[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by DWavs

I need to pull some receipts from past mechanics..they owe me some money for some reoccurring issues that I got charged for!

So... you paid a mechanic to fix something, and it broke again, and you didn't take it back to the mechanic and demand that they fix the problem they were paid to fix?

And now I feel guilty for not buying the bracelet for my wife from that purdy sales woman last year...I didn't know her salary was pivotal on my sole decision.

Salespeople get paid if they sell. They get fired if they don't sell. That's how sales works.

Her salary isn't dependent on your "sole" decision, but if she doesn't do a good job with enough people she gets fired.

And no teacher was going to get judged on the "sole" opinion or performance of a single student. They were (are) being judged on the overall performance of the students they work with.

[DWavs]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

And no teacher was going to get judged on the "sole" opinion or performance of a single student. They were (are) being judged on the overall performance of the students they work with.

Wait a minute...isn't that single student part of the overall performance??

[certifiedfunds]

If teachers are unhappy with their pay, benefits and working conditions, they should quit and find employment opportunities that are better.

Apparently things aren't so bad.

[DWavs]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

So... you paid a mechanic to fix something, and it broke again, and you didn't take it back to the mechanic and demand that they fix the problem they were paid to fix?



Salespeople get paid if they sell. They get fired if they don't sell. That's how sales works.

Her salary isn't dependent on your "sole" decision, but if she doesn't do a good job with enough people she gets fired.

And no teacher was going to get judged on the "sole" opinion or performance of a single student. They were (are) being judged on the overall performance of the students they work with.

FWIW...I will say that I agree that a 17% increase is ridiculous. I am a teacher and have seen a 0% increase in 5 years.

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by DWavs

Wait a minute...isn't that single student part of the overall performance??

Yes, of course it is. It's "part." Hence, not "sole."

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by DWavs

FWIW...I will say that I agree that a 17% increase is ridiculous. I am a teacher and have seen a 0% increase in 5 years.

I was a teacher, and when I wanted a raise, I found a job that paid better.

[Rabbi]

Originally Posted by RenoF250

To say that would imply that they can do it now but choose not to because they are not paid enough. You would be happy with that?

That is a very fine insight. I mean that.


However, I dont expect people to do what they have not contracted to do. Right now, they dont (most teachers dont) have too many benchmarks in their contracts (related to pay)

Understanding this, I would like to (as devildog does) wants to tie a pay increase to new contractual obligations.

[aplcr0331]

Originally Posted by Jade Falcon

Thank you. I'm sick of all this "thier Obama supporters, so they automatically suck" attitude. Shut up. MOST of them deserve a raise, just for working in Chicago.

As Steven alluded to, I was being sarcastic. I still have yet to meet a teacher who did not tell me they teach in the environment I listed above. Not one.

Still have not met a teacher who will tell me, as a percentage, how much of an effect they have on their students. 10%, 35%, 75%? I always see these great posters on Facebook about how there would be no professionals without teachers, yada-yada-yada, what influence do you have?

Is it always the parents fault? Always? Then conversely it must also be the parents fault when things go right, as they often do with some students. Can't have it both ways you either influence the students or you don't. Which is it, and by how much?

[certifiedfunds]

Originally Posted by DWavs

FWIW...I will say that I agree that a 17% increase is ridiculous. I am a teacher and have seen a 0% increase in 5 years.

So are you seeking other employment?

[CAcop]

Originally Posted by certifiedfunds

So are you seeking other employment?

Statistically speaking if he has less than 5 years in it is about 50/50.

[certifiedfunds]

Originally Posted by CAcop

Statistically speaking if he has less than 5 years in it is about 50/50.

No shortage of teachers out there. I'm sure filling the position isn't a problem.

[jpa]

If I get a pay raise I'll make it rain skittles.

[CAcop]

Originally Posted by certifiedfunds

No shortage of teachers out there. I'm sure filling the position isn't a problem.

Apparently not. Apparently it is not that hard to fill the same positions every 5 years.

I have met people over the years who went into teaching only to get out pretty quickly. They tend to fall into two camps. Those that realize they really don't have all their summers off and those that get burnt on the kids/parents/admin.

The ones that stay seem to be the ones who create a lesson plan that they can use year after year with little, if any, changes and it doesn't bother them to teach to a test.

[ugly8604]

Is the OP really stupid enough to believe teachers can change whether or not teenagers will drop out or even learn anything in high school if they don't want to? By the time they get to high school most of those kids have seen more than most adults outside of the big city. If they want to stay, they'll stay, if not, there's nothing a single teacher can do about it.

Some people are COMPLETELY out of touch with reality, and they tend to have the biggest mouths.

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by ugly8604

Is the OP really stupid enough to believe teachers can change whether or not teenagers will drop out or even learn anything in high school if they don't want to?

