Driver paid $97,500 from teachers union

[bapcathluth]

I don’t have a problem with criticizing schools and some teacher’s performance in those schools, but some people on these boards seem to bash teachers and the union constantly, emotionally and with very few real facts to back-up their opinions. Perhaps they personally had a bad experience with some teachers and have an axe to grind.

To say that teachers unions make it impossible to fire bad teachers is an outright lie. I was the president of my local union and also grievance chair and several teachers were fired during my time there. I don’t say this proudly because I think they were unfairly fired due to personality conflicts. We tried our best to defend these teachers, but lost our case.

Any administrator worth his or her salt can easily get rid of a bad teacher. He or she must document and review the teacher’s performance and that is all!! Sitting in on a teacher’s lessons, talking to parents and students, reading and reviewing the curriculum taught are all part of a principles’ job description, and if he or she is doing the job, firing a bad teacher is simple. I am talking about Wisconsin, but most states do not have tenure for public school teachers, so this is the situation in most states.

 

[Karin]

bapcathluth:

I don’t have a problem with criticizing schools and some teacher’s performance in those schools, but some people on these boards seem to bash teachers and the union constantly, emotionally and with very few real facts to back-up their opinions. Perhaps they personally had a bad experience with some teachers and have an axe to grind.
To say that teachers unions make it impossible to fire bad teachers is an outright lie. I was the president of my local union and also grievance chair and several teachers were fired during my time there. I don’t say this proudly because I think they were unfairly fired due to personality conflicts. We tried our best to defend these teachers, but lost our case.
Any administrator worth his or her salt can easily get rid of a bad teacher. He or she must document and review the teacher’s performance and that is all!! Sitting in on a teacher’s lessons, talking to parents and students, reading and reviewing the curriculum taught are all part of a principles’ job description, and if he or she is doing the job, firing a bad teacher is simple. I am talking about Wisconsin, but most states do not have tenure for public school teachers, so this is the situation in most states.

I would love to applaud the teachers or their Unions for doing something good…like teaching and educating our kids…but alas here in NJ that seems not to be the norm (for that matter not the norm in many states). It also seems after looking at stats of how kids are doing …there is not much improvement and perhaps a bit of a backwards slide. All we hear about it is the “bad things” teachers or Unions do…perhaps they should toot there own horns a bit more!!! Or perhaps the tooting is not heard because so few teachers can toot.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Karin:

I would love to applaud the teachers or their Unions for doing something good…like teaching and educating our kids…but alas here in NJ that seems not to be the norm (for that matter not the norm in many states). It also seems after looking at stats of how kids are doing …there is not much improvement and perhaps a bit of a backwards slide. All we hear about it is the “bad things” teachers or Unions do…perhaps they should toot there own horns a bit more!!! Or perhaps the tooting is not heard because so few teachers can toot.

They do toot their own horn. They have bumper stickers saying, “We teach the children” (which, to my way of thinking would leave them open to prosecution for false advertising.)

They also used to run a series of TV ads on the theme “I was going to drop out of school until I met that one special teacher.”

Which is like a garage advertising, “We have some mechanics who can fix what our other mechanics break.”

 

[Karin]

vern humphrey:

They do toot their own horn. They have bumper stickers saying, “We teach the children” (which, to my way of thinking would leave them open to prosecution for false advertising.)

They also used to run a series of TV ads on the theme “I was going to drop out of school until I met that one special teacher.”

Which is like a garage advertising, “We have some mechanics who can fix what our other mechanics break.”

Oh Vern,
I must of been out of the country when they where tooting…totally missed this stuff. Silly me I thought perhaps they would toot with stats. on what a GREAT job they were doing…prove to me that you can teach and are teaching…what i have seen so far disproves this statement!

 

[Philip_P]

Karin:

I would love to applaud the teachers or their Unions for doing something good…like teaching and educating our kids…but alas here in NJ that seems not to be the norm (for that matter not the norm in many states). It also seems after looking at stats of how kids are doing …there is not much improvement and perhaps a bit of a backwards slide. All we hear about it is the “bad things” teachers or Unions do…perhaps they should toot there own horns a bit more!!! Or perhaps the tooting is not heard because so few teachers can toot.

