OT Starkville Schools - Lack of class space

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Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead

Do teachers year 1? After a few years, they get into their groove, but straight out of school its not like they are all good at teaching young people. I mean this is high school, not K-6 or something.

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No one is good teaching year 1. But those that come out of degree programs have at least been exposed to the things I mentioned and statistically stay in the profession at a higher % than those that come in on emergency certifications. But everyone should have some classwork in things like classroom management, special education law (trust me you don't want to walk into a classroom without this unless you want to risk losing everything you own) and a myriad of other things.

My mentee last year had a degree in the field he taught in and zero background in education. No classes or anything. Kids ran rough shot over him (upper level high school science). The kids that wanted to learn did. The ones who sort of did or didn't never learned anything. Anyone can teach the kids that want to learn. You get schooling in education to learn how to manage the ones that don't.

It's freaking hard to teach. I encourage anyone on here to take a few days per year and visit your child's school and stay all day. Try for multiple days in a row if you can to get some continuity day to day. Don't go in your kids classroom all day either. Move around to different subjects and levels. There's a reason they make degrees for this stuff. Most everyone thinks they can teach until that classroom door closes and no one runs in to save you every time you have a kid that doesn't feel like doing anything. Welcome to every teacher every class every day.

50% of the teaching field is leaving between years 0-5. 50%. Tons of people are entering the field thinking they can do it, either straight out of college or second career, and they simply can't handle the demands of the classroom. I'm going on year 7 and I'm there to stay. But the demands, especially at the high school level are insane. K-6 is easy because they are lacking one big component. Athletics. That changes the game completely.

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Originally Posted by dawgs

We got non-teachers telling teachers what kinda understanding they need to be effective teachers instead of actually listening to teachers who understand what it takes to succeed as a teacher but are hamstrung by the decisions of non-teachers and badmouthed by non-teachers who think they know better anyway despite having no teaching experience.

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Preach

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Originally Posted by MetEdDawg

No one is good teaching year 1. But those that come out of degree programs have at least been exposed to the things I mentioned and statistically stay in the profession at a higher % than those that come in on emergency certifications. But everyone should have some classwork in things like classroom management, special education law (trust me you don't want to walk into a classroom without this unless you want to risk losing everything you own) and a myriad of other things.

My mentee last year had a degree in the field he taught in and zero background in education. No classes or anything. Kids ran rough shot over him (upper level high school science). The kids that wanted to learn did. The ones who sort of did or didn't never learned anything. Anyone can teach the kids that want to learn. You get schooling in education to learn how to manage the ones that don't.

It's freaking hard to teach. I encourage anyone on here to take a few days per year and visit your child's school and stay all day. Try for multiple days in a row if you can to get some continuity day to day. Don't go in your kids classroom all day either. Move around to different subjects and levels. There's a reason they make degrees for this stuff. Most everyone thinks they can teach until that classroom door closes and no one runs in to save you every time you have a kid that doesn't feel like doing anything. Welcome to every teacher every class every day.

50% of the teaching field is leaving between years 0-5. 50%. Tons of people are entering the field thinking they can do it, either straight out of college or second career, and they simply can't handle the demands of the classroom. I'm going on year 7 and I'm there to stay. But the demands, especially at the high school level are insane. K-6 is easy because they are lacking one big component. Athletics. That changes the game completely.

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Good comments. But surely they can do an online class. My school, way back in 2001 had Calculus class online. How come they do not have this option? Seems pretty damn easy and inexpensive.

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Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead

Good comments. But surely they can do an online class. My school, way back in 2001 had Calculus class online. How come they do not have this option? Seems pretty damn easy and inexpensive.

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Now this I would agree with. However, if they had a teacher decide to quit or leave a couple weeks before school starts that puts them in a massive bind. You can't just switch everything over to online and it happen instantly. Like I said, the state department has to sign off on online class offerings and you have to have someone available to proctor the class still.

If they knew months ago this might be an issue they would have had time to apply for something like that. If the person quit within the last week or so that was supposed to teach it, again that's a major issue to find someone that late in the game. I don't know their specific situation, but according to the board minutes (which are easily found online for those interested in how your school hires and fired), a math teacher at the high school retired effective end of June at the high school. Might have put them in a bind where they didn't have another candidate to pull from their pool of interviewees.

I agree that there should be someone they could go to to get it fixed or change the status of that class back to active with something online. That's a state mandated class in Alabama so it's pretty important kids get that.

