8 ms·

School’s out for summer and many teachers are calling it quits

49 points by lxm 4y ago

crooked-v 4y ago
Most suburbs are already net negative funding sinks for the cities nearest them. I wonder how much worse it's going to be in the aftermath of this trend.
- rayiner 4y ago
  I don’t know where people get this notion. It’s obviously not true except for a handful of cities. Most cities, like Baltimore or Newark, are fighting to annex the affluent suburbs around them.
  - spamizbad 4y ago
    Yes. The affluent ones. But most suburbs are not affluent.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    Many of those suburbs mostly exist as a way to hoard wealth; high earners depend upon the city in order to gain their income and wealth, but use small enclaves to make sure their taxes do not get shared evenly. So in that sense, they are net negatives in that they cause greater inequality. And inequality lessens the economic efficiency of capitalism and markets.
    - thrown321 4y ago
      Just like any business if you want a kid to get a good education, live in a school district that is growing.
    - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
      Exactly. In Austin, there are the "cities" of Westlake Hills, Rollingwood and Sunset Valley, each with a couple hundred to a few thousand people, that exist just so their residents can take advantage of all Austin has to offer without actually paying for it. Sunset Valley is a neighborhood of just over a square mile that is completely enclosed by Austin.
      - Phlarp 4y ago
        Wow I just looked up Sunset Valley, population 700 and a median household income almost double that of Austin. They get fire, EMT and education services from the larger Austin area, but provide their own municipal police. Obviously all this requires a mayor and 5 city council members to manage. There is even an enclave within the enclave that carves out a single medium density housing complex. Can't have the unwashed masses using any of THEIR community resources.
        kcplate 4y ago
        They outsource and pay for the Fire and EMT services they receive, not sure on education but would stand to reason that it is passed through as well. https://www.sunsetvalley.org/home/showpublisheddocument/8/637723323055530000 https://www.sunsetvalley.org/home/showpublisheddocument/8/63...
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Take Silicon Valley as an example. What exactly does San Francisco offer to the valley? The tech industry developed in the suburbs and the city later got the benefits. Northern VA and DC have a similar relationship. Virginia did all the investment to attract tech companies to the area; DC is getting the benefits because young people enjoy living in the city. In the DC metro area, most of the GDP base is outside the city. Same for Atlanta. Some cities, typically pre-war ones, are an exception, like New York or Chicago. But many pre-war cities (Baltimore, Philly, etc.) are carried by their surrounding suburbs.
      - Phlarp 4y ago
        >Virginia did all the investment to attract tech companies to the area Aren't these tech companies all there to do government services contracting? Seems more like DC is providing industry / jobs to Virginia
        rayiner 4y ago
        No. And you can’t credit the federal government to DC, as the federal tax base and governance is almost wholly distinct from the municipal one. Say Rockwell builds an office in Reston because of good Virginia schools and the availability of Virginia Tech and UVA grads. Virginia builds the roads that get workers there, and the schools for the workers kids. If the office works on a federal contract, the Pentagon awards it (which is in Virginia) and the taxes that pay for it come from Michigan and California. DC doesn’t have any involvement, other than being the metaphysical locus of the federal government.
      - epistasis 4y ago
        Silicon Valley was founded on defense contracts, so you are correct that the peninsula suburbs is not exist as ways to hoard wealth gained from a larger city. But Silicon Valley is very unique in that regard compared to the rest of the US.
    - iratewizard 4y ago
      Don't worry. I'm sure even the people hoarding wealth in affluent cities are still paying 40% of their income to fund rent seekers and their mandatory services.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    They're fighting to annex them because they consume disproportionate resources, by concentrating the tax base in places that aren't required to pay into the city school system. It's not a subtle effect.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      If they don’t send their kids to the city school system, why should they be expected to send their school tax dollars there?
      - tptacek 4y ago
        The answer to this question is the same as "if parents in Lincoln Park (wealthy neighborhood) don't send their kids to school in Lawndale (poor neighborhood), why should they have to send their tax dollars there". The cities would make the argument that Oak Park and Evanston (wealthy suburbs adjacent to Chicago) are really just de facto private school systems, and should be folded into the city's school system.
        candiodari 4y ago
