Hollywood Librul Shows His Temper

[kytwell 179]

It isn't a 9 month job, it's a 10 month job - teachers ended work June 18 this year and start working the week of August 8. Yeah, maybe Pennsylvania is different. Even some parts of North Carolina are, like Asheville area. Mostly, there are a lot of areas, like here, where there are no jobs. There is a high unemployment rate - it is a highly depressed area and you are likely to get a summer job, if even possible, that pays about $7.50 an hour. Doesn't even cover the cost of childcare. Yeah, we have children too, that need to be taken care of. But I guess we are just too darn selfish. However, I guess you aren't selfish with your $80,000 salary. Hmmmmph.

People aren't rich around here and can't afford au pairs and all that. I just don't like people generalizing about this subject and spreading a mythology (like that the average national salary of a teacher is $46,000 or whatever.) Those cushy teaching jobs are few and far between nowadays and basing an argument on that is just misleading and false.

Also, there are no unions down here. Teachers do need protections, and they have a right to some fair representation. Principals and administrators have too much power here to the point I would consider it corruption.

Finding a job in another area is also a myth. When you look for teaching jobs, you find them in the most undesirable areas, places just like this.

You just can't generalize, especially when you happen to live in an area that is obviously more up-scale. You have no idea of how the rest of us live.

Reminds me of another person - Barbara Bush - who said during Hurricane Katrina something along the lines of that those people staying at the Super Dome should feel lucky that staying there is so much better than how they are used to living. Well, wouldn't she know!!

Here it is 180 school days plus another 5-7 in service days for the teacher, plus 1 week prior to start of school year.

Seething anger b/c of career choices...either way here are some more facts, not opinions:

Snyder Middle School has a contracted teacher vacancy for a Special Education, Math or Middle Level Math, and English or Middle Level English certified candidate. Candidates who previously expessed interest need not apply again. Bensalem School District offers excellent benefits with a competitive salary ranging from $47,440 for a Bachelor's Degree to $61,470 for a Master's Degree. Only candidates who possess the required three (3) certifications will be considered. Send resume to dmckay@bensalemsd.org

source: http://www.pareap.net/job_postings/16781/PA01/PA01

Bensalem is not exactly an "upscale" area at all(not the town or county I live in, but it's in a county bordering Philadelphia)

Another "mythical" job opening:

Delaware Valley High School-Kelly is looking to hire a Social Studies teacher for its High School for the 2011-2012 school year. All applicants must have valid PA certification in the content area as well as have valid, up-to-date Child Abuse, Criminal Record, and FBI clearances.

DVHS is a private alternative school contracted by the School District of Philadelphia. Its educational mission is to provide a pragmatic, enriching education through research-based best practices and a "pro-social" behavioral model. DVHS serves at-risk students from throughout the city of Philadelphia, many of whom have specific learning and emotional needs.

All interested applicants should forward a cover letter and resume to the email posted above. The salary offer is $36,000.

More facts, not mythology...this is from the school district where I grew up.

A teacher with a Master’s Degree who was hired in 2008-2009 at Step 1 earned a starting salary of $45,358. In 2009-2010, that teacher moved to Step 2 with a new salary of $48,602. This represents the step plus increment percentage negotiated for the salary grid in the last contract for the 2009-10 year. That year's increment was 2.36%. But when added to step in the way the grid is constructed, altogether it actually represented a 7.1% salary increase. In addition, if that teacher took 12 credits prior to the start of the next school year, the teacher would have moved to Masters +12, Step 2 and earned a salary of $50,536, representing an 11.4% salary increase.

Remember that teachers already at the top of the scale (on Step 16) are unable to move vertically on the grid. For example, a teacher at Masters +24, Step 16 earned $85,532 in 2008-2009. The following year, that teacher earned $87,551 with no step or education movements, realizing a 2.3% salary increase.

source: http://www.pvsd.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?sessionid=42fe14e8305da493e98c85fad623d05d&pageid=198119&sessionid=42fe14e8305da493e98c85fad623d05d

They're "myth" hiring too. I also saw if interested they pay long term permanent substitute teachers $223 dollars a day, not bad for 180 days of work per year. That works out to be @ 40K a year as a permanent sub.

