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KNS blasts Knox County teachers
Submitted by R. Neal on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 7:39am.
Today's Knoxville News Sentinel editorial questions the professionalism of Knox County teachers, accuses them of "goldbricking", and suggests they have to be bribed to come to work instead of "faking illness."
In related news (as CBT pointed out below), the School Board is finally asking the tough questions about the Great Schools "shadow school board" program.
I never really understood the concept of enticing people to work when they are sick. However, I believe, but am not positive, that paying people for unused sick leave is a fairly standard practice. Kind of like a bonus. $20 is not much of a bonus.
that a teacher retiring from Knox County earns? What is the daily amount paid to a substitute? Seems to me that something between $20 and the average daily earnings or between $20 and the amount paid to a substitute would be fair.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 8:36am.
I never really understood the concept of enticing people to work when they are sick.
Me neither, esp. vis-a-vis infectious disease. It's a productivity double-whammy. Not only does the sick person not perform well, but that person can also get others ill in the office.
I had this argument a couple of times with a former boss who used to insist that our [single-mom] office manager bring her sick children into the office so that she could work rather than tend to them. The cause & effect was fairly evident the 2nd time I got the same darned bug that the kids had. (Zounds, how'd that happen...?)
____________________________
I'm a guy in a Reagan mask -- and I'm running for President!
Submitted by Somebody on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 8:39am.
I haven't looked at the school budget, so I am undoubtedly writing out of hand, but I will comment anyway. (It never seems to stop anyone else...)
Would faculty not be better rewarded by having the schools fund the necessary supplies for their classrooms, so that teachers can focus on teaching, without using their own paychecks to buy the supplies? Seems like giving them a little more opportunity for savings now would lead to a better retirement later, and a better functioning classroom from now until then.
It boggles my mind that our kids have to rely on teachers to buy supplies first and then on the kids selling coupon books for the next layer of funding for supplies and facilities. Sure, nobody likes to pay taxes, but I'd rather pay taxes to educate our kids than pay more later to deal with the myriad consequences of an undereducated adult population.
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 8:42am.
The issue of sick pay is tricky but for the KNS to label all teachers as goldbrickers seems as ludicrous as labeling the KNS editorial staff as mentally lazy serving mostly as an echo chamber for conservative propaganda...Oh, wait...
Any employee wants to feel like they are getting a fair deal. The salary pool for all teachers covers sick pay and if it isn't equitable, employees work against the system.
I'm not sure I was able to find a good sick pay solution when I had a few hundred employees. Eventually, we simply eliminated sick pay and replaced it with extra personal vacation days based on our average sick days per annum and short term disability insurance. We let employees carry a few days over to the next year but made them take their remaining days off rather than pay them. Not perfect but more fair than the other ways we could think of.
Paying $20 for sick days is a joke but $100 seems like too much, unles the calculation is based on a time value of money pay rate projected to some future date for retirement.
Some balance is needed but I rarely find it in the Sentinel Op Ed.
Retiring teachers currently receive $20 a day for unused sick leave. Substitute teachers make $60 per day. The proposed budget would match the substitute pay, giving teachers $60/day for unused sick leave upon retirement. If they give 90 [contract] days notice of their retirement, the pay-out goes up to $100/day of unused sick leave. There's a cap on the total pay-out amount anyone can receive.
The hope is that this will reduce unnecessary absenteeism and give teachers a strong incentive to give the HR department advance notice that they are retiring so we can fill their position more efficiently and effectively. Too often we find out right before school starts that someone is retiring, which makes it harder to fill the position with the best recruits.
There are also eligibility requirements for teachers to retire, like working 30 years and/or reaching a certain age, 65 maybe? I can't recall all the details off the top of my head.
One of our goals is improving teacher retention and this improved benefit is one way to to that.
Submitted by talidapali on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 11:34am.
There's always the stop-loss program the military uses...talk about retention...LOL
But I keed, I keed...
