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What Are Teachers Worth?
What are teachers really worth?
That's the question, as the Senate puts off a vote on $10 billion for state and local governments to prevent teacher layoffs. Senate leadership wanted the bill to be deficit neutral—a line never applied to war funding, where no spending's too great because we're killing for peace. Estimates are that it costs $1 million per soldier per year to keep troops in Afghanistan. But enough of that.
Last week, David Leonhardt at the New York Times cited a study that showed that teachers can make a huge difference in the lives of children as early as kindergarten. The study found that a “standout” kindergarten teacher is probably worth $320,000 a year—that's the value that good teachers can add to the life of their students. When researchers left standardized testing out of the equation, they found many more benefits added by teachers.
Of course, this study plays into the idea that every individual teacher's responsible for the performance of the kids they teach, regardless of socioeconomic status, home life, class-size. Listen to Diane Ravitch on this program for more on that.
But it also brought to the front page of the Times the idea that our teachers, far from being laid off because of Senate politics, should be paid better and given more support.
If we can't find $320,000 a year for kindergarten teachers, perhaps we can at least find a way to keep them from losing their jobs entirely. Scratch that. If we can't find a way to pay living wages for kindergarten teachers, who are we ? And just where in our picture of "national security" do we place our kids?
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106 Comments so far
Show AllAs a former teacher, I find it hard to place a value on education as demarcated in dollars. What if a teacher instills a lifelong love of learning? How much is that worth in dollars? What if a teacher nurtures a critical sense in a child? How many thousands is that worth? Or, what if a teacher awakens a love of nature in a child--can we write out a check for that achievement?
Teachers need a decent salary. They shouldn't have to live in a squalid house, drive a decrepit car, and dress shabbily out of necessity. But they don't need Prada. Better to support schools and children so that the CHILDREN can see that education is valued in society: nice buildings, labs with equipment, field trips to expand their consciousness, extra-curriculars, books and school libraries.
All of us to some extent are who we are because of the teachers in our lives. It doesn't get much more important than that. Teachers, like any other working class folk deserve to earn a living wage for their efforts. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply wrong.
I have a niece that is a teacher and I never get the feeling she feels she is above anybody. I probably should have used middle class instead of working class I guess.
One thing I should add is that a decent wage for teachers needs to be balanced with the communities ability to pay for it. Im originally from CT but had to move to NC due in part to high taxes in CT. We had some VERY expensive schools in my former town which I am sure contributed to those high taxes.
Precisely so, says this other former teacher.
But as to the original title, I can tell you what I was worth in Shelley, Idaho, and in the eyes of the Idaho and National Education Association. I hope all teachers read this, for their own sake:
http://www.endteacherabuse.org/Geery.html
I will gladly post any reply from the NEA, btw.
I am a former teacher also but not at your level of accomplishment. I found administrators and principals generally untrustworthy. I found even that state level education associations and politicians just weren't dependable in time of need. That same old saying: "Nobody loves you when you're down and out." School board members were sometimes outright thieves who were in a position to get away with it. The son of a school board president was caught damaging my vehicle and had to go to court. His dad wanted me to produce evidence to get his son off. The whole thing was some kind of lesson in futility. I didn't bother trying to sue anybody - I knew the whole thing was rigged (the whole state was dominated by a crooked law firm) and I just got out and away to try and start a new life. I knew I was a good teacher because of achievement test scores. But if they want a crooked system, well, good luck with that.
Bodryn,
You stated "I knew I was a good teacher because of achievement test scores."
I'm sorry to say but that would be the last reason to say a teacher was a good teacher. As a matter of fact I would say it is a good reason to say that a teacher is NOT a good teacher. Unfortunately, it sounds as you were deceived into believing that test scores mean something, which they don't. They mean absolutely nothing other than being a truncated, less than whole way of saying what happened between a student and a piece of paper-the test-on a particular day. Achievement scores literally have no "real" meaning in that they are a conglomeration of many factors of learning of which one cannot quantify as learning is a quality not a quantity. See Noel Wilson's "Education Standards and the Problem of Error". Abstract @ http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577
OYE
daniel geery,
Thanks for the link to the endteacherabuse site. I signed up-having been a subjected to incompetent, abusive administrators at my prior district.
OYE
You're right that education should be funded. But let me edit your questions a bit.
