Every single DPS teacher gets a pink slip

[runnerXT]

i totally understand and agree with you.

I just want you to look at the flip side of things.

The top 10% of America earn about 50% of the income or something like that. The remaining 90% really have nothing. Take that last 50% of income and divide by the remaining 90% of the working population left. You will find an average income of just over $20,000 with barely any benefits. I think this is where a lot of the assualt of Union government jobs comes from. We have so much less.

I work in the service industry. No healcare, no sick days and certainly no pensions. Take $9.00/hour and multiply that by 32. Anything over 32 is fulltime with benefits so no one gets over 32 hours/week.

Take $9.00/hour in the service industry and multiply it by 32 hours per week. That is $288 per week before taxes. After taxes you are left with $201. Try living off that! A car, food, rent all that before healthcare and saving for retirement.

In the service industry you deal with people all day. So we get sick like you dealing with people all day. Actually at my fabulous job we are not allowed to call in sick. No that doesn't just mean we don't get paid we are not allowed to call in sick. We need to find a replacement worker, a co-worker who can cover. If not our job is in jeapordy. Ever wake up with the flu, food poisoning? Got to work anyway.

So while America is in a race to the bottom, must give the top 10% it all as they create jobs - ha!, the remaining 90% are done. I think people that work at Walmart, etc. look with envy at goverment jobs and don't understand your feelings.

Like I said I do agree with you, just letting you know the other side.

[RaumVogel]

That's a reality check.

[Det_ard]

And apparently, you don't know any better. If the teachers' union resisted these "innovations," then we wouldn't have entire public school districts doing Everyday Math.

I'm familiar with Everyday Math since I help my kids every day with their math and our district uses it. So I should be happy that the teacher's unions haven't resisted using something that's been proven to work? That's a pretty low standard to meet. I expect better than that and I hope that's not the best case you can make for teachers' unions' receptivity to innovation. Using proven approaches is what people, businesses and organizations do every day. It's kind of pathetic that you trot it out as an example of the unions' acceptance of "innovation".

I am now one of those "innovators" -- you know, most educational reforms are birthed at universities and think tanks, invented by people with the fancy letters after their names. If you'd read any of our [[many) threads about DPS and public schooling, you'd be aware of some of the issues. But I'm not going to debate with someone who hasn't done their homework, let alone been a public school teacher or administrator.

Spare me the chest pounding that only serves to highlight your defensiveness. I've read what you and others have had to say for years. I remember your arrival here. You thought you had all the answers back then too, and liked to buffalo through any challenges to your dogma.

I've run into your type in my local schools as well. You'd like parents to participate in all the fund-raising activities and help you make copies but not show up at school to see how you're performing in the education of the most precious things in the world to us. You'd like to stifle our questions and criticisms with an imperious wave of the hand, after all, we're not educators, what right do we have to question the validity or effectiveness of the approaches chosen by the random assembly of people we're told to give our children to for seven hours every day. You've got a lot of nerve. Perhaps some day if you have children of your own you'll see the other side of the educational system you so arrogantly defend. You might be like my daughter's teacher who has her son at Country Day.

I just came back home from the most elite educational research conference in the world. Finer minds than yours and mine are debating about the best ways to measure teacher performance. That debate continues. And yet, the average Joe and Jane on the street believe they've got it all figured out. Of course.

I don't think I have it figured out, and I never said I did. But that doesn't prevent me from seeing that the current system of seniority-based pay and jobs-for-life isn't working.

A quarter-century ago the medical field was being pressured to produce better results and use their resources more effectively. They also complained their performance couldn't be measured like some widget-makers in a factory somewhere. They were doctors. They saved lives. Their patients were all different, had varying levels of compliance with doctors' orders, levels of health, genetic risk factors, environmental hazards, socio-economic factors, and so on. Against their protests, performance measurements were developed that show which doctors, hospitals and procedures were the most effective. It can be done with the education sector as well, at least according to one of my former professors who went on to become the dean of a top 3 B-school and is now the president of an east coast university. In his words, "Anyone who says what they do can't be measured is chicken shit".

