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There is something to what you are saying but it is also true that many many aspiring teachers wash out because they can't even get their first job after gettin

There is something to what you are saying but it is also true that many many aspiring teachers wash out because they can't even get their first job after getting their teaching degree. It _is_ a competitive market in many places but the market _isn't_ functioning as it should because of dysfunctional relationships with unions and tenure.

joe_the_user 8y ago
It _is_ a competitive market in many places but the market _isn't_ functioning as it should because of dysfunctional relationships with unions and tenure. Unions? Really? Not administrators and profit institutions cutting college teachers' salaries to the bone, creating a situation adjunct professors literally starve to death in the process. No, unions. And tenure is your other complaint? The job guarantee that no longer applies to most college teachers today. Why not complain that the average teach still is able to sleep at night and has roof over their head? Okay then. Unions have their flaws but it was that way well before the current disastrous regime. And sure, teaching is competitive market because even with all the horrors, lots of people want to teach because it's something to believe in, in this horrible and the bureaucracy, that unions are at best a junior partner in, do make it hard.
- briandear 8y ago
  Are you talking universities or K12? Because everything the parent said is true in K12. Spend 10 minutes at a Jersey City School Board meeting and you’ll see just how aggressive the union is if you even hint at reform. Can’t speak to higher ed though, except tenure for classroom instructors is a real problem. Since they have absolutely zero incentive to be good teachers but instead only engaging in activities that bring in research money for their area of interest.
  - joe_the_user 8y ago
    The OP is about college teaching and what I've written is applicable to that. Folks seem to have segued to K12 for some anti-union speechifying in the meantime. As far as that goes, look at the condition of teachers in Kentucky if you think unions are the problem. Unions have a fairly inflexible response to most "reform" plans but the problem is most reform plans, as can be seen here, aim to make teacher more insecure, more constrained, more "flexible" but without compensation for that flexibility. Sure, LA, Oakland or New Jersey might look bad but compared to strongholds of non-union teaching, they are paradise. It would be great to come up with a reform plan that empowered teachers. The unions might fight that but individual teachers probably wouldn't. But the kinds of reform that come often from people lips - more testing and less job security, are rightly resisted by both unions and individual teachers.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Yup. If a reform plan included things like "let's actually pay teachers more", "let's give them more freedom to apply good teaching practices", "let's give them saner working hours" and "let's reduce the red-tape a bit", I doubt any union would complain.
- eagsalazar2 8y ago
  Man a lot of butthurt over the unions comment. Let me clarify something: I am pro-union. I said "dysfunctional relationship" not "evil, commie, libtard, unions" (which is apparently what you read).
  - joe_the_user 8y ago
    It _is_ a competitive market in many places but the market _isn't_ functioning as it should because of dysfunctional relationships with unions and tenure. Whatever your overall, it seems rather unbalanced to blame only unions for the teaching job market. Moreover, how is the job market supposed to work? In the places without unions, you have teachers literally living in cars.
  - ergothus 8y ago
    FWIW, I too am pro-union but have also seen issues at the K-12 level. Some are even well intentioned. Example: schools would cut their more senior teachers to save money (because they had the highest salaries). So the unions made contracts that protect seniority. Which means if the longer you survive, the safer your job without respect to your quality. Experienced quality teachers are impossible to match...but experienced jaded teachers are easier to find (it is grueling to try and improve students away from dumb mistakes before you can even teach your material, only to start from scratch semester after semester.) Standardized testing attempts to fix this, but....let's just say the math teachers (or anyone with an understanding of statistics) did not get a say in how they are used. Teachers that get a "bad class" (higher number of poor or unwilling learners) face serious impacts to their career success.
Spooky23 8y ago
Not really. It’s a very cyclical market as cohorts of graduates coming out of school wax and wane due to birth rates and the economy. All government or teaching jobs are that way — their fiscal woes lag the economy and they tend to pick up better employees when companies blow up. Blaming unions like citing the boogeyman. It’s almost always the lazy answer that doesn’t pan out.
- eagsalazar2 8y ago
  I didn't dismiss other variables so flippantly as you are doing and I never blamed unions, I said "dysfunctional relationship". I'm a big defender of unions actually but that doesn't mean they are perfect.

