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If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

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Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#41

Post by hash-set »

brownbat wrote: post #21

The most moving and informed coverage of the US education system I've heard have all been through This American Life.[0][1][2][3] Ok, there's an easy four hours of content to listen to. Enjoy! The short takeaway for me was basically that local funding through property taxes is a terrible idea if you want anything approaching fairness. If you can afford to live in an area with high property taxes, the US school system…

Not true in MN--you can open enroll your kids in any district. You may not get the exact school you want due to demographics, but it's still a valid counter-example.

By the way, why do you think wealthier people shouldn't get more advantages in life? I'm all for trying to pull people up by their bootstraps, but we can't just level everything out in some misguided attempt at 'fairness.' You will never achieve that fairness. The wealthy will always find ways to gain an advantage.

Sucks about that high school, but a lot of these areas need serious political reform first before anything else can get fixed.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#42

Post by friendly_chap »

mabbo wrote: post #16
allengeorge wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the source for claiming that teachers are underpaid in Canada? Here's an article (admittedly from 2012) on teachers salaries in Ontario: ‪ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/anato... More recent reports (from the shrill National Post) claim an average salary of almost 87K for secondary school teachers, but they don't state their source information. Also consider that teachers - like other p…

> teachers - like other public sector unions - are one of the last few sectors to get a defined benefit pension plan Just to clear up a misconception, teachers get a great pension, but (in Ontario at least) they put 10-13% of they're base salary into that pension plan for their entire careers. Anyone who invests that much money into their retirement will do well. Also, the Ontario teachers pension plan is one of the…

That's fascinating! How is this possible? How come the traders (is that the right terminology) don't get poached by bigger firms?

Are they doing well because they know the local market?

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#43

Post by analog31 »

fatalogic wrote: post #31
gbog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very uncommon opinion (I'm the only one I know to hold it): we should not spend one dime more for sport, especially in education. Kid have a minimal need for physical activities which can be easily fulfilled with some gymnastic, but we are in an age where having muscle is pretty useless. Sport is a recent concept invented by the British idle cast, as a way to spend time and money. The world do not have this luxury ri…

On the other hand sports bring in insane amounts of money, publicity and status to colleges, especially state schools where without them they probably couldn't compete with private schools. http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/ncaa-20-college-footb... Also given the rising obesity rates and health concerns related to obesity I would say physical fitness is very important in today's society. Education spending shoul…

Unfortunately, I suspect that professional college sports and the physical fitness of real students, are different things. For most students, like the rest of us, college sports is a form of passive entertainment.

I went to a smaller college that did not have professional teams, and I suspect that students were healthier than at the Big 10 university near my house. The sports were pretty much open to all students.

The captain of my college's football team was a physics major. That tells you something about the quality of the football team, the physics program, or both. ;-)

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#44

Post by hash-set »

fatalogic wrote: post #31
gbog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very uncommon opinion (I'm the only one I know to hold it): we should not spend one dime more for sport, especially in education. Kid have a minimal need for physical activities which can be easily fulfilled with some gymnastic, but we are in an age where having muscle is pretty useless. Sport is a recent concept invented by the British idle cast, as a way to spend time and money. The world do not have this luxury ri…

On the other hand sports bring in insane amounts of money, publicity and status to colleges, especially state schools where without them they probably couldn't compete with private schools. http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/ncaa-20-college-footb... Also given the rising obesity rates and health concerns related to obesity I would say physical fitness is very important in today's society. Education spending shoul…

All that considered, I would still rather see higher education and big-time farm-league sports (football & basketball) divorced. Big time sports are nothing but a drag on the mission of education--you basically have semi-pro athletes who never graduate acting like princes and engaging in all kinds of anti-social activities that get overlooked. It's a huge mess and it needs to be cleaned up.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#45

Post by hdctambien »

cmdrfred wrote: post #28
bko wrote: post #6

> In the U.S. and Canada, teachers are often underpaid—and many have quit the profession because they couldn't make a decent living Is there a source for this? I often hear similar notions lamenting the demise of US education spending but from what I can tell, the US spends more than most other countries per student. And spending has been growing in practically every respect > This graph shows that average education…

Teachers make median income of around 57k[1] in the US and that is on par with other professions with similar educational requirements despite the fact that they don't work nearly 1/4 of the year. [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...

