Looking for a teaching job? Rhode Island is hiring 74 at one school!

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Of course he has that option and that's the risk I take but.... he also has to factor in will he get the same quality of work and how much does he lose when he has to train the new person outside of the initial cost post and hiring. It's a balancing act. I'm very lucky in that I'm specialized so there's a cost involving with just "showing" me the door.

Side note--

this is what happened, generally, in DH's original company--and it seems to hold with his jobs since.

They tried to not pay the engineers OT on the premise that they were salary. But collectively, the engineers (non-union) worked diligently until hour 40 and then went home. So the company had an OT policy. It was only for 5 hours or more OT though before it kicked in and it was only straight time.

So there is an OT policy now and hubby had it at his next company and this company.

I'm not sure if all govt contractors/engineering careers are this way. But DH has been in his career for 14 years and that has been the case for him.


But if employees slacked off--to hour 40 and then expected OT to get that job done before deadline, that wouldn't last to long.

So there is a balance of course.

 

[rgf207]

Once again, since my previous post was ignored, what responsibility do the students hold for their own failure??

yep, that's what I'm getting at also. It seems that when a student fails, we turn our eyes to the teacher. When did taking responsibility for one's own actions end?

 

[eliza61]

Fireman are paid to put out fires, if half of the buidings in town burn to the ground, I would think seriuosly about replacing the fire department.

Nurses are paid to treat the sick. If the patients all end up with a staph infection, I would not go to that hospital.

Police are paid to prevent crime and catch criminals. If my town starts to look like downtown Detroit, I would say that the police are not doing their job.

If only 7% of the kids in the school are proficient at math, the teachers shoulder the responsibility.

Not apples to apples.
If your a firemen and then you don't have fire hoses, how great will you be at putting out the fire.
If your a nurse but you don't have hand sanitizer or all your patients come in with comprimised immune system, now your hospital looks abnormally bad.
And if your town all of a sudden lost 90% of your jobs and drugs move into it, how's your crime rate looking now.
These teachers are hindered by the time those kids get to them in H.S. If you're 9th grader is on a 5th grade reading level, there is no possible way by the time he takes state test in 10th grade he will be proficient.
You can dig up Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein and Dr. Suess himself and get them to teach with as much success.

It would be marvelous if students learning occured in a vacuum unfortunately it does not. Every thing from home life to learning environment to weather effects the outcome. If you have to teach math and 1/4 of your kids don't speak the language your teaching in, you can teach them until their blue in the face, your scores are going to suck.

 

[PeterPan09]

yep, that's what I'm getting at also. It seems that when a student fails, we turn our eyes to the teacher. When did taking responsibility for one's own actions end?

I wonder about that a lot too-especially when I listen to the conversations parents in my office have with teachers. Their children are not expected to to be prepared for class, do homework or get their assignments. And these are not young kids either-these are middle and HS students! When an email comes that Johnny got a zero because he came to class without his book, notebook or a pencil-it's the teacher's fault for not having extra supplies for him. He can't be expected to remember all that!!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Once again, since my previous post was ignored, what responsibility do the students hold for their own failure??

That depends.

Once you get into very high percentages, it would be irresponsible to not look at how the message is being conveyed to the students before assuming it is their laziness or lack of initiative to be the sole source of the problem.

I think of the movie--that I always forget the title where Edward James Olmos (sp?) was a math teacher that took a bunch of remedial math kids and took them all the way to Calculus. B/c of their scores, they were accused of cheating. They did retake the AP test and most scored well.

He didn't use the kids inner city status as a reason for their lack of success.

Here is the wikipedia article (I know--wikipedia ) on the person whom the movie was based:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante


Another good teacher who figured out a way to connect with students:
Ron Clark

We can either use students' weaknesses as an excuse against them to prevent their success, or the admin can look to ways to teach them despite their socio-economic problems.

 

[daughtersrus]

Fireman are paid to put out fires, if half of the buidings in town burn to the ground, I would think seriuosly about replacing the fire department.

Nurses are paid to treat the sick. If the patients all end up with a staph infection, I would not go to that hospital.

Police are paid to prevent crime and catch criminals. If my town starts to look like downtown Detroit, I would say that the police are not doing their job.

If only 7% of the kids in the school are proficient at math, the teachers shoulder the responsibility.

They are also responsible for teaching the public and/or their patients. Why are the students or their parents not responsible?

