I retired yesterday and feel like I got out at the right time. I did have tenure and a secure pension. Not so anymore! The politicians have destroyed our once proud profession.

stand how exhausting MENTAL work, never mind controlling a classroom and standing all day, can be.

I used to tell seniors: If thinking were easy, more people would do it.

Yes, "Free at Last" was my main phrase of the day! The school year dragged on and on with making up snow days, then tacked-on inservice days... It really did feel like it would never end. I couldn't believe that I didn't have to go back today.

I was completely drained and wrung out like an old dish rag! LOL

You left before all the corporate sh*t has sludged up the system. Much of teaching is now grueling, unrewarding, drudge work. The last straw for me was the new evaluation systems. Biggest scam to come along since NCLB.

Hope retirement is as enjoyable as everyone tells me!

amount of help in that from the business community and their "deform" movement also.

The issue of underperforming teachers being sent to schools in the poor areas on a regular basis?

the seniority system is set up such that you start in a crummy school and then as you gain seniority you can transition into a better school district. Also, Instead of sending low performing teachers there, make a separate career track for teachers in underserved districts. Give them extra pay and training because this is a harder school to teach at. Also, make sure the schools are adequately funded plus give them extra resources because they need it.

Incentivize teachers to make a career out teaching the underserved. There are many teachers who would love to do it if they are given decent conditions to try and make a difference.

Seniority or career path..it more about the students who suffer under bad teacbers for the 2 plus years it takes to fire them. And the issue with the district sending them to places where people dont complain as much.

teachers. Some people take a bit of time to get the swing of it. Putting teachers on an employment carousel, take away all autonomy, make them teach to the test, god, no wonder some teachers are having problems.

But even if what you say is correct, "underperforming" teachers in that case are sent to poor areas, wherever that may be, as the pay and benefits are very low and the conditions that teachers are asked to work in, and students to learn in, are many times deplorable. In PA, for example, districts are funded by local tax dollars in addition to the state and federal monies. These local dollars are raised through the taxation of property. Poor areas cannot raise the same amount of local dollars and with funding inequity, can have thousands of fewer dollars per pupil to educate students.

http://www.gse.upenn.edu/pdf/school_funding_summary_findings_steinberg_quinn.pdf
http://www.psea.org/uploadedFiles/LegislationAndPolitics/Vision/Vision_SchoolFunding.pdf


Add the more than 360 million siphoned off from cyber charter schools, and poor districts keep getting poorer.

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/education/55097-rising-cyber-charter-costs-fuel-push-for-statewide-reform

That adressed the specific issues of the particular school district where the students rights were being violated. And in California it is common for schools in the same district not to be equal....rich side of town always has better schools and poor sde has worse..and less programs in their schools..it goes as far as things like ac not being fixed as fast in the poor schools.

The plaintiffs also charged that schools in poorer neighborhoods are used as dumping grounds for the bad teachers.

They will all be "temps" and TFA short-timers. The neediest schools will continue to be assigned the least experienced teachers. That is the new reality.

Teachers are generally extremely well paid compared to everyone else (top 20% at any rate), they have benefits that blow everyone else completely put of the water, tremendous job security, months off every year, minimal or nonexistent objective performance standards, unions, community respect, and even potentially tenure. All of which is why it is so difficult to land a full time permanent teaching gig, everyone wants to do it.

The median personal income for a holder of a bachelor degree is 50944 while that of a person holding a masters is 61273. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States The median teacher salary in the US is 55050. I admit to not knowing the exact mix of masters degree vs bachelors degrees in teaching but even if all teachers held only bachelors which is not even nearly true, we would hardly be as extravagantly paid as you suggest. http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/high-school-teacher/salary

May I refer you to the DU Education Group for further enlightenment?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1124

The district fails to offer mentoring or assistance. I don't want my kids or others to have to suffer their incompetence. Tenure only protects them, not the students. I have friends who are teachers and admire their dedication. Administration must ensure teachers are effective before giving tenure, if tenure must exist.

