Public School Teachers - Performance Pay (1 Viewer)

[loquasagacious]

Well the one at CSU is offered in conjunction with a scholarship to encourage people in the industries to come across. It's not a Dip Ed but a Bachelor of Education.

At res last year we had a professional chef doing a bachelor of teaching, because the DET had offered to pay for the degree/costs + allowance, in order to recruit him as a hospitality teacher. So the incentive isn't completely lost, and these degrees can still be done by distance education.

An article from the freakonomics blog by Stepehn Dubner, here made an interesting point that job losses in the finance sector may help reverse the brain-drain that has occured in teaching and see more of the 'best and brightest' graduates and workers working in "technology in general, energy in particular, and alternative energy in super-particular; health care; research science; and, yes, education... [and] government work".

 

[mcflystargirl]

Well some unis have a set of 'key subjects' that you can only fail once, if you fail it twice you get kicked out of the degree.

Either she didn't fail any key subjects, or she only failed them once, but failed a heap. idk.

we should have this with all teaching degrees. then it might get rid of the idiots.

 

[Ben Netanyahu]

a) I can't think of a more stressful graduate job than teaching, where years of study is rewarded by fuckwit children making yr life miserable while you try in vain to encourage the ones with some potential to do well.

b) short working hours, but lesson planning goes on outside of those, as does marking. I tutor: lesson planning for that takes time. five classes per day or whatever isn't anything to be scoffed at. there's a lot of work that goes on outside of class

c) performance based pay is a shit idea. most kids are douchebags who don't want to be at school and the best teacher isn't going to change that. the only ones that could make a difference, imo, would be teachers in the top two classes or something like that. stupid stupid stupid

BUT YES I HATE TEACHERS TOO SO MUCH MONEY FUCK FUCK FUCK DIE TEACHERS DIE COUNTRY BOGAN

srsly wtf

edit

d) there's no reason to drag the best graduates out of jobs in science to put them in public schools where they'll be teaching maybe a handful of kids who both give a crap and will be successes in that field. if there are especially shit teachers in schools (I ran into one in 12 years) then my guess is they'll be given the shit classes, and the decent ones spread around the top.

 

[Riet]

My godmother is the Principal of a boys high school in Sydney's west, she works fucking hard and is really good at it. Compared to other professions she is probably underpaid (tbh I dont know how much principals get). I agree that the majority of mook teachers don't deserve their wage though.

 

[emilyo]

i'm in the catholic system and i once had a pe teacher who couldnt spell alcohol. He was teaching the unit on alcohol. That said i've also had some great teachers, this year most subjects have tutoring sessions in the morning or afternoons that are unpaid. Those teachers just do it because they want us to do well they even organise time to come in during holidays.

 

[loquasagacious]

i'm in the catholic system and i once had a pe teacher who couldnt spell alcohol. He was teaching the unit on alcohol. That said i've also had some great teachers, this year most subjects have tutoring sessions in the morning or afternoons that are unpaid. Those teachers just do it because they want us to do well they even organise time to come in during holidays.

It's not really unpaid. They afterall are being paid a salary not a wage. It is only unpaid in the sense that as a student you are not being directly charged for it - and given you're in the Catholic system it is entirely possible that you are being charged for it through the fee structure.

 

[loquasagacious]

My godmother is the Principal of a boys high school in Sydney's west, she works fucking hard and is really good at it. Compared to other professions she is probably underpaid (tbh I dont know how much principals get). I agree that the majority of mook teachers don't deserve their wage though.

Thanks Iruka for the reference, see Schedule 4: a Grade 1 Principle (PH1) responsible for a highschool with more than 900 students recieves a salary of $135,204 which will increase to $145,675 over the next year and a half.

In terms of public service work, that is relatively well paid and imo probably quite commesurate with the responsibility involved. For comparison purposes that is probably around the lower end of an SES band 1 pay. So roughly equivalent for responsibility for a large area of Federal Government policy, example of this level include: The Federal Safety Commissioner, Newstart policy, Indigenous Employment or a Brigadier/Commodore/Air-Commodore.

https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/media/downloads/employment/awardcon/schoolteach.pdf
http://www.defence.gov.au/DPE/PAC/V2_Ch1_Pt4.htm

 

[Lentern]

KJFIW(^WF(HDFW(TF

Chick I know did interior design, graduated in 02 or something. Effed around for a few years because they couldn't get employment in the field, did a dip ed last year and is now head of 7/8 arts faculty at a school in Canberra. All I hear is 'woe, I have to spend a few nights a term marking exams

You know what, there needs to be incentive to encourage intelligent people, leaders in their field, to contemplate teaching. As far as I'm concerned, the standards of teaching in public schools is poor. A chick I went to school with will take 6 years to do a 4 year education degree because she failed a shitload of subjects, but when she does finish she is going to be responsible for the learning of kids. She doesn't want to be a teacher because she has a passion, it's because it's an easy job with a shitload of perks and I think it's fairly indicative of a lot of teachers.

