152 replies to this topic

[Alpha_ProgDes]

I totally agree that good teachers deserve more money for the effort they put in, but you can't work off the assumption that every teacher in the union is good. By nature unions force the horrible and the exceptional to be treated as average.

But it sounds you work under the assumption that every teacher in an union is bad. Maybe that's not your intent, but if it isn't, then it's hard to tell by your posts.

[way2lazy2care]

But it sounds you work under the assumption that every teacher in an union is bad. Maybe that's not your intent, but if it isn't, then it's hard to tell by your posts.

No my problem is that there are too many bad teachers in unions and it is in the union's best interest to keep as many teachers regardless of skill level or quality in the union and employed to make as much money for the union as possible.

edit: too many being distinctly different than every or most teachers in unions.

[tstrimple]

The union doesn't care about sensible education policy. They care about maintaining their control over the education system. Their goal is not to better educate our students but to provide maximum protection for teacher, regardless of the quality of that teacher. Please, provide evidence that educators are CONSTANTLY researching education best practices. I'm sure that some educators do, but it's hardly a common practice. It's similar to the programming field, there are those who are constantly learning new things and staying on the cutting edge, but the majority of them work their 8 hours and that's it. What we need are more of those teachers who are willing to put in the extra effort, and the ability to get rid of those who don't! I'm all for higher teacher salaries, but only for deserving teachers, and the teachers unions make it impossible to do that.

Most of my family are American public teachers so I'm relaying what I've heard from them over the years:

(1) The unions are necessary. Teacher's are constantly marginalized into accepting lower pay for more work and less freedom. It's demoralizing and making the problem worse. Every teacher I know is now telling the next generation NOT to get into teaching, that it's not a good career choice anymore. It used to be, but it's not today. How do you expect to get good teachers when we're pushing away so many? Unions aren't the problem. It's politicians and adminstrators brainwashing people.

(2) Every teacher I know puts in rediculously long hours (10+ hours) and weekends for very little pay. You don't see it but when they go home they'll often have hours of grading papers to do each night. Administrators make rediculous amounts and comparatively don't work many hours at all. New "best practices", standardization, No Child Left Behind has all contributed to much worse education in the eyes of the teachers I know.

(3) Think back to the best teacher you ever had. What made them great? I can only speak for myself, but following a standardized textbook line for line is not the reason. They had real insight into their subject and life in general that they shared. They were able to inspire. You wanted to keep talking to them after class. We talk about good teachers and bad teachers, but we aren't measuring the right things.


And just to give you a little insight, think about how long it takes to make an hour long presentation. Now imagine you had 6 of those to do every day, and grading work to do after that. Being a teacher is a lot of work. Even once you have most of your lesson plans already written and you can reuse them year to year (you still get new classes/mandatory changes/new textbooks every few years), it's still mindblowing because you always have to tweak them and prepare beforehand and the grading never stops.

This! 1000 times!

Glad to know you get so worked up over anecdotal evidence. I have plenty anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Teachers who put in a lot of extra hours are the exception, not the rule. Just like employees in all fields. Most teachers work their required hours and that is all. They write lesson plans once and re-use them year after year. I'm am not, and have never said there are not exceptional teachers, I'm saying the majority of them are not and unions force the exceptional teachers to the middle where they cannot get the recognition they deserve.

It's just like people I have encountered in all professions. The vast majority of programmers I know are mediocre. Very few spend the time and energy to become excellent at their craft. Should all developers be recognized and paid the same regardless of their quality? How about Doctors? Should we put as much money into supporting bad doctors as we do the exceptional ones? Of course not! Why the hell is this the accepted practice for teachers?

[Michael Tanczos]

Glad to know you get so worked up over anecdotal evidence. I have plenty anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Teachers who put in a lot of extra hours are the exception, not the rule. Just like employees in all fields. Most teachers work their required hours and that is all. They write lesson plans once and re-use them year after year. I'm am not, and have never said there are not exceptional teachers, I'm saying the majority of them are not and unions force the exceptional teachers to the middle where they cannot get the recognition they deserve.

It's just like people I have encountered in all professions. The vast majority of programmers I know are mediocre. Very few spend the time and energy to become excellent at their craft. Should all developers be recognized and paid the same regardless of their quality? How about Doctors? Should we put as much money into supporting bad doctors as we do the exceptional ones? Of course not! Why the hell is this the accepted practice for teachers?

