^^^I don't think I should participate either since I'm not even a teacher.

It's just that people say such outrageous stuff about our teachers and schools. Growing up, I believed that the majority of my teachers were stupid and/or mean. But then I became an adult and got to know teachers and learn about their jobs, and I'm very sympathetic to the position they're in.

I've had the pleasure of interacting with one teacher who I would describe as "bad." I actually think she had a personality disorder or something. Anyway, she did not get tenure.

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 4:11 PM. Reason : ]

9/12/2012 4:10:44 PM

Quote :

"Salaries were originally developed on the assumption that teachers would have several weeks off during the summer. So, no, they should not be divided by .75 (multiplied, to be correct). Why would you think that?"

I say that b/c it still doesn't compare to someone that works year round. If I said I made $50k I don't mean I make $50k and get my summer off. I get $50k and work during the summer. Conversely I could be wrong but don't a lot of teachers that have their summers off work temporary seasonal jobs? Either way it was just a question out of curiosity. I don't really care.

Quote :

"Bullshit. It gets almost as hot up here as in NC and it's sometimes even more humid. If you've been in a building here on a hot day with no AC then you'd know it's impossible to do more than get heat stroke, forget learning."

Not really. Summer vacation in NJ (for me at least) was mid June to mid September. And if the weather forecast is unseasonably high exceptions are made. As a child I recall us being given half days 3 times in a week because of a heat wave. It happened to me one year out of 14. BFD.

And "almost as hot" isn't really the case. Comparing Trenton NJ to Raleigh shows that Raleigh's June is almost 7 degrees warmer (86.7 vs 80) and September is the same (81.6 vs 75). 7 degrees is a large difference. Bunch of people gone soft...

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 4:16 PM. Reason : e]

9/12/2012 4:15:33 PM

Trenton NJ and Chicago are like 800 miles from one another.

If you're willing to declare that 7 degrees is a large difference, then I'm sure you'd be willing to understand that 800 miles is an even larger difference.




"The weather in Chicago isn't that bad! I should know, I used to vacation in Oklahoma City!"

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 4:35 PM. Reason : ]

9/12/2012 4:18:04 PM

I don't understand why the school system there just doesn't put out about 1000 job openings, where that 16% raise actually goes to sign on bonuses for laid off people around the country that would move into the school district. Start a lateral entry program. I realize the logistics of getting that many teachers trained up in a short amount of time is impossible, but it really would be nice to see those strikers without a job.

Living in NC all my life, I just don't understand how unions have such a sway - especially unions of public workers. What is it that allows these people to keep their jobs.

How can people support unions after what they did to Detroit? $35/hour for assembly line labor, with pensions and awesome health care?

9/12/2012 4:22:06 PM

Quote :

"Not really. Summer vacation in NJ (for me at least) was mid June to mid September. "

Good for you, but this is about Chicago area schools. NJ isn't really relevant.

Quote :

"How can people support unions after what they did to Detroit? $35/hour for assembly line labor, with pensions and awesome health care?"

Because the alternative is a path back to 19th century company towns. Unions exist as a counterbalance to the overwhelming power of management. Unions aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but they are necessary.

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 4:35 PM. Reason : .]

9/12/2012 4:32:52 PM

^^^^Ah, I see. I thought you were saying we should actually reduce teacher pay by a fourth to reflect that they only work 75% of the year.

They do report monthly salaries for a 10-month period, which does better reflect how the pay works.

But, no it wouldn't make sense to divide salaries by .75 because then people would think that's what teachers actually make for a year. And if somebody was making $34,000 over 10 months as a teacher, they wouldn't want people to think they actually earned $45,333 a year. Obviously, there's very little chance they're going to be able to find a job that will pay the same monthly amount for two months every summer...so $45,333 would be totally inaccurate.

Also, teachers in NC only get 6.5 weeks off in the summer, not 3 months.

9/12/2012 4:41:31 PM

Unions have no place in the 21st century.

