Reply to when schools focus on the wrong things (from a teacher)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And for more proof just go to the thread about kids not knowing where to get information to study and teachers not having textbooks that align with standards just below this one. The whole system is ineffective. And yet come budget time the only thing I hear teachers talking about is salary. Every Single Year. Can't speak up about meetings or ineffective teaching, but yet somehow they find their voice on salary. They are all over our school board budget meetings then.[/quote]

Because teachers work to live.  Salary is the over-riding factor.  Duh!  I am sure that it would be your primary factor, too, if you had to go to your Board or other entity head each year for salary funding.  If the school systems are ineffective and do not deploy resources so that teachers are able to effectively and efficiently teach so that children learn, well, it makes sense that this would be a secondary concern.  But everyone in the job market in the US wants to be paid.  That is the way our democratic and capitalistic society works.  If you want something else then you need to go to another country.[/quote]

[b]Also please understand that businesses in the private sector thrive for their product or expertise. They all want to be paid by their boss or even by themselves, but they understand they are providing a service and have to meet the needs of the people that are purchasing that service. They cause change by reflecting on this aspect of the businesses even when they are going against the grain of the higher ups. Teachers aren't paid any differently just because there is a school board[/b]. [b]It is still about getting money from the people who want the product and service[/b].[/quote]

Wrong here on all fronts.  The motivations of an elected school board are very much different than the board of directors for a corporation or a nonprofit.  Can you look at some of the elected school boards in this area and say that they are truly concerned with what is happening in the schools?  Really?  Point out one, just one, school board in this area that is doing this good job.  I don't think you can and I know you can't especially for the school system I teach in.

Additionally, your point about the needs of the people purchasing the service is making my point exactly.  Those varied needs, represented by the different stakeholders, are not being addressed in the smaller marketplaces, meaning the geographic lines of a school and the demographics of the populations served by those schools.  If they were then there would be much different allocations.  There isn't any consensus amongst the stakeholders and so the needs of the children being served are being stepped over and stepped on and lost.

But frankly I think that you are more interested in the argument than the outcome.  Certainly, if you think you could do better, then get certified and come join us.  I'd love to see how long you last AND how interested you would not be (!) in your salary![/quote]

Well you don't seem to think highly of the school board, principals, and agree that teachers should first and foremost be interested in salary rather than professional growth. A job verses a career as people would often say. Why is it again that we should have public schools if all of these things are correct? You are just feeding the minds of the Trump supporters if all of this is true. There's nothing they wouldn't like better than to further dismantle schools.[/quote]

???  You are experiencing some reading comprehension problems and projecting.  While you are correct that I don't think well (at all) of the school boards, I certainly think highly of my principal.  Furthermore why are you dragging in professional growth into a discussion of salary?  The same with the purpose of public schools.  You are diverting the topic because you can't think of a sound rebuttal.  You would rather attack character than discuss concepts and ideas.

The purpose of public schools, by the way, is that our democracy and capitalistic society depend on an educated population.  If we don't have an educated population then nothing about America will work.

Finally, while I am a public school teacher, I do support charter schools.  I think they bring pressure to bear on the public system and that is a good thing.  The District is a prime example of positive change wrought by the presence charter schools.  While there have been some failures and I don't think that all the proper controls are in place to ensure that all the charters live up to necessary minimum requirements, the fact that they (and the voucher system) exist have caused significant positive change to the public school system in the District.

Of course, you sound like you like the insular, protectionist system, so I wonder what that says about you?[/quote]

I stated earlier many times that I think teachers are responsible for discussing whether meetings are effective or ineffective themselves. This is not really something that the public should be involved in. They do not have the right to tell teachers what meetings are effective for their work. Which is in line with their opinion of themselves as professionals. I am not diverting the topic. Teachers want people to think of them highly but whenever people call for them to act like professionals they claim the system doesn't work for them to do so. The reference to money on my part was in retort to several other posters stating that they weren't paid enough to speak up. No system works for people to do so, even google I'm guessing. Every professional is supposed to act like a professional regardless of how much they are making. That's why there is a teacher's license. That's why there is a term whistleblower. Still, as indicated in the video I posted pages back, organizations do appreciate when solutions are found to run their organization better even if at first they aren't as accepting. [/quote]

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