I am a public school teacher. I teach computer networking and programming and have been doing so for the last 10 years. I belong to a teacher union and I know what teachers do day in and day out.. which is why I can say you don't know what you are talking about. I would love to go two years in a row with the same lesson plans.. preparing for 4 separate 50 minute presentations per day takes a ton of work.. but pressures of NCLB leave us rewriting our plans in increasingly complex formats with much more detail. In my school almost 75% of the staff has at least a M.Ed.. largely because continuing education and professional development is a requirement. I've spent countless hours aligning my curriculum to state and national standards. I've seen the entire Math and English departments go through idea after idea to help our students out.. including small classes, co-teaching to give students more one-on-one time, and even in-school and after-school tutoring sessions (for free).. though it's no surprise that few students take advantage of after-school tutoring. Teachers in PA often put hundreds of hours in each year to improve their craft through inservicing and graduate degree programs.. in fact, it's required that all teachers do.

I've seen plenty of good teachers take abuse from students who have zero desire to do anything purposeful. I've seen teachers who have had a half dozen or more kids each year or more whose parents get irate when you have the gall to call them on the phone and bother them why their kid isn't doing their homework, is failing tests, is breaking rules left and right..

And then there's the newspapers.. because all these teachers who are accountable for these kids who we can't do a thing to to compel them to work are made to look like absolute failures. What type of parent raises a kid with zero work ethic and no respect for authority figures? I have a son myself.. 1 1/2 years old, and I can tell you that he copies everything I do. By the time they hit kindergarten they've learned a lot about how life works.. and that is reinforced every day they go home.

There are great teachers, there are good teachers, and there are on occasion a handful of teachers that find their way out the door. I've seen professionals from industry in the last 10 years come in thinking it would be awesome to teach.. only to wash out in 2 years and then go back where they had an easier time.

Teaching isn't what it used to be.. we don't have the same degree of control over our lessons and classroom as teachers once had. A typical day for me I get up at 5:15 and get ready.. get to work by 6:50, then work at the school until 3:45-4:00ish.. come home and make dinner for my family and spend some time with them, and then work for another two hours from 8-10 on lesson planning (sometimes more) and then 10-12 on gamedev.net.

[Sirisian]

I would love to go two years in a row with the same lesson plans..

I'm a teaching assistant at a university. This my second semester. What you just said is the reason I don't like teaching. I got all new curriculum for my lectures and went from 7 students to 25. It doesn't really hit people how much time grading takes when you're handing out 3 assignments a week. I can't imagine teaching more than like two of these type of classes especially with the amount of 1 on 1 student time. I spent like 3 hours today doing one on one help with a student that was struggling.

My other job is administering the printing servers and software used to control the university computers. Far easier and less demanding.

Regarding bad teachers, it happens. You see it with teaching assistants where their students will complain to the TA professor. Not sure if the TA union protects them from getting fired for sucking. All I know is they won't get asked back which has happened.

[way2lazy2care]

I am a public school teacher. I teach computer networking and programming and have been doing so for the last 10 years. I belong to a teacher union and I know what teachers do day in and day out.

I have a question for you then. Doesn't it piss you off that teachers unions support teachers that beat children, let children gamble in class while they read magazines, and download porn on their work computers? Putting your teaching aside, as a parent, doesn't it piss you off that teachers unions are supporting people who are in charge of your child 8 hours a day that do this?

[Alpha_ProgDes]

The union doesn't care about sensible education policy. They care about maintaining their control over the education system. Their goal is not to better educate our students but to provide maximum protection for teacher, regardless of the quality of that teacher. Please, provide evidence that educators are CONSTANTLY researching education best practices. I'm sure that some educators do, but it's hardly a common practice. It's similar to the programming field, there are those who are constantly learning new things and staying on the cutting edge, but the majority of them work their 8 hours and that's it. What we need are more of those teachers who are willing to put in the extra effort, and the ability to get rid of those who don't! I'm all for higher teacher salaries, but only for deserving teachers, and the teachers unions make it impossible to do that.

