see post #69

for some reason I think you own a car dealership (or more). How many accumulated hours per day do the sales people work actually selling cars? If they get two or three "ups" a day each it might add up to a half day of work each day, or 150 days working even if they are on location 300 days. teachers have "ups" constantly every hour at work every day and do all the pre and post work during unpaid overtime...way way beyond 180 days. The pay ends up prorated much closer to what critics like yourself would like to see.

teachers "are required to work 180 days per year". All the extra time ain't spent talking about boobies or scanning the internet (I am not above those vices). Bus duty, playground break duty, extra help sessions, parent meetings, in-service training and on and on.

Somhow someone was able to teach you to think critically, but you were probably inherently easy to teach. Today is a different challenge, born out by the small sampling in this very thread.

Go back and read closer and you will see how the US stats are unfairly skewed. Most children in many other countries are simply "left behind". Figures lie and this is a classic example.

Boo Hoo is a huge part of the problem, not the solution.

I have been in the Car business for a long time.I don't own a dealership but I do own a small businees now related to the industry.I was a successful salesman and sales Mgr at a young age.

A commissioned Salesman is just that. Teachers should really be no different.Both jobs are or should result oriented and compensated as such.Teachers are salaried and not paid by the hour .So,there really is no unpaid time "Off the Clock"

If a particular job is too difficult or the person( Teacher) is not up to the task,they should find different work.

Btw,

Education Majors rank very low in class rankings at most Universities.That may be a large part of the issue.

wheel,,

Dude - my daughter goes to a PRIVATE school, and we have 25 kids per teacher. WHERE in the U.S. are they finding a PUBLIC school with only 15?????

If you cut out the teachers, who are you intending to replace them with? Are the kids supposed to teach themselves? Most of the parents can't be bothered with checking homework, so THEY arent' going to do it. Do you think that replacing one set of teachers with a different set will solve the problem? That's unlikely. The new teachers will be just as hogtied with red tape as the old ones. Seriously - you almost need a law degree to write a lesson plan, these days. The teachers don't choose the district curriculum - that comes from higher up. They have (in public schools) limited input on the subject, but beyond that, they have to find a way to plan within some pretty severe limitations. They are given 30-40 students of varying ability levels and usually NO at-home discipline, and told that they are ALL supposed to perform at the SAME level - from SPED to G & T. In "the good old days," those G&T kids were moved up and the SPED kids were not mainstreamed into regular classrooms. They were, as they still are in these other countries you're referring to - LEFT BEHIND. We can't do that. Someone would find it unfair and sue the district. Every parent expects their child to bring home straight "A"s, but none of them want their child to have to EARN them, especially if it means that THEY have to get involved and do a little parenting.

When the rubber meets the road, a child's education is his/her PARENTS' responsibility. The schools are a TOOL available for them to use. A hammer isn't going to build a fence all by itself - YOU have to put some effort into it, and when the fence looks like crap, removing all the hammers from Home Depot isn't going to fix it.

DQB,,

The majority of the people who do choose the subject matter have been teachers,And ,yes I do believe poorly performing teachers should be replaced.

It should be run as a business,which it really is..

Btw,

I too went to Private Schools and there were 40+ students in each class. It's not the quantity of students it's the quality of the Teacher that matters ultimately..

I consider this scenario routine. Above and beyond the 180 days required by law...and happening every single day in almost every single class in almost every single school because teachers know their kids better than the parents do. They should, they spend more time with them than the parents do from the age of 6 til 17 or so. If your kids turn out to be fine adults, teachers likely had as much or more to do with that than we did as parents.

I love hearing stories like yours. I know my wife (senior speech and langauge pathologist elementary school level) and daughter (high school english teacher) go in early and stay late every day to make sure that they have exhausted every possible method to get these fuggers what they need. I'm not even talking about what I see at home in the hours of preparation spent honing their craft. Unlike most jobs, ya can't wake up and just show up to deal with what gets shoved in front of you. The classroom time is what people consider work for pay time, but evidently many people do not understand what goes into being successful while "on the clock".

Possibly the toughest, most important and most thankless chore in the work world. Like McBryde said, it ain't for the money, and it sure ain't for the appreciation.

The big advantage that a private school teacher has is that private school is an OPTION. If a parent thinks "it's not fair" that their child can't keep up with the program, they can either suck it up, make junior work harder or leave. In public schools, they sue the district, and the teachers are told that they have to modify their teaching to make it "fair" for the SPED child who can't perform at the same level as a gifted, or even mediocre student. If a child is a discipline problem in a private school, the parents either deal with the problem, or the child is kicked out. Unless they want to be sued, a public school has to keep them until they harm someone badly enough to get sent to the "Alternate school. They are not allowed to enforce any kind of discipline or "unfair" restrictions on their behavior. It might damage poor junior's self-esteem... Public schools are not ALLOWED to have higher standards, because someone, somewhere decided that it was "unfair" to some students... and now we have No Child Left Behind.

yippee

I admire your dedication ,really..

