School stinks? Fire the teachers
March 4, 2010 by Jake SimmsPosted in: Legal News
Tech-savvy (and flexible) teachers may have the upper hand in this No Child Left Behind era. Here’s proof:
Central Falls High School (RI) just fired all 93 of its teachers and administrators.
The reason? Students consistently score very low on state tests and only 48% of students graduate. So the superintendent and school board wanted teachers to work an extra 25 minutes per day and tutor students more, for little extra money.
The teacher’s union refused – and now their members are out of work. Presumably substitute teachers and new hires will finish the year.
“This is immoral, illegal, unjust, irresponsible, disgraceful and disrespectful!” said George Nee, the state’s AFL-CIO president.
These adjectives unfortunately describe the education Central Falls students were getting! Not that this high school is unique.
Which begs the question: Will other school districts follow suit?
The average Central Falls teacher makes roughly $73,000. That’s $30,000 more than your typical private sector employee who’s already working longer hours, without a raise in two years.
Tech-savvy teachers are finding new ways to help students outside the classroom. Such as Pennsylvania middle school teacher Tyler Binkley, who creates math video-tutorials and posts them on YouTube.
What about underperforming schools forced to cut curricula due to NCLB? Teachers (and parents, of course) can use the Web to fill the void. For example, students can earn college-entrance credits in foreign languages, the arts and other areas – for free in some cases – through the K12.com Web site.
What’s your opinion? Sound off in the comments section.
Tags: Central Falls High School, George Need, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, teachers unions, Tyler Binkley
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March 5th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
It seems that teachers don’t suffer when the rest of us (the economy) suffer. My husband lost his position, and hasn’t found decent employment yet. I am so happy to have my job, and do take on extra tasks and assignments happily to keep our family in our home and eating. The fact that these RI teachers scoff at a few extra hours of work speaks volumes as to how willing they are to see students succeed. Move over, ’cause plenty of other qualified teaachers will be happy to take a $70,000+ job that has 2 months off in the summer. There seems to be a sense of ‘entitlement’ amoung k-12 teachers.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Actually, while the Central Falls school board has unquestionably handled this situation badly, the facts reported in this article are not all accurate. When a school performs as badly as Central Falls High School has a federal mandate then requires one of four responses: one of them (Option 3) is to radically alter instruction methods and curriculum; another (Option 4) is to fire no less than 50% of the teaching staff/administration, at the end of the school year (not right away, as this article presents). Negotiations over what would be entailed in Option 3 broke down between the school board and the teacher’s union (this was the longer school day, etc.). This is when Option 4 was enacted. The teacher’s union has since come back to the table with a revised version of Option 3, which it looks like will actually go through. Rhode Island students are suffering, there is no doubt, and not just in their education. Unemployment is high, crime is commonplace, poverty is widespread. This is not just a matter for the schools but for the entire state of Rhode Island. To lay the blame on the front-line people, i.e., teachers, is ludicrous. A school is only as good as its leadership. Maybe they should fire themselves?
Susan B. in Jamestown, Rhode Island
March 5th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Unfortuately, it seems easier to blame the teachers than the parents. What are the socio-economic demographics of this high school? Is it mainly poor Black or Hispanic students, some of whom may not value education? Are there many girls (of any race) dropping out due to pregancy (because we need more 14-year-old single mothers and their unwanted children to “not leave behind”!)?
Those are usually big factors, but politicians are afraid to be honest since it will upset voters. The current disturbing trend is to break the union and save money instead of properly placing the blame on the parents and the religious/political leaders.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Why didn’t they hire tutors? How much does the superintendent make? It bothers me to see Sally Smith and others gladly join the race to the bottom.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
I can only speak for myself. I work very hard to provide a quality curriculum for my students. I teach high school choir and Arts and Humanities. Even in my 27th year, I still try to keep coming up with new ways for students to learn and practice the material. I have a family that is very important to me and when it’s time to go home, that’s what I’d like to do. I am paid about $20,000 less than the RI teachers and I’m not even paid a stipend for my choir work, which requires several hours after school. I would be devastated if I were told that I was fired because test scores were down….I would be devastated if I were to be fired PERIOD. I take my job very seriously, follow school rules, and demand the best from my students. I don’t feel like I’m alone in this, either.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Well, I work at a college and am appalled at the number of students who come into college ill-prepared for college level classes in English and math. I work from 8am to 4:30 and often stay later if a student needs me. I don’t get overtime. I work 12 months a year.
You tell me a high school teacher is making more than I do and that they are whining about extra work… they have summer’s off. I don’t. I have NO sympathy and in fact this makes me very angry.
Students are not getting what they need to succeed and NCLB is leaving lots of students behind. No wonder we are becoming a second class country. GREED has become the American dream.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
I can only speak for myself. I work very hard to provide a quality curriculum for my students. I teach high school choir and Arts/Humanities. Even in my 27th year, I still try to keep coming up with new ways for students to learn and practice the material. I have a family that is very important to me and when it’s time to go home, that’s what I’d like to do. I am paid about $20,000 less the RI teachers and I’m not even paid a stipend for my choir work, which requires hours after school.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
I could not agree more. I have been conversation with university faculty members who are more than well aware of the adverse effects of unions in the world of academia. But, teachers need the full support of the administrators and Board members when they adhere to rigor in their classrooms. I cannot tell you how many graduate level students I teach who have absolutely no writing ability. Even with computers and spell/grammar check they seldom use it and have no sense of responsiblity about sub par work. And yet, these students have been promoted consistently from grammar school through college and been provided not only passing grades, but As and Bs which have not been earned. I applaud RI for this action. Let’s hope they are able to hire real teachers and administrators who understand the meaning of earning grades.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Do you really think firing teachers will fix that problem……come on. Do you think all substitue teachers and new hires are going to do better??? no way. Do you really think everyone of those teachers has not tried everything to help students learn and perform well??? So many teachers already give of their own time over and over, and spend hours at home preparing, researching, making every effort to improve the learning environment. You cannot expect the teachers and administrators to FIX all the problems those children have with learning. We are talking about variables that are created in their lives, NOT the responsibility of teachers, such as difficulty concentrating, difficulty accummulating knowledge, poor attitudes towards learning and it’s importance, lack of interest or motivation, on and on………These are NOT created or fixed by teachers. Students have the responsibility. I have no doubt that if students had lots of support at home, and guidance to do well and parents monitoring homework, and Supporting the schools, that students would perform better. This school system is WAY off on this one. H
March 5th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Twenty years ago, I was finishing my studies for a bachelor’s degree with the idea that I would get my teaching certification and teach high school English. During the last year of the program, we were able to see how the system works. At the same time, I was working my way through college as a staff writer for a local newspaper, and I was given the assignment of covering school board meetings. It didn’t take long for me to change my mind about my career. The problem with education in our country is not with the teachers — the problem is with the system.
Teachers typically take five years to earn a four-year degree — they are not only experts in their fields, but they take additional pedagogy training. Then they go through a three-to-five year process where they are observed and evaluated before they are awarded tenure. Even after receiving tenure, they continue upgrading their skills and expertise. They are the ones who get to know the students on a daily basis. The understand what their students need and have the skills necessary to meet those needs. They lack only two things — resources and support.
Schools are governed by boards comprised of elected officials who often have little-to-no background in education. Many of these school board officials have political ambitions and use this as a stepping stone for a political career. To get elected, they promise not to spend money, so when teachers ask for resources, there is usually not enough funding to make it work.
Teachers will tell you that the one-on-one relationships they build with their students are important and insist that class size is a huge factor is student success. School boards will see that the more students they can squeeze into a classroom, the lower the cost, so they will pile students into the rooms.
Teachers will tell you that learning is more about knowing how to use information that is available to you than it is about the facts and figures that you memorize. Administrators create tests that measure what students memorize to judge the effectiveness of the education received. Teachers will tell you that each individual student has individual needs, and trying to force them into some kind of “one-size-fits-all” curriculum template will never work, but administrations will constantly pussh for standardization. To make things worse, almost every person who attends school will have dozens of teachers, but will always remember the one they had problems with.
So the hope for our schools are vilified, administrators pat themselves on the back for “making the hard decisions,” and our children suffer.
By the way, I chose to continue my education, earned a graduate degree, and now I teach in college, where teachers are still able to use their expertise to educate. Our world’s not perfect, but at least I have the power to help my students achieve success.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Everybody always talks about teachers having OFF the summer months. I don’t know many teachers who are OFF…. what with preparing new curriculum/activities for the next year, attending workshops and professional development classes and generally taking a break from the extremely stressful days of handling 30 (or more) kids who could care less about getting an education because their parents didn’t have to learn that when they were in school…give the teachers a break.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
This was a good choice by Central Falls. While parents share the responsibility to educate students, we send students to school 180 days per year for 7 hours per day to be educated. Teachers develop the daily lesson plan, decide what to teach, decide how to teach, determine the pacing of the lesson, and when to assess their students’ knowledge. Teachers are professionals and are paid to make a positive difference in lives of all students. All districts should take drastic actions when a school is failing to improve year after year.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Missie Culp, you sound like a hard working caring teacher. The RI teachers obviously aren’t and they are reflective of many other teachers I have met while my children are in school. This is a poor town with many immigrnats. Many of the parents work nights and long hours for minumum wage. They need the teachers to be flexible with their time and help them help their kids. For goodness sakes, the teachers make $70K and couldnt tutor a few hours a week? Greedy is what I call them, they dont care about the kids at all! As for the other whining about how many years a teacher studies, give me a break. I would 50+ hours a week on a 40 hour week salary. I require a masters degree to do my job. I get 3 weeks of vacation per year. I am required to keep up on my profession on my own time. I dont have a union to whine to. I am just a regular working professional in this country. Teachers need to get perspective.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
You could not pay me enough money to be a teacher. It is a hard job. I know many hard working teachers who bring work home and who spend their own money to buy school supplies for kids who are unable to afford adequate supplies.
How about what administrators are paid which is much more than teachers. How about cutting their pay to increase the number of teachers.
Additionally don’t the parents have some responsibility? I know parents who think their kids can do no wrong or parents who are so busy with their own issues that they do not care about their kids.
As in every profession, I am sure there are bad teachers but that does not justify painting them all with the same brush.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Firing the teachers is a wonderful idea.
While my first two children are straight A students and fly through school, my second two (1st and 3rd grade) struggle. My wife and I spend an average of two hours daily working with them, and with sports, clubs and everything else going on this has really impacted our lifestyle.
Since parents and the students are not accountable in any way, it certainly makes sense to blame the teachers and force them to do the tutoring. Or fire them.
On second thought, perhaps the heart of the problem is that these kids do not care to learn because their parents do not care enough to instill within their own children the value of learning, or any other values for that matter.
From what I’ve seen, the teachers are being more and more crippled by the brain-dead administrations, school boards, and other governing bodies who are either too ignorant to understand the real problem, or are too concerned about their career ladders and/or political agendas to place accountability where it should be placed.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
The ‘hip’, ‘airy’, ‘soundbite’ style of this brief piece glosses over the fact that the school district is the poorest in the state. Then that the article goes on to ‘brag’ about a high tech teacher’s success which for me merely underscores the fact that IN REALITY, POOR KIDS DON’T HAVE THEIR OWN COMPUTERS. Should we fire the administrators who are not finding the funding to provide after-school enrichment for these kids? Should we fire the families who are trying their hardest but due to a lack of education cannot break out of a cycle of poverty? Don’t fire anybody. Let’s work together to find a solution to the problem instead of trying to find a scapegoat and someone to blame.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I am not sure firing the teachers and then hiring substitutes and new teachers is going to make the education any better. It rocks the stability of the school, harms students and impairs progress of what learning was taking place. How are students going to focus on learning when every teacher they knew is no longer at the school? In terms of blame, plenty to go around. The administration for letting it get to such a drastic point, the teacher’s union for not being proactive about this situation, did they have to wait until a federal mandate to take action to change the education of these students.
Also, they can get some blame for digging in their heels (I suspect many of the teachers put in extra time as due course if they are like other teachers I know), and the community for not being more involved in the education of the kids and getting involved sooner. What it says to me is that the structure of schools are broken, the education is suspect and the preparation of kids for the modern era is based on 18th century models.
As a country, we keep saying our advantage in the world is our educational system and then we continue to undermine it.
States talk about their desire for economic growth but then cut higher education appropriations while bankers make bonuses in the millions and wonder why all of us idiot see a problem with that! If we had taken the TARP monies and invested in education we won’t be at this point.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
This ill-informed and irresponsible article is part of the problem, and it is mostly an assault on children. Teachers are NOT the problem, and teacher union bashing is not the answer to our global economic meltdown. Teachers are on the front lines daily – every ill society dishes up appears in teachers’ classrooms, most of these ills come to teachers with zero resources to help our children. Spend a year in any classroom of any middle and lower income school anywhere in the country, then come back with useful insights that help, rather than perpetuating these predictable, useless, worn-out arguments that divide rather than unite teachers, parents, and citizens in common support of our children.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
AVERAGE salary is $73,000? For a public school teacher? In an underperforming district? That is damn near double the staring wage for a Wisconsin state university professor.
The problem seems to be at least somewhat related to the company these teachers are keeping. Does no one see a problem with the AFL-CIO goons being involved in education? The union boss’s quote is hysterical on many levels:
“This is immoral, illegal, unjust, irresponsible, disgraceful and disrespectful!” said George Nee, the state’s AFL-CIO president.
This insightful comment coming from the wearer-of-the-fez for the organization the insists that unskilled labor be paid better that Phd’s.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
I applaud the Superintendent, that he had enough guts to fire those teachers. This practice needs to be implemented for the entire Country. If teachers do not want too or can not teach, and their schools consistently falls to unacceptatable levels they need to quit, or be fired. And the NERVE of George Nee, the state’s AFL-CIO president regarding his comment, its about time we think more about our KIDS than we do about collecting a paycheck at the expense of our Kid’s education.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I am fascinated that the school district did such a poor hiring job as to fill an entire building with underqualified teachers whom they were willing to pay $70+ K, especially in light of the fact that they are certain that there is a pool of highly qualified, unemployed teachers ready to fill these positions – if not immediately – next school year.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
After reading the article and the comments, I keep coming back to one thing that blows my mind–the average teacher there makes $70,000???? Here in Indiana, you might make that much at the top of the pay scale after earning a Master’s degree and adding extra studies plus years and years of experience. I’d be willing to bet that it is nowhere near the pay average for teachers in most states.
“Firing all the teachers” is one of the NCLB options when a school is failing, but the law states that ALL SCHOOLS IN THE ENTIRE US WILL HAVE 100% OF KIDS PASSING in something like three years from now. There’s no way that even the craziest idealist would think that a possibility. I have a feeling that this won’t be the only school that tries this tactic—and if many school systems just up and fire all of their teachers, where are all the needed teachers going to come from?
March 5th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
As an Arizona teacher…I’ve been teaching for 10 years, have a Masters in Curriculum and Instructions and make less than $50K. Even after teaching for 30 years and getting a PHd, my max pay is $65K. Entry level teachers make an average of about $28K in my state. My schools scores have been marked as EXCELLING at every school I’ve every worked. I work over 50+ hours a week between in-class teaching, grading, and additional requirements. NOT all teachers have the advantages of RI teachers. No one should make blanket statements about teachers or any job for that matter until you know the details of what each job entails.
Respectfully – M
March 5th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
I am so tired of the misconceptions out there about most teachers. First of all, I’d like to know where the average salary is upwards of 70,000. I am a 5th year teacher in the ‘wealthy’ state of Connecticut and I make 41,000. I actually take home much less.
I am responsible for educating 115 different students and catering to their countless needs and extraordinary circumstances which most outsiders would never believe. When I go home my work is never done. I have no kind of outside life. My work is my life.
NCLB is an IMPOSSIBLE mandate designed by those who were clueless to reality. 100% of students are supposed to be proficient in every subject by 2014. This is the most outrageous goal anyone could have ever dreamed of. Students are takings tests constantly to better prepare them for state tests that were never designed to hold the kind of magnitude that they do.
Lousy students are produced by lousy parents. Teachers do so much every day, but they can only get so far with a student who just doesn’t care and has no real structure at home.
It is such a copout to blame teachers. People need to know the facts. NCLB and the hopeless attempts made by school administrators to live up to it are killing education in our country.
A teacher is educated to be a professional; they are paid like a general laborer, and they are blamed for the shortcomings of everyone else.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
the article’s author is misinformed when he/she states that lesser paid people in the private sector work longer hours than teachers. Teachers spend countless hours after school and on weekends grading papers and planning lessons, long after those poor private sector workers have gone home to spend time with their children and spouses. And “summers off” is a fantasy – most teachers spend their summers working on keeping certifications current and obtaining advanced degrees, in addition to district required professional development hours. Most districts require post-graduate work, at the teacher’s expense. And while 70k sounds nice, I am sure it is reflective of the cost of living in RI. Certainly as teachers we can all do better, but there are many issues hindering student learning today that were not part of the equation 20 or 30 or 50 years ago. It is naive to suggest that the teachers bear sole responsibility for student learning. Many of these kids likely begin their education “behind” when they arrive in Kindergarten not knowing how to write their names, recognize colors, say the alphabet, or count to 10. So much for NCLB – these kids have been “left behind” before they’ve even begun their formal education, and no teacher is to blame. There are many issues that contribute to creating “failing schools” and there is no one solution that will fix those schools. Firing the entire staff seems like a placebo to make it seem like the Board actually cares about those kids. They know this won’t work either.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Okay Scott, get up off your tired old arse, go down to your local high school and teach the little darlings yourself for 84 minute periods.
