47 ms·

Teachers are leaving and few people choosing the field

136 points by Victerius 5y ago

femiagbabiaka 5y ago
The failure of public schooling would mean a reversal of much of the public safety and poverty gains we made over the past 50-70 years. So here’s hoping it turns around.
jelliclesfarm 5y ago
How many hours per week do teachers work? How many months in a year? I hear exaggerated accounts of teachers working 11 hour days and 60 hour weeks. Sorry..if those are their working hours, there is something wrong. It’s just odd. All public schools teachers are unionized. All the teachers here spout the same numbers for work hours and talk about spending from their pockets for school supplies and working at home. Only in the USA, the teachers are ‘overworked’. And the results aren’t stellar compared to the rest of the world. Maybe something’s got to change. I am not buying it anymore. Unless there is something in American tap water that is making all the kids dumb as rocks.
- jelliclesfarm 5y ago
  https://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-buy-supplies-own-money-classrooms-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-buy-supplies-own-mo... : also..this includes decorations for the classrooms… how is that ‘school supplies’? And side walk chalk? can we please ban teachers from buying school supplies until we can figure out how much it costs to educate a child. I am just tired of the histrionics and hyperbole. Also: Stop decorating classes. My friends buy cases of wine and gifts and swag bags for their kids’ teachers..and the parents have to spend mandatory volunteer hours. And the teachers still complain about buying school supplies. Maybe ask for school supplies instead of wine club membership? Especially with younger students, they are holding the parents hostage. And the teacher who had an after school tutoring outfit for which they only accepted cash. Almost every single kid I know has extra tutors.
- jlbooker 5y ago
  My wife was an elementary school teacher. She worked 7am-4pm, then came home had dinner and time with the family. After our son went to bed, she'd spend 8pm-11pm grading papers and working on lesson plans for the following week. She also spent time on the weekends developing lesson plans. That's a nine hour work day, plus three (or more) hours most evenings. That's easily a 60+hr work week. Ohh, and there were no breaks during the work day. Most days she was required to be supervising/helping kids in the lunchroom during her "lunch break", so she couldn't really sit down to eat her own food. Good luck finding a time to use the restroom. There are no vacation days. You can't say, "I'd like Friday off because my son has an event on Saturday and we need to travel there the day before". If you were sick, you were required to find your own replacement from a list of substitutes that the school provided. There are no public employee unions in our state (North Carolina). She made low $40k when she quit. Per-hour it was less than minimum wage. I've always made double or triple her salary in Tech, for half the hours. The summers are "vacation", but they're also unpaid. She was only paid for 10 months out of the year. Ohh, and she had mandatory teacher workdays over the summer (unpaid), which were essentially 3-4 days of all-day training. We couldn't just leave for vacation. Fast food is really a better gig. You can leave the work at work when the day is done, and it pays better too.
  - jlbooker 5y ago
    Ohh, and yes. We spent plenty ($100's) of our own money on school supplies at Wal-mart and teacher supply stores. The kids also had an extensive supply list that parents were asked to purchase, but it was never enough.
    - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
      this just proves that the public education is broken at management level. china and india sends more immigrants and students to the states. i dont ever remember having 'aids' or 'supplies' to study. all you need is study material. perhaps america would do better if we got rid of the current methods of education. it is unacceptable that parents think that their children whose free education is funded by tax payer money still dont take responsiblity to fill the gaps. the whole 'teachers buying supplies' point has been flogged to death everytime the union negotiates for raises which results in more taxes. spending a couple of hundred dollars in decorating material and side walk chalk is a fair trade for emotional bargaining brownie points and portrayal of teachers as selfless strangled bleeding hearts for the kids. here is my question: all teachers are represented by a union that negotiates on their behalf. the teachers union in california is the most hard ass and powerful lobby. why isnt the union bargaining for better hours and better spending of literally 40% of california's annual state budget? more than 70% of our school budget goes towards salaries. schools are overcrowded and crumbling. many have cancelled programs and every year, we increase teachers' salaries(noone earns less than 100k) with lifetime pensions(including for dependents after they die). A union that can negotiate all this and coordinate with the ginormous pension management fund cannot bargain better working hours and useful school supplies? its almost as if they advise the teachers to do this so they use the 'sacrificing teachers' as a bargaining chip for more raises and votes. i have been watching this in ca for almost a decade now and it blows my mind. Schools need security guards in some counties and they have become hotspots for political agitation. In the bay area schools, students walked out of class and demostrated during lunch break in support of teachers union. they are using the kids as their weapons against the tax paying parent who are literally held hostage. the unholy union and melding of political agendas between the UC system and CA public schools is another nail on the coffin of california public education system. if anything, education costs should be coming down. personal story: the biggest expense when i was a student in school was notebooks because i had a lovely but a somewhat benevolent dictator as a math tutor who would make me to do 100 math sums everyday. it just had to be any kind of math..her method was that i had to sit down and have the discipline to set aside the time for math. i was always scrambling for paper. and it was getting expensive. finally my mother got permission to use her old office ledgers where accounts were only recorded on one side and were meant to be pulped. and every weekend, we'd have to burn them because even though it was 5 plus years old, we couldn't just discard them. i marvel..MARVEL...at the tablet and the computer now. i rented a computer on a weekly basis to learn programming at home. i am so envious of the kids these days. and education is FREE for all!! i am SO MAD that this dumbass state of california is fighting to remove mathematics from school curriculums amongst other shenanigans and no disrespect to your wife, i dont feel like i can throw my support or show sympathy to the teachers. if there is a mafia and a godfather, the henchmen still dont get my sympathy. education should be CHEAPER now! education should be more evolved now and tailored to suit individual children according to their aptitude. we had textbooks and one teacher for 40 students. in a country of about close to a billion. why isnt america better in 2022? every child should be able to be the best of what they can be and not some cookie cutter failed method that is unevolved even by developing countries standard. if i were a conspiracy theorist, i would say that unionised public schools are america's soft underbelly where the poisoned dagger will be thrust to destroy the country. without a doubt, the educational system of this country(i dont know about the rest of the country..but at least speaking for california) is how the children will be weaponised against this nation. maybe ten years ago, there might have been a way to reverse this downfall. It is too late now as a whole generation has been poisoned. it starts with making an entire generation dumber. and teachers have been complicit.
perryizgr8 5y ago
Any field that has too much government activity in it will end up like this. It's no surprise. Let schools and teachers compete in a free market unhindered by pointless regulation and bureaucracy, and watch the best teachers rise up to meet the challenge.
hogrider 5y ago
IMO it's pretty clear the root cause is we kept this 18th century of public school and teachers are pumped out as if they were the result of an assembly line by the education apparatus. This is still the model of education all over the world even if kids get ipads or chromebooks to do the work. I'm not an educator so I don't know the fix but we sure as hell can't keep going on like this.
vparikh 5y ago
Not really surprising to anyone really is it? I mean what other profession asks you to: 1. Manage a 25+ children 2. Be responsible for their learning/growth 3. Expected to be part-time law enforcement 4. Expected to be part-time psychologist 5. In some districts, carry weapons and tasked with keeping the peace 6. Get paid way below what skillset that requires 7. Get targeted by parents, politicians for under performing children when parents are not involved and politicians constantly cut funding 8. Have to go on strike just to get cost of living adjustments 9. Funding is so poor, that a lot of teachers have to reach into their own pockets to cover up the difference (voluntary, but still) 10. And after all that, to not be compensated financially is just pouring salt on the wound. If you want people to pick teaching as a career path, we need a complete shift in the culture of America. As it stands, teachers get zero respect in our culture. The coach is put on a pedestal, the match teach - good luck. He is lucky if the only acknowledgement he receives are insults In other countries, teachers are respected by parents and students. They are paid well. They are elevated to a higher station in society. In America they are put down, vilified and threatened.
defaultprimate 5y ago
Now imagine the same government bureaucratic policies being used to run public healthcare in the US. What do you think is going to happen to the supply of healthcare professionals?
halpert 5y ago
I don’t know who in their right mind would want to be a teacher. Bad pay, hard work, ungrateful students and parents, and limited opportunities for growth.
- vanusa 5y ago
  Maybe you were ungrateful. I am extremely grateful for the talents of several of my public school teachers (and until they were downsized) counselors.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    > Maybe you were ungrateful That wasn't really necessary? Your point is taken and some of us are indeed grateful (and I don't doubt GP is or was), but I think we're in the minority. And it seems a general thing in Western societies? There's a lot of teacher bashing in France too, and also a difficulty to find ones. The pay, the teaching conditions, the permanent bashing and ridiculing by the elites, the ruling class, and any class really... I mean, when your secretary of education tells teachers during the first covid lockdown, most of them fighting to keep classes running, to go help pick strawberries instead. Err... When you can't even fund 5 kn95 masks (to be reused) for every teacher and you relax all covid constraints because the economy is grinding to a halt. 15 euros... Not even that. Even my company pays for 2 daily kn95 masks and I'm not exposed to kids.
    - vanusa 5y ago
      That wasn't really necessary? Perhaps not. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Yes, it's a woefully underappreciated and underpaid job. But unlike what must of us fully-hatched adults do with our lives - I do feel that (good) teachers are in fact doing something very valuable and important, and ultimately, at least some of their students will appreciate their efforts long after the fact.
      - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
        This opinion and appreciation for teachers you hold could be held by the OP as well, you know? What OP is saying is that most people don't appreciate teachers, and aren't greatful for them, not that THEY (OP) don't appreciate teachers.
meristohm 5y ago
It’s a difficult job for not enough pay and an expectation to work far more than 40 hours per week, and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. (I got out to raise my child and support my employed spouse)
deleted 5y ago
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- timbo1642 5y ago
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kylehotchkiss 5y ago
I don’t understand why usa is so adverse to metal detectors at the door for public institutions like schools. I spent a few years in India having to be metal detected to enter any metro, mall, or hotel. And they have far fewer weapon and terrorism concerns than USA does. It’s annoying and you get used to it. Small steps like these could improve the confidence of those working in schools and the many parents trusting schools to safely educate their children
- closeparen 5y ago
  Like other physical security measures (tall fences, razor wire, bars on windows, steel doors) it’s a sign that you are in a low-trust, high-crime environment. If in fact you are, then those things are important, but most Americans don’t want to think of their local communities this way and resent developments that reify such a perception. Especially when it comes to children. We really don’t like young children being cognizant of evils and threats and other such “adult” concerns. Innocence is important.
