Reply to Are teachers overworked and underpaid? Declining teacher retention rates.

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Are teachers overworked and underpaid? Declining teacher retention rates."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I am a parent and have had kids in DCPS since 2012 (whoa) and there's been a huge swing in visibility into my kid's education in the last few years.

In the leadup to COVID days aka the Before Times, parents were in schools very frequently and then suddenly we couldn't see anything - except exactly how class was going with our kids' teachers.

Then afterwards, entry into schools has been way less frequent and parent interaction far more arms length/less personal.

So I hardly know my kids' teachers and how hard their jobs are. I can guess. I can presume. But I have way fewer direct relationships with teachers than in the past.

My thoughts on teachers and their pay and workloads based on a few years with this:

I think the pay is probably fine. Everybody wants more money and DC is a more expensive metro than many. I think there's probably more concern about whether teachers have a job next year or not. There's the stress of being managed/graded in ways that can lead to your termination. There's also a budgeting system that for no good reason seems set to fire at least some teachers at every school. Who wants that? Most of us in DC can do a middling job and expect longterm employment. Many teachers are young and feel like their jobs are on the line every year.

On the work: I have a thought about how teaching is as a job vs. other job opportunities. On the plus side, there's the daily interactivity that makes teaching like summer camp - fun, kid interaction, on your feet, etc. On the negative, if you like to work like a lot of college students and knowledge workers do - 30 minutes grinding, 15 minutes multitasking, 15 minutes checking your phone - this job is kind of not compatible with that.

I think teachers aren't able to work like their non-teacher friends, they have to be too 'present' and that is stressful in a way that I don't think people engage with/admit. That and they often have a lot of data-entering/time-marking drudgery.

And again, that their peers are just at-desks, grinding, checking out at 6 and that - it just gets to you.

So, more random thoughts from a guy who as stated above doesn't know much but has a lot of anonymous opinions.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics