Accountability sounds good, until you consider how critical the
Principal's evaluation becomes under this plan. Consider the moron
principal who banned toy soldiers under the zero-tolerance no-weapon
policy. I don't see forcing a teacher to quietly knuckle under to
stupidity like this as a good thing. Under this proposed system,
speaking out would likely endanger the teacher's tenure.
Cite: many web pages, including
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/culture/education/3816-rhode-island-school-bans-toy-solder-cap

This is a fairly simple response to a very complex problem. I think it needs more thought and to be addressed at both ends. Many teachers would be vastly more effective if the disruptive students were not forced to stay in the class. Or if kids' test scores were somehow tied to their advancing. Many kids blow off the tests and don't bother to try to do well. Maybe because they are tested constantly. Putting a steer on the scale more frequently doesn't make it weigh more.

Social promotion needs to go, too.

So many things are off with our institutionalized education. It is kind of amazing that any educated kids turn out at all.

My son is in his first year of a two year tech program (diesel mechanics) at a tech high school. He is a junior (11th grade, 16 years old) and has already been offered work apprenticeships, scholarships and has been offered lots of love by military recruiters upon his completing the program.

The funny thing? This program costs me nothing more than regular school. The funniest thing? They had many openings at the tech school that went unfilled. Fabulous programs available and people can't be bothered to join. In addition to diesel, there are programs for dental hygienists, law enforcement, construction, auto technician, culinary school, banking and electronics/computers.

It does take a bit more effort and planning since he needs to be at his local high school by 6:45 every morning for the bus ride to the tech school. He also had to pick up some online courses to get his required credits in a timely manner.

Accountability is always a good idea; using the Principle to conduct the evaluations is not! Yes...social promotion must end. The teachers I know work from mid-August to late-May. That is at least 9 months. When after school events(programs, sports, academic contest, ect.)are included the middle school principle I know personally, logs 55-60 hrs. a week during the school year. Consider the salaries of the district administrators......just like with the goverment; change that doesn't start at the top, is no change at all.

I am also in agreement with Ron and LauraG that while associating teacher pay with student performance may sound good on the surface, underneath this philosophy is rife with problems.

Whenever I have heard this proposal I am always forced to ask myself what exactly the students are in this situation. Are the students analogous to raw materials being processed by the teacher, are they analogous to lower level employees in the hierarchy, or are they something else?

This is actually a very important question because if we are going to use a business model for the public education system then it needs to go all the way through the system, not simply stop at principals and teachers.

In a raw materials processing plant that is making cranberry juice for example, what happens to the rotten or inferior cranberries? They are sorted out well before the juicing process even takes place. This would be analogous to giving teachers the ability to sort out misbehaved or under performing students and reject them from the educational system so as to ensure the quality of the final educated product. This sort of thinking goes against the very core of our public educational system which currently guarantees an educational opportunity for every citizen irrespective of these factors.

Similarly, in a hierarchical system such as a financial firm where a fund manager might have several lower level employees looking after specific aspects of the investments, what happens when one of those lower level employees drops the ball and their portion of the portfolio takes a nose dive? Usually the supervisor would fire this employee in order to drop the dead weight and only keep the best performers in his group. This would be analogous to permitting teachers to simple drop or eliminate students who perform poorly on standardized tests so as to make sure their average performance remains at acceptable levels. Again, this goes against our nations public education philosophy.

We cannot simply associate teacher salary to student performance while forcing those same teachers to deal with whatever students happen to waltz into their classroom without any recourse. In some districts that would be fine as the majority of students are reasonably behaved and there to learn. In other districts however, the student population can be very troubled, coming from broken families, dealing with rampant domestic violence, being shifted through the foster care system etc… How exactly would it be fair to rate teachers in such disparate situations by the same testing criteria?

Furthermore, if teachers are rated by student performance, it sets up nasty politics within the school as the administration can simply target a “trouble maker” who disagrees with the principals educational philosophy by shifting all of the poorest performing or most troubled students into their classroom. This would artificially make this teacher look like they were doing a poor job when the reality would be that the deck was stacked against them in order to set them up for being fired or to “punish” them by hitting them in the wallet. The only way I can think of to avoid this would be to have a student draft whereby teachers select their incoming class in the same way sports teams select new players. My guess is that such a system would not go over very well amongst the general population.

Lastly, if people are so keen on tying financial rewards to student performance, why don’t we just go for the heart of things and really address the problem. Student performance is much more highly correlated with family life and how important succeeding at school is enforced by the parents. A good teacher can certainly make a difference, but no teacher on earth can fix serious problems in the students home life which can have huge effects on their scholastic performance. So why do I never hear proposals to associate tax incentives to the parents of high performing students or financial penalties to the parents of poor performing students?

Why do we hold teachers fully accountable for the education of our nations youth and given parents a free pass on this issue? Isn't it as much or more the parents parents responsibility to ensure that their children become well educated and productive members of society? According to policies such as this the answer appears to be no in the minds of some people.

It would be great to grade teachers on their student's test scores or grades, so long as it's done by an outside evaluation system. However, one bad principal could make this an even bigger problem. I was at a family gathering on Saturday, and my aunt works at a public school in Illinois, and my three cousins attend private school there. The things she was telling us about the school system she works in were awful. I believe it was the superintendent of the school she was talking about, who has basically done away with all advanced or AP classes because they create an "unfair" environment for the minority students, even though the classes are open to ALL students; she has reprimanded teachers for failing the minority students because it makes the numbers look bad.. just all kinds of really terrible things. Oh, and she was caught using tax payer dollars to pay for her honeymoon, that she claimed she intended to pay back all along, but who knows since she only did after the $5000 was discovered missing.

Won't this make bad schools even worse? Teachers can only do so much and students with no parental support and poor home life are going to do badly on tests even if the teacher is a champ. If I were any good, I would avoid low-performing schools like the plague.

Does anyone else find the comments of "commenter Terri Christopher" to be almost incomprehensible?

> The teacher, a divorced, feminists, said that he school may hire a male math teacher.

I'm not sure what the the teacher's marital status has to do with anythings, but I am sure that

* the comma after "divorced" is wrong
* the teacher is not a plural noun ("feminists")

I also wonder whether "he school" should be "the school" or "his school."

> After two years, she privately bragged how much her 401k earned $20k+.

Is the word "much" simply wrong? Did her 401k truly earn 20k after two years, or is that the amount she contributed to it? If the former, may I know what she has invested in?

> Though she only worked effectively seven months per year,

So she was ineffective the other months of the year? I recognize that teachers receive extravagant amounts of vacation and holiday time, but I would really like to see how it comes to 7 month and not 9.

Not that this is anything new. Read Up the Down Staircase or Teacher Man. Or To Sir, With Love. The more I learn about teaching, the more thankless a job it seems to be.

My best friend is a teacher. It's all she ever wanted to be. She's a good teacher, too. I've seen the letters from parents of her students. She teaches first and second graders primarily. She tried teaching high-schoolers. One year of that was enough.

Public high-school kids are impossible. I remember high school. I don't care how good or bad the teacher is, the kids will either learn things or not, in spite of the teacher. It depends on how much the kid wants to learn.

I used to blame the teachers for letting kids pass who should have been held back. Now I'm more inclined to side with them. Get the little jerk out of the classroom one way or the other, because he or she is the one holding everybody else back!

How are you supposed to teach anyone anything if you have one or more of the mouthy little bastards in class, and you're not allowed to touch them, or risk hurting their tender feelings & self-esteem? They figure out who has the power real quick. (Hint: It isn't the teacher.)

