Detroit Public Schools to Increase Teacher Pay 33%

Actually, I am not ignoring that at all. I know you said that. I also know you are ok with education being a reason for increased pay (just not a huge gap - that gap to be determined by what you feel equitable). Please, tell me where I am misrepresenting your opinion. I think I have stated it rather well.

I am asking you why education should be a factor if two people are doing the same job with the same job description. You still haven't answered why. You just keep telling me it should.

I expected to hear a reason such as: a master's degree makes teachers more effective therefore they should have higher pay or even they are rewarded for learning more about teaching.

I may have missed your answer as to why someone with a master's degree should get paid more for doing the same job. If I did, I would sure appreciate you pointing it out.

 

It begs the question: What is a better teacher?
The profession has never been able to answer that adequately.

 

I agree with a large part of your two posts, Rainstorm. I do think that there is an acceptable reason for paying a 25 year veteran more than a 20 year veteran though. Early in one’s career, it’s easy to move from district to district. You don’t always lose much, if any, in terms of salary when changing districts. However, that changes the longer you work for a district. At a certain point, you’re earning more partially based on your dedication and commitment to a particular district. For that reason, it makes sense that someone with 25 years would be paid more than someone with 20 years, even though both might be excellent teachers.

Also, unrelated to salary, my district’s evaluation system has four categories by which teachers can be defined. “Proficient” is only third out of four, the fourth being the highest. They expect that most teachers will eventually be proficient, as you’ve said. The fourth category is “distinguished”. Most teachers will be “as good as [they] need to be” at some point in their career, but it IS possible to go above and beyond that which is considered proficient. Now, years of experience and education may or may not have anything to do with that, and my district doesn’t award anyone monetarily for achieving a “distinguished” rating in any particular area. I just thought it was important to point out that “proficient” isn’t and shouldn’t be the top bar.

 

In my opinion, every teacher should be proficient but given a year or two grace to grow with support. Beyond that, no teacher should be remaining in the classroom if the teacher is not proficient.

What does it really mean to be a proficient teacher? We can talk all day but without agreeing on common meanings, we can talk around each other.
What should a proficient teacher be able to accomplish regardless of where they teach?
Should what proficiency mean be dependent on the population?
Should proficiency be dependent on your degree?

 

I completely agree. My district’s other two categories are “new” and “developing”. Growth is expected over time, and a teacher wouldn’t keep their job if they stopped growing. Everyone is expected to get to proficient in most areas eventually, but it’s also okay to be developing in some areas, as long as that’s truly the case and growth is still occurring. Not everyone will reach distinguished in all areas, and that’s okay. Honestly, it would probably hint at a flawed system if that actually happened.

I also agree that there is no clear, succinct definition of what it means to be a proficient teacher overall. In my district, we have a rubric to help define what is expected in several areas to be considered at any given rating level. Even with that rubric, though, there is a lot of subjectivity on the part of the teacher and the administrator. I think it’s okay for proficient (or any rating) to mean different things within different districts, as long as it’s consistent among the teachers and administrators within that district. Unfortunately, that’s not often the case, in my experience.

 

Some teaching jobs are much harder than others. For example, teaching in a highly impacted, high poverty area requires deep knowledge of available social services, and enhanced teaching techniques that aren't needed in moderate or high income areas. Teaching in these areas takes an emotional toll that one must learn to deal with. These teachers should have much more training and higher pay than other teachers. Sadly, it's quite the opposite.

 

They tried this in my district once. they offered additional salary incentives of up to $20,000 to work at "target" schools - all failing, all about to be taken over by the state, all Title 1, inner city. They still weren't able to completely staff those schools with certified, experienced teachers at the end of the year. Mostly, the ones willing to sign the 5 year contract were 5 years from retirement, and got a nice little boost to their retirement pay. Then they retired, and immediately went back to teaching at "better" schools.

 

Oh, heck no!! I've been a teacher since 1998. No young whippersnapper should make anywhere near what make.
Even a cashier who does the same job as a cashier who's been working at any establishment for 10 years isn't going to make the same starting out. Why should teaching be different?

 

I agree that doing a good job at a school like that requires much more from a teacher. The tool box must be really full. In addition it requires a different psychological and emotional mindset to be able to adjust to the difficulties and communication of the community.

I also think that there are a lot of teachers who will take their pay bump and not do a good job or are stuck there and bide there time knowing that a lot of time, a warm body is better than no body at all. Few expect good student results in those schools. So, being "proficient" often means something different.