If the teachers don't affect the behavior or learning of their students, then why do we pay them?

I have been an educator. I have taught college, I have taught high school, and I teach in the Chicago Public School system--for free, as a volunteer. I have the ability to do so because I happen to hold a job that pays very well, and it both encourages me to engage in social impact activities and gives me the flexibility to do so.

The fact is (we do a lot of pro bono work for CPS, so I get to look at this data) teachers can and do make a difference. It's a profession where it's very difficult to quantify the precise impact that a particular teacher has on a particular student, but it's not at all difficult to measure the total impact that the teachers have on all of the students together.

You can't have a "negotiation" simply by making demands. A negotiation should consist of demands coupled with offers: "If you do this, I'll do that." What did the Chicago Teacher's Union offer in exchange for the 17% raise they demanded?

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by CAcop

The ones that stay seem to be the ones who create a lesson plan that they can use year after year with little, if any, changes and it doesn't bother them to teach to a test.

And those are exactly the ones we don't WANT staying. Those are the ones who are overpaid.

There is another category: Those that stay because they really, truly love teaching and see it as a calling. These teachers are very much underpaid.

But the way we've constructed our teacher pay scale, both of these teachers get paid the same. It's criminally lazy. Pay great teachers more and bad teachers less.

[certifiedfunds]

Originally Posted by ugly8604

Is the OP really stupid enough to believe teachers can change whether or not teenagers will drop out or even learn anything in high school if they don't want to? By the time they get to high school most of those kids have seen more than most adults outside of the big city. If they want to stay, they'll stay, if not, there's nothing a single teacher can do about it.

Some people are COMPLETELY out of touch with reality, and they tend to have the biggest mouths.

If they're ineffective, shouldn't we be cutting pay?

[CAcop]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

And those are exactly the ones we don't WANT staying. Those are the ones who are overpaid.

There is another category: Those that stay because they really, truly love teaching and see it as a calling. These teachers are very much underpaid.

But the way we've constructed our teacher pay scale, both of these teachers get paid the same. It's criminally lazy. Pay great teachers more and bad teachers less.

It's going to take a whole lot of people in the room to try to come up with a fair performance evaluation. Holding ghetto high school teachers to the same standards as suburban elementary kids is going to be problematic. Teachers, parents, admin, and politicians not trying to score points with the public are going to have to work it out.

To be honest even the teachers who were good and loved teaching still used the same lesson plans year after year.

I think the 50% in 5 year dropout rate for teachers has a lot to do with the fact that at least here in CA it is only an extra year of college to get the teaching credential and then 5 years of teaching and continuing ed for the permanent. The fresh grads think, "Cool summers off." Then they realize they need to start taking classes, reading books, going to seminars, etc. to keep teaching. Now they have to decide when they are going to take essentially summer school or night school. And it is not like the school district is going to pay them for their time or expense. Who knows, they might need to do it more like cops where our training is provided by the employer.

I know if I had gotten a teaching credential in college I would have been blind to the continuing ed requirements or I would have been less aware of the impact. Now I know and would be prepared for it. I would factor that into my decision to teach.

I also think teaching my be leftover from our early days when unmarried women or married men would teach. The married men would do it for years and the unmarried women would do it until they found a man. And if they never found a man they would stick with it until they died or retired.

[dango]

Originally Posted by CaptCave

It's not completely a teacher problem, a large part of the problem is PARENTS.

Or lack there of any parenting!

[INJoker]

DevilDog,

The teachers I know aren't upset about being measured against a high standard. In fact, many of them welcome that. They're upset because the criteria they're being measured against do not reflect reality.

DWavs made a bit of a mistake in his analogies earlier, but let's touch on that thread for a minute:

Asking teachers to overcome all imaginable family, social and lifestyle factors to guarantee equal progress and/or equal outcomes for all students is the underlying goal of most teacher evaluation programs I've seen. Doing this assumes that all children are born equally intelligent to equally intelligent, educated parents. It assumes that these children are all proficient in English and that their families facilitate and encourage educational progress in the home. It assumes their parents read to all of them at night and help them with their homework. This approach assumes that these children all have identical levels of intrinsic motivation, self control and aptitude.

It would literally be akin to asking a family physician to guarantee that a 30-year-old patient who smokes two packs a day, drinks a six-pack a night, abuses drugs, routinely forgets to bathe or brush his teeth, eats junk food, never exercises, stays up late playing video games, who has high blood pressure and a family history of heart disease, stroke and cancer and who has no willpower to live an even remotely healthy lifestyle whatsoever will live as long as an educated, responsible marathoner who eats well, gets plenty of sleep each night, does not drink, smoke or use drugs and who has no family history of any form of illness.

