Screwed Up Education System

[haffajappa]

For those of you talking about shitty teachers versus good teachers.... I'd like to know how you propose that we measure which teachers are shitty and which ones are good.

Also, I can't help but notice that there seems to be more talk about shitty teachers than most any other profession, which I think only serves to propagate the idea that it's the teachers' fault that our education system isn't better. Is this what you believe?

You'd like to know how to measure which teachers are good? Do you ask this of any other profession? Since I'm not in the education business (teacher or otherwise) I'll defer to someone who is, but I don't think it is any harder than any other profession.

There is more talk about shitty teachers because everyone comes in contact with teachers over a large portion of their lives. Do you spend that much time with lawyers? Accountants? Nope.

Also, are teachers exclusively union?

If someone calls many people of another profession shitty at that profession, yes, I ask how they measure what it means to be shitty and what it means to be good. I do believe that if people are going to talk about shitty teachers (or shitty garbage men, or shitty lawyers, or whoever), then they should be able to explain what they mean by this. (I realize that you didn't exactly do this.) I think it probably is harder to determine how to measure good teachers than many other, more objective professions.

I'll point out that, although we don't always meet them in person, we spend many more years of our lives employing the services of trash collectors, mail carriers, physicians, etc. - and yet we don't hear half as much judgement about them, especially not as a group. We all know that the healthcare system in this country is probably in worse shape than the education system, yet the failure of the education system is blamed on teachers much more than the failure of the healthcare system is blamed on doctors (and you certainly wouldn't see all the healthcare providers in an entire system fired like happened in that one school system). But everyone's a fucking critic when it comes to teachers, and I think this is just another aspect of their undervaluation in this country.

No, teachers are not exclusively union.

I'm sure there is a very blurred line and a large grey area, but you should be able to associate who is on which end of the spectrum... take for example (and i'm not trying to be biased) my mom: shows up to work 2 hours before to prepare, make worksheets, keeps her class interactive and always has the highest enrollment (she is an ESL teacher). Her coworker: brings an acoustic guitar to class and sings (this is her idea of teaching ESL)...

[Godfather.]

I have met all my son's teachers and like them all but his math teacher is special in a way that she communicates
and explains the work in a way the kid's understand...yes I went to see my son's classes with out warning

Godfather.

[keeponrockin]

I have met all my son's teachers and like them all but his math teacher is special in a way that she communicates
and explains the work in a way the kid's understand...yes I went to see my son's classes with out warning

Godfather.

Yeah, there are some special teachers out there for sure. One teacher I had in highschool (I'm only one year out), Mr. Costello was a FANTASTIC teacher, but also was always there for advice when I needed it. Even now, he answers e-mails promptly when I'm in a bind (whether it be educational or personal) and is loved by everybody. He's leaving the school this year, and lets just say, I'm glad I'm not there now. It wouldn't be highschool with out him.

Good that you're involved in your kids education!

[Godfather.]

I have met all my son's teachers and like them all but his math teacher is special in a way that she communicates
and explains the work in a way the kid's understand...yes I went to see my son's classes with out warning

Godfather.

Yeah, there are some special teachers out there for sure. One teacher I had in highschool (I'm only one year out), Mr. Costello was a FANTASTIC teacher, but also was always there for advice when I needed it. Even now, he answers e-mails promptly when I'm in a bind (whether it be educational or personal) and is loved by everybody. He's leaving the school this year, and lets just say, I'm glad I'm not there now. It wouldn't be highschool with out him.

Good that you're involved in your kids education!

what do think of the world so far(after H.S) and are you or do you plan on going to collage ?
1979 I left school...kicked out and had to get a GED but the world changed that year..not so good but got better after I realized my mistakes and did my best to correct them....choose wisely my friend it can be a long road back

Godfather.

[haffajappa]

I have met all my son's teachers and like them all but his math teacher is special in a way that she communicates
and explains the work in a way the kid's understand...yes I went to see my son's classes with out warning

Godfather.

Yeah, there are some special teachers out there for sure. One teacher I had in highschool (I'm only one year out), Mr. Costello was a FANTASTIC teacher, but also was always there for advice when I needed it. Even now, he answers e-mails promptly when I'm in a bind (whether it be educational or personal) and is loved by everybody. He's leaving the school this year, and lets just say, I'm glad I'm not there now. It wouldn't be highschool with out him.

