6,100 Teachers To Be Laid Off, Good for Tea Party

aboutready

printer, where are you going to find "good teachers for all"

Let's see - how about you make it a rewarding career, where the better you are, the more rewarded you are - its not just about the $ from an economic standpoint - its about not seeing a less than competent teacher treated the same as a good one. If you can't see that a system which is currently more about protecting its worst teachers rather than promoting its best discourages talented people from entering and succeeding to the utmost of their abilities, I don't know what more to say.

aboutready, no one cares about your child's class size.

licc, printer does. he thinks it doesn't matter.

if you don't have anything substantive to add, why don't you try not typing.

printer, good luck with that. just think of what you are saying.

a good friend gave up a lucrative career in marketing to become an elementary school teacher in the south bronx. he lasted three years. he said the worst thing that happened in those kids lives was entering public school.

so let's see AR: first you state (w/o evidence, btw) that: "the advantage tends to be the greatest when poverty is highest and in early years for underachievers"

then go on to say "you really think my kid got no advantage to being in a class of 16-18 kids with two teachers"

your child is neither below the poverty line nor an underachiever in the early years. you are a well educated woman, who has the time, resources and passion to see that her daughter achieves success. If anything, class size would hardly matter at all for your daughter, because the overwhelming sociological variables that affect a child's educational success are so overwhelmingly in her favor.

One more question for you: From your comments, I gather that you did not grow up in great privilege yet went to Yale. When you were there, did you feel that your classmates who came from an elite private/prep school background were better students? Because I went to a different ivy league school, and for the most part I would say the best students were those from a public school background. I was pretty unimpressed overall with the kids from the elite prep schools.

how disingenuous printer. the studies aren't looking at the differences between the largest class sizes in public schools and the smallest at the top privates. of course there was an advantage.

and i never said there weren't advantages within the public system outside of poverty and underachievers, i just said it's the greatest.

Printer: I have looked at some of the studies that say class size don't matter. The devil's in the details. Our (public) school has class sizes ranging from 20 to 32. It is a "middle-class" NYC public school, and most parents have college degrees. Many have gone to grad school. In this specific situation, having a smaller class size would be nice, but I don't think (absent some disruptive kids-luck of the draw situation) that the larger class is getting a "quantifiably" worse education. But that has less to do with the school than the parents & socio-economic background of the kids & many of the kids who require more attention/meds/whatever get the extra help they need outside the classroom.

Or take Anderson. One could increase class size 10% and again, probably no quantifiable life-long difference. But to say that class size difference NEVER matters, ever is incorrect.

" he said the worst thing that happened in those kids lives was entering public school." You sound like me now ar.

I am, as stated previously, acquainted with some of the top public schools in countries where the class size is 40+. But those student bodies are highly selected for & don't forget the tracking systems in place (commonplace in Western Europe for example).

look, printer, i could go round up numerous studies, cc just posted one. i'm not getting into a study war with you.

i got lucky, extremely. and maybe yale was different. i saw a great deal of talent and intellect from both the publics and the privates. i also saw some fairly unimpressive people from both. but no, i didn't notice that one was better than the other. the kids from the privates were certainly better prepared, especially in the simple mechanics of test taking and paper writing. some of the kids from privates seemed burnt out, but some from public did as well.

I'm pointing out that aboutready consistently takes an anecdotal self-centered view of every discussion, which reduces her credibility. That is a substantive comment.

licc, you're a toad. what do you offer other than insults and an occasional link saying how great lic is? some political commentary now and then?

you define negative.

Kids from public schools got no future if they don't succeed, what are they gonna do? Work as a cab driver like their dad? Or seamstress at a sweat shop?

Now prep school kids, once they get to college, it's the first time in their lives where their over achieving over bearing parents can't have a 'physical' presence over them, and they know if they graduate with a C, their parents' connections will get them into an entry level job somewhere from where they will apply to grad school. That's my fear, my kids will get into an ivy and be the town sluts/partiers for 4 years and let the old man pick up the pieces.

public school parents can be a pita also, w67th. we had burnt out public school kids.

you need to teach the young ones that they are getting good grades for themselves, not their parents or their teachers.

i never have to tell the kid to do her homework, ever.

