HH,
Unions have gone too far.
Here in California, you cannot fire a teacher, even if that teacher fed his kids cookies covered with his semen.
It literally takes an average of 7 years to fire a teacher, about 1 million dollars, when they are the highest paid teachers yet the students perform 49th in the nation, only behind the DC schools.
Unions have too much power, they also donate millions to politicians for their agenda, something taxpayers cannot compete with.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
What prevents a superintendent from firing Sam? The superintendent can fire Sam, hire Bob, and have $30,000 left over for the budget. They could cut taxes and still have left over money. [/quote]
It’s reductionist scenario, but in any event, how is this scenario any different for anyone else? Wouldn’t this be true for an investment banker, a backhoe operator or an IT guy? Should these guys have the same insulation from job loss that you clearly seek for teachers for the exact same reasons? If not, why not?
No, but shouldn’t they do a better a job and be held accountable for the job they do? Because if your answer to that is “yes”, then you aren’t of the same opinion as the teachers’ unions.[/quote]
The difference is that a graduating teacher can pretty much do most of what an experienced teacher can do. Sure, the ‘old hand’ has more tricks up their sleeve and so forth; but the young grad has enthusiasm. Algebra is algebra. Spanish is Spanish.
Thus, you make my point. Since teaching doesn’t make money like a banker or dig up a yard like a backhoe operator, it can’t be quantified except in some sort of nominal way. Therefore any sane superintendent will fire older teachers, to save money.
The way to avoid this is to pay all teachers, all of them, minimum wage with no benefits. Americans love cheap Chinese imports; just turn the teachers into coolies.
Lower taxes, happy parents, administrators flush with cash…it shld be a win-win. [/quote]
Why not hire people that have no skill in teaching or even better hire illegal immigrants that can not speak English yet, I bet you could really save some money
[quote]Headhunter wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:<<< Didn’t Jesus set up dying a miserable death for the benefit of others as a moral ideal? >>>[/quote]Not bad. Progress here? [/quote]Setting up as a moral ideal something that 99.9% of people can’t/won’t do is an old trick. Teach the impossible as being moral, then cash in on guilt. But I digress from the thread topic…[/quote]You forgot the / in the closing quote tag.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
The difference is that a graduating teacher can pretty much do most of what an experienced teacher can do. Sure, the ‘old hand’ has more tricks up their sleeve and so forth; but the young grad has enthusiasm. Algebra is algebra. Spanish is Spanish.[/quote]
Exactly. And instead of a bunch of comfortably tenured, sleepwalking hacks who snooze through their job, how about of a bunch of motivated, unjaded youngsters eager to make a difference in a kid’s life?
You said yourself they are basically fungible in terms of knowledge content. Don’t the kids deserve someone who cares and has energy?
Well, it doesn’t have to be that way - if the Old Guard could turn years of experience into an advantage (which they are), then they’d be worth the higher price. Right now, too many of them just aren’t worth a damn, no matter what you pay them. They’re lazy, entitled, and uninterested in anything that challenges their monopoly - like actually educating kids.
No is buying your pity party for teachers, least of all me. Teachers should be compensated more, not less, in my view - but too many are like you: they want the easy life and a fat sinecure from the state while never having to worry about someone actually determining if they are doing their job.[/quote]
How do you quantify Sam’s work, teaching Spanish for 25 years and compare it with the work of a new hire? You can’t. Without a union, Sam is ‘toast’ sooner or later.
Now think of that from a superintendent’s point of view – teaching can’t be quantified so how can anyone object to me saving my district money?
The only way to quantify teaching is with seniority. The unions use that and defend their members from that. Can you think of a better way? Enlighten me: How is one teacher better than another? And what if the people in charge don’t care about quality at all? What if they just want the cheapest they can get (like the chinese crap at Wal-Mart)?
