Let's bail out the teachers

Great Debates
141

I wanted to add my own anecdotal experience.

I taught college-level chemistry and physics at a military academy preparatory school for seven years. I was very good at my job. I was recognized as “Science Instructor of the Year” two years in a row, and “Instructor of the Year” once.

I was given a great deal of autonomy–I was allowed to prepare my own syllabus, which only had to be approved by my departmental supervisor. I prepared all of my own quizzes, exams, and finals. I taught three classes of about 25 students each. Also, as an active-duty officer, I was paid very well. In fact, even after working as an engineer for the last 6 years, I am not yet earning what I made when I left the military (when you adjust for inflation).

Also, and most importantly, I absolutely loved teaching.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and the job ended when I could no longer extend my assignment at that duty station. When I subsequently got out of the military, I briefly considered teaching in the civilian sector.

However, there were several obstacles to this. I had a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in engineering, but no degree in education. To teach in a public school, I would have to jump through a lot of hoops to get certified, and was looking at just about twice the teaching load (5-6 classes) for half the pay. At the time, my wife was home with our youngest child, so I was the sole wage-earner. A 50% pay cut was not feasible. And teaching in a private school paid even less.

My other alternative was to get a job in engineering, which is the course that I took. Now, six years later, I am getting paid very well, but I don’t particularly like my job. And frankly, I was a better teacher than an engineer.

In short, I left a profession that I loved and was very good at because of pay considerations. That being said, I still entertain thoughts of going back to teaching at some point.

142

I have seen individual teachers given a remarkable amount of respect. My sister teaches high school AP and is among–if not the–most successful teachers in her state. She is widely lauded for this.

If teachers as a group want more respect, they’ll need to make the entry qualifications more rigorous. This rigor will need certified, standardized exams. It cannot be simply achieving “certifications” and assorted degrees based upon attendance and routine course work. That varies too much among programs. Rigorous universal exams will eliminate the academically weak and in the process get rid of currently academically unsound teachers.

Highly compensated degreed professions–medicine; pilots; attorneys–all have something in common: you must pass, at several points, standardized examinations with rigorous qualifications. The primary effect is to raise the bar of who is qualified. The secondary effect is to diminish the pool of potential workers, thus raising the salary required to attract “the best.”

It’s ironic that teaching is hoist on its own petard–that grades and certificates are equivalents of rigorous standardized testing in determining who has mastered the material. Make the test appropriate. Teach to that test. Prove mastery by mastering the test.

After you have proven an ability for subject mastery, the process of proving expertise in teaching can begin, and appropriate training and certification can be layered upon that.

As long as it’s true that “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach” then the teaching profession will not achieve the broad respect and adulation they so desire.

143

This is all fine and dandy (and TRUE).

However, it won’t work for teaching.

Teaching is not a profession…they do not supervise their own nor set standards for becoming a teacher. If teachers tried to do this, they would be ignored…ESPECIALLY if it was seen as a way to raise salary and respect. THAT would not be allowed.

Doctors, lawyers,pilots etc are allowed to set their standards. Teachers are not.

144

Couple of random responses:

  1. Teaching does require standardized exams. I took 2 to get my certification, and had to submit a videotape of myself teaching a lesson and provide a lesson plan with it to the state. I also had to have a bachelors, a Masters, student teaching, an FBI background check, a class in recognizing child abuse, and probably other stuff I’ve forgotten now.

  2. On the “dirty jobs” issue: Teachers in NY have to sit through a mandatory annual safety lesson, in which you are explicitly told NOT to have any personal contact with students’ bodily fluid/substances or any unlabeled or not approved chemicals. That “dirty” aspect of the job has been largely eliminated. We all have latex gloves in our rooms in case of emergency.