9th grade scores are up. Clinton’s ed policies, plus Bush’s NCLB, do seem to be paying dividends.

Here in NYC we’ve ended social promotion in 3rd and 5th grade, and the teachers will be getting a raise.

It’s not all doom and gloom.

 

[Karin]

9th grade scores are up. Clinton’s ed policies, plus Bush’s NCLB, do seem to be paying dividends.

Here in NYC we’ve ended social promotion in 3rd and 5th grade, and the teachers will be getting a raise.

It’s not all doom and gloom.

Philip-
About time that test scores are going up in NYC! As to stopping social promotion…DUH that has always the schools choice…but why make the numbers look bad by keeping kids back…better to advance kids that cant read, write or do math than have the stats look bad!
There is a downside to this peppy news though…
***Why Are New York City Teachers Flunking?New York -WABC, July 12, 2005) — New York students are doing better than they have in a long time but their teachers are doing worse. Nearly 1,000 public school teachers are getting failing grades on their report cards. That’s a 46 percent increase over last year. Why is this happening? ***
To read more… abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_071205_flunkingteachers.html

 

[Philip_P]

Karin:

Philip-
About time that test scores are going up in NYC! As to stopping social promotion…DUH that has always the schools choice…but why make the numbers look bad by keeping kids back…better to advance kids that cant read, write or do math than have the stats look bad!
There is a downside to this peppy news though…
***Why Are New York City Teachers Flunking?New York -WABC, July 12, 2005) — New York students are doing better than they have in a long time but their teachers are doing worse. Nearly 1,000 public school teachers are getting failing grades on their report cards. That’s a 46 percent increase over last year. Why is this happening? ***
To read more… abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_071205_flunkingteachers.html

I saw that and was wondering about it. Could be that teachers really are getting worse, or that they’re being more strongly scrutinized, or both… From the article, I couldn’t reach any conclusions I was satisifed with.

I do think they’ve been making some good progress on NYC education, though, which is why I’ll probably vote Bloomberg in again.

 

[Lance]

Again I ask, where was the administration/school board when these contracts were signed? If they had done their jobs in the first place and not signed unreasonable contracts there would be no problem. They are just taking the easy way out and when the union exercises the rules of the contract they blame the union. I say to them, do your job and quite looking for a scape goat.

 

[javelin]

My opinion:

The problems:

Teaching is a difficult profession, though the perception by those who have never tried it is completely the opposite. They think anyone off the street could do a decent job. They’re wrong.

Starting salaries for teachers are generally not competitive with what can be earned in most other professions that require a minimum of a 4-year degree, which makes the profession less desirable to young people contemplating their future career.

The teaching profession is no longer held in the high social esteem that it once was (partially due to teacher-bashing), which makes the profession less desirable to young people contemplating their future career.

Our nation needs LOTS and LOTS of teachers. Millions. And that’s just teachers. We also need millions of other staff members (including administrators) for schools to function.

Thus, with a relatively small group of applicants compared to the large numbers of teaching positions, this is not a profession where the industry can be ultra-selective in who it hires. Nor can the impact of relatively few “genius” teachers be felt throughout the system.

Finally, the ability to teach well is not a quality that can be objectively measured or determined. The sheer number of teachers, combined with the vast differences in the students, subject areas they teach, and resources available, as well as the number and abilities of the administrators who have managerial responsibility over them, make any notion of a “fair assessment” of teachers within a single large school, much less a district, region, state, or nation, impossible. This is why the unions have opposed every proposition for “merit-based” compensation in the past. None protect potentially innocent teachers who may have a personality, or ideological conflict with an evaluator.

The single largest correlation with student academic success is socio-economic status, especially when the community’s S-E status is accounted for, not only the individual child’s. Everyone is trying to figure out how to change that, but no one has a solution yet. Data shows that the younger the student, the less s-e status affects their learning. But as they grow older and interact with their community more and more, the greater the impact s-e status has on learning. It is a big problem, but all efforts to fix it through the schools have failed because, in general, it is not the schools that are the problem.