Where are all these "less than competent" teachers? I know quite a few people who have children in public schools, in NYC and elsewhere, and the closest thing I've ever heard to that are parents offended that the teachers would dare call their kids on behavioral problems, or on learning disabilities (right or wrong, I won't judge ... I'm just saying those were the parental complaints).

The one exception was a complaint about severe linearity in a kindergarten teacher, who when asked by the parent HOW she is teaching children geography, kept replying "How? I'm teaching them geography." ... as if there aren't many ways to convey that concept to 5-year-olds. That, btw, was at a prestigious NYC private school with very small classes, proving that the good teacher - small class vs. bad teacher - large class thing doesn't hold up.

The bottom line is that union teachers are the Welfare Queens of 2010, similar to the scapegoat of 500 B.C. So far, senior citizens appear to be the 2011 model, antichrists on earth who are the cause of all problems.

Not incidentally, *I* am interested in the class sizes at aboutready's child's school.

if only there were only stellar teachers we could fire a third to half of them and have better education all around.

don't you get it, AH?

apparently AH and AR live in Lake Wobegone, where all teachers are above average.

Liberals love to frame the debate in the most irresponsible way. Teachers get unaffordable benefits and pensions, well beyond what is available in the private sector, that drain government budgets. If you call for making the benefits and pensions more in line with what is reasonable and fair, and if you call for more accountability in teaching, liberals accuse you of trying to harm the children by increasing class size (a debatable claim). They throw around inaccurate facts and distort the argument to defend sucking taxpayers dry.

If you want a lot of teachers, you should be for reforming the benefits and pensions they receive so that we can afford to keep more of them.

aboutready

look, printer, i could go round up numerous studies, cc just posted one. i'm not getting into a study war with you.

That is exactly my point. their is no clear evidence that class size is a meaningful variable in student achievement. for pretty much every study, if you analyze the data one way it will say that it is (slightly) and another will say that it isn't. So to allocate our finite funds towards something with at best meager results is foolish.

nyc10023:

1st, the studies attempt, as best they can, to isolate for socioeconomic factors. 2nd, of course it sometimes matters - both ways, in fact. several of the studies show a (small) inverse correlation between smaller class size and achievement. the evidence is that in the overwhelming majority of cases it makes little or no difference. Allocation finite funds towards something that makes little difference is a poor decision.

No, seriously, what are you first- or second-hand experiences with bad teachers? Not in Lake Woebegone, but in NYC.

I'm sure they're not all superstars, but I have no reason to believe there are more than a few truly bad ones. And I have no reason to believe that any kind of "performance management" (a religion) will improve their teaching performance, weed out bad ones, attract better ones, create any meaningful incentives of any kind, etc. It's just a tool to create an army of yes-men and yes-girls.

it is about widening the pool of potential teachers. make it more attractive - make it like other careers where the better you are, the better you do, and you will attract more talented people.

a system where you basically can't get rid of anyone brings everyone down. which is unfortunate, because there are so many great teachers and potential teachers out there - I'd like to see us support them, not defend the laggards.

ar---you have captured the essence of LICC flawlessly

six seven--boarding school kids these days are likely the least hovered-over of all--wealth and that the kids live at home is correlate with hoverage--

imho, at this point, connections, but for those from the most extremely wealthy and powerful, are not so much a factor anymore--there are too many applicants for schools/jobs with great grades/test scores, and real accomplishments-- it's tough to carry the torch for rich kids who haven't achieved anything--it aint over, but it is not nearly as prevalent as when i was younger

my experience as a student 100 years ago, and as a parent now is that kids from the best public schools and better private schools, are very well-prepared, with neither producing consistently the "best" students as cited by printer--wealth correlates with hoverage--but hoverage exists in less well-off families too

my daughter who switched from a school with small classes, where teachers taught, corrected work of, and graded small numbers of students; to a school with big classes, where teachers taught, etc much larger numbers of students; found the class time at the latter school comparatively useless. she was forced to do much more out-of-classroom work (homework) to compensate, and to get what she wanted in the latter school.

my kids' education is not something i would experiment with--i err on the side of over-providing for them in this area--the last thing i would do would be to choose their schools based on some agendized counterintuitive research--printer, if you are comfortable sending your kids, (i youve any) or kids you care about, to a school will a relatively small teacher/student ratio, where you have other choices, i wish you luck

"you want to put your kid in a class of 35 kids with one teacher who i guarantee will quickly hate his/her job, feel free. and you really think my kid got no advantage to being in a class of 16-18 kids with two teachers, not counting the time spent in specials? ha!"

