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Pay Teachers to Solve Shortage? Yikes! Legislators Change the Subject

I can hear the conversation in Pierre: We're short on teachers, and folks going to expect better pay... quick! Blow smoke!

South Dakota’s superintendents say schools are struggling to fill open positions mainly because of low teacher pay, while policymakers suggest a solution to the teacher shortage isn’t simple and the problem won’t be fixed with funding alone [Kevin Burbach, "Lawmakers Say Education Needs More Than Just Money," AP via that Sioux Falls paper, 2014.09.21].

Actually... yeah, it will. Raising teacher pay would do more to solve South Dakota's worsening teacher shortage than any other single policy action. $10,000 more in every teacher's paycheck would change more teachers' minds about moving or retiring or taking up welding than improving teacher training and "support," the ideas Rep. Jacqueline Sly (R-33/Rapid City) mentions in Burbach's report. (At least Burbach gets Rep. Sly's name right; he calls Democratic Rep. Paula Hawks "Tessa".)

At the bottom of the article, spokesman Tony Venhuizen reminds us what the Daugaard Administration really thinks of the teacher shortage—they'd like to make it permanent:

“Particularly in some small districts we see they’re making decisions to keep larger staffs, to keep their staffing levels higher rather than to use the money to pay fewer teachers more [Tony Venhuizen, quoted in Burbach, 2014.09.21].

That's right, far from a shortage of teachers, Governor Daugaard still thinks we have too many teachers. Getting rid of a third of our teachers would deprive our kids of even more resources and support in school, but hey! those darn teachers lean union and Democrat anyway! Who needs 'em?

There are plenty of other, more positive legislative actions we can take to improve our K-12 schools. So let's not dilly-dally: let's raise teacher pay so we can get on to those other improvements.

61 Comments

  1. Jana 2014.09.21

    Maybe Tony and his father-in-law might start with respect first.

    They obviously have none for those in education.

    Quick Tony, call the Koch brothers and ALEC to rally support and talking points.

  2. Moses 2014.09.21

    Wonder what Pat powers would say, no wait any comment he doesn't like he will delete.Better yet go to maryland get a decent teaching Job start out over fifty grand, I would but I had a union job.

  3. grudznick 2014.09.21

    I didn't know the Governor was wanting to fire one third of our teachers, but we should think hard about that. We know there are slackards everywhere, and that some of those slackards don't want the good teachers to get more money because they are good, so I say fire the slackards and take all their salary and divide it to the good teachers. We could raise their salary by 50%! Instead of a paltry $10G we could raise those good teacher's salaries by around 20 Large. No insurance for those 1/3 slackards either, and that could be tossed into the pot. All these Good Teachers would have to do is work maybe 1 more class a day, or have maybe 4 or 5 additional students in their class. Slam dunk win-win-win.

  4. grudznick 2014.09.21

    Here is more on my reasoning: Let us assume we have 3 teachers each making $100,000. They have insurance costs of $5,000 each.

    Teacher A is a slackard. Teachers B and C are really Good Teachers and have great evaluations by their peers and the fat cat administrators who "know what they are doing." Also, Teacher A has consistently produced students with lower test scores than Teachers B and C.

    Fire Teacher A.
    Take her $105,000 cost and divide it by 2.
    That would be about $52,500.
    Give Teachers B and C each a $52,500 raise.

    In fact, cut Fat Cat Administrator's salary by 33%, and divide that by the 60 remaining teachers he has. Add that to the Good Teacher's salaries.

    grudznick has solved the problem.

  5. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.21

    Grudz has simply played up the governor's ploy of addressing teacher pay by pitting teacher against teacher. Raise the false spectre of slackards, get teachers to blame their colleagues for their own low pay, nudge a few here, a few there, to support cutting staff even further for the sake of raising the survivors' pay. Those cannibals will be too ashamed to poke their noses into politics.

  6. JeniW 2014.09.21

    Who is gong to define the "slackards" and what criteria will be used?

    If defining slackards by the students test results on the standardized test, how would it be determined if the students are poor test takers, or do not have the abilities to measure up to certain criterias, or simply do not care?

    We have all had classmates at some point during our schools years who did not care how well, or not well, that they did in class or tests.