What if a teacher stultifies an incipient love of learning? How much is that worth in dollars?
What if a teacher shuts down a critical sense in a child? How many thousands is that worth?
Or, what if a teacher ignores or even destroys a love of nature in a child--can we write out a check for that achievement?
The answers will be the same for your questions and mine.
Public school teachers wax so farking eloquent about their magical powers to inspire. As an adjunct college instructor, I get your products. Some of them have had a teacher or two in their entire public school experience who did some magic. A teacher or two out of many dozens. Many have had no such experience.
You'all are so into protest. So progressive! But I've never seen a teacher strike concerning curriculum. It's always you're paychecks! You should see mine.
Any true teacher teaches because it's necessary. I hear teachers with pathetic educations talking about how they should be respected as "professionals," like, you know, doctors and lawyers. Get a grip. Those people, corrupt as they are (and you want to be like them?), sweat through their educations.
Tenure is for scholars, not grade school teachers. Sorry, public school teachers, welcome to the real world. I know it sucks. I live it.
"I know it sucks. I live it."
Don't worry. The union busters are hard at work smashing up the teachers' unions and soon everyone in education will be paid insufficient amounts to live on with no benefits and no tenure.
Yet, most teachers even with lousy educations, even ones who are not that great as teachers are professionals (as much as any EMT), and deserve some respect.
The way adjuncts are treated by Universities in the U.S. is disgraceful, and I wouldn't wish that kind of treatment on anyone, even bad teachers in grade schools with terrible educations.
If any teacher goes to work and does their job, they should be paid adequately. And if they do a really good job, they should be promoted and paid better. It's not easy work, I'm sure.
Elizabeth,
"Public school teachers wax so farking eloquent about their magical powers to inspire." As a public school teacher I have to agree that those powers are bullshit. I have heard that over and over and it bugs the hell out of me. I have no magic powers to inspire.
I can only present the subject matter (Spanish) in the best way that I believe works and go from there. I tell the students that they can choose to learn or not, their choice. Now do I use strategies to try to get them interested, of course. Every year there are a number of students who make it be known that they don't want to be in Spanish. I try to approach them, find their interests, tell them I understand that we all don't like all subjects but they are in my class so why not make the most of it. I can get most of them to come around but every year there are some who refuse to work. I tried, maybe one year I will "get to" everyone.
"Any true teacher teaches because it's necessary". I can't agree with that. To me a "true" teacher teaches because it's his/her passion not only for the subject matter but also for the students as human beings.
"Tenure is for scholars, not grade school teachers". Again I can't agree with you. Tenure is for the students so that they might be exposed to many differing viewpoints, thoughts and methods instead of a lockstep point of view/thoughts/method as perhaps desired by the administrators. Look into the history of teacher abuse by administrators and you might see why it (tenure) is necessary. And a K-12 teacher can't be a "scholar"? Hogwash!!
OYE
What I meant by "necessary" is pretty much what you say; sorry to be unclear. By necessary I mean that the teacher believes that what she is teaching is necessary for the students to know, and that it is necessary to get the students to progress. Teachers who lack passion for their subject matter, or interest in their students, are a liability. One teaches because it is necessary, as opposed to because summers off and job security are attractive, or it's an easy major.
As for scholars, plenty of scholars work as clerks by what I can make of your definition. So what? I've heard teachers defend tenure, and complain that they cannot be assessed by test scores, but I don't hear teachers suggesting ways that ineffective teachers could be improved or weeded out. I know that some unfairness would ensue. Welcome to the real world.
My point is that teachers have had significantly more power over their profession than most these last decades, and they have not used that power to improve the system. If an excellent teacher is fired for standing up, or the administration is corrupt, or a misbegotten curriculum is being forced upon the system, that would be a good time to strike. Maybe if the public saw that teachers are standing up to improve our children's education, and not just their paychecks, levies might have a better chance of passing. In our current economic situation, acting like martyrs just don't cut it, not when scholars are clerks.
I've read all the comments, and believe that most of the teachers posting here are likely very committed to their work, and many are getting screwed. I'm sorry for that. But our educational system sucks, and teachers should stop blaming everyone and everything else. When I get classes where not one student knows the bare basics of grammar, where few read even one book they were assigned all through high school, where any intellectual curiosity has been squashed, then I know there's something very wrong--and I'm sorry, I do mean wrong with the teaching. I've had classes where not one student knows in what century the American Civil War was fought, for God's sake! I'm teaching college, and I feel as if I have to start in the fourth grade. And in subjects like math, that's exactly where many incoming students are starting.