Is it possible these two men could live to the same age? Indeed. Is it even possible the slob could outlive the health-nut? Sure.

But can you honestly ask the doctor to treat both of them in such a capacity that they are both guaranteed an equal standard of living and lifespan? Absolutely not.

Now imagine that the slob spends 7 hours per day with the doctor and attempts to clean up his act during the day, yet as soon as he leaves the doctor's office he goes back to his filthy apartment full of booze, junk food, cigarettes and drugs to a family that encourages him to stop seeing the doctor and instead partake in all of these unhealthy activities in order to fit in.

Does that slob really stand a chance? Can that doctor really make a difference?

GT loves to harp on and on about personal responsibility almost as much as GT loves to ***** about teachers, yet nobody on GT will blame the people most directly linked to the success of their children in ANY educational program: the parents.

I also never see quantitative analysis of data showing the correlations between parents income level, education level and involvement in their child's education to the child's chances for academic success.

[INJoker]

Originally Posted by CAcop

I think the 50% in 5 year dropout rate for teachers has a lot to do with the fact that at least here in CA it is only an extra year of college to get the teaching credential and then 5 years of teaching and continuing ed for the permanent. The fresh grads think, "Cool summers off." Then they realize they need to start taking classes, reading books, going to seminars, etc. to keep teaching. Now they have to decide when they are going to take essentially summer school or night school. And it is not like the school district is going to pay them for their time or expense.

Here in Indiana, 50% of teachers are out of the classroom within 5 years as well.

Here in Indiana, teachers start at roughly $30,000 per year, with the option to earn an extra ~$2,000 for teaching summer school.

Teacher salaries are capped after 20 years of service in the district I live in at $54,000 for Bachelor's degree-holders and $64,000 for Master's degree-holders.

Do you know what the average salary is for someone with an M.B.A. in Indiana? Conservative numbers put a starting M.B.A. salary at about $66,000 - or MORE than a 20-year teacher with a Master's in Education.

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools...928_592028.htm

Both of the teachers that I am related to work longer hours than I do for much lower pay and lesser benefits. The ONLY thing they have going for them is the "summers off" gig, except the district I live in just went to a year-round calendar.

At my last job, which did not require a college degree, I made twice what the average teacher with 10 years of experience and a Master's degree in my district makes. I had six weeks of vacation per year, a ridiculous benefit plan and I worked roughly 35 hours per week.

When I hear people talk about how great and easy teaching jobs are, I just want to slap them. Hard.

[INJoker]

Educate yourselves here:

http://www.hoosierdata.in.gov/docs/h..._2012-stwd.pdf

$55K for a public school teacher with a Bachelor's degree or higher plus experience
$56K for an RN with an ASSOCIATE'S DEGREE

[Rabbi]

Originally Posted by INJoker

Do you know what the average salary is for someone with an M.B.A. in Indiana? Conservative numbers put a starting M.B.A. salary at about $66,000 - or MORE than a 20-year teacher with a Master's in Education.

We all know that not all degrees lead to the same income.

Having said that, a Masters in Education is considered one of the easiest (and is panned for being so) masters to get. An MBA on the other hand, can be a very valuable degree and is somewhere on the upper end of the middle in terms of difficulty to obtains.

The other issue is use. People who get a masters in education pretty much universally teach (or needed to get the fastest and easiest masters they could for some other reason) They dont have a lot of channels to enter into with that degree.

Someone who gets and MBA can do a very large number of things for a very large number of industries.

A quick last thought and probably the most poignant...What does someone with an MBA do?...manage, and often ending up at the executive level. What does someone with a Masters of Education do?...the same thing, still teaching, now with incentive pay. So, at the most basic level, the MBA does something more and differant. The Masters in Education does the same things, just (in theory) better.

The compensation of each reflects all of these things.

To be flippant, your comparison is silly. Why dont you just compare Masters of Education to MSME guy...they get close to 6 figures for a starting point.

[Rabbi]

Originally Posted by INJoker

Educate yourselves here:

http://www.hoosierdata.in.gov/docs/h..._2012-stwd.pdf

$55K for a public school teacher with a Bachelor's degree or higher plus experience
$56K for an RN with an ASSOCIATE'S DEGREE

So be an RN. There really is no other rational answer.

Have you seen the starting salary for a petroleum engineer? Using your logic, person with womans study degree should make a similar amount. It doesnt work that way.

[INJoker]

Rabbi,

I provided the data for comparison purposes only...

What I'm getting at is the fact that I almost universally hear that teachers are "overpaid" and whenever they want a wage increase, it's deemed extortion by GT-at-large.

I was simply trying to illustrate that, all things being equal, teachers have a low starting salary, modest mid-career salary and modest end-of-career salary relative to other occupations which require the same level of education or experience.