Chicago teachers are making me sick

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unbelievable how much American culture hates education.

I hate entitled groups who bully by punishing. If 100% of the teachers in my school were evaluated as the highest performing and the dropout/illiteracy rate was not so abysmal and embarrassing to our country, I would gladly redirect my charitable giving toward a bonus pool for teachers. The idea of tenure for k-12 education is a ridiculous concept and should never ever have been adopted. Too many concessions for too long and we remain in a mess.

The issue in Chicago is not about tenure. It is about the pay scale. And the reason that performance pay is difficult to administer is that it's extremely difficult to demonstrate whether performance is the result of the class or the teacher. And it means that the best teachers will no longer take on the tougher assignments but cherry pick the easier ones. In business that kind of problem happens all the time. For example, in utilities you want your best crew working on the toughest line breaks But if you measure them on time to repair, it will kill their performance scores. You counter by attempting to adjust for difficulty, but you can't quantify it. So the crew starts complaining that the weaker crews don't do the tough jobs, and then you have to spread the work around so you don't drive them off. And then the customer has a longer power or phone outage.

No one has cracked the performance testing dilemma. The best teacher might make very limited progress in a classroom with troubled kids. In fact, if she does her job well enough she might actually cause some of them to not drop out, further lowering her score. They can add in year to year statistics for the same cohort and it still doesn't correct the problem. In the end, there are 30 or so people involved in those test scores, and most of them don't have compensation riding on the outcome. They are just waiting for the bell to ring so they can leave.

The tenure point was not about Chicago negotiations, it is a general viewpoint - even if CPS doesn't have a tenure system, it should be eliminated in every k-12 school district in the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mayor should grow some.... . and fire them all and hire only people who will not be in a union and accept performance based pay. Then just sit back and watch all the teacher unions fall. Education should not be done by union members with a me attitude.

Yup, pull a Ronald Regan, like he did ont he Air Traffic Controllers in the 80s.

Buh-Bye.

However, "leadership" in Chicago has no balls against the unions. I'm pretty suprised they are even in a battle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mayor should grow some.... . and fire them all and hire only people who will not be in a union and accept performance based pay. Then just sit back and watch all the teacher unions fall. Education should not be done by union members with a me attitude.

Yup, pull a Ronald Regan, like he did ont he Air Traffic Controllers in the 80s.

Buh-Bye.

However, "leadership" in Chicago has no balls against the unions. I'm pretty suprised they are even in a battle.

Our skies were not safer, and many of those controllers were quietly rehired as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mayor should grow some.... . and fire them all and hire only people who will not be in a union and accept performance based pay. Then just sit back and watch all the teacher unions fall. Education should not be done by union members with a me attitude.

Land of the free. Free to serve the masters. Unions were at one time linked to equal rights fight. Remember the good old days of master-servant?
Union membership is now a sin?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mayor should grow some.... . and fire them all and hire only people who will not be in a union and accept performance based pay. Then just sit back and watch all the teacher unions fall. Education should not be done by union members with a me attitude.

Yup, pull a Ronald Regan, like he did ont he Air Traffic Controllers in the 80s.

Buh-Bye.

However, "leadership" in Chicago has no balls against the unions. I'm pretty suprised they are even in a battle.

Great, so he'll staff the schools with the army until he can break the union? At least they will know how to properly disassemble and clean their firearms.

[Anonymous]

The reality is US tax payers are sick and tired of public employee unions demanding even better pay and benefit packages in times of a recession. There is a finite amount of money (look at California) and while the rest of us have seen our wages decline over the past six years, public sector employees want more. You can't have private sector equivalent salaries and public sector benefits packages. There simply is not enough money.

And what the union does not want to admit is that there is surplus of teachers in the country. Chicago can fire all the teachers and replace them all.

And finally, if as a 10 month employee, you feel $75,000 per year plus benefits is not enough, please go to the private sector and see what your masters in education will get you.

[Anonymous]

The Chicago strike is not about money at all.

It is mostly about tying pay to performance when as others have stated, we actually want our best teachers working with our worst students. There are also too many variables about what constitutes student performance. I would like to see others think about whether their pay should be tied to their "clients" performance. Should we drop doctor's pay if they don't convince their patients to lose weight and stop smoking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reality is US tax payers are sick and tired of public employee unions demanding even better pay and benefit packages in times of a recession. There is a finite amount of money (look at California) and while the rest of us have seen our wages decline over the past six years, public sector employees want more. You can't have private sector equivalent salaries and public sector benefits packages. There simply is not enough money.

And what the union does not want to admit is that there is surplus of teachers in the country. Chicago can fire all the teachers and replace them all.

And finally, if as a 10 month employee, you feel $75,000 per year plus benefits is not enough, please go to the private sector and see what your masters in education will get you.

No, the reality is big business has flexed its muscle and US tax payers are frightened of losing what little they have. Do you know anyone in the private sector who doesn't fear pay cuts, a pink slip, working longer hours, etc.? Unions are not the enemy. Businesses and the super wealthy pretending we're all sharing the pain while they giggle and smirk dangling the carrot of more money to the little people are the enemy. There's plenty of money. It's just being sat on by the few, the weak, and entitled.