        The answer to the question boils down, deeper, to the question "if parents pay (taxes) for education, do they get to receive quality education in return", and even more controversial "and if they choose different education, do they get to to use those dollars". I have 3 kids. I am pretty wealthy, even though people richer than me complain on this site about money. I do not have enough dollars to give my kids private schooling. At that point it is very disappointing to read schools consume 42000 per kid on average, per year. With that money, I could give all 3 kids a full private education, easy. Meanwhile I have regular conflicts with teachers, that tend to boil down to 3 things: the kids have been seriously unfairly treated and eventually reacted strongly (although all 3 are girls, they do fighting sport for a long time), they were confronted with drugs (this is when I get mad at schools. Yes, we're talking primary school), or what the teachers are telling them is obvious bullshit, clear even to them (for example, one conflict was about Madagascar being in Italy). The teachers and the school treat us as enemies (with a few, very nice, much older, exceptions). They have called youth services on us, because of what we eventually found out are financial reasons (for them). Meanwhile it is getting worse every year, by a lot. Most recently, parent teacher conferences are now only in group (meaning all parents that care to come at once), ONCE a year. I am half tempted to ask my kids to beat up some random kid just so we'd actually be able to have a talk with a teacher ABOUT OUR KID. JUST ONCE. (again, with 2 very big exceptions that are individual teachers doing better) Point is, the education in this school is bad ... and getting worse all the time. Homeschooling, of course, is not allowed here. So I, as a parent, have a huge problem: 1) I cannot give my kids quality education, just don't have the money 2) I pay MORE for the bad education they get than I would pay for private education 3) There is an extreme discrepancy in the quality of education for my kids (one of those positive individual exceptional teachers is the teacher of ONE of my daughters) 4) I am treated as the enemy for bringing up very reasonable problems 5) I am treaded as the enemy by school management since I suggested one of our daughters be changed classes because she has the worst teacher 6) one teacher hates my daughter ... because I demand she get some real education after hours (mostly Khan academy) FIVE, I have a dilemma. The private school has offered a scholarship for my eldest daughter, which the other ones probably won't get (doesn't make it free). Do I give her this opportunity, knowing I can't replicate it for my other kids, or do I deny it to her?
  - gedy 4y ago
    They are parroting the Strongtown opinion pieces.
- ianbutler 4y ago
  Shouldn't cities subsidize suburbs? I genuinely don't know the breakdown but when I was a kid and living in the suburbs I remember most of the adults around me commuting into the cities. I live in NY right now and rent prices are basically unlivable for most people so I find it hard to believe most workers don't commute in now as well. At that point subsidizing suburbs is basically required to support the workers who generate all the money for the city, it strikes me as symbiotic.
endisneigh 4y ago
Schools cannot solve society's issues. This is hardly a new thing. Eventually people will learn this. The teachers certainly are, hence the quitting mentioned in the article. > gun violence > COVID-19 > masking policy debates > political battles over what teachers can or can't discuss or teach in the classroom Parents blame teachers, admin blame teachers, what a shock some teachers are quitting
- spicybright 4y ago
  Clarify what you mean. Education is the single best tool humans have invented for progressing knowledge and solving social issues. But the current education systems in the US are pretty bad though, from what I've read.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    School is not education.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - willnonya 4y ago
      But it is supposed to be a tool for facilitating edication... You also missed the part of the cycle that blames parents. The bureaucratic nature of modern school, lack of proper incentives or completion are the fertilizers of mediocrity.
      - endisneigh 4y ago
        I didn’t - the point is that schools are tasked with solving societal problems. Teachers aren’t qualified and are blamed and so they’re leaving. The end
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      What else is school?
spamizbad 4y ago
I think parents are unaware of how little autonomy public school teachers have over what takes place in their classroom. I have several friends and family members who work in education. They've fielded their share of complaints over the years. And when it comes to what's covered in the classrooms the kinds of angry complaints they field are almost always over stuff mandated by either the administration or a state-level standard. And when they (very politely) inform parents that they're required by law to learn about <some thing> you'd think the parents would be like "Oh my god that's terrible! I'm going to write my state rep right away!" NOPE - they just double down and seem to think its within the teacher's purview to eschew state requirements. And the kind of stuff that parents find objectionable isn't even the stuff you're thinking - like maybe evolution, slavery, civil rights etc. Nope. One parent was upset her daughter had to learn that the US civil war was extremely bloody and demanded to know why this sort of "macabre information" was part of the unit as dwelling on such things does not prepare kids for college.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  There is a cohort of parents that is involved (edit: in a healthy way) in their child’s education. There is another cohort that is looking for a babysitter. A bifurcation in path’s for these cohorts is about to occur. For the former, parents of means will elect for private school. Parents of lesser means will either stretch for private school, or homeschool. For the latter, I am at a loss of what will happen. Perhaps a lost generation.
  - spamizbad 4y ago
    The "Looking for a babysitter" parents aren't that bad assuming their kids are well behaved and make decent grades. It's actually mixture of helicopter parents who are EXTREMELY invested in their kids education and troubled kids whose parents treat school like a daycare/repair shop for their kids that are the problem. A pox on both their houses etc etc
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Good call out, I have edited my comment accordingly.
metadat 4y ago
Un-paywalled: https://archive.ph/yA5Rr https://archive.ph/yA5Rr
bigmattystyles 4y ago
