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Feb
1
2012
Have you voted yet in the Madville Times poll on how to spend Governor Daugaard’s proposed $15 million for education reform? If not, click that right sidebar! Poll is open until breakfast time on Groundhog Day (that’s tomorrow!)
As South Dakotans consider alternatives to Governor Daugaard’s merit pay and math/science bonuses (and there’d better be alternatives, since legislators from one side of the state to the other say “There’s no way that the bill in its current form will pass“), it occurs to me frame the question this way:
I’m Spearfish High School’s French teacher. I get students to practice speaking and writing French in class. I give homework and tests. I write lesson plans. I advise the French club. I’m organizing a trip to France for students at the end of this calendar year. Occasionally, I serve as a sounding board for debaters and orators.
The Spearfish School District currently values my services at $35,500 per year. That’s based on about a decade of teaching experience, a master’s degree, and other graduate credits.
I’d like to earn more pay. So tell me: what more would you, the taxpayers, like me to do in my classroom to deserve more of your tax dollars? What more bang do you want for your bucks? [CAH, open question to South Dakota taxpayers, also known as my boss.]
Now a couple of neighbors have already suggested that I simply put in more hours. That seems logical. Heaven knows there are plenty of days when I think, “Oh! If I just had more time to cover the subjunctive!”
But working more doesn’t always mean producing more. A 2008 study of Michigan schools found that the 20 schools with the lowest student scores on a statewide test averaged 30 more hours of instructional time than the 20 top-scoring schools. OECD data shows that American teachers put in more instructional hours than their counterparts in other industrialized nations that outperform us in academic achievement. Longer school years and more hours scratching the chalk and clicking the slideshows apparently do not correlate with higher student achievement.
So what additional performance do you want from your K-12 teachers to justify raising their pay? Or is Tony right: do teacher efforts really not matter that much, at least not after the early years? Should we just leave South Dakota teacher pay at the bottom of the barrel, let the market clear out the major talent, and get by with good enough?
If you have suggestions for new things, better things, and more things I can do in my classroom to earn more pay, I’m all ears.
29 Responses to “Want More from Teachers? More Hours Don’t Correlate with Better Test Scores”
Don’t waste time.
I’ve seen mindless homework assigned so that students can spend hours filling out worksheets and then have teachers sitting at home correcting papers. Those same students might not know what century the Revolutionary War took place or why it was fought.
For French class I’d spend at least a couple of weeks on French history so they could absorb some sense of the culture. You could talk about the food. How they fit into American history. Everything is inter-related.
What I cannot promise you is more money.
CAH:
My personal advice for you: Quit working for public schools! Find a gig at a private school. You will be appreciated. You will be paid more. Your students will be vastly more motivated. You won’t have to deal with the 1 or 2 shitheads in the room that you have to waste vast quantities of time on.
Amazing things happen (selection) to students once parents start paying for education. Or better yet, teach at the college level. Mature students + paying for education = motivated people and no BS.
Public schools are designed to barely pass along the least competent while simply babysitting the most capable. Eventually you need to be selfish and just choose to work with the best if you also want to succeed. Success pays. Mediocrity doesn’t. Regardless of if you caused either.
As a former teacher, Tonyamert’s comment hurt. Not because I’m feeling dissed. I’m not criticizing your comment Tonya. I’m saying this is how it feels to me:
I immediately saw the faces of the poor kids, abused kids, struggling kids, I taught who were never going to get into a private school.
There were some really great children. Some of them were a real pain in the ass for some time, but they improved. Some didn’t. Some were great from day 1 and stayed that way.
The best thing is seeing a kid “get it.” I mean, really Get It. Internalize it, understand it, feel competent about it. Students who can get into a private school can do that too, of course.
But it is so rewarding to see children who’ve never felt good about themselves recognize that they have truly achieved something. When that happens, they can allow themselves to dream again. It is so magical!
Who can give up on that kind of thing?
Once South Dakotans reject calling children “shit heads” and value each human being …maybe then things will turn around.
