posted
Teaching is a profession that should be a team effort, yet all rewards are individual. My husband get a nice bonus last year based on his team's performance- they all got the same amount for meeting the goal. I don't know if you could get away with something like that (ie if math scores improve, everyone in the math department gets the bonus) but that is one way to worry about the sharing. It would help encourage mentoring.
Of course, my mother in law (teacher) this year got her contract and discovered her pay had dropped and her insurance costs were up. This was true for everyone at her school, not just her. And that really sucks.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Sadly, the unions have become a maladaptive force in the quality of our education.
Still pretty sure I disagree with this, especially as a blanket statement, covering, what, every school district in the US?
Every? No. But a large majority of the school districts in the united states. Unions' primary influence on schools in the united states is to make it nearly impossible in most districts to get rid of incompetent teachers and replace them with good ones. Along with a host of other terrible effects. an example: If a school district needs desperately to cut back on educators, the tenure system often makes it impossible to keep the new, fresh, eager talent, no matter how qualified. You can only really fire the newest, untenured educators. It doesn't matter if you have geriatric incompetents holding all the slots left over.
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quote: If a school district needs desperately to cut back on educators, the tenure system often makes it impossible to keep the new, fresh, eager talent, no matter how qualified.
You definitely can remove 'bad' teachers if the Admins are documenting properly and doing their job properly. The union does what it can to protect its members but far too often the Admins are unwilling to do their job correctly. This problem would become minimal if Admins did their jobs better.
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I know that I'm quick to point out how district administrations are usually a huge problem, but that's just not true. Even well-administrated districts have their hands tied by the unions.
Just search for the term "Dance of the Lemons"
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Tenured teachers CAN be fired...if the administration is willing to do what is necessary. In reality, it usually takes being convicted of a felony. Maybe not even then.
The school where my daughter attends has a teacher who hit a kid - left marks - and she is still teaching. The parents filed assault charges and she is still coming to work every day.
Tenure shouldn't protect you from losing your job if you actually assualt a student (in front of witnesses) but it seems to be in this case.
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Dark what my point was is that while the term "Merit Pay" is a great sound bite, defining it is the problem.
Set up a set of 20 goals the distinguish a merit worthy extra pay and you will get teachers that will do everything on paper to hit those 20 goals, and not a thing more. Good teachers care about the children they are teaching and not the administrative goals for merit pay. Poor teachers are usually only interested in gaming the system to do the least to get the most. In such cases good teachers will suffer under almost any merit pay program while poor teachers will win it unless care is taken to set up the system against such abuse.
The problem is that politicians are all about the quick fix and merit pay is that quick fix politically even if it is not so for the students.
(My crack about business men and Senators is that they are demanding teachers making 1/3 their pay play by rules that they themselves don't have to. Should we have Merit Pay in the Senate so that only Good Senators get the extra cash? How do we define Good?)
Another comment, "experience" is usually defined as years on the job. You say that such experience does not teach the teacher how to teach, only how to game the system. Granted. I argue that when changes to the system are made it is these poor teaching--good gaming teachers who have the experience to endure, not the good teaching teachers.
Then again you say that education does not teach the teacher how to teach. What does? How do you turn a poor teacher into a good teacher? Saying you will get a raise if you are a good teacher is fine. Offering a path to being that good teacher is more productive.
One final pro-union comment. Note, my wife refuses to join the teachers union for many of the reasons listed here. She has to put up daily with teachers she wouldn't let around our son, and the Union is the one that protects them. It would do a better job protecting the good teachers and making a teacher's life easier by dumping the bad teachers. However, if you remove the teachers you get the death spiral that education was in during the 1970's. Here the politicians were in control. Politicians in control of the schools saw a lot of school resources going to paying for teachers and not enough paying for big showy new buildings, sports, or other areas where their graft and corruption, or simple pandering to the tax payer, could do them any good. As a result teacher salaries dived and there was nothing teachers could do about it while the politicians assumed that teachers so loved teaching that they would do it for free. The union only became as powerful as it is because of abuses being routinely committed against teachers. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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We're just replacing one death spiral with another, though I'm not convinced that education is facing what I would call a 'death spiral,' not conventionally. It appears to just be stuck in a default state of maladaptive failure.
