question of how much US teachers work. I ran across the 2007 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on the number of “net contact” hours teachers have per year in actually teaching. It was on a blog at the New York Times so I can’t post.</p>
<p>US teachers (primary and secondary) have 1,080 hours of “net contact.” This was the largest number of hours by far of any country. In Japan, their equivalent to a HS teacher has 500 net contact hours, the middle school teacher has in the 600 hours and the primary school teacher has in the 700 hours. </p>
<p>IN US dollars, comparing US and Japanese teachers with the same number of years experience, the US teacher is paid $43,500 and the Japanese teacher $49,000+. Actually there were few countries that pay their teachers less “per hour” than the US for net contact teaching time.</p>
<p>In your opinion, what are the greatest US economic inefficiencies in public education?</p>
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<p>Well you’re wrong xiggi (gasp!). Blame it on whatever you want, but teachers are contracted to work a certain number of days. Maybe you don’t like it, or wish it were different, but it’s not. In CA my parents are contracted to work 180 days per year. They do not receive paychecks in the summer. </p>
<p>Their school district wants to cut the school year for budget reasons. Using your logic, the average teacher (who only makes 55,000 in salary and benefits in my parents district) would only take a 5/260 pay cut or 1058.00. Unfortunately in the real world they will take a 5/180 pay cut of 1528.00. </p>
<p>I didn’t understand why you capitalized ACT??? Is it some type of grammar thing or did I just use the word incorrectly?</p>
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<p>Good! What I relied on was posted here – and perhaps no longer applicable.</p>
<p>[Professional</a> Certificate - Master’s Degree Requirement:Apply for Certificate:OTI:NYSED](<a href=“OTI : NYSED”>Professional Certificate - Master's Degree Requirement:Apply for Certificate:OTI:NYSED)</p>
<p>**For English Language Arts **
English Linguistics
Film Writing
Communications <<<<<<<<<<<<
Creative Writing
Comparative Literature
Journalism
Theater
Playwriting
Drama</p>
<p>For Languages Other Than English
A Masters degree in any language other than English (LOTE) will be considered sufficiently related to any other language certificate to qualify as a related Masters Degree.
Linguistics</p>
<p>Ah, the master’s degree is different. That has to just be “relateable.” Initial certification comes with the Bachelor’s Degree and is content specific.</p>
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<p>Why do you assume I did not understand the contracting of a number of days?
See my post 165 that addressed that precise issue.</p>
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<p>And it is a not a matter if I like it or not. My perception is not very different from most of the outsiders. The silly nature of the contracting of teachers is the result of years of negotiations by the labor unions that aimed at extracting the most for doing the least. Except for people who benefit from the extorted concessions, does anyone really believe that the profession should be an extended part-time activity?</p>
<p>Reduced to its essence, it is a game of semantics --like many issues that cover education. Our teachers should be contracted on a full time basis and work all year long, safe and except for vacation time similar to what most “commoners” receive in the United States. Their salaries should be expressed on an annual basis, and not pretend that an annual salary really covers around 180 days of work.</p>
<p>Would it not be simpler to pay the teachers adequately for a full year performance, and expect them to work accordingly?</p>
<p>Are you suggesting the end of summer break, xiggi?</p>
<p>Anyone who teaches knows a school has a very difficult time being better than its community. Kids come from families - or lack of - and they live in a social world of other kids from their little area. </p>
<p>I read a piece on The Economist’s site about an “incentive” study for teachers that examined the effect of punishment on teacher performance. It found that taking away $4k in pay for worse measured performance was more effective than promising $4k extra for better measured performance. Note the word “measured” because they must use some calculated method.</p>
<p>Putting aside that the difference between the positive and negative metrics wasn’t that large, this kind of thinking is a real problem. It assumes there is either an essentially fixed pool of teachers or that anyone who is or who becomes a teacher has no choice but that profession. If you make these assumptions, you can rationally focus on marginal ways of improving the productivity of that group. But those assumptions are idiotic. </p>
<p>How does it work in other professions? If you want better people, you pay them more. You offer better benefits. You give them more training, more support. You don’t threaten them with a loss of perhaps 10% of pay. That only makes entering the profession less attractive. It makes staying in the profession for anyone with a choice, meaning your best people, because who would trust the metrics used? What if you have a bad class? What if you have 4 kids who are awful behavior problems? What if your principal leaves and you get no support for a year or two? </p>
<p>IMHO, America pays lip service to the idea of education. We say we value it. In consultant-speak, that is our “espoused value.” Our actual values are seen in behavior. If you consult to companies, you compare what they say to how they act to show them the difference. Government employment is down now to below 1984 levels. That’s not adjusted for population increase; it’s the totals for all levels of government. The biggest drop is in education. Some of those are in administration and support, which in many cases reduces the effectiveness of teaching, but the biggest number is teachers. (Oddly, the number of firefighters is up. Police numbers are down substantially too, which is interesting given our nation’s proclivity for locking people up.)</p>
<p>The strange thing is our education system produces what we’ve asked of it. Take the industrial midwest. If industry hadn’t gone overseas or moved south (in that uniquely American way in which one state attempts to beggar another), we wouldn’t care what the high schools produced as long as the graduates could work in factories. We would expect relative handfuls would move out and up into finance and other worlds. </p>
<p>Forgive this longish rant.</p>
<p>xiggi–I followed up on the pay issues. I focused on Japan as an example of a system that seems to “rate out” higher than the US. Students attend classes 240 days in Japan vs. 180 days in the US. But a HS teacher in Japan actually teaches about 1/2 as many hours annually as a US teacher.</p>
<p>Having 1,080 hours of net contact in 180 days means a US teacher is teaching 6 hours a day. The Japanese HS teacher is teaching about 2 hours a day over 240 days. </p>
