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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

#581

Post by stonogo »

paulddraper wrote: post #496
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... The solution is to get rid of the monopolistic education system which is prone to imbalances and subpar results. Charter schools/private school/school choice. Recruit the best teacher, pay the best salaries, achieve the best educational outcomes. No wonder the educational system looks like it does given the incentives at play.

You're describing the Baltimore school system. I don't think you're arguing for the outcome you think you're arguing for.

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

#582

Post by bob1029 »

bpodgursky wrote: post #456
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that parents make a stink when their special little snowflake is given a bad grade, or sent to the principal, or whatever. But parents don't make a stink when their kid doesn't learn, because the teacher is too busy dancing around the kids that s/he can't do anything about because their parents would make a stink. One disruptive kid can prevent 20 kids from learning. Look, the kid may have reason. His…

In SF, the parents are absolutely not the cause here. The issue is a top-down mandate from the school board focus on equity to the detriment of all other objectives.

The parents voted in the board, no?

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

#583

Post by burntoutfire »

cycomanic wrote: post #551
giantg2 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that if you pay teachers a salary consistent with an MIT grad that was able to FIRE, that you will attract people solely for the money. If we are compensating teachers at 4-5x the median salary, then I would gladly quit my job and become a teacher even though I have no real interest in it. I believe that the best teachers enjoy their jobs and are not just looking for the money. Now we could use a performan…

So why should people not go into teaching for the money. Are you saying you are not good at your job because you are motivated by money? That's a weird take, or does that only apply to teachers not other jobs? If so why?

Teaching is both hard AND hard to evaluate, at the same time. This means that money-motivated people will likely do a bad job there AND will be able to hide their poor performance for years, for the sake of accumulating money.

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

#584

Post by stonogo »

atweiden wrote: post #347
thrower123 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In former times, European countries could do this, because you've had a homogenous pool to sort out by ability. Attempts to do this in the US produce results that appear racist.

It’s almost as if genetic similarity is a predictor of social stability.

Yes, that statement is the one that appears racist, because it is.

Try "it's almost as if being societally excluded for centuries is a predictor of social instability," which is both more accurate and descriptive of the problem we're trying to solve here.

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

#585

Post by concordDance »

mmarq wrote: post #113
fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

The point of school is not to produce geniuses, but to take a mass of illiterates and turn them into semi-literate persons, also giving them time to mature as human beings before they are allowed into university or work. If an 18 year old person can read, write, use basic math operations, know a few facts about the country they live in and speak in a way that doesn't require their fellow countrymen to use subtitles,…

> mature as human beings

I really doubt high school helps with this.

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

#586

Post by b112 »

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…

IMO, this sort of thing is just as dangerous as any other type of radicalism. Take anything too far, and you cause immense damage to society.

The formative years age just that. Disrupt that significantly, and the individual is forever lacking. Society needs people in all roles, we'd die of plagues, and disease from vermin, without garbage pickup. Incredibly vital, that job is.

Yet who will create new vaccines, new tech to clean up the planet, get mining and resource production into space, and more? Only those with certain genetic gifts, but the "feel goods" want to believe everyone is identical.

Equality is not this. Equality comes from things like providing access ramps for those who cannot climb stairs, providing tools for those to make the best of what they have.

You don't "pull down" people to make equality, you lift up people. And this means that you see who needs help, and give it.

And you can't do that of you pretend everyone is the same.

As a side note, plumbers, electricians, those working in construction, arborists, on and on, there are many very comfortable, well paying jobs open to those without advanced science, math, language skills.

In my public school, both at grade and high school levels, we had shop class, and in high school, auto, electrical wiring, art, A/V, environmental science (farming), and more. There was something for everyone to excel in, and I took most of these, on top of advanced sciences/math, for fun, for the sheer sake of knowledge.

Don't remove potential, instead, seek how to enable every child's capabilities.

Lift up, don't pull down.