Detroit schools are failing, so [[supposedly) Detroit teachers deserve nothing. Troy schools are excellent, but I don't hear anyone offering Troy teachers $120K+. That is not the rhetoric among teachers. In the field, at our meetings around the state and the nation, and in my classes, there is a great deal of solidarity among teachers. The teachers in outlying counties respect those who are Detroit, and that respect only grows as the Detroit diaspora continues to move north and west.

I guess you'll be surprised to learn that I have a great deal of genuine respect for any teacher who does their job well. If you've been following my posts at all you'd know that I have no problem with excellent teachers earning over $100K and I'm willing to pay for that in my taxes. I appreciate the particular difficulty faced by urban teachers, especially those in the ever-dysfunctional DPS. I don't however have any qualms about wanting to see mediocre teachers fired and replaced by good or excellent teachers. I value education and my/our children too much to accept mediocre or flat-out poor teachers, hence my strong opposition to the impediments placed in the way of improvement by the teachers' unions. Putting 30 kids through one grade with a bad teacher is criminal, and the union and its supporters abet this malfeasance.

If we were actually respected as a real profession, the best teachers and professors would teach under the most difficult circumstances and our newbies would get plum jobs in the upper middle class and wealthy 'burbs. That's how medicine, law, nursing, etc. work -- the very best wrestle with the toughest cases. I'd be willing to bet that Guggenheim and all of those in favor of inner city public school district abolition would be more than willing to staff their tony schools with eager 22 year old Teach for America grads, and let Detroit, Inkster, Pontiac, and Ecorse have all the National Board certified vets who are golden at discipline and can teach calculus and Shakespeare in their sleep.

Teaching will struggle to be viewed as a profession as long as the current modus operandi exists. What profession treats their professionals with all the discrimination and discernment of a crew of assemblers in an auto plant? The teachers' union has fought for the ability to pay every teacher with 6 years on the job and a BA the same without regard to each teachers' actual ability or their results. A teaching prodigy with a BA from a top school and 8 years teaching experience will get paid far less than the teacher with 22 years in and a BA/MA from the easiest accredited college, even if everyone in the school acknowledges that they've essentially retired on the job and suck as a teacher. That doesn't happen in a legitimate profession.

I've personally experienced the "dance of the lemons", where an incompetent teacher from another school wasn't let go but instead was transferred to my school to "teach" my child. That is an outrage that you probably can't quite understand as a non-parent. Should I have to threaten to pull my kid out of school before count day in order to get her switched to a non-incompetent teacher? Should the children of the less clued-in parents have to suffer for a full grade with Mrs. Alcoholic Incompetent Anger-Management Issues because the union makes it so hard to do what's right? Perhaps your field would be viewed as more professional if it acted more professional. Perhaps it would attract more of the best and the brightest like other professions if entrants knew their excellence would be rewarded and incompetence wouldn't be allowed to sully the image of their profession.

[SlipperyPencil]

I understand your pain, but the reality is that DPS is flat broke. There isn't any money--anywhere.

As far as running DFT budget ideas before the Detroit Board--of course they'd agree with you. They have been against Bobb from the beginning. Add to that, a number of them are incapable of running a school district. This is part of the reason why DPS is in such a financial mess.

Bing's office? Wasn't he in favor of an emergency financial manager?

Snyder? He's the politician who signed the law giving the emergency financial manager all-encompassing control. More than likely, he agreed with you just to get rid of you. He knows that the ultimate decision rests with his guy, Bobb.

It's not my pain. I'm a complete outsider to the system.

The school board being against Bobb would not factor into their approval of the DFT's plan. The ideas hadn't been presented to Bobb when the board reviewed them and approved.

Snyder's office meet with the DFT leadership to review their ideas. Snyder was out of town at the time [[I think I was told he was in Europe, but don't recall exactly). Snyder's office called a 2nd meeting with the DFT leadership. Something they wouldn't have done if they were just trying to get rid of them. Snyder's office then requested a third meeting which Snyder was present at. Your assumption is obviously wrong.

Bobb was not appointed by Snyder. He's Granholm's guy.

[ja!mz]

i totally understand and agree with you.

I just want you to look at the flip side of things.

