Why does America hate its teachers?

[smitbret]

I blame teachers unions. How much sway do they have in South Korea?

QFT

Teachers suffer from the same PR problems as policemen. There are a few bad ones that get protected and special treatment (by the union) and it drags down all of them. It's a high profile job where you spend your time being watched by the public and when a teacher screws up, the first thought is "What's going on at that school?" and the rest of the good teachers get lumped in with the bad ones.

The Unions are too fat and lazy to attempt to undertand this.

 

[Dannar26]

I highly doubt it's the teachers, or their unions (which admittedly don't help).

It's the crap people this nation produces. Spoiled little kids. Gangsters. They're so easily riled into violence and loot as soon as they can. It's BS. You can't expect a teacher to educate a little waste of life like that.

It's the parents. They need to be taken out of the equation, not subsidized. Domestic relations and courts need to stop legislating and fining fathers out of the picture, while promoting a "winner take all" for all the worthless single mothers out there.

It's harsh and unpopular, but true. There is a sickness, and our laws make it worse under the guise of trying to help.

 

[Dannar26]

Yes, the parents fail at home on their part so they expect the teacher to be the parent.
So naturally the parent blames the teacher for the parenting failures.
And to make it worse, when a teacher does have a positive effect on a child, a life lesson that the parent should be the one learning, the parent feels the teacher has crossed the line and again blames the teacher for making their child more society friendly.
Like if the parent is openly anti gay or anti black, and the child comes home from school telling mom she needs to rethink the bigotry, guess who the parent is going to go after for the child's attitude change?
Lets face it, the good seldom rubs off, but the bad always rubs off.
If the parent is a bigot, they fully expect the child to also follow in their footsteps.

When the child is exposed to racial diversity and social diversity in the class room, the parent is not going to like that change in their child.
For gods sake... their white daughter might even want to date a black boy.
Or Billy may decide to come out to mom and dad that he is gay.
So who gets blamed? The teacher.
It's a lose lose situation for every teacher.
Teachers are not the issue of failure, it is and has always been the parent.
More so in today's world where the parent just doesn't have the time or energy to spend quality time with their child.
Hell, says the parent, that's why I pay taxes to send my kid to school.

And so the lowlife redneck parent thinks it is just fine and dandy for Billy to fight and cause mischief. Helps make him a man, as it were. And how dare that teacher have an opinion that goes against the parent wishes. How dare that teacher call out the child or the parent when Billy is obviously headed for major jail time one day.
Old mom rather stay drunk and passed out.
And just blame the teacher for their child's actions.

Exactly.

 

[squarecut1]

It's better than being incapable of feeling any kind of emotion (see: Koreans).

Good point. Chinese too

 

[Engineer]

Yes, the parents fail at home on their part so they expect the teacher to be the parent.

This.

/thread

 

[unokitty]

S. Korean households spending 3 times OECD average on public education

Could it have something to do with South Korean families valuing education more than US families?

Uno

 

[compcons]

1. They are union members. And the teacher's unions are among the worst.
2. They take advantage of tax payers.
3. Tax payers have to pay for their retirement and health care.
4. They complain about being under paid. However if they only work two thirds of the days that other professionals do, they should expect two thirds of the pay.

Not that I disagree with the statements, but can you justify them? It seems a little "fox news-y" when you make a statement like "bread is bad" just because it's an opinion and you don't want to do the work to justify it. Why do you feel teachers unions are "bad", how do they "take advantage of tax payers", etc?

As for the more tangible statements:

Teachers do have pensions and I am not sure why that is bad. You have a 401k because your employer provides it as an incentive and may even match your contribution to it. The employers (states) also provide a retirement benefits to their employees. I am not sure how that is a bad thing. I know my 401k is worth a f-ck of a lot more than most teachers so I won't hate on them for having what I also have.

They are in fact paid for 2/3rd the work. Most teachers come out of school at about $30k a year (http://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/ - note that this might be skewed to some degree, but look it up yourself). Doing some really simple math, that's about $45k for someone with a 4 year degree. That does not seem out of whack as they seem to always be in demand.