I think the National teacher’s association should call for a nationwide strike and walkout in protest.
Yhis central falls thing is nothing more than UNION BUSTING at its worse. That Superintendent should be fired. If not, then come election time, that school committe (those dunces) will be voted out of office. I guess they don’t understand the math in elections do they?
Let’s let nincom[poops like Scottie , parents and federal meddlers (Dear Mr. Presdient: I voted for you in the last election and that will be the LAST time since you and your Secreatry of Education haven’t got a clue about edication.)
Stop blaming teachers because little Johnny can”t learn. If parents want to blame someone look in the mirror. This attitude that little Johnny deserves a A even though he’s as stupid as a stone is ridiculous.
Grow up!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
I cannot believe how many of you are living with your head in the sand! I have been a teacher for 10 years (and make no where near $73,000!!). I spend night, weekends, holidays and summer vacations working on lessons, grading papers and attending workshops. If some of you think that teaching is so easy, why not try doing it? We are dealing with a generation of kids who have little to no boundaries at home and that shows up at school. I deal regularly with apathy and back talk. When I meet with a parent to discuss why their child is not turning in work or failing tests, the parents tell me that they can’t get their kids off of the computer! Who is parenting this generation??? On top of this, I have to deal with administrators who believe that better teachers have classes with better grades. So, what do a lot of teachers do? They give higher grades to keep the administrators off of their backs. I am criticized for being to hard on the students. This is what is wrong with the system.
Teachers decide to become teachers because they love their subject and want to share that love with others. The reality is that we deal with a lot of over-indulged children who would rather play X-box than learn and parents who would rather give in than parent.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
If you want to know what NCLB is like, see how well this would go over in the business world. Pretend you own a company. You are now told you MUST hire ANYONE who walks through the door- no matter if they are homeless, have little education, limited English speaking, have mental or social disorders, are absent half the time, etc. Of course, some of the people you hire do have experience and are wonderful, motivated employees.
Now it is your job to train this diverse group of people to each sell $100,000 of your product by the end of the quarter. If every single employee doesn’t meet this mark, you will lose your company. This may be a reasonable goal for your motivated, experienced employee, but how comfortable are you with that goal for the other employees we talked about? Willing to put your company on the line when you are forced to hire EVERYONE? Schools are amazing places that do accept everyone and usually do their darndest to meet students’ needs- even students who come from the most difficult of situations. Problems occurred long before students set foot in the school.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
There are some good points made by everyone here. The social, economical, and demographics of the actual students do come into play here. The parents being involved in their teenager’s curriculum is also very important (are they taking the time to make sure they get their homework done, do the students get enough sleep, are they able to assist their children?).
I don’t agree with the fact that teachers don’t suffer during economically challenging times such as these. I know I work for an educational institution and while scheduled credit hours increase during challenging times like these the funding from tax bases decrease (because people move out or can’t pay their taxes, etc). The schools that rely heavily on public funding usually end up losing money as times get harder and the demand for education increases. The loss of publically generated revenue has a negative effect the same way it does in the corporate world. For example: it usually starts with cutting supplies, and even more recently we’ve been told about the workforce having to be cut. The only difference is that the corporate world feels it first, and then it takes a few years for it to catch up to us. Keep in mind it’s the educational process that will see our society through tough times like this, so when school funding takes a hit – times may get tougher.
This article could include more important details such as this (is it funded properly, or are the funds being used improperly), however at the same time I feel that schools should be student-centered in making decisions such as this. Being a unionized school, like in most union shops, I’m sure that there are shining star teachers working there as well as underperformers. Clearing house may be a good way to get rid of dead weight.
With that being said, I can see where some people may think student-centered teacher making as much as they do should be willing to help turn things around by contributing the extra 25 minutes per day. Their point is when does this stop? As some teachers have already pointed out, a lot of the teacher’s off time (if the teacher really cares and is always improving their teaching process) is eating up by prep work for school. It may seem like a sweet deal that they get summers off and appear to work only 8 hours, however they work way more than that. I know.
It comes down to the fact that we all have the shared governance in the educational process, as neighbors, friends, teachers, parents, clergy, etc. Some of these problems are based on many things like the demographics, and social/economical status of the students as well. However, in the end the school should reserve the right to take whatever action needed to improve the educational quality; otherwise we may all suffer in society.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
On one hand,The demographics are an important consideration as Bruce points out, if the students background and family structure don’t value and reinforce education in the home, 10 teachers to each student won’t help.
The schools are flooded with substandard students and some faculty that have essentially given up and would like to coast to retirement. Union bashing is not the answer, but a major shakeup of some kind is clearly in order
Some of the freshman I see are in very bad shape, lacking even the most basic academic skills one would associate with a HS grad, it the end it comes down to vacuum and sift at the college level.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
MOST OF THOSE TEACHERS STARTED AT $15,OOO A YEAR AND ONLY AFTER WORKING FOR MANY YEARS DID THEY HIT TOP STEP. DID ANYONE TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS THAT COME INTO HIGH SCHOOL HIGH ON MARIJUANA, ECSTASY, COCAINE, ACID AND WATER BOTTLES FULL OF FRUIT JUICE AND VODKA AND CAN’T CONCENTRATE AND FOCUS LET ALONE REMEMBER ANYTHING——-OR STUDENTS THAT ARE GANG AFFILIATED AND VIOLENCE PRONE WHERE GRANDSTANDING AND BULLYING ARE THE ORDER OF THE DAY AND ALGEBRA IS NOT HIGH ON THE PRIORITY LIST.
EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED, MENTALLY ILL , OPPOSTIONAL DEFIANT STUDENTS WHO DON’T HAVE INSURANCE AND HAVE NO ACCESS TO MEDS SHOULD BE ABLE TO SCORE AS HIGH AS THEIR COLLEGE PREP PEERS RIGHT?
PLUS, WE ALL KNOW THAT THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CHILD WITH A 70 IQ AND ANOTHER WITH 110. ALL STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO LEARN THE SAME AND AT THE SAME RATE EVEN THE ONES WITH LEARNING DISABILITES AND OTHERS THAT SUFFER FROM LONG AND SHORT TERM MEMORY PROBLEMS. LET US NOT FORGET ABOUT THE STUDENTS THAT DON’T HAVE A CLUE ABOUT WHAT YOUR TEACHING BECAUSE THEY DON’T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE.
IT WAS INTERESTING THAT THE STUDENTS SUPPORTED THE TEACHERS IN CENTRAL FALLS.
IT IS EASY TO SCAPEGOAT TEACHERS AND NOT HOLD ANYONE ELSE ACCOUNTABLE. POLITICALLY,
IT WORKS,
March 5th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Well said Phil Ray Jack. The education world is not perfect, nor is the private sector. Before teaching, I was an employee at a large corporation in the “real world”. I worked with many, many people who did not do an adequate job, but continued to be employed for various reasons. The education is just like ALL other companies in the private sector, in such that we have teachers that should not be employed as educators.
With that said, the majority of teachers and/or employees do, not only an adequate job, but excel at their profession as well. No one talks about them, because everyone is busy complaining about the bad ones.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
My wife has been a teacher for over 18 years. She is white and teaches in a middle grade school with a 99% black student AND teacher population in a gang ridden neighborhood. Seven of her students have been murdered – 6 during the school year. One student came to school with 2 armed officers who had to observe him constantly throughout the day. Five have brought their first child to school with them by the age of 13. She has been assaulted twice. Despite all of this, as well as demands from other schools who have desperately attempted to recruit her, she stays with these kids. She sees their worst on a daily basis. Occasionally, she sees a spark of hope that at least one will succeed, not because he or she is ‘moved up,’ but because they actually see the light. It is difficult to express the pride I have in her whenever we go practically anywhere in our city and someone runs up to her and gives her a hug and can’t wait to tell her how they’re doing. I wish I could be like her. Her school just achieved AYP (annual yearly progress) this year, despite constant pay cuts, budget reductions, furloughs, administrative changes because, as one writer put it, people using the education system as a stepping stone to another job.
My wife’s salary is not as high as that of the teachers mentioned from Rhode Island, despite the fact she is has her Specialist degree and is working on her Doctorate…yet she doesn’t complain. She arrives at work 2 hours early each day and leaves 2-3 hours later than everyone else at the end of the day. She chairs the Language Arts program, is faculty advisor to the Student Council and runs the concession stand at every school sporting event, most ending after 1800 each night. That Summer off time one writer begrudged them she is either in school away from home attending doctorate classes, state mandated classes, or conferences on how to improve teaching. I did see her for a week last Summer.
My point in all of this is there is no doubt teachers are doing all they can with the limited resources they have to produce the finest AMERICANS possible…not students, not workers, not sports figures…, yet they are up against politicians and administrators who want to line their own pockets or get ahead, parents who either don’t want to or can’t afford to spend the time necessary with their children and litigators who are just waiting for them to make that one bad decision so they can vilify them and make money for themselves. No, teachers aren’t the problem; they’re the solution. But they need help. First they need parents to take responsibility for their children. PRIDE used to mean something in this country. Today, we suppress it, afraid that if someone stands up at a graduation and says, ‘That’s my boy!, others might feel bad, so we say, ‘No applause, please.’ They need an administration that rewards success and does not tolerate poor performance, and has the spine to stand up and recognize both. They need a legislature that finally understands EDUCATION IS THE FOUNDATION OF EVERY ASPECT OF AMERICAN LIFE!…Not religion, not politics, not wealth. We must stop robbing the school system every time money gets tight. And we must stop punishing our teachers for their failure to raise our children for us.
I applaud the teachers from Rhode Island who have the INTEGRITY to stand up and be heard. Those are obviously the ones who were doing a great job and don’t want to be lumped in with those who weren’t. I’m ashamed for the school administration for taking the cowardly approach they did, obviously afraid that some of the bad teachers might sue them for racial, ethnical or any other prejudice they could think of to force the school to accept their continued poor performance. Good luck to them all. I hope the one good thing to come from all of this is that everyone takes notice and looks within themselves to see what they could have done to help prevent this and makes the necessary changes.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
As a teacher, this school’s approach to the problem is absolutely ridiculous. I think that the lack of communication was the problem here. Lack of communication and realistic standards between state and federal standards, school board memebers, administrators, teachers, parents and students. I know the school system and I have had the standards shoved down my throat and can honestly say the current system of measuring student achievement and knowledge does a disservice to all involved. I became a teacher because I genuinely love to help people become educated. But I also became a teacher because I wanted to impart a love of learning and love of English to my students. But, when I graduated from college, it became very clear that there were going to be road blocks in the way of those goals. You can blame whatever you want: the parents, the teachers, the students, standardized tests, anything. But that doesn’t change the fact that the system stinks and it needs to change. I think the education system needs a huge overhaul and there needs to be a meeting of the minds between everyone involved in the students’ learning process, including the students. And I think that this meeting needs to leave out politics, the government, and even the school boar. I think if they don’t see the student on a day to day basis are aren’t responsible for their learning, they need to stay out of matters that involve education. Parents, educators, learning pyschologists, counselors, speech therapists, principals, special education coordinators, and others should be the ones at the front line discussing standards and education, not those people that sit in a an office and never come to a classroom to see what it’s really like. I agree that teachers, parents, and students should be held accountable for learning, but how can someone be held accountable when they didn’t have any input regarding the standards, don’t understand the standards, or even agree with the standards? I hope they get this worked out and I look forward to a day when the school system can get with the program.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Firing the teachers can be debated, but busting up a union is always the right move.
Want to fix the system? The only way to do that is to bring free-market ideas to it. Yes, I do mean – school vouchers.
About responsibility. While parents are generally responsible for their kids, blaming the shortcomings of the teachers’ union on them is unacceptable. The thuggish behavior of the teachers’ (and other) unions is well documented and cannot be denied.
Let me say it once more: school vouchers.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
I am a teacher. I teach college students in a nursing program. Most of my peers are hardworking individuals who could earn more money in the private sector. As an advanced practice nurse, there is no doubt that I could easily earn more money in the private sector. We choose to teach because we believe in public education and have a passion for knowledge. I as well as the vast majority of my colleagues spend countless hours at our positions. At least once a week, I will teach for 6 hours, then attend meetings for 2-3 hours that are part of my institutional committment, then come home and spend 2-3 hours correcting papers, updating gradebooks, and answering e-mail. It may look like I have an easy job-but that is an illusion. If I am not engaged with my students, then I am constantly working on prep, professional development, and increasing my skills in educational technology. I work at my job every single day. Poor perfoorming students are failing for a variety of reasons-first and foremost parents who lack the means, skill, and initiative to provide an environment that is intellectually stimulating and that meets the basic needs of their children.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Andrew, grow up and get an education. Tell us Andrew are you addicted to FAUX news? Do you have more than a high school education? Moron.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Mis-informed, misguided and mistaken.
How many of you would work for free for your employers? Not a one. How many of you would give up coming home after work on time and spending time with YOUR children and families for no reimbursment? Not a one.
First, the general public needs to lose this idea that teachers somehow don’t work hard enough, or somehow owe their lives to other people.
Teachers work 40 hours a week at their schools – and then countless more hours outside of school, for which we do NOT get paid. Grading tests, creating lesson plans, staying after to help kids, calling parents, attending conferences, reading to keep up with our content. The hours we put in are far more than most 9 to 5′ers. How about THIS for a change: parents – spend time at your homes with your children who you are ultimately responsible for, and make sure they are doing their homework. Make sure your kids are not watching TV and playing X-Box instead of working in the project I gave them 4 weeks ago and they haven’t even started yet. Make sure they come to school well-fed, having slept a reasonable amount of hours, and ready to work hard to succeed in life.
Teachers cannot raise your kids for you, nor should they be expected to. Teachers should be held accountable for the effectiveness of their craft only within the context of the work ethic that their students bring FROM HOME. The greatest teachers in the world cannot MAKE kids succeed – only the kids can make themselves succeed.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
As a school board president, college professor with high school students contracted to attend my classes, I sort of wear all of the hats. I have a majority of minority and non-traditional students in my CTE courses. Many of the college students are first generation high school graduates. I find that a large portion of the problems with achieving what NCLB requires needs to be placed squarely on the shoulders of the parents who allow their children to excuse themselves out of homework, attendance at school and other things. Parents often do not know how to support their children in school because they did not receive support when they were in school. In some neighborhoods and sub-cultures, education is not considered as valuable, partly because the parents did not receive an adequate education. And when someone does excel academically, they are ostracized, thought of as going against their culture or as joining the establishment and are not longer accepted at home. All this because someone attempted to do one of the most powerful things that can be done to elevate an individual or family out of poverty, namely get an education. I don’t like NCLB, but it is what we have to live with. When teachers are blamed as the only cause for failing or underperforming students, the school board needs to look deeply into why, and not just look at the numbers on some standardized test.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
As I read the post I see all sides to this story. The one point that seems to be missing is society has changed and unfortunately our children are the ones getting hurt. The home structure is no longer there. The U.S. has to look at why most families are now made up of working parents. No parent is home to make the children’s live less stressful. Our children need their parents and parents are not available because they must work so much for just the basics. This 24 / 7 lifestyle is hurting everyone. I wish I could greet my boys at the door when they get off the bus and spend the needed time doing homework and the extras they need to survive–society just does not permit this.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
The comments left here address the crisis in which we find many of our public schools. The word we have to highlight here is PUBLIC. EVERYONE is responsible for the failure of students. Since when did it become popular to place 100% of the blame on the teachers and their much-maligned unions? If you ask me, it is too complex an issue to simplify. The system is broken and the trust we placed in it years ago is gone. I’m 45 and spent my school years quietly respecting the teachers in charge, most of them, even if I felt some could have done a better job. My parents were the ones who questioned ME if I didn’t have a good grade or my work wasn’t turned in, not the teacher. Today, parents are all to quick to question the teacher or complain about the teacher’s undeserved salaries and benefits in FRONT OF THEIR CHILDREN. This is shocking and perhaps explains the disrespectful behaviors and apathy of a large chunk of the student body. I probably won’t make 70,000 before I retire and feel that teachers are not paid fairly for the amount of work they do. We have to have post-graduate degrees and are considered highly-trained professionals. For someone who has to do as much schooling as a doctor, lawyer or MBA grad, the pay scale is by no means FAIR. Teachers do not go into this profession for the money, people. They do it for the challenge, the cause, the kids. STOP THE NEGATIVITY and start looking to support those who chose to take on the greatest job known to mankind.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Everything comes down from the top. The concept of NCLB is flawed and unfunded and was pushed by Bush pandering to special interests (you know who they are). The teacher is the last person to fire in the chain. Obama and Duncan are perpetuating the same ill devised national mandates. How about firing Duncan and hiring Diane Ravitch, the former top aide who has spoken out against NCLB? How about firing all of the Superintendents first, who didn’t provide the proper support to ensure some measure of success? How about firing the elementary school staffs first, they are the ones that promoted kids on who could not read. The kids didn’t get to high school and then forget how to read, did they? There is no common sense in public education (on the large scale) because it has lost its compass completely and is now in the hands of politicians and an ever increasing, under educated, apathetic, under achieving mass of parents and students whose minds go blank when the TV or Xbox is unplugged.
