Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

[DanieMarie]

WTF guys!

I started a thread on this because I didn't want to hijack the history thread again. But seriously...30+ kids in a class? And the wages seem insane! It's not exactly like it's a low-skilled job, and it's an important job in that the future of a lot of people depends on the quality of teachers. You'd think that would be worth paying for...

[Almost_lost]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

Its similar here in the UK too, most classes average about 32 kids, and NQTs or teachers who havent got many years under their belt have a crappy wage. They should be paid more for the job they do, especially with the work load they have and the crap they have to deal with from some of the kids and their parents.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

I know that there are a lot of conflicts over class size and pay in BC (and from reading the news, other provinces as well), and while I support them and feel that they should keep fighting (so they don't end up with huge class sizes and end up underpaid), they do pretty well over in Canada. That being said, Canada's PISA scores are also in the top 10 in the OECD....kind of telling I think. If you invest in your education system, you get results.

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I know that there are a lot of conflicts over class size and pay in BC (and from reading the news, other provinces as well), and while I support them and feel that they should keep fighting (so they don't end up with huge class sizes and end up underpaid), they do pretty well over in Canada. That being said, Canada's PISA scores are also in the top 10 in the OECD....kind of telling I think. If you invest in your education system, you get results.

[Caelia]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

Yeah, it can be pretty sucky. A lot of the class size, if I recall, has to do with funding. I remember reading about roller skating rinks converted into schools and having something like 40 kids to a class and one outdated book to share amongst half of them.

Some of the problem with teachers also comes from very negative experiences with school like I had (and I was considered a "good" student). Sometimes the wrong type of person becomes a teacher, or a teacher suffers burnout, and that impacts people and how they treat teachers later in life. Sadly, the way people approach that problem creates a vicious cycle for teachers.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

I think if you're a teacher and you have to deal with class sizes like that, and low pay, you're more likely to suffer from burnout. Also, one thing that's starting to happen in Canada that happens a lot in the UK and the US is the larger focus on test scores. I think this is a big problem. At least in Canada though, they don't threaten closure or reduced funding on schools with low scores...they try to find out WHY those scores are low and actually fix the problem. Sometimes (actually, most of the time) it has nothing to do with the teachers and a lot to do with stuff like socio-economic problems, LACK of funding, and stuff like that.

[Caelia]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

Yeah, I agree overall cutting funding to schools is a bad idea when the scores start tumbling. I understand why that logic seems sound, but it isn't. My high school is a great example of this, especially with the administration misappropriating funds in the first place.

And it's true more often than not the issue of poor scores has more to do with the socio-economic issues. A friend of mine was a teacher in a school district notorious for losing accreditation all the time. The same school district is in a city riddled with lots of gang problems, crime, police corruption, government corruption, and so on, and most of the children in public schools are teetering the poverty line, if not below it.

[Ophidia]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

I honestly think the whole structure of public (and many private) schools needs a revamp.

I can understand the need to expose kids to one another, socialize them, get them used to team work, all that good stuff. But... it seems like school in the US is geared wholly towards training future desk jockeys. You've got these rooms full of kids sitting at desks for hours, being told when they can go to breaks, being penalized for being late or absent, and the focus is on following directions - in other words, it's what I and other cube-farmers do for a living. There's all the rote memorization going on so kids can do well on tests, so teachers can do well on performance reviews, so schools can do well during local & state audits... just like corporations are structured. Results, performance reviews, and the guys in the big fancy leather chairs get the bonuses at the end of the quarter.

Especially now, when the job market for future desk jockeys is getting smaller and smaller, we might be better served by going back to an apprenticeship-type system. Instead of trying to give millions of kids a general education for approx. 13 years of their lives, free them up a little. Give them half-days of reading, writing & math - and half a day learning life skills directly (within reason for age & safety concerns - a 5-year old probably shouldn't be working around heavy machinery, but they could learn a few household chores). I'm probably not typical, but I loved shop classes - metal shop, wood shop, auto shop - I took 'em all, and wished they had been available when I was much younger.

