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Nobody wants to teach anymore

jessicalexicus.medium.com

961–970 of 1001 posts

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#961

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think comparing the costs between the 5 year olds in our daycare and the 6 year olds entering first grade is entirely fair. Our daycare gets more expensive as the child ages - not less. > The person taking care of a baby (or 4 babies) might need to be much less qualified than an AP physics teacher in high school, but the labor (and liability) costs do not necessarily scale exactly with the minimum qualifications ne…

>For comparison - we currently pay more per year to keep our 1 year old child in daycare (roughly ~15,000/yr) >I think comparing the costs between the 5 year olds in our daycare and the 6 year olds entering first grade is entirely fair. Which is it, you're paying for a 1 year old or a 5 year old? What daycare do you go to that 5 year olds pay the same rate as an infant? What would be "fair" is to not lie, and be trut…

I'm paying for a 1 year old - I have access to the full payment info as they age... Tuition is covered in the new parent hand book by year, and communicated yearly as it updates (the most recent was just this month - as they mirror the back to school dates for our county).

I really don't know what it is you think you're pulling with this bullshit: > "What would be "fair" is to not lie".

I think it would be fair to tell you to bugger off.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#962

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know OPS in Omaha doesn't pay crap. Last year's pay schedule started at $43k with a bachelor's, 47k with a master's, and 51k with a doctorate. Maxes at $71,400 with a doctorate. 2022-23 starts at $44k with a bachelor's and maxes at 75k with a doctorate.

I'm not at all surprised if teachers in Nebraska get a shittier deal than teachers in California or Illinois, but if you click around the financials for the DC West school district, teachers in suburban Omaha are routinely making 85k+. These teachers do not have doctorates. Note that the base salary of a teacher is just the floor on their compensation; they make substantial additional money from extracurriculars and…

Valley is not suburban Omaha. They're in the same county, but Valley is distinctly a separate city and not a suburb. Even with how far West Omaha has expanded, there's no one in the area that's going to call it a suburb without laughing a little. Is that the best you could find?

How about you look at the number of teachers employed by OPS vs DC West? They have one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school in that district vs OPS serving an area encompassing hundreds of thousands of residents.

You were excited about 100k/year in California? Please tell me that's not the Bay area where that still leaves them unable to purchase a home anywhere near the area.

You also understand extracurriculars are a lot of extra time and work for a bit of extra pay, right? One of the biggest complaints I've heard is that teachers are being forced into running extracurriculars because they already work way too many hours for the pay and for any kind of work/life balance.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#963

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, we should, but we don't necessarily need teachers to do that. At my school we had an after hours service where the monitors would have kids play outside, play/learn boardgames, watch educationalish movies, learn to cook, etc.., for an extra 3-5$ a day for up to 4 hours. The class sizes were much larger of course and there is no correction or study plan involved. I think that's a good and economical solution…

We had this as well... OSHC (Out of School Hours Care). It was mostly staffed by volunteer parents with one or two school employees (since it was on school grounds and presumably needed trusted persons to lock up / have a first aid and/or fire warden available / etc. That said, I'm curious as to what age this care would be required? Back In My Day ™ I was entrusted with a house key at a relatively young age (10? 11?…

I was handling all my own meals except dinner and had a house key at around the same age in the US. I'm not sure how drastically things have changed in the ensuing 20 years, but I still see kids walking and playing without adults, so I suspect it's both exaggerated and regional or class-based.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#964

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then you're unable to see that market forces are making it incredibly unattractive to be a teacher. Note that I agree with your statement of teachers not getting sufficient pay relative to quality of life at work. I even think this is true up and down, from daycare to physics high school. I disagree with the chain of reasoning to support this view, however. You cannot derive this conclusion by looking at the price o…

> The point of my initial response to you was that you cannot compare annual tuition for daycare or private high schools and determine which are appropriate prices. Staffing ratios, liability insurance costs, there are a myriad factors that render this line of thinking erroneous. So I guess turn the question on its head - What makes you believe 13k is enough? When the only viable comparisons we have in my area strong…

How much is enough? People can barely afford to pay rent right now, and in most places property taxes (and thus rent) are a major source of funding of the schools. We need to make schools more efficient with their funding rather than making people homeless via raising their rent. If part of that is eliminating administrators and a football stadium to pay teachers more have at it.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#965

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). 1) European perspectives on a lot of American problems miss one of the biggest differences between us: you have a lot more of a homogeneous population. There's numerous differences be…

> There's numerous differences between designing a school system for basically all Hungarian or all Norwegian kids, for example, and figuring out what the hell you can do with a school mixed with Latinos, Asians, Blacks, and Whites with all different levels of interests, drive, and ability. Why would Latinos, Asians, Blacks, and Whites all require a radically different education? It seems to me that math is math, you…

> Why would Latinos, Asians, Blacks, and Whites all require a radically different education?

