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

#601

Post by XorNot » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

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'm going to quit this middle class job and go be a teacher, easy money" said literally no one ever including the OP here.

"We just need better teachers" says a group composed of people who are entirely sure the profession is beneath them.

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

#602

Post by Broken_Hippo » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 10:22 AM UTC

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…

* remedial and the kids who were really trying would never be sent to remedial because that’s where the true losers were sent (in a different building) where they couldn’t disrupt anyone else’s learning.*

This just isn't true. Do you honestly believe that a kid with a learning disability is simply not trying? I know that was the attitude of the schools of yesteryear - but they were wrong.

There are lots of reasons for remedial classes: Dyslexia, for example. A kid might have anxiety issues that make finishing homework near impossible: ADHD is a real thing that folks struggle with. All of these can be worked through - but back in history, they would be sent away to rot. Lots of them are bright kids, and a fair number of them can be a future surgeon or researcher.

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

#603

Post by Amezarak » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 10:24 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #362

barry-cotter wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From the same report, the bullet point above your first quote: > The wage gap between teachers and non-teachers disappears when both groups are matched on an objective measure of cognitive ability rather than on years of education. That “objective measure” is based on human capital model of wages, and it seems to me pretty biased to apply to such a specialized profession. Being wonderful at making a group of 6 years…

> specialized profession.

Color me skeptical that it's a specialized profession. It does not appear to me that decades of education majors have done any better than those who didn't possess such a degree, or that there are any special skills involved beyond knowing the subject and good interpersonal skills. When I think back to my best teachers, none of them had any special skills. They were just passionate. It doesn't help that when you delve into it, all this 'specialized knowledge' about how to learn turns out to be junk science: cf. 'learning styles' or 'three cueing', which destroyed the ability of millions of kids to actually read. [1]

Let's try a model where yes, we pay teachers more - much more. But instead of hiring "teachers", we hire experts who are passionate about their subject and want others to learn about it. Let's do this from middle school onward.

In elementary school, we can focus on getting kids to read and do basic arithmetic, and otherwise let it basically be daycare. A lot of underperformance at that age goes away if you simply give the kid more time to mature - for some mad reason at least in my school district, kindergarteners are expected to already know their letters and numbers and be able to read a few words.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20790600

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

#604

Post by kwhitefoot » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

sqrt17 wrote: post #575

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 ne…

> school is just very bad at recognizing and enhancing the chances of people who aren't neurotypical white privileged background kids.

It is also bad recognizing and enhancing the chances of people who are neurotypical white privileged background kids.

I went to pretty good primary and secondary schools which actually tried to get the best out of pretty much everyone. Remedial teaching was taken seriously and wasn't just a bin into which difficult children were dumped. But even then the results left a lot to be desired. It's really difficult even in the absence of political interference.

The surrounding society makes a big difference. I count myself as lucky growing up where and when I did.

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

#605

Post by katbyte » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 10:27 AM UTC

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…

FYI Vancouver is still keeping advance placement classes which is the typical way for smart students to excel. The program being cut was only at two schools in the super rich part of town and kinda seemed like a “free private school program in public school”

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

#606

Post by kwhitefoot » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 10:30 AM UTC

ganzuul wrote: post #580

GGfpc wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> take care of them

It sounds like you want to just pay people to stay alive without helping them to gain the skills necessary to make that life worthwhile to themselves.

Before we try to be efficient we need to agree on what we are being efficient about.

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

#607

Post by Leparamour » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 10:42 AM UTC

syops wrote: post #429

6f8986c3 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Want to actually teach kids things they need to learn to succeed? This is the wrong job for you. I teach at a community college and for years I've told newcomers to profession that one thing this job is not about is teaching.

>and for years I've told newcomers to profession that one thing this job is not about is teaching.

So, what is about then?

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

#608

Post by nicoburns » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 11:01 AM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #485

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that vouchers still put the most power in the parents about what school their children go to, when the parents themselves aren’t necessarily good judgements of what would make a good school. Additionally, tools that parents would use (how students are graded in standard tests) are opaque. There are even cases where private schools don’t have to disclose how well or poorly their students score, whi…

Fair enough, but my impression of lots of public schools is that they are abysmal and the few that aren’t are typically only available to rich people anyway (in practice, not principle) so the current system addresses neither overall quality of education nor inequality.

Yes, currently. But we should be looking to improve that system for everyone, not allowing a privileges few to opt out.

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

#609

Post by TX0098812 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 11:02 AM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #602

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…

* remedial and the kids who were really trying would never be sent to remedial because that’s where the true losers were sent (in a different building) where they couldn’t disrupt anyone else’s learning.* This just isn't true. Do you honestly believe that a kid with a learning disability is simply not trying? I know that was the attitude of the schools of yesteryear - but they were wrong. There are lots of reasons fo…

> This just isn't true. Do you honestly believe that a kid with a learning disability is simply not trying?

You injected the words "learning disability". That's not that OP said.

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

#610

Post by TX0098812 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

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…

Where I went to school, they put all of the effort into the kids who were failing and if you were doing well, you got no help because hey you seem to be doing ok.

Results?

The kids who were failing still failed because no matter how much teachers do, it's still up to them to study.