This is generally why people don't find you credible. I never said you were a racist. But had we gotten around to it, I would certainly think you support structurally racist policies that contribute to the achievement gap in education. Structural arguments are less about personal prejudice than about the consequences of the policies we enact.
Listen Shawn, you are the uncredible one. You have yet again ducked the question. You've claimed you didn't call me a racist. Instead you simply made up a reply where you claim I said these words.
Nick's response: "It's the black people and poor people's fault."
Your bullshit gets tiring. "Yes Nick, I didn't say you were a racist, I just put words into your mouth that suggest racism."
Someone is going to lose an awful lot of money someday when that poor intellect of yours fails the test in a courtroom. It will be a very expensive lesson when that silver spoon is slapped out of your mouth and no one lets you be dismissive or assume an air of authority simply because you think you deserve one.
Finally you claim, that I support structually racist policies and so I ask you about the outcomes associated with your (as claimed by you) supposedly racially-neutral policies. You refuse to address the outcome of what you desire.
Answer me this Shawn, you advocate the leveling of opportunities, as if such a thing were even possible to predict and track. If it were possible and they were level, do you honestly expect fully equitable outcomes?
Listen Shawn, you are the uncredible one. You have yet again ducked the question. You've claimed you didn't call me a racist. Instead you simply made up a reply where you claim I said these words.
Nick's response: "It's the black people and poor people's fault."
Your bullshit gets tiring. "Yes Nick, I didn't say you were a racist, I just put words into your mouth that suggest racism."
No, it goes to what I was saying: is the achievement gap explained by only individual failings, where it's each black and poor person's fault for failing to meet state standards, or is the achievement gap explained by systemic factors, which are things generally beyond their control. Is it some combination of factors in your mind? Is it generally the individual's fault but they have some systemic factors working against them? Is it generally systemic factors?
I'd like you to try to keep a little more level head about this.
Yes, everyone can see how you replying as me in a cartoonish fashion really is the best and most straight forward way communicate a point. Obviously my own words were not good enough and so you had to reply as me pointing and accusing black and poor people to make your point instead. I need to put on my boots because your bullshit has gotten so thick.
You don't have to work so hard to be an example of your own point Shawn. Clearly you do believe that the achievement gap between you and others is because of the systemic factors because you work so hard to demonstrate your many individual and intellectual shortcomings that your historical privilege has allowed you to overcome.
However that is not true for all of us. Some of us, despite being white males, had to overcome homes just as broken or impoverished as those you imagine for other disadvantaged groups.
Perhaps now you could attend to this question which you have ignored for... what the third or fourth time?
Answer me this Shawn, you advocate the leveling of opportunities, as if such a thing were even possible to predict and track. If it were possible and they were level, do you honestly expect fully equitable outcomes?
Don't worry.... I'm giving you many opportunities to answer it since the system must help compensate for your many individual failings. I'll be happy to answer the many questions you levy when you stop ducking mine.
Answer me this Shawn, you advocate the leveling of opportunities, as if such a thing were even possible to predict and track. If it were possible and they were level, do you honestly expect fully equitable outcomes?
Nick
I'll take a stab as this is actually an easy question. Then I'm done with this thread as attacks are starting to get personal.
Even if the opportunities were 'level', the outcomes would almost certainly be 'different'. It would be interesting to see the diffences among groups though.Right now all we can do is speculate.
What planet are you talking about? I've been teaching 10 years I can tell you this is a falsehood. I work 210 days a year. I go to school when I'm not teaching in order to maintain my license. I do this for less than 45K and I really don't mind or I wouldn't do it. I do wish, however, that you would get your facts straight. $54K is the best I've heard of any retiree making in this area (Many end up substituting to keep up with diminished health benefits.)
Oak Ridge Tennessee, Maryville Tennessee.
Those are an example of two schools within 45 minutes of me that are public and pay people who start out more than you are making now. You are getting the shaft.
You are talking about taking my bread and butter and ruining me for something I am not guilty of, after I sacrificed most of my youth for my career. So BITE ME !
Was that nearly eloquent enough ?
How can someone ruin a good teacher (in general) by providing more choices for the students or empowering a principal to remove bad teachers?
Yes, there are bad principals, just like bad bosses in all careers, that will fire good employees. In general, however, most folks will find better places to land.
I think that most "good" professionals of any field prefers accountability.
This should also include bad principals who do not work in partnerships with their staff, who 'fires bad principals'!
I'm thinking if we went to a "voucher" system then the parents fires the bad principals by sending their kids to a different school where a principal can keep good staff.
Certainly turnover is one thing I looked at for daycare. Any place unable to keep staff has some kind of systemic problem that doesn't require any additional digging into. I just crossed them off the list and moved on.
Let's look at the commonplace arguments (1), (2), and (3) above more honestly.
(1) A teacher makes a social contract with the rest of the world : I will stay out of front line development in my subject in order to take successive generations of youngsters through the basics needed for them to advance to cutting edge work at a place like Apple Inc.
You are evidently not holding up your end of the social contract.
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This means that I will lose my own competitive marketability as a researcher as years go by. At 30 or 40 , I will not be able to compete in the research market, having forgotten much of my graduate school learning that simply isn't used for K-12 teaching and some of which has become obsolete. I will also be too old to hire: no one in industry hires you at entry level at 55 to retire or die or use up lots of medical benefits in just a few years.
Arguably without a PhD you aren't a researcher anyway. Not particularly MY argument given that I don't have a PhD but honestly most Masters programs are not what I would consider rigorous or challenging anyway.
Age discrimination and over-specialization is not specific to teachers anyway.
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If you betray me by violating that contract ; refusing me protection and denigrating me, then you are an unmanly moral coward.
No one has denigrated you. Your "protection" is not to allow bad teachers to continue to draw salary regardless of performance but to provide the ability to teach unpopular topics without undue interference. In any case, teacher tenure only started appearing in the 1920s and only became widespread by WWII its hard to insist that it's a fundamental requirement of the profession.
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Vouchers (even if sufficient to actually get these underachieving students to the "better" teachers: they are far from sufficient) would simply dump masses of ill-mannered punks and well mannered but unschooled students into the "better schools" to detroy them absolutely.