This is from another nearby school district.

http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/reporter/npea_proposal_042309.pdf

http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/reporter/npsd_comparison_042309.pdf

I don't know North Carolina teacher salaries, but the entire state can't be that bad as Merck has a plant there and I interviewed at Wake Forest a few years back for a position that was starting at 74K a year.

And FYI, I started out 12 yrs ago making 25k a year. I went to night school for 6 years at my own expense(no school reimbursement like PA teachers have) and moved up through the ranks to the position where I am currently, within the same employer.

Barbara Bush might have made an accurate assessment, I don't know her beginnings...

[Golden Gate 530]

Here it is 180 school days plus another 5-7 in service days for the teacher, plus 1 week prior to start of school year.

Seething anger b/c of career choices...either way here are some more facts, not opinions:

Snyder Middle School has a contracted teacher vacancy for a Special Education, Math or Middle Level Math, and English or Middle Level English certified candidate. Candidates who previously expessed interest need not apply again. Bensalem School District offers excellent benefits with a competitive salary ranging from $47,440 for a Bachelor's Degree to $61,470 for a Master's Degree. Only candidates who possess the required three (3) certifications will be considered. Send resume to dmckay@bensalemsd.org

source: http://www.pareap.net/job_postings/16781/PA01/PA01

Bensalem is not exactly an "upscale" area at all(not the town or county I live in, but it's in a county bordering Philadelphia)

Another "mythical" job opening:

Delaware Valley High School-Kelly is looking to hire a Social Studies teacher for its High School for the 2011-2012 school year. All applicants must have valid PA certification in the content area as well as have valid, up-to-date Child Abuse, Criminal Record, and FBI clearances.

DVHS is a private alternative school contracted by the School District of Philadelphia. Its educational mission is to provide a pragmatic, enriching education through research-based best practices and a "pro-social" behavioral model. DVHS serves at-risk students from throughout the city of Philadelphia, many of whom have specific learning and emotional needs.

All interested applicants should forward a cover letter and resume to the email posted above. The salary offer is $36,000.

More facts, not mythology...this is from the school district where I grew up.

A teacher with a Master’s Degree who was hired in 2008-2009 at Step 1 earned a starting salary of $45,358. In 2009-2010, that teacher moved to Step 2 with a new salary of $48,602. This represents the step plus increment percentage negotiated for the salary grid in the last contract for the 2009-10 year. That year's increment was 2.36%. But when added to step in the way the grid is constructed, altogether it actually represented a 7.1% salary increase. In addition, if that teacher took 12 credits prior to the start of the next school year, the teacher would have moved to Masters +12, Step 2 and earned a salary of $50,536, representing an 11.4% salary increase.

Remember that teachers already at the top of the scale (on Step 16) are unable to move vertically on the grid. For example, a teacher at Masters +24, Step 16 earned $85,532 in 2008-2009. The following year, that teacher earned $87,551 with no step or education movements, realizing a 2.3% salary increase.

source: http://www.pvsd.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?sessionid=42fe14e8305da493e98c85fad623d05d&pageid=198119&sessionid=42fe14e8305da493e98c85fad623d05d

They're "myth" hiring too. I also saw if interested they pay long term permanent substitute teachers $223 dollars a day, not bad for 180 days of work per year. That works out to be @ 40K a year as a permanent sub.

This is from another nearby school district.

http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/reporter/npea_proposal_042309.pdf

http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/reporter/npsd_comparison_042309.pdf

I don't know North Carolina teacher salaries, but the entire state can't be that bad as Merck has a plant there and I interviewed at Wake Forest a few years back for a position that was starting at 74K a year.

