Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021 • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by laurencerowe » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:09 AM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #403

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…

School choice would go a long way and breakup the teachers unions (through school choice). School choice effectively allows increased wages for good teachers and yes there's competition so you'll have lower end schools as well. However, it'll be a rising ship, which raises all boats IMO. You can also audit the schools and shutdown poorly run ones, etc.

> School choice effectively allows increased wages for good teachers and yes there's competition so you'll have lower end schools as well.

How does school choice allow for increased teacher wages? Presumably they get the same per-student funding.

When the school gets more applicants than places, how does it decide who to let in?

> You can also audit the schools and shutdown poorly run ones, etc.

Shutting down schools is highly disruptive for students currently attending that school. Seems preferable to intervene and improve failing schools before it gets to the point of shutting them down.

I'm not convinced school choice improves results for students overall. The easiest way for a school to improve its results are by attracting parents who are highly invested in their child's education. Those whose parents don't have the knowledge to work the system or the time to transport their children across town for school every day are less likely to apply.

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

#442

Post by Manuel_D » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:14 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #174

dehrmann wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can ban the sat and grades and still measure for academic rigor It's harder to normalize performance across schools without a standardized test. > those who placed in a state math competition are likely to have higher academic abilities That sounds like a state-run math SAT that would have the same problems. > And allow the wealthy to better position their kids at the detriment of the middle class. The upper mi…

> The most important thing you can to to prepare for the SAT is do lots of practice tests. Oh phooey. I never prepared for the SATs, and nobody I knew did, either. (Back in the 70s.) Wanna know how to do well on the SATs? Pay attention in school to readin, ritin, and rithmetic. As for SAT prep books, I see them all the time in the thrift store for a couple bucks. The notion that only the wealthy have access to them i…

The typical student aspiring to get into an elite college is aiming to get over 750 in reading and math. In my year getting one question wrong on math would reduce your score to 770.

Things are a bit less competitive on the subject tests. A couple questions wrong was still sufficient to get an 800 on Math level II my year.

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

#443

Post by wutbrodo » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:16 AM UTC

dqv wrote: post #283

wutbrodo wrote: post #268

> Meanwhile, here’s what it’s like in the teacher email threads. This is a verbatim, non-ironic quote: “I didn’t really hear you at first, steeped as I am in a culture of assumed patriarchal white privilege, rank privilege, and inequitable hierarchy" It's my perception that adults involved with schools, especially younger grades, have been penetrated so intensely by woke ideology[1], much more so than the broader sub…

> adults involved with schools I don't know what group you're trying to capture by saying this. You mean the parents as well as the school employees? >Is this just down to how skewed female this group is? No I think it has to do with how young both the parents and the teachers are. Someone who is 40 years old today is right on the cusp of being a millennial.

Yea: School boards, teachers, administrators to some degree. Sorry, it was a little awkwardly phrased.

> Someone who is 40 years old today is right on the cusp of being a millennial.

This doesn't fit the data. The median age of a teacher in the US is 41[1], which means that less than half of all teachers are millennials. By contrast, 72% of teachers are women.

I'm having more trouble pulling up the sources I've seen with crosstabs on approval of wokeness[2] by gender and age, but I know it's quite gender-skewed (as well as age-skewed).

[1] https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass1112_2013314_t1s...

[2] The definition I'm using here is leftism with an identitarian focus, that opposes Enlightenment liberalism's aspiration towards transcending ethnic tribalism. I again mean this neutrally, with no comment on whether this worldview is more legitimate than the alternative.

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

#444

Post by yonran » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:16 AM UTC

mmarq wrote: post #320

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, but you haven't answered my question Your question was “Do these 10 year old not care about school because there is something intrinsically wrong about them”. I did indirectly. To be more explicit, I suspect the common answer is no: They do not care about school because they have other, more pressing needs besides school. > when they are 10 because they have to work If you want to focus solely on 10 year olds a…

> Your question was “Do these 10 year old not care about school because there is something intrinsically wrong about them”. > My indirect answer is not necessarily, although there may be some for whom the answer is yes. I suspect the more common answer is no: They do not care about school because they have other, more pressing needs besides school. So, the answer is: no, these kids are not broken. > If you want to fo…

> these kids are not broken.

> we are calling it "merit"

It sounds like you’re arguing about who deserves the prestige of going to Lowell rather than who actually benefits and contributes to the experience of attending classes at Lowell, which is the most populous school in San Francisco and has fairly large class sizes and tough grading.

Instead of pretending that all students are equally prepared for class or that every teacher is prepared to serve every kind of student at the same time, reformers should try to figure out exactly what the students such as the ones in the article need for motivation. It doesn’t mean that they lack "merit" or that people who don’t want to go to a competitive college are bad people. It’s ok to acknowledge that different people have different needs.

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

#445

Post by kart23 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

mindvirus wrote: post #64

One of the most radical beliefs I have is we should get rid of private schools, because it lets the people most capable of forcing change to opt out of an increasingly broken system, and so it doesn't get fixed. Of course I say this as I seriously consider sending my kids to a private school because of articles like this.

I don't know where you are in the US, but this won't fix the problem instantly. Even across public schools, there are competitive ones, and there are non-competitive ones. There are high schools where 25% of the class goes to top colleges, and there are high schools where most don't go to college at all. The presence of the 'good' high school drives up property values too.