- olliej 5y ago
  They do have metal detectors. My wife’s school had: * metal detectors * police * drug dogs * 12 foot fencing * no doors on toilets * active shooter drills * no on-site medical staff * restrictions on access to medication, including inhalers That is what public schools in America are. They are prisons, and the on-site police treat the children as criminals.
  - hiptobecubic 5y ago
    No doors on toilets? What the fuck?
    - olliej 5y ago
      Yuuup My wife went through school never using the bathrooms
    - filchermcurr 5y ago
      My elementary school was like this. No doors on any stalls or the bathrooms themselves. It wasn't a safety thing, it was a 'kids are dumb' thing. Kids would hang on the doors and break them, pee on them, smear excrement on them, crush other kids body parts in them (which I guess is a bit of a safety thing...), etc. Finally they just gave up and got rid of the doors entirely. Nobody ever seemed to care, but I sure never set foot in those bathrooms.
ColinWright 5y ago
People (rightly) ask: Why would anyone be a teacher? For some it's genuinely a calling, a vocation. The buzz you get from seeing the lights go on, from making a difference, from seeing a student blossom, is unequalled. But external pressures are squeezing that out, and the utter neglect of the teachers and utter contempt for the profession is finally catching up. The warning signs have been there for decades, the momentum is growing, and it may now be too late.
- olliej 5y ago
  I think the biggest indicator of a problem is that now even those people for whom it’s a “calling” are leaving the field. Epecially those in public education
  - hiptobecubic 5y ago
    Yes I think public education is the worst option for people who want to become teachers because they love teaching, which is not a good sign.
    - nmstoker 5y ago
      Presumably the "calling" is the aspect that has been abused in order to underpay teachers. In my experience they are underpaid across the board but particularly in public sector roles (at least in the UK). What's interesting, and isn't something the article covers, is that demand side at the high end is nearly insatiable. Private schools in London consistently increase fees well above inflation year after year and never fail to fill places. The teachers there do okay but it's hardly stellar pay and although many of the schools discourage teachers tutoring it's commonly the way that income is boosted.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  I have several teachers in my family and have been teaching for 11 years. In my life I have met at most four people for whom teaching is a calling. Teaching is a job, not a priesthood. Some people really like their job but when they retire they wave goodbye and that’s it. A very large majority of teachers view it as a job.
timbo1642 5y ago
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olliej 5y ago
Who wouldn’t want a job that pays a pittance while also being so underfunded that some of that tiny salary has to be used to buy resources needed for the job? While also being continuously attacked for everything and being threatened with fines for doing your job properly
- mythrwy 5y ago
  50-60K a year with summers off and a generous pension is an acceptable salary in many areas of the country. Many people who teach would have trouble at other jobs from what I've observed. I don't think it's about the money.
  - wildrhythms 5y ago
    I implore you to look up starting teacher salaries in your area. Where I live, a single family homes average $550k, and teachers start at $35,200. For a career that requires a degree that is horrific, and far from 'generous'.
    - nemo44x 5y ago
      They should take it up with their unions. We could probably pay good teachers what they are worth if we had a market for them. But we don’t. Unions negotiate their pay and unions exist to protect the group, not individuals. So, good teachers who want to be rewarded on merit should seek to abolish their unions and abolish public schools generally speaking. Let parents compete for the best teachers in part by using taxes to fund children and not administrations and unions.
    - mythrwy 5y ago
      Ok, I did. They are in the process of raising salaries (most teachers make in the range I was talking about anyway now). Now they will be starting at 50K with many making 70K. https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2021/12/01/governor-plans-to-deliver-7-raises-to-new-mexico-educators-increase-base-salary-levels/ https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2021/12/01/governor-plans-t... Oh, and we are ranked 50'th in the nation in education. Down again, I think we managed to bump up to 49'th place last year. This is more then a fair salary for the area, with the pension, and time off, and the (nearly complete lack of) results being obtained.
peter303 5y ago
That could dovetail with the pandemic demographic contractions where births have declined 25% during the pandemic. This is compounded by the fertile generationX is smaller than normal. And immigration has been politically reduced. This could wreck havoc on institutions that depend on youth cohorts like schools, colleges and low-skilled jobs.
turndown 5y ago
I think the most infuriating thing about "growing up" and becoming an adult is that obvious problems you think should simply be fixed without any particular ideological emphasis end up becoming bogged down by people who know the least about a problem(and, in my view, the kind of people least likely to be experts on anything) trying to make sure the solution conforms to their uninformed world views.
- eggsmediumrare 5y ago
  There's also the equal and opposite force of experts who have such tight ties to their slice of everything they fail to see alternatives.
xqcgrek2 5y ago
Good. Education is ripe for disruption. The US should move to a South Korean model where a few very good superstar teachers lecture thousands of students simultaneously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrDfCy5Q9wI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrDfCy5Q9wI
- pydry 5y ago
  I guess that could work if most of those students never had to ask a question ever again.
  - pavel_lishin 5y ago
    Or had any unique or special needs.
  - truffdog 5y ago
    Questions are overrated. Most people will never ask for social reasons, and most of the time either the teacher won't understand the question or the student won't understand the answer. You can't really learn with an audience.
    - some0x80070005 5y ago
      It’s one thing to suggest the Socratic method may not be the best learning strategy, but it’s quite another to suggest that questions are overrated. Questions are so fundamental to increasing our knowledge in an intuitive way - just look at Stack Overflow, Quora, etc. for the success in helping people find answers (of decidedly varying quality). There is no limit to creative questions a group of people can ask but there is a limit to how much a single human thinks they know about a subject or can write in a single lecture, article, or book.
    - sjtindell 5y ago
      I totally disagree and I feel like the only real value I got from schooling was being able to go and ask my teachers tons of questions any time.
Day1 5y ago
Public school is overrated. I would choose Khan Academy, the South Korean model, or Charter schools over public schools any day of the week.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  Except charters these don't scale down to kindergarten or lower elementary grades
  - Day1 5y ago
    That’s true. If public schools only focused on lower grade levels that would free up resources tremendously.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  What about the charter schools that teach the Earth is 6000 years old? https://ncse.ngo/creationism-texas-charter-schools https://ncse.ngo/creationism-texas-charter-schools They should accurately teach subjects such as science.
  - hiptobecubic 5y ago
    You're confusing the US's requirement for religious freedom with the education model. It's not like you're forced to pick a school that teaches things you don't agree with. For every one of these schools teaching kids religious nonsense that is clearly wrong, there is some other school using that freedom to try alternative ways of running classroom. If you don't allow this you end up with a pretty rigid system that basically everyone but educational board members hates, like the Common Core requirements that are so tight that teachers basically have to design their entire quarter around them.
    - pixl97 5y ago
      Ah, I love the choose your own story model of education l.
  - 5y ago
euroderf 5y ago
Kinda starts to sound like the closing act of a decades-long death spiral. Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
- emptybottle 5y ago
  > Is our children learning? Oh the irony
  - slavik81 5y ago
    > Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? ~ George W. Bush, during a campaign speech in South Carolina (2000) That particular question had probably not been asked much before, but it's been asked more frequently ever since.
    - seanp2k2 5y ago
      Let us not forget Betsy DeVos’ wonderful impact https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936225974/the-legacy-of-education-secretary-betsy-devos https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936225974/the-legacy-of-educa...
      - octopoc 5y ago
        From what I understand her coworkers at the agency were all ideologically motivated to hate her and stonewall everything she did, so it was difficult to make progress. This was her philosophy: > states and local districts should make education policy, not the U.S. government. It would be a breath of fresh air for a philosophy like this to be implemented but you would have to fire everyone in the department of education and start over to actually get anything done.
  - d12345m 5y ago
    In case you missed the reference, this was a quote spoken without irony by a US president. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism
xhkkffbf 5y ago
There's probably some truth to this-- but I think people should look at these kind of notices with some skepticism. Consider who is quoted as an expert: someone who makes money training teachers. Seems like someone who will profit from greater funding of the general system. A while ago, a friend of mine read articles in the newspaper about a dire shortage of math teachers. So he enrolled in a teacher training program, put in the hours and couldn't find anything anywhere. He's a personable guy. Polite and very sociable. So when he couldn't find anything anywhere, I started to believe that this is one of those self-serving fibs circulated by the unions and the teacher prep programs. There may be some truth to it, but it may be wildly inflated.
dchuk 5y ago
My wife is a 1st grade teacher, has been for 11 years now. She has incredible patience and genuinely enjoys helping children succeed and grow. A few years ago, she got her first salary increase in seven fucking years after her union threatened a strike. And it was 7%. This all during one of the biggest economic run ups ever. While the district and admins had all gotten consistent wage increases every year she didn’t. She has multiple children who literally take off their clothes, flip over tables, and try to climb the fences of the school to leave every single day. Not kidding, multiple grown adults have to intervene multiple times a week to protect these kids and their peers. And literally nothing changes, absolutely no support from admin to get these kids support they clearly need. I have zero respect for the professional abilities of school administrators, I’ve regularly interacted with them and wondered how they are employed, it’s crazy. School administrators are by and large bureaucratic idiots that are incapable of innovating or improving schooling. The pandemic proved this perfectly. My wife was required to do 3 hours of real time education a day, to 6 year olds, including filling out a physical piece of paper for attendance at the beginning of the day, then taking a photo and sending it in. For virtual school. For 6 year olds. She has to perpetually pull individual children to test their progress against state standards, while the rest of the class has to occupy themselves with activities. 6 year olds. The amount of bullshit wrapped around public education, along with completely upside down incentive structures, will be ripping apart the very concept of school over the next ten years. She wants to educate, but we are already working on pursuing that as a small business vs being a public educator. It’s a sad state of affairs.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
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- brnt 5y ago
  > School administrators are by and large bureaucratic idiots I think that the size and uselessness of the para-ecudational layer should not be underestimated. The ministry, committees, the commercial education ecosystem; they have been extremely successful in absorbing whatever money we have been trying to poor in. It's like a ship with two seamen and a council of 5 captains and 20 contractors to keep the messhall's leisure PC running in exchange for 80% of personell expenditures. It's ridiculous. And if that was not enough, some people believe even more privatisation is the solution.