And FYI, I started out 12 yrs ago making 25k a year. I went to night school for 6 years at my own expense(no school reimbursement like PA teachers have) and moved up through the ranks to the position where I am currently, within the same employer.

Barbara Bush might have made an accurate assessment, I don't know her beginnings...

North Carolina is on a state salary scale-which means no matter where you go in the state, you remain on the same salary based on your years of experience. Considering the fact that there is a salary freeze, that means going to a nice area, you are still earning the same salary as you did in the previous area, yet certainly there are cost of living changes in nicer areas. Wake Forest? A university. That is different. Yeah, I have gone to school - The University of Michigan, at my expense also. Barbara Bush is an aristocrat. How can she understand the way most people live? She has no idea and never will. Wow, you mention a few jobs. I am sure all the money grabbers will be applying. Do you know how many teachers have been laid off this year around the country? Buck's County,huh? Not a hurting area. My Dad's girlfriend is from there.

Your focus seems to be money and how to make more of it. You think I am angry because I don't get enough money. Not everyone can be a teacher and it is a noble profession and should be treated as such. Sure everyone has a choice in their career. But I don't want to be something else. Every profession deserves to be treated with respect and the dignity it deserves. I am not interested in making a lot of money and I don't care if a substitute there makes the amount you state - wow! an unbelievable amount. This seems to be YOUR focus, but it is not mine. I don't care about that, at all.

I am talking about the treatment of teachers, and throwing money at us is not what most, genuine teachers are interested in. What difference does it make if you can buy a fancy car and have an au pair, if your working conditions suck??? That is what I am talking about and that is what you don't seem to understand, nor can you grasp, because like you have stated, teachers there apparently are sitting pretty and are very happy. Which is why they strike, I suppose, because they are soooo happy - maybe you are right about the teachers there, they are greedy if what they want is more money with the amazing salaries they already have. Why do I want to move to such a happy place, like that, where you apparently are never satisfied with what you've got?

I am tired of this argument that somehow if we are angry with the education system, then we should have known when we made our career choice. Teachers are protesting because they are unhappy about the system of education as it exists today. By the way, this is not a unique situation to one area, this is happening in a lot of areas around the country because of No Child Left Behind, which is the most idiotic policy I have ever heard of. Things have changed a lot in education since I went to grade school, and not for the better. I think I have some idea, as my father was a personal director and school psychologist. I have seen how things have changed since the 70s. Maybe the problem is greed, and therefore people who get in positions of power in the education system are there because of their hefty salaries and not because of their true interest in the well-being of the child. They are just mouth-pieces for those higher up in the government who want to maintain this idiotic system as it exists today. We are not creating well-rounded children in the education system today. We are trying to create robots, but it isn't because teachers are all selfish and want to live the high life, although that might be the case where you live. It is because something is fundamentally wrong with the structure of the education system and that is what genuine teachers are protesting. The rest, I don't care about, because I don't appreciate greed.

I hope you can see the difference between what you are saying and what I am saying.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Golden Gate

[Golden Gate 530]

The State Of Education In America

A Teacher's Perspective

by Harvey E. Whitney, Jr.

(Swans - June 20, 2011) As a college instructor, I wanted to withhold publicly discussing the subject of education and unions until the situation in Wisconsin with labor unions fully unfolded. There, we saw teachers' unions under attack by a pro-business Republican governor: the third prong in an attempt to privatize public education. The Republic prescription for what ails public education is the elimination of teachers unions, the use of taxpayer funds for public education to pay for vouchers, and the promotion of performance-based incentives for teachers who enable more of their students to pass flimsy standardized state exams. In Florida where I teach, teachers' unions are also under attack from the Republican legislature and governor and this has extended to higher education with the legislature's attempt to decertify unions with less that 50% membership.

I speak from what I would like to call the "back alley" of higher public education. The back alley is where 1) adjunct instructors labor at low wages in either community colleges or state universities or 2) graduate teaching assistants labor in similar working conditions in four-year colleges and universities: no doubt, the title "graduate teaching assistant" or "TA" is already a belittling misnomer since many of us already have advanced degrees and are the teachers of record in many college courses. In most cases adjuncts are not unionized (or are prohibited from forming unions) and earn anywhere from 1/8 to 1/4 of what a tenured professor earns teaching the same course with the same number of students.

