Teachers are at the end of their rope.

[peter12]

It has to be the biggest win for bureaucracy ever that decline in educational standards gets blamed on teachers.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

in an earlier post you stated most other people (you talking oil and gas I assume?) had similar pension pay.

Disagree. 10%? I've seen as high as 7% which was really good but I don't think I've seen as high as 10%. Unless you are including bonus, long-term comp? I'm sure there are a couple companies out there that might offer 10% but it wouldn't be the norm in my experience.

Your point about saving money stands though, for sure. It's a good point. Can anyone actually detail what the teachers pension actually is? I had heard it was average of your 5 highest earning years for life after retirement, but I'm not sure that's true and am too lazy to go research if there's a teacher here that can just confirm / deny.

My last oil and gas job had a total of 13% employer funded savings. There was an 8% contribution to a DC pension plan, plus a 5% match to a savings plan paid with company shares. I always sold the shares and reinvested in index funds. I prefer the DC model to the DB model because I think I'll do better than the DB assumptions, but opinions can vary about that.

Worth noting that my base salary in that role was significantly more than a teacher with similar years of education/experience, so the % was also on a higher base.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by you&me

Plus, the alternative to having time off coincide with school schedules is a) actually taking time off work and b) pulling kids from school... Seems strange to hear a teacher advocate for pulling kids from school to save on flights

I think it is comments like that, that actually show how disconnected from reality many teachers are. To actually believe or think, at all, that it isn't a perk is a pretty wild take- basing it on the fact that flights are more expensive. Like, what?

Yeah, working in oil and gas sucks because parking downtown is super expensive.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Its seems most teachers and parents share concerns about declining standards and grade inflation. So where is it coming from? Who’s pushing the policy of passing everyone regardless of how much work they do?

I am not sure that parents share those concerns, at least not when it is there kids that would be the ones held back and failed.

As bizarro says I think it is mainly coming from above teachers, and likely school admin as well, and probably in part from pressure from parents who don't want their kids held back or failed even if it is in the best interest of the kids.

Parents are very vocal about how standards are dropping and kids are getting free passes when it is everyone else's kids who are the problem, when it is their own kids....

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Can anyone actually detail what the teachers pension actually is? I had heard it was average of your 5 highest earning years for life after retirement, but I'm not sure that's true and am too lazy to go research if there's a teacher here that can just confirm / deny.

It depends on a bunch of factors including:

-how long you worked
-what age you retire
-whether you want the amount guaranteed to be paid to a surviving spouse if you die first

I don't know the exact specifics of Alberta's system, but in BC basically it works like this:

1) Every full-time equivalent year you work, you accrue a benefit worth 1.9% of your 5-year average highest salary.

2) If you accrue 35 years of service or work until age 61 (whichever is less), you can retire with an unreduced pension. Every year you retire before that reduces your payout by about 5%.

3) If you want your spouse to receive the payment after you die, you deduct another 10% or so.


So assuming someone wanted their payment guaranteed for their spouse, they'd end up with the following if they started accruing full-time service in their late 20s (which is about average):

Retire at age 55: 32% of their highest 5-year average

Retire at 61: 56% of their highest 5-year average

Retire at 65: 63% of their highest 5-year average

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Spurs

I think we often vastly overrate how many deadlines exist like that in real-life and how much students will develop that in middle and high school. I will also prefer that they learn the material rather than meet arbitrary deadlines.

I also think that if your lesson is about meeting deadlines than that is the lesson. Have assignments in which meeting the deadline is as or more important than what the assignment is, make it clear to the students that is the expectation, teach them the skills they need to meet that expectation. That is how you teach them to develop time management, planning, hard work etc. that you will need to meet deadlines in the future.

Saying that your book report on To Kill a Mockingbird is due Dec. 1 and if not done by then is a zero doesn't help them meet the goals that you likely had when you assigned that book report. If they end up reading the book, analyzing the themes and writing a passable book report in February isn't that the goal of teaching?

I understand there are obviously certain time lines that have to be met in terms of end dates and dates when grades need to be submitted. I also understand that it can be tough if you think students take advantage of this and of course the workload of marking if everyone hands everything in last minute, but from people I have talked to that run their classes like this they say that really isn't a problem.

I think the primary focus of teaching should be that students learn the material and punitive punishments like late marks and especially zeroes doesn't help anyone learn the material in any way.