What a goddamn joke.

9/12/2012 4:52:00 PM

Overwhelming power of management? Give me a break. Where's that "overwhelming power of management" in NC? I don't see factory workers, what few there are here, oppressed by a gang of suits in offices trying to make that bottom line.

If they don't like the work, don't like the pay, they can find another job. Otherwise they'll find themselves out of a job anyway when they run their company in the ground.

9/12/2012 4:52:22 PM

Bring it on.

The South benefits hugely from companies fleeing unions.

9/12/2012 4:53:39 PM

So does China

9/12/2012 4:55:20 PM

Quote :

"Because the alternative is a path back to 19th century company towns. Unions exist as a counterbalance to the overwhelming power of management capital. Unions aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but they are necessary."

9/12/2012 5:05:48 PM

The South is obviously China.

Even if that were true, then hell yes.

Finally we can finance our new Civil War and roll back the broke-ass Union.

9/12/2012 5:22:25 PM

Unions are necessary in the private sector as a tool for leverage. The government has virtually unlimited leverage in a given territory, so no, they don't need their own union.

9/12/2012 5:26:59 PM

^^As usual, you missed the entire fucking point.

Those who finance production always move capital to areas that have the most lax labor laws. Large manufacturing plants moved to the South to escape unions. They will then escape to places like China, where workers commit suicide to escape shitty working conditions.

Global capital means that there are 6 fucking billion people who can do your job better than you, and for less pay, provided that manufacturers grease the right people in politics in order to create laws that support supply-side economics. Whether you realize it or not, you are supporting a system that encourages neo-feudalism, and a system where a tiny minority control capital, with the rest of the world only being able to provide labor.

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 5:29 PM. Reason : willy's...not d#s]

9/12/2012 5:29:04 PM

I've never claimed to give two shits about the average worker.

That doesn't mean I've "missed the entire fucking point."

Apparently me not caring about things you care about is a problem? Maybe you should get over yourself.

...and oh yes, Obama just creates such a wonderful environment to have all those evil companies just flocking back over here from China.

Goddamn, you people sure as shit don't know where to pin blame do you? He even has a TV commercial bragging about this. What a joke.

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 5:38 PM. Reason : -]

9/12/2012 5:35:46 PM

I'm no fan of Obama. I've said that more times than I can count. Not sure why you just assumed I would vote for him.

9/12/2012 5:44:56 PM

Well, say it more often then.

9/12/2012 5:48:34 PM

Overpaid hipsters duped into thinking it's about them and the kids when it's really about the CTU being able to keep the bad, overpaid teachers.

9/12/2012 5:54:12 PM

^ overpaid conservative duped into thinking it's about holding onto a few bad teachers when it's really about working conditions and the kids.

See how easy that is?

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 5:56 PM. Reason : Don't know if you're actually conservative, but since we're throwing around labels...]

9/12/2012 5:56:11 PM

"Needs more cowbell."

9/12/2012 5:58:03 PM

Quote :

"I'm no fan of Obama. I've said that more times than I can count. Not sure why you just assumed I would vote for him."

b/c as is the case of most right-wing extremists, if you don't agree with their right-wing idealogy, it must mean that you think Obama is "The One", or a "Savior", or whatever clever term they hear and repeat.

9/12/2012 6:02:27 PM

Quote :

"Well, say it more often then."

I say it all the time. It's just impossible for you to realize that there are people who oppose him from the left. I've actually had this debate with you before.

http://www.brentroad.com/message_search.aspx?type=posts§ion=4&searchstring=obama+credibility&username=jesushchrist&usertype=match&sortby=date&sortorder=descending&page=

9/12/2012 6:04:55 PM

I'm a quasi-socialist on most things but I can't fucking stand Karen Lewis and the CTU. It's at the point where I think I might move out of the city when I have kids just so they don't fall victim to this bullshit these teachers are pulling.

Rahm has agreed to pay the teachers the amount the CTU wants.

