Eliminating Teacher Tenure, Good idea or bad idea?

[Cougarfan87]

Wow, it sounds like some people have a pretty low opinion of teachers. I would disagree, but I am biased. My father was a teacher, my uncle was a teacher, my wife was a teacher before we got married, and her parents are both teachers. When people point out that teachers are overcompensated because they get three months off, they speak out of ignorance. Let me explain. My Dad, when he was teaching, could choose to get his full salary for nine months or get his nine month salary divided up into twelve months. Teachers do not get paid for those three months off until they have been working for many years. It took my Dad, a teacher for 30 years, a long time to get paid for the summers. I remember him waiting tables during the summers to earn more money. At my wife's school in Lehi, most of the male teachers had to work at night and during the summers laying carpet, working as electricians, or other jobs just to make ends meet. And after nine months of teaching, you really do need three months off to come back fresh and ready to teach again the next year. I volunteered at my wife's school for six months while I was waiting to start law school--you would have to pay me eight figures to work as a teacher--and then I would retire after one year.

My feelings are that most teachers are underpaid. Find me another profession where you get a four year degree and start out working for $24,000 a year. Yes it does go up, but not enough. I made more in my second year as a government attorney than my Dad did after 30 years of teaching and he taught in California where the wages were much better. I made almost as much as he did in my first year. What I do isn't nearly as important as what he was doing as a teacher.

The ones who go into teaching for the wrong reasons don't usually last because you get almost no appreciation from the students, mostly grief from the parents, and very little pay starting out. There is no greater call than teaching, and yet society certainly doesn't seem to pay it much importance.
If I were king for a day, teachers would start out at $50K a year. See who would be attracted into the profession then, knowing they could actually support a family on their salary. My brother in law wanted to be a teacher but passed it up because he felt he could not support a family on it. He would have been a great teacher and role model for the youth.

My son had a great teacher last year that had really high standards and assigned oodles of homework. We saw him progress so much under her watch. And what did most of the parents do? Complain that she assigned too much homework. She was truly an underappreciated teacher, but we let her know how much we appreciated all she did.

Oh, and teachers do not just work at school. They work hours at home each night, for which they are not compensated. My wife figured out that for all of the hours she worked, compared to what she was getting paid, she probably made less than minimum wage. So please, show teachers a little appreciation. They sacrifice an awful lot hoping to influence the rising generation for good.

[Brayden Green]

Wow, it sounds like some people have a pretty low opinion of teachers. I would disagree, but I am biased. My father was a teacher, my uncle was a teacher, my wife was a teacher before we got married, and her parents are both teachers. When people point out that teachers are overcompensated because they get three months off, they speak out of ignorance. Let me explain. My Dad, when he was teaching, could choose to get his full salary for nine months or get his nine month salary divided up into twelve months. Teachers do not get paid for those three months off until they have been working for many years. It took my Dad, a teacher for 30 years, a long time to get paid for the summers. I remember him waiting tables during the summers to earn more money. At my wife's school in Lehi, most of the male teachers had to work at night and during the summers laying carpet, working as electricians, or other jobs just to make ends meet. And after nine months of teaching, you really do need three months off to come back fresh and ready to teach again the next year. I volunteered at my wife's school for six months while I was waiting to start law school--you would have to pay me eight figures to work as a teacher--and then I would retire after one year.

My feelings are that most teachers are underpaid. Find me another profession where you get a four year degree and start out working for $24,000 a year. Yes it does go up, but not enough. I made more in my second year as a government attorney than my Dad did after 30 years of teaching and he taught in California where the wages were much better. I made almost as much as he did in my first year. What I do isn't nearly as important as what he was doing as a teacher.

The ones who go into teaching for the wrong reasons don't usually last because you get almost no appreciation from the students, mostly grief from the parents, and very little pay starting out. There is no greater call than teaching, and yet society certainly doesn't seem to pay it much importance.
If I were king for a day, teachers would start out at $50K a year. See who would be attracted into the profession then, knowing they could actually support a family on their salary. My brother in law wanted to be a teacher but passed it up because he felt he could not support a family on it. He would have been a great teacher and role model for the youth.