 

[shrubber]

Not apples to apples.
If your a firemen and then you don't have fire hoses, how great will you be at putting out the fire.
If your a nurse but you don't have hand sanitizer or all your patients come in with comprimised immune system, now your hospital looks abnormally bad.
And if your town all of a sudden lost 90% of your jobs and drugs move into it, how's your crime rate looking now.
These teachers are hindered by the time those kids get to them in H.S. If you're 9th grader is on a 5th grade reading level, there is no possible way by the time he takes state test in 10th grade he will be proficient.
You can dig up Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein and Dr. Suess himself and get them to teach with as much success.

It would be marvelous if students learning occured in a vacuum unfortunately it does not. Every thing from home life to learning environment to weather effects the outcome. If you have to teach math and 1/4 of your kids don't speak the language your teaching in, you can teach them until their blue in the face, your scores are going to suck.

I agree! Perhaps it's time to fire and replace the elementary teachers also.

 

[eliza61]

way.

Maybe not all the teachers should have been fired. (I mean--really--Art? PE?)

But something is not right when that many students are doing so poorly.

Blaming socio-economics can only get us so far. And as I said earlier. As long as school is required--at some point the school system has to figure out how to connect with their students to get them to learn.

But the problem we have is that for some reason we are a "magic bullet" society. We don't want to look at the entire problem and figure out a multi-prong approach to fixing it.
So the school district in this case will blame the teachers and like I said, I'm willing to bet my pretty nice bonus that next year those test scores will be just as crappy. Now they have to scramble and try to find 78 new teachers to come in and be able to teach. Most new teachers get an older teacher to mentor them will in this case that won't happen so what are we left with? I'm betting that next year is going to be a lot worse. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Successful charter schools do a lot more than just require teachers to work X amount of hours each day. Most teachers I know wouldn't mind working the extra time if they felt that they were getting the support from the administration, the parents and the state education community.

One great example is Capital Prep school in Connec.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I wonder about that a lot too-especially when I listen to the conversations parents in my office have with teachers. Their children are not expected to to be prepared for class, do homework or get their assignments. And these are not young kids either-these are middle and HS students! When an email comes that Johnny got a zero because he came to class without his book, notebook or a pencil-it's the teacher's fault for not having extra supplies for him. He can't be expected to remember all that!!

I doubt the kids at this high school have parents who are having such conversations.

Perhaps one day, curriculum committees will realize that you cannot teach kids in an inner city setting in the same manner that you can teach the kids in a country club setting.

It would be lovely if you could--but it doesn't work.

I run into many homeschool parents who have a child--who has a learning issue. Not disablity mind you--they just have an issue. I.e. they hate reading...unless it is about sports.

Some would say--tough noogies, child needs to read any subject. However, for the time being--their boredom is a block. Parent/teacher could have fought a fruitless battle by trying to make the kid read....or they could come up with an innovative solution. In the cases I know, the child was pulled to homeschool based on their interests.

That would drive me nuts as a mom--totally nuts!!! I had the same problem myself. I hated standardized tests that had reading samples based in science. I struggled. I didn't like it so it was always difficult for me. So I can appreciate parents who take the time to work around that issue and teach reading comprehension in other ways.

I make my kid learns things she doesn't want to learn. She considers that mean.

But she adores science, so much of her free reading is science related be it fiction, non-fiction reference materials, etc.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

They are also responsible for teaching the public and/or their patients. Why are the students or their parents not responsible?

When the government took over education b/c they felt they could do it best.

My kids do not go to public school, but the parents who do send their kids--they have very vivid memories of not having to rely on their parents for an education when they were younger since they went to school.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

Most of the people I know who work in the "real world," have much less demands on them than I do as a teacher. They are constantly surprised at how much time my "cushy job" eats into my time outside of school.

FWIW, most of us have spouses who have "real jobs, in the real world." In over 30 years of marriage, DH has never had to do anything after hours. NEVER. He has made considerably more money than I, with less education. His benefits have always been better than mine. He has been laid off at times, but then again, so have I. As for my friends that work in the "real world", their realities are the same as DH's.

Lucky for your DH. My DH has been with the same company for 22 years, and has worked 6 days a week at times (salaried), frequently (most days) gets and responds to emails from his boss in NY. We've gone on vacation when there were big bad things going on at work, and DH needed to be back at the hotel to do things like wire money. He makes up for most of his "vacation" time by working late for nights before we go, and when we return. And that's what my life was like when I worked in business too, which is why I decided to be a SAHM.

I have 2 kids in college...one graduating this year, trying to decide if she should go for her masters to become a teacher, or another profession. My other DD is going to school to be a Spanish teacher. I don't expect it to be a piece of cake by any means. But there's something to be said for having TIME in your lives. Not that any teacher (well, maybe some) walks out the door of school when the bell rings and doesn't do a single thing. But, there are a whole lot of people out there doing jobs 50 - 52 weeks a year, 9 - 5 or later, vs a job with a better chance of at least bringing work home and being home with their families, and having summers and holidays off.