If we're not supposed to look at teacher quality, and it doesn't matter because its all the parents' faults anyway.

Why don't we just hire 5 minimum wagers for every current teacher. Then tiny class sizes.

"it is about widening the pool of potential teachers. make it more attractive - make it like other careers where the better you are, the better you do, and you will attract more talented people.

a system where you basically can't get rid of anyone brings everyone down. which is unfortunate, because there are so many great teachers and potential teachers out there - I'd like to see us support them, not defend the laggards."

for once, I agree with printer here.

oh, and printer, let me guess? you went to public school?

i never have to tell my kids to do their homework and if i did they'd tell me to f off--thkfully they want it on their own, cuz aint nothin about me

"The bottom line is that union teachers are the Welfare Queens of 2010, similar to the scapegoat of 500 B.C. So far, senior citizens appear to be the 2011 model, antichrists on earth who are the cause of all problems."

well said--and then there are the overpaid docotrs, lawyers, there's social security--it rotates with the theme being to commoditize and privatize--

i never said not to look at teacher quality. i'm sure it varies immensely. but increasing a teacher's class size because he/she is among the best is hardly a reward for quality teaching, nor is it a way of encouraging the best to become and remain teachers. and teaching poor/disadvantaged populations is grueling at best.

it's just not that simple.

AR - read through my question from yesterday - the idea would be to pay the good teachers more in exchange for teaching bigger classes. and I agree wholeheartedly - we should incentivize teachers to work with more difficult populations.

yes, Wbottom, I went through a typical upper middle class suburban public school system, since that matters to you.

Why not try giving teachers fair affordable pensions, instead of their current system which is bankrupting state and local governments?

Who are "the good teachers" ... those who excel at managing upward? And why would someone who excels at managing upward be any more able to provide a good education to a class of 35 students?

W67: I hear you. But, at least you stacked the genetic stack in their favor + supportive family. After that, it's up to them.

Wbottom: agree.

"Where are all these "less than competent" teachers? I know quite a few people who have children in public schools, in NYC and elsewhere, and the closest thing I've ever heard to that are parents offended that the teachers would dare call their kids on behavioral problems, or on learning disabilities (right or wrong, I won't judge ... I'm just saying those were the parental complaints)."

1) You definitely don't know enough parents, particularly those in lower-income districts
2) The most complaints I've heard about bad teachers are from... other teachers.
3) Proof is in the pudding. We're failing miserably.

And, sure, you can talk about the welfare queen... but don't forget there *were* clear problems with welfare, and there still are!

Things resonate most when they have a basis in truth.

If anything, we slept for too long while education in this country got worse.

Should be stack genetic "odds"

Wbottom - yes, I have kids. and yes, I would always send my kids to the school with fewer good teachers rather than more mediocre ones.

SWE: agree with your points. It raises the teachers' game when they know that they have a class of kids that will do their homework, that they can rely on the parents to feed & clothe the kids.

Well, printer so would I. But in the absence of knowing apriori who the good teachers are, and knowing that your child will be assigned a good teacher, I err in favor of sending my kids to a "good" public as long as it's practicable.

Most of the parents I know live in lower-income districts. I think I need not comment on the validity of catty in-fighting remarks from fellow workers, but suffice it to see they come from many different backgrounds, and spend their non-teaching work time not in offices but in dreary, cramped, falling-apart rooms getting on each others nerves.

And failing miserably? Maybe, but causation? Not even a bit. There are myriad other factors at play.

