Chicago public school teachers on strike

[quote name='dmaul1114']This is one of those things where people who've never taught just need to shut the fuck up.

People don't realize how much work goes into every hour of class room time. Or how much time is spent on grading shit and providing useful feedback. And that all this has to happen outside of the five 8-hour workdays as the non-class room time gets ate up by meetings, administrative tasks etc. If a teacher is lucky they're school gives them one free period to work on their class prep, grading etc.

There's also just so much bullshit that goes into it with administrative work, meetings in school, meetings with parents etc. I've had several friends that quit as they just didn't feel they could be good teachers and have any kind of life as so much of their work day time outside of class periods was wasted on bullshit that they had to slave away nights and weekends just to keep up with basic course prep and grading. Much less to try and go the extra mile and be creative and extra effective in teaching.

The problem is a lot of people are just bitter and hate their jobs and look at teachers and think they're just working 5-7 hour days nine months of the year when they don't understand the reality of the situation. Just a case of the grass is always greener.

And I'm not being defensive as I'm a college prof at a research university and have zero desire to ever be a K-12 teacher, and have no real gripes about my workload or salary. I like my work, spend a lot of time on it as I enjoy it and think it's meaningful, and think I'm fairly compensated for what I do and the stage of my career.

I just find it depressing how education is undervalued in our country when it's the future of our society, and how many people have such misguided opinions of the amount of work that goes into teaching--especially to be a good teacher, because they're miserable in their own careers and lives.[/QUOTE]

Are you referring to me? I'm not bitter or miserable. I don't think I undervalue education. I just don't think teachers are saints that can't be questioned.

No offense, but everyone knows many teachers. Among the ones I know, some work lots of hours, some don't. Some love their job, some tolerate it, some hated it and quit. Just like every job.

Everyone has to deal with meetings and admin work. Everyone. No one believes that teachers are immune from that.

So, what would be an appropriate work schedule for a teacher? How many hours of class time? 6.5 hours doesn't seem crazy to me.
 
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[quote name='dohdough']Googling "sat test is bullshit" too tough for you?

If we had better worker protections, strikes wouldn't be as big a deal. If you eliminate the strike, you eliminate one of the few tools labor has to keep capital in check. Labor laws and regulations are already being slowly rolled back or entirely circumvented by outsourcing even With unions. You think capital will just play nice by keeping current laws in place if unions are eliminated?[/QUOTE]

I actually did google that earlier, but I didn't see anything interesting.

What worker protections are you advocating?

I didn't suggest that unions should be eliminated. I don't think that public workers unions should be able to strike.

Most unions are able to negotiate without ever resorting to a strike. Some cities forbid certain workers from striking. I think that teachers in NYC aren't allowed to strike, yet they manage to negotiate with the school system.
 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/katzman.html

The interview with the head of Princeton Review isn't interesting?

And NYC isn't facing the levels of privatization as Chicago. What's happening is anything but a simple contract renegotiation. No group strikes for the fuck of it or merely an extra $3-4k a year. The fact that most unions don't resort to a strike should tell you something and its the exact opposite of what you think it is.
 
[quote name='dohdough']http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/katzman.html

The interview with the head of Princeton Review isn't interesting?

And NYC isn't facing the levels of privatization as Chicago. What's happening is anything but a simple contract renegotiation. No group strikes for the fuck of it or merely an extra $3-4k a year. The fact that most unions don't resort to a strike should tell you something and its the exact opposite of what you think it is.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the link. I didn't see it when I looked through the first dozen or so results.

I'm just taking the union president's words at face value - the two main issues right now are teacher evaluations and recall policies for laid-off teachers. There seems to be much more emphasis on evaluations today. There hasn't really been any mention of charter schools or privatization.
 
There is very little correlation between school funding performance. Throwing more money at the problem and doubling teacher salaries won't increase student performance that much. There is the graph I posted earlier and this story.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/18/147067123/kansas-citys-failed-schools-leave-students-behind

On Jan. 1, the Missouri state school board revoked the Kansas City district's accreditation. The district met just three of the 14 standards established by the state, falling short of minimum proficiency standards for math, English and science, as well as attendance and graduation rates.

...

By the mid-1980s, Kansas City had a few good public schools in mostly white, middle-class neighborhoods, and some badly performing schools in poor, minority neighborhoods. In 1985, a federal district judge took control of the district and ordered that nearly $2 billion be spent to bus students and integrate and improve the schools.

