procore

[kenberg]

From the link labeled Minnesota:

8,000 were erroneously told they had failed. In some cases, students missed out on graduation ceremonies.

I may have mentioned before that I graduated from college (Univ. of Minnesota, B.S. 1960) in August instead of June. I thought that I had graduated in June, I accepted a job in Maryland based on this belief, quit my job in Minneapolis, and got out of my apartment lease. A couple of days before we were to leave I got a letter saying that I was not graduating because I had an Incomplete in Numerical Analysis. I tracked down the Prof, who explained that he had given me an Incomplete because he had lost my final. "But it's OK, I found it again." "Have you changed my grade?" "No, but I will". Would you like me to take the change of grade slip to the office for you?" "No, I'll do it".

A tricky situation but I survived it and, eventually, the grade got changed.

 

 

But back to the present. I think that the word "unacceptable" is often used too easily but in this case it seems that it could be applied with gusto. There are a lot of serious issues in testing about which reasonable people can disagree. Saying that errors should be very few and very far between is not one of them. You might think forking over some cash to settle a lawsuit would have gotten their attention but apparently not.

 

It's very destructive.

[PassedOut]

From the Post: Teacher: The day I knew for sure I was burned out

 

Here in the United States, we continually examine teaching data to understand why other countries are doing better than we are. One thing nobody ever talks about is that teachers in the U.S. have a larger workload than teachers in almost any other country. According to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the average secondary school teacher in the U.S. puts in 1,051 instructional hours per year. Instructional hours are the hours spent actually in front of kids—in other words, about half of the job, the other half being time spent planning, grading and collaborating with other teachers. In Finland, the average teacher teaches 553 instructional hours per year. In Korea, 609 hours. In England, 695. In Japan, 510.

 

When teachers in other countries are not in front of students, they can do the other half of a teacher’s job: planning curriculum, grading papers, calling parents, conferencing with students, creating assignments that meet every student’s needs, meeting with other teachers, innovating, thinking, learning. Here in the U.S. we do not give teachers that time. With Common Core on the horizon for LA Unified, we’re planning to blow through at least a billion dollars to train teachers in an entirely new philosophy of teaching. I have to wonder exactly when this training is going to happen. There were literally days when I did not have time to go to the bathroom. What else could I cut out of my day? Breathing?

 

I miss my students every day. Despite everything, I loved teaching. For every dark day, there were moments of immense pride at what my students had accomplished. I plan to go back. But I’m terrified of burning out again. If the United States is serious about attracting and retaining good teachers, the first thing we need to do is give us the conditions we need to get our jobs done right. Just about every other country in the world does. Why can’t we?

Because the free-lunchers vote against paying reasonable taxes.

[cherdano]

Another few words, and then I will try to shut up.

 

I am struggling with all this,

 

Yup, you...

 

 

did struggle with this :D

[kenberg]

Some of my struggles are more successful than others.

[blackshoe]

A "normal" job is 40 hours a week, or 173 hours a month, or 2046 hours a year, less holidays and vacations. A teaching job is apparently half that — outside the US, at least. Inside the US, if "instructional hours" is supposed to be half the time, and those hours amount to 1000 or so, that is half the time. Except... teachers only teach 9 months out of the year, or about 1550 hours, so their "instructional hours" amount to 2/3 of their time, allowing 1/3 of their time to do the other half of the job. Okay, I get it. But why do teachers in other countries get off so easy? Especially considering that the quality of education elsewhere may be better than in many places here? B-) Not to mention that the quality of education across the US varies widely. Something's wrong with that picture, too.

 

I noticed long ago that the idea of "year round" primary and secondary school classes would require a lot more teachers. So would reducing the teachers' "instructional hours" workload. Yet there's already a shortage of teachers. How do we resolve that problem?

[mycroft]

Ed, "a teaching job is half that"; come on. That's like saying that 2000 hours/year is a FTE, so these lawyers who only spend 300 hours in court are really slacking. What do they do the rest of the time? It's like saying that 2000 hours/year is an FTE, so those Navy pilots who clock 2-300 flight hours a year; what do they do the rest of the year? I bill about 1200 hours a year; never mind the fact that that's nowhere near all my job, nowhere near all of that is either client or client-system facing.

