Teachers Union holding us all hostage.

[localman]

I know this topic may start a riot but the teachers union is holding all our children and wallets hostage and I for one am sick of it. In the past I have voted for every education issue that has ever been put forth. No more. I have had it. My kids are in Seattle public schools and both get very good grades without doing a single night of homework. What is up with that.

We can not continue to throw money out the window in hopes that it will do some good. Teachers will contiue to teach to the least common denominator and until there is real reform I am done.

It is tough all over. Everyone is having a trouble. Why in the name of (insert deity here) can’t the teachers union truly put the needs of the students before thier own. Enough is enough.

My advice. Not one more cent until they agree to some real reform.

I know this is going to enrage some folks and I apologize for any stress that this may cause but I know there are many out there who share this opinion and I just wanted to give it voice.

Please vote NO.

Regards,

Localman

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[JoB]

teachers have no choice but to teach to the least common denominator as long as we are measuring their progress and dolling out education dollars according to the WASL test results…

If you want your kids to be challenged.. it would make sense to give the school dist more money.. not less.

giving as little as we can has gotten us where we are today.

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[JoB]

wouldn’t it be better to give our schools enough money to function and hold them accountable for teaching children the skills they need to succeed?

from Cliff Mass

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/

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[FullTilt]

Mrs. Full Tilt here. I’m a teacher, although not in Seattle so I am not familiar with their contracts. I have no interest in name calling, I am asking because I am really curious. Why do you think it is the union causing the problems? Are they pushing for a no homework clause in the teacher contracts? What else about teacher performance is upsetting to you?

In my experience, most of my time and energy goes to classroom management and grading, which leaves little time for differentiating instruction and planning and grading of homework. I now work at a school with much smaller classes and smaller overall population, and that has made a huge difference. Smaller classes are easier to manage and I have time to work individually with students to make sure they are getting what they need. My teacher union is constantly fighting the district to keep class size down and limit how many preps we are assigned. Without pressure from the union some principals would spread teachers way too thin.

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[dhg]

You said it Mrs. FullTilt. We really need more specifics here, localman. Are you saying that the school system is terrible because there is no homework at night??? I don’t know if that’s the true measure of a good school so I’d like many more specifics of the trouble here.

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[dawsonct]

Spending less on education and more on incarceration hasn’t really done our country much good over the last thirty years. Maybe we need to rethink the policies that have brought us to this point.

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The 40’s-70’s saw the greatest focus on the public education system in this country. I for one don’t believe it is simply coincidental that it was followed closely along by the largest collective intellectual leap and economic expansion in our Nation’s history.

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We should not only put more money into public education, but we should also publicly fund post-secondary educations such as college and vocational school, maybe on a sliding scale depending on public service or need (I.E. major: education over business; rural/inner city teacher over wealthy suburban school dist.) We will have a better Nation and World for it.

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Admittedly, if you took Mercer Island H.S. and moved it complete 4 miles across Lake Washington to Rainier Beach, we wouldn’t end the year with an unprecedented plethora of National Merit scholars. The societal modeling is so deeply ingrained that improvement will take some time to be visible. One thing for certain though, is the current method of bleeding our public schools dry, and shoving more students into classrooms to work with equipment that is outdated using textbooks that are actively being stripped of anything that conflicts with the faright-wing christianist agenda: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/the_rehabilitation_of_joseph_mccarthy_texas_textbo.php

is certainly NOT working and we should do all we can to immediately change course.

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[JoB]

what dawsoncourt said:)

there was a right turn in education in the United States about 1970 that didn’t bode well for results.

i graduated in 67… my brother graduated in 76… with comparable GPAs from the same high school.

When he went to university, i had to teach him how to write a term paper.

9 years but a world of difference in educational results.

i will leave it to you to connect the political dots.

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[JanS]

FWIW…localman must have just gotten his ballot for the school levy election coming up. What people don’t reaize is that this is NOT money IN ADDITION TO…it’s money that needs to be voted on to REPLACE the levys that are ending. So…voting no will not help anyone, it will only take away, and make things nigh unto impossible to accomplish. Please READ things in their entirety before you jump to conclusions. People hear taxes, and immediately say that we’re over taxed (and say no) Perhaps so, in some areaas, but without this levy, what the schools have now will just deteriorate. And, no, my child is almost 30, no longer in the public schools, but that doesn’t keep us from being concerned about the youth that is now going to our schools.

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[Yardvark]

Our schools need funding, and that’s almost a completely seperate issue from their quality, especially regarding the current ballot questions.

We also need a constant call to innovation. Programs that embrace not just fundamentals but also inspriing new concepts in education, new student responsibilities, new and daunting challenges in our world…these will be the programs that spur the students to lead our schools forward. And it will be the students who always decide the success of the system.

Localman, your kids sound very intelligent, and I hope that they’re using that intelligence to challenge the school system to live up to its potential. I hope they’re organizing study groups or research trips or community service events. I can’t express how valuable I think the students are who take up those responsibilities, nor how crucial they are to our own future.

The teachers also have to step up to guide this process, and many do. But it seems the downfall of our unions is that it encourages our teachers not to compete against each other. All too often, the unions seem to reward length of service rather than quality of service. Why should someone who cannot inspire the students still remain employed just because they’ve been unispirational forever?

And so teachers can also lead…by renouncing their tenure, their seniority.

If our schools are to improve, it takes everyone’s efforts. We each have a piece.