The top 10% of America earn about 50% of the income or something like that. The remaining 90% really have nothing. Take that last 50% of income and divide by the remaining 90% of the working population left. You will find an average income of just over $20,000 with barely any benefits. I think this is where a lot of the assualt of Union government jobs comes from. We have so much less.

I work in the service industry. No healcare, no sick days and certainly no pensions. Take $9.00/hour and multiply that by 32. Anything over 32 is fulltime with benefits so no one gets over 32 hours/week.

Take $9.00/hour in the service industry and multiply it by 32 hours per week. That is $288 per week before taxes. After taxes you are left with $201. Try living off that! A car, food, rent all that before healthcare and saving for retirement.

In the service industry you deal with people all day. So we get sick like you dealing with people all day. Actually at my fabulous job we are not allowed to call in sick. No that doesn't just mean we don't get paid we are not allowed to call in sick. We need to find a replacement worker, a co-worker who can cover. If not our job is in jeapordy. Ever wake up with the flu, food poisoning? Got to work anyway.

So while America is in a race to the bottom, must give the top 10% it all as they create jobs - ha!, the remaining 90% are done. I think people that work at Walmart, etc. look with envy at goverment jobs and don't understand your feelings.

Like I said I do agree with you, just letting you know the other side.

That was was a great synopsis...thats what the union people refuse to hear...the rest of us struggle to get by ...I deal with the same job issues you everyday as well, our voice gets drowned by the union members who are supposedly fighting to kepp our wages from going down further? all they care about is whats in it for them

[DetroitTeacher]

Been there, done that. I worked TWO almost full time jobs in the service industry [[no overtime, no benefits, minimum wage), raised a kid on my own and went to college full time [[all at the same time, mind you). Not a dime of child support, EVER. I've paid my dues and deserve what I worked hard to get.

i totally understand and agree with you.

I just want you to look at the flip side of things.

The top 10% of America earn about 50% of the income or something like that. The remaining 90% really have nothing. Take that last 50% of income and divide by the remaining 90% of the working population left. You will find an average income of just over $20,000 with barely any benefits. I think this is where a lot of the assualt of Union government jobs comes from. We have so much less.

I work in the service industry. No healcare, no sick days and certainly no pensions. Take $9.00/hour and multiply that by 32. Anything over 32 is fulltime with benefits so no one gets over 32 hours/week.

Take $9.00/hour in the service industry and multiply it by 32 hours per week. That is $288 per week before taxes. After taxes you are left with $201. Try living off that! A car, food, rent all that before healthcare and saving for retirement.

In the service industry you deal with people all day. So we get sick like you dealing with people all day. Actually at my fabulous job we are not allowed to call in sick. No that doesn't just mean we don't get paid we are not allowed to call in sick. We need to find a replacement worker, a co-worker who can cover. If not our job is in jeapordy. Ever wake up with the flu, food poisoning? Got to work anyway.

So while America is in a race to the bottom, must give the top 10% it all as they create jobs - ha!, the remaining 90% are done. I think people that work at Walmart, etc. look with envy at goverment jobs and don't understand your feelings.

Like I said I do agree with you, just letting you know the other side.

[13074Glenfield]

The biggest innovation that the teachers' unions resist is pay for performance. Aside from the fact that DPS is broke, public schools districts everywhere need to measure teachers' performance and pay them accordingly. Does that mean more testing? It does not have to. Job performance for professionals can be measured subjectively. That's how most of us are measured everyday. Do i mean your boss can fire you just because he or she doesn't like the job you're doing? Yes! What we want is for you to join the rest of us over here in the real world!

[DetroitTeacher]

I agree. I know I am doing my job and others aren't. My principal asked me to come to her school when my school closed. She contacted me [[I did mention to her that I would love to transfer to her school because I think she's a great admin). I'm not friends with her or anything like that. She knows I do my job and go above and beyond the call of duty. Believe me when I say that I wish that some teachers were gotten rid of...those who come in late, don't care anything about the kids, don't teach in the least, let the kids go wild in the room, don't know their subject matter, etc. I say get rid of them. Do whatever is best for the kids. Laying everyone off and giving the kids a sense of instability is not the way to go.