I generally agree with your perspective but there needs to be some semblance of timeline because again, that is how the world works. Also, knowing kids and how lazy they can be, it also tries to encourage them to put some work into their own education doesn't it? LIke if you never have deadlines and just can 'do the work whenever' doesn't that likely lead to mass procrastination by many / most and then they never actually end up learning the material?

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

I think it is comments like that, that actually show how disconnected from reality many teachers are. To actually believe or think, at all, that it isn't a perk is a pretty wild take- basing it on the fact that flights are more expensive. Like, what?

Yeah, working in oil and gas sucks because parking downtown is super expensive.

I think it is the failure of people actually reading/hearing what is being said and instead just going with their incorrect assumption, that always paints teachers in the worst light, is why these myths keep getting spread.

If you think that increased travel costs and crowded holiday spots aren't a downside then you are either dumb or just too committed to the negative steroetype you want to portray.

Nobody has said the negatives outweigh the positives, but pointing out it isn't perfect doesn't mean they want to scrap the whole thing.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by peter12

It has to be the biggest win for bureaucracy ever that decline in educational standards gets blamed on teachers.

How much of the blame should be placed on phones? Impossible to say accurately but I assume a lot.

CBE should just blanket have a rule- no phones in school. Leave them at a secure location upon entry and collect on exit.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

School administration. I'm familiar with one high school teacher who got tons of flack for failing kids, with a stated rule being that 45% or lower got rounded to 50%.

I think incentives matter here - the school board automatically gets their funding for students who pass and get the credits for a course. To get anything for students who fail they have to submit a form justifying what % of the course they delivered. So getting as many people as possible to pass is incentivized, whether they know the content or not.

I hear things like this, but let's just say I know a certain young man very well who is about to experience failure at 46% and I'm thrilled! Don't get me wrong, I'm nowhere near thrilled for his effort (and complete lack thereof) in this particular course. But he tried to worm his way out of that and I didn't actually want that to happen. It's hardly catastrophic failure and this is a fantastic outcome. He has no option but to re-take this course, and it's purely an effort scenario.

So...who knows, but there was no "just throwing the kid 5%" and getting him across the line here. It's disappointing and frustrating as a parent, but the truth is, he's going to learn a good lesson here where it really doesn't matter a lot. He'll buckle down next time and the failure will teach him more than somehow passing undeservedly ever would have.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

I generally agree with your perspective but there needs to be some semblance of timeline because again, that is how the world works. Also, knowing kids and how lazy they can be, it also tries to encourage them to put some work into their own education doesn't it? LIke if you never have deadlines and just can 'do the work whenever' doesn't that likely lead to mass procrastination by many / most and then they never actually end up learning the material?

This is where I will say that you are talking in hypothetical possibilities where people who actually implement it say that the problems you worry about don't really happen. For the most part those lazy kids are still lazy. They don't hand in the work when it is due and they don't hand in the work later. This helps students that might have let an assignment slip not get punished for material they know. It allows students to take ownership of doing a bad job and work to learn the material. I think with the workloads they have most students want to get the assignment done on the due date so they are done with it and can move onto their next assignment.

Also it rarely is just hand in the work whenever, there often are parameters around it. What is usually encouraged though is if you do the work I will mark it, even if it comes in later. If you show an understanding of the material you will get the grades that deserves because as I said that is the goal of teaching.

Again I will say I think we really overrate the amount of "deadlines" we have that are similar to what you would see in school and the amount of skills we develop in middle/high school when it comes to meeting those deadlines.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Spurs

I think it is the failure of people actually reading/hearing what is being said and instead just going with their incorrect assumption, that always paints teachers in the worst light, is why these myths keep getting spread.

If you think that increased travel costs and crowded holiday spots aren't a downside then you are either dumb or just too committed to the negative steroetype you want to portray.

Nobody has said the negatives outweigh the positives, but pointing out it isn't perfect doesn't mean they want to scrap the whole thing.

Spurs, what are you talking about? This is what he originally posted:

Originally Posted by Wormius

Do you think any of what he described are worthwhile perks? First assuming the kids and parent are even at the same school, this perk is useful only until the kids are old enough to stay home by themselves. So it’s not like 12 years of saving money on daycare.


Having the same holiday schedule aligned to the most expensive travel seasons aren’t a perk either. After the kids have completed school, there isn’t even a benefit to having that time off. What are you going to do for 2 months? Take a seasonal job?

First of all, he is literally saying it is not a perk.