Funny, though, how much progress can be made when one puts forth the effort to interest the student. If a teacher is well-versed in and passionate about her subject, and figures out ways to connect that passion to her students' lives, then she's teaching. Otherwise, sorry to say, leave it to the computers. Because that's what the profession is up against.
Elizabeth,
Glad to see that we agree on what a "good" teacher should be.
"I've heard teachers defend tenure, and complain that they cannot be assessed by test scores, but I don't hear teachers suggesting ways that ineffective teachers could be improved or weeded out."
Let me explain how teachers cannot effectively and ethically be assessed by student test scores. From the myriad obvious out of teacher control factors that effect a student's learning, not to mention that I only have them 55 minutes a day, one presupposes that I have such an effect on them that I am to be judged by a process-standardized testing-that is fraught with problems and errors (See Wilson's study as mentioned above/below), riiight! You even decried (and I agree) that K-12 teachers aren't the "miracle workers" they purport to be. So which one is it??? Miracle worker to be judged by a standardized test or the teacher being just one of many, many factors in student learning (note I do not say achievement as that is one of those bastardized words in education that means nothing).
Ethically speaking, all the testing organizations, e.g., Education Testing Services (the folks of ACT) or the American Psychological Association, in their policy statements concerning the use of a standardized test scores state that any usage of the test results for anything other than purpose of the test is UNETHICAL. So that a state test in Math, the only use of the scores can be to assess a students performance of that particular test of a particular student on that particular day and at that time. And in reality, it does not say anything about what the student knows as there are many well-known reasons why a student may not have performed at his or her best. Any other usage is UNETHICAL. It cannot be ethically used to assess a teacher's performance, the school's performance or the district's as the test was designed as a Math test and not designed to assess the teacher, school or district. So, you propose to use an ILLOGICAL and UNETHICAL means to evaluate a teacher. Sorry, but I categorically reject that concept.
As far as weeding out the ineffective teachers, there are policies and procedures that should be followed to "get rid of" them. For example at one point prior to becoming a teacher I was the Supervisor of Purchasing and Distribution for the pharmacy in a University teaching hospital. Two of the positions were union and we had to take the most senior person who applied from anywhere on campus. Well, one guy, an alcoholic who had bounced around the university system for many years because no one chose to do what was necessary. Well, we couldn't have that in the pharmacy department. I documented the times he came in with alcohol on his breath, we offered him counseling, worked with, cajoled him, trying to get him to straighten up. The last straw was him not showing up or calling. I went to his house at 8:00 in the morning and found him sitting on the front porch with a bottle of whiskey in his hand. It took us about 3 months to document what we did but we "got rid of", heaven forbid, a "union" employee.
The problem for ineffective teachers should not be placed on the backs of all teachers (which is what all this standardized test score crap does) but on the back of the administrators who are too lazy/incompetent to do what needs to be done. It is an administrative problem--and that's a whole other story.
OYE
I never said I support standardized tests. I don't, and I well understand the problems. I said that I don't hear teachers suggesting ways that ineffective teachers could be improved or weeded out. That might help, don’t you think? This gets to the heart of what you are not answering to. Teachers have been very active in looking out for themselves and their fellow teachers, and they should be just as active in fighting against stupid assessment ideas—assessments of both themselves and their students—as well as about corrupt and inept administrations, ineffectual curricula, etc. And maybe if they figured out a reasonable way to be assessed, and agreed to its enforcement, we might have a better educational system. My point, again, is that teachers might get more support from their communities if they stood up and got vocal en masse about those things that bar schools from giving students a better education. You have much more power than most employees, and if you don’t use it to reform the system yourselves, you can’t bitch when the government gets involved.
And yes, as in any situation where you can’t keep your job unless you rape a student or sell dope from your desk, there will be injustices whenever any assessment is used.
Elizabeth,
I am enjoying the dialogue. Thanks!
