Do you want a teacher who would make 100k+ a year, or do you want a teacher who can't make 50k+ so they became a teacher instead?

The point is pvn and I agree on something. Which means I'm not some knee-jerk liberal. pvn however is an AC-ist which means there are no gray areas and every problem is solved by a simple axiom.

And where the hell did I call anyone stupid?

Definitely. Parents should be graded as well, as they certainly carry a large responsibility, namely their children. So many of them are just big children. So many of them are totally oblivious.

Also, I have yet to read an argument considering the teacher's role and strategy in the game of teaching, other than complaints that they follow the incentive to get a cheap masters.

A lot of the school system and politics inside and politics outside work against teachers' and students' best interest. It is HARDLY the case that all or most teachers are just total failures everywhere else. There are just as many inept and incompetent people in the private sector, GUARANTEED!

I feel like the argument that teachers are goodI or bad or overpaid or not is like saying the person who won tournament X is clearly the best player in the field. There are simply too many other variables, many of which are intangible and too complex, to lump all teachers into such a category, as simply "teachers," and make such decisions.

I'll reject this premise. Many teachers get fired before they ever get tenured. Happens all the time. This idea that you get a teaching job and then never have to worry for the rest of your life about being terminated is largely inaccurate. At the school I'm in (smallish school Kansas) every teacher gets an evaluation each semester no matter how long they have been there. New teachers get evaluated 8 times by 2 different administrators (basically you have an evaluation team). 2nd year teachers get evaluated 6 times a semester unless they are graded at a certain level from the first year.

In my three years there I know for a fact we have let 5 high school teachers go due to a lack of performance.

Oh yeah and all these evaluations take time and money and might (gasp) require some spending on education. A LOT of money in education is spent on special needs kids as well. At my hometown school they built a new room for one special needs kid. We can argue on whether or not that should happen, but everyone needs to keep in mind public schools are responsible for educating all.

As an educator I think it's ludicrous to have a rubber room, (which I've never heard of in Kansas) ludicrous to not fire someone who isn't getting the job done, etc. You won't find me in disagreement that many things in education need fixed. You will find me in disagreement of blanket generalizing every teacher as overpaid and basically those arguing that can go to hell until they've tried my job

Most of these things people mention like rubber rooms, teachers making huge salaries, etc just aren't consistent on the whole. It's people finding some special cases and saying "look at this!" It's pretty intellectually dishonest at best and I think most know it. I'm right there with you guys in being pissed off at those kind of things and you won't find any educators that matter who aren't.

Well LA Unified is the 2nd biggest district in the country, and they fired 4 teachers for bad performance over 10 years (out of 33k teachers) - they tried to fire 3 others but failed. The whole thing cost them $3.5M, or $500k per attempted firing. So usually they just offer the teacher $50k or something to go away. They really are a horror story.

I linked to my post on them earlier itt. Here's one of the articles I read: http://www.laweekly.com/content/printVersion/854792/ The liberal LA Times did a whole series a few years back on how ****ed up LA Unified is.

And the idea that something like that could be allowed to happen is stupid and outrageous. I still don't think this is representative of the ability to get rid of someone in the vast majority of school districts.

I added a fun link to that post if you want to read up.

As far as stupid and outrageous, their union fights to keep it that way. It's a bargaining chip and gives them more power. I realize it's much harder to get away with that in smallish town KS. But the more powerful the union, combined with a lot of really bad neighborhoods and troubled kids, is a very bad combination.

Lol ironyaments

Oh hey, another ****ed up thing in California. Therefore, the rest of the US is exactly like it.

Suzzer

That article says they got rid of more than four people so not sure why you keep claiming that. Where did KC get involved? Is that you mom's anecdote?

4 teachers for bad performance. Did you even read the article? Can you at least read this much below?

My Mom used to work for the KC school district, as did some other family members, and I went there off an on until 8th grade. KC just recently had to shut down over 1/3 of their schools because of declining enrollment (charter schools are killing them). But of course they went on with excess capacity for over a decade until they finally had to admit they were way overstaffed.