But I do agree that doing a good job in a school like that is a much harder job.

 

Ever since high poverty schools have been labeled as "failing" or "bad" (started in earnest in 2001), it's taken a toll on the teachers there. The most highly skilled, hardest working teacher will have miserable test results when his or her highly stressed students take those tests. It's time to dump the ineffective high stakes testing and move to other models of measuring progress.

In order to return and boost honor to teaching in such schools, I've been working in my state to get a special credential endorsement for teaching in a high poverty area. Only one state has such an endorsement (South Carolina), but nearly no one there applies for this endorsement. Districts need to add honor to the job by incentivizing teachers to get this endorsement. The media needs to stop using the term "failing" to describe high poverty schools.

 

Tyler, Sometimes it is a failing school (and by failing I do mean the administration and the teachers). Years ago a student in the DC public schools was on the news. It was so sad. He was so very far behind, but he didn't know it until the "big changes" came to the school system and he finally got one of the "types of teachers" you are talking about. He progressed multiple grade levels in a few months. He said his previous teachers never really taught them anything and just let them all sit.

So, while I do agree that calling all schools with low test scores "failing" schools does not help the situation, we really have to look at each school individually. But when the profession doesn't have the backbone to address "failing teachers" in failing schools or the low expectations in certain communities, some of these schools deserve the label. But I agree, this will hurt all.

I admire you are trying to address the issue. It is extremely important. I certainly hope in your quest to address the issue that you focus on things you can do more than things you can't change.

 

Here is one such example, of many, where the valedictorian couldn’t even pass the high school exam. She failed it four times and was prevented from graduating. Plus, she received an ACT of 11... I have never even seen a score that low before, which is the 1st percentile. And how does one become valedictorian with at least one C?

Let’s think about this: The valedictorian scored in the 1st percentile. That means that she scored lowered than 99% of all other test tasters. What’s more, what does that say about the rest of her “graduating” class?

This must be one of the great public school successes Tyler so often talks about. This school is clearly failing.

“School officials in Beaufort County, South Carolina, have institutionalized grade inflation by guaranteeing their high school students a minimum first-semester grade of at least 62 out of 100, so students who start the year badly aren’t prevented from passing a class if they improve in the second semester.

“What we’re trying to do is look at how we can send the message to students that we want them, number one, to be successful,” Deputy Superintendent Edna Crews told the Charleston Post and Courier in August. “We want to give kids some hope.”

Unfortunately, instead of leading to success, grade inflation is more likely to lead to failure, dashed hopes, broken dreams, and public humiliation. Just ask Bridget Green, who in May was looking forward to completing her education at Alcee Fortier Senior High School in New Orleans by graduating as the class valedictorian, delivering the commencement speech, and then enrolling in community college. But despite her superior grades, Green could not pass a math proficiency exam required for graduation; she not only lost her starring role as valedictorian, but was not even allowed to graduate.


“An Ideal Student”

Green’s story first appeared in The Times-Picayune on August 10, in a long, poignant article by the New Orleans newspaper’s staff writer Aesha Rasheed. According to her teachers and peers, Green was “an ideal student”--studious, athletic, and outgoing. She was on her school’s basketball and track teams but had a college-prep class schedule and earned top grades in those classes.

When she first took the Graduate Exit Exam (GEE) in 10th grade, she passed English but failed math. Significantly, she said the exam questions didn’t look anything like what she learned in class. By spring in her senior year, Green had failed the math exam four times and was making her fifth attempt to pass. By that time, she had taken Algebra I, earning a C, and Algebra II, earning an A. The only warning sign was her score of only 11 on the ACT, which put her behind 99 percent of other high school students who took the test nationally.”

https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/valedictorian-flunks-graduation-test?source=policybot

 

So what's your point? You think I'm in favor of grade inflation and retaining weak teachers? Are you saying you favor the test-and-punish regimen of the Bush/Obama/Trump administrations? Maybe you are saying you blame unions and not the administrators who hired weak teachers and passed them through their probationary periods?

It would take a competent principal just minutes to see that a teacher is just letting kids sit around and not offering instruction. A 19-year veteran teacher (on our union exec board) in the next hall over was just fired by my new principal for incompetence. It had nothing at all to do with tests. It had to do with a well-trained and competent principal.

 

I don't think he said any of those things. I think his point was that a student is getting top marks but not actually meeting grade level standards.

How horrible is it for a student to find out they have been lied to by every teacher they ever had?

