This post by Kyle Stokes entitled Why So Many More Teachers Hate Their Jobs Now was written almost a year ago; but I just stumbled across it. It meshes with what I know from teachers I’m friends with.
These are not lazy people or people who want to coast or people who resent changes to the status quo. But, they are tired of a lot of things; not least of which is being a political punching bag for those who want to liberate education money from the public sphere and get it into the pockets of the right sorts of people.
I’d regarded it as sort of background noise, but I guess I’m becoming a little concerned about narrowing curricula focused on teaching to the test. I’m all for my kids learning the fundamentals; but if they don’t develop agile minds, I’m going to be doomed to boring Thanksgiving dinner conversations for the next 30 years.
I can’t say that I hate my job, but after the SB5 debacle in Ohio and the impending onslaught of “Right To Work” in the upcoming year, it just doesn’t feel the same. It’s just not as rewarding and not as joyous. I’m a music teacher and over the past five years I’ve watched as my neighboring districts and colleagues across the state are slowly getting squeezed out the budget and out of the curriculum, and ultimately out of relevancy. It’s definitely disheartening. I plan on sticking with it to the end as long as they will have me, but it makes me wonder after 20 years of teaching if there will be the position of “high school band director” to fill in our public schools in another 10 years.
And don’t forget that the oversight of charter schools and school vouchers will go out of the Superintendent of Schools and to the Office of Management and Budget.
Also, there is basically no one with any sort of educational background on the Higher Education Commission nor whatever the equivalent for K-12.
Basically no one that has any clue about how we educate people nor how to run a school are involved in any meaningful way in the process.
Yeah, I may have a bit of hyperbole in there but not much.
Never mind that we had a sitting governor become the president of a state university with the academic credentials of a J.D. and an honorary doctorate.
I don’t think we are racing towards the top.
gmb, but, but, they “know stuff” and have lived through the educational system (even though one might wonder about certain sobrieties during parts of it).
The paradigm is shifting. Who wants an informed electorate? Fear and divisiveness doesn’t work as well upon informed persons. And who runs Indiana government? Can’t wait to see an apologist’s attempt at debunking of that correlation.
Years ago, teaching was one of the few avenues open to women, but that’s not the case anymore. Furthermore, many areas once valued, such as special education, are driving away rather than drawing people, and it’s hard to get people to take coaching jobs anymore. Legislatures, stuck in the 50’s, still think there is truth in the saying, “The beatings will continue until morale improves” which is not a great reason to stay in any job, let alone a stressful job as teacher. Furthermore, the idea that you don’t need any special training to be a teacher and any old degree is fine is not panning out either, and there isn’t as much reason to remain a teacher, trained or not, as was once the case. On the other hand, teachers got a taste of their power when they were instrumental in tossing out Tony Bennett last election, giving more votes to the new Supt. of Public Instruction than the governor. That might be worth our attention.
Teachers need to be punished. They have a soft degree, and they deny the ability to teach to all who do not hold this soft degree. Their monopoly on teaching positions is destroying the intellect of America.
We need to decertify teaching programs and open the occupation to those who score the highest on a respectable test of education and intellect, perhaps the GRE. If there are five teaching openings, those applicants in the pool holding the five highest GRE scores get the job offers.
This rigorous and fair method ensures the best and brightest are being hired to teach our young and not merely union members highly practiced at creating protected markets.
“Smart” (or practiced at taking tests) does not necessarily equate to “good” (or even adequate) for teaching. Your proposal lacks depth of concept.
Your argument compels you to accept that a teaching degree is not proof of teaching competency. Let’s at least have the smartest applicants take a swing at the ball. Further, let’s separate the practice of teaching from the essential collegiate learning experience.
Fine. And let’s pay the teachers who end up teaching 3 or 4 times as much as they make now.
Given the desire for the free-market to improve education, and if teaching is going to become so hard to do, you’d still have the best applicants falling over themselves to make, I dunno, 200K a year to do it?
Unless, of course, you’re not serious about what you propose.
Joe,
I’d like to respond to your argument, but I sincerely don’t understand it.
“And let’s pay the teachers who end up teaching 3 or 4 times as much as they make now.”
Not sure how that follows.
“Given the desire for the free-market to improve education”
Not sure you’re allowed this premise, as this entire discussion is occurring in the context of public schools.
Free market /= public schools.
“if teaching is going to become so hard to do”
Not sure you get this premise, either, as I’m not certain from where this premise originates.
“you’d still have the best applicants falling over themselves to make, I dunno, 200K a year to do it?”
Uh, I guess? Any job paying 200K draws exemplary applicants.
“Unless, of course, you’re not serious about what you propose.”
Sorry, I guess I don’t understand your argument.
Oddly enough, every point I made was in response to yours. But then again, I have noted how in many cases that today’s modern Republican feels it’s unfair to be held to what they say.
You can’t have it both ways – you can’t whine about how teachers have it too easy and are way overpaid, and also ask for the field of possible teachers to be opened up.
If you want the best and brightest, you’re gonna have to pay them to go into teaching instead of another lucrative field. They’re not going to go into it for the goodness of their hearts … unless you’re going to keep the “easy working conditions, high salaries, guaranteed employment, unrivaled benefits, gold-plated retirement, early retirement age, all at taxpayer expense.”
