Locally it was recently on the news that a district that use to be the schools to teach and send your kids. Is losing teachers right and left. Due to verbal and physical abuse by students. Administration and parents don’t seem to be interested in doing anything to fix it. Have a few friends that teach in small town schools with pretty good kids. They have a love for the game. But $80+k and summers off are pretty good too.
I agree with much that has been said. Throwing money at education isn’t going to change much. Society has so many ills that can’t be fixed by schools when you can’t discipline. It’s hard to have high expectations for kids when they can just ignore you with no consequences. Certainly education should be funded well and kids deserve schools with air conditioners and windows and computers that work.
I enjoy my job but like any it has its moments. I am fortunate that I teach mostly higher level electives and don’t deal with a lot of the kids and families that are a trainwreck. As has been mentioned, the pay really isn’t bad. Our pay scale goes from about 48k-88k as a base. I have a colleague who has been teaching over 25 years with a master’s and lots of extra credits who does a summer school session and a couple extra curricular activities and she will make in the neighborhood of 115k this year. I fished about 35 days this summer so I can’t complain. At the same time when I go golfing at 10 AM and see insurance agents and bankers out there at the same time you kind of scratch your head and wonder if I entered the right field.
My experience with teaching in a high school of ~1300 kids is (not metro MN): 90% of the kids are great or at least no problem, but that 5-10% causes 99% of the issues in schools and there really is little that can be done about it and those kids figure that out pretty quickly. A kid tells you to F off and they’re back in your class a day or two later and you’re supposed to bend over backwards to make the kid feel comfortable and heaven forbid you ‘humiliate’ the kid for his bad behavior. If there was one thing about teaching I could change it would be being able to give out harsh consequences for the kids that parade around with no respect and are just in school to disrupt others. I’m not necessarily talking corporal punishment, but those kids need some sort of fear put in them – whether it’s being sent to a job corps type of program or some sort of alternative program. But then of course the news picks up that kids “are being sent away because they’re different.”
Courts won’t do much about truancy, etc. and education law doesn’t let you do much. Almost always the parents are a mess in those situations or there just aren’t really parents at all. Get a couple kids like that in your class, especially an elementary class where you are with them all day, and I can’t imagine how that wears on a person. I’ve seen some younger female teachers absolutely run over by kids and run out of the profession. Some of the stories I hear from elementary teachers are horrific – kids that melt down and throw things, swearing, violent, to the point that classrooms need to be cleared out regularly. Not to mention being tasked with teaching kids basic reading, writing, and math skills with no support from home.
Special ed has also grown out of control in my opinion. I see many instances where even general education classes have half of the kids on IEPS (individual learning plans meant for children with a disability). That’s just crazy and it makes a classroom very difficult to run with 20 different sets of expectations mandated by law. The teacher often has little support to help those kids as well. Kids also learn they can just fall back on the IEP as a reason to put little effort in. I’ve had colleagues with students whose IEP said they can wear their headphones all day or watch videos when they are stressed. The special ed department at our school has more teachers than science and math combined. Many cases of special ed parents who just make life miserable for the special ed teachers and basically harass them if their kids don’t get on the honor roll even though the kid either can’t or won’t do simple math or writing. Don’t get me wrong, special ed is great in many aspects and is not abused in many cases but it has grown well beyond what it should be – not even going to get into the amount of money involved.
On the topic of ‘agendas’- I’ve never been told or even suggested to teach a certain topic about anything. Our content area works on our content standards but nothing else has ever been dictated to me. Of course we get the kids with the pronouns and different names, etc. but that’s anywhere in the world right now. And no litter boxes 
Who wants to go to college to make 50k a year….absolutely comical.
Makes no sense to me. Many many jobs pay much higher scale and require no degree, that’s my point. No college debt. Spend so much on college to make that little. No thanks for this guy.
Maybe 50 k is good money I guess. I wouldn’t go to school unless I was making 100 plus a year. I do that with nothing but a diploma. I couldn’t do it. Especially to begin life in debt. Glad my stupid comment made your day.