Years ago, in RI (Warwick) there was a teacher strike that I think left a bad taste in many RI people's mouths. The teachers were ordered back to work (horrors!), but basically held the students and their parents hostage. On parents/teachers conference night, they covered student work on their bulletin boards. They refused to write college recommendations for seniors. Some were jailed for refusing to return to work when ordered by a judge. I remember a teacher friend of mine being horrified that teachers would be jailed (for breaking the law? ). She talked about how much her friend...an engineer...made, and it was so much more than HER, and SHE taught CHILDREN! Then she sheepishly admitted that based on the time actually worked...inside and outside the "office", she made more per hour than he did.

I'm a professional at a fortune 500 company and I guess I'll be the materialistic weasle of the board. I want to be paid for every nanosecond I'm working. If I work 2.5 mins, 25 mins or 25 hours extra I want to be paid for it. My company doesn't give a darn thing away free so why should I give them my time and expertise for free?

Not gonna happen, Sure there are many times I have to work over to complete a project but I keep track of every thing I do and the time my projects run me and you better believe I'm in my directors office negotiating compensation for it.

Are you serious?? Are you salaried?

As for time off, that varies from school to school. Also, what may appear as time off, isn't always what it seems. Prior to my current position, I had "off" in July & August. However, I didn't really have "off" the entire time. There were inservices to attend and additional classes to take. There were committee meetings, many held during the summer because administratively it was cheaper than hiring substitutes and having them during the school year. In my current position (and yes, I'm a classroom teacher), I have off 2 weeks in the summer (one in June & one in August); and that's IF we have no snow days to make up. Because of all the snow this year, it looks like we'll get 3 days in June.

During the school year, there were mandatory after school activities to attend. A free weekend might not end up to be so free. Parent teacher conferences were held at night to accommodate working parents. We worked a regular school day and then returned in the evening. School was over for the students at 3, and by contract our day was over at 3:50, but drive past that school on any given day, and you would find teachers working well past 5 in order to fulfill our obligations.

I would hope that time outside the classroom...meetings, additional training, etc...would happen during the summer and NOT during the school year, with a substitute who sometimes is doing nothing more than babysitting. During the school year, teachers should be IN THE CLASSROOM doing their jobs. There were days I allowed my kids to come home from school during the day because there were so few teachers in for one reason or another.

And if your summer is shorter because of snow days, you still had those days off, just not when you personally wanted them. My DH never had "snow days".

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

But the problem we have is that for some reason we are a "magic bullet" society. We don't want to look at the entire problem and figure out a multi-prong approach to fixing it.
So the school district in this case will blame the teachers and like I said, I'm willing to bet my pretty nice bonus that next year those test scores will be just as crappy. Now they have to scramble and try to find 78 new teachers to come in and be able to teach. Most new teachers get an older teacher to mentor them will in this case that won't happen so what are we left with? I'm betting that next year is going to be a lot worse. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Successful charter schools do a lot more than just require teachers to work X amount of hours each day. Most teachers I know wouldn't mind working the extra time if they felt that they were getting the support from the administration, the parents and the state education community.

True!

There is simplytoo much of the district blaming the teachers for problems THEY cause! As I said, I know several teachers. I think it was a year or two ago, the teachers were "given a say" to review a few curriculum options for a particular subject when it was time to change the curriculum. Not a single teacher voted for the curriculum that was chosen. The district did not listen. But of course--in the event it failed, it would be the teachers' fault of course.


Also--I'm not sure I'd assume that they'd get all new grads to teach there. Maybe that will happen, I don't know. I would imagine that they may shuffle some other schools to spread the expertise. But that would require a brain, so maybe they won't.

AS for charter schools--they are not the be all end all. While they do have educational freedoms in not being attached to the district and their ideas of a curriculum, we have had a few that closed their doors here for whatever reason. Some due to funding and others due to poor performance.


Also--it is unfair to compare charter schools, magnet schools, and private schools to a traditional public school.

Parents who choose the other options have a vested interest in their kids' education. Those schools will more likely have more required involvement of parents which will foster an interest in what their child is learning and whether or not they are actually learning it.

A public school has no choice. They get whomever is sent to them with no option to not retain the student if they are performing poorly. (retain as in--they can't kick them out of the school)

In cases where it is clear that parents dont' give a rat's behind--they will require more district support.