    How do we make sure that the teachers are not wrongfully punished?

  7. grudznick 2014.09.21

    The reality is there are Good Teachers, and there are Slackards. This is true in all professions and simply cannot be argued doesn't exist in teachers.

    Let us assume the lowest 20% on the Bell Curve of teacher performances. If we terminate all of them, and raise the pay to double for the top 20% of Good Teachers, have we solved the problem?

    Or do we need to take one-fifth of all teacher salaries and increase the other Good Teachers by 20%? Gentlemen and Ladies, I bet you that nobody else is getting a salary raise of 20% across the industries of teachers and teaching.

    South Dakota could give a 20% raise to Good Teachers and the adequate ones too.

  8. mike from iowa 2014.09.21

    The only problem wingnuts have found that they think they can cure with more spending is korporate welfare for the koch bros. The rest have to make do with much less.

  9. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.21

    Don't let grudz or Dennis draw you in, Jeni. We had this discussion when Daugaard tried merit pay in 2012, and when teachers led the charge to destroy that bad plan. (Why do you think Daugaard wants fewer teachers?) Even if we identify underperforming teachers, the solution is not to fire them and make the rest of the teachers pick up the slack. The solution is to help those teachers identify and rectify their weaknesses so they can contribute more to our schools. If those teachers can't improve, then we should replace them with better teachers. But we don't need to take teachers away from students.

  10. grudznick 2014.09.21

    Jeni, everybody knows who the Slackards are. Just like with 1.2.3.4 we let the teachers set the criteria. Then they can't whine later. Let the teachers define who is a Good Teacher and who is not. If not the Teachers, if they are so lockstep with the unions who are socialized, then it is the School Boards that will do it. The local elected officials. Because they are accountable to the taxpayers for the teacher raises.

  11. o 2014.09.21

    grudznick: I'm not sure which element of your post is more detached from reality - the $100,000 salaried SD teachers or the one-in-three are "slackers."

    Just another math reality check: removing one-thrid of the current teachers also increases class sizes 50%. That would result in absolutely a lower quality of education for students.

    grudznick's fabrications perpetuate the problem.

  12. MJL 2014.09.21

    The governor is clearly uninformed. Larger classes sizes are a step backward in supporting students. Most schools don't have a plethora of teachers to cut. In the school I teach at now, we already find it next to impossible to schedule students into classes to help prepare them because of tight staffing. I have taught in several small schools where I was the English department for the school. There would be one high school math teacher, one science teacher, one social studies teachers, (you get the point). Is this the advice he gets from his Department of Education?

  13. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.21

    Fine, grind that ax. You show your absurdity by talking bell curve. You can cut off all the bottom fifths you want; you'll still have a bottom fifth in your new cohort. You'll never get rid of the bottom. You yourself said every profession has that bottom, so apparently no profession, high- or low-paying, has been able to get rid of occasional incompetence.

    Stop mixing burdens. Under your logic, the slackard quotient should be roughly equal across the country. Yet every other state in the union has found the will and resources to pay those teachers, of about the same aggregate quality as ours, a whole heck of a lot more money.

    The issue is not that we need to cull the herd. The issue is that we pay our teachers less than every other state in the union. That's unfair, and it's economically suicidal.

  14. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.21

    And, MJL, I would assume that cutting staff would make it absolutely impossible for those schools you've worked at to offer the vo-tech classes the Governor says he wants, right?

  15. Joe 2014.09.21

    Its not just pay, backward @$$ policies and getting on the national news for all the wrong reasons don't help the image much either.

    Arizona has Prop 301 bonus pay, for my school district (and we pay more then the state gives us) we give up to $7K, $2,800 on letter grade from the state (A or B, or 10 improvement points), $1,750 on Math NWEA growth target, $1,750 on Reading NWEA growth target, and $700 on parent and student surveys.

    NWEA is a standard eyed test that the students take. They take the test in the fall, it calculates the growth target and then they take it in the spring, if 80% make growth target we got 100% if 50%-79% made it, we got the %, if its under 50% we got nothing.

    If SD wants to do bonus pay this is the fairest system I've heard of.