My own district inflates grades, particularly for special education students because they tend to write grades as the progress measure for services. Good grades, no need for additional services. Students (and most parents) think their kids must be doing great because the teacher wouldn't be lying. But the work is so dumbed down in the majority of these classes that you don't have to do much more than show up to get a C. An A in these classes is no where near what the grade level standards expect for a passing grade.

I don't know the right answer, but I do know that kids who really can't meet grade level standards should not be believing they are good students.

Maybe we should move this discussion to another post.

 

I agree with every word of this post!!!

 

In my home city, many years ago they tried offering very experienced teachers a $20K bonus to go into the roughest schools in the inner city district. The teachers refused. They said they'd worked their way up to being in the "good" schools and they weren't about to go back. One factor is that teachers are compensated well there compared to COL. I did wonder if perhaps things would play out differently in my current city, where many teachers are actually struggling financially and $20K extra per year might be "life changing" money.

I have worked in low SES schools my entire career. I really don't understand the idea that people can go in and "be lazy" and collect a paycheck. Maybe that works in secondary where you could possibly show movies to each class period or give a ton of "free time" in each class period. Not in elementary where you are stuck with those kids all day long. Teachers in my school learn pretty quickly if you don't have a significant amount of structure, you're going to deal with bedlam all day long. Not just talking back and other annoyances- violence, property destruction, screaming bloody murder for hours on end, etc. Sure, there have been teachers who have been unsuccessful in my school. Honestly I would not want to spend even 10 minutes being them- their days just went so horribly with all of the behaviors they weren't able to manage. I have NEVER seen anyone "just collecting a paycheck."

Over the past several years, my school has become a high poverty high performance school. We did not do that by adopting things the "good schools" do or by getting rid of the "lazy teachers just collecting a paycheck" (like I said, they didn't exist). We were already teaching like the "good schools" did previously, and that didn't work with our population. Our kids need SO MUCH more than kids in those schools do. We have a significantly different approach to teaching than the wealthier schools. It's definitely not for everyone and yes, I would argue it's significantly more work than those in the wealthier schools are doing.

 

Could you explain your school’s model, please? It sounds awesome!

 

Tyler B., I couldn't agree with you more. I've worked in both very low-income , "failing" schools and in wealthier "easy" schools. I never saw any teacher in the low-income school "just cruising." You couldn't. The kids would eat you alive! If you weren't on top of classroom management all day long, you would make yourself very miserable. I did see some teachers in the "easier" schools just cruise by.

But here is what I noticed the most. In our "failing" schools, the district pulled experienced, highly successful teachers and asked them to move to the "failing" schools. It was a tough thing to do, but most of us did it because we are there for the kids, and teaching is our passion. But here is what life is like once a school is labeled "failing."

These schools were "failing" not because of poor teaching. They were not failing because of a lack of services. They were failing because the parents were either unable (working 3 jobs and never home, or on drugs and not "present" even when they were) or perhaps the parents could barely read because they never succeeded in school, which makes it really hard for the parent to help the child, even if they wanted to. We had kindergartners coming to school who had never held a crayon, had never played with Play-Dough, didn't know what the alphabet was, couldn't count to 5, couldn't identify colors, had mumbled speech that couldn't be understood, and who had such impoverished vocabularies that they were already so far behind their wealthier-school peers that it would take years and years of intensive help for them to even come close to catching up.

But because this school was labeled as "failing" the state forces all kinds of policies on the teachers which are hugely time-consuming and which don't add a thing to these children's education. For example, in a failing school, the teachers are required to write and submit ENORMOUS lesson plans (mine were in excess of 40 pages per week!) in a specific format that we didnt' find helpful at all, including all kinds of buzzwords and sections (the I do, we do, you do) for every topic taught all day long, etc. These took the majority of the teacher's planning time, and didn't add much to the child's education. These teachers were already exemplary teachers, and able to write incredible lesson plans, but were force to write ridiculously long, wordy, and unnecessary lesson plans simply because the school had the "failing" designation. (Remember, these highly successful teachers were brought in by the district to try to help. They were already highly effective teachers.) I would have been better off being able to write basic, detailed lesson plans, and then having planning time left to actually write incredible, engaging lessons.

Then, because of the failing designation, the kindergarten teacher needed to write the standard being taught in each section (ELA, math, science, social studies, tech, and writing) on the board each day in the form of an "I can" statement. Okay, first of all, remember these kids don't even know their alphabet yet. I'm not saying writing objectives might not be helpful in some schools, but the time the teacher spent doing this each day could have been used for other things these children needed more. But doing this was mandatory by the state because of the "failing" status.