That said, there are many things about public education that can be improved, and in some areas, drastically improved.

But the notion that people become teachers to suck money off the public while they coast in an easy job is ludicrous and downright insulting.

The vast majority of teachers are good people who know their subjects and work very hard all year 'round to help their pupils learn.

You can also complain about the unions all you want, but they are never going away. They are protected under the Constitution and so entrenched in the institutions that they will never go away in any of our lifetimes.

Also, to imply that teachers are just stupid and lazy, which is why they have unions, is an incredibly ignorant and insulting implication.

Peace,
javelin

 

[Philip_P]

javelin:

My opinion:

The problems:

Teaching is a difficult profession, though the perception by those who have never tried it is completely the opposite. They think anyone off the street could do a decent job. They’re wrong.

Starting salaries for teachers are generally not competitive with what can be earned in most other professions that require a minimum of a 4-year degree, which makes the profession less desirable to young people contemplating their future career.

The teaching profession is no longer held in the high social esteem that it once was (partially due to teacher-bashing), which makes the profession less desirable to young people contemplating their future career.

Our nation needs LOTS and LOTS of teachers. Millions. And that’s just teachers. We also need millions of other staff members (including administrators) for schools to function.

Thus, with a relatively small group of applicants compared to the large numbers of teaching positions, this is not a profession where the industry can be ultra-selective in who it hires. Nor can the impact of relatively few “genius” teachers be felt throughout the system.

Finally, the ability to teach well is not a quality that can be objectively measured or determined. The sheer number of teachers, combined with the vast differences in the students, subject areas they teach, and resources available, as well as the number and abilities of the administrators who have managerial responsibility over them, make any notion of a “fair assessment” of teachers within a single large school, much less a district, region, state, or nation, impossible. This is why the unions have opposed every proposition for “merit-based” compensation in the past. None protect potentially innocent teachers who may have a personality, or ideological conflict with an evaluator.

The single largest correlation with student academic success is socio-economic status, especially when the community’s S-E status is accounted for, not only the individual child’s. Everyone is trying to figure out how to change that, but no one has a solution yet. Data shows that the younger the student, the less s-e status affects their learning. But as they grow older and interact with their community more and more, the greater the impact s-e status has on learning. It is a big problem, but all efforts to fix it through the schools have failed because, in general, it is not the schools that are the problem.

That said, there are many things about public education that can be improved, and in some areas, drastically improved.

But the notion that people become teachers to suck money off the public while they coast in an easy job is ludicrous and downright insulting.

The vast majority of teachers are good people who know their subjects and work very hard all year 'round to help their pupils learn.

You can also complain about the unions all you want, but they are never going away. They are protected under the Constitution and so entrenched in the institutions that they will never go away in any of our lifetimes.

Also, to imply that teachers are just stupid and lazy, which is why they have unions, is an incredibly ignorant and insulting implication.

Peace,
javelin

:clapping:

 

[vern_humphrey]

Right – we don’t have enough good teachers. Much of that is due to two things:

1. You have to have a degree in Education (or a specified number of hours at the college level.) This means a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry cannot teach a science class in high school. But a teacher with an education degree and a course or two in generalized “science” is considered fully qualified.
2. Bad teachers are hard to fire. There is a Gresham’s Law for organizations – bad performers drive out good.

 

[javelin]

vern humphrey:

Right – we don’t have enough good teachers. Much of that is due to two things:

1. You have to have a degree in Education (or a specified number of hours at the college level.) This means a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry cannot teach a science class in high school. But a teacher with an education degree and a course or two in generalized “science” is considered fully qualified.

Not exactly a major problem nowadays. Requirements vary by state, but many (I believe) have alternative certification programs in place that allow professionals in other industries who wish to teach to receive provisional certificates so they can begin teaching while they pursue any necessary coursework for full certification. The coursework they would take would mostly be in teaching methods – just because you are a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry doesn’t mean you know how to get others, typically young, immature others, to understand chemistry as well. Also, let’s face it – it doesn’t take a calculus wiz to teach basic algebra. But it does require someone who understands how children learn, and how to tailor curriculum and presentation so that every child has the best opportunity to flourish.
vern humphrey:

1. Bad teachers are hard to fire. There is a Gresham’s Law for organizations – bad performers drive out good.

Yes, bad tenured teachers are hard to fire. That is a problem, but not THE problem, and IMHO there are many other larger problems.

