All teachers fired!!!

[AnnieO]

We have issues around here. Overcrowding is one of them. Also we have an "Excellent" rating, but I can tell you from some of the things I have seen, if they don't like your kid they shove them out one way or another. Underperforming students end up elsewhere. But we're building new schools?! OK, I can see adding to the ones we have - plenty of land to do it, too. Upgrading and remodeling. A local district - not ours - tore down 8 schools and rebuilt them from the ground up. All the same blueprint. Pretty, yes. BUT - ! It's a poor district with an "Academic Emergency" rating. Do they think a new building will help students learn?

As for those supplies - I can see where kleenex, dry erase markers, etc. might be needed. In our district it is considered part of the school fees. If you don't supply these things, your kid doesn't get grades.

 

[DaisyFace]

Step--

Some of this is due to the way Federal funds are awarded to school districts. Often, a district will receive big money for rebuilding or remodeling buildings--but no money for supplies like textbooks or necessities like maintenance. It makes no sense, but that is the govt for ya!

 

[AnnieO]

DF - you have a very good point. The district in question is the one my kids went to when they lived with BM. husband and I joined the PTO, just to make sure we kept involved - the principal of Onyxx's middle school was livid. You see... The money had been earmarked for upgrades for the classrooms, but the board voted to raze the buildings instead.

Unfortunately this does happen occasionally. We recently voted for a levy for upgrades - new boilers, restrooms, etc. ...instead we are getting a new high school.

 

[Mom2oddson]

I just heard a news break on the radio that they are doing something simular here. They are firing all the principals and staff, Not firing the teachers but "relocating" all the teachers.... doing this entitles the school district to a lot of Federal dollars. And since the districts here are broke, they are doing it. Makes me wonder if something like that is going on there.

 

[Nancy]

Our school district is in bad shape also. The superintendant has proposed sweeping changes including closing many schools, turning some over to charter schools, creating a newcomers school for immigrant students of those who speak little english, specialty schools that teach technology, and making all high schools small academies, some single sex and keeping ninth graders seperate from upperclassmen (which I applaud).

Some of the ideas I agree with and some I believe are downright stupid.

For example, one of our most successful high schools is Ginn Academy, an all boys high school for at risk boys headed by Ted Ginn (father of Ted Ginn Jr from Ohio State and Miami Dolphins). He is a no nonsense guy who demands a great deal from his students and parents. This man is not a teacher, but he is an expert at helping at risk teens succeed in life and has been solely responsible for many young men going to college who otherwise woud not have had the opportunity. The bulding that houses this school underwent a $775,000 renovation last year to improve the facilities. The superintendant decided he wanted to close this school and combine it with a current inner city high school and have one half be all boy sand the other half be all girls. The community was in an uproar. How can you take one of the biggest bright spots in our school system and do that. Thank goodness enough community memebrs yelled and he backed off. Mr. Ginn demands every parent sign a contract at the beginning of each school year pledging their support. They are required to do many things including volunteer so many hours. Of their child does not come to school, a teacher drives out to their house to pick them up. There is total communication between the school and home, the kids get away with nothing. They wear uniforms and are expected to be respectful at all times, in and out of school. If and when they act up int he community, the school gets involved.

I feel bad for my easy child. She is graduating in May with a degree in elementary education. There are no jobs. When I hear people complain about how much teachers make and how little they work I want to scream. The starting salary here is about $28,000. All teachers are required to obtain their masters within 5 years to keep their certification. The first five years of summer vacations are spent going to school to complete masters degree programs. Unlike many other professions, the teacher pays for her own continuing ed classes. The preparation she goes through every day just to teach every day is exhausting. The money she spends from her(our) own pocket is breaking us. It use to be that our society looked up to teachers. Many people now complain bitterly that they are overpaid and underworked. If they only knew.

We all know some bad teachers, just like we know some bad doctors and bankers and engineers and insurance executives and financial brokers, etc. But for some reason we think teachers are fair game for our pent up frustrations. We need to find a different way to finance our schools so that teachers are not blamed when taxes go up. Maybe the answer is to charge tuition to every student. Those that can afford it get educated and those that can't don't. We can't have it both ways. We can't have free education and not have it cost us somewhere.

I agree that teachers who are not performing should be terminated, but we need to create an environemtn where the teacher can perform and are recognized for it. We need parents to become more involved in their children's education. easy child tells me stories that make the hair on the back of my neck stand up about some parents who are totally uninvolved in their children's lives and some of the conditions these kids live under are horrendous.

