I'm glad everyone is watching this. Now prepare for Obama to come in and resolve it. It's gonna be awesome. Most people won't even understand what just happened, but the bounce will be sweet.

Washington Post yesterday:

"One of the remaining sticking points is a new state-mandated teacher evaluation system. The new law calls for student test scores to account for at least 25 percent of a teacher's job performance rating, and Emanuel wants to increase that to 40 percent over several years.

Lewis says the evaluation system unfairly blames teachers for the poor test scores of students who are struggling with poverty, broken homes, violence and other social ills.

"There are too many factors beyond our control which will impact on how some of our students perform on those standardized tests," Lewis said Sunday night. "... Poverty - which no one wants to talk about - exposure to violence ... homelessness, hunger and other social issues beyond our control.

"Evaluate us on what we do, not the lives of our children that we do not control."

Link



CNN yesterday:

The primary disagreement appears to be teacher job security in the wake of a new program that evaluates teachers based on students' standardized test scores. Chicago Teachers Union board member Jay Rehak called the idea "data-driven madness."

As many as 6,000 teachers could lose their jobs under the evaluation system, according to Lewis, who called the system "unacceptable." The mayor's office, the city of Chicago, and school officials have questioned that job loss figure.

"This is no way to measure the effectiveness of an educator," Lewis said Sunday. "Further, there are too many factors beyond our control which impact how well some students perform on standardized tests such as poverty, exposure to violence, homelessness, hunger and other social issues beyond our control."

Link

Nothing suggesting in any way that they will take the step of measuring twice to determine whether a teacher's effort has improved standardized test scores, only "how the students do when tested" (once annually)

Fark_Guy_Rob: Dreamless: Timmy the Tumor: You're over-simplifying.

My wife teaches kindergarten. 7 hour school days (try that with 22 kids under 5). She gets six weeks off during the summer, not three months, she rarely leaves school before 5pm (making them 9-hour days), and averages an hour and a half an evening doing lesson planning, record keeping, and in-service work. Add in fundraiser and parents activities (like open houses, teacher conferences, etc.), mandatory training which occurs during the Summer, and mandatory continuing education to keep her certification, and she's (like all other teachers) making maybe half of that hourly wage you came up with.

Good luck trying to convince them with empirical evidence that you have personally observed. They'll claim that you are inflating things, or that your wife is an outlier, etc.

And I am not saying that there aren't lazy, shiatty teachers out there, just that people conveniently underestimate the time required to be a decent teacher, much less a great one.

It would be pretty easy to link to the school's academic calendar.

I'm not aware of any public schools in the United States that have 6 week summers; but it would be trivial to link to one.


Just because the kids get two months off, doesn't mean the teachers do. Our district goes back to work three weeks before the kids come back, in-service training, classroom set-up, team meetings, mandatory trainings on child welfare and other legal issues, and planning. All part of their regular contract.

Timmy the Tumor: redmid17: Electromax: kvinesknows:

30 hours work per week. 42 weeks per year = 1260 hours of work 52K Salary = $41 per hour. and that is the lowest paid teacher

thats not chump change

I'll leave the thread alone after this since I know you and I will probably never agree, but the 30 hours work per week is a bit misleading if the teacher isn't utterly incompetent, they may have 30 hours with kids in their classroom but grading, extracurriculars, etc tend to pad that out a bit.

I'm a softie though and have the perspective that educators in general ought to be paid well because they're basically raising/babysitting a certain % of the population to prepare for the future. I don't think all teachers are making chump change but I'm not looking for excuses to pay them less. Also have no idea where the data is from but none of the 4 CPS teachers I know are making more than about $46k a year. They're all around my age though (early 20s).

They get compensated for extracurriculars


You're over-simplifying.

My wife teaches kindergarten. 7 hour school days (try that with 22 kids under 5). She gets six weeks off during the summer, not three months, she rarely leaves school before 5pm (making them 9-hour days), and averages an hour and a half an evening doing lesson planning, record keeping, and in-service work. Add in fundraiser and parents activities (like open houses, teacher conferences, etc.), mandatory training which occurs during the Summer, and mandatory continuing education to keep her certification, and she's (like all other teachers) making maybe half of that hourly wage you came up with.

I didn't come up with any hourly wage, which is easily noted by the lack of my name in the quoted text. I just said that CPS teachers get compensated for extracurriculars.

liam76: Timmy the Tumor: Nothing suggesting in any way that they will take the step of measuring twice to determine whether a teacher's effort has improved standardized test scores, only "how the students do when tested"

As I said above they don't need to measure it twice.

Teachers who don't improve their students' test scores would be fired.


How do you suppose they will measure that?

The best option would be, give them a standardized test in the beginning of the school year, and again towards the end, evaluate each individual student's year-to-year performance, and if there isn't improvement, then investigate individual teacher effectiveness. (I'd bet the analysis is classroom average, not student by student)

But if they only test once a school year, there are a ton of factors that can influence whether young Skippy does better on the grade 8 standardized test than he did on the grade 7 standardized test.

