That’s your goal, but your proposal wouldn’t quite do that.
So you’re going to do the victim-blaming, high-and-mighty, they poor are immoral bullshit too?
And you wonder why people don’t listen to your ideas for “helping” them.
But you are apparently willing to believe what the district is saying.
Are you saying the poor were better off before they were given public assistance? That seems unlikely. Public assistance has helped the poor and made improvements in their lives.
So here’s a quiz. We have a problem. We try to apply a solution to the problem. The solution partially solves the problem. At this point, we should:
- Increase the solution that’s showing partial success.
- Eliminate the solution because failure is preferable to partial success.
Given that the Fair Housing Act–an act that was the first real effort to end the practice of redlining–is itself less than 50 years old, I’d say your 50 year estimate is a bit high.
To wit: folks who control housing in our nation, including banks and landlords, have engaged in deliberate, documented efforts to concentrate black people into ghettos. That’s not something that happened in the 1800s, or even in the first part of the 20th century: that’s something that was going on while Gen Xers were busy being born. It’s something that’s STILL going on.
And that’s only one big piece of the problem.
How do we end poverty? We take it seriously this time. We stop pretending like we’ve solved all the problems of race in our country. We marginalize any cranks who say it can’t be done in the same way we’d marginalize someone who said that we can’t improve food safety. We look at what’s been done in other countries–shit, any industrialized country besides Romania–to reduce child poverty.
We’re the shittiest people in the world, excepting Romania, at ending poverty. We don’t get to take our own advice. We need to do what’s proven elsewhere to work.
This isn’t a minimal power either, public employees tend to vote at a pretty high rate and even in a bigger State like Virginia their proportion of overall voters–especially in primaries, can be significant. I’ve seen many candidates for office here who were otherwise extremely fiscally slash-and-burn who would be in favor of moderate increases in State employee pay. (They usually tried to bury this in campaign rhetoric so that the voters who really cared about it–State employees, would see it and be happy, while the fiscal conservative base the politician is trying to mostly appeal to would gloss over it.)
There’s probably a lot of poorly paid teachers, but there are also some who make good money. But from what I’ve seen the teachers unions primarily are about protecting the most senior, tenured teachers at the expense of all other teachers and potential teachers and at the expense of students. They almost never accept raises designed, for example, to solely bring minimum salary or starting salary up to more acceptable levels because that would decrease the “spread” in pay between a teacher with 30 years of tenure and a new teacher out of college.
The benefits issue for teachers is also basically the same as it is everywhere else. Until there is comprehensive healthcare reform in the U.S. all employers are going to have issues long term keeping health benefits funded without increasing costs to employees. For retirement benefits, especially public sector plans, many were designed in the 30s and 40s when the conception of retirement was very different. Back then it was so you could live out your final years in financial security, now retirement is something that starts, for many people, a 20-25 year phase of their lives. That’s much, much more difficult to fund based on the contribution percentages setup decades ago.
As a matter of course I actually reject the assertion that “education costs money, pony up.” Not because I don’t think education is worth tax dollars or that it’s a place where we should look to slash-and-burn, but because we actually spend more per pupil than lots of countries with far higher student achievement rates. Sweden and Finland are both models for educational success and by and large they got where they are through structural reforms that simply would be fought tooth-and-nail by teachers unions in the United States. One of the big ones in Sweden is “independent” schools are an important option for students that can excel in educational environments different from the national planned curriculum. In Sweden independent schools are closer in concept to our charter schools, there is no tuition charged to parents. The private groups running the schools receive an allotment of funds for each student enrolled from the State. It is also open enrollment, if parents decide a certain independent school has a focus or curriculum more attuned to their child’s needs, then they simply enroll the child in that school. So many of the arguments opponents use to bash private schools here, in that they get to be selective and filter out the “hard cases” doesn’t apply in Sweden.
They are a small part of the Swedish educational system, but many believe they have the important role of being “education innovators” and by preventing the State from having a monopoly on publicly funded education they can help to push the State to consider new developments in education instead of being stuck with rigid curriculum.
What you’re actually asking is that we treat hospital orderlies as surgeons and privates as generals. Because the school system certainly listens closely to the Superintendents, who are career professional educators. Teachers are not the generals of the education system.