The clear problems with welfare just might be the best possible outcome, balancing generosity with incentives to move on (e.g. paying 65% of the poverty level). Telling a 2-year-old that he's no longer eligible for subsistence living because his two years of public assistance are up might not be the wisest path, "clear problems" notwithstanding. Nobody ever said welfare is supposed to be a perfect solution.

keep it simple as in licc:

just cut the pensions---that'll fix it

the more teachers, good or bad, in my kids' world; the greater the chance my kids will connect with teachers they like, and become effective students and people---clearly i am lucky to be able to prioritze and budget good education for my kids, and they are lucky that i care to do so---we should care to do so for all the children of our country--

and if you privatize our public school system, it will be the next great looting of our middle class

wbottom - that is quite spurious logic you are using - by your logic, they are more likely to end up with a bad teacher who turns them off.

privatizing our public school system? A+ for the strawman.

printer: it's about the odds improving that they connect with a good teacher, who they are inspired by---they will end up also with bad teachers, whom they make it work with (life lesson); but they will connect and develop inspiring longterm relationships with good teachers--the more teachers they have access to, the greater the chance they will connect with some good ones--couldnt be more simple

and if the good ones they encounter are busy and exhausted, because there are few teachers generally, my kids wont be able to get close to them anyway--of course, less money will be spent, but that's not my primary objective

and who determines criteria for "bad teachers" you plan to fire?

that should be interesting

and yes, the contents of the rubber room, generally, should go---but of those in the classrooms, who do you fire?

I wouldn't assume the rubber-room victims are quite as guilty of the "crimes" they're charged with as we'd believe from the one-sided information we get.

As for the criteria, let's take a good look at where management philosophy is coming from in NYC. Boston Bloomberg's longstanding policy, as more than a few employees of his company have told me, is that if you dare to leave his employment to work elsewhere, you can never be rehired at Bloomberg. Vindictive much? Feudal, perhaps? Stale blood? A culture of yes-men? Yes, man!

SO for those of you who like nothing more than to complain about"bad" teachers and "overpaid" teachers, answer the following questions:

1. How do we identify "bad" teachers?

2. What should teachers make? Teachers currently start at $45k (see: http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/EDDB658C-BE7F-4314-85C0-03F5A00B8A0B/0/salary.pdf ). What should we drop that figure to?

3. Let's fire them if they dare get married, or at least are in a family way. It's the pre-union tradition. Honest.

who decides at every employer which employees get fired and which get promotions/raises? by your logic, if there is no way to determine what constitutes an underperforming teacher, there is no way to determine what constitutes an outperforming teacher. so we should just conduct a reverse auction every year for teachers and hire as many as the budget will allow, since clearly there is no difference, and quantity > quality (which of course, is undefinable anyway).

> 2. What should teachers make? Teachers currently start at $45k (see:
> http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/EDDB658C-BE7F-4314-85C0-03F5A00B8A0B/0/salary.pdf ). What should
> we drop that figure to?

You don't drop intro salaries. The fabulous teacher's union fought to reduce intro salaries to pay for the oldies getting substantially more. A relative saw her salary double in about 7 years. Which has exponential effects when you add in overtime and pensions, meaning the higher rates gets paid for another 30-40 years.

The older teachers with more clout f*ed the younger teachers.

"who decides at every employer which employees get fired and which get promotions/raises? by your logic, if there is no way to determine what constitutes an underperforming teacher, there is no way to determine what constitutes an outperforming teacher. so we should just conduct a reverse auction every year for teachers and hire as many as the budget will allow, since clearly there is no difference, and quantity > quality (which of course, is undefinable anyway)."

Bingo, my logic exactly.

Either we care about quality, and pay for it, or we don't, and we shouldn't pay for it, and go for volume instead.

You're absolutely right, Eddie. If the teacher's unions weren't such weak surrender-monkeys, they'd never have given in to management's demands (uggh, demand, such an ugly word) for tiered systems with the new hires getting less compensation, especially when the new ones are (gasp!) inexperienced compared to the rest.

That's then ... today new teachers are manna, and experienced teachers are old and stale and should be the focus of everyone's ire. House in foreclosure? Blame the old, stale teachers. Massive wind and rainstorm soaked your trouser legs? Blame the old, stale teachers.