 

All those lessons they're teaching - where do they come from? All the assignments; where do they come from? And how are they marked? For teachers in lab courses, those take no time to set up/tear down/keep stocked/keep safe/... Oh, and do you want teachers who haven't learned anything themselves for the last 20 years? Better allow some time for continuing education.

 

Now let's look at all the other stuff teachers traditionally do (and you can tell what happens when they don't, any time there's a "work-to-rule" campaign). Someone has to supervise recess/lunch room/hallways, study areas, and so on. Of course, that's unpaid time. So is all the coaching for teams that occur after hours, all the driving of teams to games; band practises, club supervision...and all of that is stuff the teacher does "for the love of the students".

 

But only hours in the classroom should be paid, I guess, because that's the only "real work". And it should be paid at assembly worker rates, not even trades rates (sure, they don't get paid the company's hourly charge rate, but they do quite well; partly because they get paid only when they're on the job).

 

They may only work 200 days a year (180 with students) instead of the "250-holidays" we do; but most work more *hours* in those 180-200 than we normal workers do. And a surprising amount of the "holiday weeks" is spent preparing for the 1st day of class, because the few days before the kids arrive isn't enough.

 

Oh, and people were up in arms when I was in school because there were 40 people in the class (which does, in fact, work out to about a 18-1 student-teacher ratio; for these and other reasons (there are a number of teachers with nearly zero instructional hours. You might have heard of them; they're called "Principals", and they're counted as teachers for STR). Part of the reason for the success of the teaching is that 40 is a *small* class now.

 

How do other countries do it? They admit that teaching is a valuable profession that requires prep and analysis time, and enough teachers, and that's worth enough to society to *pay for it*. The U.S. have the lowest taxes in the developed world. There's payback on the back end, especially if they're also going to have the largest prison system and the largest military in the developed world as well. This is part of that payback.

[blackshoe]

Mycroft, you have completely misunderstood my post. Either that or you think this is a courtroom and your best strategy is attack. :(

[Elianna]

Mycroft, you have completely misunderstood my post. Either that or you think this is a courtroom and your best strategy is attack. :(

 

I initially took your post in exactly the same way.

 

FYI, I work about 12 hours a day on schooldays, and probably around 4 hours a day on weekends.

 

There also certain teacher only days that are training, both during the week and over summer. This year I had about 20 of them, for 8 hours each.

 

So 12*180 + 4*40 + 8*20 = 2,480 hours total in the year.

 

In other words, I don't do 1/2 of my job in 1/3 of my time, I end up working MORE time than "normal" workers. Other countries reduce the teaching time to even it out, so that those teachers DO have closer to 2,000 hours of work. From what I know talking to friends who are teachers in those countries, teaching is a job highly valued by their societies, and so they have more training, higher wages, and more job security, so more people want to become teachers. I don't know that I believe we have a teacher shortage, I think that we have a capable teacher shortage. Whenever my school has an opening, we always have 20+ applications per position, but maybe 18 or so are not people that we would want to see in front of our students.

 

I really think that I would be a better teacher if I taught only three periods a day (instead of the five I now teach), plus I think that I would be a better person to be around, and more likely to not feel burned out, like I am afraid that I might feel in a few years, if I continue on like this.

[PassedOut]

Mycroft, you have completely misunderstood my post.

If your point was that education in other countries is superior to the US because teachers in other countries have more time to prepare, you could have avoided misunderstanding by stating that directly. My opinion is that teaching the young is an immensely important profession and should be valued accordingly.

[cherdano]

Mycroft, you have completely misunderstood my post. Either that or you think this is a courtroom and your best strategy is attack. :(

I reread your post after this comment. I still do not understand it.

 

If one reader misunderstands a post, we should blame the reader. If many readers misunderstand a post...

[mike777]

"I really think that I would be a better teacher if I taught only three periods a day (instead of the five I now teach), plus I think that I would be a better person to be around, and more likely to not feel burned out, like I am afraid that I might feel in a few years, if I continue on like this."

 

This post really hit hard. If Elianna teaching 5 classes a day feels burned out and is thinking of leaving the profession this seems to be the key point. She feels that teaching only 3 periods a day would be much better for her and her students. She also points out she ends up putting in far more than 40 hours a week of work to teach 25 periods a week for a standard school schedule.