On the topic of ‘agendas’- I’ve never been told or even suggested to teach a certain topic about anything. Our content area works on our content standards but nothing else has ever been dictated to me. Of course we get the kids with the pronouns and different names, etc. but that’s anywhere in the world right now. And no litter boxes
So much of that is propaganda by the Tucker Carlson’s and others on the far right because their target audience are the ones who latch onto the fearmongering and won’t be caught tolerating anything different from them.
Interesting to read some of the first-hand perspectives from some on here. Where I live in rural southeast MN I hear a lot of the comments some of you have mentioned:
“You hear all these schools have to have litter boxes because kids wanna be animals?”
“You hear kids are allowed to be transgender?”
“You hear Xyz school is telling my kids that the south fought in the civil war because they wanted to keep slaves? It was states’ rights dammit!”
Glad to hear there’s still some normalcy left. A big problem, as others have mentioned, is the political climate, and it’s spilling into almost every part of our lives nowadays. Seems like a lot of people need an enemy at all times so they can always have something to be outraged at so they can keep their like-minded group strong and motivated.
When I mentioned the agenda, in no way was I talking political by any means. I’m talking about the stuff they beat In to the kids heads over and over that in no which way will ever be used or help in life. Where there is so much that could be taught that would actually help a person out in life.
I should have said curriculum and not agenda
When I mentioned the agenda, in no way was I talking political by any means. I’m talking about the stuff they beat In to the kids heads over and over that in no which way will ever be used or help in life. Where there is so much that could be taught that would actually help a person out in life.
I should have said curriculum and not agenda
Such as? I don’t necessarily disagree as there are way too many kids who would be far better off being out on a job site learning practical skills rather than sitting in freshman algebra and doing nothing…but then you also run into the issue if you do that you’ve ‘given up’ on kids if they decide later they don’t want to do trade labor. Elementary-wise, not sure what needs changing other than not letting kids get away with acting like animals, I’m too far removed from that realm to know.
I don’t mean to quit teaching them knowledgeable stuff and teach them labor. I’m talking about the endless homework my kids bring home and get quizzed on that none of us will ever retain or use in any future job. I’d say 35 to 50 percent of what they bring home is exactly that. Especially when your teaching kids. They are sponges, don’t burn the brain space with old pointless lessons when there can be so much more they could learn. And retain.
Although I have no children, I do have 3 friends that quit teaching in the middle of their career. Main reason was that the kids (that 5-10%) are impossible to deal with and they get no support. 2. In today’s market they can make a lot more money in the private sector. 3. Dealing with the parents or school board can be frustrating. Closing down our schools made it even worse as the Minneapolis tribune just had an article of the drop in education levels here in Minnesota, once the state with excellent schools. I was fascinated by the Minneapolis school board, allowing high tenured white teachers to be laid off instead of minority teacher, if the balance wasn’t there. I stopped fretting about it when I realized, the way it’s going, they will never have enough teachers to fill the positions so the chances of that happening are nil. Good luck to all you parents and grandparents as guys like me think they have the answer but we are beyond turning the clock back 50 years.
On the other hand my old high school, Eleva-Strum in west central Wisconsin has a pretty interesting idea going as it has garnered national fame. https://www.cardinalmanufacturing.org/about-us/our-story
Teaching……I could give you an earful, not on a public forum.
That said, it can be a lot of fun, wonderful to work with kids.
Most public service jobs are not drawing new practioners anymore. EMS, LE, FD. Folks want to make more money than these professions make. I have been a Paramedic for 30 years. My Friends who do other things for a job are retiring. I am not even close to being able to do this. Illinois Teachers Union retirement was the best deal going for years, and they have changed this. They really had a great racket going for a couple decades anyways. Not any more. Lots of other stressors on Educators today, political, etc… Our Country is doomed.