Assessment of both teachers and students is a very complex problem. As far as why teachers don't stand up to the idiocies that are imposed upon us, I see it as most K-12 teachers struggle to keep up with the work load and if a teacher is teaching properly every day they come home exhausted (not to mention many times taking work home). I've worked 80-90 weeks in the business world and have never been as exhausted as I am at the end of a school day (granted I'm a tad older now and that may have something to do with it). And teachers tend to be compliant, willing to listen and try things, even if they are not quite sure it's the right way to go. But as top down mandates go, most teachers say okay I'll try, they try it, and then go back to the methods that they believe are most effective.
There are many differing models/methods of evaluating a teacher. To be truly effective they should include things like peer evaluation, student evaluation of the teacher, supervisor evaluation in various formats. The really good teachers initiate these situations outside the formal evaluation process on a daily basis. To me, ultimately the ones who best know how a teacher teaches are the students so I have a tendency to listen to them. But then again I teach at the secondary level and that would be harder to do at the elementary level. And all of this takes time, effort and money of which the first and last are in quite short supply. Again a very complex issue that should be dealt with on a district level--not state and not federal.
The fact is, though, that it is the administrations responsibility to evaluate new teachers to the building. They should be able to figure out whether a teacher "has it" or not in the first years, address the shortcomings, and then weed out if needed. So, yeah, I'm throwing the responsibility and culpability onto the administrators for our supposedly shitty public education-HA HA.
As far as community support for teachers, historically most, somewhere, around 80-85% of the community strongly supports and approves what the teachers do in their community schools.
The unstated assumption in all of this is that public education is "failing" the students and that, quite frankly, is a crock of shit. Because the critics of public education use false methods (standardized tests scores and these idiotic published "grading" and "ranking" of schools) to denigrate teachers and schools.
Why do we let them get away with it. Well I don't. And I constantly bring these facts up to anyone who will listen. Like today when I went to my insurance agent who happens to be a board member (and I have his son in class) I brought up some of these issues as he is new to the board. He appears to understand but like many is at a loss what to do due to the legal mandates from the state and feds.
OYE
our consumptive lifestyle economically depends upon destroying our only home planet...
taking care of the planet requires drastic change in our economic systems, including property ownership...
our current educational systems are unequipped to educate in this manner, so educate only within accepted boundaries, which are suicidal...
whence cometh education beyond flag, job and shopping?
why continue to teach detrimental tradition?
In the end, people either support things schools try to do or they don't. Some refuse to support education for many reasons, ideology being one of the most important. If you do not support schools, then vote down every bond issue, every millage you can. Most parents with school-age children see beyond the failures of schools--they support them in diverse ways. So, dubet, rail against the schools to your heart's content, but don't confuse your position on education with that held by Dewey, or any of the other reformers in the progressive tradition.
Teachers are taught in a certain way, and that's how and what they teach. It has led to an 18th century educational system, and 19th century university system, drawing on ideas from antiquity and the middle ages.
What was once the training of an elite callous aristocratic class, has become the general rule for everyone. Everyone must graduate high school. Everyone must go to college--just to get a job.
The human race is faced with numerous threats to its continuous existence as a species, and schools are still teaching skills that exacerbate these threats.
It's not teaching per se that's the problem. It's the curriculum. It's time for an update.
Do you have an first-hand knowledge of schools? Or are you "coasting" on what you remember about your own schooling? Very, very few teachers stand up in front of class and blab for an hour. You engage the students in some way: a reading, an experiment, artwork, music, mathematical hands-on work...more ways than you know. I do not understand how you come up with teachers drawing upon teaching methods from antiquity and the middle ages. It doesn't correspond to anything I know about schools.
And, as for the poster below who insists all education is political: well, it isn't. Not unless you define "political" in such a way that it covers art, music, science, the love of nature, poetry, foreign languages, voc ed, gym and god knows how much more. One thing certain progressives share with Palin: utter confidence in voicing critiques about subjects they know nothing about.
I think you continue to misunderstand the argument. The beef is not with teaching per se or with teaching methods (engagement is good, I agree), but with content. This requires a certain amount of study of the history of education, the philosophy of education, and the history and philosophy as well as deep appreciation of various subject areas--things that are typically neglected in undergraduate/graduate courses and schools of education. It also requires an awareness of modern issues and sense of social responsibility, like you might acquire from reading commondreams.org regularly.
