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I don't have a condescending view of educators and/or the education profession at all- I have condescending views of people who think they deserve more $$ just because of a piece of paper.
In fact, I teach at one of the local technical colleges (I think that helps establish my position on educators a bit, no?), and here's something that illustrates the foolishness of this point. I've got a bachelor's degree in construction management and over 20 years of experience in the industry. This allows me to teach as an adjunct, but if I want to teach there full-time, I need to have a masters. They're currently interviewing for full-time instructors, and many of the candidates they're getting are useless- yes, they have the masters degree, but they've got little to no real-world experience. So, the school will end up hiring one of them, and they won't get the best possible teacher they can find- but they'll be able to check the little box next to "possesses masters degree" on the form.......
The qualifications to teach in a technical college are vastly different than the qualifications needed to teach K-12.
Yeah, because that's all it is (said the lady with the masters in statistics), just a stupid piece of paper with some stupid ink on it. There's absolutely nothing behind it...no research, no written exam, no oral exam....nuthin.
Yep, you took high school math? You can do my job. In fact, please go provide the study design, statistical analysis plan, and sample size analysis for a survey of the state of Georgia that will help the State Dept of Health determine the malaria prevalence of the state. I'll need you to design the data collection tools, the data base, and come up with a plan for data management, too.
I'm not going to argue whether or not the degrees are meaningful since I have seen both good and bad. However, I will say that if they eliminate higher pay for advanced degrees they will lose some folks either to other states or other professions altogether.
This is exactly what would happen.
The problem is all of the online degree programs. People equate those programs with getting a masters degree from Emory, UGA, or Georgia State!
My wife teaches third grade and my daughter teachers second grade, both at the same elemetary school. I watched them while they worked on their masters degrees a while back, helped them with a several papers. To get the degree they watched DVD's then submitted papers. When they were done they got thier raise. I asked another teacher at their school who is also a close friend about the pay associated with the degrees. I pointed out the things I have heard them allmsay over the past several years regarding other teachers in the school that they consider incompetent. If what they said was true I'd agree about the incompetency. The teachers they spoke of are all masters degree'd and higher. I told them I thought this thing was a scam if they are not getting better what they do but drawing a hiher salary to do it. They agreed and said their is an administrative assumption that the person will implement the techniques and ideas they learn while getting the degree. I aksed how the school district ensures they are geting thier moneys worth. They said there is no check system in place that ensures a teacher with a higher degree actually does anything different, better or more efficiantly than another teacher. They tell me there are teachers who get the "Leadership Degree" becasue it's easy to obtain, then they do not get into any leadership position, they are still in the classroom and not using anything they learned while getting the leadership degree.
If some of you are thinking that evaluations by a VP or Principal, or the fact that the students get better grades is a way to gauge the teachers performance I'd maybe half-way believe you.
The dynamics of teaching is vastly different from other jobs. I only have experience in law enforcement (32 years), but I am not a fan of pay for performance. A teachers day can go in any direction depending on what happens in that classroom or school. The planning can usually be expected to go without a hitch, but not always. They are required to have some flexability to some degree. These are some parameters that need to be considered when they determine salary. Things like how they deal with problem students, how they adapt to changng conditions, how they handle and address questions from the students. I was told a counsellor came into a class on one occassion and provided a lot of inaccurate information and just plain could not respond to a few issues. This person has a masters and a specialist degree. Why in the hell is this person making more that the first year teacher that had to fix the problems she casued.
This tenure crap really gets my ire up also. Too many teachers hide behind it and do a terrible job.
The teachers first need to get out from under this contract employment crap. They are employed by an elected board and funded by tax dollars, so they need to be covered under the FLSA like other public employees, police, fire, city and county administrative employees, etc.
I told them there should be video cameras in the classrooms for several reasons; to document the actions by the teachers and students, to counter or support any claims of misconduct or behavior by the students and teacher, and to establish if the teachers are teaching and if the students are learning. It's hard to argue it if it's documented.
Then they tell me all the horror stories of the students and thier parents. Some of these kids don't have a chance in hell fo finishing their education because their parents are permanently out to lunch in thier lives. So how are these teachers supposed to get thier grades up which will get the teacher a raise.
I don't have a solution but I am a firm believer that for one thing the teachers need to be under the FLSA. There definitely should be some incentive to get higher degrees, but accordingly there needs to be a system in place that ensures the tax payers are getting their moneys worth for any salary increase. If you have children and you haven't done so, you need to get involved in their school and you need to get all up in your elected officials crap and hold them accountable.
Just my 2 cents, maybe 6 or 7 cents
Last edited by axemanjoe; 03-04-2010 at 06:04 PM..
I've never seen a PhD teach HS AP economics. They aren't very good in economics if they can't calculate the ROI on doing a PhD(massive opportunity cost) and teacher salary. Most econ PhD's I see either go for gov't type economic forecasting (Fed, BLS, CBO, etc), work for quantitative wall st shops or become professors which also pays a good bit more.
In fact my Gwinnett County school had my AP Physics teacher try to teach us Physics w/o Calculus b/c he didn't know it. Please explain the value of his Master's degree? He got it from some evening program and got paid for it but out of his 30 students, I was the only person to actually pass the AP exam.
Should his lack of performance affected his tenure? Or should his proclivity to teach Libertarianism in the classroom rather than gravity.
The normal process for filtering salary is the people from the top 20 schools don't go shopping for jobs within teaching (or at least the above median students). If you're a particularly good teacher, schools w/ better reputations tend to be able to get them. Salary may not change dramatically but if you got into teaching for the money...you are in rough shape.
