education, Texas style

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
1

Low pay, little support: Record 70% of Texas teachers ready to quit as morale plummets, survey finds

Of those surveyed, 85% said they didn’t believe state leaders and legislators had a positive opinion of teachers, and 65% said the general public didn’t have a positive opinion of teachers either. Seventy percent of teachers who responded to the TSTA’s survey said parental support for their work also decreased during the pandemic.

“(some guy) banned school districts from issuing mask mandates during a dangerous pandemic and, even after the tragedy in Uvalde, he refuses to address sensible gun reform,” Molina said. “Teachers have been working for years with inadequate funding and a lack of respect from state leaders. It is time for these leaders to wake up to the crisis they are causing our public schools and put education over politics.”

https://www.click2houston.com/features/2022/08/10/record-70-…

Meanwhile, the local news here reported that, while some suburban and outstate school districts have personnel shortages, Detroit Public is fully staffed with real, degreed, certified, teachers.

Steve

23 Likes
2

Remember: When Kansas went stupid (again) and cut teacher pay, etc–the teachers left for jobs in other states. Suddenly, there was a BIG PROBLEM because the state was required to fund education–per the courts.

1 Like
3

Granddaughter loved to teach, earned her certification here in CA, but the first year, while it paid decently, really rotten admin/principle, did not, would not back her up with delinquent problems kids (7th grade, ESL), setting fire to paper on the classroom, barely a slap on the wrist, principal bowed down to the parents, etc… GD had great experiences working with teens in summer camps, got along great in other situations, but even wen working as a sub, the same mess, zero help from the adinistrations in other districts… Next stop, new job, working from home on sales, totally disgusted by what she’d run into…

her mother, our daughter ran into similar situations as she taught in different districts, apparently the admins are the main problem, she too, bailed on teaching and went into corporate instructing, video training and was much happier…

I don’t know what the answer is, but with what we’ve seen, it’s going to be a long time rebuilding what should have been a good, enjoyable job as a teacher… Pretty sad…

5 Likes
4

As long as I can remember, teachers have always had problems with respect, be it from gov’t, parents, students, or even the administration. Add the Union to those who where unionized. My parents were both in education and I got an eyeful. Dad progressed up to an administrator in a very prestigious town next to Boston, while Mom taught in our small commuter town a little further away. Grades mattered, education not so much.

I taught briefly, using my degree in Chemistry to qualify to take on a middle school math program for a private school when we lived in the USVI. It’s tough to replace someone who quits without warning and they were happy for a warm body that knew the subject matter, even though I was not certified. I got serious push back when I tried to rein in a student that had a skill for tormenting this one kid and getting the rest of his class to follow suit. The teachers and administration, with the exception of my middle school director who was also new, had the expectation that boys will be boys and just let them be. After this multi-year problem was finally resolved, (at threat to my job of course, which I had the luxury of being able to lose,)the kid who was being tormented came up to thank me after school. We sat there talking for a while and he told me that he had thought about bringing his dad’s gun into school. He didn’t know what else to do… I told the administration they needed to find a replacement now, and pulled my kids out of that prestigious school.

There are many rewards to teaching, but they don’t include good pay or respect. Getting that as a teacher is the exception, not the rule. I currently live in another area that is known for good schools and “decent” pay for teaching. To be a substitute in this state, you need to be certified. They are now taking provisional applicants without certification to fill vacant jobs. School starts next week for us.

As big as Texas is, this problem is a lot bigger than Texas.

IP

11 Likes
5

IP,

Mitchell Chester’s father was our super intendent of schools in Bloomfield, CT. We were a heavily integrated town and still are. Our public high school was number two in the state. We were second only to West Hartford. We were a class of 300 with a higher percentage of our grads going to Ivy than West Hartford some three or four times the size. One difference was our population was liberal Jewish one third, and West Hartford was more conservative Jewish similarly about one third of the population. The Unitarians in the area did better as usual but are a much smaller group.

Mitchell Chester brought his father’s principles to the state of Massachusetts as head of the Department of Education. MA was very careful to recruit this man.

His obit.

https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2017/06/27/mitchell-chester…

1 Like
6

Add the Union to those who where unionized.

My aunt, who taught from the late 40s into the early 80s, was a member of the Michigan Education Association, an affiliate of the NEA, which some denounce as some sort of unAmerican, communistical, conspiracy.

