Job Competition Would Improve Teaching

Thanks to a friend for sending me this blog post about the teaching profession and our pay.  In it, the author makes the point that teachers are “trapped” in their positions due to the pay structure in school districts.

When I left teaching after my first 9.5 years and entered the business world, I jumped up approximately $5,000 in salary, AND I HAD NEVER WORKED IN SUCH A BUSINESS PROFESSION BEFORE!! Then, within less than 4 years, I was making approximately $10,000 more than I had been when I left teaching (and I made three lateral moves to different companies).  Furthermore, when I returned to teaching…(I bet you can guess where I’m going here)…I took a $13,000 pay cut!!!! WHY?? because upon returning to my true calling, the district would take only 5 years experience on their pay scale.

So I’m wondering whether more competition would make for better teachers or if it’s even feasible.  As it is, teachers don’t get paid fairly (my humble opinion).  There are a few good reasons why.  Not-for-profit employees are just going to get less compensation because we are tied to tax dollars.  Plus the supply exceeds the demand for teachers.  The profession pulls in some interesting candidates.  Summers off.  Early hours.  Little supervision.  I’ve seen teachers do nothing but sit at desks and read newspapers while the students read from the textbook.  Seriously?  How much skill do you need for that?

So, what if teachers’ salaries were raised $10,000 across the board?  Now, all those people who thought they couldn’t make enough money teaching would rethink their positions.  Now, more qualified people would, maybe, want to become teachers.  Schools wouldn’t have to hold on to science and math teachers for dear life.  You aren’t cutting it?  Goodbye, we have 8 people to replace you.

Too bad this is impossible.  We don’t have the money.  So I’m stuck wondering whether there are other perks that would bring a supply of more qualified teachers.  IRA matching? I’m not sure that school systems are legally allowed to do that, although I don’t know for sure.  Bonuses? I don’t know a good way to implement that system.  What other way could school systems get highly qualified professionals into the classroom?

People talk about improving teacher quality, and this would be one sure way to do it.

New School, Same Life

I would’ve thought that changing schools would’ve been a huge deal.  I mean, I was at the other school for 3 years.  I had friends there.  I knew where things were and how things were run.

The reason I left was because I didn’t like the way things were or how they were run.  In fact, most times I didn’t think the school was being run at all.  I guess the parents were running it if anybody was.  All this is to say that I’m happy here.  There are shortcomings.  I have no clue where anything is/who anybody is.  Instead of having one classroom all to myself, I have to use two classrooms.

Somehow, the students are much nicer here.  I’m not sure what it is, but it’s eerie.  They tend to listen.  I’d love to attribute it to my amazing classroom management skills, but, alas, I’m pretty sure it isn’t anything I’ve done differently.  So I take back anything bad I’ve ever said about students*.

We had to proctor PSATs the other day.  I did my best Ben Stein-from-Ferris-Bueller impersonation while reading the instructions.  For a while.  Then I did my MicroMachines speed reading thing.  I like to change it up.  It breaks the monotony of standing in that classroom for 3 hours.  There are some days when I love teaching.  Proctoring state/national exams is not one of those days.  And then they make us read to the students how they are not allowed to talk about test after it’s done.  My students couldn’t even remember what the questions were on the 3 question quiz I gave them today.  I just can’t imagine a scenario where they text their friend in Alaska “#47 on Critical Reading is C”

*Totally not true…I haven’t gone soft.

PS: We aren’t getting raises again next year!  Isn’t that wonderful?

Summertime Blues

So, in a stunning turn of events, I don’t have a job for the summer.  After picking up my laptop, going through a day of orientation, getting all the equipment necessary, I received a call last Wednesday morning informing me that not enough students signed up for summer school.  I was told that I might still have a job either at a face-to-face summer school or doing curriculum development.  I should get a phone call.  Well, summer school started today, so I guess I’m not doing that.  I haven’t gotten a phone call or an e-mail.  Just like that, my pay raise turns into a pay cut for next year.

What will I do?  Well, I do have a part-time (10 hours per week) job.  Other than that, it’s been a lot of gym, pool, sleep, read, tv, repeat.  At some point during the summer, probably closer to August, I’ll start going through the new textbook I’m using next year and make power point notes, worksheets, etc.  But school seems so far away that I can’t bring myself to do it now.  I mean, if I got it all done in July, what would I do in August??