Hmm...low pay, disruptive or down-right murderous "students", parents and school boards keeping you from doing your job while they pile more duties on you and cram more kids into your class...oh, give me more of that, please!

Her main problems with the younger kids have been with parents. Problems along the lines of: "My kid shouldn't have to learn to print his name on the lines. It's too hard. He's too young...blah, blah, blah." And they say this stuff in front of the kid, of course. While the other children are performing the task their kid is too fragile to do.

While some parents scream about the teacher who tries to give a kid a little much-needed discipline, she has parents who expect her to teach it to their kids, because they are too weak to do it themselves. Of course, they undermine it as soon as the kids get home. I guess they're preparing them for high school.

I have so many comments to make, I have to fortify myself with more breakfast and an early lunch, so I'll make sense. There are some great comments on here about the plan being too simple and I agree.

As a retired teacher, I agree the system was broken, way before I left. I also have great sympathy for new, motivated teachers.
I'll return- not a threat.

Oh, hey. Don't forget that kids are glued to their electronic devices. They have become masters at texting behind the teacher's backs. Rules are that they should be turned off at school. Yeah, right. Parents won't back schools for confiscating the phone/gaming/music devices either.

Many of the comments above are a lot like a conversation I had with my middle daughter last night. Become a teacher? Not me, no thanks! All that responsibility without necessary authority is a recipe for disaster. I don't envy the teachers I know.

Link teacher pay to performance? Sure, go ahead, as long as you do the following (covered mostly in the comments above):

- Ensure everyone is rated fairly, and that the rating in question accounts for the ability of the pupils the teacher has to teach.

- Ensure that teachers receive the support they need in dealing with difficult students (and equally, if not more, difficult parents). If a student proves impossibly unruly, support the teacher's efforts to discipline or remove him or her. And don't knuckle under to Mommy or Daddy.

- Allow teachers necessary leeway to develop their own teaching techniques, rather than stick to a prescribed approach.

That's three conditions, anyway. There are probably more that could be added.

"Public high-school kids are impossible. I remember high school. I don't care how good or bad the teacher is, the kids will either learn things or not, in spite of the teacher. It depends on how much the kid wants to learn."

Only if you treat them like children instead of expecting them act like adults (and expecting them to fail fairly often. Reminds me of something my drill sergeant said to us. "We know you're human. We know you're going to fail soemtimes. That's why we're here, to make you pay for it when you do.)

I taught high school for four years but left when something that paid bettr came along. High school kids are great; elementary kids are too much like dog-sitting. I guess it's like the old saying says "My kids are precious, yours are cute, theirs are vermin." People who do well teaching elementary grades generally fail when they move on to high school, and I don't knwo about vice versa; I can't imagine anyone wanting to do that.

This is a far to simplistic plan and doesn't actually tackle the real problem in underperforming schools. While there are some really bad teachers out there, most of the time the problems in the schools have very little to do with the teachers... but they are conveniant scapegoats I suppose.

I won't even get into budget because that has been talked to death...
Let's also not get into how some dumbass Principals are also partly responsible for some of the issues. There is a serious lack of common sense in that dept...

No Child Left Behind is cause for a lot of the current issues (on top of the buearaucratic mess that is the local school boards and the Dept of Education.) With that well intended but poorly exocuted piece of legislation, schools that were once "A" schools suddenly dropped to "F"s because of ONE test. These standardized tests are designed to be one size fits all, but one size definitely does not fit all. The test doesn't allow any leeway for a students improvement. It doesn't take into account how far a student may have come from the start of the year to the end. Instead, they just get lumped into a "fail" category. Plus, not all kids are good test takers. I know I certainly wasn't as a student. And, a lot of kids aren't ever even gonna be cut out for college yet the expectation is there. These standardized tests don't take any of that into account. And, lets face it, these tests aren't being designed by teachers and other educators. They are designed by high level white collar men with two doctorites and pshycology degrees who are employed by the companies who sell their tests to the states Dept of Education. It's not about education for these companies. It's a business.

My husband is a teacher and we are both all for accountability in the classroom... to an extent.

We both feel that parents also need to be held accountable. My husband happens to be the only white male teacher in a predominantly black/hispanic school. A good percentage of his kids don't speak English. And, in a lot of cases the parents aren't involved. At all. They use the schools as glorified babysitting services. Everyone blames the schools and teachers when kids fail but no one is looking at the parents. The teachers job is to facilitate a childs education. The parent is ultimately responsible for their childs education. Where is the accountability for the parents?

Plus, they don't actually let teachers "teach" at least not in our schools. Teachers are pretty much forced to "teach the test" all year long. And still students often fail the test because they A) don't show up to take it b) they just dont care so they don't try or c) they can't understand it because they don't speak English. The schools administration also does a lot of kid shuffling and changing a kids status to "gifted" (read: behavioural problems, or learning disabled) to get more credit around test time to get the scores higher because their funding also depends on the scores. Why are we penalizing teachers for things that are competely beyond their control? How is that effective?

My husband he busts his ass. He takes money out of our pockets to buy supplies for his classroom (did you know that he is only budgeted for ONE ream of paper for the year for over 200 students for 9 months. Oh and he's required to quiz/test them at least once a week. You do the math.) He teaches summer school, and English as a Second language at night. The "extra money" he makes doing this isn't that great either. He's lucky if he gets an extra $1000 throughout the year for all the extra time. He also stays after school when necassary to be available to his kids, does all his grading at night at home, and he works over the weekends and he doesn't get paid extra for that. Every other proffession actually gets to leave work at work? And if we go over our time we get overtime right? He doesn't. He's also suppossed to get a planning period. He doesn't get that a lot because he's either trying to fit in lunch somewhere or he gets called into some sort of useless "training" or meeting. So he's spends his nights at home not only grading, but planning. And, because teachers here are also on a pay raise freeze (which we both actually support given economic circumstances) he isn't getting his promised raise in the coming year either. But again, we both support that if it will help fill a budget gap. (Btw... the people in the administration building in our district were generous enough to give themselves raises though.)

But... He loves his job. His students really respond to him. I can see it when I see him at work and by the way he talks about his work. He treats each student with respect, even the basketcases. He feels like he actually gets to make a difference with some of these kids as he is the only male figure in a good majority of thier lives. And I don't think my husband is the exception. I think most teachers are like that. You have to love it to do it because no one goes into teaching for the money, that's for sure.

But, while hubby's been dept head two years in a row, he is also the newest teacher as he got started teaching later in his life. If they start cutting teachers again, he could be cut, despite his performance, because there are other teachers that have seniority. THAT's where the unions got it wrong and THAT's where we both feel that some accountability needs to come into play. But, to blame the teachers entirely for failing schools is just wrong.

Like I said, there are definitley some bad teachers out there, but they really are a minority. This plan doesn't actually hit the root of the problem. It just produces an easy temporary scapegoat.

I do wonder about placing the full onus for student performance on teachers.

Why is it Asian students sail through our "lousy" public schools, becoming very productive citizens?

Why is it Asian students sail through our "lousy" public schools, becoming very productive citizens?"

Because traditionally, Asians (as well as a lot of tropical islanders who immigrate here (legally of course Amy!)) put a premium on education. The parents are also usually involved every step of the way.

All our public schools have many opportunities for those students that are willing to seek them out.

Part of the problem is attitude. Kids know they must go to school. They also know that performance is optional. They'll still pass, even if they don't learn or do the work. Even if they sleep away class time. They also know that they are not legally allowed to do any other damn thing like move out, work, get an apartment or otherwise be productive.