So where is the spark to get things fixed? It is not in adding layers of technology support. That is just another new marker board on a wall. It is getting our education system back to what it was. A national mandate to create an educated public is what we once had. Stop chasing scores, comparing to others (countries), help the kids get a good education by supporting the teacher with clear, simple objectives (not continual shifts in thinking backed by test after test) the time (student-teacher ratio that is appropriate) real people support (classroom aides and parent involvement mandates) and respect (they earn every dime, and the security they have is part of the American system, like firefighters and police, we rely on them, every day.)
I wish that education at large was still placing the teacher at the top of the pyramid. That is how it used to be, still is in some enclaves, and if it doesn’t return, I have little hope for education. This is not pessimism; it is a wakeup call. Hopefully it is not too late.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Here in Chicago, where one public school student is murdered every week on average, the white families that can afford it (and even some who cannot) send their kids to Catholic or private schools under the guise of “getting their daily dose of religion”, but in fact do so in order to avoid the jungles created by minority students, the indifference of the parents who will not take responsiblility for their childrens’ actions, and the BS slung by the politicians and religious leaders.
In order to stop the cycle, I think we have to close the borders and stop rewarding unplanned pregnancies. We have to require people to pay their fair share in order to receive their fair share. Let’s consider race and socio-economics, and their underlying attitudes, as viable causes. These problems are not the teachers’ fault, but society’s problems.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
While I do not agree with the decision the educators initially made in RI, I do not agree with people placing teachers in the over-paid, entitled realm. I work hard at my craft much like other professionals do in other fields. However my 35-40 hour salary teaching position is only what I’m paid for on the surface. This does not factor in planning lesson, mentoring, coach (volunteer), disecting assessment data, professional reading, REQUIRED continuing education classes, and being a role model in every aspect of my life. How many professions include all that, so it is safe to say teaching is demanding. I have two degrees and finishing a third, I have roughly the same amount of professional training as doctors and lawyers, but with a fraction of pay. Am I complaining, NO, because I love my career. I am also lucky to have a job in these times.
I do not know the underlying problems at the school, but it is very unfortunate that a few bad apples have once again placed education into the “feeling entitled” view point. What did happen was the LOSS of a COMMON STUDENT-CENTERED FOCUS at the school. Which is beyond unfortunate. I ask you to assess your commments when stereotyping people, I bet you could be stereotyped as well!
March 5th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Firing the teachers is equivalent to firing all the bank tellers when the banks failed to do their job. The teachers and the job they are doing are a piece of the puzzle. The other pieces are the school administrators, the superintendent and the school board. Logically, if the kids are failing, the responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of all who participate in the process of educating them…not just the front line. Therefore, if it’s OK to ignore contracts and fire people, then the administrators should all go too. After all, it was their job to supervise instruction, curriculum and the teaming across all departments in the schools. If the kids are failing, the schools failed, not just the teachers. This is scapegoating at its most classic.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
In Alberta, the solution to a failing school system was not blamed on the front-line teachers who have to work with the resources, time (and salary) provided to them. Instead, the province wisely fired the entire school board as the creators of the conditions which led to the failing system. The Rhode Island case is one where the superintendent and other admin. have decided to cover their own mistakes with a sensationalized move. RI, get your school board replaced, then you might see some changes.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Oh, so teachers don’t suffer when the economy is bad? Now I am responsible for providing even better education than ever before with less support and less money. So where do the supplies come from when I need to do a lab or a project? Not from school because we have no money. Nope, it comes out of my family budget and I make $30,000 a year. This has definitely had an impact on my family finances. Longer hours in the classroom means longer hours my own children are in daycare. Longer hours at daycare mean I have to pay more money each week to make sure they are taken care of. So between forking out money for my students to have a quality education and keeping my own children in daycare for longer hours, I would say that this teacher is seeing an impact from the economy. I understand people outside of the business have no idea how difficult or time consuming teaching is.
So I don’t think I am entitled to anything, except for some understanding.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I think what has upset most people is the salaries of these teachers and their attitudes. As a teacher, I make half of what their average is and spend my summers working or teaching summer school. Additionally I volunteer to chaperone dances, take tickets at sporting events and dedicate as much time as I possibly can to tutoring after school. I bust my butt for my kids and my school because I love what I’m doing even if I am underpaid (as are the majority of other teachers).
The situation in Rhode Island is upseting because I am sure that there are several teachers who are good teachers trying their best, but the overall stance of that city’s union ends up painting every teacher in that district as anti-student. The problem is that these teachers allow us to bring all of our negative stereotypes against unions and teachers to the table. More then a few of the parents out have had good experiences with most if not all of their child’s teachers. Most of us love our jobs and work to become better teachers and try our hardest to educate our kids in the best fashion we possibly can.
Teachers like the ones in this article kill me because they give each and every one of us a bad name and allow people with agendas against public education to come in saying how this is the rule rather than the rather obvious exception.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
I teach school in Oklahoma and am on my lunch half hour. I am happy every day that I have a job when so many are out of work. We haven’t had a raise in four years but even with rising costs of everything, I do at least still have a job. Now I’m relegated to buying my own dry erase markers and we just learned we may need to buy toilet paper by the end of the month. I’m not joking. But I understand why. The state is out of money. We’re broke. But at least I still have a job. So I don’t understand their unwillingness to spend an extra 20 minutes a day. I make $30 and hour in a time when some people would just like to work anywhere.
But I can’t speak to their situation with so many failing students. Every district is different and not every student body is the same. Even individual classes are different. I’ve had classes where half the students failed and the next class through the door has no F’s. Same teacher, same techniques but different results. I don’t have enough knowledge of that situation to determine if the problem is the student body or the faculty.
Overall, there is one thing I do know and it is that if you have discipline in a school you can get some things done. If you don’t, you can’t perform to your optimum. I’ve had it both ways. Good teaching starts at the top with the superintendent and trickles down to the principals who are either allowed to hold the kids accountable for their behavior or otherwise. I retire in two years and I will miss the kids. This is not an easy job and it will be nice to sit home and draw the same check. But if the system goes bankrupt and I have to keep teaching then I will still be glad that at least I can provide for myself.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
This article appears poorly researched, at best. First off, the Central Falls teachers have the option to finish out the year, if they so choose. The Superintendent is also working with the union there to hire at least half the teachers back – and provide training to help them acquire the skills they’ll need to work with students. Perhaps the problem with having a tech news bias is that it appears to condemn any and all teachers who, for whatever reason, have had little or no exposure to implementing technology in the classroom. Isn’t that the job you ought to be doing – supporting the teachers and enthusiastically introducing them to technology – rather than writing them off because they’re not where you’re coming from?
Another problem with this article is that, by its sheer lack of research, it appears to suggest the problems rest squarely with the teachers. Hogwash! I find it interesting that all five underperforming schools in Rhode Island – four of them in Providence, plus Central Falls – are in urban areas. Read: low income; a myriad of personal, emotional, and socioeconomic problems for kids that adversely impact their school day; and a community mindset that doesn’t always support best teaching practice – and almost never top quality, sustained teacher training. It’s all too often easier to blame the teachers, for the simple reason that they receive a paycheck. A good many of these individuals are doing their darndest to get their students through the day, and from day to day. And you’re going to toss out technological tidbits that are going on in top performing (read: moneyed) schools without stepping in to offer training? Sorry – then you’re not part of the solution. You’re part of the problem.
There’s no doubt technology plays a vital role in getting students ready for the real world. But technology isn’t the only thing students need – and it’s not even the most important thing they need. They need to know who they are, and that they count for something; they need to experience the same quality education that their suburban classmates experience; and they need well-trained (read: NO MATTER WHAT THE COST) teachers who can support them, sustain them – because, often, no one else in the community, including parents, cares enough – and inspire them. When kids have the peace of mind and confidence that comes with these essentials, it’ll be a great deal easier for them to study, implement, and benefit from peripherals like technology.
PS – Absolute NO to school vouchers. People who want to put their kids in private or parochial schools ought to be doing so because they believe in the MESSAGE those schools impart, be it faith, duty, personal responsibility – whatever. That means, parents ought to be making the sacrifice for what they believe in. To incorporate a free market system over schools that have belief values that may not suit everyone makes a further mockery of the public school system and will have a negative impact on the non-public institutions as well. You want private school: pay for private school yourself, because you believe in it. Otherwise, do what you must as a parent or member of the community to ensure that the local public school is doing right by your student. Unions exist for a reason: had you done your job earlier on and been involved, perhaps there would never have been a need for them.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Wow–$70,000 a year? I have been teaching for 16 years, have a MS and National Board Certification, and I make under $40,000 a year (I teach in Florida). As it stands, I spend at least eight hours a day at school (we are paid for 7.5 in my school district) working with students, communicating with parents, attending meetings, planning lessons, and grading student work. I usually take home at least one hour of “homework” each night and spend at least three to four hours every Sunday preparing to provide meaningful instruction and interactions with my students. I do this because I care about my students, my school, my community, and this country. If my school district were to tell us that we had to “work a few extra hours” without additional compensation, I would have to seriously rethink my job choice. That makes me sad. Whether a person works in a large corporation, a school, or a fast-food restaurant, it is poor employment practices to exploit one’s most valuable resource–the employee. Teachers are human; we have no special magical powers. We need help. One teacher may be able to change a child’s life, but we shouldn’t expect that it is a teacher and only a teacher who can make a difference. Schools can teach so many things, but we need help in teaching accountability and responsibility. Parents and communities are going to have to reinforce the message that having an education and a strong work ethic are important in order for us to see a change in test scores and student performance in college.
Finally, to anyone who ever says teachers have cushy jobs and are paid plenty (I’ve heard this several times lately)–why aren’t you a teacher?
March 5th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
No quetion about it. There’s been an effort on since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers to destroy all unions and depress wages for workers in all catagories. This is just another case of union busting by the elite who seek to reduce us all to third world standards.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
“The average Central Falls teacher makes roughly $73,000. That’s $30,000 more than your typical private sector employee who’s already working longer hours, without a raise in two years.”
This is a hilarious statement from the “writer” of this article. How about this?
The average doctor makes roughly $180,000. That’s $140,000 more than your typical private sector employee who’s already working longer hours, without a raise in two years.
The average engineer makes roughly $90,000. That’s $50,000 more than your typical private sector employee who’s already working longer hours, without a raise in two years.
Etc…. So what’s the point?
March 5th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Good-bye lackluster teachers and your mafia-run unions and the Democrats who you pay off.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
I am astonished how easily people can rush to put all the blame on teachers for problems that are endemic to the system and the particular environment. Like most people responding here, I do not know the details of the situation to make an informed judgment. I do know this. I am a college professor who teaches advanced physics courses at the PhD level and my salary is not as high as the supposed salary of these teachers. If the numbers quoted happen to be true, I don’t feel cheated at all. In fact, I do believe their job is a lot more challenging than mine. Besides it is dumb to compare basic salaries without taking into account the varied cost of living expenses for the different parts of this country. I think it is fair to say that most teachers in K-12 are underpaid, over worked, and under appreciated. Despite the importance of their work teachers do not get the respect they once enjoyed and are paid accordingly. By all means have higher standards, with a fair system of evaluation, and pay them accordingly!
March 5th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Teachers are adults and professionals. The general public becomes negative about the profession when groups representing teachers fight against any extension of the workday. In my hometown, teachers were asked to add 10 min a day to make up for excess snowdays. The union insisted that that would be fine, as long as additional pay was included. This type of obstructionist and ridiculous behavior is what angers most folks. Same for the Rhode Island School. If asked to tutor and work harder in a failing system, then a responsible adult either steps up, moves on, or is forced to leave.
Regardless of outside forces that affect performance. Anyway, the data is clear that good teachers can overcome outside issues (examine Teach for America results). The problem is there aren’t enough of them.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Great idea….fire all the teachers, then all the parents can stay home and educate them themselves. That wouldn’t last long.
I am a science professional who chose to go into education later in life. I begin work at 7 and rarely get home before five. I spend the majority of my evenings planning, grading papers, and thinking about how I can help my students. Most summers I am required to take classes or am organizing my classroom/work, so so much for “summers off”. People who do not teach are clueless. Oh….and I don’t make 70K and I don’t get paid for summers either.
I was shocked when I went into the classroom and actually saw how much baggage students bring….divorce, death, hunger..the list goes on and on. Add to that the fact that many high school students do not want to do anything but text and play sports, and you have a recipe for disaster. Many parents are not supportive of education, so it is not easy to get some students motivated no matter what we do. Yes, there are bad teachers just like there are bad carpenters and doctors. These should be dealt with by administration. Our government has decided that it can “fix” education (read here social problems) by imposing endless testing upon students. Clearly this has not worked, so we need to find another way. If the families of the United States won’t take responsibility for instilling some goals and values in their children, then the schools have little chance. In the past, schools were not required to be the counselor, nurse, social worker, chauffeur, nutritionist, parent, etc. Let the schools TEACH! I live in a community where the poverty rate is over 50%, and there are gangs, drugs, truants, and pregnant teens. No teacher can fix all that, and we are expecting them to….and to teach at the same time. We try…..and getting bashed gets old.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
EVERYONE has a part in teaching a student and there are many variables and many exceptions. No one methodology will fit every student and every culture. Since it seems money is an issue to most people commenting on this board, why not try and change the rules for public schools so that they can run like a business and maybe even make a profit so that they can invest in the next year? Also, if you are going to fire people for underperforming, why not also include bonuses for meeting a target? Students and parents failing? We found that hitting parents in their pocketbooks really motivate them to get kids to school (SARB) so maybe rewarding them will help them improve their child’s attitude toward learning. If we are indeed a greedy people, why not use it to motivate and educate instead of bleeding the education system dry. If educators are NOT doing it for the money, it’s still an incentive for them to find different ways of teaching or reward them for putting in those extra hours. You may even attract more people to become educators.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Take a look at this site. http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state
Teacher salaries aren’t what they seem. I have taught High School and worked in the private sector. In some cases, considered one teacher at a time, we have bad teachers. Some draw the salary and go home. In my current job in the private sector it is the same. Some people aren’t as motivated as others. Hasty generalizations about classes of people are generally inaccurate and filled with bogus analysis used to forward the individual presenters agenda or ideals.
I think our society is failing our children. Stand up America and be counted. Help the teachers, help the children and each other.
In the late 70′s I was teaching in a rural SD school. Most SD schools are rural! The first semester of the year I had 33% of my students doing failing work(6 classes of 30 students each totaled about 180 students, 1/3 then is 60). As parent teacher conferences came around I called the parents of each of those failing students to encourage them to come and discuss ways I thought ‘we’ could help their children to learn better. Out of the 60 students that were failing I had 3 sets of parents come and see me. Of the other students I had 22 or so sets of parents come and see me. Guess what, most of the parents that came to see me had children doing A or B work. The message then is the message now. Parents that care make a difference in the lives of their children and then so do teachers working with those parents.
Teachers save a lot of children but they can’t do it alone just as the parents can’t do it alone.
When discussing things like this we bend things so much to our own way of thinking in the US that we can’t even solve problems. We live in such a ‘me’ society we don’t help our children anymore.
Good luck to us all.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Expecting anyone in any profession that requires continuing education to stay within the profession (that isn’t paid for by employers, mind you) is wrong, teachers or not. For the most part, people not involved in teaching do not understand that teaching is not a “clock in – clock out, done for the day” job. Most of the teachers I’ve intereacted with during graduate school, as a teacher myself for a few years, and with a child in public schools, work over 40 hours a week when school is in session (and put in time over “breaks” in mandatory training required by the school district or State, or in seeking additional training to stay “current” in teaching methdologies, or preparing for the next school session, or being involved in school planning sessions). For the most part, for every 1 hour involved in face-to-face instruction with students, there is approximately 2 hours involved in preparation and follow-up (if you really want quality instruction, teachers do NOT “teach from a book” but customize thier materials and approach to meet the educational needs and learning styles of their students.) I challenge anyone who thinks teaching is easy to get certified and then become a teacher… see if you last more than 4-5 years (typical burn-out rate for new teachers).
March 5th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Money will not fix the problems, either. About 15 years ago, 60 Minutes did a piece on the BILLIONS of dollars spent by the Kansas City, Missouri school system to upgrade the facilities in order to create a “better learning environment” for the students. It did not help the schools, but look at all of those construction jobs that were created!
Again, the best way to help a school system is to get the parents to do their jobs as parents.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
JC, are you kidding me?! Did you just say that regular education teachers are UNSKILLED LABORERS? That PhD’s are the elite? I certainly hope YOU are not one of those PhD’s. Let me quote from your post:
QUOTE: “AVERAGE salary is $73,000? For a public school teacher? In an underperforming district? That is damn near double the staring wage for a Wisconsin state university professor.”
What exactly is a “staring wage”? Public school teachers work hard to get where they are and put in many, many years before they see that kind of salary you seem so disgusted by. Us “dummies” may be just unskilled labor….but at least we know how to spell.
QUOTE: “This insightful comment coming from the wearer-of-the-fez for the organization the insists that unskilled labor be paid better that Phd’s.”
Hmm, “for the organization THE insists that unskilled labor be paid better THAT Phd’s.” What are you trying to say, because your grammar is sadly lacking. Funny how such an unskilled laborer as myself could catch those errors in one quick read through.
One last thought, those “unskilled laborers” that you think so poorly of have to take every single student that comes to his/her classroom. Regardless of background, abilities, race, you name it, teachers have to take every single child that comes to the classroom. We have no choice. Professors, on the other hand, have to only take students that have a real interest in continuing his/her education and have gone through a screening process conducted by the higher learning institution. You wouldn’t last one week doing what an “unskilled laborer” does day after day.