It could possibly even help kids with ADD/ADHD/hyperactivity disorders - and the alleged 'childhood obesity epidemic'.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

That's actually what I liked about going to school in Canada. I'm not sure if this has changed, and I graduated in 2002, but a lot of my schooling taught us stuff like how to write clearly, and how to think critically. I also found that there was a lot of reward in thinking outside the box. It was great training for university, but I think it also has value in the working world in general.

[Caelia]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

That's actually what I liked about going to school in Canada. I'm not sure if this has changed, and I graduated in 2002, but a lot of my schooling taught us stuff like how to write clearly, and how to think critically. I also found that there was a lot of reward in thinking outside the box. It was great training for university, but I think it also has value in the working world in general.

What kills me about my schooling is that we had, in theory, the same stuff but in name only. More often than not the "critical thinking exercises" was really a ploy to indoctrinate (I'm suspicious of critical thinking exercises that lead you to a way the teacher thinks. That's not critical thinking, that's indoctrination). The exercises on how to write clearly didn't come until college prep my senior year. I was saved to a very small degree because I figured out it was all a joke and taught myself things. I realized that school has become less emphasized on developing real world skills as much as indoctrinating into people they must obey all superiors (yes, they said this at my schools) and the shame of self-reliance...unless you were deemed gifted. This wasn't due to actual intelligence as much as whether or not you could read fast, solve puzzles well, or something esoteric.

I agree there needs to be a major revamp in the system again. Get rid of zero tolerance programs for most schools (they actually encourage bullying), less emphasis on homework (America spends more time than most, if not all, nations on homework. Obviously it's not doing us any good), reevaluate how much weight in loco parentis should hold (schools shouldn't be able to give you detention for doing something off of school grounds and with no indication of which school you attend), quit infantilizing students with some of the ideas perz brought up, and teach some of the basic skills for life like Danie suggested. I also believe the rule of thirds system should be abandoned as a method of teaching. In the US it won't happen anytime soon. The schools are big about control and traditions.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

A couple of things -

First off, class size is related to funding and population size. If the (student) population doesn't increase or decrease, hire a teacher and class size goes down. Lay one off, or don't replace a retiree, and class sizes go up. If the size of the student population increases or decreases, the problem is compounded.

Currently, my contract limits class size of 26, maximum. I don't believe that there is anybody in the school who actually has a class size of less than 28, 30 and above being more common - depending on the subject.


I'm not going to apologize for bad teaching - there are some bad teachers, just as there are some bad doctors. Get rid of them...

Burnout is definitely related to the complexity of the assignment - special education teachers have the fastest burn out rate (3 years) because the population is so difficult to deal with well, AND because special ed teachers have mounds of Federally mandated paper work to do daily.


Test scores and failing schools -

Don't believe what you are told about this. The school where I work is in trouble... not because we are a bad school, but because we are a superior school.

There are three measures used to calculate whether a school is "failing." The first is scores on standardized tests. We do good on these. The second score is based on the difference between the lowest performing students, and the highest performing students. "Ideally" this gap should be small, which would, theoretically mean that the entire student population is being well educated. We do bad on this.

We do bad here because we have an excellent special ed program, which draws students in form all over the county. We also have an excellent Advanced Placement (AP) program, which draws students in from all over the county. Since we draw in both special ed students and AP students, our "gap" is huge. I don't care how good a teacher one is, or how hard one works - the fact is that a child with Down's Syndrome will never come close to closing the gap with a student who has an I.Q. running at around 120.

The third thing that goes into the formula is length of time in high school. Ideally, you want to get them out in four years, and off to college. Every year over four lowers the school's score. Our school has an excellent alternative ed program for "non-traditional" students - those who get in trouble with the law, get pregnant, take a while to get serious, etc.

Unfortunately, by the time the student gets into the alternative ed program, they've usually already hit the four year mark, so they hurt our score - so much, in fact, that we will probably have to drop the program so we don't begin to lose funding for being a "failing school."

If we drop our excellent AP program, our excellent special ed programs, and our excellent alternative ed program, we would be ranked as a superior school... because we would be so freakin' average.




About teacher pay - I won't say much except that I've been teaching for 20 years. My daughter just graduated from college, and is working her first professional job. She makes more money than I do.



Education reform -

Yup - there are a lot of things which could be done better in education, and the quality of education varies wildly from state to state, and even from town to town.

