Obama booed by some NEA teachers

[Hash]

why teacher suck

1 they eat/sleep when we got to do f****** work
2 they epect us to do 90 pounds of homework aday
3 they plan suck balls
4 if you do something nice they F*** it up
5 they just plan suck balls
7 we have to eat lunch in 10 mins what the F***
 8 they brag how good they were in school then you find there 4th grade report card straight d s with the exeption of an F!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9 they say they never mist glass again there repot card f in behavur
10
oh irest my case they suck 10x over

I understand why that person think teachers suck. They want to make him learn to read and write like a civilized person.

[Gustaf]

There are multiple problems with education. Linking teacher pay to student results is something I'm undecided on. On the one hand, I've seen the effects of grade inflation in Sweden and that's really bad. On the other hand, I know of cases where a teacher very clearly can have a tremendous effect on the class, making me suspect that the "teacher effect" is so large that it should be incentived.

I do think there is a middle-ground here between the few people offering up serious debate in the thread. We do need to increase the status and wages of teachers, on that I'm with Torie. Al, why you are correct that people interested only in making money will never be teachers, you're over-looking that it is a sliding scale. In Sweden teachers, after many years of education and after having run up a good-sized college debt, get paid only just above what blue-collar workers get. If you want people with academic skills to go into teaching the wage-gap between what they can get in other professions cannot be too big. However, wages is not as big a part of it as is sometimes thought. The psychological status of teaching has to be raised and that has to do with a move (not all the way, mind you, but a move) towards the old hierarchy; teachers need to get some respect from students for their knowledge and merits. If they were to get respect they would start to earn it better too. The whole "teachers suck" mentality displayed on here is a big part of why people don't want to be teachers in teh first place.

Moreover, I disagree with Al that academic merits aren't important. Sure, being able to teach is important but what earns you respect from the students and what makes you able to teach at all is your actual knowledge and general intelligence. This is at least very clear to me from my own experience. I've had teachers who have been very enthusiastic and come up with all sorts of pedagogic ideas but they were, to be blunt, too dumb and knew their subject to superficially to actually teach us much in the end. The best teachers know their subject. Being abe to teach always fundamentally derives from your own knowledge of what you are teaching.

This was a rant, but I could have done worse. Education is a passionate subject for me, because of what Torie pointed out. A "liberal" in my, the European, sense of the word, society rests largely on a publicly financed education system which creates true equal opportunity. And for that to happen there are elements of left-wing dogma that must be thrown out. I'm seeing in Sweden what is happening right now with our education system. The system we used to have, from the 40s to the 70s, was standardized, centralized, equal and very good. In some respects it'sa gone era and won't return, but now the public system basically suck which leaves the disadvantaged kids on the sidewalks while the priveleged ones get by anyway through other channels. And that disgusts me.

[Sbane]

Obama taking on the teachers union.... im liking him more and more.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

We must get rid of tenure and destroy the teachers' unions.

That is the solution, the rest is really useful.  Although I highly disagree that we should pay $150k+ to people who "work" 180 days a year in most cases.

You're making the same mistake a lot of people make, that the only time that should count as "work" for a teacher is the time spent teaching to the students.  Somehow, preparing lessons, grading students, and all the other ancillary tasks expected of a teacher takes all of 0 seconds, or is so much fun, that people shouldn't be expected to be paid for it.  However, I do agree that pay is not the primary concern, rather it is the schedule.  Ideally, the school year should be 200 days, not 180, and teachers should have only 50% of their on site time allocated to classroom teaching, with the rest used for prep work, grading, parent conferences, etc.  If I had my way, here's what an average student's 2008-9 school calendar would look like:

July 28: First day of first semester
September 1: Day off for Labor Day
November 4: Day off for Election Day
November 26-28: Three days off for Thanksgiving
December 19: Last day of first semester

January 5: First day of second semester
April 6-10: Spring Break / Snow Days
May 29: Last day of second semester

Note also the lack of teacher work days.  With adequate prep time allocated, they wouldn't be needed in the middle of a school semester.

If you wish to take other holidays off, the end of the second semester and the start of the first semester would need to be moved up, but in my opinion at the primary education level (K-6), those holidays are better used as teachable moments.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Alun, what do you propose to improve the educational outcomes of lower SES students in the near to intermediate term? (Note the emphasis on the word "outcomes.")

More vocational education, more arts and activites stuff, better facilities, less testing, new or cleaned-up buildings, etc, etc. That kind of thing.

