"So what kind of teachers could a school get if it paid them $125,000 a year?"

[emeraldkity4]

<p>Our teacher contract is 181 days. Days that end after lunchtime for students ( but not for teacher training), are included in 181 days.
We don’t have any charters, although our city does have a high % or students attending private schools and we have fewer children per capita than other cities of our size ( except SF)</p>

<p>I understand the reason for the union.
My husband has always belonged to a union and has been a union steward. ( he makes basically same hourly wage he has for the last 30 years- bad years they take money away- good they put it back)
His company even has a union for positions that elsewhere are considered " professional", however, I do not believe those depts are a " closed shop" and the union also considers other factors than seniority when determining layoffs.</p>

<p>I see that our district has many teachers that are qualified to teach elementary school, however, we also need teachers with strong math/science skills and who can teach languages.
I think that this should be reflected with hiring bonuses or in the job category.
I also have observed that principals don’t always do substantive evaluations of teachers & could be the reason why lower performing teachers are shuffled around, not fired.</p>

<p>One of the worst cases I have seen was a woman who became a teacher years ago so that she could sub for some extra money. Standards were different - and now that her kids were grown,she was looking for something more and started to work a little more at the school. She became the Title 1 teacher, teaching students who needed extra help with math and reading as the other teacher had retired. My daughter had the other teacher & she loved her- she was knowledgeable , worked well with the kids and had good communication with the parents.
I was disappointed in the replacement. She didn’t want her classroom observed she said it would distract and upset the children. She often left the room unattended ( I was in the building almost every day) & the kids with nothing to do. She yelled and demeaned the kids according to my daughter. I had bigger fish to fry so I didn’t take this particular case up with the principal but I wasn’t the only one who had a problem.
The principals way of solving it, was to assign this teacher a classroom of students- Principal had been reassigned- she wouldn’t have to deal with the backlash & didn’t have to do the detailed observations.
Essentially the problem was “solved” the teacher as the outgoing principal realized, wouldn’t be able to handle a classroom of 6th graders all day.
She quit a few weeks into the school year- but then those kids were left without a permanent teacher- for the rest of the year. :(</p>

<p>Feedback is important and with the districts luck with student testing, I don’t think that should be used as the criteria for teacher performance.</p>

<p>The real money suck however for our district is hiring outside consultants ( usually from other states) to come and give workshops for teacher training. ( the school board even outsourced the superintendents performance review. Last year- her first, she received a 10% raise based on * nothing* no evaluation on file.
This year?
The district is like any big company - they read an pop psych article think it sounds good, and pays them $$$$ to come and give a presentation, that the kids have to go home early for & that I have heard the teachers grumble about.</p>

<p>They don’t need more " experts", they need decent books, they need time to do their work & they need to know their co-workers are working as hard as they are.
( IMO of course)</p>

[epiphany]

<p>

I think the teacher unions minimize the ‘professional’ aspect of the teacher and bring it down to the level of a factory job by attempting to control so many aspects of the teacher compensation and employment factors.

</p>

<p>Uh-huh. That was indeed one of my points as well. By doing so, they degrade the assumption of professionalism, which is by definition based on meeting an elastic level of proficiency (no ceiling) responsive to particular student needs. Teaching is not about uniform job conditions. There is no such thing in teaching, because students are hardly uniform. Your job as a teacher is to meet those conditions as masterfully as possible, whether those conditions are easy one year, difficult another, seemingly “impossible” yet another. It’s absurd that unions pretend, by their language and “demands,” that anything else is realistic.</p>

[broetchen]

<p>Albert Shanker, long-time president of the American Federation of Teachers:</p>

<p>

“When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”

</p>

[pageturner]

<p>

I’d treat teachers as professionals. I’d hire the best I could for the budget I had. I’d readily get rid of the bottom performers and reward the top performers regardless of seniority. In short, I’d run it the way most businesses in this country are run regarding their professional employees.