Do you really think this kind of stuff isn't the norm for large urban districts? Care to point to some well-run districts so I can read up?

I admit that the most colossal of school districts have issues like this.

But seriously, well run districts don't get any press. It's just not juicy enough. It's like trying to find sports articles about great referees.

Well then we need to come up with a new solution for the colossal urban districts. They're giving the rest of you a bad name.

I agree. But the problem is that decentralization, one of the few responses that might actually work, is the opposite of what most are proposing in this belt-tightening period.

Charter schools are also doing amazing things in KC. It used to be if you were a family who cared about their kids and lived in urban KC (which there are some nice areas) your only options were Catholic school or the nightmare KC schools. Now there's a 3rd option.

FWIW - I have no problem with teachers being paid well. I just hate stuff like seniority-based promotions, being effectively impossible to fire, defined benefit pensions where you can double-dip at age 55, tenure after 2 years, etc. I don't see why teachers should get 10x more perks and job protection than the average corporate employee. I think a lot of that stuff is just an anachronism that has outlived it's time, and will probably end up being fixed one way or another.

You would be wrong. Washington D.C. was the only school district where is was easy to fire poor performing teachers. The citizens voted the mayor who supported Michelle Rhee out of office.

You have yet to define what a 'teacher promotion' looks like.

This is only true in a few of the larger districts. I've seen multiple teachers fired for ineffectiveness.

If there is one thing I can agree with here, even as a teacher, it is the defined pension deal. Even though I do contribute to my own retirement, I can see how the system is just not sustainable. The douple-dipping happens all the time in the private sector as well. I see no problem with it.

'Tenure' is nonsense. It is toothless distinction. Basically, from my experience, being tenured simply means you get evaluated less often. It isn't some cloak of protection against termination. Most of the teachers that I have seen let go had tenure. Public schools can get rid of tenure for all I care.

rjoe just said that his union, like a lot of others, fight for seniority-based promotions (or pay raises, w/e).

Well then I'm only talking about the larger districts (if true). But that's a lot of kids.

Double-dipping doesn't happen that much in the private sector because very few people get defined benefits any more.

From everything I've heard tenured makes a teacher much much harder to fire. I guess you have a different take.

That doesn't make sense to me. If you have defined contribution instead of defined benefits, that (alone) doesn't prevent someone from retiring, collecting those benefits and starting a new job somewhere else.

What may be preventing people from retiring is what the market's done recently, or there may be some other rule/law that has been put in place, but the 'because ...' doesn't explain your claim.

Please give me a concrete example of what you mean by this:

and then we can discuss. I'm not sure what kind of retirement you think defined contribution is.

I said raises, which are clearly different from promotions. I did read the article, they got rid of 32 under performing teachers. The part you re posted while accusing me of not reading it also includes that part. So again, not sure why you keep saying they can't get rid of people. Seems pretty easy to pay them to leave

Some unions may use seniority-based promotions, but it doesn't really make sense for teachers. What would you get promoted to? Lieutenant Teacher? I got asked to be department chair a few years ago, which is the closest thing I can think of as a 'teacher promotion'. I wasn't the most senior member of my department, but I did put the most work in. After taxes, I get an extra $700 a year.

It is true that even if only the larger districts have problems firing teachers, then it is still a lot of kids. But then the discussion should be centered around what to do about these specific situations, not start with the premise "teachers everywhere are unfirable".

I actually think undefined pensions would lead to more double-dipping, as lower payouts would force some folks back to work. I have no idea though.

As far as tenure, I don't see what extra protection it does (or really should) give a teacher that regular wrongful termination laws don't already cover. If tenure does give teachers in some districts carte blanche in their classroom, then that is bad.

Wow well that's all great news. It only costs $50k to buy off a ****ty employee so they will go away. Just like in the real world. Oh wait...

And they managed to do about 3 of those per year out of a workforce of 33k. I take back everything I said about LA Unified. This is certainly in line with reasonable expectations.