Cooper Middle School Math - horrible teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want better math teachers, pay the salaries a math/engineering degree can command in other industries.

Otherwise you are going to get some amazingly big hearted people who are willing to forgo money to help your children because they love it, and a bunch of people who knew they couldn't hack it in industry who slide by.

DD's math teacher is an engineer by training. She is AWFUL. She has been a math teacher for over 20 years. The really sad part is that she's one of two teachers who teaches the next level math class, so the kids in her current class probably have a 50-50 chance of landing her again next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want better math teachers, pay the salaries a math/engineering degree can command in other industries.

Otherwise you are going to get some amazingly big hearted people who are willing to forgo money to help your children because they love it, and a bunch of people who knew they couldn't hack it in industry who slide by.

Want better teachers? Pay will certainly help. But what will help more is time and better working conditions.

Imagine if that stressed math teacher had 75 students instead of 150. Imagine if they got 3 hours of planning time a day instead of 30 minutes. And imagine that time was honored, so they didn’t have to do cafeteria duty or bus duty.

Then good teachers would stay instead of fleeing to professions with a better balance.

Oh absolutely (I'm a teacher)! But that's way more expensive than just paying money. If you hire twice the teachers to cut class sizes in half, you need twice the classrooms. If you give more planning time, you need more than twice the teachers or you need to somehow have short school days every day. If you actually remove bad behavior, you have hire more people to run behavior rooms.

I love your fantasy world though. I'd happily teach there. (I think it's called private school...unfortunately they pay pennies to make those ratios and teaching schedules possible)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's important to find ways to let the principal know which teachers absolutely suck and have no business in a classroom.

The wealthiest schools often have some of the worst teachers, because most families will find work-arounds like tutoring outside the classroom. If a teacher is not trying to help every child succeed, that's a problem, whether it's at Cooper or Whitman.

As someone posted above, one of changes this year is no more required after school time. At HS some teachers stay longer but think most have -at most- 1 day they stay after 30 minutes. If struggling, need to do outside tutor these days. For math, Kahn is your friend.

^^ should be super fun when MS roll out everyone to take Algebra in 8th and even more kids need help and no help to be given

Going thru this right now. Kid is in 8th grade Algebra and immediately is struggling because the teacher is new and doesn't know the content and offers little to no support. I teach math. I see her notes and see what she does/does not do in class when I review my kid's papers. The instruction is very bad. My other child had a different very experienced math teacher two years before who was excellent. I am so incredibly disappointed that this is what we got stuck with. If I'd known, I probably wouldn't have chosen algebra for her this year.

[Anonymous]

I feel for you. We had a horrible math teacher last year at the elementary level. We did hire a tutor once a week plus I worked one on one with my child at almost every homework session to reteach, check work, correct mistakes and offer more explanations. It was brutal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

[Anonymous]

We had this teacher. Get a tutor, and then don't worry about it. Your kid will do fine with the tutor.

[Anonymous]

If DC can't transfer out, get a math tutor. It will cost thousands but they can't fall behind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

why is your kid special that s/he should be moved -- can all the kids in that class be moved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If DC can't transfer out, get a math tutor. It will cost thousands but they can't fall behind.

omg it's not THOUSANDS. And Khan Academy is free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a particular teacher at Cooper Middle School who is known for being the worst. I won’t say the name. Please don’t use the teachers name when responding or they will delete this thread.

What have other parents done to help their child successfully complete Algebra I Honors when they had this teacher? Did you have to hire a tutor?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Cooper has too many awful teachers. Hire a tutor Asap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a particular teacher at Cooper Middle School who is known for being the worst. I won’t say the name. Please don’t use the teachers name when responding or they will delete this thread.

What have other parents done to help their child successfully complete Algebra I Honors when they had this teacher? Did you have to hire a tutor?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Cooper has too many awful teachers. Hire a tutor Asap.

Just use Kahn- free and easy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

Who would replace them?

Your suggestion would burn out the good teacher. Then you’ll have a bad teacher and a long-term sub.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's important to find ways to let the principal know which teachers absolutely suck and have no business in a classroom.

The wealthiest schools often have some of the worst teachers, because most families will find work-arounds like tutoring outside the classroom. If a teacher is not trying to help every child succeed, that's a problem, whether it's at Cooper or Whitman.

As someone posted above, one of changes this year is no more required after school time. At HS some teachers stay longer but think most have -at most- 1 day they stay after 30 minutes. If struggling, need to do outside tutor these days. For math, Kahn is your friend.

^^ should be super fun when MS roll out everyone to take Algebra in 8th and even more kids need help and no help to be given

Going thru this right now. Kid is in 8th grade Algebra and immediately is struggling because the teacher is new and doesn't know the content and offers little to no support. I teach math. I see her notes and see what she does/does not do in class when I review my kid's papers. The instruction is very bad. My other child had a different very experienced math teacher two years before who was excellent. I am so incredibly disappointed that this is what we got stuck with. If I'd known, I probably wouldn't have chosen algebra for her this year.

since you are a math teacher, then you can teach her in the evening. Problem solved!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.