Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So how do we get and keep good teachers at those schools? Is there merit to a pay differential to encourage teachers to go there? "Hazard pay", if you will? Do we give those teachers one less hour a day of teaching and replace it with planning, to help build stronger lessons/prevent burnout? Or do we write off those kids on some level as lost causes, and just be okay with teachers moving across the county when positions open?

I've taught in these schools. What I feel would help would be to have more non-instructional staff members to help handle the social and emotional needs of the students. Double or triple the number of professional school counselors, or perhaps a couple social workers, an additional assistant principal, more parent liasons. We need more staff not assigned to daily instruction who can be available to intervene when kids get upset with each other (before it turns into a fight), to deal with bullying, to help be sure kids are hooked up to needed social services, to organize parent outreach, to make the follow up phone calls, to meet with kids before school and check in with them. To handle more of the emotional stuff so as teachers we can handle more of the academic stuff.

Or cut our losses. This sounds like a ridiculous strategy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Teachers can't solve these problems; societies with less inequality and poverty are those that focused honestly on making more equal societies. That doesn't mean better lessons. It means the things Americans continue to oppose collectively: things like universal healthcare, guaranteed paid maternal leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, and living wages. The rich/poor gap starts from the day children are born and no school on Earth can change that. Until we actually work to make our society an equal one, no amount of punishing teachers or students with extra work and assessments will change the realities of students' lives the 16 hours a day they *aren't* in school.

It starts at conception as many of these children are born to children themselves. I'd say half of my middle schoolers are pregnant by the time they are 17 yrs old. They continue to act like the teenagers that they are when they are pregnant. They don't exactly change their behaviors when they are with child either. Nobody in their families/neighborhood think this is a tragedy either. None of them were going to college anyway so what difference does it make if they finish high school? That's the general consensus.

Maybe we need to rethink how we do school in these kinds of situations then. Let's stop kidding ourselves.

Anonymous wrote:^ Teachers can't solve these problems; societies with less inequality and poverty are those that focused honestly on making more equal societies. That doesn't mean better lessons. It means the things Americans continue to oppose collectively: things like universal healthcare, guaranteed paid maternal leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, and living wages. The rich/poor gap starts from the day children are born and no school on Earth can change that. Until we actually work to make our society an equal one, no amount of punishing teachers or students with extra work and assessments will change the realities of students' lives the 16 hours a day they *aren't* in school.

It starts at conception as many of these children are born to children themselves. I'd say half of my middle schoolers are pregnant by the time they are 17 yrs old. They continue to act like the teenagers that they are when they are pregnant. They don't exactly change their behaviors when they are with child either. Nobody in their families/neighborhood think this is a tragedy either. None of them were going to college anyway so what difference does it make if they finish high school? That's the general consensus.

Anonymous wrote:

So how do we get and keep good teachers at those schools? Is there merit to a pay differential to encourage teachers to go there? "Hazard pay", if you will? Do we give those teachers one less hour a day of teaching and replace it with planning, to help build stronger lessons/prevent burnout? Or do we write off those kids on some level as lost causes, and just be okay with teachers moving across the county when positions open?

I've taught in these schools. What I feel would help would be to have more non-instructional staff members to help handle the social and emotional needs of the students. Double or triple the number of professional school counselors, or perhaps a couple social workers, an additional assistant principal, more parent liasons. We need more staff not assigned to daily instruction who can be available to intervene when kids get upset with each other (before it turns into a fight), to deal with bullying, to help be sure kids are hooked up to needed social services, to organize parent outreach, to make the follow up phone calls, to meet with kids before school and check in with them. To handle more of the emotional stuff so as teachers we can handle more of the academic stuff.

Anonymous wrote:It's sad to me that we all (that I saw, at least) agree teaching in a high FARMS school is more work than in an affluent school, and general consensus is that a solution to being overworked is just to move to a wealthier school.

