NY times op ed on the teacher crisis

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some parents constantly email, about every little thing. I don’t need to know why Susie has a band-aid on her knee. Believe me, she’s going to tell the whole class. I don’t care that a week from Tuesday Jose will be leaving early to see his grandparents. Just send him with a note that morning. There’s nothing worse than opening your computer in the morning and having to take time to read and respond. Ask yourself, if this was in your childhood, would your mom have called the teacher on the phone about it? If it’s that important, go ahead and email. Otherwise, let it go.

Ok, so if it is not relevant, ignore and move on. I don’t get why this is such a burden.

I think sometimes in this conversation, we need to make a distinction between "things about teaching that are hard or annoying" and "aspects of education that make teaching intolerable or not worth it."

Now, if you want to talk about parents who harass teachers, try to insert themselves into classroom management, complain about normal things to administration, etc., I get it. A unique thing about teaching is this relationship you have with your students' parents, and while you don't work for them, you still have to deal with them. If they are awful and your administration doesn't back you up, that is a huge issue. Ideally teachers and parents should operate as partners in educating kids -- there should be mutual respect and collaboration.

But complaining about a parent whose like "hey Jimmy cut up his knee pretty badly last night on his bike -- it's bandaged up but just wanted to let you know in case you complains about it or has any issues" is just petty. I get why getting a lot of emails like that would be annoying, because I have my own version of that in my own job. It cannot be the reason people are leaving the profession, and if it is, I think they will discover that almost any other job they get will have annoyances at a similar level.

+1000 if teachers think there's no annoying emails in the corporate sector that they will need to respond to, they are sorely mistaken. Also, I constantly hear "working outside of contract hours" as a reason they dislike the job. I don't know any corporate employee that doesn't. In fact, I go to my DD's activity several nights a week and there are a few moms that are teachers and they are NEVER working, but nearly every other working parent there is tethered to their laptop and cell phone.

I just don't buy it. Now, issues like ill behaved children and lack of support from their admin... those seem much more valid reasons to quit.

I'm sorry you don't buy what the teachers in this thread are telling you about their lived experience. There's not much more they can do.

NP. But the things being complained about are pretty much present in every single profession. Long hours, “overtime”, annoying emails, using your own money and resources toward something to do to with your job. To me, these are standard issues every professional adult deals with at work.

Right? I could say all of the same things about my job. Especially the overtime part. I'm never really off. I have clients texting/calling/emailing all hours of the day. I know teachers are off most evenings (at least my kids') because of how long it takes them to respond. In all of our years at school, I've only had one teacher regularly respond within 24 hours. And I'm not a parent that emails a whole lot. That would be absolutely unacceptable in my job.

I'm not saying they aren't dealing with annoying emails and overtime, I'm sure they are, but if those are the deal breakers ... well, there's a lot of jobs that aren't going to be a great fit for you. Not sure what to say.

Do you realize teachers don’t sit at a desk staring at a computer all day like you do at your job? When I was a teacher I never sat down, never had time to check email let alone respond to it until after hours because I was…teaching.

PP you are quoting. I love how you assume that my job entails being at a desk all day. It does not. Some days, I am not in front of my computer at all and I respond to all emails after hours. I get pulled in a million directions a day ... just like a teacher. And I could chill out that an email wasn't replied to in 24 hours if it didn't turn into a week+ after a reminder email. That is my experience with teachers (minus maybe one).

And your salary?

PP. NOW as a very senior level person, it's decent (nothing super crazy) but this was the case when I was younger earning $30K (about $45K in today's dollars). I don't dispute that teachers are underpaid (some, not all... I know some making very good money) but I just get frustrated with the posts that insinuate no one else could possible have a job similar to a teacher's, when many, many people do. I don't know a single person in the corporate world that has a job I'd consider easy and stress free. And a lot of us don't make extravagant salaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with some earlier posters that talking about emails is a bit of a red herring. Every profession (and presumably teachers want to be considered a profession not just a job) deals with long hours and annoying emails.

The difference for me, and frankly the thing they should actually be complaining about, is the behavior of the kids and especially the violence. That should be 100% unacceptable. No student or teacher should go to school knowing there’s a non-insignificant chance that they’ll be hurt today.

If teachers rallied around that one issue only then they’d get full support from the community - and therefore the lawmakers - and we could actually keep teachers (and kids!) safe. I think that would help a lot.

No, they wouldn't get full support from the community. We don't have support from admins on this. We don't have support from school boards on this. Why do you imagine "the community" would support us? There'd be push back from all kinds of groups of people.

+1. The people supporting discipline are reviled as racist or ableist or not respectful of the kid's lived experience or something.

Yep. The behaviour is kids is pretty much the only (and it is huge) valid complain teachers have and it absolutely needs to change how schools deal with it. It is sad that it wont likely change bc everyone is too afraid it isn’t PC, and the backlash they would receive.