Good that you're involved in your kids education!

We had a Mr. Costello at my high school (i'm 4 years out) he looked a bit like Alfred Molina.

I have an older brother which usually gave me the benefit of avoiding bad teachers... My mom would request which teachers I had if she knew there was a particularly bad one coming.

There are a few teachers that really are a big part of your life as a student I think - at least for some of us I guess. I still communicate with one of them every now and then)

[_]

My degree is in education and I've taught and coached in high school. My mom was a teacher, my Dad's degee was in education and he's worked as a teacher, my sister-in-law is a teacher. Let's just say I have more than an outsider's view of education - at least in my area.

That being said, I personally believe our school systems are terrible and that there are likely more bad teachers and administrators than good ones. There are so many things that bother me about the state of education that I don't even know where to begin, but suffice it to say the school systems and many of the teachers are doing a large disservice to their students, society and tax paying citizens.

Okay, but that doesn't answer my question. How do you decide who's a shitty teacher and who's a good one?

[_]

For those of you talking about shitty teachers versus good teachers.... I'd like to know how you propose that we measure which teachers are shitty and which ones are good.

Considering that the original poster was named teacher of the year, there is obviously at least one way to measure which teachers are doing better. I am sure if you actually asked teachers they could think of tons more.

Also, I can't help but notice that there seems to be more talk about shitty teachers than most any other profession, which I think only serves to propagate the idea that it's the teachers' fault that our education system isn't better. Is this what you believe?

There are of course shitty people in every profession. Except most professions if you are bad at your job you don't get regular raises every year. In fact in most professions if you aren't very good at your job your employer has the option of canning your ass. With teachers as long as you have seniority, unless you do something really bad like beat or molest a kid, it is pretty hard to fire you. And not only that but if you are teaching the same grade year after year, once you develop a lesson plan you job gets easier (so essentially as your job gets easier you make more money).

The teachers here don't get regular raises every year - they actually take home less this year than they did last year - and when they do get raises they are only cost-of-living raises unless they've earned a master's degree or some such thing that moves them to the next "step". (There are only 3 steps.)

[_]

I'll point out that, although we don't always meet them in person, we spend many more years of our lives employing the services of trash collectors, mail carriers, physicians, etc. - and yet we don't hear half as much judgement about them, especially not as a group.

I think if you add up the actual time with these people, teachers are going to win hands down. And I don't think it's an indication of being undervalued at all. I think it's the fact that people value education so highly that leads them to criticize poor teachers. And my perception is that bad teachers are rarely fired due to poor performance, could be wrong. Seems like they only get fired for 1) molesting/hurting kids 2) budget cuts.

No, teachers are not exclusively union.

Thanks. Is it all public school teachers? Every teacher I've known has been in the union.

I don't think we really value education at all in this society. We say we do and that that gives us a right to sit around complaining about teachers, but we never put our money where our mouths are and really provide teachers with the resources they need to succeed. Maybe it's true that bad teachers are rarely fired, but I think bad teachers are the exception, not the rule, but we talk about "bad teachers" in general as if many more teachers are bad and they - not lack of support of education - are to blame for all the failures of the school systems.

Here, at least, public school teachers are not necessarily in the union, though most of them - including the good teachers - choose to be.

[_]

Teachers should be held to a higher standard than other professions because it is so hard for them to be fired for poor performance. I HAVE to be union employee and am disgusted by my co-workers on a daily basis. The union protects the poor performers much more than the positve hard working ones. Unfortunately for everyone that means bad teachers get to keep their jobs for quite a long time as long as they do the MINIMUM required not to get fired. That just seems wrong. They are public employees more or less and that gives the right to people to complain more than most other professions. I don't know of one profession I have had where I was not held accountable for my performance. If kids do great, then perfect the teacher gets rewards and accolades, but if the kids do poorly they talk about the underfunded schools and how hard their job is. Poor you. it is never the teachers fault. They should be held accountable for how their kids perform. I am not saying tie their pay to how their kids do as far as grades go, but there should be an improvement in every class room as far as testable knowledge. one kid can not care and screw off, but on average a whole class should improve or the teacher needs to change something up and be held accountable if that trend continues.

