Struggling is hard, one of the reasons the best don't teach

In my old job (Engineering) my family lived within our means.  We were careful with money but because of our style of not living extravangent we never had to worry about money.  My wife did not work and we easily got by.  Then I became a teacher.

Eight years ago we realized the struggle financially and planned for it.  But I also believed in 2006 that in 5 years we would get back to even (so long as we bought a cheap house, and had no car payments) and now I am in 2013 still struggling to make ends meet.  (Teaching pay has not kept up with inflation coupled with 2 pay freezes and an 6% pay cut)   I have a house payment of about $700 (as cheap as a family of 6 can own or rent), no car payment, my wife now works (because our kids are older) and yet it is nip and tuck every month.  I pick up work during the summer and do whatever I can to get some extra income.

But think about the whole statement above and it is no wonder that the best don't teach.  I am really driven, I really love teaching, yet every May and June I have to sit down and figure out how to balance our families books.  I know there are a group that think - yeah, tough, what about me?  And I understand that point of view but the focus in this post is about getting the best people to teach and stay teaching, and not very often do the best struggle as hard financially as teaching currently requires.

Too many teachers, too little quality -- Sure, just look at the pay

You get what you pay for, period.  I recently read an AP article: Report: Too many teachers, too little quality and it discussed how we graduated too many teachers for available positions with too easy of a path through secondary education.  But it is simple, if teaching is a disrespected profession, and it currently is, you will get what you pay for --- period.

I worked as engineer & manager for a decade prior to teaching and I know from that time as a manager how respect (pay/benefits) directly correlated to skills. It is simple economics for career choices and job choices, smart people go for respect (and the salary/benefits that come with it).   You will have a few that excel at the lower end, but the true "rock-stars" typically move along to the more respected positions.

Currently teaching has little respect and while a good hunk of teachers are good at their job, have "high-level" skills and ignore the disrespect (me for one - I believe) that leaves another hunk who don't have great skills and are giving an effort equal to the respect (which is often not good enough).   And again it starts with what is expected at college.  In Engineering there were "flunk-out" courses which thinned the herd of students who wanted to be engineers.  Is there a thinning class in education?   What about the following:

1) Student teaching -- if you cannot do it well, then you should not become a teacher.  Except all schools put it at the end, where flunking a student would mean a lost of 4 years of schooling so failing a student rarely happens; meaning we pass some truly mediocre teachers into the profession.  (Who usually cannot get job due to poor interview skills)

2) Should we expect all new teachers to be good at Algebra & Geometry?  Seems reasonable but is far from the norm in my experience. We move K-8 teachers through school where they survive math versus understand it, then they become our 4th and 5th grade teachers who teach procedure versus concepts (though I am lucky at my school).

3) A truly deep education class at the beginning of the sophomore year where students really study, learn classroom management, the brain, learning styles and how to deeply reflect -- but currently early education classes are pretty "cupcake."

But those expectations are only going to happen if the education field is respected and wants the best people.  Cause while a few of the best come because they want to, a great deal fall into teaching.  The rigor of secondary education will follow respect, not vice versa.

And even if a teacher has the true prerequisite skills to be great, how many really bust themselves to deliver -- again without respect, effort wains.  It is too easy to say they don't pay me to be great, they pay for what they get.  Thus a few late nights or weekends, a few extras but not consistently pushing for greatness.  That is hard, you need respect to truly work hard.

And finally the article says it is hard to remove teachers, but it is completely possible.  I simply notice a lack of effort to get it done, a culture of accepting poor performance by the highest paid, theoretically most qualified people - administrators.  After being mentored as a manager I became very forceful with less than stellar performers -- education can be the same.  High expectations - period.  But the compensation must be in line too and it isn't - so we live with mediocrity because that's what we pay for.

So as we are changing education and complaining about the field we must remember one simple fact -- you get what you pay for. 

Valuing Physics over P.E.? Wouldn't it be better to evaluate talent?

So today I read an article about different pay for different positions in a school versus the traditional every teacher makes the same pay scale, Valuing Physics over P.E. ....     As a math teacher on a personal level being paid more is rarely disagreeable, and I know that I am severely underpaid by what I can make in the private sector.  But the top pay in this district for Elementary and P.E. is 61K and for HS math is 82K --  that is a 30%+  premium, that is a lot.  (And again realize I am the person most likely to benefit from this.).  And this system still has the pitfalls of the previous system.

I again see this as education's way not to deal with individual teachers and still group employees (teachers) versus actively lead them (manage).  This is an attempt to sub-divide and simplify -- it does not allow for greatness in elementary (and who knows if it deals with crappy performance in the higher paid categories?)  I know there are great elementary teachers in a district of 3000+ educators that should be compensated well, I also know there are mediocre math educators who probably should not get top end pay of 61K even.  The issue is how to review and reward (also how to improve & motivate but that is a whole other can of worms)  -- and this system has the same deficiencies as all schools -- it rewards by job category - because adminstration cannot or does not know how to reward by performance.