Oh, and did you really have to use profanity in your post?
March 5th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
It all starts with the parents who don’t promote education in the home. Hearing behind the scene stories from family members who are teachers, I continue to believe that if a student refuses to learn, a teacher has no way to “make” them. They can fire every teacher in the country and bring in all new ones, no one can force a student learn to take a test or listen in class. It is time to stop blaming teachers and look at the responsibility of the parents.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Why are these poorly researched and poorly written articles allowed to be published? Maybe they should fire this writer because the work didn’t produce great results. Just sayin’ ….
March 5th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Everyone needs to stop focusing on the $73k a year. The salaries are all relative to the cost of living in the area. Obviously if you work in NY, NJ, RI, etc, you are going to start at a higher salary than in the hick states because the cost of living is extremely expensive. The people posting from these farm states and complaining about how they start at only $30k a year: Seriously, it costs 200,000 for a near-mansion in your state, compared to around 350k+ for a modest home in the tri-state area. Get a clue.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Part of the problem goes back to the way the U.S. was taken from the people who lived here before Europeans moved in. When we had a frontier to exploit, success was often obtained by packing up, moving west and working very hard. Learning wasn’t a requirement — just hard work.
In such an environment schools and teachers were mostly for appearances. Teachers were young ladies who would lose their poorly paid jobs if they were to marry.
We’ve had over a hundred years of history since the frontier was last open, but we still retain some of the old habits. Yes, teachers are allowed to get married now. And male teachers are common. But we still insist on local control of what happens in the classroom. Teachers have many restrictions and parents assume that they know far more than the teachers. How, for example, can science be taught when parents and even poorly educated administrators complain about the teaching of biological evolution?
Since teachers are largely powerless, the students sense this and often have little respect for someone who can not even expel an unruly student from his/her class. Even one unruly student can completely disrupt leaning for everyone else in the room.
I tried teaching for one year. I had had a lot of science, math, engineering and biology in my academic background. But the principal under whom I worked told me that my problem was that students thought of me as a “brain.” What I should do, he counseled, was to pretend that I was just two pages ahead of the students and knew absolutely nothing beyond that. Is this the right path for us to succeed as a country? Or is our frontier experience going to continue to hold us back?
March 5th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
To comment on Tony McCarty’s comment above:
I don’t think our society is failing our children. I think that some of society’s members are failing THEIR children and making the rest of us to deal with the problem. Willy Wonka had it right: “Who’s to blame? The mother and the father.”
If teachers were replaced by robots, the outcome would be the same. Mom and Dad HAVE TO BE ACTIVE in their childrens’ education.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
While I myself do not care for unions, I don’t coach and I push my students to do well, that means I need something to protect me! If it was not for the “evil unions” many good teachers would be out the door and the ones who play the right games would run learning further down hill.
I have seen the damage these tough talking, tough acting superintendents have done. Most of the time they have no idea what the student body even looks like. Numbers are crunched and people are blamed and they earn 6 digits to pass the buck to who else, the teacher!
We have cyber schools and some areas vouchers, how well do they work? It costs only $700 more to teach a student in our building than it does to put one in cyberschool. Be careful the competitive environment some want for education is for the student, not the profits!
As someone said earlier, we need to redirect education in general. Education is for just that, why do we spend hundreds of thousands to even millions on sports programs but can’t afford to keep books current? We are to inspire and engage students who can’t buy a calculator but have 30 XBox games.
Let’s sum this all up, America, get your priorities in line, Education is the future of this county and it is presently in the hands of politicians. If that doesn’t scare you, then you are a fool!
March 5th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
I’m waiting for China to walk right in without firing a shot…
March 5th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Teachers have become the punching bag for society’s problems.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
As a comment on Glenn’s statement above: We are to inspire and engage students who WON’T by a calculator but have 30 XBox games.
Steve has a nice comment, too.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
> Anyway, the data is clear that good teachers can overcome outside issues (examine Teach for America results). T
Don’t be so sure. My daughter was a TFA teacher and had an absolutely horrendous experience. She got NO support from her principal – in fact, the principal was openly hostile to her and other TFA teachers. She would frequently come in to my daughter’s classroom and berate both my daughter and the students as losers. She would rip materials my daughter had prepared off the wall and call them ‘crap’.
It makes me sick every time I think of my daughter’s initial excitement, idealism and passion to make a positive change turning to despair and disillusionment. It was a tremendous waste of youthful striving and I wonder how often this happens. Apparently more often than TFA wants you to know about.
But the bigger loss is to the students. How many, many young teachers are beaten down by this same lack of support and leave – to the detriment of the students, their future and our country’s future.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
My mother is a retired school teacher. I believe the general public do not understand that teachers actually work every night and on weekends as well getting their class prep done and do extra curricular activities. The average teacher works 50 to 60 hours a week. Teaching is a rewarding carreer as well as very demanding. People are always so quick to judge as they believe a teachers job is done at 3:30 when the school bell rings.
Education does not stop at 3:30 pm when school is out. Education continues at home. Parents need to continue to work with their children every night and help them with their homework. I have 2 nephews with mild learing disabilities and the whole family pitches in to help out with their homework.
Instead of firing all of the teachers and blaming the education system, maybe the parents should be carrying part of the blame as these are their children! How much time do you spend doing homework with your kids every week?
March 5th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
I haven’t read all the way through the comments but as a teacher I really wanted to reply and piggyback on the comments of other teachers and their supporters. I teach high school to a group of wonderful and not so wonderful students. I have some of the most motivated and hard working students out there but I also have some who come to school for the free lunch and the socializing. The problem is how to teach these two groups when they are in the same classroom.
If you spend 20 minutes of your 45 minute class saying “Sit down, put your phone away, stop touching her/him, stop talking, have you started working yet?” you will find that it is hard to always be the best teacher in the world. Now do we try to motivate the socializers? Of course but how do you motivate a 20 year old who is only in school because his girlfriend is here everyday and he is illegal so he knows that only minimum wage jobs are waiting for him because he can’t go to college after graduation.
I can’t speak to why the Rhode Island union balked at the conditions they were asked about but I suppose it has to do with the money. I too make less than those teachers and as someone with a graduate degree that hurts but I know that my day does not stop at 3:45 when the students leave. I have typically 3-4 hours of planning, grading, organizing and other such things to do after school. I also sponsor our student council and don’t get paid for that so there are a few more hours to work, plus I tutor the students in my classes several days a week. However all of this extra curricular work is my decision, I choose to do it – I should not be forced to do it especially without compensation of some kind. Teachers do purchase supplies out of pocket all the time, they support school fundraisers, they give students lunch money if they really need it, they help out in anyway they can.
So for people to stand up and say that teachers act like they have a sense of “entitlement” because they wish to be paid for their level of effort is unfair and unjustified. Would you work overtime all the time of your own free will and never ask for compensation? Seriously? Would you do that? If you honestly say No, can you ask someone else to do it?
Some of these comments really make me angry. Have some of you thought about what you ask of teachers? Some parents expect you to be babysitters, counselors, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters on top of being an educator. How many students have you ever talked to who said their parents hate them, throw them out of the house and refuse to give them money for lunch? I see those students every year. What about the level of education you ask of me and my fellow teachers? I went to college, got a bachelors degree in my field, got my masters in education, had to pass a certification test and finally went to work as a teacher. I have to renew that certification every 5 years and am required to attend multiple trainings both in my field and for teaching every year. Every new change that comes about for education I have to learn and adapt to and we have a lot of those new theories and ideas each year. So in addition to being a teacher, I am also a student each year. How many of you who criticize teachers do anything like that?
Summers off? Not really, I have to revise and adapt my curriculum, attend trainings, conferences, and plannings and I don’t get an expense account so most of that is on my own dime. I don’t know why the Rhode Island union acted the way they did and I won’t judge that just like I can’t judge the school system for their actions. We don’t know what else had gone on, if there had been any other considerations but I do know that to judge an entire profession on one snippet of news is arrogant and shortsighted.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Seriously, why have we become such a nation of gelatinous finger-pointers?
I teach high school English. I work 6 AM to 6 PM every day. I work an average of five hours every weekend. During football season when I’m coaching, I work at least 80 hours per week. I get paid for 37.5 of those hours on my teaching contract, and about six cents per hour on my coaching stipend. I spend 95% of my waking moments thinking about my job, and these poor, neglected, spoiled, latchkey, learning disabled, emotionally stunted, parentally-challenged kids who I’m trying to save from themselves. I also spend some of that time thinking about the brilliant, hard working, disciplined kids too.
Teaching is my calling, as it is for at least half of my colleagues. Half of those who remain try to be professional educators, but don’t see the work as a calling. The rest see it as a job. That can’t be helped, as there are not enough people passionate about teaching to fill all the positions.
The fact is, by the time kids get to high school, the quality of teaching they receive every day has very little to do with their success on standardized tests. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the success of an individual and of nations alike.” Character is also the decisive factor in the quality and proficiency of a child’s education, especially at the secondary level and beyond. Now, I believe this can be enhanced and inspired by great teachers, but where the “rubber meets the road,” it’s up to the individual.
It has been nice to read that I get spring break, summer, and Christmas off, though. That’s a pretty sweet deal. In fact, I feel a little ashamed about not doing enough to earn my $2300/month — oh, wait… that’s right, I’ve spent every weekend since the end of November, as well as my Christmas break fundraising so that I could take 17 of my students to Europe over spring break. Oh, well, there goes spring break too. Well, at least I could have caught up on my sleep last weekend, if I hadn’t driven 300 miles for a professional development workshop. That’s okay though, summer will be a blast. After working school-related summer activities, organizing my classroom, figuring out how to write and teach an AP curriculum, planning new material for my other classes, and taking classes to renew my teaching license (all on a volunteer basis of course), I should have at least a week to spend with my own children and my wife — of course I’ll have to supervise the weight room for summer lifting on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that week, but hey I’m overpaid anyway.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
In a system as complex as our public school system it is ludicrous to think that any one entity is to blame. I have been teaching for 30 years, in public school, in non-profit educational programming, and at the college level. I have had the privilege of knowing many more fine, hard-working and masterful teachers than administrators. Education in America is top heavy. Thin the most highly paid in education- THE ADMINISTRATORS, most with salaries into the 6 figures, and let the teachers govern the schools by committee and I bet you’ll see loads of improvement. Yes, there are teachers out there that give teaching a bad name but firing the whole faculty is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. I know there has to be a lot more to the whole story than a few hours after school. What are the neighborhoods like? How supportive are the parents and community of their educators? What kind of resources are available at that school? What are the student-teacher ratios like? Let’s stop blaming one another and seek some balance. Let’s start collaborating. Get the teachersthat are successful, from a similar school, to help the teachers in RI to improve. Firing the teachers is like letting kids drop out to make our graduation numbers look good, it doesn’t really solve the problem.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
I am leaving teaching at the end of this school year. I have taught remedial reading at the high school level for over 6 years. They have tried to fire me 3 times already and the union protected me. I have been evaluated many times by the county and it is amazing that my lessons are lauded. The behavior management coordinator is begging me not to leave and can’t understand why they are trying to get rid of teachers where there is actual learning in the classroom. I speak the truth and try to guide the students in the proper direction – and sometimes that means they need to explore their talents and not recite back that they want to be doctors and lawyer (in my 12th grade remedial reading class?). I’m done. I don’t expect the students to appreciate my dedication, but my superiors should and they are the ones who have driven me away. Good luck finding my replacement.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
A good teacher is one who brings passion and enthusiasm to the table along with the ability to turn theory into practice. That is what we all want for our kids. Unfortunately, some teachers have been forced to become high-priced babysitters since the parents are looking to dump their kids for seven hours a day. No wonder teachers are jaded, if not burnt out, after five years.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
In what universe do teachers get to choose what to teach, how to teach, and how to pace? With the demands of NCLB and “The Race” all we get are a stack of teacher guides from politically chosen textbook series, a set of standards, and pacing guides. It’s up to us to make this “one lesson fits all” curriculum work for everyone in our classes. At the same time we have to teach manners (gimme), health (how to use the bathroom and wash hands), nutrition (eating properly and using utensils), and self-protection (dodging erasers and curses). Sure, the summers off – with no pay – make up for that. Get real!!!
March 5th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Teachers do NOT get summers off. We do not get paid for that time. Many (if not most) of us have second jobs during that time, or teach summer school. We also do not get paid for vacations, holidays, or days off from school. We are paid for 180 days per year at a daily rate calculated based on our education and time employed. And before anybody starts talking about how lazy and entitled teachers are, perhaps you should consider how long it takes to grade 200 papers in high school, and that’s one ONE paper per student. If schools aren’t working, I doubt it’s the teachers’ faults. Neither parents nor students in general seem to want high standards; they want good grades for minimal effort.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Money, money, money! That seems to be what all this is about. When schools fail, politicians are all too anxious to join with the “teachers are overpaid” mob and hand down unfunded mandates that have little educational merit. On the other side we have the “let’s throw more money at the problem” group who feel that only the latest techno-gizmos and high paid educators are the answer. The undeniable fact is that no one can be made to learn. Motivating students so that they want to learn must start and continue in the home and be enhanced by talented educators who are themselves motivated. All human beings are born with a seemingly endless curiosity and an astonishing capacity to learn but somewhere along the line that burning desire for knowledge is extinguished. I remember a time when most children would tell you what they wanted to be, no matter how farfetched it seemed. Their interests frequently changed as they matured but their dreams carried them on. Contrast that with today when so many students still are undecided about what they should major in after two years of college. This is not a failure only of teachers but of society in general. It’s time parents realized that they are the most important teachers of all. The examples they set, both good and bad, usually can’t be un-learned.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Who wrote this? Any effort at fact checking? The average salary, plus all benefits, for a top step teacher may be $73k. But the average for All Central Falls teachers? Doubtful. And if it is, consider what that says — no new teachers have been hired in 15 years. Seriously?
More to the point, and from actually working in RI for two decades at the state level, I have witnessed the educators in CF up close. There is NO OTHER high school in RI where you would feel more comfortable and welcomed than at this building. Kids approach you to offer directions and ask if you need help. The teachers are supportive and hard working. Money from every respource is channeled here. So what has gone wrong?
Let’s take the testing first. In order to track student performance, don’t you actually need to have the same students attend continuously? Doesn’t happen here. Mobility is highest in this almost 100% immigrant community. And take the Bush administration habit of declaring crackdowns on illegal immigrants, and these kids mostly disappear the next day. How about the administration? I’ve witnessed administrators turn their backs on grants because they didn’t fit their vision of how to support their instruction. Right or wrong? It’s hard to defend any firmly held beliefs by folks who have failed repeatedly. I’ve witnessed administrators more worried about getting jobs for their relatives than hiring the best teachers.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. This approach was political theater orchestrated by a new Commissioner of Education to ensure she gets a plum federal grant . . . which may or may not be used as intended by administrators who pursue their own agendas. Let’s slow down before we condemn the entire teachign staff.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
I’ve worked as a teacher myself for 4 years before coming to my senses and changing careers. As a whole they are the whiniest group I’ve ever been associated with. If parents saw how they acted when they are not around they would be appalled. Very few are pushing the boundaries. Most abhor change and just go auto-pilot until retirement.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Hey Bill Thwaites, ask Lewis & Clark and their crew if learning wasn’t a requirement! I would argue that their daily survival depended how much and how fast they learned. Second chance lessons usually didn’t present themselves. Perhaps the problem with learning is that too much of it is done in a classroom. Perhaps teachers should teach students reading, writing, science and math while following the Lewis & Clarks westward trip down the Missouri river.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
I teach in a well run suburban district in CT. I earn good money. If I want to earn MORE money I can go teach in a more dangerous, less well run district in the inner city (Central Falls or Providence, anyone?). It’s called COMBAT PAY and is a reality across the nation. You can be certain that tough schools in tough districts pay better in hopes of getting later-in-career tough teachers hoping to raise their retirement pay.
Additionally I think all school board members should be required to substitute teach in their districts a few days a year—You can’t understand this job if you don’t live it.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
I think this is an abuse of power on the part of the superintendent. It sounds as if the board is not creative enough to resolve the problem in a way that so many teachers and administrators, who certainly could not all have been poor educators, would not lose their livelihoods.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
As the teachers continue to blindly follow their unions off the reality cliff, I say: Let the lemmings fall.
I wish that more school districts had the same intestinal fortitude as they do in RI to overcome the fear of a lawsuit and just fire the incompetent and coddled few that continue to be protected by their unions. Way to go, Central Falls High School!
March 5th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
$73K/year, for 10 months of work, and they didn’t want to cough up an extra 2.5 hours a week?
Screw them. They had it coming. If I was such an abysmal failure at my job, my employer wouldn’t wait for me to say no to extra hours to sack me.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
I am a retired teacher of special education for 30+ years. I have always worked longer hours than has been required. I have never made 70,000+ dollars and can not live on my retirement so am working still. I think along with the teachers some of the administrators needed to go since they are the ones that are not doing their jobs either. It starts from the top. Te parents also need to take some of the responsibility, but if there is no care ofrom the teaching staff there will be no cae from the parents or the students.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
What appears obvious in this article is that the union is more concerned with maintaining the status quo than considering the interests or needs of its members and the community. I would be curious to know how many individual teachers at Central Falls would have been willing to provide (or already do) extra tutoring and stay a little bit longer to teach students? A good teacher knows that its more important to be student-centered and that sometimes a sacrifice of time is required to achieve the desired result.
