Schools look at pay incentives to retain teachers

The school systems better start thinking about the uncertified people. These people use to stay for years so they could retire. T he way it is now it is a place to learn the ropes . Then go out and get a job that has good pay. I wonder what the teachere will do when they have to mop the floors or cook the students food. I want to be around when this comes to pass.

Don't you all realize by now that the only purpose for a union, other than taking in members money, is to protect the bad employee. Good employees are held back. Incentives for a good teacher - bite your tongue.

Let us look at why recruitment is a problem. Maybe it's having to deal with a bunch of spoiled and/or neglected children when you are not able to discipline them at all. Or maybe it's because of lawsuit hungry parents. Or maybe it's because your afraid of getting assaulted by a student OR a parent. I for one am amazed that anyone even teaches at all anymore. My kids teachers are great and I commend them. They are on the front lines of a battle they have no control over and they don't give up. Bless all teaches Lord, and forgive the rest of us. Thank you.

teachers...see I didn't listen when I was in school. LOLOL

As a teacher I have no problem with higher pay for "less desirable" schools. But why should someone doing the same job in the same school get more pay because of the subject matter? Someone better open the eyes of the public! The real problem is the red tape and people downtown! Have you heard the latest? Now we have to teach Reading, Writing, Math and Phys Ed...and maybe find time for our own subject area!

God Bless Them wrote:

Let us look at why recruitment is a problem. Maybe it's having to deal with a bunch of spoiled and/or neglected children when you are not able to discipline them at all. Or maybe it's because of lawsuit hungry parents. Or maybe it's because your afraid of getting assaulted by a student OR a parent. I for one am amazed that anyone even teaches at all anymore. My kids teachers are great and I commend them. They are on the front lines of a battle they have no control over and they don't give up. Bless all teaches Lord, and forgive the rest of us. Thank you.

Thank you! While a pay raise is always appreciated, it will not cause more people to stay or go into education. Teachers have absolutely no control in the classroom. There is no discipline and no accountability. All blame is placed on the teacher. If you want to recruit and retain better teachers, address the core of the problem.

So if you pay me more I will be better able to tolerate the insubordinate student who does nothing in class but cause a disturbance and keep the good students from learning? And I will feel better about myself when the principals "counsel" the student and returns them to class? And I'll be more thrilled when they tell us how we're not doing our job because ALL of our students are not performing? Give me a break! Hear me: teahcer pay is NOT the problem with education.

Teacher wrote:

Now we have to teach Reading, Writing, Math and Phys Ed...and maybe find time for our own subject area!

So true. Students come to high school unable to read and WE are going to fix that. They come to high school unable to add, subtract, multiply, divide and WE are going to fix that... oh yeah, and now we're going to get them through 4 years of math including Algebra 2. And we're going to be sure they get 90 min additional exercise each week. And it doesn't matter whether they want to do it or not. And we certainly will not discipline them for fear we may harm their self esteem or worse yet cause a parent to complain. Every single one of them is going to do it, no exception, no child left behind!

The problem lies in the homes! My son is in kindergarden, and every time they have parent teacher confrences we are the only parents out of the whole kindergarden age group we are the only parents who show up to see the teacher, not to mention the lack of concerned parents in the other age groups. The parents are not following through on their duties of making sure their children are getting a proper education and doing their homework and learning what they are being taught.
I feel awlful for the teachers who have to deal with the state from the fallback of poor parenting!
They all deserve better pay. I plan to be at every meeting, to keep in contact at least every 2 weeks with every teacher my sons have until they go to college with no exeptions... and w/ my busy sced if I can do that so can all other parents!

Not to mention I feel that if a teacher comes along and they have a special knowledge in math above the rest, or science they deserve a little extra pay to get them to stay in tn teaching.

The schools are over run with illegals. I can understand why people don't want to be teachers. Take their free ride away and free lunches. Give it to the teachers as a pay raise.

Their = Illegals.

I would like to be a teacher if I could teach Histroy, the Federalist papers, and the Constitutions.

Genna wrote:

The schools are over run with illegals. I can understand why people don't want to be teachers. Take their free ride away and free lunches. Give it to the teachers as a pay raise.

I'm sure many schools have a large number of illegals, but the schools I taught in had none. And the kids still had no parenting. We all need to wake up and smell the coffee. As other teachers on here have said, our schools are going to h*** in a hand basket because teachers are not allowed to discipline for fear of a lawsuit from parents. The same parents who also have no control over their kids. I got out of the public system for these exact reasons.