Oh, and make it easier for teachers and other staff to deal with troublemakers without fear of litigation or whatever (just to make that clear; that's not code for "allow teachers to hit children" or anything like that...)

The most serious issues can't be dealt with on a near-to-intermediate-term basis though.

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Oh, no danger of going down that route

[they don't love you like i love you]

Ideally, the school year should be 200 days, not 180

Hell no.

[Torie]

Alun, what do you propose to improve the educational outcomes of lower SES students in the near to intermediate term? (Note the emphasis on the word "outcomes.")

More vocational education, more arts and activites stuff, better facilities, less testing, new or cleaned-up buildings, etc, etc. That kind of thing.

Oh, and make it easier for teachers and other staff to deal with troublemakers without fear of litigation or whatever (just to make that clear; that's not code for "allow teachers to hit children" or anything like that...)

The most serious issues can't be dealt with on a near-to-intermediate-term basis though.

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Oh, no danger of going down that route

Putting aside vocational training for those not headed into a white collar profession, I don't see what facilities and nice buildings has to do with educational at all. I had classes in WWII army barracks. And I don't see how one can measure progress and performance without tests.  Discipline is always good. I think school uniforms are a good idea actually. Flashy clothing can be distracting. "Arts and activities" (activities = field trips?) are nice, but peripheral.

You agenda is a bit "woolly" Alun.

[Sbane]

Alun, what do you propose to improve the educational outcomes of lower SES students in the near to intermediate term? (Note the emphasis on the word "outcomes.")

More vocational education, more arts and activites stuff, better facilities, less testing, new or cleaned-up buildings, etc, etc. That kind of thing.

Oh, and make it easier for teachers and other staff to deal with troublemakers without fear of litigation or whatever (just to make that clear; that's not code for "allow teachers to hit children" or anything like that...)

The most serious issues can't be dealt with on a near-to-intermediate-term basis though.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh, no danger of going down that route

Putting aside vocational training for those not headed into a white collar profession, I don't see what facilities and nice buildings has to do with educational at all. I had classes in WWII army barracks. And I don't see how one can measure progress and performance without tests.  Discipline is always good. I think school uniforms are a good idea actually. Flashy clothing can be distracting. "Arts and activities" (activities = field trips?) are nice, but peripheral.

You agenda is a bit "woolly" Alun.

Torie what kind of standardized tests are you talking about? The SAT's are complete bullsh**t. I aced that s*** but did not learn anything. Well I learned how to take multiple choice tests but is that really necessary? The CA high school exit exam is good though. It tests at about a 10th grade level but at least it is relevant unlike the SATs. Anyone who cannot pass that test does not deserve to pass HS. That being said we need to do a much much better job teaching english in some of our inner city schools.

[Torie]

The SAT tests reading comprehension and verbal skills, and that is what it is all about. If you don't have that, you have nothing.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Ideally, the school year should be 200 days, not 180

Hell no.

Hell yes. A lot of teaching time gets wasted reteaching material forgotten over summer vacation.  A shorter summer vacation would reduce that forgetfulness.  180 days was originally a compromise between urban schools which had longer school years and rural schools which had shorter years.  Since young kids are not needed to help out on the farm any more, there really is no need to retain the shortened school year any more.  (I could see older farm kids including their farming chores as part of a vocational educational system.)  Most countries have longer academic school years than the United States.  At a bare minimum we should go for 190.  200 is what we should aim for.

[Sbane]

The SAT tests reading comprehension and verbal skills, and that is what it is all about. If you don't have that, you have nothing.

The new SAT is a bit better because they teach writing skills, but honestly it is easy as hell to ace the verbal part. I got a 710 and I suck at verbal communication. I just learned how to game the system, only possible because my parents had the extra 500 bucks to spend. The math part is not so bad and you do need actual knowledge there. See I took the test 3 times, each time I did a little bit better. I got a 700 on math each time I took it but was able to improve my verbal score each time. I accomplished that by learning how to take multiple choice tests, a luxury many cannot afford.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

A lot of teachers just suck, but it's often not their fault that their students are lazy or stupid, and so merit pay is a dumb idea. Besides, you don't learn as well if you're being taught to some dumb test.

[Nym90]

One of the things most underestimated by Americans is how difficult it is to be a good teacher and how much work the job actually involves.....much of which is unseen even to the student, much less the parent.

The fact that anyone is willing to go into the profession these days, given these facts and what it pays, is always kind of amazing to me. It truly is one of the noblest of all endeavors.

[DownWithTheLeft]

The SAT tests reading comprehension and verbal skills, and that is what it is all about. If you don't have that, you have nothing.