My mom was a teacher in the knoxville city schools for 2 decades until the schools were consolidated and then she stayed with the county schools for many years after that. One reason she didn't retire sooner was the fact that the city schools and the county schools counted maternity leave differently, so when she was under the city program and had her four kids she should have been able to retire a few years
earlier than she did, the county schools did not account the leave the same way meaning she had to stay on and teach, even after being diagnosed with cancer so she wouldn't lose her retirement benefits.
Want to be able to hire and retain good teachers? PAY them not only a living wage, but a wage that reflects how important their role is in shaping the future of our world. You want to keep them? Make leaving more of a disadvantage than staying.
People always blame the teacher first when little Johnny or Jessica is doing poorly in school, never mind the fact that MOM and DAD never sit down with their kids and read to them or help them with homework or stress the importance of education. Just ship them kids off to school, sick with snotty noses, dull-witted from hours of electronic babysitting syndrome, rude and insolent because mommy and daddums never taught them manners or respect for themselves, much less other adults, and somehow expect that the teacher is supposed to turn out productive members of society for you. Hell, some parents wont even show up for parent-teacher conferences UNTIL the teacher FLUNKS the kid, and THEN they show up wanting to know why they'll be saddled with a kid for one more year cause they haven't graduated with their class, and threatening the teacher with physical harm and emotional distress.
You need a license to drive or go hunting or fishing or to hold certain jobs, but they'll let any A**hole with a set of gonads be a parent.
Want to fix schools? Start by holding parents accountable for ALL their children's behavior and actions (including BAD GRADES). Only when mom and dad wind up on the hot seat for Junior's misbehavior and shortcomings, will things begin to change. Parents that abrogate their responsibilities to teach their own kids the most important lessons in life don't need to be parents.
And maybe, just maybe, if the kids show a little respect for the teacher and the knowledge they are trying to pass on, then the teachers will be more inclined to go to work with a sense of hope and accomplishment rather than feeling like they are heading into a combat zone every day.
_________________________________________________ "You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White" "I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali
Submitted by R. Neal on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 11:51am.
Damn, that's an awesome rant that pretty much sums up the problems with education and why "no child left behind" or any amount of redistricting won't fix it.
Submitted by SHarris on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 12:35pm.
Just as it is unfair to blame all teachers for a child's failure to learn, it is also unfair to blame parents. I wish we could establish a successful partnership between teachers, parents, students and the business community. I see the death of the "neighborhood school" as the biggest problem. If we could bring back the smaller schools and smaller classrooms I think we would see a big improvement. And, yes, I would be willing to pay more in taxes to support smaller schools but I think if a link with the business community could be forged, taxes might not have to increase.
Submitted by R. Neal on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 12:37pm.
I see the death of the "neighborhood school" as the biggest problem. If we could bring back the smaller schools and smaller classrooms I think we would see a big improvement.
Amen.
Not sure I agree with getting the business community involved, though.
Public education should be publicly funded.
If you mean intern programs, professional teach-in days, and the like, I agree.
Submitted by SHarris on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 12:48pm.
the business community involved in intern programs and also in other areas such as school construction. I'd like to see schools supported by the entire community. If a new school needed to be built, wouldn't it be great if area businesses donated funding, materials or labor?
Forget about the Great Schools Partnership, and try partnering the central office administration with the teachers that the administration is supposed to be supporting.
Knox County schools administration MO is fear and intimidation. I heard one teacher say that her principal said that if all grades aren't on the computer this year that Roy Mullins would be coming for a visit, and you don't want the Superintendent coming to your school.
Actually, the Superintendent should be out visiting the schools and finding out what teachers need, so that they can do their jobs. Greenville Co., South Carolina used to have an ex-military officer who visited schools at least three days out of each week finding out what teachers needed and what he could do to help them.
Central office in Knox Co. visits when they have another magic "policy pill" like Max Thompson or parallel block scheduling that's always supposed to turn things around. With our Central Office it's all top down, old school management versus the workers (teachers), when it should be just the opposite.