  3. There is no way to control for a bad home environment. There is IMO not much I can do for a kid who has had poor nutrition since birth, or a mother who drank or did drugs when she was pregnant, or a kid who has moved around so much he’s never finished a year at the same school, or a kid who only attends class very sporadically, a student who is borderline MR but whose parent refuses to have him classified, etc. Yet the teacher will be judged based on his test scores just like every other student, even though she did best with what she’s got. Extreme cases tend to come out in the statistical wash, but in a poor district, the number of these students will be significant, and I can’t imagine how it’s fair to blame the teacher for those scores.

  4. What does, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach” even mean? What is it that I should be doing instead of teaching if I “can”? Teaching IS doing something, isn’t it? What job should I be doing with a Masters in English and one in Secondary Ed if not teaching secondary English? I really despise this trite little axiom and wish people would stop repeating it like it means something, or is some scathing, insightful criticism.

145

If that’s true, then it would seem there isn’t much point in spending a lot of money in hopes of recruiting better teachers.

146

Paying teachers more only one piece of the puzzle. Kids with really high needs and big problems need specialists in the school, and yes, you should pay them accordingly. But special ed teachers get paid the same as everyone else. There need to be programs to deal with kids like this, but all too often they slip through the cracks and wind up dropping out. Helping them is going to cost more money. For instance, I have several students in 7th grade who read on a 3rd-4th grade level because of issues that are not the school’s fault. What they need is an intensive reading/decoding class for a semester or a year to get them caught up so they can succeed academically. How can they learn science or social studies if they can’t read grade level textbooks? But we don’t have the staff for it, and it’s an unfunded mandate, so they shamble along on the brink of academic disaster, with all of us doing triage but not able to give them what they need because we have 25 other kids to deal with.

Also, I don’t see how me saying that there are some really screwed up kids in school who can’t succeed on standardized tests = paying teachers more won’t help. The question really is, how do you measure teacher success? Through standardized tests? A kid who I, the reading teacher, and the special ed teacher basically taught to read in the 7th grade is still not going to ace the ELA, but he learned a hell of a lot from me. Can you figure out a way to quantify that so I can get merit pay on that basis?

147

The main question seems to be whether that piece of the puzzle will make a difference.

I’m not sure what “accordingly” means. It seems to me that schools should pay special ed teachers an amount sufficient to attract qualified applicants.

If that’s true, then there is possibly an argument to hire more teachers. I don’t see it as a valid argument to raise the pay of existing teachers.

I think it’s the logical consequence of your point. Let me ask you this: How exactly would raising teacher pay help these “screwed up kids”?

I don’t know. I’m not advocating a merit pay system for teachers.

148

Do you want a more qualified pool of applicants? Want to up the standards for what teachers should learn, know, and do? You need to pay more, or you’ll get more of the same. If you’re not one of the people who thinks that our current pool of teachers is inadequately trained or motivated, or that teachers are underperforming, then this question is not directed at you.

A 7th grade special ed teacher is expected to get the kid who reads at a 3rd grade level to pass his classes. I don’t think most of them are qualified to do that.

Frankly, I’d rather see more teacher hired and more specialists than a pay raise. My job would be a hell of a lot easier.

Then, again, the comment was not directed at you, but you chose to reply to me, and that was my point. If you want me to bust my ass to do things that aren’t necessarily within my job description to do, like teach basic reading and writing to a 7th grader, who I should be reasonably able to expect to at least be able to read and write, then I should be paid for doing a specialist’s job too. But I’m not, so I try to do what needs to be done anyway, but it’s not going to really get done right, and kids are still going to fail.

149

Why do you keep saying this? There is a terrible teacher shortage in this country. I showed you a link listing teaching shortages in nearly every state in the union. Yes, in affluent, suburban districts there may well be a surplus of teachers, but both rural and urban districts are struggling for teachers. There is a very strong correlation between bad schools and a teacher shortage, and while it’s a bit difficult to identify what is cause and what is effect (good teachers flee/avoid bad schools, making them worse), the fact remains that many, many schools do not offer a “mixture of wages; job security; job duties; benefits; and working conditions” that many qualified people find attractive. By your own logic (and mine), schools need to offer better compensation.

