Teacher's salaries

[cycloneworld]

What I feel is that teachers should be paid on some objective performance measure, not simply how many years they've taught. Carrots for the good teachers and sticks for the bad.

Agreed 100%. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, the system is unforunately not set up that way.

[Cyclonepride]

Not to inject something else into the debate, but oh well, here goes.....I would think parental involvement would naturally go down fairly dramatically with many, many more women in the workforce than decades ago.

[Cy Heavy]

Not to inject something else into the debate, but oh well, here goes.....I would think parental involvement would naturally go down fairly dramatically with many, many more women in the workforce than decades ago.

wow.

[Cyclone62]

No, I want the best people doing something productive in society. It doesn't honestly take all that much comprehension to teach K-12. I want the best scientists being scientists. I want the best engineers working on engineering. I want the best accountants being accountants. I want the best liberal arts people writing, painting, making music etc.

That's the funniest damn thing I've heard since my roommate told me he got an A in math at ISU by getting a 34% on his final.

[cycopath25]

I planned to teach hs government out of college, but needed to go back for my teacher certification as I changed from business mgt to political science and history midway through my jr. year at ISU. the 'plan' was to work for a few months and begin the certification work the following spring.

Problam was, I realized that I was looking at making 23K per year out of college (the state minimum in 2000 for teachers) with zero job security (budget cuts were forcing cutbacks in teachers and the 'tenured' ones weren't getting cut.)

Looking at my student loan payments I quickly changed my mind and chose the private sector-which I don't regret. Kudos to those that do teach; you are hardly overpaid for what you are asked to do-which is growing into a part time social worker position as more is asked of you.

The rep gods shall shine on you!

[jumbopackage]

That's the funniest damn thing I've heard since my roommate told me he got an A in math at ISU by getting a 34% on his final.

Basically, you need to be able to graduate from high school in order to be able to comprehend what's being taught through high school. Anything beyond that is inconsequential to the task at hand, no matter how useful it might be in a post-secondary environment.

That's a pretty damn low standard of "expertise", in that you really only need to know what pretty much everyone in society has already been taught.

But don't take my word for it, as of 2001, people planning to enter the education career field scored fourth lowest on the SATs, only better than people planning on Vo-Tech, Home Economics (i.e. staying at home) or Public Affairs.

[Cyclone62]

Basically, you need to be able to graduate from high school in order to be able to comprehend what's being taught through high school. Anything beyond that is inconsequential to the task at hand, no matter how useful it might be in a post-secondary environment.

That's a pretty damn low standard of "expertise", in that you really only need to know what pretty much everyone in society has already been taught.

But don't take my word for it, as of 2001, people planning to enter the education career field scored fourth lowest on the SATs, only better than people planning on Vo-Tech, Home Economics (i.e. staying at home) or Public Affairs.

You know, except for the whole "how people learn" part. Yea, that's not important. In the order of Bloom's Taxonomy, teaching something requires more mastery than regurtitating the theoroms and formulas.

[ISUKyro]

You know, except for the whole "how people learn" part. Yea, that's not important. In the order of Bloom's Taxonomy, teaching something requires more mastery than regurtitating the theoroms and formulas.

What?!!?! You mean I should use more than just the first level of Blooms in my class!!!! /end sarcasm

[Cyclone62]

Oh, and I think an educated society is slightly more important than a bridge.

[CloneAggie]

But don't take my word for it, as of 2001, people planning to enter the education career field scored fourth lowest on the SATs, only better than people planning on Vo-Tech, Home Economics (i.e. staying at home) or Public Affairs.

The latest ACTs are similar. For teacher education aspirations for people planning on getting a four year degree, average ACTs of 20.3 were about the same as Business and Management (20.8), Marketing and Distribution (20.6), and Health Sciences (20.8). So people really don't need degrees to do any of those either. Why even have a business school at Iowa State? And don't even get me started on Agriculture (19.7). That should definitely be the first college to get dropped from ISU!!!

[jumbopackage]

You know, except for the whole "how people learn" part. Yea, that's not important. In the order of Bloom's Taxonomy, teaching something requires more mastery than regurtitating the theoroms and formulas.