Obviously your skills as a researcher has deteriorated or you could do better than undocumented assertion...
I live in arguably the best school district in Maryland. And yet we still have to worry about which school our kids will end up in. In comparison to a system like Belgium its a no brainer...their system is superior to ours with their general, technical, professional, artistic and vocational tracks. That they couple that with financial accountability in the form of "vouchers" makes it more difficult to determine which factor is more important but who cares? Adopt both.
Your assumption is that with vouchers no new schools would appear. This appears to be incorrect. Also, wouldn't it be nice if private school teachers could be paid as much as their public school counterparts?
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Can you imagine what would become of Apple Inc. , Steve Jobs' image, and my Apple stock value if Jobs were forced to hire ill-mannered, indolent, violent, repugnant little thugs who flipped him the bird and laughed in his face as he walked down the hall ?
Oddly, you seem to share the same feelings about kids that some cops have on non-cops. They are perps...or in your case ill-mannered, indolent, violent, repugnant little thugs.
Oddly, none of the teachers in my family has described kids quite like that.
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Again, Chuckman, a public school is none of those institutions. "THINK DIFFERENT" and know that you don't have anything on your shelf that I haven't tried already.
This is why you limit your post to pissy little one liners.
At least he doesn't try to name drop in an internet forum or make fun of your internet handle with childish variations like "chuckman", "chucky" and "chuckster".
What are you? 12?
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Any more questions ?
Yes, do you really think that diatribe convinced anyone that you are either a) a good teacher or b) that tenure is a good idea if opposing views are met with such childish vehemence by self-proclaimed "good" teachers?
Yes, you are exactly like that teacher screaming into the camera...
I'll take a stab as this is actually an easy question. Then I'm done with this thread as attacks are starting to get personal.
Even if the opportunities were 'level', the outcomes would almost certainly be 'different'. It would be interesting to see the diffences among groups though.Right now all we can do is speculate.
Well we don't have to speculate. The differences among the groups do occur. You can have several different groups have the same opportunity but a very different result. The differences aren't institutional racism unless proven to be so. (Many allege that the mere differences themselves prove racism.) The differences aren't good or bad teachers. Sometimes the differences are just the students themselves and the background and effort they bring to their own education.
People seldom realize that we are not talking about instances of 0% and 100%. Often we are discussing disparities between two outcomes with one being bad simply because the other is better. If one inner-city high school has a drop out rate of 45% and has 5% of their students complete college preparatory material while another school has a 10% drop out rate 25% of the students complete college preparatory material it doesn't follow that the teachers at one school were automatically "good" and the others "bad."
You take this outside education and it is profoundly easy to understand. No one would call a doctor bad because he/she advised and treated the patient properly but the patient refused to eat right, exercise or stop smoking. A financial adviser would never be blamed for taking on two clients at the same age, making the same amount of money and people noting that when one followed the plan given while the other spent more than they made that the outcome was due to the adviser.
It is only education where parties appear to excuse individuals from their own actions. I'm not saying you are doing this, but that is the point of the question. You answered it while Shawn refused so thanks. You don't have to flee the thread unless you desire to stop discussion by associating certain parties with harmful thoughts and actions.
Teacher don't need to be paid more. Do you realize how much money most teachers make, even those just starting out? Most make 40k starting out and then get up close to 100k when they retire or even sooner than that. And the fact that you get to work only 9 MONTHS OF THE YEAR? Wonderful if you ask me. No need to pay them anymore than what they get.
Are you 16 years old? Because the only way I can keep from allowing myself to verbally tear you to shreds is if you're 16. Even then, things might get ugly.
40K per year is NOT a great salary. Especially when you consider the fact that most teachers will have get a masters degree!
I am an undergrad, but my wife just graduated a year ago with a BA and is currently making $39,000 per year in corporate communications. MOST jobs that require a four year degree start at around $40K a year.
Find one person YOU KNOW who has retired from teaching and were making close to 100K/year when they retired. IF you could find someone, they would probably have to be a college professor who had acheived a PhD and were the chair of thier department. And then you would have to consider the amount of debt they had incurred while getting thier education!
Teachers are woefully underpayed, and everyone but you knows it.
Are you 16 years old? Because the only way I can keep from allowing myself to verbally tear you to shreds is if you're 16. Even then, things might get ugly.
40K per year is NOT a great salary. Especially when you consider the fact that most teachers will have get a masters degree!
I am an undergrad, but my wife just graduated a year ago with a BA and is currently making $39,000 per year in corporate communications. MOST jobs that require a four year degree start at around $40K a year.
Find one person YOU KNOW who has retired from teaching and were making close to 100K/year when they retired. IF you could find someone, they would probably have to be a college professor who had acheived a PhD and were the chair of thier department. And then you would have to consider the amount of debt they had incurred while getting thier education!
Teachers are woefully underpayed, and everyone but you knows it.
Truth be told , it depends on where they live , on where they teach and how we define and perceive the term underpaid . Having a salary of 85k might be termed underpaid in one district but the same amount might be the ideal pay in a neighboring school district .It will all depend on taxes and the corresponding economic status of the community where the schools are located as well as a person's own spending habits.
Find one person YOU KNOW who has retired from teaching and were making close to 100K/year when they retired. IF you could find someone, they would probably have to be a college professor who had acheived a PhD and were the chair of thier department. And then you would have to consider the amount of debt they had incurred while getting thier education!
A few things:
1) That figure of the average salary of a college professor is, as many people have noted, skewed by a variety of factors. Engineers, business people, and science folks make much more money than, say, an English professor.
2) One thing that people don't seem to consider about PhDs is that we don't *begin* our careers until we're around 30, and in many disciplines, that's remarkably early (some disciplines don't acre much for the MA/MS, and so you just enter a PhD program and are awarded the equivalent of an MA along the way). And those years between 21 (grad from college) and 31 (getting a job) mean in many cases you haven't paid social security or made enough to contribute to a retirement fund—it's difficult to contribute to a fund when your takehome is $800 a month. I haven't even mentioned debt. Most of the folks I know owe between $30K and $100K for their educations. My point is that the professoriate actually has to work longer than the average worker in order to be able to afford to retire. Ever wonder where that image of the wizened old professor comes from?