And what if the whole class is filled with kids who don't care and screw off?

[_]

I'm sure there is a very blurred line and a large grey area, but you should be able to associate who is on which end of the spectrum... take for example (and i'm not trying to be biased) my mom: shows up to work 2 hours before to prepare, make worksheets, keeps her class interactive and always has the highest enrollment (she is an ESL teacher). Her coworker: brings an acoustic guitar to class and sings (this is her idea of teaching ESL)...

And one of the best teachers I ever had used to bring his acoustic guitar to class and sing (he taught English). I never came to class on time and didn't turn in half my work for that class, but I sure learned a lot about life - and about English - that has served me long after I forgot whatever the other teachers had to say. It's all very subjective and different teachers have huge positive impacts on people's lives in different ways, I think.

[haffajappa]

I'm sure there is a very blurred line and a large grey area, but you should be able to associate who is on which end of the spectrum... take for example (and i'm not trying to be biased) my mom: shows up to work 2 hours before to prepare, make worksheets, keeps her class interactive and always has the highest enrollment (she is an ESL teacher). Her coworker: brings an acoustic guitar to class and sings (this is her idea of teaching ESL)...

And one of the best teachers I ever had used to bring his acoustic guitar to class and sing (he taught English). I never came to class on time and didn't turn in half my work for that class, but I sure learned a lot about life - and about English - that has served me long after I forgot whatever the other teachers had to say. It's all very subjective and different teachers have huge positive impacts on people's lives in different ways, I think.

But isn't it saying something when there are only 4 people enrolled in her class?
This and she pretends to be "sick" to get months off to go to Europe. She goes on "stress leave" that magically falls during the summer (and this is a program funded by the government, so our tax dollars go to good use every summer to pay for her wages whiles shes off in Europe, plus the substitute teacher's wage) but you can't do anything because she's in the union. This literally happens EVERY summer.

[know1]

My degree is in education and I've taught and coached in high school. My mom was a teacher, my Dad's degee was in education and he's worked as a teacher, my sister-in-law is a teacher. Let's just say I have more than an outsider's view of education - at least in my area.

That being said, I personally believe our school systems are terrible and that there are likely more bad teachers and administrators than good ones. There are so many things that bother me about the state of education that I don't even know where to begin, but suffice it to say the school systems and many of the teachers are doing a large disservice to their students, society and tax paying citizens.

Okay, but that doesn't answer my question. How do you decide who's a shitty teacher and who's a good one?

I think the issue is a lot bigger than determing who is a bad teacher. I think the whole system/administration needs to be overhauled. I think it gives a lot of lip service, but it doesn't back that up with its actions, policies and general display of apathy.

Once the system is fixed, evaluating teachers shouldn't be much different than evaluating personnel in any other profession.

I maintain the system ALLOWS so many teachers to be bad.

[cincybearcat]

I never came to class on time and didn't turn in half my work for that class

Perhaps you shouldn't be condemning others for not valuing education.

[JR8805]

Teachers are really underpaided. Its such an important job and not enough money is given to our education system.

I would say that I wouldn't have a problem with teachers being paid more if the system was changed so that the extra money went to teachers who were really good at their jobs; rather than the system most places we have now where the highest paid teachers are the ones who have showed up for the longest (and have managed to avoid showing up drunk or touching kids). In Ontario for example the teachers in the highest pay grade (the ones with the most senority) can make 6 figures.

I don't know where you live, but where I live there are NO teachers that make six-figures. All teachers here make within 10K - 20K of each other, and it's not based on seniority, but on tier-level you aim for. With the budget crunch going on everywhere, what I see around here is a lot of ageism disguised as "I'm a good teacher and deserve to stay, while that old bat that has been here forever should go." Regardless of the fact that the old bat is a good teacher. But somehow they're not good because they're older. There are some bad teachers of all ages that should go, but just to categorically say that old teachers that have been showing up forever are bad--or to imply the same--is just another form of self-serving discrimination.