Who can blame them; asides from low pay, two things stick with me; many of our friends are teachers, when we get together and there are a couple of drinks, if a photo is taken the teachers in the group reflexively hide their drink out of sight. They’re afraid it might be used against them by parents or a hostile school administration. I had a friend who was wearing something low cut and asked me not to post a group photo for the same reason. That feels like such a violation and outrageous that teachers have to live like nuns in their private lives. The other, lack of respect or deference. My kid knows his teacher’s first name. That’s just weird to me for some reason.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  I guess it’s culture and generational thing but when I was in high school in the early 00s a teacher sharing their first name was a form of building mutual respect.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Santanlan 4y ago
  Why is it weird to know your teachers first name? To me it seems absurd not to know your teachers first name.
  - DecoPerson 4y ago
    Growing up in Australia, calling a teacher by their first name as a student was incredibly disrespectful and worthy of being sent to the principal if done repeatedly. This often resulted in students never learning their teachers’ given names. Generally, adults—teachers or otherwise—expected to be called by their title and surname, and would likely correct a kid if addressed wrongly. I rarely see kids out and about at all these days, and if they are, I never see them interacting with adults other than buying take-away. It’s a bit concerning, really.
    - deleted 4y ago
ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
Busy work, waking up early, memorizing history dates, homework, its all very barbaric. The whole thing was built for a time when parents went off to work in a factory. School as we know it is primitive and helps no one. It hurts those that have difficult upbringings, as they are locked out of top educational opportunities, which may gate them for life. Do away with the whole thing, teach reading and math slowly. With the classics
- nus07 4y ago
  Okay so you like Bill Gates can design the right curriculum over teachers who have trained and worked in their field for years. Lets hear a breakdown of how you will implement the modern education curriculum and structure. Then I will bring a 25 year old Harvard MBA to explain how your tech job can be completely updated for the modern world.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    Even if you have a 100% sound and demonstrably better idea that fixes all current issues I dare you to explain how you’d get anyone to accept and agree to implement it.
    - nus07 4y ago
      Exactly you cannot. And people outside corporate like plumbers, carpenters, retail workers get up early in the morning and go to work everyday. Will their kids stay home and learn? We had kids learning over Zoom the last couple of years. How was their mental and physical health not being able to socialize. Especially the ones not living in a wealthy suburb. The commenter with the 'barbaric, medieval practices' is so out of touch but they are exactly the ones selling us the 'new education model'. For who ? Themselves and other wealthy folks?
      - MBCook 4y ago
        Lots of idea work very well in a vacuum.
basicplus2 4y ago
Come to Australia.. we need more teachers
- annoyingnoob 4y ago
  When covid hit the Principal at my kids school quit. No love lost, he wasn't very popular. He makes soap in his garage now and sells it in a little boutique shop. I suspect he isn't the only one finding something outside of education.
- prawn 4y ago
  We have a lot of teachers looking to move out of the profession too. Here's one indicative comment from a recent article: "I am an early childhood teacher of 20+ years and I have recently cut back to 2 days a week. I do another "normal" job on the other days now. The BS that goes along with the job now is ridiculous and getting worse all the time. It takes away from actually teaching kids and doing the job I used love. At the same time the pressure to "bump up" the grades is ever growing. I will never go back to full-time teaching again and hope to quit altogether..."
paulpauper 4y ago
Kids are brats, parents are insufferable. low pay, having to deal with administration and bureaucracy. no surprise.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > low pay and probably the best benefits package anywhere.
  - another_story 4y ago
    Spending 25 to 30 years living just above the poverty line in many states, taking abuse from admin, parents and students, all so you can continue to get that same pay for life after you retire. Not really great benefits.
    - spaetzleesser 4y ago
      That depends on the state. I knew teachers in new york state and they made very good money with glorious retirement benefits and tons of vacation. Seems teacher pay is similar to police pay. In some states it’s really low but in others it’s fantastic. See salaries of cops jn CA for example.
      - cute_boi 4y ago
        Well police can easily earn by doing corruption. Teacher not so much. (At least in the country I live)
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      It's more than a lifetime pension. The health care package is gold plated. Talking about low pay without consideration of the considerable value of the benefits package is seriously misleading.
      - taxicabjesus 4y ago
Kyragem 4y ago
Teachers are considered second in terms of contributing most to society but teacher pay is near the bottom.
etempleton 4y ago
Anecdotally I am seeing people quit the profession first-hand. It is real and the teacher shortage next year will be too. It will be interesting to see how school districts respond. In my local district they didn’t have enough bus drivers this years and they had to double the pay to keep the ones they had.
dehrmann 4y ago
> Some 300,000 public-school teachers and other staff left the field between February 2020 and May 2022, a nearly 3% drop in that workforce, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Is that a net loss or in individuals? You'd expect more than 1.5% to leave in a given year just from retirement.
trhway 4y ago