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quote: Another comment, "experience" is usually defined as years on the job.
I quibble, perhaps, but this is often not the case. Experience is often defined as years teaching in that particular district, at least in regards to placement on a salary schedule/pay scale.
True, districts often recognize the experience a teacher has from another district and will offer them equivalent placement on the salary schedule from the old district. This is not always the case, and the most my district, for instance, is REQUIRED to recognize is 8 years previous experience. Placement higher on the scale is a matter for negotiation after the job has been offered, but given the scarcity of teaching jobs in Oregon these days, teachers aren't really in much of a position to negotiate from strength.
Edit to add:
Experience in regards to Reductions if Force (i.e. layoffs) is another matter entirely. Layoffs are based almost exclusively on one's seniority in the DISTRICT. We had a music teacher in the district with over 25 years of classroom teaching experience who was laid off because she had only been in the school district for that one school year. There was no question that she was the more qualified teacher when compared to some of the other teachers who received lay-offs.
It turns out that she was offered her position again, as were most of the music teachers in the district, but she had already secured employment elsewhere.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Unions' primary influence on schools in the united states is to make it nearly impossible in most districts to get rid of incompetent teachers and replace them with good ones.
I strongly disagree. The primary influence that YOU care about, perhaps. But teacher pay and benefits are lousy enough with the unions; I shudder to think what they would be without them. And I know plenty of GOOD teachers whose jobs were saved by their unions, in situations that might otherwise have led to wrongful termination suits.
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: The question is "how do you define a better teacher."
I think this is the best question of the thread. However, I think we need to go back one step and ask "how do we define learning" in order to get to it.
Learning, to me, is being presented with new information and being able to integrate it with what you already understand in order to gain a fuller picture of the subject. So a good teacher, to me, would be someone who can help young children learn to ask the right questions or present older children with information that cuts to the core of their blind spots to challenge what they think they know.
But that's one opinion deeply influenced by my personality type and values. I'm sure there are many more answers that would be just as valid for the people they fit.
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"Unions' primary influence on schools in the united states is to make it nearly impossible in most districts to get rid of incompetent teachers and replace them with good ones"
As Rivka said, false.
The primary influence of unions on schools in the United States is keeping benefits reasonable enough that education is an economically feasible career path for people who are talented enough that they could make significantly more money in other fields.
Take away the unions, and education is only a attractive career for people we don't want teaching anyways.
As has also been stated, if administrators would do their jobs, they could fire incompetent teachers. Even WITH strong unions.
And I know more young teachers who have been vigorously protected by unions, than old teachers.
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I have seen some very competent administrators try to fire mediocre teachers in favor of much better, but less seniority, teachers. They've failed miserably (sometimes couldn't even get the mediocre teachers transferred to responsibilities where they would do less harm). Administrators aren't even given the possibility of letting more experienced teachers go during things like RIFs (absent subject matter needs).
Saying "if only we had much better administrators, those stupid, harmful clauses in teacher contracts could be worked around" is a really bizarre form of apologetics. What's more, I fail to see a proposed route to making sure all administrators are much better than they are now. Teacher's unions have definitely done a lot of good. But they have also done a lot of harm. There needs to be serious reform in order to enable administrators of the sort schools actually have the tools to keep better teachers around more often and get rid of teachers who are not as good as them.
quote:Take away the unions, and education is only a attractive career for people we don't want teaching anyways.
You don't think some people go into teaching regardless of the money, and think people who would reject teaching because it doesn't make enough money for them are the ones we want teaching? I'm all in favor of teachers making reasonable wages (and point out that increased mobility has made school districts much more potentially competitive for the best teachers, as born out in increasing salary differentiation, than in the past when these practices were established), but is this really your argument? If not, what did you mean by that statement?
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: ]I strongly disagree. The primary influence that YOU care about, perhaps. But teacher pay and benefits are lousy enough with the unions; I shudder to think what they would be without them.
