Over educated, over paid, over opinionated, under employed & under achieving & unisterested, is probably the best way to describe a very large percentage of our teachers. our teachers.

With the results they are achieving with our kids, by comparasion with other states, I'm surprised parents are not calling for a cut in their pay rates, to reflect, more closely, the value of their work.

As a long time office bearer in a P&C I have little respect left for most of them, or the department that employs them.

When 2 of our kids took maths c, & physics, in senior high we discovered, none of the schools teachers could actually handle the subjects, let alone teach it. This did not stop them pretending to do the job, & hold their hand out for the money.

We had to run coaching nights for those who really cared, [about half the class] using uni students, to give the kids a chance.

I think we should pay them what they are worth, a lot less than they get, now

Hasbeen that's not been my experience so far. My exposure to the High School system has been very limited other than the teacher who turned up at a meeting for a society I'm in which had helped out her class, she came with a thankyou card and block of chocolate for everyone who had taken part.

My son's teachers in State primary schools have so far all given the impression of real dedication to what is at times a very difficult job.

Maybe I and my son have been fortunate, other school's and classes may be very different. Teacher pay is just one the issues, classrooms which overheat in summer and freeze in winter, inadequate technology, school facilities in obvious disrepair and parents who just don't care are all factors which work to drag down good teachers.

R0bert

I love the sweeping generalisations. I work very hard. My students achieve excellent results and, strangely enough, tend to attribute some of their success to me. Sitting in my staffroom roughly two hours after they stopped paying me, I have just put in two extra tutorials with students who needed help with their assignments. Strangely, several of my 'overpaid' and 'unisterested' (which I can only assume was meant to read 'uninterested') colleagues are doing the same.

My point is simple. Everyone has a 'bad teacher' story. I have several 'bad doctor' stories, several 'bad mechanic' stories, and at least one 'bad dentist' story. As with all of the other jobs I have mentioned, people are quick to condemn the bad teachers and even to lump all the good eggs in with the bad ones. Note that all of them - doctors, mechanics, dentists - have the capacity to make more money than me, whether they are good or bad at their job. I am inclined to go where the earning potential is greatest, which isn't in Queensland; I am confident that I will easily find employment elsewhere because (without meaning to sound arrogant) I am good at what I do. Many other good Queensland teachers are doing the same. What you will be left with is the chaff - the Queensland graduates rejected by the other states. Your kids will be put into ever-growing classes (at my current school, we spent a whole year with 10 unfillable teacher vacancies last year) and taught by ever-less-competent teachers. After all, why study education when you can earn twice as much cleaning offices out at the mines?

That is the crux of the matter. You want great teachers, but you don't want to offer any incentives. You want intelligent people to take teaching jobs when they can easily take better paid, better respected jobs. I did it, and I know a few others who did as well, so there is hope. But after a while, the same tired old arguments wear us down. I'm looking for a better option. Can you blame me?

Hasbeen,
I too have been on boards of schools, dept pres of P&Cs And all I can say is that I'm glad that I've never run across your school experience.
Sure I've met the duds but that could apply to ANY career.
While I accept your view of life. I would suggest that even in monochrome there are shades of grey.
Terms like baby and bath water comes to mind. I think a bit more research might be in order.

There are many good teachers in the government system. The problem is that the government treats them just the same way they treat the duds.

The government won't pay on performance because the unions protect the duds. The principals are hog-tied by politics and won't support teachers.

It will never change. In SA, more and more teachers are moving to the private system; so are more kids. Like Hasbeen and good teachers, the parents have had enough.

And, when I say private schools, I don't mean the toffee ones. You don't have to send your kids to high-priced schools to feel the difference. My wife spent her last 5 years before retirement in a Catholic college in a low socio-economic area. It wasn't a highly academic school, but they were getting kids jobs, and 'refugees' from the state system lined up to get in, for very little more than they paid in fees at state schools.

Privatised education is the way of the future.

Hasbeen, you're fast turning into the biggest troll in this forum (no small achievement I must say).

To everyone else on this thread: Don't feed the troll!!

Those who can - do. Those who can't - teach.
Easy to say, that.
Despite that being in some respects, arguably, true - the process of education needs be sustained.

Heard a manager from SYD U. school of Medicine the other day talking about cost overruns and lack of technlogical progress being caused by the 'guilds'.

He submitted that progress in medicine cannot happen because of such 'interest'.
He suggested that professional stakeholders kept progress from happening.

I'd submit, other than some basic training, that I'd be able to teach youngsters very well without any sort of degree.

A trades qualification should do that job well into secondary school standard.
Comments?

I too have a horror story, involving a femnazi primary principal and funding mis-directed, when I spoke to her I was subjected to a tirade based on my being a male sole-parent, and about as far from reality as it was possible to get, so I pulled the kids from the public system and went private, a good move as it turned out. Once they hit HS I returned them to the public system, as there were no good private HS's in my area(Sthn Adelaide), and the Public was a recognised "centre of excellence", an agricultural high, and then moved my daughter into an even better one, Urbrae, a move that made her life!
There is good and bad,schools and teachers, public and private, and I spent many years on councils and committees, trying to make a difference, with mixed results. Half my family are teachers, so I have some insight on both sides. The root of all the problems is, IMO, a dependence on "experts", both in curricular and management, the schools no longer reflect reality, it's far too "PC",the teaching is "lowest common denominator", and the teachers are loaded up with so much BS that they are lost in a storm of paper, it's ludicrous!
I agree, a few good teachers from the real world, "trade qualified", would work wonders, it's not rocket science teaching primary!