All the other teacher complains are pretty much complaints everyone has about their job

I agree about the discipline but I think you're naive to think that their other complaints are petty and incidental. There are huge systemic problems with our education system that teachers are forced to grapple with. Schools are not adequately funded, particularly when viewed in the context of our other inadequately funded social safety net programs. Even as teachers are underpaid, schools are forced to pick up the slack in non-educational areas as well. Right wing policymakers are trying to side-step dealing with these inadequacies with programs like vouchers and charter schools; but this is foolish. None of the successful educational systems in other parts of the world use vouchers or charters.

Schools are adequately funded, in fact, better funded than most of the world. But the funds are misused. Schools can’t and shouldn’t function as the provider of a days worth of food, therapies, counselling, medical needs, clothing closet, etc. School is an educational institution and needs to start functioning solely as such. Majority of educational funds are inappropriately allocated for social welfare purposes.

Yes, schools here actually have TOO MUCH money, that’s the problem. They get high on their own power and there are expectations that since we’re giving them SO MUCH money then they need to address other issues.

The cost of educating one student for one year is higher here in the US than in any other country in the world, by far, sometimes by 10x!

Where do you get the idea that they are given too much money? I agree with PP that funds are often misused but how much do you think it should cost to educate a child? In VA it costs 14K per year. How much should it be?

Idaho does it for $8k and Florida does it for $10k.

In DC it’s $23k per student per year average which is completely insane. Obviously there are problems in some areas that more money can’t fix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with some earlier posters that talking about emails is a bit of a red herring. Every profession (and presumably teachers want to be considered a profession not just a job) deals with long hours and annoying emails.

The difference for me, and frankly the thing they should actually be complaining about, is the behavior of the kids and especially the violence. That should be 100% unacceptable. No student or teacher should go to school knowing there’s a non-insignificant chance that they’ll be hurt today.

If teachers rallied around that one issue only then they’d get full support from the community - and therefore the lawmakers - and we could actually keep teachers (and kids!) safe. I think that would help a lot.

No, they wouldn't get full support from the community. We don't have support from admins on this. We don't have support from school boards on this. Why do you imagine "the community" would support us? There'd be push back from all kinds of groups of people.

+1. The people supporting discipline are reviled as racist or ableist or not respectful of the kid's lived experience or something.

Yep. The behaviour is kids is pretty much the only (and it is huge) valid complain teachers have and it absolutely needs to change how schools deal with it. It is sad that it wont likely change bc everyone is too afraid it isn’t PC, and the backlash they would receive.

All the other teacher complains are pretty much complaints everyone has about their job

I agree about the discipline but I think you're naive to think that their other complaints are petty and incidental. There are huge systemic problems with our education system that teachers are forced to grapple with. Schools are not adequately funded, particularly when viewed in the context of our other inadequately funded social safety net programs. Even as teachers are underpaid, schools are forced to pick up the slack in non-educational areas as well. Right wing policymakers are trying to side-step dealing with these inadequacies with programs like vouchers and charter schools; but this is foolish. None of the successful educational systems in other parts of the world use vouchers or charters.

Schools are adequately funded, in fact, better funded than most of the world. But the funds are misused. Schools can’t and shouldn’t function as the provider of a days worth of food, therapies, counselling, medical needs, clothing closet, etc. School is an educational institution and needs to start functioning solely as such. Majority of educational funds are inappropriately allocated for social welfare purposes.

Yes, schools here actually have TOO MUCH money, that’s the problem. They get high on their own power and there are expectations that since we’re giving them SO MUCH money then they need to address other issues.

The cost of educating one student for one year is higher here in the US than in any other country in the world, by far, sometimes by 10x!

Where do you get the idea that they are given too much money? I agree with PP that funds are often misused but how much do you think it should cost to educate a child? In VA it costs 14K per year. How much should it be?

Idaho does it for $8k and Florida does it for $10k.

In DC it’s $23k per student per year average which is completely insane. Obviously there are problems in some areas that more money can’t fix.

Kids from rich families are generally cheaper to educate than kids from poor families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some parents constantly email, about every little thing. I don’t need to know why Susie has a band-aid on her knee. Believe me, she’s going to tell the whole class. I don’t care that a week from Tuesday Jose will be leaving early to see his grandparents. Just send him with a note that morning. There’s nothing worse than opening your computer in the morning and having to take time to read and respond. Ask yourself, if this was in your childhood, would your mom have called the teacher on the phone about it? If it’s that important, go ahead and email. Otherwise, let it go.

Ok, so if it is not relevant, ignore and move on. I don’t get why this is such a burden.

I think sometimes in this conversation, we need to make a distinction between "things about teaching that are hard or annoying" and "aspects of education that make teaching intolerable or not worth it."