I don’t mean to quit teaching them knowledgeable stuff and teach them labor. I’m talking about the endless homework my kids bring home and get quizzed on that none of us will ever retain or use in any future job. I’d say 35 to 50 percent of what they bring home is exactly that. Especially when your teaching kids. They are sponges, don’t burn the brain space with old pointless lessons when there can be so much more they could learn. And retain.
Not everybody is built to do cement work and not be able to walk when they are 55. Broad brush sure, like yours. I have also seen it. We still need doctors,lawyers, engineers, accountants, teachers, biologist, chemist, etc etc…Different strokes for different folks. If you have figured out a way to specialize a child when they are not even a teenager then I’m sure there would be schools who are all ears.
Modern education aims to prepare students to 1. Do well on tests and 2. Go to college so they can do well on tests. An analogy I’ve heard regarding this is that it is like filling up a bucket with holes on the bottom, running as fast as you can to another bucket on the other side of the room and trying to fill it with whatever water is remaining in the first bucket. We have been trained to only memorize enough information that will help us pass a test. After the test the information is gone and we don’t learn any critical thinking skills or develop any creativity.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
I don’t mean to quit teaching them knowledgeable stuff and teach them labor. I’m talking about the endless homework my kids bring home and get quizzed on that none of us will ever retain or use in any future job. I’d say 35 to 50 percent of what they bring home is exactly that. Especially when your teaching kids. They are sponges, don’t burn the brain space with old pointless lessons when there can be so much more they could learn. And retain.Not everybody is built to do cement work and not be able to walk when they are 55. Broad brush sure, like yours. I have also seen it. We still need doctors,lawyers, engineers, accountants, teachers, biologist, chemist, etc etc…Different strokes for different folks. If you have figured out a way to specialize a child when they are not even a teenager then I’m sure there would be schools who are all ears.
That has nothing to do with what I had said. If it matters my brothers been a doctor for 13 years and agrees. Just because I do concrete doesn’t mean I’m just a worker bee, half of what I do is all about the math I learned in school.
Modern education aims to prepare students to 1. Do well on tests and 2. Go to college so they can do well on tests. An analogy I’ve heard regarding this is that it is like filling up a bucket with holes on the bottom, running as fast as you can to another bucket and filling it with whatever water is remaining in the first bucket. We have been trained to only memorize enough information that will help us pass a test. After the test the information is gone and we don’t learn any critical thinking skills or develop any creativity.
And once they graduate high-school and go to college the years of pointless lessons they once learned for half the youth is never used again. They passed a test and were pushed on because they retained the info for a short period of time.
There is so much that can be taught that isn’t and so much that is taught that could be bypassed. That’s public schooling, has been and always will be.
Teachers are quitting en masse or extremely dissatisfied and here’s the biggest change, a complete lack of discipline in schools and a lack of respect from both students and parents. A few idiot kids ruin it for the teachers and the kids who really want to learn. I know several teachers who felt physically threatened at schools in the metro suburbs. Kids wander the halls all day every day. No one can make them go back to class. If they are a minority discipline is almost non-existent. Yes the parents may be to blame, but what to do in the meantime?
Here’s a novel idea, how about we get back to teaching reading/writing/math and stop the indoctrination of our next generation … Hey, I can dream, or so I was told
Step one, fire every single superintendent, and hire one more concerned with teaching the above basics needed to be an adult and stop all the social engineering from the left-wing zealots …
Step 2, kick EVERY single politician out of office who is an incumbent and put ones in that will pass laws that you cannot be in the office more than twice or run for another office while in office. This needs to be done at every single level and government. And don’t fall for their line that they are ” too important” those are the ones that need to get a real job the most
Paulski
Here’s a novel idea, how about we get back to teaching reading/writing/math and stop the indoctrination of our next generation … Hey, I can dream, or so I was told
Step one, fire every single superintendent, and hire one more concerned with teaching the above basics needed to be an adult and stop all the social engineering from the left-wing zealots …
Step 2, kick EVERY single politician out of office who is an incumbent and put ones in that will pass laws that you cannot be in the office more than twice or run for another office while in office. This needs to be done at every single level and government. And don’t fall for their line that they are ” too important” those are the ones that need to get a real job the most
Paulski
I’ve had struggles getting kids I work with to wear deodorant, bring a pencil to class, remembering relatively simple plays, etc. If I was capable of indoctrinating a kid, I’d probably start with those things much less changing political ideologies. Good fear mongering reach though!