There is no incentive to excel. They cannot finish early and have college paid for. We will pay for a kid to attend high school until he is 20 but won't pay for state college for a bright 16 year old. It would make more sense to pay for every kid until they are 20 and let them zoom ahead as far as they are capable.

Reward the achievers and maybe more will be motivated to achieve. Propping up the slackers doesn't really gain us (society) anything.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a well-intentioned fiasco.

You're right Jim, they aren't impossible. Maybe they
are just improbable.

I realize I can only go by my own experience. Which wasn't particularly pleasant, until senior year when I was finished with my required classes and most of my hoodlum friends had already dropped out.

If parents are still telling their children "these are the best years of your life", I beg them to stop.

"No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a well-intentioned fiasco."

Yep. It's engraved on one of those paving-stones to Hell.

[NCLB] doesn't take into account how far a student may have come from the start of the year to the end. Instead, [the schools] just get lumped into a "fail" category.

By the end of a set year in school, students should know certain things. It doesn't matter if they started the year behind. If they don't know the things they need to know by the end of the year and are passed anyway, they'll still be behind.

And they'll graduate thinking they are prepared for the real world...but they won't be by a long shot. And most of them will never catch up.

The test measures whether the school has prepared them to move up a grade. Not whether they know a little more than they did before. It's a necessary brutality. And schools that fail to actually educate their students need to be called on it.

Tests that pat the students on the back for moderate improvements don't do them any favors if the tests don't also measure the students' knowledge at grade level.

A nephew of mine was graduated by his public high school and proudly entered the job market having been patted on the back and promoted to the next grade each year for his "improvement."

Out in th real world he discovered that his lack of math skills, poor English, and 7th grade reading level were inadequate to get him a decent job. His school should not be rewarded or overlooked for leading him to believe he had a 12th grade education.

Doesnt NCLB also pull money if a school drops in the overall average of test scores?

So in yr 1 suppose
12th grade = 90%
11th grade = 80%
10th grade = 70%

So the schools average is 80%

But in year 2
12th grade = 90%
11th grade = 80%
10th grade = 60%

So now even though each grade improved from the year before the schools average still "drops" to 76%

Ofcousers I still find it amazing that people belive that NCLB was designed to help kids rather then ensure their stupidity

"get the parents involved"

And around it goes. This idea seems as others have said, "far too simplistic" but the notion that teachers and admin bring up about parents needing to get more involved... get real. This is the system that the education industry has created by rules it wanted. Parents should get more involved but the state schools have taken over that job despite their claims otherwise.

"By the end of a set year in school, students should know certain things."
~Conan

*Most* should, but some human beings do not have the capacity to learn or function beyond a rudimentary level.

Last time I read it, the NCLB standards did not provide exceptions for students who did not have the mental capacity or physical capability to perform the functions required of the test(s). Teachers of such students would be penalized for teaching students who could never meet the measures of the exam.

In addition - I doubt the ability of these tests to measure what counts. Non-traditional learners and thinkers are further marginalized by this testing and reward process.

I'm not sure how the law changes anything. Any teacher who ISN'T proficient before s/he gets tenure isn't going to get tenure as is. Teachers who suck can get fired before they get tenured as the rules currently stand.

Unless the school system is desperate. In which case the new law doesn't fix much anyhow.

Rong: Accountability sounds good, until you consider how critical the Principal's evaluation becomes under this plan. ... I don't see forcing a teacher to quietly knuckle under to stupidity ... as a good thing. Under this proposed system, speaking out would likely endanger the teacher's tenure."

Amazingly, Ron, most people manage to perform well, hold jobs, and get along with bosses...without having tenure.

Why, precisely, do teachers need it again?

"The teachers job is to facilitate a childs education. The parent is ultimately responsible for their childs education. Where is the accountability for the parents?"

Holy. F-cking. Sh-t. A person claiming to be a teacher wrote that?

A real life person claiming to be a professional, a professional who pulls a salary for their work, just claimed that parents, not teachers are responsible for s student's education?

The teacher is there to "facilitate" the process?

What a novel concept for a professional to claim.

Your child's surgeon? He is there to facilitate your child's tumor removal. But the parents are primarily responsible.

Your child's lawyer? He is there to faciliate your child's court hearing, but the parents are responsible for handling the legal proceedings.

The engineer preparing your new house plans? Yeah, he is there to faciliate the process of making sure the house does not collapse on your child's head. But the parents....

You get the idea.

People who aspire to the status--and pay--of professionals understand and accept that professionals take responsibility for results. They do not get to blame children and parents for bad outcomes.

I cannot believe I read that. If a teacher thinks like that, then fire their asses immediately and find someone who does take responsibility.

Oh, that is right, tenure protects them from consequences. So, yeah, there is no responsibility.

And no professionalism, either.

"People who do well teaching elementary grades generally fail when they move on to high school, and I don't knwo about vice versa; I can't imagine anyone wanting to do that." You're right. They probably would fail because they were incompetent.

Jim, I can't believe you opened yourself up like that. It shows colossal ignorance. You probably also believe that high school teachers should be paid more than elem. teachers.
The latter group need a whole different set of skills- not just discipline in crowd control and knowledge of subject matter. You need to have a good background in all subject ares, including science and math. You wouldn't be able to use the same lesson plans year after year. I knew MANY high school teachers who did that. Elem. teachers are (or at least were) constantly revising and improving their plans to suit a different class make-up, changing standards, or to make them more relevant.
H.S, M.S., and Elem. teaching have different challenges. Don't make yourself look dumb by not recognizing the differences, and with that, the skills needed by the teachers.

"Why do [taxpayers] hold teachers fully accountable for the education of our nations youth and given parents a free pass on this issue?"

Teachers. Parents.

Who pulls a taxpayer-funded paycheck to teach kids? Teachers. Only teachers.

Does *that* answer the question why *taxpayers* get to hold teachers fully accountable for the education of our nation's youth and given parents a free pass?

Parents are responsible for everything else. Food, clothing, water, medical, etc. But they apparently need to carry the buckets for the teachers too, eh?

Great. Then send the parents the teacher's paychecks...and they can outsource it. Yeah, like a VOUCHER or something...

Spartee:
Why do teachers need tenure? So that they can defend the innocent
victims (their students) against some of the stupidities and
malevolence of the system. In the business world, if you're working
for an awful boss, you can look for a job elsewhere. The students
don't have that option to any significant extent.

just a note half would not last a week in the private sector.also if the gender mix were reversed would there be discrimination lawsuits galore ?

So now even though each grade improved from the year before the schools average still "drops" to 76%.

The 10th grade went from 70% to 60%. The others remained the same. That's not an improvement.

The problem is that the students suck.

*Most* should, but some human beings do not have the capacity to learn or function beyond a rudimentary level.

Then they should not be handed a diploma that says they have a 12th grade education.

I'm married to a teacher so I admittedly tend to be biased in their defense, although he's painfully aware of how the system protects the bad teachers as well as the good ones. I'm also starting school shortly to become one myself. Having heard all the points of what's wrong with teachers today (and there are some very valid cases to be made), I'd like to ask going in what I should do differently from from everyone else. I'm being completely serious. Trust me when I say I don't have a strong desire to be bad at it.

"Then they should not be handed a diploma that says they have a 12th grade education."
~Conan

1) Granted.
2) This issue is distinct from the issue of teacher evaluation via student test performance.

As for the comparison of teachers to surgeons, lawyers, and engineers - this comparison does not hold up. Professionals in those arenas can charge according to the specifics of the individual cases, and often go over time and over budget. Teachers do not have that luxury.