It’s kind of hard to consider teachers “professionals.” They don’t as a rule have to go through rigorous post-baccalaureate training like lawyers or doctors. There aren’t rigorous licensing examinations and etc like you have for CPAs, actuaries, PEs etc.
Finally, while I know that these days almost no teacher solely majored in “Education”, Education is one of the easiest degrees offered at a university probably on par with something like Communications or Public Relations. If it’s paired with Math or one of the hard sciences then in the dual-degree path many colleges do now for teachers it was probably more difficult. But, then again, the hard sciences don’t reward private sector employees all that handsomely with just a bachelors. People do make good money in the sciences but if you’re not talking applied science in the form of engineering the biologists, chemists or geologists that make bank typically have to continue on and get their terminal degree to work in industry.
I do know many, many teachers have masters degrees, but unlike with their undergraduate degree where many teachers have a degree in both Education and their area of instruction, most teachers have masters degrees in “education” which again, like the education bachelors degree is a fluff degree. It can’t be compared to an MBA anymore than a communications undergrad should expect the same starting or even terminal salary as a finance undergrad.
As long as we don’t do that terribly hard thing, we’re never going to be a Sweden or a Finland.
I’m on record as calling for far more rigorous entrance requirements for the field. It’s vital, I think, that educational preparatory programs not be lightweight (and believe me, I have some horror stories).
But it’s absurd to decry the state of American educaiton, at the same time accepting the low rigor of education majors.
This. This is the key factor that separates the US from the highest achieving countries. The best and the brightest can put up with low pay, but they won’t put up with low prestige.
Teaching isn’t considered a profession in the same way as being a lawyer or doctor in Sweden or Finland either, not sure where you got that idea. Rather in Sweden and Finland they have a much more “equality of result” society, nuclear engineers and carpenters are considered to be equal, so yes in Finland or Sweden a teacher would be considered no more or less prestigious than a doctor. But that isn’t because they uniquely recognize teachers as one of the “professions” but because those countries don’t put so much emphasis into this concept of “prestigious professions” and less dignified “jobs.” I actually know accomplished people in Sweden (I mentioned nuclear engineers because I know a Swedish nuclear engineer), I know that in America teaching advocates frequently pull out the trope that “over there, they consider them like doctors.” But the reality is “over there” views on jobs and what they mean about your worth in society are so vastly different from the United States that the comment that “teachers are treated like doctors” has no real meaning in our context.
Edit: And from what I can tell it’s not really harder to become a teacher in Finland than it is in the United States, so the idea that we can’t fix anything without making teaching much harder to get into doesn’t seem true to me.
Do you have cites to demonstrate this? I agree that there is a lack of rigor to education majors, but I rather suspect the differences between US performance overall and, for example, Finnish, is demographic rather than Finnish entrance exams.
North Dakota, for instance, compares favorably to almost every other country in the world in its student results, and I don’t see that teachers are held in high respect in that state as compared to California or New York.
Regards,
Shodan
You’re not sure? Really?
Sounds like you do know where I got that idea after all. It’s not just a trope, of course–it’s pretty well documented that teachers around the world, especially in countries with better educational results than the US’s, are often better respected, especially in comparison to other professions.
Of course, you know a Swedish nuclear engineer, so that anecdote can certainly be placed up against international polling of thousands of people.
I suspect Sweden and Finland have much better education programs for their aspiring teachers, but I don’t know that “rigor” is the right or wrong word. It’s hard to compare college in the U.S. to the equivalent in the Scandinavian countries, “true” colleges over there for all majors are much more selective–basically all of them are selective versus many in the United States are almost open-admit. However, college is designed for a much narrower band of professions over there versus here where it’s a prerequisite for many jobs that people would look at you funny if you said a Swede or Finn needed to go to a university to pursue.
Another quick cite on the status of teachers as a profession. Really, Martin, if you want to dispute the idea that teaching is a profession and that it’s lower status in the US than elsewhere, ball’s in your court. You’re gonna have to provide more than a Swedish engineer you know.
Anecdote to enrich the post, that wasn’t the entirety of my comment. If you aren’t aware that Scandinavian countries put far less emphasis on an individuals “prestige” in society as defined by their jobs then we probably don’t need to discuss Scandinavia since you’re not well informed on it. My point is that if you want to see teachers viewed the same here as they are in Scandinavia it’s simply not a matter of improving teacher prestige here, it’s a matter of actually redesigning how our entire society thinks of your occupation and your place in society.
