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Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

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Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#91

Post by archon »

e1g wrote: post #77
grecy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My entire family are teachers (Mum, Dad, Sister, Brother), and have all had to deal with this to varying degrees, and have had it consume their lives at various times. My brother has the best work-life balance of any teacher I have ever met, and I think his approach is brilliant. Teaching is one of those careers where the expectation is on the teacher to endlessly do more and work harder, "For the kids", and if you k…

Presumably the backpresure of requests does not go away - when parents email for information, they do not stop just because they didn’t get a response. They will reach out through other methods. Do you know how that irreducible workload gets resolved, other than getting passed to colleagues who do put in extra effort/hours?

> Presumably the backpresure of requests does not go away

If a teacher's work email is anything like my email inbox at work, ~90% of emails just go away if ignored. The other ~10% email again if it's actually important.

Once your contacts are "trained" not to expect instant feedback to every email they send you, you can often get some actual work done.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#92

Post by xamuel »

neom wrote: post #25

One of my favourite hypotheticals to play out is what would be like if we somehow paid public school teachers and emergency services/law enforcement professionals an extreme of today, a million usd a year, and increased the difficulty to attain this work. I usually end up in a pretty good place but I'd be curious what others think/why this couldn't work?

If it were done universally, then you'd have the exact same zero-sum parent game: parents would continue to pester the $1m/yr rockstar teacher about why their kid got an A- instead of an A.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#93

Post by skywhopper »

jpatokal wrote: post #85
e1g wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the backpresure of requests does not go away - when parents email for information, they do not stop just because they didn’t get a response. They will reach out through other methods. Do you know how that irreducible workload gets resolved, other than getting passed to colleagues who do put in extra effort/hours?

Non-American here: what happens if the teacher just flatly says no/doesn't answer the emails/calls etc? Are lawsuits against teachers over grades an actual thing in the US now? (In Europe or Australia you'd be laughed out of court for even trying.)

No such lawsuits are not a thing. I’m sure people threaten it. But it doesn’t happen.

That said, the teachers do have a responsibility to respond to parents. But they should never give in to helicopter parent special requests for extra credit.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#94

Post by Spooky23 »

ineedasername wrote: post #35
allcentury wrote: post #14

There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire. I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning. Now t…

Okay, I get that's more work, and sounds like a hassle. So this isn't a criticism of your mom. But on the A- and extra credit issue, I never understood the point of rigid grading schemes. I've taught at a college level, and I always give students the chance to improve their grades if they want to put in additional work. To do otherwise seems like saying "nope, even if you learn more and improve to the point of A-leve…

It’s obnoxious and unfair that squeaky wheels with pushy parents get do overs and normal kids get screwed. My dad travelled for work and mom was a nurse. There was no time for them to go in and harass teachers over my grades.

If little Jimmy wants to get into Princeton, he should study.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#95

Post by exogeny »

ecp9 wrote: post #45
jseliger wrote: post #10

I believe we see this article every time we have a strong economy. When the economy is strong, teaching is unappealing. When the economy is weak, many people cannot find other gigs and so flood into the relative security of teaching. Teaching may also be less pleasant in the social media and smartphone age, for reasons enumerated in The Coddling of the American Mind (a highly recommended book). There may also be a ge…

This article is one of the most stupid things I've ever read, pretending there is some crisis of students seducing their poor, persecuted male teachers because of a reddit thread is not merely intellectually dishonest, it's just bizarre.

Welcome to the exciting world of men's rights activism!

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#96

Post by sopooneo »

apron1 wrote: post #72
allcentury wrote: post #14

There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire. I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning. Now t…

What did anyone expect when everyone whole-heartedly supported more mandatory testing and measurement intiatives to help failing schools, almost about a decade back? If you start emphasizing test scores, that's all that will be optimized.

I think you have a point. But in my experience with two polar opposite schools in Massachusetts, the ones that have a lot of "helicopter parents" don't have any issue with passing rates on the mandatory state tests. They're at over 98% passing.

The tests the parents in such wealthy schools get upset about are the teacher assigned ones.

But again, I only have deep knowledge of two schools, so am happy to be corrected if I'm on off this.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#97

Post by mpolichette »

randomdata wrote: post #49
ineedasername wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I get that's more work, and sounds like a hassle. So this isn't a criticism of your mom. But on the A- and extra credit issue, I never understood the point of rigid grading schemes. I've taught at a college level, and I always give students the chance to improve their grades if they want to put in additional work. To do otherwise seems like saying "nope, even if you learn more and improve to the point of A-leve…

If we accept that the characteristics that grades are meant to represent are dynamic, what is the benefit of recording them at all? They will be perpetually out of date as people continue to learn (and forget).

I mean, aren’t they pretty much useless within a year of graduation anyway?

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#98

Post by lovich »

rayiner wrote: post #42
neom wrote: post #25

One of my favourite hypotheticals to play out is what would be like if we somehow paid public school teachers and emergency services/law enforcement professionals an extreme of today, a million usd a year, and increased the difficulty to attain this work. I usually end up in a pretty good place but I'd be curious what others think/why this couldn't work?

> I usually end up in a pretty good place but I'd be curious why this could not work? It would be fantastically expensive. Chicago has 21,000 teachers. Paying them $1 million per year would cost $21 billion, dwarfing the city's current $3.8 billion budget. Even paying them $100,000 per year on average would cost half the city's budget. And there is little reason to believe it would yield better results. American teac…

A point of contention, the charts in those articles dont take into account cost of living, so its difficult to compare real salaries

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#99

Post by Spooky23 »

neom wrote: post #25

One of my favourite hypotheticals to play out is what would be like if we somehow paid public school teachers and emergency services/law enforcement professionals an extreme of today, a million usd a year, and increased the difficulty to attain this work. I usually end up in a pretty good place but I'd be curious what others think/why this couldn't work?

You have to pay people enough, and not much more.

Excessive pay doesn’t motivate performance.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#100

Post by dorchadas »

grecy wrote: post #67
allcentury wrote: post #14

There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire. I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning. Now t…

My entire family are teachers (Mum, Dad, Sister, Brother), and have all had to deal with this to varying degrees, and have had it consume their lives at various times. My brother has the best work-life balance of any teacher I have ever met, and I think his approach is brilliant. Teaching is one of those careers where the expectation is on the teacher to endlessly do more and work harder, "For the kids", and if you k…

I've found that's how I have to do it, too. Best decision I ever made was moving an hour away from where I worked too. I never see kids out anywhere, and never feel pressure to not do things I enjoy that might be looked down on in a rural conservative community (drinking, mostly). I also never really have to deal with seeing students out so no awkward convos there, either. And it gives me time to wake up in the morning and prepare as well as dissociate from it in the evening.

I also always try to leave at 3:20,which is when we're free (7:30-3:20,tho I usually get there early to copy).

Work life is great, and I don't do anything in my breaks, either. But I'm still looking to get out for various other reasons I've documented elsewhere.

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