The district went on a binge, building 15 new schools, shrinking class sizes, raising teacher salaries — even adding an Olympic-size swimming pool, a robotics lab and a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary — to try to bring middle-class families back.
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A more detailed article on what happened in Kansas City: http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1614/article_detail.asp

An Oakland school has had good but early results with official segregation by gender and de facto segregation by race (of course, they don't call it that when it clearly is). There seems to be some cognitive dissonance there, but whatever it takes to close the black-white achievement gap. I hope it works.

As far as unions go, I agree that public employee unions should not strike, and that no person be forced or otherwise intimidated to join a union. These teachers should be fired within 48 hours if they do not return to work. Teacher unions have enormous power in state politics, especially in my state. What happens in Chicago will reverberate throughout the nation. I hope Rahm Emanuel does the right thing and does his best to weaken the influence of teachers unions and introduces competition and accountability into the school system. He must also understand the destructive nature of bloated administrations as well.

We should be copying the methods of one of the greatest American high school teachers who ever lived.

Jaime Escalante, the brilliant public school teacher immortalized in the 1988 film, "Stand and Deliver," died this week at the age of 79. With the help of a few dedicated colleagues at Garfield High in East Los Angeles, he shattered the myth that poor inner-city kids couldn't handle advanced math. At the peak of its success, Garfield produced more students who passed Advanced Placement calculus than Beverly Hills High.

In any other field, his methods would have been widely copied. Instead, Escalante's success was resented. And while the teachers union contract limited class sizes to 35, Escalante could not bring himself to turn students away, packing 50 or more into a room and still helping them to excel. This weakened the union's bargaining position, so it complained.

By 1990, Escalante was stripped of his chairmanship of the math department he'd painstakingly built up over a decade. Exasperated, he left in 1991, eventually returning to his native Bolivia. Garfield's math program went into a decline from which it has never recovered. The best tribute America can offer Jaime Escalante is to understand why our education system destroyed rather than amplified his success—and then fix it.
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[quote name='chiwii']
So, what would be an appropriate work schedule for a teacher? How many hours of class time? 6.5 hours doesn't seem crazy to me.[/QUOTE]

It's not unreasonable. But most would have already been working way more than 40 hour weeks even on the old 5 hour class time schedule. So if they're going to up that to 6.5 a pay increase is warranted.

They aren't going to have less meetings and other administrative stuff to deal with as a result, I'd assume with that much extra time they're getting an extra class, so they have more grading.

Are you just going to sit by and take it if your work hours get upped permanently with no pay raise? Probably not. You'd be looking for another job. And we have to be careful of that with teachers as we don't want to drive the good ones to other professions, or out of inner cities to the suburbs etc. Both of which happen far too often already.

Teachers aren't saints. There needs to be more accountability in the system etc. But we need to get rid of stereotypes of it being an easy job with short hours and summers off as that's just not the case.
 
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Something else I think we've all forgotten, not all school systems have summers off, some go year round.
 
It seems you're making a lot of assumptions. Most articles I have seen indicate that a lot of the longerbday will go to longer recesses and lunches.

Teachers working long hours doesn't necessarily indicate a need for higher pay. Some of them work long hoursnbecause they love what they do. Some do it because they are inefficient.

Teaching I'd not an easy job and should be well-compensated, but I am still unconvinced that just paying more is going to attract better teachers.
 
[quote name='Clak']Something else I think we've all forgotten, not all school systems have summers off, some go year round.[/QUOTE]

How many days do they go to school as compared to a more traditional school?
 
[quote name='yourlefthand']
Teaching I'd not an easy job and should be well-compensated, but I am still unconvinced that just paying more is going to attract better teachers.[/QUOTE]

It's a relative thing. What do they get paid in a certain area vs other people with 4 year degrees? Some places its enough that it's an attractive career option, others its not.

It's also relative across districts in an area. You aren't going to get many great teachers to stay in the inner city school districts if they can get a job that pays more in the suburbs and have better students and fewer hassles to deal with.

Throwing money at the problem won't solve our education problems by any means as it's a broad failure of society from everything from broken homes, parents not carrying and a general devaluing of education and a growing anti-intellectualism movement. But finding ways to get more of the best and brightest to choose the profession and stick with it is one necessary part of the solution. And that means making sure they have salaries competitive with other 4-year degree requiring careers in the given area.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']It's a relative thing. What do they get paid in a certain area vs other people with 4 year degrees? Some places its enough that it's an attractive career option, others its not.

It's also relative across districts in an area. You aren't going to get many great teachers to stay in the inner city school districts if they can get a job that pays more in the suburbs and have better students and fewer hassles to deal with.

Throwing money at the problem won't solve our education problems by any means as it's a broad failure of society from everything from broken homes, parents not carrying and a general devaluing of education and a growing anti-intellectualism movement. But finding ways to get more of the best and brightest to choose the profession and stick with it is one necessary part of the solution. And that means making sure they have salaries competitive with other 4-year degree requiring careers in the given area.[/QUOTE]

Fine. I think that we can all agree that the best and the brightest should be able to make more. What do we pay the average and the poor teachers?
 