Teachers don't want principals to be able to fire and they reject test-based performance standards yet offer literally nothing but generally ideas for measuring performance, not a sound, detailed plan. At this point they are just holding the people of Chicago hostage until they get what they want. This was never about the kids.

Quote :

"Please keep in mind this is Chicago where outside temperatures are fine for 90% of the school year. I didn't have AC in school growing up in NJ and people there seems to be doing alright."

It's been hot as fucking shit here this summer. Was flirting with the 90s-100s in late May, early June. Definitely not pleasant for me with no AC in my car and not fun for a learning environment. In either event, they should just close down these oldass buildings but they don't want to do that until CTU gets promises that their bad teachers from these closing schools get picked up in some sort of special list over good teachers who don't have a job.

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 6:12 PM. Reason : .]

9/12/2012 6:05:20 PM

Quote :

"Chicago school teachers make a median salary of $71,017"

I am a web developer and I make $65,000/yr, health insurance, and no pension in the Boston area.

Unions seem to act like bullies and continue to request more and more at the tax payers expense. I mean, some teachers are under paid in some states... but it seems ridiculous the notion that Chicago teachers are being fucked.

Monday and Tuesday I was gone from 7am-9pm doing work because of hosting seminars and other work related stuff. I understand teachers do a lot outside of work, but I do too... I've seen the notion that teachers aren't paid for the hours they put outside work, but I think a lot of people are (myself at least).

9/12/2012 6:46:08 PM

I don't know what your complaining about.....

you make about 6k less than a teacher with 13 years experience and your job consists of making webpages?

9/12/2012 6:55:29 PM

9/12/2012 7:02:17 PM

Apparently someone didn't teach that one dumb bitch that fluorescent orange doesn't show up too well on neon green.

Damn underpaid art teachers!

9/12/2012 7:05:25 PM

Oneshot sounds like he has a poor work ethic.

I would fire him.

9/12/2012 7:21:23 PM

Quote :

"you make about 6k less than a teacher with 13 years experience and your job consists of making webpages?"

I don't make webpages, I make web apps. I work both back end and front end. Go fuck yourself, Jesus.

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 8:11 PM. Reason : i am a dev... working on a web/mobile app]

9/12/2012 7:50:33 PM

Quote :

"Teachers don't want principals to be able to fire and they reject test-based performance standards yet offer literally nothing but generally ideas for measuring performance, not a sound, detailed plan. At this point they are just holding the people of Chicago hostage until they get what they want. This was never about the kids"

This is actually my biggest complaint with this strike. They're already overpaid based on performance, now they don't want an objective evaluation process. Say what you want about standardized testing, but at least it gives you a known objective to work towards. If you can't teach well enough to get a set percentage of your students to score at or above grade level proficiency on standardized tests then you don't deserve to keep your job.

Public sector unions are a massive, massive problem. They're bankrupting states and hold too much power as a voting block.

9/12/2012 8:04:26 PM

^so what about the teacher that gets the repeater Algebra I course vice the teacher that gets the "smart" 9th grade Algebra I class? Do both of these teachers have the same standard to live up to? I just ask b/c I used to be a teacher that had to teach both classes, and I had just over 90% of the 9th graders passed, but only about 1/6th of the repeaters passed. I made necessary modifications to the lessons, but when someone literally cant do 5*3 without a calculator, they are going to have a difficult time understanding solving multi-step linear equations, much less quadratic equations.

Just saying, it's not always as easy as "you didnt make the arbitrary standardized test, so obviously you are an awful teacher". Just my $.02.

9/12/2012 9:08:18 PM

^ what would solve that problem is giving administrators easy power to both hire and fire people. Their hands are tied with hiring due to conservative policies. And their hands are tied in firing due to pro-union policies.