Now, if you want to talk about parents who harass teachers, try to insert themselves into classroom management, complain about normal things to administration, etc., I get it. A unique thing about teaching is this relationship you have with your students' parents, and while you don't work for them, you still have to deal with them. If they are awful and your administration doesn't back you up, that is a huge issue. Ideally teachers and parents should operate as partners in educating kids -- there should be mutual respect and collaboration.

But complaining about a parent whose like "hey Jimmy cut up his knee pretty badly last night on his bike -- it's bandaged up but just wanted to let you know in case you complains about it or has any issues" is just petty. I get why getting a lot of emails like that would be annoying, because I have my own version of that in my own job. It cannot be the reason people are leaving the profession, and if it is, I think they will discover that almost any other job they get will have annoyances at a similar level.

+1000 if teachers think there's no annoying emails in the corporate sector that they will need to respond to, they are sorely mistaken. Also, I constantly hear "working outside of contract hours" as a reason they dislike the job. I don't know any corporate employee that doesn't. In fact, I go to my DD's activity several nights a week and there are a few moms that are teachers and they are NEVER working, but nearly every other working parent there is tethered to their laptop and cell phone.

I just don't buy it. Now, issues like ill behaved children and lack of support from their admin... those seem much more valid reasons to quit.

I'm sorry you don't buy what the teachers in this thread are telling you about their lived experience. There's not much more they can do.

NP. But the things being complained about are pretty much present in every single profession. Long hours, “overtime”, annoying emails, using your own money and resources toward something to do to with your job. To me, these are standard issues every professional adult deals with at work.

Right? I could say all of the same things about my job. Especially the overtime part. I'm never really off. I have clients texting/calling/emailing all hours of the day. I know teachers are off most evenings (at least my kids') because of how long it takes them to respond. In all of our years at school, I've only had one teacher regularly respond within 24 hours. And I'm not a parent that emails a whole lot. That would be absolutely unacceptable in my job.

I'm not saying they aren't dealing with annoying emails and overtime, I'm sure they are, but if those are the deal breakers ... well, there's a lot of jobs that aren't going to be a great fit for you. Not sure what to say.

How much money do you make? I’m guessing more than a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely adored my job as a high school math teacher. Seriously, the 7:30-3:30 part was amazing. The kids were fun, the teaching was meaningful, and I enjoyed the challenge.

I quit in June.

I found a job making $50k more than my teaching salary making slide decks for a government contractor. How do you turn that down? $70k-$120k is a no brainer. It's going to pay for my kids to go to college.

Do you work the same hours? Have the same amount of time off?

Way way way less hours, way more flexibility. I have gone to sleep by 11 pm every night since I started the new job. In teaching, the kids left at 3:30 but I always brought piles of work home. I'd work until 10 pm on a good night, 2 am on a rough night, and usually at least 5-6 hours on the weekend. The amount of effort it takes to make good lessons and provide real feedback is unreal. I was sick all the time from lack of sleep, and I had taught for almost 15 years. It wasn't 1st year teacher burnout.

Now? I get to work from home 3 days a week. If I have a doctor's appointment I flex an hour instead of having to create an entire day's worth of sub plans in addition to my regular work. I have 6 weeks PTO plus the week between Christmas and NYD my company is shut down, so less than a teacher but not drastically so. My contract as a teacher was 195 days - 5 PTO days = 190 days (38 weeks), my contract with my new employer is 260 days - 10 holidays - 30 days PTO - 5 days shut down = 215 days = 43 weeks. So 5 weeks (13%) more than before, but they're at home and they're 40-50 hour weeks max, instead of 60+. Plus, 70% more money.

Regardless, I can't pay bills with time off. College tuition can't be paid with winter break. Private sector salaries have ballooned in the last decade, while after 13 years of teaching I only made $11k more than I did when I started. If pay can't keep up, anyone who has the skills to leave is going to.

Maybe teachers should be paid more, and expected to work 12 months per year. Instead of all the breaks they get, time kids aren’t in school on breaks can be used for planning and professional development. It is silly to expect teachers to only work the hours students are in the building. That isn’t realistic. Teaching should be considered, and compensated, as a full time job 12 month per year with 2-4 weeks vacation they can take on any days kids they are not expected to be in building teaching.

I think if school were 2 less hours per day or 1 less days per week, it could be year round and work. That is how much extra time teaching requires to keep it to an 8-9 hour a day workload. If you're going to make it 12 months but keep it 7 hour school days and 5 days a week of lessons and grading, then you need to double all salaries at minimum. The only way most teachers survive September - June is because of July and August.

