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Replies to '11/24 Great School Debate'
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November 27, 2006, 11:43 am PST
 Quote From: amberlyn1 It aggravates me because unless/until something bad happens at the hands of a public school teacher, the assumption is that they are the best equipped people to teach our children. With home education, the reverse is true - you are guilty until proven innocent. The school officials did know. The staff nurses repeatedly brought up concerns, and we still have no idea who dropped the ball - however, in the year and a half since it came to ligt we have had the princicpal, assistant principal and superintendent all resign. So we'll probably never know where the breakdown really occurred. Being a conscientious parent and foster parent, I know parents flounder. I see more floundering than not outside of the homeschool co-op, but have maintained all along that I (and many other home schoolers) do NOT advocate home education for everyone. For those who do take on the awesome responsibility, it would be nice to not be thought of as uneducated, unprepared and unable to teach our children - and unwilling to see the "damage" we are doing to them (statements brought up by others in this forum over the past few days). In my experience, I have met more unprepared, not-cut-out-for-the-job public school teachers than home schooling parents. I understand that is only my experience, but that is my perspective. As far as teachers being rewarded for their work, where in the private sector can you count on a 9-19% raise every single year? Not pay for merit, mind you, but pay for simply warming a seat? (Our teachers don't receive merit pay.) That's what our teachers union gets in this town. They start at $50K + per year (out of college, most of our teachers are young, recent graduates) and then get annual raises like we would never see in the private sector. My husband is lucky to get a 3% raise every year, yet we are funding raises in excess of our town's budget. That is why teachers don't have jobs and get laid off - poorly negotiated labor contracts. As a teacher, would you rather have a 19% pay raise one year and then lose your job, or would you rather have the 3% raise and KEEP your job over time? The AVERAGE teaching salary in Massachusetts is about $54,000. Massachusetts is also one of the few states where teachers are required to earn a Masters degree (I THINK, within five years of beginning teaching). I am from Massachusetts originally, and I still have teacher friends and relatives there.
Some areas will have higher salaries because they are critically low on qualified teachers. That IS how the rest of the world works - when there is a shortage of qualified people in a certain field, the incentives get better. My husband is in a VERY specialized field, and he gets great raises, bonuses, and other perks - far beyond what any public school teacher could dream about. This is in the private sector. Many states, including my own, have it backwards - as the pool of teacher candidates shrinks and weakens in quality, they have made it considerably LESS attractive to become a teacher. Go figure!
As far as merit pay, how exactly does one determine how effective a teacher is? Test scores? That is like assigning police men to different beats and paying them based on crime rates. I have worked in high income schools and low income schools. The jobs are really not comparable. When I taught in the low income areas, I worked tremendously hard and had to deal with a multitude of social problems. The teaching assignment I had in a higher income area was MUCH easier, and I got a big bonus when the children scored well on the state exams. This type of system will drive the better, more experienced teachers to the "better" schools and leave struggling schools with primarily inexperienced, and even unqualified, teachers.
I know you see the lack of respect for homeschooling, but BELIEVE me it is there for public schools as well. You simply are not on the look out for it as much as you are for homeschooling. I also think many homeschoolers do themselves a disservice by touting invalid statistics and faulty analysis of data, not to mention absurd lists of homeschool success. I am not picking on you specifically, but it seems that any concerns or questions about homeschooling is met with a militant defensiveness rather than genuine answers.
I think responsible homeschoolers should make it VERY CLEAR what the commitment entails and what it really takes to homeschool successfully, rather then stating that homeschooling is superior PERIOD. I realize that there have been some posters who are closed minded to homeschooling, but let's be fair. The vast majority of posts here are pro-homeschooling. There have been far more knocks against public schools. If you don't believe me, count back about 50 posts or so and keep count of how many are pro-homeschool, pro public school, or simply neutral. |
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