In the health care thread, the conversation commonly went to the subject of how much the US spends on health care vs. the rest of the world and what the results (quality of care, etc.) are vs. the rest of the world.

If we apply that same criteria to our school system (cost vs. results), where does that leave us?
 
[quote name='yourlefthand']Fine. I think that we can all agree that the best and the brightest should be able to make more. What do we pay the average and the poor teachers?[/QUOTE]

As said above, it would vary by area like any profession. It just needs to be high enough so that it's competitive with other jobs that require a college degree in an area, for the hours of work required. And we should make sure all school districts in an area (especially inner city and suburban) pay the same so we don't have the best teachers concentrating in the wealthier white areas like now.

To the last point, raises should be based on merit rather than seniority--and that's something unions need to give on. That way people have financial incentive to work hard and do a good job, rather than just wait out their time for seniority based raises.

And hopefully that will drive some poor teachers out as they get frustrated from not getting raises. Unlike now when lots of young teachers quit as they see older teachers who don't work as hard or do as well getting bigger raises due to seniority.
 
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[quote name='UncleBob']In the health care thread, the conversation commonly went to the subject of how much the US spends on health care vs. the rest of the world and what the results (quality of care, etc.) are vs. the rest of the world.

If we apply that same criteria to our school system (cost vs. results), where does that leave us?[/QUOTE]

I think that's hard to tell because:
a) other countries have different education goals
b) some other countries purposely fudge results

Think about an industrialized nation that is more socialist. They don't pretend that every student has the mental aptitude to goto college, instead they start slotting kids into vocational tracks based on tests from an early age.

America tends to focus on the best and the brightest, other nations focus on all levels equally. I know that socialist educational systems sometimes fall prey to the "tall poppy" syndrome, where the smartest kid in the class continually gets cut down until he learns to hide his intelligence so he doesn't stand out. However they are better at giving all kids a practical education.

Also - in many countries education is more tied up in politics (even moreso then here). Therefore there is as much propaganda as truth in the results you read. On the whole America is much more honest about how our public education is serving the interests of the kids, when you compare us to the rest of the world.
 
[quote name='dohdough']http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/katzman.html

The interview with the head of Princeton Review isn't interesting?

[/QUOTE]

I read the interview, and he argues that the SAT is bullshit because of the trick questions that have little to do with the material that the student already learned in school or with the material they would learn in college. I agree with him on the SAT.

But, he doesn't extend that critisism to all standardized tests. He specifically mentions the AP tests as good tests, and he does think there is a need for well-written tests, so that students from different schools can be compared. It sounds like he would support the use of well-written tests to determine if students can move up a grade or graduate.

[quote name='dmaul1114']It's not unreasonable. But most would have already been working way more than 40 hour weeks even on the old 5 hour class time schedule. So if they're going to up that to 6.5 a pay increase is warranted.

They aren't going to have less meetings and other administrative stuff to deal with as a result, I'd assume with that much extra time they're getting an extra class, so they have more grading.

Are you just going to sit by and take it if your work hours get upped permanently with no pay raise? Probably not. You'd be looking for another job. And we have to be careful of that with teachers as we don't want to drive the good ones to other professions, or out of inner cities to the suburbs etc. Both of which happen far too often already.

Teachers aren't saints. There needs to be more accountability in the system etc. But we need to get rid of stereotypes of it being an easy job with short hours and summers off as that's just not the case.[/QUOTE]

If 5 hours of class-time was originally too low, imo, it's appropriate to adjust the number of required hours without a corresponding increase in pay.

I guess I just disagree with the idea of accepting the current state of everything as "correct" and adjusting from there. For instance, you said earlier in the thread that, when budgets are tight, governments should not touch police, fire, and ems, and that education should be the last department to experience cuts. So, I guess you feel that police, fire, ems, and education have all been funded appropriately.

What if they haven't? What if previous government officials had allowed these departments to become ridiculously bloated, consuming more resources than required by the city? Wouldn't it be appropriate make cuts to bloated departments, regardless of the specific service they provide?


[quote name='dmaul1114']As said above, it would vary by area like any profession. It just needs to be high enough so that it's competitive with other jobs that require a college degree in an area, for the hours of work required. And we should make sure all school districts in an area (especially inner city and suburban) pay the same so we don't have the best teachers concentrating in the wealthier white areas like now.

To the last point, raises should be based on merit rather than seniority--and that's something unions need to give on. That way people have financial incentive to work hard and do a good job, rather than just wait out their time for seniority based raises.