3) Chairs of departments may pick up a little extra salary, but usually the compensation is in teaching reduction. Chair positions are incredibly, incredibly demanding, a kind of death by 1000 meetings.
But are teachers generally underpaid? Yes. That's usually offset, though, by benefits (if you're lucky). But what people who bark about only working 9-10 months don't seem to get is that we're not paid for those months when we don't work.
Edit: I meant to point out, above, that my salary, which is $11K less than the national average, is offset by my benefits, which are really unbelievable. So my uni manages to keep people it otherwise wouldn't simply because they don't want to lose the benes.
Truth be told , it depends on where they live , on where they teach and how we define and perceive the term underpaid . Having a salary of 85k might be termed underpaid in one district but the same amount might be the ideal pay in a neighboring school district .It will all depend on taxes and the corresponding economic status of the community where the schools are located as well as a person's own spending habits.
When I first went on the job market, I interviewed for a position at Long Island U. The salary was $55K a year. In Long Island.
I watched that position re-appear on the job list, I believe, two years in a row.
I'm thinking if we went to a "voucher" system then the parents fires the bad principals by sending their kids to a different school where a principal can keep good staff.
Certainly turnover is one thing I looked at for daycare. Any place unable to keep staff has some kind of systemic problem that doesn't require any additional digging into. I just crossed them off the list and moved on.
Vinea
Sometimes parents have'nt got that option of"pulling" their kids out of schools because of distance factors and the extra cost of relocating. In Australia "bad principals" are protected by the Education Department even when school council has been dissolved and interim school councils are set up by the Department. Contract teachers are afraid to voice their opinions because the Principal has the ultimate power over their employment contract. Control freaks rule!
1) That figure of the average salary of a college professor is, as many people have noted, skewed by a variety of factors. Engineers, business people, and science folks make much more money than, say, an English professor.
Yes but $78K or whatever it was average for an English professor (full) is not too shabby either.
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2) One thing that people don't seem to consider about PhDs is that we don't *begin* our careers until we're around 30, and in many disciplines, that's remarkably early (some disciplines don't acre much for the MA/MS, and so you just enter a PhD program and are awarded the equivalent of an MA along the way). And those years between 21 (grad from college) and 31 (getting a job) mean in many cases you haven't paid social security or made enough to contribute to a retirement fund—it's difficult to contribute to a fund when your takehome is $800 a month. I haven't even mentioned debt. Most of the folks I know owe between $30K and $100K for their educations. My point is that the professoriate actually has to work longer than the average worker in order to be able to afford to retire.
This is true for any profession requiring a long education process. Doctors, scientists, etc. A PhD in chem or bio in the federal government gets you only GS-12 to 14 pay at the top end too. Educators are not the only ones in this boat.
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Ever wonder where that image of the wizened old professor comes from?
Tenure?
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But are teachers generally underpaid? Yes. That's usually offset, though, by benefits (if you're lucky). But what people who bark about only working 9-10 months don't seem to get is that we're not paid for those months when we don't work.
If you make $70K-$90K a year working 9-10 months a year then not getting paid those other 3 months is not a hardship. Trust me...if I could make $70K in 9 months you wouldn't see me at work those other 3 months unless you gave me another $70K. 3-4 weeks a year is what the rest of us get.
With respect to workload lets get real here. I don't know what business profs have to do but I do know the oft cited CS profs skewing the curve are getting grants and doing research (UMCP profs are my baseline in this comparison) as well as teaching. In comparison non-research oriented profs teach, have office hours and um...the occasional paper based, if anything, on lit search... Especially at the lesser unis. My dad certainly did not have the same sort of workload as a reseach prof fighting for grants every year until he made department head and then yes...death by a 1000 meetings.
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Edit: I meant to point out, above, that my salary, which is $11K less than the national average, is offset by my benefits, which are really unbelievable. So my uni manages to keep people it otherwise wouldn't simply because they don't want to lose the benes.
Heh...and other univerisities like my dad's offered higher than average salary for really crappy benefits. What constitutes unbelievable benefits?
Sometimes parents have'nt got that option of"pulling" their kids out of schools because of distance factors and the extra cost of relocating. In Australia "bad principals" are protected by the Education Department even when school council has been dissolved and interim school councils are set up by the Department. Contract teachers are afraid to voice their opinions because the Principal has the ultimate power over their employment contract. Control freaks rule!
Yes, replacing a so-so system with another so-so system is sub-optimal. Whenever you have a class of folks that can operate with impunity you create the scenario where abuse occurs. Replacing unfireable teachers with equally unfireable principals wouldn't seem very useful.
Yes but $78K or whatever it was average for an English professor (full) is not too shabby either.
No, it's not. Don't get me wrong. I ain't complaining. I have one of the best jobs in the world. It's a lot of work, but it's work I like.
However, as you no doubt know, getting to the rank of full professor takes a good deal of time. These days, most of the jobs I'm seeing start at the ~$40-50K range for an assistant professor position and then move up from there with cost of living increases and merit pay and whatnot. At each rank (I know you know this, but I'm just spelling it out for the sake of posterity ) you get a pay bump that can take any of a number of forms (percentage of base/starting salary, lump sum, etc). Tenure and promotion to associate happens, in most place, after 6 years. Going up for full takes a little longer and requires some delicate politicking, if my read of it all is correct. I say this because when I was in grad school, and I did my MA and PhD at the same place, NONE of the associate professors who were there went up for full while I was there (1995-2003). None. They were publishing books. They were publishing articles (at least one a year). I *think* the pay at full for them was about $70K. And these people were all in their late 40s and early 50s. The small number of full professors we had were all late 50s and 60+.
My point is that the salary of a full professor is the salary of a person at the END of a career.
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This is true for any profession requiring a long education process. Doctors, scientists, etc. A PhD in chem or bio in the federal government gets you only GS-12 to 14 pay at the top end too. Educators are not the only ones in this boat.
Sure. I have had some interesting discussions about this with lawyer and doctor friends. We all tend to look at it the same way: sure, my education cost as much as a house. But it's just what you have to do to be qualified.