On a personal side note, for some strange reason, grammar (especially syntax) errors in text just get to me.  I find them hilarious.  I can’t stop laughing when I read them.  “Children who laugh rarely are shy.”  Is it that children who laugh are generally not shy or is it children who almost never laugh are shy?
Now, I’m reading The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil.  Awesome book if you are at all interested in artificial intelligence or future technology.  In one section he was discussing computer recognition of language.  One of the first computer programs designed to parse sentences had trouble with the sentence “Time flies like an arrow.”  The computer gave these possible meanings to the sentence:

1. that time passes as quickly as an arrow passes;

2. or maybe it is a command telling us to time the flies the same way that an arrow times flies; that is, “Time flies like an arrow would”;

3. or it could be a command telling us to time only those flies that are similar to arrows; that is, “Time flies that are like an arrow”;

4. or perhaps it means that a type of flies known as time flies have a fondness for arrows: “Time-flies like (that is, cherish) an arrow.”

I couldn’t stop laughing at the pool.  Haha get it! Another one!  No, I wasn’t laughing at the pool, I was laughing while at the pool.

Music: “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield on Working Class Dog

Teacher Pay Scale Explained!!

In the past I’ve written about teacher pay.  I’ll explain it further because it seems to be the number one search topic that comes to my blog.  For most places in the country, teachers get paid based on two criteria.  First is the amount of education that person has and second is the number of years the person has been teaching.   For example, say you wanted to teach in New Orleans:

Yrs Exp	Bachelor’s	Master’s	Master’s + 30	Specialist in Ed	Ph.D or Ed.D
0	38794	39594	40394	41194	41994
1	39394	40194	40994	41794	42594
2	39994	40794	41594	42394	42594
3	40594	41394	42194	42994	43794
4	41194	41994	42794	43594	44394

You’d have a scale like this.  Sometimes the “years of experience” are called “steps.”  Different school districts have different levels for the education level.  In New Orleans, you can get extra money for being an education specialist.  That’s nice…cause I think I’m one (no really, I have a master’s degree in curriculum development), but that’s not standard.  Most years the entire pay scale will increase for cost of living (COLA) increases.  If you are particularly desirable and you live in an area with many small school districts, you may be able to start at a higher step than you normally would.  This is equivalent to negotiating a higher starting salary at any other job.

Next year my school system will not be giving step increases or COLA increases.  We will not get compensated for our extra year of teaching experience.  Because of this, I decided to apply for online summer school!  It’s a pretty big pay raise (I need it) with a small amount of increased summer work (I don’t particularly need that).

Questions?

Sunday Confessional

I think the first mistake I made this morning was clicking on the online newspaper poll: Should teachers get paid based on performance in the classroom?  My second mistake was reading the comments underneath the results.  I don’t want to write about my opinions on teacher pay, as I’ve done that already.  But right now, I feel as angry as I’m going to feel about being a teacher.  What it boils down to is that a majority of people have no clue what it’s like to be a teacher.  I read comments like, “of course teachers pay should be tied to performance, just like any other job,” and “teachers are letting their students down and if they teach to the test they should be fired.”  Again, no idea what it’s like to be in charge of teaching 150 kids.

First, every job has incompetent employees.  Why is teaching any different?  Especially since teachers don’t get paid as much as other professions.  What’s drawing the cream of the crop to teaching?  Yeah, yeah, it’s a “calling”.  So what?  People having callings in all sorts of professions.  There are incompetent and lazy doctors, lawyers, policemen, professors, baseball players, etc.  Teaching is no different.  People get into teaching for many reasons, but nobody gets into teaching because they can make a decent living.  Intelligent people are drawn to higher paying jobs because they are qualified for them.  If teacher pay was increased, more people would want to teach and some of them would be great teachers.  Some would be ok teachers.  The total loser teachers would go away because now there’d be replacements.  It’s not rocket science, it’s basic economics.  You wouldn’t have situations where administrations hire the first person through the door because they need somebody to throw up in front of a class.