From a very narrow point of view of economics (thus not trying to make any statement or provoke any flame of what is better as it isn't what economics about) the teachers - large unionized workforce in the style of yesterday and working at small scale and producing small batches of "product" - reminds me of the sharecroppers who were displaced by large industrial agriculture due to the technology development - large tractors - with the displacement triggered by the stress of the Dust Bowl. For teachers i see the same situation - technology development and the stress caused by the society having changed a lot economically/politically/socially since the times when a small town had its teacher. The importance and the task of personal development of your pupils is pretty much gone, and the teachers today are limited to the instruction only - that narrow task can and will more and more be made much better and efficiently using technology at industrial scale.
- willnonya 4y ago
  This comment is completely detached from reality. Our education system is broken and archaic but not for the reasons provided. It's an idealized view of reality and history not indicative of what's actually happening. For one this isn't a matter of scale, most school systems are enormous and structured like most large bureaucracies. Which is the root of the problem.
  - trhway 4y ago
    Exactly, gigantic workshop of manual craftsmen (or a huge bureaucratic coop of sharecroppers) instead of an industrial factory. And related classic to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axWVMr-RpMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axWVMr-RpMM :)
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      How do you imagine that to happen? I could see more self-guided and technology-driven learning work well for older kids, but not for even young teenagers. The kids at that age lack discipline and a lot of subjects start it quite boring (basic reading and spelling, math doesn't get fun to several years in, rode memorization in there beginning for foreign language studies etc). Many kids will find ways to distract themselves from that without supervision. We've seen that parents providing that supervision for remote studies doesn't work in many cases
vondur 4y ago
Here in SoCal, we are dealing with declining enrollment. Since many schools here are funded on the amount of students they service, we may soon need less teachers.
etempleton 4y ago
Americans have stopped trusting each other. People don’t trust police. They don’t trust teachers. Two jobs that were the most respected and bedrocks of communities. These jobs traded low pay for community respect. Americans have to stop seeing differences and fighting petty political fights and pointing fingers.
- XorNot 4y ago
  It is a hell of a statement to think that the police lost the trust of the public unfairly. The police lost the trust of the public exactly by their own actions.
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    And sticking up for "the bad apples" seems still prioritized over doing the right thing and gaining the trust back
  - etempleton 4y ago
    I do not think the lack of trust in police is unfair. Police brutality is an issue in the US that disproportionately impacts minorities. However, I also do not think the response to police brutality has been at all constructive. What have we achieved in terms of lasting police reform? My point is simply that police has been a respected pillar of society. Police falling out of favor has very real consequences. When people do not trust police they turn to others for protection and justice.
- nus07 4y ago
  You do the realize that the tech industry (us) and the financial services industry are largely responsible for gutting of this. Disrupt became the buzzword for the last few years. Everyone should code, laptops in the classroom, defund the police and all of that is largely responsible for all this. But we are never to blame because the tech industry are like Swiss bankers. We are just the means.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
willnonya 4y ago
While there are many problems with public education in America my experience as a parent in a "good" school system suggest that more teachers should be pushed out of the profession than are likely to leave on their own. This is a school system where every classroom has a $20k smart board ( at time ourchased) yet less than 1 in teachers seem to know how to use them. At the same time we're constantly fed the low pay for teachers rhetoric as a prelude to increasing funding while both the median and mean incomes for teachers are well above the state averages. I do know teachers I respect which go well above and beyond the minimum for thwir students. Sadly they're the exception rather than the rule.
- XorNot 4y ago
  Where do you think you're going to find replacement teachers? At any point in your life, did you find yourself thinking "I should be a teacher?" and then not dismiss that thought based on pay? Have you considered that the "smart board" or whatever might simply have been a very poor classroom investment?
- pragmatic 4y ago
  Yes, just what every teacher needs, a wonky toy that kinda works but more likely will need an update or reboot when you actually want to use it. Is there evidence these smart boards actually add anything to the classroom? How many resources need to get diverted to manage these things, provide training, etc.
pbuzbee 4y ago
Is this a shock? - Low pay. For STEM fields, you can easily make far more in industry. - Decreasing resources and investment from the community. - Decreasing freedom in what you teach and how you choose to teach it. - Half of parents see you as a babysitter, and the other half sees you as the only obstacle between their child and Harvard. - High scrutiny of your actions. What you do outside of working hours can affect your job (e.g. having a drink at a bar or posting on Facebook). In our polarized society, anything that's slightly political could cost you your career. - If you're male, expect heavier scrutiny. People will always suspect that you could be a child predator. - Fear of school shootings. EDIT: And I almost forgot: - A society where somewhere between 20-50% of people are skeptical of your value and unhappy with your profession today.