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Tenure?
Heh. Not if tenure happens when you're 43. I'll go up for tenure at 37.
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If you make $70K-$90K a year working 9-10 months a year then not getting paid those other 3 months is not a hardship. Trust me...if I could make $70K in 9 months you wouldn't see me at work those other 3 months unless you gave me another $70K. 3-4 weeks a year is what the rest of us get.
Sure. But again, the average joe in the trenches in a discipline like mine is making about HALF what you're talking about. Would you be willing to make $45K on a 9-month stretch BUT spread that salary out over 12 months? In other words, if you make $45K a year, you have the option to be paid ONLY for the 9 months you work OR spread the salary out over 12. That's what most of us do, although I had a prof in grad school who didn't. They spent their summers living on credit cards. I never understood the logic of that, but they were odd folks anyway.
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With respect to workload lets get real here. I don't know what business profs have to do but I do know the oft cited CS profs skewing the curve are getting grants and doing research (UMCP profs are my baseline in this comparison) as well as teaching.
Sure. And those grants are used to fund TA and RA positions and labs and salaries and all kinds of things. Not all disciplines can do that. Case-in-point: tomorrow, I'll file a grant application for $5K so I can go to London this summer and work in the British Library (I shall try my best not to get caught up in a terrorist attack this time). That grant will likely be cut in half. That's just the nature of the game. Is it fair? No. Ought it be? Dunno. I'm not John Rawls.
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In comparison non-research oriented profs teach, have office hours and um...the occasional paper based, if anything, on lit search...
Well, that's a cultural problem of people simply not knowing what lots of disciplines in the humanities are about. What confuses the hell out of me, though, is why History professors are generally treated ok in popular consciousness while English professors (most of whom these days do work that is largely historical in nature) get treated with incredible suspicion, as if we're all failed novelists or something. My students seem to think that I sit around an "interpret" literature for a living (which to them means I sit around and write about how some poem made me feel), which is not really what I do at all. I suspect that this is a function of shifts in English pedagogy in the 1960s that linger on today, but that's another discussion.
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Especially at the lesser unis.
Different unis have different standards. But it is a trusim that the humanities tend to not be funded as well as other disciplines.
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My dad certainly did not have the same sort of workload as a reseach prof fighting for grants every year until he made department head and then yes...death by a 1000 meetings.
Ugh. I can believe it. My wife is threatening to stand for chairmanship when she gets tenure. I don't think it's a good idea. I don't know how people do it.
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What constitutes unbelievable benefits?
Full medical. Covers anyone in the family. If you have two employees, you're double-covered. I have never paid a dime for anything medical since I've been here. For retirement, the system PAYS 14.2% into the pension. Not matches. Pays. My father, who works as a psych counselor (a kind of line of defense for the shrinks) has worked for 30 years at the same job and they will MATCH up to 6%.
Would you be so kind as to remove the reference to my uni? I try to maintain some vestige of anonymity around here. Thanks.
Yes, replacing a so-so system with another so-so system is sub-optimal. Whenever you have a class of folks that can operate with impunity you create the scenario where abuse occurs. Replacing unfireable teachers with equally unfireable principals wouldn't seem very useful.
The devil is always in the details.
Vinea
Yes, so much energy goes into dysfunction and cover-up than into educating the students. The so-so system becomes a selfish system for the devil's advocate!
1). Subjects lack Applied Projects. This goes for every subject. You want to understand your subjects, not either regurgitate or bs your way through them. To learn any Applied Science you need to projects. You want to learn the first 3 laws of Motion then you need a means to model and interpret simulations of how they apply to general industries. This leads to the second problem facing the US.
2). Fear of future Columbines has meant schools removing Chemistry labs and various other laboratories for students to get hands-on experience. The availability of skilled craftsmen teaching high school students is going the way of the dodo bird.
3). Instead of just bitching about your salaries, use your students interest as leverage by brokering more areas for students to learn skills. If this means you become obsolete then so be it. You're focus as a Teacher is to teach and not concern yourself with permanency of a job first.
However, as you no doubt know, getting to the rank of full professor takes a good deal of time.
Yes a career's worth of time unless you're brilliant or a good kisser. On the other hand didn't AAUP say that the large majority of folks got to full professorship? Don't remember what it was but it was like 70%+?
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Tenure and promotion to associate happens, in most place, after 6 years.
Promotion in most fields take 5 years from junior to working grade. Yes, the salary is far less in comparison to engineering fields.
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My point is that the salary of a full professor is the salary of a person at the END of a career.
Yes, other fields do top out earlier.
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Sure. But again, the average joe in the trenches in a discipline like mine is making about HALF what you're talking about. Would you be willing to make $45K on a 9-month stretch BUT spread that salary out over 12 months? In other words, if you make $45K a year, you have the option to be paid ONLY for the 9 months you work OR spread the salary out over 12. That's what most of us do, although I had a prof in grad school who didn't. They spent their summers living on credit cards. I never understood the logic of that, but they were odd folks anyway.
There are lots of folks that make $45K a year working for 12 months a year without the option of doing whatever for 2-3 months. That's why its a non-issue. The point of comparison is that $45k/year number. Or $70K/year or wherever you are in between.
My wife and her co-workers used to work in the summers as temps so there is the opportunity for supplemental income if you desire.
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Sure. And those grants are used to fund TA and RA positions and labs and salaries and all kinds of things. Not all disciplines can do that.
No I mean its seems to be a lot more work. Getting or not getting grants seems to also determine how well you do on your tenure track.
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Well, that's a cultural problem of people simply not knowing what lots of disciplines in the humanities are about. What confuses the hell out of me, though, is why History professors are generally treated ok in popular consciousness while English professors (most of whom these days do work that is largely historical in nature) get treated with incredible suspicion, as if we're all failed novelists or something. My students seem to think that I sit around an "interpret" literature for a living (which to them means I sit around and write about how some poem made me feel), which is not really what I do at all. I suspect that this is a function of shifts in English pedagogy in the 1960s that linger on today, but that's another discussion.