Moreover: there's an excess of well-trained, experienced teachers? You just want them all fired and replaced, basically, with scabs? Tell me, when they "threw the bums out" of Congress, what'd we get? Worse people and intractable gridlock.

Ante up. If you hate unions so much, I'll thank you to start showing up in weekends, give up whatever OSHA provisions you have, and give back any kind of health care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reality is US tax payers are sick and tired of public employee unions demanding even better pay and benefit packages in times of a recession. There is a finite amount of money (look at California) and while the rest of us have seen our wages decline over the past six years, public sector employees want more. You can't have private sector equivalent salaries and public sector benefits packages. There simply is not enough money.

And what the union does not want to admit is that there is surplus of teachers in the country. Chicago can fire all the teachers and replace them all.

And finally, if as a 10 month employee, you feel $75,000 per year plus benefits is not enough, please go to the private sector and see what your masters in education will get you.

The "reality" is that the union and the city of Chicago agreed on the pay increase already. That is not the point of the strike, but don't let reality get in the way of a conservative rant. Truth is optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Chicago strike is not about money at all.

It is mostly about tying pay to performance when as others have stated, we actually want our best teachers working with our worst students. There are also too many variables about what constitutes student performance. I would like to see others think about whether their pay should be tied to their "clients" performance. Should we drop doctor's pay if they don't convince their patients to lose weight and stop smoking?

True enough, the strike isn't about money, it's about fear. Fear of being held accountable to your job and fear of not returning to work from a layoff because you really aren't good enough at your job. The evaluation system has not been updated in 40 years. The system they are trying to implement has been developed by teachers. It's probably as imperfect as the IMPACT system and doesn't address family/social issues that these unfortunate (not in the poor sense but in the sense that they have no control over their life circumstances) kids have to deal with while trying to learn. But some system must be put in place to stem our hemorrhaging public education system and holding the teachers accountable is the easiest place to start. These "negotiations" could be conducted while schools continue to operate. These teachers only have themselves to blame at this point because they are being lead by an inept and probably corrupt union. Hoping this turns into a revolutionary moment in our history for public education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chicago strike is not about money at all.

It is mostly about tying pay to performance when as others have stated, we actually want our best teachers working with our worst students. There are also too many variables about what constitutes student performance. I would like to see others think about whether their pay should be tied to their "clients" performance. Should we drop doctor's pay if they don't convince their patients to lose weight and stop smoking?

True enough, the strike isn't about money, it's about fear. Fear of being held accountable to your job and fear of not returning to work from a layoff because you really aren't good enough at your job. The evaluation system has not been updated in 40 years. The system they are trying to implement has been developed by teachers. It's probably as imperfect as the IMPACT system and doesn't address family/social issues that these unfortunate (not in the poor sense but in the sense that they have no control over their life circumstances) kids have to deal with while trying to learn. But some system must be put in place to stem our hemorrhaging public education system and holding the teachers accountable is the easiest place to start. These "negotiations" could be conducted while schools continue to operate. These teachers only have themselves to blame at this point because they are being lead by an inept and probably corrupt union. Hoping this turns into a revolutionary moment in our history for public education.

What makes the IMPACT system actually reliable? Has anyone done an evaluation to see whether its results can be empirically validated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who vote 90% democrat deserve to have children with no future. All those sloppy union teachers out picketing in sweatpants showing off their slovenly physiques should get a raise and continue their assault on the next generation of moron leftists and dependents. Makes it easier for my kids to be in the 1 %. The idiots just take themselves out of the game voluntarily.

And people who can't produce a cogent, on-topic argument ought not argue anything at all. Since you write in pre-chewed soundbites, I've bolded the irrelevant parts of your anti-union (I think? What you're so pissed about isn't clear.) screed. I've italicized the part that talks about you.

Unions are an easy target for people who feel powerless against a business world that could care less whether they live or die ground beneath a machine. Students with happy, well-educated, well-compensated teachers with autonomy perform better. Seriously, for all of you simpletons who think that teaching is only the hours in front of the classroom, you are sorely mistaken. Grading, planning, additional training, interacting with parents, shopping - do you know how much your kid's teacher spends on supplies? - this is several more hours than "just" teaching.

Not the PP, but I know very well how many hours go into it. I'm a teacher. But I'm still anti-union. I want to be treated as and seen as a professional, but the union makes that very difficult.

Out of curiosity, why do you feel that the union makes it difficult for you to be seen and treated as a professional? I've heard this statement before but have never really understood why people who hold it feel that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unbelievable how much American culture hates education.

I hate entitled groups who bully by punishing. If 100% of the teachers in my school were evaluated as the highest performing and the dropout/illiteracy rate was not so abysmal and embarrassing to our country, I would gladly redirect my charitable giving toward a bonus pool for teachers. The idea of tenure for k-12 education is a ridiculous concept and should never ever have been adopted. Too many concessions for too long and we remain in a mess.