SATs suck, those test take so long to sit through.  And I was shooting for a goddamn 2000 and scored a 1990

[Torie]

The SAT tests reading comprehension and verbal skills, and that is what it is all about. If you don't have that, you have nothing.

The new SAT is a bit better because they teach writing skills, but honestly it is easy as hell to ace the verbal part. I got a 710 and I suck at verbal communication. I just learned how to game the system, only possible because my parents had the extra 500 bucks to spend. The math part is not so bad and you do need actual knowledge there. See I took the test 3 times, each time I did a little bit better. I got a 700 on math each time I took it but was able to improve my verbal score each time. I accomplished that by learning how to take multiple choice tests, a luxury many cannot afford.

Ya, working at test taking helps a bit. I self tested myself a zillion years ago, and did some other work, and was able to push my verbal SAT score to about 780 from 730 or so. But it still is a good test in general, even if, if those who apply themselves can push the envelop a bit. To deny that is just so sciolistic, bordering on the eristic. Heck, I learned the word lagniappe from the exercise.

[MarkWarner08]

The SAT tests reading comprehension and verbal skills, and that is what it is all about. If you don't have that, you have nothing.

The new SAT is a bit better because they teach writing skills, but honestly it is easy as hell to ace the verbal part. I got a 710 and I suck at verbal communication. I just learned how to game the system, only possible because my parents had the extra 500 bucks to spend. The math part is not so bad and you do need actual knowledge there. See I took the test 3 times, each time I did a little bit better. I got a 700 on math each time I took it but was able to improve my verbal score each time. I accomplished that by learning how to take multiple choice tests, a luxury many cannot afford.

Ya, working at test taking helps a bit. I self tested myself a zillion years ago, and did some other work, and was able to push my verbal SAT score to abut 780 from 730 or so. But it still is a good test in general, even if, if those who apply themselves can push the envelop a bit. Heck, I learned the word lagniappe from the exercise.

Nice. The most impressive SAT word I ever encountered was "persiflage."

[Torie]

persiflage, eristic, sciolistic, so many ways to put down the opposition. I love it.  I picked up eristic from Bill Buckley, but forgot the word after he used it, and called his office, and his secretary after I described the word, knew it right away.

[Sbane]

The SAT tests reading comprehension and verbal skills, and that is what it is all about. If you don't have that, you have nothing.

The new SAT is a bit better because they teach writing skills, but honestly it is easy as hell to ace the verbal part. I got a 710 and I suck at verbal communication. I just learned how to game the system, only possible because my parents had the extra 500 bucks to spend. The math part is not so bad and you do need actual knowledge there. See I took the test 3 times, each time I did a little bit better. I got a 700 on math each time I took it but was able to improve my verbal score each time. I accomplished that by learning how to take multiple choice tests, a luxury many cannot afford.

Ya, working at test taking helps a bit. I self tested myself a zillion years ago, and did some other work, and was able to push my verbal SAT score to about 780 from 730 or so. But it still is a good test in general, even if, if those who apply themselves can push the envelop a bit. To deny that is just so sciolistic, bordering on the eristic. Heck, I learned the word lagniappe from the exercise.

HAHA I do not know how much the SAT will help me in jobs and such but it certainly helps me read your posts.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The trouble with this board is that threads sink so fast that... anyway...

Putting aside vocational training for those not headed into a white collar profession,

A large majority of children from poorer backgrounds will not be headed off into the world of white collar professions.

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And I don't see how you can expect to get the most out of children (or teachers!) if classes are held in crumbling buildings, if the newest textbooks in the school were published in the early '80's etc, etc. It occurs to me that schools with better results tend not to have these sorts of problems.

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I'm not opposed to all testing; it's just that I think there's far too much of it in most education systems. There's a line between testing progress-performance-and-etc and just testing how well the children have been taught how to take tests. I don't think that schools should be exam factories.

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I prefer "practical"

[Torie]

There seems to be this assumption that assuming arguendo, that teachers are teaching to a test, that means the kids are not acquiring real skills, and the skills that they really need, ie, verbal skills, and some degree of numeracy. It has this PC patina to it, but I think it's probably little more than that. The dirty little secret is that so many teachers are drones, that they freak at the notion that someone might find out how truly mediocre they are, based on some metric, that has some objectivity to it.

[Keystone Phil]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/07/mostly-cheers-b.html?csp=34

Obama advocates merit pay and is then booed by NEA members. 

That's all I need to know. Good for him.