My son had a great teacher last year that had really high standards and assigned oodles of homework. We saw him progress so much under her watch. And what did most of the parents do? Complain that she assigned too much homework. She was truly an underappreciated teacher, but we let her know how much we appreciated all she did.

Oh, and teachers do not just work at school. They work hours at home each night, for which they are not compensated. My wife figured out that for all of the hours she worked, compared to what she was getting paid, she probably made less than minimum wage. So please, show teachers a little appreciation. They sacrifice an awful lot hoping to influence the rising generation for good.

I absolutely agree with almost everything that you posted. Understand that what you posted is the highest arc of the pendulum, because of your experience. (Your family both immediate and extended family are teachers, and that gives you a very positive view of teaching. Meaning - that you view teaching in the best of lights.)

We are getting a little off-topic of the OP. To bring it back:

The problem is that you have the over-achievers (quite possibly your father, and wife, and others like them) and the under-achievers in the same group. And rather than turn themselves against each other they are turned against other city and state employees (policmen/firemen/gov't officials/city officials/and anyone that takes home pay coming out of taxpayer dollars) as getting paid more to do "less" important work. Ironically, the most important, and job that receives the least "benefits" and has the most actual hardship of ALL of these jobs (policework) is never mentioned as deserving of anything the others cry for.

There is no rallying cry for policeman to get more a year. When policeman need to get laid off, people don't create facebook pages to rally behind, and get on the news etc etc etc. Policeman are the most important function of any city, state, and territory. Plain and simple. So you have to grade papers at night? You're not getting shot at on a weekly basis...

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY THIS IS? Because there is a teacher's union. There is a bureaucratic organization whose leaders get paid according to how many members there are. The unions fight to keep everyone the same, because then everyone is happy. Or everyone is unhappy, together. Which gives the union something to "do" and that gives people a reason to have a union in the first place. Unions exist to survive, and they do that by leaching off the population they pretend to help. Do you know why there is public opinion that teachers just "coast" through life and their jobs? Because a lot of them do. Why isn't there the same public opinion for policemen/firemen/doctors/city accountants/etc etc. BECAUSE THEY FIRE MOST (if not all) THE PEOPLE THAT ARE GIVING THAT PERCEPTION. Teaching is the most polar opposite occupation in the world. You will find some of the hardest working, under appreciated people in the world. You will also find some of the laziest, coasting, scum of the earth in the working middle class (any teacher will tell you this). Why? Because a Union allows it's members to feast on each other. It needs numbers, so it does what it needs to do to get the greatest number of people in its ranks. It cuts the 10% of the bottom off, and the other 10% at the top of the teaching ranks are smart enough to figure out what it is doing. But the other 80% all up and down the spectrum are allowed to leach off each other, and be leached upon.

You want to fix teaching? Take power out of the unions, and the bureaucracies that "govern" teachers. Set it up like a business, those that contribute do well, and those that don't - starve. Treat each teacher as a salesman. Does it add to, or subtract from the company? If it adds, then keep it and incentivize it. If it subtracts - let it go.

Cut off the dead weight, teachers. Stop unionizing. Ostracize the leachers, and get them fired if possible. As to the original point of the post, eliminating teacher tenure is one way of limiting union powers, and union memberships. And I am all for it.

[Sammich]

All of those numbers need to be offset by the extra time teachers get off. I wonder what those numbers would be if they were working through the summer. And don't tell me they're spending that time preparing their curriculum. I highly doubt that (having been a teacher myself, you can get away with very little preparation and do fine). At any rate, if you hate the amount of money you're making in the year, you have some extra time in the year to pick up another job and make more.

To be sure, but for most teachers, finding a three month job that pays well is not easy or readily available. I know some teachers who paint homes or clean offices. Some are river guides. Most businesses though are not that interested in hiring someone for three months and then having that person leave for his other job....

The "but for most teachers" part is a big portion of what is wrong with the system. Most teachers are not qualified to fill any other job at all, much less find something to fill the void of Summer. They are not really to blame, but the requirement that they get teaching degrees to qualify as a teacher probably is. And teaching degrees have statistically shown to be bad at educating future educators, unfortunately.

