Same here (well, maybe not the CEO). Also, our plans, the highest deductible one with the least cost, is quite better than those standard plans malakas posted.
Parent involvement are both willingness and capability. Some Parent, especially single one, might just not have any time. Tough, but that's reality. There is also the case where Parent are involved, but has negative impact like some has mentioned. Everything is the teacher fault and the child pick up on that altitude and becomes crap. Then there are those parent that model disrespect and lack of any caring of the child's education. So I think it's range and more than just Parent involvement. Parent modeling is more important. If you see your parent working hard, and teaching you to respect teacher, even if they aren't involved, the student likely do well. I think teacher job is hard enough, that adding "parental" responsibility is not only unfair, but just not practical. But, I think there are courses that might have a very positive impact. Academic focus do little to the group of student that have learn to be disrespectful or have lack of support, or worse, in a bad abusive situation. These course are, for example, understanding yourself, learning to be aware of your own behaviors and impact on you and others, learning emotion, empathy, and such. Hire teacher that excel in this area and made it part of the regular curriculum with emphasis. This would greatly benefits the student that lack good modeling, but also help those that already have good modeling.
teachers insurance inst that good, they take alot out you check FYI I make $60K with 5yrs of experience, because i'm in special education & have a masters. that's not too bad to me with the 1 week thanksgiving, 2 weeks Christmas, 1 week spring break, 2 months + 1 week summer, & 10 days you can use to take off every yr. were basically working 9 months are less
I believe every word of that, coming from a family that produced several public school teachers and college professors over the years. One could argue that in some states, like Texas, there is a concerted effort at the highest levels to create conditions for public school teachers and public schools to fail, so they can continue to push for their pet project, charter schools, because the minority of voters who participate in the primaries have the misguided belief that robbing public schools of some of their tax dollars and sending those tax dollars to charter schools is a good idea. Worried about the primaries, many of the members of a particular political party treat public schools like crap, even if they consider it a mistake. Again, at the highest levels of Texas state government. In my humble opinion, of course. While I am not against quality charter schools, that being a choice parents are free to make, I am ardently against plundering the already too small state support in Texas for public schools in order to prop up charter schools.
My sister has no idea how to use punctuation and she was a high school English teacher. She married rich and got out of teaching though.
Some teachers complained about 6:30 to 3:30? Did I misunderstand. WTF is wrong with those hrs? That being said our education system would be just as good as all the others that are better if parents cared more Denmark parents are involved. @
Teachers make the same as police officers and firefighters. I used to think firefighters were overpaid because there are few fires but they do the EMS work also. I used to think math and science teachers were paid more. There is an argument for them based on what they could make You aren't guaranteed a six figure salary in corporate America and a lot of high paying corporate start at lower rates than teacher salary but start paying higher when the employee brings tangible measurable value to their employer. You can't bring monetary value to a public sector employer.
I think the entirety of the comment is important, since a 9 hour work day isn't out of the ordinary. "The wife and I are typically at school from 6:30-3:30 every day, but we do get a 25 minute lunch break. We both typically put in 2-6 more hours at home grading and planning on most days, including weekends." Basically, "not only are we working at school 6:30-3:30, we are also spending 2-6 hours working at home most days and weekends".
Isn’t this why you trick the smart kids into being “teachers assistants?”. Free child labor to grade papers.
Firefighters and police have the opportunity to earn overtime. Teachers do not. I have a firefighter friend who was making 6 figures even before he got into leadership positions just from overtime. In Conroe ISD, the starting pay is $58,500. After 25 years of experience, the salary is $68,670. In corporate America, would you accept that you're only making $10k more after 25 years? Your comment about wondering why they complain about 6:30 to 3:30 is just way out of context, as bobrek said. Their day doesn't end at 3:30 just because the school bell rang. It doesn't end many nights until 6:30 pm or later. And that free time so many think they get in the summer isn't that at all. Yeah, they all take much of June off...but then have to start planning and preparing for the new school year in July and back to the school in August...where they typically have only a couple of hours in their own classrooms to get get them ready. The rest of the time is spent in trainings and planning sessions.