On the topic of this story, I have no problem with giving pay incentives to those who teach math, science, etc., but I still don't think that will solve the problem. Yes, I did resent that as a math teacher who was certified to teach calculus and other AP courses I was paid the same as the jock football coach who only taught study hall. Something was definitely wrong with that picture.

The only true way to really fix any school is to require the parents to do their jobs. Unfortunately, that's something that can't be legislated or regulated.

As a teacher, I have observed as parents have sat in the gym watching their child practice basketball while we waited in our classrooms for them to come visit. Only one or two did, and then only to make sure their child's grades were high enough to let them play.

Teachers are being sidled with so many extra duties because of parental laziness that we want for time to teach our own subjects. When parents hire McDonalds as their nightly cook and XBox as their babysitter, we feel the effects in the classroom as we have to ratchet the amount of physical education time up to take care of the growing fat factor. It's not our fault your child is addicted to Ho Hos and fried chicked fingers, but it is our job to do YOUR job in fixing it.

It's the same thing with homework. Little Johnny comes in not having a clue how to do the concept we've taught for the past week. Attached to his jacket is a note about how you've had too many social committments to sit down with him or how he had two karate tournaments and a soccer match and didn't have time to study or do his homework. Instead of getting to move on to more advanced concepts, you gripe to our bosses about how we're leaving your child behind when you should be sitting his behind down a couple hours a night and working WITH him. More time is spent coming up with garbage excuses than actually making an consciable effort to study alongside most children.

Education - heck, most of society's ills - could be fixed if parents spent at least an hour of TV/Xbox/iPod/phone free time with their child a night. It doesn't have to be doing homework all the time, it could be taking them to an art exhibit or the (*gasp!*) library for edification, or throwing a frisbee around the back yard while talking about the day. Teachers can tell a big difference between students who socialize with their parents on a regular basis and those who spend more time with electronics and junk food than they do with their parents. And, for the large part, the difference is a very positive one for the socialized children. They are ore respectful, more eager to learn, and succeed at far more things than the student whose parents are too busy to spend quality time with them.

Your kids value what they see you value. If you spend more time sitting at the kitchen table helping them with their studies than you do letting them sit around gaining weight, then they will set education as a higher priority than beating whatever the game of the month is.

Last, and on a tangent... The union-bashing is uncalled for. The Tennessee Education Association works to make sure that teachers receive equitable, appropriate compensation while protecting them from politically motivated action by school boards and administrations. TEA also has very stringent guidelines regarding professionalism and has worked on several occasions to help systems remove poor teachers (yes, even association members) and replace them with qualified, excited educators. They even made sure that prayer is kept and protected in the public schools. But that's another argument for another time.

In-the-know wrote:

<quoted text>
On the topic of this story, I have no problem with giving pay incentives to those who teach math, science, etc., but I still don't think that will solve the problem. Yes, I did resent that as a math teacher who was certified to teach calculus and other AP courses I was paid the same as the jock football coach who only taught study hall. Something was definitely wrong with that picture.

So long as more people come to football games than parent teacher conferences, that disparity will continue. There is absolutely nothing wrong with athletics so long as parents remember their child is a student first and an athlete second.

concerned educator wrote:

So if you pay me more I will be better able to tolerate the insubordinate student who does nothing in class but cause a disturbance and keep the good students from learning? And I will feel better about myself when the principals "counsel" the student and returns them to class? And I'll be more thrilled when they tell us how we're not doing our job because ALL of our students are not performing? Give me a break! Hear me: teahcer pay is NOT the problem with education.

Absolutely! I am so tired of the discipline problems getting "counselled" by the Administraters! How about some discipline? How about making them pick up trash on the school grounds? How about making them wash dishes in the lunch room? How about taking away their sport for a week? I guarantee that would help. But of course that might hurt their self esteem! gasp!

Yike: Everything you side is true, true, true!!!!

Genna wrote:

The schools are over run with illegals. I can understand why people don't want to be teachers. Take their free ride away and free lunches. Give it to the teachers as a pay raise.

Monore County is my daughter is in Kindergarten at Vonore and the teacher spends more time with the illegals than the other students. I work with each of my kids individualy every night.

As a teacher in PA, I see the same problems here. Out of 90 students I see every day, I had 7 parents turn up for parent teacher night. I think we need to do what they do in many european countries, remove all sports from school (except for phys ed) and make them goto athletic clubs. Then those 2 Million dollar field houses might turn into technology or textbooks.

As a husband of a former TN teacher, I can firmly say that TN does not pay enough to baby sit students. We moved to Atlanta and my wife received a 50% pay increase. It is time to pay teachers what they are worth. I can promise you one thing. There is not one government official who would baby sit both the parents and students for what the teachers earn.