  16. grudznick 2014.09.21

    We cut off the bottom 20% of slackards, Mr. H, and raise the standards to that minimum level to get the new higher pay. We don't just raise the pay for the same low standards. If teachers want to be high-graded in pay then we high-grade their standards.

  17. grudznick 2014.09.21

    As you know, even in French math you can forever lop off the bottom 20% of the bell curve and expect its shape to change much. On the other hand, we could go to a pass-fail grade for teachers and just put everybody in a Good Teacher / Slackard category. White or black. There ye be.

  18. grudznick 2014.09.21

    Mr. o, there are likely a few students who need to be sent to a lower-level technical institute (shop class) to stay. That will keep the class sizes for the Good Teachers down a bit, and probably lighten their load with dealing with loafers and student slackards.

  19. JeniW 2014.09.21

    Grudz, you have not answered my question as to how to determine who are the "slackards," or how to avoid wrongfully punishing teachers.

  20. grudznick 2014.09.21

    Ms. Jeni, I have told you that the teachers, just like any other profession, should set the standards and measure their peers. What galls my gut is when "teachers" claim they are so special that traditional and proven human resource tools can't work on them. So I say "BAH" to that and have them set foot in the real world.

    How do we measure the performance of real world mechanics or accountants and how do we give the good mechanics and good accountants raises? I say to you, teachers are not special and it is their view that they are that causes them to cry about not being paid like they are special.

    I say to you teachers, if you are mentally or organizationally superior, come up with a way to hold yourselves as accountable as plumbers.

    Ms. Jeni, if this doesn't work for you, I will again offer my services to determine which teachers are Good and which ones are not because everybody in your town except the teachers themselves knows the answer.

  21. Deb Geelsdottir 2014.09.21

    I think one of the best ways to improve all teachers and all students is just the opposite of what my friend Grudz is advocating.

    Limit class sizes to 12. The poor teachers will improve. The average teachers will become good. The good teachers will become absolutely top rank. In addition, the teachers who really aren't much good and/or aren't trying and/or don't care will have no excuses and will be easier to boot.

    Every single student will show real improvement. Teachers will have time to build on the student's strengths and solve struggles.

    Yes indeed, the number of teachers will just about double. It will be worth every nickel.

    There is a public elementary school in Minneapolis that uses team teaching in every classroom. It's in a neighborhood that is high poverty, high crime, high minority population. They haven't doubled the number of teachers, but there are more than the minimum. The school continues to defy demographics by rating very near the top of the annual MN tests.

    Teachers love it. They are more creative, more engaged, more energized, more supported. It works just like other creative types who share knowledge, input and experiences. That's why entrepreneurs, scientists and artists so often collaborate.

    Grudz, I'm pretty certain your suggestion goes in the wrong direction. Bigger classes, due to fewer teachers, will make everything worse. I also think your estimation of the percentage of "slackard" teachers is not in the ballpark.

    I taught in 4 different schools. They were each pretty small, and one was the Crow Creek Chieftains. Of the 50+ colleagues I worked with, 3 fit my definition of a lazy bum masquerading as a teacher. Someone who can do math can figure out what that percentage is. (Seriously, I can't do math, except basics. My brain doesn't work that way. It's weird, but it is what it is.)

    Grudz, that's pretty much the rate I hear from friends who've taught in a variety of schools. You are right, there are people who don't belong in the profession. There just aren't very many of them.

    Think about it. If someone wants to do something because they think they can get a lazy living at it, they aren't going to spend many thousands of dollars for tuition, fees and books first. They'll spend a few months to get a certificate or whatever they need for something easy.

  22. Deb Geelsdottir 2014.09.21

    (Geez. I didn't realize that was so long till I posted it. Sorry.)

  23. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.21

    No, Grudz, you don't get it. As usual, you come to stir the pot instead of dealing with logic and fact.

    You prescribe a constant war against the average. Cut the bottom 20% out, and you create a new bell curve, with a new mean, and a new bottom 20%. You'll never stop; you'll create a paradigm in which we can always balk at raising pay, because we can always identify a new crop of slackards based on your arbirtrary standards.

