It's about much more than low salaries.
In the first few months of 2018, long-simmering teacher anger has already resulted in a series of strikes, walkouts and protests in Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Oklahoma and West Virginia. Teacher pay and education underfunding issues have also sparked controversy this year in local governments including Milwaukee, Jersey City, N.J., Clark County, Nev., and a slew of Florida counties.
To be sure, a big part of the problem has been relatively low teacher pay. But the situation is much more complicated than that.
In 26 states, average teacher salaries, adjusted for inflation, were less in 2016 than they were at the end of the 20th century, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Two years ago, an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report documented the dive in weekly wages for teachers compared to other workers with comparable education requirements. In 2015, an average teacher made 17 percent less than comparable workers in salary. Back in 1994, the salary gap was 1.8 percent.
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Back in the day you sent your kid to Kindergarten knowing how to read and with clean cloths,pencils and paper,crayons,whatever, with a packed lunch. Now people just dump their kids off at school and expect miracles from what amounts to a baby sitter and they make demands of teachers like they are magical Shaman or Exorcists with the ill realized fruit of your loins with ADHD, OCD and all these fragile needs that demand molly coddling. They should think twice about Planned Parenthood. There is such a thing as Natural Selection.
ReplyDeleteHave to quit giving in to their demands when Kids are getting dumber instead of smarter. Their teaching performance is going down instead of improving. They should also be denied pay for the hours they do not teach.
ReplyDeleteKeeping teachers' salaries low makes for more "useful idiots" to go out and march for more money the Unions can shovel in. It has nothing to do with educating children. In fact, stifling teachers from really teaching by forcing an ordered curriculum makes them even more motivated to go out to the picket lines.
ReplyDeleteAnd the wheels on the bus go round and round...
9:35, perhaps you should spend some time in the schools to see what the problem really is. You are correct that the kids are getting dumber all the time, but way off base as to why. We just had NINE DAYS of PARCC testing in our secondary schools that are a complete waste of time. This only accomplishes to disrupt the school days even more than the disruptive students that will NOT be removed by the administration. There are no teachers that agree with how the schools are run. Most teachers are dedicated to helping the children learn and grow to becoming responsible adults. Yes there are some bad teachers, just as there are bad employees in ANY vocation. But to put the blame of poor school performance on the backs of the teachers is just irresponsible and wrong.
ReplyDeleteI had my share of bad teachers and some who should not have even been allowed in the profession. So I'm sure there are still some like those currently in a classroom somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think putting targets on the backs of teachers is misplaced. Those that force curriculums and useless programs and they haven't taught a day in their life.
I have no experience with this particular school board but the general consensus is that it is not well liked as well as the union. So even with my personal lack of knowledge, it seems to be more of a problem with the admin and other powers that be than it is with the individual teacher.
And then, of course, you have the students themselves and their parents. I have seen and heard some of the students there and I am not impressed with some of them. For whatever reason, they seem to lack discipline, respect for elders and probably even lack respect for themselves. Who knows how or if their parents play a positive role in their school work or even their life.
Laws against punishing and correcting your own kids must play a factor as well, and I am sure these kids know that and use it to their advantage. Those laws may have been well-intentioned but they have had the opposite effect of protecting children, even when they are haphazardly applied.
I have seen teacher-bashing gone on for years to no avail it would seem. Maybe the "bashing" needs to go up the chain of command a little bit to those that make policies and are unseen by most people.
Just a suggestion.