The issue in Chicago is not about tenure. It is about the pay scale. And the reason that performance pay is difficult to administer is that it's extremely difficult to demonstrate whether performance is the result of the class or the teacher. And it means that the best teachers will no longer take on the tougher assignments but cherry pick the easier ones. In business that kind of problem happens all the time. For example, in utilities you want your best crew working on the toughest line breaks But if you measure them on time to repair, it will kill their performance scores. You counter by attempting to adjust for difficulty, but you can't quantify it. So the crew starts complaining that the weaker crews don't do the tough jobs, and then you have to spread the work around so you don't drive them off. And then the customer has a longer power or phone outage.

No one has cracked the performance testing dilemma. The best teacher might make very limited progress in a classroom with troubled kids. In fact, if she does her job well enough she might actually cause some of them to not drop out, further lowering her score. They can add in year to year statistics for the same cohort and it still doesn't correct the problem. In the end, there are 30 or so people involved in those test scores, and most of them don't have compensation riding on the outcome. They are just waiting for the bell to ring so they can leave.

The tenure point was not about Chicago negotiations, it is a general viewpoint - even if CPS doesn't have a tenure system, it should be eliminated in every k-12 school district in the country.

Any talk of tenure should be combined with efforts to significantly raise teacher pay. I am the teacher PP who stated that working conditions made all the difference in attracting good teachers. Job security is one of the things that attracts very smart people to the profession. If you take that away, you really need to raise teacher pay to compensate for the added uncertainty and the fact that you can be fired just b/c your principal doesn't like you - the internal politics can be a nightmare. I have seen good teacher evaluation systems and bad teacher evaluation systems, but none are objective and immune to administrative incompetence. I don't think that my colleagues in the profession who have degrees from Ivy League schools (like I do) would tolerate this risk and stay in the profession. They would become lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc.

By the way, incompetent teachers can be fired even when they have tenure. My father was a principal in MD and he fired terrible teachers. Most principals aren't willing to do the work of firing bad teacher b/c they have to document that the teachers are bad. In MCPS, the union does not protect bad teachers, so if a bad teacher is there it is b/c the principal won't do the work to fire them. AND, it is the principal's job to make sure that bad teachers don't get tenure in the first place. So don't blame unions when you see bad teachers working, it's ultimately the administration's responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unbelievable how much American culture hates education.

I hate entitled groups who bully by punishing. If 100% of the teachers in my school were evaluated as the highest performing and the dropout/illiteracy rate was not so abysmal and embarrassing to our country, I would gladly redirect my charitable giving toward a bonus pool for teachers. The idea of tenure for k-12 education is a ridiculous concept and should never ever have been adopted. Too many concessions for too long and we remain in a mess.

The issue in Chicago is not about tenure. It is about the pay scale. And the reason that performance pay is difficult to administer is that it's extremely difficult to demonstrate whether performance is the result of the class or the teacher. And it means that the best teachers will no longer take on the tougher assignments but cherry pick the easier ones. In business that kind of problem happens all the time. For example, in utilities you want your best crew working on the toughest line breaks But if you measure them on time to repair, it will kill their performance scores. You counter by attempting to adjust for difficulty, but you can't quantify it. So the crew starts complaining that the weaker crews don't do the tough jobs, and then you have to spread the work around so you don't drive them off. And then the customer has a longer power or phone outage.

No one has cracked the performance testing dilemma. The best teacher might make very limited progress in a classroom with troubled kids. In fact, if she does her job well enough she might actually cause some of them to not drop out, further lowering her score. They can add in year to year statistics for the same cohort and it still doesn't correct the problem. In the end, there are 30 or so people involved in those test scores, and most of them don't have compensation riding on the outcome. They are just waiting for the bell to ring so they can leave.

The tenure point was not about Chicago negotiations, it is a general viewpoint - even if CPS doesn't have a tenure system, it should be eliminated in every k-12 school district in the country.

Any talk of tenure should be combined with efforts to significantly raise teacher pay. I am the teacher PP who stated that working conditions made all the difference in attracting good teachers. Job security is one of the things that attracts very smart people to the profession. If you take that away, you really need to raise teacher pay to compensate for the added uncertainty and the fact that you can be fired just b/c your principal doesn't like you - the internal politics can be a nightmare. I have seen good teacher evaluation systems and bad teacher evaluation systems, but none are objective and immune to administrative incompetence. I don't think that my colleagues in the profession who have degrees from Ivy League schools (like I do) would tolerate this risk and stay in the profession. They would become lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc.

By the way, incompetent teachers can be fired even when they have tenure. My father was a principal in MD and he fired terrible teachers. Most principals aren't willing to do the work of firing bad teacher b/c they have to document that the teachers are bad. In MCPS, the union does not protect bad teachers, so if a bad teacher is there it is b/c the principal won't do the work to fire them. AND, it is the principal's job to make sure that bad teachers don't get tenure in the first place. So don't blame unions when you see bad teachers working, it's ultimately the administration's responsibility.

Tenure belongs in higher education, where it originated.

[Anonymous]

Why the complaints about public sector workers salary and benefits. Those are covered with tax money. That is where tax money should go. Currently tax money is wasted and used for useless things like war etc, just funnel more of it to children and let some politician take a pay cut or do something useful like end a war