Next time someone tells you a teacher is a glorified babysitter...

[gadjitfreek]

Send them this.

http://www.highered.nysed.gov/tcert/pdf/1-11-2011TeachingStandardsapprovedbyRegents.pdf

These are the performance standards for New York State teachers. These are the things that teachers do every single day. With a hundred students or more, each of them with their own needs. Tell me one other profession where the standards for performance are so myriad. With the ongoing attack on teachers in this country, who in their right mind is going to want to become a teacher? With thousands of layoffs, you will see class sizes balloon. Apply these standards to class sizes of 40 or more students. If seniority protections are eliminated, you will see every teacher at the top of the salary scale eliminated as well, leaving new, inexperienced teachers to handle these standards with class sizes of 40 or more with no one to help them or mentor them. Does that paint a pretty picture? Would you want YOUR child to grow up to be a teacher?

So, next time someone tells you that teachers are overpaid, lazy suckers of the taxpayer teat, send them this document. Maybe they'll understand what it means to be a teacher.

Mark Rosengarten
http://www.youtube.com/markrosengarten
Chemistry Teacher

[fasttense]

1. Those teachers make billions, they are so rich they live in gated communities

surrounded by maids, gardeners, limo drivers and private security guards. They travel in private jets and limos and rarely deal with the common man.

Oops, that's CEOs and banksters. Never mind.

[Roland99]

2. +1

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Indeed. "Be careful what you ask for. You're going to *get* it."

Unless you can afford 30K + per annum per kid for private school ...... like virtually ALL professional school "reformers."

[woodsprite]

4. What would you say about

a 5th grade teacher whose

- main method of homework is to say 'go to the Delaware state test site and do their their sample work' (this is for both reading and math homework).
- mantra is 'I don't bombard your kids with homework because this is the last year they'll be able to play when they get home.'
- justification for not grading homework is that kids can't be held responsible for it since they all have different home lives.
- assigned written 'reports' are 1 to 3 paragraphs long in 5th grade and done in class.

We are currently looking for a supplementary tutor to fill in gaps (mainly writing with a bit of math thrown in as a treat) for my 5th grade son because I am afraid that he's not going to be prepared for 6th grade. He hasn't had any teacher previous to this one that did things that way, so it's not the school rules that are an issue. Matter of fact, last year he had an awesome teacher, very on-the-ball and a good communicator with parents. He received 4's on the state test and most grades received were 80 or above (except for spelling - he has trouble with spelling). This year, we can't tell how he's doing except when he gets his grades on the MAPs, Dibbles, and DE state test because nothing else is graded. Even with the classroom environment, he's doing OK. There are 2 fifth grade teachers in his school, and kids cannot be moved out of this class into the other one because there are no spots left. This one also did not accept a legitimate note for an excused 2-day absence. I spoke to the office, and they asked who the teacher was. When I told them, they told me to just have my son bring the note down to the office because she won't turn them in.

I hear people saying some teachers teach to the test. Well, my son's teacher is using the test to teach.

Sorry - just had to vent - :mad:

I know excellent teachers who go way above the call of duty and society's expectations, teachers like the one described above (who are teaching in the wrong grade or may even find themselves in the wrong profession), and I know teachers who are siding with the Governor of WI and are against unions (which I cannot fathom), but I think this year's 5th grade teacher takes the cake.

[BlueIris]

5. Good post. There are bad teachers in every pool of good ones.

Really, really sorry you got stuck with someone who does not care about, you know, actually teaching the students.

[gadjitfreek]