Nancy

 

[klmno]

Well, the part about the fed government stepping in after they evaluation'd and then giving options to the sd might be the "forcing of hand" due to not having enough passing grades that those people in the school systems were referring to when they told me this kind of stuff was related to the No Child Left Behind- due to what the fed government is demanding in order to get funding. I'm not sure because I don't work in the system myself but according to those people who did (and therefore might have a biased perspective), it was the requirements put on a sd that somehow effected who they hired, retained, what they paid them, and who got frustrated and left teaching altogether. But again, I can't honestly say because I have not worked in it myself.

Nancy, I'm not saying teachers start out getting paid well. In some professions people can usually expect a good pay but in some, they cannot. In my profession you have to either have a 5-year professional degree or a master's degree. You get out of college making much less than the 28,000 in almost all cases- no matter what city you live in. You work your butt off working overtime for no extra pay, doing the worst jobs, and studying for the exam that you can't take until you have so many hours in, and almost all have to pay for the test (roughly 2500 ni study materials and seminar costs and other related cost for national record keeping). A plumber without a high school diploma or GED gets paid more. So I get that they aren't paid what they are worth (the ones that aren't really bad), but they need to realize that this applies to a lot of college educated professionals- not just them and it didn't just start when our economy plummeted- it has always been this way. No offense was or is meant to teachers.

 

[Nancy]

A plumber without a high school diploma or GED gets paid more. So I get that they aren't paid what they are worth (the ones that aren't really bad), but they need to realize that this applies to a lot of college educated professionals- not just them and it didn't just start when our economy plummeted- it has always been this way. No offense was or is meant to teachers.

I realize I'm not that quick sometimes but I don't get the argument. I don't hear teachers complaining, I hear people who aren't teachers complaining that they don't make as much as teachers. Heck I graduated from college too and I didn't make as much as a plumber or attorney or CPA either. I didn't complain. We all make choices in life and that includes our life work. I'd like to know what profession you are talking about that makes much less than 28,000 but I know there are some, including some of the most difficult professions i.e. social worker.

All I'm saying is that we think nothing of complaining bitterly over teachers salaries. We seem to hold them to different standards than we hold others to. Most teachers choose that profession because they truly love teaching children. They don't do it because they are going to get rich.

Roughly $2500 in study materials and seminar materials doesn't seem to be outrageous. Let's see, her undergrad degree has cost over $150,000 and graduate degree will be 42 hours at $600 per credit hour which equals $25,200 not including books, supplies, certification tests, etc. That's today's cost so figure by five years from now that cost is increased significantly.

All I'm saying is we need to put this in perspective. We choose our professions for whatever reasons and we take the good with the bad. There is no free ride in any job and I don't begrudge any HONEST person from maing a living compensurate with their education and training. But why we think it's ok to pick teachers to hold up as a profession that makes too much is beyond me.

And judging from today's news out of Colorado, we now expect teachers to be policemen in addition to educators.

Nancy

 

[klmno]

Maybe I misinterpreted then- I don't think teachers make too much money and didn't realize that was your original point. I specifically said I don't think they get paid well.

The seminar costs and study materials and so forth I was referring to weren't for education- they were for the test to get licensed, which happens a very minimum of 3 years after college graduation- we didn't get that stuff paid for- I was trying to compare to what you said about teachers not getting continuing education paid for.

Yes, there are several if not many college educated people who start in their professions making lower amounts than teachers and have less job security and less benefits and work just as hard. That was the only point I was trying to make. I'm one of them so I am sure not saying it's enough money or complaining that they get too much- I think all of those in professions like that should start out getting more. But while I'm not complaining about them, I can't feel the same sympathy for them as I would if I hadn't started out lower and being just as professional and educated.

A teacher might not complain about someone starting out at 35,000, but are they going to feel too sympathetic given what they start out at? But I do agree with you that we should have a good idea of average pay before going into a profession and we choose our own professions weighing all things like job satisfaction, requirements, etc.- or at least, we all should.

And FWIW, I have tried to advocate in my own jurisdiction for the school board to put discipline back in the classroom for years. I started that right after I learned that an elementary school could have a kid arrested but our school board had deemed it "inappropriate punishment" to tell a child to write sentences as a punishment, even if the parent put their permission in writing. That's when I started realizing that a lot of this is the school board's doings and of course, who ever voted for these people.

 

[DammitJanet]

28K is a pittance to pay a teacher. Pitiful. Is it any wonder we cant draw more wonderful, caring individuals into becoming teachers? Some can but I would think most can hardly afford the tuition and being able to support themselves. It is absolutely horrid.