And then, teachers don’t care but superintendents do? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Teachers need to be forced to be coolies, plain and simple.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:<<< Didn’t Jesus set up dying a miserable death for the benefit of others as a moral ideal? >>>[/quote]Not bad. Progress here? [/quote]Setting up as a moral ideal something that 99.9% of people can’t/won’t do is an old trick. Teach the impossible as being moral, then cash in on guilt. But I digress from the thread topic…[/quote]You forgot the / in the closing quote tag.
[/quote]
Well, don’t crucify me over it! 
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
What prevents a superintendent from firing Sam? The superintendent can fire Sam, hire Bob, and have $30,000 left over for the budget. They could cut taxes and still have left over money. [/quote]
It’s reductionist scenario, but in any event, how is this scenario any different for anyone else? Wouldn’t this be true for an investment banker, a backhoe operator or an IT guy? Should these guys have the same insulation from job loss that you clearly seek for teachers for the exact same reasons? If not, why not?
No, but shouldn’t they do a better a job and be held accountable for the job they do? Because if your answer to that is “yes”, then you aren’t of the same opinion as the teachers’ unions.[/quote]
The difference is that a graduating teacher can pretty much do most of what an experienced teacher can do. Sure, the ‘old hand’ has more tricks up their sleeve and so forth; but the young grad has enthusiasm. Algebra is algebra. Spanish is Spanish.
Thus, you make my point. Since teaching doesn’t make money like a banker or dig up a yard like a backhoe operator, it can’t be quantified except in some sort of nominal way. Therefore any sane superintendent will fire older teachers, to save money.
The way to avoid this is to pay all teachers, all of them, minimum wage with no benefits. Americans love cheap Chinese imports; just turn the teachers into coolies.
Lower taxes, happy parents, administrators flush with cash…it shld be a win-win. [/quote]
Why not hire people that have no skill in teaching or even better hire illegal immigrants that can not speak English yet, I bet you could really save some money
[/quote]
They would if they could.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
HH,
Unions have gone too far.
Here in California, you cannot fire a teacher, even if that teacher fed his kids cookies covered with his semen.
[/quote]
Excuse me?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
How do you quantify Sam’s work, teaching Spanish for 25 years and compare it with the work of a new hire? You can’t.[/quote]
You’ve already quantified it - you’ve said the old teacher produces the same result as the young teacher. Yes, the results are quantified, all right - they are equal. You’ve already said so.
Well, according to you, the old guy is no better at the job than the young guy but demands twice the pay. So, the union exists for no other reason than to protect the old guy’s unearned double-salary for no logical reason other than…the old guy is old and doesn’t want to have to find some other job.
Great. A great reason to get rid of teachers’ unions.
But that’s not a quantification of quality - you’ve said so yourself. Older is simply older, not better. Seniority doesn’t mean anything in terms of value.
I personally think seniority can play a role - because unlike the position you’ve taken, I think experience can provide value above inexperience - but that can’t be the only reason. Graduation rates, test scores, peer evaluations, student evaluations - all of these are good, none of them are perfect, but they are vastly superior than to merely protect someone’s job because they happen to be older.
Oh, and scrap tenure.
First, teachers need to be forced to get real educations themselves instead of the snoozefest that is an education degree. It wasn’t always that way, but now it is. Teachers should be among of the most erudite and knowledgable professions - but we require next to nothing from our teachers in terms of their education.
That, of course, is why there are so many of them who are simply dumb as hell. And I don’t mean that they are inherently stupid - they are just intellectually incurious and we require next no rigor in their training before sending them out into the world to educate our kids.
That’s be step one. But the old teachers wouldn’t like that reform very much - a young teacher with a bona fide education might show up and challenge the monopoly the older teachers have (unfairly) enjoyed for so long.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
HH,
Unions have gone too far.
Here in California, you cannot fire a teacher, even if that teacher fed his kids cookies covered with his semen.