I’m not saying students should be in school 12 months, just teachers. They should get the bulk of their planning and training done in June,July, August- while students are not there. Working 8-10 hrs per day during the school year should be acceptable. Most professionals put in somewhere between 8-12 hrs per day on a regular basis with no official overtime pay, just their salary

Are we as a society really abandoning the idea of a 40-hour work week? And if so… why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some parents constantly email, about every little thing. I don’t need to know why Susie has a band-aid on her knee. Believe me, she’s going to tell the whole class. I don’t care that a week from Tuesday Jose will be leaving early to see his grandparents. Just send him with a note that morning. There’s nothing worse than opening your computer in the morning and having to take time to read and respond. Ask yourself, if this was in your childhood, would your mom have called the teacher on the phone about it? If it’s that important, go ahead and email. Otherwise, let it go.

Ok, so if it is not relevant, ignore and move on. I don’t get why this is such a burden.

I think sometimes in this conversation, we need to make a distinction between "things about teaching that are hard or annoying" and "aspects of education that make teaching intolerable or not worth it."

Now, if you want to talk about parents who harass teachers, try to insert themselves into classroom management, complain about normal things to administration, etc., I get it. A unique thing about teaching is this relationship you have with your students' parents, and while you don't work for them, you still have to deal with them. If they are awful and your administration doesn't back you up, that is a huge issue. Ideally teachers and parents should operate as partners in educating kids -- there should be mutual respect and collaboration.

But complaining about a parent whose like "hey Jimmy cut up his knee pretty badly last night on his bike -- it's bandaged up but just wanted to let you know in case you complains about it or has any issues" is just petty. I get why getting a lot of emails like that would be annoying, because I have my own version of that in my own job. It cannot be the reason people are leaving the profession, and if it is, I think they will discover that almost any other job they get will have annoyances at a similar level.

+1000 if teachers think there's no annoying emails in the corporate sector that they will need to respond to, they are sorely mistaken. Also, I constantly hear "working outside of contract hours" as a reason they dislike the job. I don't know any corporate employee that doesn't. In fact, I go to my DD's activity several nights a week and there are a few moms that are teachers and they are NEVER working, but nearly every other working parent there is tethered to their laptop and cell phone.

I just don't buy it. Now, issues like ill behaved children and lack of support from their admin... those seem much more valid reasons to quit.

I'm sorry you don't buy what the teachers in this thread are telling you about their lived experience. There's not much more they can do.

NP. But the things being complained about are pretty much present in every single profession. Long hours, “overtime”, annoying emails, using your own money and resources toward something to do to with your job. To me, these are standard issues every professional adult deals with at work.

Right? I could say all of the same things about my job. Especially the overtime part. I'm never really off. I have clients texting/calling/emailing all hours of the day. I know teachers are off most evenings (at least my kids') because of how long it takes them to respond. In all of our years at school, I've only had one teacher regularly respond within 24 hours. And I'm not a parent that emails a whole lot. That would be absolutely unacceptable in my job.

I'm not saying they aren't dealing with annoying emails and overtime, I'm sure they are, but if those are the deal breakers ... well, there's a lot of jobs that aren't going to be a great fit for you. Not sure what to say.

Do you realize teachers don’t sit at a desk staring at a computer all day like you do at your job? When I was a teacher I never sat down, never had time to check email let alone respond to it until after hours because I was…teaching.

PP you are quoting. I love how you assume that my job entails being at a desk all day. It does not. Some days, I am not in front of my computer at all and I respond to all emails after hours. I get pulled in a million directions a day ... just like a teacher. And I could chill out that an email wasn't replied to in 24 hours if it didn't turn into a week+ after a reminder email. That is my experience with teachers (minus maybe one).

And your salary?

PP. NOW as a very senior level person, it's decent (nothing super crazy) but this was the case when I was younger earning $30K (about $45K in today's dollars). I don't dispute that teachers are underpaid (some, not all... I know some making very good money) but I just get frustrated with the posts that insinuate no one else could possible have a job similar to a teacher's, when many, many people do. I don't know a single person in the corporate world that has a job I'd consider easy and stress free. And a lot of us don't make extravagant salaries.

Just answer the damned question. How much?

[Anonymous]

I think schools could use more assistants. Plus what was wrong with workbooks? I just don't get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely adored my job as a high school math teacher. Seriously, the 7:30-3:30 part was amazing. The kids were fun, the teaching was meaningful, and I enjoyed the challenge.

I quit in June.

I found a job making $50k more than my teaching salary making slide decks for a government contractor. How do you turn that down? $70k-$120k is a no brainer. It's going to pay for my kids to go to college.

Do you work the same hours? Have the same amount of time off?

Way way way less hours, way more flexibility. I have gone to sleep by 11 pm every night since I started the new job. In teaching, the kids left at 3:30 but I always brought piles of work home. I'd work until 10 pm on a good night, 2 am on a rough night, and usually at least 5-6 hours on the weekend. The amount of effort it takes to make good lessons and provide real feedback is unreal. I was sick all the time from lack of sleep, and I had taught for almost 15 years. It wasn't 1st year teacher burnout.