The request by the board to provide additional services during this educational crisis was a fair and reasonable response. The refusal by the union portrays what is wrong with our current educational system. Like other industry unions, teacher’s unions have become too powerful, focusing more on what they can get out of the system than truly championing the cause of teacher-student issues. It is time that these unions be revamped, restructured and in some cases, retired.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
You’re looking at this backwards. Education is a resource and investment not a social service. Instead of firing teachers the bottom 6% of students should be eliminated each year 1 thru 12. That better uses resources and effort that now provides little return, has every high school graduate in the top 50% of the starting group, and cuts about 26% of the teachers. Better students to fill industry’s critical jobs at less cost.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Public education uses a time tested model that has worked well in the US for many years. When the majority of students come to school with their basic needs met (food, water, shelter, emotionally cared for) and a middle class values system of working hard/education is important, then the system works! In schools were many of the students do not have these it is a struggle. A teacher can devote the extra time when there are a few needy students, but sheer numbers of needy students can overwelm a classroom, a building, and a district. The extra care needed to make up for what is lacking at home is very expensive and much harder to do within a school than at home. For every child born into a home lacking in these needs society pays for social workers, teachers, special education teachers, policemen, judges, correction officers, probation officers etc. It is overwelming our society.
Do some teachers and buildings succeed despite these problems, yes, thank goodness. But is through sheer personalitiy and case by case special circumstances. Just as some athletes rise above their peers some teachers will be able to achieve those great things. Treasure them, but don’t expect all teachers to be able to do the same, it’s unrealistic. If you are reading this and are not a superstar in your line of work, but are a good, hardworking person none the less, then don’t cast stones at teachers facing overwhelming problems in struggling schools. The daily accumulation of all they face is beyond your imagination unless you walk in their shoes.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
The K-12 school as conveyor belt system is the largest problem I’ve observed with the U.S. public education system. There seems to be tremendous pressure to give a child a “social promotion” if they only need help in one subject (math?). Students should not be promoted in a subject until they have mastered it. So what if daddy is the town attorney and mommy is a school principal, and they both have boucou political power?
One should be carrying around a 3rd grade math book until they have mastered it, even if they can write at the sixth grade level. We do the kids no favors by passing them along or keeping them eligible for the football team. Get rid of the conveyor belt / assembly line style of social promotions.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
I am appalled at the response of Sally Smith and others who agree that the teachers should have been fired. I am a teacher and an excellent one if I must say so. I love my job and the students and families that I serve. What Sally and anyone else who criticizes teachers fail to realize is that while educating children takes team effort, sometimes teachers are the only person on the team doing thier part, and have to take up the slack of the other team members ( students, parents, administrators). Before I teach one thing I have to sometimes make sure the child has been fed, had a decent nights sleep, has on clean clothes, has field trip money, lunch money, check for illnesses, listen to a story about what happened in their neighborhood or home the night before, help calm fears about who is going to be home when they get there, etc, etc, etc. So please remember: before you judge me or other teachers, take a moment to walk a mile in our shoes. By the way Sally, what are you doing to contribute to schools in your district?
March 5th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Having worked on all sides of this issue; 17 years in healthcare, the last 8 as an administrator, and having taught community college and high school, I can authoritatively say that teaching in public school is the hardest career (so far) in my lifetime. As you may glean from previous comments, teaching is not a 5 day a week, 8 hour day. But why bother trying to educate those who have already decided that teachers are overpaid and underworked? I invite any of those without a background in education who commented on the conditions in school to take a month off work and work as a substitute teacher in their local public school system. Once you have some actual experience, come back to the forum and give your opinion. Don’t forget that substitute teachers do not have to do grading, lesson-planning, extra-curricular activities, etc. – all of which take large amounts of time each day. If you truly experience teaching in a public school you will understand. If you teach in an urban school as I do and deal with violence, homelessness, hunger, and poverty; you will have an even better understanding of the challenges that teachers face each and every day.
It’s time to stop the hypocrisy in this country. We cannot say in one breath that our most important product is the education of our children while saying in the next breath that we need to cut funding for that education. I am proud to be one of those underpaid and overworked public school teachers. Even though, after nine years of teaching, I still make $25,000 less per year than the salary of my last career, and work more hours per year, I would never leave the profession.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
A school, any school, is only as good as the parents of the kids in the schools. The parents set the tone for learning. Either it is important or it isn’t. I work in a great school that has made AYP (adequate yearly progress) across all subgroups but I have also seen kids skip school and their parents call and lie for them to keep them from disciplinary action. Parents make or break their children’s progress. Teachers vary, so do presidents, but PARENTS are the bedrock of education.
PS I AVERAGE 60 hrs. per week of student contact time (that doesn’t count grading) and does include my extra curricular activities (SOOO IMPORTANT) and I make $20,000 or so less than RI teachers.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
I don’t know what the preoblem with this generation is. I think it’s becoming les and less motivated. Where are the motivators? Oh, yes, there are some!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are in the classrooms, every day. They definitely work extra hours. They take their papers home to grade. They work on lesson plans. They work on techniques that will best meet each student’s needs. Oh, they work alright! Only, are they rewarded? Ask a teacher if she gets paid enough. Let me just say that the money they make is not enough to dye their grey hair. That’s the kind of stress they have. They deal with students who choose to act immaturely while in class. A good majority of such students want to just hang out and socialize. They want to act cool and be the BULLY. They bully one-another and they bully the teachers. Our problem is not the teachers. It is the mentality. We give our kids way too many rights. Take a student from Europe or China. They perform way better, and their curriculum is way more difficult, but yet they outscore us? So wher do you think the problem is? There! Too many rights. A student comes to class knowing that the teacher can’t talk to him/her a certain way because mom or dad will call the superintendent’s office. The teacher gets called in and then the teacher may get fired? This is pathetic! This society finds the fault in the teachers when we need to instill in our kids the love for learning and education, and why not the ambition to remain the power we used to be. Maybe, it is this very mentality that made us less of a powerful empire? And now this generation is reflecting this kind of revolt?
There are students from other countries that come to pursue their studies here in US. They come to class eager to learn. They LOVE every moment of it. I can’t say that’s the case for a godd majority of our students. That’s a shame.
Speaking from a mother’s point of a view…. I tell my kids to study. There is not one single day taht goes without us talking about school. We talk about my kids’ future plans about twice a week. How are they to be aware of the cruel rivalry between powers if we, the parents, don’t make them aware? My kids do very well in school for tqwo reasons. they have WONDERFUL teachers who care about my kids’ learning, and they have caring, concerned parents at home who are very involved in their acdemic lives.
So, instead of finding the blame in others, why don’t we first look at ourselves? Ask yourself as a parent? What am I doing to help my child be a successful individual for his own ggod and for the good of the society? Don’t blame the teachers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Teachers are with your child only for one small portion of the day. You are the biggest part of your child’s lives. Think about it and reflect. Do your part!!
“Two parents teach more than twenty teachers”
March 5th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
As a high school student in 1980′s it was unusual and shocking when a another student got pregnant or on a lower scale, students who smoked in the bathroom. I had a graduating class of about 350 seniors. In comparison I think a city school in New York would have a higher percentage of problems due to the demographic of a metropolitan city.
I always thought school teachers were underpaid and had an inkling that summers were not truely free as stated in the many comments above. Now I am completing my undergraduate degree this June in 2010 and see the demographic differences in the education sysytem and the possible myriad of problems that instructors have to face in all the education systems in this country(USA).
I agree with some of the other commentaters that the board should have fired themselves and made the decision at the end of the school year. Maybe the students can be divided into other districts in the vicinity the following year. So, some other the better off shools may get some added different soci-economic populace. That may be a lesson to some real world experience in what I was learning in the 1980′s of the coming melting pot. Perhaps the structure of a school system itself needs to change . For example, you can go to a testing center and take a professional test for credentials or take courses on line. Perhaps, the brick and morter times are a thing of the past for a lot of the material that is taught in a building. Of course there many issues like security and safety in this type of environment scenario. I don’t have the answers, but am willing to participate in solutions. I have a lot of respect for teachers, because these are the people that set the pace for a knowledge based society to operate. I think of the good teachers and instructors I have had and the bad few that have montivated me to continue my education. I say this because I achtually had a teacher in my 5th grade year tell me. “you’re never going to make it.” I guess I have proven their theory wrong!
March 5th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Hey Susan R
Why don’t you go become a high school teacher then?
March 5th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
I have a hard time believing that RI teachers on average make $73,000 per year. Statistics often are very misleading. When calculating average yearly salaries of teachers, people don’t factor in the following: the entry level salary and the last year of salary before retiring, how many years it takes to reach the top of the salary schedule, how many teachers in a particular school district are at the top or near the top, whether they are factoring in co-curricular stipends, whether the average salary figure is also including benefits as well. If the school district in question has many teachers near or at the top of the salary schedule, then the so-called average salary is going to look much higher than the reality. Teachers also don’t get paid vacations or holidays even though we get the days off. And how many people actually buy supplies for their work? I buy tissues, hand and desk cleaner, printer supplies and paper, art supplies, and books. I provide certain students who are too poor or have parents who don’t care with school supplies. It might seem we make a lot of money, but on average, teachers spend more than $1,000 each year on their classrooms and students.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
EVERYONE needs to take responsibility here! You need to have teachers who are compassionate about their work – who can somehow inspire even the most remotely interested student to get involved. NO EXCUSES – despite this being in a low income area teachers need to be extra vigilant since many of these students are NOT likely to be getting any reenforcement from home. If a teacher really cares about their students (not just going to work everyday for the paycheck) they should be willing to help those who seem to need to extra attention – even beyond the normal hours. They could also benefit by contacting the parents of students – which may give them some idea of the type of support they are (or aren’t) getting at home.
For parents who blame the teachers for their child’s failure, they need to take a long, hard look in the mirror Too often they place their children on front of a TV to babysit their kids at a very early age. How many parents actually spend any amount of time with their children OUTSIDE? Then, there are parents who have their kids so heavily involved in sports, cheerleading, and other activities they leave them no time to ‘just be kids’ or time for study.
Teachers now have their hands tied in so many aspects. I find it troubling a teacher can’t hug a child due to an injury on the playground as “inappropriate touching”. We also have “special needs” students in regular classrooms without additional help. Some of these students can be very disruptive or distracting to the other students.
Then, we have the school boards. I’ve come to the conclusion the people on the school board have NO CLUE and as someone else said, use this as a stepping stone to other elected offices. School boards should be balanced with a share of teachers, parents and only a couple of ‘administrators’ or professions related to education – such as counselors, doctors or researchers.
Finally, why aren’t we teaching our students about morals, proper etiquette, life skills (how to balance a checkbook and pay bills!), ethics and diversity, and right from wrong??!! Of course, many will look at this as the parents responsibility – but guess what?! They’re not doing it at home so WHERE will they learn?
March 5th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Thoughts:
1. Class sizes are increasing as budgets fail–our district is up to 40 in many rooms.
2. We are not making cars–we are making people, who are not all alike. One may be great in math and a bad reader. Come to think of it, even making cars, how long did it take many companies to make a quality, reliable product? Our students are variable and their variation is needed–I don’t want a PhD. in history to fix my plumbing, I want a plumber.
3. Arts and physical education are being cut for purely budgetary reasons, yet research shows the most succesful school districts have the most resources in these areas.
4. Grade promotion based solely on passing a test will lead to a host of problems for the schools dealing with those who can’t pass–there are many, and they have a myriad of reasons for their lack of success.
5. The general level of ability in college students in writing has been deceasing for years–more than 40. My father was a professor and he was complaining about poor student abilities in the sixties.
6. Think of all the money we’d save if all students stayed home and learned off the computer. Why, all lessons could be proven, tested curriculum, presented by master teachers. All problems solved, right? If teachers are the only problem, that is.
7. Why is it alright for some business people to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, some of whom are crooks or incompetents?
8.A school is a system–and a problem in any part of the system will affect the outcome. The teacher is only one part of this system–students, parents, administration, school boards, politicians, communities, and the local economy are all part of this. Simplistic solutions are ineffective.
9. Remember the best teachers you ever had. What do you remember? Their adherance to a curricular calendar, use of a specific textbook? Maybe how they made you feel comfortable, helped you want to work? Yet where do these things fit in to our teacher training, our ‘reforms’?
March 5th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
As many have cited, education in America is a complex issue. I have taught for many years in a suburban district. I have watched my district decline as I believe so many have. As a nation, we are not preparing the leadership we need for the future. Here, as I fear is true in most places, we have low expectations and I would argue that most of my local colleagues aren’t even aware of what students are capable of accomplishing. As some have cited here, I have been reprimanded for expecting too much and although recognized by students as the strongest in my subject area, I have been relegated to teach low-level underachievers. Yet even with a group which has significant socioeconomic challenges, by demanding much, I have achieved standardized test scores that rival our “honors” program.
My passion was to become an educator to help produce leaders. I waited patiently due the seniority (non-merit) based system to work my way up to teach our top level of students. And, although I have many former students who have appreciated my efforts and credit me for helping them realize how much they could achieve, I was removed from these courses after a short time because too many stduents earned Bs and not As. I am disillusioned as I know I have much to offer, but because of a school-district philosophy that is all for show, I am not being used where I am most capable.
We have created a society of self-centered entitlement, far from our heritage of a strong work-ethic and resulting rewards. This is rampant in the home, school, government, and business. I believe that governmental policies that have encouraged the breakdown of the family over the past 50 years are a major cause of America’s educational decline. When students do not have a work ethic modeled for them and LEARNING and INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY (not just “good grades”) is not valued (or more frequently, is ridiculed) in a majority of our homes, I am not confident that we can overcome these obstacles.
That being said, I do believe there are some steps that education can take:
1. Have a national diaolgue on what we want from our schools. We can’t do everything and every new thing the legislatures think up for us takes away from what should be our primary focus – academic achievement.
2. Restrict admissions to teacher preparation to top high school students. In Canada and several other western nations, high school graduates are not even eligible for teacher preparation programs unless they are in the top 20-30%. This has resulted in significant recent gains in national test scores. Although there are certainly exceptions, there are far too many “educators” in the U.S. who have no intellectual love for learning. We need to do a better job at recruiting and selecting teacher candidates who have the intellectual ability AND right gifts for teaching.
3. We need to restructure preparation programs for educators. I look at Hillsdale College as a role model in this area. I wish I could have attended somewhere like that. I practiced in a different profession prior to teaching; when I received my teacher training from a well-renowned state university in the early 90s, I kept thinking what a joke it was. Getting through the program required little intellectual challenge, but lots of useless assignments. When I applied for my masters program, I stated I wanted to learn how to “better communicate my subject matter to my students.” I was laughed at and told “we don’t have anything for that.”
4. If steps #2 and #3 were to be implemented, we would be developing better equipped teachers. To attract the kinds of people we need in education, we need to find a way to compete financially for these top students. I do not advocate an across the board pay increase. I would be in favor of adjusting the entry level pay scales (in conjuction with higher quality candidates) and subsequent salary schedules. I would complement this with a form of merit pay. No, we shouldn’t be judged on a snap-shot of standardized test scores, but there are certainly valid methods; we do this type of evaluation every day with our students.
I believe that this higher pay for better candidates would pay for itself over time as student achievement increases, resulting in lower costs for remediation and government-dependency.
5. We need to change our mindset that all teachers are created equal with respect to teaching assigments. Seniority should be a secondary factor behind the capabilities of the candidates. Let’s put teachers where they can individually contribute the most.
6. We need to recognize that the gifts/skills needed for effective administration are not necessarily those for the best teachers. We need a path for career advancement that doesn’t require leaving the classroom.
7. We need to eliminate life-long tenure. As a society, we can no longer afford to maintain mediocre instructors.
We face lots of challenges. We have little control over the students are not equipped to be in a classroom. We need to stop catering to the needs of a few to the detriment of many. And, we need some common sense from Washington that recognizes that if we could bring 100% of our students up to a certain standard, it would be a pretty low standard indeed. Instead, let’s have benchmarks for individual schools based on socieconomics and past history. We do not need a society where 100% go to college. We do need a majority equipped to handle college-level work. And, we need universities to strengthen their standards of admission and instruction, so that college is once again viewed as a privilege, not a right. We need to stop trying to educate everyone to the same level.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
To Keith,
That is my point as well. I usually try not to generalize but that is how that sounded. I think you agree with what I meant. I was speaking mainly about the parents of the 60 students I referenced in my explanation.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Sounds like the school board did all of these RI teachers a favor!! Now they can go find a job where they will be appreciated! Oh, they can even go get the jobs of all of the teachers who will be quitting their jobs for just a chance to get to work in this wonderful Central Falls school district. Sounds like a win-win for everybody to me! Seriously, why does everyone always blame the teacher? Most teachers I know and have the privilege of working with every day are wonderful people who are only there because they love and genuinely care about the kids. God knows, they aren’t there for all of the money, the prestige, or the appreciation!! We treat and think of our students as our own children. I call them my kids. When I see my students in town, they say Hey! and when my husband asks me who was that? I tell him that’s one of my kids. Everyone should be proud to have teachers who love their kids almost as much as they (the parents) do, or in many cases, we love them more than their parents. We get so invested in our students that their successes or failures are our successes and failures. Yet, we have to remember we have kids of our own at home. We have to make time for our own children, our own families, or else our kids will be one of those whose teachers spend more time with them than their own parents! Anyway, I think this is all just nuts! Anyone who is bad-mouthing a teacher must have never had a teacher who loved them when they were a child as much as I love my students. I feel sorry for all of you who never were loved by your teachers and never felt any love for your teachers. It really does take a village to raise a child and teachers are part of that village. So quit bad-mouthing them and show some appreciation! Where would you be without teachers??!!