The biggest innovation that the teachers' unions resist is pay for performance. Aside from the fact that DPS is broke, public schools districts everywhere need to measure teachers' performance and pay them accordingly. Does that mean more testing? It does not have to. Job performance for professionals can be measured subjectively. That's how most of us are measured everyday. Do i mean your boss can fire you just because he or she doesn't like the job you're doing? Yes! What we want is for you to join the rest of us over here in the real world!

[English]

I'm familiar with Everyday Math since I help my kids every day with their math and our district uses it. So I should be happy that the teacher's unions haven't resisted using something that's been proven to work? That's a pretty low standard to meet. I expect better than that and I hope that's not the best case you can make for teachers' unions' receptivity to innovation. Using proven approaches is what people, businesses and organizations do every day. It's kind of pathetic that you trot it out as an example of the unions' acceptance of "innovation".

No, what's more pathetic is that you don't see how you've proven my point. Name other times when public school unions resisted changes in curriculum. I don't think you can. Your ignorant post proves that you know little about what unions do and what they are for.

Spare me the chest pounding that only serves to highlight your defensiveness. I've read what you and others have had to say for years. I remember your arrival here. You thought you had all the answers back then too, and liked to buffalo through any challenges to your dogma.

No, what I'll spare you with is an in-kind ad hominem attack. It's pretty easy to say things things behind the keyboard; I'd bet you'd have trouble saying them to someone's face. On the other hand, I would say everything in any of my posts to any of you. So I have little use for Internet bravery.

I have zero respect for someone who isn't in the trenches, but attack me all you like if that makes you feel better. All you know about me is what I've chosen to post here, and all I know about you is what you choose to post. Apparently some people think I have some answers offline, and I have long ceased to care what the armchair intellectuals around DYes think about me. So you can spare me your nastiness.

I've run into your type in my local schools as well.

Oh, really? Tell me more. [[Let's see how much you project.)

You'd like parents to participate in all the fund-raising activities and help you make copies but not show up at school to see how you're performing in the education of the most precious things in the world to us.

Wow. What districts did I teach in again? In nearly a decade in the classroom, not once did any parent make copies. A few good folks participated in fund-raising activities [[mainly, by bringing order forms and envelopes to school), but the hours of prep before and after the fundraiser were all mine. I wasn't paid, but it was my job.

It would have been nice if the parents of those "precious darlings" who knew about grantsmanship could have helped in that area. I confess I was but a "defensive" twentysomething teacher who wanted my students to have the best opportunities. But so many were too busy, and after all, it was my job! I learned how to do it, got a few projects funded, and when I got to CT, helped my students learn about writing proposals too. One runs a nonprofit, and I had lunch with another to get her proposal off the ground. I loved doing it, but I resent the hell out of people who think I should have made minimum wage and had no protection for doing so.

My classroom syllabi are available on the web, Det_ard. I have an open door policy. Any parent or guardian can sit in my classroom for any reason. During my first two years as a teacher, I taught the children of some of the most prominent Detroiters. So the head of mathematics for DPS sat through MOST of my math classes, and offered many tips. That was but one of those who helped me attain excellent word of mouth.

[You'd like to stifle our questions and criticisms with an imperious wave of the hand, after all, we're not educators, what right do we have to question the validity or effectiveness of the approaches chosen by the random assembly of people we're told to give our children to for seven hours every day.

You can't be serious. I have taught over a thousand kids and teenagers. Out of all those kids, maybe 5 parents would agree with that statement -- hey, I'm not perfect. I will answer ANY valid question or concern about curriculum, pedagogy, or classroom management, but you are the type of parent who I'd tell to go talk to my principal because you've already got an ideological maggot in your brain about something, and nothing I could possibly do or say would satisfy you. My principal would tell you to go talk to the superintendent. The superintendent would call the principal, they'd have a talk, and the principal would follow up with me. [[Notice -- the union didn't get involved.)

People like you don't believe that education is an area of expertise at all. People like you wouldn't question advice that any other professional was giving you. You'd take a prescription that a mediocre doctor who barely passed their boards scribbled out for you without question, and think that teachers like the ones who have taught your own children are only good when you agree with their methods.

You've got a lot of nerve.

And you know exactly where you can go.

Perhaps some day if you have children of your own you'll see the other side of the educational system you so arrogantly defend.