I am against seeing teachers "who are really good" at their jobs get extra pay until I see what "really good" means. If it means that you work at a cushy school where you have mostly upper middle class parents and kids that score really well on standardized tests, then you are really rewarding the laziest, although admittedly brightest and least masochistic teachers for being lazy and smart enough to know easy pickings when they see it. Am I a little jealous? Could be. I work in a poverty-ridden school that "never" makes the standardized tests. Rate of homework turn-in averaged 5 of 24 students all year despite varying motivational enticements. Parent night netted me those five parents. 95% of the kids are second-language learners. 50% of my class is made up of students not at this school 2 years ago. I once called a parent to say that their kid was not doing a science fair project and if they didn't do one, they'd fail in science. The parent's response? "I told my child they don't have to do anything they don't want to. I don't care if my child gets a zero. Got it?" Oh, yeah. I did. So, by many subjective measures my colleagues and I would appear to be very BAD teachers. One look at our standardize scores will "prove" it.

What's GOOD, though? The fact of the matter is I myself am not always a bad teacher. I teach summer school where all of my motivated students (nearly all) from around the city gained between one and two years in reading. Parents, some of them teachers themselves at the "best" schools in the city say that I am the BEST teacher their kid has ever had and shower me with gifts because their kids make such huge gains. I have to admit, I love being loved. I love being the best of teachers...I would love to get paid for being the best accordingly. I deserve it. I'm the best! I like touting that my students have made phenomenal advances in reading, if that's what I'm teaching. I'm the same teacher, but my location changes whether I'm the cream of the crop or the dregs of teaching. Among the very best teachers in the city and the very worst. That's me. I am one talented woman. Although, actually, what I do is roughly the same in both locations (I use a lot more ESL strategies with the ELL students, doh.) The difference I see between the two sets of students is not me...I'm the same person. What I see the difference as is parental involvement and motivation to see a student succeed. At the school where I'm fantastic, I'm fantastic because it's not all me. When the student goes home, the parent continues the learning day by working with the child to make certain, at the minimum, that homework is completed and often checked by an adult. In other words, teaching continues. Practice makes sure that learning gets into long-term memory for the student. At the school where I suck, when the student goes home, that is the end of the learning day. The child has only what they paid attention to in class. And tomorrow the student has only what he or she can remember of yesterday. Sometimes, that is almost nothing. Nothing plus nothing ... well, even a bad teacher can do that math--unless they are too old to, or too old and too drunk to, or too old and too busy groping to. Heck, all three. Fire the old teachers already! Old women are useless. Lose 'em.

So, when deciding who's good and who's a bad teacher, something very fair is going to have to happen. Teachers teaching at "easy" schools should not also be able to pick up on easy money, while teachers who are working much harder at the more challenging schools should not automatically be labeled as "bad" when students under-perform. As the best teacher in the city and the worst one, I do have something to contribute to the conversation and solution.

Btw, I'm not an "old teacher," nor am I a "new one." I'm somewhere in the middle. I've been teaching about 10 years. But I am a woman of the middle-aged variety who knows that someday, sooner rather than later, I'm going to be an old woman. And I know that when I get there, I'm a prime candidate for being written off, both literally and figuratively, no matter how vital I or my contributions may be. It really is stomach turning to me to hear what some of my younger colleagues have to say about the "old" teachers at our school...teachers who really are some of the true gems, but who are women who are old and therefore "worthless."

[DangDang]

asdflkja;kd

In all professions, there's good and bad.

There's GOOD accountants who really do want to go the extra mile to save the client taxes, and BAD accountants who only want the fee and do only the minumum work necessary.

There's GOOD garbage collectors who will bend down and pick up that tomato-sauced wax paper from inside the pizza box that fell out, and BAD garbage collectors who hop right back on the truck leaving the tomato-sauced wax paper from inside the pizza box to blow around the neighborhood all day unitl Sparky the short-legged, steel-balled dog shreds it.

There's GOOD teachers who really have the students' learning & growth first & formost in their agenda and there's BAD teachers--you know, the meat grinders from The Wall.

In the legal profession....
ok, well maybe not ALL professions have GOOD, but anyway,

I'd never want to be a teacher....

You have to perform almost every moment, every day
You have to deal with a classroom of children, preteens or teenagers
You have to face that same bunch everyday whether you like them or not
You have to pretend that you like some kids when you don't
You have to deal with each of their parents
You have to deal with each of the personalities and adjust to each of their learning styles.
There's no way that they could get adequately compensated for doing all that yucky stuff.