Heavens, Tony makes just a little less than that but good lord if he had student loans to pay back out of that salary...we would never make it.

 

[Nancy]

I understand. I don't think teachers are asking for sympathy though, and perhaps that is where we differ. I have heard that comment before, that I am just as educated so I should make as much as teachers. I have a neighbor who has no children, married a man with grown children. She refuses to vote for a school levy and has threatened to move from our city if we ask for one more dime. Many in the neighborhood hope she does. She continues to corner me in the grocery store or wherever and compalin that teachers work "three hours a day and have three months off and make too much and have too much job security." She doesn't seem to get that I don't want to hear it anymore, even though I have walked away from her and told her so much to her face.

This woman works in the health insurance profession, selling health insurance plans to companies. She and her husband both make very very good incomes. She has redecorated her newly built home three times in ten years and just again got all new appliances, carpeting and granite counter tops, all the while complaining that the schools didn't need any more money and the teachers should take a pay cut. She posted signs in her yard against the school levy while we failed them for two years and lost busing and all extra currciulars. With all her education she failed to understand that her home property values are tied to how good the school system is.

The last time we spoke I told her that when insurance company executives, particularly health insurance companies, stopped taking the free handouts and huge salaries and benefits, I would talk to her. That our family was paying $36,000 a year in health premiums because we had preexisting conditions and couldn't get into any group plans, and that we were contemplating dropping health coverage because it was bankrupting us. She defends the insurance companies profits saying that they are a business and entitled to make whatever profit they can.

I don't mean to pick on you, I really don't. I just don't know of any teachers here who are wealthy on their salary.

Nancy

 

[KTMom91]

Being a sub, I get to see the good, bad, and ugly of the elementary schools in our district...which is an award-winning, high-achieving, fairly wealthy district. However...we still have low-income, under-performing schools. Tying teachers' salaries etc. to student performance is really using an unfair barometer. It isn't like making your sales goal or balancing your budget. You're dealing with 20 (in primary) very different entities, who have 20 very different sets of issues, that affect their daily performance, and most of those issues have absolutely nothing to do with you or how well you do your job. Add in the fact that you are not only teaching the three R's, you're teaching basic manners and general hygiene, you're supplying snacks for those who haven't eaten, purchasing books for your classroom library, providing crayons, pencils, glue sticks, etc. because the amount you get for supplies from the district isn't enough to have a set for each student...

It's not just W School or C School, or T School, or F School...I see the effects at every school I work in.

 

[klmno]

I'm sure they're not wealthy, Nancy. But please trust me- I don't think like that woman you described. I've had a friend who went all the way thru the school system and know it's a very demanding job. And I understand where you are coming from- there is a profession that is somewhat related to mine and we have to work together, albeit our professions are different in specifics. They need a 4 year degree vs a minimum of 5 year, they can get their time in to take their licensing exam in less time and their licensing exam cost a few hundred dollars at most. They start out making twice as much as us- but I like my profession and chose it and knew I'd never be wealthy. In fairness, we make about the same by the time we have 25-30 years experience.

In 1989 I started out with 6 mos experience, college educated, working and living in Seattle for $16,250 per year. Benefits? 1 week vacation, 7 paid holidays, and medication insurance. Being on salaray, I was not paid for the overtime hours that were expected and required. I realize that was a long time ago, but the rate these days I think is about 24,000 in the Difficult Child area and 20,000-22,000 in an average city. And they want the degree plus 1 year experience already but I don't know that they can always get that.

 

[klmno]

ktmom- that's exactly the point those in the school system's were previously saying to me. They said that is what was going on and it can't work because some jurisdictions are so different, therefore many good and seasoned teachers are leaving the profession. These weren't teachers- just other people that worked for sd admin. But I feel like stressing yet again that I personally can't verify if this is tied to NCLB or not. I can see where it might be though because of the involvement of the fed goovernement and just hearing what some teacher's were saying during the last election- that the concept is great but the way they are implementing it needs to be changed.

 

[KTMom91]

I suspect it is tied to NCLB. The test scores mean more than the actual learning. The push is on for all the kids to go to a 4 year university, which is a totally unrealistic goal. Not every career requires a university degree.

And, if we are serious about leaving no child behind, we need to increase funding for vocational classes, so our children will have a practical skill and can find a job, rather than dropping out of high school. I know that Miss KT would not have graduated if she had followed her counselor's plan that would make sure she would qualify for a university.

