Paul Davis2 said:Well, if the pay is $3667, then nobody will be underpaid.
But honestly, who is even supposed to get that kind of salary under this half-baked reform idea? Maybe someone who only pulls 30 hours of direct classroom time a week, I guess.
So, a friend of mine just landed a gig abroad—working in a school over there. She spends about eight hours a day inside the school building, and she even has her own private office space. The best part? She doesn't bring a single scrap of paperwork home with her, and honestly, nobody even expects her to. Once those eight hours are up, she’s officially off the clock. Her workload is basically split down the middle—maybe 55% actual teaching and 45% lesson planning—with almost zero administrative headaches. And the pay? It’s roughly five times what we make here.
Are you even listening? Look, Hagan, here’s a picture of what actual competence and professionalism look like. It’s me—and my closest circle of fellow teachers. AND THIS ENTIRE REFORM IS A MASSIVE HEADACHE FOR ALL OF US.
And what is this nonsense about "choosing jobs outside of their field"? Honestly, like 90% of people working in education ARE specialists—they are actually doing the exact job they were trained for.
shorter *flexible* hours. I end up putting in way more than 40 hours most weeks—it’s just that half of it happens fluidly from my home office. And honestly, I think that might be the very last thing left that makes a career in education even remotely appealing to talented people. (Let's be real, the pay definitely isn't doing it, and neither are the working conditions or the general respect you get from society.) Do you think someone preferring that kind of flexible schedule is somehow unprofessional, or does that stigma only apply to teachers?
Susan James said:I feel like I've been typing away this whole time! It honestly feels like it’s not even worth it anymore, even for those people who only take certain jobs because they offer a great work-life balance. It’s not like there's a huge surplus of teachers specialized in advanced computer science right now. We just don't have enough people trained for those specific roles. Once they actually start pumping out more graduates with those credentials, we'll finally see that next wave of educational reform take shape. 🤦
Regarding the potential pay raises, Ford claims that anyone who decides to participate in the pilot program will see a 25% bump in their salary. 😬
I’m thinking we should go with a 25% bump on the base salary. Just a thought—nothing set in stone yet, obviously—but that feels like the right move. So, if you switch everything over to the dollar—meaning, if you really go all out and take on every extra thing you possibly can—well, it changes the math. If you grab that heavy workload for the second-grade level, take on the homeroom teacher duties, and maybe pick up some of those B1 classes where you get more than eight students... you're looking at seeing about a 20% bump in your actual take-home pay. Just keep in mind, though—that extra cash doesn't count toward your Social Security or retirement funds. It’s just extra pocket money, really.
Susan James said:But then who's actually going to handle all that work? 🤔
It’ll still be the same handful of people—only now, instead of just adding to their teaching hours, they're expected to do it on top of everything else out of "love for the school." I mean, I'm being serious—some suit from the Department of Education actually said those exact words at a meeting for principals. Just... "lean into your love for the school." Unbelievable.
@urbantinker8 - In our district, the math teachers usually get absolutely crushed by the schedule, and then they try to dump all this digital stuff onto the IT guy if there's even a tiny bit of room left. If he's already maxed out, they just start looking for the next victim.
I mean, honestly, I don't think the Department of Education even realizes what they're doing here—it’s like they aren't even thinking about our IT staff. They talk about cutting their hourly rates in half, but they aren't accounting for all those specialized tasks that *only* these tech folks handle. You know, the stuff that keeps everything running behind the scenes—managing the digital gradebooks, handling server administration, keeping the student databases up, plus maintaining the school's website and social media accounts. If they try to just dump all that technical workload onto regular teachers without actually increasing their hours... well, a huge chunk of these specialists are just going to end up being redundant. It doesn't make any sense.
I mean, we basically keep them trapped in school for at least several hours more than kids in World Bank countries—which isn't even a group we belong to, by the way. You know what they say about not looking a gift horse in the mouth...
Honestly, they’re lying through their teeth here. Just take a look at the actual documentation—it says everything loud and clear. For elementary school kids, staying until 2:00 PM is mandatory, and once you hit middle school, it’s at least 3:30 PM. It’s right there in black and white.
here’s a little from my teacher’s lounge corner about all the messups in the Bureau of Statistics plan—where things don't quite add up and how we might actually fix them.
Nicholas Davis4 said:Under Suvar’s leadership, high schools didn't even exist in that format.
I used to think that whole "2+2" educational model was a total mess. But looking back now, it actually seems better designed than our current system; I’d take that old structure any day. I'd also bring back entrance exams for both high school and college.
It wasn't even real high school back then; they were just those "vocational" training centers for teaching assistants and other junk like that.
As for that tiered schooling model, it's a disaster—those early years just act as a massive drag on everyone. You've got the kids who are capable of so much more, but they're being held back and slowed down by the exact same system that stifled them in elementary school. Then you have the kids who are struggling, and instead of getting help with the fundamentals, they're forced through a curriculum that's way too advanced for their actual knowledge gaps. So everyone ends up stuck, and nobody ever really gets to reach their full potential.
Man, honestly, how many of you would actually bother mastering two foreign languages? And then what? Are we just going to start another one of those endless arguments about which curriculum is "harder" than the other?
The whole point is that high school should be about getting kids ready for college. Vocational schools, on the other hand, are meant to prep them for specific careers. It’s pretty straightforward.
It’s also just a fact that our teaching staff is incredibly well-educated—we’re basically on par with Finland—but apparently, that bothers some people. They seem to want to go back to having elementary school teachers trying to teach kids basic literacy again. Anything beyond the alphabet and multiplication tables is just a massive waste of time and resources if you ask me.