"The older teachers with more clout f*ed the younger teachers." Bingo. Also, the retired police, the retired firemen. the retired librarian, the retired subway repairman etc etc etc. Pensions and healthcare for the good old boys and girls will suck up all the revenues. The left will scream 'we need to tax more'. Kinda makes you sick.

the vast majority of jobs have no easily quantifiable measure of how one employee performs vs. another. yet every company manages to create criteria for raises/promotions/firing. what makes one HR manager better than another? I don't know, but their organizations do. No system is perfect, but the only ones who suffer from not trying are the good teachers, the students, and the community. Apparently AH, wbottom, AR, etc. don't care about them - they only care about protecting the underperforming teachers at the expense of everyone else.

> especially when the new ones are (gasp!) inexperienced compared to the rest.

Let me get this straight... you're trying to say we should use AGE as a determinant of quality and worth... but not... uh... quality and worth?

How barbaric!

I love the logic, we're not allowed to measure teacher quality, we're not allowed to pay for it... we just have to trust the teacher's union that the old teacher is twice as good as the new one because we said so!

There IS no measure of teacher quality.

When my nieces were in elementary school, the "good" teachers were the pretty, young ones. They also only liked, of the cooking shows that their mommy watched, the pretty, young ones (DeLaurenta or whatever her name is, and that British one) and not the fat old jewish one who oinks when she says "that's good", and not the dumpy old italian one either ... not pretty, not good. I'm not saying my nieces were wrong, though.

Students surveyed like pretty teachers; parents surveyed like the ones who blame the other kid in the fight; teachers hate other teachers; principals like to be sucked up to, so do district superintendents or whatever they're called now, so does that trashy-magazine publisher who lives in a bubble, and so does Boston Bloomberg (without question).

"the "good" teachers were the pretty, young ones." - I hope they were not also craigslist escorts. It might alienate the Mayor and cause the public to cry out for your termination.

janejoey, that would be private-sector experience. They'd get 25 bonus points towards their performance evaluation.

> There IS no measure of teacher quality.

Yet you're willing to pay for one... AGE. Nutty.

And somehow universities across the country have been able to crack the magical code!

If you can't tell a good teacher from a bad teacher, you must be a UFT member.

> When my nieces were in elementary school, the "good" teachers were the pretty, young ones. They also
> only liked, of the cooking shows that their mommy watched, the pretty, young ones

This isn't American idol. Who said let children vote?

Jeez, strawman much?

"the vast majority of jobs have no easily quantifiable measure of how one employee performs vs. another. yet every company manages to create criteria for raises/promotions/firing. what makes one HR manager better than another? I don't know, but their organizations do. No system is perfect, but the only ones who suffer from not trying are the good teachers, the students, and the community. Apparently AH, wbottom, AR, etc. don't care about them - they only care about protecting the underperforming teachers at the expense of everyone else."

Well said.

We're talking about not only children and their education, but their chance at living lives out of poverty. We've failed miserably at this, spending tons and ignoring quality (and, as a joke, passing laws saying quality can't be factored into tenure!)

Somehow the rest of the working world (including other schools!) manages to do this.

Shameful that some who claim to be protecting the children won't even discuss.

"Yet you're willing to pay for one... AGE. Nutty." And yet Boston Bloomberg's education reform stresses that one factor as a predictor of excellence, and would like to get rid of the most experienced (i.e., not hired by him and thus not loyal to him) ... all in the name of "new blood".

If it's not children who vote, then who? Parents? Fellow teachers? Political appointees? Civil servants? Independent corporate observers? The lunch lady? Eddie Spaghetti, my elementary school's janitor ("You two twins?")? A cast of thousands? The first graders' Big Brothers/Sisters in the fifth grade?

Only *I* know quality when I see it, and it's unmarried, childless and not "expecting". Now THAT's a good teacher.

I left one out:

Straw men?

alan's mindset- there is no way to tell if a teacher is good, so all teachers are good, and lets hire tons of them and pay them what we can't afford with lifetime pensions and break the budgets, and raise taxes up and up to keep sucking the system dry.

Sad.

Maybe there should be no voters. But we need quantification. How about the teachers who obtain the highest rate of successful convictions of their students? The ones whose classes' bake sale stands bring in the most revenue; no, the most profit; no, the most short-term profit; cash-on-cash return? No, no, too yesterday ... the ones whose classes weigh the least?

alan - let's back to the original part of the discussion: you believe that more teachers = better, and that more $ for teachers = better= why? what criteria do you use to make that decision?