 

[klmno]

I can see this playing out a lot differently in different jurisdictions too. For instance, the schools that need the most money are not necessarily going to be the ones with the highest test scores. There is such a diverse popluation in various areas around where I live that this could make some conflict and I suspect that was why I was hearing that type of grievance- not that it pertained to me professionally, just that this issue was a big thorn in these people's sides.

 

[everywoman]

I wish that all teachers were up to par. Unfortunately, like in the rest of life, you have good and bad. In the south there is no tenure, there are no unions. My contract is actually just a request for consideration. I sought National Board Certification because it offered incentive pay that I desperately need. It means that I make about 425 dollar every 2 weeks---I have two years left before it is discontinued. I coach and teach at least 5 extra hours a week of homebound to make a decent salary after 23 years in the classroom. And I do all this feeling unappreciated and discouraged by the lack of professional treatment by some parents, a few students, uneducated and bitter community members, and elected officials who make laws and hold me accountable without giving me the tools and support I need to do my job. I work hard at my profession and love being in the classroom. I will still be there in two years when my salary is cut by $11,000 dollars a year. But very few will stop and thank me. That's okay---I'm not doing it for them. I'm teaching because I see everyday the lives I touch.

 

[flutterby]

Nancy, I admit I can't think tonight and maybe I'm taking this out of context, but I hope you didn't mean this:

Maybe the answer is to charge tuition to every student. Those that can afford it get educated and those that can't don't.

I know at least 2 people on the thread alone who wouldn't be able to afford it. A public education system is one of the things that separates us from third world countries.

We need to start holding our state legislators accountable. State funding for education has dropped. Property taxes alone are not enough to cover it.

Parents and the community blame teachers, and teachers blame parents. It's not that simple. It's much more complex and I feel it's a reflection of society as a whole. Our priorities are not where they should be.

 

[flutterby]

I thought this was appropriate:

http://mdjonline.com/bookmark/6433424/article-Roger%20Hines-%20Perdue-s%20pay%20plan%20will%20intensify%20-teaching%20to%20test-

 

[klmno]

We need to start holding our state legislators accountable. State funding for education has dropped. Property taxes alone are not enough to cover it.

Parents and the community blame teachers, and teachers blame parents. It's not that simple. It's much more complex and I feel it's a reflection of society as a whole. Our priorities are not where they should be.

Those are exactly my sentiments. Authority has been whittled away from parents due to fear of false accusations and the government involvement (juvenile system) means they take over how our childrern are raised instead of baccking the parent up and offering community supports- in the real sense. Discipline was taken out of the classroom and the middlemen in control of how NCLB gets implemented have left unrealistic expectations on those in the schools. That has left a lot of frustration for those taking care of and teaching kids and neither can do anything so they stand there and point the finger at each other (teachers and parents). Yes, some parents and some teachers are bad or uncaring or uninvolved. But many of each are not that way. It's being proactive in our communities, advocating, educating the public, getting involved in politics if we can, and trying to reestablish a relationship between parents and teachers where we pull for the same things with these legislators (laws and funding and policies) that will turn this around. As long as parents and teachers are blaming each other, the legislators and those really in control aren't a bit worried.

You know, difficult child had two outstanding teachers. One was pretty seasoned and also a part of admin and didn't need extra money because of who she's married to. The other was an aid in a collaborative class and probably wasn't make hardly enough to live on. I advocated for both of them to get a raise because I felt they went above and beyond what was expected, they cared about my son's success, and made a difference in his life. (They were teaching two different classes- not the same one.) I was told teachers can't get raises that simply anymore. Again, I don't really know the ins and outs of it- but no darn wonder we have the situation we do. Even if you start out being that good, how many people would stay that motivated year after year in that situation- unless you really didn't need the money. And still it would get discouraging.

You have my greatest appreciation, EW! So does WO- and the other warrior moms who are teachers.

 

[klmno]

Oh- another thought- I think it will eventually all come to a head (Lord knows what we'll all be put through to get there though).

Probation officers started making demands on sd's like they do parents about constant supervision and how to handle every little situation. The sd's finally put there foot down and said they can't do all that for all the kids that are currently on probation. So the juvenile sustem had to place a PO in the high school to handle handle every little situation themselves, full time. So now there is a growing tension between sd's and Department of Juvenile Justice. I figure it will take until I have grandchildren but eventually they might figure out that although the intentions and objectives are good, the policies and laws that actually implement this stuff is unrealistic and it's not the low man on the totem poles fault - like the teacher in the classroom and the parent. (Of course, I do expect teachers to follow the IEP or tell their authorities why they can't so the sd can handle that in a way that gets the IEP followed.)