    You have also ignored my response about the universality of the bottom part of that bell curve, and the fact that other states with similar talent distributions still value teachers far more than we do. Your argument is irrelevant to the policy question at hand.

    But you, Grudz, aren't interested in real policy. You aren't interested in real solutions. You just want to chortle over your jokes and word games. Slackards—hogwash! You just want to avoid the real issue and proffer excuses for legislators who would play the same irresponsible game.

  24. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.21

    Team teaching in every classroom, Deb? Which school is that? It makes so much sense: more adults can handle more problems. They can back each other up, reinforce each other's knowledge and authority, keep kids in line, and most importantly, provide more individual help. Beautiful!

  25. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.21

    Deb, that team teaching would also do wonders to push that bottom 6% (that's the proportion you mention in your experience, tops) to do better. They could not hide in their own classrooms. And all teachers would be exposed to different practices, new ideas, the constant yardstick of a colleague who would help them gauge and increase their own effectiveness.

  26. Roger Cornelius 2014.09.21

    Would it be a fair assumption to suggest that all professions have the good and the slackards. It is a pretty safe bet that slackards will flush themselves from any system, that is likely true of bad teaches as well

  27. BOHICA 2014.09.21

    If S.D. doesn't pay education enough to hire the best...can we really really expect the best results?

    This isn't rocket science...those folks already headquarter in Houston.

    Pay to get the best out of our children...and then provide jobs that pay enough to keep them here.

    KISS...Keep It Simple Stoopid.

  28. Deb Geelsdottir 2014.09.21

    Cory, the article was in today's Strib. I have searched online for it but I can't find it. I search for anything about teaching and schools and get a bunch of stuff that is not it. I'm frustrated, but I'll keep working on it.

    Grudz:

    Some evaluation structures are easy because they deal with inanimate objects. That's the comparison you are making Grudz. Here are some examples:

    A plumber is hired to repair a leak. It's either repaired, or it's not. The leak does not oppose being fixed, nor does it have family members who obstruct the repairs.

    An accountant keeps track of the accounts. Those accounts either add up or they don't. The accounts cannot change their totals or the facts of math.

    Coach #1 has the previous year's defending champions and there were no graduating players. Coach #2 takes over a team with a 3 year winless streak. Both teams finish with 5-10 records. Do both coaches succeed or fail? If there is only one, objective standard based on numbers, there can be no exceptions. Either both coaches are good and deserve a raise, or both have failed and should be fired.

    CEO #1 takes the post of a highly successful business with stock rising for the past several years. CEO #2 was convinced to unretire to take over a corporation that has been hemorrhaging cash, market share, and lost its listing on the NYSE. Do we expect the same production from each CEO?

    What teachers do is extremely objective. What you interpret as "specialness", is simply the people in the trenches, teachers, trying to explain what their work is like. Their workplaces have so many variables that must be accounted for in a fair and true evaluation. Thus far, no such evaluation has been devised.

    Grudz, I'm suggesting that, rather than wanting us to treat them "specially, " they want us to really understand what they do and offer them support, rather than constant attacks.

    A man of your caliber probably knows a great deal about The Good Old Days. I remember that in The Good Old Days teachers were treated with respect and courtesy. Schools functioned well with the support of the entire community.

    I don't think that's just coincidence. Do you?

  29. Deb Geelsdottir 2014.09.21

    (Geez. Another long one. I guess I'm pretty passionate about schools, children and teachers. No apologies.)

  30. JeniW 2014.09.22

    Very well put Deb. Your answer to grudz is way better than I could come up with.

    But, let's cut to the chase: There is no interest, willingness, and/or ability to raise taxes, or to use reserves to give teachers pay increases. There are not enough people who are interested in applying for the openings in SD.

    Given that situation, the question is what do we do we do? Do we stop accepting federal funding for education so that there are no strings attached in terms of meeting federal standards?

    Should each school district come up with their own funding sources, including charging parents a fee every semester as parents who have their children enrolled in private schools do. Should the schools have fundraisers annually, or as needed?

    Some colleges have online classes, is that an option? Online classes are not ideal, but at this point, there does not seem to be much else to offer for alternative methods.

    Should we consider training parents and other adults to be home school teachers so that they can educate their own children, and perhaps six other students?