I got an emergency certificate to teach about 10 years ago. I lasted half a semester in the classroom before I quit. I went on to another profession that was much better for me, but teaching was extremely difficult. I would work on all my off days too. I got punched by a kid, called all sorts of names, had zero support from administration. I had an MA in a subject area and didn't have a lot of direction on what to do with it. I thought teaching might be the answer. I have never been so lost and miserable as that half semester.

I applaud anyone that can teach in the public school system. I actually did have teaching experience as an adjunct at a community college before teaching in the public schools, so I wasn't completely green. But teaching at a community college and in the public schools is a night and day difference.

As a product of Starkville High, I must say that I'm impressed in the direction that it is headed. The school was an absolute joke when I was there. We had semester long book projects that I wouldn't do and still waltz out with an A. Having an old classmate of mine who teaches there now, their take is that the school is still underfunded. All of the political focus is currently on the individual teacher's pay instead of providing resources for the schools.

I would also be in favor of fresh State grads having an opportunity to teach at Starkville School District in their first few years out, and in return, they are able to receive payback on some of their student loans. Not many young professionals want to stay and hang around Starkville after graduation. This might be able to help switch that trend up.

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Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead

Alright, so how is it that they do not have enough teachers to teach Algebra II at Starkville High School this year? How does that happen? There are kids that will have to sit out of math classes for a semester.

Wow. Surely in a university town they can find someone to teach Algebra II right?

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Just a guess, but the Governor?s attempts to incentivize people to stay and teach was probably too little too late. This issue is the real black eye of Mississippi and will remain one.

Teachers, police, firemen. We need to pay them like we expect them to be the best.

Sorry for the rant. I was raised by a long line of Mississippi educators.

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Originally Posted by dawgs

We got non-teachers telling teachers what kinda understanding they need to be effective teachers instead of actually listening to teachers who understand what it takes to succeed as a teacher but are hamstrung by the decisions of non-teachers and badmouthed by non-teachers who think they know better anyway despite having no teaching experience.

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Well stated. I would be willing to teach at SHS myself, but my mom, a retired SHS teacher showed me it isn?t about a love of subject matter. It?s about a love of watching kids learn. I?d need training.

Also, what is most frustrating is the national issue of school violence. Ever since Jonesboro, Paducah, Pearl and Columbine, schools have become fortresses and it has put a strain on teachers and the incentive to become one.

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Originally Posted by MetEdDawg

Now this I would agree with. However, if they had a teacher decide to quit or leave a couple weeks before school starts that puts them in a massive bind. You can't just switch everything over to online and it happen instantly. Like I said, the state department has to sign off on online class offerings and you have to have someone available to proctor the class still.

If they knew months ago this might be an issue they would have had time to apply for something like that. If the person quit within the last week or so that was supposed to teach it, again that's a major issue to find someone that late in the game. I don't know their specific situation, but according to the board minutes (which are easily found online for those interested in how your school hires and fired), a math teacher at the high school retired effective end of June at the high school. Might have put them in a bind where they didn't have another candidate to pull from their pool of interviewees.

I agree that there should be someone they could go to to get it fixed or change the status of that class back to active with something online. That's a state mandated class in Alabama so it's pretty important kids get that.

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I wouldn't doubt that they had someone lined up and that person bailed for better paying position. We just had a local high school band director bail for more money - the week before band camp started. Stuff happens.

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Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead

Alright, so how is it that they do not have enough teachers to teach Algebra II at Starkville High School this year? How does that happen? There are kids that will have to sit out of math classes for a semester.

Wow. Surely in a university town they can find someone to teach Algebra II right?

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A long time ago I was a rising junior in HS and signed up for Senior Math (I was a year ahead due to taking Algebra I in 8th grade in NY), but Cleveland High School didn't have enough students to sign up for Senior Math and they cancelled it. So they arranged for me to take College Algebra and then College Trigonometry at the local university (Delta State). Then Calculus I at DSU for my first semester of my HS senior year. That all worked out really well--I got both HS credit for graduation and regular college credit.

Don't know if Algebra II is a HS junior or senior course, but there may be some equivalent at MSU.

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Originally Posted by gravedigger

Just a guess, but the Governor?s attempts to incentivize people to stay and teach was probably too little too late. This issue is the real black eye of Mississippi and will remain one.