March 5th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS: Your report states:
“The average Central Falls teacher makes roughly $73,000. That’s $30,000 more than your typical private sector employee who’s already working longer hours, without a raise in two years.”
It seems deliberately and obtusively unreasonable to compare teachers with median education two years beyond the bachelor’s degree to the ‘typical private sector employee’ . . . with median education no higher than . . . high school.
Another one of your readers said this with a short comment: So, why don’t you become a high school teacher?
Does the editor of this newsletter make . . . only $30,000 annually? If not, why not?
Will I seriously consider your opinions of quantitative data? Not unless you have better grasp of basic quantitative logic. Oh — and the editor needs to take a refresher in basic English as well. What competent editor would let a writer keep a sentence referring to “your typical private sector employee?” Whose employee was that?
Or is this publication pandering to the Sara Palin wing of education? (Yes, I’m being snide.)
March 5th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
If it’s so easy and overpaid and cushiony and all, why aren’t more of you superheros teachers?
As a modern equivalent to “may you live in interesting times” I’d like to propose “may your children be educated by YouTube”.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
On any given day, a teacher will deal with students who are experiencing problems with drugs, absent parents, physically abusive parents, peer pressure from gangs, incest, lack of food, homelessness, divorce and countless other problems. This is not an excuse; it is reality. Good teachers work with their students to help them overcome things they have no control over once the student goes home. It is more than time for us as a nation to own up to our societal failings and stop being the blameless society. We are failing our youth, and ultimately, it will be the destruction of our free society.
March 6th, 2010 at 12:38 am
Just for a moment: Forget the issue of teacher v. ‘public secotr’ salaries, forget the socio-eonomic issues of the area, forget all the things that teachers have to be, forget the years of training required to teach, forget the school board and all the issues associated with it….
These teachers were not being asked to extend their day without compensation, they were being asked to remain a little extra time (25 minutes) for a little extra money in an effort to better prepare students. In today’s economy – hey, even in the best of times! – if a company’s business is in the throes of a down-turn, its products considered uncompetitive, its clients are unhappy, and the boss asks for more hours with more pay, only a person who doesn’t need a job or has no pride in the output says no.
March 6th, 2010 at 12:56 am
I have taught math for 10 years in the same district. I make less than half of what the RI teachers make, and that is working 3 jobs as well as extra responsibilities at school. I leave in the morning shortly after 7am and return home from between 6pm to 11pm depending on the night. I realize there are poor quality teachers out there (I had some while I went to school) but the means by which to get rid of them is in place. I have seen good administrators dismiss poor teachers. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon about how much teachers get paid or how the economy doesn’t seem to effect them–well I was cut 3% last year and am looking at an additional 4% this year. We just helped our students make the largest jump in standardized test scores in the state of Idaho and (to my knowledge) we are the school district that has cut our teachers the most in the state. Out of my 10 years I have gone 6 of them with out a raise while inflation continues to increase. People want to dump on the teachers–as a parent of 6 children I know that I must take responsibility for their education and do my part to help them, schools can not be responsible for all aspects of a child’s development. If I broke my day up and met with each one of my students individually I would see each one for 3 minutes a day. Parents see their children for 10 minutes a day on average–more than three times longer than I can on an individual basis. Parents, we need your help not your criticism. We need your support not your belittling. Most of us went into education to help students, not to get rich. As a teacher I will say help your children get the best teachers, let your voice be heard if you find a bad teacher, but don’t desire all of us to be punished because of a few that don’t pull their own weight.
March 6th, 2010 at 1:35 am
This is obviously an emotionally charged issue, so I will do my best to offend all sides.
Andrew believes that the free market ideas of union busting and vouchers will fix education. A key component of free market capitalism is that bad ideas are allowed to fail. According to every report that I have read, the average private schools and home-schoolers underperform the local school districts in which they are. This is even more pronounced for the new charter and for-profit schools. In Ohio, the owner of the largest such system got his buddies in the legislature to exempt his schools from testing for 2 years, because the results were so bad. In Philadelphia, a management company brought in to do the administration not only could not generate a profit, they spent far more than the system had before.
Phil Ray Jack states that teachers are experts in their fields and in pedagogy. It is a fact that most future education majors have some of the lowest average ACT scores of college students, yet graduate with some of the highest GPA’s. This is due to very generous grading policies in colleges of education. They are typically at the bottom of the curve in other subjects.
Several people discuss the pay issue. Most states require a Master’s degree within the first few years of teaching. Compared with other jobs requiring that level of education, the pay is fairly low. On the other hand, most of those Master’s degrees are in Education, and the material which I have seen presented is, to say the least, not academically rigorous. In Ohio, the pay in many school districts averages more than the average professor (all ranks) at a state university. Plus, school teachers contribute less to health care and pension funds, and have guaranteed raises every year.
Laurie M is closest to some of the problem, in my opinion. While a good (or bad) teacher makes a difference, much more of the outcome is determined by the ability, work ethic and cultural support of the student. I came from England in 1978, where we were expected to succeed. The material that I took as a freshman in college in mathematics is what our seniors take. This was true in most other subjects. The American juniors that did exchange programs, from places like Kenyon College, William and Mary, and Penn State, all were put into freshman-level coursework.
American education is schizophrenic in its construction, and faced with absolutely impossible goals. No matter what parents, politicians, administrators and education ‘experts’ claim, making teachers ‘teach harder’ will not significantly improve results in mathematics, science, or anything else. Anyone who claims otherwise has never tried to teach actual content and mastery.
March 6th, 2010 at 1:56 am
Martha is brilliant. All school boards and all administrators should have to substitute in classes on a regular basis. I think all parents would benefit from a day or two following a teacher around–especially one who is responsible for extra-curricular activities, too.
March 6th, 2010 at 1:58 am
I currently teach in a middle school that services students in a low-income area of the city. I teach 7th grade language arts and there is only so much that I am able to accomplish with my students every day. I get to work no later than 6:30 in the morning to get everything ready and make sure what little technology my district is able to buy works or make adjustment. Generally I don’t leave before 4:30 or 5 in the afternoon even though I could leave by 2:25 and don’t have to arrive until 7:20. During those after-school hours, I spend my own time and money on extra materials tutoring my students even though it isn’t required. I also receive a lot of pressure from the state, the district and my site to advance the proficiency level of my students. However, the average reading level of my students is 3rd grade and and all of our materials and test are written at the 7th grade level, not to mention everything for their other classes. It is a great idea to use technology to help students, but due to socio-economic conditions the vast majority of my students don’t have internet access, not to mention many don’t have undisrupted time to focus on their school work because their parents are working two jobs so the students are watching younger family members. There is massive pressure being placed on teachers in these days. What many people forget to realize is the following: many teachers are putting in extra time to work with students everyday without being paid; our evenings and weekends are spent prepping lessons and grading; it is almost impossible to to have a student repeat a grade even if they completely fail all of their classes; teachers aren’t miracle workers and expecting them to create 3 years of growth in 1 year when teaching 6 groups of 36 students with less than 50 minutes a day is an exception; and sometimes students don’t have the support at home and teachers end up having to take on the role of parent as well as teacher. I try very hard to create meaningful lessons and build positive relationships with my students, but teachers have their limits.
March 6th, 2010 at 5:32 am
You nitwits are all falling for the typical right-wing, knee jerk, straw man, class warfare grift that pits one working slob against the other. Why would it make a difference how much the teachers are making if the issue is performance? If that was the case, everybody connected to the stocks I owned that went down in price should have been fired. Instead, most of them got bonuses — Goldman Sachs’ employees averaged $700,000. You idiots are snapping at each other like junkyard dogs over the scraps. $30,000, $50,000, $70,000, that’s all chump change compared to what the real wheeler-dealers are making off of you and everyone basically like you and instead of working together, you’re at each other’s throats like petty fools. Should these teachers have been fired? Of course not. If it was Japan, which would never have this problem because those folks aren’t so incredibly lame, the guy in charge would have jumped off the roof in shame instead of blaming and firing other people. But in this country, it’s look for a scapegoat. Hey, if the ids are failing, blame them first, the parents second, and the teachers third. No wonder this country is in trouble.
March 6th, 2010 at 6:52 am
Dear Citizens,
Isn’t it amazing how we turn on each other in a so-called crisis, in this case the public versus the teachers.. The “crisis in education” wasn’t caused by the teachers. Don’t you understand that you’re being manipulated by your corporate masters and politicians to turn against each other. People are out of work and we’re facing an economic depression so the corporate shills like Lou Dobbs, O’Reilly, Hannity, ad nauseam, blame the immigrants, the teachers, the welfare mothers, etc, etc. for all the ills in our society. They never blame their corporate masters and their political handmaidens for causing the unemployment, keeping incomes low, destroying unions, and causing unnecessary wars. They use a simple tactic against YOU, the people of our country, called “divide and conquer” and you’re falling for it. Shame on all of you! Stand together against the real “bad guys.” the blood suckers who run our corporations, hire the lobbyists, and buy the politicians you elect. Wake up and defend American democracy against the real evil in our society, the corporatists and the corporatocracy which is destroying our people, our economy, our schools, and our nation!!!
March 6th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
I suspect that Central Falls is like many depressed communities in this country. Students simply lack the motivation to ENGAGE in an education that is likely to make little difference in their lives. Most of the 52% probably see little opportunity to be gained by succeeding academically and living in Central Falls. This “non-engagement” cuts across urban poor, suburban poor, and rural poor. It is part of the legacy of the 1970′s and 1980′s when all you needed was a high school diploma to get a job in the local mill. Those jobs are all gone.
This is really part of a larger plan to re-segregate schools into high expectation and low expectation populations. What is forgotten is the fact that in less than twenty-five years, there will only be two Social Security taxpayers for every retiree recieving benefits. One come from the “T”raditional community that has theirs and will not support any increases in taxes. The other taxpayer will come from the free and reduced lunch demographic which is increasingly being tracked into lower expectation courses. What kind of taxes will those with a low expectation education be able to support? “We have seen the enemy and he is us” – Pogo
March 6th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
To the person who said that working with his children after school was interferring with sports, clubs, etc. etc…. THAT IS A HUGE PART OF THE PROBLEM TODAY!!! Overscheduled, overstimulated parents, children and society in general ARE the problem. NCLB is the other part of the problem. School districts are mandated to do exactly what happened in RI if they receive failing grades. I ask all parents to come to school and spend a day in my classroom. They often do, and never fail to say, “How do you do that all day! I could NEVER do that!” Please don’t bash the teachers until you have spent a day in your child’s classroom. The teachers are not even close to the problem, today’s society, lack of family structure and support from every front is. Teacher’s get absolutely no respect, and it shows. They cannot discipline kids because it “counts” against the school with NCLB. So do suspensions, absences, drop-out rates, etc…. How can a teacher deal with that! You cannot make a child, who’s parents cannot make him, come to school! Private school vouchers are a joke if they are not accountable the same as public schools, same with homeschooling. They DO NOT have to take any standardized tests!!! Every teacher I know gives their all, each and every day, nights and weekends are spent grading papers and getting ready for the next week. Ask the husband/wife/spouse of these teachers! And one more thing…. the only areas that have that high salaries are where it is outrageously expensive to live to begin with. I teach in FL. The highest salary, after 30 years and with a doctorate degree, would be around $50,000.
March 6th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Where does the responsibility of the students come in? Teachers spend less time teaching than ever, and more time dealing with problems with student behavior and discipline. Teenagers are not the only rebellious ones in the system. The problems begin very early with troubled behavior, lack of manners, rebellion against being forced to be in a place they don’t want to be (school).
Classrooms are filled with students that are less interested in education than ever. The students are defiant to teachers, telling adults at the school “you’re not my” mother/father. There are those that threaten teachers, get up and walk out of class, talk to their peers while the teacher is teaching, tell teachers “this is boring”, vandalize and steal from teachers who have to purchase items for themselves because schools do not provide beyond textbooks, desks and a room that holds students. Students sleep and refuse to take tests, refuse to do homework, turn in sloppy work and want to know why did you “GIVE me a F”.
Standardized testing is not a decent measure of student knowledge and performance. There are students that sleep during these tests, bubble anything just because they “don’t feel like taking it”, or will just sit there and do nothing because “this is boring”. Yes, this is documented on test booklets, but nothing else can be done about it. By law, their scores can not be separated from the whole. EVERYONE, including the learning disabled, are lumped into a group. The Government wants THE TEACHER to be held accountable for these children?
PARENTS do little to help. Students are worse after a conference with a parent, especially one that threatens them in front of the teacher/principal.
You can’t expell them all. You just deal with it. Do what you can with those that want to learn. Constantly having to document those incidents with students that are unwilling to participate. Good teachers try day after day to reach the unwilling students. Some come around and begin to show some effort, not all, but some. Other teachers say, “it is on them, not me.”
My principal says that there is a difference between a teacher and a presenter. I say, there is also a difference between a teacher and an educator. Both have a job, one makes a difference in students. My license plate says, “Educator.”
Because of the students that want to learn, I continue to prepare day in and day out, week day and week night, holidays and weekends, and spend summers in college (at my expense) to stay ahead of what the establishment says is progress. I continue to update my skills, increase my own learning, because of the students that are willing to learn from what I have to offer.
Am I angry? You bet. Not at the students, parents, or teachers. I am angry with a system. Which one? I am not sure. I would love the opportunity to allow these critics to come into my school and substitute for all of our teachers for a week. Do your own lesson plan, using 30 year old texts of which there are barely enough for every student in the class or perhaps even no textbook at all. The first day or two may be good, but let’s see how they test for YOU.
I say, BAH! Seems as though the government is saying, “Let them eat cake” to me.
March 6th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Have you noticed how few misspelled words there are in these message? A few transposed letters in obviously emotional responses, but on the whole, much better than average.
Side note: with the percentile system, 50% of the students will always fail. So if your school improves, someone else’s had to get worse.
Children born with a disability because of the addiction habits of their parents are unlikely to ever achieve the NCLB goals. Immigrant children are expected to be at the same level as their peers after only 1 year.
I’m so old that they hadn’t discovered DNA when I took biology. There is SO much more to learn these days. I don’t think many people realize this. Come spend a day or week in a classroom (but don’t just show up). When I hear people on a certain conservative talk show say things like “Them there teachers don’t know nuthin about… It don’t make no sense… ” I just want to say, “Obviously yours didn’t, either.”
I had the great advantage of having nuns teach me; my eighth grade teacher had two master’s degrees, one in English, the other in math. We didn’t get away with anything! Yet, when I went to college, I had to take a remedial writing course when I was a senior. So even though my parents cared, my teachers cared and I worked hard, I still had some deficiencies that had to be addressed individually.
Individually. That is the key. You can’t have a one-size mentality about teaching, and that is what the government has. No teacher has the resources these days to be that person, what with all the paperwork, etc.
How many sub-tests for all this standards stuff do you think the average 5th grader takes in a year? 5? 20? My daughter counted them, and with pre-test, post-test 1, post-test 2, make-up test, etc. it came to about 180. With about a dozen subjects in 5th grade, that’s 48 right there. But of course it wouldn’t be just one math test, but one for each major topic. You can see how it would quickly multiply. With 4 major objectives in 10 of the subjects, and the 4 tests per each, that’s 160, if I did the math right in my head (Sorry, Sister G.) No wonder the teachers teach to the test instead of educate. Passing is more important than learning how to learn.
One problem is that there are no real consequences for the student failing to achieve. In the olden days, education was necessary to get a decent job most of the time. Families had a moral attitude, and so a criminal career was unthinkable, so the best bet was doing as well as possible in school. I guest-lectured in my daughter’s classroom, and 3 students were sleeping. One had been in this country for only a week, so I understand that case. Still, I enjoy the pictures when I’m watching foreign-language TV. Others stay up to watch late TV. I don’t understand that. My own kids at that age had to be in bed by 9:30 unless they had an assignment to watch the news. And school was only 1 block away, so they could sleep until a reasonable hour. I’m sure many parents are responsible, but there are enough bad apples to spoil the classroom experience.
Firing that many teachers is not a solution. The only “good” thing is that the replacements would be hired at the low end of the salary range, and therefore the average salary would be reduced.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
First, my background. I am an elementary school teacher and have successfully taught grades 5 and 6 for 32 years. I have been nominated by my peers as teacher of the year three times and nominated to be in the running for the Disney Teacher Award. I make $52,000 a year (before taxes) and have a Masters degree plus 60 more credits, enough for a Doctorate had I gone into a doctoral program. I have taught in a rural area my entire career in the same school system and have taught both in a higher economic school and a low income school. My principals have received requests from parents asking to put their child in my class an many of the children I have now, I had their parents.
You can blame the schools, the administrators, and teachers all you want and fire whoever you want to fire. You can pass all the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) laws or do all the other proposals as connecting teacher pay to test scores or charter schools. But they are not the problem. Yes there are some bad schools, administrators, and teachers but a huge majority of them are good. And most of our schools could use more technology and up-to-date technology and the training to go with it.
The education problem you hear about on a daily basis as schools and educators are blamed for everything is a societal and cultural problem. Children are not being raised with the parental attention, home learning, manners, and learning of morals and character traits that I got as a child. Children who come from homes where they do get these things not only do fine in school, but they excel. But an ever increasing number of students come from homes that don’t. They come to school already behind and continue to struggle and not care about what they do because no one guides them and pushes them at home. And these type of parents usually blame the school for everything and never come to school to conferences or answer the phone for phone calls.
