Reply to Unpopular opinion: DCPS teachers are super well paid!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DCPS teachers are not only extremely well paid, they also get pensions, unlike virtually all other city employees (and unlike basically all private sector employees). They can retire with full benefits at 55! It's an amazing deal.

It just sucks that we couldn't reserve high pay for high performing teachers, given how terrible (generally speaking) DC schools are. [/quote]

I’ve posted on other threads about teachers - I’m an attorney (former legal aid, public defender, prosecutor over the course of my career) who is applying to Teach for America as a midlife career changer. I wanted to be a teacher since I was a kid, but was pushed in another direction by judgmental parents who are now thankfully dead.

I have a few years prior teaching experience at the university level when I was a graduate TA and later adjunct faculty.

In anticipation of going to work in Title I schools as a teacher, I recently took a job working in a before and after school program at my local YMCA. These kids all attend Title I schools and 80% are on vouchers because they are from low income families.

All I can say is that given the kind of behaviors I have witnessed in just a few short weeks in this job, I have lowered my expectations to an aspiration that I will be able to help a few kids every year to actually substantially advance in their education.

These kids are being failed in the home first and foremost, and it is unrealistic to expect a single teacher (even with an aide or two in the classroom) to fix all the problems they bring with them to school and impart substantial learning on top of that. Teachers are spending 50% of their classroom time on management and discipline because kids are out of control, disrespectful, coming to school after consuming Dunkin’ or other sugary crap which drives mood swings and provides the brain with zero useful energy for learning.

Our most struggling schools are warehousing kids because the kids aren’t parented, not because the teachers are terrible. And many folks in our society want to force more births that are unwanted on people who shouldn’t be parents at all.

And yes, at this point I fully expect to use the program to get my teaching license and then to move to a district where the majority of the kids are actually parented. [/quote]

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