I once knew this woman from Fort Myers who ended up marrying a Swede. Once she moved over there, she was working her tail off—studying the language, taking exams, and basically mapping out her entire career path all at once. Then, one day, she casually mentions to her husband that back in the States, she actually has the credentials to teach in a school, even though she’d never stepped foot in a classroom before. Her husband just looked at her and said, "Look, we aren't going to be so desperate for cash that I'm sending you off to work in a school... besides, if things ever get that bad, you could always clean apartment stairwells. The pay isn't much lower, but honestly? It’s a much more respected job."
Jose Wells3 said:I’d really love to see everyone weigh in on the public comment period. There are some seriously influential voices out there—why not take advantage of the chance to make yours heard where it actually counts?
The public comment period wrapped up at midnight. We ended up with 2,761 comments.
shadowtiger0 said:Look, I’ve never actually set foot in Finland, but they always seem to pop up whenever people start talking about education systems. Since I haven't personally experienced it, I take everything said about it with a healthy dose of skepticism.
I have a much better grasp of the Swedish system, though—if you can call it that—and honestly, I don't know what to tell you... everyone loves to paint it as this "perfect" utopia, but once you actually sit down and grab a drink with some Swedes, you realize it isn't nearly as flawless as Americans tend to romanticize it.
As for full-day schooling, speaking both as a parent and a teacher, I see several massive red flags: 1. We simply don't have the infrastructure for it; 2. I really don't want my kid just "hanging out" at school all day; 3. We're already struggling with a shortage of quality staff, and this is just going to widen that gap even further; 4. The mountain of pointless paperwork it would create.
It’s the same story across the board—this whole setup is broken, and frankly, I have no idea how much longer we can keep limping along like this.
Sweden is basically where education goes to die; you can't even put them in the same sentence as Finland.
And then you’re actually supposed to believe that thirty-five kids crammed into one single classroom can just... "learn" things at school—you know, absorb everything perfectly so they don't have a lick of homework to do when they get home. 🤣
Paul Davis2 said:What do you mean it's not paid? An 8th grader on the autism spectrum doesn't just spend his day screaming. Besides, Ivy doesn't even have an aide anymore—he hasn't had one since 6th grade because he functions just fine. That's my take based on knowing Ivy personally; clearly, your experience has been much rougher. If he couldn't handle things, he wouldn't be in this class to begin with.
Honestly, every kid like him in the schools I worked at was screaming from 1st through 8th grade. They had aides from start to finish, and the parents? They flat-out refused to even consider that their kids might not belong in a mainstream classroom. And look, if you don't have the parents on your side, you're basically screwed. I remember this one student, Peric, who had an intellectual disability and was supposed to follow a specialized curriculum, but his parents fought tooth and nail against moving him to a school with dedicated special education departments. So, we ended up with our completely untrained teachers trying to "work" with him... sort of. Meanwhile, he’s just lying under a desk, whimpering. And that went on for eight years.
As for those A2 prep sessions, come on—show me where in the documentation it actually specifies exactly how many hours of prep time are credited to teachers for A2. ☕
Paul Davis2 said:How exactly is an 8th grader going to "pay the price"? They'll be stuck at school until 3:00 PM instead of leaving at 1:30 PM—plus having to deal with PE or computer lab in a different shift. They'll be forced to eat a free hot meal and then a snack. What, is someone going to sit there and tutor them in chemistry? Poor kids, really.
Nobody is going to sit there and tutor them in chemistry because this "enrichment" program only happens once a month—and even then, it’s just one crowded classroom with 20 kids packed in together. You've got Ivy, who's on the autism spectrum, screaming and slamming his hands on the desk for the last two hours because everything is just too much for him, and his aide isn't even scheduled to stay past noon. Then you've got Mark just throwing crumpled paper everywhere because he couldn't care less about chemistry, Anna and Mia are constantly giggling in the back, and Tea is always interrupting with random questions... and the teacher doesn't get paid a single cent extra to prepare for "chemistry tutoring" with a group of 20 students, so they're basically a fool if they try to prep anything at all. So, sorry kids, just finish your worksheets while I click through checkboxes and fill out spreadsheets. ☕
Paul Davis2 said:Look, I've worked in an American elementary school, and what you're describing sounds like a bit of an idealized version of how things work elsewhere. It's the old cliché—the grass always looks greener on the other side.
I mean, it really depends on where you were working. Saying "outside the US" covers basically the entire rest of the world—it's too broad. I know people who worked in an elementary school in England and they ran for the hills as fast as they could. Then again, I know folks working in Germany or Austria who are doing just fine. I even know people who moved to Sweden and would genuinely rather be cleaning stairwells or digging ditches than deal with teaching—and they're fully qualified! They tell me they feel more respected as sanitation workers than as educators. But then there are those working in France or Belgium who have absolutely zero intention of ever coming back.