[/quote]
Excuse me?[/quote]
Yes, a teacher who fed his kids cookies covered with his own semen (which was filmed by the way), was allowed to keep his job and collect his pension.
It wasn’t until 20 years went by, after he molested even more kids, where he was finally arrested. Still, he has not been fired.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
HH,
Unions have gone too far.
Here in California, you cannot fire a teacher, even if that teacher fed his kids cookies covered with his semen.
[/quote]
Excuse me?[/quote]
Yes, a teacher who fed his kids cookies covered with his own semen (which was filmed by the way), was allowed to keep his job and collect his pension.
It wasn’t until 20 years went by, after he molested even more kids, where he was finally arrested. Still, he has not been fired. [/quote]
I remember that story. That shouldn’t be tolerated in anyway and the guy should be getting raped in prison.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
How do you quantify Sam’s work, teaching Spanish for 25 years and compare it with the work of a new hire? You can’t.[/quote]
You’ve already quantified it - you’ve said the old teacher produces the same result as the young teacher. Yes, the results are quantified, all right - they are equal. You’ve already said so.
Well, according to you, the old guy is no better at the job than the young guy but demands twice the pay. So, the union exists for no other reason than to protect the old guy’s unearned double-salary for no logical reason other than…the old guy is old and doesn’t want to have to find some other job.
Great. A great reason to get rid of teachers’ unions.
But that’s not a quantification of quality - you’ve said so yourself. Older is simply older, not better. Seniority doesn’t mean anything in terms of value.
I personally think seniority can play a role - because unlike the position you’ve taken, I think experience can provide value above inexperience - but that can’t be the only reason. Graduation rates, test scores, peer evaluations, student evaluations - all of these are good, none of them are perfect, but they are vastly superior than to merely protect someone’s job because they happen to be older.
Oh, and scrap tenure.
First, teachers need to be forced to get real educations themselves instead of the snoozefest that is an education degree. It wasn’t always that way, but now it is. Teachers should be among of the most erudite and knowledgable professions - but we require next to nothing from our teachers in terms of their education.
That, of course, is why there are so many of them who are simply dumb as hell. And I don’t mean that they are inherently stupid - they are just intellectually incurious and we require next no rigor in their training before sending them out into the world to educate our kids.
That’s be step one. But the old teachers wouldn’t like that reform very much - a young teacher with a bona fide education might show up and challenge the monopoly the older teachers have (unfairly) enjoyed for so long.[/quote]
Two teachers are equal in the sense that their work can’t be meaningfully compared. That being the case, the unions were formed to prevent firing by districts to save money.
Old teachers have no incentive because their work can’t be quantified, so they don’t get rewarded. Do you bust your ass if you’re not rewarded?
My idea would be to tie teacher pay to some profession where the value is market driven. For ex: what does a mechanical engineer in this region make after 20 years? A corresponding teacher should make some rational % of that.
Or just be done with it and pay them minimum wage.
I used to teach, Headhunter, like you. I was on a pay for performance contract at a Charter School at the turn of the century. We tested at the beginning and end of the year using the Stanford 9 and the Texas test for No Child Left Behind to quantify results. I either got fired, got a shitty salary, or got paid really well for a teacher based on how my students performed. That scares the living shit out of 99% of teachers and that is why they cling to unions.
[quote]doogie wrote:
I used to teach, Headhunter, like you. I was on a pay for performance contract at a Charter School at the turn of the century. We tested at the beginning and end of the year using the Stanford 9 and the Texas test for No Child Left Behind to quantify results. I either got fired, got a shitty salary, or got paid really well for a teacher based on how my students performed. That scares the living shit out of 99% of teachers and that is why they cling to unions.[/quote]
(1) With no tenure and no union, what if the people in charge just decide to cut you for no reason whatsoever? Suppose they genuinely don’t care about quality, just want the $$$$? You work there 10 years and they fire you for no reason – NOW try to find another job.