And hopefully that will drive some poor teachers out as they get frustrated from not getting raises. Unlike now when lots of young teachers quit as they see older teachers who don't work as hard or do as well getting bigger raises due to seniority.[/QUOTE]

I totally agree that raises should be based on merit rather than the just years worked. Even if you got a union to agree to merit based raises, though, you still would have to deal with the massive issue of teacher evaluations.
 
[quote name='UncleBob']In the health care thread, the conversation commonly went to the subject of how much the US spends on health care vs. the rest of the world and what the results (quality of care, etc.) are vs. the rest of the world.

If we apply that same criteria to our school system (cost vs. results), where does that leave us?[/QUOTE]


I agree with you on a lot of points but most countries DO "leave children behind" and to be honest I'm all for it.

We we can't funnel willing kids into vocational schools/programs at an early(ier) age is beyond me.

My highschool used to have a very good tech and forestry program (I live in Maine afterall) but they were forced to shut it down because it was considered "frivelous" spending and the thought was that the money should be pumped back into math and english departments so that those students in the tech classes would score better on their MEA's (Maine Educational Assessements)
 
[quote name='chiwii']
If 5 hours of class-time was originally too low, imo, it's appropriate to adjust the number of required hours without a corresponding increase in pay.
[/QUOTE]

But who's to say it was too short? Maybe it was optimal in trams of keeping fatigue down and teacher performance up and this is just th city trying to get more work from the same people for the same pay?

I couldn't imagine teaching for even 5 hours in a day, much less more than that five days a week. I teach for 2.5 hours two days a week and I'm pretty wiped after my second class either day.

So I have nothing by put admiration for our teaching faculty who are teaching 4 or 5 courses a week instead of two. Much less for K-12 who are doing more involved teaching with five or six periods five days a week. If we're going to ask them to do more, we should pay them more.
 
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[quote name='Clak']But but, plenty of people do more work and don't get paid more, so why should teachers?[/QUOTE]

Because we need the good teachers to stay (especially in city schools) vs. leaving the field or going to suburban districts etc.

So really it's no different. If you ask someone to work more for no pay increase, they're going to explore other job options unless they're in no job town and stuck there for family reasons etc.

Teaching already has a super high attrition rate (something I read aid around 50% quit by their third year) and is an incredibly important job to society. As such its one we need to incentize to get talented young people to choose the career and to stay in it. Asking them to work longer for no more pay isn't counter to that.
 
Yeah that was asked in sarcasm, I know why. It's just that's been the standard response it seems.

btw, don't think I've said this, but my fiance actually has a degree in elementary education and has no desire to actually teach because of many of the things discussed here.
 
Long day (including teaching!) so my sarcasm detector is broken.

And yeah, I know people in the same boat, as well as those who have quit after a couple years for reasons outlined here. Too much time spent on non-teaching stuff requiring long hours on nights and weekends to do a decent job in the classroom, annoyances at crappy old teachers getting all the perks, pay and summer/holiday flexibility not worth all the hassles and so on.
 
[quote name='GBAstar']I agree with you on a lot of points but most countries DO "leave children behind" and to be honest I'm all for it.

We we can't funnel willing kids into vocational schools/programs at an early(ier) age is beyond me.

My highschool used to have a very good tech and forestry program (I live in Maine afterall) but they were forced to shut it down because it was considered "frivelous" spending and the thought was that the money should be pumped back into math and english departments so that those students in the tech classes would score better on their MEA's (Maine Educational Assessements)[/QUOTE]

Wow we agree on this. I think vocational programs are great as long as countries don't exploit the kids.

For example - in China, Foxconn is able to get students to fill in on assembly lines when a new IPhone or IPad is launched. That ain't right.
 
You guys forgot to mention how the teaching profession is shit on constantly as evidenced in this thread.

Whoever coined the phase "Those who do; do. Those who can't; teach," needs a punch in the mouth from Mike Tyson.
 
[quote name='dohdough']You guys forgot to mention how the teaching profession is shit on constantly as evidenced in this thread.

Whoever coined the phase "Those who do; do. Those who can't; teach," needs a punch in the mouth from Mike Tyson.[/QUOTE]

Yep, the lack of respect doesn't help. Especially when dealing with parents.
 
I'll eat some crow on the school day length. Just read that before this increase the CPS school day was a hour shorter than the average school day nationwide, and the school year two weeks shorter. So it was a case that they weren't working "enough." And this is a case where the Dept. of Ed needs more power as such things should be standard in all public schools around the country so all kid sat least get the same amount of education time per year.

