My assessment as an outside observer has always been that the school system has more than enough money available before budgeting allocations start dividing it up. The problem to me appears that the majority of that ends up in the hands of the administrative side with district superintendents making in the range of $200-500k per year while being little more than useless bureaucrats. The teachers themselves seem to be one of the lowest priorities.
This is fairly accurate, but it depends on the zip code. It's often the worst in blue states/cities (e.g. Denver, CO) where wealthy NIMBYs carve out special school districts with massive tax bases, surrounded by urban squalor. The disparity is egregious. The kids who need the most resources have the least, and unfortunately, overwhelmed systems are breeding grounds for administrative corruption and grift. This becomes a positive feedback loop, where admin increasingly captures resources that are urgently needed to fix the underlying problems.
Depends. Being a good principal is one of the hardest jobs on earth. You have to earn the trust of many competing stakeholders: students, parents, teachers, taxpayers/the community, and your administrators. You have to convince them all they're on the same team, and get them to act like it, on a daily basis. Most schools don't have good principals, and it exacerbates all the other problems tenfold.
Principals are like quarterbacks. If they're bad, it's really hard for the team to be good. The year will only turn out OK if the rest of the team is superlative... but an excellent principal/QB can make any team shine, even a bad one.
Unfortunately, yeah, most are terrible. We're in the same room with these kids for 7-8 hours/day. If the school dynamics are dysfunctional, they know. They smell weakness and exploit it for chaos, because they can't be held accountable in chaos, and they're children. Then parents hear what's happening at the school, and the doom spiral of distrust begins in earnest.
Sadly, yes. It is still like that. But it is also more complicated than that.
On the one hand, children are bringing all kinds of new problems into the building. There are a million reasons: social media, vanity as virtue, the erosion of the middle class, broken families, you name it. Teachers are set up to fail, with mounting problems, fewer resources, and bad pedagogy, then blamed for poor academic performance and bad behavior.
On the other hand, low pay, poor working conditions, and a general cultural disrespect for teachers has resulted in a low-quality labor pool. There are many bad teachers and/or ideologues who keep their jobs simply because there's no one better stepping up. Talent goes to the private sector where the money is (especially if you know something useful like STEM or trade skills).
So teachers deserve some of the blame, but also, it's not really useful to blame them. Bad teachers are not the root problem.
My assessment as an outside observer has always been that the school system has more than enough money available before budgeting allocations start dividing it up. The problem to me appears that the majority of that ends up in the hands of the administrative side with district superintendents making in the range of $200-500k per year while being little more than useless bureaucrats. The teachers themselves seem to be one of the lowest priorities.
This is fairly accurate, but it depends on the zip code. It's often the worst in blue states/cities (e.g. Denver, CO) where wealthy NIMBYs carve out special school districts with massive tax bases, surrounded by urban squalor. The disparity is egregious. The kids who need the most resources have the least, and unfortunately, overwhelmed systems are breeding grounds for administrative corruption and grift. This becomes a positive feedback loop, where admin increasingly captures resources that are urgently needed to fix the underlying problems.
Yes! Don't forget the principals, too. Compared to the teachers, they do nothing, but get paid too much for the functionary work they do.
Depends. Being a good principal is one of the hardest jobs on earth. You have to earn the trust of many competing stakeholders: students, parents, teachers, taxpayers/the community, and your administrators. You have to convince them all they're on the same team, and get them to act like it, on a daily basis. Most schools don't have good principals, and it exacerbates all the other problems tenfold.
Like you said, "Most schools don't have good principals,...." My Mom could attest to that.
Principals are like quarterbacks. If they're bad, it's really hard for the team to be good. The year will only turn out OK if the rest of the team is superlative... but an excellent principal/QB can make any team shine, even a bad one.
Unfortunately, yeah, most are terrible. We're in the same room with these kids for 7-8 hours/day. If the school dynamics are dysfunctional, they know. They smell weakness and exploit it for chaos, because they can't be held accountable in chaos, and they're children. Then parents hear what's happening at the school, and the doom spiral of distrust begins in earnest.
In my Mom's time, before she retired, it was blame the teachers at all costs. All children and all parents are correct and the teachers are evil.
Is it still like that? <--- Real question. I'm curious.
Sadly, yes. It is still like that. But it is also more complicated than that.
On the one hand, children are bringing all kinds of new problems into the building. There are a million reasons: social media, vanity as virtue, the erosion of the middle class, broken families, you name it. Teachers are set up to fail, with mounting problems, fewer resources, and bad pedagogy, then blamed for poor academic performance and bad behavior.
On the other hand, low pay, poor working conditions, and a general cultural disrespect for teachers has resulted in a low-quality labor pool. There are many bad teachers and/or ideologues who keep their jobs simply because there's no one better stepping up. Talent goes to the private sector where the money is (especially if you know something useful like STEM or trade skills).
So teachers deserve some of the blame, but also, it's not really useful to blame them. Bad teachers are not the root problem.