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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

#101

Post by why-el »

Spooky23 wrote: post #27
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…

I always hear that lament, then I talk to my friends who are teachers. Most are in my age group (late 30s) and are making $70-85k, with summers and another month of vacation and good pension/healthcare. The only lousy benefit is that maternity leave sucks. They all are incredibly frustrated with the increasing meddling and red tape attached to federal and state funding. Half the job is paperwork nonsense, which wasn'…

Where are you located? And is it charter, private, or public?

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

#102

Post by stan_rogers »

friendly_chap wrote: post #42
mabbo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

They don't trade as such, they buy (a lot) and hold -- and manage what they buy as well, when they can. Basically, it's the Warren Buffet approach to investment, and it took a long time to build from what used to be a more ordinary-looking pension fund wa-a-a-ay back when I was a kid (50 years ago).

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

#103

Post by jccalhoun »

It sounds like the pay is pretty good compared to other online tutoring stuff. In grad school I was an online tutor for Pearson for 3-4 years and the pay was minimum wage.

I hated every minute of it. You would log onto a creaky old system (one entire year their scheduling system was down and we had to sign up for hours by filling out a google form) then download a rnadomly assigned college paper. You were expected to critique it in 30 minutes and give feedback using their very specific format. There was often little context to the papers or what the actual assignment was. I would often get nursing papers full of all kinds of medical things I didn't know anything about.

Then you would get evaluated by your suprevisor and emails about how long you took per paper. So there was constant pressure and it sucked so much.

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

#104

Post by School-Cotton »

Spooky23 wrote: post #27
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…

I always hear that lament, then I talk to my friends who are teachers. Most are in my age group (late 30s) and are making $70-85k, with summers and another month of vacation and good pension/healthcare. The only lousy benefit is that maternity leave sucks. They all are incredibly frustrated with the increasing meddling and red tape attached to federal and state funding. Half the job is paperwork nonsense, which wasn'…

Where do your friends teach? And what level?

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

#105

Post by School-Cotton »

hash-set wrote: post #46
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?

Most people in places like France and Germany are not "desperate to escape poverty".

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

#106

Post by AnimalMuppet »

the-dude wrote: post #7
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…

I thought it was telling that in 'Breaking Bad' the chemistry teacher needs a second job at a carwash. And nobody seems surprised or finds it odd.

In the 1970s, the best high school teacher I had spent summers painting parking lots. The year after I graduated, he quit teaching to paint parking lots full time.

This was not a net win for society...

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

#108

Post by burkaman »

devinhelton wrote: post #96
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…

The most moving and informed coverage of the US education system I've heard have all been through This American Life What makes you think it is the most informed coverage? These episodes only give you one side of the argument. If you want the other side try reading The Long Crusade and/or The Burden of Brown by Professor Raymond Wolters. I also myself wrote a long blog post about integration/desegregation as it happe…

This seems well-researched, and there are some reasonable points, but your section #4 and conclusion really discredit the rest of the article.

Section 4 describes how racism (or tribalism or whatever you want to call it) is really natural and healthy, with no references except your own "common sense".

> Now imagine growing up and looking forward to playing on the same football team as your elders in front a cheering hometown crowd. And then that dream is taken away from you by some unelected judge. At his order, another tribe invades, takes your spot on the football team and dates the girl you were wooing. You are not going to like that very much. You might want to join with your tribal brothers and brawl with this opposing tribe in the lunch room. And of course the other tribe is going to fight back.

What the fuck? Why would I want to fight people for being better at football than me? Why would I start a race war because some guy with different skin than me is dating a girl I like? How can you possibly see this as acceptable? You can argue that it's natural, but natural doesn't mean good.

Do you understand that not everybody thinks like this? If a black guy gets promoted over me, I don't get angry at the black tribe for invading my homeland. That line of thinking is, as you say, cartoonishly racist.

And then in your conclusion, you correctly identify racial disparities, and then sort of argue that's the way it should be. The fact that black people do worse than white people in school is a problem worth solving, not a convenient method of grouping students, right? The only way this status quo could be acceptable is if you think black kids are genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. Your article on racism does bring that up, but I can't tell if it's a belief you hold. If you do believe that, you should be more clear about it in this school segregation article, otherwise your conclusions don't make sense.

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

#109

Post by nkrisc »

briandear wrote: post #85
nkrisc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the way, why do you think wealthier people shouldn't get more advantages in life? Sure, let wealthy ADULTS have more advantages. However, children have no say in their circumstances, so I do think it is right to at least give CHILDREN equal opportunity and resources.

I might argue that children are the responsibility of the parents. As far as equal resources, DC schools spend among the highest per student in the country and yet have some of the worst outcomes. The problem isn't financial, it's political. There isn't a correlation of budget per student and outcomes. Successful schools aren't the richest schools -- they are the ones with the most involved parents. The problem is cu…

There isn't a correlation? I'll have to look more into that but it seems to me you picked the one notable exception. The cultural problems are describe are the symptoms of much larger problems, particularly systemic and deliberate deprivation of resources and opportunities for more than a century. You are correct to an extent though that part of that problem is political: the lack of political will to spend any amount of money and effort to seriously interrupt that vicious cycle.

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

#110

Post by logfromblammo »

sjg007 wrote: post #38
brownbat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their biggest financial problem was probably their impulse to overspend on big ticket items Well, in part they had different accounting of their assets, since the wife viewed his social capital (as a cofounder of a massive biotech conglomerate) as a marketable asset, while his pride drove him to refuse to redeem that and yet spend as if he had access to it anyway. Walter's pride was not only his tragic flaw, but al…

I didn't understand why the cofounder biotech conglomerate was necessary, except to give Walter and out he would not take and say 'hey he is smart but choosing a life of crime'

The biotech firm was to demonstrate options already taken. He already tried the "right way" to monetize his intelligence.

And then, as the high school teacher, he has already tried "plan B", which is good enough for most people that fail to succeed in the only moonshot they can afford to take in their lifetimes, but it turns out that the healthcare in "plan B" really sucks.

Those aren't just already explored options. They're the control group for Walter's scientific experiment.

His hypothesis is that "There is nothing wrong with me. I'm a genius worth millions of dollars, and It's other people that have been holding me back." And the experiment designed to falsify the hypothesis is to just discard all of society's laws and morality and just get the money by any means necessary.

The strawman argument of the show is that unfairness in society trickles down and becomes crime. Walter never would have become Heisenberg if his business partners hadn't screwed him out of his share of the company.

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