Are LAUSD as bad a people say they are let alone any better than private schools? (Santa Clarita: homes, school district)

[bad debt]

Originally Posted by JohnG72

I dunno why no one is bringing up the safety factor. Compared to other school districts, most LA unified high schools are not safe.

Originally Posted by bad debt

There are a many private schools with excellent teachers, facilities, and top performing academics. Just go look at the top 20 schools on Niche for LA area. Now, why someone is willing to shell out multiple thousand dollars each year to go to a poor performing private school is definitely a different scenario. Perhaps the parents want a parochial/religious emphasis. Perhaps there are discipline, crime, etc issues the parents are worried about at the local public school.

[timtemtym]

Originally Posted by bad debt

Hows the pension work for changing school districts? Won't you lose out on years of service that go into that calculation by starting up again at a new district?

The Pension system is run by CALSTRS state teacher retirement system. It goes with me as long as I am teaching in California. Basically, going forward, my new district will contribute to my pension and the money LAUSD sent will stay in my pot.

My 16 years of experience came with me so I didn't start in the new district as a new teacher. I did lose seniority though. They only hired one special ed teacher after me, but special ed with the credentials I hold never gets laid off unless we're just awful employees or do something criminal.

My sick days I left behind. I can transfer them (the ones funded by the state, not the local district funded ones). There is a form where LAUSD basically transfers those state funded days to the new district. I had 7 years worth of them from LA (about 30 days). I should apply for them, but it is so hard to get any kind of paperwork completed after you leave LAUSD and there isn't even a clear office to send the paperwork to. Once I get settled in here, I might try to fight that battle. But I rarely take days off and I like what I do.

Overall, I will come out ahead in the long-term. Some districts in OC and Riverside counties top out at 115-120k for teachers. LAUSD still barely cracks 90k and that's with 30+ years experience. They have way too many upper management positions and can't afford to pay teachers what other districts with smaller, more efficient systems, can offer.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by WizardOfRadical

This. In many unless it is an "elite" private school, most run of the mill private schools do not have top caliber teachers. It's just the demographics. Private school kids and top public school kids come from families that have higher expectations of academic achievement.

Public school teaching(including college) and really public service in general, is in decline. Mass baby boomer retirements and a lack of millennial interest is really putting a pinch on the remaining employees. Stagnant pay, increased cost of living, and greatly reduced benefits.

When I was a kid, teaching was still seen as a reasonable lower middle class profession. Now a teacher is barely above poverty. And may god have mercy if a teacher is a single parent with kids, then they are in poverty. It's almost become like being in the military, or being a cop. Who the hell wants to do that anymore, with that pay?

Wow, I wonder where you get some of your ideas? No, teaching has never been considered lower middle class, middle class certainly: as for military, yes, enlisted do not make even a living wage or barely but officers do quite well and if you doubt that, check and see how hard it is to get into one of the military schools like West Point? And cops, the only reason many do not choose to be become police officers has a lot more to do with the lack of respect some people have for authority and has little to do with the pay scale they actually make pretty good money, especially if they move up in the ladder at all. How much does a Los Angeles police officer make with say 10 years seniority even if they have not been promoted?

[vincenze]

I have Asian friends.
Asian cultures teach children to obey their parents, and parents press children to study hard in order to succeed in life.

But my friends' children are taught at school to feel free and disobey their parents.
Now, the children just sit at home and play computer games instead of doing homework.

[bad debt]

Originally Posted by timtemtym

The Pension system is run by CALSTRS state teacher retirement system. It goes with me as long as I am teaching in California. Basically, going forward, my new district will contribute to my pension and the money LAUSD sent will stay in my pot.

My 16 years of experience came with me so I didn't start in the new district as a new teacher. I did lose seniority though. They only hired one special ed teacher after me, but special ed with the credentials I hold never gets laid off unless we're just awful employees or do something criminal.

My sick days I left behind. I can transfer them (the ones funded by the state, not the local district funded ones). There is a form where LAUSD basically transfers those state funded days to the new district. I had 7 years worth of them from LA (about 30 days). I should apply for them, but it is so hard to get any kind of paperwork completed after you leave LAUSD and there isn't even a clear office to send the paperwork to. Once I get settled in here, I might try to fight that battle. But I rarely take days off and I like what I do.

Overall, I will come out ahead in the long-term. Some districts in OC and Riverside counties top out at 115-120k for teachers. LAUSD still barely cracks 90k and that's with 30+ years experience. They have way too many upper management positions and can't afford to pay teachers what other districts with smaller, more efficient systems, can offer.

Makes sense if you're in a system run by CalSTRS that the pensions would be transferable. That definitely makes it easy for the employees switch between districts.

[acebabii]

Originally Posted by bad debt

First off, perhaps a single parent shouldn't be raising a family to begin with. Seems like a poor life choice.

Well, that's definitely not a nice thing of you to say if that person's spouse passed away- which means leaving them NO choice to be a single parent household.

[john3232]

Unless education is valued in the home there is often little a school or teacher can do. For its size few cities have spent as much money on improving test scores in public schools than San Francisco. Unfortunately, after 40 years little has changed.

During the late 70's and early 80's the children of refuges from Southeast Asia began entering the SF school system. The families lived in public housing, parents spoke no English and had little or no education. Their children went to some of the most underperforming SF schools at that time.

However, these families understood the importance of education... and we see the results today.

[NJ Brazen_3133]

Originally Posted by bad debt

There are a many private schools with excellent teachers, facilities, and top performing academics. Just go look at the top 20 schools on Niche for LA area. Now, why someone is willing to shell out multiple thousand dollars each year to go to a poor performing private school is definitely a different scenario. Perhaps the parents want a parochial/religious emphasis. Perhaps there are discipline, crime, etc issues the parents are worried about at the local public school.

First off, perhaps a single parent shouldn't be raising a family to begin with. Seems like a poor life choice. Secondly, teachers don't actually work crazy amounts of hours per year. They can tutor during the week for extra $ or teach summer school / various other jobs during the summer. Most teachers I know have done both especially at the early part of their career.

Poor performing private schools? That is an oxymoron if I ever heard one. What is the point of paying for extra, when you can just go to a public ? It may even be better at the public.

Originally Posted by CA4Now

I would hardly call the pay scale at LAUSD poverty level.

https://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib/CA.../T%20Table.pdf

Originally Posted by bad debt

Yeah when my mom retired she was getting over $100K a year. And I think she got ~$3-5k per class per session of summer school. Granted she had a MA degree and 30+ years of tenure. But she certainly wasn't at some poverty wage level like that ridiculous poster stated.

Then what was this all about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_L...hers%27_strike

[NJ Brazen_3133]

So I gather as long as the public school in a mostly white neighborhood, then it is fine. It is like most white public schools in other parts of the country.

But I have to ask, is it not possible for minorities in other districts to transfer in? In NYC, that is what happens. Kids from all over the city can go to any school they want as along as it is not the selective kind. Well that is starting to change too.

[Rigeleer]

Just a late comment here. Those kids who want to learn, or whose parents make them learn, can't learn as much if they don't have a reasonably calm and safe environment at school. A principal at a large, low-performing high school in LAUSD told me that she spent most of her work day interfacing with the police regarding felonies which happened in school. A former East LA (bad area) teacher told me that one of that school's main problems was parents barging into class and getting into physical altercations with students. (I'm not sure if they were fighting their own kids or other kids.) Not surprisingly, there are recent news reports that some parents say that their children have done better academically during the lockown year because of "fewer distractions", as they put it.