And let’s not forget the fact that our Secretary of Education is a veterinarian who acts like he’s running a livestock farm instead of an entire department. Look, he could have three PhDs for all I care, but the guy doesn't seem to have a clue about his own field. Plus, he’s surrounded by people who are either incompetent or just plain malicious—I haven't quite decided which yet. Well, except for Harvey Weinstein. He’s definitely 10/10 evil. But anyway, they all pretend they know what they're doing, and this is the kind of "reform" we end up with.
Hagan, what kind of high school program are we talking about here? We actually had something similar back in the day—it was called the Schwarzer method—and honestly, it worked wonders. I really think those kinds of programs should stick around longer.
Nah, the way we do things, kids go to school where the whole point is getting them ready for college, and then they head off to university looking for specialized knowledge that was never actually taught—because they were too busy in vocational schools designed specifically for training them for a specific trade. It’s just brilliant, really. Makes perfect sense if you don't think about it at all.
Anyway, you should really look into how they handle education over in places like France, Germany, or Switzerland—you know, those high-standard Western systems. Everywhere else, it’s standard practice to have vocational students spend a year or two catching up on core subjects so they can qualify for their high school equivalency exams or whatever the local term is. Here? We call this "great vertical mobility." Total joke.
mistyfalcon3 said:@Mad Hatter I don't have kids myself, but I frequently hear stories from a colleague of mine who does—she’s got one in second grade and another in fifth. She spends her entire afternoon hovering over them, drilling in homework and lessons. On top of that, there's this constant stream of instructions being blasted out by their teacher through various group chats. It makes me wonder: how is a child ever supposed to develop any sense of independence when you're constantly spoon-feeding them every single piece of information? 🕺
My oldest is in fifth grade. I've been using this specific approach for five years now.
The real issue pops up when a kid just doesn't have the bandwidth to hit those high marks a parent has envisioned for them. So then, the parent starts sitting down with them, doing the homework alongside them... it reminds me of my sister-in-law. She comes home from work and immediately sits down to study with her son—she’ll read his history textbook out loud and retell the stories to him, then he repeats it back to her, and they do that loop five times until it's memorized. Then they move on to science: she dictates the answers while he just writes them down. Meanwhile, she’s doing the exact same thing with her niece for English and math, so they just swap roles. I would honestly 🙂 lose my mind before turning my life into a constant cycle of supervised studying. If you just don't have the capacity to be a straight-A student, honey, that's okay. There are plenty of great trade jobs out there where people care more about how skilled or strong your hands are rather than how much information you can cram into your memory. You'd probably be way happier in a vocational program than being pushed into some intense four-year preparatory academy where I'd have to spend every waking minute studying right alongside you.
The SAT is basically designed for high school students in academic tracks because, at its core, it’s the final hurdle for those finishing up a traditional four-year college prep curriculum. I mean, think about it—universities tailor their entrance exams toward these kids probably because they find students from that background easier to work with. If they actually wanted people coming straight from vocational programs, they’d just adjust the testing to fit them, right? It makes sense.
The fact that kids from other four-year technical schools can even sit for this exam—without having to pull an extra year or two of "bridge classes" to catch up to a standard academic track—is actually a massive concession to vocational students. In so many other education systems, that’s just unthinkable. Usually, if you want to head off to university, you’re forced to make up all those missing academic credits first before you're even allowed to touch the final exam. And even then, you're often restricted to studying things within your specific field... which, honestly, isn't really a "degree" in the way most people think. Like, a nursing student isn't studying medicine, they're studying nursing. There's a difference.
shadowtiger0 said:Personally? I absolutely loathe doing homework with my kids. And mind you, I’m a teacher—school has basically been my entire life. Not to mention how poorly designed most of these assignments are; they're often so convoluted that a child can't possibly grasp them. It’s glaringly obvious that these textbooks were written by some PhD academic who hasn't spent a single day actually working in a real American classroom.
I’m right there with you—I hate doing homework with my kids. And guess what? I don't do it. He does it himself. Whatever happens, happens. If he gets seriously stuck, he might come to me, but that's happening less and less lately because my first three responses are always the same: "Read the question again." Once he’s read it for the fourth time and still doesn't get it, then—and only then—am I willing to step in. Usually, though, he doesn't even bother coming back until he's read it four times, and since he isn't slow and has a decent grasp of basic American math, he usually realizes what he missed by the third reading.
The only time I really jump in is if they get one of those research projects—just enough to help him refine his search terms so we aren't spinning our wheels, you know? He does the actual searching, reads the results, and interprets everything on his own. Or, if they're using some new app and he needs to figure out how to navigate the interface.
For anything else? Well, I did my time. Between twelve years as a student and my morning sessions as a teacher today, I feel like I've paid my dues. I’m not about to bring the whole school experience home with me.😉
You can't really demand parent participation when you make it a mandatory requirement for everyone. It kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn't it?
shadowtiger0 said:I mean, one teacher isn't going to pull it off. How is that even physically possible? 🤔
Just take a look at that absolute mess of a document from the town hall meeting. Then tell me—where on earth are you supposed to find another elementary school teacher to step in?
Nah, Cleveland only does that for the elementary level. So why don't they just roll that out across the whole US? The answer is pretty obvious: why pay two teachers when you can just dump everything on one person and save half the budget? That’s basically how Harvey Weinstein—who apparently runs the finance department at the Department of Education—thinks. He's like that guy who survives in any social circle by being just slippery enough, and his ultimate goal seems to be making teachers work 40 hours of straight instruction a week while actually paying the school for the privilege... well, if his recent moves and statements are anything to go by.