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I really appreciate that Stewart puts this out there using humor to get people to listen to what is a horrible assault on the public school teachers in this country. But to be honest this is really no laughing matter
You know I have worked with teachers, in one way or another, most of my life. I have NEVER met a teacher who did not have another source of income. Whether it be a spouse with a higher paying job, or tutoring at nights and weekends, or even having an entirely different business during the summers like commercial fishing, these teachers always had to find a way to make more money to feed their families.
I also have never met a teacher who did not stay late after the kids went home, as well as taking their work home with them virtually every night. The teachers I worked with often purchased supplies with their own money and would NEVER let a child sit in their classroom without adequate supplies, even if that child's parents could not afford to provide them.
This was a funny segment, but the message it contained is one that all of us need to hear to understand just how little the Republicans care about our children and the future of this country.
Because without good teachers in our public education system this nation is doomed.
My son is getting a masters in teaching at the high school level. It makes me nervous for the following reasons. One, that the kids can accuse you of molesting them. Two, parents (do I need to say more?). Three, that if not tenured then he can be fired for any reason. Four, that he gets burned out because the students just don't care. I can't tell you how many teachers I know that get so discouraged by this.
ReplyDeleteIs tenure a problem? Yes, but the unfortunate thing is that there are very few teachers that once tenured stop caring or being a good teacher.
Everyone knocks teachers because they are off during the summer. When you figure out how many hours they spend outside of school grading papers, etc., it probably evens itself out.
It is clear to me that people don't value teachers. They blame teachers for everything. The biggest complainers are those who don't take care of their kids. Who cares if they do homework, who cares if they aren't fed a diet of junk and who cares if they don't go to bed on time. The list could go on.
There are a lot of people who just don't place a value on teachers or an education (hi Sarah!). It is a damn shame.......
debinOH
According to Rupert Murdoch,the war on the poor and middle class that started under the Gipper and accelerated under Cheney and Bush, is really "class warfare" against the uber-patriotic rich who won't let go of their tax cuts!
ReplyDeleteThe Xtians prefer the children have no knowledge. The easier to swallow their pablum. That way no one believes in scary evolution.
ReplyDeleteOT: Dancing With the Stars contestants have been announced and Christine O'Donnell is not one of them.
ReplyDeleteBristol Palin has book deal
ReplyDeleteBy HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — It's official: Bristol Palin has a book deal.
The daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has signed with William Morrow to publish "Not Afraid of Life," to come out this summer. Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, announced Tuesday that the memoir would provide "an inside look at her life."
"Bristol gives readers an intimate behind-the-scenes look at her life for the first time, from growing up in Alaska to coming of age amid the media and political frenzy surrounding her mother's political rise; from becoming a single mother while still a teenager to coping as her relationship with her baby's father crumbled publicly — not once, but twice," according to Morrow.
http://www.charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9LMGQK80%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1016
The GOP makes me sick. How dare they. I can't even post more b/c I have to go do my usual shitty job in my middle school classroom now. But I'll be back at 2:30 sharp to catch up on comments. Fuck you GOP.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gryphen. My parents were teachers. I was a part time community college instructor until I gave up because I couldn't even get a guarantee that my lone next semester's class wouldn't be taken over by the tenured instructors. I ended up teaching out of the trunk of my essentially, at a remote site. No access to teaching media, no benefits, no nothing. When a friend with more education and more experience was laid off and then they wanted to hire me for another lone semester, because I was cheaper, I said no more of this. Pay the guy with more experience because he's worth it, and you will just lay me off again anyway.
ReplyDeleteThis is not only class warfare, but gender warfare, as a majority of our teachers are women. Fox News is demonizing working women, many of them mothers.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP thinks $75,000 a year is overpayment? Teachers in my sons' schools (middle and elementary) routinely arrive early, stay late, run after school clubs and activities, answer emails after school, grade papers on the weekends, conduct meetings with parents before and after school, and determine your child's future. That is not worth $75,000 per year ??? WTF! They deserve much more.