Wow. So all parents are automatically more qualified to speak about education than those without kids? How about people who agree with you and are childless? How about those who defend DPS and are union members, but are also parents? How about the legions of parents who are the real reason why people want combat pay for teaching their children?

And you have no idea why I don't have children. Perhaps I can't have any. At any rate, it's none of your business, and has no bearing on the discussion. It's hilarious that you went there.

You might be like my daughter's teacher who has her son at Country Day.

Well, since I don't have children, as you so diligently pointed out, who knows what I'd do? I just bought a condo in the CBD. I doubt I'd drive so far in the opposite direction every day. But just as I don't know what I'd do as a parent, you have NO idea what it is like to teach, care for, and love "other people's children" [[as a famous educational title so aptly puts it).

We are not talking about PARENTING here. We are talking about PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION.

I don't think I have it figured out, and I never said I did. But that doesn't prevent me from seeing that the current system of seniority-based pay and jobs-for-life isn't working.

So what works? Please, inform yourself about the failure of merit pay:

https://www.readability.com/articles/mjwe76ua

What you propose will lead to a Parable of the Sower scenario in one generation. Kill the unions and set DPS salaries at $25-30K, and you will no longer get National Board Certified teachers, those with experience, and career changers with advanced degrees in STEM fields [[several of them were the backbone of the math and science departments at CT). Instead you will get eager young TfA grads who do NOT stay in urban districts and those without any other options.

The instability of the current system already flushed me out, and I was very good heading towards excellent. I was heading toward National Board certification. Cut any more, and maybe DetroitTeacher, not only an excellent educator but one who has persevered far more than I ever could, might reconsider her options and think about a career change. But then again, since you've already shown how much you disrespect and disdain me, you wouldn't count the evidence of my test scores, anecdotes, word of mouth, parent testimonials, etc. Now that all of my students are adults, I'd bet you wouldn't even listen to them. No, I'm just that arrogant Black lady educator on DYes, who thinks she knows everything, and makes some of your blood boil. Fine. [[Actually, good.)

A quarter-century ago the medical field was being pressured to produce better results and use their resources more effectively. They also complained their performance couldn't be measured like some widget-makers in a factory somewhere. They were doctors. They saved lives. Their patients were all different, had varying levels of compliance with doctors' orders, levels of health, genetic risk factors, environmental hazards, socio-economic factors, and so on. Against their protests, performance measurements were developed that show which doctors, hospitals and procedures were the most effective. It can be done with the education sector as well, at least according to one of my former professors who went on to become the dean of a top 3 B-school and is now the president of an east coast university. In his words, "Anyone who says what they do can't be measured is chicken shit".

So now, we're comparing business and medicine to education? I'm confused.

I guess you'll be surprised to learn that I have a great deal of genuine respect for any teacher who does their job well.

Actually, I think you're being disingenuous. There are some fine educators here on DYes, and you have routinely dismissed us all.

More refutations in my next post...

[English]

More responses to Det_ard's post--

If you've been following my posts at all you'd know that I have no problem with excellent teachers earning over $100K and I'm willing to pay for that in my taxes. I appreciate the particular difficulty faced by urban teachers, especially those in the ever-dysfunctional DPS. I don't however have any qualms about wanting to see mediocre teachers fired and replaced by good or excellent teachers. I value education and my/our children too much to accept mediocre or flat-out poor teachers, hence my strong opposition to the impediments placed in the way of improvement by the teachers' unions.

From Harvard University's "Project on the Next Generation of Teachers":

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~ngt/

"The generation of teachers now retiring is the first—and may be the last—to make teaching a life-long career. Today, prospective teachers compare a career in education with many others, such as law, engineering, business, finance, which were largely closed to the cohort of retiring teachers when they entered the classroom in the 1960s and 1970s. Growing evidence shows that today’s early-career teachers are, indeed, part of a new and different generation. Nearly half have worked in another field before becoming teachers and many have prepared for teaching in non-traditional programs. As a cohort, they are more likely than their predecessors to treat teaching as a short-term career and to be less satisfied with its professional isolation, standardized pay, undifferentiated roles, and lack of opportunities for influence and advancement. In an effort to inform policy and practice, The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers continues to explore and examine these teachers’ preferences, practices, and career decisions."

