Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A bunch of teachers got fired today!

Rob, I apologize for the semi-hijacking of your thread. I'll shut up now and get on with chores. Thanks for the read, although the wife had already told me about this. I still stand amazed as this doesn't seem like the way to go.

Anybody that wants to PM me to continue tertiary discussions can feel free to.

And I'm sure giving healthcare to everyone would lessen the chances of illness and disease spreading but I don't believe in universal healthcare nor do I think a few should bear the weight for the rest.

Why would it be different for education?

So what you are saying is that the kids I teach are so much better just because of the state that I am in!!! Inner city vs rural migrants, the teaching challenges and barriers are real simmilar!!! Almost 85% of our kids are on free and reduced lunches which is a great demographic for the $17,000 annual income for my area!! I know all about the discipline problems and parents who don't care!!

What some parents and delusional union teachers don't understand is that we can't keep disproportionately increasing the education coffers. If a county has revenue of $10 million and $3 million is allocated for education, any additional increases should be at the same proportion of county revenue. What's happening instead is that the teacher's union along with some parents keep pushing for unsustainable increases in education spending.



Here's a good example of what's happening.



This is a look at the Consumer Price Index from 1990 to 2009. While the cost of all goods have risen 71% in that time, check out how much education costs have risen.


College tuition and fees: Up 274.7 percent
Elementary & high school tuition and fees: Up 251.3 percent
Educational books, supplies: Up 201.9 percent
School housing (excluding board): Up 171.3 percent
Fees for lessons or instructions: Up 121.0 percentt
All Items in CPI: Up 71.1 percent


http://blog.mlive.com/schoolzone/2010/01/education_costs_soat.html

rrroae,
Those are fine numbers. But they are hardly the whole story. Compare the rise in tuition and fees to the rise in faculty salaries. What you will see is that faculty salaries are generally NOT keeping up with inflation or holding the line at best. Certainly, they have not increased 247.7% (don't I wish!)

At the extreme end of the scale, the U-Cal system, all campuses, is going to see about a 32.5% increase in tuition. The faculty will see a 10% cut in salary. Overall, much much less money will be spent on education at that level, but tuition is skyrocketing nonetheless. Most folks can't understand how this can be.

Here, tuition went up "only" about 6% I think it was. And we work 6 days for free (roughly about a 2.5% pay cut). Overall, the total budge of the universities are down, way down. But tuition is up. So, the investment in education is down overall.

So yes, tuition is up, but that it to take the place of the taxes that the state is no longer giving to the universities (and which the public is no longer paying to the state). I suspect that much of the other stuff on your list might reflect more of a shift in the source of payment for various services than the amount that is actually paid for the service.

Two things that everyone seems to ignor. First, those in the teaching profession CHOSE to be there. No one was held at gunpoint and forced to become a teacher. They CHOSE to enter a profession that may (or may not) pay less than another field......so the salary they get is what they CHOSE.

The salary for teachers, while not particularly high, is NOT all that low either. In Texas a typical beginning teacher will make somewhere near $30,000 per year (depending on the school district they CHOOSE). Not bad when compared to a worker in the local sawmill starting at $10-12 per hour ($25000 per year without 2-3 months vacation and every known holiday off except Spotted Owl Day).

As far as performance and the firing of an entire staff......if any worker in any other business performed as poorly, they would have been fired long ago. You can give all the reasons for that failure you want but the bottom line is that they are there to produce a "product" (educated students). When any worker produces a "product" that includes 50% (or more) rejects......they don't desirve to keep their job.

The really sad thing is when a 50% reject rate is considered "good" performance. Standards should be raised and teachers/schools held accountable for their failure to produce......no matter what the "reason" for that failure. If you have a problem.....solve it.....don't sit and whine about "that's just the way it is" or "it's the students/parents fault". You CHOSE this profession.....either get results (whatever it takes) or chose a different line of work.

By the way....I AM familiar with the teaching field. I went to college to be a teacher/coach......but COSE another direction when I realized I would have to take a $5,000 a year cut in pay to enter the field (I CHOSE to go another direction).

My wife and brother are both teachers......because that's what the WANT to do. Both would agree that teacher salaries are NOT that low for the work involved. My wife fully agrees with the idea of accountability for teachers (If the student doesn't learn.....the teacher hasn't taught, as she puts it)......my brother not so much. He CHOSE teaching because he could make a decent salary and not have to do much to get it (As he says...."It's better that working for a living".

Rick, is a college education required to work in a saw mill and can you make fine instruments from pulpwood? I'm not happy at all with our education system, but blaming teachers for legislation and local politics is not right.

TR,
Indeed they did choose. And the wiser, smarter person chose NOT to teach because he or she could make more money elsewhere. The argument might be that we have poor quality teaches because we cannot get better people to work for such a pittance.

Of course, that oversimplies everything also as some very bright people choose to teach anyway. But in general, is it unreasonable to say you get what you pay for?