Teacher does rank very highly in “polling” in Finland, but it also ranks highly here. Every poll I see ranks teacher up there commonly with scientist (strangely this is often #1 in the U.S. which is odd given a large swathe of our population angrily rejects science as a concept), firefighter and other professions typically viewed as “respectable” in America. But if polling is what we’re talking about, the problem is already solved, because teachers poll well in the United States. So is polling what you wanted to talk about?
I don’t think it is, because lawyers poll terribly here, as do accountants. Doctors poll okay, but often behind teachers.
A good article there where leftist Obama type cronies say “oh the teachers aren’t respected enough here in America”, but your article does not back that up.
This actual poll from 2012 shows teacher respect is very, very high. Your whole point in shitting on me repeatedly (when all I did was make an anecdote to enrich the post–I had multiple paragraphs other than that single line anecdote), was that there are all kinds of polls I was ignoring. But the reality is teachers poll very well in the United States. So you yourself can’t use those polls internationally to say teachers are more respected in Sweden or Finland than they are in the United States.
Instead the truth is respect is different from status. You want status with your job, in addition to the respect you already have. My point is that in Sweden and Finland status is not nearly the same concept in America, and even trying to attain status is denigrated. Those countries are famous for almost looking with contempt at some of their wealthiest and most successful residents.
Edit to Add: Your article also misses the mark on its average salary point near the end. It is good to note that it shows the U.S. has higher average teacher pay than pretty much any other OECD country, but the point that in Finland teachers make closer to what other college graduates make isn’t relevant because Finland isn’t the United States. Finland doesn’t reward or at least discourages rewarding high achievers with high pay, Finland has lower wages across the board and much more equality across the board. You can’t transpose their entire society onto ours as a comparison, so the point about teacher pay relative to other graduates in Finland vs the U.S. isn’t really germane. It isn’t just that teachers are closer to the average but that everyone is close to the average, the highs and lows are much closer over there.
Compared to what–compared to respect for the profession in countries where we see more “successful” educational systems? Or that there’s more respect for teachers than car salesmen in three different countries? (Hint: the poll looks at three countries and includes car salesmen).
No: my point in dismissing you is that the only evidence you offered was that you can see Russia from your house–er, excuse me, that you know a nuclear engineer in Sweden. When pressed to offer more evidence, you write, “If you aren’t aware that Scandinavian countries put far less emphasis on an individuals “prestige” in society as defined by their jobs then we probably don’t need to discuss Scandinavia since you’re not well informed on it.” IN other words, you respond to requests for evidence by distorting the request and then saying you won’t fill the distorted request.
Groovy.
Just watched a news report relative to some Charter Schools in the Raleigh area (numbers growing over 50% every year. An odd tidbit came to light.
Apparently to address the objection that charter schools would just ignore the handicapped and ‘special’ students, one Charger school in particular was established a couple of years ago to specialize in that demographic.
Guess what? The students there are not scoring as well on standardized tests as are students in other charter schools, so…they are threatening to shut it down…!!!
the parents who have kids in that school are livid, saying this school is the best thing ever happened to their kid.
BTW, I’m not backing off from the 12 hour per day normal with weekends also needed to some degree statement. I saw it for 35 years my wife worked in middle, private, high school and university.
These days, though, many university classes are taught by part time people who have no other responsibility to the university except to teach those one or two courses. Some figure they are working for about $4 an hour overall, even so. It is the only job a lot of phD folks can get, and the number of tenured profs decreases every year, with each of them expected to handle far more tasks than just teaching.
That makes no sense. Usually special needs students qualify for alternative tests. And usually school systems can’t put them all in special schools anyway because federal law requires a “free appropriate special education” which usually means “mainstreaming” rather than special schools.
You’re wrong on both counts.
Perhaps I should elaborate:
- While there are a lot of EC kids who get special accommodations on tests (separate setting, extended time, multiple sessions, scribe, write in book, etc.), only a very small minority actually qualify for an alternative test.
- “Least restrictive environment” is the legal requirement for EC, not “mainstreaming.” A lot of times mainstreaming results from this policy, but given this charter school’s existence, it’s pretty obvious that it’s not always the result. And depending on what you mean by “mainstreaming,” it may not even usually be the result.