Peace in education

[JBen]

Terry, we know Teachers (jeez I really don't like singling them out, outside of their love with striking over everything). Really relative to the average stiff live in the world of plenty.

But its "all" Unions as Werner rightfully pointed out. Each little kingdom saying "its not me". Each little Kingdom being totally unrealistic, and each more than willing to point the fingers anywhere but at themselves.

The low hanging fruit (MNR and others) usually pay the prices for cutbacks while others avoid them.

Just look at healthcare and how much that has been gutted over say the past 8-10 years.
More Nurses let go today but scale back Teacher salaries/Pensions to something a little more realistic, or hand a whole bunch pink slips?

Good luck with that. And that will be the same with each Union.

[Rugger]

Class caps is negotated not so much for quality of education but for job security and teacher head count.

Have to disagree with that, and I think it speaks to a true lack of understanding of what teachers have to do, to do their job well. Again I agree that the pay is out of whack but I truly believe that the time and effort that is required to teach well, to be a great teacher, (and you'll laugh at this I'm sure) would grind a lot of you into the ground.

[terrym]

Unions eat their young. They have priced themselves to the point where society can't really afford to pay them. If they earned a wage more representative of other jurisdictions there would be enough money to hire more of them but once you are in the system none of that matters. They have basically cash for life with more years paid for in retirement than they actually worked.
The entire PS pension structure is unsustainable. You can't have less people paying than are drawing and paying people "not to work" for longer than they did also is disaster in the making. People smugly laugh at Greece and Detroit but Wynne's deficit is bigger than any other in North America on a per Capita basis. She spent more money she didn't have than the rest of the damn country yet people say "yes" to that and gave her carte blanche last election?
The Liberals demonized Hudak for telling the truth. How many nurses and teachers were laid off in the last couple days? Hudak didn't lay them off. Wynne said she would balance the books without layoffs. Are people truly that stupid that actually believed her? I guess they are aren't they.

[terrym]

Have to disagree with that, and I think it speaks to a true lack of understanding of what teachers have to do, to do their job well. Again I agree that the pay is out of whack but I truly believe that the time and effort that is required to teach well, to be a great teacher, (and you'll laugh at this I'm sure) would grind a lot of you into the ground.

We will have to agree to disagree on that one. I know too many on a very personal basis. I also know some nurses and quite a few LEO. Teachers don't have it hard by comparison. not even close.

[JBen]

Have to disagree with that, and I think it speaks to a true lack of understanding of what teachers have to do, to do their job well. Again I agree that the pay is out of whack but I truly believe that the time and effort that is required to teach well, to be a great teacher, (and you'll laugh at this I'm sure) would grind a lot of you into the ground.

Agree Rugger. I have no idea what the optimum number is but lets say its 20-25.
I know it would grind me.....I know my job would grind a lot of them to...
/food for thought. those arguments hold zero water with me.

But back on class size. I have seen seething and furious parents on Facebook the past week citing Japan where they say class sizes are well over 30. Ok, great we know Japan tends to churn out a lot of bright, highly educated students.

not sure I want a robot for a child, or a society where theres little quality time for children/parents....The more students, the less time a teacher has for them....the more time they have to spend prepping and marking, etc, etc.The more they come home with, the less time parents have for QT.
Not rocket science.
*****

So....if we want to remove increasing class size from the equation what's that leave as a way to save money?
Reduce compensation cost by?????? 10%, 20%.. One possible, might even allow more to be hired.
Lay off a whack of them? Well the survivors get to keep their hard fought for gains.

Either of the above might mean 27 nurses are still employed today.

[terrym]

What they will do is target the other positions. Secretaries, librarians, custodians, board staff. And maybe that is justified? Dunno. The reality is there is no money to improve any wages or improve any working condition that adds cost. Freeze everything until the budgets return to balance. Full stop.

[JBen]

Terry we need to reduce the cost of PS period.
No argument, there are other area's. Likely a fair bit of fat in the upper echelons or bureaucracy.

But there's also no argument that the middle class is shrinking, has been for quite some time. While many in PS have seen their lives improve. This is one reason I look at the growth in the Sunshine list (numbers of people) not the magical 100k. Though that to you kind of have wonder about when the middle class as a duo income unit, brings home 75k and most don't have great benefits or Pensions.

Personally I do think Teachers bring a lot of it on themselves, because they always seem to have their knickers in a knott, striking or job actions.

Regardless we are heading for a wall. See just job losses in this thread. Big chunks of "private" are still losing jobs, still not back to 2008 levels, and now they are getting hammered with increased taxes/hydro etc.

Much has been written about Boomers and the various impacts that's going to have, both in the workforce and on healthcare when lots of people start needing hip replacements, cataracts, pharmaceuticals and more.

27 Nurses let go today and we already have well known issues in healthcare...from old or lacking equipment, to wait times, bed shortages, to a shortage of Nurses/Drs.

We need money to address those things

The economy and infrastructure.........
and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

But here we are, all teachers striking. protecting their little kingdom.
When they have worked so hard for big gains, campaigning for this inept and corrupt govt, and etc.

agree when the dust settles chances are its going to be tax payers and private (just think about rural Ontario, or areas hit hard by job losses) or the low hanging fruit that pays.

[Fishy Wishy]

Part of the problem (at least in elementary) is the fact that the teacher can't teach to a narrow spectrum of ability. The teacher is handed a bunch of kids in a wide, nay, vast, range of abilities, and told to teach them.

Think about that.

If teachers were able to flunk students, hold them, back, or skip them ahead as the case is required...or their was some other way of grouping classes based on ability/intelligence/cognition (whatever you want to call it) vs by age and number of years in school. The teacher likely could handle more students, as they would be teaching one lesson, not multiple lessons to make up for our social experiment that is the current state of Ontario's No-one can fail education system.

It would be similar JBen to you trading in what you do now and then adding mortgages, home equity, and types of personal borrowing etc. (OK maybe I failed at making a comparison, but just like one financial guy can't possibly handle all the different types of investments etc, how can we expect teachers to teach to a mix of 30-35 vegetables, stumps, and cosmic bodies all at the same time?)

[fratri]

FW good point.... but one thing needs to be addressed.... What is "teaching".... if you (not directed at anyone) think teaching is just about curriculum, you have never been in the classroom or school system.

[Oddmott]

Part of the problem (at least in elementary) is the fact that the teacher can't teach to a narrow spectrum of ability. The teacher is handed a bunch of kids in a wide, nay, vast, range of abilities, and told to teach them.

Again, the answer is quite simple and has been mentioned numerous times in this thread.

The qualified teachers are out there... the field is overrun with them actually.

But instead of spreading the wealth and having more "fair" salaries for all and employing a greater number of teachers - thus shrinking class sizes and allowing the system to better cater to the various needs/levels of the students - the teachers who gain employment do their best to pad their own pockets and lock as many others out of the profession to ensure they receive their gross over-compensation.

Cap the max salary at $80,000 (which is absolutely ridiculous for the amount of work a teacher does over 9 months a year anyways), add 2 or 3 years to the required stay in each pay band, and put the savings into bumping the number of teachers by a solid 20%.

But, no teacher would ever go for that... because reducing class size and improving quality of education for the kids is NOT what they're about, no matter what any try to claim.

Actions speak louder than words, and for 25 years Ontario's teachers' actions have spoken volumes as to what their priorities are.