Putting 30 kids through one grade with a bad teacher is criminal, and the union and its supporters abet this malfeasance.

I can't believe that you assert that unions support higher class sizes. Here's what my union says:

http://www.aft.org/issues/schoolrefo...size/index.cfm

The critics of public school unions often reminisce about how lovely it was in the prewar era when teachers weren't unionized and 40-50 or more students learned reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic with outdated books and scarce supplies. The unions have actually kept class sizes down. I can't believe you didn't do your homework on this issue, Det_ard.

Teaching will struggle to be viewed as a profession as long as the current modus operandi exists. What profession treats their professionals with all the discrimination and discernment of a crew of assemblers in an auto plant? The teachers' union has fought for the ability to pay every teacher with 6 years on the job and a BA the same without regard to each teachers' actual ability or their results.

Some folks on DYes get angry when I point out that I have a doctorate, but let me risk their "wrath" to make this point. There is an army of adjuncts who likely were and are better university teachers than I am at this point. They have teaching their classes for a while, are well liked by students, and are adept with the material. Some of them taught for many years. I am making the shift from teaching teens to teaching adults.

In the university system, the doctorate is the key to a tenure-track job. It is key to a professorship. Tenured and tenure-line faculty make more than adjuncts, even very good ones. The university rewards the credential AND time served. I likely know more about new research and can relate to my students because many are close to my age, but there is NO WAY I ought to make more than a senior, full professor even if that person researches and teachers less than I do. They have deep institutional knowledge and they have EARNED it.

It's not the same in K-12 education, but it's similar.

A teaching prodigy with a BA from a top school and 8 years teaching experience will get paid far less than the teacher with 22 years in and a BA/MA from the easiest accredited college, even if everyone in the school acknowledges that they've essentially retired on the job and suck as a teacher. That doesn't happen in a legitimate profession.

Yes, there are some teachers with 22 years in, but few teaching prodigies would have just a BA after 8 years in the classroom if they're any good at all. But I'd like to address another point -- that doesn't happen in a legit profession? So there are not plenty of doctors engaged in malpractice, no slippery attorneys, no thieving accountants? I'd argue that our health care system, politics, criminal justice system, and Wall Street are engaged in crises similar to those in education. Very interesting that only certain of these are subjected to politically motivated attacks.

I've personally experienced the "dance of the lemons", where an incompetent teacher from another school wasn't let go but instead was transferred to my school to "teach" my child. That is an outrage that you probably can't quite understand as a non-parent. Should I have to threaten to pull my kid out of school before count day in order to get her switched to a non-incompetent teacher? Should the children of the less clued-in parents have to suffer for a full grade with Mrs. Alcoholic Incompetent Anger-Management Issues because the union makes it so hard to do what's right?

Actually, it's not the union that keeps her in place. Are you serious? If unions were all powerful, I'd still have a JOB. Administrators, to keep the peace, do not want to upset the apple cart. So they don't start the process of getting rid of bad teachers.

There are plenty of bad teachers who are let go. I've seen it happen.

Perhaps your field would be viewed as more professional if it acted more professional. Perhaps it would attract more of the best and the brightest like other professions if entrants knew their excellence would be rewarded and incompetence wouldn't be allowed to sully the image of their profession.

Actually, I was one of those who could have done anything. Here comes that "English" arrogance again -- I was a National Merit scholar, and was routinely told how insane I was to become a teacher.

Teaching is the profession that makes all others. I'll never be a doctor, a lawyer, a sculptor, a community organizer, a freedom fighter, a NFL player, or any host of things. In the years that I was a K-12 teacher, I'm happy to say that I taught them all. My students keep up with me, and do heartbreakingly kind things even all these years later. I poured my heart and soul into the classroom, and as my veteran mentors told me years ago, they are my reward.

12 years into education, I can truly say that I've had a great career, despite all the ups and downs. I've had wonderful opportunities. The city of Detroit and the world overseas has literally been my classroom. I have met wonderful children, teens, parents, community members, and fellow educators from around the world.

