If you are wondering why education is going down the tubes…(long post)

[wellyes]

ITA with the above, but you also can have the flip side, where performance must come up a certain %. Pretty hard to do if you're students are already at the top, right? You can see that reflected in the grading system some states use. Why should teachers stay at the good schools in that case? Either way, performance pay is a bad idea.

Right. I think the problem is that performance doesn't matter, only IMPROVEMENT matters. Our state is very education oriented has lots of high performing schools that regularly fail to improve because they're at their edge. It's a dumb measurement system.


I work in corporate America and regularly see the scorecards that companies measure their groups by. And let me tell you, there is a whole lot of "sympathetic math". Companies set the standards that they must live up to- they tend to set attainable goals, and reset the goals (in other words, completely rewrite them) every few years. In many measures it is easy to appear to be constantly improving in the private sector. If they all had to live up to the same standards, across the nation and across industries, it would be a bloodbath.

Of course, the real way private companies and industry measure themselves is by profit and revenues. That's a concrete measure with real consequences. Obviously schools can't do anything like that --- because they aren't part of the for-profit system. Yet. Thank goodness.

[maestramommy]

We have something similar going in our district. Teacher raises (cost of living only) have failed to pass for the 2nd year in a row. the K class size has gone up considerably in one school because one of the teachers was either laid off, or retired and was not replaced. A number of cuts were made because our state legislature want to contribute less and less each year to the towns for education. And the percentage in cuts is very significant year by year. Our particular district is considered one of the top in the state, and our property taxes reflect that. Yet even though it is a drop in the bucket compared to towns in other states, some of the residents are grousing about the way taxes have gone up. There's even a taxpayers association that comes out to vote in droves every year against almost everything that will raise property taxes.

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

I do think somehow teaching positions need to be tied to the teachers performance. In my district when there are cuts the first to go are ALWAYS the new teachers who can not possibly always be the weakest. I agree that teachers are way underpaid and always vote to pass whatever levy is put on the table.

[Hawkeyewife]

We have lived in two different school districts in two different states due to my husband's job and my kids have attended/attend 3 elementary schools (one charter school, and now a neighborhood elem and a full time gifted school.)

I guess we have been VERY lucky. The teachers in our district are paid well, have supplies and parents and PTAs that support them financially and in the classroom. I don't want to sound braggy, but my kids have smart boards, computers, I-Pads etc in their classrooms, art and science labs, music enrichment, PE everyday etc... and we haven't lived in very rich or exclusive neighborhoods (comfortably middle class.)

My sister lives in the Northern VA and just finished a Master's in Ed in the spring after living overseas for many years and not working (Undergrad in Art History) and was hired 2 days before the beginning of the school year making $50k teaching a 4th grade class. Her two kids (2nd and K also attend the school.) So far, so good, she got lesson plan help from a neighbor that has been a teacher for some time and she hasn't spent a cent of her own money on school related items. I know my sister hasn't been teaching very long, but so far its not THAT hard, at least for her. These are her words...

Maybe we are in the minority. If we move to an area with less desirable schools, I plan on home schooling.

Maybe it due to the fact that we move so frequently due to DHs job, but is it out of the question to move to an area that pays better/appreciates their teachers etc. My sister got a job in a very competitive area about a month after coming back to the US, so it is not impossible.

[ahisma]

My sister lives in the Northern VA and just finished a Master's in Ed in the spring after living overseas for many years and not working (Undergrad in Art History) and was hired 2 days before the beginning of the school year making $50k teaching a 4th grade class. Her two kids (2nd and K also attend the school.) So far, so good, she got lesson plan help from a neighbor that has been a teacher for some time and she hasn't spent a cent of her own money on school related items. I know my sister hasn't been teaching very long, but so far its not THAT hard, at least for her. These are her words...

My DH has a Masters + 30 (30 credits beyond a Master's degree), scads of CEU's (more than required), 16 years in the classroom and will make less than $60K this year after health care costs. Oh, and the health care won't even cover an OT evaluation for DS2. Oh, and no tenure either. He has always gotten an "outstanding" on his evaluations, but that no tenure is still stressful. He's one of the top paid teachers at the school due to seniority and education, which is pretty stressful when they need to make cuts. If he were to move to a different district he'd start at the bottom - $30K / year if we're lucky.