I'm not sure which country you taught in, or if you taught in more than one, or which subject, so I hesitate to give more examples. I'm assuming an English speaking country in the developed world, and a grade school subject. I'm also assuming it was a relatively well-off area where teachers are not glorified baby-sitters, and people graduate high school not knowing how to read or add.
Dubet,
I don't know if you are an educator or not but you might be surprised to find out that many teachers are attempting to "educate" students beyond the corporate mind think paradigm. We close the doors to the room and the students love to discuss many things that can somehow be tied to the curriculum. Teaching as a subversive activity, ya know!
OYE
I hear, and appreciate, your words, Oye...I have read a number of your posts and admire your passion...
Dubet,
Thank you for the kind words!!!
OYE
"If we can't find a way to pay living wages for kindergarten teachers, who are we ? And just where in our picture of "national security" do we place our kids?"
The problem is with the word "we." "They" decide how much to pay, whereas "you" would like some other pay.
"They" think that your kids aren't worth it, "you" disagree. "You" elected "them", but "they" screwed "you" over.
It would not take a salary of $320,000 to show what teachers are worth. The solution is simple (but impossible to implement). Just double the salaries of every teacher, from a beginner to the ones about to retire.
That would reward bad teachers as well as good ones, but the benefits would be worth it. For example, that kind of salary would show the public (and students going off to college and wondering what field to choose) that teaching is really a profession - like law and engineering. But because an education degree is much easier to get than one in engineering, many smart students would choose it. So, over a decade or two, the entire profession would be changed.
In addition, the schools of education would have to change their curricula because really smart students would not put up with some of the nonsense that goes on now (such as doing little more than writing micro-lesson plans in every education course).
Of course, this approach could never be implemented because every school district in the country (I think the number approaches 5000) is independent, and local school boards would have a hard time convincing the voters that their taxes should go up to finance this program.
Oh well, one can dream.
Double every teacher's salary, regardless of effectiveness, "because [as] an education degree is much easier to get than one in engineering, many smart students would choose it." Huh? I think you might want to rethink your logic there.
If an education degree required any intellectual effort, more smart students would enter the field. Many students who start out in education are dismayed by the mindlessness of education classes, and go onto something more challenging.
Many countries, such as China, have people teaching their area of expertise in grade school, and I mean area of expertise.
I sometimes have students who complain that they have a 4.0 in their major but can't pass Freshman English. I don't even have to ask what their major is. It's always education.
I have a friend who teaches grammar to education majors who intend to teach English. They don't get it. They complain that it's too hard. Can't find a verb, and you want to teach English?
Education departments are the laughingstock of universities. That has to change.
I experienced a great disconnect between high school and college. High schools don't teach enough and colleges are stuffed with professors who assume that we learned it all in high school. Some professors know this but in their lectures they would say something like "if you did not learn this before then you will have no idea as to what I am going to discuss" and this in an introductory class. It's like a professor watching a student drowning in the river. He won't want her to drown but he won't even throw her a life ring. Some education.
Well, those professors probably aren't the best teachers. I always ask my students what they know. When they confess ignorance, I give a sketchy background and suggestions for reading, and have the students who understand the issue discuss it. What else can I do?
Every college I've ever attended or taught at provides tutoring, and having worked as a tutor, I know that few students grab onto that life ring.
Tutoring is ok but not all colleges and universities have it for all fields of learning. At least you're a good teacher who is willing to help the best you can. I wished more professors would think likewise. It sucks that this is a nation that spends the most on education only to turn out a poorly educated populace.
and one more point.
In terms of national security in the current regime, your kids are the cannon fodder for future wars. Your kids should know how to take orders, and NOT think for themselves.
If you don't like it, elect some people who care.
These people who care...who are they and how can we get them elected when its the party machines who nominate and then sell candidates to the highest corporate bidder?
It really is becoming more and more important that ordinary working people be not only discouraged from thinking for themselves but actually punished in many instances for so doing. We seem to have generated a speces of 'manager' in many businesses who has little concept of the actual job or service provided and who lives and dies by 'the bottom line'. Let us remember that these managers are 'educated' have at least one degree and take home considerably more money than the employees who actually DO the job. The risk takers and free thinkers within organisations seem to be a dying breed, unless of course the risks taken are with someone else's money!
The "people who care" are not going to be able to raise the eight figure campaign war chests from corporate contributions that you need to win a Congressional or Senate race.
