Value of $125k Teachers...

Uh.....isn't THAT a parent's job?




eqi.org/gottman.htm
(I got to hear this guy lecture once.... GOLD)

Me. That's what you would get.

Unfortunately, NO..it is not. Congress and local school boards have enacted legislation and regulation making such endeavors the job of schools.

Teaching and high school coaching go together. If you are in either for the money, GET THE HELL OUT!!!!!. I taught for more years than I want to know and never made over 58K. Started for 4800 way back when. I would not trade my many classroom experiences for any amount. Ask the students, especially those who have graduated. They will tell you who the "good" teachers are (were). Retired with close to 300 sick days that I got nothing for but I didn't believe in just taking off and always told my wife when I get sick call the funeral director. Always ab ided by the"rule of Patton." "If you want to look like a soldier, dress like a soldier." Wore a coat and tie every day and yes, my shoes were shined (very old school). I had the opportunity to interview many prospective teachers and had only 1 ever score a perfect 10 on my interview. My final question was always, At the end of the day how do you know you did a good job?" He was the only one who answered that question with the answer I wanted. "I HAD FUN!" If its not fun for you just think what it is for the kids. Most classroom teachers do not teach any skills at the high school level. If you want skills go to vo-tech or graduate schools. Teach the kids to be better human beings through the subject matter you are teaching. Remember that most the those kids sitting in front of you are a helluva lot smarter than you; they just don't know what to do with it yet. I have written a philosophy for students that I have had who wished to become teachers. They all have found it to be very helpful. I guess I'm getting carried away. I do apologize but please do not take the classroom lightly.


Hawke

Interesting social experiment going on there... but I don't think this is the solution to our education "problems" because those issues are rooted in cultural shortcomings (parents and what the kids get from TV and each other).

Private school students almost always do better and present a better educational environment for each other and their teachers because of how they're raised, yet many parents and non-parent taxpayers just expect the schools to miraculously cram knowledge and skills into a kid's head whether the kid wants to learn it or not, all without ever taking an interest themselves. "Teaching" is not just something that's done 36 weeks out of the year, M-F between the hours of 8:00 AM-3:00 PM by paid professionals.

Personally, as somone just entering the field, I find the principal being tested here to be a bit insulting: that the teaching field is basically a ghetto for educated people who can't do anything "better" (ie higher paying) with their lives. Sure, if you were to pay teachers $125K a year, more people would be lining up to teach, but does that make them "better" teachers? I doubt it. There are plenty of great teachers out there making $25k a year and plenty of lousy ones pulling in the $60-70k range in some affluent systems. That's because being good at teaching isn't about wanting to make more money, it's about loving and caring about what you do and the kids you work with.

Now, do teachers deserve to be paid more? In most cases, yes.

Does it help school systems attract better candidates when they offer better pay than the schools competing for the same workers? Yes.

Does any of this mean that a person who demands a six figure income and could get it in a different field will probably make a better teacher? Of course not!

The real keys to improving education lie in improving parenting and taking a good, long look at our society and the messages we're indoctrinating our kids with outside the classroom. If that could somehow be done, most of this stuff would fall into place regardless of class size, standardized tests, etc. If you look at the countries that outperform us in cranking out engineers, scientists, doctors, etc, you'll see that, as a society, they really put a lot of emphasis on education from birth as the means to a better life. If you look at the population groups within our country who excel at these things, you'll see this is a trait they all share. In our country, some parents do this but many are too busy or too self-involved to care.

Making sure that teachers have a decent salary that doesn't force them out of the profession in a few years just to pay their bills is important too, but you can have 3 good teachers for the salary this school pays 1. That, however, is only a small part of the equation. Methinks this school system is the educational equivalent of a person who blows $200 a week on a small amount of basic groceries from an upscale organic grocer just so they can feel self satisfied with how their wasteful spending makes them enlightened and superior.

Would like to see how this set up responds to a kid telling a teacher to "go F themselves" or to emotionally disturbed kids, or special ed children (especially those with behavior issues) or the non responsive children who just shut down and beach themselves...

It is ALL in the ingredients. How will this school respond to the parent who says in an intervention meeting regarding her 13 year old 5th grade son's interest in "gangsta" culture "Well, if bangin pays the bills, then Skeeter Thug can bang" (true event..and she did really refer to her son as skeeter thug). How will this school respond to the parent who misses not one, not two, but 3 straight conferences with the school assistance team regarding her child's violent behavior and defiance of authority (the third time she "couldn't make it because of a work emergency" you could clearly hear the Mardi Gras parade in the background)

My guess...just a guess here...is none of those ingredients will be invited to this dinner party, the data from the social experiment will be flawed, and those of us teaching the masses will be forced to endure more foolish feel good theories and 'experiments' rather than work in an environment where one can actually teach.