Most of my family are American public teachers so I'm relaying what I've heard from them over the years:

(1) The unions are necessary. Teacher's are constantly marginalized into accepting lower pay for more work and less freedom. It's demoralizing and making the problem worse. Every teacher I know is now telling the next generation NOT to get into teaching, that it's not a good career choice anymore. It used to be, but it's not today. How do you expect to get good teachers when we're pushing away so many? Unions aren't the problem. It's politicians and adminstrators brainwashing people.

(2) Every teacher I know puts in rediculously long hours (10+ hours) and weekends for very little pay. You don't see it but when they go home they'll often have hours of grading papers to do each night. Administrators make rediculous amounts and comparatively don't work many hours at all. New "best practices", standardization, No Child Left Behind has all contributed to much worse education in the eyes of the teachers I know.

(3) Think back to the best teacher you ever had. What made them great? I can only speak for myself, but following a standardized textbook line for line is not the reason. They had real insight into their subject and life in general that they shared. They were able to inspire. You wanted to keep talking to them after class. We talk about good teachers and bad teachers, but we aren't measuring the right things.


And just to give you a little insight, think about how long it takes to make an hour long presentation. Now imagine you had 6 of those to do every day, and grading work to do after that. Being a teacher is a lot of work. Even once you have most of your lesson plans already written and you can reuse them year to year (you still get new classes/mandatory changes/new textbooks every few years), it's still mindblowing because you always have to tweak them and prepare beforehand and the grading never stops.

This! 1000 times!

Glad to know you get so worked up over anecdotal evidence. I have plenty anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Teachers who put in a lot of extra hours are the exception, not the rule.

Bullshit. Every teacher and I mean every teacher has to grades papers, talk to students, have meetings with parents, and prepare curricula. And that's outside of their normal working hours. Show me a working teacher, any working teacher who does nothing but come to school at 7:00am and leaves at 3:30pm. And does nothing else work-related outside of those hours.

And Michael wonders why children don't have respect for teachers (yes, that's an opinion).

And how you make a comment like that ("worked up over anecdotal evidence") when way2lazy responded in the same way to your opinion about OWS? I didn't see you make a snark comment about that post.

[tstrimple]

Bullshit. Every teacher and I mean every teacher has to grades papers, talk to students, have meetings with parents, and prepare curricula. And that's outside of their normal working hours. Show me a working teacher, any working teacher who does nothing but come to school at 7:00am and leaves at 3:30pm. And does nothing else work-related outside of those hours.

Am I really the only person who's teachers simply had us pass our work to another student and had them "grade" it while they read off the answers? Or teachers that simply graded tests during class?

Fine, lets operate under the assumption that all US teachers are slaving away working 60 hours a week grading papers. How is it that we are constantly out ranked in international comparisons of student performance? After all, we spend money more per student, we have incredibly dedicated teachers who spend 20 hours a week preparing lessons for their students. The problem with this country is simply that our students don't want to learn and there is nothing for our teachers to do about it?

[Alpha_ProgDes]

Bullshit. Every teacher and I mean every teacher has to grades papers, talk to students, have meetings with parents, and prepare curricula. And that's outside of their normal working hours. Show me a working teacher, any working teacher who does nothing but come to school at 7:00am and leaves at 3:30pm. And does nothing else work-related outside of those hours.

Am I really the only person who's teachers simply had us pass our work to another student and had them "grade" it while they read off the answers? Or teachers that simply graded tests during class?

First and most importantly it's whose.
Second. No, some of my teachers did those things as well, but they also did the things I mentioned too.

Fine, lets operate under the assumption that all US teachers are slaving away working 60 hours a week grading papers. How is it that we are constantly out ranked in international comparisons of student performance? After all, we spend money more per student, we have incredibly dedicated teachers who spend 20 hours a week preparing lessons for their students. The problem with this country is simply that our students don't want to learn and there is nothing for our teachers to do about it?

We spend more money per person in our health care system as well and we are constantly outranked internationally too. And those health care services are privately-owned companies. So who do we want to blame? The person providing the service? The person receiving the service? Or some mix of the two?

[Sirisian]

Am I really the only person who's teachers simply had us pass our work to another student and had them "grade" it while they read off the answers? Or teachers that simply graded tests during class?

In middle school? Maybe. Not in HS.

The problem with this country is simply that our students don't want to learn and there is nothing for our teachers to do about it?