But being a succeesful educator is no different than being a success in any other business,It all requires hard work. Appreciation is a myth .You speak of affirmation and adulation neither of which count for much,sadly.

That is why Gov't schools are inferior and always will be.

(yes, I'm quoting myself)

That being said, most private schools (ours especially) and most teachers at ANY school, bend over backward to help a struggling student succeed. You wouldn't BELIEVE how many angles they'll attack a problem from, just because of what's been discovered about different learning styles in recent years. However, if the student in a private school simply can't perform at grade level, the grade level is NOT adjusted to accommodate them, and if the parent is unhappy about that, then they can go to public school and threaten to sue them if THEY don't change their expectations to jive with junior's abilities. The teachers did not create this situation, but they ARE trapped within it, and do the best they can with the circumstances they are dealt. Unfortunately, these kids are in for a rude awakening when they get out into the real wold and find out that the world could give a rat's patoot whether or not it's "fair" that they can't perform as well as their coworkers.

I have no summer vacation .So,I must work like a slave tomorrow...

sweet dreams..

wheel,

Now it makes sense. Surely you are keenly aware that the schools you attended were not encumbered by those inconvenient standards set by government for public schools. And students who were difficult to educate in your school probably weren't born with disabilities, they were likely brats. 40 kids with one lesson plan!!!...the teachers I know could have taught your class in half the time and headed for the beach after lunch!

My wife spends more time at home completing paperwork required by legislation than she spends in school being phenomenal. Your teachers did not have to deal with that so teaching seems like a breeze to you. She couldn't help any kids if she did that work during the school day. Your teachers spent those hours antiquing. My friends that attended private school (other than boarding schools) had less hours per day and less days per year than their public school counterparts. Every teacher I know would love to be working for public schools under private school demands!

That's a little unfair to private school teachers. They're paid less - we've lost several teachers to public school because they needed the money - and most of them work just as hard. They ARE blessed in they don't have to deal with all of the government CRAP that their public counterparts are beaten down with. Not having to deal with the suffocating red-tape lightens their load TREMENDOUSLY. However, teachers at our private school get to work at 7:00 and don't leave till 4:00-4:30. Most of them spend their lunch half-hour working with students at least 3 times a week, and they are all in the rotation for recess and bus duty. They are also in mandatory training and and miscellaneous other curriculum development and planning meetings for most of the summer. They're at the school for 2 weeks after the students leave, and go back 2 weeks before it resumes.

HEAR, HEAR!!

I am not an educator (professionally at least) and do not work in education, no need to admire me. But I agree with your post. I'm just trying to show how hard most of these dedicated, beseiged people really do work but even working hard does not mean they are good at it Sales people are easily ranked by results (I have spent most of my adult work life in sales btw) but teachers might be spectacular any given year with woeful test scores on the part of their charges as a result. Standardized testing encourages "teaching to the test" which should not be confused with really teaching. That's what's sad. And that's what caused the horrors the OP addressed.

You and I operate in a results oriented world but success in teaching is a much too complicated deal to reduce to statistics as a way of gauging success. Is Rick Carlisle suddenly a great head coach now that the Mavs are champs? Or did he get a brilliant class to teach after many years of morons? And reducing it to $52K for 180 days is simplistic and misleading.

Currently there is no accurate and fair way to rate individual teachers, but what we do have is ongoing observation and evaluation, often done by surprise visits to classrooms. I suppose it would be of utmost priority to get the finest observers handling this...but every district decides who these folks are. Anyone unhappy with their local schools should start getting involved at this point in the process.

I appreciate the worthy battle. More Americans need to be watching what goes on in the arena in which their children spend a third of each day.

Frank...off to bed.

I stand corrected, and I should have known better than to toss out a blanket statement, especially after fighting off so many other blanket statements!

They are paid less in private schools as a rule, I did know that. But even as much as some public school teachers make, many end up leaving the field due to constraints on their earnings.

My wife could make tons more in private practice curing the lisping, stuttering and tongue thrusting children of the wealthy who can't wait for the problem to go away developmentally but (hard to believe) she feels she can do more good in this world right where she is..now in her 33rd year!

I was an honor student until 11th grade, when I quit caring and effed off. I failed all but 2 classes that year.

The principal called me in and told me he'd allow me to advance to 12th grade, because I had enough credits to do so, but I'd have to take Junior and Senior English and Math. That sucked balls, and the rest of my class was getting out earlier than me, but I did what I had to do.

And back then a D was NOT a passing grade. 70 or above or you repeated the class, no exceptions.

If only schools and teachers were allowed to hold students accountable like that nowadays. Now, if a kid hasn't done squat all semester and is failing, teachers are expected to offer extra credit or accept make up work from 3 months ago in order for them to pass...

Kids aren't like people buying cars. If you go to a car lot, you probably are interested in buying a car, at least somewhat. Some kids have no interest in school.