Paying people based on their degree purely is stupid b/c it removes all risk and simply applies formulaic path of least resistance. I'm paying $700+/credit hr right now and there may or may not be a pay off when I finish my education. However b/c of this risk, I've calculated my chances very carefully and focused on taking the right courses that add value to my profession. In the end, I'll have to find the best way to leverage that investment into actual income vs. my boss handing me a bigger check when I send them a picture of my diploma.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobKovacs
First off, your statement has little merit, because it's highly doubtful that you'd ever see someone with a doctorate in Economics from Emory teaching AP Econ in a low-performing high school. That aside, if there was one, he should be paid more because he's able to provide more value to the organization- not because he has a piece of paper hanging on the wall- that's how it works in the private sector, and that's how it should work in the public sector too.
If he's able to turn out high-performing students, he should get a higher salary- not because he has the degree, but because he's able to use that degree to accomplish something.
Hypothetically speaking, let’s say that this Economics PhD had a full scholarship and paid nothing for his education and is debt free. Is it impossible that he would work at an underperforming school for the love… for the betterment of that community? Is that so unheard of?
But your points are duly noted. In that case, let me change the scenario a bit. Let’s say this teacher has a Doctorate in English from Georgia State and is teaching AP Language at an underperforming school. I personally know several high school teachers with PhD’s or D.A.’s in English. After all, English PhD’s aren’t renowned for going into professions in which they’d be rolling in dough, so I don’t think monetary gain would be the primary goal. Is this a more plausible scenario?
If so, I suppose you guys would say that the aforementioned teacher still should get paid less than a neophyte English teacher at an established high performing school? And this leads to the first comment about how does one determine improvement… (the “2 to 5” or “9 to 10” scenario)… And what role does the community play? Should teachers go into low performing schools expecting to get low pay… If that is the case, would the same pool of teachers sign up for that task knowing that they’re getting paid less for a tougher task? Would you?
Plus all your examples are of real crappy teachers... Were there any great teachers at your schools that worked hard for advanced degrees from reputable institutions, and weren't pushing an agenda, and that genuinely cared about the students education and success? Call me naive, but i believe they still exist...
Yeah, because that's all it is (said the lady with the masters in statistics), just a stupid piece of paper with some stupid ink on it. There's absolutely nothing behind it...no research, no written exam, no oral exam....nuthin.
Yep, you took high school math? You can do my job. In fact, please go provide the study design, statistical analysis plan, and sample size analysis for a survey of the state of Georgia that will help the State Dept of Health determine the malaria prevalence of the state. I'll need you to design the data collection tools, the data base, and come up with a plan for data management, too.
Pless - Let's give bonus points to anyone who can explain the meaning of your user name...
The problem is all of the online degree programs. People equate those programs with getting a masters degree from Emory, UGA, or Georgia State!
Online degree or not, but considering the low salaries that teachers (and social workers) generally receive some type of incentive program to keep from losing them to other industries is probably necessary. This is probably especially true in the math and sciences. I remember hearing a story on npr a while back about school districts having to recruit Physics teachers from outside the States. I want to say they were going to the Philippines, but I could be wrong. They couldn't find Americans that were qualified to teach those subjects who were willing to work for such pitiful pay.
Online degree or not, but considering the low salaries that teachers (and social workers) generally receive some type of incentive program to keep from losing them to other industries is probably necessary. This is probably especially true in the math and sciences. I remember hearing a story on npr a while back about school districts having to recruit Physics teachers from outside the States. I want to say they were going to the Philippines, but I could be wrong. They couldn't find Americans that were qualified to teach those subjects who were willing to work for such pitiful pay.
Hmmmm, as an educator on this subject I must speak. I don't know if anyone has posted this, but, this is set to go into effect in 2014. Teachers who are already teaching before then will have the option to do it, but teachers who are hired from 2014 on will automatically be on this pay scale.
I teach in south Fulton. This would be very rewarding if I taught on the north end where parental involvement and children who actually cared about their subject matter enough to master it were prevalent. But I teach on the south end where 5th graders are reading on a 2nd grade level but must past the reading portion to go to middle school. Or 5th graders that come to you not knowing their basic facts and have to pass the math.
I work my butt off day in and day out but I can only do so much. Sure there are some teachers who take advantage of their advanced level degrees and should not get paid for them but I worked my a$% off for mine, utilize them, and now you have to tell me that my reward is going to based on my students' achievements? Especially with some of these wack A$# parents? No. Sorry, not buying it. Unless you will pay me for test GAINS and not if a child scores level 2 or 3 on the CRCT, I don't care what anyone says, this will not work.
If you don't deal with what I deal with, then it's easy to say some of the things that some of you ignorant people are saying. You think cheating is bad now? Imagine the extremes that some people will try to go through knowing they have low kids and knowing that unless they do well (like, bringing them from a 2nd grade level up to 5th grade), they will do whatever they have to get that chump change of a raise, even if it does mean putting their certificate on the line.
Everyone that's low does not test into Special Education by the way. There's this thing called the "gray area" where they are not on level, but not low enough to be in Special Education.
Oh!!! And I forgot. Since I will have 30 of these kids next year because of increased class sizes, this will be REAL obtainable and fair to teachers.
Perhaps if I want to partake in this nonsense of a recommendation, I will commute to Roswell, Milton, or John's Creek since I know I will get a raise based on student achievement .
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Puh-LEASE!!