The United States doesn't walk the talk and never has.Education is only valuable to those who value it. Most don't. Most can't afford higher education and many don't appreciate the free education they recieve in the public school system. But as a "service" economy i guess you don't really need more than an elementary school education. (I'm being sarcastic)
The US was a different country back in the 1950's and 60's. Education was actually being valued. Eisenhower's NDEA (National Defense Education Act) helped fund higher education. JFK and LBJ greatly increased funding for higher education. I myself got 2 public funded scholarships to go to grad school during that time. America seemed to become a different country after about 1980. That's about the time I noticed chronic homelessness affecting more than just hobos and alcoholics.
Will you please stop the BS talk Laura. This country is way way past words. The people are being oppressed by corporations and the government. Nothing other than collective action will change things. If teachers, an intelligent group of people, cannot understand that action is needed, then why should I care. I'm not standing up for them if they do not stand up for themselves. Let's stop torturing ourselves with bleeding info overload. Nobody is doing shyt. Let it go.
Stone,
You stated "If teachers, an intelligent group of people, cannot understand that action is needed, then why should I care."
Perhaps you shouldn't care but allow me to give you an example of why teachers don't challenge more.
As a department chair at my prior school I went to the administration with our department's concerns about our Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings each weak (that used up class time to boot). First off they had 4 administrators in the meeting-nothing like a little power play, eh, except I didn't and don't give a shit about power plays (except when I'm in the nets and the other team is on one). I logically explained why what we were doing wasn't working and that we wanted to use the time to engage the struggling students as they were on campus at the time. The principal agreed that what I said was true and that our department had a good solution. But...."Our school is doing PLC's, the district is doing PLC's, the state is doing PLC's, the country is doing PLC's and therefore the World Language Department was going to do it also" was her response. Blew my mind!!! She then subsequently tried to have my supervising assistant principal (AP) file a sexual harassment suit for saying that the PLC process was a bunch of mental masturbation. Fortunately, my AP had a conscience, knew that I would never teach again if that happened and refused to do that.
So to get back to the point, if we teachers (and I was tenured at the time) say anything that rocks the boat we are subjected to losing our livelihood-the meager pay that it is. Teachers literally have no job security. Are you willing to lose your job for standing up to abusive management in order to protect the customers rights or call out any other malfeasance on the part of management???
OYE
Isn't it ironic that while teachers must teach students about their freedom of speech, neither students nor teachers in fact have this freedom?
What if they opened a school and nobody applied to teach in it? What sob stories from these teachers. In the union, CWA, that I belonged to the members knew the mgrs. were not on their side. Even if they were recruited from the stewards or rank and file they become the bosses. They are collaborators in an endeavor to suppress your collective, professional rights! End of story! What the students need to be taught: while socialization and group cooperation are essential in complex organizations dictators and goons aren't.
Linkwray,
You stated "What sob stories from these teachers". I'm not quite sure what you mean by that statement. I assume that I am one of "these teachers" to whom you refer. My anecdotes are not meant to be "sob stories" but just to point out the circumstances under which teachers work. (I worked in the business world until I was 38 and I could tell as many atrocious stories from that realm also. And that's all they are are stories/anecdotes.) Please add meaning to your comment for me!
Thanks!
OYE
Oye,
Thanks for your comments.
I'm not sure how relevant this is since my experience has all been at the university level. I ended up a full professor with a good record (publications, federal grants, dept chair, decent teaching evaluations), and yet my salary was always a joke (I ended up making less than friends who taught high school). This never really bothered me, but then I had no kids raise.
I served as president for our university chapter of the AAUP (American Association of University Professors) for a number of years. You can go to AAUP.org if interested. Ours was an interesting organization in that we functioned as a union but without collective bargaining responsibilities. Instead, we were able to focus on faculty rights, curriculum, academic freedom, corporitization,other progressive issues.
I spent a lot of time talking to professors with grievances and trying to recruit professors. Although these faculty had good liberal values, I found them remarkably apathetic when it came to protecting faculty rights. It seemed that some faculty were too engaged in their scholarship- almost the stereotypical "absent-minded" professors living in their "ivory-towers". Others worked long hours (mainly on research) and simply didn't have the time for protests, etc. This is a huge part of the problem. One thing I will say is that these professors, even those with grievances, were not whiners with sob stories. They were generally too accepting, and never realized how bad the situation was.