I don't know. Federal and state employees seem to have decent benefits without unions. In regards to pay, I honestly believe that has more to do with the supply and demand of teachers. If the pay is too low, people won't become teachers. If the pay is too high, the market would be over saturated with education majors.
The union is also powerless when the county just doesn't have money.
It is against state law for my union to even go on strike. Wihout being able to strike, the only power it has is to push politicians around with teacher votes.
I pay $700 a year for my union. It is outrageous.
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What makes you so sure that if teachers unions did not make firing difficutl that the result would be the firing of incompetent teachers? I would guess the opposite would be at least as likely. In an effort to cut costs and balance budgets that are hurting, the most likely to go would be the teachers higher up on the pay scale. Those with the most education and experience would be replaced with teachers who were cheaper. When those teachers started to make too much, simply replace them. The disincentive to continue education and make yourself more expensive would be huge. Teachers would be forced to work at the pay rates of the least qualified or be replaced. The last thing we need is to make teaching even less financially attractive.
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I hear (and I'll admit I have said this) a lot of people with a college degree say "well, if I can't get a job, I can always go into teaching." This could be partially because I hang out with a lot of math/science people who are generally fast tracked through certification. I know my mother in law was complaining that the reason they were able to drop all the teacher's pay this year was that there were so many unemployed (she is in AZ) who were applying for teaching jobs- all with no experience, no certification, but a college degree so they could theoretically get it through an alternative program. This teachers are way cheap and plentiful. Would this be bad for the school and students? Of course, but great for the budget, which is hurting. I have also heard that getting a job substituting is dang hard right now.
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quote:Federal and state employees seem to have decent benefits without unions.
As far as I'm aware, most federal and state employees have unions.
Perhaps a more telling point might be that, numerous private sector employees requiring similar skill levels have decent salaries and benefits without unions. What's more, even public jobs with low entry-level pay (librarians, for instance) manage to retain people of high quality, and pay pretty reasonably for good employees with experience.
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scholarette: considering pay cuts and increased duties are normal across the board in the private sector right now, and public budgets are far over-budget (Arizona is predicting a deficit of nearly two and a half billion dollars -- about 1% of GDP!), I don't think teachers having a pay cut now is unreasonable.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: scholarette: considering pay cuts and increased duties are normal across the board in the private sector right now, and public budgets are far over-budget (Arizona is predicting a deficit of nearly two and a half billion dollars -- about 1% of GDP!), I don't think teachers having a pay cut now is unreasonable.
Not even necessarily a pay cut. In large districts, just not giving us our annual raise (step) saves millions.
We have 5 furlough days coming at us next year. With a new child, I am actually sort of looking forward to the 5 additional days off.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: scholarette: considering pay cuts and increased duties are normal across the board in the private sector right now, and public budgets are far over-budget (Arizona is predicting a deficit of nearly two and a half billion dollars -- about 1% of GDP!), I don't think teachers having a pay cut now is unreasonable.
This is a common argument. What people often fail to consider is that in good times, the private sector benefits financially almost immediately through raises, bonuses, booming stock options, etc. Conversely, public sector employee pay raises lag behind to a significant degree. Our union, for instance, negotiates a new contract every 3 years, thus the delay in pay increase can take up to 3 years, or even longer if the negotiation process is protracted.
Three years ago, before the recession really hit, our union fought HARD to get our salaries increased to an amount that was competitive with other districts in our region and on barely succeeded, thanks to the outpouring of support from the community. Two years later, in the midst of recession-inspired cuts, the school district asked the union to consider 'givebacks' in the form of salary reduction. The union voted this down, since even w/o the reductions, our salaries were still less than the median teacher salary in the region.
Of course, the fact that just about every OTHER district reduced teacher pay, while OUR union was getting our negotiated 4% cost-of-living increase just about put us on top, but our union leadership regards it as justice for the decade or so when we were at the bottom of the heap... We'll see how it turns out now that we are again negotiating a contract.