Here’s an illustration of part of the problem:

When I was essentially changing careers from teaching to technical work, my first tech job was in a high school. My position was a technical assistant, which included managing all the HS’s audio-visual equipment. For the most part, this part of the job was making sure VCRs and overhead projectors worked. Rarely did it entail anything really technical. I ended up spending most of my time doing network and laptop support for the teachers.

Now, the person I replaced was a retiring teacher who had been there about 40 years. Some wondered why a certified teacher was the A/V guy, who didn’t do the computing work I did as well. He JUST did A/V stuff. There was wide speculation that after a time, this guy became a bad enough teacher that the administration wanted him out of the classroom, so they gave him this other job since he liked it. Yet they could not change his compensation because he was tenured under the union guidelines. So, here was a guy replacing light bulbs, lamination machine plastic, and getting stuck tapes out of VCRs, only during the school year, and he made over $90,000/year. When he retired, they hired me (who did at least twice what his job load was) for less than $28,000 a year.

That’s a problem, but it is hardly the norm.

And there are “prestige” or “patronage” based advancement and compensation in most industries. People get ahead more for political reasons than sheer competence all the time, everywhere.

Peace,
javelin

 

[bapcathluth]

In Wisconsin there is no such thing as a tenured teacher. Any teacher, no matter how long he or she has been teaching can be fired if the administration documents the performance problems. I believe that most states are like Wisconsin and very few have true tenured positions.

We had a teacher in our district who had two more years to go until retirement. She had a masters degree and had taught math at a junior college as well as at the high school level. She was very overweight and ugly, but an excellent teacher–especially for the bright students who were taking advanced courses. She came in at 7:00 am every morning to help kids with their homework and stayed until 5:00. She sold snacks at all home games to raise money for the math club. Yet, this teacher was fired two years before retirement because they said she didn’t have good personal hygiene.

I met many times with the superintendant, as did the union lawyer. This woman was devestated that the district that she had devoted herself to for all these years would axe her right before retirement. Many former students came to her defense with a letter-writing campaign. I really feel the superintendant was evil to do this. It made me sick.

She died a year later. I think a broken heart had a lot to do with it.

Can’t get rid of bad teachers? Not true. In Wisconsin you can get rid of any teacher you want gone.

 

[javelin]

bapcathluth:

She died a year later. I think a broken heart had a lot to do with it.

Can’t get rid of bad teachers? Not true. In Wisconsin you can get rid of any teacher you want gone.

How very sad.

When I was a student in Wisconsin, we lost a very good music teacher because he didn’t give a school board member’s daughter the lead in the musical – or at least that was the rampant speculation after he was released. The middle school teacher was then promoted – she was generally awful by comparison.

The fired teacher ended up leaving teaching altogether because he was fed-up with all the school politics.

He was a good Catholic, too.

But, he was not tenured, and so the union couldn’t do much to help him, especially since he had a board member after him.

These cases illustrate why teacher’s have, and sometimes justly NEED, unions.

Peace,
javelin

 

[condan]

Philip P:

I’ve noticed this little subthread, and it kind of bothers me. It implies that those who do need unions are stupid, or at least lacking sufficient mental powers to take care of themselves.

Unions aren’t about protecting “dumb workers.” Simply because someone is not college educated does not make them less smart. Rather, unions are about providing a corrective to an the inherently unbalanced power dynamic between labor and management.

It really doesn’t matter how smart you are, how much education you have, how skilled you are. The fact is that workers, on their own, have less power than management. The entire rationale for a union is to give workers bargaining power to match that of management, whether the workers are sheet metal workers or teachers. All else is really irrelevant.