I also had to deal with a lot of higher-level administrators and department chairs. My impression was that administrators were motivated almost entirely by money, in particular the money required to run their specific unit (the college budget or department budget). This was understandable because budget deficits (due to tax cuts) were a constant problem. But what was not understandable was their willingness to stab any faculty in the back in order to save money. The same was true for students. While faculty were in general very much opposed to corporate influences within the university, the administrators were much more open to such "contamination". Even though most administrators came up through the faculty ranks, it was clear that power was a primary motive for them, which tended to increase as they got more power.
I should also point out, that at least at the higher-ed level, curricula are continuously being improved, at least in areas inspired by faculty and not administrators. Same goes with teaching methods. This is also true for k-12 education.
"I should also point out, that at least at the higher-ed level, curricula are continuously being improved, at least in areas inspired by faculty and not administrators. Same goes with teaching methods. This is also true for k-12 education."
I don't doubt it. However, philosophically, education plays a certain role in perpetuating the current system. When one reads around commondreams.org for long enough, one inevitably comes to the conclusion that the system either needs to change or will run headlong into a brick wall or a bad place that no one wants to be. The Soviet Union underwent a similar transformation (ironically also masterminded by Larry Summers) in the 1990s reverting Russia to serfdom. I knew educators from Russia then who couldn't even buy a pair of cheap shoes with their entire monthly salary.
Since then it has become possible for any motivated student to learn virtually any subject using the internet at home for free. At the same time, schools have become strangulated by increasingly powerful and numerous administrators who have the same kind of greed the Wall Street guys have.
It is therefore natural to ask what purpose these traditional forms of education serve, and whether education as we know it should be radically restructured.
I can't speak for K-12, but my impression of higher ed is that curricula would be improved (brought up to date, better interdisciplinary integration, and so on), if all teaching and research decisions were left up to the individual departments. The students would then be exposed to the most important issues and advances of the particular discipline because this would be what the faculty, who have the most expertise in their particular area, viewed as most important, valuable, and interesting. I might wrong on this, but at the departmentl/disciplinary level, it almost seems like an anarcho-syndicalist form of decision making. However, once you get past the departments, the university becomes extremely hierarchical, with administrators ranging through chairs, asst deans, deans, asst provosts, provost, president, state boards and state legislatures all trying to influence what gets taught and what gets researched.
This is where the worst problems arise. For me, and this is one area where higher-ed is really worse off than K-12, the worst problems involve corporations trying to manipulate instruction and research. Our state board of higher education consist of 10 people, all business persons, who actively fought to keep a single faculty off the board. You can imagine how they would work to direct money through the state system (i.e.,. toward lucrative fields such as engineering, computing, etc.). The same influences descend through the university presidents, provosts, and deans, because they want to get the money attached to these corporate initiatives and the associated power. This isn't all bad because some students end up with good training and a good job. But it also ends up sucking resources from other disciplines such as non-lucrative sciences, marginalizes others such as the liberal arts, and of course undermines the "expert" decision-making going on within departments (based on developing knowledge) with other decisions based on money and jobs.
You are certainly right about how bad the situation is, and a radical reorganization seems called for. Unfortunately, I don't think we know enough regarding how things should be restructured. As you can see, my solution would be to make the individual departments more or less autonomous and get rid of 75% of the administrators (they can deal with budget and public relations, but leave all teaching and research decisions up to the faculty.) But I don't think this solution is as applicable to K-12 education, although it may be possible to organize schools and curricula around "disciplines", where language teachers work together, science teachers work together, etc., combining across different grade levels in deciding what's most important and planning the curricula. Maybe this would give teachers more power in resisting administrative pressures, though it could also lead to more competition over scarce resources. I'm also optimistic that as we learn more about how children learn and what teaching techniques are most effective (from psychology, education, and related disciplines), a number of improvements will arise from basic knowledge gained within the educational system itself (as long as it's not directed by corporate and administrative interests). Another type of "spontaneous" reorganization might arise as knowledge becomes more interconnected across disciplines (e.g., cognitive sciences, neurosciences, social sciences). This is very attractive, but problems arise because some of the "basic" fundamental knowledge (e.g., classes) can easily fall between the cracks.
DougD
Thanks for explaining your history in higher ed. Your comment about administrators being money/power hungry rings true at the K-12 level also (and in the business world too).
