Questions for the Educators

[JL Rockies]

There has been a lot of commercials going on about our ranking in the world in math and science and the overall state of our educational system. I have some questions:

What is the criteria used?

Do all the countires report the same? I know they don't when it comes to life expectancy.

How far back does this ranking system go?

Was the US ever ranked #1 in the history of ranking?

 

[offroadlogan]

x2.

 

[DOSS]

Politicians use statistics with poor group size to say anything they want.. we are not #1 in anything other than crappy teacher pay

 

[glockman]

One thing I think goes hand in hand with what your asking is, how will spending more money on education fix the problem? The track record shows that it doesn't.
As far as crappy teacher pay, I don't think it's that bad. Look up some teachers/principals and superintendants on Utahsright.org. I say if you make $60K for 9 months of work that's a pretty good job. I wouldn't want it but that's why I didn't go into education.

My neighbor is a kindergarden teacher and makes over $30K a year. That is a part time job making that kind of money with benefits, not bad.

Edit:I just checked, there are 500 employees in Alpine school district that make over $100k a year. A large number of them are teachers. That is just in Alpine school district.
There are 5200 employees that make over $10k a year. Anything under that I don't consider a "real" employee but a seasonal hire. SO 10% of the regular employess make over $100K a year. Not bad at all.

 

[DOSS]

One thing I think goes hand in hand with what your asking is, how will spending more money on education fix the problem? The track record shows that it doesn't.
As far as crappy teacher pay, I don't think it's that bad. Look up some teachers/principals and superintendants on Utahsright.org. I say if you make $60K for 9 months of work that's a pretty good job. I wouldn't want it but that's why I didn't go into education.

My neighbor is a kindergarden teacher and makes over $30K a year. That is a part time job making that kind of money with benefits, not bad.

Edit:I just checked, there are 500 employees in Alpine school district that make over $100k a year. A large number of them are teachers. That is just in Alpine school district.
There are 5200 employees that make over $10k a year. Anything under that I don't consider a "real" employee but a seasonal hire. SO 10% of the regular employess make over $100K a year. Not bad at all.

Now you should go look at some of the school districts that don't have that kind of $$ (do you really think that principals actually only work 9 months? (well some but not most but 100K a year to manage 75+ teachers, 800 students, facilities ect, that is low paying when you get down to it. Managing that kind of workforce in the private sector would garner you much more than that) You happen to have just pulled the same thing that politicians do, you chose your sample group that is not representative of the entire state.

I think that 30K a year for a person who is supposed to be setting your child up in their formative years to become a success in the learning system that we have is sad. In the end it comes down to what you think educating our youth is worth.

And as for will more spending help, As with anything you get what you pay for. Teachers are just tools, you purchase your tools from Harbor Freight you don't expect very high quality.

 

[jeeper]

I think that 30K a year for a person who is supposed to be setting your child up in their formative years to become a success in the learning system that we have is sad. In the end it comes down to what you think educating our youth is worth.

But how does giving this same teacher a raise change anything? If they are a good teacher they will be in demand, and have better opportunities, and higher pay. If they suck, parents will request not to be in the class, the teacher will be fired, and not receive good pay elsewhere.

Studies have shown over and over again that money to schools can increase the problems and decrease the overall learning.

 

[DOSS]

But how does giving this same teacher a raise change anything? If they are a good teacher they will be in demand, and have better opportunities, and higher pay. If they suck, parents will request not to be in the class, the teacher will be fired, and not receive good pay elsewhere.

Studies have shown over and over again that money to schools can increase the problems and decrease the overall learning.

I never said to give the same teacher more money.. I said that you get what you pay for. If you only pay crap a lot of the teachers you get will be crap, start paying better and you can weed out the chaff and start bringing in those teachers that are in higher demand (the ones that often move out of Utah to get more pay). Keep paying crap and you keep getting the crap that you have and those who have better opportunities will not be here in Utah to teach your children.

There is also the need to remove the Teachers Unions that fail to hold teachers accountable but that is a slightly different aspect of this equation... Studies have shown that increasing pay over short term has done nothing, this may be true if you ignore many other factors, studies like statistics are made to be swayed whatever way you want them

 

[JL Rockies]

I didn't ask if we could spend our way to a higher ranking, I was just trying to find out it's relevance. For example: if we've always ranked low in math and science yet we've managed to land on the moon with a "Speak and Spell" worth of computation power, does it matter that "we suck at math" according to this ranking system?

I also disagree that if we only paid teachers more we would get all the really good teachers that are currently staying out of the market. I think being a good teacher is in your heart and although I am sure they would love a raise, it wouldn't make them better teachers.

 

[utah340six]

jeeper you are wrong i see this first hand.
they can not just fire a teach because you as a parent dont like his teaching skill.
i tried to get rid of a 3rd grade teacher 15 years ago.
what a wast of time.
the school dist is afraid of a law suit.
so the put bindes on.
i say a draper school have 1,2,3,4 grade teaches all transfer because of a new principal with no skills take over school.she was syco.
my wife is a teacher and she is always doing school work.(HOME WORK ) correcting papers and such.
no more orthe days of hand your paper across hall to be graded 2million law suite paid to parents of student that filed that 1.
my wife became a
teacher 30 plus years ago for retirement and insurance after retirement.
that went away 5 years ago.
devote your life to a job and the have what you work for taken away just before you need it.
teachers make shit for wages in utah.
my sister in idaho will retires in june and she will make more there than here.

utah stack em deep teach em cheep thats our moto

 

[utah340six]

yes we suck at the basics.
math ready writing spelling
look at out youth they need a computer to do everthing for them

 

[glockman]

I work in one of the most technologically advanced manufacturing industries in the world. We have engineers from dozens of countries. They aren't better than the American engineers. There are a lot of smart people in the US. Teachers are an asset we cannot put a price on. The market can if unions arent a part of the equation.