As far as 6 figure salaries are concerned the statistics might help clarify that. Teachers are REQUIRED to maintain an education themselves in most states. So, when you start laying out nonsense like "6 figure salaries are BS", you are talking about a group of people who over their 30 years of education must attain masters degrees and pHDs. So, I would EXPECT someone with a masters degree to make almost 6 figures and someone with pHD to exceed 6 figures. Since the group of people are statistically not "new", we will see a lot of people who have continuing education under their belt. Therefore, we will see salaraies commensurate with advanced degrees (the sample of people are necessarily skewed at a higher salary). It's like lawyers and doctors. As groups, they must attain higher education in order to do their jobs. So as a group, they make more money.

They are also in demand and they also do things that most people can't or wont do. And before someone spouts I "I can be a teacher" go try it for a few months and see how it feels. It seems quite unpleasant to me. (In many states, you can sub with just a degree in anything so give it a go). I don't teach and I never have. I did corporate training for 2 months as an instructor. Every day I was wiped out. It made me want to go back into the plant and do physical labor since that was easier. Doing something is less taxing than teaching someone how to do something. Especially when those people are kids who think they know everything (I do have two teenage girls and they can be a pain in the ass!).

See how that works? Try not to make blanket statements without some logic behind it or facts. In the end, this is a debate. It's not about winning or losing, but how you make your arguments. If you still think teachers are awful and make too much money, your opinion is clearly overriding your logic and it wont be changed. Don't hate on someone because you were too stupid to finish school and get a degree in something that makes you money. That's what we call "personal responsibility". Go teach if it's so damn easy and they make so much money.

EH

 

[Jumpem]

Not that I disagree with the statements, but can you justify them? It seems a little "fox news-y" when you make a statement like "bread is bad" just because it's an opinion and you don't want to do the work to justify it. Why do you feel teachers unions are "bad", how do they "take advantage of tax payers", etc?

As for the more tangible statements:

Teachers do have pensions and I am not sure why that is bad. You have a 401k because your employer provides it as an incentive and may even match your contribution to it. The employers (states) also provide a retirement benefits to their employees. I am not sure how that is a bad thing. I know my 401k is worth a f-ck of a lot more than most teachers so I won't hate on them for having what I also have.

They are in fact paid for 2/3rd the work. Most teachers come out of school at about $30k a year (http://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/ - note that this might be skewed to some degree, but look it up yourself). Doing some really simple math, that's about $45k for someone with a 4 year degree. That does not seem out of whack as they seem to always be in demand.

As far as 6 figure salaries are concerned the statistics might help clarify that. Teachers are REQUIRED to maintain an education themselves in most states. So, when you start laying out nonsense like "6 figure salaries are BS", you are talking about a group of people who over their 30 years of education must attain masters degrees and pHDs. So, I would EXPECT someone with a masters degree to make almost 6 figures and someone with pHD to exceed 6 figures. Since the group of people are statistically not "new", we will see a lot of people who have continuing education under their belt. Therefore, we will see salaraies commensurate with advanced degrees (the sample of people are necessarily skewed at a higher salary). It's like lawyers and doctors. As groups, they must attain higher education in order to do their jobs. So as a group, they make more money.

They are also in demand and they also do things that most people can't or wont do. And before someone spouts I "I can be a teacher" go try it for a few months and see how it feels. It seems quite unpleasant to me. (In many states, you can sub with just a degree in anything so give it a go). I don't teach and I never have. I did corporate training for 2 months as an instructor. Every day I was wiped out. It made me want to go back into the plant and do physical labor since that was easier. Doing something is less taxing than teaching someone how to do something. Especially when those people are kids who think they know everything (I do have two teenage girls and they can be a pain in the ass!).

See how that works? Try not to make blanket statements without some logic behind it or facts. In the end, this is a debate. It's not about winning or losing, but how you make your arguments. If you still think teachers are awful and make too much money, your opinion is clearly overriding your logic and it wont be changed. Don't hate on someone because you were too stupid to finish school and get a degree in something that makes you money. That's what we call "personal responsibility". Go teach if it's so damn easy and they make so much money.

EH

They take advantage of tax payers by forcing us to pay for their retirement and health care in retirement. Private companies can have all of the pensions they want, as they are not forcing others to pay for them.