I think that teaching students should be put through more rigorous testing and like uni lecturers, I think that high school science teachers/maths teachers whatever should be required to submit work once a year or once every few years, a research paper maybe, to ensure they're still up to date with the field.

Both my parents are teachers, they leave before seven and are rarely home before six, they would spend more days of those twelve weeks of holidays at work than they do at home and when they are at home they spend hours on end pouring over a stack of exams or what not. They also about once a week find themselves going back to school to help out with debating or the dance group or what not in which case they are generally not home before ten.

In terms of lacking the qualifications of a lecturer my dad spent a year lecturing at ACU a while ago but prefered working with younger students. The idea that they are not being scrutinised heavilly enough and should be burdened more for the work they do is absurd. When my dad left the catholic mission to start teaching years ago he was earning less in a profession than in a damn charity.

 

[loquasagacious]

Both my parents are teachers, they leave before seven and are rarely home before six, they would spend more days of those twelve weeks of holidays at work than they do at home and when they are at home they spend hours on end pouring over a stack of exams or what not. They also about once a week find themselves going back to school to help out with debating or the dance group or what not in which case they are generally not home before ten.

In terms of lacking the qualifications of a lecturer my dad spent a year lecturing at ACU a while ago but prefered working with younger students. The idea that they are not being scrutinised heavilly enough and should be burdened more for the work they do is absurd. When my dad left the catholic mission to start teaching years ago he was earning less in a profession than in a damn charity.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

No one is arguing that there aren't some teachers who work hard and put in the kind of hours your parents do - but the sad fact is that this would not seem to be the norm.

Unfortunately I am unaware of any studies regarding how much teachers do work on average (and I daresay the federation would resist it) and therefore we must rely on anecdotal evidence, in doing so though we have to be aware of the inherant flaws in it.

However as I mentioned above the balance of the anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate that many teachers do not work what society regards as a full-time (37.5hpw, 48 weeks a year).

Note: your anecdote makes no reference to commuting distance/time.

 

[Lentern]

The plural of anecdote is not data.

No one is arguing that there aren't some teachers who work hard and put in the kind of hours your parents do - but the sad fact is that this would not seem to be the norm.

Unfortunately I am unaware of any studies regarding how much teachers do work on average (and I daresay the federation would resist it) and therefore we must rely on anecdotal evidence, in doing so though we have to be aware of the inherant flaws in it.

However as I mentioned above the balance of the anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate that many teachers do not work what society regards as a full-time (37.5hpw, 48 weeks a year).

Note: your anecdote makes no reference to commuting distance/time.

Everything you said is reasonable but most of the scorn for teachers has also been accompanied by annecdotes.

 

[loquasagacious]

Everything you said is reasonable but most of the scorn for teachers has also been accompanied by annecdotes.

Agreed and as I said, I'm not aware of data on the issue. So flawed as they may be we have to talk in anecdotes - the majority of which indicate that many teachers do not work as hard as your parents and are perhaps not as good at teaching as your parents.

 

[katie tully]

Both my parents are teachers, they leave before seven and are rarely home before six, they would spend more days of those twelve weeks of holidays at work than they do at home and when they are at home they spend hours on end pouring over a stack of exams or what not. They also about once a week find themselves going back to school to help out with debating or the dance group or what not in which case they are generally not home before ten.

In terms of lacking the qualifications of a lecturer my dad spent a year lecturing at ACU a while ago but prefered working with younger students. The idea that they are not being scrutinised heavilly enough and should be burdened more for the work they do is absurd. When my dad left the catholic mission to start teaching years ago he was earning less in a profession than in a damn charity.

You've just provided two exceptional examples which are not indicative of the rule of all teachers.

Just because your parents are dedicated teachers, in probably all of our experiences, does not mean all teachers are.

For every 1 good teacher, there are 5 shit teachers.