I’ve worked in schools and own firearms, went on hunting trips with the superintendent, own land and have farmed, and am more conservative than not. There are people working with kids who are just like many of us on these forums…but people won’t participate in their local schools to see it. They’d rather form opinions from media outlets pleading for viewers while bi***ing that the sky is falling
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Greenhorn wrote:</div>
Modern education aims to prepare students to 1. Do well on tests and 2. Go to college so they can do well on tests. An analogy I’ve heard regarding this is that it is like filling up a bucket with holes on the bottom, running as fast as you can to another bucket and filling it with whatever water is remaining in the first bucket. We have been trained to only memorize enough information that will help us pass a test. After the test the information is gone and we don’t learn any critical thinking skills or develop any creativity.And once they graduate high-school and go to college the years of pointless lessons they once learned for half the youth is never used again. They passed a test and were pushed on because they retained the info for a short period of time.
There is so much that can be taught that isn’t and so much that is taught that could be bypassed. That’s public schooling, has been and always will be.
100% agree with greenhorn and bearcat!
I can still recite a lot of useless facts and formulas I learned in elementary and middle school, despite having not needed them once… lol.
Is teaching a dying profession, no all jobs are a dying profession. I work in the trades and all sectors are hurting for workers! Fishing with a friend the other day who is a teacher 47, and he said he was hoping to retire when he was 55. As a teacher the biggest advantage is health care. In the private sector health care is a big expense. If you teach because of the money your teaching for the wrong reason. IMO throwing money at a problem is only a bandaid.
I’m an AD, have been a Dean of Students in charge of attendance/discipline (not on an administrator contract) and often teach a higher level class or two a year to fill gaps. I stepped down from coaching football after 9 years due to my family needing more from me with the intention of jumping back in down the road.
My perspectives are just that…my perspectives.
Teacher pay outside the metro is an issue. I know for a fact our district starts at $46k. The top earners with Masters Degrees and 30 years + coaching, advising, etc are probably in the high 70k’s. Out of our regional grouping of 32 nearest schools, we are slightly above the average. This isn’t a poverty stricken wage, but it does limit housing opportunities substantially and pinches people with the cost of college. People simply don’t want to pay ~80k+ and spend 4 years of their lives in college to come out making $45k a year while their buddy who majored in marketing, construction tech, business, nursing, etc makes $70k without a struggle. I don’t blame them and I don’t see a teacher shortage going away at all.
As far as the kids go…Kids today are the same as they were 10,20,50 years ago. What is different is what they’re exposed to, have access to, how they’re controlled/managed by parents, and the homes they are coming from. 56% of students in MN public schools come from split families in 2022. Social media has a stranglehold on the masses, parents included. Instant gratification is a cancer to society with very few cures. It makes teaching kids tougher than ever as it makes parents more distracted and disconnected from their kids than ever. I hate when people blame kids for how they are. Little Johnny didn’t come out of the womb as an a**hole or lazy, his parents let him be that. This country has far more of an adult/parenting problem than it does a problem with its youth.
The political climate has turned people off to teaching. Media has taught people to speak poorly of their public schools and plays on fear of the unknown or something that’s too often fabricated. I’m in probably 25 schools a year and I’ve never seen a litter box. I’ve never been asked about pronoun titles. Media and the political climate has also conditioned people to open their mouths about things they know nothing about and angrily lash out at anything they slightly disagree with. We had a brand new fresh out of college 23 year old math teacher leave the profession this Spring. She was called and verbally assaulted by a parent over her kid missing out on NHS due to an EARNED C- in Math. The parent themselves couldn’t probably reduce a fraction, but annoyed everyone up the chain to the superintendent about getting a grade changed. The teacher left and said someone else can do this for $46k and was probably much happier.