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[JoB]

Yaardvark..

this idea of renouncing seniority sounds great..

until you realize that a teacher with 20 years experience is going to be a lot more expensive than one with a recent college degree and therefore less likely to keep their jobs in an environment where the bottom line is seen as more important than results without the protection of seniority…

yes, there are some career teachers who lose their enthusiasm for the job of educating our children… but more often than not it’s due to the lack of investment by parents than to a lack of interest in kids.

labeling career teachers deadbeats won’t hide the lack of investment we are making in our children and our schools…

sadly, we are getting what we pay for.

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[Yardvark]

Here, Here, JoB! Parents too. We all have a part.

But as far as teachers’ compensation goes… Twenty years of experience is not the same as twenty years of success. If there’s a teacher who can do a better job for less expense than someone who’s had 20 years to prove themselves….why on earth would you not keep the cost-efficient, inspiring teacher?

When I ask teachers to give up their tenure and seniority, I’m asking them as well to give up on the idea that they’re going to make more money just because they’ve been around a while.

An inspiring teacher who’s been around a while, though, well that’s a different story. That’s a solid investment and great mentor for the younger teachers to have.

This isn’t asking for anything more than the way most successful businesses and non-profits have always operated.

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[JoB]

Yaardvark…

so you are willing to invest your life in a career where you will never make more than you are making right now .. and by the way.. you aren’t making enough to rent in the district you work in.. let alone buy?

you may be that rare individual.. but they are very rare…

if we respected the people who teach our children enough to pay them a living wage and respected them enough to provide them with a reasonable working environment (lower class sizes and reasonable equipment) and respected them enough not to blame them when our kids don’t learn what we think they should and respected them enough not to hold them responsible for managing our children’s behavior….. my guess is that we would have more qualified and inspired teachers.

if you throw out seniority, you throw out the only protection for those inspired teachers who have invested a lifetime in our children… and replace it with some arbitrary changing set of standards that determine their pay.

Sounds to me like that will result in paying teachers who teach to the tests more than teachers who inspire kids to learn.

We already have that on a public level.. and it isn’t working for us..

why would it work any better when it comes to providing good teachers for our children than it does providing good schools and challenging curriculum for our kids?

The fact that we aren’t even in the top rankings in the world for math education shouldn’t be cause for a joke on Jon Stewart.. yet it is.

we need to fix something fast.. and hamstringing the few good teachers we have left will only make the situation worse.

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[FullTilt]

Even if we all agreed to keep the good teachers and can the bad teachers, we still don’t have a common idea of what makes a teacher good or bad. If it is test scores, every teacher of high risk kids will be labeled bad and all the “good” teachers will leave areas like White Center for jobs in higher income neighborhoods. If it is graduation rates or grades, you have the same problem and teachers will be tempted to give away grades. I get that we need to monitor teachers, but how?

Some people think you can walk into a school and easily identify the great, inspirational teachers vs. the stinky ones. The truth is, that awful, boring teacher might be another kid’s favorite teacher ever. Personalities and learning styles are endlessly varied, so you never know who will inspire who.

I think I am a damn fine teacher. I teach at a school where most students have some serious challenges and are behind in their education. We do some amazing work and help kids take charge of their education. I think we are the best school in the whole world, but we aren’t going to be winning any standardized test prizes anytime soon. So how should you judge how good I am?

Just some food for thought. And if you want to label me a bad teacher based on test scores, at least have the decency to go buy some ice cream so I can pay my mortgage :)

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[JoB]

Mrs full tilt..

i will buy the ice cream

even tho i think you are a damn fine teacher :->

i like it that you pay your mortgage..

and your hubby makes mighty good ice cream.

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[dawsonct]

Get your ballots in today.

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[JoB]

thanks for the reminder.

mine is on the kitchen table…

i’ll get it in today.

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[dawsonct]

Thank you approximately 71% of Seattle!!

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[dawsonct]

Wellll, those who voted.

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[JoB]

the only citizens who count in this case are those who cared enough to vote.

so THANK YOU

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[MarkAngello]

Just noticed this thread when localman posted on another. I agree with his OP that public service unions like the teachers union are the problem, not the solution. Did you know they are essentially a tool of the liberal democrat election machine… selling mass voting for the gravy train of easy benefits?

Did you know that they don’t pay for their health care and other benefits the way we real working people do? I am glad some states like Wisconsin are getting the guts to fix this.

By the way, I prefer private schools including religous schools and homeschooling. They don’t cost the taxpayer anything and they deliver superior results. That’s a win-win deal for everyone but overpaid unions and liberal democrats.

Competiton helps keep schools honest. Tax credits for private schools are a great idea as in Arizona. Public schools won’t reform. Defund them!

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[elikapeka]

A bridge is missing its troll

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[JoB]

Markangelo…

“Did you know they are essentially a tool of the liberal democrat election machine.”

ah.. the benefits of indoctrination.

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[redblack]

Did you know that they don’t pay for their health care and other benefits the way we real working people do? I am glad some states like Wisconsin are getting the guts to fix this.

who’s “we?”

over half of the people working in this country have employer-provided health care.

not to mention the dependents who are also covered by those working people’s employer-provided health care.

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[redblack]

and to address the original year-old post, seattle public schools spends around $6500 per student. the “libertarian” red counties spend a lot more per student, and they receive a lot more state tax money than the blue counties. as a matter of fact, these liberal union democrat blue counties are supporting the republican counties.

but we can’t talk about that, can we?

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[Julie]

The idea that teachers aren’t “real working people” is good for a laugh.

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[Author]

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