Live data from Hacker News

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

adamcadre.ac

421–430 of 764 posts

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

#421

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…

Teacher salaries are public in my state (every state?) so I just looked up my local school. For the record, this is a rural location in Minnesota - each grade has a little over 100 students. My wife’s sister is 33 years old and has worked there for a few years. Her yearly salary is $47,000, and has been rapidly increasing each year - nearly 10% a year. It looks like teachers that I would guess are in their 40s and 50…

My understanding is that salaries depend on location of the workplace and the surrounding housing market (aka. rich district = above-average-pay teachers).

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

#422

> 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…

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…

> I've read countless comments on HN from people who are successful in life yet angry and bitter about their K-12 experience.

But most of those are angry and bitter because of the social aspects, and because it wasted their time. I don't recall ever reading here that someone was angry and bitter because the grading system burned them.

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

#423

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…

How about attach the money spent on a school to the child, and let the teachers/administrators compete just like everything else. You can create specialized roles, pay more, focus on X, whatever you want.

The school system is a failing monopoly that should be broken up.

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

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re describing Finland. They outlawed private school funding for exactly the reason you’re proposing: to get the wealthiest and most engaged parents invested in fixing public schools for all. It worked. They have one of the best public education systems in the world.

This is a big oversimplification. There are many differences in education between Finland and the US. Pointing to a single one and declaiming it as the cause is unjustified. As a counter example, the OECD PISA ranking for education puts Estonia as just barely ahead of Finland[1]. Estonia has public and private schools[2]. So, it is at least possible to have Finland quality schools while maintaining a public and priva…

Any idea what Massachusetts is doing to achieve such results, and could it be replicated in other states?

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

#425
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So instead, let's put them with the high-achievers and force those high-achievers to do the teacher's job of tutoring them at the expense of their own educational opportunity. I can see why schools likes it. But it's terrible policy and hurts the higher-achieving students, who will be the backbone of our increasingly winner-take-all knowledge- and services-based economy.

That's quite the straw man you've built there. Nobody is talking about forcing the high achievers to do the teacher's job. The question is how we allocate the fixed amount of educational resources we have. You want us to choose the high achievers so that these early winners can turn that lead into even greater success later. Unstated in your post is what happens to those low achieving students. But it's pretty easy t…

> The other option is to help the low achieving students so that more of them can participate in that winner take all economy. I'm not sure how to argue that this latter option is preferable since it seems so obvious to me that it's the right choice to make.

That's precisely why low achieving students are separated out. To give them extra help.

High achieving students are easy. Just point them and they go. This is why the second they started standardized testing and separating the students they were able to achieve results with high achievers. But their primary goal with these top-down programs was to actually help the slower students, that were graduating without being literature and whatever. Turns out it's just a really hard problem. It isn't that everyone in education somehow lacks the desire or common sense.

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

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but most of the civics classes are a joke compared to the citizenship test. The used to have shop or home economics as required classes. I do agree that it is up to the student to maintain proficiency. I just feel like many of the tests and classes are ridiculously easy, like to the point of being geared to passing people rather than teaching. But I do also acknowledge that I forget about stuff I don't use, lik…

Have you taken the citizenship test? I am an immigrant and my dad had to take it. I was a bit under age requirement but did look over it. One example it doesn't even ask for the 3 branches of government, just name a single one. A lot of the questions are nice like that and will let you give a partial answer. You can see questions here, https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/questions... The test is longer…

I get that they standards are pretty low. I remember an article showing that most TX citizens couldn't pass the test. Here is a similar article that shows over a third of US citizens would fail.

https://www.vox.com/2014/4/26/5654020/awkward-americans-cant...

My biggest issue is how can we improve the knowledge of the citizens since this sort of knowledge is necessary for a strong democracy? I'm not sure what the best answer would be, but teaching/testing in school seems like a good start. Looking at the format and rigor would be good, especially if it is already supposed to be taught and we are seeing such low retention.

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

#427
post #240

One of the most radical beliefs I have is we should get rid of private schools, because it lets the people most capable of forcing change to opt out of an increasingly broken system, and so it doesn't get fixed. Of course I say this as I seriously consider sending my kids to a private school because of articles like this.

You can't do that. Even in countries with hardcore marxist regimes, kids of the elite (the "party members") go to special schools.

or they send them abroad - the classic oligarch/despot kid path

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

#428

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…

That’s a solution without a buyer in a market that’s about control and indoctrination, or childcare at best. But not education.

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

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the first quote, it’s not the opposite of what you’d expect if teaching was a low-status profession that could only attract weaker, lower paid labourers. 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. If teaching is low-status it is no wonder that education standards are low and thus educational ac…

> 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.

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

#430

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…

Just get rid of school boards altogether. Here in Canada we only have 5 ballot questions across our 3 elections:

Federal representative

Provincial representative

Municipal representative

Mayor

School board trustee.

The PM? Head of the party with the most seats. Same with provincial premiere. Judges, crown attorneys, controllers, senators, the governor general, etc? Those are all appointed by our elected representatives.

A central ethos of Canadian governance is that our representatives are there to make decisions and bouncing questions to the public is a tool of last resort.

With that on mind, why the hell do we have elected school boards? We have a provincial ministry that runs education. We have municipalities that manage land-use.

Voters are basically flying blind in trustee elections. There are no debates, no media coverage, no political parties, just a list of names. If they don't happen by your doorstep, you don't get to know who these people are... And even if they do, you've only got their word to go on.

Ax this anachronistic institution and let the education policy professionals within the state/provincial government and school boards do their jobs.

Post reply on HN