What Teachers Make

Joe - I agree 100 percent. My father used to always say "before you do anything, think of the consequences. After you do anything, accept the consequences". Then he'd whack me ;)

There are consequences to everything we do, and I personally don't believe we do anyone any favours for their later lives by shielding them (within reason) from those consequences when they are younger. In fact, you could view it as our duty as responsible adults in preparing the young people of today to be the responsible adults of tomorrow.

(gee, it's easy to get on that soapbox isn't it? Sorry :w )

James.

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

Joe - I agree 100 percent. My father used to always say "before you do anything, think of the consequences. After you do anything, accept the consequences". Then he'd whack me ;)

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:roflmao That's so 'old school'!

X

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Originally Posted by xman

:roflmao That's so 'old school'!

X

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I'd say thats exactly the point!


:OT

Isn't it a shame that many of our comedians understand the problems of the path we are on and can see what changes brought us here while our "wise" leaders seem so clueless?

bumped because it deserves to be seen again

I agree that the public school system is, by and large, in an appalling state of disrepair. on a fun little fyi, here in texas, corporal punishment is still allowed in some school districts. (mostly for primary school) I have been thinking about this for some time, especially as my nieces and nephews are attending school, and have come to the following idea. (disclaimer: I went to school in grapevine as a kid, so I was absurdly lucky when it comes to public schooling. at the time, it was one of the top 100 schools in the nation in terms of teachers, facilities, and overall student achievment. my wife went to a private (religious) high school and learned next to nothing. so I don't think public schools are all awful, nor do I think private schools are infallible)

1. vouchers. we need 'em. privative the school system; the nanny-state run monstrosity of an education system we have now is completely untenable.
2. private schools can have whatever rules they want. make the parents sign contracts that allow you to beat their kids, if you have to. if they don't like your school, they don't have to sign up. make clear rules on why their little "angel" can be permanently expelled.
3. the US gov't is about as good at running schools as they are anything else, which is to say, incompetent bordering on criminal neglect. all kids aren't the same, why do we have a one-size-fits all approach to education?
4. the no child left behind act is a crime perpetrated against smart kids to make the parents of stupid kids feel better. because of that !@#$%^ act and the ones that preceeded it, I didn't get to take a MATH class my senior year of high school. they needed the teacher to do a section of special ed. makes me sick to my stomach.
5. special ed in general is an outrageous waste of taxpayer money that should not be allowed to continue. why coddle the bottom 5% at the expense of not pushing the limits of the top 5%? who's gonna grow up and cure cancer, anyway?
6. coddling of children AT ALL is wasteful and sets them up for failure later in life. would you rather your kid failed a grade in high school, got made fun of, got serious and went on to succeed in life? or would you rather their hands get held all the way until adult life so they can fail then? (when the consequences are much worse)
7. end preferential treatment of borderline-retarded athletes. this one is a big deal for me, being a Texan, 'cause football players had a free pass. didn't turn in homework, didn't take tests, etc. teachers, who normally were happy to fail anyone that couldn't keep up, would pass them all so that UIL rules would allow them to play football. even the bravest teacher would be terrified of "benching" the star QB with a failing grade.
8. create a culture where intelligence is valued above all else. one of the biggest reasons I see kids doing badly in schools is the culture of stupidity that permeates the school system. (even back when I was in high school) why is the captain of the football team glorified and the captain of the chess team or math club harassed? who is gonna wind up working for who someday? if kids got teased as much for being dumb as they did for being smart, I think we'd start to see some improvement. it's an uphill battle, with most teen idols, movie stars, athletes, etc, being barely-literate high school dropouts. it's a shame our generation hasn't given these kids better role models. I am equally culpable here, but I do what I can to encourage my nephews that being smart and getting good grades is very cool.
9. spend money on labs, not stadiums. the school district I attended in high school just finished (coupla years ago) blowing several MILLION dollars on a new stadium for the football team. why? why not buy better books and computers? why not hire a few new teachers? maybe, just maybe, we should let kids join whatever sports league they want to join, OUTSIDE of school. I don't doubt that athletics are fun, and that you make friends and build all sorts of camraderie on a school sports team. I know I did. but it was entirely tangential to the learning process. totally unnecessary. let's quit wasting taxpayer money on it, hmm?
10. reward good teachers, punish bad ones. a tricky business, but worthwhile. it's useless and misleading to base a teacher's performance off pass/fail ratios. they can't be held responsible for the kids they get, so it's not equal. I propose that teachers be periodically monitored and ranked by an impartial commitee, then the better ones given better raises. this is done is most other fields, I have no idea why it's not the same for teachers. in my field, the best employee who does the best work gets a bigger raise/bonus than the others, no one has a problem with it.

anyhow, there's just a few ideas I've been kicking around, a none-too-modest proposal I've been thinking about. thoughts?