49 points by lxm 4y ago

Most suburbs are already net negative funding sinks for the cities nearest them. I wonder how much worse it's going to be in the aftermath of this trend.

rayiner 4y ago
I don’t know where people get this notion. It’s obviously not true except for a handful of cities. Most cities, like Baltimore or Newark, are fighting to annex the affluent suburbs around them.
- spamizbad 4y ago
  Yes. The affluent ones. But most suburbs are not affluent.
- epistasis 4y ago
  Many of those suburbs mostly exist as a way to hoard wealth; high earners depend upon the city in order to gain their income and wealth, but use small enclaves to make sure their taxes do not get shared evenly. So in that sense, they are net negatives in that they cause greater inequality. And inequality lessens the economic efficiency of capitalism and markets.
  - thrown321 4y ago
    Just like any business if you want a kid to get a good education, live in a school district that is growing.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    Exactly. In Austin, there are the "cities" of Westlake Hills, Rollingwood and Sunset Valley, each with a couple hundred to a few thousand people, that exist just so their residents can take advantage of all Austin has to offer without actually paying for it. Sunset Valley is a neighborhood of just over a square mile that is completely enclosed by Austin.
    - Phlarp 4y ago
      Wow I just looked up Sunset Valley, population 700 and a median household income almost double that of Austin. They get fire, EMT and education services from the larger Austin area, but provide their own municipal police. Obviously all this requires a mayor and 5 city council members to manage. There is even an enclave within the enclave that carves out a single medium density housing complex. Can't have the unwashed masses using any of THEIR community resources.
      - kcplate 4y ago
        They outsource and pay for the Fire and EMT services they receive, not sure on education but would stand to reason that it is passed through as well. https://www.sunsetvalley.org/home/showpublisheddocument/8/637723323055530000 https://www.sunsetvalley.org/home/showpublisheddocument/8/63...
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Take Silicon Valley as an example. What exactly does San Francisco offer to the valley? The tech industry developed in the suburbs and the city later got the benefits. Northern VA and DC have a similar relationship. Virginia did all the investment to attract tech companies to the area; DC is getting the benefits because young people enjoy living in the city. In the DC metro area, most of the GDP base is outside the city. Same for Atlanta. Some cities, typically pre-war ones, are an exception, like New York or Chicago. But many pre-war cities (Baltimore, Philly, etc.) are carried by their surrounding suburbs.
    - Phlarp 4y ago
      >Virginia did all the investment to attract tech companies to the area Aren't these tech companies all there to do government services contracting? Seems more like DC is providing industry / jobs to Virginia
      - rayiner 4y ago
        No. And you can’t credit the federal government to DC, as the federal tax base and governance is almost wholly distinct from the municipal one. Say Rockwell builds an office in Reston because of good Virginia schools and the availability of Virginia Tech and UVA grads. Virginia builds the roads that get workers there, and the schools for the workers kids. If the office works on a federal contract, the Pentagon awards it (which is in Virginia) and the taxes that pay for it come from Michigan and California. DC doesn’t have any involvement, other than being the metaphysical locus of the federal government.
    - epistasis 4y ago
      Silicon Valley was founded on defense contracts, so you are correct that the peninsula suburbs is not exist as ways to hoard wealth gained from a larger city. But Silicon Valley is very unique in that regard compared to the rest of the US.
  - iratewizard 4y ago
    Don't worry. I'm sure even the people hoarding wealth in affluent cities are still paying 40% of their income to fund rent seekers and their mandatory services.
- tptacek 4y ago
  They're fighting to annex them because they consume disproportionate resources, by concentrating the tax base in places that aren't required to pay into the city school system. It's not a subtle effect.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    If they don’t send their kids to the city school system, why should they be expected to send their school tax dollars there?
    - tptacek 4y ago
      The answer to this question is the same as "if parents in Lincoln Park (wealthy neighborhood) don't send their kids to school in Lawndale (poor neighborhood), why should they have to send their tax dollars there". The cities would make the argument that Oak Park and Evanston (wealthy suburbs adjacent to Chicago) are really just de facto private school systems, and should be folded into the city's school system.
      - candiodari 4y ago
        The answer to the question boils down, deeper, to the question "if parents pay (taxes) for education, do they get to receive quality education in return", and even more controversial "and if they choose different education, do they get to to use those dollars". I have 3 kids. I am pretty wealthy, even though people richer than me complain on this site about money. I do not have enough dollars to give my kids private schooling. At that point it is very disappointing to read schools consume 42000 per kid on average, per year. With that money, I could give all 3 kids a full private education, easy. Meanwhile I have regular conflicts with teachers, that tend to boil down to 3 things: the kids have been seriously unfairly treated and eventually reacted strongly (although all 3 are girls, they do fighting sport for a long time), they were confronted with drugs (this is when I get mad at schools. Yes, we're talking primary school), or what the teachers are telling them is obvious bullshit, clear even to them (for example, one conflict was about Madagascar being in Italy). The teachers and the school treat us as enemies (with a few, very nice, much older, exceptions). They have called youth services on us, because of what we eventually found out are financial reasons (for them). Meanwhile it is getting worse every year, by a lot. Most recently, parent teacher conferences are now only in group (meaning all parents that care to come at once), ONCE a year. I am half tempted to ask my kids to beat up some random kid just so we'd actually be able to have a talk with a teacher ABOUT OUR KID. JUST ONCE. (again, with 2 very big exceptions that are individual teachers doing better) Point is, the education in this school is bad ... and getting worse all the time. Homeschooling, of course, is not allowed here. So I, as a parent, have a huge problem: 1) I cannot give my kids quality education, just don't have the money 2) I pay MORE for the bad education they get than I would pay for private education 3) There is an extreme discrepancy in the quality of education for my kids (one of those positive individual exceptional teachers is the teacher of ONE of my daughters) 4) I am treated as the enemy for bringing up very reasonable problems 5) I am treaded as the enemy by school management since I suggested one of our daughters be changed classes because she has the worst teacher 6) one teacher hates my daughter ... because I demand she get some real education after hours (mostly Khan academy) FIVE, I have a dilemma. The private school has offered a scholarship for my eldest daughter, which the other ones probably won't get (doesn't make it free). Do I give her this opportunity, knowing I can't replicate it for my other kids, or do I deny it to her?
- gedy 4y ago
  They are parroting the Strongtown opinion pieces.
ianbutler 4y ago
Shouldn't cities subsidize suburbs? I genuinely don't know the breakdown but when I was a kid and living in the suburbs I remember most of the adults around me commuting into the cities. I live in NY right now and rent prices are basically unlivable for most people so I find it hard to believe most workers don't commute in now as well. At that point subsidizing suburbs is basically required to support the workers who generate all the money for the city, it strikes me as symbiotic.

