NCLB

[ASUADPi]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

While I agree that you should not have to spend out-of-pocket to supply your school room, your anger here is incredible, and quite misdirected.

Teachers' salaries are likely not the problem with education today - also, you may want to consider that if the pay becomes higher, you would likely be driven out of the profession due to competition. Think about that before wondering why the federal government isn't "caughing up the money" or other such emotive crap.

Perhaps you should look at how your community and school district divide up the money they DO have - how many administrators does your district have? How much do they make? Is there really a need for a liaison between principals, or other such 'trendy' admin positions that feature prominently in many districts?

NCLB is an easy target for teachers - my main problem with the program is that it distracts teachers and teaching unions from the real, largely internal issues that plague school districts.

Not enough people are going into the teaching profession because the salaries suck (amongst other reasons I'm sure)! I remembering hearing an estimate a couple of years ago saying that eventually the USA would be short 1 million teachers. How is that not a problem? A district in my state started the school year 100 teachers short. My district always starts the school year without enough teachers (for reasons I won't get into why). I believe in general Arizona is going through a teacher shortage.

I think the reasons there isn't enough teachers comes down to the following.

1) crappy pay. Yes, starting salaries for teachers are higher BUT after that your lucky if your raise is 500 a year, unless you get an advanced degree (MA) or additional graduate hours (MA +15/30/45/60). Let me give you an example.
My salary (which I'm not afraid to say) was $39,202 this school year. Not bad for a 3rd year teacher (but first year regular certified, not emergency). My contract amount for next year 39,790. I went up a whopping $588. Now, I will get another $1000 in August for my MA+15 but it doesn't really seem to compensate for the over 5,000 I've spent on graduate tuition does it? Now, the other stipend will be for my ESL Endorsement, which is also $1000, and that endorsement has cost me over a grand as well.
This is a consistent problem in the state. AZ legislaters like to go on and on and on about our "high starting salary" but the amount afterwords is pathetic. With the rising cost of living, my raise of 1.5% is pretty much gone.

2) Aside from the pay, my district has mismanaged money for years now, so we are so screwed it's not even funny. I get $50 at the beginning of the school year to buy supplies. Big whoop de damn do. $50 bucks won't buy much of anything, so basically if my kids need it, guess who's pocket it comes out of. While my district has mismanaged funds, I worked in another district and I only got, as a new teacher $100. Again, $100 buys more, but not alot. (Especially when we are given purchase orders and we have to use them in teaching supply stores and those stores totally rip you off).


3) long days. My job doesn't end at 3:15 when my contract is over. If crap needs to get done, it needs to get done. I'm sure people who are contracted employees get this. But we also have to do so many additional hours of unpaid evening events, whether we want to or not. We are expected too. This next school year alone, my school board (who totally screwed teachers over) added another parent teacher conference night, another 4 hours of unpaid meeting a month, and another 3 parent nights, all unpaid.


So, teacher salary does play a part in the problem. If you don't have the teachers you have increased class sizes. If you have increased class sizes as a teacher you:
A) have less one on one time available
B) increase of discipline problems, even if your classroom management is awesome

Would you want your child sitting in a room with 34 other students and one teacher? What kind of education is your child going to receive with 35 kids in a classroom?

Our kindergarten classes are hovering around 25. Statistics say that Kindergarten shouldn't have more than 15 students for maximum oppurtunity for learning. Heck, our stupid reading program is only designed for 15 students (I have 21).

Obviously, salary isn't the whole problem. I'm not going to say it is. It is a part of the problem. And until society changes their views on teachers, it's not going to change.


I could tell you horror stories about my district (other than what I have mentioned above)!!!!! What my district has done would make every teacher run for the hills screaming

Now I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm just trying to say my opinion.

I hope I'm actually making sense. I'm exhausted and my knee is killing me.

Let's debate