Or you can go after the existing teachers and their benefits as mentioned above, in which case you can bet they are going to cling to unionization even more to protect them.
Myself? You’d have to pay me far above what I make now to be a teacher. Not only would I want the burden of educating children, I wouldn’t want to have to be a parent to those who need one too. Those willing to step into the breach have my respect, not scorn.
“You can’t have it both ways – you can’t whine about how teachers have it too easy and are way overpaid, and also ask for the field of possible teachers to be opened up.”
Is this your argument?
How are these conjuncts, in any way, internecine?
“If you want the best and brightest, you’re gonna have to pay them to go into teaching instead of another lucrative field.”
O.K. First, let’s get good access and qualifications, then we’ll then determine the market-clearing price for intelligent and properly educated persons. This is Economics.
“This is Economics.”
No, this is about raising children smart enough to keep the American economy growing.
You want the best to teach, you have to pay them.
Just wondering: Does FREEDOM ever have a positive thought on any subject. Must be lonely living in a world of dissatisfaction with everything. No meaningful way to respond to any such postings. As once told “do not try to argue with a fool as they will simply double their efforts”.
Or as the old Arab folk saying goes. “when dogs bark, do not bark back.”
Still, it is fun to poke at them in their cages and bedevil them as in Foghorn Leghorn and his dog nemesis.
There’s Jack, off in the weeds, again.
Freedom’s diversionary detour notwithstanding, one day teachers may act on their great political power, now just a potential threat to reactionary legislatures. The Phi Delta Kappa Gallup poll shows a history of teacher credibility in local communities, and that they are admired and respected by the public for their commitment to children. If they begin to use that at the local level, organizing to individually confront the more primitive local legislators, offering better alternatives, things could change dramatically. Either we end up with better policies or better policy-makers. Some of those unnecessary but burdensome silly requirements could be stopped. While the state may take teachers out of the unions, they may not be able to take the unions out of the teachers. Maybe this is just a hope, but the elimination of Tony Bennett has not gone unnoticed by teachers or the public.
You make some great observations, Stuart.
I understand that teacher outreach helped elect Ms. Ritz. I got an email from a teacher friend asking for a vote for Ritz/
And many teachers are Republicans. The pushback is already beginning. I read that attempts to bring the voucher program into OMB haver stopped and that she wil implement it.
Carlito, thanks for the feedback.
One has to resist the temptation to be triumphal about this whole mess, because it gets complicated, but the voucher situation is far from over for lots of reasons. I don’t think that the new superintendent has the option to stop implementation (not sure about the details), especially if the legislature is pushing for more vouchers, but the courts haven’t finished speaking either. To me, this is a story that will not end well for the state or for private schools because there is too much ideology, not enough willingness to follow the data or the intent of the Common Schools relative to the common good, and too much greed and what’s-in-it-for-me. We don’t know which of these–or other– factors will weigh in the most.
Once people are told the truth about teachers, the veneer peels.
Easy working conditions, high salaries, guaranteed employment, unrivaled benefits, gold-plated retirement, early retirement age, all at taxpayer expense.
When you pull off a crime that big, in broad daylight, you need a good cover story to misdirect the public’s attention. In Obama’s depressed economy, the teachers are playing a huge game of chicken, because those who have left them alone, might just decide it’s time for PACs and swift-boat ads.
The teachers have far too much to lose by starting a war. Electing Ritz was an disrespectful act of ingratitude that deserves retaliation. If the teachers were smart, they’d lay low so as not to have the public say “they get how much?” Of course, if the teachers were smart, they’d hold other degrees.
I’d love to see a School of Education classroom get O’Keefed and the footage aired on FNC.
Stuart,
If the Indiana Supreme Court will resist its constant inclination to defer to the legislature on most statutory matters and give any effect to Article 1, Section 6 of the Indiana Consitutions, it cannot rationally support the voucher program. Yet I fear that it will fall for the fallacious argument that the voucher just gives money to parents and they decide what to do with it, despite the fact that 98% of the money goes to religous organizations. It will give the idealogues a rational and give the leaners cover.
Article 1, Section 6 permits, supports, encourages, indeed, requires a voucher program.
The money is drawn from the Treasury for the benefit of the *students*, silly.
Did I hear a dog bark?
So much for the hope for justice. Thanks, I guess, for the insight.
Freedom – Just a bit of public school history.
Thomas Jefferson:
A Bill for establishing a system of public education. , , 1. For establishing schools at which the children of all the citizens of this Commonwealth may receive a primary grade of education at the [illegible] expense,
The teacher shall also have the use of the house and accommodations provided for him, and shall more over receive annually such standing wages as the Visitors shall have determined, to be proportions on the residents and applied as before provided in other cases of pecuniary contribution:
At this school shall be received and instructed gratis every infant in the ward, of competent age
11. The sd teachers shall in all things relating to the education and government of their pupils, be under the direction and control of the visitors: but no religious reading, instructions or exercise shall be prescribed or practiced inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.,
Tori-
What is the source document for that?