No Respect for Teachers in the USA. Why?

America's school systems are funded by the 50 states. In this fiery talk, Bill Gates says that state budgets are riddled with accounting tricks that disguise the true cost of health care and pensions and weighted with worsening deficits -- with the financing of education at the losing end.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_how_state_budgets_are_breaking_us_schools.html

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Many good/interesting posts on this thread.

Finn, yours too, though I balked at the end. While I balked, I don't know enough about that collective bargaining except that there is ferocious wrangling. I don't know enough about it, not because I haven't read articles pro and con and sideways re the wrangling, and years of miscellaneous articles about what new teaching fad or even new wisdom crops up. I just don't have answers.

I know how much a teacher's enthusiasm can sometimes make a big difference. Other times, I know it is cause for student mockery, and so on. Student dynamics are another whole subject, with resentment kind of an underground river, self hatred or at least self doubt. Lots of sticky stuff.

Years ago, I took a course in bacterial cell physiology. Maybe twenty students. Enthusiastic teacher. I remember his name, Rafael Martinez. His own research was on bacterial flagella. Not, you know, something that would ordinarily grab my interest. What I do remember is that I studied hard for that class and did well. His real interest transferred..

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@littlek,

That makes sense, k. At least re the bubble and environs.

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@littlek,

littlek wrote:

I don't get angry when I compare my wages to ALL professions! I get angry when I compare my salary to fields where I perceive the employees to have less education and less responsibility than I.

How odd that professional educators so highly value formal education.

Of course the system reinforces this bias by making the achievement of advanced degrees as one of the primary criteria for increased salary.

Education, however obtained, is a wonderful thing, but it certainly isn't a guarantee of excellence or even competence.

In which fields do employees with less education and less responsibility get paid more than you. Which are the ones that particularly anger you?

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@ossobuco,

Collective bargaining wouldn't last very long if the entire collective didn't benefit from it...including the lazy and incompetent.

There is very little opportunity for an excellent teacher to receive compensation commensurate with his or her skills and work ethic, because that would require the dregs to lose. I guess it's quite noble that excellent teachers are willing to sacrifice their economic leverage for the sake of their weaker cousins, but I wish they would stop complaining about the results of the pact they have made.

If you want your pay to reflect how good you are, you can't protect your co-workers who stink.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I see your point, easily actually. I think this will come down to how to figure out which teachers stink. I assume there are entrenched foes on that issue, especially complicated with testing testing and testing as the simple and prime standard.

I'm not sure where I stand on testing. We were tested six days from sunday; if anything, too damned much, but not from any standard the school was issued (I'm talking re what I call elementary school, 1-8).

I've whined in the past on a2k about my 1-12 years of, yes, catholic school, being too rote oriented. Few if any of us learned to argue at all, which was mirrored in our homes... leaving us who ended up at a public university somewhat gobsmacked.

All that rote was useful in it's timeworn way and I understand those who want to go back to that somewhat. Still, I think learning how to explore, question, learn, question again, not to mention becoming acquainted with syllogistic reasoning, should occur much earlier than I ran into those.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Collective bargaining wouldn't last very long if the entire collective didn't benefit from it...including the lazy and incompetent.

That used to sometimes be the case when 1 out of 3 American workers were in a union. As Unions have shrunk, so has their patience with non-productive members. The Transit Unions here in the city do not automatically oppose the firing of union members IF it can be shown that the member is a gold brick.
The Police and Fire Unions stand by their members 100% through the process, but let it be known that they prefer that the fired member find employment in another city or another profession.
There has been, at least here, a rebirth of the Guild mentality; that a strong union needs to be comprised of the best workers, the cream of the craftspersons, that when such a Union approaches the bargaining table, it knows that the cost of replacing such workers far exceeds any other cost.
Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot that needs to be done in reforming union behavior (like every retiree applying for full disability out on Long Island. Idiots.)

Joe(A worker opposing a union would be like a fullback telling the offensive line "Take a break on the next series of downs."Nation

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@Joe Nation,

Great answer, joe.

