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

#661

Post by giantg2 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #491

giantg2 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Part of offering better salaries is also being able to be more selective with who you keep." If you are a private school, sure. This is not the case for unionized public schools. Did you hear of that famous case where a superintendent fired multiple teachers for abysmal performance and even abusive behavior and was forced by the courts/union to reinstate them with back pay? It's very eye opening.

Yeah, salaries competitive enough to draw talent away from other high paying opportunities is just one of many things that need to be fixed to get the public education system doing what it should.

Where's the line of what is high paying? Median salary in the US is about $50k. Many teachers in the US make more than that. Some make less. A lot depends on local cost of living. We would also have to factor in other benefits not typically seen in industry, like pensions, tenure (this is really one of the main problems), and time off.

I'm sure there are states where teachers are underpaid. My state is in the top ten and that is not an issue here. I know a teacher making more than I do as a developer. The local district spends $14k per student per year (about average for the state). Money is not a problem here. There are still districts that have poor performance and test scores.

Instead if just trying to throw money at problems, we need to change the structure. Pay for performance would be a great way encourage good teachers and discourage people who perform poorly. It can be tricky to get the right metrics. The biggest issue is that the teachers unions oppose this.

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

#662

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

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…

Someone has to be there for that kid to say 'shut up and study'. Failing that, disruptive student is a drag on the rest.

I am sympathetic to the thought process behind it but the end results are hard to argue with.

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

#663

Post by giantg2 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

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?

The main difference here is that the teachers are unionized. Their contracts generally make it extremely difficult to remove underperforming teachers or pay for results.

Higher pay under a pay for performance structure and the ability to remove ineffective teachers would be good. This would bring it more in line with industry. It can be tricky to get the right metrics. The bigger issue is that the teachers union opposes any of them.

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

#664

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #559

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…

Average salary for teachers is $63k, across all states. In NY or CA, it is about $85k [1]. This does not include benefits (e.g., health care or a ~$50k/y pension for retirement at age 60 [2]) And there are 2.5 months in the summer for r&r or for working additional jobs [3]. You need two wage earners to be solidly middle class, but this is not a "grossly underpaid" profession. For comparison, a university engineering…

This. I keep hearing about undepaid teachers, but in my immediate social circle this is simply not true from avg. hh US perspective.

Naturally, statement like that usually then gets attacked as 'but not enough'. Based on results alone, CPS teachers are actually paid too much.

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

#665

Post by la6471 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

Ask HN: given that school education in USA is so complicated is there a guide that the good folks here can suggest for kids and parents on how to successfully navigate the education system in USA?

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

#666

Post by chmod600 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:31 PM 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 as the institution taking care of those kids"

But that's the question, right? Are schools facilities for education, or for taking care of kids?

The format is reasonable for education, but not for complete rearing of children. When children, for whatever reason, are not being raised effectively, a classroom is not going to do a great job with education.

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

#667

Post by dntrkv » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #632

hn8788 wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All those things are either signs of a difficult home environment or a learning disability. That's not true, some kids are just shitheads and don't feel like listening to anyone or doing what they're told. Personal responsibility has to come into play at some point, you can't just blame every problem on external factors.

As an extreme case re: your point, OP mentions students who were actually setting stuff on fire at their school. Why the heck is police not getting involved at that point? We're talking actual, serious criminal behavior that can also be predictive of further crimes later in life if unaddressed, so some very real consequences are definitely called for, to try and set these kids straight. An ounce of prevention can sav…

We had kids regularly setting trash cans on fire in my school. Police got involved sometimes (we had an officer on campus at all times). Those kids definitely received consequences, and they would be put into programs to help turn their lives around, but it did them no good. Just further cemented their fate. A good 20% of the school of about 2,000 kids were way beyond help. The parents, their home life, and the kid's upbringing are really the issue here. The school can't do anything about that. I always felt so bad for the teachers, the abuse they had to put up with was something nobody should go through.

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

#668

Post by Amezarak » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

sseagull wrote: post #651

Amezarak wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I believe teaching is a somewhat specialized profession, or at least a very separate skill from knowing the subject. I am just getting into teaching now, at a college level, and finding it is a completely different beast than everything else, even though I know the subject very well. I mean, we've all had teachers that sucked, or professors who cared more about research than teaching; it's not something that people c…

I read down the rest of the thread after commenting, and another commenter posted a link to a study showing teachers with education degrees perform no better than teachers without them.

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

#669

Post by duped » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #666

sqrt17 wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 as the institution taking care of those kids" But that's the question, right? Are schools facilities for education, or for taking care of kids? The format is reasonable for education, but not for complete rearing of children. When children, for whatever reason, are not being raised effectively, a classroom is not going to do a great job with education.

Both.

The public school system goes behind education because it's the only state service where most children can be reached. They're crucially important for providing food security and shelter to millions of children whose parents can't or won't.

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

#670

Post by brightball » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #482

throwaway894345 wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet for some reason in the US this is a political hot button, which doesn’t make any sense to me. I share in your bafflement. Charitably, perhaps they reason that parents will pick schools that are worse on average than public schools, but I suspect it is more of a “equality demands poor schooling regardless of class” with a side of “the state gets to determine the values your child is taught”.

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…

That’s the ultimate issue though. If parents don’t have the choice then we never really know that.

Right now, the only parents with a choice are the ones who can afford all the options, including moving to a better public school district.