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I think it's pretty hard to claim that the reason there are bad teachers is because it's hard to fire them because they're unionized. There are a lot of potent

I think it's pretty hard to claim that the reason there are bad teachers is because it's hard to fire them because they're unionized. There are a lot of potential reasons: - The pay is crap - The "prestige" is crap - The barrier to entry is low In Finland, for example, there are excellent teachers because the profession is treated as on par with doctors. I don't think it's fair to blame unions for this difference in culture.

wang_li 6y ago
Your first two reasons are not valid reasons for being a bad employee. Both are knowable before taking the job. If you take a job knowing the pay is bad and you justify being a bad employee because the pay is bad, you’re a shitty person. The third reason I don’t think is true. Teaching is in the class of occupations that require government certification.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  It isn't about the employee choosing to do a shitty job because the pay is low. It is about the super talented, smart, ambitious person never going into the field in the first place because the pay is shitty.
  - wang_li 6y ago
    I'd say that super talented, smart, and ambitious describe a finer gradation of employee than the simple good/bad in the earlier comments. It's just my opinion, but, as in most occupations, you don't have to be the cream of the crop to be a good employee.
xyzzyz 6y ago
Teacher pay in the US is pretty good, if you take into account hours actually worked and benefits, especially very generous retirement ones.
- acdha 6y ago
  Look for data on this and you’ll learn the opposite. Teaching requires a master’s degree in most cases but in many states that’s only getting you pay in the $40-50k range (yes, housing is cheaper in the boonies. No, cars, consumer goods, food, medications, etc. are not.) A popular propaganda claim is that teachers work fewer hours based on the hope that reader doesn’t know teaching includes more than direct instructional time. Summer breaks are shorter now and have things like mandatory training for required professional development, and the few weeks most teachers have off are not enough to make up for the long hours during the school year and inability to take time off when school is in session.
  - smabie 6y ago
    This is anecdotal evidence, but my mom was a teacher and she was getting paid 85k, had no masters, didn't work at all during the summer, and didn't work at home at all (<8 hour work day).
    - acdha 6y ago
      More power to her — that sounds a lot better than any of the teachers I know. For me, the biggest push here is that we've had a generation or so of our society collectively telling everyone that the future for good jobs is STEM, STEM, STEM or maybe STEM. If we actually believe that, we should be paying and treating teachers well because we are targeting education-intensive subjects and because we need to hire teachers who have an understanding of subjects which pay well. Teaching shop was a great job option for a contractor who was getting older and needed the benefits but that dynamic doesn't apply to someone who can teach most STEM subjects can often get comparable benefits and likely better pay, and enjoying teaching only goes so far to compensate the various drawbacks.
    - ncphil 6y ago
      This isn't your mom's educational labor market. The stats are there to support most assertions in the above reply. They're just inconveniently scattered across the states and not all electronically accessible. I wonder whose interests that serves? When I taught in inner city Paterson back in the mid-90s most teachers worked at least two jobs but still spent many extra hours a week outside normal school time on phone conferences with parents, curriculum development and grading tests/papers, because they all had a full load of classes with 35+ students each. Things weren't much easier down here in NC two decades later where my own kids were in school (our district has a year-round calendar -- so no summers off for teachers). The master's requirement exists in NY, but practically discouraged in other places because school districts didn't want to pay the differential. Sure, none of this approaches the often 24x7x365 experience of many sysadmins and devs (my own tech experience for over 20 years), but it's also far from the bankers' hours myth that's been pushed since at least the 80s.

wang_li 6y ago

Your first two reasons are not valid reasons for being a bad employee. Both are knowable before taking the job. If you take a job knowing the pay is bad and you justify being a bad employee because the pay is bad, you’re a shitty person. The third reason I don’t think is true. Teaching is in the class of occupations that require government certification.

confidantlake 6y ago
It isn't about the employee choosing to do a shitty job because the pay is low. It is about the super talented, smart, ambitious person never going into the field in the first place because the pay is shitty.
- wang_li 6y ago
  I'd say that super talented, smart, and ambitious describe a finer gradation of employee than the simple good/bad in the earlier comments. It's just my opinion, but, as in most occupations, you don't have to be the cream of the crop to be a good employee.

xyzzyz 6y ago

Teacher pay in the US is pretty good, if you take into account hours actually worked and benefits, especially very generous retirement ones.

acdha 6y ago
Look for data on this and you’ll learn the opposite. Teaching requires a master’s degree in most cases but in many states that’s only getting you pay in the $40-50k range (yes, housing is cheaper in the boonies. No, cars, consumer goods, food, medications, etc. are not.) A popular propaganda claim is that teachers work fewer hours based on the hope that reader doesn’t know teaching includes more than direct instructional time. Summer breaks are shorter now and have things like mandatory training for required professional development, and the few weeks most teachers have off are not enough to make up for the long hours during the school year and inability to take time off when school is in session.
- smabie 6y ago
  This is anecdotal evidence, but my mom was a teacher and she was getting paid 85k, had no masters, didn't work at all during the summer, and didn't work at home at all (<8 hour work day).
  - acdha 6y ago
    More power to her — that sounds a lot better than any of the teachers I know. For me, the biggest push here is that we've had a generation or so of our society collectively telling everyone that the future for good jobs is STEM, STEM, STEM or maybe STEM. If we actually believe that, we should be paying and treating teachers well because we are targeting education-intensive subjects and because we need to hire teachers who have an understanding of subjects which pay well. Teaching shop was a great job option for a contractor who was getting older and needed the benefits but that dynamic doesn't apply to someone who can teach most STEM subjects can often get comparable benefits and likely better pay, and enjoying teaching only goes so far to compensate the various drawbacks.
  - ncphil 6y ago
    This isn't your mom's educational labor market. The stats are there to support most assertions in the above reply. They're just inconveniently scattered across the states and not all electronically accessible. I wonder whose interests that serves? When I taught in inner city Paterson back in the mid-90s most teachers worked at least two jobs but still spent many extra hours a week outside normal school time on phone conferences with parents, curriculum development and grading tests/papers, because they all had a full load of classes with 35+ students each. Things weren't much easier down here in NC two decades later where my own kids were in school (our district has a year-round calendar -- so no summers off for teachers). The master's requirement exists in NY, but practically discouraged in other places because school districts didn't want to pay the differential. Sure, none of this approaches the often 24x7x365 experience of many sysadmins and devs (my own tech experience for over 20 years), but it's also far from the bankers' hours myth that's been pushed since at least the 80s.