Any organization I've been familiar with the management uses fear and intimidation when it realizes that it lacks the compentency and knowledge to gain respect from its workers. That, and what Talidapli said, is what is at the root of the problem with public education in Knox Co.
Submitted by Jack McElroy on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 12:51pm.
Randy, you misstated what the editorial said. In fact, you got it backwards.
Mullins and the teachers union have argued that the plan will be good for education because teachers now burn sick leave rather than save it, and a higher payout rate will encourage them to come to work and reduce the number of substitutes in classrooms. The editorial cited that justification, then said: "If that's true, it's a sad comment on the professionalism of Knox County teachers. Is goldbricking really such a problem that bribing teachers not to fake illness will have a significant impact on our classrooms?"
The answer, of course, is no. It won't have such an impact. As the editorial went on to say: "Instead, this suggestion is just a ploy to sweeten the pot for retirees."
The News Sentinel has great respect for the professionalism of teachers, and that's why we don't believe that this will reduce absenteeism in any meaningful way as the superintendent and union suggest.
Granted, it might be wise to spend this money on improving teacher compensation, but wouldn't higher wages have more impact in the years ahead than an unanticipated bonus for educators who have accumulated years of unused sick leave and are about to leave the system?
That's the sort of questioning the editorial was intended to provoke.
Submitted by CathyMcCaughan on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 1:01pm.
Talidapali - Your rant is completely uncalled for and insulting to all of us who give our children 100% of our attention. There ARE teachers who are unfair and cruel to students. There are teachers who are constantly absent and obviously job hunting or finishing their real estate training so that they can quit teaching. There are teachers who can't spell, keep track of their students' papers or complete grading in a reasonable time frame. There are parents who are repeating the mistakes that were inflicted upon them. They need help, not blame. Too many parents, students and teachers are struggling to do the right thing and don't deserve your childless vitriol.
Submitted by talidapali on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 2:23pm.
I'll get down off my soapbox when some lazy ass punk kid doesn't come to school and threaten to shoot my MOTHER because she gave him a D that he EARNED. Not an F, just a D. Or when she didn't have to work every day while she was doing radiation treatments and chemotherapy so she wouldn't lose her health insurance or retirement benefits. She even delayed her surgery until just before summer break so she wouldn't have to get a substitute for so long.
You might ask yourself WHY those teachers are looking for a better job, could it be that they get nothing but grief from lazy parents and not nearly enough money for the amount of work they do under the conditions that they work, including the hours and hours they spend at night AT HOME (not spending time with their own kids on homework and reading and family time) grading papers until their eyes go so bad that they are practically blind? Ever consider how many viruses and colds and general snotty illnesses and infections a teacher is exposed to EVERY day? I'll bet you would scream bloody murder if a TEACHER came to school with an infectious disease and your kids caught it...no one ever considers not sending their kids to school when they are sick with sniffles so as not to expose the teacher to germs and illnesses times 25 to 30. Why? Cause mom and dad CAN'T afford to or just WON'T take a day off to take care of the kids and make sure they don't make others sick? The human immune system can only take so much exposure to infectious elements until it gives up and throws in the towel.
Speaking of people who can't spell, read a newspaper lately?
Yeah there are teachers that are unfair and cruel, just like in any other job or situation in life...grow a thicker skin and toughen up some. Just like there are kids that are bullies.
Until YOU have actually stepped into a classroom and done the job of which you speak including spending hours at home grading papers and planning lessons because your lesson planning period in school got canceled so you could fill in for someone or watch a class of in-school detention or run to get supplies for your classes with your OWN PITIFULLY SMALL PAYCHECK because people hate paying property taxes and taxes in general, or spending your summers taking a second job to make ends meet so your kids have food and clothes, or facing not one, not two, but five classes each day full of 30 or so disinterested, apathetic students (at best) or openly hostile and threatening students (at worst), or taking a part-time job wrapping gifts in a store at Christmas time so YOUR kids can have some presents under the tree...just reign in the indignation. I lived this story...
If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem...get used to it.
Done with this subject.