You showed that they are paid two thirds of others. The problem is that teachers never stop complaining that they should be more. All coming from the local home owner's.

Teacher's are also no longer in demand. Around here school districts are contracting and laying off teacher's trying to keep their yearly budgets from going up even more.

Also, I don't see why you don't think I don't have a degree. I do, and I make a fine living.

 

[Mixolydian]

Because they suck.

Well not them specifically, the educational system as a whole.

 

[nehalem256]

I think it comes down to 2 reasons

(1) If your kids are failing you have pretty much 3 people to blame. Yourself, your kid, or the teacher. Guess who gets picked?

(2) American's don't like taxes. An awful lot of tax money goes into education.

 

[mmntech]

I've gone though the reasons why I hate teachers. Of course Ontario is a little different than the US is.
1. They get paid way too much for the job they do
2. They're lazy and treat kids who are struggling as a hopeless cause rather than providing extra help.
3. A lot of them, I'd say the vast majority, just don't give a shit. Can't even be bothered to keep their skills up to date.
4. Their union bosses are even bigger cock suckers. Makes it impossible to fire teachers who are doing a crappy job. They're also the big reason why we've had this same shitty government in Ontario for the last decade. Province is being run into the ground so they can get slightly richer.

As I've said many times, the whole western public education system is fundamentally flawed, and is failing our kids. Which I think everybody knows, but nobody wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Throwing more money at the problem is not going to fix things.

 

[Jumpem]

I think it comes down to 2 reasons

(1) If your kids are failing you have pretty much 3 people to blame. Yourself, your kid, or the teacher. Guess who gets picked?

(2) American's don't like taxes. An awful lot of tax money goes into education.

If we stopped funding teacher's retirements and had them use a 401k instead school property taxes would drop by a considerable amount.

 

[Fritzo]

Teachers suck! Who needs 'em? The people that deserve millions of dollars a year are the semi-illiterate punks that are able to move some sort of ball from point A to point B faster than anyone else. Now THOSE are the people that help society and deserve big bucks!

 

[waggy]

You showed that they are paid two thirds of others. The problem is that teachers never stop complaining that they should be more.

Teacher's are also no longer in demand

LOL I know nobody that goes hell i make just enough. no i don't want a raise.

sure teachers work 9 months a year. GOOD teachers though stay 1-2 hours after class and before class, GOOD teachers work at home grading papers, GOOD teachers are the ones fielding phone calls at night about questions.

a good teacher is well worth the pay. problem is we don't have very many good teachers.

The biggest negative we have in teaching is the Union and bureaucracy. It also does not help having the government meddling in the school saying how they are to teach and what to serve for lunch.

 

[waggy]

I think it comes down to 2 reasons

(1) If your kids are failing you have pretty much 3 people to blame. Yourself, your kid, or the teacher. Guess who gets picked?

(2) American's don't like taxes. An awful lot of tax money goes into education.

1) yeah. i do agree far to many parents b lame the teacher. Though saying that we have far to many teachers that should not be teaching.

2) sure does. also a good portion of that money goes into bullshit things.


more people should look into how many are running the school. how much taxpayer money is going to people having "super" jobs. etc.

 

[compcons]

They take advantage of tax payers by forcing us to pay for their retirement and health care in retirement. Private companies can have all of the pensions they want, as they are not forcing others to pay for them.

You showed that they are paid two thirds of others. The problem is that teachers never stop complaining that they should be more. All coming from the local home owner's.

Teacher's are also no longer in demand. Around here school districts are contracting and laying off teacher's trying to keep their yearly budgets from going up even more.

So you want to have your public schools work for free then? Perhaps you don't want to pay for the roads you drive on or the other state/government services? Now for people who send kids to private schools (who don't take state funds) and still pay for schools is a different debate. That part is messed up.

This is you as an individual trying to say how your tax money for educator pay is allocated. So instead of paying the teacher a higher salary, they stick the money in a fund to have it grow faster for retirement. Its called an employee benefit. Same concept as that 401k. Most "non-crappy" jobs have them, so quit bitching about it. Any ideas on how much money goes into a pension? Is it $500 a month, $5000 a month? Maybe look into that so you know how much more a teacher could be getting in salary if they put the money into a pension. Its called total compensation.