Big picture though--those low SES students need strong teachers/mentors/clubs/opportunities as much (if not more so) than the wealthier kids. I've taught at both, and I know 1000% the after school basketball club was more valuable at the low SES school than the high SES school.

So how do we get and keep good teachers at those schools? Is there merit to a pay differential to encourage teachers to go there? "Hazard pay", if you will? Do we give those teachers one less hour a day of teaching and replace it with planning, to help build stronger lessons/prevent burnout? Or do we write off those kids on some level as lost causes, and just be okay with teachers moving across the county when positions open?

Buy them a set of functioning parents?

Anonymous wrote:^ Teachers can't solve these problems; societies with less inequality and poverty are those that focused honestly on making more equal societies. That doesn't mean better lessons. It means the things Americans continue to oppose collectively: things like universal healthcare, guaranteed paid maternal leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, and living wages. The rich/poor gap starts from the day children are born and no school on Earth can change that. Until we actually work to make our society an equal one, no amount of punishing teachers or students with extra work and assessments will change the realities of students' lives the 16 hours a day they *aren't* in school.

+1000.

^ Teachers can't solve these problems; societies with less inequality and poverty are those that focused honestly on making more equal societies. That doesn't mean better lessons. It means the things Americans continue to oppose collectively: things like universal healthcare, guaranteed paid maternal leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, and living wages. The rich/poor gap starts from the day children are born and no school on Earth can change that. Until we actually work to make our society an equal one, no amount of punishing teachers or students with extra work and assessments will change the realities of students' lives the 16 hours a day they *aren't* in school.

It's sad to me that we all (that I saw, at least) agree teaching in a high FARMS school is more work than in an affluent school, and general consensus is that a solution to being overworked is just to move to a wealthier school.

Big picture though--those low SES students need strong teachers/mentors/clubs/opportunities as much (if not more so) than the wealthier kids. I've taught at both, and I know 1000% the after school basketball club was more valuable at the low SES school than the high SES school.

So how do we get and keep good teachers at those schools? Is there merit to a pay differential to encourage teachers to go there? "Hazard pay", if you will? Do we give those teachers one less hour a day of teaching and replace it with planning, to help build stronger lessons/prevent burnout? Or do we write off those kids on some level as lost causes, and just be okay with teachers moving across the county when positions open?

NP. Oh, I'm aware. Which is why I'm trying to leave my high FARMS rate school because of the culture that we must keep doing and giving more more more. If we bring up SES or situations at home we're told we're making excuses. The question is always what more can we give? More money, more time, more effort. As much as I love the kids, I'm ready to go to a school with a low FARMS rate and kids who can pass the standardized tests no matter what the teachers are like and so the pressure is off.

I don't want to have to serve on any more committees like the Family Engagement Committee because those schools don't need to rack their brains figuring out ways to get parents involved in their child's education. I don't want to sit at any more data chats and have to discuss why Alexander's MAP scores decreased from last quarter and when I bring up that he told me he didn't eat breakfast the morning of testing because he got to school too late because his family all shares one room in a house and the baby was crying all night so they didn't get to the bus on time, I'm told that shouldn't impact him as long as I'm identifying barriers to him acquiring a concept and differentiating my instruction accordingly. OK, let's just ignore the elephant in the room.

I want to be at a school that gets to have assemblies and field trips because there is money for it and the principal doesn't get worried that the kids will be missing content instruction for those things because they need to answer to their boss as to why the data doesn't look good. Speaking of money, I don't want to have to spend my own in order to be able to do my job. I also don't want to have to contribute money or food items for school events (for families, not staff) anymore. I give enough. I just want to be able to do my job and then go home.

I know the grass is always greener on the other side and working at a school with a high SES population has its own issues but I think I'm ready to trade issues. I do not want to end up like the martyr teachers down the hall who devote their own lives to other peoples' children and are at work until 8pm and work on weekends and have little in their bank accounts because they keep giving and giving. My own children are more important to me, and the reality is that we are not going to be working many miracles because poverty has a greater impact on these kids' lives than I do. Yes, I said it.