I still cannot overcome how different it was in the private sector versus public education.  The private sector is easier though, the end product is easily defined in the private sector -- sales, profit, number of widgets.  Education is not a widget making industry - how a student is taught K-4 is the best indication of how well they will do in High School.  We need to get "rock stars" into the elementary grades but that also means evaluating and rewarding the "rock stars"  -- the system cannot greatly reward very good teachers.  Yet this system caps what elementary makes, and still treats all teachers as simple assembly workers - where they are just interchangeable. 


As person who went from engineering to HS math - I know we have a broken pay system, period.  We evaluate on categories because administration refuses to evaluate and reward.  We must make teaching close to the private sector, while realizing we aren't making widgets, and we must reward the "rock star" teachers wherever they are.  We must evaluate talent and reward it.

('How' is something I will think about and post my ramblings later....)

Do we really want the best teachers?

As a country we talk about wanting the best people to be teachers, because if we put students first a great teacher makes a huge difference.  Society says that's what we want, the culture says that's what we want. But I just received my contract for teaching next year. And there's a disconnect between what we say we want and what we do.

In my former job in the private sector, you would never think to sign a contract with blank spaces. Yet my teaching contract for next year had a blank spot for salary. And that blank spots' meaning cannot be lost on us and what it implies.  (Also I don't blame the school where I work for the contract I received. They are slave to state funding, they have little choice but to give a contract that the state dictates by their budget.)

It implies that while we say we want the best teachers; we truly are unwilling to do the things that brings and keeps the best people in education.   Unfortunately we really don't want the best teachers, we want smart charitable people. The best typically will go where the rewards are.

In my case I cannot even be rewarded with a guarantee of what my next year salary will be, if I want a job I need to sign it.  Due to how the state does school financing my school cannot even write in the amount that I made this year. How do we expect to attract the smartest and the brightest people to make a real difference?

I was successful in my former job, I was good at my former job. I wanted to teach but it shouldn't have to be charitable. We should want the brightest for education and should be willing to go get them.
 
I hear and read that teachers make the most difference in a student's progress, yet they're the ones we abuse. We do not make teaching a desirable position, and overall we don't respect the position much either.  I find myself more respected than other teachers. People will say "Oh, you're a teacher."  and I reply"Yes, I teach math," and they go"Oh I couldn't do that."  That implies they could teach anything else but math, not everyone can teach.  And to be good at it, and to keep the good people in it, the public sector must treat its best employees like the private sector.

The interesting part is people talk of what 'has to happen in education.' But there really isn't any drive to fix it. It takes great teachers in education to make a difference, and we are not going to attract great teachers.  Overall you get what you pay for, and with salaries and benefits going in free-fall compared to inflation simply means we will get mediocre teachers. (And the occasional few who was simply want to teach no matter what the financial reward.)

I love teaching. But every year, at about this time,  I have to consider the pay and what I could make in engineering, my former career. If the pay for teaching was simply a little more, so I was not constantly struggling, and if the respect a little more, I'm sure I wouldn't make that consideration.  But those things are not there in education presently so every year I think about leaving teaching.

I'm at a loss for how to change the culture and dedication to education of the United States; how we change how we treat teachers. I'm also at a loss for how to put students first, meaning how to get great teachers. If you put students first, and I usually do, they need great teachers. That means compensation for the best, and a contract with a blank spot for pay doesn't make the best want to stay.

"Your job is school." Student reply "I don't get paid." Yes they do....

I have one rule in my classroom.  Our classroom is our workplace.  A workplace itself has a large set of inherit rules that make my classroom run.  I then mention that teaching is obviously my job and their job is learning,  And every year I can count on one student saying "No it is not mmmyyyy job, I don't get paid."  And I reply "Yes, you do."

It leads to a discussion that I allow to happen each day for a few minutes for several class periods and ends with the students receiving their first open ended project.  (I let the discussions occur until nothing new is said).

The assignment is to research what a High School diploma is worth over the student's lifetime.  Then calculate the "pay per hour" to earn that degree.  It is done as an essay, including citing and supporting calculations.

For round numbers there is a 300K difference in lifetime earnings between a HS grad and an non-HS grad.  Then assume 40 hour per week with homework, 38 week per year (rough) and 4 years to graduate.  And you end up with $300,000/(40 hr/wk*38 wk/yr*4yr) = $49/hr.   


And while the students joke about it, I believe it really helps for the students to see the value in HS.

It is just deferred compensation......