I think that's a big part of it. It's the student's responsibility to want to learn. I've seen students go through my class with no drive to learn and educate themselves and they failed (1 out of 7 students. Might be more this semester?). You might have a basic idea of what a bell curve is and how well it applies to students. You'll get overachievers who are amazing at assignments and assume everyone else is trying to do as well as they are. Then you have the average students just doing work. Then the people that don't care at all. When I grade I put the papers from highest to lowest usually when grading subjective writing (progress reports on projects). You'll see a trend. Then when you try to intervene to help them they have no interest in getting better (trust me I've tried with hit and miss success since it would be cool to have a class where everyone does well). Might be because the enrollment is too easy. My university lets in pretty much anyone that's willing to pay/try a major.

I mean if you teach a class you'll have this "I can change anyone's opinion and make them love learning and do well" but there's only so much time especially with bigger classes.

Speaking of that I've gone to think tank meeting at my university regarding classes and what needs to be done better. Small classes is usually a plus and is always kept. Most CS classes are like 10 people so everyone is paying attention and focused. You lose that one on one attention with larger classes which universities seem to understand well.

[way2lazy2care]

We spend more money per person in our health care system as well and we are constantly outranked internationally too. And those health care services are privately-owned companies. So who do we want to blame? The person providing the service? The person receiving the service? Or some mix of the two?

That depends by which metric you measure. We have by far the best quality health care in the world. The difference being that that quality of health care is not available to everyone, which is why we are outranked.

[Khaiy]

I don't know about the unemployment rate for college grads, but in the technical sector the unemployment rate is around 3.3%. This is the fastest growing job sector in the USA, and we do not have enough qualified Americans to fill these positions. Not all degrees are created equal. I don't think the figures exist showing the breakdown of the various degrees that OWS protesters have, but I'd be willing to bet there is a disproportionally low number of computer science or engineering degrees represented.

The portion of computer science or engineering degrees is quite low compared to others in the general population. That's not good, but it's also not going to be unique to OWS as compared with the general population.

Plus, as maligned as teachers' unions are (and sometimes rightly), educating kids is difficult. Union-free charter schools haven't posted compelling results that unions are the key factors in holding kids back.

There is the option, dare I say, of Union-free non-charter public schools, or at least the option of schools where superintendents and principles are allowed to fire their employees the same as any other employer can.

edit: there should also be a more realistic option to opt out of being in a teachers union. Right now if teachers opt out it pretty much dooms your career until you decide to join the union.

And...? My point in bringing up the charter schools is that a clear difference between them and public schools is a lack of unionization in the former. And yet as a whole they haven't posted dramatically better results, or even results that are better on the whole. So whatever they're doing differently, whether it works or not, the unions would not appear to be the factor in holding students back. A couple have done very impressive work (though they also do some careful selection of students, like Harlem Success Academy), but as a whole charter schools are not really better than public. While we're at it, we could compare public schools in the Southern US, where unionization is much weaker, with schools in the Northern US, where unions are stronger. Guess which region posts better results?

In some cases they settle and agree to pay a bad teacher tens of thousands of dollars to find another job.

Charter schools perform no better than public schools when you disaggregate student populations and compare similar demographics (apples to apples). They are a magic pill designed to shift education of students to private enterprise. The truth is, they are no better.. and in some cases can be worse.

Similar demographics?! http://www.huffingto...f_n_824286.html

For the second year in a row, an all-male charter school with students from the city's worst neighborhoods is sending its entire senior class to college.Urban Prep Charter Academy was founded in 2006, and its goal from the start was for every one of its graduates to be attending college when they left. It was an unlikely mission, given that only four percent of the school's first freshman class was reading at grade level when they entered.

Last year, the school, founded by educator andnonprofit leader Tim King, did just that -- all 107 graduating seniors were accepted at the end of the year. And this year, Urban Prep has repeated its success

This is an inner-city school who took students that were failing in the public education system and got 100% of them into college. How is that not apples to apples? Charter schools cannot pick and choose their students. If there are more students who want in than they can accommodate, they have a lottery system to admittance. Obviously not all charter schools can achieve this sort of success, but this should be the model that other schools adopt and failing charter schools have to get better or close. It is idiotic to dismiss charter schools just because some of them are not working.