Paul Davis2 said:IT staff getting fired? In which school? In my town, there are only five schools out of thirty that even offer an after-school program. We’re talking about maybe fifteen teachers total who all get assigned to schools within a ten-mile radius in the same year. Go check how teaching hours are calculated in New York City versus the rest of Europe—is it really just 45 plus 15? And yeah, sure, everything is "great" out there. Those people make five times the salary, they don't deal with the endless paperwork, and they don't have kids jumping through the hallways without any supervision—unless, of course, we’ve hired little green aliens to watch them.
They aren't exactly running wild, but that duty time they spend monitoring hallways does count toward their official working hours. And here's the kicker—during breaks, they aren't even required to be on campus, and nobody’s really gone out of their way to "design meaningful tasks" for those eleven weeks of downtime.
Seriously, jadetinker85, she wasn't even in your class—what are you even talking about? If I had to take a wild guess, though... she’d probably be working in the front office, maybe in administration or accounting, or possibly some kind of specialized support staff.
Paul Davis2 said:Honestly, if you hate your job this much, maybe working in education isn't the right path for you.
Yeah, okay—I "hate" my job because I can't stand all the pointless paperwork that seems to exist just for the sake of existing... which, by the way, doesn't mean I shouldn't be working in a classroom with students. 😍 I totally see where you're coming from, though. Your logic is perfectly clear. 😵
jadetinker85 said:Seriously, they already hit 3,000? Wow.
Not quite there yet—it's sitting at 2,500 right now—but honestly, seeing as we've had about 700 comments pour in just over the last 24 hours, I’m feeling pretty optimistic that we'll be knocking on the door of 3,000 by the end of the day.
Paul Davis2 said:Exactly what this reform proposal is aiming for. Five times the salary? And no prep work at home? I have to wonder, though—what kind of school ignores all the paperwork? Who handles the grading and assessments? Is this woman working in New York City?
I think you're missing the point here—I specifically said there isn't any admin work left. Sure, they prep for class, but there aren't those endless spreadsheets to fill out just to customize lesson plans, or clicking through boxes to log absences, or checking off excuses, or archiving consent forms, or writing and filing Markov's descriptive comments for three years... (honestly, there AREN'T even grades, period. It's just feedback sent to parents four times a year, and then the actual grades go to external evaluators annually)...
No, seriously—let them work forty hours a week straight in the classroom, buying all their own supplies and teaching tools out of pocket, then triple their paperwork load and dump every single kid into one room—from the absolute geniuses to the ones who can barely hold a conversation. Just make sure the classroom is as colorful as possible, shove at least thirty-three kids into one space, and go ahead and post the teacher's home address and private cell number on the school website so they can be harassed any time of the day or night. Then I'm sure everything will be just peachy, productivity will skyrocket, and our education system will be absolutely flawless!
I mean, does anyone else remember that other public debate in the States where we got flooded with like 3,000 comments, and maybe—if you’re being really generous—like 0.1% of them were actually positive?
Yeah, I mean, it’s just great, isn't it? The system basically thrives on losing people who have poured 15 or 20 years of their lives into this—people who rack up hundreds of hours of specialized training every single year, plus all that extra formal stuff through workshops and lectures. They’re out there teaching others, staying active in professional associations, and probably spending ten times more effort engaging with everyone on social media and mentoring students or interns... and instead of keeping them, we just swap them out for someone who graduated yesterday and is going to need at least five years just to figure out what the hell they're even doing. 🤣
Do you realize that the mass exodus of veteran educators is actually a massive, burning issue in several Western countries? It’s not even that they don't have teachers—I mean, sure, they can just plug in some young grad straight from college—but the real tragedy is the loss of all that hard-earned EXPERIENCE. And then, just when those newer folks finally get their footing and start realizing the system is actually trying to improve, they decide they aren't going to put up with the bureaucracy anymore and they walk out too.
Honestly, there’s a ton of stuff I’d change—so much—but it’s definitely not the things they’re targeting, and it’s certainly not going to be done the way they’re planning to do it. If these proposed changes actually go through, though? Yeah, I’m handing in my resignation.
Man, this just isn't going to be recognized for what it actually is. It’s going to end up being extra weight on my shoulders, yours, and everyone else's—just more busywork. They’re basically saying that on-call shifts don't count toward our core hours because they aren't "direct instruction," as if I'm just sitting there guarding the chairs and the walls or something. We're talking about an 8-hour shift every week—that's a literal full workday right there—and it all gets dumped into some vague "other duties" bucket without any actual time tracking. And let's talk about how these teaching programs work—they don't even acknowledge the time we spend prepping lessons or handling all the paperwork. Yet, they still expect us to differentiate everything into at least three levels, provide one-on-one support, and handle constant formative assessments. You really want to call that recognizing our hard work?
Actually, I’m right in the middle of working at the moment. I've got my headphones on, listening to this lecture from a national convention—and honestly, because of my ADHD, just sitting here listening to a convention isn't really enough for me... I need to be doing something else at the same time to stay focused. Like, say, picking fights on an internet forum. 🤣
No, that’s just not how this reform proposal actually works—it doesn't include teacher lounges, or all that extra red tape nobody asked for, or some crazy five-fold pay raise either.