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Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tgbwc
That's pretty poor. I think I would take the time without pay. Where I am the substitute situation is a whole other ballgame. We have a shortage there too, for a variety of reasons.
We have 19 days built in before we would have to make up a day. Of course we will never use that many.
I know a couple of Northern VA districts build that many snow days in their calendar but it is not a statewide thing. I know Alexandria and Arlington maybe built two to four in every year and in the Hampton Roads area of the state and NE North Carolina even less. I think considering Virginia’s snowstorms the past few years and potential hurricane threat, anything less than 5-7 snow days built in is irresponsible.
As for the main topic, no surprise here. I’ve dated a lot of women who work in education and a big sticking point for them is the lack of support from administrators as well as dealing with entitled parents with troublesome kids. Put these on top of a overwhelming workload and poor starting salaries and you have an undesirable field.
My mom, and her friends were teachers, my friends are teachers.....the fact that many are taking early retirement, retiring as soon as they can -- AND NOT recommending education as a career field for any young people they know, doesn't surprise me a bit. My siblings pulled my nieces and nephews out of the public school system a decade ago.
My cousin is a high school English teacher for Atlanta Public Schools and has been for 4 years. The district seems to always have pretty high turnover despite being one of the best paying districts in the Atlanta area. All inner city districts struggle to keep educators around due to the lack of resources and lack of parental involvement.
Teachers in the district start out at $47k and top out at $71k with a BA and start at $51k then top out at $79k with a MA. https://www.atlantapublicschools.us/...FY19%20v.2.pdf
My cousin claims she loves her job and can’t see herself doing anything else. Most school districts don’t pay very well which might constitute the high turnover but APS pays better than a lot of entry level Chemist positions I see open. Chicago Public Schools teachers are making six figures after a long enough tenure.
The affluent Atlanta Suburbs north of the city tend to have very low turnover of teachers even though they pay a little less than the big city district. At least with teaching you get the summers off, generous time off around the holidays, extra vacation days on top of that, and don’t have to work for a power hungry/money hungry private sector employer lead by sociopaths.
My understanding was the students were the sociopaths and their parents weren't a whole lot different. Personally, if I wanted to be a teacher, I'd want to teach. But going into teaching isn't going into teaching anymore. It's like going into daycare for a career. As a teacher, I'd be fired in a New York minute because any student that assaulted me would be facing charges. And we all know how the schools love teachers who stick up for themselves.
No one wants to teach any more and no wonder. The profession has so little respect. The schools were killed by spoiled, rebellious teens in the 60s who grew up to be today's parents of spoiled brat kids.
Some charters are innovative and excellent; we should be looking at what makes them tick. It's not because they exclude the troublesome or low performing students. Many of the best ones do take some low performing or special students, yet they do well. Maybe it's because they are trying harder to educate the students instead of pursuing political or social justice objectives?
I suspect a school where the teachers are well treated, not forced to work overtime for free such as grading papers all weekend, get respect from the students and brook no nonsense, would be a place that is desirable to work and would attract good, idealistic people who just want to teach and not deal with all the BS. That's what all schools should be. I hate that we have such a sucky system.
And if a student assaulted me, I'd respond with deadly force and probably wind up behind bars. So, no thank you, will not be going into teaching, at least not at the high school level, though I've always enjoyed teaching and would have probably done it were it not for all the crap.
Largely citing poor raises in the teaching profession and a more vibrant private sector job market. Are you seeing any evidence of this?
I work in education and in a way I have. I moved to an elementary school from a high school in March and have a few different experiences with the two. So in the elementary school, it seems like they had quite a few teachers leave whether we are talking about a change in curriculum or a drop in students so a room is not really used (often due to enrollment because often schools would just use a long-term sub or contract employee instead) so I do know teachers left. Some changed districts like one I knew that worked at the high school I use to (we know each other from a second job we both have.) He left and there was some issues with the principal of the high school having pets and he changed schools. Haven't heard of many teachers leaving for the private sector though.
I notice it in my role as a paraprofessional (para) and also behavior technicians (BT) we have a FAR LARGER turnover rate. It don't really matter if you are in a behavior classroom like I am now, a severe and profound room like I was in the high school or other rooms, there is a lot of turnover and it takes a special person to work with students with special needs whether it is behavior based or different abilities (or lack their of.) Before anyone asks, I'm not patting myself on the back for doing this role for the last three years when I have seen more people drop the rope within a single. Especially with support staff like paras and BTs, there are a LOT of it based on jobs. Some of the paras and BTs enter the private sector, others move to another district or just stay at home whether as a mom or a retiree.
I live in South Texas and have a post retirement job as a substitute teacher. My wife is a paraprofessional pianist for a school system and we have a number of educator friends. So I am able to get a good glimpse into the teaching field. This part of the country is seeing an extreme glut of teachers. There are far too many teachers and teacher aspirants for each teaching position.