Teachers, police, firemen. We need to pay them like we expect them to be the best.

Sorry for the rant. I was raised by a long line of Mississippi educators.

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At least for teachers, that is probably politically going to be impossible. It would probably involve lowering pay for starting teachers and might even involve lowering the median pay for teachers. You are going to have people fighting tooth and nail to keep everybody on the same pay scale and you'll also have people fighting over how to identify high performers and/or who gets to do so. And then assuming you end up with local control over allocating performance pay, a lot of the worst school districts will probably allocate pay based off politics and favoritism rather than performance, so it will always be under political attack.

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Originally Posted by SailingDawg

Well stated.

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If it were only true, of course.

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Originally Posted by Johnson85

At least for teachers, that is probably politically going to be impossible. It would probably involve lowering pay for starting teachers and might even involve lowering the median pay for teachers. You are going to have people fighting tooth and nail to keep everybody on the same pay scale and you'll also have people fighting over how to identify high performers and/or who gets to do so. And then assuming you end up with local control over allocating performance pay, a lot of the worst school districts will probably allocate pay based off politics and favoritism rather than performance, so it will always be under political attack.

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He is not talking about performance pay. He is saying that those 3 fields (police, fire and teachers) are 3 of the most important in our country and we generally pay them the worst. That pay is one of the drivers of having poorly performing teachers and corrupt officers. And yet, we expect them to save our lives and raise our kids while also being highly trained experts. If we want our teachers and first-responders to be of as high quality as we say, then it is all about the money.

Performance pay in education is a terrible idea . The best teachers I have ever known are the ones in under-performing schools. They can make huge gains educationally with kids that never touch the arbitrary metrics used for performance pay and never be rewarded. Meanwhile, you could have a terrible teacher lucky enough to be teaching high performing kids get rewarded for doing squat.

It all comes down to this - you get what you pay for.

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

He is not talking about performance pay. He is saying that those 3 fields (police, fire and teachers) are 3 of the most important in our country and we generally pay them the worst. That pay is one of the drivers of having poorly performing teachers and corrupt officers. And yet, we expect them to save our lives and raise our kids while also being highly trained experts. If we want our teachers and first-responders to be of as high quality as we say, then it is all about the money.

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This is just false with respect to teachers. Mississippi is not known for paying teachers great, and a starting teacher with a four year degree makes roughly 85% of the median household income for the state, assuming they get no supplement from their district. Two married teachers starting out with the minimal levels of qualification would be at the 72nd percentile for household income for the state. There are lots of people with 4 year degrees that don't start out at that level and don't get scheduled raises. Sure, a lot of people end up making much more with just a 4 year degree, but a lot of people never catch up to teachers while working longer hours.

If you don't want to allow teachers to be paid different levels for different qualities of teaching, and you also don't want to make it much harder to become a teacher, there's not much of a chance that you're going to be able to move the needle much on teacher pay.

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

Performance pay in education is a terrible idea . The best teachers I have ever known are the ones in under-performing schools. They can make huge gains educationally with kids that never touch the arbitrary metrics used for performance pay and never be rewarded. Meanwhile, you could have a terrible teacher lucky enough to be teaching high performing kids get rewarded for doing squat.

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You are assuming paying for good teachers requires tying performance pay to arbitrary metrics (I'm assuming you are thinking standardized test results here), and that's just not the case. There was a small group of particularly good teachers in my high school that probably made 20-25% more than the average teacher there. They didn't get their pay based on any metrics other than the principle and/or headmaster was convinced they were good teachers.

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

It all comes down to this - you get what you pay for.

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It's not just what you pay, it's how you pay. Just looking at the financial aspects, our teacher pay is structured to attract people who value (1) the certainty of a decently high minimum pay over the potential of much higher pay or lower pay, (2) job security, (3) higher starting pay versus higher eventual ceiling, (4) more time off from work, etc. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it does mean that people that want the potential to make really good money as opposed to the certainty of making pretty decent money are going to be turned off from teaching unless they really feel called to do it.

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Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead

I mean, I was downright floored today when I heard one of my employees sons is having to take a semester off of math. Like, damn people. Collect taxes, hire teachers, etc.. Stop cutting taxes. Money needs to be raised, administrators need to be minimized, teachers need to be hired, and kids need to be learning at a faster rate.