My surgeon submitted billing codes based on the procedures she determined she needed to perform as the surgery unfolded. Lawyers can charge a flat fee for certain services but often require a retainer up front, and then determine the final bill once the issue is resolved. I don't know about engineers, but as for construction - my carpentry bill wound up costing me 20% more and taking a day longer than the original estimate.

Teachers, on the other hand, get a room full of individual students with varying needs, backgrounds, and levels of home support, and have to present one lesson plan to all of them at the same time in the same 50 minute hour.

Teachers are also assigned to teach subjects in which they are not trained:

"[O]ne out of every five core academic courses – that is, English/language arts, math, science, and history/social studies – in America’s high-poverty secondary schools is taught by someone without an academic major nor certification in that subject area. [...]

Students who are taught by educators with subject-area knowledge tend to achieve at higher levels than those who aren’t [...]

These inequities in teacher assignments are compounded by the fact that few states and school systems give teachers the tools they need to determine whether student work is meeting – or missing – the mark. While states set standards for what high school students should know and be able to do, they typically don’t provide teachers with the supporting curricular materials and model assignments they need to teach those standards. As a result, there can be wildly different expectations for students from one English II classroom to another, even when those classrooms are in the same school or district."

Taken from:
http://www.edtrust.org/dc/press-room/press-release/statement-of-the-education-trust-on-12th-grade-reading-and-mathematics-r

I think it's ironic that the quoted commenter simultaneously complains that teachers make too much AND that there are no male teachers. $41,000 a year is not enough to live on.

I'm willing to bet that many female teachers would not take the job or undergo the education to become teachers if they didn't have a reasonable assurance that they'd be supported by their doctor/lawyer/engineer husbands someday. Teaching is a great career if you want to get out of the house and make money but still be around to take care of the kids most of the time, and can be subsidized by a partner earning a higher income. It's not such a great career if you intend to be the primary breadwinner. And since men are the primary breadwinners and women are the primary caregivers, that's how it shakes down. There's not some vast feminist conspiracy forcing men not to major in education.

If you want more men (and more intelligent women) in the field, I say pay more, not less, and restructure the incentive systems so teachers are paid like any other member of the workforce--rewards based on performance and reviews, not just for sticking around and showing up. More talented people would enter the field in the first place if they anticipated a higher payoff, and the poor performers would be phased out. Additionally, I think there should be more encouragement for recent college grads to pay off student debt by taking on a few years of teaching. A 22 year old with a BS in biology could probably do a better job teaching high school science than a burnt out 65 year old who got her degree in 1972. This could be structured like a scholarship/loan program--commit to teaching for 2-3 years after graduation, and you get to go to college for free.

There was a time when I thought this was a great idea. But my best friend has been a third-grade teacher for the past four years, and it's been an eye-opening experience. I no longer believe that teachers, at least at the elementary level, are mostly to blame for low student scores. Instead, the blame should be placed on administration, and partially on parents.

This year has been the worst as far as admin goes for my friend. She's had ALL the Special Education/ESE kids in 3rd grade placed in her classroom. If you think that's not going to negatively affect her scores, think again. After all, these are children who entered 3rd grade with beginning 1st grade skills, but because mainstreaming is so important nowadays, have to be in a regular classroom, are placed in her room. While they do get help from the ESE teacher, it is nearly impossible to expect them to graduate to 3rd grade proficiency in 7 months (the time before the standaradized test). She also has her day scheduled, quite literally, to the limit. She taught science for an extra thirty minutes one day, and was read the riot act. She also has someone coming in and standing over her shoulder and telling her *how she should write on the board the day's schedule*. Seriously? That helps the students learn? But that's the level of bureacracy she has to put up with right now.

In addition, last year she recommended three students be held back. Two of them were pushed forward anyway. This is a situation the teacher has no control over anymore. She said hold them back, admin overruled her. Lastly, Angie's comment above about students being pushed through the system is incredibly accurate. Frighteningly so. Last year, it was found the previous principal was altering scores from tests and lying about discipline issues (ie: not reporting the actual number of referrals written) to the School Board. She got away without even a wrist-slap.

And despite what Spartee says, parents are partially to blame. Parents who can't be bothered to take their children to school (my favorite reason: "because it's raining"), parents who don't show up for conferences five times in a row, parents who argue their students grades, and parents who don't discipline their children and allow them to act like hellions at school with no repercussions at home. How can you expect these students to perform up to standards when they don't have parents who care? I mean, if you have a mother who is more invested in your "modeling" career (3rd grade, remember) and allows you to miss more than twenty days of school, can you expect that child to be ready to take the test? If a father who doesn't mind that his son spent half the day sitting in the principal's office because he decided to start throwing books, can you expect that child to perform well?

Teachers do have an effect. But I'm seeing that with what they teach so rigorously laid out for them, their decisions routinely ignored/overruled/made for them by administrators (at all levels), and parents who don't give a damn... they seem to be fighting a losing battle.

For the record, I believe that some standardized testing is a necessary evil, that teachers should be evaluated by their principal and at least one outside source (because I've learned that principals can have vendettas), and that teachers should not get tenure. (Like most people here, I don't really understand tenure. Most jobs don't provide it; even if you've worked for the company for fifty years. Why are teachers and college professors so entitled? If you have a good argument for it, I'll listen, tho.)

Two anecdotal, this-is-not-data bites: officemate's sister teaches at an elementary school in eastern Georgia.
She asked a parent to teach her second-grader how to tie his shoes, and got a blank stare and a statement, which I am quoting verbatim: "That yo job."
She teaches a 4th-grade class, and has to administer spelling tests which are multiple choice.

Shannon says: "Additionally, I think there should be more encouragement for recent college grads to pay off student debt by taking on a few years of teaching."

Actually, this is already happening. In my state (FL), you get help with your student loans through some program, provided you teach at a low-income school.

As for teacher pay, I'm all about redefining it. The only ones doing the 8 am to 3 pm schedule with a free summer are the ones who need to be gotten rid of. My friend arrives at 6 in the morning, leaves when they turn the A/C off at 6 in the evening, and attends mandatory training, re-certification, and conferences throughout the summer. Not to mention the personal time she invests on weekends, the money she spends on school supplies, and so forth. And yet, I have to read in the newspaper about how easy teacher hours are!

Teacher Dropout Rate Higher Than Students'

http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20090222/articles/902220325?Title=Teacher-dropout-rate-higher-than-students-

The article begins, "Nearly half of all teachers quit during their first five years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but the numbers alone don't convey the full severity of the problem."

This article speaks to the points Shannon makes above, as well as questions raised by others.

"Last year, it was found the previous principal was altering scores from tests and lying about discipline issues (ie: not reporting the actual number of referrals written) to the School Board. She got away without even a wrist-slap."
~Cornerdemon

Some school administrators count on staff to lie about test scores, and other indicators of proficiency, because funding is tied to these measures.

Tenure is one way to protect teachers from the fallout from negligent, depraved, or entitled parents, and the scheming of administrators. It can even free teachers to say, effectively, "f#ck this standardized test bullsh!t" and give students the education, care, and attention they need, test scores be damned - even if it means recommending that a kid be held back, rather than promoting the kid in exchange for a better "performance" review, or school funding.

Test scores as the measure of an effective education? What about resiliency, self-advocacy and a work ethic? The ability to live a life that contributes to society, offers happiness, fulfillment and productivity is a better benchmark of how a society has educated its younger generation.

The village has been evacuated- the teachers have been left to "raise the children". The village has been replaced by virtual reality.

Retired Teacher of 40 years/Mother of 3/Grandmother of 1.