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BandoCommando: public sector salary increases of late have outpaced private sector salaries. Using 2001 as a parity baseline (which isn't necessarily accurate), starting in about 2005, public sector salaries (note: the data includes school teachers) began increasing at a rate that was a good bit higher than private sector salaries. They were in very close parity prior to that.
I am amenable to the idea that there are specific districts where different situations hold sway; I was not proposing a blanket remedy, but giving some general case reasoning that holds in most districts.
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I assume small businesses are included in those studies. I've worked in several, and getting a raise when the owner is your direct manager in an office of 3 - 4 is like pulling teeth. The only way I got a raise in the private sector was job hopping every 2 years.
When I worked for a hotel group with a little over 100 employees, I got a raise pretty much whenever I decided it was time for me to get one.
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I'll admit that I didn't spend a great deal of time looking at that graph (on lunch break right now). A few concerns:
In my cursory glance, it appeared to me that this graph simply tracked growth, not starting salaries. If the public sector was, to choose a figure at random, starting at 80% of the private sector salaries for similar responsibilities, level of education, etc., then the comparative growth would be less relevant to the point made in the attached commentary.
I also saw no indication that care was made to consider job responsibilities, level of education and continued training required, etc. in that study. This is not to say it wasn't taken into account, but that I didn't see it in my brief look. I'd love to see more data, and I'll look for it when I have a little more time (ha!!).
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posted
The people I know who are in AZ seem to be paid a fairly low salary (like starting salary half the rate of teachers in other states). One science teacher with 2 kids (which isn't a lot) qualifies for things like WIC, Chip, etc. Considering that they are currently paid so low, the pay cuts seems pretty harsh.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: The people I know who are in AZ seem to be paid a fairly low salary (like starting salary half the rate of teachers in other states). One science teacher with 2 kids (which isn't a lot) qualifies for things like WIC, Chip, etc. Considering that they are currently paid so low, the pay cuts seems pretty harsh.
What is the cost of living there? Starting salary in my county is $42,000. But finding even a small townhouse for under $300,000 is next to impossible.
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quote:The primary influence of unions on schools in the United States is keeping benefits reasonable enough that education is an economically feasible career path for people who are talented enough that they could make significantly more money in other fields.
Teaching in Canada (at least in Ontario) is a well paid, well-protected job. The Ontario Teacher's Pension is incredibly wealthy.
As a result, it's hugely oversubscribed (at least partly because the government thinks we're going to need zillions of teachers at some point, apparently). As far as I can tell, this is a good thing: it's competative to get in and competative to stand out. Teachers have to be very experienced before they can get accepted to attend teacher's college.
I think teaching should be well paid because we want to attract people who might otherwise work in the private sector. There are many people who want to work as a teacher regardless of how much they get paid but they may not necessarily be that great.
There are some people who are pretty good at teaching but the security and money are a big reason they got into it.
As for incentive bonus pay, I've said it before and I'll say it again: how do we decide? Who decides? Surely standardized testing and quick-visit revivews would be useless. It couldn't be a principal, because you'd need a panel for it to be fair, and then you'd have to employ the panel and have the time to decide on an objective criteria and observe each teacher over the course of the year. I think that way madness lies.
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quote: As for incentive bonus pay, I've said it before and I'll say it again: how do we decide? Who decides? Surely standardized testing and quick-visit revivews would be useless. It couldn't be a principal, because you'd need a panel for it to be fair, and then you'd have to employ the panel and have the time to decide on an objective criteria and observe each teacher over the course of the year. I think that way madness lies.
My issue with this line of thinking is that we are saying we cannot know who are good, or bad, teachers. I would be more inclined to freeze or cut salaries since no one knows if they are doing a good job or not. Why do we need Principals if they can't be fair or tell if teachers are performing well or poorly?
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quote:Why do we need Principals if they can't be fair or tell if teachers are performing well or poorly?
I agree with this. Why do we need a panel? Why the distrust of principals? People in the private sector get performance reviews from their supervisors all the time. Why is it bad for that to happen to teachers? What makes them too special to be judged?
posted
The thing is, I don't think bright, motivated young people are turned off from teaching (in the US) because of the low salary. That's not the factor that's stopping me from becoming a teacher, for instance.