(2) People don’t realize how the union teaching jobs raise salaries for ALL teachers. The non-union schools have to offer somewhere in the neighborhood (always less) of union pay. Then there’s the benefits of insurance and retirement; a lot of non-union shops only offer cash.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
(1) With no tenure and no union, what if the people in charge just decide to cut you for no reason whatsoever? Suppose they genuinely don’t care about quality, just want the $$$$? You work there 10 years and they fire you for no reason – NOW try to find another job.[/quote]
That is why vouchers, charter schools, and school choice is so important and why parents and tax payers have to demand them. Force those in charge to care about quality.
But all teachers SHOULDN’T have their salaries raised. When the good and the bad are treated alike, there is no reason to improve anything.
Come on! Everyone knows that schools have good teachers and bad teachers. Ones that really want the kids to become the best they can be, and ones that couldn’t give a shit.
This has got nothing to do with the age of the teachers. At my children’s school, there is one particular teacher that every kid loves - she is hard, but fair, and treats the kids with the respect that they deserve in relation to their attitude and behaviour. My son is a fairly high achiever, but even he has gone from strength to strength in the classroom. This teacher is in her mid 30’s.
Last year, my son had a teacher who was appalling! She was very rarely in the classroom as she always had ‘other things’ to do. She would give them homework with lots of basic spelling errors, and tell them their work was wrong, when in actual fact, it was her that was wrong! I pulled her up numerous times on her basic spelling and maths, only for her to tell me ‘there are different answers to that question’ or ‘there are different ways to spell that word’. This teacher was in her late 50’s and had only graduated 5 years earlier.
Should both teachers be paid the same? Or should the teacher that puts in the effort and gets results be paid more?
It’s really scary to get paid based on standardized testing results when the students are from low income areas and the students don’t care and the parents don’t care.
Hey guys, I’ve lurked on T-Nation since around 1999. Started an account here years ago but forgot what it so I just started a new one because, frankly, I’m really tired of teachers being the scapegoat for education/budget woes in America. There’s a lot of false/exaggerated information out there and really, I wish everyone could spend just a week teaching in a classroom to see how things really go on. I was a teacher and before that an instructional aide, before going on to a better paying and less stressful career field.
It seems the OP made the thread in jest and that’s cool, but the sad thing is some people really think along those lines.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
HH,
Unions have gone too far.
Here in California, you cannot fire a teacher, even if that teacher fed his kids cookies covered with his semen.
It literally takes an average of 7 years to fire a teacher, about 1 million dollars, when they are the highest paid teachers yet the students perform 49th in the nation, only behind the DC schools.
Unions have too much power, they also donate millions to politicians for their agenda, something taxpayers cannot compete with. [/quote]
This isn’t true. I’ve seen teachers, tenured teachers, fired for far less. What that man did, and what the other allegedly did (if true) is disgusting and if they did it they should be fired and, imo, put to execution, but if they haven’t even been tried yet, the evidence would have to be pretty strong for firing so I’d have to know more details before forming an opinion on that with that second guy. With the cookie guy, sure, fire him. Either way, they should be removed from any area near children immediately and given other tasks to do until the evidnece can support action either way. Nonetheless, unions do not stop this, or if they do it’a the exception. I’ve seen teachers who have taught for 20 years get pinkslipped because the students test scores were too low for too long. Teachers get laid off all the time because of budget cuts. Unions do make it harder to fire a teacher without due process, but they don’t make it anywhere even remotely close to imposssible. I don’t support everything unions do, just as I don’t support everything corporations or individuals do, but overall they are a positive force (I think all 3 are).
As far as union lobbying money, let’s put that in perspective. Compared to an individual they spend a ton. However, compared to other sectors they spend little. Over the past 14 years unions have collectively spent about $500 million on federal lobbying. Compare that to the health sector, financial sector, or misc business sectors which spent about $5 billion each. Of the top 13 sectors for federal lobbying $'s unions rank 12th and accounted for about 1% of the total. I’d be all for getting rid of union lobbying money, but only if all lobbying money is removed. I think that’d be better for democracy. Union power exists but it’s exaggerated by those who are opposed to unions. Union membership paeked around 35% in the 50’s-60’s and since the late 70’s it’s dropped to just under 12%.