The blatant classism in tonyamert’s post is sad. We all pay taxes around here…so we’re all paying for our children’s education. Our tax dollars go to fund public schools for a reason. It is in everyone’s best interest that we have an educated public. I value our schools and teachers. I believe that you (tonyamert) aren’t giving our public school teachers enough credit especially when referring to them as babysitters.
Tonyamert: Are private school teachers paid more than public school teachers? That’s be news to me.
Tony, you also said that public school parents don’t pay for their child’s education. Did you really mean to say that or what the heck were you thinking?
Tony,
Please do expand your thoughts on this statement:
“Public schools are designed to barely pass along the least competent while simply babysitting the most capable. Eventually you need to be selfish and just choose to work with the best if you also want to succeed.”
Wait. What?
Tony, did you really mean to call little kids shitheads?
Tony Amert thinks that kids that don’t meet his expectations are shitheads!
Did everyone hear that?
Tony Amert is calling children that don’t meet his expectations shitheads. That’s right, shitheads!
Tony Amert is either an ass or a dyed in the wool Republican…or both. But if Tony Amert is going to call small children shitheads….well then I guess we know alot more about Tony than we cared to know.
Tony, guess what names I am thinking of calling you. there’s bonus points for creativity!
Michael, your recommendation to stop “wasting time” is more of a curriculum reform issue than a workflow issue. If I understand you, you’re not saying that I’m putting my feet up on the desk and sipping margueritas on school time, but that the lesson plans I’m writing and carrying out aren’t the right things. I can revise my curriculum… but it sounds like you’re saying that new curriculum isn’t worth more money for you. I’m actually not sure it is, either: I consider it already in my job description to come up with the best curriculum I can.
Tony, I always thought private school teachers got paid less. (Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Inst., even Monster.com substantiate this claim.) Can I break $35,500 at St. Thomas More?
So what specific activities can I do in my current classroom to make the case that I deserve more pay?
We’re thinking about this all wrong. Let’s listen to a good Alabama Republican on why teachers should be paid poor wages:
“Alabama state Sen. Shadrack McGill said that increasing teacher pay is against “a biblical principle” because it might attract people who otherwise wouldn’t do the job.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/shadrack-mcgill-alabama-teacher-pay-bible_n_1247765.html?ref=politics&ir=Politics
“Should we just leave South Dakota teacher pay at the bottom of the barrel, let the market clear out the major talent, and get by with good enough?”
Cory, might as well because there does not seem to be any solution. We should trash all the standards and all the testing and all the non-academic BS, teach the 3 Rs and return a ton of money back to those who did learn something while in school, the working taxpayers.
D.E. Bishop-
I mean no offense. You found great pleasure in your teaching experience and I’m happy for you. For you the intangible reward of the work far outweighed the financial.
Cory, I’m telling you to do the best with your time. Let’s assume that students have a limited amount of attention span. You must make the most of that time.
My son considers school boring and that everything is just a review. He can blow away most tests without studying but he hates homework. I’d love to see students like him to be interested and be engaged.
I can’t fix your salary.
Megan-
To add background to my comment, in any group of children there is a range of ability to learn. For some learning is natural and easy. For others it’s difficult and requires time and constant discipline. In our current system of education we group all of these children together and attempt to teach them at the same rate. If the rate is too fast those that have a hard time learning fall behind. If the rate is too slow those that learn effortlessly sit through the day putting in little effort.
Currently our school system aims for a bit below middle due to no child left behind. We have a minimum bar. We put huge amounts of resources into teaching those that have a very hard time learning and let those that learn effortlessly sit through the day without challenge.
My use of the term “shithead” is just colorful language to bring out the point and hopefully engage people on the topic. It certainly engaged you.
I certainly agree that an educated populace is a worthy endeavor. I would never propose eliminating education. I happily pay taxes to support that endeavor. However, since our taxes are limited we need to have an open an honest discussion about how to best spend our limited resources on education. Calling me classist is just a pejorative label designed to eliminate that discussion. At no point in any of my comments have I said that we shouldn’t education anyone.
