General complaints about American public education.

[Zorba]

This is largely true and it's demoralizing for the good teachers because they see the shitbags get paid the same and if anything, do less work because nobody wants those terrible teachers to touch anything.

Sadly, the primary opponents of merit pay are the teachers' unions, not the people running the system they work for.

This is how nearly all union jobs works. I really don't see how it could be much different for teachers. If you stack ranked teachers (base on what?) every parent would demand their kids are put in the top the class. Average teachers would be pissed that they have the same responsibilities for less pay, etc.

Pilots, Mechanics, etc are all the same. They get paid based on years of experience, there are some great ones, there are some poor ones and a lot of average ones. The only way to get more money is work more or move into a high pay scale or into management.

Also teachers can end up making pretty good money, especially when you consider they work ~180 days a year as compared to 260 for a standard office job. In NYC you max out at around $140k as a teacher before per session work or other incentives (which could add up to $30-40k) which is about $200k if you convert that to a 260 day work year. The main issue is that in the first few years salaries really aren't great and that's when people need money the most but again, thank the unions.

First, I don't think this is typical for most of the country. I think the Oklahoma scales max out around 55K, which is similar to most of the shit states.

Second, your 180 teaching days and 260 "normal work days" is comparing apples and oranges. The 260 is assuming no vacation, holidays, or sick leave, while the 180 is looking at teaching days only, not including non-teaching work days. The more accurate comparison would probably be 210 to 260, or 190 to 230.

Either way, the extra vacation is nice, and is worth something, but it's not like they can get an equivalent job for the 10 weeks of summer, besides for summer teaching.

 

[woolfe9998]

Confidence in public schools have reached record lows due to republicans. The polls show it is republicans whose confidence is declining. The same republicans who listen to people like Tucker Carlson alleging that "CRT" is taught in schools.

Americans’ faith in public education nears record lows: poll

Overall, 28% of Americans say they have a “great deal/quite a lot” of confidence in the country’s school systems, barely beating the record low from 2014.

nypost.com

 

[vi edit]

Also the same people pushing for vouchers to "defund" public schools. It's almost as if it's an intentional effort to destroy another pillar of our society. Huh.

 

[fskimospy]

Confidence in public schools have reached record lows due to republicans. The polls show it is republicans whose confidence is declining. The same republicans who listen to people like Tucker Carlson alleging that "CRT" is taught in schools.

Americans’ faith in public education nears record lows: poll

Overall, 28% of Americans say they have a “great deal/quite a lot” of confidence in the country’s school systems, barely beating the record low from 2014.

nypost.com

Although this is definitely a framing issue as well:

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/NPR-Ipsos-Parent-Child-Education-04282022

Like I said, people have low confidence in all those other schools. The one their kids attend? Looking good!

 

[fskimospy]

This is how nearly all union jobs works. I really don't see how it could be much different for teachers. If you stack ranked teachers (base on what?) every parent would demand their kids are put in the top the class. Average teachers would be pissed that they have the same responsibilities for less pay, etc.

Pilots, Mechanics, etc are all the same. They get paid based on years of experience, there are some great ones, there are some poor ones and a lot of average ones. The only way to get more money is work more or move into a high pay scale or into management.

DC public schools does merit pay - it's definitely something that could be done other places but the unions fight against it pretty hard.

As far as rating teachers go there's a lot of stupidity that goes on here. Rating teachers should be returned to the way it used to be, which is the way it is in most jobs, the judgment of their supervisor. These value added models are so fucking stupid and they give the impression of some sort of specificity and mathematic rigor where very little actually exists.

Source: used to make value add education models.

First, I don't think this is typical for most of the country. I think the Oklahoma scales max out around 55K, which is similar to most of the shit states.

Second, your 180 teaching days and 260 "normal work days" is comparing apples and oranges. The 260 is assuming no vacation, holidays, or sick leave, while the 180 is looking at teaching days only, not including non-teaching work days. The more accurate comparison would probably be 210 to 260, or 190 to 230.

