Nobody wants to teach anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#61

Post by zmgsabst » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

SamuelAdams wrote: post #22

> Demoralization is what happens when you spend years becoming an expert in a subject area, and nobody cares. They’d rather hire another MBA to make all the important decisions, while they stick us on committees writing reports for ghosts. That’s when teachers start to withdraw from their jobs, when we realize it doesn’t matter what we think, and it definitely doesn’t matter how amazing we are at what we do. This was…

I think we need to admit managerialism fails at knowledge fields — perhaps Taylorism entirely.

I’m not sure what’s better, though.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#62

Post by GiorgioG » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

uniqueuid wrote: post #2

As a European, it has always been perplexing to me how little the US invests in teachers and schools, given that we know how huge the benefits are down the road (educational attainment, income, pro-social behavior, life satisfaction). Watching how large parts of the political spectrum embrace hardship as a societal teaching tool, I begin to understand that the expectation may always have been that kids ought to figur…

Seems like US spending is slightly higher than European countries. We're not getting our money's worth here.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#63

Post by tlogan » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

And teachers here in San Francisco refused to teach for one full year. I do not blame them: it is really a crappy job.

And as result of that only very bad are still teaching: the ones that hate the job, hate the kids and, in general, not nice people.

I think the only way we can sole this is the following:

- clamp down on union: it should easier to fire bad teachers

- class size should be less than 10. Expensive yeah…

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#64

Post by starkd » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

uniqueuid wrote: post #2

As a European, it has always been perplexing to me how little the US invests in teachers and schools, given that we know how huge the benefits are down the road (educational attainment, income, pro-social behavior, life satisfaction). Watching how large parts of the political spectrum embrace hardship as a societal teaching tool, I begin to understand that the expectation may always have been that kids ought to figur…

It's not about money. Avg salaries are plenty above the OECD average. The U.S. has a strong tendency to just throw money at a problem. There are many urban school districts that have trouble getting 50% attendance rates ON THE FIRST DAY. And that's with going door to door to remind parents the day before. How can you even address it when the people don't even believe in the institution anymore?

Let parents have some real choice of different school to attend. This will allow some experimentation from the ground up to happen organically. Parents who are the most invested in their child's success can have real agency in their future. This will also give teachers more flexibility in the kind of environment they want to work in. They could even start their own homeschooling pods and take in a set number of students from the area.

Once again, the teachers union stands in the way of real progress.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_cmd.pdf

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#65

Post by barrysteve » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:12 PM UTC

It's clear everything is falling and people are trying to jack up the wages to compensate. Yet nobody mentions how to fix the horrific management that allowed this to happen in the first place and won't solve the crisis.

My last job wanted me to replace the existing management. They tried to sell this to me by complaining about all the different bosses they had to report to, how difficult the job was and how they want to retire and stop doing the job. Combined with all the other structural issues and tribalism within the workplace, having a management team that is happy to spell out their own doom is criminally incompetent.

You can pretty up the teacher or management role with money and pride, but it's still going to fall apart if you're hellbent on overworking your staff and killing the golden goose. Everyday the terrible management continues, the more and more relatable Anakin looks. Disappointment is a weekly reality.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#66

Post by vostok » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #15

I realize this piece is more of a rant, and I won't hold it to a data accuracy standard it never pretended to have, but they pay issue is really misconstrued. Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median, and when accounting for benefits and pension, quite impressive. In South Dakota and a number of states in the south and rural districts, yes it is another story, and it is bad. Also, teachers N…

> Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median

Is the median the correct benchmark? The median household income in NYC was $67k in 2021 [0]. Why would someone choose to be a teacher making around the median [1] when you could be a software engineer and make 3x as much?

It's not just a matter of trinkets and baubles. That difference allows you to comfortably afford a nice family sized apartment [2] in a safe area with a convenient commute.

[0] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewy...

[1] https://teachnyc.net/about-our-schools/salary-and-benefits

[2] https://streeteasy.com/building/15-gates-avenue-brooklyn/h

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#67

Post by swinnipeg » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

In Canada each province has a fairly strong teacher union. In Manitoba for example a teacher with 10 years experience will earn approximately $95K CAD (more than most software developers here). This with strong pension benefits that can be collected at 55. I know teachers that retired in their late 50s, and will continuing making 70% of their inflation adjust salaries until they die.

Relatively speaking this salary/benefits has higher expected lifetime earnings than a software developer.

One negative is that the unions are also strong enough that teachers can't be fired/replaced for performance (this is similar to Police...etc). As with any profession the worst of the bunch is very bad, and unfortunately they keep doing it until their fifties at the cost of the children.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#68

Post by magicalist » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #34

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.

As long as we have tenure and the seniority system we aren’t going to see significantly higher pay. Virtually everyone else has a boss that judges his or her performance. Sometimes those judgments are wrong or unfair. Almost every institution has determined that’s still better than nothing. But somehow not schools.

Are you claiming seniority isn't a thing in many workplaces? That's just wrong.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#69

Post by viraptor » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #15

I realize this piece is more of a rant, and I won't hold it to a data accuracy standard it never pretended to have, but they pay issue is really misconstrued. Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median, and when accounting for benefits and pension, quite impressive. In South Dakota and a number of states in the south and rural districts, yes it is another story, and it is bad. Also, teachers N…

> most qualified high school physics teachers have way differently valued skillsets in the labor force by alternate employers than most kindergarten teachers.

Do they? I read that as implying that physics teachers could potentially get some stem jobs. But is that actually true? If you can do math, you can teach yourself enough physics to teach in high school. But that gets you nowhere near the knowledge necessary for applying non-trivial physics at work.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#70

Post by justin66 » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

throwaway9870 wrote: post #39

bell-cot wrote: post #8

s/to Teach/to be treated like shit for crap wages/g Not exactly news, these days. In much of America, local school districts still have quite a bit of autonomy. As thing keep getting worse, there might be a district or few, here & there, where a different approach gets an honest try. Might.

People keep saying crap wages, but put some real numbers up here. What do you consider crap wages?

Let’s just go with crap wages == whatever isn’t sufficient to keep enough people in the profession, such that you need to start recruiting wildly unqualified people just to fill the spot.