Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I didn't hit my stride until year 6-8. By that time many teachers are starting to get married/have kids and leave the work force indefinitely. Other veterans who stay may change schools to be closer to work or don't want to work the longer (and sometimes less paid) hours in a charter school.

Teaching now a days is not what it used to be. You are subject to lots of scrutiny, you must teach to a very set curriculum (that you may not agree with) and have lots of pressure about test scores.

Honestly, I would not tell my children to go into teaching. A specialty position like Speech, OT or PT, yes, but not teaching unfortunately.

Yup! I'm going back for my reading specialist degree. I also talked my DSD into changing her major- from education. I don't know any teachers who would recommend the profession to friends/family.

I have my masters in Reading and left DCPS after 13 years to teach at a local university. After years of teaching middle school, I finally could admit that I was a good teacher about 8 years in. Unfortunately, the tide of testing and poor leadership made the job untenable. Not to mention that my kids are getting older and demanding more of my time and energy, energy that I could not give if I was wrangling middle schoolers all day. I miss the kids. I really do. I miss the families. I miss the work (not the grading though. I still hate it now). I've encouraged my son to be a teacher but one with a plan of upward movement.

I'm a DC teacher and thinking of going back to school to get a Graduate Reading Certificate, if you don't mind me asking, which school did you go to? It seems like some school districts are getting rid of reading specialists and others are expanding, is this a good field of education to pursue in the local DC/MD/VA area?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I didn't hit my stride until year 6-8. By that time many teachers are starting to get married/have kids and leave the work force indefinitely. Other veterans who stay may change schools to be closer to work or don't want to work the longer (and sometimes less paid) hours in a charter school.

Teaching now a days is not what it used to be. You are subject to lots of scrutiny, you must teach to a very set curriculum (that you may not agree with) and have lots of pressure about test scores.

Honestly, I would not tell my children to go into teaching. A specialty position like Speech, OT or PT, yes, but not teaching unfortunately.

Yup! I'm going back for my reading specialist degree. I also talked my DSD into changing her major- from education. I don't know any teachers who would recommend the profession to friends/family.

I have my masters in Reading and left DCPS after 13 years to teach at a local university. After years of teaching middle school, I finally could admit that I was a good teacher about 8 years in. Unfortunately, the tide of testing and poor leadership made the job untenable. Not to mention that my kids are getting older and demanding more of my time and energy, energy that I could not give if I was wrangling middle schoolers all day. I miss the kids. I really do. I miss the families. I miss the work (not the grading though. I still hate it now). I've encouraged my son to be a teacher but one with a plan of upward movement.

I would say that it matters a great deal to have teachers with 8-10+ years of experience in the middle school grades especially. At my kiddo's charter, the ms teachers are for the most part very young--and often not up to the behavioral challenges that ms kids present. Lots of escalation, power struggles, and taking things personally--and lots of turnover, no surprise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have definitely not recommended teaching to any of my family members that are entering college. I am in the process of getting my MA and then I am shipping out. It's not even the kiddos, I love my kids, it is dealing with the other adults.

MAT? Why would you get a masters of education only to leave?

How did you get MAT out of that? The MA is in a totally different field.

Lots of experienced teachers at Stokes.

Ludlow-Taylor has a good mix of ages in the teacher ranks and all are excellent. In PS3 and PK4 our child had one teacher with 15+ years, and another with 10+ years. But even the younger instructors receive universally high marks from parents.

So far I've observed that many of the better schools have a mix - some older teachers, some middle career teachers (more than 5 years experience), a bunch of younger new teachers. I do not think this model has held at charter schools (we had one child in a very popular charter for one year). It seems to work well when younger teachers have older mentors and older teachers observe and work with younger teachers too - both benefit from the interactions.

I've been mostly around Ward 1 schools and the "lower tier" of WOTP schools (Hearst, Stoddert, Eaton, Hyde) and from my experiences and hearing from close friends this seems like something you want in your child's school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SWS

My kids' teachers at SWS were born when I was in high school, I'm pretty sure. And I'm not even old.

Different school, but I was practicing law already when DC2's teacher was born But DC1's teachers are older than I am.

Our ES has 3 teacher that hav been there 30 years, the rest are young. Its good having both.

Anonymous wrote:I have definitely not recommended teaching to any of my family members that are entering college. I am in the process of getting my MA and then I am shipping out. It's not even the kiddos, I love my kids, it is dealing with the other adults.

MAT? Why would you get a masters of education only to leave?

I have definitely not recommended teaching to any of my family members that are entering college. I am in the process of getting my MA and then I am shipping out. It's not even the kiddos, I love my kids, it is dealing with the other adults.

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I didn't hit my stride until year 6-8. By that time many teachers are starting to get married/have kids and leave the work force indefinitely. Other veterans who stay may change schools to be closer to work or don't want to work the longer (and sometimes less paid) hours in a charter school.

Teaching now a days is not what it used to be. You are subject to lots of scrutiny, you must teach to a very set curriculum (that you may not agree with) and have lots of pressure about test scores.

Honestly, I would not tell my children to go into teaching. A specialty position like Speech, OT or PT, yes, but not teaching unfortunately.

Yup! I'm going back for my reading specialist degree. I also talked my DSD into changing her major- from education. I don't know any teachers who would recommend the profession to friends/family.

I feel like I didn't hit my stride until year 6-8. By that time many teachers are starting to get married/have kids and leave the work force indefinitely. Other veterans who stay may change schools to be closer to work or don't want to work the longer (and sometimes less paid) hours in a charter school.

Teaching now a days is not what it used to be. You are subject to lots of scrutiny, you must teach to a very set curriculum (that you may not agree with) and have lots of pressure about test scores.

Honestly, I would not tell my children to go into teaching. A specialty position like Speech, OT or PT, yes, but not teaching unfortunately.

Anonymous wrote:SWS

My kids' teachers at SWS were born when I was in high school, I'm pretty sure. And I'm not even old.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SWS

+1. They are all at SWS.

While I'm sure the motivation of the student body has a lot to do with it, anyone see a correlation between experienced teachers and student achievement?