Save for the politicians you mention, no one has a lifetime, secured job. If I don't perform well, I no longer have my job.

your point?

From medicine and law to electricians and politicians. The difference is twofold, however: if you have a cruel doctor, you can either sever your relationship with him/her and go to another one, and/or complain to a board who can take away their license. Students don't have a choice: they are required to attend school, but they can't leave a "cruel" (in your example) or poorly performing teacher. They're stuck with them. For at least a year--a year in which they have lost out on learning a subject.

Let me be clear: I absolutely 100% support teachers having tenure: it's critical to their ability to express themselves freely and be secure in the positions. However, having witnessed a couple of true clunkers (really inept and unprofessional) teachers among the many excellent and highly professional ones my kids had when they were in school, I am of the opinion that the tenure system probably needs some tightening up. 18 months is far too short of a time to acquire tenure, and the criteria on which it is based are in many places weak or nonexistent. It's basically a question of whether you showed up for the 18 months.

My husband served for several years as chair of the tenure committee for the college at which he is a professor. I was overwhelmed at the amount of work all the members of that committee had to put in to reviewing each candidate—dozens of hours each in review and then dozens more in discussion and reports—and and how long and arduous the process was for the candidates, publishing and presenting lectures and research (the tenure often takes 7 years for a professor). And then it all had to go to outside reviewers as well, before passing on to administration. Once done, a professor's tenure is not fully iron-clad, either: if you screw up royally in some way, you can be fired immediately.

I'm not saying the process can or even should be as strict as that, but perhaps what we need here is a bit of tightening up on the review and granting of tenure, to make sure incompetent candidates don't make it through, and then another process on the other end that can swiftly and effectively remove teachers who may have gone off the deep end later on.

But we should definitely keep tenure for our teachers. Students, on the other hand, should have a right to an equal education. The system perhaps needs some tweaking.

boycott their own profession.

... and got out in the knick of time. Before the testing craze.

I really must have been good... a huge percentage of my kids went to 4 year colleges. They took - and got good grades on - the AP tests. At one time I had former students in all 4 Academies, Stanford, and Notre Dame.

The fact that their parents were "well off", and had college degrees and white-collar jobs had nothing to do with it. The fact that our district had the second-highest per-pupil spending in the state had nothing to do with it.

It was all my superior teaching.

Bullshit.

Money is the single most predictive factor in kids doing well in school. Money in the community... money spent on schools...money paid to teachers...money talks and bullshit has low test scores.

My recommendation...?

Pretend our schools are like Pentagon weapons systems.... like the F-35. Shovel money at them... in unlimited quantities and from various directions until things improve.

Won't work, you say? How will we know until we try? We've tried the cheap-screw method, and it didn't work so well. Let's try the Pentagon method for 30 or 40 years and see what happens.

But then, we taught in a relatively cushy suburban high school.

The only problem with your monetary solution? It isn't going to enrich the 1%.

Unfortunately, it is not changing the numbers enrolled in education programs at colleges and universities. I work in higher ed and discussion board related to teaching future teachers are pretty dismal.

up with teachers as parents. I saw first-hand what they went through and what it did to them, even decades ago. Everyone assumed I'd go into teaching as well when I started college, but I never wanted to do so. Actually, I DID want to do so and WAS interested in teaching, but I knew I never wanted to deal with the daily bullshit, and the community and society bullshit, I just wasn't. And that was back when there was at least some level of respect for the profession, the "deform" movement hadn't taken wing, and benefits and collective bargaining, not to mention unions, weren't under full-scale attack.

My mom and stepdad started their teaching careers at a time when there weren't yet unions, it was just before they began, and their description of working conditions, pay, benefits, and the total lack of any security at all was enough to curl my hair. Now, my seventy-something mother says she's glad she's out (she had to retire early because it damn near killed her) and that it appears the profession is coming full circle, getting back to the horrendous way it was when she first started. Actually, she says it's even worse now because, at least then, there was no full-scale attack on public education and teachers, no "deform" movement, no privatization bullshit and there was far more respect socially for the profession.