Yeah so teachers of yesteryear spent thousands of hours studying education theory before we all learned anything. Do you think college professors all sit around talking about education theory when they are teaching what they teach? Is college a worse experience, then, than high school based only on the fact that college professors haven't had years and years of educational training outside of their career fields?

Point taken on transferring knowledge, but obviously, in the face of declining test scores and more objective means of measurement, we are beginning to learn that much of that "how people learn" crap, is crap. the public school system has turned into an over-glorified daycare with a little bit of PBS thrown in.

[Cyclone62]

Point taken on transferring knowledge, but obviously, in the face of declining test scores and more objective means of measurement, we are beginning to learn that much of that "how people learn" crap, is crap. the public school system has turned into an over-glorified daycare with a little bit of PBS thrown in.

And just how many variables are thrown into this mix? More than you probably would know unless you know EXACTLY how many parents are involved with their kid's education, the administrative/school board movements, and everything else that takes place in schools. The point is, you're naive to believe that teachers only need a HS degree to teach their subject matter to students, and that the teachers themselves are the cause of all declines in the building. But, if believing that teachers are (some of) the dumbest people in society makes you feel better about yourself, :pat pat:

[iccyfan]

It sounds like they have identified the problem ... "she doesn't test well". The question you should be asking is what can you (meaning you and the school) do to improve her test taking skills.

As a matter of fact, she "tests" just fine, as indicated by her very high language, vocabulary and reading comprehension scores (99) on the ITBS. Therefore, that explanation is simply an excuse.

We can live with the fact she's not a math wizard, but we're scratching our heads as to what WE can do. It's irksome that we'll need to employ a math tutor to bring her up to speed over the summer when we've been asking her homeroom teachers (four years) what additional work we can do. We've spoken with the district math specialist and basically, the district has done squat to assist us in helping our daughter learn math.

This isn't an indictment of the school district or school teachers in general, simply a rebuttal to the opinion that the problem is lack of parent involvement.

[jumbopackage]

And just how many variables are thrown into this mix? More than you probably would know unless you know EXACTLY how many parents are involved with their kid's education, the administrative/school board movements, and everything else that takes place in schools. The point is, you're naive to believe that teachers only need a HS degree to teach their subject matter to students, and that the teachers themselves are the cause of all declines in the building. But, if believing that teachers are (some of) the dumbest people in society makes you feel better about yourself, :pat pat:

There are a TON of variables. that's why it's foolish to pretend like all the educational theory stuff really has a net positive effect over what my parents learned going through school 50 years ago. You can't control environment outside of the classroom. If you look at the numbers from the pdf I linked to, you'll see that as the education of the parents goes up, so, too, do test scores.

Home environment obviously makes a big difference. Teachers have little to no influence over that. So why pretend like they somehow are responsible for every little success and failure in a kid's education. They are certainly all too ready to take credit for advances, however extremely reticent to even acknowledge declines.

I'm not going to sit here and say all it takes is a high school diploma to teach. It's really more of a vo-tech thing, with some hands-on thrown in.

I'm not saying that EVERY educator is an idiot. There are some, though, and I'm sure they are in the minority. The problem with the system is that they are public employees, and they have almost no accountability to the public for their performance. I'm all for 6 figure salaries for the best teachers. I'm also all for firing the incompetent ones.

[ISUKyro]

As a matter of fact, she "tests" just fine, as indicated by her very high language, vocabulary and reading comprehension scores (99) on the ITBS. Therefore, that explanation is simply an excuse.

We can live with the fact she's not a math wizard, but we're scratching our heads as to what WE can do. It's irksome that we'll need to employ a math tutor to bring her up to speed over the summer when we've been asking her homeroom teachers (four years) what additional work we can do. We've spoken with the district math specialist and basically, the district has done squat to assist us in helping our daughter learn math.

This isn't an indictment of the school district or school teachers in general, simply a rebuttal to the opinion that the problem is lack of parent involvement.

If nothing else let me say thank you for trying that hard and being involved. I wish I could deal with more parents like yourself - at least you care, many I deal with don't. More than once when calling a parent I have basically been told "they are your problem during the day - you figure it out"