Teachers unions aren’t perfect, but they are a positive force overall. I can think of numerous examples and unless you’ve worked in the profession it’s hard to see. My g/f’s aunt is an excellent teacher, had students who performed well on tests and everything, despite a bad case of MS, but a company that is contracted to evaluate teachers and improve their teaching came in and observed her and didn’t like the way she taught. Mind you, they get paid to find things they say are wrong, not say “Well. looks good. Carry on.” Suddenly her job was in jeopardy. She brought in evidence of grades and test scores and the union represented her and she kept her job (still has kids that perform well too).
When you’re working in a chaotic environment like a classroom, things happen a lot and it’s not uncommon for even an innocent teacher to be accused of doing something malicious. I’ve been hit in the head with rocks (the student wasn’t disciplined either), seen kids get hit in the head with rocks, caught girls spitting in a teachers coffee cup, seen teachers have their money, cell phones, wallets, you name it, stolen right out of their desk somehow. A lot of stuff happens. One of our teachers was accused of fondling a girl. He swore up and down he didn’t do it, but his image already took a hit. Turned out the parent finally went through the girls bag for some reason and stumbled upon a letter to the girls friend. It turned out the girl had a crush on thea teacher and was just spreading rumors among her friends and it got out of hand. When I worked as an aide I personally had 2 girls accuse me of staring at them. I heard about it from another student. I didn’t even know who the girls were. I told the principle and asked what to do. She said it happens more than people realize but most of the time it’s just a misunderstanding or a kids imagination. The teacher in the classroom went to bat for me and once we found out who the girls were we knew what was up. They were two girls in the back of the classroom who are constantly texting under the desks and the teacher asked me to watch them for it. They didn’t like that so they went and told their parents. This sort of thing is not uncommon. My point is, it’s a chaotic environment dealing with 20-30 kids and sometimes things happen.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for getting rid of bad teachers and I’m not saying there are none. I’m all for getting rid of sick pedophiles and offing those bastards. I don’t support rubber rooms or anything like that, but those are the exception, not the rule and I do believe there should be some due process first.
Sorry for such a long message everyone.
Sorry, I made a typo in my post above. Where it says “top 3 sectors” it should say “top 13 sectors”. Unions aren’t in the top 3 federal lobbying sectors. They’re ranked 12th.
^
You should post more on this site if you get the chance.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
How do you quantify Sam’s work, teaching Spanish for 25 years and compare it with the work of a new hire? You can’t.[/quote]
You’ve already quantified it - you’ve said the old teacher produces the same result as the young teacher. Yes, the results are quantified, all right - they are equal. You’ve already said so.
Well, according to you, the old guy is no better at the job than the young guy but demands twice the pay. So, the union exists for no other reason than to protect the old guy’s unearned double-salary for no logical reason other than…the old guy is old and doesn’t want to have to find some other job.
Great. A great reason to get rid of teachers’ unions.
But that’s not a quantification of quality - you’ve said so yourself. Older is simply older, not better. Seniority doesn’t mean anything in terms of value.
I personally think seniority can play a role - because unlike the position you’ve taken, I think experience can provide value above inexperience - but that can’t be the only reason. Graduation rates, test scores, peer evaluations, student evaluations - all of these are good, none of them are perfect, but they are vastly superior than to merely protect someone’s job because they happen to be older.
Oh, and scrap tenure.
First, teachers need to be forced to get real educations themselves instead of the snoozefest that is an education degree. It wasn’t always that way, but now it is. Teachers should be among of the most erudite and knowledgable professions - but we require next to nothing from our teachers in terms of their education.