That's fair, although teachers also get sick/vacation days so it would be more like 170 to 230.

Either way, the extra vacation is nice, and is worth something, but it's not like they can get an equivalent job for the 10 weeks of summer, besides for summer teaching.

Summer teaching pays $54 an hour in NYC. It's not bad!

 

[dainthomas]

Although this is definitely a framing issue as well:

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/NPR-Ipsos-Parent-Child-Education-04282022

Like I said, people have low confidence in all those other schools. The one their kids attend? Looking good!

It's like how congress has a lower approval than antibiotic resistant vd, but they keep getting reelected. "The rest are terrible but mine's great!"

 

[fskimospy]

It's like how congress has a lower approval than antibiotic resistant vd, but they keep getting reelected. "The rest are terrible but mine's great!"

@Homerboy raised this as well but I think it misses an important point - when people say they like their school what they are saying is they like the services output by the school to their children, which is the goal of the school. So they are saying their school as an entity is doing a good job.

When it comes to congressmen people think their guy is great but congress as an entity is doing a bad job. I think it would be more analogous to thinking your kid's math teacher is great but that the school as a whole sucks.

 

[Zorba]

DC public schools does merit pay - it's definitely something that could be done other places but the unions fight against it pretty hard.

As far as rating teachers go there's a lot of stupidity that goes on here. Rating teachers should be returned to the way it used to be, which is the way it is in most jobs, the judgment of their supervisor. These value added models are so fucking stupid and they give the impression of some sort of specificity and mathematic rigor where very little actually exists.

The problem is, the supervisor isn't a consumer of the product nor can they really empathize with the customer. They also have very limited viewing opportunities. Therefore, while a lot supervisors would probably do a decent job, a lot would also base their reviews off completely subjective items or the value added models.

Of course, schools should be able to get rid of truly bad teachers.

I'm sure there are ways it could be done, but again there are 131,000 schools in the US, it is very likely to not be a fair system in a lot of those places. Even if done well, the ultimate difference in pay would likely be within 10%, for the same responsibilities. I don't that'll make the difference in getting good teachers, and might drive away good one with crappy bosses.

ETA: Do you know how DC does it? And if there has been a positive outcome of it?

 

[fskimospy]

The problem is, the supervisor isn't a consumer of the product nor can they really empathize with the customer.

I don't think that's true. School leadership directly interfaces with the kids and their parents on a regular basis.

They also have very limited viewing opportunities. Therefore, while a lot supervisors would probably do a decent job, a lot would also base their reviews off completely subjective items or the value added models.

Sure, any merit pay system would have to be coupled with a good evaluation system but I really do think pedagogic leaders are effective evaluators of their teachers. Most observation based evaluation systems include more than just a few formal observations as well. Yes, you'll still get some shitty managers but that's true about anywhere.

Of course, schools should be able to get rid of truly bad teachers.

I'm sure there are ways it could be done, but again there are 131,000 schools in the US, it is very likely to not be a fair system in a lot of those places. Even if done well, the ultimate difference in pay would likely be within 10%, for the same responsibilities. I don't that'll make the difference in getting good teachers, and might drive away good one with crappy bosses.

In DC it's about 20% as compared to the max teacher salary but at lower salary levels where most people are it can really make a pretty significant difference.

In my personal opinion we have a pretty good idea of when teachers are at their best and it's somewhere around years 7-8 to 15. They've learned enough about the job to be good at it but they aren't old and burned out yet and are still interested in getting better. We should incentivize pay structures to get as many teachers as possible into this 'good' band and especially for newer teachers that merit pay can be important as it comprises a much larger percentage of your salary early on than it does in your later earning years.

ETA: Do you know how DC does it? And if there has been a positive outcome of it?

From my (very basic) understanding each year or for consecutive years you get a few thousand dollar bump to your base pay if you're rated in the top tier of teachers.

I haven't spent a ton of time reading the research on this but from my understanding it has a statistically significant positive effect on student outcomes.