Teachers don't work 1/4 of the year like football players only work 3 hours a week for 16 weeks.

There's a lot that has to happen (work) when the students aren't in school so that teaching can happen.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#46

Post by hash-set »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #3

It continues to amaze me that the US is so unambitious in this regard. Donald Trump on education: http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Donald_Trump_Education.htm His solution? School choice, competition. Completely ignoring what the 25 countries do that rank higher when it comes to education.

What do they do besides make the population so desperate to escape poverty that they will push their kids to the brink of madness to study for exams that are make or break for their lives?

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#47

Post by drzaiusapelord »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #18
ceejay wrote: post #12

First, in the US I think we need to convince a substantial chunk of the population that it's not religion that will solve our problems, but better education.

Probably you should start by providing evidence of this. Most of the evidence I've seen suggests we are far past the point of diminishing returns on education, and we should have less education rather than more.

Everyone seems to be obsessed with paying more into the education system. Chicago Public Schools have an average teachers salary of around $75,000. This in a city where the average household income is around $43,000. Clearly the money is there and teaching in Chicago isn't some poverty inducing measure.

The outcomes are fairly poor. For students that bother with the ACT the average score is 18, but for Illinois as a whole its 21. 18 is a score that only gets you into the most poorly ranked of colleges. CPS teachers also average 18-19 on the ACT as well. Graduation rate floats are 50% and the powerful Chicago teachers union fights against any performance testing of teachers impossible to implement.

The reality is that we absolutely don't need more education or more education dollars. We need higher quality education. Public sector unions have made sure to make this all about tax dollars, when it should be about teacher performance and student outcomes. This means teachers taking responsibility and administrators firing poor performing teachers. It means a lot of politically difficult things, thus why it doesn't really happen and why anyone with means in Chicago goes to private or charter schools. Or more commonly, white collar professionals move to the suburbs when they have children.

Also the mayor just wrote a op-ed piece against vouchers for private schools. What public school do his kids go to? None. They go to private school in Chicago.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#48

Post by cmdrfred »

hdctambien wrote: post #45
cmdrfred wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers make median income of around 57k[1] in the US and that is on par with other professions with similar educational requirements despite the fact that they don't work nearly 1/4 of the year. [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...

Teachers don't work 1/4 of the year like football players only work 3 hours a week for 16 weeks. There's a lot that has to happen (work) when the students aren't in school so that teaching can happen.

So they are required to be at school for 8 hour days year round?

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#49

Post by hash-set »

metaobject wrote: post #34
yummyfajitas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably you should start by providing evidence of this. Most of the evidence I've seen suggests we are far past the point of diminishing returns on education, and we should have less education rather than more.

Less education? Did I miss the obvious joke/sarcasm here?

I think what he/she meant is that higher education has become the new high school. What we need is a restoration of secondary school education, not "universal college degrees."

That, and we need to re-value our currency in the same fashion.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#50

Post by hash-set »

noonespecial wrote: post #25
superplussed wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how overly animated he is given that the student is not a child, but you can tell that she is pulled in by all of that energy. But if you look at other videos you'll see that most teachers are a little more contained (and maybe sane-seeming): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swc0RTrxjpw The one thing, I saw that in their teacher training they aim for a 70/30 ratio of student to teacher speech and I ha…

>It's interesting how overly animated he is given that the student is not a child Absolutely don't knock this. I teach robotics and tech part time to middle schoolers and if there's one thing that has helped me connect more than any other its being a living cartoon. Exaggerate everything. You should be half-way to full clown when lecturing or you're simply not getting through. To prep for lessons, I don't study circu…

Ha! I found out the same thing teaching college students!
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