<p>I wonder if a part of the US problem is the number of hours a day the US teacher is required to spend teaching rather than on some other aspect.</p>
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<p>In Japan’s case, other factors include longer schooldays/week(half-days on saturdays)/year and the fact most parents of college-bound students send them to juku or cram schools from 6-very late night. This mindset is one reason they have a saying regarding sleeping hours for high school students concerned about passing the national college entrance exams “Pass with 4, fail with 5”. </p>
<p>Another big factor is extremely disruptive/violent students aren’t tolerated and no one has compunctions about expelling them from the regular school system. Met one older Japanese undergrad who was expelled in 7th grade for a schoolyard fight that’d be extremely mild by American standards. If it wasn’t for a chance meeting with a Japanese benefactor who felt he deserved a second chance through having him finish his education in the US…he’d still be trying to eke an existence working odd/unskilled factory jobs. He’s an illustration of not only the system’s effort to provide a safe learning environment, but also the negative fact that it doesn’t allow for second chances if you screwed up at a young age. </p>
<p>The cultural mindset also strongly discourages their parents from launching suits to keep their kids in school…especially when such actions would often be perceived as great chutzpah on those parents’ part to cover for their poor parenting skills.</p>
<p><a href=“E”>quote</a> for most students in the United States,
the school year is 180 days long. In Japan
students go to school 243 days per year, in
Germany students go to school 240 days per
year, in Austria students go to school 216
days per year, in Denmark students go to
school 200 days per year, and in Switzerland
students go to school 195 days per year; and
(F) in the final four years of schooling,
students in schools in the United States are
required to spend a total of 1,460 hours on
core academic subjects, less than half of the
3,528 hours so required in Germany, the 3,280
hours so required in France, and the 3,170
hours so required in Japan;
[/quote]
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<p>These are from US Congressional findings. [20</a> U.S.C. 8351 - Extended time for learning and longer school year](<a href=“GovInfo”>GovInfo)</p>
<p>cobrat–you won’t get any argument from me that the inability to control the classroom in US publics when this exists is a huge negative to all students in that class. But I am wondering if actually teaching 6 hours a day in any school environment is “quality” teaching.</p>
<p>My SIL teaches 1st grade in the San Antonio (Texas) ISD. She has mentioned that teachers in primary schools do their lesson plans on their own time. I have no idea whether that is the case in countries were there is less than 3 hours a day per teacher actually teaching. Do you know if most Japanese teachers had non-teaching periods in the school day to do such things?</p>
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<p>I don’t think I said you didn’t understand contracting of a number of days. My point was that the premise of your argument is incorrect. Just because you wish they had an annual contract doesn’t make it so. It doesn’t matter if it’s your perception or not, it isn’t a fact. Arguments based on false assumptions can’t hold water.</p>
<p>I think my parents would welcome an annual contract. The problem is that as of now they don’t exist ( at least not in their district).</p>
<p>Good point about # of days.
Additionally many of the days are half days due to teacher conferences, teacher in service days, days required for testing, assemblies …
In our district, a half day may have six periods but each period may be less than 30 minutes long. Combine that with counting as full day, any day the student stays through lunch and they aren’t quite getting much seat time.
From November through March what with half days for teacher conferences, winter break, half days for testing, mid-winter break, and misc holidays, it is very disruptive In Seattle school district. When we happen to get winter weather that causes school closures instead of taking the days from mid winter break as a reasonable person might do,they get a waiver from the state requirements.
Hard to teach the kids if they aren’t in the classroom.</p>
<p>Re summer. Many teachers are continuing their education in the summer, either taking classes or teaching classes to deepen their professional skills.
I thought that was part of continued certification?
Another thing districts are doing to save money, is cutting teacher prep time at the beginning of the year. The teacher still obviously needs to prepare their classroom for fall, they just aren’t getting paid for it.
( and according to union rules, they aren’t supposed to do it, but only the most slap happy teacher is going to be setting up their classroom after labor day)</p>
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<p>I for one enjoyed your longish rant, and recognized parts thereof as germane ;)</p>
<p>OTOH, I only WISH we’d let some students actually train for a stream of viable/vocational employment rather that push everyone to pursue college and then lament that the quality of our college grads is diminishing. Well of course it is! Everyone is pushed to go now, and it’s big business to cater to the demand!
Streaming in HS might help better allocate resources. Companies willing to apprentice employees would also help.</p>
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<p>For the students … no. For the providers of the services … absolutely yes. </p>
<p>Schools such be more than they are today, and more than being an academic center during the school year, and often a daycamp during the summer. Schools should remain open during the summer for elective programs, teachers’ continuing education, and especially for all those pesky administrative tasks and conferences. Have you ever wondered why students return to school on a Friday and then are home for Monday and Tuesday because of teachers’ conference or other matters? Ever wonder why conferences are organized in Hawaii and during the school year? </p>
<p>This does not mean that July should be a copycat of October; it should be different with a focus on helping students who are failing, or alternatively students who are more advanced.</p>
<p>Anyhow, my answer is either not what you expected, or entirely too long!</p>
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<p>Again, I refer to my point about semantics. I think you know exactly what I meant in my posts. However, for the sake of moving forward, let’s simply agree to disagree on this issue. In the end, it makes no difference. I will remain convinced that teachers are contracted on an annual basis with determination of the numbers of days and services to be performed. And you will remain convinced that teachers are contracted for those days and that the summer represents an unpaid furlough. </p>
<p>And I will still suggest that it would be better for all parties to bring an end to the shorter contracts that mimic the school’s academic year.</p>