Now? I get to work from home 3 days a week. If I have a doctor's appointment I flex an hour instead of having to create an entire day's worth of sub plans in addition to my regular work. I have 6 weeks PTO plus the week between Christmas and NYD my company is shut down, so less than a teacher but not drastically so. My contract as a teacher was 195 days - 5 PTO days = 190 days (38 weeks), my contract with my new employer is 260 days - 10 holidays - 30 days PTO - 5 days shut down = 215 days = 43 weeks. So 5 weeks (13%) more than before, but they're at home and they're 40-50 hour weeks max, instead of 60+. Plus, 70% more money.

Regardless, I can't pay bills with time off. College tuition can't be paid with winter break. Private sector salaries have ballooned in the last decade, while after 13 years of teaching I only made $11k more than I did when I started. If pay can't keep up, anyone who has the skills to leave is going to.

Maybe teachers should be paid more, and expected to work 12 months per year. Instead of all the breaks they get, time kids aren’t in school on breaks can be used for planning and professional development. It is silly to expect teachers to only work the hours students are in the building. That isn’t realistic. Teaching should be considered, and compensated, as a full time job 12 month per year with 2-4 weeks vacation they can take on any days kids they are not expected to be in building teaching.

I think if school were 2 less hours per day or 1 less days per week, it could be year round and work. That is how much extra time teaching requires to keep it to an 8-9 hour a day workload. If you're going to make it 12 months but keep it 7 hour school days and 5 days a week of lessons and grading, then you need to double all salaries at minimum. The only way most teachers survive September - June is because of July and August.

I’m not saying students should be in school 12 months, just teachers. They should get the bulk of their planning and training done in June,July, August- while students are not there. Working 8-10 hrs per day during the school year should be acceptable. Most professionals put in somewhere between 8-12 hrs per day on a regular basis with no official overtime pay, just their salary

Are we as a society really abandoning the idea of a 40-hour work week? And if so… why?

Agree. I would abandon the 40-hour work week for a 35-hour work week. I've worked in the public sector for 15 years. Currently, I am a part-time employee, which means that I earn a part-time salary but work full-time hours most weeks. I made this financial sacrifice because the alternative was full-time pay for 50-60 hours per week and constantly letting my family down. In the public sector, I don't earn enough to outsource all household and childcare functions so that I can be available any time of day or night whenever someone's idea of a crisis pops up. We should not have to live this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely adored my job as a high school math teacher. Seriously, the 7:30-3:30 part was amazing. The kids were fun, the teaching was meaningful, and I enjoyed the challenge.

I quit in June.

I found a job making $50k more than my teaching salary making slide decks for a government contractor. How do you turn that down? $70k-$120k is a no brainer. It's going to pay for my kids to go to college.

Do you work the same hours? Have the same amount of time off?

Way way way less hours, way more flexibility. I have gone to sleep by 11 pm every night since I started the new job. In teaching, the kids left at 3:30 but I always brought piles of work home. I'd work until 10 pm on a good night, 2 am on a rough night, and usually at least 5-6 hours on the weekend. The amount of effort it takes to make good lessons and provide real feedback is unreal. I was sick all the time from lack of sleep, and I had taught for almost 15 years. It wasn't 1st year teacher burnout.

Now? I get to work from home 3 days a week. If I have a doctor's appointment I flex an hour instead of having to create an entire day's worth of sub plans in addition to my regular work. I have 6 weeks PTO plus the week between Christmas and NYD my company is shut down, so less than a teacher but not drastically so. My contract as a teacher was 195 days - 5 PTO days = 190 days (38 weeks), my contract with my new employer is 260 days - 10 holidays - 30 days PTO - 5 days shut down = 215 days = 43 weeks. So 5 weeks (13%) more than before, but they're at home and they're 40-50 hour weeks max, instead of 60+. Plus, 70% more money.

Regardless, I can't pay bills with time off. College tuition can't be paid with winter break. Private sector salaries have ballooned in the last decade, while after 13 years of teaching I only made $11k more than I did when I started. If pay can't keep up, anyone who has the skills to leave is going to.

Maybe teachers should be paid more, and expected to work 12 months per year. Instead of all the breaks they get, time kids aren’t in school on breaks can be used for planning and professional development. It is silly to expect teachers to only work the hours students are in the building. That isn’t realistic. Teaching should be considered, and compensated, as a full time job 12 month per year with 2-4 weeks vacation they can take on any days kids they are not expected to be in building teaching.

I think if school were 2 less hours per day or 1 less days per week, it could be year round and work. That is how much extra time teaching requires to keep it to an 8-9 hour a day workload. If you're going to make it 12 months but keep it 7 hour school days and 5 days a week of lessons and grading, then you need to double all salaries at minimum. The only way most teachers survive September - June is because of July and August.