Teachers must have college degrees, certifications, and now more often than not, masters degrees. Their education alone costs well over $150,000. That's more than I can say for Gov Walker who never even finished college.
The teachers I know who are single (male and female) or don't have kids all work during the summers as nannies, tutors, lifeguards, and waitresses. This is total bullshit...if teaching was such an easy gig, everyone would do it, and that's just not the case.
I"m proud to say I remember, admire and still visit with ALL of my teachers. There wasn't one person whom I distrusted. From k-12, school was my favorite place to be. (despite the fact that I hated being at home). I had perfect attendance all 13 years. It's good that there are students who wish to graduate early and get on with life (Alaska comes to mind), but it's unfortunate that there are tons of people who expect nothing but cashing welfare checks so they flot through life (walk around brooklyn for a day)
ReplyDeleteThe state of public schools is sad. I am all for gradually moving to a fully privatized education system.
ReplyDeleteWhile talking with friends and family, I have been called radical and over-reactionary (sp?) when I tell them that the right is trying to dismantle public education. Slowly but surely reduce pay, lengthen hours, take away benefits and before you know it, the applicant pool of teachers will be reduced the bottom of the barrel. Get rid of public schools and the only people that receive an education or a quality education will be those that can afford to pay for it individually. My view has always been that the strongest societies were the ones that are well educated and healthy. Two areas that the right wants to eliminate, educations and health care.
ReplyDeleteYou speak the truth, Gryphen. I just can't figure out why the GOP and its big business backers are pursuing policies of doom.
ReplyDelete@anonymous at 8:11--the public schools in my town are wonderful. My kids have had some average teachers, but most have been excellent. I am sorry that you have had a bad experience.
ReplyDeletePart I
ReplyDeleteThis is a subject near and dear to my heart. The GOP has been waging a war on education for at least 60 years. It started at least with William F. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale” and his attack on those he viewed as the liberal intellectual elite - quite laughable that Buckley would be attacking anyone for being elitist. It continued with Agnew’s ignorant blasts - often penned by William Safire - at the same crowd targeted by Buckley but also expanded to include teacher unions.
I have taught every age group, from pre-schoolers, to high school, to college, to classes for senior citizens. I have been doing so for 30 years. I have a pretty good understanding of what is and what is not wrong with education.
Anybody who says that the problem with education is lazy union teachers or ineffective teachers is full of shit. The GOP has been repeating that rubbish for so long that people have begun to believe it. If the problem is so pervasive, as the GOP contends, then it should be easily documented. However, I have NEVER seen any study that demonstrably illustrated any evidence of those claims. Not once, not ever. How come? If that indeed IS THE primary problem in education, it should be quite easy to produce peer reviewed research that buttresses those claims. Since no such studies exist, we must question the premise of the argument and the motivations of those that push such unsubstantiated arguments.
The notion that bad teachers cannot be fired is also bullshit. I know this because I saw administrators who fired good teachers over matters of internal district politics. As for tenure, any teacher can be fired for cause - tenured or not - and anybody that says otherwise is either ignorant or lying. Tenure merely assures that a teacher cannot be fired without cause or due process, that’s it. Is there anybody who thinks that teachers - all teachers, tenured or not - DON’T deserve due process? Is there anybody who would willingly forgo their own due process protection and subject themselves to the whims of their employers or the new and latest owners of their companies?
Teaching is hard enough as it is. If we crush teachers unions and scrap tenure, you WILL see a mass exodus of people who will simply feel that teaching is no longer worth the sacrifices and abuse that they must endure. If you want to totally screw up education for decades, follow the lead of Scott Walker, the GOP, and the Koch brothers. They are NOT motivated by the best interest of our children but by short term profits. Children deserve our best, not our cheapest.
Education has a built safety valve that weeds out all but the most dedicated teachers - an extremely high turnover rate of new teachers. Many drop out of the profession within the first 2-5 years. Why? Because the teachers are chronically underpaid, the classrooms are underfunded, doing this thankless job makes you the target of the irrational right, and the job is so damn hard. How come the GOP reflexively defends obscene salaries of corporate CEOs by saying “if you want the best, you have to pay for the best,” but when it comes to teacher salaries and funding schools they say “you can’t fix the problem by throwing money at it?”