I have zero regrets, and can honestly say that I love what I do. I have been generally compensated at a level I'd say is fair, and unlike most of my peers, I have retirement savings out of my earnings. Although teaching teachers doesn't give the immediate, bittersweet satisfaction of being down in the trenches, knowing that you've taught someone how to read or that a kid's seventh draft of their college admissions essay is the charm, I admire my students and have started to bond with them. I tirelessly seek solutions for the challenges they face in their classrooms.

I tell them to hold their heads up high, and to stand up straight -- being a TEACHER is one of the most noble careers. They should always be ready and able to talk about the facts of their profession with even the harshest critics, and they should back up their words with excellence. That is how I live and what I believe in.

[oldredfordette]

English, I've been following this discussion with great interest, and I'd like to thank you - for your tone through this and for the obvious love of the profession. You and DetroitTeacher have my admiration. It's a sick fucked up system that tries to drive people like you two out of what is the most important job in this [[or any) country.

[English]

The biggest innovation that the teachers' unions resist is pay for performance. Aside from the fact that DPS is broke, public schools districts everywhere need to measure teachers' performance and pay them accordingly. Does that mean more testing? It does not have to. Job performance for professionals can be measured subjectively. That's how most of us are measured everyday. Do i mean your boss can fire you just because he or she doesn't like the job you're doing? Yes! What we want is for you to join the rest of us over here in the real world!

On merit pay --
https://www.readability.com/articles/mjwe76ua

[English]

English, I've been following this discussion with great interest, and I'd like to thank you - for your tone through this and for the obvious love of the profession. You and DetroitTeacher have my admiration. It's a sick fucked up system that tries to drive people like you two out of what is the most important job in this [[or any) country.

Thanks, oldredfordette. I am teaching my students [[who are prospective and practicing teachers) that we are just one front of this giant, frightening attack on anything that is for the public good -- anything that certain forces perceive is outside of the free market.

DetroitTeacher is the real hero, along with 65memories, Detroitfats, and all the other DYes teachers in DPS.

[DetroitTeacher]

Thanks for the words. Fortunately, nothing anyone says or does is going to drive me from doing what I love. If DPS fires me, I'll have another job in a hot second. I am highly qualified to teach kids with autism, learning disabilities, English and History. I am one of the very few gen ed teachers to have those credentials. I've had offers from the 'burbs and have refused them. I love my kids and don't feel that I can abandon them now, especially when so many others are.

English, I've been following this discussion with great interest, and I'd like to thank you - for your tone through this and for the obvious love of the profession. You and DetroitTeacher have my admiration. It's a sick fucked up system that tries to drive people like you two out of what is the most important job in this [[or any) country.

[oldredfordette]

Words are easy, I wish there was something we could do to help this. I feel so helpless and angry, and here you are, going in there every day and doing what you do.

[DetroitTeacher]

Attend the Town Hall meetings that Bobb has, that's one way the public can help. Don't feel helpless and angry. It's not doing anyone any good to be angry [[and it's probably not helping with blood pressures, either). I'm not angry. I am concerned for my kids. They are voicing their concerns about the fall already. They want teachers to be there to teach them, teachers who "get" them, teachers who care. They don't want the TfA kids who are out of tune with urban youth [[and I even heard one TfA young person voice concern about her safety in the schools. I guess a kid told her to go F**ck herself and to watch her back...she was looking timid to begin with and he felt that). I am also concerned that good teachers might give up and do something else with their lives. Our kids need that stability and people who care. One student told me that he comes and irritates me everyday because his mom doesn't care about him but I do. It's his way of telling me he needs someone to talk to, to confide in, to show his report card to, to love him. He really doesn't irritate me, I saw the message behind his eyes. I listen, I care, I share my lunch with him, I supply him with folders and paper and pens, I care and I do love the kid [[in a human being sort of way, nothing weird). He voiced his concern over the layoffs because he feels that there won't be anyone to care about him if all of his teachers don't return. THAT is what saddens me. Kids like that won't know that there really are people who care.

Words are easy, I wish there was something we could do to help this. I feel so helpless and angry, and here you are, going in there every day and doing what you do.