_________________________________________________ "You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White" "I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali
Cathy has a fair point about generalizing ALL parents, but you can't generalize about ALL teachers either.
My guess is that parents like Cathy (who is clearly involved in her kids' education) are the exception at many schools and the norm at some.
Every teacher I've ever known (socially) is a dedicated professional. I've yet to meet any slackers in the field, so I'm guessing slackers are generally the exception, except maybe at schools that are so bad they can't get anyone to teach there, and then you're back to square one re. whether it's a cause or an effect of parenting or teaching.
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Wed, 2007/08/08 - 3:11pm.
Well, leave it to the beancounter, here, to ponder that $100 per day times 5 days per week times 52 weeks per year equals just $26,000 annually.
WRT leave time, every employer I ever worked for had some kind of "use 'em or lose 'em" policy in place, but all allowed a certain (capped) number of leave days to be rolled over into a new calendar year. Come termination or retirement, though, these accrued days were ALWAYS PAID OUT AT THE EMPLOYEE'S PAY RATE IN EXISTENCE AT THE TIME OF TERMINATION OR RETIREMENT.
Since no teacher either terminating or retiring from teaching is earning just $26,000 annually, I wondered why teachers would settle for only $100 per day, much less $20!
It appears to me, then, that both the old and the new policy "charge" teachers with paying for their own substitutes! In what other industry does that happen!
And contrary to the N-S position that a policy change of this sort "would do little or nothing for education," people who haven't pored over the specifics of the BEP funding formula should be aware that teacher salary and benefits are considered in that formula as direct "classroom costs." Rightly so.
Until the day society ceases to value a 21 year-old chemical engineer at $51,000 annually and a 21 year-old mathematics teacher at $31,000 annually, we should lend our support for whatever manner of teacher pay increase presents itself.
Is goldbricking really such a problem that bribing teachers not to fake illness will have a significant impact on our classrooms?"
I've heard retiring teachers say, "For my last year, I'm not going to work Fridays, and maybe after Christmas break, I won't work Mondays and Fridays."
And I don't blame them. I made $20 mowing a lawn 25 years ago when I was in high school. Twenty dollars is a joke.
If you want goldbricking, ask the good, and of course, professional, doctor Lindsey what he's doing these days.
Dang, a school board member and the editor of the KNS, all in one thread. Maybe Karen Carson should chime in. She's posted before. Is there any question KnoxViews is the most read issues/political blog in these parts?
I never really understood the concept of enticing people to work when they are sick. However, I believe, but am not positive, that paying people for unused sick leave is a fairly standard practice. Kind of like a bonus. $20 is not much of a bonus.
that a teacher retiring from Knox County earns? What is the daily amount paid to a substitute? Seems to me that something between $20 and the average daily earnings or between $20 and the amount paid to a substitute would be fair.
Me neither, esp. vis-a-vis infectious disease. It's a productivity double-whammy. Not only does the sick person not perform well, but that person can also get others ill in the office.
I had this argument a couple of times with a former boss who used to insist that our [single-mom] office manager bring her sick children into the office so that she could work rather than tend to them. The cause & effect was fairly evident the 2nd time I got the same darned bug that the kids had. (Zounds, how'd that happen...?)
____________________________
I'm a guy in a Reagan mask -- and I'm running for President!
I haven't looked at the school budget, so I am undoubtedly writing out of hand, but I will comment anyway. (It never seems to stop anyone else...)
Would faculty not be better rewarded by having the schools fund the necessary supplies for their classrooms, so that teachers can focus on teaching, without using their own paychecks to buy the supplies? Seems like giving them a little more opportunity for savings now would lead to a better retirement later, and a better functioning classroom from now until then.
It boggles my mind that our kids have to rely on teachers to buy supplies first and then on the kids selling coupon books for the next layer of funding for supplies and facilities. Sure, nobody likes to pay taxes, but I'd rather pay taxes to educate our kids than pay more later to deal with the myriad consequences of an undereducated adult population.