Currently, I'd take about a 50% pay cut to become a teacher. I'd do it in a heartbeat if it weren't for the way schools are run (which is the fault of both the admins and unions). My current job doesn't offer much in terms of creative thinking, and certainly very little in terms of feelings of "making a difference". But I know that my boss & coworkers are rational in their demands, that I have the flexibility to do my job my way without needing to get everything okay-ed by people higher up, and that I'll be rewarded & noticed if I turn out a stellar project. My understanding is that the work environment in most schools is not like this.
My favorite job ever was teaching math full time at a test prep company one summer. Most of the kids didn't want to be there (I wouldn't either), but I had the flexibility to do whatever I wanted with the various classes, as long as the kids knew the math they needed to know by the end of the summer. It was a complete blast, and I loved that I was able to help a lot of these kids learn to appreciate math (even straight-up SAT math for some classes) a bit more than they had before.
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They are not. I just think that the evaluation of somebody whose impact is secondary or possibly even long-term is just more complex than "Sarah completed her work on time and sold x number of helicopters." You can't have one person determining something so... elusive unless you use a system that is easy to beat.
I think teachers should be paid well because it's a freaking hard job. Yes, it's rewarding, but it's not easy. My father always says, "oh teaching. You're basically doing children's level work and you're done at three-thirty!" Riiiight.
You alone (maybe with help if you're a kindergarten teacher) are in charge of thirty to three hundred people's education both intellectually and personally. They are there as much or more than they are in the presence of their parents and yet you have no decision-making skills in their lives. If you can see that their parents are doing something harmful but not worthy of child services getting involved, you are powerless. You must work within the time and limited reach and resources granted you. You might have a child with severe behaviourial issues whose parent refuses to get extra help for and so he becomes the neediest one of thirty-four kids-- many of whom have milder issues.
You must grade the children at the end of the year. You must ensure that every struggling child is completing some work while attempting to challenge those who complete it without difficulty. This could be over two grades so you could have students who are two years apart-- which is huge in elementary school. You must account for students' education on different cultures and backgrounds. You may have to teach many different subjects at a quite advanced level, some of which you haven't taken since high school-- and do it confidently and well. I could have to teach gym to grade 8s, for example. Last time I took gym? Grade 9, ten years ago.
On top of that, you use your salary to supplement the supplies you put into your classroom. If you need anything unusual for a lesson or your room, you pay for it yourself.
On top of that, there's no downtime except (possibly) lunch and (possibly) whatever prep time you have. In many office jobs, you get a cup of coffee mostly when you want. You go to the bathroom mostly when you want. You have a workstation that is yours. Ha!
Teaching in Ontario, I think, is paid just about right. Not astronomical, but decent enough to raise a solid family on. The Union is crazy strong and protects some bad teachers, yes, but it also protects and roots for all the good teachers who don't have the time to root for themselves. They ensure that teaching isn't regarded as the "children's work finished at three" job many people think it is.
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quote:I agree with this. Why do we need a panel? Why the distrust of principals? People in the private sector get performance reviews from their supervisors all the time. Why is it bad for that to happen to teachers? What makes them too special to be judged?
If we're going to look to the private sector, then ought some of the conditions of schools really reflect the private sector better themselves?
I mean, it's sort of like Teshi says in my opinion. It doesn't seem very reasonable to me to say, "In the private sector, this works," and use that as a reason why it ought to be done in public schools. In the private sector, things are different. Both employers and employees have more power-they have control over the good or service they provide. If they see something is not working, they can change it as quickly as they are able. And success is rewarded, while great success is generally rewarded lavishly. In the private sector, if you sell a windshield wiper, it gets installed in a car and operated at the flick of a switch. Those are the only variables. You're only competing directly with other windshield wipers operating under the same conditions. The same can't be said of public schools.
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posted
"The thing is, I don't think bright, motivated young people are turned off from teaching (in the US) because of the low salary. That's not the factor that's stopping me from becoming a teacher, for instance. "
No, its the factor that keeps bright, motivated people from doing it for more than 2 years. Look up the burnout rate for teachers in your state, sometime. In Massachusetts, its something like 60% within 2 years.