</p>

<p>How would we measure performance? Test scores? Imagine how difficult it would be to fill some positions in the rural and inner city districts if this were the case.</p>

<p>This profession isn’t like any other profession in the world. We teach the future of our culture and civilization. I find it difficult to bring in the comparison of “most businesses in this country”. </p>

<p>I wonder how often teacher tenure is being blamed, instead of faulty school administration.</p>

[epiphany]

<p>

How would we measure performance? Test scores?

</p>

<p>Do we measure the professionalism of a doctor in an inner city by how healthy all the patients are? Hardly. We measure his or her quality by the level of expertise, combined with the quality of care, combined with the earned reputation in that community and the consistent professional demeanor of the doctor, which would include respect shown to the patients, and a high ethic. If there were a quantitative element we might additionally measure how low his patient attrition rate was and how few successful lawsuits there were. We certainly wouldn’t measure his performance by how few total deaths there were among his patients (who could be elderly, lacking adequate nutrition and money for vaccinations). We could, however, measure his performance partly by how creative & persistent his efforts were in getting patients to join in responsibility for their own health care & become a partner in good health, just as competent teachers try to do with their students in the intellectual realm.</p>

<p>Plenty of school administrators are lacking in professionalism themselves, but the quality of their performance is not aided by the union shop language and artificial egalitarianism promoted by teacher unions who have shifted the emphasis from the individual student’s rights to teacher rights. Your primary emphasis as a teacher should not be your minimum rights but your maximum responsibilities and your students’ limitless possibilities. If you went into teaching for any other reason, you’re in the wrong profession. That doesn’t mean you have to be a doormat and sacrifice your self-respect. But those are qualities that you carry in your person and will be apparent in your demeanor.</p>

[garland]

<p>Epiphany–as someone married to a guy who actually was an inner city doc and now is (I must say) an exceptionally great urban high school teacher, I agree with your post completely.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, our educational establishment (including the new sec. of ed.) does not see it that way. It’s all test scores, test scores, test scores.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>One thing that I like to do with my kids is to ask them questions about random topics, math, science, politics, economics, finance, advertising, marketing, etc. while driving them to something. Sometimes I ask more questions and sometimes I make comments or give a short speech or provide an explanation for the underlying cause of something that’s not obvious. In many cases, the kids figure out the riddle with an aha! moment.</p>

<p>That’s a lot of fun to see when you are tutoring.</p>

<p>Other times I prefer the usual structured stuff and the classroom-type discussions that they get in their classes.</p>

<p>Tests are a necessary evil and they seem to be handled well in the college setting. I think that the testing environment and mentality in our school systems are completely nutty though. I understand that they serve a purpose in ensuring that the lower half in schools learn something but they do nothing at the high-end.</p>

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

<p>

my last years in corporate life I had 6 weeks vacation, 10 sick days, 12 holidays 4 floaters, my birthday, half day fridays from memorial day thru labor day

sybbie:
Wow - I think those are unusually good benefits in the corporate world today. I’d be interested to hear if other posters think that’s anywhere close to the norm so I can decide whether I’m getting shafted or not. I wonder if they have any openings? :)</p>

<p>

How would we measure performance? Test scores? Imagine how difficult it would be to fill some positions in the rural and inner city districts if this were the case.

I think it should be similar to that in the corporate world - management should be responsible for adequately monitoring the performance of the teacher. This could include test scores but only if taken in the context of the individuals in the class. If a teacher has a remedial math class no one should expect the scores to be the same as that of the honors math class. There are other ways to measure performance as well.</p>

<p>

This profession isn’t like any other profession in the world. We teach the future of our culture and civilization. I find it difficult to bring in the comparison of “most businesses in this country”.

I disagree that it’s difficult to compare. It certainly can be compared the same way other diverse professions are compared. While teachers help to teach the future (help - in addition to parents and others teaching the kids) what they actually do as a job isn’t that different that it can’t be evaluated using similar methodologies. And while teaching is a needed profession, so are many other professions in our world that also influence the ‘future of our culture and civilization’.</p>

<p>

I wonder how often teacher tenure is being blamed, instead of faulty school administration.