VirusNewbie 5y ago
So the fact that one of the most powerful unions (at least in my state, CA) has orchestrated a pay scheme in which new entrants to the field do not benefit whatsoever is not in the least bit surprising. Teachers unions don't exist to help students, they don't exist to help those who might want to become teachers, they exist to help entrenched teachers maximize the amount of money they pull out of the state. This is why in California entry level teachers, who are doing the same job as 65 year old teachers, are making less than half.
- chii 5y ago
  > maximize the amount of money they pull out of the state the root "cause" of the problem is that the money spent on education does not produce profit (to fund the endeavour). It is reliant on a taxation scheme, which means the source of funding is adversarial to the payment of wages. Private schools _do_ align the profit motives, but it also breaks the social good that free public education has. I dunno how one can solve this problem.
  - iamkroot 5y ago
    Weirdly (to me, at least) private school teachers make substantially less than public. The ones I know say it's worth it to be free of the onerous beauracracy that plagues public education.
    - sjtindell 5y ago
      I googled a stat thinking you were wrong and you’re very right, $50k public vs $36k private in US.
      - HarryHirsch 5y ago
        Shame on whoever thinks the salary difference goes to the education management companies behind the charter school movement. (Looking at you, Edison Schools failing the young people of Philadelphia!)
etempleton 5y ago
This enrollment decline is across the board in education. While not high paying, education was at least once considered a safe and reliable profession in a respected field. It is really none of those things anymore. The job has gotten harder and more involved and the pay has gotten, relative to cost of living, much worse. In many districts teachers do not know if and when their next raise will come. It could be next year or in 10 years. If as a society we value education we need to fund it.
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  Every time this topic comes up on HN I see a lot of comments along the lines of "Don't try to fix the problem; just move kids to private schools", an incredibly privileged, net harmful point of view... very sad to see. The reality is that teachers in America make horrific wages for a job that requires a degree, are treated like garbage, held to impossible standards, constantly subject to budget cuts, and then we wonder why America, the wealthiest country in the world, ranks 14th in education. It's not a mystery. Teachers deserve better.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > Teachers deserve better. Some teachers deserve better, to be sure. The reality is that educational spending in the U.S. is quite high by developed-country standards. But the system still fails to reward the best teachers, and many teachers are quite simply not properly qualified for what they're supposed to teach. "Education" degrees are practically meaningless.
    - etempleton 5y ago
      I agree that a mistake that has been made has been to force teachers to get graduate degrees and largely incentivize that they earn their master's degree in education. It would be more valuable if they received a master's or doctoral degree in literally anything else. The problem is that measuring the efficacy of a teacher is a dubious task. What would probably work the best is to incentivize teachers to get advanced degrees outside of the field of education by providing a substantial pay increase upon completion. Right now it is actually harder to get a degree in a field outside of education because in many districts you would need explicit permission from a supervisor to be reimbursed for a non-education degree versus an education degree that requires no permissions for reimbursement. An advanced degree does not make a great teacher, but it does provide some solid foundational knowledge.
robotburrito 5y ago
One of my best friends has been a teacher for ~20 years or so. They said the parents and the kids treat you insanely terribly. Society also barely respects what you do and treats you like glorified baby sitting. The only cool part is the 3 months off a year my friend used to use to go live in Italy or something and explore/learn about the world. Most jobs don't provide you with that time.
blisterpeanuts 5y ago
It's a shame teachers are held in such low esteem in U.S. society. In Asia, the teaching profession is prestigious (if not highly paid) and the students pay teachers a lot more respect. When I lived in Taiwan, I witnessed it: from kindergarten through university, students stand and bow when the teacher enters the classroom, and the same when he or she leaves. Of course there were terrible teachers there, as well, but at least they probably enjoy higher job satisfaction than our teachers (both good and bad).
- nemo44x 5y ago
  Asian countries haven’t had decades of social programs advocated for by “activists” that have encouraged people to abandon the family structure and devalue personal responsibility. So we have a large part of society that is completely dysfunctional and reliant on the state to raise their child. Many people consider these people heroes even.
sumosudo 5y ago
Teachers are leaving the broken system. Two home school associations have sprung up in my town and those are working well.
- ipnon 5y ago
  Education is an area where I believe private competition against the public sector can have huge gains. If the local school board cannot implement simple evidence-based education reform, then they've failed to provide the community's children their most fundamental need. Maybe a startup to facilitate the founding of private schools is in order?
RappingBoomer 5y ago
i left teaching in 2 years, and I wanted to leave it pretty much as soon as i started...took me 2 years to get out...what a mess... my day was full of personal conflict...not something I ever enjoyed...but I did grow as a person, but it was certainly not a pleasant process... the main problems? Inability to punish students, lack of respect...back in my day, if we disrespected the teacher, we got licks in front of the classroom... also, kids don't read that much anymore, making it hard to teach them
- RappingBoomer 5y ago
  one other problem is that the classes are not separated as to ability anymore...now in each classroom you are going to have one or more kids who have mental issues and who will wind up in prison, maybe for most of their adult lives...think about that--you have to ride herd on kids who are future lifer convicts...you can tell that these people will be in prison from an early age...they are really messed up...from birth, most likely...these kids are angry at the world because they do not fit in...and they take it out on the teacher...a lovely situation...the teachers warn each other about these kids...you can spot them fairly easily...naively, society believes you can get them on your side...you think we don't try? It does not work, long term...these kids fail at everything and cannot succeed at anything...
  - Meritiooo 5y ago
    That's very disappointing to read. Imagine you are the kid which will end in prison. Wouldn't you feel betrayed from society if society can already see that you will end in prison and is doing nothing against it? You can we haven't accepted the right answer though: more money for education. Smaller classes, more support, proper trained psychologist
    - RappingBoomer 5y ago
      most teachers will tell you the truth--it's there from birth, and basically incurable
chasd00 5y ago
Public schools are a nightmare. My wife is long time middle and high school teacher but decided to quit after this year. It’s not the kids, it’s the administration and how utterly incompetent they are. We’ll see what’s next for her but I hope my wife gets a chance to work with functioning adults at least once in her life.
- onphonenow 5y ago
  It's it the admin or the politics. At least in some areas there is such pressure around graduation rates, attendance (for the money) and such sensitivity around disparate impact (ie, poor/minority students with higher than average detentions etc) that you end up with basically no failing allowed, attendance is everything including students who are massively outside of classroom ability to manage in a large class, and limited discipline
  - Clubber 5y ago
    >basically no failing allowed Both my parents were teachers. My mother was a teacher in public schools. When we would talk about this very thing, she said whenever they would fail students, it would glut up the system and it would start to cease to function. It's a tough problem. When I was young, they had alternate schools for bad kids. At least two levels. The bad kid school, then if you got kicked out of that, the really bad kid school. If you got kicked out of that, you didn't go to school anymore. I don't know why we stopped doing that. The public school system was bad then and it's bad now, so it might not matter.
    - onphonenow 5y ago
      It's complicated. At least in SF race is a major item - there is a real push to avoid disparate impact. Things like D's and F's they have shown disparately impact certain groups. Race is a major topic at least in SF school district. "A gay dad volunteers for one of eight open slots on a parent committee that advises the school board. All of the 10 current members are straight moms. Three are white. Three are Latina. Two are Black. One is Tongan. They all want the dad to join them. The seven school board members talk for two hours about whether the dad brings enough diversity. Yes, he’d be the only man. And the only LGBTQ representative. ... The gay dad never utters a single word. The board members do not ask the dad a single question before declining to approve him for the committee." https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/San-Francisco-school-board-s-antics-would-be-15948058.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Sa... They have trouble recruiting for these spots. He was white. His credentials, interest, commitment, skills he might bring to the position were not relevant.
0F 5y ago
My dad always told me that during the 40s and 50s children would be paddled for being disrespectful. Students wore uniforms. Parents would be angry at their children if a teacher or administrator scheduled a meeting. The parents would be mad at the kids. it is clear that times have changed dramatically so I think it’s insane to expect the model of the old times to work. If you want a good result for your child then enroll them in a program that is suited for these times. I suspect private school is the only good option.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  There's middle ground, I think, but we don't live in a time of balance, and we have completely swung the other way in terms of raising children. Ironically, we may be doing more psychological damage to them in the long run than we did when we paddled them or put soap in their mouths or make them chew spruce gum (not that I condone any of that).
- Overtonwindow 5y ago
  But WHY is private education better?
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    Selection and Ejection. If you can say that a child is a bad fit for your school because they’re not academically gifted so you won’t accept them you’re ahead of the game. Even more true if you can kick out violent or disruptive students, which public schools can’t for much short of assault resulting in prison time.
  - icecap12 5y ago
    The key difference is that it's a conscious choice on the part of the parents to invest in the child's education. But there are other factors. For example, most private education at the gradeschool level requires heavy parent involvement and even volunteerism. Private schools are generally much smaller. The school also has the ability to kick out troublemakers or those who obviously don't want to be there. Not to say there aren't problems in the private schools - there are. But you don't have to deal with people who are just there because the state law says they must attend school.
rossdavidh 5y ago
Two things I would have liked to see added to this article: 1) regarding state differences in pay, how does that compare to cost of living? California pays more than Florida, sure but its cost of living is higher also (https://www.insure.com/cost-of-living-by-state.html https://www.insure.com/cost-of-living-by-state.html). Looking at how cost-of-living-adjusted pay varies between states would be more informative. California probably still pays more, but how much more? It's like comparing housing costs now and 20 years ago without adjusting for inflation. 2) how many of these teachers are leaving the profession entirely, vs. going into private or religious schools or tutoring? Knowing that would help tease out how much of the issue is due to how the public schools are administered, vs. how much they are afraid of contracting covid-19, vs. whatever else. 3) how does the labor shortage in teaching compare to the labor shortage generally? The article gives the impression that it's worse, and I could believe it, but I'd like to see some comparisons. What the article had was a lot of quotes, and not much in the way of facts or good analysis. Which is probably because the reporter in question had 1 hour to write it, perhaps from their bedroom or their parents' basement, before they had to move on to the next article. Disclaimer: I have no facts to back up that last sentence.