I’m not saying students should be in school 12 months, just teachers. They should get the bulk of their planning and training done in June,July, August- while students are not there. Working 8-10 hrs per day during the school year should be acceptable. Most professionals put in somewhere between 8-12 hrs per day on a regular basis with no official overtime pay, just their salary

Ahh sorry, I misunderstood. Like the other poster said, most of my work couldn't have been done in the summer. Grading and providing feedback had to be done real time. When the kids took a test on tuesday, the only option was to grade it tuesday night. No matter how much work I put into July, it still needed graded on Tuesday in October.

I had piles of great lessons from years prior that I'd created, but they needed modified in real time. One year's kids need extra practice with equations while the next year they come in super strong with solving equations but act like they've never evaluated using negative signs. You find holes on Monday and modify tomorrow's lesson on Monday afternoon to address these weak points on Tuesday.

It's just not something you could prep for in advance most of the time, at least not the super time consuming day to day things. I needed 2 more hours a day, not 2 months in the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think schools could use more assistants. Plus what was wrong with workbooks? I just don't get it.

To be honest I think the issue with workbooks and textbooks is that it’s more obvious when kids don’t understand things. That’s a good thing for those of us who actually want to educate kids but it’s a problem when you want to fudge the data and try to make it look like we’re “closing the achievement gap” when it’s actually just widening. There’s simply no reason otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with some earlier posters that talking about emails is a bit of a red herring. Every profession (and presumably teachers want to be considered a profession not just a job) deals with long hours and annoying emails.

The difference for me, and frankly the thing they should actually be complaining about, is the behavior of the kids and especially the violence. That should be 100% unacceptable. No student or teacher should go to school knowing there’s a non-insignificant chance that they’ll be hurt today.

If teachers rallied around that one issue only then they’d get full support from the community - and therefore the lawmakers - and we could actually keep teachers (and kids!) safe. I think that would help a lot.

No, they wouldn't get full support from the community. We don't have support from admins on this. We don't have support from school boards on this. Why do you imagine "the community" would support us? There'd be push back from all kinds of groups of people.

+1. The people supporting discipline are reviled as racist or ableist or not respectful of the kid's lived experience or something.

Yep. The behaviour is kids is pretty much the only (and it is huge) valid complain teachers have and it absolutely needs to change how schools deal with it. It is sad that it wont likely change bc everyone is too afraid it isn’t PC, and the backlash they would receive.

All the other teacher complains are pretty much complaints everyone has about their job

I agree about the discipline but I think you're naive to think that their other complaints are petty and incidental. There are huge systemic problems with our education system that teachers are forced to grapple with. Schools are not adequately funded, particularly when viewed in the context of our other inadequately funded social safety net programs. Even as teachers are underpaid, schools are forced to pick up the slack in non-educational areas as well. Right wing policymakers are trying to side-step dealing with these inadequacies with programs like vouchers and charter schools; but this is foolish. None of the successful educational systems in other parts of the world use vouchers or charters.

Schools are adequately funded, in fact, better funded than most of the world. But the funds are misused. Schools can’t and shouldn’t function as the provider of a days worth of food, therapies, counselling, medical needs, clothing closet, etc. School is an educational institution and needs to start functioning solely as such. Majority of educational funds are inappropriately allocated for social welfare purposes.

Students can't function adequately as educational institutions if the students don't have counseling, medical services, and food. Generally speaking those other areas of the world you're talking about have social safety nets that take care of those needs so schools don't have to. Also the majority of education funds go to payroll, and the majority of that is teachers and admin.

Schools would function so much better if they actually focused on what the should be focusing on- education. All the other non school related social things that schools take on are crap and not even helpful. It is just a money and time waste. Students aren’t any better off for these sub par “services”

I think the point is that we CAN'T just focus on "education" given the societal problems many students face, because there's no other safety net in society for them to get the things they need to just be "EDUCATED." Have you ever tried to teach math to a kid who comes to school on an empty stomach? (Or worse, on a bag of Skittles and a can of Red Bull?) Teach a kid to read who's on 4 hours of sleep because they were up playing video games all night bc their parent was at work (or whatever other reason) and not supervising? Tried to calm down an escalated, hysterical 6 year old who has a total melt down at a slightly raised voice or minor peer conflict because they've experienced so much trauma that their little brain operates wholly on "flight or fight" to every single perceived threat? Consoled a kid who fell asleep the previous night to their parents fighting and dad beating the crap out of mom? Tried to offer support to a student whose family had to leave their home in the middle of the night to flee a domestic violence situation? That's why schools have stepped in.