Just get on or listen to any media to hear the messages that our young people get. Violence, cheating, stealing, fighting, divorce, and dishonesty. And our adults don’t set much of an example. Go to any Walmart any day and watch the adults who park in handicap parking places without a permit or park in a fire lane to run in the store. Watch the numerous adults who speed on local roads. Look at the people we put in front of our children as heroes and then look at how we talk about the police, the government, the teachers, etc in front of our children. I could go on and on.
As a teacher I arrive at work at 7:45 AM on a daily basis even though my day starts at 8:00 AM so I can unpack my briefcase, set up my laptop, turn on the computers in my room, and straighten the desks so that I’m ready to start at 8:00. I work all morning with no break to use the bathroom until it is time for recess and lunch. I have duty at one of those two times and then have half an hour (on paper-since I am usually dealing with a student or a parent at this time) to eat lunch and use the bathroom. I then teach most of the afternoon with a 35 minute planning period in which I have to check and grade 4-8 sets of papers that take about 15 to 20 minutes per set, meet with or call parents, or work with students who are not getting work completed, work on any of the numerous reports, paperwork to prove I am teaching and taking training, or doing any of the work of the countless other responsibilities I have at school or committee work. My paid day ends at 4:00 PM.
I spend 1 – 3 hours most evenings doing the rest of the checking and grading of papers or attending meetings or trainings. I give up many evenings and Saturdays throughout the year taking part in programs or fund-raising and most Sunday afternoons and evenings I am either at school or in my home office working on lesson plans, putting grades in my computer gradebook, writing letters to parents, or making educational materials to go with my plans. I have skipped church, family dinners or gatherings, and some of my own childrens’ events so I could get my school work done or to attend a school event.
When the carpet was taken out of my room and tile put in several years ago, I had to pack up all of my classroom materials in boxes, then move the boxes, the cabinets, the teacher’s desk, the bookshelves, and everything else in the room myself. When the tile was finished, I had to put everything back myself.
This year I have spent over $300 out of my own pocket for classroom materials and will be going out today to buy a new printer to replace the last one I bought that quit working. And when the ink runs out I have to buy the ink cartridges out of my pocket.
I haven’t even mentioned curriculum yet. I could write volumes about that. We have teaching standards that are vague and ridiculous and even more ridiculous benchmark tests and an end of the year standardized test on which I am judged. Most adults with college degrees could not pass our fifth grade test. So what do you expect our fifth graders to do? Today the classroom teacher is being micromanaged and told what methods and materials to use. The classroom teacher has to follow federal and state policies made by people who haven’t been in a classroom in years and have no idea of what is going on today.
I can tell you from experience that it didn’t used to be this way. Today teachers are being overwhelmed by all the problems from all sides. Schools are a reflection of society. Thank God I am able to retire in the next few years. I steered my own children, one of whom was interested in being a teacher and would have made an excellent teacher. While I don’t discourage college students who have entered teaching and do field work at school, I do tell them and show them the way it really is.
The educational problem in our country may show minor improvements through some of the latest measures, but there will be no major, long-lasting improvements until society changes. Schools are part of this change but we cannot do it alone or fix all the problems by ourself which is what educational policy assumes.
Policy makers and those criticizing schools and educators need to get off their butts and spend some real time, not a few minutes, in a school. Volunteer to tutor students, be a classroom reader or helper, visit your child’s classroom for a full day, not just a few minutes. You might change your tune when you do.
I apologize for rambling and any mistakes but its Saturday afternoon and since I have something I must attend tomorrow evening, I must go back to grading papers, entering grades, and printing out progress reports for students.
March 6th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
There are many factors to consider in this case. Are the students apathetic? Are the parents working with the school to ensure the children are succeeding? Is the cost of living high? Is the schoolboard willing to give the teachers extra resources to tutor the children, or will the teachers need to use their own pay for supplies? I’m not sure what the economy is like there, but here in Florida, I am at the top of the pay scale with a Master’s Degree and only make $55,000. Our hours are 7:30-3:20 everyday (10 minutes shy of an 8 hour day) and I can tell you that I either stay late or take things home to do. Because we have a 45 minute planning period from 7:30-8:15 every day, I choose to tutor my children who need it 2 days a week. I bring home and work about 6-8 hours on the weekend planning, making homework sheets, checking papers, organizing data notebooks, etc. I probably put in an average of 50-55 hours a week, so I feel totally justified in having the two months off which generally require educational reading, inservices, or other education related activities. Teachers would probably go nuts if they didn’t have the occasional breaks from the children. I love my children very much, but it is nice to have a recharge period. On average I spend $1,500 a year on supplies. I am definitely NOT paid what I am worth in money, but I am paid what I’m worth in hugs, “I love you’s” and thank you’s from the parents.
March 7th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
If the students are doing poorly, shouldn’t THEY be the one’s to be fired, not their teachers? I’m only half joking,
what I mean if the students as a group are doing so badly, probably it is not because of bad teaching, but bad students – meaning those coming from homes were education is not a priority, etc.
Also, if the teachers are going to be fired, why not fire the administrators and the politicians who hired them, since ultimately the responsibility is with the BOSSES, who set policy and supervise.
Moreover, if the goal is to have good teachers, why fire ALL of them — I am sure some of them were doing a very good job.
Obviously this is a case of the administration being happy to have an excuse to be seen as doing SOMETHING; plus, as everyone knows, many administrators enjoy firing people to show who the boss is. Let’s not forget that the district will also save money as the more experienced teachers are replaced by lower paid new teachers.
It is a shame what the administration did.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:47 am
I had grade nine scouts attend at the university where I instruct. They attended every Thursday from Sept to June for 1.5 to 2 hours of instruction for their Basic Amateur Radio License. We also did scouting activities during other times. All 9 past. They learned and were motivated by the topics and methods.
In grade 10 seven scouts decided to go for their advanced license.
Math, geography, electronics, physics and studying skills have shown to have help them to get into Community College and into University. Teaching / instructing needs to challenge the youth with goals.
Three of the venture scouts (senior scouts) while in grades 10, 11 & 12 actually mentored some of the
university students in the lab. Labs covered topics like DC & AC circuits, one transistor amplifier,
resonant circuits, op amps, AM & FM modulation.
We also had guests in to work on computer programming. Programming that I know help several in
their university courses. No I did not see that outcome myself…….But i am glad for it.
Teachers need to have broader backgrounds. Thus allowing the teachers an ability to challenge their
students.
……..Have fun!
March 8th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
You cannot compare the pay of someone who has a high school diploma or a bachelor’s degree with someone who has a Master’s Degree. Why don’t you compare those who have Master’s Degree’s salaries in the private sector with teachers’ salaries and see what you come up with. My sister has a Master’s Degree, pay started at over $60,000 and now earns well over six figures. A teacher I know graduated with her Master’s Degree at the same time and her salary is only around $50,000 at this time. Now, where is the discrepancy?
March 8th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
The Lord knows I’ve seen some rotten teachers and schools, and Lord knows I don’t mind occasionally getting a little incendiary in my articles. But sorry, folks, this one is a bit over the top. Or, to be more precise, under the bottom. Although I have no reason to question your description of that school or the outcomes of the dispute, given the current economic hardships some very GOOD teachers and schools of my acquaintance are suffering, the personal insensitivity and technological arrogance of the article demands response. I will respond, in print. Look for Educational Horizons, Summer or Fall issue.
Wade A. Carpenter, Ph.D
Berry College
March 8th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
It is time for teachers across the nation to strike. A nationwide strike for a day will make the point. Stop blaming teachers for factors they can’t control. How about holding students accountable for their own efforts and education?
March 8th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
The problem with education in the United States is A) Teacher Tenure B) Teachers Unions.
Both of these organizations were made based on the idea of equality and in fairness to students and teachers. However, that was a hundred years ago and they need to be done away with for good.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Can them all, get new.
March 8th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I personally think it should be the elementary school teachers who should get the boot. Come on, a high school student who is failing? Now, you have universities teaching remedial courses. Lets get real, it starts very early, behaviors are forming at that time to not improve one’s own learning. This action seems all wrong.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
I have worked full-time in the school system teaching 3rd, 4th, and 6th grade students since 1975. I have also worked in a food processing plant during my ‘summers off’ since 1978. Every summer I see many of my former students, now teenagers, as summer employees. The biggest problem I see, both at school and at my summer job, is that students don’t know how to work. In school we dumb-down the curriculum to the point where ‘every child can learn’ and ‘no child fails’. That’s ludicrous!! Yes, every child can learn, but does every child want to learn? In many cases, no. Students’ attitude, desire, motivation, behavior, ability, and many other factors either enhance or inhibit the learning process. Yes some curriculum may be boring or dull, but boring is an attitude. At my summer job I supervise workers cleaning and packing fruit in 5-gallon containers. The work is repetitive, dull, laborious, intensive work, and shifts are 10 hours long. Many teenage workers find that they can’t do it, even though they are being paid to work. They quit after the first day, or find ways to get fired, including breaking factory rules or just not showing up for work. As their supervisor and as an educator, I teach them how to do the job and then expect them to do it! The ones who make it through the season are the ones who will also be successful in finishing school. Those that quit or are fired, are the same ones with the same problems at school. As the teacher, I do my job in the classroom, I teach. I monitor and adjust my teaching to fit the students, both as a class and as individuals in the class. As I see success, I change my expectations and use my skills as a professional educator to make sure that the majority of my students succeed. However, just like the workers at my summer job, there are always some who cannot or will not work, no matter what the motivation or incentive that is offered. The responsibility for education must be balanced, with the responsibility for learning being placed on the student and the responsibility for teaching being placed on the teacher. Too much of the learning has been shifted to the teacher. It is as if students are empty jars and we as teachers are suppose to fill them up. In many cases the lid is still on the jar. The old adage about ‘leading a horse to water’ still holds true today. I, as an educator, cannot ‘make’ my students drink in their education. All I can do is teach and use my skills as an educator to make the water as appealing and desirable as possible. However, in many cases, students are not allowed to fail. Parents, administrators, school boards, and state and federal legislators point the finger at teachers as being the primary reason that students are failing. Students are failing because they don’t want to succeed. As long as parents and social programs keep them comfortable and give them what they want, why should they succeed in school, or get a job, or move out of their parent’s house? All that takes work. As I stated at the being of my rant, students (and in many cases, now young adults) don’t know how to work. Until we allow(or force) students, and all people, to take responsibility for their choices, and stop rewarding poor performance and bad behavior, nothing will change in our educational system, or in our society for that matter. Instead of punishing teachers for the poor performance of their students, we should fire the students. The teachers did their job, now let’s have the students do theirs. Get to work!!
March 8th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
This is an exceptional situation. I am a 5th grade teacher. I stay at school working until 6:00-7:00 pm every night and still bring work home with me. During the summer, I create projects and lessons to use during the next school year, research new teaching techniques and strategies and teach summer school. I work an average of 70 hours per week, but only get paid for 35 of them. My district expects the teachers to spend time outside of school (and our contracts) gathering and analyzing schoolwide data, comparing students and schools, and attending meetings for everything under the sun. This doesn’t even include the grading and planning that all teachers have to spend non-contracted time on. But, we do it! Do I make over $70,000 per year? Not even CLOSE!! It is comments like some of those on this forum, with the lack of appreciation and respect, that make some wonderful teachers switch careers. When this happens, we are left with unqualified, untrained, undereducated teachers taking their places. Are you really that surprised that so many of our schools are failing? I mean, if you were a college student deciding on a major and heard some of the comments written here, would you choose to go into teaching? NO!! In order to improve student achievement, the teaching profession needs to receive the respect, support and compensation that it deserves so that intelligent college students (who have many other options, like I did) will choose this vocation. Oh, and we also need the other critical element of student success, parent involvement, responsibility and accountability.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
All sides of this debate have done a wonderful job voicing their opinions and concerns. However, I would like to add one thing that I really didn’t pick up on in the comments. Since when has society made education a right instead of a privilege? Yes, laws make it mandatory to attend school, but why do we view it as a right? We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not identify the talents and abilities from an early age and appropriately track them through their schooling. Why? Because we as a society believe that EVERYONE is ENTITLED to the same education.
In my teaching career, I have had the good fortune of teaching many foreign exchange students. I always spend a lot of time talking to them to compare / contrast their education system with the US’s system. My exchange students have come from Germany, Denmark, China, Thailand, South Korea, Egypt, and Estonia. In EVERY case, the students are shocked to see how much leniency we offer our students when it comes to giving second, third, and fourth chances. What do I mean? Well, for example, (1) if your child fails a class because they didn’t turn in a project, all you have to do as a parent is complain. If the principle doesn’t make the teacher allow the student to redo the project, well, then go to the school board or the superintendant. Eventually, someone will make the teacher give the assignment over again. Why? Because your child is ENTITLED to it. What happened 20 years ago? Your child took the class over in summer school. Period. No other option. (2) I have students who continuously disrupts class by talking. What can I do? Call home, write a discipline referral, assign detention, etc. What if the child continues? So what? Nothing will happen. Because all you have to do is complain that it is the teacher’s fault your child can’t be quiet, and your child will be switched to another teacher for the same subject. Why? Because your child is ENTITLED to it. In other countries around the world, NONE of that nonsense happens. Is that necessarily good or bad? No, but you want to know what makes the US somewhere around 20th (and falling) on the list of test scores in math and science compared to other nations? It is this sense of entitlement.
This sense of entitlement has led to a whole host of problems within our system. For example, the geniuses that are our lawmakers have pushed out “basic” level classes believing that those students would do better to be mixed with “standard” level students. The end result does show that some lower level students improve, but because you can only move as quickly in a class as the lowest common denominator, now the standard level students are performing a lower level than they once were. In an effort to combat that phenomenon, some of the higher functioning standard level students were bumped up to honors – which again, helped some of them, but slowed down some of the truly “honors level” students. So far this doesn’t sound like a big deal. But how has that concept expanded throughout time? The end result is rather disturbing.
Without going into the details of this progression through time, let me just give the end result by using a personal story: I was recently called into an IEP meeting (individual education plan – google it for those that don’t know what that is), and the point was to determine if a young man (I’ll call him John) could be best served in my class as the least restrictive environment. So what was going on with John that even made this a question? Well, he had an IEP that said he needed extended time on work, quizzes, and tests. He also needed to have the tests and quizzes read to him in a small group situation. Again, all of this is pretty common place. However, John was currently at the “intervention school” (school for students with behavior problems) because he had been charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill (shot at a car that was doing a “drive by” in his neighborhood), and he had other charges from a separate incident where he and some others beat up an senior citizen and took his money. He pleaded not guilty in both cases and was awaiting his trials. But because he is a minor and has an IEP, he is considered special ed and therefore is protected by federal laws which entitle him to an education. Fortunately, he was not allowed to return to my school. But the point is, I was sitting across the table from an attempted murderer BECAUSE OF how our society has evolved over time to believe that everyone is entitled to an education.
So why is your child not getting a quality education? Because s/he is not competing with bright students for scarce resourses for top honors. Rather, your kid is competing with them AND the bottom of the barrel students who choose NOT to get educated, but rather put their mental energy into finding creative ways to be a disruption in class, promote violence in schools, refuse to follow rules, and rely on the “special education crutch” to get them through. We pour billions of dollars into students who just don’t care – those are billions of dollars that could be spent on your child who wants to learn. I’m not saying dump special ed – there are some WONDERFUL students who deserve it an use it to their full advantage only to come out with fantastic grades (in fact, my daughter is on the Autism spectrum, so I know how valuable these services are). Rather, I’m saying dump the students who abuse the system, disrupt teachers who want to teach, and therefore prevent your child from reaching his/her full potential.
You want to fix education? Stop thinking your child is entitled to it. Your child is entitled to the OPPORTUNITY to an education, and if your child screws it up, then YOU as a parent have to figure out how to fix it. Stop making it the rest of the country’s responsibility, and therefore dragging down everyone else’s child with yours.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
odd, no one seems to pay any attention to fundamentals- people are often constrained by systems- systems tend to drive overall performance, and the 25 minutes extra (OF THE SAME SYSTEM) is highly unlikely to have any DIFFERENT outcome, than it did for the previous 8 hours (or 7, or whatever) of instruction.
While CHANGE is not easy- the students will continue to suffer mere “replacements” into a flawed system of performance. –Next Election? my guess is the public will fire the entire school board as well, since this change is also unlikely to improve performance- you want improvement? then change the systems driving the peformance. -not just what is taught (curriculum/ definitions/ connactations/ math skills) -but HOW these things are done–then you will see improvements.
March 8th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
This school board and superintendent fired these teachers and administrators because they have failed to educate students. I would like to know why a teacher or administrator would obtain a master’s degree and stay in a poor school district for over ten years? Some of these people even live in this school district. Why? I would also be interested in knowing why this school board continued to rehire all these people and what has the state done to improve the situation of this district? Isn’t it the state and not the federal government responsible to provide a efficient, effective, and equitable education for all students?
March 9th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Good on the superintendent. No place else can you do a crappy job and still get a raise every year, unless you’re either a politician or a tenured teacher or professor. The rest of us actually have to perform well if we expect to keep our job and get a better paycheck.