But in the end--it is a high school. States have MINIMUM requirements that qualfies a studen to graduate. If half the school isn't meeting the minimum requirements, something is very very very very wrong and we can't just blame the parents and expect it to be fixed.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

It would be marvelous if students learning occured in a vacuum unfortunately it does not. Every thing from home life to learning environment to weather effects the outcome. If you have to teach math and 1/4 of your kids don't speak the language your teaching in, you can teach them until their blue in the face, your scores are going to suck.

Sounds like they need more ESL courses, though.

Color me cyncial--but I'm not sure that I can expect a child who is exposed to the English language 5 days a week during the school year isn't picking up anything.

I recall in 3rd grade a little boy being pulled out for speech to teach him English. He was Vietnamese and didn't speak much at the beginning of the year. But he did speak more of it later.

I'm sure some ACLU folks would get up in arms and demand the child be taught in their native language--but that is ridiculous. But just you wait. Someone will sue one day.

 

[eliza61]

Lucky for your DH. My DH has been with the same company for 22 years, and has worked 6 days a week at times (salaried), frequently (most days) gets and responds to emails from his boss in NY. We've gone on vacation when there were big bad things going on at work, and DH needed to be back at the hotel to do things like wire money. He makes up for most of his "vacation" time by working late for nights before we go, and when we return. And that's what my life was like when I worked in business too, which is why I decided to be a SAHM.

I have 2 kids in college...one graduating this year, trying to decide if she should go for her masters to become a teacher, or another profession. My other DD is going to school to be a Spanish teacher. I don't expect it to be a piece of cake by any means. But there's something to be said for having TIME in your lives. Not that any teacher (well, maybe some) walks out the door of school when the bell rings and doesn't do a single thing. But, there are a whole lot of people out there doing jobs 50 - 52 weeks a year, 9 - 5 or later, vs a job with a better chance of at least bringing work home and being home with their families, and having summers and holidays off.

Years ago, in RI (Warwick) there was a teacher strike that I think left a bad taste in many RI people's mouths. The teachers were ordered back to work (horrors!), but basically held the students and their parents hostage. On parents/teachers conference night, they covered student work on their bulletin boards. They refused to write college recommendations for seniors. Some were jailed for refusing to return to work when ordered by a judge. I remember a teacher friend of mine being horrified that teachers would be jailed (for breaking the law? ). She talked about how much her friend...an engineer...made, and it was so much more than HER, and SHE taught CHILDREN! Then she sheepishly admitted that based on the time actually worked...inside and outside the "office", she made more per hour than he did. Are you serious?? Are you salaried? I would hope that time outside the classroom...meetings, additional training, etc...would happen during the summer and NOT during the school year, with a substitute who sometimes is doing nothing more than babysitting. During the school year, teachers should be IN THE CLASSROOM doing their jobs. There were days I allowed my kids to come home from school during the day because there were so few teachers in for one reason or another.

And if your summer is shorter because of snow days, you still had those days off, just not when you personally wanted them. My DH never had "snow days".

Hey Maryann,
Yes, I'm a staffed Chemist (lowest of the exempt people) Twice a year in May and November I have what we call a DOC meeting. Discussion of Contribution meeting with my boss. I go in and we discuss how my projects are going, what kind of budget or personnel issues and set goals. In November's meeting I present all my accomplishments, how much time spent and how they contributed to the bottom line of company. The company big wigs set the raise range so there is nothing I can do about that (this year it was between 2-6%) but I can campaign for a high raise and a bonus. Based on last year (2009 results) I negotiated a 8% bonus for myself and 30 of my technicians.
I realize that I'm probably a lot luckier but my company claims they compensate based on performance so we hold them to that claim. Yes we have had layoffs since the economy tumbled but every one still can negotiate for fair compensation

 

[daughtersrus]

I agree! Perhaps it's time to fire and replace the elementary teachers also.

Which ones? From what I read on CNN, this area has a very high transient population. Are you going to go to the schools where these children came from and demand that the fire their teachers?

 

[eliza61]

Sounds like they need more ESL courses, though.

Color me cyncial--but I'm not sure that I can expect a child who is exposed to the English language 5 days a week during the school year isn't picking up anything.

I recall in 3rd grade a little boy being pulled out for speech to teach him English. He was Vietnamese and didn't speak much at the beginning of the year. But he did speak more of it later.

I'm sure some ACLU folks would get up in arms and demand the child be taught in their native language--but that is ridiculous. But just you wait. Someone will sue one day.:rolleyes:

Yep, and don't even get started on the budget to try and pay for that. LOL.
It's hard. I live near Camden NJ. I'm amazed with some of the young girls I volunteer with tell me their parents speak no english. I ask them how long they've been in the states and they say 10 years!! that means they are not even attempting to learn the language. Unfortunately the kids have to speak english in school but go home and then it's all spanish. So of course now I'm a bit p.o'ed at the parents. Could we at least pretend we're going to give our kids a leg up! Jeez.