Although you are free to infer what you like, the need for unionization in the workplace is not based on the education level of the worker but rather the task that is performed. Sheet metal workers, using your example, perform repetitive tasks on a line where one worker is virtually no different from the next. Expertise, special skills, education or training makes virtually no difference in the outcome of the task being performed. Therefore, the worker by himself becomes meaningless. In this case, the union is able to provide a collective voice and protection to the group. Unions are also essential when the task being performed is one that involves extreme danger and that no one would normally want to undertake, i.e., firefighters, police, etc.

However, with that being said, one can make a very powerful argument that the union has affected the delicate balance between workers and management to a point where they no longer serves the worker nor the economy as a whole. Management makes the financial investments and provides the rewards. If management is unable to reap a profit, then the shop closes as the jobs go to China, the Phillipines or Thailand. Sadly, in many cases, the American worker can’t afford what they produce because they have outpriced themselves so they shop at WalMart to buy what the Chinese have made for a fraction of the price.

In jobs that require a specialized skill acquired through higher education such as lawyers, teachers, nurses and doctors, the union harms society because it protects those who are unable to adequately perform their jobs to a specific standard as we have seen in the article that started this thread. Would you like to be the client of the Legal Aid attorney who has been reprimanded for poor performance but can’t be fired? Would you like to be the patient being cared for by the nurse who is lazy or maybe just plain burned out and couldn’t give a rat’s behind about her patients? How about this scenario: A patient is lying in the ICU and the nurses working on her are discussing the impending strike. These people shouldn’t have the protection of a union because it harms those who are at their mercy, be it defendents, patients or students. Allowing this is a serious flaw in our economic and social systems whose fruits are countless.

The problem with unions is that they have, in many cases, outlived their usefullness and created an atmosphere of entitlement that is pervasive throughout this country. Young men don’t look to achieve through education and hard work…they look to get a union job with good benefits like court officer, sanitation, county maintenance, etc. In Nassau County, NY, the average salary of a police officer is $110k per year. The crime rate is relatively low and the last time an officer was killed in the line of duty was 1978. Property taxes are unsupportable because that’s where these outrageous salaries come from. Neighboring Suffolk County’s police are paid even more, the highest in the country. The union negotiates the salaries that come out of the taxpayers pockets. The County pays because a strike is unthinkable. The NY State legislature is filled with bills aimed at padding the retirement benefits of state workers at all levels, swelling the budget beyond comprehension to the point where many important programs have to be cut and the firsts place they start is in the schools. Many sports programs, they key to college for many kids, are going by the wayside. This also explains why dedicated teachers have to buy much of their own materials at their own expense. The schools simply don’t have the excess because they are busy paying corrupt and overpaid administrators as well as burned-out teachers who have long since passed their point of usefullness.

So, whether or not one “agrees” with the idea of unionized professionals, the end result is that we all suffer for it through incompetent teachers, nurses and lawyers, high property taxes and lost opportunities for all.

 

[vern_humphrey]

javelin:

Not exactly a major problem nowadays. Requirements vary by state, but many (I believe) have alternative certification programs in place that allow professionals in other industries who wish to teach to receive provisional certificates so they can begin teaching while they pursue any necessary coursework for full certification.

Which explains why my neighbor, with a graduate degree in engineering, and many years experience in applying his education – and a great math background – is qualified to be a part-time teacher, while the regular math teacher has only a batchelor’s degree in education.

javelin:

Yes, bad tenured teachers are hard to fire. That is a problem, but not THE problem, and IMHO there are many other larger problems.

One of which is the union. Tenure or no tenure, the unions make it hard to fire teachers. And they make sure a highly-qualified man like my neighbor cannot replace a math teacher who never mastered calculus.

javelin:

When I was essentially changing careers from teaching to technical work, my first tech job was in a high school. My position was a technical assistant, which included managing all the HS’s audio-visual equipment. For the most part, this part of the job was making sure VCRs and overhead projectors worked. Rarely did it entail anything really technical. I ended up spending most of my time doing network and laptop support for the teachers.