I guess what I'm saying is that when someone hands you a check for $25K-$250K for a research grant they expect more than from a $2500 grant. I don't know what you publish but it would seem less rigorous than publishing for a journal involving human subjects. Something we do for HCI research papers.
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Full medical. Covers anyone in the family. If you have two employees, you're double-covered. I have never paid a dime for anything medical since I've been here. For retirement, the system PAYS 14.2% into the pension. Not matches. Pays. My father, who works as a psych counselor (a kind of line of defense for the shrinks) has worked for 30 years at the same job and they will MATCH up to 6%.
Nice. Our health benefits suck.
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Would you be so kind as to remove the reference to my uni? I try to maintain some vestige of anonymity around here. Thanks.
Done. I simply took a wild guess...you may wish to remove any location info you put on this site. The url you provide pretty much took me right there...
Comments
This is generally why people don't find you credible. I never said you were a racist. But had we gotten around to it, I would certainly think you support structurally racist policies that contribute to the achievement gap in education. Structural arguments are less about personal prejudice than about the consequences of the policies we enact.
Listen Shawn, you are the uncredible one. You have yet again ducked the question. You've claimed you didn't call me a racist. Instead you simply made up a reply where you claim I said these words.
Nick's response: "It's the black people and poor people's fault."
Your bullshit gets tiring. "Yes Nick, I didn't say you were a racist, I just put words into your mouth that suggest racism."
Someone is going to lose an awful lot of money someday when that poor intellect of yours fails the test in a courtroom. It will be a very expensive lesson when that silver spoon is slapped out of your mouth and no one lets you be dismissive or assume an air of authority simply because you think you deserve one.
Finally you claim, that I support structually racist policies and so I ask you about the outcomes associated with your (as claimed by you) supposedly racially-neutral policies. You refuse to address the outcome of what you desire.
Answer me this Shawn, you advocate the leveling of opportunities, as if such a thing were even possible to predict and track. If it were possible and they were level, do you honestly expect fully equitable outcomes?
Nick
Listen Shawn, you are the uncredible one. You have yet again ducked the question. You've claimed you didn't call me a racist. Instead you simply made up a reply where you claim I said these words.
Nick's response: "It's the black people and poor people's fault."
Your bullshit gets tiring. "Yes Nick, I didn't say you were a racist, I just put words into your mouth that suggest racism."
No, it goes to what I was saying: is the achievement gap explained by only individual failings, where it's each black and poor person's fault for failing to meet state standards, or is the achievement gap explained by systemic factors, which are things generally beyond their control. Is it some combination of factors in your mind? Is it generally the individual's fault but they have some systemic factors working against them? Is it generally systemic factors?
I'd like you to try to keep a little more level head about this.
You don't have to work so hard to be an example of your own point Shawn. Clearly you do believe that the achievement gap between you and others is because of the systemic factors because you work so hard to demonstrate your many individual and intellectual shortcomings that your historical privilege has allowed you to overcome.
However that is not true for all of us. Some of us, despite being white males, had to overcome homes just as broken or impoverished as those you imagine for other disadvantaged groups.
Perhaps now you could attend to this question which you have ignored for... what the third or fourth time?
Answer me this Shawn, you advocate the leveling of opportunities, as if such a thing were even possible to predict and track. If it were possible and they were level, do you honestly expect fully equitable outcomes?
Don't worry.... I'm giving you many opportunities to answer it since the system must help compensate for your many individual failings. I'll be happy to answer the many questions you levy when you stop ducking mine.
Nick
Answer me this Shawn, you advocate the leveling of opportunities, as if such a thing were even possible to predict and track. If it were possible and they were level, do you honestly expect fully equitable outcomes?
Nick
I'll take a stab as this is actually an easy question. Then I'm done with this thread as attacks are starting to get personal.
Even if the opportunities were 'level', the outcomes would almost certainly be 'different'. It would be interesting to see the diffences among groups though.Right now all we can do is speculate.
Oak Ridge Tennessee, Maryville Tennessee.
Those are an example of two schools within 45 minutes of me that are public and pay people who start out more than you are making now. You are getting the shaft.
You are talking about taking my bread and butter and ruining me for something I am not guilty of, after I sacrificed most of my youth for my career. So BITE ME !
Was that nearly eloquent enough ?
How can someone ruin a good teacher (in general) by providing more choices for the students or empowering a principal to remove bad teachers?
Yes, there are bad principals, just like bad bosses in all careers, that will fire good employees. In general, however, most folks will find better places to land.
I think that most "good" professionals of any field prefers accountability.
Vinea
This should also include bad principals who do not work in partnerships with their staff,
I'm thinking if we went to a "voucher" system then the parents fires the bad principals by sending their kids to a different school where a principal can keep good staff.
Certainly turnover is one thing I looked at for daycare. Any place unable to keep staff has some kind of systemic problem that doesn't require any additional digging into. I just crossed them off the list and moved on.
Vinea
Let's look at the commonplace arguments (1), (2), and (3) above more honestly.
(1) A teacher makes a social contract with the rest of the world : I will stay out of front line development in my subject in order to take successive generations of youngsters through the basics needed for them to advance to cutting edge work at a place like Apple Inc.
You are evidently not holding up your end of the social contract.
This means that I will lose my own competitive marketability as a researcher as years go by. At 30 or 40 , I will not be able to compete in the research market, having forgotten much of my graduate school learning that simply isn't used for K-12 teaching and some of which has become obsolete. I will also be too old to hire: no one in industry hires you at entry level at 55 to retire or die or use up lots of medical benefits in just a few years.
Arguably without a PhD you aren't a researcher anyway. Not particularly MY argument given that I don't have a PhD but honestly most Masters programs are not what I would consider rigorous or challenging anyway.
Age discrimination and over-specialization is not specific to teachers anyway.
If you betray me by violating that contract ; refusing me protection and denigrating me, then you are an unmanly moral coward.
No one has denigrated you. Your "protection" is not to allow bad teachers to continue to draw salary regardless of performance but to provide the ability to teach unpopular topics without undue interference. In any case, teacher tenure only started appearing in the 1920s and only became widespread by WWII its hard to insist that it's a fundamental requirement of the profession.