You can make lots of salary comparisons and find lots of strange and seemingly out of whack numbers. Compare university faculty to New York City garbage collectors - I saw that one once and the garbage men were making 50-75% more than a university prof.

If those teachers did their job, they might well have flunked 3/4 of the students. And subsequently, they may have been fired anyway. Teachers are damned if they do, damned if they don't. They deserve some criticism, but they are not the whole story.

The problem is well understood. Has been for quite a while. Unfortunately, the solution is only obvious to the superjocks of the internet forums.

Brent

I taught for thirty-two years. All of that time was spent in the same small town in Iowa. I came to town with the idea of becoming a contributing part of the community. I left the profession feeling that I had accomplished that goal. I am proud of the effort that I gave, the way in which I performed my duties, the differences that I made in many lives, and the contribution that I made to the town outside of school. I have before me the contract for my final year, which was the 2006-2007 school year. It was for $44,314.

Congratulations and thanks for the tough work.

So, you have the length of record, perhaps, to say something about the level of academic ability in your students.

Over that 32-yr stretch, would you say the average graduating student from your class and your school in your first years is more or less educated than the average student in your last years?

$44k, even in small town Iowa, is not a king's ransom by any standard. Anyone that thinks you were over paid, or even adequately paid is, in my opinion, nuts.

It's sad, but true that the "solution" to the education problem is (and has been) known for some time. The problem is that no one is willing to do what needs to be done (and that includes me).

The simple solution is to set a hard standard for each grade level and make every student meet the requirements to advance to the next grade level.....no excuses and no exceptions. Repeating the same grade three years running......out of the system! No Child Left Behind??? BS.....it's up or out!

That's very harsh and basically would mean we would have to "write off" an entire generation. Those beginning in grade school would have to learn or be put out.....and I believe they WOULD learn. It's the kids in the system NOW that would be lost.

Most are not willing to do that...write off a generation.....but if standards are not set and enforced we wil never advance. I am very hard core about accountability and standards, but even I am hesitant to do something so drastic. Very hard choices are going to have to be made or we will continue to decline.

TR,
The standard exams thing has been around a while. It has problems too. Primarily you cannot test for everything a student should learn. But you can teach to ONLY the things that will be tested. And if student success and teacher employment were dependent on such things, that is exactly what would happen. And for certain, "outcomes assessments" (which are generally tests such as these) are in vogue and rapidly becoming the norm. Of course, it takes away time from teaching as well as targeting teaching towards these narrow areas that will be tested, and especially the format in which the testing will take place.

So, what you suggest is neither new nor unused. But it is only part of the solution. A guy like 5sdad will be hard to replace with a quality teacher regardless, if the pay scale doesn't improve - drastically.

Brent

Brent, thanks for the kind words. I taught third grade for seventeen years and fifth grade for fifteen years, so I cannot speak directly to the end product of our local educational system. What I can say on that matter is that many of my former students have gone on to successful careers in many areas. Whatever was done during their years in our school system does not seem to have hampered them. In looking back at my years with elementary students, I feel that we, and the education system in general, spent a great deal of time chasing after all sorts of magic solutions in terms of programs and materials that represented a great deal of wasted effort and resources. This was done in a well-meaning but misplaced attempt to bring about improvement in student achievement without placing the responsibility for that improvement on those students themselves. I don't know if I helped with your question or not. Education is very important to me and is something upon which I have many thoughts. I feel inadequate trying to express them in a short post and would love to have the opportunity to sit down and converse about them with you and anyone else who was interested. If I can be a resource and offer ideas or experiences on specific aspects of education through this forum, I would be more than happy to do so. Again, thanks for your comments and your interest in education. Best, John

John,

I certainly echo Brent's congratulations and appreciation of your dedicated service.

I'm here in Cyclone country, and would be glad to share a cup and chat. I occasionally make it to the DM gun shows, and I know Brent does too. Perhaps that would be an opportunity.

Paul

Man, I know what you mean about those silver bullet techniques.

We should all be teaching with facebook, twitter, the web, clickers in the classroom, and of course, powerpoint. At least according to the pedagogy gurus. I can stomach only the last, but only if accompanied by the blackboard. And frankly, the old blackboard does some things much better.

Brent

Give that man a cigar!

I flunked a young man out of algebra one fall semester only to have him turn up in my class in the spring. When he saw me enter the room the first day his face fell. But he sucked it up, worked hard and finished with a strong A grade.

That summer I found him working as a butcher at a small store I occasionally visit. I said hello and how pleased I was with his turnaround. I also asked him what went differently, since I was the same hardass as ever? He said it was tough at first but just kept doing what I told the class they needed to do to be prepared and it became easy pretty quick.

I smiled and said tell all your friends and we both laughed.

"Calculator calculus" drives me insane.

That is a good story, Mathman-we need to hear more of those.

As an aside, my little sister became a high school math teacher last year and she works very hard at her job.
That has given me a new found appreciation for the teaching profession, to be honest.

I don't know. Would anyone consider an average rank and file member of Congress a bargain for $174,000 a year?


It's always a sticky subject when talking about govt workers.