"And yet Boston Bloomberg's education reform stresses that one factor as a predictor of excellence, and would like to get rid of the most experienced (i.e., not hired by him and thus not loyal to him)"

Blommberg should leave his hands off of the "Last One Hired, First One FIred" rule. Bloomberg only wants to dump the older teachers because they cost more, NOT because he cares about the kids.

> If it's not children who vote, then who?

Why are you still assuming it needs to be a vote?

> Bloomberg only wants to dump the older teachers because they
> cost more, NOT because he cares about the kids.

When it means you can keep MORE teachers, and keep the ones who perform better even though younger... I say disagreeing means you DO NOT care about the kids.

"the ones who perform better even though younger"

How do you know the younger ones perform better? We moved to a system of rating teachers based on test scores, and as a result, we now teach students to take a test instead of teaching them to prepare for college.

my point was that less teachers is not the answer, nor is spending less money

and that it will be difficult to establish criteria re which teachers are stale and should be fired, and which should be paid more

and, all else equal (based on whatever performance criteria is in place), if there are no protections in place, the more costly, older teachers will be the ones fired

and if there is no security and protection of teachers from bulishit firings, and if there are crappy benefits, and there is a meager pension, and generally inferior remuneration than would exist for other jobs which require a college degree; you will understand what crappy teachers really are about

to expect a college educated person, who will make an excellent teacher, to make a career of teaching; where there is totally limited upside over the long haul when compared to other career paths; that person will need to know they have reasonable job security, will get raises that track inflation plus, will have access to good health care, and will be able to retire safely and comfortably

the private sector has sought to commoditize, wherever possible, our workforce---teachers, if commoditized, will be worse then you ever imagined they could be

agreed, Wbottom

$20.000 per pupil in the NYC school system. Give a $15,000 voucher to each student and let the parents decide. The schools will become very competitive and the quality of education will increase dramatically. Also,the teachers that are competent will have a higher salary. The only losers are the bureaucracy . the unions and the faux elitists.

yes wbottom and ahart - more of the same is exactly what we need. it has worked flawlessly, let's not mess with it. as for those disadvantaged kids who are the victims of subpar educations - let's face it - they are probably doomed to failure anyway. I mean, the odds against them are so high anyway, I'd much spend our finite money on protecting the inferior teachers.

wbottom is is less teachers or fewer teachers? alanhart, take a break from alanhart.net and help out apt23 with this

whoops, I meant please help out wbottom with this

wbottom that is totally ridiculous. Having to pay a small portion of the premium for your health care is perfectly reasonable. Having a defined contribution plan with government matching of your contribution is a very nice benefit. Having a system where you are held accountable for your performance would benefit the students and improve teacher quality, rather than what we have now.

I know teachers in the public school system. It's not like all these people could walk away and double their pay in other private sector jobs. A well-above average salary with some merit-based bonuses, health benefits with required modest premium payments (employee pays 20-30%), and an employer-matching defined contribution plan, with a significant amount of time off, would be a very good package to a lot of people.

LICComm, that sounds positively third world. And of course the salaries would need to be grossed up so the teachers can pay 100% of those slippery-slope 30% premium payments without a reduction in spending power. And then their employers would have to guarantee that their defined-contribution retirement plan will fund 100% of their retirement. It all sounds quite foolish, really.

again ahart and wbottom, how do we measure your belief that more teachers are better for the students? let's say it costs $200mm to reduce class size from 25 to 20 (made up numbers), should we do it? are we maybe better off using that $200mm for other purposes - say improving housing for the poor, or healthcare, or nutrition, or job training, or just increase welfare payments? surely there has to be some measurement/evaluation system you would use to make sure the money has its greatest effect, no?

and AR, if $35k gets you 8:1 ratio, or whatever it is, why not $50k for 6:1? or $280k for 1:1? i mean, is the current tuiton/class size ratio at your daughters school ideal? if so, why? what measurements do you use?

alan, your comment is inane. People should be responsible for themselves and not look to government (and ultimately other productive people who pay taxes) to guarantee their retirement funds.

alan has a "money grows on trees" theory of budgeting.