Then there were the mandatory "improvement" meetings each week -- which took TWO of our planning periods each week. Remember, the district brought in teachers who were high caliber and we spent two meetings a week being "taught" basic teaching 101 skills that we had been using and had mastered for the past 15 years! No, that isn't a waste of time.

And on and on it goes. My point is, once a school earns a "failing" rating, keeping good teachers, even with pay incentives or by bringing in the "best and the brightest" is a losing proposition, because of the state mandates for failing schools.

In our inner-city district, if you were middle class or above, you sent your child to private school, and the kids who were very bright (but poor) got scholarships to the private schools, or sent to the magnet schools, so our public schools were basically "the kids who were left" -- the incredibly poor and ones who didn't show "academic ability." Instead of having a class filled with a nice variety of abilities, you had classes where every single student was below average, way below average, and needs more help than is humanly possible in the situation. This is the reality in many poor school districts. Slapping a failing label, and then making the teachers and admin jump through all kinds of ridiculous "hoops" daily did nothing to help improve the situation.

What did help? Hiring retired (career) teachers part-time to come back and work 12-15 hours a week with a small group daily. We had dozens of these tried-and-true teachers who were dedicated, and they "adopted" a group of 3 or 4 strugglers and took them wherever we could find room (the back of classrooms, hallways, the stage in the auditorium..wherever) and gave them intensive, small group instruction -- without the requirement of enormous lesson planning and useless meetings -- they could only work 12-15 hours without messing up their retirement pay, but they were insanely qualified and dedicated, and able to do what every teacher wants -- actually spend 100% of their time teaching and making a difference. This was highly effective. (But surprisingly, not a part of the state's requirements for a failing school at all.)

Stamping a "failing" label on a school, and then tying the hands of teaching staff with overwhelming requirements is not the answer. Is it any wonder no new teachers want to work in these schools? Is it any wonder that the experienced teachers who were brought in came out of a sense of loyalty, but couldn't stay long term, because the state-mandated requirements killed every bit of enthusiasm and dedication they ever had, and of course, within a year or two, now burned-out, they returned to their "easier" schools with a huge sense of frustration.

 

Rainstorm, that was a beautifully written and thought-provoking post. I commend you and your fellow teachers on a number of things.

You ARE one of the most brilliant and hardworking teachers I’ve encountered, without question. You are a true master of your craft.

However, your experience is NOT the norm in these schools. Unqualified teachers are often filling these positions because the qualified teachers largely don’t want to work in failing schools. Therein lies the problem.

“We argue that, when issues such as teacher quality and the unequal distribution of highly qualified teachers across schools serving different concentrations of low-income students are taken into consideration, the teacher shortage problem is much more severe than previously thought,” the EPI report said.

The shortages are especially severe in California. In 2017, LPI found that two-thirds of principals in high-poverty schools left positions vacant or hired less-qualified teachers. Less than half of their counterparts in schools with fewer lower-income students did so.”

http://neatoday.org/2019/04/03/how-bad-is-the-teacher-shortage/

 

I always struggle to understand why any administrator or teacher thinks they can teach in high poverty schools in the same manner as wealthier schools where parents either supplement or hire tutors. Our wealthy schools are highly dependent on the support the families give to teach the students. If they didn't have that their strategies wouldn't be working at the wealthier schools either.

In term of just how the students were taught, we had a local school that was just about ready to be turned over to the state and they revamped drastically (the school down the road gave it lip services). It made many teachers angry, but the administrator said that the students can't be taught as if they get anything from outside of the school. The kids started doing significantly better because the administrator started from square one with most of the kids and didn't expect than anything was going to be gained from the home environment. Having it was a bonus, but it no longer became a necessity. There was no expecting that homework would be done at home with families. For many their parents didn't understand the language well enough and many others had parents who may have graduated but weren't educated.

 

What are some of the significantly different approaches your school takes?

 

Classroom management is a necessity in order to teach, but just because a teacher has great classroom management, doesn't mean they are teaching. That is sometimes the issue. All of their efforts go toward management. That is what all day is. Management of students rather than teaching. It absolutely hard work to keep control. Not everyone can manage both though.

 

What a wonderful idea! We had something a tiny bit like this when I worked for a poorer district. It was called HOSTS- Help One Student to Succeed. It was mostly done by retired teachers who actually volunteered, but it was a wonderful program.