There are still huge discrepancies across public schools.

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

#446

Post by kart23 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:23 AM UTC

kyboren wrote: post #143

jdhn wrote: post #30

Stuff like this is why I roll my eyes every time I hear that schools are underfunded and how we need to give them just a little more funding, and surely things will get better. If they're just going to pass students anyways, what's the point of increasing the funding?

That trope needs to die. California's schools are not underfunded. California spends a record amount on education[0], over $18k per child. "Reflecting the changes to Proposition 98 funding levels noted above, total K-12 per-pupil expenditures from all sources are projected to be $18,837 in 2020-21 and $18,000 in 2021-22—the highest levels ever (K-12 Education Spending Per Pupil). The decrease between 2020-21 and 2021…

Makes private school look like a good deal. I seriously didn't know it was that high.

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

#447

Post by brightball » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

6f8986c3 wrote: post #364

thundergolfer wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the first quote, it’s not the opposite of what you’d expect if teaching was a low-status profession that could only attract weaker, lower paid labourers. Teaching doesn’t attract highly paid workers because in addition to a big pay cut those workers would be considering likely worse working conditions as well. If teaching is low-status it is no wonder that education standards are low and thus educational ac…

> Teaching doesn’t attract highly paid workers because in addition to a big pay cut those workers would be considering likely worse working conditions as well. You could double teacher pay and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. As a teacher, you have no control over your classroom. Disruptive students that destroy everybody else's learning environment? Too bad. No Child Left Behind! Wait, that's the old slogan, w…

Stuff like this drives the push for things like vouchers. I’m lucky to be able to send my kids to a good private school. We chose it after a tour and discussion with the headmaster about exactly how it operates.

The teachers as a group research and plan curriculum. They coordinate across grade levels and determine how to roll out changes in the most effective way possible for students and parents as well. They rolled out common core math over 5 years with great success well before it was forced on public schools.

In other words, they let the people who have studied to be professional educators make decisions about the best way to…educate. There’s no school board, no state level involvement, no federal disruption every time there’s an election.

And it’s fantastic. I see this work and my first instinct is that EVERYONE should have an option like this, not just the people who can afford it.

For that reason, I support some type of voucher program that could achieve these goals. Yet for some reason in the US this is a political hot button, which doesn’t make any sense to me. Currently, the only people who have all the options are people who can afford them out of pocket. Everybody else is stuck with either public school or home school and home school is on the rise.

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

#448

Post by unethical_ban » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:26 AM UTC

dnndev wrote: post #188

Bostonian wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need more teachers and smaller classes." That would cost more, and reading the blog makes me want to send less money to the public schools.

Another approach could be: High school should be completely optional. Those who want to go will benefit from it and those who don’t won’t be there to make trouble. Move the high school teachers to middle school and elementary for smaller classes.

I'm not an expert on education, or on public policy.

I see people on twitter and reddit bitch about having to learn calculus and never using it.

But you know? I don't remember how to use calculus at this moment either, but I remember concepts of it measuring infinitesimal increments of change, and how derivatives and integrations relate to rates of change.

I don't remember the mechanisms of all my teachings in school, but it made me appreciate bridges, combustion engines, biology and literature.

The honest question is: How do we determine when a child/teenager has no capacity or will to understand the beauty or utility of advanced learning, and what do we do with them?

Especially as automation takes over in the next 30 years and we have millions more out of work because we don't need taxis, truck drivers, farmers, or 60% of food service?

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

#449

Post by analog31 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:28 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #442

WalterBright wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most important thing you can to to prepare for the SAT is do lots of practice tests. Oh phooey. I never prepared for the SATs, and nobody I knew did, either. (Back in the 70s.) Wanna know how to do well on the SATs? Pay attention in school to readin, ritin, and rithmetic. As for SAT prep books, I see them all the time in the thrift store for a couple bucks. The notion that only the wealthy have access to them i…

The typical student aspiring to get into an elite college is aiming to get over 750 in reading and math. In my year getting one question wrong on math would reduce your score to 770. Things are a bit less competitive on the subject tests. A couple questions wrong was still sufficient to get an 800 on Math level II my year.

In my view, we would do better with our educational resources and reform efforts to completely ignore the elite colleges and let them take care of themselves. I would much rather figure out how to support and strengthen the education system from the bottom up, starting with the community colleges, trade schools, and regional public universities.

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

#450

Post by analog31 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:30 AM UTC

diamond559 wrote: post #254

WalterBright wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most important thing you can to to prepare for the SAT is do lots of practice tests. Oh phooey. I never prepared for the SATs, and nobody I knew did, either. (Back in the 70s.) Wanna know how to do well on the SATs? Pay attention in school to readin, ritin, and rithmetic. As for SAT prep books, I see them all the time in the thrift store for a couple bucks. The notion that only the wealthy have access to them i…

A lot has changed since then, college acceptance rates are plummeting and competition is absolutely cutthroat. I graduated ~10 years ago in an affluent Bay Area neighborhood and basically everyone took at least one SAT class, multiple practice test and many had coaches to help them with the entire admissions process.

Acceptance rates are meaningless because the denominator means nothing.