That, of course, is why there are so many of them who are simply dumb as hell. And I don’t mean that they are inherently stupid - they are just intellectually incurious and we require next no rigor in their training before sending them out into the world to educate our kids.
That’s be step one. But the old teachers wouldn’t like that reform very much - a young teacher with a bona fide education might show up and challenge the monopoly the older teachers have (unfairly) enjoyed for so long.[/quote]
Two teachers are equal in the sense that their work can’t be meaningfully compared. That being the case, the unions were formed to prevent firing by districts to save money.
Old teachers have no incentive because their work can’t be quantified, so they don’t get rewarded. Do you bust your ass if you’re not rewarded?
My idea would be to tie teacher pay to some profession where the value is market driven. For ex: what does a mechanical engineer in this region make after 20 years? A corresponding teacher should make some rational % of that.
Or just be done with it and pay them minimum wage.
[/quote]
Paying teachers based on standardized test scores seems like a good idea, and I wouldn’t be against such a thing except for this - it’s very difficult to quantify fairly.
I felt merit pay was the way to go before I went into the education field (I’m not in it anymore). When I was at a JH I was in one teachers classroom 1st and 2nd period. Both classes of 7th graders with the subject (math), and the way it was taught, being exactly the same. The students and the class times were the only variables. When they took the standardized test 1st period scored 45% proficieint (B grade level). 2nd period scored 15% proficient.
We had the same teacher (a good teacher), same everything, but the students in 2nd period performed at a far lower level. If you were in that class you could see why - less maturity, more trouble makers & far less parental involvement than 1st period. This was not unusual. It happened quite often. Many students simply didn’t care and neither did many parents. This was a middle class suburban neighborhood, not an inner city.
Many people make a lot of assumptions as far as education goes and it’d be nice if they could be a teacher for a bit to see how things are. I wanted to have cameras in the classrooms so parents could see what their kids were like when they weren’t around - many kids are totally different. People assume if a student isn’t learning it’s the teachers fault but that’s a great oversimplification. It might be true if the students were all capable and well motivated (they’re not), the parents always backed the teacher up (they dont), and teachers could alter methods and curriculm greatly as the students needed (they cant).
There are some bad teachers. Many get fired and all of them should be. Many good teachers rack their brains trying to teach students. I did it myself and my students performed pretty well comparatively but there were still too many that just didn’t care and it varied from class to class. I used to volunteer to work with any student who wanted help after school in the library and other teachers did as well.
We had a handfull of students who showed up. Education just isn’t emphasized as much as we’d like to think it is to the average American. You’d come up with all these ways to teach students a topic (I taught math) but many simply don’t care. Many of their parents dont either. I challenge anyone to teach an adult a complex subject when that adult doesn’t want to learn it, let alone a child.
I’m a pretty smart guy but if you wanted to teach me basketweaving, good luck, because I’m not interested in learning it unless you look like one of the women in the figure athletes picture section. Teaching a 13 year old who isn’t interested subjects like math and science are much more challenging.
So how do we quantify it? What if administrators play favorites and give teachers they like the higher performing students? It happens, especially with department heads who have more influence. What if some students didn’t learn basic arithmetic well from a previous teacher for one reason or another? How am I supposed to teach pre-algebra or algebra effectively then? What if the student just doesn’t care?
Even if you only measure improvement how is a teacher supposed to improve an entire class effectively if the students in the same class (same age) are up to 4 skill levels apart in math? It happens often in smaller school districts. If you could come up with a fair and accurate quantitative method to measure teacher performance I’d be all for it.
The way they currently do it in places it’s been implemented are senseless. In the meantime I think the curreny method will suffice if parents supported teachers more. Maybe we should start giving tax incentives/penalties based on how students perform in school? If it were up to me we would adopt more of a Finnish model or maybe separate kids by skill level more than age but neither of those is going to happen on a large scale.