One of the reasons I didn't complete my doctoral program was that the university pulled my funding. As an "adjunct professor" (whoop de do) for ten years I had recruited many students for them through the advanced credit program. Our department had more than enough credit hours accrued (as kind of payment for doing the work) and the university decided all of a sudden that we could use only three credit hours per year. By that time I realized that college professors were in a worse boat than K-12 teachers in terms of salary and job security so I said screw it. I really would like to teach beginning teachers a course in Education Philosophy/History/Critical Enquiry as I believe they need more than just a "technique" type education-but I guess that'll never happen.
OYE
I have very little time for academicians who can't take a stand in their own behalf on the issues. I have known many and worked for lawyers as well. Lawyers have way more guts than professors in my book. And, yes, they have just as much to risk by dropping themselves into the middle of controversial and contentious political or social fights. We have so many " suckups " in this country we could export them for years and still have a surplus. Weighing a moral issue against your pocketbook issue is the height of chickensxxt, in my book. The excuse of children is laughable: how many kids want cowardly, evasive, wishy-washy parents as role models? A little money or tenure makes cowards of us all, I guess.
Linkwray,
"Weighing a moral issue against your pocketbook issue is the height of chickensxxt, in my book."
Couldn't agree with you more but I have yet to see an example of teachers standing up for "pocketbook" issues over the concerns of the students. For one thing in Missouri it is illegal for teachers to strike. And the result of that is that teachers in non strike states earn up to one quarter less than in those states where they have the right to strike.
"A little money or tenure makes cowards of us all, I guess." No, the little money that we make is offset by the security of tenure (which by the way benefits the students far more by exposing them too many differing viewpoints versus a lock step one way of teaching that administration has a tendency to like).
Tenure gives me some security to challenge illegal policies and procedures of the administration. I will be tenured, again, after having switched districts (where I had tenure) five years ago. I will now challenge my school's illegal policy (it has already been adjucated in Missouri) of having teachers supervise the lunch room as then in reality they do not have a "lunch" time (not to mention the lunch time being only 22 minutes which is less than the 30 minutes mandated by law). Without tenure I did not "trust" the administrators (even though I do like and overall trust ours) and did not want to give them any reason to "non-renew". In Missouri for non-tenured teachers you do not (and really should not from the adminstration's point of view legal standpoint so as to not give the non-renewed teacher cause for suit) have to give any reasons to non-renew a teacher. You just don't tender them a contract. Before being tenured a teacher walks on egg shells hoping not to piss off the wrong administrator. So it is the opposite of what you have stated.
OYE
That sounds almost like politics. I wished tenured politicians would do what you're doing to challenge the status quo. I lived in MO when I was young. Which part of MO are you from? I lived in Independence, MO before I moved to WI and later to Fargo.
Michael,
I grew up in South St. Louis County (what I facetiously call "White" county as the percentage of African American families is probably less than .5%) when it was still farms and fields. Lived in Peru for six months after high school. Moved to Columbia to go to Mizzou and stayed for 11 years-Columbia is an oasis in the middle of MO. In 85 moved to Worcester, MA-stayed there for 3 years and then moved back to St. Lou-Kirkwood in 88. Stayed there until I got divorced about 5 years ago when I moved out here to live in the country in southern Warren County--known as the Missoui Hills country as it is quite hilly beautiful land of farms and woods. Love it out here in the woods--as Jesse Colin Young sang "the ruts in the road keep the tourists at bay"
OYE
I had a chance to visit St Louis County last year. It's a suburb these days it seems. Thanks for sharing your experience. It can be a nutty state but not as bad as North Dakota outside of Fargo.
First it's Florida, now it's Missouri. What state is next, Miss., Alabama or S. Carolina? I think the pattern is clear: the old Confederacy should not be a part of the U.S. It is a statist, fascist sink hole for human rights. I cannot stand these boils on the rights of worker's to come together and bargain collectively, especially a service as vital as education. " Dear Lord, please save us from the hell of Jeff Davis!!! "
The south isn't as bad as some of the midwestern states if you look closely. Hint: North Dakota
I was teaching, earned a Masters and was working on a Doctorate when I stood up, and was fired. A career wiped out. I know the pain and would do it again. People have to learn to stand up. Yes, I had a family too. Weakness is a choice and I have no sympathy for it.