The issue of sick pay is tricky but for the KNS to label all teachers as goldbrickers seems as ludicrous as labeling the KNS editorial staff as mentally lazy serving mostly as an echo chamber for conservative propaganda...Oh, wait...
Any employee wants to feel like they are getting a fair deal. The salary pool for all teachers covers sick pay and if it isn't equitable, employees work against the system.
I'm not sure I was able to find a good sick pay solution when I had a few hundred employees. Eventually, we simply eliminated sick pay and replaced it with extra personal vacation days based on our average sick days per annum and short term disability insurance. We let employees carry a few days over to the next year but made them take their remaining days off rather than pay them. Not perfect but more fair than the other ways we could think of.
Paying $20 for sick days is a joke but $100 seems like too much, unles the calculation is based on a time value of money pay rate projected to some future date for retirement.
Some balance is needed but I rarely find it in the Sentinel Op Ed.
Retiring teachers currently receive $20 a day for unused sick leave. Substitute teachers make $60 per day. The proposed budget would match the substitute pay, giving teachers $60/day for unused sick leave upon retirement. If they give 90 [contract] days notice of their retirement, the pay-out goes up to $100/day of unused sick leave. There's a cap on the total pay-out amount anyone can receive.
The hope is that this will reduce unnecessary absenteeism and give teachers a strong incentive to give the HR department advance notice that they are retiring so we can fill their position more efficiently and effectively. Too often we find out right before school starts that someone is retiring, which makes it harder to fill the position with the best recruits.
There are also eligibility requirements for teachers to retire, like working 30 years and/or reaching a certain age, 65 maybe? I can't recall all the details off the top of my head.
One of our goals is improving teacher retention and this improved benefit is one way to to that.
Indya Kincannon
There's always the stop-loss program the military uses...talk about retention...LOL
But I keed, I keed...
My mom was a teacher in the knoxville city schools for 2 decades until the schools were consolidated and then she stayed with the county schools for many years after that. One reason she didn't retire sooner was the fact that the city schools and the county schools counted maternity leave differently, so when she was under the city program and had her four kids she should have been able to retire a few years
earlier than she did, the county schools did not account the leave the same way meaning she had to stay on and teach, even after being diagnosed with cancer so she wouldn't lose her retirement benefits.
Want to be able to hire and retain good teachers? PAY them not only a living wage, but a wage that reflects how important their role is in shaping the future of our world. You want to keep them? Make leaving more of a disadvantage than staying.
People always blame the teacher first when little Johnny or Jessica is doing poorly in school, never mind the fact that MOM and DAD never sit down with their kids and read to them or help them with homework or stress the importance of education. Just ship them kids off to school, sick with snotty noses, dull-witted from hours of electronic babysitting syndrome, rude and insolent because mommy and daddums never taught them manners or respect for themselves, much less other adults, and somehow expect that the teacher is supposed to turn out productive members of society for you. Hell, some parents wont even show up for parent-teacher conferences UNTIL the teacher FLUNKS the kid, and THEN they show up wanting to know why they'll be saddled with a kid for one more year cause they haven't graduated with their class, and threatening the teacher with physical harm and emotional distress.
You need a license to drive or go hunting or fishing or to hold certain jobs, but they'll let any A**hole with a set of gonads be a parent.
Want to fix schools? Start by holding parents accountable for ALL their children's behavior and actions (including BAD GRADES). Only when mom and dad wind up on the hot seat for Junior's misbehavior and shortcomings, will things begin to change. Parents that abrogate their responsibilities to teach their own kids the most important lessons in life don't need to be parents.
And maybe, just maybe, if the kids show a little respect for the teacher and the knowledge they are trying to pass on, then the teachers will be more inclined to go to work with a sense of hope and accomplishment rather than feeling like they are heading into a combat zone every day.
_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali
Damn, that's an awesome rant that pretty much sums up the problems with education and why "no child left behind" or any amount of redistricting won't fix it.