endisneigh 4y ago

Schools cannot solve society's issues. This is hardly a new thing. Eventually people will learn this. The teachers certainly are, hence the quitting mentioned in the article. > gun violence > COVID-19 > masking policy debates > political battles over what teachers can or can't discuss or teach in the classroom Parents blame teachers, admin blame teachers, what a shock some teachers are quitting

spicybright 4y ago
Clarify what you mean. Education is the single best tool humans have invented for progressing knowledge and solving social issues. But the current education systems in the US are pretty bad though, from what I've read.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  School is not education.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - willnonya 4y ago
    But it is supposed to be a tool for facilitating edication... You also missed the part of the cycle that blames parents. The bureaucratic nature of modern school, lack of proper incentives or completion are the fertilizers of mediocrity.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      I didn’t - the point is that schools are tasked with solving societal problems. Teachers aren’t qualified and are blamed and so they’re leaving. The end
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    What else is school?

spamizbad 4y ago

I think parents are unaware of how little autonomy public school teachers have over what takes place in their classroom. I have several friends and family members who work in education. They've fielded their share of complaints over the years. And when it comes to what's covered in the classrooms the kinds of angry complaints they field are almost always over stuff mandated by either the administration or a state-level standard. And when they (very politely) inform parents that they're required by law to learn about <some thing> you'd think the parents would be like "Oh my god that's terrible! I'm going to write my state rep right away!" NOPE - they just double down and seem to think its within the teacher's purview to eschew state requirements. And the kind of stuff that parents find objectionable isn't even the stuff you're thinking - like maybe evolution, slavery, civil rights etc. Nope. One parent was upset her daughter had to learn that the US civil war was extremely bloody and demanded to know why this sort of "macabre information" was part of the unit as dwelling on such things does not prepare kids for college.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
There is a cohort of parents that is involved (edit: in a healthy way) in their child’s education. There is another cohort that is looking for a babysitter. A bifurcation in path’s for these cohorts is about to occur. For the former, parents of means will elect for private school. Parents of lesser means will either stretch for private school, or homeschool. For the latter, I am at a loss of what will happen. Perhaps a lost generation.
- spamizbad 4y ago
  The "Looking for a babysitter" parents aren't that bad assuming their kids are well behaved and make decent grades. It's actually mixture of helicopter parents who are EXTREMELY invested in their kids education and troubled kids whose parents treat school like a daycare/repair shop for their kids that are the problem. A pox on both their houses etc etc
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Good call out, I have edited my comment accordingly.

metadat 4y ago

Un-paywalled: https://archive.ph/yA5Rr https://archive.ph/yA5Rr

bigmattystyles 4y ago

Who can blame them; asides from low pay, two things stick with me; many of our friends are teachers, when we get together and there are a couple of drinks, if a photo is taken the teachers in the group reflexively hide their drink out of sight. They’re afraid it might be used against them by parents or a hostile school administration. I had a friend who was wearing something low cut and asked me not to post a group photo for the same reason. That feels like such a violation and outrageous that teachers have to live like nuns in their private lives. The other, lack of respect or deference. My kid knows his teacher’s first name. That’s just weird to me for some reason.