"Teaching is a great career if you want to get out of the house and make money....."

One Helluva reason to go into teaching! "Oh, it'll give me something to do and I'll work 9 - 3".

Bullshit- show me a teacher who works hours like that and doesn't spend 1/3 (at least) of the summer preparing for the new year, and I'll show you a shitty teacher. It's not a feckin' hobby.

One problem I see with tying tenure to test scores is when students deserve to fail through no fault of the teacher. Last thing we want is to see falsely inflated grades, which is no help to students who aren't learning.

The 10th grade went from 70% to 60%. The others remained the same. That's not an improvement.

Posted by: Conan the Grammarian

Conan did you not see that was for year #2?
The 11th grade is now 12th and up 10%
The 10th grade is now 11th and up 10%
And the 10th garde is a new class coming in from Jr High and never took the test before

But still the school would be peanalized under NCLB

It should be obvious that accountability to apply to *administrators* as well as to teachers.

In business, if I'm going to put my salesmen on a tough commission/quota plan, you'd better believe I'm not going to give tenure to the sales manager. He will also stand or fall on performance.

Generally speaking, there has been far too little discussion of the role of school administrators in the ongoing debacle of American public education.

Ron: "So that [teachers] can defend the innocent
victims (their students) against some of the stupidities and malevolence of the system. In the business world, if you're working for an awful boss, you can look for a job elsewhere. The students don't have that option to any significant extent.

First, note how the *children* must be protected, so *teachers* must have tenure. 0_o

Think of the children! The chillldren! I am literally laughing; the most mocked debate tactic on the web, and this guy actually tries to use it.

This sort of self-absorbed delusion can only be mocked, not really taken seriously.

So, let's see. We need to protect teachers...so they can protect students.

And what are these tenured super-heroes in Birkenstocks protecting kids from? Why, stupidities and malevolence of ... "the system?"

Hey, how about we just protect students? And skip that whole indirect middle step.

Or even better, how about we end the malevolent and stupid-filled system? (Vouchers!) If we dismantle our agrarian-era-based public school system and replace them with vouchers, we need not worry about the System, and its apparently Gulag-like horrors. Then the poor teachers will not longer be trapped in it, defending the poor trapped students.

And "$41,000 is not enough to live on?" Did someone actually say that too?

Median *household* income (which means all people in the home working aggregated) in America is just under $50k. But one person working September through May (annualized is what, $54,000?) makes $41,000, and that person is not earning enough to live on?

Unreal. Simply unreal.

And that is not even counting the pension benefits and other goodies. How in the world do you even talk to people who think that one person alone making the median income for an American *household* is not being paid enough to live on?

Finally, the cries of "teachers need tenure to protect them from awful administrators!" leaves me absolutely agog. Administrators are, you know, former teachers...

Here you go spartee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo

cornerdemon says:

"Like most people here, I don't really understand tenure. Most jobs don't provide it; even if you've worked for the company for fifty years. Why are teachers and college professors so entitled? If you have a good argument for it, I'll listen, tho."

I am glad you brought this up and I feel there are often grave misunderstandings about what tenure does and what tenure does not do.

There appears to be a common misconception that the institution of tenure essentially means that the party in question is immune from being fired. This isn't actually the case.

What tenure does mean is that in order to fire the person with tenured status the administration needs to follow the protocols of due process. In other words, there is a specific procedure that must be followed and the tenured party must be proven to have done something worthy of being fired.

All this essentially means is that it becomes incredibly complicated to fire a tenured person arbitrarily. The administration must provide suitable justification for getting rid of someone and until that is accomplished, the individual in question remains gainfully employed.

Taking this into account I will now attempt to explain why teachers and college professors have this procedural protection in place. The rationale is that those in our society charged with the education of our citizens must possess the freedom to intellectually express themselves without fear of political recourse. The educational process in particular can be a potent tool for political or ideological propaganda and the integrity of our educational system relies upon the ability of our educators to teach the facts without fear of losing their jobs.

Using Texas as an example. Given that it is a hotbed for the discussions about whether or not to teach the theory of evolution in the public schools, can you imagine what would happen if it was made abundantly clear by the school board that any teacher who taught the science of evolution would lose their job? When tenure exists there are protections in place to prevent this from happening to more experienced teachers. Without tenure, the educational process would be destroyed by a small group of ideological zealots.

"Generally speaking, there has been far too little discussion of the role of school administrators in the ongoing debacle of American public education."

Hear, hear!

As I've noted before, an administration building sucked up all of a $34-million-dollar "education" bond in my county.
It's time for you - yes, you, the most-hated word in civic life today - to force the distinction between classroom and other spending. Your "education" dollars are a joke. Your "education lottery" is a SHAM and a SHELL GAME.

There is NO LINK between spending per pupil and student achievement.

Think about this. Your School Board buys a new car or bus, not a dime went into teaching, but the spending per pupil went up.

You might know I work at Savannah River Site. Large organizations like ours flail and falter under huge procedural burdens. These can produce a ridiculous situation that if somebody didn't know what a widget was, a decision is made that everybody has to know what a widget is, the training has to be documented, and so on and so on...

It's reasonable to expect that the "educational system" has huge loads of wasted effort outside the classroom. I think some of this effort is manipulated to prove how important the people outside the classroom are.

The trainers at my process area literally do not know as much about the process as I do. I will not, I refuse, to apply for a training position because they have a fixed presentation system which, among other things, locks their student in front of an overhead projector reading "objectives" - which they think are mandated by the Department of Energy (they're not - I asked. It never occurred to them to ask). Grrr!

And hey, public school administrators! Do you think you could find one of you to speak on camera with some semblance of grace? You look like an idiot babbling out there and bring disrepute to everybody with an Ed.D!

Every other profession actually gets to leave work at work? And if we go over our time we get overtime right? He doesn't.

My last job of ten years -- I was a programmer originally and DBA and Network Admin the last five. I averaged 45+ hours and countless weekends doing upgrades. My new job was supposed be 40 hours and no weekends. Today I got in at 9:15 A.M. and ran out the door at 8:00 P.M. (Before the boss asked me to look at one more thing -- she at least feels guilty about it.)

Also ask a CPA from Jan 1 to Apr 15 how much he sees his family? The salaried accountant for a company will put in massive amount of hours in the same timeframe -- not a dime extra.

Every profession has a sacrifice.

I will agree that it sucks to have to pay for paper (and other crap) -- but then get all the teachers that run out of paper put in a request to admin, on the back of paper bags, requesting more paper. And send an extra copy to the school board saying my ream already ran out. And maybe some copies to parents. I wonder what the reaction would be.

He's also supposed to get a planning period. He doesn't get that a lot because he's either trying to fit in lunch somewhere or he gets called into some sort of useless "training" or meeting. So he's spends his nights at home not only grading, but planning.

Build the lesson plan ahead of time. As far as useless training and meetings -- The corporate world gets those as well.

And, because teachers here are also on a pay raise freeze (which we both actually support given economic circumstances) he isn't getting his promised raise in the coming year either. But again, we both support that if it will help fill a budget gap.

My last company was on a pay freeze for the past three years (with about a 20% layoff). My current company for two on a pay freeze -- and they only have been able to hire for existing positions until last year. They are supposed to be lifting the pay freeze -- but as I understand it the max pay raise is 4% with a perfect review.

(Btw... the people in the administration building in our district were generous enough to give themselves raises though.)

That is the Government sector -- vote the school board out and put a referendum on the ballot -- the administrators pay is no more than 10% higher than the top 10% highest paid teachers.