Yes, people should be responsible for themselves -- short-term and long-term -- by selling their valuable time to employers who compensate with both horizons in mind, and withholding their time from those who don't.

"the ones who perform better even though younger"

> How do you know the younger ones perform better?

1) We don't
2) I didn't say that
3) The line in fact infers the opposite, I am referring folks who are better despite being less experienced.

You have some comprehension issues

> We moved to a system of rating teachers based on test scores, and as a result, we now teach students
> to take a test instead of teaching them to prepare for college.

Last time I checked, there were tests in college.

But, yes, when the tests check IF YOU CAN READ, then, yes, we should know if our students can read.

"; that person will need to know they have reasonable job security, will get raises that track inflation plus, will have access to good health care, and will be able to retire safely and comfortably"

That person will also want to work alongside other competent professionals in a system that works.
And if the person gets the job done, they SHOULD have all that good pay and some nice benefits.

Instead, we have a system that rewards the lousy and pushes the good ones from the system.

"Instead, we have a system that rewards the lousy and pushes the good ones from the system."

Please tell us how to identify good and bad teachers.

"Last time I checked, there were tests in college."

Last time I checked, the college dropout rate is 50%. Obvivously something is wrong.

It's like porn ...
you know

and where's your proof that it rewards the lousy? there's a certain amount of value to both new blood and old blood. this is a common refrain, but good teachers that have been around the block more than a thousand times, assuming they still have interest in the job, are incredibly valuable.

and swe, your comment about colleges, apples to grapes. colleges select their student body. professors have very different standards than first grade teachers. colleges have very different standards than zoned public schools.

RS, well that's quantifiable, and will equal a decent and justifiable change in staff. one person's porn (gasp, sex!) is another person's romantic comedy.

the bottom line is that if every teacher that swe thought ought to be fired were so, likely we'd have half the teachers we need. i know you all think it's a sweet deal, what with the pensions and all, but just go spend a year teaching kids in the south bronx and come back and tell me that those teachers, many who try valiantly but get very poor results nonetheless, aren't deserving of what they get.

this is NOT a simple issue. yet everyone on the right and the libertarian fronts like to present it as such. i wonder why.

of course notadmin would like a voucher. she chose to live in harlem to minimize her housing costs, which she is very (and justifiably) proud of. however, this person who thinks the vast majority of seniors should live at subsistence levels because of poor planning (and the rising costs of which they could not have predicted) thinks that all children regardless of household income should get the same education. well, yes, but how will vouchers do that if given to all? it won't, but notadmin wants it, so it must be right. wbottom is correct, the privatization of public school would destroy the system for the middle class.

it would be a travesty if our family received vouchers for our education.

it is very easy to spout talking points regarding education. yes, the city gave far too many concessions in terms of pensions (it's a function of our political system, when people leave so quickly they are only interested in short-term results), but they did so to avoid increasing salaries. who do you want teaching your kids?

Forget the voucher idea.

Just give me 15k cash for each kid annually (ooh, I will definitely go for #4 & 5 now)!

I will hire the cutest, blondest young woman (only Ivy League + teaching degree need apply) who has the brains of a Gail Trimble who can teach my kids English, maths, science, geography, history + gym as well.

I will turn over my 75k cash to her, and provide her with a gold-plated health plan & a huge Xmas bonus.

you're so victorian, 10023.

but with three or more, i can see your point. and at least you're generous. when i taught k in tokyo i was also the gym teacher for the p-k to 1s. and of course the school had no gym space so we had to go to a park, where a good friend spotted me doing animal exercise routines with the kiddums. he particularly enjoyed my portrayal of a lumbering elephant.

would you really do 4 & 5? you go, girl.

> however, this person who thinks the vast majority of seniors should live at subsistence levels because of poor planning (and the rising costs of which they could not have predicted) thinks that all children regardless of household income should get the same education.

AR you need to learn to read. i'm in favor of mean testing benefits and putting priority to fight poverty of children, as it affects society more than poverty for seniors. there's no need to subsidize inheritances by not mean testing benefits while putting the poor in my generation and younger at risk.

in academics it's called inter-generational generosity: to leave things for the future generation at least as well as we received them (leaving them better for your own kid alone doesn't cut it). ponzi after ponzi is not the way to do it.