[13074Glenfield]

I agree. I know I am doing my job and others aren't. My principal asked me to come to her school when my school closed. She contacted me [[I did mention to her that I would love to transfer to her school because I think she's a great admin). I'm not friends with her or anything like that. She knows I do my job and go above and beyond the call of duty. Believe me when I say that I wish that some teachers were gotten rid of...those who come in late, don't care anything about the kids, don't teach in the least, let the kids go wild in the room, don't know their subject matter, etc. I say get rid of them. Do whatever is best for the kids. Laying everyone off and giving the kids a sense of instability is not the way to go.

You and I are on the same page, and not for the first time. You should be teaching in a private school where you don't have to put up with the structural bull that comes with the public school system.

[13074Glenfield]

On merit pay --
https://www.readability.com/articles/mjwe76ua

It says a lot about your frame of mind that you automatically link merit pay to testing. Of course, your union would demand it but, in real life, most of us are judged subjectively without a lot of rigamarole. That you can't imagine this is in itself a criticism of public education.

[DetroitTeacher]

I love my kids and all of the issues that come with them. I'm not ready to give up on public education just yet. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

You and I are on the same page, and not for the first time. You should be teaching in a private school where you don't have to put up with the structural bull that comes with the public school system.

[Ray1936]

Sadly, I must note that I'm one of those who never had the good fortune to have a teacher that inspired me. Most seemed rather bored to be in the classroom [[Monnier GS, Mackenzie HS), and I can't recall one that ever went out of his/her way for me.

On to WSU, and it got even worse. Arrogant staff and a 'student advisor' who was the most bored, unconcerned person I ever met. Wish I knew his name so I could piss on his grave.

Nonetheless, I fared okay in school. But I often think that I missed something by not crossing paths with that one, special teacher.

Apologies to those here who appear to be quite dedicated.

[noenaim]

Once again--no one is forcing them to work in Detroit. If they want better working conditions and more money--find work in another district!!!

You are very ignorant about this issue
if it were easy to get another teaching job in another district everyone would do it

and someone has to teach in DPS

[DetroitTeacher]

On the contrary, not everyone would do it. I work with some very dedicated teachers who have a love for kids in DPS. Yes, kids are kids but kids in DPS seem to need that something extra that caring teachers have to offer. I wouldn't trade my kids for any others and I know other teachers in DPS who feel the same.

You are very ignorant about this issue
if it were easy to get another teaching job in another district everyone would do it

and someone has to teach in DPS

[noenaim]

Teacher in Detroit top salary with a Masters degree is about 72,000 a year but after taxes health care and other deductions most DPS teachers take home around 42,000 and thats with extra pay from summer school, after school or coaching a team but I guess thats still too much.

[DetroitTeacher]

Ray: I am sorry that not one teacher touched your life. Quite a few touched mine and that is why I became a teacher. I wanted to give that spark to another kid. I am simply giving back what I was given when I was young. I wanted to give back to those kids who seemed to need it the most. I've never met kids quite like those in DPS. You really have to get to know them in order to love them...the media portrays them in such a negative light. I just hope that I can give to my kids what you never received from a teacher.

Sadly, I must note that I'm one of those who never had the good fortune to have a teacher that inspired me. Most seemed rather bored to be in the classroom [[Monnier GS, Mackenzie HS), and I can't recall one that ever went out of his/her way for me.

On to WSU, and it got even worse. Arrogant staff and a 'student advisor' who was the most bored, unconcerned person I ever met. Wish I knew his name so I could piss on his grave.

Nonetheless, I fared okay in school. But I often think that I missed something by not crossing paths with that one, special teacher.

Apologies to those here who appear to be quite dedicated.

[mwilbert]

It says a lot about your frame of mind that you automatically link merit pay to testing. Of course, your union would demand it but, in real life, most of us are judged subjectively without a lot of rigamarole. That you can't imagine this is in itself a criticism of public education.

I agree that many people's work is judged subjectively, but in the real world how do you think this would work for teachers. You can't really let the kids judge. They hardly ever have other adults watching what they do. What would the basis of this judgment be? There aren't a lot of other jobs like that. I can imagine setting up some kind of mechanism that could work--recording a bunch of classes and having them reviewed by some kind of panel, for instance. But those mechanisms don't appear to exist now.