From what I can see of the debate about education, both at the secondary and collegiate levels, little attention is given by the media to the actual student and teacher experiences. I would like to discuss my experiences teaching at the college level and some of the challenges teachers face. I think the public is inclined to presume, with Republican advocates of privatization, that the problem of low test scores can be attributed to mediocre teachers. Yet the problem is more complex: we should probably look at factors such as teaching methodologies, the reluctance of state legislatures to reduce class sizes, the willingness of students to learn, and cultural factors and technologies that predispose students to look for knowledge in the wrong places.

The Problem of Learning Categories

Public school teachers have received perhaps undue criticism for low test scores when state legislatures are eager to slash spending for public schools. In most cases hiring is significantly reduced, thereby increasing class sizes. Teachers lose efficiency as class sizes grow simply because of the difficulty in giving students individual attention. When I was in high school many ages ago, sectioning seemed to solve this problem by sorting students by ability level into distinct classifications. In my high school we had X, Y, and Z categories. X was the high category and Z was the low. In today's public school systems, X would refer to advanced placement categories while Z categories are remedial.

If a student is assigned a Z or remedial category, he or she is already being condemned to either mediocrity or low achievement. This is perhaps one of the most baffling aspects of the public secondary school system. Put in a class of low achievers, the student will have no desire to improve himself or herself. The process perhaps needs to be democratized -- peer groups can influence intellectual development. If the peer group contains high-achieving students, this can only benefit the low achievers as well as the teacher. As learning becomes more and more collaborative, students are often learning from each other and students who understand the course material and instruction can assist lower-achieving peers. More often than not, the ages of the students are similar so there is not the generational gap that can sometimes plague classroom instruction.

Diagnosis of the Causes of Learning Problems

In diagnosing the causes of learning problems among students, I would like to look at non-biological causes. Instead, I want to mark out environmental causes. Obviously one impediment to learning is an unstable family environment in which there are financial or social pathologies (e.g., parents or family members who abuse drugs and alcohol in the home). One distraction, however, worth mentioning is technology itself. Television, cellular devices, the Internet, hand-held video games, iPods: these tools easily shift attention with their seductive images and sounds. These tools also restrict attention by the level of the control they afford to the user: absolute control provides a type of pleasure that can be a distraction. These tools, by shifting the gaze or attention of the user, disrupt the organizing mind. In the classroom, students often insist on having these tools at hand, mostly in the package of the Web-browsing cellular devices loaded with applications. In my experiences, students who have these devices in class retain information less than they would without them, but even when they are without them they struggle to pay attention. They also seem to have organizational issues when writing essays and these organizational issues can perhaps be reduced to the inability to maintain attention.

A major obstacle of the learning process is the high epistemic value that is socially invested in these types of technologies. In one of my courses, I had the most difficult time instructing students to avoid using the open Web for their paper sources. Often, encyclopedic information that appears on Web sites such as Wikipedia is reiterated on other Web sites. The information on such Web sites is easily editable by anyone so I try to tell my students to avoid them. Yet their overuse of technology has given them a certain skepticism about information they either receive from a printed source like a book (a book requires too much attention and analysis for them, whereas Google or Bing gives them instant answers) or a living source such as their teacher. In a recent lecture on the post-World War II Cold War environment, I assigned the Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove, a humorous, sarcastic commentary on the McCarthyism and anti-communist hysteria of the late 1940s and 1950s. After class discussion, I posed a bonus question that they had to answer in the last five minutes of class. The question was "What was Plan R?"