Charter schools can absolutely cherry-pick their students; see my link above. When they select for performance, is there any surprise that the students who remain perform well? While the link you posted is indeed impressive, this quote from the second one takes a bit of the luster off of it.

Of the 150 teens who started in 2006, 95 lasted four years. (Another dozen were transfers.)

It's still a huge accomplishment, and this is in no way meant to detract from the work that King has done. But at the same time, your position doesn't allow us to ignore the fact that for 55 of the initial students (37% of them!) even this program didn't work and they left the school. So the school had 100% of its graduates go on to college, but had a 63% graduation rate. And where did those 55 students go? Private school? Another charter? Or back into the public school system, where they diluted those schools' numbers rather than Urban Prep's-- and those public schools now had 107 fewer students who were capable of those excellent results to offset them.

As for secondary education, not all classes are created equal. Some kids load up on AP Biology and AP Calculus; others fill their schedules with cooking electives and math for graduation standards (that is, math that doesn't even go too far into algebra). Placing kids from the second group into more rigorous classes that they would otherwise have flat out chosen never to take isn't going to automatically turn them into academic superstars. To do that would require reform of the education system, but also require those students to be willing to do more than prepare an edible meal to pass a class. Those students choosing to take on a decidedly non-taxing schedule has nothing to do with unions.

And I know that my own experience != data, but in my high school experience (largely honors and AP classes at a public school with all or nearly all teachers unionized) I would be shocked to find that any of my teachers worked under 60 hours per week. In fact, I'd be surprised to find that any of them worked only 60 hours per week. And I never saw any of them hesitate for even a moment to provide extra help above and beyond this baseline (which included regular extracurricular reviews, optional extra assignments, detailed grading and feedback) to any student who requested it, or parents who expressed concerns that their child wasn't getting the most out of the class.

[Alpha_ProgDes]

We spend more money per person in our health care system as well and we are constantly outranked internationally too. And those health care services are privately-owned companies. So who do we want to blame? The person providing the service? The person receiving the service? Or some mix of the two?

That depends by which metric you measure. We have by far the best quality health care in the world. The difference being that that quality of health care is not available to everyone, which is why we are outranked.

I'm sure you can say the same about our education. Seeing as there are people (from overseas) that still want to bring their children here to receive an education.

[Alpha_ProgDes]

However, to try to get back ontopic, it seems that the OWS is asking a question (well one of many) that many corporations can't answer. "Where are the jobs?" We know that the corporations can create them. There's been several reports saying that regulations aren't affecting job growth or profit. We know that the tax cuts for businesses and the rich have had a stellar effect on their profits and overall wealth. We know that a number of corporations and financial firms would not be in business if not for the bailouts. I dare say that hiring more people now would quickly create demand and therefore more profit than businesses are getting currently.

And, IMO, if businesses were bailed out by the taxpayer, then the taxpayer has a right to say that the businesses owe them a job.

[phantom]

We spend more money per person in our health care system as well and we are constantly outranked internationally too. And those health care services are privately-owned companies. So who do we want to blame? The person providing the service? The person receiving the service? Or some mix of the two?

That depends by which metric you measure. We have by far the best quality health care in the world. The difference being that that quality of health care is not available to everyone, which is why we are outranked.

You can have the best health care system in the world but if the vast majority of the population can't get access to it then it has failed and you might as well not have it. So, yes, you get 'out ranked' for a very good reason because the rank is what the majority see.
Education system, same deal. If your whole population isn't getting access to 'the best' then it doesn't matter how much you spend.

[smr]

I have to take issue with the claim of us in the USA having "by far the best healthcare system in the world." I have been to a lot of doctors in the last couple of years, and one thing that I've found that they're good at is keeping you waiting and packing their schedule so full of patients that they have about five minutes of time to spend with you before they just prescribe you some random drug that probably won't help then shuffle you out the door. Capitalism in medicine, while great for producing new treatments, is a real detriment to service. Doctors' primary objective is to see as many patients as possible in a day in order to maximize their profits.

[way2lazy2care]

And...? My point in bringing up the charter schools is that a clear difference between them and public schools is a lack of unionization in the former. And yet as a whole they haven't posted dramatically better results, or even results that are better on the whole. So whatever they're doing differently, whether it works or not, the unions would not appear to be the factor in holding students back. A couple have done very impressive work (though they also do some careful selection of students, like Harlem Success Academy), but as a whole charter schools are not really better than public. While we're at it, we could compare public schools in the Southern US, where unionization is much weaker, with schools in the Northern US, where unions are stronger. Guess which region posts better results?