Secondly, what are you even getting at? You want me to acknowledge that this perk of time off is somewhat negated because travel costs are higher? Okay, you got me, I fully agree, that is a bit of a bummer. But that is like one drop of water into a bucket of awesomeness. So really it actually is just a matter of perhaps varying perspectives, not me just "focusing only on what I want to hear / see".

Again to evaluate a true measure of how good the perk is, we can simply ask teachers what they'd be prepared to sacrifice on this time off but you can bet there'd be an outrage (understandably, because it is an amazing perk of the job, and good for teachers for having such perk).

You know this is true based on the fact the CBE is literally adding another week off in the fall. Like, come on now.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Slava

I hear things like this, but let's just say I know a certain young man very well who is about to experience failure at 46% and I'm thrilled! Don't get me wrong, I'm nowhere near thrilled for his effort (and complete lack thereof) in this particular course. But he tried to worm his way out of that and I didn't actually want that to happen. It's hardly catastrophic failure and this is a fantastic outcome. He has no option but to re-take this course, and it's purely an effort scenario.

So...who knows, but there was no "just throwing the kid 5%" and getting him across the line here. It's disappointing and frustrating as a parent, but the truth is, he's going to learn a good lesson here where it really doesn't matter a lot. He'll buckle down next time and the failure will teach him more than somehow passing undeservedly ever would have.

I agree completely that's the better outcome for the kid. If you got less than 50% in a high school course you don't know the material or didn't show up much of the time or both.

So that's awesome that the school administrators allowed that - it's more work for them so that doesn't always happen even when it should.

Way better to learn about the consequences of not working hard at 16 than 26 or 36.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Secondly, what are you even getting at? You want me to acknowledge that this perk of time off is somewhat negated because travel costs are higher? Okay, you got me, I fully agree, that is a bit of a bummer. But that is like one drop of water into a bucket of awesomeness. So really it actually is just a matter of perhaps varying perspectives, not me just "focusing only on what I want to hear / see".

I would say, having lived it, it is not a drop of water in a bucket of awesomeness. That is my problem with this and a lot of the discussion around teaching. There is so much presented as awesome by people who have no clue and never an acknowledgement of the negatives.

Yes it is a perk but it is offset by other things, again like every other job.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Spurs, what are you talking about? This is what he originally posted:



First of all, he is literally saying it is not a perk.

Secondly, what are you even getting at? You want me to acknowledge that this perk of time off is somewhat negated because travel costs are higher? Okay, you got me, I fully agree, that is a bit of a bummer. But that is like one drop of water into a bucket of awesomeness. So really it actually is just a matter of perhaps varying perspectives, not me just "focusing only on what I want to hear / see".

Again to evaluate a true measure of how good the perk is, we can simply ask teachers what they'd be prepared to sacrifice on this time off but you can bet there'd be an outrage (understandably, because it is an amazing perk of the job, and good for teachers for having such perk).

You know this is true based on the fact the CBE is literally adding another week off in the fall. Like, come on now.

Of course the travel costs are higher. It's not news that people want to go places and do things in nice weather...so travel costs and demand is higher all summer. The only time it might be added is spring break, but that seems somewhat staggered all through North America, so it's hard to say.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

There’s a big difference between defined contribution and defined benefit pensions. And being able to negotiate with government to secure funding for pension fund shortfalls isn’t something the great majority of people are able to do. Very few private sector workers will have pensions as robust and secure as teachers. Even those who set aside as much money as teachers do. That’s just a fact.

On the other hand, with RRSP matching or other employer non-pension plan retirement contributions, the money is actually yours. If someone on a pension dies early, their money funds other pension members. Whereas if someone with an RRSP dies, their heirs get it.

And it can be a considerable amount of money. I've done the math for BC, and if a teacher contributed their normal amount to an RRSP for the last 30 years and the employer matched even just 4%, they'd have about $1.3-1.4M in retirement savings with an equity/bond mix.

No, it doesn't have quite the security of a defined benefit pension (though you could probably pull out $40-50K a year inflation adjusted without any worry), but it's also a life-changing amount of money for your heirs if you happen to die earlier than normal.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by opendoor

On the other hand, with RRSP matching or other employer non-pension plan retirement contributions, the money is actually yours. If someone on a pension dies early, their money funds other pension members. Whereas if someone with an RRSP dies, their heirs get it.

And it can be a considerable amount of money. I've done the math for BC, and if a teacher contributed their normal amount to an RRSP for the last 30 years and the employer matched even just 4%, they'd have about $1.3-1.4M in retirement savings with an equity/bond mix.