Part II
ReplyDeleteAdd to that the insanely moronic reliance of standardized tests as THE primary metric used to judge teachers and schools, and we have one giant fuster cluck of an education system which is micromanaged by thousands of ignorant dilettante amateurs who have no idea what they are talking about. Witness the irrational fawning over self promoting hucksters like Michelle Rhee and Arne Duncan who have ZERO academic training in their supposed area of expertise. Elected officials, especially legislators and school board members are quick to believe the slick marketing of snake oil salesmen like Rhee or Duncan or those peddling standardized tests without verifying their fanciful claims. Would you go to a doctor that had NO medical training? Then why the hell should we place our children’s education - and our nation’s future - into the hands of these arrogant amateurs or salesmen motivated only by profit?
As for grading teachers and giving them merit based pay, I’ll sign on if district administrators and school boards, state board of education members and administrators, local and state elected officials, Congress, the POTUS, and CEOs ALL get graded and have their salaries directly tied to those grades. Holding the teachers primarily accountable for the sins of the education system is rather like grading and docking the pay of enlisted personnel for the excesses of the U.S. military: it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. Teachers don’t decide funding, set policy, or even make the big picture curriculum decisions, so why punish them? They are simply the lowest level of the education food chain and thus have been a favorite target of the GOP for far too long. Add to that they have strong effective unions and it enrages the GOP.
If you doubt my assessments, talk to a veteran teacher, someone who has been around long enough to have witnessed a few educational fads that periodically sweep through the profession. Then, go and volunteer in a classroom, preferably for more than two weeks. I guarantee you will be shocked by the endless bureaucratic nonsense which teachers deal with. You will be horrified by how poorly classrooms are funded. You will be amazed by the utter indifference of parents in their children’s education. You will get a small notion of what teachers put up with on a daily basis. AND they get to endure the unjust charges hurled at them from the right.
Why the hell would anyone WANT to go into teaching as a profession? I can tell you from personal experience that it sure as hell isn’t for the glamor, prestige, or high pay.
Let’s inject a little sanity and compassion, and quite frankly, self interest into this debate. Our children’s education, future, and the future of our nation depend on us making intelligent and rational decisions in this matter. Let’s tell the demagogic thugs like Scott Walker that they can go straight to hell. If not, don’t complain when our education system gets demonstrably worse, because you have been warned.
I guess the PalinTards are not to happy with Karl Rove...the comments are hilarious!
ReplyDeletehttp://weaselzippers.us/2011/02/28/karl-rove-now-openly-mocking-palin/
Anon @ 8:11,
ReplyDeleteIf you think going only to privatized schools is the answer then you really haven't been paying attention. Privatization is the GOP's cure-all for everything, except it rarely works better than public run models. Besides, ethically and morally as a society we should own up to our responsibility to educate our children.
It is simply not in our best interests to privatize some essential elements or our society: the military, the police department, the fire department, health care, and education. Private versions rarely have smaller administrative costs and there is the pernicious profit motive which will never allow for lower costs and better service.
The problem isn't the public nature of our system, but that far too many uneducated amateurs have been running the system for far too long AND the tenor of the debate has been untruthfully clouded by the decades long GOP attacks on teachers and unions.
Why would privatizing schools magically change things?
OMG, they make me sick! I was a public school teacher and guess what? After teaching for six years I was making only 28,000 a year! And this was in 2003! I took papers home every night and spent at least an hour calling different parents to talk about their child's performance in my class! I lived in another town so it was long distance to call these parents and I was never reimbursed. I no longer teach, but I think teachers are worth a lot more than they receive!
ReplyDeleteVirginia Voter - Thanks for making the point about gender warfare. It's been on my mind but I couldn't figure out how to say it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the GOP's ultimate desire to undermine or dismantle public education is partly designed to push many women out of private sector jobs because they'll be forced to homeschool. Single parents and the poor be damned!