Some of the answers I received were along the lines of "Plan R was a British attack on Norway in World War II." Recall that the context of the question was the Dr. Strangelove movie that takes place in a post-World War II scenario. So if anyone had watched the movie, they would have understood that Plan R was a military policy designed to allow a lower level commander to order a nuclear attack if the traditional military command structure was decapitated or incapacitated (as one might be in a nuclear attack). So why did some students consistently give the Norway answer?

The students googled "Plan R" on their cell phones and the first search results contained entries for Plan R4, which of course was a World War II British plan to attack Norway. So many errors in analysis occurred in this situation. The students equated Plan R with Plan R4, they equated a plan of attack with a fictional military policy, and they most importantly placed a high degree of epistemic value in the truth of Google search results. The first search result was a Wikipedia entry but of course, had they used Plan R as a search term on Wikipedia, the entry for Dr. Strangelove would have appeared. So on a bonus question, the students cheated and still got the wrong answer. Our culture promotes the Internet but does not promote how it ought to be used. This story should be a lesson to so-called "hip" teachers and/or curriculum developers seeking to transform our education system by putting not only classes online but also encouraging students to look for trusted information online.

Defects of Contemporary Learning "Theory"

Not only does the imputation of high epistemic value to technology hurt learning but also hurts teaching. What I have in mind here is the compulsory use of PowerPoint in the classroom and Blackboard for classroom management. We already know the monopoly that Microsoft products have for word processing and boardroom presentations; Blackboard is virtually the classroom management tool for all colleges and universities.

With PowerPoint as well as the aftermath of the academic cultural wars of the 1980s and 1990s, teachers are not allowed to "lecture" anymore at the college level. The new class of teaching methodologists and learning theorists view the lecture as an outmoded, white male form of instruction that does not connect with or inspire today's (multicultural) student. Indeed, the teacher or professor must, as this new class of learning theorists and methodologists contend, "entertain" or present information in a "visually appealing" (PowerPoint) or "hip" manner. For example, one professor who observed one of my lectures remarked to me afterwards, "make sure you add Kanye West YouTube videos to your presentation to illustrate your talking points next time."

As an African American child of the 1980s, I reject this overly presumptuous program of the teaching methodologists and learning theorists: as if I would have performed better in school with teachers who could either rap his or her lesson or incorporate Run-DMC videos into the lesson. As a teenager of the 1980s and college student in the late '80s and early '90s, I learned to appreciate the lecture format because the teacher or professor could simply provide more information than otherwise. Imagine listening to a rap song summarizing Voltaire's Candide for 50 minutes! That might be as equally unbearable as a lecture of the same topic and length. It is simply not the case that technology and/or the incorporation of popular culture in the classroom is necessary for enhancing learning or that it always does enhance learning.

Grade-Based Learning or Grades as an End of Education

One of the most difficult aspects of teaching is the grading of student performance. Because of the pressure to make good grades, students often value grades over their own intellectual development, which often takes the form of "Why did I get a C on this paper when I spent so much time on it?" In this example, "hard work," the underlying basis for student protest, is also viewed by the student as a criterion of quality or merit. Unfortunately, this is a social myth that often also informs conservative-minded critics of affirmative action: the idea that minorities should not be given preference for jobs or educational opportunities over "hard-working" Americans (i.e., white Americans). We need to play with the concept of "hard work" here before moving forward on the issue of grades. First of all, "hard work" does not necessarily mean qualify quality on multiple levels. The baker who takes 3 hours to make a delicious cake will simply be seen by the boss as "inefficient" in comparison to the baker who can make 12 tasty cakes in an hour. Second, if "hard work" was universally a criterion of merit in our market society, there would be no need for networking in the job market to land a well-paying gig. The source of most market-based remedies of inequality is the assumption that we live in a merit-based society. Unfortunately, the only merit in our society is the worth of one's social connections and not necessarily the productivity and quality of one's body of employment or academic achievement. Academic achievement also does not translate into business achievement since employers will often turn away "overqualified" candidates.

