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Then don't take them for granted. Pretty simple. Stop treating the profession as second rate, and actually take some responsibility for outcomes. Also, stop forcing the issue of testing as a good means of evaluating...it's not.
Yes, its tough in the age of 2 worker households, so teachers now not only act as teacher, but also as parent. Hence why teachers now have MORE after school duties and before school duties than in the past, but with similar pay. Sound great.
With soaring corporate profits and wars still waging on, prosperity abounds for the rich and elites. Why not fund education?
With all this said, I do agree with some points. I wish more comprehensive evaluations were made. Peer evaluations seem to work well in Scandinavia. Some schools have a peer evaluation system. In many schools, in class observation forms are very broad. Maybe scoring it to be a little more graduated. We should make it easier to fire teachers.
A union is still needed to protect the good teachers, so we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I never said to throw out the union, I said it wasn't a good idea to strike at this time. Just how would you propose corporate profits being funneled into education? I agree education is paramount to success, but I see little in the way of changing the status quo. If you change the teachers you're not necessarily going to change the students. Making comparisons to the educational systems of other countries isn't valid unless they have comparable demographics and culture.
Seems like most of you folks here on CD are doing great-- I've never met so many other successful people on an internet forum. Almost everyone claims to be in the highest tax bracket, many business owners, and a couple who have claimed a net worth in the millions...
So for all you successful CD'ers: How many others were educated by Unionized Public School Teachers? I was-- and I got in to a good college and have had a successful business career. I have common sense and can navigate every day life. I write fairly well, and have a good grasp of math.
I assume all of you, who are so damned successful, and keep deriding the quality of unionized public school teachers went to private school?
Me Me Me!!!
I went to public school from K-12 and to a private university after high school.
I LOVED my time in public school. I had wonderful teachers, except for in 3rd grade. Other than that, I loved practically all my teachers. They were very involved in our education, interested in us as students, did what they could to make learning fun but also make sure we knew how privileged we were as citizens of this country to be afforded a decent public education.
I learned a whole lot about US history, that is probably the only downside as far as I can tell in regards to my public schooling, the emphasis was on particular parts of our country's history, mostly the revolution, the civil war, and WWII involvement. For black history month we talked about Harriet Tubman and MLK every year lol. When I got to high school though I had a great teacher who made history come alive for me. I had to take her for US history as a sophomore and for AP history when I was a junior and both classes were wonderful and inclusive of all the various cultures and ethnicities that make up America we discussed all sorts of things that were relevant in history and shaping of our country and she left out no one and went all the way up through the presidencies in my AP class ended with Clinton who was the current president at the time even though he was not in our book - Reagan was the last president in our book as they were from 1985, I took AP history in 1996 so you can see how old they were. FWIW, that wonderful history teacher was actually a major player in the teacher's union, like their PR rep or something as any sort of union issues on the news involving teachers, she was usually on TV talking about them and she organized a strike back in the 80s and told us about it and about the labor movement in general during our class. I am from Ohio and there were a few major labor incidents in our area where people were killed that we didn't even know about, so the whole labor movement portion of our class, was very interesting and relevant to the local history of our city.
In elementary school our classes were divided up in 3 groups based on academic level. I was a "rocket" the highest level, there was a middle level and a lower level and the teacher took time to work with each level and us Rockets worked with the lowest level too but we were assigned additional work to do to make sure we kept excelling.
I have wonderful memories of my public school years. I was also from a poor neighborhood and the child of a very young mother. I remember my teacher being shocked when she asked how old my mom was when I was in 2nd grade and I told her 24. My mom was a celebrity of sorts in this respect because my brother and I usually had the youngest mom of all the kids in class. She couldn't always make conferences because she worked a 2nd shift but would call to check up on us and would always let the teachers know that if there was a problem with us as school misbehaving that they should let her know and she'd take care of it. That was mostly for my brother who was pretty mischievous and would get into silly sorts of trouble like playing practical jokes on teachers. He was also a Rocket so was very smart just a silly, wonderful little boy and teachers loved him.
So I had a great experience in public school and I am very supported of public education and teachers in general. I do feel that they deserve good pay as they have very important jobs. But I also feel we should be able to get rid of bad teachers somewhat easily as they stain a good teacher's reputation by being employed.
