Nobody wants to teach anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#311

Post by justin66 » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:50 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #211

justin66 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when accounting for benefits and pension That many teacher’s pensions require one to give up social security benefits makes the decision to teach more difficult, I would think, especially for those who are later in their working lives.

> That many teacher’s pensions require one to give up social security benefits Patently untrue unless maybe you work for the Dept of Defense or something. Teachers can collect SS like any other employee.

There are many ways to compensate teachers [1], but in general, you really shouldn't make categorical statements on matters you are completely unfamiliar with. I help manage the finances of someone who is in the position of being unable to collect any social security benefits from the relatively brief time she had a regular job which paid into social security prior to becoming a teacher, and is also unable to collect her spouse's Social Security survivor benefits (she literally receives zero dollars from Social Security, though if she had never worked a day in her life, she's be able to collect her spouse's survivor's benefits). You've made quite a few comments in this thread: how many of them are as badly informed as this?

"Windfall Elimination Prevention" and "Government Pension Offset" are things you can google if you're interested in learning a bit about this stuff.

[1] States whose teachers participate in their own pension plans instead of Social Security include California and Texas, so it's not like these are rare concerns

https://www.socialsecurityintelligence.com/teachers-retireme...

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#312

Post by waylandsmithers » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #3

Teaching/training is quite difficult. I've done quite a bit of training (but not true teaching -there's a difference), over the years. My family is full of teachers. I have many friends that are teachers. It's amazing how "solutions" never seem to actually get around to simply paying teachers more, and maybe not expecting them to be child-rearers, in lieu of parents.

> It's amazing how "solutions" never seem to actually get around to simply paying teachers more, and maybe not expecting them to be child-rearers, in lieu of parents.

In a neighboring town parents tried to set up a "hotline" where teachers would have to be available at night to intervene on google chat related social incidents. They just don't seem to get that at 3:15, the kid is your fucking problem again. Leave these poor teachers alone.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#313

Post by supertofu » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:55 PM UTC

_vdpp wrote: post #98

A few random thoughts: 1. For as much as we spend on education, teachers seem to be grossly underpaid - to be getting robbed of their share of the budget. Where does that money go? 2. It seems that education degrees are seen as easier to achieve than others. 3. Teachers frequently complain about how they are unappreciated, yet children spend _12 years_ in their care. Why do people come up to them and say they hated s…

Regarding 4:

Not every kid should be going to high school. They and/or their families are not capable of supporting them through it. We need public vocational and alternative high schools.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#314

Post by irrational » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

gshubert17 wrote: post #292

treis wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Admission is by lottery if there are more applicants than places, not by cherry-picking applicants. Filtering out kids who's parents aren't willing or able to complete the application process is the cherry-picking.

Yes, it's a big step for parents to leave the default neighborhood school, look over the various options, even staying in the same city, let alone moving to a different district. I agree with you there. The admissions people take some time to represent the whole story or big picture to prospective parents, because the school is not for everybody. I don't think it's cherry-picking to encourage parents to find the best…

It still sounds like cherry picking. Is there bus service from all poor neighborhoods to and from the charter school? Or is it only wealthy families that are not working multiple jobs and can afford to drive their kids to and from the school everyday that can consider sending their children there?

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#315

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

nyokodo wrote: post #208

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s fair to assume the money is evenly split. Public schooling must also support students who need much more support, ranging from ESL to a variety of disabilities with a variety of severity. If you think of specialized needs students the 13k number looks ridiculous. 13k is an alarmingly low amount of support for dyslexia, or autism, or diabetes.

> If you think of specialized needs students the 13k number looks ridiculous. You’re comparing an average per student spend to a high needs minority. Average spend should be compared to the average student who does not have dyslexia etc. A larger than average portion will be spent on kids with special needs due to special facilities, smaller class sizes, and specialist teachers etc.

But I think the $13K number includes those outliers, no? If I understand GP, they're arguing the average for 90% of students is probably significantly lower.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#316

Post by xwdv » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

baazaa wrote: post #273

Schools are just a place for warehousing kids; even people who take no interest in education know this from personal experience back from when they were a kid. Exactly 0 of 627 college students can answer simple questions like 'What is the name of the mountain range that separates Europe from Asia?' or 'What is the last name of the author of The Brothers Karamazov?'. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2…

> Exactly 0 of 627 college students can answer simple questions like 'What is the name of the mountain range that separates Europe from Asia?' or 'What is the last name of the author of The Brothers Karamazov?'.

These simple questions that are just recitation of facts are worthless. I don’t even know the answers to these.