Be sure when talking bout education reforms, though, that you are very, very clear as to exactly what is an "improvement." If not - if you just are dissatisfied with public education, but not clear on what you'd like changed, you are listed as "wanting education reform," which currently means privatizing public education. If this isn't what you want, make sure people know it.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

See, you just outlined pretty much everything wrong with just looking at test scores. Your school has genuine explanations for yours, which don't point out any problems in the quality of the school, but you're still in trouble. I feel like in Canada, they'd look into this. Mind you, in Canada test scores don't affect funding or threaten school closure (at least, not in BC...I can't speak for all provinces). I see why standardized testing helps, but it doesn't tell the whole story and more money needs to be invested in figuring out the reasons behind test scores.

Thanks for pointing out the stuff about education reform...I think there must be a lot of people in favour of change but definitely do NOT want privatized education! I know that if I were in the US, that would be the case with me.

[Ophidia]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

There are three measures used to calculate whether a school is "failing." The first is scores on standardized tests. We do good on these. The second score is based on the difference between the lowest performing students, and the highest performing students. "Ideally" this gap should be small, which would, theoretically mean that the entire student population is being well educated. We do bad on this.

We do bad here because we have an excellent special ed program, which draws students in form all over the county. We also have an excellent Advanced Placement (AP) program, which draws students in from all over the county. Since we draw in both special ed students and AP students, our "gap" is huge. I don't care how good a teacher one is, or how hard one works - the fact is that a child with Down's Syndrome will never come close to closing the gap with a student who has an I.Q. running at around 120.

And you probably have some asshole kids like I was who are very bright, perceptive and could easily excel at everything thrown at them - but are too busy dicking around in the back of the class to actually do anything.

I used to like to mess with people - we'd get our scantron sheets and I'd answer the questions based on making patterns with the little circles.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

And you probably have some asshole kids like I was who are very bright, perceptive and could easily excel at everything thrown at them - but are too busy dicking around in the back of the class to actually do anything.

I used to like to mess with people - we'd get our scantron sheets and I'd answer the questions based on making patterns with the little circles.

LOL - According to the "No Child Left Behind" law, by 2014 all U.S. schools must have 100% of students performing at grade level (including special ed kids with I.Q.'s running around 60), or be taken over as a failing school.

You're a perfect example of a statistical truth - you never get 100%, no matter what. There's always some goofball somewhere...

Incidentally, it is pretty much impossible to get 100% on any measurement that actually measures anything worthwhile (How many of your students breath oxygen? 100%. How many can print their first and last name when asked? 99.8%.), yet the law completely ignores that.

That's a federal program, tied to federal funds. Some states have elected to opt out, which means that they have given up federal funds in order to maintain actual, real, legitimate control over their schools.

[thalassa]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

Honestly, as a parent, I just want to opt my own kids out of standardized testing. Because, you know...using it to grade schools is bullshit.

Now, if it were used for parents and teachers to evaluate individual learning against state standards to appropriately place students in individual classes that served ability levels for subjects like math, reading, and science, rather than strict age cohorts...well, that would be so 25 years ago...but it worked in the school I went to.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Class Size and Teacher Pay in the US

Honestly, as a parent, I just want to opt my own kids out of standardized testing. Because, you know...using it to grade schools is bullshit.

Now, if it were used for parents and teachers to evaluate individual learning against state standards to appropriately place students in individual classes that served ability levels for subjects like math, reading, and science, rather than strict age cohorts...well, that would be so 25 years ago...but it worked in the school I went to.

Yeah we had some district tests when I was in school that were for that purpose. I think it's a good idea.

They're doing more standardized testing in Canada too, and it's a terrible idea. But I think they're starting to realize it. When I was in school, we only did said district tests, a standardized test in grade 10 (which is used to compare levels across the province and I believe this is also the test that they give to the OECD for the PISA scores, but don't quote me on that), and government exams in grade 12, which is for university entrance (and I wouldn't really call this standardized because you choose the subjects and all except English are not mandatory, though it is the same test for each subject across the province). I think there -might- have been something in grade 7 as well, but I'm not sure if it was another district test or a provincial one.