 

Almost everything we do is explicit, systematic direct instruction that is teacher led. No "inquiry"/PBL type stuff. My P is a big fan of saying, "If they knew it, we wouldn't be teaching it." There is a HUGE focus on getting kids to learn to read in the first place- think all of the "science of reading" stuff. We started that about 4 years ago. We have some students spending as much as 3 hours per day (not consecutively) in very small groups focusing on phonemic awareness and phonics skills. The minimum is a 45 minute structured literacy block in class and then a 30 minute intervention group; that would be for kids on grade level. Most of our kids need significantly more than that to make progress. Students are progress monitored weekly and teachers meet in a data team every 6 weeks to change students around to different groups or change the focus of the group- still all PA/phonics based. Advanced groups use the time to study things like morphology as it relates to vocabulary. Students who are not successful there get added to triple dip, quadruple dip, and before/after school tutoring groups. This starts from day 1 in Kindergarten. There is no "letting them get used to being at school" or "seeing if they improve with more language exposure in the classroom."

We use the Habits of Discussion framework and have high expectations for how students speak in class. Like everything else, oral language is explicitly taught and reinforced as our students come in with huge deficits in that area. Whole class reading activities are focused on exposure to high quality literature, discussions, and building background knowledge as again, our kids come in with huge deficits. This is in place of teaching "comprehension strategies" which research shows is not effective.

We have a big focus on pacing (no down time, getting through a lot of content in the time allotted) and engagement, and requirements that students participate 100% of the time. Students get constant feedback and they're not given the chance to practice anything incorrectly. We have a school wide acronym for how students are to sit/engage in class and we're all required to enforce it all of the time (I don't want to say what it is- just in case). Same for hallway expectations, transition expectations, etc. Everything is extremely structured and extremely well planned/thought out ahead of time both to allow for tight pacing and to cut down on behavior issues.

There are very few "fluff" or "just for fun" activities, which is certainly not for everyone. My P is always saying, "You know what's not fun? Not knowing how to read in 6th grade." While I think it's horribly unfair that children at xyz fancypants elementary school get to do all of the fun/fluff activities and achieve at the same levels, that's unfortunately the world we live in. I'd rather our kids have a chance at breaking the poverty cycle than get to have a "fun" school experience. We do a few holiday celebrations and assemblies and things like that, but the majority of school time is spent on direct instruction. I've also found over the years that my students are happiest and most engaged when they feel successful- it doesn't require constant game-like activities like I thought when I was a younger teacher.

Behavior is taken seriously at all levels. We do the restorative practice type stuff, but we ALSO enforce big consequences for misbehavior and give rewards for correct behavior. Nothing is ignored or just tolerated. Our paras focus on behavior rather than academics, and they receive regular training from the mental health team. Significant SEL interventions are available for those who need them, and there is a whole team that meets weekly just to brainstorm around kids who are getting behavior referrals. And for kids who are getting all of that and still showing extremely severe behaviors, my P is not afraid to push for a more restrictive placement. Previous P thought that was "throwing children away" and would never send anyone anywhere, even if they were extremely violent and destroying the classroom on a regular basis. This change alone made a huge difference.

I don't begrudge teachers who don't want to work at our school at all. I'm sure some are reading this thinking, "wow, that sounds horrible." It's absolutely not for everyone. Last year we had a K teacher who cried in every single data team meeting. She just wanted to play with her kids. She's now in the wealthiest district in the city and is very happy there. I'm a very structured person and have come to enjoy teaching this way. I feel that what we're doing is of the upmost importance and as a purpose driven person, that is very important for me.

 

I think this sounds awesome. I’d love to teach at a school like yours. We have a very diverse population at my school. We have a heavy focus on inquiry, which is great for some kids but obviously not all. I wish we did more explicit systematic instruction for the kids who need it. I’m very impressed by what your school is doing. Thanks for sharing.

 

This is how school should be with a student body like yours. I agree with EVERYTHING and was smiling throughout your entire post. Well done! You rock!

 

Your school’s philosophy fits my ideals.
I would thrive in this type of setting.