No, it doesn't have quite the security of a defined benefit pension (though you could probably pull out $40-50K a year inflation adjusted without any worry), but it's also a life-changing amount of money for your heirs if you happen to die earlier than normal.

This is the age-old debate between DC/DB though. You can't outlive the DB pension, which is the primary concern people have when they are retiring or near retirement. "Will I have enough money" is the most asked question I get, hands down.

And while people hate the aspect that they've contributed for decades, potentially die, and the money is gone (save for a spousal pension), that security is enormous. It's a tradeoff between longevity risk and market risk, essentially.

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by chedder

Well, post secondary and then real-life have deadlines with consequences. Don't you think they should be prepared for this eventuality at least a bit?

Exactly. Not to mention it makes it hard on a teacher's after hours workload. Especially with humanities, there's lots of longer papers to mark, I'd imagine they set aside time to grade certain assignments during certain weeks/weekends. Suddenly when they've moved on to slotting a weekend of marking the next long paper, 20 kids hand in the previous assignment they now have to shoehorn in to that already busy weekend of marking. Or several students handing in the bulk of an entire semester of work when the teacher is trying to finalize marks or grade final papers. It's very inconsiderate on the student's part, and to the teacher's workload outside of class time.

Imagine if you're an accountant, and instead of April taxes being due, you can just hand it in whenever. Suddenly it's December 28th and you get hit with the bulk of people's taxes coming in. Does that sound fair?

[Russic]

The perk of summer vacation is a complicated and nuanced one. It depends on a bunch of factors, like what your level of burnout heading into July is, what stage of life you're at, and what the rest of your family is doing.

A huge segment of my social circle is teachers, so I can assure you there is no general consensus here. If you're 50, your kids are 20, summers off will be defended until your dying breath. If you're 35 and your kids are 5, and you're not married to a fellow teacher, summers off are hardly "off" at all, your one obnoxious job just becomes a different obnoxious job.

So debating whether summers off is a perk or torture is sorta silly, because it will vary so much from person to person.

As for the money argument, I think they paid reasonably well for what they do. Most teachers I know have zero problem with how much they get paid, but what they want is smaller class sizes, more support for children who are mentally unwell, and assistance in dealing with parents... ya know... things that won't ever happen. So money it is. It's literally one of the only resources they can negotiate on. Ya, they come off greedy to some, but there's not a lot else to negotiate on.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Russic

The perk of summer vacation is a complicated and nuanced one. It depends on a bunch of factors, like what your level of burnout heading into July is, what stage of life you're at, and what the rest of your family is doing.

A huge segment of my social circle is teachers, so I can assure you there is no general consensus here. If you're 50, your kids are 20, summers off will be defended until your dying breath. If you're 35 and your kids are 5, and you're not married to a fellow teacher, summers off are hardly "off" at all, your one obnoxious job just becomes a different obnoxious job.

So debating whether summers off is a perk or torture is sorta silly, because it will vary so much from person to person.

As for the money argument, I think they paid reasonably well for what they do. Most teachers I know have zero problem with how much they get paid, but what they want is smaller class sizes, more support for children who are mentally unwell, and assistance in dealing with parents... ya know... things that won't ever happen. So money it is. It's literally one of the only resources they can negotiate on. Ya, they come off greedy to some, but there's not a lot else to negotiate on.

I don't think teachers come off as greedy at all. I think they are just often departed from reality of what most jobs require and how theirs just isn't that different.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Russic

The perk of summer vacation is a complicated and nuanced one. It depends on a bunch of factors, like what your level of burnout heading into July is, what stage of life you're at, and what the rest of your family is doing.

A huge segment of my social circle is teachers, so I can assure you there is no general consensus here. If you're 50, your kids are 20, summers off will be defended until your dying breath. If you're 35 and your kids are 5, and you're not married to a fellow teacher, summers off are hardly "off" at all, your one obnoxious job just becomes a different obnoxious job.

So debating whether summers off is a perk or torture is sorta silly, because it will vary so much from person to person.

As for the money argument, I think they paid reasonably well for what they do. Most teachers I know have zero problem with how much they get paid, but what they want is smaller class sizes, more support for children who are mentally unwell, and assistance in dealing with parents... ya know... things that won't ever happen. So money it is. It's literally one of the only resources they can negotiate on. Ya, they come off greedy to some, but there's not a lot else to negotiate on.

Agree almost everything you said... Except the bolded above.

Are you saying the "different obnoxious job" for teachers is... spending the entire summer with their own child(ren)?