Now if your state blows hard and doesn't know how to manage the pension and has overspent and now runs a deficit, take it up with the state. That's not the teachers or the unions problems. It's shitty state legislators.

Have you EVER met anyone who doesn't complain about how much they make or how much they work? The fact that your tax money pays the salary has nothing to do with it. As humans, we bitch about pay and work. We also complain about roads (which are oddly enough a service provided by government) being closed for maintenance. Its a fact of life.

The fact that they are letting teachers go is not a sign of demand. It's a sign of the state trying to control spending. They get rid of high paying people and get new ones it t a lower salary. Don't try to make one equate the other. If I fired 50% of the teachers in a school to save money, I would be running a personnel deficit instead of a money deficit. I would also have a really hard time providing quality education with 60 kids in a classroom.

EH

 

[Jumpem]

So you want to have your public schools work for free then? Perhaps you don't want to pay for the roads you drive on or the other state/government services? Now for people who send kids to private schools (who don't take state funds) and still pay for schools is a different debate. That part is messed up.

This is you as an individual trying to say how your tax money for educator pay is allocated. So instead of paying the teacher a higher salary, they stick the money in a fund to have it grow faster for retirement. Its called an employee benefit. Same concept as that 401k. Most "non-crappy" jobs have them, so quit bitching about it. Any ideas on how much money goes into a pension? Is it $500 a month, $5000 a month? Maybe look into that so you know how much more a teacher could be getting in salary if they put the money into a pension. Its called total compensation.

Now if your state blows hard and doesn't know how to manage the pension and has overspent and now runs a deficit, take it up with the state. That's not the teachers or the unions problems. It's shitty state legislators.

Have you EVER met anyone who doesn't complain about how much they make or how much they work? The fact that your tax money pays the salary has nothing to do with it. As humans, we bitch about pay and work. We also complain about roads (which are oddly enough a service provided by government) being closed for maintenance. Its a fact of life.

The fact that they are letting teachers go is not a sign of demand. It's a sign of the state trying to control spending. They get rid of high paying people and get new ones it t a lower salary. Don't try to make one equate the other. If I fired 50% of the teachers in a school to save money, I would be running a personnel deficit instead of a money deficit. I would also have a really hard time providing quality education with 60 kids in a classroom.

EH

They are letting teachers go, and simply not replacing them. There may be younger teachers being hired, but the overall numbers of staff are down. Districts are also closing school buildings and consolidating in many local districts.

 

[compcons]

I've gone though the reasons why I hate teachers. Of course Ontario is a little different than the US is.
1. They get paid way too much for the job they do
2. They're lazy and treat kids who are struggling as a hopeless cause rather than providing extra help.
3. A lot of them, I'd say the vast majority, just don't give a shit. Can't even be bothered to keep their skills up to date.
4. Their union bosses are even bigger cock suckers. Makes it impossible to fire teachers who are doing a crappy job. They're also the big reason why we've had this same shitty government in Ontario for the last decade. Province is being run into the ground so they can get slightly richer.

As I've said many times, the whole western public education system is fundamentally flawed, and is failing our kids. Which I think everybody knows, but nobody wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Throwing more money at the problem is not going to fix things.

I'm not refuting your points, but these seem like VERY broad generalizations. unless you an atest to more than 1% of the teachers in Ontario, i would say your arguments/statements are completely invalid.


I do like the final statement and the one about firing crappy people. Our education system SUCKS! It needs fixing. I don't know how to do that though.

Fundamentally, there needs to be a tactical shift in how crappy employees are handled. If someone isn't good, they should be fired. It's simple right? Unfortunately, tying metrics to teacher performance is difficult. How do you rate them? Test scores, parent feedback, graduation rate? All can be skewed to fit the need. Test scores are a perfect example. Schools will focus on standardized tests just to get the rate they need. Teachers could do the same to meet the goal of x% on some test. That said, in high school, we focused all year on preparing for the advanced placement tests in accelerated courses. The upside was that the placement tests were super broad covering a lot of topics. if you did well on the AP test, you did well for almost all of the subject content. Creating standardized testing that can range from a "box of rocks" to a genius would be almost impossible. I dont recall who implemented "no child left behind" but that shit is wrong! See what happens when politicians think they have real jobs?