 

Reading her posts it sounds like the longer she is a teacher the longer the job takes rather than the shorter the time it takes to put in a good job. All of this seems very wrong and backwards. I mean with the time set aside for training days, holidays, vacations, etc she is still thinking about leaving and feeling burnt out. Something is very wrong here if teaching 25 hours of classroom is making teachers burn out and leave the profession.

 

 

Something is also very wrong if 18 out of 20 applicants are not qualified to teach at her school.

------------------------

 

 

CNN a few months ago did a series on Fenger HS on the south side of Chicago. This was the public HS where I grew up in Roseland/Pullman. The principle and many of the teachers seem to spend the vast majority of their time:

1) rounding up students to come to school so the school would get money.

2) trying but failing to make sure the students get to school without getting shot or beat up.

 

After all of this I am not sure the students or the teachers had much energy to actually try to teach and learn.

 

"When it opened in 1893, Fenger was known as Curtis School. It was renamed in 1915 in honor of Christian Fenger, a well-known surgeon. The current Fenger building was completed in 1926.[4]

 

On September 24, 2009, a Fenger honors student named Derrion Albert was beaten to death on his way home when he accidentally walked into the middle of a large brawl between teenagers from two neighborhoods. The video of the brawl gained international attention,[5] and President Barack Obama requested that Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visit Chicago to meet with Fenger students and school officials.[6]

 

Fenger, along with its principal Elizabeth Dozier and numerous Fenger staff and students, was featured prominently in the 2014 CNN documentary series Chicagoland.[7]"

[mycroft]

Ed, I misread, I am sorry. My only excuse is that, as the son of a teacher, and growing up around teachers, the way I (and others) took your post *is* in fact, a constant attack on teachers: "they only work 9 months of the year, and only 9-3, and even then they get spares. And they expect to be paid *how much*? They should try a *real job* in the *real workforce*." They really believe that time not in front of students isn't really work time.

 

I apologize having read your post as yet another of those.

 

Having said that, the answer to your question is "you hire enough teachers that they do have class sizes of 25-30, you give them the accessibility and ESL support required to teach *all* of their students, and you give them enough time that isn't student-facing that they aren't working 80 hours a week. And you don't begrudge them their holidays (especially as they *have to* take them in high season, rather than the flexibility most of us "real workers" get to go to the tournaments we like or the nice places when they're cheap) to recover from the stresses of their job. And you pay them enough that going to get a real job, even though they hate it and really, really enjoy teaching, isn't an option too many of them will take." That's a lot of public workers, paid through taxes.

 

It means refocusing our priorities. It probably won't happen.

[mike777]

First off spending 80 hours a week to teach 25 hours of classroom first grade math or whatever subject is crazy! To do this week after week, month after month is NUTS! Something is very wrong!

 

My MOM was a teacher on the west side of Chicago. She seemed to spend a lot time on lesson plans and getting her kids hats and boots for winter. She seemed to not spend a lot of time teaching but dealing with the parents and higher ups. As for ESL, this was before the term was used but many of her students spoke Spanish and she spoke not a word but somehow got the job done.

 

I remember when I was a student at Pullman grammer school ESL meant the teacher telling me to take the Spanish kid to the cloak room and teach him. Later as an older adult and a grad student, I helped out with ESL kids as a Marketing TA. They had undergrads from around the world at that school in L.A.

 

As a kid I do remember urging her to try and cut a lot of what seemed like crap out of her day and focus and what was important. As an adult I always found my coworkers spending an awful lot of time on pure crap and then they complain about how many hours they had to work. I remember one time sitting with some higher ups and coworkers and the bosses wanted to know how long it took to do our job. They said more than 40-50 hours a week and they needed help. I said maybe ten hours and the rest was a waste of time.

 

One time my boss gave me a new guy to spend the day with me. I asked him to organize my files which I knew would take about 15 minutes, this guy spent 8 hours. I was transfixed watching him.

 

 

From some of these posts it sounds like teaching may have become working in a war zone, a non-English speaking war zone.

 

As for paying for all of this, in the USA schools are paid for out of property taxes. Chicago and LA may need to start raising taxes on properties(homes) to pay for their teachers and schools. Il, only spends $13,500 per student, per year.