Bravo dear sir, bravo!

The sickeningly sad part is that everything you said often translates into the public university area. There are college SENIORS that still have their mom take care of everything for them. Numbers 7 and 9 absolutely kill me. Every time I think about them I want to bang my head on my desk. I know a guy that's a product of #7- highschool star football player, now the guy is struggling at a community college and thinks he's arrived in life as a fast food restaurant manager. Don't even get me started on all the college athletes with fake GPA's and even more fake degrees.

Our local newspaper just did an expose on the Kinestesiology program here at U of M Turns out the somehow 43% of all scholarship athletes enter this program and that the GPA of freshman entering the program 2.3 where the freshman class as a whole averaged 3.3 in high school. They also mentioned how that program has a disproportionate success rate at passing and graduating students. Was very reveling and embarrassing for the university.


By the was #10 is easy, outlaw teachers unions.

Another U of M cock up, there was just a union strike for higher pay on campus, it canceled classes for a couple of days until it was settled. The union...wait for it.... the Graduate student assistants union. Now thats going a little overboard with the organization don't you think, and the administration caved to them.

Great post Jockeys

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Originally Posted by jockeys

... privative the school system; the nanny-state run monstrosity of an education system we have now is completely untenable.

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An intriguing idea, but not very practical IMO. There are tons of issues that would make equal education opportunities unavailable to many students given, among other things, the disparities between funding available in rural, urban, and suburban areas. For example, there's an elementary school district (ie, Kindergarten - 8th grade) here in AZ (less than 50-mi from center-city Phoenix) that has a schoolhouse, averages about 5 students, one full-time accredited teacher, a part-time aide, and a budget of under $100K. It's very unlikely a private school would even bother trying to accommodate an area like that.

In my mind the major issue is that the public schools are overly influenced by parental demands that their little darlings get everything they want their way... thus schools have been forced to given up their rights to control the kids so they don't damage their self esteem, so they always get good grades whether deserved or not, so they make the honor role all the time, yada yada yada. If you haven't been around a school in the past 10-years... I mean so you really see what happens there, not just what your kids tell you, you can't draw any valid conclusions since it doesn't work like it did when you were a kid. You simply can't imagine how little respect a teacher gets from their students and the parents these days.

While you're correct that private schools can do whatever they want, I can only assume that most for-profit schools would make keeping their enrollment up their first priority, not discipline or academic achievement. Hence, I can only guess that any parental pressure would cause them to roll over faster than a hooker who just saw the color of your money. I just don't see how that will help solve the problem.

I will reply to your comments individually in red

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Originally Posted by azjoe

An intriguing idea, but not very practical IMO. There are tons of issues that would make equal education opportunities unavailable to many students given, among other things, the disparities between funding available in rural, urban, and suburban areas. How is this any different from every other aspect of life? For example, there's an elementary school district (ie, Kindergarten - 8th grade) here in AZ (less than 50-mi from center-city Phoenix) that has a schoolhouse, averages about 5 students, one full-time accredited teacher, a part-time aide, and a budget of under $100K. It's very unlikely a private school would even bother trying to accommodate an area like that. at the risk of sounding like a jerk, so what? if you live far away from major metropolitan centers, you miss out of many opportunities, educational and otherwise. that's just the way things are. wasting taxpayer money to accomodate people-who-simultaneously-want-to-be-far-away-from-the-troubles-of-the-city-bu- close-to-the-conveniences don't have to drive just doesn't make sense to me.

In my mind the major issue is that the public schools are overly influenced by parental demands that their little darlings get everything they want their way... thus schools have been forced to given up their rights to control the kids so they don't damage their self esteem, so they always get good grades whether deserved or not, so they make the honor role all the time, yada yada yada. I would argue that it is more a factor of gov't meddling and the overall political climate of this country, but whatever. If you haven't been around a school in the past 10-years... I graduated from public high school less than 10 years ago. I mean so you really see what happens there, not just what your kids tell you, you can't draw any valid conclusions since it doesn't work like it did when you were a kid. You simply can't imagine how little respect a teacher gets from their students and the parents these days. it was my experience that teachers who commanded respect got it, and teachers who didn't, didn't. ymmv.

While you're correct that private schools can do whatever they want, I can only assume that most for-profit schools would make keeping their enrollment up their first priority, not discipline or academic achievement. you are correct, a private school exists to make money, like any other corporate venture. and any intelligent corporate venture knows the value of a good name. it's better to expel a couple of students and keep you reputation for academic excellence (and thus create demand for you "product") than it is to keep a few bad apples and spoil the whole meal, so to speak. any sensible business will take small short term losses to insure future gains. Hence, I can only guess that any parental pressure would cause them to roll over faster than a hooker who just saw the color of your money. I just don't see how that will help solve the problem.