 

[woolfe9998]

Although this is definitely a framing issue as well:

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/NPR-Ipsos-Parent-Child-Education-04282022

Like I said, people have low confidence in all those other schools. The one their kids attend? Looking good!

Yes, it will depend on what question is asked. However, if the general question is asked of how they assess American public education, republicans consistently rate it lower. Always have. But the gap has widened these past couple years. And that is almost certainly due to a ramping up of conservative culture war rhetoric over schools.

The fact that parents tend to rate their children's own schools much higher than they assess schools they know nothing about also confirms that the issue is fundamentally political. And born of deceptive propaganda, since that is what would cause people to have a bad opinion of schools they have no experience with.

 

[Vic]

I don't know that much about Virginia in particular but as far as I can tell pretty much exactly what I said - Youngkin scared parents with nefarious ideas of what was being taught in *someone else's school* and said it was coming for their school next.

People tend to be afraid of things they don't understand, and especially afraid that other people might find out they don't understand. This is where politicians use buzzwords to both mask and flame those fears. Common core was actually just parents' fear that their children were being taught math they didn't understand (non-base 10). And CRT is the fear many people have that their children will be taught that their parents are racists.

 

[Vic]

Confidence in public schools have reached record lows due to republicans. The polls show it is republicans whose confidence is declining. The same republicans who listen to people like Tucker Carlson alleging that "CRT" is taught in schools.

Americans’ faith in public education nears record lows: poll

Overall, 28% of Americans say they have a “great deal/quite a lot” of confidence in the country’s school systems, barely beating the record low from 2014.

nypost.com

Republicans hate the schools because teachers generally vote Democratic. Same reason they love the police, because cops generally vote Republican.
There's some complexity to this, such as that conservatives tend to have an underlying fear for the advancement of knowledge, and respect the enforcers of authority, but otherwise the issue is mostly binary and about votes.

 

[biostud]

I've been a teacher 10 years and 4 years a vice principal at a private school in Denmark, and while I do feel that more is expected of the school and staff, I still enjoy the work.

 

[fskimospy]

Republicans hate the schools because teachers generally vote Democratic. Same reason they love the police, because cops generally vote Republican.
There's some complexity to this, such as that conservatives tend to have an underlying fear for the advancement of knowledge, and respect the enforcers of authority, but otherwise the issue is mostly binary and about votes.

It's very telling that whenever Republicans attack public sector unions they very explicitly leave the police unions out despite those unions being emblematic of every complaint Republicans have about unions. If teachers started voting Republican tomorrow I'm sure the Republicans would discover a newfound love of learning.

 

[Wreckem]

Bad teachers exist because of bad admins who don’t do you job.

Bad teachers can be gotten rid of even in union states. The issue is most admin don’t do the work to get them released or moved.

I can only speak for Texas but

187 is the standard teacher contract. Grading and other tasks, plus planning for the following year are forced unpaid overtime. When I was a teacher I worked 60+ hrs a week for the 200 days of my contract.

Unions don’t exist and teachers get fired regularly if they admins do their job.

But right now it’s moot as their is a massive teacher shortage, as well as an admin shortage.

FYI Dallas ISD has a pay for performance pay system. They are probably the largest district that has one. So far it doesn’t seemed to of helped get new good teachers but has kept good teachers from moving into admin. Well paid teachers forgo admin because of the initial paycuts that would take several years to reach parity and you lose the summer. So more workdays and less pay.

Nows a great time for highly competent people in education because they can move up rapidly.

 

[Uhtrinity]

Our school is roughly in the top 20 k-8 school in our state performance wise and even though our parents are more engaged, it's really not by much. After 16 years of teaching computer science / technology I will say most parents are not actively engaged, they really don't follow their children closely. I also manage PowerSchool and have for over 15 years, so I also see the participation numbers for the student and parent portal. The parent numbers are dismal. Our 6th - 8th grade teacher now require students to log into the student portal at least once a week. The talk of 'CRT' comes up occasionally, but almost none of our parents really care and seem to trust us. Now, we are a public charter school and follow all state standards. Most CRT complaints we have heard are from people not even in our district, and in general people who don't even have student aged children. About 18 months to 2 years ago we did have some parents complain that an 8th grade teacher was teaching 'political current events', but this was in the context of US government. They literally complained that the teacher said Trump had been impeached twice in the house. I agree with some earlier comments, most parents see school as a babysitter, the education seems to be a bonus.