 

 

Here is a state by state breakdown:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/prison-spending-education-spending_n_5484787.html

[blackshoe]

Ed, I misread, I am sorry. My only excuse is that, as the son of a teacher, and growing up around teachers, the way I (and others) took your post *is* in fact, a constant attack on teachers: "they only work 9 months of the year, and only 9-3, and even then they get spares. And they expect to be paid *how much*? They should try a *real job* in the *real workforce*." They really believe that time not in front of students isn't really work time.

 

I apologize having read your post as yet another of those.

 

Having said that, the answer to your question is "you hire enough teachers that they do have class sizes of 25-30, you give them the accessibility and ESL support required to teach *all* of their students, and you give them enough time that isn't student-facing that they aren't working 80 hours a week. And you don't begrudge them their holidays (especially as they *have to* take them in high season, rather than the flexibility most of us "real workers" get to go to the tournaments we like or the nice places when they're cheap) to recover from the stresses of their job. And you pay them enough that going to get a real job, even though they hate it and really, really enjoy teaching, isn't an option too many of them will take." That's a lot of public workers, paid through taxes.

 

It means refocusing our priorities. It probably won't happen.

Thank you. I was about ready to delete the damn post. I guess I'll let it stand. :)

 

I agree with your solution, and that it won't happen. I do think privatizing education may be a better way forward. I think "let the government take care of it" and raising taxes is the wrong way to do most things, including education.

 

For those of you who still think ill of me on this, I do understand and sympathize with the problems teachers have in this country.

[gwnn]

Mycroft, you have completely misunderstood my post. Either that or you think this is a courtroom and your best strategy is attack. :(

How about explaining what your post means (in under 100 words, if you're short on time) before going straight to playing the victim? Then again, you never seem to be interested in explaining your points of view (for example, on gun control) beyond "shame on you for challenging me" so this is probably par for the course.

[mycroft]

And I think that privatizing education would be the worst possible thing you could do for it.

 

Well, except for the people that could afford the $30K/year/child a good education would cost - I guess they would be fine. Note that many of them already do this (and gripe about having to subsidize other people's kids even though they get nothing out of it themselves).

 

But I note the success of the private prison industry. "Capacity Guarantees" so the government ensures them a minimum income, and the guards are worse paid and harder worked (with inferior equipment) than in the state-run institutions - with the rest of it going to profit (and a few shareholders). I can't see any different outcome when the inmates are "other people's future criminals kids" rather than "other people's criminal relatives family".

 

I'm cynical, I guess. I'm also not really a believer in "I got mine, Jack; go get your own" - given that although I *do* got mine, there were many years where that attitude would have killed me (oh, and meant that society would have one less well-respected and very productive Software Architect and as well-respected as possible (under the circumstances) part-time Tournament Director producing and paying taxes).

[PassedOut]

And I think that privatizing education would be the worst possible thing you could do for it.

We have some history on how that works out here on the college level: Subprime Students: How For-Profit Universities Make a Killing By Exploiting College Dreams

 

Publicly traded schools have been shown to have profit margins, on average, of nearly 20%. A significant portion of these taxpayer-sourced proceeds are spent on Washington lobbyists to keep regulations weak and federal money pouring in. Meanwhile, these debt factories pay their chief executive officers $7.3 million in average yearly compensation. John Sperling, architect of the for-profit model and founder of the University of Phoenix, which serves more students than the entire University of California system or all the Ivy Leagues combined, died a billionaire in August.

 

Graduates of for-profit schools generally do not fare well. Indeed, they rarely find themselves in the kind of work they were promised when they enrolled, the kind of work that might enable them to repay their debts, let alone purchase the commodity-cornerstones of the American dream like a car or a home.

 

In the documentary "College Inc.," produced by PBS's investigative series Frontline, three young women recount how they enrolled in a nursing program at Everest College on the promise of $25-$35 an hour jobs on graduation. Course work, however, turned out to consist of visits to the Museum of Scientology to study "psychiatrics" and visits to a daycare center for their "pediatrics rotation." They each paid nearly $30,000 for a 12-month program, only to find themselves unemployable because they had been taught nearly nothing about their chosen field.

Good profits there, but it seems that education plays second fiddle.