7. This is true, but remember...

There are incompetent people in every profession. As George Carlin once said...somewhere is the world's worst doctor. And someone has an appointment to see them TOMORROW!!!!! It is the job of the administration or supervisors to weed out the incompetent performers. If they aren't, then they themselves are incompetent. The politicians who endorse privatizing education would have you believe that the majority of teachers, especially senior (read "expensive") ones are bad teachers. They have created this meme that is spreading throughout the country. I can tell you...I spend nearly as much time outside of school creating my own materials (that are used by people literally all over the world) as I do implementing them once in my classroom. It takes me MUCH longer to create a lesson than it does to actually teach it. And that lesson can change in the middle of the period if I see that something is not clicking. I modify my course as each day passes to make it better for the next group that comes in. I can change tactics midstream and create brand-new ways of handling things as situations arise. This is done real-time, as a performance in front of 30 or more kids who, let's face it, would really much rather be back home in bed. This is what an effective teacher does. Just about every teacher I know does the same thing. I have known a couple of poor educators in my time...but they have either gone on to other professions or ended up as administrators. Perhaps they do better there, managing curriculum and teachers instead of dealing with children directly. Some people who were not good teachers end up making excellent administrators. Some excellent teachers go on to be lousy administrators. Everyone has to find out for themselves where they can make the greatest positive impact on outcomes.

[gadjitfreek]

6. You're going to see this actually increase.

With the increase in prioritizing high-stakes tests and the student grades on those tests determining whether a teacher gets to keep their job or not, you are going to start seeing a LOT more teachers teaching to the test. I had a colleague who would teach the course in a little more than half the year, doing the bare-bones minimum and skimming over the top of the subject matter. He would then spend the rest of the year drilling using the old state exams. His students did no better and in many cases did worse than the rest of our students. You have to foster an environment where the students WANT to learn, know that you are willing to answer their questions (even if they appear to be off-topic) and to not just know a bunch of disconnected facts, but build up a beautiful collage over the course with rich depth to it based on answering the question WHY.

I have put my entire course on my YouTube site so that students can go there to get reinforcement, if they were absent get caught up or even work ahead. The vast majority of my students do not use it, coming up with excuses instead. In fact, the site is visited mostly by college students, a large proportion of whom are in their 30's and 40's, working towards a new career. If the students are unwilling to use the tools you give them, there's not much a teacher can do. We talk a lot about teacher obligations, but zero about student obligations. I guess that's because we're not paying the students.

A good teacher can inspire their students, but the students have to meet the teacher halfway at some point. Sounds like the teacher your son had is one in need of a career change.

[LWolf]

10. Are you informed and aware of district and state mandates

that may influence "teaching to the test?"

[gadjitfreek]

11. Teachers are given "core curricula"

that are subject to "standardized" testing. We are told what the minimum requirements are and we are free to add in whatever we feel will help support it. At the end of the course, the students are given a Regents exam, which is often an assessment that is riddled with deliberately convoluted questions and a questionable grading rubric. For example, to pass the Biology exam, you typically need to get around half of the questions right. Sometimes, even less. The standard for passing is not much higher with Earth Science. Once a student takes chemistry, the bar for passing increases by 10-12%. The students prepare for the state exam like they did for Bio and Earth Science, just to find themselves falling short by 1-5 points of passing the exam. When students fail the Regents in Chemistry, they often do so in the low 60's. A few students who didn't do anything all year long will fail spectacularly, often leaving large blank spots in the short-answer part of the exam. In addition, the math curriculum and the science curriculum at the state level are not aligned. The math skills they need to succeed in science are not taught in the math classes. There is a fundamental disconnect at the highest levels.

When teachers are not given much in the way of input as to how education is done, don't blame them for the outcomes. We are there to teach, to enlighten, to challenge, to elevate consciousness and to guide. We should also be partners in the decision-making process at the State level. When they changed the Core curriculum 11 years ago, they said that only the Core topics are testable. The next exam included a question on a topic that had been removed from the Core. When I called the State, I was told "Tough luck, we can ask anything we want". Really warmed my heart.

[rucky]

14. Sounds like just the type of teacher Arne Duncan's looking for.

I bet his little test-taking army's scores are enough to earn him a bonus.

Yep, this is what happens.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. I applaud this teacher. There is zero research supporting homework

or its positive impact on student achievement.

We only assign homework because we are told we have to. And our admins tell us to assign homework because parents demand it.

When my children were in school, I would have given anything to spend quality time with them instead of watching them do their homework.

Excellence in teaching doesn't mean passing off the assignments I should be supervising in the classroom as homework. Going above and beyond doesn't mean assigning more homework than the teacher across the hall.