I just have to chime in. I respect good teachers very much. However, I have seen first-hand that an aggressive union can affect the tenor among the staff so negatively. Teachers in the district I know best do no extracurricular activities without compensation, and if they try, they are reined in by the union. The weak teachers are protected and the great teachers are compensated and treated just like anyone else. The union makes it too expensive for administrators to pursue termination for tenured teachers.
ReplyDeleteThe union line seems to be to convince teachers that they (teachers) are great, but their jobs are uniquely hard and burdensome. Lots of complaining and self-pity among union stalwarts, and that leaks out to the rest of the school community.
The unions *have* done a good job in getting good wages and benefits for their members, and rightly so. But at some point you have to at least pretend you care about the very real financial challenges schools and towns are facing. Union leaders have a lot to answer for when you look at how negatively the public views their members.
God bless the good teachers, of which there are many. They have to be self-motivated to be so.
I understand your experience with salaries for teachers -- but that's not the case here in Calif. They earn way MORE than a "living wage": $88-99 thousand is the high average. Superintendents earn from $200 to $300 thousand. I doubt that these people have to take second jobs.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/26/995141/see-how-well-your-school-district.html
Anon @ 10:35,
ReplyDeleteBullshit.
"The unions 'have' done a good job in getting good wages and benefits for their members, and rightly so."
I guess those "good wages" for teachers are why I see so many Lamborghinis in the teacher parking lots. If you think teachers receive good wages and benefits you are deluded. I quit teaching in the public schools because the pay and benefits suck. Teaching college - which is what I trained to do anyway - pays far better and is not subjected to near the level of absurd micromanagement that is public school teaching.
As for your charge that “The weak teachers are protected and the great teachers are compensated and treated just like anyone else. The union makes it too expensive for administrators to pursue termination for tenured teachers.” Again, bullshit.
There isn’t a school district anywhere in the country that cannot fire a teacher for cause - tenured or not. If you dispute this, please provide a verifiable citation from any school district policy manual. The public school in which I taught saw several teachers who were driven out of the school over an internal district political struggle - with little or no help from the union. The mess ultimately resulted in the firing of both the school’s principal and the district superintendent, but not before those two fired or drove out many teachers. There’s lots of anecdotal “evidence” for lazy teachers protected by the unions, yet I’ve NEVER seen it happen first hand. But, I’ve only been teaching for 30 years, so I’m sure your anecdotal “evidence” trumps my experience.
I am a member of a union, but not a teacher's union. I was also not a union member while I was in public education. The unions I saw were not able to protect teachers from unjust and capricious treatment by the district. These all powerful unions you speak of are myth and chimera that exist more in your mind than in reality. Your perception - or that of the public - of teacher unions may indeed be negative, but that does not make it accurate.
I speak from decades of direct experience, not from unsubstantiated anecdotal rumors. I can cite verifiable documented evidence to back up my claims. When you can do the same, I'll take your position a might more seriously.
Anon @ 11:23,
ReplyDeleteIf those statistics are accurate, I'm moving to California. I don't know of any universities that average that kind of pay for their faculty. I REALLY am suspicious of those numbers.
Here in NM, I topped out in my district, albeit low for this part of the state at less than $40 K. That is with a doctorate in my field. I could make marginally more with seniority, but not much. Seriously, the last private college that I taught at only paid their full professors at around $75K. Those numbers in your link seem mighty fishy.
Maybe they are co-mingling benefits, pension payments and salaries? Even still these seem WAY out of line.
If they are accurate, they certainly do not represent the norm nationally.
We can't over look the fact that, like some other aspects of society, the whole education system is overblown and bubble-fied. It should not cost $150k to train a teacher. Schools don't need olympic swimming pools and pro football coaches, either!!
ReplyDeleteWhen there was a school shooting, and I read about the kid's "campus", it was more tricked out than most colleges in my day.
I am solidly WITH the unions on collective bargaining, but a lot of things are undergoing crazy bubble pricing: CEO salaries and "education" taken as a whole are two of them.
