Take home essay. And don't dare even think of copying. We have ways of knowing.

"According to the teachers I surveyed it is salary, retirement plan, medical benefits and raises"

I wonder what employee of any organization doesn't think about these things. Are teachers not suppossed to be compensated for their work? And are they not supposed to want a good job with a living salary, decent medical, and a retirement plan? Are teachers supposed to teach out of the kindness of their heart?

But if you really knew any teachers, and my guess is that you "surveyed" no one except in your own mind, you would realize that they things they actually talk about and care about are their students. Every teacher I've ever met, and so you know: my sister retired from the public school system, my best friend and college roommate was a dedicated teacher before he died of a heart attack at age 51 (no doubt brought on by the hours he worked - he not only taught children, he took in children - students - that had no place to go because of dangerous living conditions at home) - and so many many more of my friends are teachers. All I hear THEM talk about are things that negatively effect their students or to talk about how proud they are of the accomplishments of those they've taught.

I don't think you have a clue as to what teachers do, how many hours they work, how much of their "school supplies" come out of their own pocket.

I know you'd like your children to taught by dedicated professions for free. It doesn't work that way.

Well I am sure Mr Bill Gates will make sure they all get free sterilization and any other benefits to mankind.

The world needs fewer people as Mr Bill Gates as explained and so he will no doubt make sure class sizes are reduced, thus lightening the workload that teaches have to bear.

All is number.

Why do you write such nonscence.

Slide, for about ten years thanksgiving dinner was with teachers and a few engineers. tales of supplies bought with personal funds, the effects of sugar, violence and unprepared students were taken as normal chit-chat. my grade school teachers, old world Germans, were waiting to retire away from the extra-educational pressures they saw. If it helps, similar comments followed all the way through newly minted phd college proffs observing a generational grade/knowledge shift in student focus.

Its not what you know or who you know but what you know about who you know.

Recently heard things have got more tribal. Doctor, lawyer, politician, aspie, do-gooder, comic, storyteller.... More about easy answers than difficult questions IMHO.

I think that they're interesting, but (and?) vague and difficult to assess. I think that how much the students are actually learning should be on the list, as well, but I'm guessing that you think that one or more of your criteria picks that up by proxy?

As an aside, I think one has to identify a specific person or persons, e.g. Bill Gates, to be committing slander.

I'm not about to make a citizen's arrest. But make no mistake about it--there's a concerted effort to devalue the work and efforts of teachers all around the country and the reason for it has to do with profit and not at all to do with education. Again, I have no better way of demonstrating the scope of what's going on than requesting interested people read the posts for a week or two on dianeravitch.net .

Anyway, yes, it may well be that my criteria are difficult to assess in a quantified way. Education is as much art as science, a complex process that is not neatly wrapped up in a bow. Particularly pre-college education, where in my opinion, the student is more important than the subject, as opposed to college and beyond when the subject should become more important than the student. Teaching is somewhat like conjuring in that the real work is learned by watching, asking, and doing with other experienced practitioners. Imagine if we judged magicians by how many tricks they did in an hour or how many exclamations of awe and wonder were produced in an audience compared with an audience last year. And further imagine if those doing the judging were picked because they were good businessmen whose good judgment on such things is self-evident.

It was the norm in NYC that principals were educators often with over 20 years of teaching experience. The best ones were educational leaders. The new norm is to have principals come from a "Principal's Academy" which is mostly devoted to teach principals how to run the school like a business, and how to evaluate. So you now get many principals in their late 20s who have, if you're lucky, taught for 3 or 4 years. This is the new normal, brought on by the business "reformers" who keep pushing for "alternative" shortcut certification of administrators and teachers, which really means, let's turn educators into temps, while we put our business cronies into administrative positions.


I'll go on further if there's any interest, I don't want to bore you.

Reminds me of the obvious concerns about ghosts or AIs or cattle having economic/civil rights.
Do cancer tumors have a right to life?
Choice is Coke or Pepsi. Education is teaching children to drink soda.

Why do you read such nonscence?

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