This is whats really wrong with publc schools. Instead of teaching and kids learning, they are pushed and prodded to memorize to pass a test. I graduated in 1990 and we had the taas test. We didn't have special classes or teachers never stop teaching to focus on it because if the teachers were doing their job, the kids would pass it anyway. Now it seems that since the school ratings or something is based on paassing of these tests, then they make sure that they spend the extra time prepping kids for it which is dumb.
As someone who lives in a town that has already tried the year round school, I can promise you it does not work. Our district gave up on it after a couple of years. Every number you would want to go up, went down across the board. Some teachers left the district, and some just left the profession all together. Dropout rates went way up, and test scores went down. Everyone was burnt out from the teachers, to the students, to the administration. Working with 100's of kids a day is nothing like any other job. While all jobs have stresses, this is a different kind of stress and teachers get burnt out pretty Quick. And yes teachers are way underpaid for the service they provide. You can babysit 10 kids at your house and make more than a teacher by sitting them in front of your t.v.. Teachers work with many more than that daily and are expected to educate them and mold them into model citizens. And to the dude that keeps complaining about his kids not getting homework, relax dude. Why do you feel your kids need homework? My daughter was in public school her whole life until this year and got commended on every section of the Taks test, straight A's, and jr. national honor society. She had never once brought homework home once. Now she is in a private school, with hours of homework each night. Her grades are slipping, She is burnt out, and she is just not as happy and bubbly as she used to be overall. If when you came home from work, you were required to work for free for another 3-4 hours, how do you think your performance would be? If you can't learn it in 7-8 hours a day for 13-20 years of your life, odds are you are never gonna get it. Burning your child out is not gonna help.
Not year round school, just summer reading and activity lists for kids and parents who are motivated to use them. Maybe the K-8 counselors can be more proactive about steering kids to academic or artistic camps. I think at the end of the day we're just a little too rich, free, happy and big. A country of 300 million only has so many honors and AP students.
Nope, keep summer. If students want to learn more, than they can do that. I know that I have ALWAYS educated myself OUTSIDE of school...
I don't think the problem is necessarily with the schools, but rather American culture. This is a culture that does not value academia for the most part. Academics and extraordinarily bright people aren't looked upon in the same esteemed regard as they are in places like Asia. This is especially true in popular culture. Nowadays, the average American undergraduate is quite mediocre when you sit him/her in a room full of foreigners. It used to be that Americans made up for this by their creativity, but the gap is narrowing quite a bit. Here in NYC, alot of the top finance jobs are going to Asian and Indian PhD students, rather than their American counterparts. These people have insane amount of work ethic when compared to the average American graduate. A hiring manager at a rival firm, was joking with me that one of the things American graduates usually ask at an interview is how long the average work week is. The foreign graduate routinely works 60-70 hour work weeks here and they never complain.
I'm pretty tired and didn't feel like reading the whole article just to get one answer...but where did it say that teachers wouldn't see a pay increase relative to the increased hours?
Perhaps it isn't the time spent in the classroom that is the problem. More like the efficiency of the classroom setting, if we were not so focused on standardized testing, and had a larger budget to hire the appropriate number teachers and have proper facilities we would be able to make a vast improvement, I would bet. In other words we don't need to extend the time, but make the time spent worth much more while (does that even make sense haha). Also, some way to get through to the parents that it is their duty and objective to push the values and skills learned on to their kids as well. Otherwise you have two conflicting ideologies that I can only imagine would prove to be detrimental to a child.
As a former teacher, and someone still working in the field, I can confidently say that any teacher who thinks teaching is "relatively easy" is a really sh!tty teacher.
As a SAP Finance Analyst, I agree with this... I love my job, but by the end of the day (6 to 7 PM) I am cooked and by the time Summer vacation comes around I'm ready for a break, unfortunately, this doesn't actually exist for people that are not teachers. SAP Finance takes a LOT out of you. If you've never worked in a corporate environment, then you'd never understand. Yeah we get very few holidays, but we need them to run errands that we can't do during our work week. If the workday were ever extended and the amount of vacation (2-3 weeks total) were shortened, I'd probably just have to live at my office, since I'm already here 60 hours a week. And if that were to ever happen, then I'd imagine Finance analyst salaries would have to increase proportionally to the amount of extra days and hours spent in the office, but they won't, since we're salaried, and as professionals we're not paid by the hour.
What teachers are making $45k+ in their first 5 years? They start at $25-35k, with the exception of NY, NJ, IL, AK, and CT, which have a higher cost of living. http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state
I believe most of the major Houston area ISDs have starting teacher salaries over $40K. Klein, Cy-Fair, Houston, Fort Bend, Tomball, etc are all between 40-45K for first year teachers.
my sister's mother in law and my uncle moved up fairly high in the HISD system as administrators. my sister, who's husband makes enough money to send their kids anywhere send their kids to HISD schools, albeit magnet programs. my sister and I went to private school, my sister got a scholarship for one of the best private schools in this state. point is, the reason she sends her kids to public school is because the public school system has access to a ton of resources for special programs, special testing, whatever it is you may want your kid to have access to, that a lot of private schools don't. being part of the public system gives the schools access to more resources. its an underrated aspect of the public school system. it is there for parents who want it, who are involved in their kids' education.
This is definately true. This country do not value academics and education in the culture. If the culture changes you can see dramatic improvements without puttting in one additional penny. That is why the Asians and many other immigrant kids do so well in the schools in the US. What is the first thing that pop into your mind if I say smart student? Nerdy,Geek, Unpopular, Ugly Looking.
It's funny how liberals desire a compulsory, year-round school system but freak out when a kid has to get a haircut.
ding ding ding...we have a winner here folks. I'd even go further and say that foreigners who graduate from AMERICAN schools have more work ethic than their fellow students. They understand the American dream way more than we do. This is because their PARENTS ingrained these ideas into their heads. Parents are a major issue with schools these days. Kids that do well are the kids whose parents are involved with there lives..make them actually DO their homework, return phone calls to teachers, etc.. We've gotten to the point where parents will believe their children over Adult teachers, and will completely show an outward disrespect to the teachers..which shows the kids that they don't have to respect the teachers as well. Parents have to be a partner in education. I grew up as a latch-key kid in a single-parent family, and even though my mom wasn't around much, she made darn sure I did my homework every night. And if the school or teacher had to call her, you can be sure she responded quickly. She was on my butt about grades & she actually made a point to meet my teachers every year. Its amazing how many parents these days have never met their kids teachers, or won't return phone calls or even emails.
Yes they are, like at the 4:45 mark. <script type="text/javascript" src="http://reason.tv/embed/video.php?id=777"></script>
Okay, fine. Point taken. Your job is hard. But imagine if a bunch of people came on the BBS and started talking about how easy your job is, about how your anyone can do it, how you are overpaid and underworked, etc. Wouldn't you be slightly pi$$ed? Wouldn't you stand up and say, "You don't know what you're talking about!"? Because most of you people who are slamming teachers have never prepared a lesson plan, taught a class (correction: 7 per day), conducted an ARD, developed, managed, executed an IEP, etc. Your experience with public school consisted of getting up (grudgingly, I'm sure) and going to school...years and years ago. For some, decades ago. As someone said before, anyone who says teaching is easy is a sh!tty teacher. People always say that teaching is one of the most important jobs in the world (usually second only to doctors), yet teachers are compensated at a VERY low rate compared to other professions, schools are underfunded, and parents take little to no interest in supporting education at home. It's time to wake up and realize that maybe the greater problem isn't the teachers or the students: it's Mom and Dad.