Also, if we believed in a merit-based system of social advancement we would outlaw legacy-based college admissions or nepotism in corporations where the children of company ownership inherit executive positions in the company, especially when they have no business experience. Unfortunately, we seem to believe that the wealthy or well connected do not and should not be held to a meritocratic standard.

But to return to the issue of grades after seeing the social hypocrisy of meritocratic ideals, we can be confidently suspicious of grade-based education. First, grade-based education is largely informed by the pernicious idea of the "objectivity of numbers," which holds numerical grading as inherently accurate or as an absolute scale of student assessment: that numbers can "faithfully represent" the quantity and quality of student performance. Unfortunately, "faithful representation" merely reflects the value one places in a numerical system as opposed to alternative scales or methods of assessment. The inherent "rationality" or "objectivity" of a system can in no way be derived from one's preference for that system.

Second, traditional grade-based systems largely ignore the fact that irrational factors can play a part in the grading process but "irrational" does not necessarily mean "illegitimate." A teacher may assign a borderline A/A- student an A for a final grade because the trajectory of that student's progress reflected a superior mark. In this case the teacher is looking at more than simply a numerical average or distribution and giving the student what they deserve. Likewise, a student who has produced D-/F work for a semester finding himself or herself with a score of 59.75. Suppose the student has been disrespectful to the teacher throughout the semester, and has been disruptive to the classroom environment. The assignment of F for a final grade would not be unheard of because the student's behavior did him or her no favors.

Many of the grade objectivists or grade purists already use grade quotas, which complicate the grading process. While above I mentioned how it may be prudent in certain situations to bump up a borderline student who has a good trajectory of academic progress or fail a borderline student who has not only produced poor work but has also been disruptive, purists who bemoan more holistic grading systems nevertheless have unannounced quota systems that skew the true distribution of grades. There is a saying in graduate school, largely true, that holds no one will obtain an A from a professor in a graduate course: most tenured professors see themselves as individuals who have worked hard to arrive at their station so they will not give high grades to their graduate students because they assume that they have not worked as hard as they did when they were graduate students. This is what I call the generational fallacy. The generational fallacy is the idea that younger generations do not or will not work as hard as previous generations (whatever the task or tasks may be) or do not value the things that matter most to previous generations.

So that's one quota system at work. Another quota system appears by and large at the undergraduate level. Generally, instructors must aim for the following grade distribution for their students:

A=10-15%

B=20-25%

C=20-25%

D=10-25%

F=10-15%

In other words, according to the unwritten quota system, most students should fall in the B-D categories whereas fewer students should fall in the A and F categories. While no professor or college instructor would ever openly claim to have such a system, nevertheless, the demands of job security warrant it. If a teacher is perceived by his or her superiors as having too many Fs, the teacher would then be perceived by students and faculty evaluators as "too difficult"; if too many As, "too easy." This unspoken quota system is damning to higher education and secondary education because it already has determined in advance how many students should obtain a specific grade regardless of actual individual performance.

So these are some issues in education that all citizens should be aware of. Voting out teachers' unions or privatizing education is not the answer because the problems of education cut deeper and are much more complex than what the corporate media and the major political parties and demagogues suggest. Largely in this essay, I have discussed cultural and technological factors that reduce student performance: factors that have nothing to do with teacher "mediocrity" and everything to do with current pedagogical and organizational practices in the education system.

My link

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

If head in butt pull out, I trust that you will...

Will what?

[Golden Gate 530]

Obama Blasts His Own Education Policies

By Anthony Cody on March 29, 2011 12:29 AM | 28 Comments | 1 Recommendation

If only the Department of Education could hear this guy Obama, boy, they would have to rethink their approach!

In a town hall meeting hosted by Univision, President Obama was asked by a student named Luis Zelaya if there could be a way to reduce the number of tests that students must take.

His answer was superficially reassuring, but underneath, rather alarming.

He replied:

"... we have piled on a lot of standardized tests on our kids. Now, there's nothing wrong with a standardized test being given occasionally just to give a baseline of where kids are at.