Vouchers (even if sufficient to actually get these underachieving students to the "better" teachers: they are far from sufficient) would simply dump masses of ill-mannered punks and well mannered but unschooled students into the "better schools" to detroy them absolutely.
Obviously your skills as a researcher has deteriorated or you could do better than undocumented assertion...
I live in arguably the best school district in Maryland. And yet we still have to worry about which school our kids will end up in. In comparison to a system like Belgium its a no brainer...their system is superior to ours with their general, technical, professional, artistic and vocational tracks. That they couple that with financial accountability in the form of "vouchers" makes it more difficult to determine which factor is more important but who cares? Adopt both.
Your assumption is that with vouchers no new schools would appear. This appears to be incorrect. Also, wouldn't it be nice if private school teachers could be paid as much as their public school counterparts?
Can you imagine what would become of Apple Inc. , Steve Jobs' image, and my Apple stock value if Jobs were forced to hire ill-mannered, indolent, violent, repugnant little thugs who flipped him the bird and laughed in his face as he walked down the hall ?
Oddly, you seem to share the same feelings about kids that some cops have on non-cops. They are perps...or in your case ill-mannered, indolent, violent, repugnant little thugs.
Oddly, none of the teachers in my family has described kids quite like that.
Again, Chuckman, a public school is none of those institutions. "THINK DIFFERENT" and know that you don't have anything on your shelf that I haven't tried already.
This is why you limit your post to pissy little one liners.
At least he doesn't try to name drop in an internet forum or make fun of your internet handle with childish variations like "chuckman", "chucky" and "chuckster".
What are you? 12?
Any more questions ?
Yes, do you really think that diatribe convinced anyone that you are either a) a good teacher or b) that tenure is a good idea if opposing views are met with such childish vehemence by self-proclaimed "good" teachers?
Yes, you are exactly like that teacher screaming into the camera...
Vinea
I'll take a stab as this is actually an easy question. Then I'm done with this thread as attacks are starting to get personal.
Even if the opportunities were 'level', the outcomes would almost certainly be 'different'. It would be interesting to see the diffences among groups though.Right now all we can do is speculate.
Well we don't have to speculate. The differences among the groups do occur. You can have several different groups have the same opportunity but a very different result. The differences aren't institutional racism unless proven to be so. (Many allege that the mere differences themselves prove racism.) The differences aren't good or bad teachers. Sometimes the differences are just the students themselves and the background and effort they bring to their own education.
People seldom realize that we are not talking about instances of 0% and 100%. Often we are discussing disparities between two outcomes with one being bad simply because the other is better. If one inner-city high school has a drop out rate of 45% and has 5% of their students complete college preparatory material while another school has a 10% drop out rate 25% of the students complete college preparatory material it doesn't follow that the teachers at one school were automatically "good" and the others "bad."
You take this outside education and it is profoundly easy to understand. No one would call a doctor bad because he/she advised and treated the patient properly but the patient refused to eat right, exercise or stop smoking. A financial adviser would never be blamed for taking on two clients at the same age, making the same amount of money and people noting that when one followed the plan given while the other spent more than they made that the outcome was due to the adviser.
It is only education where parties appear to excuse individuals from their own actions. I'm not saying you are doing this, but that is the point of the question. You answered it while Shawn refused so thanks. You don't have to flee the thread unless you desire to stop discussion by associating certain parties with harmful thoughts and actions.
Nick
Teacher don't need to be paid more. Do you realize how much money most teachers make, even those just starting out? Most make 40k starting out and then get up close to 100k when they retire or even sooner than that. And the fact that you get to work only 9 MONTHS OF THE YEAR? Wonderful if you ask me. No need to pay them anymore than what they get.
Are you 16 years old? Because the only way I can keep from allowing myself to verbally tear you to shreds is if you're 16. Even then, things might get ugly.
40K per year is NOT a great salary. Especially when you consider the fact that most teachers will have get a masters degree!
I am an undergrad, but my wife just graduated a year ago with a BA and is currently making $39,000 per year in corporate communications. MOST jobs that require a four year degree start at around $40K a year.
Find one person YOU KNOW who has retired from teaching and were making close to 100K/year when they retired. IF you could find someone, they would probably have to be a college professor who had acheived a PhD and were the chair of thier department. And then you would have to consider the amount of debt they had incurred while getting thier education!
Teachers are woefully underpayed, and everyone but you knows it.
Are you 16 years old? Because the only way I can keep from allowing myself to verbally tear you to shreds is if you're 16. Even then, things might get ugly.
40K per year is NOT a great salary. Especially when you consider the fact that most teachers will have get a masters degree!
I am an undergrad, but my wife just graduated a year ago with a BA and is currently making $39,000 per year in corporate communications. MOST jobs that require a four year degree start at around $40K a year.
Find one person YOU KNOW who has retired from teaching and were making close to 100K/year when they retired. IF you could find someone, they would probably have to be a college professor who had acheived a PhD and were the chair of thier department. And then you would have to consider the amount of debt they had incurred while getting thier education!
Teachers are woefully underpayed, and everyone but you knows it.
Truth be told , it depends on where they live , on where they teach and how we define and perceive the term underpaid . Having a salary of 85k might be termed underpaid in one district but the same amount might be the ideal pay in a neighboring school district .It will all depend on taxes and the corresponding economic status of the community where the schools are located as well as a person's own spending habits.
Find one person YOU KNOW who has retired from teaching and were making close to 100K/year when they retired. IF you could find someone, they would probably have to be a college professor who had acheived a PhD and were the chair of thier department. And then you would have to consider the amount of debt they had incurred while getting thier education!
A few things:
1) That figure of the average salary of a college professor is, as many people have noted, skewed by a variety of factors. Engineers, business people, and science folks make much more money than, say, an English professor.
2) One thing that people don't seem to consider about PhDs is that we don't *begin* our careers until we're around 30, and in many disciplines, that's remarkably early (some disciplines don't acre much for the MA/MS, and so you just enter a PhD program and are awarded the equivalent of an MA along the way). And those years between 21 (grad from college) and 31 (getting a job) mean in many cases you haven't paid social security or made enough to contribute to a retirement fund—it's difficult to contribute to a fund when your takehome is $800 a month. I haven't even mentioned debt. Most of the folks I know owe between $30K and $100K for their educations. My point is that the professoriate actually has to work longer than the average worker in order to be able to afford to retire. Ever wonder where that image of the wizened old professor comes from?
