My thanks to Susan R. for making some excellent points and touching on most of the themes integral to water cooler commentary surrounding teacher compensation. I absolutely agree with her observation that my "Cash Money" entry seemed to find me "wallowing in a wee bit o' self pity."
I assure you all, however, that I did my homework; I'm just now getting around to whining about it.
First, pay was one of the three primary reasons I did not enter the teaching profession in my twenties. Now, with my pension, I can afford to teach because I like teaching. I am not concerned about my salary, but like Susan, watch as a pauper's compensation package drives away many highly competent people.
Second, my own Air Force colleagues' were skeptical of my post-military career choice. Why would I want to give up a lucrative contracting or GS gig? I served in the intelligence field for the last 13 years of my service, held a TS/SCI clearance, was professionally well-regarded, and had enough connections with active and retired Air Force officers and SNCOs to be able to land a job somewhere for at least twice my current teaching salary.
Third, I still chose to teach. Why? For all the intangible reasons every teacher who stays in the profession claims as his or her own: the joy of watching young people grow intellectually, emotionally, and socially. Unfortunately, there are teachers who do not have my choice or my access to Uncle Sam's back pocket. They entered the field with high hopes and a drive to teach and are now working hard in a field many people outside the profession consider to be a pretty easy way to make money. Teachers, like many others in jobs with little hope of meaningful advancement and faced with the same grinding schedule year after year, opt out or burn out and trudge forward, counting the years until retirement like so many inmates scratching tallies on concrete walls. Maybe society can survive a deadening of employee spirit in some sectors but I would argue that unless public education systems work toward a corporate model we will not move significantly forward no matter how many standardized tests we give. Principals need flexibility over compensation packages, they need to be able to headhunt and poach from schools, and they need to be able to develop more innovative ways to gauge teacher effectiveness and student achievement.
Lastly, I welcome all grammar, spelling, and punctuation nitpickers. I have yet to draft or publish an error-free piece of writing.
7 comments:
Retired Chief Rice,
I salute you (correctly, of course) and your blogs! I admire your career selection and your desire to teach.
Your reference to using a "corporate" model, however, made me shiver. I served my time in that life-sucking, morally-corrupt (albeit financially rewarding), prison for over 20 years.
Rare it was to find something to admire (I can hear Yoda speaking). Yes, yes, to the dark side they have gone...
Please cherry-pick the good ideas that you mentioned from the corporate world--but please, please, don't wish its "model" on a school system in dire need of "remodeling".
P.S. - I only wished to not have my response displayed for your students to critique, not to offend your abilities!
Thank you for the salute and the compliment.
Every human endeavor has it's "dark" side just as those outside these endeavors usually only see, through ignorance or "selective" vision, the good aspects. In any case, I am in no position to actually do anything, much as an out-of-shape football fan is in no position to execute the plays he so vehemently chastises coaches and players for failing.
I didn't know one could choose not to have responses displayed. YOuresponse was brought up by my daughter just by checking out my blog. She does not have any special permissions and sees all my blog entries just as any casual surfer would.
Also, I don't think my students have seen this. At least none have told me they've seen it. Most of them spend hours on MySpace and perhaps Gaia and see them as the cornerstones of the on-line universe. They are unfamiliar with most news outlets or ways of finding out credible information on-line, as evidenced by the questions I get regarding my oft-used teaching aids gleaned from PBS, NPR, a variety of news outlets, and a few federal, state, and local agencies.
I think Susan was referring to having her blog put up on the over head for a warm up exercise. Just a guess.
Thank you, Lori...that indeed was my fear...
...and Kurt, we are all in a position to "do something about it"...in fact, you already are!
Let's start a populist movement to change the public school system... (instead of "waiting on the world to change" as John Mayer's song lyrics say...)
Any one feel like tilting at windmills?
The root of the financial problem with public education is inadequate involvement by eligible voters. If a substantial quantity of eligible voters would strongly make their voices heard at all requisite levels of government and its school districts, elected representatives would be pressed to allocate proper funding to improve the intellectual training of our young people. Voters must also hold school districts accountable to further ensure proper fiscal management.
Unfortunately, citizens make the latter easier said than done. The key obstacle to overcome remains citizen self-marginalization: those who need the most can't or don't empower themselves by uniformly demanding higher standards of elected officials. Parents either lack the self-confidence and knowledge to challenge those in power or they perpetuate the 'whatEVVVer' attitude of the adolescents that unwittingly suffer at the hands of a lousy school system. Indeed, parents' lack of political participation perpetuates the problems of our educational system.
An unfortunate enabler of our educational failures was the U.S. Supreme Court decision in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, cited as 411 U.S. 1, which validated the economically discriminatory means of public school funding. The 1973 case permitted a state to allocate more money to schools in wealthier areas whose residents were able to pay more money in taxes. Blighted areas will continue to have the poorest schools b/c the state has a rational basis for distributing the funds. Essentially, the case made it extremely difficult to achieve a uniform quality of education in the U.S.. The net result of the decision entrenched the inequities of the system and made political action and involvement the only means to raising the quality of educatonal services provided to an ever-increasing number of pupils (in so much as quality is determined by funding).
That being said, allocating more money toward an inadequate educational system is not, alone, a solution. In addition to students and parents, teachers, too, must be held accountable. School districts and teachers' unions must agree to define proper standards of instruction and they must be willing--under political pressure--to implement those standards. That is, construct a proper curriculum for a given subject matter for a particular age group: identify a reasonable amount of homework necessary to create a critically-thinking person; specify the quantity and quality of essays a student must write per unit time, and so on. The goal is not only to train the minds of the students, but also to augment the professional accountability of the teachers. Unions should not shield from accountability those teachers who fail to dedicate themselves to the profession.
Yet teachers should not be blamed unnecessarily for the failures of the system. The problems are multi-dimensional and so must be the solutions. More money would be a good place to start, but as funding increases, so must accountability for all concerned.
An indispensable reference book for writing, grammar and punctuation:
Title: The Elements of Style
Authors: Strunk and White (note: this is E.B. White, who penned Charlotte's Web)
There is a new addition called The Elements of Style, Illustrated. I haven't used this version, but the 4th edition, above, is short and quick to the point, with good examples. It's a reputation-saver. Perhaps your substitute teacher could/should have used such a text.
Good points all. Most telling is bleem's closing comments on the multi-dimensional nature of the educational problem set. Like any complex structure, failure is rarely the result of a single, easily identifiable fault.
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