The Michigan public school teacher’s pension plan is in the state constitution. A previous Gov of the state tried to loot the pension fund to cover the budget deficit he created by throwing money at the “JCs”. The Gov backed off of that scheme, thanks to the withering storm of pushback from the MEA.

When my aunt retired, her pension came in the form of an annuity from, iirc, Mutual Benefit Life. The insurance company went bankrupt. She thought her pension was lost. The MEA sent a form for her signature, appointing the MEA as her agent to recover her pension. Within 2-3 years, the MEA had recovered her money and rolled it into an annuity at Prudential.

As far as my aunt was concerned, the MEA did OK for her.

As long as I can remember, teachers have always had problems with respect, be it from gov’t, parents, students, or even the administration

School administrators are politicians, beholden to an elected school board. Politicians don’t like pushback from loud-mouthed parents. My aunt always said her success in the classroom depended on how supportive of education the parents are. With the anti-education attitude, the demonization of educational standards like common core, and demagoguery of the NEA, it’s not surprising that teachers are no longer supported by the politicians they report to.

It isn’t just teachers that are giving up in the face of belligerent, loud-mouthed, and sometimes violent, parents. The local news here has been running stories about youth athletic leagues and school athletic programs who can’t get people to volunteer to work as referees and coaches, because of the danger of being beat up by a parent that doesn’t like one of their decisions.

Steve

1 Like
7

isn’t just teachers that are giving up in the face of

belligerent,
loud-mouthed, and
sometimes violent,
parents.

…youth athletic leagues and school athletic programs who can’t get people to volunteer to work as referees and coaches, because of the danger of being beat up by a parent that doesn’t like one of their decisions.

Well, that sounds like the end of civility, and civility is the prime pre-requisite for civilization.

david fb

7 Likes
8

As far as my aunt was concerned, the MEA did OK for her.

No doubt, as part of the collective. My dad was wrongly displaced, his job “eliminated” and then renamed and given to someone who was much lower paid and a better soldier than he. Dad put the kids first and fought for what was right for the kids, battling the superintendent and school board as necessary. This school district had something like 8 languages K-12, including two types of Chinese and Russian. He was director of foreign languages for the whole school system, a level comparable to a principal. In his lawsuit, he was represented by a union lawyer. They were in the middle of contract negotiations at the same time, and Dad’s trial outcome was apparently part of the negotiations. He lost. Pertinent information was never presented by the lawyer. Another lawyer, from the opposition, told Dad he was screwed by the union. Mom had similar issues, though at a lower level. They absolutely abused of her, but in her efforts not to degrade standards, she pushed back. As the only French teacher in our high school, she gave in to the student’s requests for two high level French classes, which could only be done at the very same time. She also took on intro Spanish and remedial English that semester, having 7 preparations for 6 periods, when most other teachers had 5 periods and even fewer preparations, given that their classes were often duplicates. She went to the union, but they told her that nothing would be done for her because it was a year for negotiations.

Irony being they too were strong union people. To their dying day. Did not compute for me, but I am not a fan of being told to bend over and grab my ankles. Am not a good follower. Don’t even get me started on the idiocy I saw at the company I worked for. Happily, I was not union, but boy, I sure tried much harder to protect my people than their union did. Yup, they needed the big bad union to protect them from people like me, who fought for their well being and jobs.

IP

9

My experience was quite different. I needed union support two times in my 35 years in one school system. One of those required bringing in lawyers from the state teachers’ association to tell the admin that we were within our rights to try to get services for a student.

10

I sure tried much harder to protect my people than their union did.

Sometimes, union management is bought off by corporate management. There has been a major scandal going for several years where Chrysler management bought the heads of the Chrysler department of the UAW, so the union honchos persuaded their rank and file to accept lower pay and benefits than their counterparts and Ford and GM got, while the union honchos stuffed their pockets with Chrysler money.

After the scandal broke, GM sued Chrysler claiming Chrysler’s corruption of the union gave them an unfair competitive advantage.

GM accuses Fiat Chrysler of corrupt bargaining with UAW

GM alleges FCA was a “clear sponsor of pervasive wrongdoing, paying millions of dollars in bribes to obtain benefits, concessions, and advantages in the negotiation, implementation and administration of labor agreements over time. FCA’s manipulation of the collective bargaining process resulted in unfair labor costs and operational advantages, causing harm to GM.”

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-mot…

Of course, without a union, you have zero bargaining power. Either take what the “JC” offers, or go elsewhere.

Steve

7 Likes