(All of the above are situations I experienced in my mere two years as a teacher...plus more I didn't list...and this wasn't even in a poor, inner city school or anything. It was in Burke, Virginia. Which is to say that it's not even comparable to the situations that educators are up against in say, West Baltimore.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how the author casually fails to mention of the impacts of progressive education policy in recent years, like instituting restorative Justice programs or less punitive approaches to managing disruptive students (like suspensions or of removing trouble students from classes), and it’s effect on teacher retention. If teachers feel they can’t teach properly because they have no recourse for disruptive students, or are in danger, but are forced to keep violent kids in classes because of these types of idealistic, naive policies, it would be good to read about that. Instead we get a watered down version of the truth.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/opinion/teachers-schools-students-parents.html

If your thesis were true, the red America wouldn't be facing the same crisis, but some of the biggest shortage are in some of the reddest districts of the reddest states

+1
In addition, many of the policies about keeping students in classes have nothing to do with progressive education but are a factor of special education laws that all schools have to follow.

+1 That's why red states have the same problems as blue states.

Like the big 6'6" 270 pound 17 year old in Florida who attacked a special aide and knocked her to the floor. As she was unconscious he continued to attack her by kicking and hitting her in the head. He was arrested and is being tried as an adult. But if the legal system hadn't gotten involved a special education team could have decided it was due to his disability and then there is no punishment, no expulsion.

The violence against schools staff is out of control. My husband came home last night upset that an 8th grader is back at his school. He beat up a crossing guard and attacked two teachers. But he is in special ed under emotionally disturbed so the school is stuck with him. The student is smart enough to figure out there is nothing they can do to him so he wanders the school whenever he wants, is physically and verbally abusive and incredibly disruptive. Students are terrified of this kid as well as staff.

Students displaying those types of behaviors should be in a special class or school and not freely walking the halls.

We could go back and forth with "shoulds" all day but laws are laws and schools/school districts don't just get to decide whether or not they're going to follow them. We live in a very litigious society. My district (not DMV area) was literally sued by a federal office (I want to say the Office of Civil Rights) 10 or so years ago because we had too high of a percent of special education students in the most restrictive placement. Even for my students who are just struggling academically, not even behavior problems or in any way needing a "special school", it takes months and months, often years, of data collection and intervention done by the regular education teacher to even get to a place where they can qualify for an IEP that will give them say, 45 minutes of help a day in a resource room and maybe a team taught math class. Removing a "behavior kid" completely from the regular education classroom and sending them to a totally self-contained unit or a special school? Miles and miles of virtually impenetrable hoops to jump through before that's even an option that's on the table...let alone followed through with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some parents constantly email, about every little thing. I don’t need to know why Susie has a band-aid on her knee. Believe me, she’s going to tell the whole class. I don’t care that a week from Tuesday Jose will be leaving early to see his grandparents. Just send him with a note that morning. There’s nothing worse than opening your computer in the morning and having to take time to read and respond. Ask yourself, if this was in your childhood, would your mom have called the teacher on the phone about it? If it’s that important, go ahead and email. Otherwise, let it go.

Ok, so if it is not relevant, ignore and move on. I don’t get why this is such a burden.

I think sometimes in this conversation, we need to make a distinction between "things about teaching that are hard or annoying" and "aspects of education that make teaching intolerable or not worth it."

Now, if you want to talk about parents who harass teachers, try to insert themselves into classroom management, complain about normal things to administration, etc., I get it. A unique thing about teaching is this relationship you have with your students' parents, and while you don't work for them, you still have to deal with them. If they are awful and your administration doesn't back you up, that is a huge issue. Ideally teachers and parents should operate as partners in educating kids -- there should be mutual respect and collaboration.

But complaining about a parent whose like "hey Jimmy cut up his knee pretty badly last night on his bike -- it's bandaged up but just wanted to let you know in case you complains about it or has any issues" is just petty. I get why getting a lot of emails like that would be annoying, because I have my own version of that in my own job. It cannot be the reason people are leaving the profession, and if it is, I think they will discover that almost any other job they get will have annoyances at a similar level.

+1000 if teachers think there's no annoying emails in the corporate sector that they will need to respond to, they are sorely mistaken. Also, I constantly hear "working outside of contract hours" as a reason they dislike the job. I don't know any corporate employee that doesn't. In fact, I go to my DD's activity several nights a week and there are a few moms that are teachers and they are NEVER working, but nearly every other working parent there is tethered to their laptop and cell phone.

I just don't buy it. Now, issues like ill behaved children and lack of support from their admin... those seem much more valid reasons to quit.

I'm sorry you don't buy what the teachers in this thread are telling you about their lived experience. There's not much more they can do.

NP. But the things being complained about are pretty much present in every single profession. Long hours, “overtime”, annoying emails, using your own money and resources toward something to do to with your job. To me, these are standard issues every professional adult deals with at work.

Right? I could say all of the same things about my job. Especially the overtime part. I'm never really off. I have clients texting/calling/emailing all hours of the day. I know teachers are off most evenings (at least my kids') because of how long it takes them to respond. In all of our years at school, I've only had one teacher regularly respond within 24 hours. And I'm not a parent that emails a whole lot. That would be absolutely unacceptable in my job.