Jana-
Good point, I assumed that private school teachers were paid more. After looking at the breakdown I’m wrong. They’re in the same ballpark as public teachers. I cede the point.
Regarding my comment about parents paying for private education, public education is paid through taxes and I agree that we all pay for it. Private education costs families substantially more. Paying more for the education motivates the parents to make sure that the service is being utilized and accordingly results in substantially greater parental oversight of their child’s education.
See my comments above about “shitheads”. It’s just colorful language. You could interchange that with challenging and it would be just as correct.
Regarding my political philosophy- I’m a social democrat. I believe is paying a substantial amount of taxes to create a society that allows for development of its populace and allowing its populace to be upwardly mobile. I believe that many European countries offer a model that we should follow. However, with that said, we all understand that there are a finite amount of resources for any particular task such as education of the populace and we need to have honest discussions about how best to spend those dollars.
CAH-
I again cede the point, private teachers are paid about as much as public teachers. I’m wrong on that point.
Let me amend my advice- DON’T BE A K-12 TEACHER. The labor market must be oversatured to push down the median wage to that level. It’s not that the job is low skill or not difficult, there are just too many people willing to perform it for that salary level. I don’t think that there is anything you can do in the class to justify increased pay. There are zero functional metrics for success so you can’t show that anything you do provides a competitive advantage and accordingly is evidence that you should receive more money.
Michael Black-
Your son is a perfect example of how the system is broken. Just make sure that if and when he goes to college he has developed study skills. Many effortless learners like him are ill prepared for the rigors of college.
If I were still a taxpayer in South Dakota, I would apologize to you for your salary. Go east, young man. In my school here you would be earning more than $50K and paying more taxes and loving it. “It” being bike trails all over the place, and many other recreational and cultural activities, not to mention the great (?) college and pro sports teams.
$15K raise and cosmic irony? Don’t think I won’t try it. ;-) But I wonder, SuperSweet, what would you demand of me in your classroom that isn’t currently demanded of me in my South Dakota classroom? I mean, $15K can’t just be Minnesota being nice.
“I mean, $15K can’t just be Minnesota being nice.”
No Cory, they will eat you alive with their higher taxes.
Cory, I haven’t seen you on the job, so I wouldn’t know what to tell you, in regards to getting more pay. And even if I could sit in on your classes, I doubt that I could form a valid judgment.
From what I’ve seen of you, I can only imagine that you must be a great teacher, on a par with the best profs I had at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis) or at Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota).
Quite frankly, if I were you, and if I felt that I deserved a good deal more pay, I’d consider moving to a place where you could get more. Wyoming comes to mind: Low cost of living, yet vastly better teacher pay.
I face a similar conundrum right now. In the past four years, I have seen my “pay” (income) decline by 75 percent. As a result, I have sought to diversify my writing outlets.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I made a query to an online publisher who “laid me off” at the end of 2008 when the economy just started to go down. Wouldn’t you know, they’ve hired me back.
A rather large forecast personal budget deficit for 2012 has come close to breaking even now.
In addition to that, I’ve ranted to my editors at McGraw-Hill about Apple’s iPad 2 or iPad 3, and a thing called Inkling, as an outlet for my work. Come to find out that the CEO of McGraw-Hill has that exact paradigm in mind.
When one door closes, two or more new ones open … but you have to knock.
So again, hey, if South Dakota doesn’t treat you right, 49 other states plus the District of Columbia might welcome you. But you’ll never know unless you ask.
I do not mean to suggest that you ought to love South Dakota or leave her, but most decidedly do mean to say that if you’ve loved this state and she won’t love you back, you might hitch up your knickerbockers and throw her the heck over.
Tony, sorry I called you the R word. Thanks for the added commentary.
110. The number of teachers/instructors/professors I had from kindergarten through college in public schools in South Dakota, as close as I can recall. That’s 110 underpaid, overworked and underappreciated people that had a direct bearing on my life.