Teacher’s shouldn’t teach to the test?  Really, they have no choice.  Yeah, I wish standardized testing would go away.  It’s absolutely evil and is killing US education.  Why?  Because administrations would rather have everybody pass the test at a low level than develop bright young minds with the bottom kids not passing.  A teacher will be left alone if everybody barely passes, but will have issues if 90% of the class passes with extremely high scores and the other 10% fail.  Think about your job for a second.  If the boss was going to be happy with you getting through a ton of work with mediocre results but be down your throat if you do mostly excellent work, what would you do?  You’d go the route so that your boss leaves you alone and you get to do your work.

People have no idea what it’s like to face a class full of students who don’t listen.  Where you have to repeat instructions 10 times and then repeat them again.  Where students stare at their cell phones and text each other when you write notes on the board.  Where they say they are paying attention because they’ve copied down what you wrote but have no idea what it means, and don’t see anything wrong with that.  Students that do as little as possible to pass by.  A situation where your only ammo against them is a bad grade, but you’ll get in trouble if too many of them do poorly (by “do poorly” I mean get D’s and F’s).  A school or classroom where we’re encouraged to just pass them because it’s easier.  An administration that only pays attention to you if you are in trouble, otherwise you never even see them.  A job where good students do well because they are smart but bad students do poorly because the teacher is bad.  A job in which parents yell at you because their kids don’t pay attention or do their homework and they want to know why I am not a better teacher.

I think the biggest change in education is the attitude of parents and not much else.  If anything, most teachers are much better than they used to be.  Better educated, better trained, more at their disposal.  Except, in the past, parents trusted teachers.  If a student was failing, the student was held accountable.  Why aren’t they working harder?  Going for extra help?  Paying more attention?  Sorry, teacher, my child will work harder or else they will be grounded.  And they will fail.  And that will be a good lesson for them.  Now?  If a student is failing, the teacher is held accountable.  I take their phone away because they are using it in class and the parent gives it right back.  Parents tell me, “I can’t make my child do work.”  “They have too much on their plate.  Can you modify assignments for them to make it easier?  It isn’t fair that they don’t get enough sleep…of course they can’t pay attention!”

How am I supposed to help people like that?

Music:  Accoustic version of “Zombie” by The Cranberries

Moral Teacher Crisis Part 2 and Other Assorted Affairs

I wrote the other day about looking for a new job, considering the dire state of the budget and the very real possibility that we won’t get raises for a couple of years.  I headed down to the handy job section of the local newspaper website and started looking.  And it turns out I’m not qualified for anything.  This was another worry of mine…what the heck would I do if I didn’t teach?  All the jobs either seemed boring (hello analyst?!) or way above my head.  And, throw in the old Catch-22…you need job experience to get a job that requires experience.  Every freaking job requires 5 years of on-the-job training.  There’s no sense in taking a pay cut at this point.  I couldn’t afford it and it’d be another few years before I’d be making as much as I do now.  I think, in the end, it was a minor freak-out and now I’m over it.

I also said the deepest and most meaningful thing of my life yesterday to a class.  We were talking about electric fields and how they relate to gravitational fields.  And, being the wise sage that I am, said:

Besides the fact that gravitational fields act on masses and electric fields act on charges, all the other similarities are similar.

Eat that, Buddha.  The differences are also different, in case you were curious.

How Do Teachers Get Paid?

The answer to this question is pretty straight forward.  For example, if you wanted to know how much a teacher makes in, let’s say, Seattle, you go here: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/hr/sal.xml (it’s a pdf).  How about Boise, Idaho?  http://www.boiseschools.org/jobs/payscales.html