I genuinely enjoy this job. There are parts I don’t always enjoy…but that’s every job. I take classes in the evenings in summer while working ~60 hours a week at the lumberyard and doing my own side jobs with contractors. I could not afford the life my wife, daughters, and I strive to live on education alone. We all know things are crazy expensive. The teacher shortage and some experiences have made me substantially less worried about what parents or administrators think as job security is all but a given. I know nobody is coming through that door with experience to take my spot as does administration. If a parent is out of line I remind them just like I do a student/athlete as often the apple fell directly under the crooked tree. Last year a parent asked why their kid’s participation rubric for an elective college level class was an F. I responded calmly telling them it was because that’s as low as our current scale goes. I then reminded them it’s posted daily and to not just check on their kid’s academic standing the day before the term ends. That’s like rushing to check your oil after 3 months of a knocking sound in your truck.
I don’t know if I’ll stick with education for the next 30 years as one of my jobs or if I’ll opt for something more lucrative. If I got fired tomorrow I would have a few options to do something else for more pay and less stress. Before people start bashing kids’ schools or teachers, remember that almost every teacher in todays world is in the same boat with more career options than ever. For now, my family and I are content. Working in a school isn’t the nightmare some assume, nor is it a walk in the park. Before passing on the media driven hate and fear-filled rumors, go attend a local board meeting, take in a few different athletic events, eat lunch with your kid and their friends, swing by the IT lab to see the students running the plasma cutter or changing oil, have a conversation with a teacher/liaison officer/para/secretary about their job………and you may be very surprised it’s not anything like the headlines you see.
Bucky – my statement “The job is hard because of the kids the parents and the system and the money is just not enough – the almighty dollar rules.”
My statement was not intended to denigrate the students. They are JUST products of their parents as you have indicated. I agree, they have NOT fundamentally changed- parenting has. Some people should have dogs instead of kids. Leaving schools to be their parents and then complaining the schools are not doing a good job is utter utter BS.
FOR THE ENTIRE GROUP – I have personally witnessed the litter box, gender change daily depending on “his or her” 6 year old mood and dialogue related to what you “will” teach and what you won’t. ALL our schools have some very fine assets but are outnumbered by everyone else who thinks they know better.
And, TO THE GROUP – by the way, the Minneapolis example only sets the stage for retaining folks who are LESS qualified to teach our children. It should ALWAYS be merit, not teacher color, age, gender, political affiliation. Let the BEST do the job. Tenure needs to go. It’s no different that 8 term public officials. IMHO
And once they graduate high-school and go to college the years of pointless lessons they once learned for half the youth is never used again. They passed a test and were pushed on because they retained the info for a short period of time.
There is so much that can be taught that isn’t and so much that is taught that could be bypassed. That’s public schooling, has been and always will be.
Would be curious for you to expand on this – give some examples of what should be added and what should be cut out.
100% agree with greenhorn and bearcat!
I can still recite a lot of useless facts and formulas I learned in elementary and middle school, despite having not needed them once… lol.
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Just because you have not used them it doesn’t mean others have not. Are there things I don’t use sure but many that I do.
School is not just about learning facts and formulas, it is more importantly about learning how to learn. I’d venture that few or none of the participants in the discussion are in professions that remain static, unchanged over time. You need to learn as your work changes or you get left behind.
Dumbest comment ever heard-Who wants to go to college to make 50k a year.
I have two family member that are teachers…both make over 75K a year in public schools. In fact one is spending 6 months in the southern hemisphere as we speak. They will have a sub for him until the 1st of the year then gets his job back.
Who wants to go to college to make 50k a year….absolutely comical.
What’s comical is thinking the $25,000 difference you’re disputing actually means something. It’s like kids arguing over if something costs .99 cents or $1.