I’ve forgotten the few that must have been less effective, but I certainly remember the ones that taught under the theory they were shaping lives as well as instilling a hunger for a lifetime of learning for the children and young adults they were there for.
I cannot remember one teacher (et al) that showed up in tuxedos or ball gowns or that arrived at school in a limo. Instead, they faithfully showed up each day in cars that were older than most of the kids they taught and in clothes that were faded and outdated. For the responsibility these people undertake by agreeing to be a teacher – for being responsible for tomorrow – there’s no reason to demonize them, threaten them will firing, less pay or more responsibilities.
Both parents working outside of the home has led to more responsibility for the schools and the teachers. People are looking for someone to blame when their child doesn’t reach expectation by mostly absent parents. If all of the children go to charter/private schools, those teachers and schools will also be demonized.
There’s every reason in the world to support teachers and pay them as guardians of tomorrow, in direct contradiction to the narrative of today. Instead, we’re looking for someone to blame for personal, state and national problems and to take our anger out on. Today, it’s the teachers’ turn.
Cut teachers out of the equation – cut their effectiveness, their pay, their drive to teach for a pittance – and see what kind of problems we have.
No, Steve, they don’t: Superintendent Sweet, who lives there, just said they don’t. The higher taxes one pays pay for a great deal of utility.
Thanks, Stan: it seems a shame that the only practical solution coming from this discussion seems to be give up and take my talents elsewhere. It’s vastly disappointing that many other South Dakotans reading this question can’t come up with a single practical suggestion as to what added value I and my fellow teachers can provide to justify increased pay.
“No, Steve, they don’t: Superintendent Sweet, who lives there, just said they don’t. The higher taxes one pays pay for a great deal of utility.”
So what are you waiting for then? Take some RINOs with you.
“So what are you waiting for then? Take some RINOs with you.”
I want to thank Mr. Sibson for illustrating the mindset that keeps SD wages low.
As he has proclaimed himself the protector of Christian values, I would ask for the Biblical justification for his rancor and for the right to take unto himself who should live where.
It is small wonder that people given a choice between his bogeymen “New Age Marxist Pagan Wiccan Theocrats” and his perverted version of Christ’s teaching, most people would opt for the former. Those folks represent Jesus far better.
I am going to state the obvious: The pay you are receiving as a French teacher in Spearfish isn’t the best but it is a job. The salary scale of SD teachers is the bottom of the barrel, but the whole state is that way. It’s tough for all of us when a starting wage of $10/hour is considered good. I just talked to a recent college grad that is working as a waitress to make money – no jobs available for her here.
All of this doesn’t help your economic reality. I am not suggesting that you give up either.
In many ways, SD/MN comparisons are apples/oranges, due to population. That being said, the many benefits of living in MN could be translated to SD, and raise the quality of life there. It is a matter of public will.
Our taxes are definitely higher here. Our services are infinitely higher here. We get a good bang for our buck.
I spent the first 50 years of my life in SD, and feel that I am a SDan for life. I will always love SD, and always be disappointed that SD didn’t love me back.
SD doesn’t love Cory back either. I think that’s what Stan is talking about. I tried for 50 years to find happiness and fulfillment and acceptance in SD. I never did. 50 years is long enough. I gave up and came to SD.
No, the fault was not mine, as some will quickly decide. The hyper-defensiveness many SDans feel about our state is perhaps the biggest block to SD’s shining possibilities.
The first step is admitting there is a problem(s). Everything gets better from there.
Oops. Ought to say, “I gave up and came to MN.” (In 2007.)
Corey, I just checked our salary schedule. You would be at step 11, I believe with a MA +30 = $61,383. The threat that “taxes will eat you alive” is about the only defense SD has to keep people there. I might ask my tax preparer to figure the difference in my taxes if I were in SD. By the way, I have kept my SD tax preparer because I know I can get it done cheaper there.
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