- giantg2 5y ago
  If anything, the facts they presented seem to go against their case. A salary of $65k is not low. Compared to the median US income, it is quite good. Especially depending on the local cost of living, as you point out.
  - bagacrap 5y ago
    65k with summers off
Overtonwindow 5y ago
The inability to discipline children I think has greatly contributed to the power and balance for teachers in the classroom. It means bullying, and misbehavior can just fester.
sega_sai 5y ago
It is a sad state of affairs when such important jobs like teaching young kids are not respected and compensated well.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  That’s not really true. They get amazing benefits, pensions with retirement in their mid-50’s, and lots of time off throughout the year. Additionally in most cases their unions negotiate their compensation. Clearly they wouldn’t work if their unions didn’t believe they were being compensated fairly.
  - lariati 5y ago
    It must be different in some parts of the country because the teachers I know are doing perfectly fine, even without the net present value of their pension. The biggest complaint is they are just tired of all the nonsense with covid. I feel like this conversation is pretty much a constant across time though that teachers are underpaid. Underpaid compared to what? A plumber? Going to quit teaching to fix pipes in the cold? Everyone is underpaid compared to this idealized job in the abstract that almost no one actually has.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    > They get amazing benefits, pensions with retirement in their mid-50’s Those benefits are for those who stick it out as teachers. More and more, new teachers don't even last until their benefits start vesting at 3 years, let alone 20 years!
icecap12 5y ago
This is no shock if you are friends with any teachers or have kids of school age. My wife and I have 5 close friends who are all public school teachers (2 of the 5 are a married couple). 4 of the 5 send their kids to private schools. I think that says a lot, given that they aren't paid well and choose to sacrifice and pay the tuition. The harsh reality is that the pay sucks, you need a masters degree to even be a teacher, parents view public schools as glorified daycare system, and shitty bureaucrats run it all into the ground. Combined with the general lack of discipline and culture of disrespect among kids (I fault the parents), it's a completely miserable experience that was worsened by COVID and remote learning. I've heard so many ridiculous stories from our friends that I'm shocked any of them remain doing it. In fact, 1 of the 5 I mentioned had enough and threw in the towel for the 21-22 school year. She's doing something else now, like running a study abroad program in association with the local honors university. She only gets the smart, disciplined kids who want to be there. The house of cards that is public education is coming down.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > 4 of the 5 send their kids to private schools. I think that says a lot, given that they aren't paid well and choose to sacrifice and pay the tuition. […] it's a completely miserable experience that was worsened by COVID and remote learning. Some parents around me simply decided to go ahead with a learning pod [0] during the pandemic. They hired a tutor (burned out local teacher really) and it’s been night and day. They are considering doing it again next year. Last I heard, they wanted to structure it as a non-profit so they could at least get a tax break on their contribution to it (really makes no sense to use post-tax dollars for this). At least now, I guess they won’t be double paying for initiatives like this [1] or curriculum where math is considered racist [2]. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/article/learning-pods-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/learning-pods-coronavirus.ht... [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/San-Francisco-school-board-s-antics-would-be-15948058.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Sa... [2] https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...
- deleted 5y ago
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01100011 5y ago
If my wife's experience in healthcare is representative of a larger phenomenon, then expect a massive shortage of health care workers just as boomers need them most. People are getting sick of shitty jobs, regardless of pay, and I think it's going to force us to redefine some roles. Unless the economy absolutely crashes and makes people desperate enough to take these jobs, I think the trajectory is clear. We might be able to import enough workers to fill the gap, but with the attitudes towards immigrants changing in the US, I'm not so sure.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  Robots. The answer is robots.
mprovost 5y ago
I read somewhere (that I can't find now) that the quality of teachers has gone down as the workforce has opened up opportunities for women. Jobs like teaching and nursing used to be some of the only socially acceptable professions for women, so overall the quality of teachers (and nurses) was higher. And since it was traditionally "women's work", with an expectation that a man would be providing a larger income to support the family, they were underpaid. (Fields like healthcare and teaching still are.)
- notfromhere 5y ago
  It makes sense. Why go into teaching for the bad pay and terrible hours when you can go be a doctor or some kind of highly paid professional? Teacher pay in the US doesn't attract stellar candidates. Further in the comments here people claim that 65k a year for a field that typically requires a bachelors/masters is great, when those are mid career earnings and if you have a modicum of drive or ambition, those earnings are what you could get as an entry level salary at any tech company. Anecdotally, I can't think of many smart, ambitious people that I personally know that went into teaching. My experiences aren't a statistical sample, but its telling that its not a career choice that anyone talks much about aspiring into.
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nathanaldensr 5y ago
The fact we call teachers "teachers" does not inherently mean anything valuable is being taught. Rote knowledge--easily accessible online--is not teaching, in my opinion. Where are the life skills? Where is the wisdom? It doesn't exist in school. The entire model of how humans pass on knowledge and experience to others needs to change. To what, I'm not sure, but what I do know is the current system is woeful.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hpcjoe 5y ago
My wife is a college prep (public charter) high school math and physics teacher. She noted recently, that she could make as much money working at a local department store, or fast food joint, as she does at the school. And when she'd return home, she could put the other work out of her mind. She works about 14 hour days during the week, and 12 hours per day on weekends. Hourly equivalent is about 1/2 the department stores. She told me about the new safety policy the police advise to use in the event of a shooter, after the Oxford MI incident (about an hour from us). The idea is to barricade the door, get anything you can use as a weapon, and defend the kids. Alternatively, you can break out a window and run away. Of course, they won't let the teachers open carry weapons, which, honestly, would turn the soft targets into very hard ones. Aside from that obvious solution, the problem is, what do you do if you have a kid who doesn't want to leave for any reason? This literally becomes a trolley problem, decide whose life is more important. Should she stay with the reluctant child, or should she save her own life and as many of the others as she can? And I don't know if I mentioned it, but the pay really really sucks. Add to this, parents who don't work with the teachers to help their kids. Often major communication problems with parents who don't speak english. Parents who only sometimes take their kids to school. Kids who just don't care enough to do any work, and then come begging at the end of every quarter/semester for "extra credit", which they are ineligible for, given that they have not completed a majority of their work. Often any work at all. I hear about this. Every day. It is burning her out. But more than that. I see what these schools are producing, see the attempts not to make the kids unhappy by giving them a 50% score for doing no work, not even showing up to class, or tests. Letting them retake tests to improve grades. All these little things we do to coddle, and protect people from the consequences of their own decisions. And I think what sort of adults we are unleashing. Which explains much of what we see in society now.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > She told me about the new safety policy the police advise to use in the event of a shooter, after the Oxford MI incident (about an hour from us). The idea is to barricade the door, get anything you can use as a weapon, and defend the kids. Alternatively, you can break out a window and run away. Of course, they won't let the teachers open carry weapons, which, honestly, would turn the soft targets into very hard ones. Wait so the correct way to defend yourself against an active shooter is to... seek cover and run away? Why can't she simply carry a weapon, as the second amendment gives her the inalienable right to?
arrakis2021 5y ago
Privatize schools.
ModernMech 5y ago
Being a teacher just keeps getting worse and worse as a job. It was bad enough when the worst parts of the job were standardized testing, and that you were paid little and had to spend your own money on school supplies for your classroom. Then it got worse when school shootings became so commonplace that bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills became a thing. Of course you still have to pay for your own school supplies, but now you also have to pay for body armor, ammo for target practice, and therapy. Now there's covid, and it's more of a shitshow than it's ever been. Inability to find substitutes. Bus driver shortages. Staff shortages. Faculty shortages. Even though there's a vaccine, there's no mandates for vaccination. Here's a running tally of educators and staff in Georgia who have died since July [1]. The average age of 42 teachers on this list who have died is 46 years old. FORTY SIX! The youngest was in their 20s! And then on top of it all, if you think that maybe your workplace is dangerous for you as your colleagues drop dead around you, and you'd prefer to teach from home or at least offer some protections at work, then you are called lazy and unamerican by parents in your district. If you hold the opinion that there should be a vaccine mandate at your workplace you are called a Nazi. Meanwhile, legislators are working to pass laws empowering students to sue you personally (for an amount which is maybe 25-30% of your annual salary) if they feel what you're teaching goes against their religious beliefs [2]. You have a moral panic over Critical Race Theory which has metastasized into rumblings about book burnings [3], and moral busybodies combing their way through your library... Yeah, it's no wonder teachers are leaving and it's hard to find replacements. [1] https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/60-georgia-teachers-staff-lost-covid-19-since-start-school-year/SFURXQOXAJH25E3VGVZGTEU3HI/ https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/60-georgia-teachers... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/oklahoma-bill-religion-rob-standridge-b2007505.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... [3] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/book-burnings-1933-2022/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/book-burnings-1933-2022/
jrgaston 5y ago
Not all teaching stories are sad. I was lucky. I taught high school in northern California for almost a decade and it was a lovely job. Sure, the work expands to fill your nights and weekends, and part of every summer vacation I worked on improving my lesson plans, but it was an enjoyable job with good students, great fellow teachers, a supportive administration, a wonderfully diverse and accepting student body, and only the occasional annoying parent. Benefits were decent, pay was decent, and psychological rewards were tremendous. It was far more rewarding than the previous fifteen years I spent in software development. I felt I developed software not because the world needed it but just so some rich guy could get a little richer and maybe a bit of that richness would filter down to me. Not an inspiring reason to get up in the morning. I could tell right away I had an impact on my students, introducing them to new areas of knowledge (in my case it was chemistry). My goals were to be a role model; for them to know what kinds of questions chemistry addressed; and for them to just maybe fall in love with science a little bit. I had no illusions they were going to grow up to be chemists. I would have remained a teacher if I hadn't decided to leave the US. I am fortunate to have left before COVID because teaching online sounds really hard. Just my 2 cents.
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  How did you end up in software development in the first place?