150

Because as far as I know, it’s true. As far as I can tell, at worst there is a shortage in some geographical areas and in some subject areas. If that’s the case, the perhaps the government should spend money identifying these areas and incentivizing people to become teachers and work in them.

As opposed to just increasing the salaries of all teachers, which is what the OP seemed to be contemplating.

Umm, you forgot to put the word “some” before “schools”

151

Most of the teachers I have met have seemed adequate, with a few exceptions which would not be affected by a pay increase.

:confused: You quoted me and then responded with a couple paragraphs. It looks to me like the comment was directed at me.

I don’t know what your point is. Are you saying that you individually need to be paid more because you are working out of your job description? If so, you might want to take it up with your union.

152

It simply means that those who are most expert in an area are more likely to be doing a job related to that area rather than teaching it…but I agree it is a trite, meaningless and overused phrased. And unfair as well, because of course there are teachers expert in their subject matter. I was privileged to have many of them. When I used the phrase I was simply making the point that to the extent that teachers are perceived as being non-expert, they lose public credibility. Were they perceived at being more expert (in my post, by dint of passing rigorous standardized subject exams) then the phrase and the concept would go away.

To your point about added degrees: In my personal opinion, the quality of degrees is so varied that a degree per se does not lend credibility. This is not to say that yours are invalid, so please don’t take offense. But as I said in my earlier post, the dilemma is that course work alone without a rigorous standardized exam to show that learning and retention has taken place is unconvincing as a proxy for subject mastery.

I realize anecdotes aren’t evidence, but let me cite as an example a story my sister (an expert teacher) told me over Thanksgiving. My sister teaches High School AP but moonlights in a Community College that has a large percentage of fairly marginal faculty. One of the Program Directors was in a teachers’ meeting and announced in the course of the conversation that SAT’s were not meaningful. She said she knew this was the case because her own SAT scores were barely over 800 combined, and she had an earned Masters in English. This same administrator was distraught that recent cutbacks eliminated the person who had been writing up some content for her. According to my sister, the administrator’s grasp of English was, to put it charitably, marginal. My sister was bemused and chagrined that not only would the woman be witless enough to have such poor SAT scores; she was too dumb to even recognize the stupidity of broadcasting it.

It’s my impression as an outsider that unionized teachers do tend to protect one another’s job security over rigorous oversight (see my post above referencing Michelle Rhee and the DC schools).

Since all of us who have had the privilege of a good education are deeply indebted to excellent teachers, I wouldn’t want those of you in the profession to think that there is an a priori assumption that teachers are incompetent to teach or incompetent to do something else. There is, perhaps, a sense that where incompetence exists, teachers as a group have not been able to root it out.

153

I was making a point about “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” What I CAN do is teach. It’s what I’m educated in and trained for. I’m not a teacher because I failed in private industry, or because I’m not all that bright and needed an easy job (ha!), or I wanted a cushy job with short hours, summers off, and union protection. I’m not saying you accused me or anyone else of this, but it has been implied in this thread, and undoubtedly some people in teaching do have those motivations. However, I specifically trained and educated myself to do this. The vast majority of teachers have, and indeed the standards now require this kind of specialized training and education. So there is no “can” that I would “do” if I were able to. Teaching is it.

154

[quote]
**brazil84[[84]: One of the teachers in the school that I mentioned found a roach in the dressing she was eating at the school’s Thanksgiving meal. She had been able to deal with seeing them in the hallways, but that was a little much.

And I spoke only for myself when saying that I didn’t have to deal with human excrement on a daily basis. There were and are teachers who do. There are entire schools where this is necessary.

So your air conditioner didn’t work sometimes? How many other people were in that room? We had no air conditioner and thirty people. I was never even given a fan. I brought a big one from home and it was stolen. I brought a smaller one from home and it was ruined by a repair man. I had no office of my own, no computer, not even a typewriter – ever. I had to get a huge chain to wrap around my desk and padlock to secure anything at all.