[woodsprite]

19. Actually, this year his first state grades were 3s.

He had high 3s the first tests given in September, but the classes latest (and she did say class as a whole) have slipped with this second round of testing just completed. Doesn't sound like her 'no homework' is working well at all.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. If homework was the answer to raising test scores, you'd have a point

But it's not.

She's assigning more test prep because her principal is telling her to do that to raise test scores. I doubt this teacher has any choice in this.

[Tatiana]

21. I'd say that the teacher is probably listening to our Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

The teacher is probably trying to give students homework that will prepare them for the upcoming standardized tests. You know, if the current administration has its way, teacher salaries will be tied to student scores. The emphasis is on test-taking skills and not actual, practical learning and knowledge.

Maybe this teacher has poor paperwork skills. I have seen a few teachers like this... ones who are very good at engaging and motivating students, but suck at the paperwork aspect of the job. Send the notes to the office from now on. Also, if you honestly feel this teacher is not providing your child with an appropriate learning environment, I would schedule an appointment with her and discuss the issues you have.

Please do not forget, homework is not the end-all, be-all of school. Teachers may also use informal assessments to determine whether a student has mastered the material taught. Sit down with the teacher and ask her about how she measures student progress in her classroom.

[canoeist52]

8. What if we pay the teachers $3/hr. like babysitters?

"What if we pay the teachers $3/hr. like babysitters? Pay for each child individually, (18.00 per child per day) Multiply by the number of kids in class, say 30. Say for 6 hours a day. (less than they work, but who is counting?) That's 540.00 a day. Multiply by 180 days a year, because they get summers off. That's $97,200 a year."

(Found this on DU) Seems like we have a pretty good deal in our current education plan.

[gadjitfreek]

9. That's far more than I am earning

with 23 years in. People value the idea of education but not the educators themselves.

[Zax2me]

12. People say that?

Wow.

[customerserviceguy]

13. The last person who told me that was my ex-sister in law

She and I are still pretty good friends. Plus, she's a teacher, who has special skills in sign language, and also is a whiz at teaching math. She's the one who said that many of the parents in the rural school district where she used to teach thought of her that way. They wouldn't often show up for parent-teacher conferences, and when they did, they'd ask her not to give out so much homework that they had to help their kids with, they just wanted to come home from work and relax in front of the TV.

Several months ago, she disciplined a couple of kids in her class for cheating, by failing them both. The wimpy school administrators simply changed the kids' grades to passing scores in response to whining from the parents, and she quit. She teaches school in New Zealand now, where she gets some respect.

[chaska]

15. Can I just say, in 16 years of schooling I never had a bad teacher....

Not one.

I saw plenty of bad students. I imagine they had some pretty crappy parents.

The problem we have in education has much to do with the automobile, TV, and our consumer culture that provides endless diversion.

People read much more and consequently were much better educated before these things came along.

[madinmaryland]

17. Well, I did have one that was a bad teacher. He was fired half way

through the year. Eighth grade Algebra teacher. He had a lot of personal maintanance issues. His replacement was my math teacher for two years. Tough as nails but damn good!

I had a few that I didn't like, but they were not bad.

Now that I have been a parent, I have only seen one "less than good" teacher, and that was an English teacher of my daughter who could not put together a sentence in proper English. Most of what she spoke was street lingo.

[BlueIris]

16. Kick. nt

[madmom]

22. So let's pay them like babysitters then.......

This is great... Read this if you appreciate or even hate teachers.
by Eedroj Remier on Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 4:42pm

Are you sick of high paid teachers? Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.



That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM

with 45 min. off for lunch and plan — that equals 6 1/2 hours).



Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.



Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.



LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).



What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children

X 180 days = $280,800 per year.



Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!



The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your

kids!)

[Curmudgeoness]

23. With pay and benefit cuts, there will be a time when as long as you are breathing

they will let you teach. We will have to do away with college education for teachers, because no one will go into debt to get the job. It will be just like having a babysitter instead of a professional. Let's just hope that she doesn't let her boyfriend join her or eat all the food. Let's hope that she isn't just playing with her phone the whole time the kids are drawing dirty pictures on the board.

Hmmm, I think this is what they are looking for. Just a place to stick the kids all day long.