FWIW, I am not in the highest tax bracket. My family makes more than the median income for our country, but not a whole lot of money IMO. Someone I know via another forum told me that she would NEVER be satisfied making the "little bit" of money I make and I only gave an estimate of my salary. But I am quite happy with it and am just not a money/stuff/materialistically focused sort of person. I think I am "successful" but success depends on the person defining it. I especially am not a millionaire but I don't doubt that many millionaires benefitted from public education and unionized teachers. FWIW also, my teachers were not into teaching me about their "liberalism" lol. They rarely discussed their personal lives period. One could say our labor movement studies were liberal or politically focused but that was actually in our textbook - the labor movement, especially info on the triangle shirt factory's fire in the early 1900s that killed workers who were locked in the building. My teacher used that chapter to discuss our local history in regards to labor and did use her experience as a union leader during the 80s as an example of organized labor activities.
Maybe the OP cares to explain why teachers shouldn't be subjected to performance based hiring, promotion, and firing practices?
As we have seen, the OP dodges that question all the time. Just like all left-wingers. The notion of merit based pay systems where the inept teachers are quickly fired scare them.
I had the same problem, and I attended private school for ten years. I was so bored I used to play games, such as fail all my classes in the first quarter, then get straight A's the second quarter, and fail again the third quarter, and get straight A's the final quarter so I would end up with a C average and just pass. Needless to say, it drove my parents crazy and my teachers to distraction.
I quickly came to the realization that the only way I was going to get a decent education was to educate myself.
Yep, become an autodidact. If you can do that, you rise above the sub-mediocrity. If you can't, you're just another casualty of horrendously faulty pedagogical theory.
Yep, become an autodidact. If you can do that, you rise above the sub-mediocrity. If you can't, you're just another casualty of horrendously faulty pedagogical theory.
It tuned out to be a life-long trait. The profession I chose changes rapidly, and I have to continually educate myself on the latest developments, or risk becoming obsolete. I figure the day I stop learning something new, I will be dead for three days.
I never said to throw out the union, I said it wasn't a good idea to strike at this time. Just how would you propose corporate profits being funneled into education? I agree education is paramount to success, but I see little in the way of changing the status quo. If you change the teachers you're not necessarily going to change the students. Making comparisons to the educational systems of other countries isn't valid unless they have comparable demographics and culture.
First off, it's precisely the right time to strike. A time of soaring corporate profits, and a recession for the rest of the country. A time when states go against teachers, but people are still fighting to maintain a bloated military government. In fact, there could not be a better time. Maybe then people would stop electing those in power that seek to keep the status-quo or try, even worse, take America into an oligarchy.
Strikes help bring issues to the forefront in order to change the status quo.
Actually making comparisons to other countries is completely valid regardless of demographics and culture. Demographics, such as size, is easily divisible. The US isn't this monolithic entity. It is comprised of smaller entities. That is one thing that people often forget when trying to figure out how to implement policy. We can, and have, easily coordinated trans-continental efforts in many areas?
Also, culture has VERY little to do it. Let's also not forget culture is fluid, thus can change depending on the impetus. So why not adopt things from other countries to try to change the culture that currently exists?
Maybe the OP cares to explain why teachers shouldn't be subjected to performance based hiring, promotion, and firing practices?
Maybe the OP cares to explain why unionized Chicago teachers receiving $76K in pay (before benefits) in a city where the average income is approx $47K, and where approx 44% of students drop out before graduation, have a leg to stand on with their strike? Certainly they cannot claim it is "for the children".
1. By which metric? Standaridized tests which lack breadth and depth. Let's also not forget that a bad teacher in a good district is more likely to have higher test scores than a good teacher in a worst district. Thus, the bad teacher will retain their job and fail upwards, while the good teacher (one who prepares for class, introduces topics in an interesting way, supplements materials, and does not teach to the test) is fired?
2. Not all teachers make 76k. Also, not all residents of Chicago have a college degree. The average of a person in the US with a bachelors or masters is 73k. So, it's pretty much in line with the nation. Chicago will have a higher income for such people. Thus, you're still making less than people with similar education levels.
3. There are various ways to calculate dropout rates. In order to get an accurate picture, you really would have to know how its being calculated.
It's just very interesting seeing how people depend on teachers, but are unwilling to compensate them.
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