Good column on the strike here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/kristof-students-over-unions.html?ref=opinion
 
And if they tried to mandate a minimum school day length you'd have "some" people complaining about government power overreaching.
 
Of course. That's always going to be the case for anything.

But we need basic standards in education across the country in simple things like length of school day and length of school year. Especially since our averages are shorter than in many countries as is.
 
I can't say I'm worried about this. The Israeli Nazi will put those ungrateful teachers in their place!!!!! /end sarcasm

I had to call Rahm his real name. Just remember whenever you're talking about Rahm derisively to call him the Israeli Nazi.

edit: dmaul don't forget we need to stop trying to cram more education into the student's heads with fewer time each day(see block scheduling and weighted classes). Even very intelligent students need to have breathing room for that information to really set in and real life classwork or interviews with people or discussions with those people in the classroom to reinforce that. If you're teaching a class on India and some of the religions, get someone from the community who lived there most of their life to discuss the region they lived in and the experience they had in the history being studied(Goa, Amritsar, Patna, Delhi, Bhopal, etc.). For religion, bringing in a Sikh, Buddhist(be they Mahayana or earlier), Hindu or Vedic practitioner.
If you're a class who happens to get into talking about mercury poisoning, speak to those who lived through it's effects and saw it directly. This, more then anything, would be great to cover with students as mercury poisoning I think is abstract to most of us. We really don't know about it's effects. I mean we may have heard of them but not truly seen any video of it. Hearing firsthand from victims in Minamata would be tremendously helpful.
Oh and I would like to add as part of this firsthand experience that this is why I still remember some of the information from the genetics course I took in High School over 10 years ago, very much because it concerned me.
 
Is there anyone that teaches here?

I have been lurking these forums for a long time and do not post very often but there is a large lack of understanding of what it is to teach in the current environment. I am quoting Chiwii but I do not mean this as an attack - he/she just brought up common misunderstandings that I would like to address.

Some background: I have a B.S. and M.S. (thesis/research based) in ChemEng. then went into teaching because I enjoy it and because I can fill a pretty large demand. Teaching offers great flexibility in location (way more so than chemE) although the pay is far less - a trade-off that I had to think long and hard about. This is my 3rd year teaching chem/ap chem.

[quote name='chiwii']How can school districts and states continue to fund schools and teachers at the same level when tax revenues are dropping?

Teaching is naturally more secure than law, engineering, etc., even without the union protections. Teachers are rarely let go in the middle of a semester, so they can feel secure through the semester. Their jobs can't be outsourced, and the majority of schools will stay open, despite the recession.[/QUOTE]

Naturally more secure totally untrue. Not sure what you do for a living but new teachers have very little job security - especially if you teach younger kids. Science teachers are somewhat more secure but biology is a bit flooded. Depends on your state but in general you can be fired in the first 3 months for any reason regardless of the union. It is the best time to get rid of someone really ineffective and it does happen (I've seen it). Tenure comes after 3 "successful" years and before this the union can only do a little (very little) to "save" you although they will try if it seems unreasonable. Still, if admins want you gone, then you are gone. After tenure you can still get fired but it takes a lot more work to do so from admins including well documented cases/reasons/evidence. I've seen teachers (who are better teachers than me) under post-tenure attack simply because of local politics and it would be a real shame to the students if they were gone.


[quote name='chiwii']Oh, and they get summers off, lots of nice long breaks around the holidays, etc. That's a perk. Seriously, who hasn't been stuck at the office on a beautiful summer day and thought about how they could be at the beach, if only they had become a teacher.[/QUOTE]

For clarity's sake. We do get 8 weeks off in the summer but most non-teachers think it is a full 3 months. During this time I work without pay on curriculum, new labs/methods, seminars on how to teach things etc (sometimes these are paid for by the district, sometimes not). Holiday breaks are amazing and without them I would lose my sanity - not even kidding. I know a lot of jobs are stressful but I have never been so mentally and physically drained. It honestly caught me by surprise as you are not really prepared for it no matter how much you hear about it. However, it does get a little better with time and practice.

As many of you know the 7 hour day is true on paper but untrue in reality. I arrive at school at about 6 - 6:30am and leave school at about 3-5pm (it varies depending on how much lab prep I need to do for the following day). I then come home and plan for tomorrow, make worksheets, and grade. Most of the time it ends up being at least an 11 hour day. Furthermore, during the 7 hour school day there is literally no downtime - at all. I mean I can't even pee when I need to go and forget about a #2! That took some serious getting used to!! Before school starts and during my 45 min prep I run around like a headless chicken setting up labs/photocopying etc., doing all this crazy paperwork that just takes time away from planning and students bla bla. It is not some honeyhole of awesomeness that's for sure. Constantly being "on" takes a lot out of you.