Standardized testing is ENORMOUSLY expensive, I sincerely doubt that Chicago is a groundbreaker and pre- and post-tests their 30,000+ kids each year instead of testing once annually.

I'm all for standardized test scores being included in an overall effectiveness review...as in, "ok, last year your average classroom score was 78, this year it's 67, what's going on here?" But only as a SMALL part of the overall--it should be up to the administrator to then investigate things like "were there changes in the student population? Did the teacher have a higher number of behavior/learning disability kids? Did the teacher last year give up and stop teaching after the standardized tests? Did individual kids have issues like a divorce in the family, insufficient nutrition, etc? Did the school implement new programs this year that could cause a temporary drop in standardized scores--or is the school only teaching to the tests?"

I'd much rather have a structure that allows for anomalies and deeper investigation of changes in average test scores, with peer review and quarterly classroom evaluations than "we're going to keep increasing how much influence overall test scores have on your evaluation."

Dreamless: redmid17: I didn't come up with any hourly wage, which is easily noted by the lack of my name in the quoted text. I just said that CPS teachers get compensated for extracurriculars.

And I said that we often don't.

The entire list is Link

Seems pretty comprehensive for me

redmid17: I didn't come up with any hourly wage, which is easily noted by the lack of my name in the quoted text. I just said that CPS teachers get compensated for extracurriculars.

Corrected.

But they don't get compensated above and beyond regular salary for hours spent outside of the classroom on planning, recordkeeping, etc.

liam76: Timmy the Tumor: How do you suppose they will measure that?

It was in the post right above.

You don't need to measure it twice a year, just compare it to the previous year.

If you want to determine the effectiveness of the teacher, unless you can eliminate all other variables (new textbook? Different school district mapping? Different tests?), not so simple.



Timmy the Tumor: I'm all for standardized test scores being included in an overall effectiveness review...as in, "ok, last year your average classroom score was 78, this year it's 67, what's going on here?" But only as a SMALL part of the overall--


If their primary job is teach reading, writing and math, their primary rating shocul come from how well they do that. The only way to rate that si through exams. It isn't perfect but it is better than anything we got.

it should be up to the administrator to then investigate things like "were there changes in the student population? Did the teacher have a higher number of behavior/learning disability kids? Did the teacher last year give up and stop teaching after the standardized tests? Did individual kids have issues like a divorce in the family, insufficient nutrition, etc? Did the school implement new programs this year that could cause a temporary drop in standardized scores--or is the school only teaching to the tests?"

All of this is easily normalized by comparing teachers to other teachers with similiar incoming scores.


Do you do that within the same school? The same geographic area? Overall? That's why I make my point about improvement while that teacher has direct influence--comparing year-to-year scores in an affluent area to one of abject poverty doesn't work, and the composition of two classes in the same school could be dramatically different (as an example, my wife had zero learning disability or behavior disability kids last year, has FIVE this year, should she be held to a simple comparison of classroom average scores even though this year's class is likely to be lower performers?)


Timmy the Tumor: I'd much rather have a structure that allows for anomalies and deeper investigation of changes in average test scores, with peer review and quarterly classroom evaluations than "we're going to keep increasing how much influence overall test scores have on your evaluation

We already have a structure where administrators get to evaluate teachers in the classroom, and despite grades to the contrary almost all teachers are rated as awesome.



I don't know how it works in Chicago, but in the five school districts my wife has worked in (three in Chicago suburbs), that's absolutely not true.

Dreamless: redmid17: Dreamless: redmid17: I didn't come up with any hourly wage, which is easily noted by the lack of my name in the quoted text. I just said that CPS teachers get compensated for extracurriculars.

And I said that we often don't.

The entire list is Link

Seems pretty comprehensive for me

Funny, I didn't see Math Team on there. Nor did I see Science Olympiad, Academic Decathlon. etc. There was a spot for "other activities," but I am telling you that, in practice, compensation is not always given. Although I think that technically we might get something for math team, but it's a couple hundred bucks split among five people for the entire school year, certainly nothing like you see on that schedule.

That's an issue to take up with your union leadership. There's a reason why sports are emphasized more than Math Club. Either way, that's a volunteer role, so I have little sympathy in regards to extracurricular payment. I don't get paid extra for maintaining a lab dev environment for my current company. It's useful for my current position, so it's worth my time and effort.

cmb53208: boogie_down: bacongood: boogie_down: bacongood: t is not really about money - they are really close on it (and it should be noted that the previous promised raises were cancelled and that a federal arbitrator said the teachers should get a 20% rasie immediately, not over 4 years; so the 16% over 4 years is a huge comprimise).

"The average teacher salary is $71,236 in the Chicago Public School district" Link

And that goes against what fact that I stated?