Not many white collar jobs end when you leave work. The same thing that let's us work from home is the same thing that gives the expectation to work from home.
That's true. The poster I quoted appears to average around 70 hours most weeks on a teacher's salary.
Honestly, after the first handful of years, most teachers learn how to work smarter, not harder, and more efficiently. Around 15 years in, I work 730 to 530 on average and do very little work at home. That's been my life for years. Most veteran teachers are the same way. That's 50 hours. If you're working 70, you're probably doing things that don't make tangible differences in the classroom or are working through inefficiencies.
The teacher propaganda you read in here is crazy. Every teacher every poster knows is working 100 hours a week and while there are only 180 days (36 weeks) of instruction every year, they don't actually get any time off once you really break it down. We spend insane amounts of money in the U.S. (compared to our return on investment) on education. If teachers want to be paid more, there should be a redistribution of the absurd resources the education system is already getting.
Riiiiight, that's why teachers are buying classroom supplies out of their own pocket. I would check what other teachers are saying, I have read between 50 hours and higher, not "EVERY teacher Every poster knows is working 100 hours a week. Just because it makes you uncomfortable, does not make it propaganda. I don't work 100 hours a week, but I am also not an elementary teacher and I know they work a lot more than I do. That's a really tough gig with a lot more hours than Middle and High School. However, I do choose to coach a sport and you want to talk about adding hours for minimal pay. Athletics adds 15-30 hours minimum to my schedule for 5 months of the year. I get a whopping $6,000 for that time. If I want my programs to be good I need to put in at least 20-30 hours a week for 8 weeks in the offseason. All for 6k. If I don't, I really get to hear it from everyone in my community. Right now this is a choice, but when I first started teaching and had a young family with a starting salary of 33K, I had to coach two sports just to bring in enough money to make ends meet. Do the math, its a lot of hours. I would say that I am working 60-70 hours a week with my coaching time. My summer starts in June but that is when I am running summer basketball and I am tied up for the whole month for about 20-30 hours a week. I get July off and a bit of August, that is 5-6 weeks. When I worked in the banking industry I was at 3 weeks off paid vacation a year. If I was still in it I would be at 6 weeks off paid vacation. Really about the same. Sure we get Christmas break and Spring break, but those are needed to recharge. Plus this Christmas break I was working 3-4 hours a day with my basketball team all but 4 days of the break. Tell you what just pay me 20 dollars an hour for the work I do and we can call it good. I could use the pay raise. As a teacher I am so tired of everyone telling me what my profession is actually worth, how much I actually work, how I should do my job, and what I should be grateful about. Please stop comparing us to Police officers and Fire Fighters, they get to retire in 20 years with a full pension, its 30+ in teaching. Different gig, different expectations. I love the phrase, "Those who can do, those who cant, teach." THEN HOW DID ANYONE LEARN ANYTHING. . . . . Such a stupid saying, shows why we need to invest more in education, or at least value it as a community and nation.
Great post. I'm not a teacher but my grandfather was, my mom was (and then a diagnostician working with the most severely disabled students), and my ex-wife is. I went to school for it originally but this was around the same time as Columbine and I couldn't fathom that being a possibility so I went in a different direction. People like @HTM frustrate the hell out of me when they have no idea what the day-to-day is like and think schools are already getting too much. I had left out the part in my previous post about supplies. In the corporate world, yeah, you might work the same amount of hours but you also get to expense your supplies. I would frequently purchase dry erase markers, paper, pens, etc for my ex because I could expense them.
I think teachers are underpaid and a reason why yuppies are opting towards private schooling if they could afford it. The tuition rivals the starter salaries being thrown around here... I do think underperforming teachers should be singled out and "retrained" if not fired. The curriculum is a mess because of too many cooks. Not sure how admins justify their salaries if everyone feels public ed is a sinking ship, but that's the state of our system right now. I truly feel for people who desire to teach and influence but are bogged down with lesser funding, apathy among students, and blame from sleepy eyed parents. Everyone has a different game for the system that it's odd we're all trying to take from something that everyone should give back. I guess communal resources will always show stress from a capitalistic mindset. The sucker is the one who doesn't take the most.
