[tanguay'sstillgood]

Originally Posted by Ice

Ok, let me preface my response by saying I know there are good teachers out there. However, some friends and I were just discussing a couple of weeks ago how most parents now are unsympathetic to teachers wanting more money. We all have kids at various stages of school and have seen the decline in the quality of teachers. While we've all experienced good teachers, more often than not, our experience with teachers is that they don't care so much about teaching anymore. At least half of the teachers do lock their classrooms and head to their car right as the dismissal bell rings. You can't get a parent conference, you can't get a return phone call or email and its very frustrating. Then, we have teachers who openly admit to taking advantage of the unemployment system. Most school districts allow teachers to choose to get paid either larger paychecks for 9 months of the school year or have their pay spread among 12 months to have year round paychecks. What the teachers do (and this is actually explained in the credential program at the university I attended) is choose the 9 month pay period and then file for unemployment for the summer. So they're getting taxpayer money to the tune of about $3000.00 during the summer, knowing full well they have a job starting the last week of August. Now, imagine if they were given that same money directly to their classroom, that would solve a lot of the financial problems. There are so many problems with teachers, the credential program, the motivation of becoming a teacher and the actual learning in our schools, that its become more and more challenging to be sympathetic to teachers.

Like I said, there are good teachers out there. I planned on being one of them but became disenchanted with the system while in the credential program. But there were a lot of my classmates who wanted to have Christmas vacation, spring break and summers off. And while that might be a nice perk, it really ticked me off when that was given as one of the top two reasons for being a teacher.

Ann Coulter is obviously sensationalizing her opinion because that's what she does, it what gets her heard. Speaking as someone who was aiming for a career as a teacher and kids who have had several teachers from elementary to high school. I can definitely see why the tides have changed.

Really? Where is this school? I teach at a school with about 75 teachers and I would bet you a lot of money that I could still find half of them there nearly an hour after school. Talk to me when I've at school for 13 hours one day so that kids can play sports. And even if I do leave 15 minutes after the bell goes (no teachers leave right away...the parking lot is too busy so there's no point) I go home and work again throughout the evening. Everything is computerized, an most is on the internet, so why do I need to sit in the school to work if I would rather beat traffic and work from home? If you find any students hanging out in the school looking for me for extra help at 4:30, please let me know and I'll stick around. Even if I'm not at the school in the evenings/weekends, I promise you I work at least 6 days/week, and 5 of those days I spend probably about 10 hours working (whether it's at home or work).

I would also wager that almost all of our teachers are in contact with parents weekly. If you find a significant group of teachers in an area who all refuse to give you a parent conference then I would say that's a specific school issue.
Oh, and guess how busy I am on 'meet the teacher night' and at parent teacher interviews! Maybe we should be more concerned that so many parents don't seem to give a damn?