[kenberg]

From what I have seen, it is very likely that the students did not pay $30,000. The school was paid $30,000 which is not the same thing at all. I have seen things along these lines, more than once, fairly close up. The students get loans. The loan money is used to pay the tuition. The students graduate, or maybe they graduate, and they have no way at all to pay the money back. The students are a pipeline for cassh from the government to the school. Not all of these for prifit schools are scams, and of course it depends on exactly what you consideer a scam, but in many cases the student, after the program, is a year or two older, not at all more employable, and has a debt that s/he will not be paying off.

 

This is not good.

[Elianna]

I agree with your solution, and that it won't happen. I do think privatizing education may be a better way forward. I think "let the government take care of it" and raising taxes is the wrong way to do most things, including education.

 

I work at a charter school and I've worked at a private school. I can tell you that looking at my school and colleagues, the way to create a long-term sustainable workload for teachers is NOT through privatization. We have many international models of education that seem to work both in terms of student outcomes and for teachers. None of the ones I know of involve privatizing education.

 

Reading her posts it sounds like the longer she is a teacher the longer the job takes rather than the shorter the time it takes to put in a good job. All of this seems very wrong and backwards.

I will say that I seem to take on more and more each year. For example: Two years ago I taught Geometry from a curriculum that the school created, and created my own Precalculus curriculum. Last year, I changed a lot of the Precalculus curriculum, and took on Chemistry and Algebra 2. For Chemistry I relied on the main Chemistry teacher to set up labs/create plans, and I could concentrate on Precalculus and Algebra 2, both of which I taught in the past (even though I was changing some things about how I taught it).

 

This year, I am still teaching Precalculus, and pretty much sticking with what I did last year, with modifications (but not significant structural changes, so I can still use many of my lessons). I am, however, adding on two new courses that are new to me, and which no one else at my school teaches, so I am solely responsible for them.

 

I do have hopes that next year I will not teach a new class to me, but then I think that many students would benefit from having a Honors version of Precalculus, or AP Physics, and I know that I'm basically the only one at the school who can teach them, so...

 

Even if I don't teach anything new and never have to plan again, there will always be:

grading (I don't grade HW - so this is only tests, but I do allow students to retake tests - which is actually a school policy) - Maybe about 5 hours a week. Much longer when I assign reports.

Making copies for each class - about 3 hours a week.

Tutoring students in mandatory office hours - 3 hours a week.

Tutoring/counseling students outside of the mandatory office hours - 5 hours a week.

Meetings - 3 hours a week

 

Right now, I would say planning is probably around 10 hours a week, and I think that it would never get lower than 2 hours a week, because I would always look through them and see if there's something that can be improved on last year (and let's face it, there always is).

 

Typing this out, it looks like I spend 29 hours a week outside of teaching, which is 25 hours a week. So it seems that I have 54 hour work weeks.

 

Just typing this out makes it seem like a lot. No wonder I'm stressed out during the school year.

[mike777]

I work at a charter school and I've worked at a private school. I can tell you that looking at my school and colleagues, the way to create a long-term sustainable workload for teachers is NOT through privatization. We have many international models of education that seem to work both in terms of student outcomes and for teachers. None of the ones I know of involve privatizing education.

 

 

I will say that I seem to take on more and more each year. For example: Two years ago I taught Geometry from a curriculum that the school created, and created my own Precalculus curriculum. Last year, I changed a lot of the Precalculus curriculum, and took on Chemistry and Algebra 2. For Chemistry I relied on the main Chemistry teacher to set up labs/create plans, and I could concentrate on Precalculus and Algebra 2, both of which I taught in the past (even though I was changing some things about how I taught it).

 

This year, I am still teaching Precalculus, and pretty much sticking with what I did last year, with modifications (but not significant structural changes, so I can still use many of my lessons). I am, however, adding on two new courses that are new to me, and which no one else at my school teaches, so I am solely responsible for them.

 

I do have hopes that next year I will not teach a new class to me, but then I think that many students would benefit from having a Honors version of Precalculus, or AP Physics, and I know that I'm basically the only one at the school who can teach them, so...

 

Even if I don't teach anything new and never have to plan again, there will always be:

grading (I don't grade HW - so this is only tests, but I do allow students to retake tests - which is actually a school policy) - Maybe about 5 hours a week. Much longer when I assign reports.

Making copies for each class - about 3 hours a week.

Tutoring students in mandatory office hours - 3 hours a week.