We can't completely discuss the reasons for different educational outcomes between population groups in America in a civilized forum such as HN, so let's only mention that different educational outcomes between groups exist.

Since different population groups have different educational outcomes in a multicultural society, the groups that are left behind will always feel slighted and resentful and the educational system would have to be continuously redesigned to accommodate the least common denominator, IMO in a fashion resembling the famous Harrison Bergeron short story.

In basically every city with a substantial multicultural society in America in recent years, you can find articles similar to this.

> Boston Public Schools Suspend Advanced Program Because Officials Were ‘Disturbed’ By The Number Of Asian And White Students https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/26/boston-public-schools-adv...

> Desegregation Plan: Eliminate All Gifted Programs in New York https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/nyregion/gifted-programs-...

> To Address Inequity, Let's Do More Than Eliminate 'Gifted And Talented' Programs https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2019/08/28/to-add...

Europe doesn't have to account for this kind of thing anywhere near the level that America does. Their educational systems can largely focus on what's best for education.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#966
post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say "No, it's not," when OP provided a very clear definition of how they're measuring ("both total and per capita") and you provided a completely different one ("as a percentage of GDP").

When America isn't even near the top of spending-per-GDP, there's no way it's higher than all the other countries combined in per-capita spending.

This is simply a math fail, or not recognizing that the combined GDP of "Russia, Israel and Saudi Arabia" doesn't even come close to the GDP of the United States.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#967

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not actually sure that's "plenty". For comparison - we currently pay more per year to keep our 1 year old child in daycare (roughly ~15,000/yr) and for daycare we literally only expect them to keep him alive & clean. And this is considered a "cheap" daycare. Most places in our area (the much cheaper south-west side of Atlanta) still charge more than 1600/m or almost 20k/yr. We certainly don't expect them to be si…

>I strongly suspect that education is highly dependent on the family at home, and that's becoming harder to meaningful do as more and more families are forced to have both parents work full time. This is a big part of it. Education doesn't stop when the school bell rings.

[deleted]

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#968

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not actually sure that's "plenty". For comparison - we currently pay more per year to keep our 1 year old child in daycare (roughly ~15,000/yr) and for daycare we literally only expect them to keep him alive & clean. And this is considered a "cheap" daycare. Most places in our area (the much cheaper south-west side of Atlanta) still charge more than 1600/m or almost 20k/yr. We certainly don't expect them to be si…

>I strongly suspect that education is highly dependent on the family at home, and that's becoming harder to meaningful do as more and more families are forced to have both parents work full time. This is a big part of it. Education doesn't stop when the school bell rings.

But I was told by HN the state is responsible for providing an education for children. If the parent is responsible instead, then I'd like to be able to opt out of paying taxes for schools and instead send my kid to a private school.

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#969
post #954
post #942

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment answers itself. They would choose it because they actually don't have the alternative choice. In fact, aside from the transient young Teach for America type affluent idealists, most (not "all") urban public school teachers are gloried babysitters making good babysitting wages. If they teach kids anything it's usually something that should be untaught asap. By and large, the long hauler, professiona…

And non-urban schools are somehow different?

Yes, for obvious reasons. Classroom size and the relative economic factors of urban schools make the job less desirable than non-urban schools. Urban kids are typically rich or poor. Rich kids end up in non-public schools. Non-urban schools are more often serving the middle class, who have cultural advantages over the poor when it comes to learning outcomes. Why do you think urban parents move to suburban school districts after having kids?

Re: Nobody wants to teach anymore

#970
post #843
post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents were both teachers. A significant trunk of my classmates went into teaching after college. We keep in touch. The above comment is accurate.

Which "above comment"?

I agree it is fully ambiguous as to which above refers in this case.
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