[quote name='chiwii']According to the census, the average household income in Chicago is about $47,000. So, compared to the citizens in their city, they're doing well.

If these teachers are so concerned about funding for art-related programs, school closings, and lay-offs of fellow teachers, why are they still demanding a raise?[/QUOTE]

Hmmm, that 47k number probably includes people working at Walmart. Seriously, it is a professional career (I have 7+ years of schooling for this including my science background and ed. classes) that requires constant improvement to stay relevant - we should be paid higher - most careers should pay more than burger joints. C'mon. Also, most high school teachers make nowhere near 70k until you have been doing it for 15 years and have a PhD! I am glad they get paid so high because if I worked in an inner city chicago school i would buy my own kevlar vest (which can run like 700 bucks and you need a new one every 3 yrs or so)!


[quote name='chiwii']With "high-stakes testing", are you referring to the teacher evaluations where 25-40% of the evaluation is based on test results? It doesn't seem outrageous to me that a portion of a teacher's evaluation should be based on test results. Is the method of teacher evaluation really something that at teachers union should be able to strike over? It seems crazy to me that an entire city school district is shut down because the teachers don't like the way they're going to be evaluated.[/QUOTE]

Evals are definitely needed but here is what everyone forgets... A 10th grader fails his state math test that is required for graduation - who do you fire??? The 10th grade math teacher? The 9th grade math teacher? The 6 previous math teachers that pushed this kid through because he was just too difficult to teach? The English teacher because he couldn't read or understand what the question was asking? You can't possibly link a state test that is only given once every few years to the current teacher with any degree of certainty! If an admin wanted you gone they just overload you with difficult students and you might as well say goodbye. At the same time the "best" teachers from this standpoint might be the ones that only teach AP. How about the teachers that teach classes where there is no required state exam? Like history classes? That eval system is not fair and not consistent. You wouldn't weed out bad teachers - just the unlucky ones (and might even lose a few great ones).

To put it from a business perspective...Students aren't simply products that either function or don't function - there is a history of "usage" that has to be considered, and the funds required for such an evaluation would just take funds away from teachers that could be used for improved teaching conditions (like hiring another teacher so you can get class down to 18)

---
Anyway, I enjoy teaching and I don't mean to complain (it does have its highs but also has its lows) but people need to seriously stop crapping on the profession. We try out best everyday and most of us just want to help people so that they can have a better life.

Also to anyone that thinks teaching is some amazingly secure job where you make bank then stop complaining, go get your teaching cert. and reap the sweet benefits. I'll even give you free tips on how to start the process and get a teaching job - because we definitely need more teachers.
 
Thanks for all of your comments. I do know a number of teachers (friends and family), but I am not one.

Anyway, I'm curious about what you, as a teacher, think of the CPS strike.

[quote name='ToadallyAwesome']

Naturally more secure totally untrue. Not sure what you do for a living but new teachers have very little job security - especially if you teach younger kids. Science teachers are somewhat more secure but biology is a bit flooded. Depends on your state but in general you can be fired in the first 3 months for any reason regardless of the union. It is the best time to get rid of someone really ineffective and it does happen (I've seen it). Tenure comes after 3 "successful" years and before this the union can only do a little (very little) to "save" you although they will try if it seems unreasonable. Still, if admins want you gone, then you are gone. After tenure you can still get fired but it takes a lot more work to do so from admins including well documented cases/reasons/evidence. I've seen teachers (who are better teachers than me) under post-tenure attack simply because of local politics and it would be a real shame to the students if they were gone.

[/QUOTE]

While I don't doubt that teachers could be fired in the middle of a semester or that tenured teachers can be fired, I assume that it is rare. Is that a fair statement?


[quote name='ToadallyAwesome']
As many of you know the 7 hour day is true on paper but untrue in reality. I arrive at school at about 6 - 6:30am and leave school at about 3-5pm (it varies depending on how much lab prep I need to do for the following day). I then come home and plan for tomorrow, make worksheets, and grade. Most of the time it ends up being at least an 11 hour day. Furthermore, during the 7 hour school day there is literally no downtime - at all. I mean I can't even pee when I need to go and forget about a #2! That took some serious getting used to!! Before school starts and during my 45 min prep I run around like a headless chicken setting up labs/photocopying etc., doing all this crazy paperwork that just takes time away from planning and students bla bla. It is not some honeyhole of awesomeness that's for sure. Constantly being "on" takes a lot out of you.

[/QUOTE]

Good points about being "always on." In a typical professional offce job, if we don't have anything that needs to get done right away, we can take a quick walk to get some fresh air, go to a doctor's appointment, even decide to take the day off at the last minute if we want (depending on the specific job and boss, of course). That flexibility is nice, and it's something that teacher's certainly don't have during the school year.



