Interesting Comments About A Better System For Teachers
A good friend of mine sent me some interesting ideas about how he'd like to see the B.C. Education System restructured for teachers:
- My understanding is that B.C. teachers make anywhere from the low $40,000s to the mid $60,000s. Not a bad wage, but if the top teachers were to make somewhere in the mid $70,000s, or more, I wouldn't be opposed because teachers provide a very valuable service -- that being to prepare future generations to run and/or contribute to our country (and the world).
- However I don't agree with the current definition of "top teacher." I believe that teachers should be rewarded based on merit, not on seniority or how many years they've completed in school or whether they have a post-graduate degree. Rather, there should be some objective measurement (such as how their students perform on standardized exams) and their promotions/salaries based on that. If some teachers continually produce inferior students (i.e. their students continually do poorly on the standardized exams) then those teachers should be fired and replaced with ones that are able to get results. If teachers are producing students who continually score above 90% on provincial exams, then those
teachers should be paid 75K or even more (heck, I'd back teachers making 100K if they were producing top-notch students).
Me again. Interesting thoughts, yes? I happen to agree with them wholeheartedly. In fact, I believe such a merit-based system has successfully been applied in some school districts in the U.S. Surely the better teachers would be very much in support of such a plan.
Unfortunately, the B.C. Teachers Socialist Party (aka the BCTF) would never agree to this. Concepts like "excellence", "accountability", and "responsibility" are absolutely foreign to their ultra-socialist doctrine. This is so sad for several reasons:
- In no truly professional profession do years of service and educational background have any direct bearing on wages. Instead wages are based on merit, hard work, and capability.
- If there was more of an incentive on Striving for Excellence then those teachers who succeeded the most would be better rewarded - on so many levels. Yet those who just chose to treat their work like a "government job", though do a decent job, would still make a decent salary. And those who were failing their students would be fired.
- The students, our province, and our society would absolutely benefit from such a system.
I am interested in comments from teachers and non-teachers alike about this idea.
4 comments:
I have a friend who is now retired but was a teacher, worked for the Dept. of Indian Affairs when Cretien was Minister and also worked for the school board office. If you don't think he has some demoralizing stores to tell....
Anyway, on the teachers he maintains that there are those teachers for whom 10 students would be too many while some good teachers could teach double what they do now. In addition when a teacher gets in trouble instead of reporting him/her, they are simply shuffled off to another district on the premise that nows its someone elses problem.
There are some teachers who do absolutely nothing other than teach the required hours. When I asked him how many hours a week a basic teacher is reqired to woke he suggested it would be about 25.
Teachers are NOT professionals but simply union members same as longshoremen and truck drivers. Unfortunately the union aspect degrades everything and everyone down to the lowers possible common denominator(i.e. the standard liberal left wingnut mentality) .
I wholeheartedly feel that teachers should be paid on a merit based system. That would not only let the better teachers excel but would probably weed out the deadwood who are simply putting in time until they retire.And its easy to see who those teachers are. Just ask the kids-they know. They are the dull boring teachers who have trouble controlling their classes.
Horny Toad
Interesting story about your friend. The "shuffling off to another district" sounds remarkably similar to what happened with the Catholic priests who abused children. :-(
I don't agree with your blanket statement that teachers are not professionals. Sure, some teachers do not act in a professional manner but I know there are some GREAT teachers out there and they most certainly are professionals.
Though something very telling I heard over & over & over the past few weeks on CKNW were countless teachers calling up and referencing their years of education. They thought it was providing justification for a whole host of things but in fact, it was just speaking volumes about their insecurity about their professional status.
A few things here... I posted about Merit Pay for teachers on my site earlier today... go have a read.
To Anonymous: just because a teacher "can handle" more students, doens't mean that he or she is a better teacher. You can't tell me that 50 kids in a classroom would be OK for a "better teacher." It's not about the teachers, it's about the attention a teacher is able to give a student. Further, why is there this expectation that teachers are SUPPOSED to put in hours and hours of unpaid time??? They do. Some do more than others, some do less. That can NOT be a measure of how effective a teacher is. What engineer or accountant does a report on a weekend that is not billed to the company? Perhaps teachers should start being paid for the after hours work they put in. And ALL teachers are professionals. Their training and experience make them so. True, SOME teachers may not act professionally at times, but this is a very small percentage of the PROFESSION.
Pela Lusa, as far as insecurity over professional status, it's because of comments like those found here that teachers are trying to defend their profession. FOr some reason teachers, some of the most hard working people I have ever met, are being attacked and are seen as lazy and greedy. It's ridiculous.
Forget this "I have a teacher friend" buisness. Go spend some time in a classroom. Watch what teachers do. Watch them spend their evenings and weekends marking and planning. Ask them about how they can't sleep at night because they're worried about a student.
I hope your children aren't in the public school system. Apparenly they're being taught by lazy, greedy, thuggish monsters.
Hey Hillary.
First of all the teachers are first and foremost union members. Just liked longshoreman. There pay is decided strictly on seniority. If you have a really good teacher they get NO recognition for it at all.There can be no advancement based on merit. And everything is based on the lowest common denominator as well.
The BETTER teachers are those that do put in the extra effort. But they don't HAVE to. There are LOTS of teachers that do the minimum.
On a radio program today they read an email from a grade 10 student who said there are 42 students in his class and it is no problem whatsoever.
I'm sure there are some classes that are a problem with too many students. Hell, there's probably lots. But when you ask that COW Simms, she says many,many. Its typical of unions to play down facts that don't favor their argument and play up those facts that support their argument. But to say there are many, many classes overcrowded doesn't cut it. How many is many,many. Is it 10, 50, 100, 1000. And its typical of the BCTF to want class limits in ALL classes whether needed or not so they can hire more teachers.
And hillary, don't forget one last thing. Most teachers may not be lazy ,innefective etc. but they are ALL felons. They broke the law, plain and simple. And their union was fined for it. And there still may be crimial charges. One can only hope. And the potential BIG fine will probably come with the class action lawsuit.
You sound like a teacher so answer me this.
When a student says to you,why should I not smoke pot simply because it is against a law(which many feel is bad) when it was OK for you to break the law how will you answer. And please don't feed me that crap that it was a civil protest. The courts said 3 different times you were breaking the law. So thats a GREAT example to set for the kids. Just ignore the rule of law-the mainstay of a democracy.
My kids are no longer in school and I'm happy for that because if they were I sure would want them being taught by a felon.
Horny Toad
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