Even with 3 kids, 45k is nothing to sniff at. 3 kids to teach, 4-day week, summers off. Considering how little adjuncts make, it would be easy enough to recruit someone. Maybe that's why I'm not so worried about the middle-high-school crunch. There's always home schooling.

universal vouchers and freedom in terms on what school to attend help to shrink the gap between private and public schools. it brings competition, it increases social mobility, what's not to like? check out chile and ireland.

notadmin, i can read.

i'm very much in favor of means testing for ss. i also think i should pay much more for ss taxes. and i think the age should increase for benefits. but let's not talk about health care, ok? because we won't agree there.

vouchers for all students will not allow the lower class to move up, but it might help the upper middle class.

ponzi, you really think that 80% of the elderly are engaged in a ponzi scheme? really? most are just holding on. you keep talking about how the older people spent too much on housing, health care, education. who in the hell do you think they spent it on? their kids, maybe? it might have been misguided but a ton of the money spent by the people you disdain was spent in an effort to pay for education, health care, and housing. they were spending for YOU and your snotty generation. and now, well, you find that you don't appreciate their spending, so you want to cut them off. they were trying to leave something for future generations, but the bubbles made it impossible.

you can't lay claim to monetary concerns from the bubbles as someone young without admitting that likely those concerns are much worse for the elders. although of course you can, and you do. at least you have time to plan.

The liberals are now arguing that there is no way to judge whether someone is a good or bad teacher. Do any of these people work a real job?

> time to plan

are you kidding me here? time to plan? bad demographics were a given 30 years ago. the lack of sustainability of it was in the wall, obviously not everybody is willing to read it. old baby boomers not saving a dime as a group during their peak years but getting too much debt through excess consumption was the wrong way to go and they are worse off by that. lack of savings was also the wrong policy when it comes to housing as a mechanism of transmission.

it's mistake after mistake, both at the individual level and collective imho. bottom line: the demographics were already there, lack of competitiveness of wages too. but the lack of willingness to deal with this was by choice.

> they were trying to leave something for future generations, but the bubbles made it impossible.

well, obviously we see this differently. how many old didn't like the housing bubble? if seen many even salivating and asking why i was a renter. sorry, but i don't have disdain for them, just a ton of tough love to give back.

I love how aboutready comments on economic matters despite having no income, not paying any taxes in NYC, having no educational background in economics or any hard science for that matter, and having never repaid society for the free education she received.

you're out of your absolutely f'ng mind if you think the average american ever considers demographics. the economists told them everything was stellar until 2008.

you continually assume that all baby boomers saved nothing. that's not true. many people haven't saved anything, but haven't we spent so many posts discussing how costs have increased and it has been so hard to buy and to save?

you're so intolerant. not all people are dancing on saturday night and eating rice and beans the rest of the week.

your are of the "i'm sorry i'm just telling the truth generation." but i'm sorry, you don't know the truth. it's much more nuanced than your perspective.

aboutready
14 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse notadmin, i can read.
i'm very much in favor of means testing for ss. i also think i should pay much more for ss taxes. and i think the age should increase for benefits. but let's not talk about health care, ok? because we won't agree there.

You don't pay any social security taxes currently. You don't have a job. Earning your MRS is not a recent accomplishment, and having only one child qualifies you as not very reproductive either

lol closecounty, a formula that has yet to fail me is how many fallacies ad hominem people use. the more they use them, the weaker the argument.

LICcomm, what is the way to judge whether someone is a good or bad teacher?

notadmin, i like how you want free education because you've chosen low rent in harlem.

btw, nice that you are one of the few who consistently engages the troll.

> you continually assume that all baby boomers saved nothing. that's not true.

ok, i'm going to spoonfeed you just on this thing, as it's just too big. when you talk demographics you analyze behavior by group. savings data is there, easy for you to find. sure you know a guy that saved and happens to be a baby boomer. that guy though unfortunately didn't move the needle within his demographic group. get it?

> you're so intolerant.

only to the certainty of the stupid. proud to say that's something i have in common with Benjamin Disraeli :-)