Tutoring/counseling students outside of the mandatory office hours - 5 hours a week.

Meetings - 3 hours a week

 

Right now, I would say planning is probably around 10 hours a week, and I think that it would never get lower than 2 hours a week, because I would always look through them and see if there's something that can be improved on last year (and let's face it, there always is).

 

Typing this out, it looks like I spend 29 hours a week outside of teaching, which is 25 hours a week. So it seems that I have 54 hour work weeks.

 

Just typing this out makes it seem like a lot. No wonder I'm stressed out during the school year.

 

 

Ok thanks for your post. You are working 54 hours a week and getting stressed out and thinking of leaving the profession. It seems this model is NOT working. I don't know how to fix it or if anyone does but clearly based on this thread there are major problems.

 

I wanted to add that over the years I have often asked my coworkers and friends who say they are overworked how they spend their day. They never seem to have any idea how they spend their working day or week. You do!

 

Not sure how you can cut out 14-20 hours out of the above but clearly something here is wrong. Good luck and best wishes.

 

"I really think that I would be a better teacher if I taught only three periods a day (instead of the five I now teach), plus I think that I would be a better person to be around, and more likely to not feel burned out, like I am afraid that I might feel in a few years, if I continue on like this."

 

------------

 

 

edit side note

As a nonteacher what struck me were the ten hours of prep work and 3 hours of copy, and 3 hours of meetings, every week, every month, year after year. Not sure if any of that can be cut or delegated.

[barmar]

3 hours of copying? Are you still using ditto machines? How much stuff are you printing that isn't online, so you can just send it to the printer and say "Copies: 30".

[mycroft]

I am surprised more things aren't going on an internal wiki that gets accessed by the students, but I'm also sure I am missing stuff.

 

But that 3 hours includes copying, collating, and passing everything out. Plus security, if it's tests. I'd guess it takes 5-10 minutes to get all the stuff together and to the copier, 5 minutes to copy, 5-10 to collate (assuming the copier doesn't do that), 5 minutes back to the locked filing cabinet, and another 5 to get it and pass it out.

 

So, half an hour per thing copied. 5 classes, each with different things to copy on different schedules? I can see, even with efficiency foremost (which is trivial to do in such a high-interruption environment) this running to 3 hours without even noticing it.

[Elianna]

The problem is that many of my students don't have internet at home, so I can't put things online. Also, while we have a wifi network at school, we don't have enough devices for students, so again, I can't put internal class documents online.

 

And yes, it may take only a few minutes to start a print job, I have to stay by the printer in case of a jam (and in fact, that happens about every 500 pages or so, and that takes time to clear).

 

You're right - it's the collating/organizing/storing/setting up that takes up that 3 hours. and it's not 3 hours a DAY, it's 3 hours over five days, so that's 36 minutes a day, and I don't really see how to be more efficient than that. I do try to have a student do some of this for me after school (giving community service hours), but I can't have her do anything that involves tests/quizzes, and she doesn't know how to manage the machine to use colored paper. Plus if other teachers are trying to use the machine, they will just preempt her, so I end up doing this myself.

 

I usually end up having her sort exit tickets (which I did not put in my time above). She's much slower at this than I am, but at least it's her time and I don't have to supervise her.

[helene_t]

I have lots of teachers among my friends and relatives in Denmark. Although it is probably true that Danish teachers have something resembling a normal 1850h work year I also recognise what Elianna describes.

 

The amount of nonclassroom work has increased over the decades. More complex shedules - nowadays it is rare that two students have the same shedule or that anyone has the same shedule in two consecutive weeks - has increased and despite an increase in admin staff - my dad's school went from half a secretary to four secretaries during the three decades he worked there - it obviously also adds to the teacher's workload. More frequent changes to the curriculum is also a huge burden, more so for those teachers who have to write exercises and tests themselves.

 

Finally there is an increased expectation that teachers deal with the pupils' noneducatipnal issues such as crime and parental abuse.

[mike777]

My concern at least in the USA is all this added complexity over the decades and non classroom work is not improving the results compared to years ago. If poverty is down 10-50% from the 60's and spending after inflation is up the model sounds broken.

 

I presented the state by state breakdown in my previous post. Elianna is spending 54 hours a week to do 25 hours of classroom. Something is wrong.