Just as it is unfair to blame all teachers for a child's failure to learn, it is also unfair to blame parents. I wish we could establish a successful partnership between teachers, parents, students and the business community. I see the death of the "neighborhood school" as the biggest problem. If we could bring back the smaller schools and smaller classrooms I think we would see a big improvement. And, yes, I would be willing to pay more in taxes to support smaller schools but I think if a link with the business community could be forged, taxes might not have to increase.
I see the death of the "neighborhood school" as the biggest problem. If we could bring back the smaller schools and smaller classrooms I think we would see a big improvement.
Amen.
Not sure I agree with getting the business community involved, though.
Public education should be publicly funded.
If you mean intern programs, professional teach-in days, and the like, I agree.
the business community involved in intern programs and also in other areas such as school construction. I'd like to see schools supported by the entire community. If a new school needed to be built, wouldn't it be great if area businesses donated funding, materials or labor?
This is a reasonable proposal and KNS is full of garbage and hatin' on teachers. Who'd a thunkit.
Forget about the Great Schools Partnership, and try partnering the central office administration with the teachers that the administration is supposed to be supporting.
Knox County schools administration MO is fear and intimidation. I heard one teacher say that her principal said that if all grades aren't on the computer this year that Roy Mullins would be coming for a visit, and you don't want the Superintendent coming to your school.
Actually, the Superintendent should be out visiting the schools and finding out what teachers need, so that they can do their jobs. Greenville Co., South Carolina used to have an ex-military officer who visited schools at least three days out of each week finding out what teachers needed and what he could do to help them.
Central office in Knox Co. visits when they have another magic "policy pill" like Max Thompson or parallel block scheduling that's always supposed to turn things around. With our Central Office it's all top down, old school management versus the workers (teachers), when it should be just the opposite.
Any organization I've been familiar with the management uses fear and intimidation when it realizes that it lacks the compentency and knowledge to gain respect from its workers. That, and what Talidapli said, is what is at the root of the problem with public education in Knox Co.
calling in sick
The boss thinks you're lying
The employee thinks you dont give a damn.
Sometimes the boss is right.
Sometimes the employee is right.
Its hard to make a policy to cure that ill.
Randy, you misstated what the editorial said. In fact, you got it backwards.
Mullins and the teachers union have argued that the plan will be good for education because teachers now burn sick leave rather than save it, and a higher payout rate will encourage them to come to work and reduce the number of substitutes in classrooms. The editorial cited that justification, then said: "If that's true, it's a sad comment on the professionalism of Knox County teachers. Is goldbricking really such a problem that bribing teachers not to fake illness will have a significant impact on our classrooms?"
The answer, of course, is no. It won't have such an impact. As the editorial went on to say: "Instead, this suggestion is just a ploy to sweeten the pot for retirees."
The News Sentinel has great respect for the professionalism of teachers, and that's why we don't believe that this will reduce absenteeism in any meaningful way as the superintendent and union suggest.
Granted, it might be wise to spend this money on improving teacher compensation, but wouldn't higher wages have more impact in the years ahead than an unanticipated bonus for educators who have accumulated years of unused sick leave and are about to leave the system?
That's the sort of questioning the editorial was intended to provoke.
Talidapali - Your rant is completely uncalled for and insulting to all of us who give our children 100% of our attention. There ARE teachers who are unfair and cruel to students. There are teachers who are constantly absent and obviously job hunting or finishing their real estate training so that they can quit teaching. There are teachers who can't spell, keep track of their students' papers or complete grading in a reasonable time frame. There are parents who are repeating the mistakes that were inflicted upon them. They need help, not blame. Too many parents, students and teachers are struggling to do the right thing and don't deserve your childless vitriol.
I'll get down off my soapbox when some lazy ass punk kid doesn't come to school and threaten to shoot my MOTHER because she gave him a D that he EARNED. Not an F, just a D. Or when she didn't have to work every day while she was doing radiation treatments and chemotherapy so she wouldn't lose her health insurance or retirement benefits. She even delayed her surgery until just before summer break so she wouldn't have to get a substitute for so long.