First year teacher with a Bachelor's degree in my town earns $42,200. A first year teacher with a Master's degree earns $44,700. A first year teacher with a Doctorate earns $45,700. You do get paid an extra $1000 or so per year if you are bilingual, a coach, etc. After that, if the district can afford it, you get a $500 per year annual raise.
ReplyDeleteWhen I say coach, I mean the tennis coaches, swim coaches, golf coaches, etc. The football coaches make over $100,000 per year. Texas has strange priorities...
Bravo! Gasman
ReplyDeleteBravo! Deb in OH
Bravo! Virginia Voter
You, three, spoke eloquently about the plight of the teacher.
My daughter is a Speech Language Pathologist who was hired "on the spot" by a school system. The B of E was proud to report her credentials to the parents.
Ten years later, I am sad to report that her salary is no where near $75,000. She would be exhilarated if it were. Her day begins at 8:15 and ends at 3:50. These assholes at Fox only count the time that students are at school.
Summers off! In the words of Palin, "you betcha". However, she can't afford this luxury. She works the entire summer to supplement her salary.
Supplies: My daughter buys them or else the children in therapy would not be given the best treatment.
Parental Support: A child who receives 15 minutes of Speech Therapy per day cannot progress unless there is parental involvement. Parents have told her that this is her job and not theirs. I might add that these people are lawyers, doctors, and investment professionals who have abdicated the responsibilities of being parents.
After school work: involves calling parents, writing extensive reports etc.
Tenure: She has it but could loose it with cause.
All she hears from the local politicians, state politicians (all republicans)and the Board of Education (mostly Attorneys and Bankers) that she should be willing to earn less. Yeah, she is in a Union but is forced to make concessions which result in pay cuts.
The end result, she has more options than teachers who are in the same situation. However, the private sector is rife with greed. What she provides is often denigrated but a private company providing substandard speech therapy and evaluation etc. is seen by parents as exceptional. The
reason, these companies charge $250 per hour for services. So, they must be good, right.
We once had an educational system that was admired across the globe.Now, we have one that is racing towards extinction if the Republicans have their way. They and their corporate sponsors want a nation of serfs.
In the same manner in which rightwing, older people show such disdain for the environment ("I ain't gonna be here, much longer, so why should I care?")
ReplyDelete--we are seeing the blatant disregard for the education of America's children, in a future in which these oligarchs will have no part.
When, o WHEN is it going to dawn on the Teapartiers and Republican base, that they are backing the wrong team? They CLAIM to be concerned about what will be handed down to their children and grandchildren, so what will it take to wise them up to how the crazies on the far right, are doing everything they CAN to guarantee a near future of horror?
I know that teachers, on average, do not make the kind of money that many in the public think they do. I taught in GA, a state that doesn't allow any public service employee to bargain collectively, for 33 years until I retired in 2009. I had to work 3 years beyond the 30 year retirement period in order to have a decent monthly income after I retired, and I have to be very careful with my spending decisions. It would seem that after working 30 years, I wouldn't have had to work 3 additional years in order to not have to worry about paying my bills! What those who have taught or have loved ones who have taught, or are teaching, are saying here is 100% accurate. I doubt if the average American could cope with the many demands that are involved in teaching. I actually witnessed new teachers throw in the towel sometimes after teaching for one month, sometimes after completing their first year of teaching. Teaching is a very difficult profession and is nothing like some on the right describe as "babysitting." I challenge anyone who thinks that teachers are overpaid or are well paid babysitters to volunteer to teach for one month. I can guarantee that most of them would bolt from the school on their last day as fast as they could, vowing to never return and to never disparage a public school teacher ever again!!! It takes a special person to choose teaching as a profession, and most of us know going in that the money is not the reason we chose to teach. We teach because we have a deep concern/love for all children, and we want to play a role in making sure that they get the best education possible.
ReplyDeleteGasman,
ReplyDeleteIf I (a teacher) weren't already married (to another teacher, no less) I would be throwing myself at you!! I actually have copied your numerous remarks so that i can refer to your comments. We are on the same wavelength.