Now, the person I replaced was a retiring teacher who had been there about 40 years. Some wondered why a certified teacher was the A/V guy, who didn’t do the computing work I did as well. He JUST did A/V stuff. There was wide speculation that after a time, this guy became a bad enough teacher that the administration wanted him out of the classroom, so they gave him this other job since he liked it. Yet they could not change his compensation because he was tenured under the union guidelines. So, here was a guy replacing light bulbs, lamination machine plastic, and getting stuck tapes out of VCRs, only during the school year, and he made over $90,000/year. When he retired, they hired me (who did at least twice what his job load was) for less than $28,000 a year.

That’s a problem, but it is hardly the norm.

How many examples like this do we have to find before it becomes the norm? I’ve found “hidden teachers” in many schools – so many that I would bet I could find at least one in any school district in the land.

javelin:

And there are “prestige” or “patronage” based advancement and compensation in most industries. People get ahead more for political reasons than sheer competence all the time, everywhere.

Peace,
javelin

And most assuredly in education. I was told, but did not believe, there are certified teachers in Arkansas who cannot read and write. So I checked – with people whose job is to “assist” school systems. I asked casually, “What’s your worst problem?”

The answer was, “Teaching teachers to read and write.”

 

[bapcathluth]

vern humphrey:

Which explains why my neighbor, with a graduate degree in engineering, and many years experience in applying his education – and a great math background – is qualified to be a part-time teacher, while the regular math teacher has only a batchelor’s degree in education.

One of which is the union. Tenure or no tenure, the unions make it hard to fire teachers. And they make sure a highly-qualified man like my neighbor cannot replace a math teacher who never mastered calculus.

d"

I have given much evidence to dispute the fallacious claim that unions make it impossible to fire teachers. This is patently false.

If your friend is so keen on teaching, he may take some night courses and summer work and become certified. It isn’t that difficult. I did this in order to get my masters. In many states they make it very easy to get certified if you already have a bachelor’s degree. I don’t think it is asking too much of people to take some pedagogical courses and be supervised by somebody while they do their student teaching.

 

[Fitz]

Lizzie:

Why won’t the NEA condemn adult/minor sexual conduct? What a good question.

Why won’t the NEA set up mechanisms to purge criminal teachers?

Why won’t the NEA address the reasons for failing schools instead of lobbying for gay issues and early ‘safe’ sexual experimention?

Let’s not forget the financial support they give Planned Parenthood!

 

[vern_humphrey]

bapcathluth:

I have given much evidence to dispute the fallacious claim that unions make it impossible to fire teachers. This is patently false.

So just what IS it that compels us to keep teachers who can’t read and write on the payroll?

bapcathluth:

If your friend is so keen on teaching, he may take some night courses and summer work and become certified. It isn’t that difficult. I did this in order to get my masters. In many states they make it very easy to get certified if you already have a bachelor’s degree. I don’t think it is asking too much of people to take some pedagogical courses and be supervised by somebody while they do their student teaching.

No doubt he should also have himself circumsized and tatooed.

He’s qualified. He’s better at math and science than any teacher in the district.

The idea that he has to drive many miles to take the courses that would contribute nothing to his capabilities is in itself proof that the teachers unions have worked to close off the profession to many qualified people.

 

[bapcathluth]

I have taught for many years, and have never seen a teacher who couldn’t read and write. I really challenge that assumption since the numbers there, obviously, are negligable. I have seen teachers who are less than stellar, but this happens in all professions. I believe that being a good or great teacher is truly an art and a gift.

It takes much more than knowledge of subject matter to be a good teacher. I don’t think pedagogical classes alone will help here, but they are better than nothing. I know plenty of math and science geniuses–my husband has a Ph.D in physics–but many of them couldn’t teach their way out of a paper bag.

Student teaching and pedagogical classes are only a first step in the art of being a great teacher. Of course a love of the subject matter, whether it is English or science, etc. is important, but also the ability to present the material in a cohesive and understandable manner is important. Knowing how to write a test, how to discipline, how to help students who come from very dysfunctional homes, knowing how to motivate, being a caring person, these are all important attributes of a fine teacher.

Your tatoo and circumcision remark is ridiculous. To compare a few prepatory classes for teaching and supervised student teaching to tatoos makes no sense whatsoever and shows that your hatred of teachers’ unions has you grasping for straws, Mr. Humphrey.