EH

 

[Mai72]

I've gone though the reasons why I hate teachers. Of course Ontario is a little different than the US is.
1. They get paid way too much for the job they do
2. They're lazy and treat kids who are struggling as a hopeless cause rather than providing extra help.
3. A lot of them, I'd say the vast majority, just don't give a shit. Can't even be bothered to keep their skills up to date.
4. Their union bosses are even bigger cock suckers. Makes it impossible to fire teachers who are doing a crappy job. They're also the big reason why we've had this same shitty government in Ontario for the last decade. Province is being run into the ground so they can get slightly richer.

As I've said many times, the whole western public education system is fundamentally flawed, and is failing our kids. Which I think everybody knows, but nobody wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Throwing more money at the problem is not going to fix things.

Like things are any better out here in the East? I taught 1st graders at one of the lovely government schools in Thailand last week. We started the morning with the King's song. Next, the children had to sit out in the searing heat while chanting some type of Buddhist prayer. This lasted for 45 minutes!

Class was even worse. I had 43 children and they were just out of control. It was like I walked into a 1950s American classroom. The desk were old and worn. The Thai teacher had a large wooden ruler and she would whack the children in the head if they acted out. She also loved to scream at them.

If you have a disability in Asia you're screwed. If you're poor you're f*cked. If you can't keep up with the other students, you don't stand a chance. At least in America we make the effort to teach everyone. It doesn't matter if you're poor, minority, and have a disability.

 

[MrPickins]

They take advantage of tax payers by forcing us to pay for their retirement and health care in retirement. Private companies can have all of the pensions they want, as they are not forcing others to pay for them.

Government jobs should not have retirement plans or health care?

What caliber of employee are you trying to attract?

You showed that they are paid two thirds of others. The problem is that teachers never stop complaining that they should be more. All coming from the local home owner's.

As Waggy mentioned, everybody wants to be paid more.

Also, I don't see why you don't think I don't have a degree. I do, and I make a fine living.

And you'd have no degree if it wasn't for a group of teachers who educated you.

 

[MrPickins]

They are letting teachers go, and simply not replacing them. There may be younger teachers being hired, but the overall numbers of staff are down. Districts are also closing school buildings and consolidating in many local districts.

Yeah, because they are trying to control spending in the face of budget shortfalls.

You know what the end result will be? Poorly educated students.

 

[Mai72]

I don't know if you guys know this but a great portion of educational spending goes to children with disabilities. It's expensive to take care and educate children with mild, moderate and severe disabilities. By law states have to educate the disabled. They always try to skirt the law because they don't want to pay.

 

[Jumpem]

Government jobs should not have retirement plans or health care?

What caliber of employee are you trying to attract?




As Waggy mentioned, everybody wants to be paid more.




And you'd have no degree if it wasn't for a group of teachers who educated you.

They shouldn't have retirements funded by the tax payer. Government employees should fund their own retirements via self contributions like most everyone else.

Everyone wants to be paid more. It doesn't mean they deserve to be.

 

[Jumpem]

Yeah, because they are trying to control spending in the face of budget shortfalls.

You know what the end result will be? Poorly educated students.

And once again it is the retirement benefits to teachers no longer performing a job that are causing the budget pressures.

 

[Greenman]

Most teachers are not underpaid. Some are, but most are not.

The only work 9-10 months a year typically and receive generous pensions and benefits.

Additionally, they do not have to put up with the rat race of climbing the corporate latter or butt kissing clients.

Inner city teachers and some teachers who deal with troubled students deserve more money and more recognition, I can image how hard that is.

At my high school, the teachers admitted their job was easy. It was a wealthy high school and fights and arguments were rare, serious drugs were rare, test scores were naturally high without much teacher involvement because the students were just smarter and their parents involved. They had it easy.

This exactly describes the high school I attended. Teachers worked 8:10 until 3:10, with a lunch break. They all said it was the easiest job on earth. All of them lived in very nice homes in the better parts of town.