Do teachers deserve the summer off?

It's a perk that comes with the job.

After putting up with a roomful of brats for 10 months they sure as Hell deserve it.

There ain't no amount of money or perks that could get me to do that.

 

there's a wide spread perception that teaching is an easy occupation...dysfunctional kids add to that dysfunctional uneducated helicopter parents who think they know everything about kids, teaching and education..

imagine having a job as a combined teacher/psychologist/councilor where you need to pamper your clients(kids) while your boss(the education system) is demanding performance and parents think they have a right to criticize because they pay taxes which goes toward salary(which apparently always too much if it's above minimum wage) have a say as well, while they bear no responsibility for their own children's performance , it's always the teachers fault never the child or parents...

 

IMO it all goes wrong when parents get involved, they tend to believe that just because they can make babies that they're experts with children...leave educating kids to the experts, the people designing education systems have Phd's in education what makes the average parent think they know more than a Phd in education?...our public system here works very well mostly because out education system ignores the parents and follows a progressive approach to new educational methods not a status quo that parents are comfortable with...

 

Well Canada isn't the USA, and parents have to show some sort of support in assuring the kids are motivated. Doesn't mean they have to know how to teach, but they must be able to emphasize the importance. Most parents don't know how to show that support because they never got it themselves. It's a generational thing here.

In any case if what you are doing shows results then it is unquestionably working. Slowly the USA is falling further behind, and results or lack of them doesn't seem to be raising the right kind of red flags. To much more unimportant BS to argue about.

 

What is the profit for the students, except a psychologically unmotivating reward 5 to 20 years down the line?

 

Except money to live comfortably on. Unless students are paid, they aren't worth anything. College turns out bitter predatory monsters trying to make up for that lost time any way they can. STUDENT is an anagram of the word STUNTED.

 

The ruling class knew that their drooling-idiot brats like Dumbo Dubya would never become smart, no matter how much money was thrown at their prep schools. So they decided to destroy traditional public education and make everybody else's kids stupid enough not to realize how stupid the expensively educated spoiled brats were, including their Diploma Dumbo class-climbing bootlickers.

 

Then we need to pay for a longer school year.

 

no canada isn't the usa but our college grads are for the most part comparable, so what accounts for the difference? from my perception it appears US parents have much more input(or too much) in how what and how kids are taught...maybe I'm wrong possibly it's inadequate funding for schools?...poorly paid/unmotivated teachers teachers?...I could be wrong on all points but our two similar populations have different outcomes...

 

It's part of the job.

I think it's wrapped up into their compensation, as in it would be higher of they worked summers.

 

teachers get 10 months of pay spread over 12 months.

so no, they dont realy get summers off.

 

It's bureaucrats meddling in the student curriculum, pretending they know what is best when it comes to the shaping of young minds, but from their current track record the majority of these stooges need to find a new line of work.

Not enough money? Mismanagement and waste (political pastime in this nation) of money by the same bureaucrats more likely.

Unfortunately for the children of this nation they have spent the last decade teaching kids how to pass a particular test, and forgotten to teach them a key element in learning, 'how to learn', and 'how to retain what you have learned'.

College is a completely different kind of animal. But depending on the propaganda the government puts out or what you wish to actually believe, approximately 68% of high school graduates will enroll in colleges/universities, and somewhere between 11%-27% (closer to 30% if we are actually being honest since over 7000 students a day drop out of high school on average) will dropout of high school, in some places that number is as high as 50% at the local level. Of those who will attend and graduate college/universities less than 40% will actually find employment in their field of expertise, and according to some statistics only a little over 40% of the students who attend colleges and universities will actually achieve a diploma of any kind in the first place. These are the results of the public education which is also referred to as the dropout mills.

 

Now that I am safely out of grade school and high school I think that school should be year round. All kids have to wear uniforms like these. http://www.scrubpoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/british_schoolboys.jpg

They should also only be fed porridge and crumpets and warm water.

 

Oh sure when it doesn't apply to you go all medieval on their ass.

Uniforms show no real change to educational habits or progress, it is based on one bias study done in an individual school in California of all places.

 

The usual "Blame the Parents" misdirection the ruling class gives you. Do you blame the parents when the school's football team always loses?

