And that's why it's a complicated question, and I can't say I have an easy answer. There are three similar responses to my post, and I'm responding to one before bed because I think it's the most succinct.

How do we identify good teachers, when so much "education" happens outside of their control? My three year old has started "reading" her bedtime stories. Yeah, she's not reading the words, she's heard the stories so many times because me and my wife read to her a lot that she repeats them by memory; but that doesn't mean she doesn't get a big hug and me telling her I'm proud of her for being smart and reading. But, I hope, she'll be advanced for her age because we're working with her.

So much of education, especially early, is with parents, not the teachers. How do you then judge a teacher, when the parent has as much, if not more, if a role to play in a kids education?

A: get off your cross, we need the wood.



B: abolish public schools.

I have a lot of teachers in my family, so I am trying to come from a friendly position....


but, uh, if its that fucking bad....get a job elsewhere. Walmart, the gas station, whatever.

I just don't get it, my nieces essentially leveraged their future earnings to pay for a masters degree in passing the 4th grade. To their credit, they do have their summers off, but their pay is understandably minimal compared to the professionals in the family if said professionals were to work part time as well. They seem to think that they should be making beaucoup bucks all while being bowed to for their intellect (the rest of the family is MDs, PAs, and PEs), but....uh....they have a Master's in the 4th grade and get summers off. They picked this path, they are the only ones with the power to leave this path, what are they bitching about? No part of the job, salary, or benefits is some hidden secret. This was their choice of how to spend their college allotment and how to utilize whatever debt they wanted to take on. Work hard and choose wisely kids, or you too could end up resenting the fact that you are the master of the 4th grade.

I don't begrudge teachers. It takes a special breed to do it, and education is very important and has been huge in my life....but c'mon. Efficacy in the job is a function of personality, not training. It's very difficult to pay that appropriately in a government/union based system.

That being said.....I do teach on the side (I have no education outside of a BS in Engineering and an MBA), and I really want to go back to my high school alma mater and teach some business, math, physics, and engineering classes. Its a worthy cause and I think I would enjoy it, but no way am I taking on a part time low paying job at a private school until my retirement finances and my kids' college funds are squared away.

My wife is an elementary Sped teacher.
She has spent the entire weekend working on rewriting IEP’s because the teachers before her left crap IEP’s that were obviously completely phoned in.

Most teachers? Truly good and dedicated.
But let’s not kid ourselves, she and you know there are some that suck. They’re the ones people paint the profession with, which is unfortunate.

It’s like most things, the most salacious and negative garners attention. No one notices the teacher kicking ass and making a difference.
And that’s a lot of them.

I think OP sounds like a pretty cool person.  My public elementary school teachers were the very best, and I attribute most of my success in life to them, if I'm being truly honest.

I do wish they were paid and appreciated more.  Except the groomer types.  They can rot in hell for all I care.

My wife makes good money teaching. I still couldn’t do her job.

Could she do yours?

I had some pretty cool teachers in high school, I still remember them 20 years later. A few were Vietnam vets. I believe one of my history teachers had an NFA AK.
Caring and engaging teachers can make a big difference, and I'm thankful for the good teachers I had, most notably physics, chemistry, history, and several tech ed/shop classes.
OP, hopefully you're in one of the districts that's still largely sane and where parents care and are involved in their children's education.

Preach, brother.

I don't see this rash of anti-teacher posts that you allude to.

Nope.

Since OP is in my state, what about that you're only required to teach for about 87 days a year.  The rest is fluff.

Coming from three different teachers.  

Not bashing you for having to deal with little shitheads, that alone should get a premium.  But "I make $15/hr for 3 months of work" doesn't warrant a complaint.  

That said, IIRC, you're north of 29.  So all bets are off.

ETA: I'd be fired in the first ten minutes due to language.

You want some cheese to go with that whine?

Yet each one of those individuals you mention learned from...teachers.

My soon to be wife is a teacher. I don’t discount it’s a demanding job. I’d go nuts dealing with 20+ first graders, shitty entitled parents, and restrictions and directions on how to go about your day to day job….but it isn’t a contest. She makes about 3/4 what I do, and although I’m not on my feet all day I’ve got deadlines, shitty customers, dumbass bosses, even dumber coworkers, and other self entitled people all day every day. Not to mention the after hours phone calls and texts that come in, that I don’t get paid for. Plus occasional travel that ties up my weekends for a bunch of shit I don’t want to do.