The only questions that measure anything useful are critical thinking type questions, consider simple things any CS student should be able to answer such as “Describe the design for a roles based authentication system” or “Describe an implementation of a communications bus between multiple systems in a micro services architecture”

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#317

Post by rainsford » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #223

_vdpp wrote: post #98

A few random thoughts: 1. For as much as we spend on education, teachers seem to be grossly underpaid - to be getting robbed of their share of the budget. Where does that money go? 2. It seems that education degrees are seen as easier to achieve than others. 3. Teachers frequently complain about how they are unappreciated, yet children spend _12 years_ in their care. Why do people come up to them and say they hated s…

> 2. It seems that education degrees are seen as easier to achieve than others. Here is the problem. Teachers in America compare themselves to professionals, but their test scores are below the average for college educated people generally: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/... . Now 40% of college graduates don’t even get a job that requires a college degree. Disproportionately, those are p…

That's not what that link says. In fact the source explicitly states that they are not looking at SAT scores by major, they are just looking at average SAT scores for a given college and weighting those scores by the percentage of education majors at that college. That led to their conclusion that: "Graduates with education majors are disproportionately found at schools where students have lower SAT scores." That doesn't mean the graduates with education majors themselves have lower scores unless you make some unsupported assumptions about distribution of SAT scores at any given college.

But even if education major SAT scores are lower on average, it it seems like backwards thinking when talking about pay. The point isn't that all current individual teachers deserve to be paid more; it's that teaching as a profession should pay more to attract talented people who otherwise pursue more lucrative fields, just like any other profession. If you paid doctors and engineers low wages, you'd probably fail to attract some top talent as well. But that doesn't then become a justification for those low wages since the low wages caused the issue in the first place.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#318

Post by drnonsense42 » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

_vdpp wrote: post #98

A few random thoughts: 1. For as much as we spend on education, teachers seem to be grossly underpaid - to be getting robbed of their share of the budget. Where does that money go? 2. It seems that education degrees are seen as easier to achieve than others. 3. Teachers frequently complain about how they are unappreciated, yet children spend _12 years_ in their care. Why do people come up to them and say they hated s…

At this point, I think people who can say 1. with a straight face are either intellectually dishonest or just repeat things others say.

The majority of teachers make a median US wage fairly early into their career and plenty make a multiple of it later on, on top of great benefits. Their job is no more challenging than nearly all other professions. “But they have to”… yes, everyone else has shit they have to deal with. The fact that the Waltons, crypto lottery winners, etc. exist is a separate problem that doesn’t mean teachers are underpaid.

Education majors are easier.The sky is blue. If we even remotely believe in a meritocracy (liberals often really don’t when you dig into their beliefs, granted) starting teachers should not make as much as a starting EE major. Nobody in their right mind would or should pursue an engineering career if teaching paid equivalently.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#319

Post by randomdata » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #209

randomdata wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Automation. Teaching in its rawest form has been automated away, leaving it to be a valueless human endeavour. “Teaching” in the context of children survives because it has become a childcare service. But babysitting is not able to charge much as its cost must remain under the income potential of parents, else parents will take the responsibility themselves.

1) Has it really? I'm sure the potential exists for video lectures or whatever, but I think the teachers still ostensibly at least teach. 2) How little do you pay babysitters? At, say, $5 per kid per hour, a teacher of 20 would be doing pretty well, and that's on the low side of class sizes these days I think.

> Has it really? I'm sure the potential exists for video lectures or whatever, but I think the teachers still ostensibly at least teach.

Yes. Gone are the days that you would hire a teacher to teach you something. These days you turn to automated teaching services. The fact that the word teacher is now synonymous with the K-12 school teacher further emphasizes that the career in general has effectively disappeared. As before, "teaching" has survived as a career where childcare is the actual service offered.

> How little do you pay babysitters?

In my case it is $3 per hour for a daycare provider that cares for no more than five children at a time. If the babysitter cared for more children I would expect to pay less as I would get much less value for my dollar. The quality of care and attention declines as the number of children increases.

Large class sizes are accepted because we are going for bang for our buck over quality of care. If teachers were charging on the same order per child as other daycare providers providing higher quality care, indeed it would be good money, but there would be a shift to putting children into those better care facilities and so it wouldn't last. Why pay the same amount for lesser care?

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#320

Post by irrational » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

birdyrooster wrote: post #218

_vdpp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s valid, there are different kinds of disruptive kids. A good friend of mine at high school was very bright, kind of a troublemaker, diagnosed with ADHD, took prescription Ritalin, was a bit of a pain in the ass with his teachers, but had parents who cared and he ended up graduating and doing fine.

I never formed good habits and I really wish my parent prioritized that (Ritalin) over growing big and tall for a minuscule chance of making it in pro sports.

> a minuscule chance of making it in pro sports.

I’ve asked this question of some acquaintances that prioritize sports above all else. Their kids play different sports all year around and are on all these traveling teams. I’ve asked them if they seriously think their kids will be good enough to get a college scholarship or play pro sports (I’ve seen them, they won’t be). They just shrug. I have to presume this is how they were raised and so they are doing it to their own kids.