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posted
Isn't it safe to say that low salary for long hours with minimal job security is a factor that could be considered a turn-off to bright, motivated people just as a given?
It may not be decisive, but those attributes together or separately are certainly disincentives.
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Yes, low salary is a disincentive to pursuing the job in the first place, and a factor in burnout. I think it is less of a disincentive, in an otherwise rewarding career, for 22 year olds, then it is for 30 or 50 year olds.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: Every program for teacher merit pay I have ever seen was misguided and badly designed. They reward hoop-jumping, NOT good teaching.
QFT
Sorry to jump in so late on that bandwagon, but QFT again.
As a teacher working primarily in the private sector (call if anywhere from consulting to teaching, depending on the company), I can say that the employers I have had who made me jump through the most hoops also made me less effective as a teacher. Case in point- the one company that required testing at the end of semesters for even their individual classes insisted that I pitch the idea of working out of a progressive textbook with students who categorically did not want to work out of such a book. In the end I gave the school the finger and taught to the needs of the students, but plenty of their teachers take the textbook and teach out of it, despite how godawful the progressive business English textbooks really are.
Private sector teaching is entirely a different thing though. I've had the luxury, most of the time, of teaching whatever the hell I felt like or thought students needed, with minimal oversight, since the classes are at the pleasure of the client. I feel personally that this makes me pretty effective at what I do, but on the other hand, there are plenty of people in the business who don't rise to the occasion given such a free hand. I've found it to be generally true that the majority of what language schools do is to allow them to continue to operate despite the fact that their teachers are often unskilled or incompetent. It took me over a year of working to get to the point where I'm trusted enough not to have to be observed or questioned on my lesson choices, materials, etc. Hoop jumping is just not something good teachers will ever benefit from- it can only protect you, maybe, from bad ones.
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: Yes, low salary is a disincentive to pursuing the job in the first place, and a factor in burnout. I think it is less of a disincentive, in an otherwise rewarding career, for 22 year olds, then it is for 30 or 50 year olds.
The opposite of my personal experience, but I don't have a lot of perspective to judge that. The low pay in the job makes it nearly impossible to pursue the things that young people want to do- travel, hobbies, buying a house, parties, etc. I make above average for my particular market, but I've worked with plenty of people who were a lot older than me, didn't make as much, and were still happier with it than I was.
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Then you are disagreeing. I'm saying that an older person with children has far larger expenses and therefore need for money than a younger person with no children. If there was a difference in complaints, it was to factors other than the 22-year-old needing money more.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Can't disagree, I just think younger people have a larger need/want of loose cash.
Orin, you are really completely out of touch. First off, if people in the 30 - 50 range spend less money on things like travel, hobbies and parties, it isn't because they've become old and boring and are no longer want to do those things. It's either because they were never interested in those things or because they assumed responsibilities (including both family and career) that use up all their time and money.
Second, Kat is absolutely correct. Supporting a family is far more expensive than travel and parties. Furthermore, the expensive aren't really comparable. Being dissatisfied with your pay because you can't afford expensive hobbies and luxury vacations is not remotely like being dissatisfied with your pay because you can't afford braces for the kids or a house with enough room for a growing family.
Finally, every decision in life has trade offs. Some parts of teaching are highly rewarding, others (like marking papers and discipline) are simply not. Teachers typically have an extended summer break, but that's in exchange for a completely inflexible schedule during the other 10 months of the year and a job that demand far more than 40 hours/week to do properly. When you are young and have few responsibilities, its much easier to take a job out of idealism or exchange a high salary for free summers. As you get older and gain responsibility, those choices become very different.
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "The thing is, I don't think bright, motivated young people are turned off from teaching (in the US) because of the low salary. That's not the factor that's stopping me from becoming a teacher, for instance. "
No, its the factor that keeps bright, motivated people from doing it for more than 2 years. Look up the burnout rate for teachers in your state, sometime. In Massachusetts, its something like 60% within 2 years.