I'm not saying they aren't dealing with annoying emails and overtime, I'm sure they are, but if those are the deal breakers ... well, there's a lot of jobs that aren't going to be a great fit for you. Not sure what to say.

Do you realize teachers don’t sit at a desk staring at a computer all day like you do at your job? When I was a teacher I never sat down, never had time to check email let alone respond to it until after hours because I was…teaching.

PP you are quoting. I love how you assume that my job entails being at a desk all day. It does not. Some days, I am not in front of my computer at all and I respond to all emails after hours. I get pulled in a million directions a day ... just like a teacher. And I could chill out that an email wasn't replied to in 24 hours if it didn't turn into a week+ after a reminder email. That is my experience with teachers (minus maybe one).

And your salary?

PP. NOW as a very senior level person, it's decent (nothing super crazy) but this was the case when I was younger earning $30K (about $45K in today's dollars). I don't dispute that teachers are underpaid (some, not all... I know some making very good money) but I just get frustrated with the posts that insinuate no one else could possible have a job similar to a teacher's, when many, many people do. I don't know a single person in the corporate world that has a job I'd consider easy and stress free. And a lot of us don't make extravagant salaries.

So why are so many teachers leaving the profession and citing stress as the reason?

[Anonymous]

Almost every homeroom teacher I know at my elementary school in freaking Loudoun County is miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely adored my job as a high school math teacher. Seriously, the 7:30-3:30 part was amazing. The kids were fun, the teaching was meaningful, and I enjoyed the challenge.

I quit in June.

I found a job making $50k more than my teaching salary making slide decks for a government contractor. How do you turn that down? $70k-$120k is a no brainer. It's going to pay for my kids to go to college.

Do you work the same hours? Have the same amount of time off?

Way way way less hours, way more flexibility. I have gone to sleep by 11 pm every night since I started the new job. In teaching, the kids left at 3:30 but I always brought piles of work home. I'd work until 10 pm on a good night, 2 am on a rough night, and usually at least 5-6 hours on the weekend. The amount of effort it takes to make good lessons and provide real feedback is unreal. I was sick all the time from lack of sleep, and I had taught for almost 15 years. It wasn't 1st year teacher burnout.

Now? I get to work from home 3 days a week. If I have a doctor's appointment I flex an hour instead of having to create an entire day's worth of sub plans in addition to my regular work. I have 6 weeks PTO plus the week between Christmas and NYD my company is shut down, so less than a teacher but not drastically so. My contract as a teacher was 195 days - 5 PTO days = 190 days (38 weeks), my contract with my new employer is 260 days - 10 holidays - 30 days PTO - 5 days shut down = 215 days = 43 weeks. So 5 weeks (13%) more than before, but they're at home and they're 40-50 hour weeks max, instead of 60+. Plus, 70% more money.

Regardless, I can't pay bills with time off. College tuition can't be paid with winter break. Private sector salaries have ballooned in the last decade, while after 13 years of teaching I only made $11k more than I did when I started. If pay can't keep up, anyone who has the skills to leave is going to.

Maybe teachers should be paid more, and expected to work 12 months per year. Instead of all the breaks they get, time kids aren’t in school on breaks can be used for planning and professional development. It is silly to expect teachers to only work the hours students are in the building. That isn’t realistic. Teaching should be considered, and compensated, as a full time job 12 month per year with 2-4 weeks vacation they can take on any days kids they are not expected to be in building teaching.

I think if school were 2 less hours per day or 1 less days per week, it could be year round and work. That is how much extra time teaching requires to keep it to an 8-9 hour a day workload. If you're going to make it 12 months but keep it 7 hour school days and 5 days a week of lessons and grading, then you need to double all salaries at minimum. The only way most teachers survive September - June is because of July and August.

I’m not saying students should be in school 12 months, just teachers. They should get the bulk of their planning and training done in June,July, August- while students are not there. Working 8-10 hrs per day during the school year should be acceptable. Most professionals put in somewhere between 8-12 hrs per day on a regular basis with no official overtime pay, just their salary

Ahh sorry, I misunderstood. Like the other poster said, most of my work couldn't have been done in the summer. Grading and providing feedback had to be done real time. When the kids took a test on tuesday, the only option was to grade it tuesday night. No matter how much work I put into July, it still needed graded on Tuesday in October.

I had piles of great lessons from years prior that I'd created, but they needed modified in real time. One year's kids need extra practice with equations while the next year they come in super strong with solving equations but act like they've never evaluated using negative signs. You find holes on Monday and modify tomorrow's lesson on Monday afternoon to address these weak points on Tuesday.

It's just not something you could prep for in advance most of the time, at least not the super time consuming day to day things. I needed 2 more hours a day, not 2 months in the summer.

Goodness. How does it take 2 hours a day to modify a basic math lesson? It’s not differential equations. I can’t stand when people pretend their jobs are harder than they are.