Seriously? The fact they may not now be qualified to do something different because they obtained a degree in history or english does not mean they could not have been successful at something else had they chosen a different career option. Many teachers I have interacted with are very intelligent and motivated and would suceed at many other professions. I am glad they chose education as a career. It is a noble profession. To bash them because they are not qualified to do something different from the profession they chose is hard to understand. I am not qualified to be an accountant today...because I chose a different career path. The point I was making is that most employers are not that interested in hiring anyone, let alone a teacher, for a high paying job when the employer knows they will only be around for three months, so what is available is slim. That reality is not because teachers are unqualified or incapable

You and Schmoe completely misread what I was saying. I probably misstated. I'm not commenting on teachers' innate intelligence or bashing them at all. But intelligence and qualification are completely different animals. I'm working on faulty memory here but I remember reading about an study where an aptitude test was given to teaching degree graduates and people graduating from other majors, where the teaching degrees scored considerably lower than other majors. In my mind this is unlikely an intelligence issue (at least I hope not), but it certainly suggests that teaching degrees are not preparing people as well as they should. On the other hand, I do believe that one of the risks of tenure is that it can attract people who are less ambitious/flexible with their skillset and knowledge. So it is also possible that there is a pool of "less intelligent" aspiring teachers who are skewing that data.
All that said, I don't believe qualification is always just about the specialization of your major and it is up to the individual to prepare for other career/job possibilities. For example I graduated from the BYU animation program, which focused on 3d models and animation, but I wanted to have painting/illustration jobs as a back-up, so I took a lot of classes to hone that alternate skillset. If I were going into the teaching profession, I would probably look for similar training so that I wasn't left high and dry if I hated my job or it didn't pay enough, I had another option.
You're probably right that any full-time job that requires a bit of training would be hard to come by for anyone with only a few months. In my industry there are usually short-term jobs available to qualified people and I was assuming that was true in any industry, but I could definitely be wrong about that.

[BoiseBYU]

Sammich, thanks for clarifying your position for me. You make some good points and while you have some views that I do not necessarily agree with, they are views I certainly can respect and appreciate.

[Cougarfan87]

Blueisbetter,

You get no argument from me on the relative uselessness of unions. I spent two weeks negotiating with unions representing Federal Employees. You know what they got out of all that time and expense? The same things they already had by statute as Federal Employees. Perhaps in certain industries, where safety takes a back seat to profit, unions make sense. Coal mining comes to mind. But for professional employees not working in hazardous conditions--I just don't see the need--or for any Federal Government Employee for that matter.

I would also lobby for policemen, firemen, etc. to make more money. Another of my Brothers in Law makes a pittance working as a Utah Highway Patrol Officer. Perhaps the public doesn't rally behind them because we still hold some ill will for the speeding tickets.

But, the problem is how do we adequately pay those in public service when they are not earners, but burners of taxpayer dollars. It is never popular to raise taxes to pay them more adequately. Perhaps if government was better at spending the money it had, we would not have to raise taxes to compensate them more adequately. This is just another example of a government spending problem that needs to be resolved. Stop using the money to enable people, or spending money Congress forces the military to spend for things the military doesn't want (here's looking at you, Osprey and the Anti-impoundment act) and give it to those doing something productive for society. Note, I am not against social safety nets, just social safety hammocks.

[Sammich]

Sammich, thanks for clarifying your position for me. You make some good points and while you have some views that I do not necessarily agree with, they are views I certainly can respect and appreciate.

That's fine, I often state things in a more extreme way than I really think, so I'm glad you said something rather than quietly going off thinking I was a jerk.
Teaching is something I care a lot about because I do a lot of teaching myself---not full-time, just adjunct classes at BYU and other workshops and online classes. I feel especially indignant about how art education is handled in our current system and I'm sure that skews my opinion about the rest. There's nothing more frustrating than having to teach 23-year-olds things they should have learned in their Junior High art classes, especially when I look at the things they're teaching there instead.