How’d I find that information?  It was easy, I searched for the city’s school website and went to the HR page.  Did you know you could find out exactly how much a teacher makes?  It’s public information.  So what’s the point?  Teachers get paid by their level of education and the number of years they’ve worked.  That’s it.  No matter how good or how bad a teacher is, they get paid by these two criteria.  There’s an upside and a downside to this, as a teacher.  The upside is that I do not have to improve or do a good job at all to get a raise.  In fact, I could decide that next year, I’m going to teach physics through movies.  And no tests.  If they show up they get an A.  If not, a C (because too many kids failing would trigger people asking questions).  I could conceivably do that and still get a raise.  (As a slightly long aside to this, my raise depends on the school system having a big enough budget to support raises.  This is not usually a problem, but in the currently economic climate, none of the teachers in my district are getting any kind of raise next year.  And, unlike private businesses, if the economy picks up by the end of the year, we won’t be getting bonuses either.  In fact, since I’m currently doing a project that pays me extra money, I stand to get a pay cut next year.  This is not good for a young person trying to pay off student loan and other debt.)  The downside, as a teacher, runs along the same lines.  There is absolutely no reward or benefit to being a good teacher.  No need to go above and beyond.  No need to stay after to help students.  No need to plan elaborate and interesting lesson plans.  Why should I put in the time?  I already spend hours grading and planning.  Why would I do more?  Every teacher gets the number on the pay scale, end of story.

Before I get into the debate of whether this is a good idea or not, let me add this one thing.  We do get evaluated by the administration.  I believe the process has much more to do with not being able to randomly fire teachers more than rewarding them.  Ours goes something like this:  Every few years we are on evaluation, and we have to meet certain criteria.  We either do not meet, meet, or exceed on each of the 2o something ways to measure us.  As long as we meet, we get a continuing contract.  If we do not meet, they have to come up with a performance plan to help improvement, and then if there isn’t improvement, you can get fired.  The joke is that there’s no benefit to getting exceeds.  In fact, they say you have to show proof of exceeding to mark it down.  Therefore, I can get “meets” and not have to do anything, or “exceeds” and go through and document things I do.  Again, why do extra work for no reason?  They don’t even decide which teachers to keep based on their evaluations.  If they have to make a cut, the newest teacher goes.  I could have all “exceeds” and another teacher could have all “meets” but if that teacher was hired even 1 day before me, I get fired.  I could go on about this but I want to make my main point.

Shouldn’t there be a system that rewards good teachers?  It’s called merit pay.  Here’s the gist of merit pay:  Teachers whose students perform better get higher pay raises than other teachers.  Sounds great on the surface, right?  I mean, here’s a way to guarantee that teachers will try harder, and even get rewarded for their hard work!  I’m here to tell you it’s a bad idea.  These are the reasons:

I survived my first year because nice, experienced teachers basically gave me their worksheets and tests.  They showed me what to teach and when.  Teacher retention is low to begin with and I don’t think many would make it through the first year without help.  What does this have to do with merit pay?  Why would an experienced teacher help a new teacher, or any teacher, if their great ideas were going to get them more money?  If I have a method for getting students to achieve, why would I share it?  I’d get more money for keeping it to myself.  This hurts students in other classes.  Teacher collaboration would stop because no teacher would be willing to give up their plans.

On top of that, if my pay was tied to my students’ performance on a standardized test, why wouldn’t I cheat for them?  I know that’s not ethical, but if $5,000 was on the line, I’d have to think about it.  It doesn’t mean outright telling the answers, but I could subtely shake my head, you know, try again kid.  Maybe I wouldn’t do it, but your damn sure there are teachers who would.  In fact, in places where merit pay existed, so did teacher cheating.

Lastly, student performance is highly dependent on your students.  Let me rephrase.  At the beginning of the year, you don’t know who’s walking into that class.  You may have a great group of students who are motivated and, sorry to say it, smarter than the group another teacher has.  That puts that other teacher at an immediate disadvantage.  Even this year, I have one class that has consistently been 4-5% below my other classes.  Part of that is my fault certainly, but part of it is the class I have.  I would not want to have my salary tied to this group.  Just like it wouldn’t be fair if another teacher had all honors and AP classes and I was stuck with lower level classes.  It’s just easier for that other teacher.

Without saying too much else, since this is really long already, I don’t know what the answer is.  My suggestion is to raise teacher salaries so that they are comparable to other professions.  That way there will be more competition for teaching jobs and the bad teachers will be fired and replaced by better teachers.  So instead of teacher shortages where they’ll take anybody off the street and put them in front of a class, there will be a number of qualified people vying for the job.

Music: “I Can’t Stay” by The Killers off of Day & Age