[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 @ 14:58 +0000, wa2egp at att.net said:

You answered twice.

> Good. I'll move there.

You'd end up making less money, most likely.

Tidewater pay scales can be good, but most are below averages.

Of course, you might do well in the outlying communities. They have
better schools, supposedly have better teachers, and might have better
pay. Not sure about the last part. It could well be less.

Their schools are better because they are run better, and parents
actively work with them. In one case, nearly 100% of parents kept their
kids home in protest about new testing regulations, until the board
relented. Cost the community a lot of money in state funding, but the
community rallied to make up for it, for the sake of their kids.

In most of the area though, parents either can't or aren't willing to
do things like that. One problem is that being military, a lot of our
population is transient, so they won't be here long enough to either
care or do anything about it.

There are parents who, if they can afford it, cheat the system by giving
their kids domocile outside of their own district, and in those with the
better schools. They even do things like rent homes for them, or even
make people in them legal guardians.

> Unfortunately, most people with a degree look for higher paying jobs
> so we either get the really dedicated (rare) or losers who couldn't
> get a job or who couldn't hold on to their job.

The problem is that when they increase the pay, you don't necessarily
get those better people. You end up paying a lot of the duds the higher
salary too.

The message sent is: "Hey, come work for us. We pay top dollar whether
you are a dumbass or not."

I'm not saying teachers shouldn't get paid well, but at least you have
to see it does cause a problem.

Of course, if my other ideas were implemented, it might be OK (efficient
firing of the duds).

> Are you talking "experience"?  Just because you've been a welder for
> twenty years doesn't mean you can teach welding.  

What I said was there are welders out there who have had more coursework
than any teacher, and that's true. I've known them. And yes, they could
do your job, and at least one of them did.

My point is that people like that don't get credit for being either
educated or being educators.

Likewise most computer programmers are in school, either in a formal
school or self-study, almost constantly.

We never get credit for that.

> but not necessarily good.  I've seen "retired" engineers come into a
> system and "teach" physics.  The students didn't learn a damn thing 
> about physics.  

Meanwhile, my best physics professor was an engineer, and my worst was a
theorist.

One of the best lab instructors I had was both.

> There ARE too many teachers who have no practical experience in the
> subject they teach.

Not just that, but a lot of them don't even understand it.

Combine that with teachers who don't like kids, don't like teaching, and
have no teaching skills and you get quite a mess.

> > But since you mentioned the top scale: if you look at the top pay in
> > each job category, again, teachers do better than average, some some
> > earning six figures.
> 
> I haven't seen this years figures but I don't think there are any in NJ 
> like that.  I do know of one district where their top is $95K.  It just
> takes 45 years to get there!  So, is top that good a measure?

None make that around here either, even most college professors are
around $60-70K. Of course, some of them do far better. A lot depends on
how you work the system.

But if you look at professionals with 4 year degrees, teachers don't
come out bad at all.

More importantly, unions and regulations protect teachers, even those
that absolutely suck. Most other workers have no job protection at all.

That might be part of the issue.



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