It’s work. It sucks but it pays the bills.

Double tap.
My bad

When I was a teen trying to figure out what career I wanted to do as an adult, I was talking to my dad about, "I don't want to do this job because of X, or that job because of Y."

He said, "Name me the job and I'll name you the shit that goes along with it."

So you make 20% more in 6 months than I did in a year at my previous job?

I worked in a school with a slutty hot teacher that fucked every male over 18 except for me.

$32,580? That is fucking crazy. What is the top end of your pay scale?

I am one that thinks teachers are way underpaid. Just like any profession there a great teachers and there are bad teachers. I have always believed if you want the best and brightest in any profession the pay has to be there. Yes there would be those bad ones that slip through but the majority would be what you want. You get what you pay for typically.

32k?

Walmart pays more. You should work there until your bosses realize your worth.

Around here teachers make 120k with a masters plus get paid for extra credits taken. They have 2-3 free periods a day/lunch and work 189 days. The parking lot is empty at 3:30pm.

If only INCELS knew to go to a  bar where teachers hang out and throw out lines like:

Thank you for your service.
You should be paid more.
Your job is just as important as pd and fire.

They would drop that incel crap as soon as they were dragged to the nearest bathroom or parking lot.

I lived within sight of an elementary school in California.

They were open 10 months of the year.

They were closed half a day every week.

They got three weeks off for Christmas, one for Thanksgiving, and again for Easter.

Nobody was in the building at 6 AM or 6 PM.

The teachers are making about $95,000 each with benefits.

Just consider the source and go on. Don't let a bunch of random, anonymous shitposters get you down.

I'm an Ag teacher and love it. The pay sucks but when former students come up to you years down the line and tell you that you made a difference (for the better) in their lives, it feels amazing.

@PikeSlayer
First, don’t take it personal. Just like Law Enforcement, a few fucking bad apples and bad leadership reflects on all. It’s not fair, it’s just the way it is.

Teachers, good teachers, are incredibly important in our communities. As much as I’m more concerned about their content knowledge and ability to effectively teach it, the reality is that teachers are much, much, more than that. Teachers really don’t get paid shit right out of college, and while some school districts compensate well for higher education, extracurricular, or various endorsements, many don’t value their teachers like they should.

I grew up around educators and my wife has been a teacher for about 15 years, an instructional specialist for two years, and this is her first year as an administrator (AP). Her focus is the kids, their education, the culture, and the accountability. Like any organization, her school has about 10% of the teachers that simply suck, and they garner about 90% of the problems and time to deal with them.

A good teach is like gold, and a hell of a great investment. Kids remember the teachers that have made positive impacts in their lives, for life. My wife gets Facebook requests and messages all the time from former students: one in medical school, one a lawyer, one a former NFL player, one who was in the Olympics, Army lieutenant and some who’ve enlisted, nurses, teachers, etc. Teachers don’t get paid shit, but you can’t put monetary value on that level of impact…most people will never really understand.

My wife connects mostly with the poor performing kids, the ones whose families are nonexistent, nobody gives a shit about their academic performance, many are impoverished. My wife barely graduated high school, was told college wasn’t an option and she might be an okay hairdresser. She’s halfway through her doctoral dissertation, working as graduate research assistant (already published in one research publication), and kicking ass as an assistant principle. She’s made a difference in the lives around her, and the teaching should be a profession we respect, but the shitbag teachers need to be held accountable in order to establish the importance of teachers in communities. And just as importantly communities need to support their teachers and not add to the fucked-up parent pool.

If you know your content shit, can teach, and get the data to support your results; if know how to connect with your kids and they know you give a shit about them…you’re not the problem and comments about “fucked up teachers” aren’t about you.

ROCK6    

Health insurance coverage is a big benefit
Pension is fucking insane for some. "Rule of 90"

Can't be fired ... gotta luv that

One of my daughters has her Masters in teaching and is thinking of leaving the field for reasons that Pike mentions.