136 points by Victerius 5y ago

The failure of public schooling would mean a reversal of much of the public safety and poverty gains we made over the past 50-70 years. So here’s hoping it turns around.

jelliclesfarm 5y ago

How many hours per week do teachers work? How many months in a year? I hear exaggerated accounts of teachers working 11 hour days and 60 hour weeks. Sorry..if those are their working hours, there is something wrong. It’s just odd. All public schools teachers are unionized. All the teachers here spout the same numbers for work hours and talk about spending from their pockets for school supplies and working at home. Only in the USA, the teachers are ‘overworked’. And the results aren’t stellar compared to the rest of the world. Maybe something’s got to change. I am not buying it anymore. Unless there is something in American tap water that is making all the kids dumb as rocks.

jelliclesfarm 5y ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-buy-supplies-own-money-classrooms-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-buy-supplies-own-mo... : also..this includes decorations for the classrooms… how is that ‘school supplies’? And side walk chalk? can we please ban teachers from buying school supplies until we can figure out how much it costs to educate a child. I am just tired of the histrionics and hyperbole. Also: Stop decorating classes. My friends buy cases of wine and gifts and swag bags for their kids’ teachers..and the parents have to spend mandatory volunteer hours. And the teachers still complain about buying school supplies. Maybe ask for school supplies instead of wine club membership? Especially with younger students, they are holding the parents hostage. And the teacher who had an after school tutoring outfit for which they only accepted cash. Almost every single kid I know has extra tutors.
jlbooker 5y ago
My wife was an elementary school teacher. She worked 7am-4pm, then came home had dinner and time with the family. After our son went to bed, she'd spend 8pm-11pm grading papers and working on lesson plans for the following week. She also spent time on the weekends developing lesson plans. That's a nine hour work day, plus three (or more) hours most evenings. That's easily a 60+hr work week. Ohh, and there were no breaks during the work day. Most days she was required to be supervising/helping kids in the lunchroom during her "lunch break", so she couldn't really sit down to eat her own food. Good luck finding a time to use the restroom. There are no vacation days. You can't say, "I'd like Friday off because my son has an event on Saturday and we need to travel there the day before". If you were sick, you were required to find your own replacement from a list of substitutes that the school provided. There are no public employee unions in our state (North Carolina). She made low $40k when she quit. Per-hour it was less than minimum wage. I've always made double or triple her salary in Tech, for half the hours. The summers are "vacation", but they're also unpaid. She was only paid for 10 months out of the year. Ohh, and she had mandatory teacher workdays over the summer (unpaid), which were essentially 3-4 days of all-day training. We couldn't just leave for vacation. Fast food is really a better gig. You can leave the work at work when the day is done, and it pays better too.
- jlbooker 5y ago
  Ohh, and yes. We spent plenty ($100's) of our own money on school supplies at Wal-mart and teacher supply stores. The kids also had an extensive supply list that parents were asked to purchase, but it was never enough.
  - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
    this just proves that the public education is broken at management level. china and india sends more immigrants and students to the states. i dont ever remember having 'aids' or 'supplies' to study. all you need is study material. perhaps america would do better if we got rid of the current methods of education. it is unacceptable that parents think that their children whose free education is funded by tax payer money still dont take responsiblity to fill the gaps. the whole 'teachers buying supplies' point has been flogged to death everytime the union negotiates for raises which results in more taxes. spending a couple of hundred dollars in decorating material and side walk chalk is a fair trade for emotional bargaining brownie points and portrayal of teachers as selfless strangled bleeding hearts for the kids. here is my question: all teachers are represented by a union that negotiates on their behalf. the teachers union in california is the most hard ass and powerful lobby. why isnt the union bargaining for better hours and better spending of literally 40% of california's annual state budget? more than 70% of our school budget goes towards salaries. schools are overcrowded and crumbling. many have cancelled programs and every year, we increase teachers' salaries(noone earns less than 100k) with lifetime pensions(including for dependents after they die). A union that can negotiate all this and coordinate with the ginormous pension management fund cannot bargain better working hours and useful school supplies? its almost as if they advise the teachers to do this so they use the 'sacrificing teachers' as a bargaining chip for more raises and votes. i have been watching this in ca for almost a decade now and it blows my mind. Schools need security guards in some counties and they have become hotspots for political agitation. In the bay area schools, students walked out of class and demostrated during lunch break in support of teachers union. they are using the kids as their weapons against the tax paying parent who are literally held hostage. the unholy union and melding of political agendas between the UC system and CA public schools is another nail on the coffin of california public education system. if anything, education costs should be coming down. personal story: the biggest expense when i was a student in school was notebooks because i had a lovely but a somewhat benevolent dictator as a math tutor who would make me to do 100 math sums everyday. it just had to be any kind of math..her method was that i had to sit down and have the discipline to set aside the time for math. i was always scrambling for paper. and it was getting expensive. finally my mother got permission to use her old office ledgers where accounts were only recorded on one side and were meant to be pulped. and every weekend, we'd have to burn them because even though it was 5 plus years old, we couldn't just discard them. i marvel..MARVEL...at the tablet and the computer now. i rented a computer on a weekly basis to learn programming at home. i am so envious of the kids these days. and education is FREE for all!! i am SO MAD that this dumbass state of california is fighting to remove mathematics from school curriculums amongst other shenanigans and no disrespect to your wife, i dont feel like i can throw my support or show sympathy to the teachers. if there is a mafia and a godfather, the henchmen still dont get my sympathy. education should be CHEAPER now! education should be more evolved now and tailored to suit individual children according to their aptitude. we had textbooks and one teacher for 40 students. in a country of about close to a billion. why isnt america better in 2022? every child should be able to be the best of what they can be and not some cookie cutter failed method that is unevolved even by developing countries standard. if i were a conspiracy theorist, i would say that unionised public schools are america's soft underbelly where the poisoned dagger will be thrust to destroy the country. without a doubt, the educational system of this country(i dont know about the rest of the country..but at least speaking for california) is how the children will be weaponised against this nation. maybe ten years ago, there might have been a way to reverse this downfall. It is too late now as a whole generation has been poisoned. it starts with making an entire generation dumber. and teachers have been complicit.

perryizgr8 5y ago

Any field that has too much government activity in it will end up like this. It's no surprise. Let schools and teachers compete in a free market unhindered by pointless regulation and bureaucracy, and watch the best teachers rise up to meet the challenge.

hogrider 5y ago

IMO it's pretty clear the root cause is we kept this 18th century of public school and teachers are pumped out as if they were the result of an assembly line by the education apparatus. This is still the model of education all over the world even if kids get ipads or chromebooks to do the work. I'm not an educator so I don't know the fix but we sure as hell can't keep going on like this.

vparikh 5y ago

Not really surprising to anyone really is it? I mean what other profession asks you to: 1. Manage a 25+ children 2. Be responsible for their learning/growth 3. Expected to be part-time law enforcement 4. Expected to be part-time psychologist 5. In some districts, carry weapons and tasked with keeping the peace 6. Get paid way below what skillset that requires 7. Get targeted by parents, politicians for under performing children when parents are not involved and politicians constantly cut funding 8. Have to go on strike just to get cost of living adjustments 9. Funding is so poor, that a lot of teachers have to reach into their own pockets to cover up the difference (voluntary, but still) 10. And after all that, to not be compensated financially is just pouring salt on the wound. If you want people to pick teaching as a career path, we need a complete shift in the culture of America. As it stands, teachers get zero respect in our culture. The coach is put on a pedestal, the match teach - good luck. He is lucky if the only acknowledgement he receives are insults In other countries, teachers are respected by parents and students. They are paid well. They are elevated to a higher station in society. In America they are put down, vilified and threatened.

defaultprimate 5y ago

Now imagine the same government bureaucratic policies being used to run public healthcare in the US. What do you think is going to happen to the supply of healthcare professionals?

halpert 5y ago

I don’t know who in their right mind would want to be a teacher. Bad pay, hard work, ungrateful students and parents, and limited opportunities for growth.

vanusa 5y ago
Maybe you were ungrateful. I am extremely grateful for the talents of several of my public school teachers (and until they were downsized) counselors.
- touisteur 5y ago
  > Maybe you were ungrateful That wasn't really necessary? Your point is taken and some of us are indeed grateful (and I don't doubt GP is or was), but I think we're in the minority. And it seems a general thing in Western societies? There's a lot of teacher bashing in France too, and also a difficulty to find ones. The pay, the teaching conditions, the permanent bashing and ridiculing by the elites, the ruling class, and any class really... I mean, when your secretary of education tells teachers during the first covid lockdown, most of them fighting to keep classes running, to go help pick strawberries instead. Err... When you can't even fund 5 kn95 masks (to be reused) for every teacher and you relax all covid constraints because the economy is grinding to a halt. 15 euros... Not even that. Even my company pays for 2 daily kn95 masks and I'm not exposed to kids.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    That wasn't really necessary? Perhaps not. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Yes, it's a woefully underappreciated and underpaid job. But unlike what must of us fully-hatched adults do with our lives - I do feel that (good) teachers are in fact doing something very valuable and important, and ultimately, at least some of their students will appreciate their efforts long after the fact.
    - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
      This opinion and appreciation for teachers you hold could be held by the OP as well, you know? What OP is saying is that most people don't appreciate teachers, and aren't greatful for them, not that THEY (OP) don't appreciate teachers.

meristohm 5y ago

It’s a difficult job for not enough pay and an expectation to work far more than 40 hours per week, and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. (I got out to raise my child and support my employed spouse)

deleted 5y ago

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timbo1642 5y ago
[dead]

kylehotchkiss 5y ago

I don’t understand why usa is so adverse to metal detectors at the door for public institutions like schools. I spent a few years in India having to be metal detected to enter any metro, mall, or hotel. And they have far fewer weapon and terrorism concerns than USA does. It’s annoying and you get used to it. Small steps like these could improve the confidence of those working in schools and the many parents trusting schools to safely educate their children

closeparen 5y ago
Like other physical security measures (tall fences, razor wire, bars on windows, steel doors) it’s a sign that you are in a low-trust, high-crime environment. If in fact you are, then those things are important, but most Americans don’t want to think of their local communities this way and resent developments that reify such a perception. Especially when it comes to children. We really don’t like young children being cognizant of evils and threats and other such “adult” concerns. Innocence is important.
olliej 5y ago
They do have metal detectors. My wife’s school had: * metal detectors * police * drug dogs * 12 foot fencing * no doors on toilets * active shooter drills * no on-site medical staff * restrictions on access to medication, including inhalers That is what public schools in America are. They are prisons, and the on-site police treat the children as criminals.
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  No doors on toilets? What the fuck?
  - olliej 5y ago
    Yuuup My wife went through school never using the bathrooms
  - filchermcurr 5y ago
    My elementary school was like this. No doors on any stalls or the bathrooms themselves. It wasn't a safety thing, it was a 'kids are dumb' thing. Kids would hang on the doors and break them, pee on them, smear excrement on them, crush other kids body parts in them (which I guess is a bit of a safety thing...), etc. Finally they just gave up and got rid of the doors entirely. Nobody ever seemed to care, but I sure never set foot in those bathrooms.

