Posted on 01/03/2010 4:33:45 AM PST by reaganaut1
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I’ve had tiny first graders who stubbornly refused to work. I’ve had powerful high-school boys who stubbornly refused to work. In a phys-ed class, I discovered a girl was legally blind only when I tossed her an eraser and it bounced off her face.
I’ve been locked out of a school building for 30 minutes with a class of crying third graders. Of course we rang the bell! No one answered because all the teachers were at an end-of-the-year luncheon.
As much as I became frustrated by the lack of training and support, I was most angered by how many days teachers were out of their classrooms. Nationwide, 5.2 percent of teachers are absent on any given day, a rate three times as high as that of professionals outside teaching and more than one and a half times as high as that of teachers in Britain. Teachers in America are most likely to be absent on Fridays, followed by Mondays.
This means that children have substitute teachers for nearly a year of their kindergarten-through-12th-grade education. Taxpayers shell out $4 billion a year for subs.
I subbed for many legitimately ill teachers and for many attending educational conferences. But my first assignment was to fill in for a sixth-grade teacher who went to a home-and-garden show. My last was for a first-grade teacher who said she needed a mental health day because her class was so difficult.
I’m not the only one who sees a need for change. A bill before Congress — the Substitute Teaching Improvement Act — aims to make federal money available to school districts to train substitutes. And the Department of Education, recognizing that teacher absences are a problem at chronically failing schools, is proposing that schools be required to report the absences
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Regarding the "powerful high-school boys who stubbornly refused to work", maybe they shouldn't be there.
“A bill before congress”...yeah, that’ll fix it....
Yes, unionize substitutes, spend more tax dollars, hell, just enslave the private sector a little more, that will fix everything!
I got a good laugh out of that too.
My message to teachers: Take more days off! I'm always glad to "teach the children well."
Take away their sick days and give them just so many vacation days they must use when these teachers are sick too. That put an end to this crap at my wife’s company.
Public education is one of the anti-social, revenue-sucking plagues pushed by early feminists like Susan B. Anthony. We’ll have the opportunity for new leadership and smaller government after the defaults.
“My message to teachers: Take more days off! I’m always glad to “teach the children well.””
Excellent!
Training the subs? Subs are already trained as teachers and are qualified to step into the classroom, right? We don’t need another way to support the NEA.
that’s right- this is another whining liberal
Liberals send their children to public school.
Do you mind my asking what substitute compensation is nowadays?
I am a teacher. So far this year I had to take one day off when I pulled a muscle and literally could not breathe or lift my arm. Last year, the only day I took off was to attend the April 15 tea party-and I let my students know EXACTLY what I was doing and why. I don’t see the need to take off for frivolous things when we have THREE months in the summer to do it. I also know each of my students very well because I don’t miss school.
I suppose the Times will never abandon its vision of teachers as an underpaid and overworked group of heros and uber liberals. Phooey.
How about we introduce a bill in Congress that eliminates tenure, mandates an objective measure of results, and introduces the revolutionary concept that if we’re going to pay a year’s salary, we expect a year’s work.
If you are interested, math and science teachers, like myself, are in high demand
WRONG! In some states, such as MO, subs are only required to have a degree. Any degree. In any field. And be cleared by the FBI to be safe with children.
LMFAO! You really think... LOL!
Substitute teachers, in the state of Florida anyway, only have to have completed 60 credit hours of post-secondary education in order to be put on the substitute teaching roster. That's the equivalent of an Associates degree. Most of the teachers I know received their degrees in Education, and yet most of them couldn't educate their way out of a paper bag. Substitute teachers are the dregs of educational socialism.
As state budgets are busting all over the country, the proletariat would be wise to ping their state Congresscritters for a moratorium on rate increases for teachers until the NEA is investigated for malfeasance in the educational dumbing-down of America.
Thx!
Agreed.
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