3) Chairs of departments may pick up a little extra salary, but usually the compensation is in teaching reduction. Chair positions are incredibly, incredibly demanding, a kind of death by 1000 meetings.
But are teachers generally underpaid? Yes. That's usually offset, though, by benefits (if you're lucky). But what people who bark about only working 9-10 months don't seem to get is that we're not paid for those months when we don't work.
Edit: I meant to point out, above, that my salary, which is $11K less than the national average, is offset by my benefits, which are really unbelievable. So my uni manages to keep people it otherwise wouldn't simply because they don't want to lose the benes.
Truth be told , it depends on where they live , on where they teach and how we define and perceive the term underpaid . Having a salary of 85k might be termed underpaid in one district but the same amount might be the ideal pay in a neighboring school district .It will all depend on taxes and the corresponding economic status of the community where the schools are located as well as a person's own spending habits.
When I first went on the job market, I interviewed for a position at Long Island U. The salary was $55K a year. In Long Island.
I watched that position re-appear on the job list, I believe, two years in a row.
I'm thinking if we went to a "voucher" system then the parents fires the bad principals by sending their kids to a different school where a principal can keep good staff.
Certainly turnover is one thing I looked at for daycare. Any place unable to keep staff has some kind of systemic problem that doesn't require any additional digging into. I just crossed them off the list and moved on.
Vinea
Sometimes parents have'nt got that option of"pulling" their kids out of schools because of distance factors and the extra cost of relocating. In Australia "bad principals" are protected by the Education Department even when school council has been dissolved and interim school councils are set up by the Department. Contract teachers are afraid to voice their opinions because the Principal has the ultimate power over their employment contract. Control freaks rule!
A few things:
1) That figure of the average salary of a college professor is, as many people have noted, skewed by a variety of factors. Engineers, business people, and science folks make much more money than, say, an English professor.
Yes but $78K or whatever it was average for an English professor (full) is not too shabby either.
2) One thing that people don't seem to consider about PhDs is that we don't *begin* our careers until we're around 30, and in many disciplines, that's remarkably early (some disciplines don't acre much for the MA/MS, and so you just enter a PhD program and are awarded the equivalent of an MA along the way). And those years between 21 (grad from college) and 31 (getting a job) mean in many cases you haven't paid social security or made enough to contribute to a retirement fund—it's difficult to contribute to a fund when your takehome is $800 a month. I haven't even mentioned debt. Most of the folks I know owe between $30K and $100K for their educations. My point is that the professoriate actually has to work longer than the average worker in order to be able to afford to retire.
This is true for any profession requiring a long education process. Doctors, scientists, etc. A PhD in chem or bio in the federal government gets you only GS-12 to 14 pay at the top end too. Educators are not the only ones in this boat.
Ever wonder where that image of the wizened old professor comes from?
Tenure?
But are teachers generally underpaid? Yes. That's usually offset, though, by benefits (if you're lucky). But what people who bark about only working 9-10 months don't seem to get is that we're not paid for those months when we don't work.
If you make $70K-$90K a year working 9-10 months a year then not getting paid those other 3 months is not a hardship. Trust me...if I could make $70K in 9 months you wouldn't see me at work those other 3 months unless you gave me another $70K. 3-4 weeks a year is what the rest of us get.
With respect to workload lets get real here. I don't know what business profs have to do but I do know the oft cited CS profs skewing the curve are getting grants and doing research (UMCP profs are my baseline in this comparison) as well as teaching. In comparison non-research oriented profs teach, have office hours and um...the occasional paper based, if anything, on lit search... Especially at the lesser unis. My dad certainly did not have the same sort of workload as a reseach prof fighting for grants every year until he made department head and then yes...death by a 1000 meetings.
Edit: I meant to point out, above, that my salary, which is $11K less than the national average, is offset by my benefits, which are really unbelievable. So my uni manages to keep people it otherwise wouldn't simply because they don't want to lose the benes.
Heh...and other univerisities like my dad's offered higher than average salary for really crappy benefits. What constitutes unbelievable benefits?
Vinea
Sometimes parents have'nt got that option of"pulling" their kids out of schools because of distance factors and the extra cost of relocating. In Australia "bad principals" are protected by the Education Department even when school council has been dissolved and interim school councils are set up by the Department. Contract teachers are afraid to voice their opinions because the Principal has the ultimate power over their employment contract. Control freaks rule!
Yes, replacing a so-so system with another so-so system is sub-optimal. Whenever you have a class of folks that can operate with impunity you create the scenario where abuse occurs. Replacing unfireable teachers with equally unfireable principals wouldn't seem very useful.
The devil is always in the details.
Vinea
Yes but $78K or whatever it was average for an English professor (full) is not too shabby either.
No, it's not. Don't get me wrong. I ain't complaining. I have one of the best jobs in the world. It's a lot of work, but it's work I like.
However, as you no doubt know, getting to the rank of full professor takes a good deal of time. These days, most of the jobs I'm seeing start at the ~$40-50K range for an assistant professor position and then move up from there with cost of living increases and merit pay and whatnot. At each rank (I know you know this, but I'm just spelling it out for the sake of posterity
My point is that the salary of a full professor is the salary of a person at the END of a career.
This is true for any profession requiring a long education process. Doctors, scientists, etc. A PhD in chem or bio in the federal government gets you only GS-12 to 14 pay at the top end too. Educators are not the only ones in this boat.
Sure. I have had some interesting discussions about this with lawyer and doctor friends. We all tend to look at it the same way: sure, my education cost as much as a house. But it's just what you have to do to be qualified.
Tenure?
Heh. Not if tenure happens when you're 43. I'll go up for tenure at 37.
If you make $70K-$90K a year working 9-10 months a year then not getting paid those other 3 months is not a hardship. Trust me...if I could make $70K in 9 months you wouldn't see me at work those other 3 months unless you gave me another $70K. 3-4 weeks a year is what the rest of us get.