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you are assuming that a private school would operate under the same assumptions and motivations that are true for a public school. this is demonstrably untrue. a private school is a BUSINESS, and is usually run as such. (e.g. concerned with the bottom line and growing the brand, etc)

a public school is a big factory for turning money into... nothing. i used to write accounting software for texas public schools, and let me tell you: wasting money is rewarded. the more you spend, the more you'll get next year, without any real results to show for it. if you don't spend your whole budget, you don't GET that same money the next year, so the waste is colossal. businesses have financial accountability, gov't institutions really don't.

Most of the post here are right on the money.

The biggest problem seems to be the parents (just because you can breed, doesn't mean you should) - like the Chinese proverb "There is only one perfect child, and every mother has it".

For many parents, the kids are accessories, like the fancy car, big house...they are viewed as symbols of success: "Oh, isn't Buffy a wonderful person! She works full-time and has three kids!"...many parents are oblivious to their kids activities..they can't be bothered, as they are too busy being "fulfilled."

To keep the kids out of their hair, they have them doped up for various "disorders". I worked with a woman who was very vocal about her kids ADHD (he's all of 4 years old)....I commented that it seems odd that none of these disorders were around years ago. She asked what I thought would address the issue...I said several hours a week of manual labor would probably work wonders. I thought she was going to have a seizure.

When I was a cop in Baltimore, I used to get calls to come and make kids go to school...the parents told me it wasn't their job.

These spoiled little spawn have no idea of personal accountability, initiative, or what it means to work...then they finally join the workforce, where reality dumps a big bucket of ice water right in their crotch: Surprise! You aren't anything special! I am not afraid of your mommy, so you had better perform or your ass is out!

1. I'm not sure vouchers would work...the same spoiled little brats would be dumped into the good schools, because going to a voucher school would become a status symbol.

2. Return discipline to the schools. It doesn't have to be physical - my Mom rarely spanked my brother or me - she was better at mind games "Oh, you are going to behave like that? Fine...you will not be going to <insert fun activity here>. Since you now have a lot of free time, you can <insert hated work-like activity here>!"

Any student who threatens a teacher - expelled. Let Biff and Buffy pay for tutoring their little tax deduction.

Any parent who threatens a teacher, the kid is removed from school, removed from all teams, and the parent is charged criminally. Same for the sports-freak parents (those trying to relive their sports dreams through their kids - no matter the cost)

Disruptive in class? Watch your grade-point average drop. Oh, and we will now make your disciplinary file available to all college registrars nationwide. You gotta pass a background check to get a job, why not for school?

3. Remove the cult of sports from the schools. I am paying taxes for you to learn to become a contributing member of society, not cruise through school because you can excel at a sport. My respect for professional sports is so diminished, I do not think there is a device that can measure my indifference. If Biff and Buffy want little Johnny to be a jock - pay for it out of their own pockets as part of a local club (as in many European countries). Same for cheerleaders, etc. Keep Phys Ed, just to get people off their butts.

4. In the case of azjoe's wife, as the threat was made directly to his wife by the parent, I wonder what that mother would say when she was pulled over for an open assault warrant? I bet that would put a knot in her golf shorts! (Court Magistrate: Mrs. AzJoe, when hearing this threat over the phone, were you in fear of your person? Mrs. AzJoe: Yes, you never know nowadays what some of these parents will do!...and thus a warrant is sworn out.) I'm sure the spineless leadership would absolutely freak out, but to threaten physical harm is w-a-a-a-y across the line. Sadly, it will take some extreme examples to be made of parents who behave like this psycho. The kid could be charged as well...maybe some time in Juvenile Custody would adjust the attitude.

5. Higher standards. I graduated in 1981 from a Central Illinois High School...I had good teachers and some real losers. The curriculum was very strong in math and sciences, but weak in Lit, History. Good in languages - I graduated having taken French, German, and Latin. English classes were done well also. I still used the same grammar book I had in HS as a reference when editing project documents. When I went into the Army, I attended the Defense Language Institute, for Russian. Attrition rate: 70% If you didn't work, you didn't pass.

6. Demand higher standards for teachers as well. A friend of mine has a daughter who is gifted in languages. Because of a slacker German teacher, she became very discouraged. Luckily, I encourage the mom to push the kid to keep at it, regardless of Herr Butthead. She did and took the German placement test for the U of CO. She was one of 4 kids who passed - the other 3 were native speakers. An associate of the German instructor at the college is an attorney specializing in international law. He said he always has opening for fresh law students who speak foreign languages. She is now going to attend the law school.

In short (yea, I know...too late), it comes down to discipline and respect. My hardest teachers are the ones I remember as being of the most help. A teacher who cares and will staunchly defend the student's right to learn is a treasure of a "price above rubies." My hat goes off to azjoe's Mrs.
:tu