[quote name='ToadallyAwesome']
Hmmm, that 47k number probably includes people working at Walmart. Seriously, it is a professional career (I have 7+ years of schooling for this including my science background and ed. classes) that requires constant improvement to stay relevant - we should be paid higher - most careers should pay more than burger joints. C'mon. Also, most high school teachers make nowhere near 70k until you have been doing it for 15 years and have a PhD! I am glad they get paid so high because if I worked in an inner city chicago school i would buy my own kevlar vest (which can run like 700 bucks and you need a new one every 3 yrs or so)!
[/QUOTE]

Yes, the 47k number is an average household income, so it would include non-skilled workers. I'm not implying that teachers in Chicago should be making the same as non-skilled workers. I only brought up that figure to illustrate that Chicago is not a very high-income/high-cost city.

Regarding the average 70k salary - I'm aware that most school districts don't pay as well as CPS. I was only mentioning the salaries of the CPS teachers, since they're the ones on strike.

[quote name='ToadallyAwesome']
Evals are definitely needed but here is what everyone forgets... A 10th grader fails his state math test that is required for graduation - who do you fire??? The 10th grade math teacher? The 9th grade math teacher? The 6 previous math teachers that pushed this kid through because he was just too difficult to teach? The English teacher because he couldn't read or understand what the question was asking? You can't possibly link a state test that is only given once every few years to the current teacher with any degree of certainty! If an admin wanted you gone they just overload you with difficult students and you might as well say goodbye. At the same time the "best" teachers from this standpoint might be the ones that only teach AP. How about the teachers that teach classes where there is no required state exam? Like history classes? That eval system is not fair and not consistent. You wouldn't weed out bad teachers - just the unlucky ones (and might even lose a few great ones).

To put it from a business perspective...Students aren't simply products that either function or don't function - there is a history of "usage" that has to be considered, and the funds required for such an evaluation would just take funds away from teachers that could be used for improved teaching conditions (like hiring another teacher so you can get class down to 18)
[/QUOTE]

I think most people understand that evaluating teachers is difficult, but the current system just isn't working. People (imo, administrators, teachers, and students) need to be held accountable for the dismal state of these schools. What's the percentage of Chicago Public School freshman who graduate? I thnk it's something crazy low, like 60%.

[quote name='ToadallyAwesome']
---
Anyway, I enjoy teaching and I don't mean to complain (it does have its highs but also has its lows) but people need to seriously stop crapping on the profession. We try out best everyday and most of us just want to help people so that they can have a better life.

Also to anyone that thinks teaching is some amazingly secure job where you make bank then stop complaining, go get your teaching cert. and reap the sweet benefits. I'll even give you free tips on how to start the process and get a teaching job - because we definitely need more teachers.[/QUOTE]

I sincerely apologize if I gave you the impression that I don't respect your profession. I'm just frustrated with the CPS strike.
 
Thanks for the comments and again I am not trying to fight and not really offended or anything. Just frustrated too.

So it is fair to say that you get laid off less as a teacher than in other positions but it really depends on what that other position would be and what kind of teaching position you have. About 20% of the new teachers I started with at the high school 3 years ago are gone, but that is only one anecdote and doesn't mean too much.

Admins are reluctant to get rid of you because there really is a shortage - especially in science. So as far as science teaching is concerned it is more secure because of demand and you can really find a job almost anywhere in the country and that is a huge perk. However, if you teach Art/History/robotics/other electives then you really are working from year to year and hope to keep your job - if the district decides to stop funding your elective then it doesn't matter if you have tenure or how good of a teacher you are.


Things are changing (curriculum and evals) but it takes a long time because of the nature of the job.

To get real change you need a systemic change from K - 12 and to notice if the change was effective takes at least half the student's (K-12) lifetime imo. You cant make some new policy and next year expect some statistically significant results.

My state just required a new eval system and currently teachers and admins are learning how to use this system. I think it is actually fair and improved but rather complicated and very time consuming for everyone. So there is a trade-off... a super ultra rigorous system to make sure you are teaching or... spend time with students that need extra help (instead of admins talking to difficult students or doing community outreach - they are doing paperwork.)

There is a actually a HUGE movement right now in the education sphere. The country has developed new math and english standards and the science standards are currently being debated. I like the move in science because there is more of a focus on problem solving/learning how to learn and less on cram them full of info!