Case in point about a week before this school year started 4 teachers at her school quit. Why they waited until almost the beginning of the year had something to do with pay/benefits but by doing so the district had no time to hire additional teachers to fill the gap.  My daughter got saddled with a significant work load increase because of it.

If you use the neo-verb “to diss”, and think that’s ok,the education system has already failed you.  If you use “cringe” as an adjective, you should kill yourself.

If I was to answer, yes and no. My wife is making pretty good money in the education system, but she’s also been adding endorsements, working on her doctorate, and pushing herself, now in administration (somewhere around $80K). I was military, so the 5-6 years of teaching in Kansas and Texas don’t count towards her GA retirement, so she has another 10 years go to.

My wife is smart as shit and is has proven to be a pretty damn good teacher and leader, but my job requires a clearance (TS/SCI, Poly, NSA-access) and I was hired for my experience more than anything else; that’s hard to bypass. She has me beat in education now, but while I joke, I’m dead serious when I say I she works twice has hard as me and gets paid half of what I make.

She’s now getting a taste of administration life, where she gets to work at around 0600 every morning and if she has to work a game (the three administrators rotate the events), she may not get home until 8-9PM. If she billed by the hour, she would make more me.

It’s not that I couldn’t do her job, I no longer want to work that hard!

ROCK6

Maybe.but its New York.No ammount of money would be worth living there.

Haven't seen anyone yet that didn't bitch about their work.  And everyone doing it thinks their bitching is justified.

At $32,580 I'd work at Costco instead.

Can I do yours?  Could you do mine?  Can he do theirs?


My wife taught, now she directs the district wide SPED department.  She can't currently design networks but I have zero doubt that she could if she had the interest or background.  I know that it was not the bon-bon eating easy life as a teacher that gets tossed out here because I was on the sofa with her while she graded, planned and prepped for mandated meetings and kept other people from breaking the law and getting the school sued.  I know she gets paid less as a director there than pretty much anyone else with the workload expectations on them outside work hours and this district pays a good bit better than most.  I'm in a 24/7 support role and I take a LOT less nighttime calls than she does.  

The point is not to whine for her.  The point is that she is a conservative minded person and has always had an internal desire to teach to kids that have a hard time learning and completely accepted that she'd not be making the same money as a businesswoman would at that level but there IS a workload problem.  The decent ones are ejecting.  Quite literally doing as ARFCOM advises and saying "fuck-it" and going to work almost anywhere else.  What's coming in to fill the vacancies is eye watering bad.   I've told her to retire early and do something else a few times when she's come home on the verge of breakdown because there are 3 more things to do now added to the list of shit nobody can actually get done even when they work till they sleep.  The situation is accelerating so badly that it is quite noticeable year over year to me as an outsider.  These complaints are universal to some degree but It seems worse inside the schools.  You can't get the last big idea implemented, trained, and any any data collected before 4 new big ideas are to replace it.  The last three years the wheels seem like they are starting to fall off.

I don't think the answer is actually PAY MOAR!!!!  The answer is to stop with the avalanche of compliance bullshit and let the damn teachers do what they actually like doing.  But that's a pipe dream.  We'll keep doing what we are doing until it's completely broken and destroyed.  A lot of that is on conservatives too and their insistence on just walking away from every institution and handing it over to the monkeys.

Damn OP, I’ve not met a starting teacher in many years that made under $40k.

You're terribly underpaid, I'd find something else.

I’ve always found GD’s attitude toward the teaching profession amusing, as ceding control of the educational system to the Left is one of main reasons our side lost.

Non leftist teachers get poor evaluations and are often pressured to leave.  That, and teaching has always attracted progressives.

Here's my complaint:  the teachers union greatly supports the fuckheads in office.  

I heard one I know complaining about the recent law that was passed which caused police departments to pull their officers out of schools.  

I told them that every single rep, senator, and governor that voted for it was endorses by the teachers union.  They can't accept that so they pretended that timy walz may not have been supported by their union.  

My other complaint is you should be paid a higher salary.   But since so many people just love to teach they'll do it for damn near nothing which fucks you.   You should get a different job.

I couldnt do it.