I don't see how low wages would cause a turnover like that. It's not like teacher's low wages are a surprise -- anybody who becomes a teacher has to already be expecting a low income.
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Expecting and living with are very, very different things. Also, expecting and living with after a life change or two are even more different.
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Idealism is often much more attractive in the abstract. Being perpetually poor when you don't have to be is not actually fun. I don't blame people for not choosing it as a life sentence.
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quote: It doesn't seem very reasonable to me to say, "In the private sector, this works," and use that as a reason why it ought to be done in public schools. In the private sector, things are different.
There are many things the private sector does that public schools should be doing in areas like HR, Accounting, maintenance, IT and so on.
quote: Both employers and employees have more power-they have control over the good or service they provide. If they see something is not working, they can change it as quickly as they are able.
Public schools can't change the methods they use to educate children? The private sector must adapt to their clients' needs and public schools should do the same. To suggest otherwise means that we are teaching exactly the same we did 50 years ago and there are no new ways to teach.
quote: In the private sector, if you sell a windshield wiper, it gets installed in a car and operated at the flick of a switch. Those are the only variables. You're only competing directly with other windshield wipers operating under the same conditions.
There are many many more variables than this but I think you already knew that. I've heard variations on this theme many times, especially the little old school teacher who challenges the business person with her nugget of 'wisdom' about how the business person can reject inferior parts and schools have to accept all students. Businesses serve the needs of their consumers or else they go out of business. Schools do not have to serve the needs of their consumers and can't go out of business no matter how poorly they perform.
quote: The same can't be said of public schools.
There is no competition in public schools. Public schools have a monopoly.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: "The thing is, I don't think bright, motivated young people are turned off from teaching (in the US) because of the low salary. That's not the factor that's stopping me from becoming a teacher, for instance. "
No, its the factor that keeps bright, motivated people from doing it for more than 2 years. Look up the burnout rate for teachers in your state, sometime. In Massachusetts, its something like 60% within 2 years.
It's less than 50% within 3 years but there is no comparison to other jobs 'burnout' rates either. Plus it isn't a 'burnout' rate, it's the rate of people who don't stay in the teaching profession in MA for all reasons. Salary is very far down on the list. The list of factors is topped with the poor training they receive to become teachers and lack of support once they do become teachers. Poor training is from the colleges, and lack of support is from the Administrators.
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quote:There are many things the private sector does that public schools should be doing in areas like HR, Accounting, maintenance, IT and so on.
I absolutely agree with regards to jobs that are actually more or less completely in control of the people doing them, such as the ones you listed.
quote:Public schools can't change the methods they use to educate children? The private sector must adapt to their clients' needs and public schools should do the same. To suggest otherwise means that we are teaching exactly the same we did 50 years ago and there are no new ways to teach.
That's not quite what I said. Public schools can change methods used to educate children, but frequently not as quickly as businesses in the private sector can change their product. In the private sector, if you learn your windshield wiper is performing badly against competition because of poor plastic, the boss can say, "OK, time to change our plastic supplier so we can remain competitive," and it will be done basically as fast as that boss can arrange. In public schools, if a class does poorly on a standardized test (just as an easy example), there are a dizzying array of hoops to jump through, and even after they're navigated, education may or may not improve. That's to say nothing of angry parents, either.
Public schools are caught between a rock and a hard place in American society. We expect private sector style results, but do not grant private sector style authority, much less resources.
quote:There are many many more variables than this but I think you already knew that. I've heard variations on this theme many times, especially the little old school teacher who challenges the business person with her nugget of 'wisdom' about how the business person can reject inferior parts and schools have to accept all students. Businesses serve the needs of their consumers or else they go out of business. Schools do not have to serve the needs of their consumers and can't go out of business no matter how poorly they perform.
The point is that the variables, or at least the response to the variables, are mostly under the businessman's control. If he wants to attempt to remain competitive by increasing advertising, he can do so. If he wants to go for it by upgrading his materials, he can do so. If he wants to attempt it by cutting wages, he can do so. The school teacher can't say, "To hell with this ridiculous standardized test, I'm going to actually educate my students," or, "My students don't have enough real homework to learn the material, so I shall assign more and different sorts of work," or so on and so forth.
quote:There is no competition in public schools. Public schools have a monopoly.
