Are teachers underpayed ?

[newfoundland]

In a way, teachers should be paid by results. It just isn't acceptable for some teachers to go year after year doing a barely adequate, or frankly poor job, and for some pupils to be forced to languish in failing schools wasting their opportunities to prepare for a fulfilled and successful future. Name them and shame them I say. If league tables are introduced and more to the point published in the newspapers, you find that parents vote with their feet and move their children to successful schools. School inspections should be frequent, unannounced and searching. There should be a minimum national standard for education and any school that fails that standard should be put on special measures. Root out the dead wood and suitably reward the excellent teachers that remain.

 

[duckinnut]

In a way, teachers should be paid by results. It just isn't acceptable for some teachers to go year after year doing a barely adequate, or frankly poor job, and for some pupils to be forced to languish in failing schools wasting their opportunities to prepare for a fulfilled and successful future. Name them and shame them I say. If league tables are introduced and more to the point published in the newspapers, you find that parents vote with their feet and move their children to successful schools. School inspections should be frequent, unannounced and searching. There should be a minimum national standard for education and any school that fails that standard should be put on special measures. Root out the dead wood and suitably reward the excellent teachers that remain.

I agree to an extent, but to the contrary there are great teachers trying to teach to dogs that just don't hunt. If a child does not want to learn or have a good support from home, what is a teacher to do? If a teacher say teaches 5 classes a day with 30/40 kids per class there is going to be some that fail. Why should salary be based on results? IMHO they should be to a degree, but in the inner city I feel for a teacher as they are up against impossible odds. This a complicated situation with no real correct answer I believe. Principals are another matter. In my town they are paid a handsome salary in excess of $100,000. Imagine that, a grade school principal making that to manage about 200 K-5 kids, big coin I do believe. And the pay rate increase as the age group does.

 

[hemet dennis]

Quote:
If the other teachers in the school are getting better results from the same students then it will show the weaker teachers.

 

[newfoundland]

Having worked for many years in schools I feel that 30/40 pupils is too high to work successfully with them as individuals. Then schools are forced to adopt the 'one size fits all' approach which gives teachers no job satisfaction and doesn't call upon the skills they have studied for. It goes without saying that this is not a good way for pupils to learn. What do you do when you are faced with a class full of disinterested children who have learned to expect nothing from life only a future in crime or on welfare. Having worked in some of the toughest inner city schools in London I have some experience of this.

I have seen the worst failing schools be turned around by the dedication, vision and leadership of the principal. Many have come from the top private schools in the country to do their time 'at the coal face' as it were. They have taken the attitude, 'We don't accept unrully behaviour anymore because we are better than that. We have more class. We can achieve whatever we set our mind to because we are bright, intelligent young people. We respect others because others respect us.' These principals have swept through the teaching staff and got rid of any with poor attitude and less than absolute dedication. When they have refilled the teaching posts they have let it be understood that only the cream of the crop need apply as others will be turned away. I have also worked in poorly led schools where despite all the disadvantages, certain teachers have consistently performed out of their skins and achieved, with their pupils, great results.

Teaching is a vocation, not a job for those that leave university and don't know what else to do with their mediocre degrees, but are attracted by the long holidays. The teachers we remember all our lives are the ones who inspired us and made us believe we could be better than we ever dreamed.

 

[duckinnut]

If the other teachers in the school are getting better results from the same students then it will show the weaker teachers.

Absolutely. But what do you do when a whole school is failing? Or even school systems? Budgets play a factor too. In my town nearly half the yearly budget goes to the school system. We are in the process of building a $105 million high school. Which I was against because not the price but they way proponents tried to sell it. The claimed a better learning environment will help the kids learn and all kinds of other excuses. Bull, so what does that say about the previous students that went to the old school and have succeeded?Their education wasn't as good because they went to the old school? It's a poor carpenter that blames his tools. A good/great teacher could teach in a log cabin, where as marginal ones will struggle not matter what the conditions. Like I said I think it is a complicated situation. The thing called "tenure" is also stumbling block for rewarding or penalizing a teacher at least in my state.I think there some really good teachers in can't win situations(inner city schools more so). They are trying to teach 30 kids and 5 of them really want to learn and the other 25 are there for day care. So about 20% pass and the rest just show up but reflects on the teacher. Why?

 

[theuglyduckling]

duckinnut sounds like they want to make the town more educated by having a fancy school instead of working towards better teachers.
just because the school cost 105 million wont make that school any better than the old school high school. im sure youll be seeing students walking around with lattes in their hands.

i dont think the cost of the school or how fancy a school looks like determines the quality of the teachers teaching ability. my fiance was doing his practice at a prison and those prisoners loved his classes compared to the other teachers in the prison or the other two that were doing their practice there too.

i also dont think that a teacher should be hired by looking at their resume they should have to teach a class and be chosen by how well that person taught that class.

 

[newfoundland]

Surely a teacher would be expected to demonstrate their skills as part of the interview process we all know those who can 'talk the talk'. There is evidence that rebuilding a failing school and fitting it out it with state of the art resources and equipment first of all suggests the school is successful desirable and coming up in the world, but also has a message for the pupils. Many of these have low self worth and schools that are not up to scratch reinforce the idea that they are worth nothing. Put them into a learning environment which is rich and fertile with the best equipment and most dedicated teachers and we are saying to them 'You are worth all of this.' Success breeds success.

 

[theuglyduckling]

joe louise clark proves you dont need a 105 million dollar school to have better students and better teachers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis_Clark

 

[duckinnut]

duckinnut sounds like they want to make the town more educated by having a fancy school instead of working towards better teachers.
just because the school cost 105 million wont make that school any better than the old school high school. im sure youll be seeing students walking around with lattes in their hands.

i dont think the cost of the school or how fancy a school looks like determines the quality of the teachers teaching ability. my fiance was doing his practice at a prison and those prisoners loved his classes compared to the other teachers in the prison or the other two that were doing their practice there too.

i also dont think that a teacher should be hired by looking at their resume they should have to teach a class and be chosen by how well that person taught that class.

While the school system that my kids go has about a 70% continued education after graduation rate, pretty good in today's world. I would rather pay good teachers than have a fancy school. Teachers need to make an impact on kids, all the fancy bells and whistles will never do that. Case in point is my DD graduated from the old school and currently attends college majoring in business accounting and minor in equine science. She made the deans list twice. She still has contact with a couple of teachers that clearly impacted her life.This is a child with ADHD. 30 years from now will she remember her learning environment(crappy school) or her (great)teachers.

There is evidence that rebuilding a failing school and fitting it out it with state of the art resources and equipment first of all suggests the school is successful desirable and coming up in the world, but also has a message for the pupils. Many of these have low self worth and schools that are not up to scratch reinforce the idea that they are worth nothing. Put them into a learning environment which is rich and fertile with the best equipment and most dedicated teachers and we are saying to them 'You are worth all of this.' Success breeds success.

Well in the city of Boston they have pumped millions of dollars into the schools updating over 20 years and that fertile ground has yet to bear fruit. As continuing education is still well below 20%. Teachers are paid really well in there but few make impacts and not entirely their fault. This is a complicated issue and varies greatly from town to town, district to district, state to state and country to country.