As an example of teachers and administration that can and have done well in the worst performing schools --
Stand and Deliver
Dangerous Minds
Lean on Me
I'll let you read the rest of the list yourself. Those are just the ones that made it if films and books.

I had several good teachers when I was in school. I also had very crappy ones.

As a semi-non-sequitur -- I posted a link here, I think late 2009 -- about an agricultural professor from Kentucky or Tennessee that looked at the results from the standardized tests and the students year to year and could spot the poor students and the poor teachers. Basically if the child was in the median in third grade math -- sucked in fourth and excelled in fifth -- look at the teacher. If the student was median all three years that was the student. If the student excelled one of the three years -- it was probably a good teacher. He also factored in some of the social issues from various sources for the students and teachers(such as death, divorce, illness, etc.) His system is out there -- but I can't find the links to it. If you used such a system -- with or without admin involvement -- it might be a long term system.

Usually when I hear about parents complaining that their kids' teachers aren't spending enough time on certain subjects, I like to point out that when I thought I wasn't getting enough out of my education, I would go to the library and learn on my own time. And I did this without my parents forcing me to or even suggesting it. I got tired after a few years of never getting to the end of the textbooks and wanted to learn more about World War II. I had a problem with teachers talking about history that they themselves had lived through. Reading ahead helping me do better on standardized tests. Students who want to go on to greater things need to know that learning doesn't stop once you leave the school at 3pm.

"Administrators are, you know, former teachers..."
~Spartee

1) Not necessarily so;
2) How, if at all, is this relevant to the issue of freeing teachers to teach?

This article raises some good points about the background and status of school administrators:

http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/what-do-teachers-need-from-administrators.html

~~~~~~~~
"I will agree that it sucks to have to pay for paper (and other crap) -- but then get all the teachers that run out of paper put in a request to admin, on the back of paper bags, requesting more paper. And send an extra copy to the school board saying my ream already ran out. And maybe some copies to parents. I wonder what the reaction would be."
~Jim P.

My guess: firing of teachers who do not have the protection of tenure.

"Every profession has a sacrifice."
~Jim P.

Teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers because the compensation is not adequate given the demands and wear and tear of the job.

Shannon said:
"$41,000 a year is not enough to live on.
...
There's not some vast feminist conspiracy forcing men not to major in education."

1. Yes, 41k is enough to live on, it all depends on where you live. Is it great? Meh, again depends all on where you live (and how much your education cost, another bubble about to burst). In Oregon, 2009 average teacher salary was about 48k. Oregon state labor stats say for 2008, statewide (higher in urban areas) per capita personal income was 36k. (worksource oregon website)

According to the NEA's own stats, the avg. US teacher salary is 53k (2009 estimate, 52k 2008). Via http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/09rankings.pdf

Starting salaries seem to be about equal to other professions but the average is often quite a bit higher in teaching jobs, no doubt admin is worse.

2. Yes, feminism is helping to push men out of education. No dodgeball, ritalin for boys, teaching methods that work for girls but hamper boys etc. etc.. First graders getting charged with sexual harassment... Not men friendly environments.

Your argument on breadwinner cash is somewhat valid (I thought we lived in a equal society!) but mostly men avoid education because it has been feminized and politics.

The main reason I'd never go into teaching and actively tell men to avoid it is sexual politics. One wrong allegation of impropriety with a student and as a man my career is likely over. I'm not risking my liberty, a marriage/family to teach kids in an out of control education system even if they paid me 100k/year.

Public education needs to be scrapped completely.

I think it is a great idea if a reasonable way of evaluating the teachers (and admins). There was a proposal here and the evidence I saw indicated that the standardized tests weren't real good for evaluating the teachers - too many other factors played into the score.

The pay for teacher depends on state/location. One of the problems I have seen is that pay is pretty much set at the state level and the variance allowed is not enough. Teachers in the big city were barely scrapping by, the close burbs were doing OK, after that they were making good pay. A few years during a strike a teacher was on the TV about how horrible pay was. Her and hubby were teachers and had to get second jobs in the summer to get by. Some got their teacher salaries via freedom of information...just on that their household income was in the top 1% of the county.

The tenure system needs to be changed. I liked the system where I got my undergrad. As one prof explained, it basically meant you got a second chance if your performance was not rated up to snuff. When my bro was in HS he failed one class and had to go to the local jr. college to take the class since this teacher was the only one to teach the topic, tended to fail kids he didn't like, and my bro needed it to get into the program he wanted to. The jr. college had program setup for these kids. ~50% of the kids failed his class but did fine at the JC. The school said because of his seniority, he ranked above the principal so basically only the board of education could do anything to him and they didn't want to bother.

I agree with most of the comments here: teacher accountability sounds nice, but is unworkable in the current context. Three steps are required first:

1. You must enable teachers to enforce discipline. They must be able to kick unruly students out of their class, and have those students (and their parents) dealt with by the school administration. There must be real penalties, for example, ultimately parents forced to *pay* for impossible kids to be specially taught.

2. You must free teachers from idiotic programs like NCLB. We do not live in Lake Wobegone. The truth is that there are fast, average and slow students. Slow students *must* be left behind, else you are not teaching the rest of the class. The goal cannot be to educate all children equally, but rather to educate each child appropriately.

3. Finally, eliminate federal interference. Federal funding distorts the entire system. Schools need to be responsive to local needs, not to federal bureaucrats. Return control of the schools to the States, or even better to local school boards that neighborhood parents have the power to influence.

When all of this is accomplished, then the way to improve education is absolutely simple: fire the bad teachers. Everybody knows who they are: the teachers who hate their jobs, can't connect with the kids, and are just treading water waiting for retirement. Get rid of them, distribute their salaries amongst the remaining teachers, and get out of their way.

Spartee said: "Administrators are, you know, former teachers..."
Not necessarily. A lot of our School Board in my town consists of corporate-types looking to get a foothold in local politics. Or local politicians' wives (admittedly, some of those are former teachers). As for your pincipals and other School Board employees, you're making the assumption that they had adequate time as a teacher (several principals that my friend knows of had less than five years in the classroom) and are not just good at playing politics. Or have "connections", as it goes. Plus, the question is also... were they *good* teachers? Or were they the ones we're complaining about?

Spartee, it’s people with attitudes like yours that make teachers jobs that much harder.

Did you actually READ my post?

I am NOT a teacher. I never said I was. My husband is. Also, I never said teachers shouldn't be held accountable. Of course there should be some accountability in the classroom and consequences for not doing your job. I never disagreed with that. I said that that they should not be the ONLY ones held accountable. Maybe if you actually READ my post instead of jumping on one part of it and demanding they “fire my ass immediately and find someone who does take responsibility.” you would have understood that.

My point was there are other mitigating factors involved in education to put the blame solely on the teachers. Yes, some teachers suck but you don't need a whole new evaluation system to see who they are. Just ask the students. I know that when I was in school, we could all name who the worst teacher was without even thinking about it. I just don't believe that it's just teachers that are responsible for all the faults in our education system.
(And I don't believe that teachers necessarily need to be tenured, have a union, or be given huge raises every year either. The rest of the country seems to get by just fine.)

A teacher can only do so much with a student. They are only one PART of the kids life. The parent and yes, even the student themselves, need to be held accountable also. By your standards then, members of society should also not be responsible for preventing crime because that’s the police department’s job. Ludicrous. Your attitude towards parental responsibility is extremely entitled and quite ignorant. (and let’s be honest, by the time kids get to middle school, it’s hard to undo whatever damage has been done in previous years if they did have a bad teacher in Elementary.)

Most teachers (in jr high and high) only get about 50 minutes a day with their class, if that. They have to deal with an average of 25-30 other kids at the same time. They sometimes have over 100 students to deal with in ONE day. They can barely get the entire lesson finished sometimes much less make sure that each and every kid gets individual attention. And, not all kids learn the same. What works for one kid, may not work for another but teachers don't have the time to teach a lesson 3 times and 3 different ways in one class so they generally end up dumbing it down and bringing down the 90% of the class, to accommodate the 10% that can’t keep up. There is also the fact that teachers are contending with distractions like cell phones, ipods, (because you’re naïve to believe that just because they are not allowed that kids aren’t sneaking them in anyway) and a shit load of bloated beauracrats up their asses all day long. Factor that with the fact that some kids don’t even show up to class, or they don’t turn in assignments, or they show up to class without their materials, or they don’t bother to actually pay attention, then you can see that it’s impossible for the teacher to be 100% accountable all the time. (And an average teachers work day doesn’t end at 3 pm when school is out contrary to popular belief.) Plus, most teachers aren’t actually allowed to discipline a kid or send them out of class, (because it’s apparently harming to their self-esteem to discipline kids these days) so now they have to contend with the shit head kid ruining it for everyone else. And there’s always a learning disable kid in the class so the teacher has to cater to that as well. Plus, the supplies teachers have to work with are EXTREMELY limited. Now, are you honestly going to tell me that given all of that, and all the other problems with the beaurocratic system itself, you are going to tell a teacher "Well if ALL your students don't pass then you must be a lousy teacher! You’re FIRED!"

And your comparison between a doctor removing a tumor and a teacher? Well actually, yes, the parents have some responsibility there too to an extent.

It’s moronic to think that a parent’s responsibility for their child’s education ends where the school property begins. The teacher’s job is to engage their minds, give them the information, provide a safe environment for them to learn, test them on that material, and communicate with the parent if there is a problem. Part of your job as a parent is to make sure your kid is actually getting the information and build on it at home by teaching your kid to be responsible for their work and seeking extra help for them if they are struggling with a subject. Parents don’t get a free pass just because it's not their occupation to teach. Just like a parent’s responsibility for their child’s medical care isn’t soley in the hands of the doctor. It’s the parent’s job to ensure that their child’s tumor actually gets removed. The parent cannot physically remove the tumor themselves, but it is their job to ensure that the doctor they hire can and the doctor can't do so without the parent's involvement. The parents have to bring the child into the doctor to begin with and then consent to the operation. A parent should do their research. They should seek out the best doctor they can afford to remove the tumor and they should actively work with the doctor to get the best treatment for their kid. If they disagree, they should seek a second opinion, and then choose what they think is the best course of action to treat the tumor based on their research and information. The doctor’s job is to provide the information, provide medical care required to remove the tumor, and all the medical care that goes with it, and prescribe and recommend follow up care. They aren’t responsible for the child after they leave the hospital. You can’t blame the doctor if you didn’t provide the appropriate follow up care for your child (barring any mistakes on the operating table of course in which case you have the option to sue the doctor) like giving them their medication, and taking them to follow up appointments, etc.... So, ultimately, the PARENTS are also responsible to ensure their kids get the proper treatment, not just the doctor. Why should their child’s education any different? The teacher isn’t responsible for the student once they leave their classroom. A child’s teacher can't give their child a bad education without the parent’s consent. If a parent hasn't done anything to ensure that their child is getting what they need from school, isn’t following up with the teacher, isn’t actively involving themselves in their child’s education, and isn’t following up on what the child learns at school at home, then they are just as much to blame as the teacher is.

It's part of being a PARENT. Rearing your children to be responsible productive members of society is the PARENTS job, not the teachers and part of rearing them is making sure they are educated properly. Parents don't get to just send their kids off for 6-7 hours a day and forget about it. That's not how it works, although it seems that you think that it should just because you pay taxes. Tax dollars also go towards police, roads, fire dept, postal services, etc… not just teachers. If they took away the fire hose and dispatchers from fire stations because of budget cuts would you hold them accountable if your house burned down? Well if a teacher doesn’t have the support and material they need, they can’t properly do their job either. What good does it do for my husband to assign homework if the parent isn't going to make sure it gets done? How is it my husband’s fault if your kid doesn’t even bother to show up, or doesn’t bother to take notes if he/she does show up? How is it my husband’s fault if your child doesn’t turn in their assignment? And if you know that a state exam is coming up, and you knew that it’s critical for them to do well, wouldn’t it behoove you to check in with the teacher to see what your kid should be studying and help them study? Or do you feel that the teachers should also make house calls? (for no extra compensation no less).