Sure. But again, the average joe in the trenches in a discipline like mine is making about HALF what you're talking about. Would you be willing to make $45K on a 9-month stretch BUT spread that salary out over 12 months? In other words, if you make $45K a year, you have the option to be paid ONLY for the 9 months you work OR spread the salary out over 12. That's what most of us do, although I had a prof in grad school who didn't. They spent their summers living on credit cards. I never understood the logic of that, but they were odd folks anyway.
With respect to workload lets get real here. I don't know what business profs have to do but I do know the oft cited CS profs skewing the curve are getting grants and doing research (UMCP profs are my baseline in this comparison) as well as teaching.
Sure. And those grants are used to fund TA and RA positions and labs and salaries and all kinds of things. Not all disciplines can do that. Case-in-point: tomorrow, I'll file a grant application for $5K so I can go to London this summer and work in the British Library (I shall try my best not to get caught up in a terrorist attack this time). That grant will likely be cut in half. That's just the nature of the game. Is it fair? No. Ought it be? Dunno. I'm not John Rawls.
In comparison non-research oriented profs teach, have office hours and um...the occasional paper based, if anything, on lit search...
Well, that's a cultural problem of people simply not knowing what lots of disciplines in the humanities are about. What confuses the hell out of me, though, is why History professors are generally treated ok in popular consciousness while English professors (most of whom these days do work that is largely historical in nature) get treated with incredible suspicion, as if we're all failed novelists or something. My students seem to think that I sit around an "interpret" literature for a living (which to them means I sit around and write about how some poem made me feel), which is not really what I do at all. I suspect that this is a function of shifts in English pedagogy in the 1960s that linger on today, but that's another discussion.
Especially at the lesser unis.
Different unis have different standards. But it is a trusim that the humanities tend to not be funded as well as other disciplines.
My dad certainly did not have the same sort of workload as a reseach prof fighting for grants every year until he made department head and then yes...death by a 1000 meetings.
Ugh. I can believe it. My wife is threatening to stand for chairmanship when she gets tenure. I don't think it's a good idea. I don't know how people do it.
What constitutes unbelievable benefits?
Full medical. Covers anyone in the family. If you have two employees, you're double-covered. I have never paid a dime for anything medical since I've been here. For retirement, the system PAYS 14.2% into the pension. Not matches. Pays. My father, who works as a psych counselor (a kind of line of defense for the shrinks) has worked for 30 years at the same job and they will MATCH up to 6%.
Would you be so kind as to remove the reference to my uni? I try to maintain some vestige of anonymity around here. Thanks.
Yes, replacing a so-so system with another so-so system is sub-optimal. Whenever you have a class of folks that can operate with impunity you create the scenario where abuse occurs. Replacing unfireable teachers with equally unfireable principals wouldn't seem very useful.
The devil is always in the details.
Vinea
Yes, so much energy goes into dysfunction and cover-up than into educating the students. The so-so system becomes a selfish system for the devil's advocate!
2). Fear of future Columbines has meant schools removing Chemistry labs and various other laboratories for students to get hands-on experience. The availability of skilled craftsmen teaching high school students is going the way of the dodo bird.
3). Instead of just bitching about your salaries, use your students interest as leverage by brokering more areas for students to learn skills. If this means you become obsolete then so be it. You're focus as a Teacher is to teach and not concern yourself with permanency of a job first.
However, as you no doubt know, getting to the rank of full professor takes a good deal of time.
Yes a career's worth of time unless you're brilliant or a good kisser. On the other hand didn't AAUP say that the large majority of folks got to full professorship? Don't remember what it was but it was like 70%+?
Tenure and promotion to associate happens, in most place, after 6 years.
Promotion in most fields take 5 years from junior to working grade. Yes, the salary is far less in comparison to engineering fields.
My point is that the salary of a full professor is the salary of a person at the END of a career.
Yes, other fields do top out earlier.
Sure. But again, the average joe in the trenches in a discipline like mine is making about HALF what you're talking about. Would you be willing to make $45K on a 9-month stretch BUT spread that salary out over 12 months? In other words, if you make $45K a year, you have the option to be paid ONLY for the 9 months you work OR spread the salary out over 12. That's what most of us do, although I had a prof in grad school who didn't. They spent their summers living on credit cards. I never understood the logic of that, but they were odd folks anyway.
There are lots of folks that make $45K a year working for 12 months a year without the option of doing whatever for 2-3 months. That's why its a non-issue. The point of comparison is that $45k/year number. Or $70K/year or wherever you are in between.
My wife and her co-workers used to work in the summers as temps so there is the opportunity for supplemental income if you desire.
Sure. And those grants are used to fund TA and RA positions and labs and salaries and all kinds of things. Not all disciplines can do that.
No I mean its seems to be a lot more work. Getting or not getting grants seems to also determine how well you do on your tenure track.
Well, that's a cultural problem of people simply not knowing what lots of disciplines in the humanities are about. What confuses the hell out of me, though, is why History professors are generally treated ok in popular consciousness while English professors (most of whom these days do work that is largely historical in nature) get treated with incredible suspicion, as if we're all failed novelists or something. My students seem to think that I sit around an "interpret" literature for a living (which to them means I sit around and write about how some poem made me feel), which is not really what I do at all. I suspect that this is a function of shifts in English pedagogy in the 1960s that linger on today, but that's another discussion.
I guess what I'm saying is that when someone hands you a check for $25K-$250K for a research grant they expect more than from a $2500 grant. I don't know what you publish but it would seem less rigorous than publishing for a journal involving human subjects. Something we do for HCI research papers.
Full medical. Covers anyone in the family. If you have two employees, you're double-covered. I have never paid a dime for anything medical since I've been here. For retirement, the system PAYS 14.2% into the pension. Not matches. Pays. My father, who works as a psych counselor (a kind of line of defense for the shrinks) has worked for 30 years at the same job and they will MATCH up to 6%.
Nice. Our health benefits suck.
Would you be so kind as to remove the reference to my uni? I try to maintain some vestige of anonymity around here. Thanks.
Done. I simply took a wild guess...you may wish to remove any location info you put on this site. The url you provide pretty much took me right there...
Vinea