tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post5277177899172461484..comments2024-03-29T04:34:05.185-04:00Comments on CURMUDGUCATION: The Teacher Career LaddersPeter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-29645825968800724902015-08-28T14:45:01.203-04:002015-08-28T14:45:01.203-04:00"teachers are given tasks, but not ownership...."teachers are given tasks, but not ownership. They're allowed to ride in the front seat of the bus, but they can't drive. A real step on a career ladder gives you ownership and the power to chart a course, to make your mark by using your judgment to make things better."<br /><br />This is spot on. It's like the powers that be read all the available research on what motivates professionals and said, "Let's do the exact opposite."Dave Eckstromhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13521336850803352134noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-90934645431376304112015-08-28T13:41:34.982-04:002015-08-28T13:41:34.982-04:00Imagine telling a new hire CSO member, "this ...Imagine telling a new hire CSO member, "this is what you're going to be doing the rest of your life". S/he would probably reply something like, "well, I sure hope so." On the other hand, imagine telling a junior account clerk sitting in a prairie-dog town cubicle farm the same thing. S/he'd probably commit suicide.<br /><br />The business types trying to control education these days understand only the cubicle farm to management track. They have no experience of - and can't imagine - doing and enjoying a job for the sake of the job itself or spending a lifetime working to improve at that particular job.Diennehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04570040547158789834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-11794570294704830782015-08-28T13:16:47.770-04:002015-08-28T13:16:47.770-04:00Thank you. You have made the points I had been hop...Thank you. You have made the points I had been hoping to elicit. As a teacher, professional musician and relative of doctors, psychologists, lawyers and engineers, only my lawyers have a "career ladder" (getting partner.) All others can only move "up" by changing institutions or changing jobs to some sort of managerial/supervisory position.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05168566567751854277noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-83594136963075995112015-08-28T02:01:55.287-04:002015-08-28T02:01:55.287-04:00I would suggest that most careers - at least the o...I would suggest that most careers - at least the ones that are intrinsically rewarding - have little to no career ladder. If you're a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, you start and end your career playing and perfecting basically the same canon of classical and contemporary music. If you're a writer, you sweat and bleed to write a book, and then you turn around and write...another book. If you're a surgeon, you spend your career perfecting your surgical knowledge and technique. Very few people in such careers yearn to climb "up" to management or administration. Sure, there is some advancement - a musician might become first chair or concert master or whatnot, for instance. But there is some similar advancement in teaching - department chair, for instance.<br /><br />It's only extrinsically rewarding (non-intrinsically rewarding) jobs like office worker bee that need a clear upward career path in order to "motivate" such workers to continue working hard and doing a good job. In teaching, music, medicine, etc. the motivation is the job itself.Diennehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04570040547158789834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-34447490011799480142015-08-27T21:49:15.558-04:002015-08-27T21:49:15.558-04:00I never felt any desire or need for some way to &q...I never felt any desire or need for some way to "advance" more in my career. I was very happy feeling that every year I learned more and became better, trying new things and getting better at knowing the needs of my students and creating a community in my classroom. I also never saw any reason to jump through hoops to get national accreditation. I do think that at the high school level it makes sense to have new teachers teach very few preps and veterans teach more.<br /><br />In our building we had the building rep for the union and the building committee members, all voted in by the teachers. When we saw a problem or thought of a way to make things run more smoothly, we would tell a building committee member and they would bring it up at the next meeting with the principal. Sometimes things got done or changes were made.<br /><br />It seems like about 30 years ago a movement was started to have more autonomy for schools within a district and teachers within a school. Then the reformster stuff started. It would be nice if teachers - the building committee and any other teachers who are interested and want to spend the time on it - to have some say in who is hired as principal; and department heads and anyone else in the department who is interested to have some say in who will be hired into their department. <br /><br />I always wanted to follow around a Central Administrator for a day and see what they actually did. It seems like secretaries do a lot of the actual work. In our district it's a secretary who takes care of all the paperwork for re-licensing. If she's sick, forget it, because no one else understands anything about it. And it really would make more sense to me for principals to have more teaching experience. The trouble is getting teachers to want to do it, since good teachers enjoy teaching, and if they just wanted to be supervisors or managers, they would have been that. <br /><br />I've always thought the English private school model with a Head Teacher voted in by the teachers for a couple of years but still teaching some classes was interesting. If you could figure out what exactly the principal does and make a list, maybe you could figure out if these duties could be done by a group of teachers in lieu of teaching some classes.<br />Rebecca deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-70658027376534187622015-08-27T21:46:04.703-04:002015-08-27T21:46:04.703-04:00My mom was a teacher and I always thought she woul...My mom was a teacher and I always thought she would make a good principal. She said, "No, then I wouldn't be able to teach" and that was what she was happy doing.<br /><br />Years and years ago now, probably 25 years, my local union developed a Career Ladder program. The idea was that you did stuff like write an essay, turn in a super lesson plan on a unit, and have observations by teachers who had been determined by some unknown method to already be super teachers, and the ones that got the highest scores got on this career ladder. Then they would do some kind of project that would illuminate something or someone, and they could be asked to teach in the most difficult schools, where super teachers were really needed. For being on the career ladder, the teachers got an extra $3000 a year. It was called a "ladder," but there was only one step to it.<br /><br />The program was touted as a success and my union leaders were asked to give presentations and be consultants to districts all over the country. Then economic times got worse and they stopped the program.<br /><br />At the time we had an International Studies Center where many foreign languages were taught to both our students and the community. A colleague of mine worked in the language lab. A teacher asked her to do a whole lot of research for her, which was not my friend's job, but she thought was for a class the lady was teaching, and she did it for her. The teacher said, "Thanks! This is for my project for the career ladder!" This lazy teacher who didn't even do her own research for her project was on the career ladder.<br /><br />Another teacher on the career ladder was one that both my daughters had. They said she was one of the worst teachers they had ever had. She never gave any of their work back to them. I have no idea if she graded it or not. I think she pulled their grades out of her you-know-where. The worst thing was that her explanations were not very good. When students didn't understand and tried to ask her a question, she would explain it again in exactly the same words. When the student still didn't understand, she would tell them to come in after class so their non-comprehension didn't slow down the rest of the class (who didn't understand either.) She had really nice bulletin boards, though.<br /><br />The "super teachers" who did the observations weren't even always teachers in the field of the teacher they were observing, and sometimes they were not teachers of the same level: elementary, middle, or high school. Although they wouldn't say so, there were quotas as to how many could be picked because there was only so much money. The projects ended up in a file somewhere and illuminated no one. I only heard of one teacher who taught for a while at a school deemed to be "difficult." The union tried, but the results of this experiment in merit pay did not seem too impressive to me.<br /><br /><br />Rebecca deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-14569045465308143402015-08-27T21:22:04.887-04:002015-08-27T21:22:04.887-04:00I would like access to clerical help. And a tiara....I would like access to clerical help. And a tiara. Seriously, how does the career ladder work in most professions? Really? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05168566567751854277noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-23378748822386416432015-08-27T20:44:04.082-04:002015-08-27T20:44:04.082-04:00The best administrators began as the best teachers...The best administrators began as the best teachers. And the worst administrators sought out and got their jobs in order to "get out of the classroom." There is honor and merit in staying in the classroom. I'm very proud to be there. The reformies who argue we need a career ladder are often as not the ones who've found their way out, like the E4E folks. They make a great living trying to sell the rest of us the marvel and wonder of more work for less pay. NYC Educatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12188066345722781723noreply@blogger.com