ColinWright 5y ago

People (rightly) ask: Why would anyone be a teacher? For some it's genuinely a calling, a vocation. The buzz you get from seeing the lights go on, from making a difference, from seeing a student blossom, is unequalled. But external pressures are squeezing that out, and the utter neglect of the teachers and utter contempt for the profession is finally catching up. The warning signs have been there for decades, the momentum is growing, and it may now be too late.

olliej 5y ago
I think the biggest indicator of a problem is that now even those people for whom it’s a “calling” are leaving the field. Epecially those in public education
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  Yes I think public education is the worst option for people who want to become teachers because they love teaching, which is not a good sign.
  - nmstoker 5y ago
    Presumably the "calling" is the aspect that has been abused in order to underpay teachers. In my experience they are underpaid across the board but particularly in public sector roles (at least in the UK). What's interesting, and isn't something the article covers, is that demand side at the high end is nearly insatiable. Private schools in London consistently increase fees well above inflation year after year and never fail to fill places. The teachers there do okay but it's hardly stellar pay and although many of the schools discourage teachers tutoring it's commonly the way that income is boosted.
barry-cotter 5y ago
I have several teachers in my family and have been teaching for 11 years. In my life I have met at most four people for whom teaching is a calling. Teaching is a job, not a priesthood. Some people really like their job but when they retire they wave goodbye and that’s it. A very large majority of teachers view it as a job.

timbo1642 5y ago

[dead]

olliej 5y ago

Who wouldn’t want a job that pays a pittance while also being so underfunded that some of that tiny salary has to be used to buy resources needed for the job? While also being continuously attacked for everything and being threatened with fines for doing your job properly

mythrwy 5y ago
50-60K a year with summers off and a generous pension is an acceptable salary in many areas of the country. Many people who teach would have trouble at other jobs from what I've observed. I don't think it's about the money.
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  I implore you to look up starting teacher salaries in your area. Where I live, a single family homes average $550k, and teachers start at $35,200. For a career that requires a degree that is horrific, and far from 'generous'.
  - nemo44x 5y ago
    They should take it up with their unions. We could probably pay good teachers what they are worth if we had a market for them. But we don’t. Unions negotiate their pay and unions exist to protect the group, not individuals. So, good teachers who want to be rewarded on merit should seek to abolish their unions and abolish public schools generally speaking. Let parents compete for the best teachers in part by using taxes to fund children and not administrations and unions.
  - mythrwy 5y ago
    Ok, I did. They are in the process of raising salaries (most teachers make in the range I was talking about anyway now). Now they will be starting at 50K with many making 70K. https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2021/12/01/governor-plans-to-deliver-7-raises-to-new-mexico-educators-increase-base-salary-levels/ https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2021/12/01/governor-plans-t... Oh, and we are ranked 50'th in the nation in education. Down again, I think we managed to bump up to 49'th place last year. This is more then a fair salary for the area, with the pension, and time off, and the (nearly complete lack of) results being obtained.

peter303 5y ago

That could dovetail with the pandemic demographic contractions where births have declined 25% during the pandemic. This is compounded by the fertile generationX is smaller than normal. And immigration has been politically reduced. This could wreck havoc on institutions that depend on youth cohorts like schools, colleges and low-skilled jobs.

turndown 5y ago

I think the most infuriating thing about "growing up" and becoming an adult is that obvious problems you think should simply be fixed without any particular ideological emphasis end up becoming bogged down by people who know the least about a problem(and, in my view, the kind of people least likely to be experts on anything) trying to make sure the solution conforms to their uninformed world views.

eggsmediumrare 5y ago
There's also the equal and opposite force of experts who have such tight ties to their slice of everything they fail to see alternatives.

xqcgrek2 5y ago

Good. Education is ripe for disruption. The US should move to a South Korean model where a few very good superstar teachers lecture thousands of students simultaneously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrDfCy5Q9wI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrDfCy5Q9wI

pydry 5y ago
I guess that could work if most of those students never had to ask a question ever again.
- pavel_lishin 5y ago
  Or had any unique or special needs.
- truffdog 5y ago
  Questions are overrated. Most people will never ask for social reasons, and most of the time either the teacher won't understand the question or the student won't understand the answer. You can't really learn with an audience.
  - some0x80070005 5y ago
    It’s one thing to suggest the Socratic method may not be the best learning strategy, but it’s quite another to suggest that questions are overrated. Questions are so fundamental to increasing our knowledge in an intuitive way - just look at Stack Overflow, Quora, etc. for the success in helping people find answers (of decidedly varying quality). There is no limit to creative questions a group of people can ask but there is a limit to how much a single human thinks they know about a subject or can write in a single lecture, article, or book.
  - sjtindell 5y ago
    I totally disagree and I feel like the only real value I got from schooling was being able to go and ask my teachers tons of questions any time.

Day1 5y ago

Public school is overrated. I would choose Khan Academy, the South Korean model, or Charter schools over public schools any day of the week.

paulryanrogers 5y ago
Except charters these don't scale down to kindergarten or lower elementary grades
- Day1 5y ago
  That’s true. If public schools only focused on lower grade levels that would free up resources tremendously.
JaimeThompson 5y ago
What about the charter schools that teach the Earth is 6000 years old? https://ncse.ngo/creationism-texas-charter-schools https://ncse.ngo/creationism-texas-charter-schools They should accurately teach subjects such as science.
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  You're confusing the US's requirement for religious freedom with the education model. It's not like you're forced to pick a school that teaches things you don't agree with. For every one of these schools teaching kids religious nonsense that is clearly wrong, there is some other school using that freedom to try alternative ways of running classroom. If you don't allow this you end up with a pretty rigid system that basically everyone but educational board members hates, like the Common Core requirements that are so tight that teachers basically have to design their entire quarter around them.
  - pixl97 5y ago
    Ah, I love the choose your own story model of education l.
- 5y ago

euroderf 5y ago

Kinda starts to sound like the closing act of a decades-long death spiral. Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?

emptybottle 5y ago
> Is our children learning? Oh the irony
- slavik81 5y ago
  > Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? ~ George W. Bush, during a campaign speech in South Carolina (2000) That particular question had probably not been asked much before, but it's been asked more frequently ever since.
  - seanp2k2 5y ago
    Let us not forget Betsy DeVos’ wonderful impact https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936225974/the-legacy-of-education-secretary-betsy-devos https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936225974/the-legacy-of-educa...
    - octopoc 5y ago
      From what I understand her coworkers at the agency were all ideologically motivated to hate her and stonewall everything she did, so it was difficult to make progress. This was her philosophy: > states and local districts should make education policy, not the U.S. government. It would be a breath of fresh air for a philosophy like this to be implemented but you would have to fire everyone in the department of education and start over to actually get anything done.
- d12345m 5y ago
  In case you missed the reference, this was a quote spoken without irony by a US president. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism

xhkkffbf 5y ago

There's probably some truth to this-- but I think people should look at these kind of notices with some skepticism. Consider who is quoted as an expert: someone who makes money training teachers. Seems like someone who will profit from greater funding of the general system. A while ago, a friend of mine read articles in the newspaper about a dire shortage of math teachers. So he enrolled in a teacher training program, put in the hours and couldn't find anything anywhere. He's a personable guy. Polite and very sociable. So when he couldn't find anything anywhere, I started to believe that this is one of those self-serving fibs circulated by the unions and the teacher prep programs. There may be some truth to it, but it may be wildly inflated.

dchuk 5y ago

My wife is a 1st grade teacher, has been for 11 years now. She has incredible patience and genuinely enjoys helping children succeed and grow. A few years ago, she got her first salary increase in seven fucking years after her union threatened a strike. And it was 7%. This all during one of the biggest economic run ups ever. While the district and admins had all gotten consistent wage increases every year she didn’t. She has multiple children who literally take off their clothes, flip over tables, and try to climb the fences of the school to leave every single day. Not kidding, multiple grown adults have to intervene multiple times a week to protect these kids and their peers. And literally nothing changes, absolutely no support from admin to get these kids support they clearly need. I have zero respect for the professional abilities of school administrators, I’ve regularly interacted with them and wondered how they are employed, it’s crazy. School administrators are by and large bureaucratic idiots that are incapable of innovating or improving schooling. The pandemic proved this perfectly. My wife was required to do 3 hours of real time education a day, to 6 year olds, including filling out a physical piece of paper for attendance at the beginning of the day, then taking a photo and sending it in. For virtual school. For 6 year olds. She has to perpetually pull individual children to test their progress against state standards, while the rest of the class has to occupy themselves with activities. 6 year olds. The amount of bullshit wrapped around public education, along with completely upside down incentive structures, will be ripping apart the very concept of school over the next ten years. She wants to educate, but we are already working on pursuing that as a small business vs being a public educator. It’s a sad state of affairs.

selimthegrim 5y ago
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brnt 5y ago
> School administrators are by and large bureaucratic idiots I think that the size and uselessness of the para-ecudational layer should not be underestimated. The ministry, committees, the commercial education ecosystem; they have been extremely successful in absorbing whatever money we have been trying to poor in. It's like a ship with two seamen and a council of 5 captains and 20 contractors to keep the messhall's leisure PC running in exchange for 80% of personell expenditures. It's ridiculous. And if that was not enough, some people believe even more privatisation is the solution.