None. But the average national salary in the U.S. is just north of $41k
Even taking into account the higher cost of living in Chicago these are very well compensated PUBLIC employees.

Get the fark back to work and negotiate in good faith. shiat like this is what gives unions a bad name.

$41,000 is NOT a great salary in Chicago: a teeny studio in a neighborhood that's not a shhoting gallery will run you about $600. And if you're lucky you'll have a view of an actual street and not an alley. Parking? Don't make me laugh, that can run $300+ per month. And don't forget the tickets you'll get from Rahm's Revenuers on top of that.

CPS teachers don't come close to living the good life, not even closr.

You would be right. 41K is not a good salary in Chicago. That's why he said they get paid more than that.

liam76: That was a bit of hyperbole on my part, but does your wife know any teachers who were fired for being bad teachers?

From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, she mentioned two that didn't get consideration for other positions, and three that (because of lack of funding and enrollment changes) that were released, all five of whom had done poorly on evaluations.

"Tenure" doesn't exist here as it does in some places.

bacongood: They are not striking over pay.

If you say salary, I might agree. They are suing over their compensation package.

bacongood: hey are striking mainly over the evaluation procedures, handling of displaced teachers, and classroom conditions.

However, because the law says they can only sttrike over pay/benefits, they have to keep those in play.

They are mainly striking over possible increases in their contribution to their health care (above the current 3 or 7%, can't remember which), and the percentage the district contributes to their retirement (also ungodly, but can't remember exactly, 70+%).

While they fear actual empirical evaluation, they doubt it will ever happen, and love their money more.

Nickleback are the poet laureates of our time!

/i would like my nickel back

liam76: Timmy the Tumor: liam76: That was a bit of hyperbole on my part, but does your wife know any teachers who were fired for being bad teachers?

From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, she mentioned two that didn't get consideration for other positions, and three that (because of lack of funding and enrollment changes) that were released, all five of whom had done poorly on evaluations.

"Tenure" doesn't exist here as it does in some places.

I wonder if you know how long they worked there. Evenin places without "tenure" teachers who have been there longer get preference over teachers who are rated higher.

Fifteen years for one of the ones passed over for a different position, one year for one of those let go, FIVE years for another

Dreamless: redmid17: That's an issue to take up with your union leadership. There's a reason why sports are emphasized more than Math Club. Either way, that's a volunteer role, so I have little sympathy in regards to extracurricular payment. I don't get paid extra for maintaining a lab dev environment for my current company. It's useful for my current position, so it's worth my time and effort.

You miss my point. I am not complaining, as I derive great utility from the extracurriculars that I do. You simply made a claim, that teachers get paid for extracurriculars, and I refuted it. I do not want your sympathy.

Teachers do get paid for extracurriculars. You didn't refute it. There's an allowance for clubs within your salary schedule. If you are not getting compensated for running a club, then the fault lies with CPS not paying out based on contractual obligations.

Dreamless: redmid17: Dreamless: redmid17: That's an issue to take up with your union leadership. There's a reason why sports are emphasized more than Math Club. Either way, that's a volunteer role, so I have little sympathy in regards to extracurricular payment. I don't get paid extra for maintaining a lab dev environment for my current company. It's useful for my current position, so it's worth my time and effort.

You miss my point. I am not complaining, as I derive great utility from the extracurriculars that I do. You simply made a claim, that teachers get paid for extracurriculars, and I refuted it. I do not want your sympathy.

Teachers do get paid for extracurriculars. You didn't refute it. There's an allowance for clubs within your salary schedule. If you are not getting compensated for running a club, then the fault lies with CPS not paying out based on contractual obligations.

Ah, so then you are the naive type who thinks that just because something is in a contract, it is enforced. You do realize that CPS didn't pay the last contractual raise? Perhaps I should seek remediation for my particular lack of monetary compensation. Maybe a protest in which I refuse to work?

Yes a strike for not meeting contractual demands would be appropriate. I don't believe I said otherwise anywhere in the thread.

kosherkow: Explain to me these "extracurriculars" teachers are paid for?

my wife is a teacher at a fairly decent school and receives a stipend of $200/year which roughly works out to $1 per student per month. so materials needed (not just to do the bare minimum but actually give a quality education) end up coming out of our own pockets.

she gets in at 730am and leaves at 630 pm, then grades and preps for the next day, oh then does stuff on the weekends to ensure kids are receiving the most because she went into this for the kids. i think i worked out her salary to be about $18/hour for the amount she works.

shes being fast tracked to being tenured, but at this point she is on the verge of quitting because our society put teachers at the bottom echelons, not at the top where they deserve to be.

seems most forget that this is an investment in our future and if we do not have an educated populace, we will not advance as a society.

/rant

Extracurriculars = things not directly related to teaching (sports, clubs, marching band)

Your self-described rant is pretty much about base compensation and allowances for teaching-related material. The activities and related pay I am describing lay outside the normal school curriculum (ie extracurricular).