True everything said. The reason why private schools do better, as stated above, is because the parent is involved by the vary nature of choosing the school.

I would give up tenure, but I would want to be guaranteed due process. I fear the same thing happening, as we have all seen adminstrators take credit for the success of their school and throw teachers under the bus when it fails. So, tenure is almost a necessary evil, as there is no such thing as a benevolent ruler.

The Federal Government needs to disban the Federal Department of Ed and defer the responsibility to the states (how it was intended).

The way schools are run with the board you need tenure. You dont start Johnny or dont throw him the ball your gone. You are the first one to give Board members daughter a B in math Goodbye. I am like a ball player with a 1.4 mill contract guarenteed, as long as I dont commit a crime, its just spread out over the next 20 years.

They are going to spend a few years dropping money on this stupid school and then when they get great results, they'll all pat themselves on the back and talk about what a success it is. Hmm...pay more money, get better teachers. By golly, this just might work!

I also would like to know if these students will be held to the same accountability standards (standardized testing) as other public school students.

I also would like to see how the teacher-to-student ratio at this school compares to other public schools in the case.

The point is that many, if not most, charter schools don't have the same demographics as a typical public school.

Well, I was referring to private schools in general and the public's (misinformed) attitude towards them. As splitricky5 and phantom pointed out, this thing is really a sham designed to score political points and puff up some adminstrators' resumes. Whoever convinced people to lay out money for this AND allow them to hand pick the students should immediately be hired to market GM and Chrysler to the world.

One thing I do wonder about: "low-income or low academic achievers" could be a bit misleading if these kids came from crap schools but had high standardized test scores/IQ tests, or maybe a strong prior track record in school that took a recent nose dive due to some factors at home, all of which the administrators who picked them may have had access to. Plenty of subtle ways to stack the deck there to get the results you want.

What I'd like to see done, once and for all, to finally destroy all this "incompetent teachers who can't do anything better with their lives are ruining our schools and failing our kids" line of BS would be the following experiment:

Pick several (say, 10) of the roughest, lowest achieving, most problem filled schools in the US. Preferably try to select these schools to have as diverse a racial, socioeconomic, and geographic range as possible just to limit accusations of bias.

These schools would be taken over and the new admin would institute curricula that are exact clones of what one would find in public schools in Japan, Germany, or whatever country is being held up in contrast to our "failing" schools these days, complete with school uniforms and whatever discipline policies those foreign schools rely on.

Then, with salaries of $100,000+ to hand out, hire "dream teams" of teachers--award winning ones who have been consistently commended for the great job they do. Along with these professional teachers, you hire "accomplished private sector professionals" who want to teach: ie: businesness executives, doctors, lawyers, politicians, etc. As principals of these schools, you plunk the head of the NEA, a couple of principals who've also won awards, some congressmen, and maybe even a few windbag media pundits who love to rant about worthless, overpaid teachers.

Divide them into teams: 3 schools get the best admin/teachers money can buy, 3 get the windbags and "professional" career switchers, while the others get mixed groups. Each team gets 5 years to "fix" its respective school and turn them into a shining international example. Make a primetime network reality show based on it where we follow these kids and their new school staffs around. Air it "uncensored" just to get as large an audience as possible. Every week, they get the latest adventures of Skeeter Thug and his mom up close. Cameras will be everywhere: in the homes, in the classrooms, even in the private meetings and conferences.

I suspect in 5 years you'll have only marginal improvement at best, after our "best and brightest" (and those who claim to be so) have had their shot. But with their high profile failure, the general public and politicians wouldn't be able to scapegoat teachers for the problems of our entire society any longer. Finally they'd be forced to take the good, long look at ourselves and our country that we've needed for decades, and that's the only way we're ever going to fix anything.

Of course, this'll never happen, so let's get back to talking football instead! So what kind of coaches could a school get if it paid them $125,000 a year?

Don't some coaches at elite HS programs in Texas and a few other places actually pull in that kind of money? I seem to recall reading something a while back about one HC at one of the biggest programs in Texas who was making $100k a year, and it sounded like any teaching duties he had were mostly in name only.