If principals could give their teachers raises and public sector employees were allowed to get bonuses, or have budgets spent on "perks", or have salaries that aren't strictly dictated by legislation, then schools would be more fluid, and principals (aka managers) would have better tools to make things better. It doesn't make sense to condemn gov. organizations for being less efficient than the private sector, but enact legislation that ties their hands.

9/12/2012 9:20:56 PM

I agree with you in theory, but with 100+ teachers in a high school, it is difficult for the principal to see everyone enough to make that kind of decision with any sort of real data. Maybe if you made it where the department heads had the hiring/firing capability, then it could be "fair", but the principals spend the majority of their time with discipline issues (at least in the rougher schools) and very little time in the classroom. Again, this is only my experience, but I would have been outraged if my principal fired me based on his observation b/c I only saw him 1-2 times per year in my classroom, and that was only for 15-30 mins at a time.

Could it be more efficient, yes, but it will mean putting a lot of managers in the place of educators (dept heads), which will be more people to pay, train, etc. In all honesty, even in a unionized state like Maryland, teachers aren't overpaid. My wife just quit after 7 years and was making the same as a first year teacher (45k) because of budget freezes. The benefits were good, but that still only brought the estimated overall pay to 55k. I am not going to get into the argument over the "well you get the summers off" but most teachers put in so much work during the year, that it would pay for those 2 months.

9/12/2012 9:45:30 PM

Quote :

"I don't make webpages, I make web apps. I work both back end and front end. Go fuck yourself, Jesus."

Seriously, I don't understand your grievance. You're literally of zero significance to the functions of democratic society, and you make a respectable salary in the process. And yet, you are somehow bothered by this. Your job consists of hustling soccer mom's out of money so that they can grow virtual plants and barter them in the virtual marketplace. And the hardest part of your work week apparently consists of 2 hour meetings outside of the office? And what, we're supposed to feel sorry for you?

Your entire office could be raided by drunken Irish mobsters tomorrow, and the worst thing that would occur is that a few teenagers wouldn't be able to run up their parents AT&T bill for a moment.

If we lost all of your profession in one fell swoop, literally nothing in the world would be different. If we lost all the teachers in the world in one fell swoop, an entire generation of children would grow up to be too goddamn stupid to be of any consequence to society.

Seriously, I don't understand what you're crying about. I'm not saying that to be a dick; I am genuinely incapable of understanding your role in the universe.

9/12/2012 10:06:37 PM

^ You are a troll. Go fuck yourself.

9/12/2012 10:22:11 PM

Quote :

"If we lost all the teachers in the world in one fell swoop, an entire generation of children would grow up to be too goddamn stupid to be of any consequence to society."

Bullshit. Teaching is not some magic that only the few and the trained can do, it's something that anyone is capable of, and more than that, it's something that the human race has done for centuries without a bunch of overpaid, overprotected government employees doing it for them. Name any great figure in history, and chances are, they had less government supplied formal schooling than the average modern American.

9/12/2012 10:31:44 PM

I'm not gonna lie, JHC, that was a quality trolling

9/12/2012 10:44:03 PM

^^^I seriously don't know why you're taking this personally.

You should be proud of yourself. You've got a pretty sweet gig convincing people to spend money on something of zero value. That's an accomplishment.

I'm not saying any of this to be an asshole. It's just a reality of life: Some people in the world matter, and many do not. You do not. That's nothing to be ashamed of. You've carved out a life of relative comfort through your ability to advance civilization zero units forward. Honestly, I'm impressed.

[Edited on September 12, 2012 at 10:44 PM. Reason : ]

9/12/2012 10:44:05 PM

At this point you should probably just leave it alone.

9/12/2012 10:59:34 PM

You know who could teach high school? Anyone who graduated college. You know who can build an enterprise web application? Not you. The reason web developers do and should make more money than teachers is because because it is more rare and more difficult to learn how to do well. Teachers are one step above factory workers, that's why they are, and should be payed about as much as them. That's also why they have to have unions to continue to get overpaid.