In any other occupation, if your boss says “Your performance is terrible. You can either work an extra 25 minutes a day to fix the problem, or get another job,” the employee wouldn’t even argue. They should have taken their licks and been happy to be working at tall in this economy.
Yes, I do know what life is like for a teacher, I work in education. I know all about working late to grade papers and not getting a break during the day. The rest of the workforce has to put in extra hours, too but they’re not complaining and they work a lot more than 180 days a year. As an EDUCATOR, your job is to EDUCATE your students. If you can’t do that, maybe you should look into other lines of work.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Education is a social institution, schools are one of a variety of delivery modes (family, intimates and familiars, religion, etc.). This is the tip of a much larger iceberg. Brad is right-on when he suggests the concern should address systems versus elements within the system. Where was the community when conditions at CFHS began to decay? How many parents requested conferences with teachers when they found “Johnny can’t read” How many PTA meetings drew a large attendance to tackle the problem when performance was found lacking? The core issue is not schools, it is the priority given to educational values — the importance of becoming a learned person. Teachers can be held no more responsible for learning than police departments can be held responsible for people being law abiding. In truth both schools and police departments have become parallel universes because of the lack of shared values between and among them and the greater society. Wake up folks, you cannot turn education over to schools and wash your hands of any responsibility. This is no defense of the schools. They too have lost their essence along the way by simply tossing out the information and sticking to the program. Until the entire society buys into the the notion that it is good to be smart (and law abiding), conditions at CFHS and the rest of the nation’s educational systems, for that matter, are not likely to get any better.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Anyone who pretends to professionalism should be able to demonstrate value given for value received. That applies to teachers, lawyers, doctors, ministers, executives and any other profession. If you cannot demonstrate that you are giving value for the money you receive, then you are vulnerable and your livelihood is at risk. Apparently the RI teachers have not convinced their communities that they are delivering value.
As far as the question; “Why don’t you teach?,” I graduated from college wanting to teach in 1971. After applying to over 300 schools, I finally got an interview with the superintendent of schools in a community that had a large teacher’s college. He told me I was wasting my time, quote: “I do not know a single public school superintendent that will hire a straight A student. They are afraid you will not be able to relate to the average student.” After a successful career in industry where I made much more than those poor Rhode Island teachers, I retired on a pension and finally got my chance to teach. I now teach at a public university.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:02 am
Bill,
You say you work as a teacher, but yet your writing style reflects that of a cold-hearted person or that of a person who just IS in school. If you teach, I wonder what subject you teach and at what level? Did it ever happen to you that the students don’t want to learn? Yes, our job is to TEACH, and we do teach, but it seems like we have to teach more than just our curriculum. We have to teach values, we have to teach integrity, respect, honesty, responsibility, and many other qualities that should have already been instilled at an early age by the parents, in order for the children to be taught and educated even further. Do you do that in your classroom, or are you the luckiest teacher in the world and have all the best students who get educated by you in those 180 days very successfully. As for the other people who have to do a better job to get a raise in their salary…….. do they have to deal with about 30 different personalities every day for one hour a day? Do they fix all 30? Or do they have to deal with a THING (most likely), and they have to fix it and get it done with? Who wouldn’t be able to fix just ONE THING? But can you fix 150 people in 180 days?
EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!STOP BLAMING TEACHERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 15th, 2010 at 10:50 am
I don’t know the entire story at this school, but it is clear that the article above has a very clear anti-teacher bent to it. Instead of saying that the adjectives mentioned by AFL-CIO President George Nee describe the education received by Central Falls students, why not address the veracity of his claims? Is it illegal to fire the teachers? We don’t know, as this article tells us nothing other than some very basic facts – the rest is the writer’s opinion.
So the average salary is $73,000? That means there are a lot of teachers at the top of the pay scale. That is a poor hiring practice on the part of the district. They clearly hired a lot of the teachers at around the same time. That also means that they had a good many years where most of the teachers were making far less money.
Let’s remember there are two sides to this – the school board negotiated this contract, too. If you live in a community and you think the teachers earn too much, go the school board meetings and write to its members. A teachers’ union is not some juggernaut that gets whatever it wants. So the superintendent demanded that teachers work extra hours. Obviously the work day is part of collective bargaining and you can’t simply change it without negotiating it. Do you think a teachers’ union in a school that is meeting all of the state and federal requirements could say, “Well, since we are doing well, we have decided to cut the day short by a half hour. We still want the same pay, though.” Would that be acceptable? I don’t think so.
All of that aside, there is an issue with the statement above regarding the disparity between the average salary of the teachers and the “average private sector employee.” What is an average private sector employee? What is their level of education? Most veteran teachers have a masters degree or beyond. What is the average salary of someone with an MBA and 15 years experience? Let’s compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges.
When schools are doing badly, people love to blame the teachers. Teachers are evaluated every year by principals. If they aren’t doing their jobs, union or not, they will lose their jobs. I have seen it happen several times, and I have only been teaching for nine years. Then there are the people that say teachers make too much money. These people probably complain about every profession that makes more money than they do. For the amount of education teachers have to get, they earn much less money than there counterparts in business. Is there stability – yes, is there good health care – yes. Everybody knows this. If you want this for yourself, than go get the education. But don’t expect it to go away because you’re bitter. Imagine what it would be like if teaching offered no raises, low pay, poor health care, and no stability. What kind of teachers would you get?
March 17th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
If the school stinks, then fire the administrators.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Many valid thoughts here. As a 22 year educator, I can attest to so much of what has been said. However, I do have a little different perspective, as my 22 years have all been in private schools. I simply want to urge any parents reading this to vote yourselves the privilege to have funding for education follow your own kids and not automatically go to a public school district. Here are a few reasons why:
1. In all the schools in which I have worked, teachers and administrators do the same work as their public counterparts, but for far less money. I’m the superintendent of my private school, and I make just under $50,000 for a 12-month contract. I’m not complaining, either, just noting facts. To be honest, I would do this for free if I could, so I feel blessed to get paid what I do, especially when so many others are out of work… My highest paid teacher (more than 20 years experience; master’s degree) makes just slightly over $29,000 for a nine-month contract. They’re not complaining either. As a result, our average expense to educate our students is about $6000/student/year — way below our state and national averages.
2. Despite what Timothy Norwalk argues, I’ve never experienced what he is talking about. My students’ 5-year ACT college test score average is 24.1 – the 5 year national ACT average, (about 90% of whom are public school students) is right around 21. (For more education facts, see http://www.nces.gov) My students, who have attended a wide variety of private and public colleges and universities, consistently tell me that they are way ahead of their peers in reading and writing skills, about even in math, and slightly behind in science. As a result, we are working hard to see if we can improve our science instruction. In any case, I do a great deal of research, and I’d love for Timothy to refer me to the specific reports he’s referring to. My experience is that private school students as a whole perform at least on par with and often somewhat better than, their public school counterparts with significantly less money spent.
3. Private schools are not necessarily elite. Our top tuition (for high school) is $4900 (2010-2011) for the whole year. On top of that we offer generous tuition assistance. As a result, our school is a typical mix of socioeconomic classes that pretty much matches our local area and region. Except for the elite well-known private academies, this is generally true of private schooling. Some of our families pay as little as $50 a month; some of our families pay no tuition at all. Some of our parents voluntarily pay extra to help out.
4. Our class sizes never exceed 20 students in a room.
5. We offer an effective college-prep curriculum as evidenced by our student’s success in college.
6. The worst discipline problem so far this year has been some name-calling, which we are addressing through our extensive character-training program.
7. We function as a school and accomplish these things without a single dime of taxpayer money. In order to make our school as affordable as possible, we don’t charge enough to cover all our expenses, so we raise an additional $200,000/year from donors who like what we are doing: so a broad segment of our community voluntarily shares with parents the expense of their children’s schooling.
8. Our school is not a strange utopia. We have typical issues, and we work hard to resolve them. We identify areas where we do not excel, and we work hard to fix them. We have both highly motivated and totally unmotivated children, and we strive to reach them all. We have wealthy kids and poor kids. In my 22 years working with other private school admins and teachers, I have found that other private schools are just like us.
9. I’m not trying to boast about any of this. Educating children well is a great challenge — the greatest, in my mind. There’s just so much hype and emotion and noise out there, and it’s been a privilege for me to be part of a movement that educates kids well without needing government to tell us how to do it. Competitive pressure requires that I do my job as best that I can — because if I don’t, the parents can get the same “product” that I’m “selling” for free just across town at the public school. We must be doing at least a few things right if parents are willing to pay for what they could have for “free.”
My point is, private education works and works well, and should not be something that most parents think is out of reach. Parents, school choice is not a bad thing. You wouldn’t want to have only one choice about where to buy the things you need for your family, why should you have only one choice about where to educate your children? School choice will not destroy the public schools, either — it will make them better. Tell your legislators that you’d like to decide where the money goes. Then you could pick whatever school you liked most. If your local public school is best for your child, then you could choose that. If your local private school had a great program for your child, then you could choose that. If enough parents had a choice and exercised it, all schools would have to compete by being the best they could be. Schools would also be able to specialize more — they wouldn’t have to serve everyone with all the varying levels of needs and abilities, and so innovators would find it possible to create programs or whole schools that could address these things. Parents would have more say because they would control at least some of the funding, so they would naturally tend to be a little more involved and aware of what was happening in their school. (Believe me, my parents hold me accountable!) If enough parents had a choice and exercised it, eventually the education landscape would change to a more fluid, more dynamic, more competitive environment that would be better for everyone — teachers, parents, and most importantly and especially — the children.
This is not strange; this is not utopian; this is not un-American. The roughly 10% of American kids who are in private schools prove every day that is it possible to have schools that flourish, teach children well, and do it for less money than the government spends and with less conflict than is experienced in the public systems. I’m not against some public funding for education, either. I will be accused, I’m sure, of just trying to get more money for my school, but it’s not about that, either. I just think parents should be able to choose where the money set aside for their child is spent, and after 22 years, I’m convinced that giving parents that choice and promoting that freedom will be good for education as a whole and for the children we serve.
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:26 pm
First off- anyone who has been in a NYC High School knows that those 2 months we get off are needed to regain our sanity. Classrooms are severely overcrowded, funding is constantly being reduced and the administration makes promises they rarely follow through on. Most teachers spend their summers updating their curriculum or tweaking lessons and activities to be more effective. I have been teaching over 10 years and I still do this every summer because I am always finding new ways to bring light to the topics being thought. Be it a new demonstration lesson or a video clip or even a handout.
Substitute teachers cannot replace a teacher unless they were previously teaching that subject. You cannot take a computer teacher and have them replaced by someone who was once an english teacher. If thats the case why not let the students learn at their own pace a layed out course outline. Like online classes. It just wouldnt work for high school kids.
On open school night the number of parents that come up are stunning- in a school with close to 2500 students why is it in 2 days a total of about 500 parents come up. I dont care if you have to work two jobs when it comes to your child education you make time for it because you have to show interest in what they are doing. Parents expect teachers to be baby sitters for their children and when their kids fail it is so much easier to blame the education system. Take a look at the statistics and see the students that do bad and the students that perform well and what is the difference is and no its not a white or black issues are children from both races do well and bad. Seriously fingers need to stop being pointed and change needs to be made. Dont expect teachers to work miracles while cutting off their support from under their feet.
March 31st, 2010 at 1:14 am
Please we know the teachers are always to blame when the students fail. God forbid we actually blame the parents! I hope the school can’t restaff for next year!
March 31st, 2010 at 7:58 pm
50% of teachers will quit after the first five years of teaching. Why? It is the hardest job in the world. Don’t think so? Then you haven’t been in the classroom. Teachers also make .60 on the dollar of people equally educated working in their profession. To compare them with private sector workers across the board is comparing apples and oranges.
You can make more money driving a truck. Funny how we as a society have decided to make our education system responsible for the upbringing of our children. NCLB and Race to the Top has no accountability to students or parents.
We have little ground to complain about our education system, when NCLB and Race to the Cash develop a system where our future generation is more and more in the hands of inexperienced new teachers who will work at a starting salary that will not support a family.
There is little incentive for bright, creative, intelligent minds to go into teaching. The pay is lousy the benefits are being stripped. The work is thankless. The sacrifices mostly out weigh someone loving to work with kids and loving to teach.
With every word you bash, know that your kid will not have that great teacher who looks at teaching and says, “I love kids and teaching, but who needs this???
This article is more anti-teacher propaganda than anything else.
And by the way, our entire education system is not tech savy. Teachers can’t learn on the job like Dilbert. (Don’t argue with me, I’ve been there seen it, watched it). Most districts are somewhere in the late 80s early 90s with their technology.
If our children’s education were important in this society, it seems as though we would do something to support it, pay for it, value it. Or are we by nature too destructive?
April 16th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Think people, think!
The teachers at the school need to work together with administration, the school board, and one another to improve the delivery of services to their students. Those teachers (seriously avg salary of $73,000?!) must consider the best interest of the students and use some logic when determining whether or not to accept the agreement for the extra 25 minutes of work. The fact that they were compensated at all is amazing in this economy. Perhaps those teachers need to look at the average teaching salaries across the country. With a masters degree, 12 years of experience, and 24 additional credits I make less than $53,000 and live in a city/state with a fairly high cost of living and high achieving students.
What are the superintendent and BOE thinking by firing the teachers mid-year? Substitute teachers are not going to improve the academic achievement of their students. This district is indicative of the problems with the educational system in the United States. The system needs an overhaul, but the professionals cannot be discarded and replaced by inexperienced, unknowledgable amateurs. This isn’t the type of job you figure out in a couple days it takes years of practice.
And it’s time to face the facts people, it’s gonna take a little money too. Let’s put more money into our schools now so that 20 years from now we don’t have to continue to put more money into our prisons.
May 7th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Great point, Stacie. Beautifully said.
October 2nd, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Let’s see: teachers today are, as a group, better educated than they were in past generations. They have extensive training in preparing to become teachers and must participate in continuing education throughout their careers. So why are some of their students not achieving? Why are so many not even completing school? What is different?
The biggest change is that students (and their parents) are no longer held accountable for their own behavior and learning. Only a month into the school year, one of my colleagues has already had three parents insist that she is mistaken or lying when she tells them that their children are not doing their work or are being disruptive. “He told me he handed it in; you must have lost it.” “She told me she asked to have her desk changed and you refused (the kid wanted to sit next to – and talk to – her friend).” I’m in charge of graduation projects, and one parent told me her son was just too busy to do it because of sports and his job, so I should waive the requirement. I teach all seniors and too many of them are mailing it in – once they get accepted at college (and, in my opinion, many of them should not be – those colleges will simply take their money for a year and then wash them out) they won’t do ANYTHING beyond what they have to do to pass. They are much more interested in partying and making money so they can load up their iPods and closets and drive a better car than I do. Does this make me a bad teacher? Of course, I teach many motivated students – the ones that tell the others to shut up and listen to me – and they are the ones who, at the end of the year, are ready to take on college or a job or a career in the military. These are kids with parents who value education and insist that they achieve what they are capable of. These kids send me e-mails from college and even beyond, thanking me for preparing them so well. Does that make me a great teacher?
The truth is, we give our students the best we can – and for most of us, it’s pretty damn good – but NO ONE can make a child learn if he doesn’t want to. And testing a child on a list of facts does not indicate if he CAN learn.
Oh, and I teach in an affluent school district that is at risk of not making AYP not because of our overall performance but because of our special ed population, which is sizable and is made up of kids with all kinds of disabilities. If you want to compare education to industry (which I don’t, but I will go along with those who insist on doing so), it would be equivalent to judging a factory on how well they produce with blemished or damaged raw materials.
I wish we didn’t need unions to protect us, but without them we’d be at the mercy of parents and other members of the community with political clout. I wish exceptional teachers could be rewarded monetarily, but how do you determine this? Sometimes the best teachers are given – or choose – the most challenging students, and they aren’t apt to tear up the state multiple choice high-stakes tests. Everyone KNOWS who the best teachers are, but it’s because of how well kids do years after they graduate, not necessarily on a test of specific skills or facts. How do you quantify excellence when the parameters are so hard to pin down?
I love my work, but not always my job. Teaching is wonderful; being a teacher isn’t always wonderful.
October 2nd, 2010 at 10:15 pm
$30K more with fewer hours. Hey Jake Simms, I have multiple degrees/graduate degrees from Northwestern and the University of Chicago. I put in 50 hours a week at the school and typically 60-90 minutes of grading at home 4 times a week. When big papers are due, I will work 5-9 hours over a weekend. Do the math Jake—this total is actually more per year for the 36-week teacher than the 48-week private sector employee. I do not enjoy profit-sharing nor 401K savings nor matching savings. AND teachers who demand much and put in the extra time and effort do NOT receive moe pay, it is totally self-motivation. The tone of your micro-essay is that teaching is easy-street. If that is the case, why are you not in education and why do 1 in 4 teachers leave within 4 years? Come and join me anytime. Oh, you will have to get certified, make sure you have no criminal record, be ready to be held to a higher public standard and accept unfunded mandates from everyone with state BOEs to local BOEs who hate “Huck Finn.” Yes, the flood to the millions to be education in positively a tsunami.
October 15th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Erik, the superintendent at private school, DOES live in a Utopia. RE: #6 — If the “discipline problem” he’s encountered is namecalling, then his world is pretty much like paradise. Sure, the private sector works well. Private schools can say “no thanks” to the sort of issues the public schools HAVE to face. RE: #4 — no more than 20 student to a class –WOW! For many public school classrooms, a limit of 30 students would be a luxury. Apples to oranges.