Just because your dad was a lecturer at ACU for a year doesn't mean all teachers were lecturers at ACU, or that all teachers are suitably qualified beyond a teaching degree. Please Lentern, be reasonable.

 

[Lentern]

You've just provided two exceptional examples which are not indicative of the rule of all teachers.

Just because your parents are dedicated teachers, in probably all of our experiences, does not mean all teachers are.

For every 1 good teacher, there are 5 shit teachers.

Just because your dad was a lecturer at ANU for a year doesn't mean all teachers were lecturers at ANU, or that all teachers are suitably qualified beyond a teaching degree. Please Lentern, be reasonable.

My dad is quite highly qualified, thats probably reflected by the fact that he has a higher position at his school than my mother does but how would my she get recognised for the amount of work she does? Student performance is rubbish which you'd well know.

It would put an extra burden on her to worry about and if you made teachers do a research assignment or something comparable every three years or so many would simply spend less time on their classess during that period. I share units with many of these students you lament and I imagine it would be very similar to how virtually none ofthem seem to have done their readings in the wake of major assignments.

 

[katie tully]

My dad is quite highly qualified, thats probably reflected by the fact that he has a higher position at his school than my mother does but how would my she get recognised for the amount of work she does? Student performance is rubbish which you'd well know.

It would put an extra burden on her to worry about and if you made teachers do a research assignment or something comparable every three years or so many would simply spend less time on their classess during that period. I share units with many of these students you lament and I imagine it would be very similar to how virtually none ofthem seem to have done their readings in the wake of major assignments.

If uni lecturers can research and publish and submit things as well as prepare for classes and mark exams with less holiday time, why can't teachers?

You're a fool Lentern if you seriously believe your parents aren't the exception to the rule. And I see you proposing no alternative to increase the standards of teaching or teachers, except a whole lot of 'blah blah BUT MY PARENTS "

Nobody is disputing that your parents are probably very good. They're also very rare.

And if you saw Kman's post re: performance measuring, you would have seen he proposed a regression analysis method instead of just looking at the marks of the students in a single cohort and determining the teachers worth on that alone.

 

[katie tully]

That's ok, I corrected myself.

 

[katie tully]

Lentern's dad lectured at ACU - Australian Catholic University. Not ANU - australian national university...

Perhaps, something Lentern didn't correct at his convenience...

Yes it's ok, I corrected myself.

It all makes sense.

 

[Lentern]

If uni lecturers can research and publish and submit things as well as prepare for classes and mark exams with less holiday time, why can't teachers?

You're a fool Lentern if you seriously believe your parents aren't the exception to the rule. And I see you proposing no alternative to increase the standards of teaching or teachers, except a whole lot of 'blah blah BUT MY PARENTS "

Nobody is disputing that your parents are probably very good. They're also very rare.

And if you saw Kman's post re: performance measuring, you would have seen he proposed a regression analysis method instead of just looking at the marks of the students in a single cohort and determining the teachers worth on that alone.

Teachers can do all those things I'm not denying that. I'm denying that they will. I don't think there is a teaching crisis in Ausralia. I appreciate not everyone is the same of my parents but the number of competent teachers I had far outweighed the incompetent and the same I think can be said of most of my peers. That is not to say I respected all of them, I remember a maths teacher I had chatting about some idiot on the footy show and how hilarious she had found it but she was more than capable of getting us to master the course content.

If there was a practical way to drive up the standards of teachers I'd support it but I think you make them do research projects and most of the lazy teachers will continue to be lazy and just allocate less time to their classess and marking. And I did read Kman's post, the problem still exists. An unfair amount is still left to chance.

 

[loquasagacious]

With the whole research papers thingo: arn't they there to make it harder for lecturer to just teach and bludge around? So say they arn't producing enough research papers then they could loose their job because there might be another acedemic that is producing more and better quality research papers in that discipline?

How is that going to work in public education? There simply isn't enough competition of teaching jobs for teachers to be concerned about submitting research papers let alone quality ones.

This may well be a good idea for the private education system though.

So the private system can have good teachers but the public system can't?

 

[katie tully]

So the private system can have good teachers but the public system can't?

Libertarians would say yes

They would say that if people want their children to have a good education, they should have to pay for it.

 

[loquasagacious]

Libertarians would say yes

They would say that if people want their children to have a good education, they should have to pay for it.

As taxpayers we are already paying for public schools so until that changes I think we're justified in demanding better service.