Not only is it the teachers' responsibility, not the parents, to teach, but the whole method of education should get the most criticism. People just accept the status quo when they should come up with radical solutions after repeated failures and inexcusable dysfunctionality.

 

The profit for the students is that they get an education, a diploma which most employers require, and have hopefully learned some knowledge and how to think as well as developing an idea of the career paths they may want to take in adulthood.

 

Uh no, they are human beings. You're comparing living people to inanimate objects. That's why your comparison is faulty.

And that's why it's doomed from the start. Education is not something that should ever be bound by supply and demand. Now, I'm okay with targeting financial aid towards fields that are more in need of workers and cutting down on things like philosophy majors, but I'm not okay with treating a school the same way I'd treat a factory. That's asinine.

I know how markets work and that's exactly why schools need to be separate from market forces. All those things do is make companies cut corners and make their products as absolutely cheaply as possible. Education is not something that should ever ever EVER be done on the cheap.

No, it's because state and federal guidelines apply to all. That's how you make standards. I don't want one school saying that learning your ABCs is all you need to graduate just because they have the power to. Perhaps an extreme example, but that's the logic you're peddling here. Education guidelines, like ALL policies, should be reviewed and amended often if the situation calls for it. It has literally nothing to do with believing the government is right by default.

And do you think private charities have the ability to educate the entirety of America's school age children? Who monitors these? How do we know their teachers are even competent? How do we know their students are learning relevant material?

 

As property owners typically fund the public school coffers, from which teachers are paid...through property taxes.
It is well within the rights of said property owners to have a say in the salary and benefits offered to teachers.

We pay for it.

It's akin to getting cable TV and having it not work between June and August.

We're supposed to find that acceptable.

Heck no, they do not deserve to have Summers off, when you also factor in things like Spring and Winter breaks which typically last at minimum a week, and all sorts of State and Federal holidays thrown in for good measure.

If you teach at a public school...

you work for the taxpayer...you are accountable to us.

 

Working without pay and living like 15-year-olds until they are 22 because they are afraid to grow up. If the businesses want somebody who's not a no-talent Mama's Boy, they better pay him a salary to go to college. As it is, college education is a fraud and should not be rewarded.

How dare the Dumb Jock Bully businessmen ask somebody with talent to sacrifice for them? They're nothing but parasites and should not define the choices of people mentally and morally superior to them. If you don't pay people to go to college, you get what you pay for. And grads no longer have to be afraid of growing up. Because of their poor personal choice, they will never grow up.

 

...they don't get paid for the summer months..., they only get paid for the days they work plus holidays just like everybody else who works for the government. Their pay is broken down into 12 month increments, but they don't get paid to not work.

Is this Greek or what?

 

Doesn't exclude them from being considered "products", though.

It would help if you possessed an understanding of the words being used.

Actually, I'm comparing a service (education) to goods (automobiles, computers), and the comparison is totally valid because both services and goods are optimally priced and allocated via free markets.

You make numerous assertions, but you fail to explain or substantiate a single one of them. Just because you personally believe that education should not be allocated on the basis of supply and demand does not mean it wouldn't be a good idea. Fact is, education is a service, like computer repair, for instance, and services are allocated optimally via free markets, so there is no reason to assert that education is an exception to this. I guess you've never heard of private schools before?

What do you mean "cheap"? Is that a euphemism for "affordable"? Just because companies have an incentive to cut costs does not mean they will provide a shoddy service or good. You have zero understanding of the market if you can't grasp these simple facts.

Just because a standard applies to everyone does not mean it is a good standard to have. In fact, imposing one-size-fits-all standards on people tends to crush individuality and diversity. You may personally believe that a given standard is good, but your conception of good is purely subjective and may not be good to others. The market accounts for this inherent diversity and individuality by offering choices, so that people can find what works best for them on voluntary basis in an open marketplace.

Private charities would only need to educate children who could not afford education in the private marketplace, so your question is just a badly disguised strawman. And if you research American history, you will see that this country managed to educate its populace just fine without having to resort to your contemporary centralized model which, by the way, is failing miserably.

 

Why would a company want to pay someone they don't know to go to college and get an education that will allow them to get a job anywhere, if they actually end up making it through college all the way and in the same field the company is paying them to attend for?