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Then you are disagreeing. I'm saying that an older person with children has far larger expenses and therefore need for money than a younger person with no children. If there was a difference in complaints, it was to factors other than the 22-year-old needing money more.
Loose cash, I said. "Loose," like spending money. Please back off and take a breath before you jump down my throat. I understand that having children costs more, but I also understand that older people are expected to have saved and made investments toward that eventuality. I also understand that people who teach for years eventually reach higher pay levels than the entry level. I am not a slobbering moron, no matter what you think. So stop, please, I don't really care if you do agree or not with that, just be clear about what I said. I hope it's clear now.
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quote:Loose cash, I said. "Loose," like spending money.
As opposed to other kinds of money?
It seems like you are saying that young people have more wants than needs, in part because they have fewer fixed expenses. But a paycheck doesn't come divided into income for fixed expenses and income for discretionary purposes - it is all the same kind of money. If older people with children need more money, they need higher paychecks.
But you are saying that younger want discretionary income more. First, based on vocal complaints? Perhaps you haven't been invited to the conversations where parents discuss tuition and mortgages and school fees and trumpet lessons for three kids.
So the difference is a matter of responsibilities, not need for money. Also, perhaps a tendency to complain.
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quote: There are many many more variables than this but I think you already knew that. I've heard variations on this theme many times, especially the little old school teacher who challenges the business person with her nugget of 'wisdom' about how the business person can reject inferior parts and schools have to accept all students. Businesses serve the needs of their consumers or else they go out of business. Schools do not have to serve the needs of their consumers and can't go out of business no matter how poorly they perform.
It's interesting how similar the problems of public and private work are. Since I teach in the private sector, I have to say I encounter pretty much the same problems as public school teachers, and private business. It's not really that different to me- some of my work is for public institutions, and it's all about the same. The idea that the student is a product is silly- the teacher is the product. You can't fire the client- not if you expect to make money, or have a service so unique and special that you can afford to be picky. I have experienced some of the benefits of being in demand as an employee- unlike a public school teacher, I actually *do* get to choose some of my students, but the school doesn't really choose them, and I still work for the school, and ultimately the client, so my actual level of control over things is not so great- just enough for me to be able to turn down work I find especially unpleasant or arduous. It would certainly be nice for public school teachers to be able to do that, but somebody has to do the work. In the case of private teaching, that's inexperienced and replaceable people who either get better at what they do and can name new terms, or who quit out of frustration. The teachers I've known who stayed in that position, low pay and low empowerment, have been miserable people I didn't want to know, for the most part.
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quote:Loose cash, I said. "Loose," like spending money.
As opposed to other kinds of money?
It seems like you are saying that young people have more wants than needs, in part because they have fewer fixed expenses.
I'd say different needs. Different dreams- things that can't be bought by saving money or thinking about the future. Adventure, stuff like that. Yes, there are other kinds of money- you have a 401k don't you? Life insurance? A mortgage, tuition payments, other loans, parents to take care of, children to care for, a car? I'd call that a different kind of money. You can spend more and, in a way at least (not in a dollar amount), need less.
quote: So the difference is a matter of responsibilities, not need for money. Also, perhaps a tendency to complain.
Pretty much- I haven't been invited to those conversations, nor would they interest me.
As to need- I would say I need virtually every dollar I make. I don't have money to spend on much. If I were making three times what I make, and spending three times more, could i be said to "need" that much? It's pretty relative, since in fact on the meager salary I have, I still eat well and have a good time. It's a very thin margin and a somewhat meager idea (relatively) of the good life, but it's a lot better than a whole lot of people manage. The need part gets a bit fuzzy anywhere above subsistence living, unless you're talking about personal fulfillment. When it comes to that, for me personally, making three times as much in order to pay for a mortgage, a car, kids, etc, would not fulfill me at this stage in my life- I wouldn't really need that. I have what I need now.
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