  31. hmr59 2014.09.22

    Well, we can't have a better educated populace - those people ask too many damn questions! Less education leads to more "tractable" people willing to "go along to get along" and content with whatever bread and circuses they are spoon fed...

  32. Tim 2014.09.22

    Jeni hits it, republicans that run this state and the republicans that elect them are not willing to raise taxes to pay teachers what they should be paid, and lets face it, a tax someplace will have to be raised. A couple years ago the people of this state wouldn't support a penny on the dollar sales tax increase for education, if they won't support a stinking penny, they sure as hell won't support anything else. The kids in this state will get the education the taxpayers are willing to pay for, and the taxpayers have no one but themselves to blame when our kids aren't taught well enough to compete. Grudz is classic republican response, the bottom line for people like him, I don't have any kids in the system so I don't want to pay. They fail to see the big picture, but hey, republicans haven't seen that picture for years.

  33. mike from iowa 2014.09.22

    Compare South Dakota's teachers to the lege and prepare to throw the entire wingnut cabal out of the lege. Judge not,lest ye be judged. (kewl-I even got to use wingnuts religion against them) :)

  34. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.22

    JeniW, what we do is change that reality... and change our legislators. We don't let them or the Governor hide behind the excuse of "There's nothing we can do; people won't support it." We hold them to their obligation as statesmen to change people's minds and build popular support for doing what's right.

  35. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.22

    Good article, Deb! I note they don't talk about teacher salaries at Columbia Heights. They talk about the help the teachers are able to offer as they work together in the classroom, and the results they get. They can support each other.

    The district perhaps just takes for granted that you have to pay people a decent wage for the work they do.

  36. jerry 2014.09.22

    As legislators, they claim to be doing the states business for the people. These legislators prove all along that they are clueless when it comes to running a business or for that matter, what business is all about. Every good business person knows and understands the concept of keeping your business growing. In order to do that, you must retain your experienced workers. The rules of this are simple, pay them more with salaries along with benefits. When new workers sign on with the employers, they see a couple of things, well paid senior employees to go along with a very good work climate. This makes for a more professional worksite with a win win for all.

    I think the only thing these legislators understand is how to fleece people out of their money and look the other way. That is how the EB-5 got going in the first place. Corruption is the name of the game in Pierre and these guys and gals there do not want to squander the chance to screw everyone out of their money for their own personal gain. In short, they need a better teacher than Daugaard or his crime boss, Rounds to educate them on honesty and fair pay for an honest days work.

  37. Heidi M-L 2014.09.22

    This doesn't address the problem of teacher salaries, but since we're looking to Minnesota for ideas, I wanted to point out that some pretty cool things are going on in education in a few South Dakota schools also. http://dakotafire.net/article/making-school-matter/

    (I have tried to set up a new system in which you get one article free, and then are asked to subscribe. If anyone has trouble getting their one free article, please let me know.)

  38. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.22

    Jerry, maybe the state should give the teacher's union the contract for recruiting EB-5 investors. If every teacher were to recruit one EB-5 investor, we could snap up nearly the entire quota of EB-5 visas (10,000), bring over $4 billion in new investment capital to the state... and land $30,000 in EB-5 administrative fees for every teacher.

  39. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.09.22

    Heidi, thanks for that link! And don't get me wrong: I don't want to denigrate any other effort to improve our K-12 schools. I welcome all suggestions for fixing problems and helping kids learn.

    But if I'm a legislator or a governor, I give raising teacher pay top, sole priority. No other education bill goes in the hopper until we've had a serious discussion about finding the revenue to raise teacher pay $10,000.

  40. Donald Pay 2014.09.22

    I think the level of ignorance shown by Tony Venhuizen is absolutely stunning. What he suggests is that small districts entirely cut sixth grade or high school English, then pay the remaining teachers more. Questions: Where are the sixth graders supposed to go? Do districts just not teach high school English?

    He's unwittingly identified the real problem, though, with education. It's the state's leadership, who simply can't take responsibility for their decades long string of failures in education funding and policy.