joe_the_user 8y ago

It _is_ a competitive market in many places but the market _isn't_ functioning as it should because of dysfunctional relationships with unions and tenure. Unions? Really? Not administrators and profit institutions cutting college teachers' salaries to the bone, creating a situation adjunct professors literally starve to death in the process. No, unions. And tenure is your other complaint? The job guarantee that no longer applies to most college teachers today. Why not complain that the average teach still is able to sleep at night and has roof over their head? Okay then. Unions have their flaws but it was that way well before the current disastrous regime. And sure, teaching is competitive market because even with all the horrors, lots of people want to teach because it's something to believe in, in this horrible and the bureaucracy, that unions are at best a junior partner in, do make it hard.

briandear 8y ago
Are you talking universities or K12? Because everything the parent said is true in K12. Spend 10 minutes at a Jersey City School Board meeting and you’ll see just how aggressive the union is if you even hint at reform. Can’t speak to higher ed though, except tenure for classroom instructors is a real problem. Since they have absolutely zero incentive to be good teachers but instead only engaging in activities that bring in research money for their area of interest.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  The OP is about college teaching and what I've written is applicable to that. Folks seem to have segued to K12 for some anti-union speechifying in the meantime. As far as that goes, look at the condition of teachers in Kentucky if you think unions are the problem. Unions have a fairly inflexible response to most "reform" plans but the problem is most reform plans, as can be seen here, aim to make teacher more insecure, more constrained, more "flexible" but without compensation for that flexibility. Sure, LA, Oakland or New Jersey might look bad but compared to strongholds of non-union teaching, they are paradise. It would be great to come up with a reform plan that empowered teachers. The unions might fight that but individual teachers probably wouldn't. But the kinds of reform that come often from people lips - more testing and less job security, are rightly resisted by both unions and individual teachers.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Yup. If a reform plan included things like "let's actually pay teachers more", "let's give them more freedom to apply good teaching practices", "let's give them saner working hours" and "let's reduce the red-tape a bit", I doubt any union would complain.
eagsalazar2 8y ago
Man a lot of butthurt over the unions comment. Let me clarify something: I am pro-union. I said "dysfunctional relationship" not "evil, commie, libtard, unions" (which is apparently what you read).
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  It _is_ a competitive market in many places but the market _isn't_ functioning as it should because of dysfunctional relationships with unions and tenure. Whatever your overall, it seems rather unbalanced to blame only unions for the teaching job market. Moreover, how is the job market supposed to work? In the places without unions, you have teachers literally living in cars.
- ergothus 8y ago
  FWIW, I too am pro-union but have also seen issues at the K-12 level. Some are even well intentioned. Example: schools would cut their more senior teachers to save money (because they had the highest salaries). So the unions made contracts that protect seniority. Which means if the longer you survive, the safer your job without respect to your quality. Experienced quality teachers are impossible to match...but experienced jaded teachers are easier to find (it is grueling to try and improve students away from dumb mistakes before you can even teach your material, only to start from scratch semester after semester.) Standardized testing attempts to fix this, but....let's just say the math teachers (or anyone with an understanding of statistics) did not get a say in how they are used. Teachers that get a "bad class" (higher number of poor or unwilling learners) face serious impacts to their career success.

Spooky23 8y ago

Not really. It’s a very cyclical market as cohorts of graduates coming out of school wax and wane due to birth rates and the economy. All government or teaching jobs are that way — their fiscal woes lag the economy and they tend to pick up better employees when companies blow up. Blaming unions like citing the boogeyman. It’s almost always the lazy answer that doesn’t pan out.

eagsalazar2 8y ago
I didn't dismiss other variables so flippantly as you are doing and I never blamed unions, I said "dysfunctional relationship". I'm a big defender of unions actually but that doesn't mean they are perfect.