Very sad

[lumberslinger178]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

also have a wife in education, classroom teacher 17 years, assistant principal 5 years, principal 6 years and now county level administrator for 3 years.
What is it about v-20's that attracts education majors?

there cute!!!!

[willy]

They are cute I will give you that!

I just want to say something that has been an observation of mine for several decades now.
Anytime, I repeat, anytime, the government (especially at the federal) gets involved in something it gets topsy turvy in the most absurd ways.
We have great teachers, no doubt.
How many are forced by a hierarchy to teach an agenda based curriculum?
How many could do better than the curriculum demands they teach?
How many are teaching to qualify for some federal mandate? Or to some government mandate test?
How many would segregate those students that need remedial work and those who are exceptional and should be brought along on a higher level?
Said differently, how many are forced to teach to the level of the lowest achiever in their class?
How many teachers have their hands tied with discipline problems that should be dealt with immediately and hard or removed entirely from the classroom?
How many teachers would work differently if tenure did not exist and the union did not control the board of education? (truth here shows character!).
How many teachers would love to set up your own school plan to teach math and the sciences so their kids would excel in life? In the world they will compete.
All these things and many more are what I have heard complained about from some very good teachers.
There is a common thread.
An over powerful centralized government controlling thought, critical thinking, and decisions by those people closest to the issues.
We need to return education control to the states.
If you do not like how you school system is run you can move to the next county or next state.
You vote with your feet or you get involved locally and change it.
There should not be one directive coming from an over powerful federal government, period. It destroys everything it is involved with. It is why our Founding Fathers left these things to the States.
And I am sorry but I will offend some here. The unions are in bed with the Federal government. Have been for decades and their hierarchy is as responsible for the decline in our education as the Progressives in government. The unions in effect have sold their souls for better pensions and higher salaries, they support the Big Fed agendas and their money goes to support big Progressives in government. No matter what anyone says to the contrary that has been the marraige with Satan for decades now.
Our children have suffered, our Nation has faltered, and we as Citizens have watched it creep up like the way you cook a frog.
We need big changes, many in the education system will fight it.
If the children, the American Citizen wins we will all eventually win.
If the teacher union bosses and their *****masters in Washington win, well, we all will lose. Starting with the children.

[phatdaddy]

florida is trying to make some changes along those lines. our schools are county based and teachers are county employee's with different pay rates, benefits, etc. according to the county they teach in. my daughter has just graduated with a bs in history & a masters in education. if she gets a job, it starts @ $32,000. not great, but it's the field she chose and we knew the pay going in. current hires will not get continuing contract and will be hired on a yearly contract, which can be on renewed or not every year. a lot of older teachers are upset, but if you do your job, you should be fine. hell, most of the people i know have a one week contract. all administrators have yearly contracts that are renewed or not annually. we also have superintendents that are elected, so top administrators are subject to non renewal if they back the wrong horse. union representation in our district is about %25, florida is a right to work state.

[Destroyer]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

florida is trying to make some changes along those lines. our schools are county based and teachers are county employee's with different pay rates, benefits, etc. according to the county they teach in. my daughter has just graduated with a bs in history & a masters in education. if she gets a job, it starts @ $32,000. not great, but it's the field she chose and we knew the pay going in. current hires will not get continuing contract and will be hired on a yearly contract, which can be on renewed or not every year. a lot of older teachers are upset, but if you do your job, you should be fine. hell, most of the people i know have a one week contract. all administrators have yearly contracts that are renewed or not annually. we also have superintendents that are elected, so top administrators are subject to non renewal if they back the wrong horse. union representation in our district is about %25, florida is a right to work state.

Sounds like you're on the right track. The town I live in has all new teachers on a three year probabation. They still get tenure after that time if they are kept, but at least it gives us a better chance to not renew the sub-standard ones. It's a start.

Originally Posted by lumberslinger

Their cute

Yup...gotta admit there are some really fine teachers...<sigh>

[THEFERMANATOR]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

florida is trying to make some changes along those lines. our schools are county based and teachers are county employee's with different pay rates, benefits, etc. according to the county they teach in. my daughter has just graduated with a bs in history & a masters in education. if she gets a job, it starts @ $32,000. not great, but it's the field she chose and we knew the pay going in. current hires will not get continuing contract and will be hired on a yearly contract, which can be on renewed or not every year. a lot of older teachers are upset, but if you do your job, you should be fine. hell, most of the people i know have a one week contract. all administrators have yearly contracts that are renewed or not annually. we also have superintendents that are elected, so top administrators are subject to non renewal if they back the wrong horse. union representation in our district is about %25, florida is a right to work state.

The part you missed though is teachers that had a contract BEFORE the hiring process for the 11-12 school year KEPT tenure. ONLY new hires lost tenure. ANother key note is that the state has the option to come in at any time they choose if your test scores are not high enough and take over the counties educational program. My wife is also a history teacher, but opted not to get a masters as having a masters right now makes you less desireable as that means you get $2K more per year for that(she got her last teaching over somebody with a masters because teh county didn't want to pay the extra money out for the teacher with a masters). It's all screwed up down here. I feel there should be tenure, but they should also have a testing system to evaluate the teachers. they have one now, but from what my wife said it is school employees doing teh evals, and it just doesn't sound right to me from what she told me of her first eval. If they are going to do evals, I feel it should be done by a NON affiliated evaluator who has nothing to gain or lose by there evaluation. With the current system this is just not the case.

[Blue_Runner]

My wife is a teacher too.

[RidgeRunner]

It isn't all bad. The teachers we have experienced have a sincere desire to teach my student. As a parent, the time spent every evening with my third grader and her homework is "together time" and I love it. Nothing better than working with my little one and seeing the lights come on.
Everyone on here is right on the money IMHO. Yes the teacher has to teach to the least advanced student in her class. At least there isn't 45 students to deal with. Our educators also use a couple of assistants and mentor/volunteers to help the students that need additional help. Overall, they seem to be ahead of where I was when I was in the third grade...

[RWilson2526]

Destroyer...my sincerest apologies for my poor use of vocabulary. Know that I would never use that term to describe somebody that actually had a disability. Strangely that word has transformed in our pop culture to mean somebody that's just a knucklehead and or doesn't use the common sense that god gave them which was how I was using it. But still that is not the origin of the word and I should have been more responsible putting it out there to a large audience knowing that it could hit home with somebody.

[phatdaddy]

ridge, i had to quit giving homework help when mine got to the 6th grade, after that i had to send them to their mother. i am the ditch digger in the family.

[Destroyer]

Originally Posted by RWilson2526

Destroyer...my sincerest apologies for my poor use of vocabulary. Know that I would never use that term to describe somebody that actually had a disability. Strangely that word has transformed in our pop culture to mean somebody that's just a knucklehead and or doesn't use the common sense that god gave them which was how I was using it. But still that is not the origin of the word and I should have been more responsible putting it out there to a large audience knowing that it could hit home with somebody.

Rob, you're a good friend. I owe my very existance on these forums to you. I know that politically we don't see eye to eye on every subject, but then again, who does? I'm sure that you didn't mean any ill will or harm, and that, to me at least, is far more important than the words themselves. Since no harm was meant, your apology is not necessary.
Also, I acknowledge that it takes a real man to step up to the plate and offer one, so thank you for it.