    Small districts, simply by the fact of having small student populations, can not become efficient in the way Venhuizen suggests. They have to have sixth grade, if they have 8 students or 80 students. Venhuizen needs to return to sixth grade if he can't understand that simple math fact.

  41. S Hart 2014.09.22

    In response to Grudznick 22:14 This is exactly what people who are not in education DO NOT GET! Real world mechanics or accountants or don’t have to deal with products that are hungry, tired, sad or just simply don’t want to be there. Our students are not screened for flaws and subsequently discarded. If we teach 4th grade we may have students who are reading at a 1st grade level as well as students reading at 9th grade level. We may have students who can barely add single digits and students who are ready for algebra. I would like to refer Mr. Grudznick to the Blueberry story http://www.jamievollmer.com/blueberries. This is why it is so difficult to find a fair and just way to measure teacher performance.

  42. bearcreekbat 2014.09.22

    I really liked S Hart's Blueberry story. Our legislature has enacted conscription laws for our schools. We call them truancy laws, but they are no different than conscription, as a child's failure to submit to custodial control by schools 7 hours a day five days a week can result in criminal punishments against parents and older children. See generally, SDCL ch 13-27.

    These conscription/truancy laws are clear evidence that the people of this state think, or at least one time thought, education is a valuable and important social goal. That makes it even more puzzling why our Republican leadership has for year after year after year failed to support our teachers with a decent competitive wage to attract the best. But it also supports continued advocacy for improving the quality of the conditions of our institutions where we forcibly detain and confine our state's children from ages 5 to 18, including the pay of those we trust enough to legally require our children to submit themselves to.

  43. Steve Sibson 2014.09.22

    "Limit class sizes to 12."

    That will employ more teachers. We already have a teacher shortage, and two, increasing class size and firing the slackers, means more students have good teachers.

  44. Donald Pay 2014.09.22

    You can play around with class size, but it's not as easy as setting one classroom size for a district, whether it's 12, 20, or 30. The large districts and larger schools have a little more leeway to move around class sizes. Smaller schools and districts just don't have as much flexibility. Also, much depends on the grade level, the subjects taught, etc, and the level of increased behavioral issues and academic failure you're willing to tolerate.

    Elementary students learning the basics of reading and arithmetic needing much more in-class attention. That's where classrooms under 18 pay off. Other subjects, like foreign language and science labs, seem to work better with under 25 students.

    Then you also have the issue of providing a well-rounded curriculum. Should you have a French classroom when only 6 students want to take French? Or should you find another way to provide French? That's often not an issue in big districts, but it does affect small ones.

    In Rapid City schools before I was on the board, the district paid for decreasing elementary class size (more teachers) by decreasing high school counselors. That ended up shortchanging the older students, and probably helped increase the dropouts and behavior issues. But it was paid for up front. It was also suggested at the time that fewer students in the elementary classroom would mean fewer costly remedial issues, discipline problems and prison population down the line. The fact is you're going to pay one way or the other. You decide whether you want to build more prisons or have fewer students in classrooms.

    Then there's the pay issue. If a district has a first grade class size of 30, you can have one teacher teaching all 30 or two teachers teaching 15, or two teachers team teaching 30. Should the teacher teaching 30 students be paid 2X what the teachers teaching 15 are getting? Fairness would dictate that this teacher probably deserves twice the pay, but we know that's not what any of the leadership have in mind, because that's not what they have ever suggested in the past. Rapid City used to get singled out for paying teachers too much. They never accounted for the fact that most of the Rapid City teachers taught many more students than teachers in smaller districts.

  45. Steve Sibson 2014.09.22

    "Fairness would dictate that this teacher probably deserves twice the pay, but we know that's not what any of the leadership have in mind, because that's not what they have ever suggested in the past."

    So the other side of that argument is that we raise taxes so we can hire the slacker teachers, who should be paid the same as the good teachers. May seem fair to some, but not fair to the students who get the slackers.

  46. JeniW 2014.09.22

    Yep, that's it, the majority of the teachers are slackers, and get paid well for being so.

    Could that not be an incentive for teachers to apply for teaching positions in South Dakota?

    The articles I have read have indicated that there are not enough teachers applying for the open positions.

    Someone needs to send out an advertisement that reads "Want an easy job to be a slacker teacher with high income? If so, apply at the many different school districts throughout SD."