 

[daughtersrus]

When the government took over education b/c they felt they could do it best.

My kids do not go to public school, but the parents who do send their kids--they have very vivid memories of not having to rely on their parents for an education when they were younger since they went to school.

I'm confused. Are you saying that the students and their parents are have no responsibility in whether they learn or not because they go to public school?

 

[Kathi OD]

Lucky for your DH. My DH has been with the same company for 22 years, and has worked 6 days a week at times (salaried), frequently (most days) gets and responds to emails from his boss in NY. We've gone on vacation when there were big bad things going on at work, and DH needed to be back at the hotel to do things like wire money. He makes up for most of his "vacation" time by working late for nights before we go, and when we return. And that's what my life was like when I worked in business too, which is why I decided to be a SAHM.

I have 2 kids in college...one graduating this year, trying to decide if she should go for her masters to become a teacher, or another profession. My other DD is going to school to be a Spanish teacher. I don't expect it to be a piece of cake by any means. But there's something to be said for having TIME in your lives. Not that any teacher (well, maybe some) walks out the door of school when the bell rings and doesn't do a single thing. But, there are a whole lot of people out there doing jobs 50 - 52 weeks a year, 9 - 5 or later, vs a job with a better chance of at least bringing work home and being home with their families, and having summers and holidays off.

Years ago, in RI (Warwick) there was a teacher strike that I think left a bad taste in many RI people's mouths. The teachers were ordered back to work (horrors!), but basically held the students and their parents hostage. On parents/teachers conference night, they covered student work on their bulletin boards. They refused to write college recommendations for seniors. Some were jailed for refusing to return to work when ordered by a judge. I remember a teacher friend of mine being horrified that teachers would be jailed (for breaking the law? ). She talked about how much her friend...an engineer...made, and it was so much more than HER, and SHE taught CHILDREN! Then she sheepishly admitted that based on the time actually worked...inside and outside the "office", she made more per hour than he did. Are you serious?? Are you salaried? I would hope that time outside the classroom...meetings, additional training, etc...would happen during the summer and NOT during the school year, with a substitute who sometimes is doing nothing more than babysitting. During the school year, teachers should be IN THE CLASSROOM doing their jobs. There were days I allowed my kids to come home from school during the day because there were so few teachers in for one reason or another.

And if your summer is shorter because of snow days, you still had those days off, just not when you personally wanted them. My DH never had "snow days".

You are missing the point. My post was written to help dispel some misconceptions. I absolutely agree that teachers belong in the classroom during the school year. I'm not complaining about having to do work in the summer. It's part of the job. I knew it going in and chose to become a teacher anyway. People think that teachers don't do anything in the summer. They do, and oft times are not paid extra for it. So those 2 free months are not as free as people think they are.

Also, maybe you didn't read the part about the snow days carefully. I don't get the summer off. I get 2 weeks vacation; one week in June and one week in August. Those snow days will eat into my vacation. Yep, we did have the days off, and they weren't when we wanted them. My example was meant to show that the general public's perception isn't always reality.

It would be easy for me to look at other people's occupations and make assumptions and generalizations about how hard they work, but until I've walked the walk, I'll keep my mouth shut because I really don't know. I guess I just expect the same from those who don't do the same job I do.

 

[shrubber]

Can I just point out that this school had a 48% graduation rate? The teachers wanted $90/hr to consider trying to be better than 48% successful at their jobs. Hooray for the board.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

Hey Maryann,
Yes, I'm a staffed Chemist (lowest of the exempt people) Twice a year in May and November I have what we call a DOC meeting. Discussion of Contribution meeting with my boss. I go in and we discuss how my projects are going, what kind of budget or personnel issues and set goals. In November's meeting I present all my accomplishments, how much time spent and how they contributed to the bottom line of company. The company big wigs set the raise range so there is nothing I can do about that (this year it was between 2-6%) but I can campaign for a high raise and a bonus. Based on last year (2009 results) I negotiated a 8% bonus for myself and 30 of my technicians.
I realize that I'm probably a lot luckier but my company claims they compensate based on performance so we hold them to that claim. Yes we have had layoffs since the economy tumbled but every one still can negotiate for fair compensation

That sounds like a company established evaluation process, and a nice one at that! I think that's a great model for other companies, and maybe in some form, even for teachers.

If you compare your company to these teachers demanding compensation for every additional requirements or time in their days, I think that's comparing apples to oranges. Teachers rarely seem to be held accountable for their attendance or accomplishments to the extent that people in other jobs are.