 

[brandonbull]

Confidence in public schools have reached record lows due to republicans. The polls show it is republicans whose confidence is declining. The same republicans who listen to people like Tucker Carlson alleging that "CRT" is taught in schools.

Americans’ faith in public education nears record lows: poll

Overall, 28% of Americans say they have a “great deal/quite a lot” of confidence in the country’s school systems, barely beating the record low from 2014.

nypost.com

Because the education system in the US has mainly been controlled by the Progressives the last several decades and kids seem to be falling behind on a global scale each year. I guess it's the Republicans' fault?

 

[woolfe9998]

Because the education system in the US has mainly been controlled by the Progressives the last several decades and kids seem to be falling behind on a global scale each year. I guess it's the Republicans' fault?

Have you ever had an original thought in your life?

 

[Vic]

Because the education system in the US has mainly been controlled by the Progressives the last several decades and kids seem to be falling behind on a global scale each year. I guess it's the Republicans' fault?

How do you explain the fact that the countries with better education systems are even more progressive?

 

[Vic]

Have you ever had an original thought in your life?

I'm fairly convinced he's a bot, as he doesn't ever engage in 2-way discussion or otherwise pass the Turing test. Just shits some regurgitated talking point and runs, every time.

 

[Zor Prime]

I don't have an opinion on this matter but I can relay what I have recently discovered.

I knew that learning cursive was being phased out for some reason that I can only imagine as being a bad idea, but I've gotten to know well a 3.9 student that's currently attending high school that doesn't know how to:

1) Write cursive (outside of signing their name, maybe.)
2) Count coins
3) Read an analog clock

And this kid is a 3.9 student in CA. Probability alone would have it this is not an isolated thing.

I went to school in hillbilly central and I learned that shit in elementary school. If I or my classmates somehow made it to middle school and it got found out we couldn't do those basic things we'd been ridiculed by peers.

How in the actual fuck, I don't even know.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Because the education system in the US has mainly been controlled by the Progressives the last several decades and kids seem to be falling behind on a global scale each year. I guess it's the Republicans' fault?

like no child left behind?

 

[Fenixgoon]

I don't have an opinion on this matter but I can relay what I have recently discovered.

I knew that learning cursive was being phased out for some reason that I can only imagine as being a bad idea, but I've gotten to know well a 3.9 student that's currently attending high school that doesn't know how to:

1) Write cursive (outside of signing their name, maybe.)
2) Count coins
3) Read an analog clock

And this kid is a 3.9 student in CA. Probability alone would have it this is not an isolated thing.

I went to school in hillbilly central and I learned that shit in elementary school. If I or my classmates somehow made it to middle school and it got found out we couldn't do those basic things we'd been ridiculed by peers.

How in the actual fuck, I don't even know.

Why does anyone need to write cursive at all? Its harder to reader than print and most formal documents are going to be typed.

Count coins as in... pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters?

Most clocks are digital now. It's like complaining a modern kid has no idea how to use a rotary phone. Of course they don't. It's been replaced by something else

 

[ch33zw1z]

Why does anyone need to write cursive at all? Its harder to reader than print and most formal documents are going to be typed.

Count coins as in... pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters?

Most clocks are digital now. It's like complaining a modern kid has no idea how to use a rotary phone. Of course they don't. It's been replaced by something else

teach your kids to write cursive and read an analog clock. Rely on schools to teach relevant skills in society. Makes sense.

all of a sudden now the schools are supposed to replace parents? 😏

 

[brycejones]

, I don't even know.

Yep, that’s obvious