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Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

adamcadre.ac

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Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#331

Post by otterley »

glitchc wrote: post #291

In North America, teachers are grossly underpaid and their ability to discipline poor performance has been entirely eviscerated. It’s not just SF, look at what’s happening in Vancouver: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-cutting-honours-... The problem is the administration: The board that sets the standards and the parents and politicians who sit on those boards. The solution is this: Ban anyone without a m…

> The solution is this: Ban anyone without a minimum teaching experience of x years from participating on boards, bring all teacher salaries up to comfortable middle-class in every district and give them back their authority in the classroom.

"There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#332

Post by somnic »

dane-pgp wrote: post #297
um_ya wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the school voucher idea a lot. Give parents a voucher, as good as cash, for their child and let them choose the school. Private companies will compete for those vouchers, aligning focus on satisfying the parents and the children, rather than the government.

> Private companies will compete for those vouchers "Send your kid to our school, and we promise they'll always score 100% on their tests!"

The assumption that accreditation and education must be done by the same organization is absurd, really. Public schools evidently have the exact same incentives. The answer is that third parties should be evaluating education, not administration making up numbers and giving themselves a pat on the back for doing so well.

Of course, teaching to the test isn't ideal. But it looks like the alternative isn't a well-rounded education, but not teaching at all.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#334

Post by throwcanada324 »

glitchc wrote: post #291

In North America, teachers are grossly underpaid and their ability to discipline poor performance has been entirely eviscerated. It’s not just SF, look at what’s happening in Vancouver: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-cutting-honours-... The problem is the administration: The board that sets the standards and the parents and politicians who sit on those boards. The solution is this: Ban anyone without a m…

Not in Canada.

Teachers are well paid in Canada, and in many Canadian mid sized cities a teacher with 10 years experience will make more than a software developer with similar years experience. Additionally they have a strong pension, and incredible job stability.

e.g. A teacher in Saskatoon would make about $92K with 10 years experience with a defined benefit pension, and 2 months off in the summer.

It is tougher for teachers in high COL cities like Toronto and Vancouver as they make roughly the same as they do in the rest of the country. (But similarly a Vancouver software developer doesn't get a USA west coast salary)

Source: My wife teaches, and I write software!

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#335

Post by meowkit »

Judgmentality wrote: post #303
DSingularity wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say “until we are dominated by idiot majority” as if it hasn’t happened. Just look at the platforms of the peoples vote to represent Americans. Rarely are they platform that would actually matter to the people and most of the time it is identity politics, nationalism, gun rights, and religion. We can’t even have a nuanced conversation about anything in politics that doesn’t devolve into an ideological/tribal argu…

I fear I am feeding a political tangent here, but I think most of the problems you mentioned could be fixed in the US by recognizing (admittedly this would be a timely process) an official third electoral party. It's a lot easier for nuance to prevail when the system isn't designed to be binary.

Recognizing a third party does little with the spoiler effect. Not sure if you are referring to this in your final sentence, but the voting system has to change first to some sort of runoff model so people can express their primary choice without fear of the spoiler.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#336

Post by hef19898 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #328
glitchc wrote: post #291

In North America, teachers are grossly underpaid and their ability to discipline poor performance has been entirely eviscerated. It’s not just SF, look at what’s happening in Vancouver: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-cutting-honours-... The problem is the administration: The board that sets the standards and the parents and politicians who sit on those boards. The solution is this: Ban anyone without a m…

> Ban anyone without a minimum teaching experience of x years from participating on boards Why do you think you need to be a teacher to direct how our schools are run? Seems technocratic and anti-democratic. The same way we have civilian control of the military, we should have civilian control of our schools. Did you know in the UK there is actually a structure called governors to ensure that schools are being direct…

In the military, there are civilians at the top. Right below them, it's career military. Having these standards set by involving parents at a local level is ripe for disaster. As is having local sheriffs, without proper training, elected but I digress. Curriculums should be as standardized as possible. That makes everything comparable.

It would be enough to have have the top brass of education elected. You can even make the curriculum part of election campaigns.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#337

Post by Lammy »

DSingularity wrote: post #298
glitchc wrote: post #291

In North America, teachers are grossly underpaid and their ability to discipline poor performance has been entirely eviscerated. It’s not just SF, look at what’s happening in Vancouver: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-cutting-honours-... The problem is the administration: The board that sets the standards and the parents and politicians who sit on those boards. The solution is this: Ban anyone without a m…

You say “until we are dominated by idiot majority” as if it hasn’t happened. Just look at the platforms of the peoples vote to represent Americans. Rarely are they platform that would actually matter to the people and most of the time it is identity politics, nationalism, gun rights, and religion. We can’t even have a nuanced conversation about anything in politics that doesn’t devolve into an ideological/tribal argu…

> We can’t even have a nuanced conversation about anything in politics that doesn’t devolve into an ideological/tribal argument. I think the US is already dominated by idiots in every state.

Gotta appreciate the irony of this statement. The Idiot Tribe are victims of The System, not driving it. They are not my enemy.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#338

Post by Jemaclus »

muyuu wrote: post #333

I've read somewhere that the affluent don't send their kids to public school in SanFran or anywhere in the Bay Area, is that true? I assume there are a lot of locals browsing this.

Anecdotally, I don't have kids of my own, but none of my friends with kids send theirs to public schools in SF or Oakland. I also live on the same block as two private schools in Oakland and apparently the wait lists to get in are years long.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#339

Post by ericd »

barry-cotter wrote: post #317
glitchc wrote: post #291

In North America, teachers are grossly underpaid and their ability to discipline poor performance has been entirely eviscerated. It’s not just SF, look at what’s happening in Vancouver: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-cutting-honours-... The problem is the administration: The board that sets the standards and the parents and politicians who sit on those boards. The solution is this: Ban anyone without a m…

https://www.heritage.org/education/report/assessing-the-comp... > Workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent. Teachers who change to non-teaching jobs, on the other hand, see their wages decrease by roughly 3 percent. This is the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were underpaid. https://www.heritage.org/education/report/critical-issues-as... > O…

I had one amazing high school math teacher who graduated from MIT at 18, and was teaching all the way up to diff eq in public schools. He’d made his money and then decided to teach because he was annoyed that his sons’ math teachers sucked. There’s absolutely no way teacher salary+pension was competitive with what he was making in industry. And we should want a lot more people who are like him teaching, without the needing them to be lucky enough to not need to care about money.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#340

Post by muyuu »

ryty wrote: post #203
akomtu wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"critical thinking" is what I think parents should teach to their kids. By that I mean giving cases of deception, gaslighting, etc. and asking the kid to discern the lie and the intent of the lie. I don't think schools teach this skill these days.

They punish this skill. I was literally expelled from my high school during senior year for arguing with a teacher over her misinterpretation of something stated pretty plainly in the textbook. The teacher got furious when I stated confidently that she was wrong, and within about 15 minutes I had been taken to the principal’s office and told to never tell a teacher that they are wrong, to which I said “even if they a…

I had something similar happen to me

in retrospect it was a valuable lesson

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