1. My first year of teaching, I made $6500 a year. This was when coal miners in the area (who had dropped out of school grade 11) were making $25000. Currently, after 25 years of teaching, with a Masters degree and 30 additional credits, I make $57,5000. I work from 7 am to 6 pm every day out of the school year, because I am in charge of 3 extracurricular activities after school (which is why my salary is higher that some of my colleagues). My husband, who works at a different school, also in charge of 3 different extra curricular activities - thus same hours - makes $56,900, b/c he does not have as many post graduate credits. We both work in the summer to make ends meet. We know doctors in our community who work basically the same hours who make 10 times what we do. So, anyone saying that teaching is a "part time job" is nuts!
2.The reason bad teachers are not fired has less to do with the union and more to do with administrators with no 'nads or school boards who don't want to get blood on their hands. As union president, I have sat down with administrators and outlined EXACTLY what needed to be done to fire a sub-standard teacher. Administrators are afraid to be the "bad guys." Substandard teachers make the union look bad, so we have a vested interest in seeing them gone (or not hired in the first place), however, we can not hire or fire teachers - only administrators can do that.
3.Teachers are being required to be more to all students: substitute parent, nurse, psychologist, nutritionalist, warden/probation officer, cheerleader. Teachers are being evaluated by scores on high stakes tests. Teachers have to endure derision from community members, who see us as babysitters making professional salaries. Teachers have to smile and roll their eyes as the community values winning football games over scholastic achievement. We have accepted the long hours, higher education requirements, bureaucracy/useless paperwork, etc. because we loved teaching students and because we did have benefits that were attractive. Once the benefits are gone, the love of teaching is all that is left. Frankly, I love teaching (and I good at it), but I'm not Mother Theresa. With the way all of this is going, I'm thankful that I am nearly at the end of my career.
I would NEVER recommend that any of my students become teachers.
Too bad Jon has become a mouthpiece.
ReplyDeleteI downgraded by cable TV subscription because he's lost his edge and is no longer worth watching.
He still gets some stuff right but is way too busy with his "both sides do it" lies.
Someone bought him.
I am a retired middle/high school teacher..others have addressed the issues much better than I could. Teachers have a summer break & are paid during this time...this is from money earned during the teaching year...Who made the decision to not pay all the money during the school year & pay nothing during the summer?
ReplyDeleteIt is my understanding that this was a decision made by the state. Why? I would have fine with being paid all my contracted pay during the school year & budget for the summer.
So, when some right winger claims teachers are paid when they don't work...know they are ignorant of the facts. Teachers are paid money they earned in the school year and was held back by the state.
The thing that surprises and saddens me, for example on Huffington Post, is how many commentators think teachers are lazy and that if they were decent teachers all the kids would be learning well. My mom was a teacher too, and I know how hard they work, how they draw up lesson plans and grade papers at home. Teaching is a job with almost no breaks and a huge output of energy, many frustrations and apparently, little appreciation.
ReplyDelete50 thousand is not that high a salary for a professional.
What has happened to Americans that they want to tear down anyone with benefits? Benefits in the private sector have dried up and people should be demanding them back, not trying to take them away from others!
For the teachers…who make such huge salaries and shouldn’t get to sit at the table when their salaries are determined….
ReplyDeleteAre you sick of highly paid teachers?
Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – babysit!
We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan– that equals 6 1/2 hours).
Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.
However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET’S SEE….
That’s $585 X 180= $105,300
per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days
= $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!
Make a teacher smile; repost this to sho w appreciation for all educators.
It looks like the middle class has finally realized that they are being warred against by the rich and have spoken out, and now those sacks of shit on Fox have hijacked that news and are whining about the bad, bad middle class making class warfare against poor widdle successful and wealthy people. You said it guys, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 4:23,
ReplyDeleteI shared an office with a fairly novice teacher who really was not very good. However, in his defense, he was thrown into the classroom with no follow up mentoring and was NEVER given any kind of help or counseling.
The procedure for firing him would be to evaluate him and rate him substandard, give him specific critique which pointed out areas which needed improvement, after a given time for reflection and growth he would be reevaluated. If he was still unsatisfactory at the second evaluation he could be informed that his contract would not be renewed.