Waterluvian 4y ago
I guess it’s culture and generational thing but when I was in high school in the early 00s a teacher sharing their first name was a form of building mutual respect.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Santanlan 4y ago
Why is it weird to know your teachers first name? To me it seems absurd not to know your teachers first name.
- DecoPerson 4y ago
  Growing up in Australia, calling a teacher by their first name as a student was incredibly disrespectful and worthy of being sent to the principal if done repeatedly. This often resulted in students never learning their teachers’ given names. Generally, adults—teachers or otherwise—expected to be called by their title and surname, and would likely correct a kid if addressed wrongly. I rarely see kids out and about at all these days, and if they are, I never see them interacting with adults other than buying take-away. It’s a bit concerning, really.
  - deleted 4y ago

ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago

Busy work, waking up early, memorizing history dates, homework, its all very barbaric. The whole thing was built for a time when parents went off to work in a factory. School as we know it is primitive and helps no one. It hurts those that have difficult upbringings, as they are locked out of top educational opportunities, which may gate them for life. Do away with the whole thing, teach reading and math slowly. With the classics

nus07 4y ago
Okay so you like Bill Gates can design the right curriculum over teachers who have trained and worked in their field for years. Lets hear a breakdown of how you will implement the modern education curriculum and structure. Then I will bring a 25 year old Harvard MBA to explain how your tech job can be completely updated for the modern world.
- MBCook 4y ago
  Even if you have a 100% sound and demonstrably better idea that fixes all current issues I dare you to explain how you’d get anyone to accept and agree to implement it.
  - nus07 4y ago
    Exactly you cannot. And people outside corporate like plumbers, carpenters, retail workers get up early in the morning and go to work everyday. Will their kids stay home and learn? We had kids learning over Zoom the last couple of years. How was their mental and physical health not being able to socialize. Especially the ones not living in a wealthy suburb. The commenter with the 'barbaric, medieval practices' is so out of touch but they are exactly the ones selling us the 'new education model'. For who ? Themselves and other wealthy folks?
    - MBCook 4y ago
      Lots of idea work very well in a vacuum.

basicplus2 4y ago

Come to Australia.. we need more teachers

annoyingnoob 4y ago
When covid hit the Principal at my kids school quit. No love lost, he wasn't very popular. He makes soap in his garage now and sells it in a little boutique shop. I suspect he isn't the only one finding something outside of education.
prawn 4y ago
We have a lot of teachers looking to move out of the profession too. Here's one indicative comment from a recent article: "I am an early childhood teacher of 20+ years and I have recently cut back to 2 days a week. I do another "normal" job on the other days now. The BS that goes along with the job now is ridiculous and getting worse all the time. It takes away from actually teaching kids and doing the job I used love. At the same time the pressure to "bump up" the grades is ever growing. I will never go back to full-time teaching again and hope to quit altogether..."

paulpauper 4y ago

Kids are brats, parents are insufferable. low pay, having to deal with administration and bureaucracy. no surprise.

WalterBright 4y ago
> low pay and probably the best benefits package anywhere.
- another_story 4y ago
  Spending 25 to 30 years living just above the poverty line in many states, taking abuse from admin, parents and students, all so you can continue to get that same pay for life after you retire. Not really great benefits.
  - spaetzleesser 4y ago
    That depends on the state. I knew teachers in new york state and they made very good money with glorious retirement benefits and tons of vacation. Seems teacher pay is similar to police pay. In some states it’s really low but in others it’s fantastic. See salaries of cops jn CA for example.
    - cute_boi 4y ago
      Well police can easily earn by doing corruption. Teacher not so much. (At least in the country I live)
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    It's more than a lifetime pension. The health care package is gold plated. Talking about low pay without consideration of the considerable value of the benefits package is seriously misleading.
    - taxicabjesus 4y ago

Kyragem 4y ago

Teachers are considered second in terms of contributing most to society but teacher pay is near the bottom.

etempleton 4y ago

Anecdotally I am seeing people quit the profession first-hand. It is real and the teacher shortage next year will be too. It will be interesting to see how school districts respond. In my local district they didn’t have enough bus drivers this years and they had to double the pay to keep the ones they had.

dehrmann 4y ago

> Some 300,000 public-school teachers and other staff left the field between February 2020 and May 2022, a nearly 3% drop in that workforce, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Is that a net loss or in individuals? You'd expect more than 1.5% to leave in a given year just from retirement.