You might ask yourself WHY those teachers are looking for a better job, could it be that they get nothing but grief from lazy parents and not nearly enough money for the amount of work they do under the conditions that they work, including the hours and hours they spend at night AT HOME (not spending time with their own kids on homework and reading and family time) grading papers until their eyes go so bad that they are practically blind? Ever consider how many viruses and colds and general snotty illnesses and infections a teacher is exposed to EVERY day? I'll bet you would scream bloody murder if a TEACHER came to school with an infectious disease and your kids caught it...no one ever considers not sending their kids to school when they are sick with sniffles so as not to expose the teacher to germs and illnesses times 25 to 30. Why? Cause mom and dad CAN'T afford to or just WON'T take a day off to take care of the kids and make sure they don't make others sick? The human immune system can only take so much exposure to infectious elements until it gives up and throws in the towel.
Speaking of people who can't spell, read a newspaper lately?
Yeah there are teachers that are unfair and cruel, just like in any other job or situation in life...grow a thicker skin and toughen up some. Just like there are kids that are bullies.
Until YOU have actually stepped into a classroom and done the job of which you speak including spending hours at home grading papers and planning lessons because your lesson planning period in school got canceled so you could fill in for someone or watch a class of in-school detention or run to get supplies for your classes with your OWN PITIFULLY SMALL PAYCHECK because people hate paying property taxes and taxes in general, or spending your summers taking a second job to make ends meet so your kids have food and clothes, or facing not one, not two, but five classes each day full of 30 or so disinterested, apathetic students (at best) or openly hostile and threatening students (at worst), or taking a part-time job wrapping gifts in a store at Christmas time so YOUR kids can have some presents under the tree...just reign in the indignation. I lived this story...
If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem...get used to it.
Done with this subject.
_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali
Cathy has a fair point about generalizing ALL parents, but you can't generalize about ALL teachers either.
My guess is that parents like Cathy (who is clearly involved in her kids' education) are the exception at many schools and the norm at some.
Every teacher I've ever known (socially) is a dedicated professional. I've yet to meet any slackers in the field, so I'm guessing slackers are generally the exception, except maybe at schools that are so bad they can't get anyone to teach there, and then you're back to square one re. whether it's a cause or an effect of parenting or teaching.
Well, leave it to the beancounter, here, to ponder that $100 per day times 5 days per week times 52 weeks per year equals just $26,000 annually.
WRT leave time, every employer I ever worked for had some kind of "use 'em or lose 'em" policy in place, but all allowed a certain (capped) number of leave days to be rolled over into a new calendar year. Come termination or retirement, though, these accrued days were ALWAYS PAID OUT AT THE EMPLOYEE'S PAY RATE IN EXISTENCE AT THE TIME OF TERMINATION OR RETIREMENT.
Since no teacher either terminating or retiring from teaching is earning just $26,000 annually, I wondered why teachers would settle for only $100 per day, much less $20!
It appears to me, then, that both the old and the new policy "charge" teachers with paying for their own substitutes! In what other industry does that happen!
And contrary to the N-S position that a policy change of this sort "would do little or nothing for education," people who haven't pored over the specifics of the BEP funding formula should be aware that teacher salary and benefits are considered in that formula as direct "classroom costs." Rightly so.
Until the day society ceases to value a 21 year-old chemical engineer at $51,000 annually and a 21 year-old mathematics teacher at $31,000 annually, we should lend our support for whatever manner of teacher pay increase presents itself.
Is goldbricking really such a problem that bribing teachers not to fake illness will have a significant impact on our classrooms?"
I've heard retiring teachers say, "For my last year, I'm not going to work Fridays, and maybe after Christmas break, I won't work Mondays and Fridays."
And I don't blame them. I made $20 mowing a lawn 25 years ago when I was in high school. Twenty dollars is a joke.
If you want goldbricking, ask the good, and of course, professional, doctor Lindsey what he's doing these days.
Dang, a school board member and the editor of the KNS, all in one thread. Maybe Karen Carson should chime in. She's posted before. Is there any question KnoxViews is the most read issues/political blog in these parts?
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