This kid has never made a B in his life, and he is limited by some inability to hire someone to teach a class as easy as Algebra II? I mean with a small brush up course, I am sure almost this entire message board could come in and teach it.

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Thanks for key word, "almost".

How do you judge which teachers are higher quality? A teacher with worse students won't have as high of test scores. A teacher teaching social studies might appear to be teaching the students better than a teacher teaching physics because the subject matter is easier for the average student to comprehend the basics. If you based performance on standardized testing, then you have teachers who teach for the test, not teaching for actual understanding. It's just damn near impossible to do a true objective evaluation of each teacher's "quality". It's easy to find some really bad apples, but the vast majority of teachers are in a middle area where any measured results from their teaching is going to be highly dependent on factors outside their control (class sizes, student backgrounds, subject matter, etc).

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Originally Posted by dawgs

How do you judge which teachers are higher quality? A teacher with worse students won't have as high of test scores. A teacher teaching social studies might appear to be teaching the students better than a teacher teaching physics because the subject matter is easier for the average student to comprehend the basics. If you based performance on standardized testing, then you have teachers who teach for the test, not teaching for actual understanding. It's just damn near impossible to do a true objective evaluation of each teacher's "quality". It's easy to find some really bad apples, but the vast majority of teachers are in a middle area where any measured results from their teaching is going to be highly dependent on factors outside their control (class sizes, student backgrounds, subject matter, etc).

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You can make similar arguments for most jobs, yet they still give raises to/promote some people and not others. It would be much easier to get good results if there were more school choice.

Good discussion everyone. Starkville school district is definately moving in the right direction. Light years better than 8-10 years ago. It shocked me someone in high school didn't have a spot in a math class they wanted to take. The governor debate touched on teachers wages. We are behind our neighboring states and I believe the policy should be nearest state starting plus 10%. We have to keep teachers in this state.

Also, school districts need some legislation that allows them to get some teeth back for punishments.

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Originally Posted by dawgs

How do you judge which teachers are higher quality? A teacher with worse students won't have as high of test scores. A teacher teaching social studies might appear to be teaching the students better than a teacher teaching physics because the subject matter is easier for the average student to comprehend the basics. If you based performance on standardized testing, then you have teachers who teach for the test, not teaching for actual understanding. It's just damn near impossible to do a true objective evaluation of each teacher's "quality". It's easy to find some really bad apples, but the vast majority of teachers are in a middle area where any measured results from their teaching is going to be highly dependent on factors outside their control (class sizes, student backgrounds, subject matter, etc).

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Absolutely true. And also factor in that everybody has a different definition of success and failure, some of which are not remotely founded in reality.

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Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead

Good discussion everyone. Starkville school district is definately moving in the right direction. Light years better than 8-10 years ago. It shocked me someone in high school didn't have a spot in a math class they wanted to take. The governor debate touched on teachers wages. We are behind our neighboring states and I believe the policy should be nearest state starting plus 10%. We have to keep teachers in this state.

Also, school districts need some legislation that allows them to get some teeth back for punishments.

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Someone mentioned it earlier, but I'll say this. While one of the biggest teacher unions in AL is very politically driven, they sure as hell look out for teachers. Our medical insurance broke laws passing a premium increase that coincided with a state pay increase. They broke laws meeting to increase the premium. Union beat them down and not only am I getting a refund of the amount, but I'm getting interest on that as well. Biggest teacher union in the state was the plaintiff in that case.

They also have been pushing exceedingly hard for a teacher pay raise. Boom. 4% raise this year. Someone has to fight for teachers in MS and they could take a lot of pointers from AEA here in Alabama.

Legislators have very little vested interest in education unless someone forces them to bring it to the forefront. Until that happens they are just fine with things the way they are. I'm a republican and I'm 100% for my local property taxes to increase to fund education. Think about what $10 per household per month would do if it were all funneled into education. Youngave to willing to sacrifice a little to get better education today. And you have to be willing to hold city leaders to task when they don't allocate funds properly or don't do enough to pay teachers. Each school district sets the amount, not the state.

Too many people don't go to school board meetings and ask questions. Local school boards are plenty capable of increasing salaries to be more attractive. But no one asks why. If you want to know the answers to these questions, go to a school board meeting. They are open to the public and free. Not sure why more community members don't go. After all, they are the ones that make the decisions on how your children get educated and by whom. My ass would be taking a school board to task if they didn't have enough math teachers. I would want to know why.