trhway 4y ago

From a very narrow point of view of economics (thus not trying to make any statement or provoke any flame of what is better as it isn't what economics about) the teachers - large unionized workforce in the style of yesterday and working at small scale and producing small batches of "product" - reminds me of the sharecroppers who were displaced by large industrial agriculture due to the technology development - large tractors - with the displacement triggered by the stress of the Dust Bowl. For teachers i see the same situation - technology development and the stress caused by the society having changed a lot economically/politically/socially since the times when a small town had its teacher. The importance and the task of personal development of your pupils is pretty much gone, and the teachers today are limited to the instruction only - that narrow task can and will more and more be made much better and efficiently using technology at industrial scale.

willnonya 4y ago
This comment is completely detached from reality. Our education system is broken and archaic but not for the reasons provided. It's an idealized view of reality and history not indicative of what's actually happening. For one this isn't a matter of scale, most school systems are enormous and structured like most large bureaucracies. Which is the root of the problem.
- trhway 4y ago
  Exactly, gigantic workshop of manual craftsmen (or a huge bureaucratic coop of sharecroppers) instead of an industrial factory. And related classic to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axWVMr-RpMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axWVMr-RpMM :)
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    How do you imagine that to happen? I could see more self-guided and technology-driven learning work well for older kids, but not for even young teenagers. The kids at that age lack discipline and a lot of subjects start it quite boring (basic reading and spelling, math doesn't get fun to several years in, rode memorization in there beginning for foreign language studies etc). Many kids will find ways to distract themselves from that without supervision. We've seen that parents providing that supervision for remote studies doesn't work in many cases

vondur 4y ago

Here in SoCal, we are dealing with declining enrollment. Since many schools here are funded on the amount of students they service, we may soon need less teachers.

etempleton 4y ago

Americans have stopped trusting each other. People don’t trust police. They don’t trust teachers. Two jobs that were the most respected and bedrocks of communities. These jobs traded low pay for community respect. Americans have to stop seeing differences and fighting petty political fights and pointing fingers.

XorNot 4y ago
It is a hell of a statement to think that the police lost the trust of the public unfairly. The police lost the trust of the public exactly by their own actions.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  And sticking up for "the bad apples" seems still prioritized over doing the right thing and gaining the trust back
- etempleton 4y ago
  I do not think the lack of trust in police is unfair. Police brutality is an issue in the US that disproportionately impacts minorities. However, I also do not think the response to police brutality has been at all constructive. What have we achieved in terms of lasting police reform? My point is simply that police has been a respected pillar of society. Police falling out of favor has very real consequences. When people do not trust police they turn to others for protection and justice.
nus07 4y ago
You do the realize that the tech industry (us) and the financial services industry are largely responsible for gutting of this. Disrupt became the buzzword for the last few years. Everyone should code, laptops in the classroom, defund the police and all of that is largely responsible for all this. But we are never to blame because the tech industry are like Swiss bankers. We are just the means.
- dehrmann 4y ago

willnonya 4y ago

While there are many problems with public education in America my experience as a parent in a "good" school system suggest that more teachers should be pushed out of the profession than are likely to leave on their own. This is a school system where every classroom has a $20k smart board ( at time ourchased) yet less than 1 in teachers seem to know how to use them. At the same time we're constantly fed the low pay for teachers rhetoric as a prelude to increasing funding while both the median and mean incomes for teachers are well above the state averages. I do know teachers I respect which go well above and beyond the minimum for thwir students. Sadly they're the exception rather than the rule.

XorNot 4y ago
Where do you think you're going to find replacement teachers? At any point in your life, did you find yourself thinking "I should be a teacher?" and then not dismiss that thought based on pay? Have you considered that the "smart board" or whatever might simply have been a very poor classroom investment?
pragmatic 4y ago
Yes, just what every teacher needs, a wonky toy that kinda works but more likely will need an update or reboot when you actually want to use it. Is there evidence these smart boards actually add anything to the classroom? How many resources need to get diverted to manage these things, provide training, etc.

pbuzbee 4y ago

Is this a shock? - Low pay. For STEM fields, you can easily make far more in industry. - Decreasing resources and investment from the community. - Decreasing freedom in what you teach and how you choose to teach it. - Half of parents see you as a babysitter, and the other half sees you as the only obstacle between their child and Harvard. - High scrutiny of your actions. What you do outside of working hours can affect your job (e.g. having a drink at a bar or posting on Facebook). In our polarized society, anything that's slightly political could cost you your career. - If you're male, expect heavier scrutiny. People will always suspect that you could be a child predator. - Fear of school shootings. EDIT: And I almost forgot: - A society where somewhere between 20-50% of people are skeptical of your value and unhappy with your profession today.