    LOL

  47. bearcreekbat 2014.09.22

    Research indicates that reduced class size is an important factor in improving student performance when properly implemented. Generally, increasing class size, even with excellent teachers, lowers student performance on standardized tests. Experienced teachers generally argue that reduced class size is an important factor on social and behavioral development. This research suggests that would be detrimental to both kids and teachers to use increased class sizes as a remedy for our extremely poor teacher pay.

    http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Organizing-a-school/Class-size-and-student-achievement-At-a-glance/Class-size-and-student-achievement-Research-review.html

  48. Donald Pay 2014.09.22

    What slacker teachers are you talking about? If the district hires a teacher to teach a classroom of 12, that doesn't make the teacher a slacker. It does bring up the issue of how you provide education in rural areas, and whether closing rural schools and consolidating makes sense. In some cases it probably does made sense to reduce the number of schools/districts. In other districts, it just doesn't make sense. How do you consolidate in western South Dakota, where students spend hours on the bus?

    The point is that those teachers teaching to a classroom of 12 are not slackers because of the district in which they teach. That teacher is going to give those 12 students a lot more attention than a teacher teaching to 30 student classrooms. The workload probably equals out.

  49. mike from iowa 2014.09.22

    Cal Thomas is a rwnj, bomb throwing,effing moron with shit for brains. And those are his good points.

  50. bearcreekbat 2014.09.22

    What mike said.

  51. owen reitzel 2014.09.22

    Ya!! What Mike said!!! Glad you look for the good in people Mike :)

  52. owen reitzel 2014.09.22

    I think Cal Thomas is Sibby's pen name

  53. grudznick 2014.09.22

    The classroom size theory might make some sense if you noodle on it a bit, like I have. If we put up dividers in some of the classrooms since we are not going to build 100 new schools and then instead of giving raises we took the raise money and maybe skim a little from the current salaries we could hire more teachers and make the classes be smaller and get better results for the same money.

    If a teacher, even a Good Teacher, is only teaching 12 kids then we all know the job is easier and the test scores according to my good friends here will go up. For an easier job, it should be done for less money. Or in our case, the same money they get now. So any money that would have gone into raises for the Good Teachers can go to pay for these new teachers.

    Just another way to solve this problem. Like my friend young Ms. Geelsdottir says, look how neato it can be when we all put our noggins together. Or maybe it was kurtz that said that, I don't recall.

  54. bearcreekbat 2014.09.22

    grudz, I think you are mistaken in your belief that with less students the teaching job gets "easier." It doesn't. Rather, in a small class the teacher is able to focus more one on one attention to the student so learning gets easier, rather than teaching. Teaching is a difficult vocation, whether you have one student or a 100 students.

    And isn't that why we make it a crime to keep kids away from school - we want our kids to be able to learn easier and learn more so they might be productive members of SD society rather than folks without skills whom need to depend on public benefits or even crime to survive?

  55. grudznick 2014.09.22

    Certainly there are less papers to grade between 3pm and 4pm. I agree that you still have to put the same time into setting up the monthly themed bulletin board that says "March: In like a hunted Lion, out on the Lam", "April Showers bring Pat Powers" or whatever. But there are definitely less math tests to check and parent conferences to prepare for.

  56. Donald Pay 2014.09.22

    With fewer students, the paper grading may be less, but it may be more complicated. If you have fewer students, it is more feasible to use essay responses, rather than multiple choice, true-false questions for your quizzes. Those questions are harder to grade. Also, with fewer students you usually get through material faster and cover more material or go more in depth. That requires more preparation time.

  57. grudznick 2014.09.22

    I like Mr. Pay's theory, where the fewer and fewer the students are the faster and more the teachers must work. It would be like a crazed boat ride!

    So the danger must be growing
    Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
    Is the grisly reaper mowing
    Yes, the danger must be growing
    For the rowers keep on rowing
    And they're certainly not showing
    Any signs that they are slowing

  58. Deb Geelsdottir 2014.09.22

    Thanks JeniW. Good comments Mike. Grudz, you're getting there. Heidi, that is a wonderful article and great plan.

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