VirusNewbie 5y ago

So the fact that one of the most powerful unions (at least in my state, CA) has orchestrated a pay scheme in which new entrants to the field do not benefit whatsoever is not in the least bit surprising. Teachers unions don't exist to help students, they don't exist to help those who might want to become teachers, they exist to help entrenched teachers maximize the amount of money they pull out of the state. This is why in California entry level teachers, who are doing the same job as 65 year old teachers, are making less than half.

chii 5y ago
> maximize the amount of money they pull out of the state the root "cause" of the problem is that the money spent on education does not produce profit (to fund the endeavour). It is reliant on a taxation scheme, which means the source of funding is adversarial to the payment of wages. Private schools _do_ align the profit motives, but it also breaks the social good that free public education has. I dunno how one can solve this problem.
- iamkroot 5y ago
  Weirdly (to me, at least) private school teachers make substantially less than public. The ones I know say it's worth it to be free of the onerous beauracracy that plagues public education.
  - sjtindell 5y ago
    I googled a stat thinking you were wrong and you’re very right, $50k public vs $36k private in US.
    - HarryHirsch 5y ago
      Shame on whoever thinks the salary difference goes to the education management companies behind the charter school movement. (Looking at you, Edison Schools failing the young people of Philadelphia!)

etempleton 5y ago

This enrollment decline is across the board in education. While not high paying, education was at least once considered a safe and reliable profession in a respected field. It is really none of those things anymore. The job has gotten harder and more involved and the pay has gotten, relative to cost of living, much worse. In many districts teachers do not know if and when their next raise will come. It could be next year or in 10 years. If as a society we value education we need to fund it.

wildrhythms 5y ago
Every time this topic comes up on HN I see a lot of comments along the lines of "Don't try to fix the problem; just move kids to private schools", an incredibly privileged, net harmful point of view... very sad to see. The reality is that teachers in America make horrific wages for a job that requires a degree, are treated like garbage, held to impossible standards, constantly subject to budget cuts, and then we wonder why America, the wealthiest country in the world, ranks 14th in education. It's not a mystery. Teachers deserve better.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > Teachers deserve better. Some teachers deserve better, to be sure. The reality is that educational spending in the U.S. is quite high by developed-country standards. But the system still fails to reward the best teachers, and many teachers are quite simply not properly qualified for what they're supposed to teach. "Education" degrees are practically meaningless.
  - etempleton 5y ago
    I agree that a mistake that has been made has been to force teachers to get graduate degrees and largely incentivize that they earn their master's degree in education. It would be more valuable if they received a master's or doctoral degree in literally anything else. The problem is that measuring the efficacy of a teacher is a dubious task. What would probably work the best is to incentivize teachers to get advanced degrees outside of the field of education by providing a substantial pay increase upon completion. Right now it is actually harder to get a degree in a field outside of education because in many districts you would need explicit permission from a supervisor to be reimbursed for a non-education degree versus an education degree that requires no permissions for reimbursement. An advanced degree does not make a great teacher, but it does provide some solid foundational knowledge.

robotburrito 5y ago

One of my best friends has been a teacher for ~20 years or so. They said the parents and the kids treat you insanely terribly. Society also barely respects what you do and treats you like glorified baby sitting. The only cool part is the 3 months off a year my friend used to use to go live in Italy or something and explore/learn about the world. Most jobs don't provide you with that time.

blisterpeanuts 5y ago

It's a shame teachers are held in such low esteem in U.S. society. In Asia, the teaching profession is prestigious (if not highly paid) and the students pay teachers a lot more respect. When I lived in Taiwan, I witnessed it: from kindergarten through university, students stand and bow when the teacher enters the classroom, and the same when he or she leaves. Of course there were terrible teachers there, as well, but at least they probably enjoy higher job satisfaction than our teachers (both good and bad).

nemo44x 5y ago
Asian countries haven’t had decades of social programs advocated for by “activists” that have encouraged people to abandon the family structure and devalue personal responsibility. So we have a large part of society that is completely dysfunctional and reliant on the state to raise their child. Many people consider these people heroes even.

sumosudo 5y ago

Teachers are leaving the broken system. Two home school associations have sprung up in my town and those are working well.

ipnon 5y ago
Education is an area where I believe private competition against the public sector can have huge gains. If the local school board cannot implement simple evidence-based education reform, then they've failed to provide the community's children their most fundamental need. Maybe a startup to facilitate the founding of private schools is in order?

RappingBoomer 5y ago

i left teaching in 2 years, and I wanted to leave it pretty much as soon as i started...took me 2 years to get out...what a mess... my day was full of personal conflict...not something I ever enjoyed...but I did grow as a person, but it was certainly not a pleasant process... the main problems? Inability to punish students, lack of respect...back in my day, if we disrespected the teacher, we got licks in front of the classroom... also, kids don't read that much anymore, making it hard to teach them

RappingBoomer 5y ago
one other problem is that the classes are not separated as to ability anymore...now in each classroom you are going to have one or more kids who have mental issues and who will wind up in prison, maybe for most of their adult lives...think about that--you have to ride herd on kids who are future lifer convicts...you can tell that these people will be in prison from an early age...they are really messed up...from birth, most likely...these kids are angry at the world because they do not fit in...and they take it out on the teacher...a lovely situation...the teachers warn each other about these kids...you can spot them fairly easily...naively, society believes you can get them on your side...you think we don't try? It does not work, long term...these kids fail at everything and cannot succeed at anything...
- Meritiooo 5y ago
  That's very disappointing to read. Imagine you are the kid which will end in prison. Wouldn't you feel betrayed from society if society can already see that you will end in prison and is doing nothing against it? You can we haven't accepted the right answer though: more money for education. Smaller classes, more support, proper trained psychologist
  - RappingBoomer 5y ago
    most teachers will tell you the truth--it's there from birth, and basically incurable

chasd00 5y ago

Public schools are a nightmare. My wife is long time middle and high school teacher but decided to quit after this year. It’s not the kids, it’s the administration and how utterly incompetent they are. We’ll see what’s next for her but I hope my wife gets a chance to work with functioning adults at least once in her life.

onphonenow 5y ago
It's it the admin or the politics. At least in some areas there is such pressure around graduation rates, attendance (for the money) and such sensitivity around disparate impact (ie, poor/minority students with higher than average detentions etc) that you end up with basically no failing allowed, attendance is everything including students who are massively outside of classroom ability to manage in a large class, and limited discipline
- Clubber 5y ago
  >basically no failing allowed Both my parents were teachers. My mother was a teacher in public schools. When we would talk about this very thing, she said whenever they would fail students, it would glut up the system and it would start to cease to function. It's a tough problem. When I was young, they had alternate schools for bad kids. At least two levels. The bad kid school, then if you got kicked out of that, the really bad kid school. If you got kicked out of that, you didn't go to school anymore. I don't know why we stopped doing that. The public school system was bad then and it's bad now, so it might not matter.
  - onphonenow 5y ago
    It's complicated. At least in SF race is a major item - there is a real push to avoid disparate impact. Things like D's and F's they have shown disparately impact certain groups. Race is a major topic at least in SF school district. "A gay dad volunteers for one of eight open slots on a parent committee that advises the school board. All of the 10 current members are straight moms. Three are white. Three are Latina. Two are Black. One is Tongan. They all want the dad to join them. The seven school board members talk for two hours about whether the dad brings enough diversity. Yes, he’d be the only man. And the only LGBTQ representative. ... The gay dad never utters a single word. The board members do not ask the dad a single question before declining to approve him for the committee." https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/San-Francisco-school-board-s-antics-would-be-15948058.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Sa... They have trouble recruiting for these spots. He was white. His credentials, interest, commitment, skills he might bring to the position were not relevant.

0F 5y ago

My dad always told me that during the 40s and 50s children would be paddled for being disrespectful. Students wore uniforms. Parents would be angry at their children if a teacher or administrator scheduled a meeting. The parents would be mad at the kids. it is clear that times have changed dramatically so I think it’s insane to expect the model of the old times to work. If you want a good result for your child then enroll them in a program that is suited for these times. I suspect private school is the only good option.

ravenstine 5y ago
There's middle ground, I think, but we don't live in a time of balance, and we have completely swung the other way in terms of raising children. Ironically, we may be doing more psychological damage to them in the long run than we did when we paddled them or put soap in their mouths or make them chew spruce gum (not that I condone any of that).
Overtonwindow 5y ago
But WHY is private education better?
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  Selection and Ejection. If you can say that a child is a bad fit for your school because they’re not academically gifted so you won’t accept them you’re ahead of the game. Even more true if you can kick out violent or disruptive students, which public schools can’t for much short of assault resulting in prison time.
- icecap12 5y ago
  The key difference is that it's a conscious choice on the part of the parents to invest in the child's education. But there are other factors. For example, most private education at the gradeschool level requires heavy parent involvement and even volunteerism. Private schools are generally much smaller. The school also has the ability to kick out troublemakers or those who obviously don't want to be there. Not to say there aren't problems in the private schools - there are. But you don't have to deal with people who are just there because the state law says they must attend school.

rossdavidh 5y ago

Two things I would have liked to see added to this article: 1) regarding state differences in pay, how does that compare to cost of living? California pays more than Florida, sure but its cost of living is higher also (https://www.insure.com/cost-of-living-by-state.html https://www.insure.com/cost-of-living-by-state.html). Looking at how cost-of-living-adjusted pay varies between states would be more informative. California probably still pays more, but how much more? It's like comparing housing costs now and 20 years ago without adjusting for inflation. 2) how many of these teachers are leaving the profession entirely, vs. going into private or religious schools or tutoring? Knowing that would help tease out how much of the issue is due to how the public schools are administered, vs. how much they are afraid of contracting covid-19, vs. whatever else. 3) how does the labor shortage in teaching compare to the labor shortage generally? The article gives the impression that it's worse, and I could believe it, but I'd like to see some comparisons. What the article had was a lot of quotes, and not much in the way of facts or good analysis. Which is probably because the reporter in question had 1 hour to write it, perhaps from their bedroom or their parents' basement, before they had to move on to the next article. Disclaimer: I have no facts to back up that last sentence.