 

This is an essential service we're talking about, not a phone company or cable TV. It's an essential service that's necessary for everyone, and is in fact required by law in some form or another(public school, private school, charter school, home schooling) with little to no exception. It's not even like car insurance, because you don't have to have car insurance if you don't drive. It's something that absolutely does not belong being run by people whose ultimate goal is to make a profit. That's not the mentality you want in charge of education. Great for a business, horrible for a school.

Of course I've heard of private schools. I also know a great many people can't actually afford them. They serve small niches in the market of people who have the financial ability to pay for them. Education is not something that should only be available to those who can pay, and especially when what they have to pay is not subject to any controls or regulations. It's also nothing like a computer repair business. Seriously?

You live in a fantasy world. Your idolization of private business is staggering. Businesses cut corners ALL the time, and many times to the detriment of the product. Cutting costs is not inherently bad, but it's entirely dependent on the manner in which they are cut. You seem to think there would be multiple schools for people to choose from. Maybe in larger towns and cities, but not in the smaller ones. They'll have one school IF that. If schools are private ventures, what happens if no one wants to open one in some places? Those places just don't have schools? Parents have to move or drive their children hours to and from? You're not thinking this through.

I never said standards were inherently good. Like all things, it depends on each individual standard we'd be talking about. And hereagain, you talk about choices. Schools aren't a RadioShack or a McDonalds. You're not going to find five of them in each town.

Seriously? American history, when the population was WHAT fraction of what it is now? Don't compare that world to this world, they are not the same. Tell me, what were the education rates back then? Something to be proud of?

You may not like the current system and I'm not trying to say it's performing marvelous but it is light years ahead of what this country had in the past.

 

So you can't even bring yourself to honestly characterize my position? I was using automobiles and computers as examples, not a "phone company" or "cable TV". Both of my examples are absolutely "essential" to the maintenance and perpetuation of modern, civilized society, and both are priced and allocated largely on the basis of supply and demand. And contrary to what you seem to believe, the incentive of car and computer companies to cut costs does not mean they will produce an inferior product that is too costly for the majority of people to afford. If you look at the history of both the automobile and computer markets in the US you will see increasing quality and access and lower prices over time. You are simply wallowing in denial of how well markets have served humanity.

Why is it okay for food companies to profit but not schools?

You say a "great many" and "small". Can you please quantify those in some way?

Why do you think education would only be available to those who can pay in a free market? I guess you've never heard of private charity or home schooling?

Again, you demonstrate your ignorance of how markets work. They are subject to "controls" and "regulations". Things like competition and choice create a strong incentive for profit-seeking entities to provide an affordable, quality product. If there were no "controls" and "regulations" as you suggest, then markets would consistently produce unaffordable goods and services with little to no value to the public. Clearly that is not the case.

It's nothing like a computer repair business? Why do you keep abusing the English language? Clearly it is something like a computer repair business, as both are providing what economists call "services", and insofar as they are both services, both are amenable to being allocated by the free market. The problem here is that you simply have no idea about private market economies. You think you do, but your repeated errors demonstrate that is not the case.

You are living in the stone age. Technology is making it possible for people everywhere to access educational infrastructure from anywhere in the world. Prestigious institutions like Stanford and MIT are competing to offer their lectures and content online absolutely free of charge. Bill Gates and others are financing Salman Khan's Khan Academy which is available for free and is being used by millions of students all over the world. And in case you're worried about Internet access, google is in the process of providing free wifi to everyone on the planet: http://www.google.com/loon/

Any small town almost anywhere in the world could have a high quality education hub for relatively cheap within the coming decades and it will all be because of markets. Your beloved status quo is a Byzantine dinosaur and will be extinct within our lifetime. The best thing we can do for humanity is to accelerate its extinction.

Why wouldn't you? If there is a profit to be had, then firms WILL enter the market. That is basic stuff!

Literacy rates were quite high by the 1800's: The eighteenth century gave us nearly universal literacy...

Not sure what your point about the population is. I realize it was smaller in the past, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't scale up their educational paradigm to today's population.

The current system is a blasted expensive failure. Billions upon billions down the drain with hardly anything to show for it. The only good thing is that private innovation will displace it eventually.

 

During the school day parents get a break from their kids for a few hours meanwhile the teachers have to put up with all those kids at once. I think they deserve the 3 month break the summer brings them.