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Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

wsj.com

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Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#191

Post by jogjayr »

bjourne wrote: post #117
djrobstep wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's sad is that all this desperate competition by parents to improve their kid's grades is zero-sum: A noisy but pointless rearrangement of positions on the socio-economic ladder. One kid getting into Princeton means another misses out. Very little of it results in actual useful learning or eventual public benefit.

But it isn't. The question was "X is trying to get into Princeton - an A- isn't going to get her in. What extra credit can she do to make this an A?" Presumably, the extra credit means the student will learn more. Hence, it is not zero-sum. And it actually seem fair to me; the student that works the hardest and scores the highest grades deserves to win the spot.

Extra credit = extra work for the teacher. It's not fair.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#192

Post by derefr »

chii wrote: post #183
sjroot wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I saw a paywalled article, someone commented and mentioned the idea of (1) prohibiting those sites or (2) automatically redirecting to an outlined version.

Personally, I rather just not read paywalled articles, or I would have paid if the publication is high quality enough. Using a workaround to circumvent the paywall seems too shady, because if the contents are worth reading, they should be worth paying the asking price.

> if the contents are worth reading, they should be worth paying the asking price

How about if the facts the article communicates are worth knowing, but their treatment in the article isn't worth the (digital) paper it was printed on?

I can see your argument applying to editorials, but not-so-much to raw journalism.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#193

Post by quickben »

trevyn wrote: post #127
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…

Seems reasonable; grades are only partially a function of raw potential — effort plays a huge role as well. If a student is good enough to get an A-, I see no reason why demonstrating a certain amount of additional effort (extra credit) couldn’t get her to an A.

Whats the point of grading if there are repeats only for some?

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#194

Post by sharadov »

archon wrote: post #91
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?

> 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.

I completely agree, this works even in workplace scenarios. Do not create lofty expectations as you will be forced to live up to them. Sometimes it's just your brain seeking those shots of dopamine.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#195

Post by skj »

derefr wrote: post #192
chii wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I rather just not read paywalled articles, or I would have paid if the publication is high quality enough. Using a workaround to circumvent the paywall seems too shady, because if the contents are worth reading, they should be worth paying the asking price.

> if the contents are worth reading, they should be worth paying the asking price How about if the facts the article communicates are worth knowing, but their treatment in the article isn't worth the (digital) paper it was printed on? I can see your argument applying to editorials, but not-so-much to raw journalism.

Presumably an important part of journalism is research.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#196

Post by agumonkey »

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…

This lawsuit first life has spread everywhere. I've read it for surgeons, now teachers .. I don't understand how we slid into this..

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#197

Post by Scoundreller »

randomdata wrote: post #137
rayiner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> And there is little reason to believe it would yield better results. This is an important point. $100,000+ per year is not unheard of for teachers in Ontario (conveniently public sector incomes >$100,000 are required to publicly disclosed[1]), and they have problems with graduates not having even basic literacy and numeracy skills[2]. [1] https://www.ontario.ca/page/public-sector-salary-disclosure [2] https://www.t…

It's a very recent thing for teachers to be able to reach that, usually by hitting the top of the seniority scale and qualifications scale, or having some extra paid work (e.g. being a department head).

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#198

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

duncan-donuts wrote: post #62
Agathos wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The teachers union in Massachusetts made all the teachers sign liability waivers and arbitration waivers if a lawsuit happens. Wait what? I thought the union was supposed to at least pretend to look out for the teachers' interests.

I’ve never been in a union, but I’m sure not all unions are created equal. I wonder if unions get in a position where there’s no non-union competition they start to operate in the best interests of the union and not the interests of the people they represent. /shrug I’d love to hear more from the OP about this, fwiw.

Unions value the collective.

As such, there are people within unions that may not benefit at a certain point in time. For example, someone who has seniority will benefit from being there a long time-perhaps at the expense of a younger member, that may possibly be more talented. When that younger member grows old, it will benefit that member. A lot in silicon valley may scoff at that idea - but we've all seen ageism in our workplace, probably more so than others.

It's similar to insurance - just because you don't need it RIGHT NOW doesn't mean you won't in the future. So everyone who doesn't need it pays for the people that do. When you need it, it is there.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#199

Post by kbenson »

smileysteve wrote: post #157
kbenson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially now that she has to post everyone's grades online, instantly emails roll in when a student didn't perform as well as the parent expected. Not to take away from your point, which I think has merit, from the other side of the spectrum as a parent that has a child that struggled mightily to not fail for the first couple years of high school, the amount that teachers screw up the online grading is incredible…

But how does this work in the future. Weekly report cards in elementary. Daily live updates in high school. To a single final 100% determining your ap credit / college course? Sounds like millennials have taken their need for instant gratification and the system is coddling them.

The problem is not about updates being infrequent, it's about updates being wrong or partially applied for days at a time.

If the official way to check grades is online (and it is, by school policy and pointed out in every teachers's take-home documentation and in the open house nights where you meet your child's teachers), then I would rank accuracy first with timeliness a distant second.

Re: Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record

#200

Post by mikekij »

I loved teaching high school physics, but couldn’t see owning a home and raising a family on $47k a year. Went to grad school and work in the medical device field now. While I’m happy in my current role, I would likely have stayed in education for my entire career if I had been paid $75k a year. I would love to see 5% of the US military budget diverted to increasing teacher salaries by 50%. I think you’d see a rush of qualified people entering the field.
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