 

[jeeper]

jeeper you are wrong i see this first hand.
they can not just fire a teach because you as a parent dont like his teaching skill.
i tried to get rid of a 3rd grade teacher 15 years ago.
what a wast of time.
the school dist is afraid of a law suit.
so the put bindes on.
i say a draper school have 1,2,3,4 grade teaches all transfer because of a new principal with no skills take over school.she was syco.
my wife is a teacher and she is always doing school work.(HOME WORK ) correcting papers and such.
no more orthe days of hand your paper across hall to be graded 2million law suite paid to parents of student that filed that 1.
my wife became a
teacher 30 plus years ago for retirement and insurance after retirement.
that went away 5 years ago.
devote your life to a job and the have what you work for taken away just before you need it.
teachers make shit for wages in utah.
my sister in idaho will retires in june and she will make more there than here.

utah stack em deep teach em cheep thats our moto

yes we suck at the basics.
math ready writing spelling
look at out youth they need a computer to do everthing for them

This amazes me. Your wife is a teacher, of what subject I don't know, but your entire post is riddled with misspelled words, missing punctuation, and some parts I couldn't understand.
I am a firm believer in parents raising their children and being accountable for their results. If children cannot spell, add, or have basic skills, I do not blame the teacher. Parents have become so entitled that they think the raising of their own children is the responsibility of others.
It's no wonder our children are failing, our adults can't spell, add, or do other basic functions.
But giving more money to teachers is still not the answer.

 

[glockman]

School vouchers are the answer. That way the good schools boom and the bad ones bust. Too bad everyone here had a teacher in their ward that told them to vote against it.

 

[jeeper]

School vouchers are the answer. That way the good schools boom and the bad ones bust. Too bad everyone here had a teacher in their ward that told them to vote against it.

x2!!

 

[sixstringsteve]

There aren't many things I'm good at in life, but teaching is one of them. However, I want to make more money than a teacher's salary, so I have gone into the private sector and where I design corporate instruction. I love teaching, and if I could make the same salary I make now by teaching at a high school or JC, I'd be all over it in a second. The private sector values my skills (in $) more than the public education system. I could get by on a teacher's salary, but I don't want to, and it's not worth the headaches/drama of working in the public education system. So I will say that I, for one, am one of those people that loves teaching, but not enough to get paid half what I can make in the private sector. Too many people assume that good teachers will teach for the love of it, regardless of pay. I can teach people for free to fulfill the love of teaching aspect, but at the end of the day, I have expensive hobbies, toys, and tastes, so I choose the salary that fits my needs best. Even though I love, I love my family more, and supporting them financially is most important. end of rant.

 

[sixstringsteve]

If they are a good teacher they will be in demand, and have better opportunities, and higher pay. If they suck, parents will request not to be in the class, the teacher will be fired, and not receive good pay elsewhere.

If only that were true. It takes an act of God to get teachers fired. And good teachers don't have many better opportunities.


It's even worse in the universities. Don't get me started on tenure, publication requirements, TA's teaching classes..

 

[jeeper]

It takes an act of God to get teachers fired. And good teachers don't have many better opportunities.

Understood. More reasons for less government and unions

 

[MOODY]

J Co. Standards are inconsistent all across the board. This is the notion behind the common core-to standardize expectations across the nation.

I disagree that it is difficult for teachers to be fired, at least in my experience within urban school districts...I have worked in both Murray and Jordan District, and my wife works in Granite District. I have personally witnessed many teachers had contracts non-renewed (basically they finish the year and are not re-hired) and I have witnessed teachers be removed from the classroom mid year. Just because a parent 'thinks' a teacher isn't a good teacher, doesn't mean they aren't a good teacher. I have found that teachers that are generally disliked by students and parents are the most strict. They are also the ones to produce noticeably higher standardized testing scores than over teachers.

My opinion:

2 things lacking in education: Accountability and Respect.

Kids have no accountability for their actions, both behaviorally and academically. Parents want teachers to do the teaching, and they take no responsibility for their child's education, or when they are called out for poor behavior, parents and children want to blame someone else.

Kids also have no respect for teachers, property, or each other. Entitlement? I don't know....

 

[sixstringsteve]

My opinion:

2 things lacking in education: Accountability and Respect.

Kids have no accountability for their actions, both behaviorally and academically. Parents want teachers to do the teaching, and they take no responsibility for their child's education, or when they are called out for poor behavior, parents and children want to blame someone else.

Kids also have no respect for teachers, property, or each other. Entitlement? I don't know....

I completely agree.

 

[JL Rockies]

Yes. I think that if there has been a decline over the generations it's due to society turning out worse parents not worse teachers.

Accountability and respect must be taught at home. I went to parochial schools run by Carmelite Nuns who didn't teach respect but would thrash you if you didn't give it... they've exposed gaps in my parents teachings on more than one occassion.