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

#587

Post by panta82 »

mmarq wrote: post #222
lubujackson wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of narrow thinking is what has caused schools in SF to suck for everyone. Because Lowell doesn't exist in a vacuum and the arguments that privileged people have a leg up doesn't really make a difference - it is similar logic to burning libraries because some folks can't read. So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? The parents have three options: send y…

> So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? Changing the admission criteria of a highschool is not akin to burning libraries. > So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? Changing the admission criteria of a highschool is not the same as dumbing it down (whatever that is supposed to mean). In Europe children are n…

> In Europe children are not required to write essay or complete extracurricular activities to enroll in highschools or middleschools, and they are not generally dumber than the Americans.

I had to do an admissions test, plus average grade from primary school (50-50 scoring ratio, if I remember correctly).

They score everyone, and put them on a list. The top gets in. The rest, good luck, try somewhere else.

So it's not random.

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

#588

Post by Aerroon »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #90
analog31 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing devils advocate for a moment, as grading works right now, a kid can quickly dig themselves into a hole that they have no realistic way to get out of, e.g., by utterly bombing on an exam or missing a few assignments early in the semester. The motivation for that kid to progress any further is zero, yet they are imprisoned in the classroom for the duration of the semester. This hits very close to home for me, a…

Nothing is going to work while everything is paced by year. In 7th grade, in the fall you are taught X, so if you miss it the only solution is to take it next time: next fall with the next year’s 7th graders. In an ideal infinitely funded world, if you took 20% longer to learn X, you’d just go slower, not be left behind.

You could just study using your textbook and workbook. A lot of material relies on what you previously studied in some way. You should be able to learn the things that you missed with your experience and textbook.

Nowadays you also have the internet that can fill those gaps. If a student wants to learn, then there are many opportunities. But students usually don't want to.

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

#589

Post by mmarq »

Palmik wrote: post #462
mmarq wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? Changing the admission criteria of a highschool is not akin to burning libraries. > So what happens when you dumb down the only decent public high school for students to aim for? Changing the admission criteria of a highschool is not the same as dumbing it down (whatever that is supposed to mean). In Europe children are n…

Many European countries have public high schools with admission tests that cover math, general knowledge and language. Some are more competitive than others. In some countries, the differentiation starts even much earlier than that, with 8 year long "gymnasiums". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school)

In Germany, when you finish primary school, your teachers give an advice on which school you can attend: Gymnasium, Realschule or Hamptschule, depending on how good they think you are.

First of all you don’t have to attend the school your teachers advised, you can still attend a Gymnasium if your teachers said you should go to a Hamptschule. So it’s significantly different from the selection criteria of that American high school.

Then this selection process is known to be biased against children of foreigners. Somebody said that without strict competition in high school admissions we wouldn’t have playstations and covid vaccines, so it’s useful to know that the founder and CEO of BioNTech (who is a Turk-German) was advised to go to a Hamptschule by his primary school teachers. So he wouldn’t have been able to attend university.

Said that, having a brother that works as a teacher in a Gymnasium, I insist that these kids are not learning anything esoteric or peculiarly complicated. If the average kid in an upper middle class neighbourhood returns an assignment with less than one typo per row, he would be remembered for years.

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

#590

Post by 6f8986c3 »

Jare wrote: post #553
brightball wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Vouchers add power to parents, and we've (I think) already agreed that parents are a large part of the problem. Even worse: unlike policies, standards, regulations, boards, administrations, and rules, you can't change parents. Even worst: you can manipulate parents, and perverse incentives all but guarantee that evil people will be attracted to this opportunity.

> we've (I think) already agreed that parents are a large part of the problem.

No.

> Even worst: you can manipulate parents, and perverse incentives all but guarantee that evil people will be attracted to this opportunity.

Of course, those evil people would never think of becoming teachers or professors in order to brainwash thousands of students over their careers.

Because that would be, what, wrong and stuff?

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