The main difference between charter schools and public schools is that charter schools have more control over how and what they teach and how they operate.

You can have the best health care system in the world but if the vast majority of the population can't get access to it then it has failed and you might as well not have it. So, yes, you get 'out ranked' for a very good reason because the rank is what the majority see.
Education system, same deal. If your whole population isn't getting access to 'the best' then it doesn't matter how much you spend.

I don't want to debate health care, but when you make the statement, "We are constantly outranked internationally [on healthcare]" it needs clarification when the picture painted by that statement implies that our health care in general is of bad quality, which is not true.

[Antheus]

I think that's a big part of it. It's the student's responsibility to want to learn. I've seen students go through my class with no drive to learn and educate themselves and they failed (1 out of 7 students. Might be more this semester?). You might have a basic idea of what a bell curve is and how well it applies to students. You'll get overachievers who are amazing at assignments and assume everyone else is trying to do as well as they are. Then you have the average students just doing work. Then the people that don't care at all.

Congratulations, your students are normal humans. Subject to Bell curve, Gaussian distribution, or Normal distribution. Some are good, most are average, some are bad.

Mistakes commonly made come from failing to acknowledge this absolute fact, or from trying to twist it. No child left behind is one example. It tries to shift left bound of the graph to zero, so that nobody is below average. The other extreme made by wannabe overachievers is to filter out everyone but top 5%.


An effective system is one that starts from normal distribution, then adjusts towards that.

Then when you try to intervene to help them they have no interest in getting better (trust me I've tried with hit and miss success since it would be cool to have a class where everyone does well).

Every person has buttons that can be pressed and things that make them tick. If you want to address this issue, figure those out. Why are these students there? Perhaps all they want is a degree that they were promised and they paid to get it. Perhaps they are in that class because their girl goes there. Perhaps they want to stay warm. Perhaps....

The easiest cop out is to put a label on them: lazy, stupid, incompetent, disinterested. Those are symptoms. Figure out the cause.


Of course, given limited time and effort, it might be only viable to simply write them off. Sooner or later you need to realized that your time is limited and day has only 24 hours.



Exceptional teachers were mentioned. It wasn't money that made them as such. It was their inability to give up on those "failures" and they walked an extra mile to get them to learn and succeed. That is how exceptional people are made. Where everyone else goes 80%, they go 100%. But nobody would bear even a hint of a grudge if you were to be the 80%. Going beyond that would likely cause more problems.

[phantom]

You can have the best health care system in the world but if the vast majority of the population can't get access to it then it has failed and you might as well not have it. So, yes, you get 'out ranked' for a very good reason because the rank is what the majority see.
Education system, same deal. If your whole population isn't getting access to 'the best' then it doesn't matter how much you spend.

I don't want to debate health care, but when you make the statement, "We are constantly outranked internationally [on healthcare]" it needs clarification when the picture painted by that statement implies that our health care in general is of bad quality, which is not true.

Well, no.. it doesn't. If the health care was, in general, good quality then it would rank higher... the fact it ranks lower suggest that in general the quality isn't good. The fact that "high quality" exists for the minority who can afford it doesn't change the case of the majority/general case.

But if you want to believe otherwise go for it, I'm not here to shatter your 'USA IS BEST!!!' dillusion, no matter how wrong it might be...

[Alpha_ProgDes]

You can have the best health care system in the world but if the vast majority of the population can't get access to it then it has failed and you might as well not have it. So, yes, you get 'out ranked' for a very good reason because the rank is what the majority see.
Education system, same deal. If your whole population isn't getting access to 'the best' then it doesn't matter how much you spend.

I don't want to debate health care, but when you make the statement, "We are constantly outranked internationally [on healthcare]" it needs clarification when the picture painted by that statement implies that our health care in general is of bad quality, which is not true.

Painting our education system in the same manner is also not true. The point being is that the same claims about the education system (a public system) can be made about the healthcare system (a private system). And there's plenty of evidence to argue one side or the other for either system.


@phantom: The USA IS GREAT!