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Not all that long ago, a friend decided to go for being a substitute teacher. A bunch of us met him as our building electrician when we moved into a certain great studio as subletters. After a day he was part of the conversation round about. Turns out he is a good short story writer and wit. More recently, he was getting tired of crawling under houses (crawlspaces are prevalent in our old area) and was interested in engaging with kids, thought he could help. This meant he had to pay his long problematic library fine and thus have actually graduated. (laughing..)

Last time I was in LA I missed running into him by about an hour, but people told me he was still electricianing.
I figure he butted up against the system.

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@Joe Nation,

great post.

My dad was an early union guy. Was at a union meeting the night of my birth (film editors).

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@Joe Nation,

Quote:

(like every retiree applying for full disability out on Long Island. Idiots.)

the fault is not with the people who apply, it is with the people who approve..

Quote:

Virtually every career employee — as many as 97 percent in one recent year — applies for and gets disability payments soon after retirement, a computer analysis of federal records by The New York Times has found. Since 2000, those records show, about a quarter of a billion dollars in federal disability money has gone to former L.I.R.R. employees, including about 2,000 who retired during that time.

The L.I.R.R.’s disability rate suggests it is one of the nation’s most dangerous places to work. Yet in four of the last five years, the railroad has won national awards for improving worker safety.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/nyregion/21lirr.html

which is the Railroad Retirement Board, a branch of our Federal Government. If the Government is going to give away free money you cant really fault people for taking it, can you? It is the responsibility of we the taxpayers to shut down the give away of our money to people who dont deserve it.

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Quote:

No Respect for Teachers in the USA. Why?

I have usually regarded teachers the same as other people, qua "Respect".

I have never been a professional teacher, but over the years,
decades and centuries, I have been (on seldom occasions)
asked to give a class on one thing or another.

I was simply matter-of-fact in explaining the requested information,
the same as if someone asked me: "which way is North?"

It never occurred to me that I shoud be awarded any special,
above average respect for my doing so.

David

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@littlek,

Kris...can I ask what a teacher's salary is in the US?

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If you would agree that mankind has made a terrible mess of things,
And also agree to the old adage: We are what we are taught,
Then education is to blame.
Education reformation anyone?

=

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@dlowan,

There's a difference in salary depending on where the school is located, are there any union affiliations, public vs. private school, level of education...both of the teacher and the grade level being taught. There's not a standard salary set by the Feds. (well other than a required minimum wage). The disparity is of several thousand dollars.

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If I am asked to give a class on something,
by what reasoning shoud I be awarded above average respect, if I comply ?

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When I presented information,
I knew for a FACT that my audience
actually WANTED to know it.

I never kidnapped any children
and then expected them to RESPECT me for it.

David

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@dlowan,

What Sturgis said.

Ball park guess would be anywhere between 30,000 and 90,000 per year.

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@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

There has been, at least here, a rebirth of the Guild mentality; that a strong union needs to be comprised of the best workers, the cream of the craftspersons, that when such a Union approaches the bargaining table, it knows that the cost of replacing such workers far exceeds any other cost.

That really seems to apply more to the building trades than elsewhere. They're a little different in many ways, not least of which are their apprenticeship programs. I've known contractors who actually favored union labor simply because they knew they were getting some minimum level of competence.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

Joe Nation wrote:

There has been, at least here, a rebirth of the Guild mentality; that a strong union needs to be comprised of the best workers, the cream of the craftspersons, that when such a Union approaches the bargaining table, it knows that the cost of replacing such workers far exceeds any other cost.

That really seems to apply more to the building trades than elsewhere. They're a little different in many ways, not least of which are their apprenticeship programs. I've known contractors who actually favored union labor simply because they knew they were getting some minimum level of competence.

When I was in the sheet metal workers' union, they damn sure required you to know what you were doing before getting classified at a higher level. Our rep used to go on and on about how 'you knew what you were getting when you went with the 54's.'

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

No Respect for Teachers in the USA. Why?

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