However, our principal, who was naught but a tin-pot dictator, bypassed procedure and sought to bully, humiliate, and intimidate him into resigning. If she'd simply followed procedure she could have gotten rid of him in exactly the same time frame, done so ethically, and she would have given him the opportunity to learn and improve. But, she couldn't have been bothered with all of that.
Many think the year long procedure is too long. However, if a teacher can be saved with mentoring and counseling, it is in everybody's interest to do so. Surprisingly - or not - we don't have a surplus of teachers, so firing someone during the school year is certainly not in the best interest of the students.
I’m a great teacher, but there is no friggin’ way that I am going to effectively take a vow of poverty to have administrators, politicians, parents, and the general public pee on me. When I quit my high school gig, I told the principal point blank that she was never going to find anyone who was better than I was to teach my class, and she agreed.
So now I bring my teaching skills to an adjunct position at a state university branch campus. I have even less job security and no benefits at all, but at least nobody ever calls me lazy.
As to your offer, you talk to your spouse and I’ll talk to mine and maybe we can work something out. You didn’t specifically mention your gender, but might I assume that you are female? If not, it might not necessarily be a deal breaker, but I’d at least like to know what I’m getting into. ;o)
In all seriousness, hang in there and bitch loudly when confronted with these mindless bullshit attacks on our profession. I actually believe that the tide might be beginning to turn. I think that the NCLB nonsense was/is so goddamn asinine that it has made people question the whole GOP “lazy teachers/union leeches” pablum. Let’s hope.
4 birds with one stone.
ReplyDelete1. Break the middle class
2. Unions give democrats support
3. Lay off a lot of women (they belong at home anyway)
4. Downgrade education, the better to manipulate the masses.
IMO some teachers if not most should receive hazard pay.I am sure many teachers could tell you horror stories about the children or young adults they try to teach.The name calling the hitting and ya can't retaliate and of course these kids parents say no not my child they would never do that. I am sure every parent of every school shooter had thought the same thing.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 8:11 AM
ReplyDeleteWisconsin has many blue ribbon schools which shows that they are highly rated and better than average and I know many more around the country are also except maybe Texas.Sorry you had a bad experience with a school system.Sometimes parents won't work with the schools to do what may be in the best interest of the child.
"I just can't figure out why the GOP and its big business backers are pursuing policies of doom."
ReplyDeleteBecause bad elements have taken over the Republican party.
Miller right on the four of you said it all.Remember the GOP wants to make people take tests to prove they know what they are voting for.Read that in a story about what the GOP plans to do with voting and education.Sounded like they wanted to take us back to the days when not everyone could vote or was counted as a person.The GOP seems to like it when women follow a step behind and forgive whatever the man has done wrong. Look at how many stood next to a lying cheating man while he explained why he did what he did.At least Elizabeth did not do that she left john to go it alone.
ReplyDeleteCraig I think that's why the GOP is really pushing it all on teachers.They don't tell anyone it is also nurses secretaries,your garbage man or the person who plows your roads many more people are affected by this than teachers but Walker especially figured out he could denigrate teachers because the have summers off or so some believe so he went with it.If nothing else the 14 dems that are out of state bought all this to the fore front and showed people just what Walker was doing and The police and firefighters know they are next because walker will cut so bad they will be next.Walker just did not want to get his hands dirty so people could say he was soft on crime and safety because he let them go.I am old enough that I don't remember names but I can still picture my teachers from grade school on and people who think they have an easy job are so wrong.Our teachers even invited us to their homes for dinner and we were always welcome to visit and always,always had time for school activities(which they don't have no)and went to baseball games with us and stayed after to help with homework .I just wish the kids now days had the same chances I had in school.Music,recesses,we had games during school(baseball) where we went to other schools to pay against other teams and this was grade school.Until she passed on I used to visit my 4th grade teacher all the time.Most teachers were in this area and not from outside,So we all knew each other.Of course This was in a small Midwestern village not a big city.
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