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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

#571

Post by fakedang »

kickout wrote: post #414
thomastjeffery wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could double teacher pay and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. I sincerely doubt that. Having a teacher who isn't struggling financially would be a huge improvement.

OP is correct. double your salary at your job, but have to take verbal abuse and berated from your 'boss' and see how that paycheck affects your life

Investment bankers barely enjoy their jobs and take a lot of abuse from their bosses, yet there is no shortage of banker aspirants. Some even stay for the long haul, or go to even worse working conditions such as private equity, for more money.

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

#572

Post by concordDance »

pjerem wrote: post #546
pdonis wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what’s your solution for those students? They just don’t get an education? You want the brutal truth? Yes, that's exactly the solution. Want an education? Learn to behave in class. And note that this is the only workable answer even in public school systems that aren't insolvent. No amount of money can educate a kid who refuses to be educated.

> Learn to behave in class. Who’s the job to teach those kids how to behave in class ? Their parents ? And what do you do if their parents don’t care (which is the common case with those kids) ? What do you do if the student has undiagnosed mental illness ? Entire generations of misbehaved children were in fact suffering ADHD. How do you manage a misbehaving children that is bullied every single morning when he comes…

> just sentence those students to jail for life already

Seems inefficient, exhile them to Somalia instead.

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

#573

Post by Khaine »

pjerem wrote: post #546
pdonis wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what’s your solution for those students? They just don’t get an education? You want the brutal truth? Yes, that's exactly the solution. Want an education? Learn to behave in class. And note that this is the only workable answer even in public school systems that aren't insolvent. No amount of money can educate a kid who refuses to be educated.

> Learn to behave in class. Who’s the job to teach those kids how to behave in class ? Their parents ? And what do you do if their parents don’t care (which is the common case with those kids) ? What do you do if the student has undiagnosed mental illness ? Entire generations of misbehaved children were in fact suffering ADHD. How do you manage a misbehaving children that is bullied every single morning when he comes…

The problem is keeping those kids in school ruins the education of all of the kids in that class. How is it fair to damage the potential of so many kids, because one kid is disruptive, and their parents don’t care.

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

#574

Post by concordDance »

mmarq wrote: post #129
spangry wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because standards would hinder "equity" in educational outcomes. The SF Board of Education recently voted to end selective admissions for Lowell High School in favour of a lottery, citing lack of diversity and "pervasive systemic racism". The board positions are elected so these sorts of policies are presumably what the people of San Francisco want.

I don't know anything about this particular Lowell High School, but selective admissions at the high school level achieve excellency by filtering out "bad" students, which are usually students from disadvantaged backgrounds. If a public school is of very high quality, selecting 10 year olds at random is not much less fair than choosing them based on their grades or extracurricular activities or an essay. Unless we as…

> If certain demographics are heavily underrepresented (and I don't know if it's the case here), either we must assume that they are less smart (and so produce less "high school material") or we must acknowledge that there is some form of discrimination. The latter being almost certainly true

Is this what the evidence suggests or what you wish to be true?

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

#575

Post by sqrt17 »

spoonjim wrote: post #554

I’ve noticed that in the time since I was a kid, the focus of public school has shifted from about the 40th percentile student to the 5th percentile student. In my school, the entire focus of the operation was the decent student... the one who showed up, put in a decent effort, did at least three quarters of their homework. The school had tremendous resources for these kids to go to college, and the very best college…

> to turn one of those kids into someone worthwhile

The basic insight here is: kids with learning disabilities, or who have a home environment not conducive to learning, are worthwhile people. And school as the institution taking care of those kids should do more than just send them to another building to rot.

It's a very straightforward thing to want your upper middle class privileged kid get all the support they need to become a future surgeon, but school is just very bad at recognizing and enhancing the chances of people who aren't neurotypical white privileged background kids.

Enforcing standardized testing as a key KPI isn't really the right solution here, but there's enough examples outside of the US how this can be done better than just writing off people as "not worthwhile".

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

#577

Post by GGfpc »

spoonjim wrote: post #554

I’ve noticed that in the time since I was a kid, the focus of public school has shifted from about the 40th percentile student to the 5th percentile student. In my school, the entire focus of the operation was the decent student... the one who showed up, put in a decent effort, did at least three quarters of their homework. The school had tremendous resources for these kids to go to college, and the very best college…

The "difficult" kids in school are the ones who need help the most.

They either have learning disabilities or difficult family/social situations that lead them to either not try or not care about school.

To say that teachers should put less effort into these kids due to "low ROI" is frankly very privileged.

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

#578

Post by dandanua »

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 so long time ago it was illegal to teach slaves. I guess the current social system is heading towards that stance again. History repeats itself.

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

#579

Post by zozbot234 »

GGfpc wrote: post #577
spoonjim wrote: post #554

I’ve noticed that in the time since I was a kid, the focus of public school has shifted from about the 40th percentile student to the 5th percentile student. In my school, the entire focus of the operation was the decent student... the one who showed up, put in a decent effort, did at least three quarters of their homework. The school had tremendous resources for these kids to go to college, and the very best college…

The "difficult" kids in school are the ones who need help the most. They either have learning disabilities or difficult family/social situations that lead them to either not try or not care about school. To say that teachers should put less effort into these kids due to "low ROI" is frankly very privileged.

> The "difficult" kids in school are the ones who need help the most.

Schools do very little to help these kids. There are ways to teach low-performers efficiently (they go under the general rubric of "direct instruction") but they go unused simply because teachers do not want to feel regimented in such a rigid structure, even if that's exactly what yields the best outcomes. (So, I'd definitely disagree with GP that "this segment is by its nature low ROI". It's not 'natural', it's pure dysfunction.)

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

#580

Post by ganzuul »

GGfpc wrote: post #577
spoonjim wrote: post #554

I’ve noticed that in the time since I was a kid, the focus of public school has shifted from about the 40th percentile student to the 5th percentile student. In my school, the entire focus of the operation was the decent student... the one who showed up, put in a decent effort, did at least three quarters of their homework. The school had tremendous resources for these kids to go to college, and the very best college…

The "difficult" kids in school are the ones who need help the most. They either have learning disabilities or difficult family/social situations that lead them to either not try or not care about school. To say that teachers should put less effort into these kids due to "low ROI" is frankly very privileged.

You are correct, but there are going to be cases where the help should come in the form of UBI or NIT. Otherwise people on the unfortunate end of the ability spectrum are going to have to get gainful employment somehow.

We should definitely take care of them as a society built on solidarity, but we can be efficient about it too.

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