Students also need to start holding themselves accountable for their education. By the age of 13-14, a student should be more than capable of being responsible for their assignments, communicating with their parents about school, and generally making sure that they are getting what they need from their teachers within reason. But, if the parent never taught them how to be responsible for themselves, how is that the teachers fault?

I get paid to do a job, not manufacture excuses. I don't get anything more if I get called at night when something breaks, or have to work weekends to meet a schedule.

I have a bookshelf behind me with technical books that cost me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, because I need them to do my job. I have a pen in my pocket, and I bought that, too.

When you're in a union, you are selling average labor at an average cost. If you are better than that, you lose.

a-random_guy above has nailed the rest.

I do wonder why we don't just pay the kids something for doing well on the standardized tests? The objective is to educate the kids, and we are talking primarily about the middlemen here. Recognition is nice, but I'd guess paying the top 5 percent of students $1000 a year, the passing ones $100, and the failures nothing would do more than we can do messing with teachers.

Conan did you not see that was for year #2?

Ah. Gotcha.

Spartee says,

“A real life person claiming to be a professional, a professional who pulls a salary for their work, just claimed that parents, not teachers are responsible for s student's education?

The teacher is there to "facilitate" the process?

What a novel concept for a professional to claim.

Your child's surgeon? He is there to facilitate your child's tumor removal. But the parents are primarily responsible.”

This is a really poor analogy for several reasons. This is because the singular instance of the removal of a tumor where the doctor can actively control most of the important variables bares almost no resemblance to the education of a child where a teacher can only actively control a small fraction of the variables.

Associating teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests is far more analogous to associating pediatrician pay to child performance on a physical fitness test.

One would argue quite reasonably that a pediatrician’s compensation should never be determined by such a metric because while they might perform their job quite admirably by offering the correct medical advice, performing the right tests, and properly documenting all information in the medical records, there are important factors that will remain entirely outside of their sphere of influence. For example, a doctor can tell a child and their parents that they should be eating a proper diet, getting a reasonable amount of exercise, and staying up to date on their vaccinations. However, what if the parent simply lets their child pig out on junk food, sit and watch television all day, and doesn’t bother to take the child for booster shots? Is the doctor really responsible for this? I think not.

Similarly, a teacher is responsible for being prepared to teach all of their classes, having relevant lessons and educational material available, they should be knowledgeable about the subject they are teaching, should provide useful assignments and they should make an active attempt to keep parents aware of their children’s performance and behavior. If a teacher fails in regard to these items then they are doing something wrong.

However, even if a teacher does all of these things correctly a student can still do poorly on standardized tests if either they or their parents are not doing their jobs. So let me clearly state what their jobs are:

Student - Show up to class and be prepared to learn. Do not be disruptive during class. Perform all assignments and approach ones teacher for additional help if there is a problem. Study the subject material at home.

Parent - Get the child to school. Supervise their educational process by checking up to see that they are doing their assignments. Identify problems and approach teachers if it appears your child is struggling. Discipline your children if they are not behaving appropriately in school.

Education and doing well on standardized tests relies on all three of the parties doing their job, if one or more of them fails to do so then the results will be poor. That being said, each group should only be held accountable for their particular responsibilities.

Holding a teacher responsible for the scores of a student who doesn’t study or show up to class is the same as holding a boss responsible for the performance of an employee who doesn’t do their job or show up to work.

"I get paid to do a job, not manufacture excuses. I don't get anything more if I get called at night when something breaks, or have to work weekends to meet a schedule."

But you are also likely under a contract to be "on call" if you are in the technical field. Teachers should not be required to be "on call" 24/7/365. That's unreasonable and no other field anywhere has that requirement expect the military. Even you likely get some time off don't you? And you probably don't have to cow tow to govt beuacracies either in the private technical field or if your self employed. And you likely aren't dealing with 25-30 underage people at a time, all day long, for 7 hours.
I would be willing to bet that even if you are under contract, you don't drop everything you are doing to answer a client call on your scheduled off time. And if you do, well you will likely be paid or can bill for that extra labor.
After the teacher leaves the classroom, they are already dealing with planning, grading, parent/teacher conferences, mandatory (and voluntary) training, meetings with administrators, etc... Are we suppossed to make them also rush over to a students home to provide extra tutoring so that they can be sure to pass the test? For every student? On weekends and in summer? And expect them not to ask for extra compensation for that extra time? So sorry all you teachers out there, no personal life for you! You have to go to the Johnny's house for some extra lessons, then to go to Tommy’s house, then Sally’s. No time for dinner! It’s your job to make sure these kids pass the test!

"I have a bookshelf behind me with technical books that cost me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, because I need them to do my job. I have a pen in my pocket, and I bought that, too."

This is a good point. But you use those manuals for yourself and probably built up your collection over a period of time. You aren't also likely providing those materials to everyone else to do their job. ( I do believe that School is the kids "job") Are you arguing that teachers should then have to pay for the books the school REQUIRES them to teach from for all their students? After all, they need them to do their job don't they? If I (hypothetically because I am not a teacher)am going to be required to teach from a specific manual, then the school should provide it. Should a teacher honestly be expected to also provide that same manual for each and every student, each and every year out of pocket? That costs hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year and is an unreasonable requirement to make of a teacher. You’re basically asking them to sacrifice their income to provide the materials they need to "do their job".

If I need a lap top to do my job, then it isn't unreasonable to expect that my job should assign me one from the company. If however, I am required to use my own personal equipment to do my job, then it's not unreasonable to ask my company to reimburse me for any damage done to that equipment if it was being used to do work for them.

Plus, I am not just talking about pens and some paper. I am talking about text books, a working computer monitor for computer class, desks that aren't broken, things like that. There are also students who show up to school without pencils, paper, or even a back pack. Why is the teacher required to provide basic materials to the child to “do their job”?

Different field, different circumstances.
Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your assessment.

It seems that the entire root of this problem, as with so many others, is that there are a lot of people banging out kids who have no business having any. And the rest of us are just too damn nice to see them go without.

The median annual income for a US male with a master's degree is $67,000. So yes I'd say $41,000 is pretty low relative the other careers you could pursue at that level of education. Again, great career path for someone who wants to have summers and evenings free to watch the kids, but most men can't assume that they'll have a partner to support them while they do so. I'm pretty that's what's pushing men out of education, not the lack of dodgeball games at recess.

$41,000 is also pretty damn low relative to the importance of the job. If someone gets their PhD in gender studies and only makes $33,000 a year, who cares? That's society's way of telling them that their degree is pretty much a piece of crap. But you'd think we'd place more value on the job of educating our children. For the most part valedictorians with perfect SAT scores are not going to attend college to become teachers because they know they can make more money as doctors, engineers, investment bankers, etc. At many universities education majors are pretty much the lowest common denominator-no limited enrollment, no weed-out courses, etc. Raising the expected income would change that.

"There is NO LINK between spending per pupil and student achievement."

That's not actually true, when you adjust for demographics.

"That's not actually true, when you adjust for demographics."

Oh, bull. Be my guest to explain how expensive administration buildings get students to understand physics faster. Don't change the demographic - change the spending amount!

Be sure to look carefully at "studies" designed for the pre-ordained purpose of justifying the expensive new measures which are guaranteed, guaranteed to fix Johnny's reading problems. This time. Really.

And spare me the cite from a blog which can't form a sentence correctly: "So for instance the entity that spends the most on education and has the worse test scores in the U.S..."

You might not be able to tell what's wrong with that...

Obviously, no one spent enough money on your education.

The median annual income for a US male with a master's degree is $67,000. So yes I'd say $41,000 is pretty low relative the other careers you could pursue at that level of education.

Being a teacher requires a Bachelor's degree. It's not the same level of education as a Master's degree ... and, so, not comparable.

And the $41K is not an official figure, just an anecdotal number based on one teacher's self-professed compensation.

Median *household* income (which means all people in the home working aggregated) in America is just under $50k. But one person working September through May makes $41,000 (annualized is what, $54,000?), and that person is not earning enough to live on?

According to the NEA's own stats, the [average] US teacher salary is $53k (2009 estimate, $52k 2008).

So, it turns out teacher compensation is competitive.

There is NO LINK between spending per pupil and student achievement.

There might be ... if the money were actually spent in the classroom instead of the administration.

Don't adjust for demographics, adjust for actual classroom spending versus total spending.

When I attended high school in North Florida, our high schools were crumbling, but instead of fixing them, the School Board built itself a shiny new glass and steel office building on riverfront property (not only denying the students better schools, but denying the city the tax revenue that could have come from that property). Thanks, guys.

OT Threadjack:
Conan - where'd you go to school?
-CD

The problem with linking a teacher's salary to test scores is that the teachers then teach to the test. I have, from a credible source in downstate Illinois, that a teacher sent home a standardized test and asked the parents to teach it to their child. One parent went down the line (Question 1 is 12, Question 2 is apple, etc.) and the other, thinking foolishly that the child should learn the material, skipped around. The second child did not do as well as the first child and got verbally slapped down by the teacher.

Standardized testing is not the answer. Getting teachers into classrooms who have actually majored in a subject in college (rather than getting a degree in education), getting rid of tenure (not necessary with today's employment laws), and protecting school districts and teachers if they enforce discipline and honor codes in the classroom (or letting them not be afraid to hug a crying child) might be a start.

High school? Jacksonville, Florida.

Being a teacher requires a Masters', Conan, at least in all the places I ever taught/applied to teach. With pay ranging from $23-40k. It topped out around 80k if I recall correctly, for those with a phd and many years (I forget how many) of service. That was in a swank public school system in MA. There is a reason that teachers are overwhelmingly middle class white women... for the most part they need to be unencumbered by huge loans, thus they need either parents or a husband behind them.

But the number one predictor of students' success isn't the teacher's salary... it is the parents'.

Being a teacher requires a Masters'....

That's asinine. You don't really need a Master's degree to teach at the primary and secondary levels?

A Master's degree in what?

Ooh! A Jacksonville homey! Nifty! Small world! That's where I've lived most of my life!

And in FL & New Mexico, a Master's is *not* required to teach. My friend has a BA and has taught in both states. Heck, I don't even think she'd gotten her degree yet when she started substitute teaching in New Mexico. I'm pretty confident a Masters isn't required in New York or Colorado either, but she only applied there and didn't end up teaching in those states.

More important than whether there is a degree, is what the degree is in.

The "hard" science people generally know what they're talking about, but I've had to deal with others who cannot even spell, much less explain how things work.