"Malia and Sasha, my two daughters, they just recently took a standardized test. But it wasn't a high-stakes test. It wasn't a test where they had to panic. I mean, they didn't even really know that they were going to take it ahead of time. They didn't study for it, they just went ahead and took it. And it was a tool to diagnose where they were strong, where they were weak, and what the teachers needed to emphasize.

"Too often what we've been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools. And so what we've said is let's find a test that everybody agrees makes sense; let's apply it in a less pressured-packed atmosphere; let's figure out whether we have to do it every year or whether we can do it maybe every several years; and let's make sure that that's not the only way we're judging whether a school is doing well.

"Because there are other criteria: What's the attendance rate? How are young people performing in terms of basic competency on projects? There are other ways of us measuring whether students are doing well or not."

Then he said something really radical.

"So what I want to do is—one thing I never want to see happen is schools that are just teaching to the test. Because then you're not learning about the world; you're not learning about different cultures, you're not learning about science, you're not learning about math. All you're learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and the little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test. And that's not going to make education interesting to you. And young people do well in stuff that they're interested in. They're not going to do as well if it's boring."

I think I am going to see if President Obama would like to speak at the Save Our Schools rally we have planned this summer protesting his administration's policies!

But here is what is alarming: Either President Obama is trying to mislead people, or he is unfamiliar with the policies being advanced by his very own secretary of education, who was seated just a few feet away from him at this event.

As someone who campaigned and raised money for Obama, I find both of these alternatives unacceptable.

Is President Obama aware:

that Race to the Top requires states to tie teacher pay and evaluations to student test scores? If ever there was a recipe for teaching to the test, this is it!

that his Secretary of Education is proposing to evaluate teacher preparation programs by tracking the test scores of the teachers they produce?

that his administration's plan for the new version of No Child Left Behind continues to place tremendous pressure on schools attended by the poorest students, ensuring that there will still be extremely high stakes attached to these tests? This creates the most invidious inequity of all -- where students most in need of the sort of wholistic, project-based curriculum the President rightly says is the cure to boredom remain stuck in schools forced to focus on test scores.

that his Department of Education is proposing greatly expanding both the number of subjects tested, and the frequency of tests, to enable us to measure the "value" each teacher adds to their students?

President Obama, I loved the way you described the role of assessment. It should be occasional, not punitive, and used to help diagnose where students need help. What Sasha and Malia are getting is wonderful. Is there a way we could get your Department of Education's policies to align with your personal vision?

UPDATE: Someone at the press office at the Department of Education has requested that I issue a "correction" to this post, because they believe I have misinterpreted President Obama's remarks. I have submitted several questions to them that I hope will clarify these matters. I will share their answers as soon as I get them.

UPDATE 2: The press team at Dept of Ed says they will have answers soon, and asked me to hold off on posting my questions until tomorrow. Stay tuned!

What do you think? Should we invite President Obama to speak at the Save Our Schools March? How can we get Federal policies aligned with his vision?

Categories:

Duncan,

ESEA,

NCLB,

Race to the Top,

education reform,

obama,

standardized tests

My link

[Golden Gate 530]

You want to know why teachers are angry?

Rewriting the attack on teachers

[slim 1,525]

I asked my boss yesterday if he'd pay me a year's salary for working only nine months of the year.

He would not.

[Golden Gate 530]

I asked my boss yesterday if he'd pay me a year's salary for working only nine months of the year.

He would not.

So?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I asked my boss yesterday if he'd pay me a year's salary for working only nine months of the year.

He would not.

My boss asked me if I would work for a teacher's salary.

I told him I would not.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

(I'm not bitter at all, I make about 80k a year in the waste and recycling industry for a public/private enterprise.)

You can thank a union for getting that kind of pay for that kind of work.

[B_J 2,752]

Just thought I'd add a few numbers to the discussion.

I've worked at three different school districts; all in Texas. I taught a few years at a small rural school where the district paid the state minimum. So, for those interested in teacher salaries, here's an example. The minimum salary for a first year teacher is $27,320. This progresses each year so that after 20 years, the teacher will max out at a salary of $44,270. Never quite made it to the national average of 48K.