I think there are issues in both areas but the problem with tenure and unions is that it cripples the ability of the administration to deal with issues and to develop a higher performing staff.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>“Wow - I think those are unusually good benefits in the corporate world today. I’d be interested to hear if other posters think that’s anywhere close to the norm”</p>

<p>I had something almost as good with a previous employer though you had to be at the company for quite a lot of years to get that much vacation.</p>

<p>They were bought out after suffering financially for quite some time.</p>

[pageturner]

<p>

the problem with tenure and unions is that it cripples the ability of the administration to deal with issues and to develop a higher performing staff

</p>

<p>(I’m sighing…is here an emoticon for that?) I think we are talking about different things. </p>

<p>The items that affect teacher employment are: the union, tenure, the contract, and administration. Let’s all just agree that education of the student is the goal, and is the result of teacher employment. Yes? No?</p>

<p>1) The job of the union is to protect teachers’ rights.</p>

<p>2) Reason for tenure is to (quoting Ericdigests)

“provide job security for teachers who have successfully completed a probationary period. Its primary purpose is to protect competent teachers from arbitrary nonrenewal of contract for reasons unrelated to the educational process – personal beliefs, personality conflicts with administrators or school board members, and the like.”

</p>

<p>3) The reason for the district/union contract is to spell out the rights of the school and of the members of that school’s teachers’ union.

“The type and amount of (tenure) protection vary from state to state and – depending on agreements with teachers’ unions – may even vary from school district to school district. In general, a tenured teacher is entitled to due process when he or she is threatened with dismissal or nonrenewal of contract for cause: that is, for failure to maintain some clearly defined standard that serves an educational purpose.” (Ericdigests, again)

</p>

<p>4) The purpose of school administration is to run the school. This may be why people feel compelled to compare it to big business, especially when many administrators have never been in a classroom.</p>

<p>From what I have gathered from many of the previous posts, people are blaming tenure for teacher incompetence, rather than the administrator for letting the teacher get to that state in the first place.

“Rather than scapegoat tenure for these abuses, more attention needs to be devoted to making academic institutions into places where faculty can reach their potential in an atmosphere that encourages continuous learning, innovation, and productivity at each career stage.”(from nea.org)

</p>

<p>That can indeed be achieved through innovative professional development, and contract allowances for professional days to attend conferences, workshops, etc. But, I gotta tell you, those things are very often put into the contract by the teachers union, and the first thing to be taken out by the district negotiators.</p>

<p>

While teachers help to teach the future (help - in addition to parents and others teaching the kids)

</p>

<p>Yes, yes, of course. It takes a village, and no man is an island. But I am referring to the job of teacher in academia, not the obligation of the parent in the family. I get it. I’m a parent, too.</p>

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

<p>

people are blaming tenure for teacher incompetence, rather than the administrator for letting the teacher get to that state in the first place.

I don’t blame teacher incompetence on tenure, the former isn’t directly caused by the latter, but the tenure and union contracts inhibit the ability of the administration to adequately resolve teacher competency issues. </p>

<p>

The job of the union is to protect teachers’ rights

But those are simply ‘rights’ as defined by the union based on what they feel like defining for themselves and manage to get away with. The word ‘rights’ isn’t a good usage here. The word ‘terms’ is more applicable but I don’t want to get caught up in semantics. I’d prefer to see teachers and any other professionals have an ‘at will’ employment term - like is done in most businesses.</p>

<p>

people are blaming tenure for teacher incompetence, rather than the administrator for letting the teacher get to that state in the first place

I blame primarily the teacher for allowing him/her self to be or become incompetent in the first place. Secondly the administration should address competency issues to the extent they can (and I realize that some administrators are incompetent themselves and don’t take appropriate action) but tenure and unions are also to blame for ‘protecting a teacher’s rights’ to the extent of inhibiting administration from taking appropriate action.</p>