giantg2 5y ago
If anything, the facts they presented seem to go against their case. A salary of $65k is not low. Compared to the median US income, it is quite good. Especially depending on the local cost of living, as you point out.
- bagacrap 5y ago
  65k with summers off

Overtonwindow 5y ago

The inability to discipline children I think has greatly contributed to the power and balance for teachers in the classroom. It means bullying, and misbehavior can just fester.

sega_sai 5y ago

It is a sad state of affairs when such important jobs like teaching young kids are not respected and compensated well.

nemo44x 5y ago
That’s not really true. They get amazing benefits, pensions with retirement in their mid-50’s, and lots of time off throughout the year. Additionally in most cases their unions negotiate their compensation. Clearly they wouldn’t work if their unions didn’t believe they were being compensated fairly.
- lariati 5y ago
  It must be different in some parts of the country because the teachers I know are doing perfectly fine, even without the net present value of their pension. The biggest complaint is they are just tired of all the nonsense with covid. I feel like this conversation is pretty much a constant across time though that teachers are underpaid. Underpaid compared to what? A plumber? Going to quit teaching to fix pipes in the cold? Everyone is underpaid compared to this idealized job in the abstract that almost no one actually has.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > They get amazing benefits, pensions with retirement in their mid-50’s Those benefits are for those who stick it out as teachers. More and more, new teachers don't even last until their benefits start vesting at 3 years, let alone 20 years!

icecap12 5y ago

This is no shock if you are friends with any teachers or have kids of school age. My wife and I have 5 close friends who are all public school teachers (2 of the 5 are a married couple). 4 of the 5 send their kids to private schools. I think that says a lot, given that they aren't paid well and choose to sacrifice and pay the tuition. The harsh reality is that the pay sucks, you need a masters degree to even be a teacher, parents view public schools as glorified daycare system, and shitty bureaucrats run it all into the ground. Combined with the general lack of discipline and culture of disrespect among kids (I fault the parents), it's a completely miserable experience that was worsened by COVID and remote learning. I've heard so many ridiculous stories from our friends that I'm shocked any of them remain doing it. In fact, 1 of the 5 I mentioned had enough and threw in the towel for the 21-22 school year. She's doing something else now, like running a study abroad program in association with the local honors university. She only gets the smart, disciplined kids who want to be there. The house of cards that is public education is coming down.

908B64B197 5y ago
> 4 of the 5 send their kids to private schools. I think that says a lot, given that they aren't paid well and choose to sacrifice and pay the tuition. […] it's a completely miserable experience that was worsened by COVID and remote learning. Some parents around me simply decided to go ahead with a learning pod [0] during the pandemic. They hired a tutor (burned out local teacher really) and it’s been night and day. They are considering doing it again next year. Last I heard, they wanted to structure it as a non-profit so they could at least get a tax break on their contribution to it (really makes no sense to use post-tax dollars for this). At least now, I guess they won’t be double paying for initiatives like this [1] or curriculum where math is considered racist [2]. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/article/learning-pods-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/learning-pods-coronavirus.ht... [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/San-Francisco-school-board-s-antics-would-be-15948058.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Sa... [2] https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...
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01100011 5y ago

If my wife's experience in healthcare is representative of a larger phenomenon, then expect a massive shortage of health care workers just as boomers need them most. People are getting sick of shitty jobs, regardless of pay, and I think it's going to force us to redefine some roles. Unless the economy absolutely crashes and makes people desperate enough to take these jobs, I think the trajectory is clear. We might be able to import enough workers to fill the gap, but with the attitudes towards immigrants changing in the US, I'm not so sure.

nate_meurer 5y ago
Robots. The answer is robots.

mprovost 5y ago

I read somewhere (that I can't find now) that the quality of teachers has gone down as the workforce has opened up opportunities for women. Jobs like teaching and nursing used to be some of the only socially acceptable professions for women, so overall the quality of teachers (and nurses) was higher. And since it was traditionally "women's work", with an expectation that a man would be providing a larger income to support the family, they were underpaid. (Fields like healthcare and teaching still are.)

notfromhere 5y ago
It makes sense. Why go into teaching for the bad pay and terrible hours when you can go be a doctor or some kind of highly paid professional? Teacher pay in the US doesn't attract stellar candidates. Further in the comments here people claim that 65k a year for a field that typically requires a bachelors/masters is great, when those are mid career earnings and if you have a modicum of drive or ambition, those earnings are what you could get as an entry level salary at any tech company. Anecdotally, I can't think of many smart, ambitious people that I personally know that went into teaching. My experiences aren't a statistical sample, but its telling that its not a career choice that anyone talks much about aspiring into.

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nathanaldensr 5y ago

The fact we call teachers "teachers" does not inherently mean anything valuable is being taught. Rote knowledge--easily accessible online--is not teaching, in my opinion. Where are the life skills? Where is the wisdom? It doesn't exist in school. The entire model of how humans pass on knowledge and experience to others needs to change. To what, I'm not sure, but what I do know is the current system is woeful.

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hpcjoe 5y ago

My wife is a college prep (public charter) high school math and physics teacher. She noted recently, that she could make as much money working at a local department store, or fast food joint, as she does at the school. And when she'd return home, she could put the other work out of her mind. She works about 14 hour days during the week, and 12 hours per day on weekends. Hourly equivalent is about 1/2 the department stores. She told me about the new safety policy the police advise to use in the event of a shooter, after the Oxford MI incident (about an hour from us). The idea is to barricade the door, get anything you can use as a weapon, and defend the kids. Alternatively, you can break out a window and run away. Of course, they won't let the teachers open carry weapons, which, honestly, would turn the soft targets into very hard ones. Aside from that obvious solution, the problem is, what do you do if you have a kid who doesn't want to leave for any reason? This literally becomes a trolley problem, decide whose life is more important. Should she stay with the reluctant child, or should she save her own life and as many of the others as she can? And I don't know if I mentioned it, but the pay really really sucks. Add to this, parents who don't work with the teachers to help their kids. Often major communication problems with parents who don't speak english. Parents who only sometimes take their kids to school. Kids who just don't care enough to do any work, and then come begging at the end of every quarter/semester for "extra credit", which they are ineligible for, given that they have not completed a majority of their work. Often any work at all. I hear about this. Every day. It is burning her out. But more than that. I see what these schools are producing, see the attempts not to make the kids unhappy by giving them a 50% score for doing no work, not even showing up to class, or tests. Letting them retake tests to improve grades. All these little things we do to coddle, and protect people from the consequences of their own decisions. And I think what sort of adults we are unleashing. Which explains much of what we see in society now.

deleted 5y ago
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908B64B197 5y ago
> She told me about the new safety policy the police advise to use in the event of a shooter, after the Oxford MI incident (about an hour from us). The idea is to barricade the door, get anything you can use as a weapon, and defend the kids. Alternatively, you can break out a window and run away. Of course, they won't let the teachers open carry weapons, which, honestly, would turn the soft targets into very hard ones. Wait so the correct way to defend yourself against an active shooter is to... seek cover and run away? Why can't she simply carry a weapon, as the second amendment gives her the inalienable right to?

arrakis2021 5y ago

Privatize schools.

ModernMech 5y ago

Being a teacher just keeps getting worse and worse as a job. It was bad enough when the worst parts of the job were standardized testing, and that you were paid little and had to spend your own money on school supplies for your classroom. Then it got worse when school shootings became so commonplace that bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills became a thing. Of course you still have to pay for your own school supplies, but now you also have to pay for body armor, ammo for target practice, and therapy. Now there's covid, and it's more of a shitshow than it's ever been. Inability to find substitutes. Bus driver shortages. Staff shortages. Faculty shortages. Even though there's a vaccine, there's no mandates for vaccination. Here's a running tally of educators and staff in Georgia who have died since July [1]. The average age of 42 teachers on this list who have died is 46 years old. FORTY SIX! The youngest was in their 20s! And then on top of it all, if you think that maybe your workplace is dangerous for you as your colleagues drop dead around you, and you'd prefer to teach from home or at least offer some protections at work, then you are called lazy and unamerican by parents in your district. If you hold the opinion that there should be a vaccine mandate at your workplace you are called a Nazi. Meanwhile, legislators are working to pass laws empowering students to sue you personally (for an amount which is maybe 25-30% of your annual salary) if they feel what you're teaching goes against their religious beliefs [2]. You have a moral panic over Critical Race Theory which has metastasized into rumblings about book burnings [3], and moral busybodies combing their way through your library... Yeah, it's no wonder teachers are leaving and it's hard to find replacements. [1] https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/60-georgia-teachers-staff-lost-covid-19-since-start-school-year/SFURXQOXAJH25E3VGVZGTEU3HI/ https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/60-georgia-teachers... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/oklahoma-bill-religion-rob-standridge-b2007505.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... [3] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/book-burnings-1933-2022/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/book-burnings-1933-2022/

jrgaston 5y ago

Not all teaching stories are sad. I was lucky. I taught high school in northern California for almost a decade and it was a lovely job. Sure, the work expands to fill your nights and weekends, and part of every summer vacation I worked on improving my lesson plans, but it was an enjoyable job with good students, great fellow teachers, a supportive administration, a wonderfully diverse and accepting student body, and only the occasional annoying parent. Benefits were decent, pay was decent, and psychological rewards were tremendous. It was far more rewarding than the previous fifteen years I spent in software development. I felt I developed software not because the world needed it but just so some rich guy could get a little richer and maybe a bit of that richness would filter down to me. Not an inspiring reason to get up in the morning. I could tell right away I had an impact on my students, introducing them to new areas of knowledge (in my case it was chemistry). My goals were to be a role model; for them to know what kinds of questions chemistry addressed; and for them to just maybe fall in love with science a little bit. I had no illusions they were going to grow up to be chemists. I would have remained a teacher if I hadn't decided to leave the US. I am fortunate to have left before COVID because teaching online sounds really hard. Just my 2 cents.

Dracophoenix 5y ago
How did you end up in software development in the first place?