Sunday, June 18, 2017

The New York Post Blames Teacher Benefits For Student Failure, Rather Than The Real Reason - The Socialeconomic Factors.



























I read today's New York Post article on how much the City spends on each student and they questioned why student academic achievement doesn't match the money spend?  Of course they blamed teacher salaries, fringe benefits, and pensions as the major reason that students are not showing significant improvement.  For some reason they believe there is a direct one to one relationship between the two.  Nothing is further from the truth.  There is little correlation between the two.  Admittedly, they did mention how the DOE lacks transparency and awards questionable contracts.  However,  the article primarily blamed the teachers contract and our benefits for the lack of student achievement.


Nowhere in the article did the paper mention how the schools are only funded at 89% of their proper funding, nor did it mention that New York City class sizes are the highest in the State, or that the perverse "fair student funding" formula forces schools to hire "the cheapest and not the best teachers" for the students. Finally, the article totally ignored the social-economic factors that studies showed account for 80% of a student's growth. By contrast, teachers make up between 1% and 14% of a student's growth.

Blaming teacher benefits for the lack of student academic achievement is simply scapegoating the teachers when the problems lie with the family, community, and peers.  Moreover, when schools are not fully funded, and students are exposed to a merry go round of "newbie" teachers who lack classroom management skills and strong curriculum knowledge, and are subject to high teacher turnover.  Who's fault is that?  The teachers? Or the policies and ideology that find over a 1,300 veteran teachers being used as babysitters rather than providing students with effective teachers and significantly lower class sizes?

While our salaries have improved over the years, its also true we have given the City extensive "givebacks" a longer day, senseless professional development, administrative micromanagement, and our TDA was reduced by 1.25%. Furthermore, Nobody believes that a 10% raise for seven years is considered excessive. While we have slightly closed the salary gap with the suburbs, we still are at the bottom when it comes to the salary scale and the City classroom is a much more stressful environment than the smaller class sizes of the suburbs.

Unfortunately,  scapegoating teachers and ignoring all the other factors that negatively affect student academic achievement is plain wrong.  Eliminating deep poverty, homelessness, and keeping families intact would go a long way in improving student academic achievement.  Moreover, fully funding schools, eliminating  "fair student funding" and reducing class sizes would also help improve student educational outcomes.  Finally, reducing the bloated DOE Bureaucracy and transfer the funds to the schools will ensure that the schools are fully resourced and that students, especially Special Education students, would be provided with the services they need to succeed academically.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whenever you read about teacher's pensions causing problems, the article or news story was perpetuated by Bill Gates and other billionaires who are absolutely crazed at the idea that we earn pensions. They are foaming at the mouth every time they think about it. They just keep trying to take it away any way they can, including by poisoning the minds of the public.
Maybe it's time they paid more taxes. Now that's an article worth writing!

Anonymous said...

"professional development"

This term should be on t-shirts and on subway posters!

The PD we get at my school is mind-numbing, nothing more than the 'reform' of the moment and pointless - but the edu-babble we hear each year is quite creative!

Anonymous said...

These billionaires need to dress up in disguise. Yes, let's give them wigs, cut off their billionaire funds and let them live off a teacher's salary for five years. Let them teach, make phone calls home, get assaulted, cursed at, and harassed. They base their remarks on no experience. There are a lot of great kids, just like there are a lot that do not do well. There are sociologists and others in related fields that study socio-economic conditions and poverty for a lifetime. Why? Because it is very relevant to what goes on in society and the school system is part of society. Commercials, movies, songs and all these influential people need to be producing work that will lift our youth. Instead what do we get? Gang movies, raps that curse, butt and breast implants, etc. What is fed into the brain of our children and youth is what you get. Kids' minds are not fully developed and adults put out this garbage for our kids to see and listen to. Yet, it's teachers..... It's called passing the buck! The solution to shut these billionaires up is to get them into the classroom in disguise. People in the private industry need to fight for better retirement solutions. This country should be a model to the rest of the world.
To collect social security you have to wait more and more, yet older employees are not wanted. People are harassed in both the private and public sector.

waitingforsupport said...

@8:37. Right on

Shad C. said...

NY Post is not a real newspaper. Either is Daily News. We need to have a real New York paper. NY Times is not read by the average New Yorker.

Anonymous said...

I'm really surprised at the source of the article. Susan Edelman I thought was fairly well versed at what is actually going on in the DOE schools.

Anonymous said...

NY Post wont be happy till robots replace teachers in NYC schools. The mere fact that we even earn a paycheck for doing an honest days work infuriates them.

Anonymous said...

I have a great idea. Let's lower teacher salaries and get rid of those pesky pensions. Then we'll really get the world's best and brightest flocking to teach in NYC schools. We get paid the least out of area teachers to do the hardest job. Give us a break. Who exactly do they expect to teach in these conditions for less than we get now?

Highly Effective King Clovis said...

I am amazed that anyone can write such articles with a straight face and then publish it. As if there is nothing wrong with anything in it. Being a teacher is hard enough, especially those of us in ATR status, where apparently, we are denied opportunities to make additional money. There are reasons why some kids don't succeed and it is a cacophony of reasons. It infuriates me that it is always teachers getting tossed under the bus.

Anonymous said...

All the so called billionaires like the Koch Bros., the Bloombergs and Gates of the world will rot in heaven because karma is a bitch baby. What kind of sick society have we all created whereby people with lots of wealth for the rest of their lives are so concerned about others not having any wealth??

Why in the world would someone who has all this wealth/money care about ruining the lives of others by trying to take anything they have earned away from them?? So then we have all these retirees living past retirement age living on what? Is this what these so called billionaires want?? Do they want to see people suffer in their retirement years?? I am not sure what their motivation is to have an agenda of trying to dismantle peoples hard earned pensions.

Anonymous said...

I got my rating, but when I print it the signature in the principals box disappears, I tried HTML doc and pdf, same thing. Anybody else?

MM said...

I did not read the Post article but it sounds like the paper is pushing a pro-constitutional convention by convincing voters to vote yes for one.

Anonymous said...

kudos to the post... they got you to mention the paper! what fools we all are.

Bewildered said...

Same thing happened to me. Are they trying to pull a fast one like "gee that satisfactory doesn't really count cause there is no signature" or is it just more incompetance on the part of the DOE. CHAZ WHAT SHOULD WE DO???

Bewildered said...

Same thing happened to me. Are they trying to pull a fast one like "gee that Satisfactory doesn't really count cause there is no signature" or is it just more incompetance on the part of the DOE. CHAZ WHAT SHOULD WE DO???

Shady C. said...

Download the rating sheet then print the rating sheet. If you just print the rating sheet the signature will not appear. YOU must download first.

Kelly said...

Shady,
Thanks for the tip.
XOXO