Nobody wants to teach anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#71

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

zmgsabst wrote: post #61

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.

I wholeheartedly agree. I think a critical examination of the MBA degree, and the values it embodies, is long overdue.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#72

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

ehnto wrote: post #53

seibelj wrote: post #10

People do want to teach and get paid to do it. It’s called private schools. They charge what the market will bear for their quality and location, and they pay what the market rate is for teachers of the requisite quality that let them charge the rates they need. What confuddles people in education is the same thing that causes endless articles about housing, healthcare, inflation… it’s called “basic economics”. Just…

Do you feel that the private system is taking all of the good educators and administrators? America isn't the only country with a private/public school ecosystem, yet other countries are able to maintain quality public schooling while it seems America struggles.

A lot of Western non-US countries honestly don’t have a lot of attractive private sector businesses. Small nations with strong public education are very unique. For example Norway only has 5 million citizens, extremely low immigration, a mono-culture and mono-ethnicity, and earns a huge amount of money from selling fossil fuels which are then funneled to public use. Yet the left in America pretends the Nordic model can apply here.

America is unique. A lot of our public services are quite expensive and quite low quality. Our system is organized around the private sector and the more we embrace the private sector the better things are.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#73

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

orzig wrote: post #47

mantas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying more will solve the appreciation problem. My wife is (ex)teacher. Parents would flat-out say that they can't respect her because of her salary. Along the lines of, if you're smart and can do stuff, why the hell are you working for such a low pay? Ergo teachers are dumb and parents (along with their kids) feel free to make fun of dumbasses who work in schools. On top of that, paying more would help with self-re…

I’m sorry to hear that, but to counter-anecdote: Four of my family members are teachers at various levels. They all have strong frustrations but money (either in terms of perception or paying the bills) has never been one.

Are any of them under 40 and completely self-supporting? Most of the coworkers I had when teaching who weren’t bothered by the money had an external source of financial support. It took me a long time to realize it because those who are supported by others don’t like to admit it. I referred to them as hobbyist teachers, and they were much much more likely to stay longer than 5 years compared to those who were doing it as a career.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#74

Post by quickthrower2 » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

GiorgioG wrote: post #4

Great, let's move forward with some real online learning initiatives. The current system is antiquated and no longer makes sense from a purely educational perspective. For too long the US has used the school system as a baby-sitting service while both parents (or single parents) are at work.

And turn back the inflation and hedonistic clock to when a single labourers salary could support the family. Freeing up the other person to teach.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#75

Post by orzig » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

etempleton wrote: post #42

jmclnx wrote: post #9

I think it depends upon what US State the teachers are in. Some states, if a teacher says some phrases they could, get fined, loose their job or maybe in rare cases face jail time. This may even spread across the Teacher's life style. Not to mention in many places the pay is not worth it. Forgot to mention, some states also require a Masters Degree even to teach very young children, the expense of getting that degree…

This is the real issue. Most states require a master’s or credit hour equivalent to retain your teaching credentials, but the pay is bad, laughably bad in some areas. So bad that someone who has been teaching 10 years will make more doing almost anything else at an entry level position elsewhere. A lot of teachers are being recruited to do sales because they can speak well extemporaneously. Should I get paid less and…

Can you point to an area where a teacher with 10 years of experience, working full-time, earns less than an entry-level position? Teacher contracts are mostly public and you can use $15/hr for entry level, shouldn’t be hard to find and example if it exists.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#76

Post by mattkrause » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #11

GiorgioG wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"K-12 schools spend $666.9 billion or $13,185 per pupil annually." - https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statisti... We invest plenty. We just don't get a great return on our investment.

I'd argue $13K per student is quite low relative to the services expected. I mean, compare that to the price of college tuition. Now, college is too expensive and I certainly wouldn't want to replicate that problem in K-12 schools. But... well, in some ways colleges have it easier, because the students are older and can be expected to be more independent. You can't have a 100-person lecture in a K-12 setting (not tha…

Yup. $13k/year works out to about $10 per pupil-hour, and even less once you include costs like the building and work done out-of-hours (grading, lesson planning). I’m pretty sure I made something like that babysitting in junior high!

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#77

Post by throwaway9870 » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #29

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…

However much they're paying teachers, it's clearly not enough, because not enough people are willing to do the job for that amount of money. Assuming you had all the skills required to be an effective teacher, would YOU put up with everything they put up with for that salary? Because I sure as hell wouldn't. (As an aside, it's different depending on where you are but in Australia, comparing teacher salary can be diff…

> However much they're paying teachers, it's clearly not enough, because not enough people are willing to do the job for that amount of money.

The problem is that the scope of the job has changed and you can't pay people enough to do it. Here are some issues, straight from teachers I was talking to last week:

* Admin who constantly wants teachers to do more with no additional resources so they can get credit for it and advance their career. They were very frustrated by this.

* Teaching evaluation based on absolute standardized scores rather than relative. So you can have a bad class, lift them a lot, but still be viewed poorly because on absolute terms, they are still weak. You might say that evens out over time, but it doesn't because some teachers are better with difficult students, so they get more than their share of these issues.

* Special needs students mainstreamed - kids with emotional issues that flip desks and yell out constantly, physical issues such as seizures if they bump their head, but parents will not let them wear protective gear because they will stand out, elementary school kids who are constantly in physical altercations with other kids.

* Kids come to school not having eaten since the day before, cloths that haven't been washed in days, etc.

* Unable to give accurate grades because parents fight back and so teachers are forced to pass kids even though they know they are just pushing a big problem on the next teacher.

* Zero support from parents and in many cases, outright hostility.

* The classroom is a minefield regarding what can be discussed and cannot be discussed. Everyone has an opinion on how it should be done, but almost none of them have ever actually taught.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#78

Post by magicalist » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

orzig wrote: post #44

RobotToaster wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people hate lawyers, but plenty of people still want to be one.

> Surveyed lawyers said they experienced burnout in their jobs 52% of the time https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/surveyed-lawyers-rep... If our goal is to shovel new people into the system as quickly as others are quitting, I suppose lawyers are a good aspirational example. But if we assume that the best teachers are ones who like their jobs and have been around for a while, we might want to try a different mod…

Lots of well respected people burnout too. I think we can safely assume being paid lots of money is not the underlying reason.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#79

Post by gedy » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

swinnipeg wrote: post #67

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/b…

I think this applies to the US as well, at least California.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#80

Post by GiorgioG » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

kevingadd wrote: post #13

GiorgioG wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"K-12 schools spend $666.9 billion or $13,185 per pupil annually." - https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statisti... We invest plenty. We just don't get a great return on our investment.

By what standard is that actually "plenty"? Is that $13185 enough to properly fund all the services a child needs for a proper education? And if it's not, why not? How much do you believe we should be spending per student? You can point at a big number and say 'that's enough' but we spend large amounts of money on all sorts of things, the number being large doesn't mean it's sufficient. There are tons of children in…

By the standard that we're systematically mismanaging the funds we are spending. The bussing system is absurdly inefficient and wholly unnecessary. Neighborhood schools used to be a thing. Some school systems offer 'gold plated' healthcare plans where they include cosmetic surgery as a benefit to a school system that needs more money spent towards actual education.

I'm not advocating doing away with the public education system, but we're being swindled. It's not the teachers' fault (obviously), but the system as a whole. Every little town has its own school system, administrative overhead, etc.