The bottom line is the majority of people don’t want to push the B.S. agenda that is forced upon teachers.
I’ve had struggles getting kids I work with to wear deodorant, bring a pencil to class, remembering relatively simple plays, etc. If I was capable of indoctrinating a kid, I’d probably start with those things much less changing political ideologies. Good fear mongering reach though!
I’ve worked in schools and own firearms, went on hunting trips with the superintendent, own land and have farmed, and am more conservative than not. There are people working with kids who are just like many of us on these forums…but people won’t participate in their local schools to see it. They’d rather form opinions from media outlets pleading for viewers while bi***ing that the sky is falling
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My bad, I just had my second daughter finish HS here in the TC, and while I have no clue where you are, I think I can see the indoctrination just based on the weekly e-mails from my school district and the conversations I have with my kids not to mention attending 2 recent graduations. It seems pretty obvious to me, but what do I know, I am obviously just some clueless guy who managed to put myself through college doing 5 summers of concrete work, and then went about raising a family. After watching our local school district for 21 years, (yes, I was involved in both my kid’s educations) no question the worse thing my wife and I did was put our girls through public schools. I wish we had that decision back. The only opinion they want is one that agrees with everything they are doing or at least mine does.
As a side note, good luck finding me watching ANY news, or on even more completely worthless so call social media. I got better things to do with my time, like bitch about the sky falling here instead. Maybe time to reassess if I am really adding to the site anymore, thanks for reminding me it just might be time.
Take Care
Paulski
I taught HS Marketing and Business for 28 years and basically loved it for 27.5 years. At the end I could tell I was burning out and had become one of those “hang in there” teachers. I did not like what I became, but part of it was I let the system drag me down. Most teachers I know LOVE being the in the classroom and teaching what they do, it is all the “extra crap” that burns them out. I basically agree with Bucky that the kids are still pretty much the same as HS kids have always been, but the parents are the ones that finally just got to me. In two days I am retiring AGAIN after being in the business world of advertising since I left teaching. Guess what — there are pretty sucky parts to ALL jobs out there. In all my years in advertising, I never got the satisfaction that I felt from teaching. Also, I did not earn as much money as I did in teaching. With that said, I don’t know if I could have survived in the education world with the system as it is now. I also had a son that had the dream to be a teacher. He finally achieved his “dream job” and lasted 2 years. Again, he loved the actual teaching but it was all the extra stuff that goes along with it that drove him nuts.
I guess to sum it up for me — every job has its perks and downfalls. If teaching was that much of a “skate job” there would not be the shortage that there is.
I believe there are 2 major issues but obviously other issues. and quite frankly those 2 major issues are :
Parents and Budgets.
Parents we don’t really need to spend much time on. There are a portion of the population who think the schools are baby sitters and expect the schools to basically care for their kid 6-4 every day. and then its the tv/devices job the other 6 hours they are awake. this isn’t every parent. and they’ve always existed to an extent, but I believe its grown considerably.
More and more kids today do not respect authority. and even though they may be few compared to the rest, their daily disruption has ripple effects that can throw an entire building off kilter.
Budgets.
I think as schools send to pasture tenured teachers (early retirement offerings are huge here in IL/IA) to bring in younger teachers at 50% the cost, it is clear that the new teachers are not equipped enough to deal with what is coming at them. and they have almost 0 support.
Everything depends on where you are at geographically. it just does. pay, quality of students, etc etc.
social media hasn’t helped either. kids are brazen.
for me: I worked for a company that provided schools a software program that protected students from online content and reported suspicious activity like bullying and suicide and a myriad of other topics.
I worked for this company for 16 years and was in and out of districts meeting with tech directors, principals, and superintendents all over the country.
My daughter’s 11th grade high school teacher sent out an email last week addressed to her asking how she would like to be identified and what her choosen pronoun should be.
Shits getting out of hand with some of these public institutions…
I don’t see why that would be a problem. Seems like a teacher making personal contact and caring about the young people.
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