9/12/2012 11:39:15 PM

It's probably telling that the only professions that unionize are those that can be done by pretty much anyone. It's their way of fucking with the supply/demand balance

9/12/2012 11:45:02 PM

Industries that unionize tend to have a very unbalanced number of buyers versus sellers of labor.

9/12/2012 11:57:31 PM

So I started reading about the strike. I found some good articles:

1. Washington Post summary of the issues (new info not in this thread):
http://tinyurl.com/d6tyle5

2. Letter from back in March from assessment experts around the country to CPS, warning about the potential pitfalls in using student test scores in teacher evaluations:
http://www.createchicago.blogspot.com/2012/03/misconceptions-and-realities-about.html

3. Christian Science Monitor article about the legal implications of the strike:
http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-teachers-strike-illegal-under-illinois-law-222851216.html

By law, CTU is only allowed to strike over pay/benefits. The truth is that they are not striking about pay/benefits; obviously, these teachers aren't seriously demanding more money than what's been offered. But they are striking over those things in order to get their other concerns addressed.

9/13/2012 12:05:52 AM

Not saying that you have to have a teaching degree to be able to teach, but the statement that anyone with a college degree can do it is completely false. I saw many new teachers that were awful because they couldnt figure out how teach the material in a way that EVERYONE could understand.

You have to remember that not everyone is as smart as the people on TWW. Nearly all of us were or are in college. It's easy to teach us, for the most part. The challenge comes when you are teaching the kids that dont plan on going to college or even finishing high school. Those kids are where teachers really make their money. Teaching AP Calculus was a breeze compared to teaching Algebra I to 11th and 12th graders. Any college graduate should be able to teach Algebra I content, but not all have the ability (patience) to stick with the kids when you are on day 5 of solving a two step equation and some kids just cant figure it out (i.e. 2x+3=7...seriously 5 days).

9/14/2012 8:55:35 AM

Quote :

"Unions seem to act like bullies and continue to request more and more at the tax payers expense. I mean, some teachers are under paid in some states... but it seems ridiculous the notion that Chicago teachers are being fucked."

This is the problem - the unions represent the relatively privileged.

I'm not saying the teachers in the area are living large, but holy crap, look at the other people out there. Why is it fair to have this politically powerful organization fight tooth-and-nail to get better employment agreements for a select group of teachers in Chicago? It doesn't matter that they make $75k median, it matters that their metrics are better than the other teachers, and certainly better than the unemployed teachers out there.

How the hell do you justify negotiating with an organization that sets demands for, literally, an arbitrary subset of teachers out there? I'm not arguing on the basis of teachers-versus-everyone else, I'm arguing based on teachers-versus-teachers.

Why are some teachers more deserving than others?

9/14/2012 9:15:32 AM

They aren't, many teachers deserve more compensation than they get. Also, many schools are in shitty condition and need serious investment. This isn't just local to Chicago, this is a nationwide problem.

The difference is that the CTU has an opportunity to take a stand on the subject. Not every teacher gets that chance (teacher strikes in NC = teachers in jail).

9/14/2012 10:09:07 AM

^bingo. They saw what happened in Wisconsin, and they're trying to assert their presence before union busters come in. And having lived in Chicago, it's pretty fucking obvious which schools are going to get the shaft. Schools on the South Side of Chicago and the West Side are going to be neglected. And...surprise, surprise, those are low-income, minority communities where teachers have class sizes of 40+ kids living in poverty and high-crime areas.

What we need is a redistribution of bootstraps.

9/14/2012 1:45:44 PM

That's a shame, how dare they not give all the money in the world for the only profession that matters, teaching, the occupation, that without, the entire world would fall apart? You are doing god's work and no one should ever possibly pay you less or cut your funding.

9/14/2012 3:17:56 PM

I'm not normally one to complain about grammar or syntax, but that sentence does not flow the way you intended.

9/14/2012 3:41:18 PM

My teachers weren't paid enough.

9/14/2012 3:49:51 PM