<p>

education of the student is the goal, and is the result of teacher employment

It’s always the goal and is usually the result of the teacher employment except in the cases of the incompetent teacher which is what we’re discussing.</p>

[anxiousmom]

<p>

Texas Government Code chapter 617 prohibits collective bargaining by teachers, along with strikes and other organized work stoppages, no matter what you call them. If you organize and plan to have a group of people fail to show up to work, it is prohibited. Unions, per se, are not illegal in Texas. But collective bargaining and strikes are.

I pulled this information off of another website - this is not written by me - but I just wanted to let people know that not all states have unions as they are discussed here. Although Texas has about 5 professional organizations, some of them affiliated with unions, none have the power that regular unions have. Although they can show up at school board meetings and “advise” the school board, they don’t represent all the teachers, and teachers aren’t required to join any of the associations or unions. The power is all in the school board and administration to hire and fire, etc. Is it better than states with teacher unions? I don’t know; we are slaves to the state tests, and have virtually no negotiating power over work conditions.</p>

[pageturner]

<p>

union contracts inhibit the ability of the administration to adequately resolve teacher competency issues

But union contracts aren’t unilateral. They are written by and serve both sides. There are plenty of items in our contract that the union does not like. That’s negotiation. </p>

<p>Yes, there are a few states that prohibit collective bargaining. But many states prohibit public employees to strike. Including New York.</p>

<p>

I blame primarily the teacher for allowing him/her self to be or become incompetent in the first place

I suppose I shouldn’t have said “incompetent”. Very few teachers are. It would be so difficult to fake competence in the non-tenured years, and then demonstrate their incompetence when tenured. </p>

<p>Maybe I should have said disillusioned, exhausted, or jaded. Or burnt-out. (oh, no, not back to that again). I believe professional development, collaborative reflection and other professional allowances would go so far to change this attitude. This is a contractual issue with an individual district, not a problem caused by tenure.</p>

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

<p>

But union contracts aren’t unilateral. They are written by and serve both sides.

Yes but that doesn’t resolve the issues caused by them. Witness the auto industry. In some cases the contracts are entered into reluctantly by the ‘management’ and I suppose political pull is also a big factor.</p>

<p>

Maybe I should have said disillusioned, exhausted, or jaded. Or burnt-out.

But at that point they’re practicing incompetency. It doesn’t really matter how they got there - it matters how they’re performing currently. If my kid has a teacher who isn’t teaching effectively it doesn’t really matter that much at the end of the year whether it was because the teacher was a dufus, lazy, had emotional issues, or had alzheimers - it matters whether they did a good job of teaching my kid that year. </p>

<p>

I believe professional development, collaborative reflection and other professional allowances would go so far to change this attitude.

It might help. I would hope there’s some kind of ongoing professional development.</p>

[nysmile]

<p>You keep mentioning professional development as if it doesn’t exist. It is built into the majority of the teacher’s contracts all ready. Professional development or professional growth days (whatever terminology your district uses) do exist. The students are given the day off and the teachers, paraprofessionals, TA’s, secretaries, custodians, and anyone else working within the district spend the day attending mandatory workshops. This is nothing new. </p>

<p>It’s easy to try to justify tenure and the strength of the teacher’s union when one is part of the system and enjoying the benefits and protection that it brings.</p>

[epiphany]

<p>

The students are given the day off and the teachers, paraprofessionals, TA’s, secretaries, custodians, and anyone else working within the district spend the day attending mandatory workshops. This is nothing new.