I'm currently working at an urban school where I get paid quite a bit more. However, it is a very different environment. After 17 years of teaching experience, I made around $56,000 this year. Of course, the only way I made this much was by teaching night school and by teaching summer school. So, I didn't get the 6.5 hour day, it was more of a 10 hour day, with the same amount of work to take home after the school day. And I didn't have the 3 months of vacation; I had 4 weeks. But of course, those weeks also include any workshops I attend; so it's not necessariy free time.

And by the way, I invite anybody who criticizes teachers to sub at an inner city school for one day. Let me know how it goes; if you're able to finish the day.

[Golden Gate 530]

"And by the way, I invite anybody who criticizes teachers to sub at an inner city school for one day. Let me know how it goes; if you're able to finish the day."

Edited August 4, 2011 by Golden Gate

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Just thought I'd add a few numbers to the discussion.

I've worked at three different school districts; all in Texas. I taught a few years at a small rural school where the district paid the state minimum. So, for those interested in teacher salaries, here's an example. The minimum salary for a first year teacher is $27,320. This progresses each year so that after 20 years, the teacher will max out at a salary of $44,270. Never quite made it to the national average of 48K.

I'm currently working at an urban school where I get paid quite a bit more. However, it is a very different environment. After 17 years of teaching experience, I made around $56,000 this year. Of course, the only way I made this much was by teaching night school and by teaching summer school. So, I didn't get the 6.5 hour day, it was more of a 10 hour day, with the same amount of work to take home after the school day. And I didn't have the 3 months of vacation; I had 4 weeks. But of course, those weeks also include any workshops I attend; so it's not necessariy free time.

And by the way, I invite anybody who criticizes teachers to sub at an inner city school for one day. Let me know how it goes; if you're able to finish the day.

I don't understand how teachers have become the punching bag of the nation and how they're being made responsible for lack of student achievement while being stripped of authority and the tools to teach effectively. They're being forced to teach to stupid tests and then they're blamed for the failure of this stupid strategy. It's insanity.

[Nagishkaw 510]

So?

[kytwell 179]

Thanks to whichever union it is that got me my salary. Unfortunately we're not unionized here. But I know the argument that they got us weekends off, 8hr workday(or in teacher's cases 6.5hr days) and current salaries. I am not anti union and not sure any of my posts inferred that I was.

Golden Gate, If I understand correctly your position is that you don't mind what the pay is. What you don't like is that administrators and principals with greater responsibility get paid more. Qualifier on the greater responsibility, it is easier to fire a principal or Superintendent in an under performing school or district than it is a tenured teacher.

I agree to a point that there are issues with the public education system here in America. With the exceptions of teachers are underpaid, thankless job(At least around these parts all kid's bring in a thank you note and gift for the teacher at the end of the year) or overworked. I would prefer to see us parent's marching stating what they want for their kids, rather than teacher's. It is hard for most folks in this area to conjure up any sympathy for them and their predicament. My focus on money is because it is one of the biggest gripes of teacher's(not yours though Golden gate), is that they're underpaid. So I presented what the teacher's make in and around the areas I am familiar with and simultaneously presented facts counter to the myth that there aren't teaching jobs open, because they've all been cut or eliminated. I didn't say Bucks county as a whole, I said specifically Bensalem.

For a long time teachers were underpaid, that is not the case today in 2011 in Pennsylvania.

Why is it that we got the No Child Left Behind act? There had to be some catalyst for it, it wasn't just dreamed of one night and enacted the next day unilaterally(bi partisan support). Why do we have standardized testing? And as far as my understanding of the act is that States do not have to comply with NCLB, as long as they are willing to forgo the federal funding that comes with it. So maybe the teachers could lobby in their own state to have it done away with it and since the job isn't about money they won't mind taking a pay cut as the federal money will dry up...