For more info:
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/Standards_Framework_homepage.html

There is also a move to get rid of high stakes state-based testing for a high stakes national test to more readily compare states. It is called PARCC. This is probably a few years away before it is everywhere.

http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc

Honestly, the most successful schools are the ones where the parents are involved and where the community has a sense that academics do matter. Not always the ones with the most rigorous eval systems. It is probably not even possible to get data on this because of how fragmented everything is.

Also, Those graduation rate numbers can be misleading. What they leave out is that those reported % are 4-YEAR high school graduation rates and that is how the state decides when to punish you. You can have a 5 year graduation rate of 95% but that doesnt matter. Kind of the situation my school is in now and I honestly had no idea this was going on until I started teaching.

Honestly, some kids just need another year or so - especially when you have a lot of transient students (students with no permanent home and move from district to district) and students that come to you and speak very little English and have to pass these catch-all exams for a degree, or students with huge emotional disabilities/horrid family life, have to work 8 hour jobs after school to support their family (sick mom/dad). Those are the ones lowering these rates and they are not failures in life or anything but just in bad situations and need more time.

To sum it up here is in the dilemma: From the media/state point of view...giving up and letting the kid drop-out is equivalent to working your butt off and making sure the kid gets an education but it happens to take 5 years because of various difficulties. So where should the school put it resources? Should you shove these kids out in 4 years by passing them through so you don't get slapped by the state?

How does this make any sense? I suspect Chicago is in a similar position and have lots of teaching challenges and that 60% is a 4-year rate.

They are striking because whatever is taken away will NEVER come back to the teachers when/if the situation improves. If you do well in a private business you can move up - not in education. Bargaining is the ONLY way you get anything at all. No district will ever say, hey we had a surplus this year, go ahead and give teachers a raise! So the unions are both really useful and totally senseless at the same time and no system in perfect - just have to pick your poison.

Off-topic
Also our schools are not tthaaaaat dismal when you compare us to other countries. We actually try to educate every single person here. Places like Finland (popular in the news these days) only test the top 1/3 of the country and those are the rates posted. They have extreme tracking (not to mention a very homogenous population) from a very young age. We actually had an admin visit from Finland as part of his schooling and he was SOOO surprised that everyone gets tested. It is really crazy stuff.
 
[quote name='chiwii']
Good points about being "always on." In a typical professional offce job, if we don't have anything that needs to get done right away, we can take a quick walk to get some fresh air, go to a doctor's appointment, even decide to take the day off at the last minute if we want (depending on the specific job and boss, of course). That flexibility is nice, and it's something that teacher's certainly don't have during the school year.[/QUOTE]

It's not even the lack of being able to take breaks. It's that when teaching you have to be "on" as you're engaging students, be it lecturing, leading class discussions etc. Maybe some down time while you're having them read or work on assignments in class, during exams etc. But that's it.

There are very few other professional jobs that require that. Most are people sitting at a computer doing their own work, with some meetings here and there. Or doing lab work with some meetings here and there etc. That just doesn't take the same amount of mental energy (and I know since I teach a couple days a week, and the other days work on my research and the former is far more mentally exhausting).

The closest thing in most professional jobs would be giving presentations and leading meetings, and few are doing that most of their shift every day.

So I have a lot of respect for K-12 teachers as I know how wiped I am just teaching a couple 1 hour 15 minute classes two days a week. I couldn't imagine doing that for 5-7 hours a day, 5 days a week. And then having to get the mental energy to do all the prep work, grading, etc. after hours.
 
noone FORCED these people to become teachers...

Dont like the contract QUIT and get a new job

no they will just cry and complain until they get what they want....


it would not shock me at all in the next 100 years (no im not saying tomorrow or next year) But sometime in the next 100 years if this crap that is going down today keeps going the way it is

it would not shock me at all if we had another civil war in the united states what is very sad to say.
 
Union delegates are consulting thousands of members on a compromise deal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19619624
Under the proposed deal published by the union

  • the evaluation system would be phased in over several years while the weighting of students' test results in teacher-evaluations would be reduced
  • teachers' health care benefits would stay at current levels
  • teachers would receive a 3% raise this year followed by 2% in the following two years
  • a further increase would be included if the agreement went into a fourth year
Click to expand...
 
It's just really easy to crap on any public servant, fact of the matter is that all this is about is getting misinformed people to turn on teachers so they can get the older higher payed teachers fired or forced to retire.

People need to take a step back like they pay soooo much money in taxes and start asking themselves "how do I get what you have?" instead of trying take what others have.
 
[quote name='ID2006']Union delegates are consulting thousands of members on a compromise deal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19619624[/QUOTE]

yet they refuse it.. shows they are nothing but greedy pigs. you want to talk about corporations are evil greedy pigs.. Take a look at the chicago teacher system they dont give a damn about your children but the idoits will side with them
 
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