 

This is an interesting thread moving in so many directions of things I have pondered over the years. I am probably unusual, but I am not highly motivated by money.
At the same time, I have had times in life that I needed to make a decent salary. I got a bit of experience in private school which paid enough to live on, but not enough to get ahead. That was the only job I left when I came to the conclusion that I'd never get ahead and needed $. ( Pretty quickly...)
Then I moved to a school that was high poverty, but the district had excellent grant writers and sources of $$ that surrounding districts did not have. They paid teachers pretty well and the cost of living was dirt cheap. I bought a house my 1st year there.
The teachers there had all quit the year before. I found that out after I started working. The school was filled w/ new teachers. Maybe admin had been switched and told to keep us. I truly do not know.
Once Bush started with testing, we were a low performing school. ( He was the governor then.) We had the best admin, support, and training you can imagine. You could get certified in almost anything for free there. They'd pay for classes and tests you needed to take. They'd even arrange for time off to a small extent. Like if your kids were in a specials, you could take a class at that time or leave early.
Things like copying papers, grading, recess duty, and bulletin boards were jobs for the assistants. VP's were there to keep discipline. Teachers were there to teach academics and kids. You seldom had to send a kid. You'd just have to give them the choice of cooperating or going to the VP.
We had admin that inspired us to learn, get better, and were motivational. It was a big school. Massive appreciation and respect was shown to most teachers. I probably have never worked so hard in my life, but I think a lot of us felt like we owed it to the system, as well as kids.
When I 1st moved there, the P's( We had 2) offered loans to new teachers that could be pd back monthly w/ no interest. When a young teacher was dying, they put 3 of their best aides into her class to teach. She had to be in the building for so many more days before insurance kicked in for her. Then she could leave. She died that yr.
Long to short, I make a lot more now where I am at, but would go back to that salary for the respect and decency of that school. Oh, and as we got to be better teachers as the yrs went by, the school became very high performing. It was considered a distinguished school and a lot of the group I came with stayed and retired. There was a lot of school pride.
I don't work 1/2 as hard here getting paid a lot more. I say this in a humble way...not meaning I am perfect...lol I just have done this all for so long that it doesn't take me long to plan, I can spot problems/solutions quickly, and have learned a lot. Academically, I know where they need to go and usually my kids go way beyond it....w/ the exception of extreme sped kids. When new programs roll around, I usually learn them quickly because most are not really new....just recycled.
I think beginning teachers should have a decent salary. I know they have to work hard. At the same time, veterans do pick up a lot of their slack. They should be paid fairly too. Think about this: Have you ever gotten kids from a 1st year teacher? Academically and often behaviorally, you are teaching 2 years in one if not more. New teachers can be very helpful though when they offer to teach old dogs new computer tricks.
The article talked about upping teacher's salaries to attract teachers w/ 1-5 year's experience. It didn't say ( or I didn't see anything being taken away from other teachers.) Like if they'd lose their raises or make less because of the $ being given to newer people.
There is a huge difference in 5 yrs experience to 10 and probably equally as big between 10-20 yrs experience. This is hilarious looking back, but at 5 years, I felt pretty confident in my teaching abilities...I didn't know how much more there was to learn. For me, at about 20 yrs, I think I knew what worked and was less willing to change to a routine I was unsure of....Making me more of a pita probably!
Oh, and South Carolina popped up a few times. This is not a slam on SC, just my very limited personal experience w/ it. A few new teachers came from SC and couldn't stay because they couldn't pass the state test to get certified.
I remember 1 really sweet girl who had been considered smart where she had come from was crushed when she flunked it the 3rd time. She had to go home.
Also, I saw a Dateline or 20/20 years ago on this exact problem. A girl who was Valedictorian in her rural school had been crushed when she went to college and realized she did not know what she needed to function in her college classes and dropped out. She'd been told she was brilliant! It was like the rug had been pulled out from under her.

I think all teachers should be paid fairly. Experience does make a huge difference though when it comes to academics. A MA doesn't though from what I see. You have to have 1 to teach where I do. I think there really is something innate in good teachers. Maybe they had moms or teachers who were good role models. It has to do with how they relate to kids.......but even w/ that they need the experience and training to learn how to teach academics.

 

I also think that experience matters (that's why we get a small raise every year, but over all it adds up). WE also get higher pay with more education, and honestly, I think more experience is actually worth more than education. I know that sounds bad from an educator, but having done 15 extra grad level credits probably doesn't do as much as having worked 3 years at the school.

When I started I was full of questions, and constantly needed guidance. Where did I get it from? yes, a lot from my Principal because that's the kind of person she was, but a lot also from teachers who have worked there for 5-10 years and knew how to deal with our student population, what works and what doesn't work, how to deal with specific students, and even how to do some paper work and procedures. I think they definitely deserved that little higher pay for their knowledge.

 

Chicago has been at war with the public school system since the mid-00s. Half is charters and there have been several wildcat strikes.