Tenure is important (but still dying) for university professors, do they can be academically free to pontificate and theorize. There is no place for it in grade school. |
| god this thread is tedious!!!! |
The last PP nailed this!! And that quote is disgraceful! |
| Where and when exactly did Al Shanker say this? |
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This something Shanker actually said:
I don’t represent children. I represent teachers… But, generally, what’s in the interest of teachers is also in the interest of students. |
| Yes. Al Shanker never said what the first wack job quoted him as saying. |
thank you for that link |
"No one knows FOR SURE" is hardly persuasive, especially from "I have an agenda Diane Ravitch." Gee, I wonder if she wants to discredit a long-known Shanker POV.
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That quote you posted is a quote that was made up by anti-teachers and their unions. Shanker actually said, "teacher's working conditions are children's learning conditions". Basically, if teachers are worming in dumps, your children are learning in dumps. If you don't care about the people who are working with and influeincing your children for seven hours a day, whst do you care about? And no, I am not a teacher, but I respect what they do and the financial rewards they forfeit in their desire to teach. |
Look, teachers are always going to be somewhat underpaid relative to the importance of their job. But I would like them to be paid well enough so that we can keep at least some good ones long term. Pay and benefits are especially important to attract and retain teachers in an expensive urban area like DC. Personally, for my kid's teachers, I aspire for a bit better working conditions than a free-market race to the bottom and high-pressure "data driven" reviews, as if they were insurance salesmen being compensated for all the sales they make! One way to get to the kind of stability and decent pay I think the profession deserves is unions amd tenure. I am open to other ways, if you know of any. |
It appears you don't understand the free market very well. One point of data-driven evaluations is that excellent teachers shall be recognized, and rewarded. The compensation package is improved for the performers, not for the tenured (a ridiculous concept in this day and age, but especially so for elementary school). |
I meant exactly what I said. I am all for rewarding the excellent teachers, but not at the price of destabilizing the profession and making them compete as if they were trying to make partner at a law firm. I also dispute the whole notion that he whole focus should be on supposedly excellent teachers as indicated by test scores. All teachers should be very GOOD and well trained and supported. |
The private sector (notoriously higher performing than the public sector) is expected to perform well or be shown the door. Why do government employees assume they shouldn't do the same? |
Teachers don't operate in a free market. The state is a monopsonistic employer, and will pay wages that are too low and hire too few people compared to a competitive labor market. In such cases, a union is efficient. That's in most freshmen economic textbooks, or at least all of the ones I required for my students. My sister taught at a school (not in this area)that was mostly FARMS students, including many English language learners. She loved the kids, but the principal of her school had to take our restraining orders asgasinst several parents who threatened her (the principal). At least one parent threatened my sister. One of the kids lived with a grandmother who taught him to steal credit cards from teachers' purses. A parent stabbed a teacher. Is there really a fantastically qualified pool of applicants lining up to work in such conditions for less than teachers currently get? |