One of the reasons for this is that teaching positions here are considered to be very highly paid. Not that teachers are paid a lot here. Most teachers earn in the range of about 38K to 63K which really isn't a lot. But here in the Valley, if you earn more than 33K a year then you are considered a high wage earner. So teachers here are very well off, leading an upper middle class life.
In my original home state of Michigan, it is also very challenging to land a teaching job. My daughter in law is a teacher there and my former Michigan home caretaker is a substitute teacher there as well, so I am able to look into that state. There are too many teacher aspirants for each position.
Now I have heard that it is very tough to find teachers in Oklahoma and Arizona. But few want to teach there because the pay is so low and the working conditions are atrocious.
So this is my 2 cents on what I know.
I'll break this down further tomorrow, but I thought this was extremely important.
I live in an economically depressed area as well. Government jobs, including education, are often highly valued and comparatively well-paid compared to local private sector jobs.
Government jobs often have a statutory wage floor. The private sector will go as low as the market will bear. In bad economies or areas with lackluster job markets, that government wage floor is often better than what you could do in the private sector. That's not counting the other fringe benefits of government employment.
No one wants to teach any more and no wonder. The profession has so little respect. The schools were killed by spoiled, rebellious teens in the 60s who grew up to be today's parents of spoiled brat kids.
Some charters are innovative and excellent; we should be looking at what makes them tick. It's not because they exclude the troublesome or low performing students. Many of the best ones do take some low performing or special students, yet they do well. Maybe it's because they are trying harder to educate the students instead of pursuing political or social justice objectives?
I suspect a school where the teachers are well treated, not forced to work overtime for free such as grading papers all weekend, get respect from the students and brook no nonsense, would be a place that is desirable to work and would attract good, idealistic people who just want to teach and not deal with all the BS. That's what all schools should be. I hate that we have such a sucky system.
And if a student assaulted me, I'd respond with deadly force and probably wind up behind bars. So, no thank you, will not be going into teaching, at least not at the high school level, though I've always enjoyed teaching and would have probably done it were it not for all the crap.
I don't think this is accurate...at all.
I'm 32. I graduated high school in 2004. The best high school teacher I had was a minister. He allowed people freedom of thought and legroom to explore their ideas, even though, at the time, the two of us had very dissimilar worldviews.
He was a person who could still be your friend, even if you didn't believe as he did. Very easygoing. He was an immensely talented man, not only in his specific field of education, but in life in general.
Somewhere around 2010, he ran into some issues with the school district and his religion. He quit. He was the best teacher they had in that field, by far.
He got screwed by politics and education "flavors of the month," though this man has done more to truly educate than ten of the people hired after him hired into different milieus.
Teaching still has is challenges. Yes, you get summers off but you have to maintain your certification with constant learning and coursework. That takes a lot of your summer as well as after school and weekends during the school year. And here in Texas, you don't get the entire summer off, only from early June to early August.
Teachers are basically temps here in Texas. They have a contract of only one year and have to sweat it out at the end of the school year hoping that the contract gets renewed for another year. With so many out of work teachers and aspirants just waiting to grab that contract away, it can be unsettling. Principals have a ton of applicants just hoping to be hired in.
It is also not a 9 to 5 job. In addition to conducting about 6 classes per day, you can have bus duty, lunch duty, hall duty, and then after school in the evenings and weekends you have grading papers, tutoring, meeting with parents, school events, etc.
And just like in the business world, you have metrics to satisfy. Are your students learning? There are plenty of pitfalls here. In business, if you are not a manager, then you are only responsible for your own work. But as a teacher you are responsible for your students' work. And you can't make them do their work. Many students don't want to work and don't mind getting bad grades. Are your students getting good grades? What kind of teacher are you if your students aren't getting good grades? Why should we renew your contract if your students aren't doing well?
The principal holds the power of your employment in his or her hands. You can be fired immediately despite your contract. The contract is a one way deal. It protects the school not the teacher. A teacher can be fired any time, but cannot leave on their own for other employment until their contract is completed.
So being a teacher, at least in Texas, is not ideal.
Sure, teachers have problems.
So does the private sector. One of the pro-teacher arguments is that it's a "beyond 2080 hours" job. The reality of the world is that any salaried exempt job that's worth a damn will be working beyond forty hours a week, yet have none of the benefits of an educator.
The problem with teachers in general is that they forget they are really substitute parents. So when they decide to become teachers and look at the payrate and then start thinking ( I really want money for this instead ). That is the problem. I know a teacher in my family. He left his ( our ) home nation with a son behind. Had a kid and then moved to Canada. Had two wives he left to marry back in the US. The daughter back in the US cried because he did not want her at the wedding. He now resides in a house suburbs getting paid a higher salary for his teaching job. Wife looks like bigfoot. Leaving behind a son who burnt down his mothers house and robbed out my Grand mothers property. That is the kind of persons we do not need being teachers but they are sought after anyways.
My local teacher had a garden responsibilities and then she left for a higher paying salary. Then the garden was taken over by a low performance teacher with a history of x related leaves from schools that has to do with the law. He ended up screwing the garden over.
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