One thing that I want to make clear. The trouble in inner city schools was caused by about five percent of the students. The rest of the rascals were just normal teenagers and lots of fun. But the principals were paid according to the number of students enrolled. A student could literally rig explosives over a teacher’s head and be sent home for one day.

If any of you saw the film Stand and Deliver with Edward James Almos, you might want to know that the teacher whose life that was based on left teaching.

{b]Rubystreak**, unfortunately, not all states require rigorous testing of candidates for the teaching profession. They need to be tested on any subject matter that they are going to be certified to teach, reading comprehension, composition skills and educational and psychological principals. I’m beginning to think that more states should require a Masters degree also.

155

I don’t know about best funded, but the Rochester City School districts are spending more than $15,000 per student this year. Which is approximately 50% more than the national averages I’ve seen elsewhere. And they are seriously underperforming compared to NY schools, let alone national schools.

My cites are all in this post from the latest NY state budget bitch thread.

156

Again, I have no idea what your point is. Are you claiming that a teacher’s job is -generally speaking – of comparable dirtiness to that of a garbageman?

Are you just posting to vent a bit without any real point?

157

Some teachers have jobs that are dirtier than that of a garbageman. You speak about teachers in general terms. Your descriptions are hollow and meaningless.

I suppose you could say that the man being shot out of the cannon at the circus has “job security,” but why are so many people spending more time training to become teachers than they are actually staying in the profession? (See Rubystreak’s link.)

Now, about your recent public school teaching experience…Some of us posting in this thread have experience in the profession. We post from many different places. Since the SDMB is about fighting ignorance, you have the opportunity to learn something about which you are ignorant. You have a right to your opinion, but you don’t have a right to your own facts.

Your information in anecdotal. No one here is suggesting that we should just “throw money” at a school system. Even just raising salaries alone is not going to do it.

I think it was Sam who suggested some creative thinking. I would like to see a school in which a staff was provided to do clerical work, another staff handled absences and discipline problems, and the teachers taught. I would have welcomed that instead of a raise. I could have even handled larger classes under those circumstances.

158

All apologies if it wasn’t necessarily you who said this, Zoe, but I think it was.

Where was this school where principals were paid according to ADA? Because I’ve never even heard of such a thing. Funding is dependent on it, I know, but principal pay?

And while Sam Stone indicated that he wanted to see innovation, he’s yet to clearly define what sorts of innovation nor what he considers an objective definition for “average”. To date, he’s simply said that everything should be left to the marketplace and that he believes that would solve everything. And it’s been pointed out to him that not only would that not work, but that it would hopelessly screw those students who most need the help.

159

Please describe the job duties of those teachers; tell me which school system they taught in; and during what years.

Sure, and the OP was discussing teachers in general terms. Claiming that SOME teachers need to be paid more is different from claiming that ALL teachers need to be paid more.

Again, I have no idea what your point is. Every profession which requires training has people who do the training and then drop out of the profession. Some more than others, but so what?

There are lots of people with PhDs who don’t teach college and lots of people with law degrees who don’t practice law. Does this mean that professors and attorneys need to be paid more?

My claim is that (generally speaking) the position of garbageman is dirtier than that of a teacher. Do you agree with this or not?

A simple yes or no answer will do. If the answer is “no,” then please feel free to fight my supposed ignorance and teach me something about the job of “teacher.” If the answer is “yes,” then there is no need.

And so is yours. So what?

And I’m not claiming that anyone is suggesting that. The claim in the OP would seem to be that all teachers should get a significant pay raise, for the public good. Do you agree with that or not?

160

It’s a stupid expression because who should be teaching a subject, if not an expert in it? And some experts eventually reach a point where there really isn’t any place higher to go, so they decide to give back and teach others.