He took on a freelance writing gig to try to help make ends meet, but with his increased class size and the resulting increased grading he doesn't have time to do it so I've been doing it.

I guess this makes me sound pretty bitter - I'm not really. He is an excellent teacher and truly loves the classroom. It's just getting harder and harder to actually live on a teacher's salary, which stinks. It just sucks to see him feel so under-appreciated at what should be the prime of his career.

[Clarity]

My sister lives in the Northern VA and just finished a Master's in Ed in the spring after living overseas for many years and not working (Undergrad in Art History) and was hired 2 days before the beginning of the school year making $50k teaching a 4th grade class. Her two kids (2nd and K also attend the school.) So far, so good, she got lesson plan help from a neighbor that has been a teacher for some time and she hasn't spent a cent of her own money on school related items. I know my sister hasn't been teaching very long, but so far its not THAT hard, at least for her. These are her words...

I just wanted to comment that $50,000 a year didn't really seem like a lot when you compare cost of living. Is your sister married? I would think that trying to raise children on $50,000 a year would be pretty challenging in the No. Virginia area unless you are 1/2 of a dual income. In my lower COL area, that $50,000 equates to about a $32,500 a year annual salary. A reasonable starting salary, but far less than someone with an advanced degree would wish to make, I'm sure. I wouldn't consider that "middle class", would you?

[wellyes]

We are talking about $50k for someone without professional experience. A very reasonable starting salary for someone fresh out of school, and I assume it is 20somethings who are usually in that spot of getting that starting wage.

Still, I don't buy the argument that teachers are terribly underpaid based on them having grad degrees. Because a teaching masters is kinda like an MBA imo - very common and not particularly difficult to accomplish. There is a reason engineers and scientists make more starting out with just a BS.

[ahisma]

We are talking about $50k for someone without professional experience. A very reasonable starting salary for someone fresh out of school, and I assume it is 20somethings who are usually in that spot of getting that starting wage.

Still, I don't buy the argument that teachers are terribly underpaid based on them having grad degrees. Because a teaching masters is kinda like an MBA imo - very common and not particularly difficult to accomplish. There is a reason engineers and scientists make more starting out with just a BS.

Respectfully, teaching is a damn hard profession, done well. I graduated from law school with high honors and I know for a fact that I couldn't hack it as a teacher.

[bubbaray]

Still, I don't buy the argument that teachers are terribly underpaid based on them having grad degrees.

No one will ever convince me that teaching is hard. Period. Teachers here earn insanely high salaries relative to the amount of education they have -- and they get 3m of paid vacation annually (2m summer, 2w Christmas and 2w Spring Break), plus 6 pro-D days (and they want 5 more, but that ain't happening, as the media just busted a HS pro-D day that involved playing games at a dude ranch).

I know many many teachers IRL and they work 8:30 to 3, on a long day. Once they have a couple of years of experience and lesson plans, its just routine -- no prep involved, they just show up each day and teach. They get regular breaks through the day. They don't even have to mark at night b/c they get marking time during the work day. Every single person I knew in university who went into teaching did so b/c they did not get into any other professional school and they wanted buckets of vacation time -- nice motivation!

Trust me, as someone who has practiced law for almost 2 decades now, teaching is a cakewalk compared to litigation. I can't remember the last time I took a lunch or coffee break. I certainly don't get 3m holidays a year and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to take it due to crushing workloads.

I don't have anything against teachers making a fair wage for their relative schooling. But I definitely do not think that they are underpaid and overworked.

[wellyes]

Oh I totally agree that the job is extremely difficult - I could not do it. I truly was just commenting that the degree programs are often not that challenging, especially compared to technical or science-based advanced degrees. Like MBAs, anyone who wants one and is willing to pay for it can get it. Not to say it's not work, but the entry bar is pretty low and the success rate is very high, which tarnishes the professional prestige of the degree.