</p>

<p>It certainly is new. New that is to any of us trained in the classic system of teacher expectations. We took professional development as an aspect of our title and sought out, independently, opportunities for growth, much like psychologists and physicians take the initiative to keep abreast of developments in their fields – without some “union contract.” It would never have occurred to us to consume a teaching day in order to do that. We did it on our own time (weekends, summer) and deducted association dues & workshop fees from our taxes. </p>

<p>Similarly, support staff don’t need to deprive the children of a teaching day, either, while they learn/relearn (?) how to be a secretary or custodian? Waste of taxpayer money, at the expense of children.</p>

[pageturner]

<p>

But at that point they’re practicing incompetency. It doesn’t really matter how they got there - it matters how they’re performing currently.

There are very, very few teachers who are actually practicing incompetency. Sure, some should improve on their practices, but incompetent? If that is tracked properly (by their administrator), those teachers could indeed be fired, tenure or not. </p>

<p>We’re not bad people, really we aren’t. We’re highly educated, highly trained, highly experienced professionals. We shouldn’t be trying to throw this talent away; the baby with the bathwater. That’s why I keep talking about continuing education. Nothing recharges the batteries better.</p>

<p>nysmile, in the contracts that I am familiar with, the professional development opportunities are pretty limited. I think we need more.</p>

<p>Folks, I’m just trying not to be negative. You’re right, nysmile, ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad. Unions and tenure aren’t going away anytime soon. So, instead of bashing the system, how about thinking about realistic ways of working within the current system?</p>

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

<p>

We’re not bad people, really we aren’t.

I think most of us would agree. The problem teachers are in a minority but if one of them happens to be your kid’s teacher, then it’s still a big problem. And there are some outstanding teachers. I don’t think this thread is bashing teachers in general but rather, illustrating the frustrations many have had in dealing with the ‘system’ which includes the teachers, administrators, and the barriers in place due to the union and tenure. Since you have kids, especially if they’re in public school, I’m sure you’ve experienced some of the frustrations as well. </p>

<p>Working within the system? Unfortunately there’s only so much one can do. Sometimes one can switch teachers within the school and we’ve done that before with our kids when they’ve had some extra bad teacher but switching teachers isn’t always possible. Sometimes they’re stuck with a particular teacher who’s essentially useless. In that case I taught the material to my kid since the teacher wasn’t and the administration either wouldn’t or couldn’t do anything about it. I’ve ‘made my point’ (i.e. argued in a civil manner) with some individual administrators who were IMO incompetent including principals, assistant principals, and guidance counselors (some of whom can ‘really’ be incompetent - I actually had to explain what the UC A-G requirements were to one HS counselor). So there’s only so much one can do to work within the system which is why many of us wish for a more flexible system - especially in the area of getting rid of incompetent, incapable, or disconnected teachers (who are in the minority).</p>

[nysmile]

<p>[700</a> NYC Teachers Are Paid to Do Nothing - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com](<a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,528780,00.html]700”>Fox News - Breaking News Updates | Latest News Headlines | Photos & News Videos)</p>

<p>"NEW YORK — Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that’s what they want to do.</p>

<p>Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its “rubber rooms” — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.</p>

<p>The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year."</p>

[pageturner]

<p>Ah, well, I certainly can’t argue with Fox News, can I? </p>

<p>This seems to be a problem of arbitration, not tenure. </p>

<p>

Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six.

</p>

<p>There are 90,000 school professionals in UFT. So what is the percentage of teachers they believe to be involved? How many will eventually be re-instated, after due process? Is there another side to this story? Yes, apparently, in the body of the story after the sensational headline:</p>

<p>

“No one wants teachers who don’t belong in the classroom. However, we cannot neglect the teachers’ rights to due process,” Davis said

</p>

<p>

Saunders said she was charged with petty infractions in an effort to get rid of her: “I was charged with having a student sit in my class with a hat on, singing.”

</p>

<p>

“The principal wants you out, you’re gone,” said Michael Thomas, a high school math teacher who has been in a reassignment center for 14 months after accusing an assistant principal of tinkering with test results.

</p>

<p>

Many teachers say they are being punished because they ran afoul of a vindictive boss or because they blew the whistle when somebody fudged test scores.

</p>