no teachers show up for "back to school night"

This in't an argument on whether teachers deserve extra pay.
It's not an argument about if they work hard.

The parents want their kids to be taught by professionals that care.

Iimagine if a health care worker were to "go to the letter of the contract".
They'd be sued for malpractice.

The teachers in the Neshamany School District are acting unprofessionally and show that they have no concern for the children they teach.

Their demands are well above the norm for the area (and for the nation at large).

That this has gon on for three years shows that the union will not bend and is willing to sacrifice the kids education to push their adgenda.

It's time for the district to start anew and hire teachers who care at a salary that the district can afford.

Rob

 

The liberalization has been in not requiring an education degree - not lowering the math and science requirements.

I would much rather have a child taught math by someone who knows math without an education degree than a educator who does not know math.

I think that reducing the emphasis on the education degree is a good thing in terms of finding the better qualified teachers.

 

The school district where my wife has worked for thirty years just did an early retirement buy out - which she chose not to take - so that they could hire new teachers at a lower average salary.

The district was not willing to give a higher pay for experienced teachers. A teacher of five or six years got the same starting pay as a recent inexperienced college grad.

There were fifty applicants for each position.

There is no teacher shortage.

 

There is not a teacher shortage right now. I can attest to that as a certified secondary math teacher. All open positions are attracting at least 50 applicants. I think the reason for this currently is because states are increasing class size minimums in an effort to save money, and STEM teachers will be in demand once again when the recession is over.

I also think that because there is a glut of teachers right now, it is an excellent time to look at who is teaching and get the wrong teachers off the bus and the right ones on. We do want teachers who know their subject exceptionally well and can convey that information effectively to students. We also need teachers who care AND have excellent classroom management skills. I would not be teaching if I did not get paid, but I do not teach only for the money. This is a service industry to a large extent and we can not lose sight of that.

 

From Time Magazine - Sept 20, 2010

Annual wages K-12
Bottom 10% $30,970 to $34,280
Median $47,100 to $51,180
Top 10% $75,190 to $80,970

Class size:
1970 - 22
2007 - 16

Increase in per pupil spending from 1971 to 2006 - 123%

Change in academic performance among 17 year olds from 1971 to 2004 - 0%

It's not about money and it's not about class size.

 

There has been an increase in NC in class size over the last several years due to the budget. I'm in a title 1 school and can have 30 children in my class. I don't, but it could happen. The way they are laying off teachers, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen within a couple of years.

 

Neshaminy Info Blog

Parents, students protest dispute
by Christain Menno in the local newspaper, Bucks County Courier Times

Read the comments!

Rob

 

You grant my assertion then that requirements for becoming a teacher have been liberalized even in your state.

I agree. However, for decades the laws in almost every state was highly restrictive. There may have been provisions for allowing a person w/o an education degree to fill a position in the case of an emergency (ie. teacher leaves in the middle of the year and no certified teacher can be found to replace them), but that was about it. However, states found that the pool of qualified applicants was dwindling, esp. in areas like math and science. Change was resisted until the problem became acute. Then starting in the early 90s states finally began to liberalize the requirements for becoming a teacher. And as far as I can tell, even the teacher unions in many states, who stood a lot to lose in terms of power and influence by these laws, ceased
all but pro forma resistance to these laws. If there was no teacher shortage then they gave up a lot of power and influence for no good reason. Even today, with 10s of thousands of people getting jobs w/o having gotten a teaching degree, there is still no serious opposition to these laws from the union from what I can see.

 

Yup - and I think that it is a good trend.

It is more important to have teachers that know the particular subject matter than it is to have teachers that have an "education" degree.

 

Unions typically ignore supply and demand issues.

Teachers that strike should bbe fired. Period.

 

It is unconscionable to use children as bargaining chips. But, when did a modern union have a conscious?

 

You are correct. Down here they seem to be trying to push against homeschooler. It can cost them jobs for the students that aren't in public schools.

I like what they do, lets test the homeschoolers. Then when the homeschoolers as a group does much better that the public schools, they get upset.

Test they don't want their job performance to be base on a test, or on their students test scores from first of year to end of year. I guess test are good for others but not for many of them.

 

Be honest! Most parents hate teacher's strikes because it screws up their "free" day care service.

 

How does someone as cynical as yourself make it through a day without just checking out?

 

>So, is it your contention that parents should be happy when teachers strike?

No, I think they should home teach or send the kids to private/parochial school.