Thank you Johnj, it's nice to know I'm still fast at something.

Robert, may you, & your son continue to be lucky. I did not suggest that they are all bad. I don't think you can blame the technology, I went to school in Townsville, in the 40s, in hot rooms, with 45 in a class, with only a black board, & chalk, but we all learnt to read.

Our older 2 both had great teachers, in a little 3 then 4 teacher school, in the sticks. It was only when we moved to a large, near city centre, that we found a large percentage of dead wood. Our youngest had a teacher in first class, who has never taught anyone anything. Only those who were taught at home learnt anything under her. If the perents did not see what was not happening, & take over the teaching, the kids learn't nothing, & then struggled for years. However, she is still at it, stuffing kids chances, 10 years later.

When we had our little coaching group going, for the senior kids, I asked the them to bring their maths C, & physics test papers home. We wanted to use them to find their individual weaknesses. We were told they the kids were not allowed to bring them home.

These kids wanted good OP scores, so some pressure was applied, until we got them. We heard the maths master was quite annoyed, as he now had to write a new test. He had been using that same test for 6 years, & didn't want the hassel of writing a new one, so did not want it out in public. He thinks he's worth more money, too.

That was not a bad school, it was I think, one of the better ones, & had a very good head master. However, he had both the union, & the department, making sure he could not make the changes required to improve the results for the kids.

Can I please ask for some advice,

I moved here three years ago and my own kids finished up at a local public school. The boy, always going to do well no matter where he went. The girl, never was, trust me.

But now I have another teen, with baby in tow, coming to stay.

Schools in the area are being looked at but higher powers are saying she should only go three days a week (she wants to go five quite desperately and is bright). Private schools don’t seem to be supportive of the idea of a three day week while the public schools say they can cope.

I do not understand the school system here, the public schools in my area do not have a particularly good name. Socially I think she may not be looked on favorably within a private school and socially that does matter to teenage girls.

Can I ask for suggestions? She is in year nine right now.

Hasbeen,

Your second post is quite interesting. You note that the headmaster did what he could to help out, but his hands were tied. I agree that the Teacher's Union is a bit of a dud, and counterproductive when it comes to achieving educational outcomes. The other body you blame - the department - is not made up of teachers. Sure, there are some former teachers in there, but nobody in EQ regional offices sets foot in a classroom these days, apart from the occasional publicity stunt.

I've actually thought a lot about your argument - that there are bad teachers thrown in way beyond their depth who then cost their students the results they deserve. It is very true. In Maths C, Physics, hell - even my colleagues in the English department make embarrassing spelling mistakes and some can't string a sentence together to save their lives (I know this wasn't a particularly good sentence, but I'm in a bit of a rush here). Do you really think, though, that cutting pay would solve this problem? If you're good at maths and physics, you can get a pretty good pay packet in many other fields, so why teach?

One thing that hasn't been publicised in the recent media coverage of the pay issue is that the union was pushing for a step towards performance based pay. They wanted to introduce a 'professional pay bracket' for those teachers who are good at their job and also go beyond the call of duty, committing themselves to extracurricular activities and to improvement of standards within the school. The department would have none of it. Certainly this does not address the issue of underperforming teachers, but it does provide a carrot of sorts for those of us who are competent AND committed to making a difference in our students' lives.

I am not sure performance pay for teachers would work even though in principle it may seem like a good idea. How do you deal with the vastly diverse demographics, curriculums and social issues from one region to another? How will you rate performance taking into account all these factors?

The problem is that we as a group have not respected the profession of teaching for some time. When I went to uni, the college down the road had accepted students into teaching who actually failed matriculation. If we respect the role of teaching we need to pay teachers more and ensure that the bar is raised for entry into education courses. Why do we expect lawyers to gain an entry score (UAI) of over 95 yet a teacher (vastly more important in my view) need only get 70 in some cases.

To attract the high achievers and the literate you have to raise the standards and the salary - simple as that.

I would love to see a performance based pay for teachers, but I agree with Pelican, it would be very hard to do fairly. In fact I feel it would probably suffer from favouritism to a great degree. Still, it may be better than nothing. I wish I were smart enough to devise a good system.

I could never agree to increased pay for teachers, unless that came with an agreement of performance based sacking, of the incompetent, & dead lazy as well. The good ones are never going to get the respect they crave, while they let their union protect the no hopers, & dead beats in their midst. Come on Otokonoko, start the process.

Unfortunately, you are in the minority in your after hours work ethic. My wife, who just happens to be a librarian, through the P&C, & with a lot of help from that great head master, established a text book hire scheme. This scheme not only saves the parents money, but has put over $140,000 a year into our high school, for over 15 years.

You would be amazed how much chasing it takes to get the various heads of department to get off their buts, make some decisions, & then tell us what new text books they want for next year. Without this info, we can't do our budget, place our orders, & be sure of having the books, when required.

Jewely, I recently saw a TV program highlighting the work some schools are doing with young school girl mothers. I hope someone will come up with the info on which ones are doing it.

Whay ever the answer for our education system, & teachers, it most definately is not going on strike.

Recently, my wife gave a presentation on teaching method's during the morning of a professional development session for a Qld school. Her comment was that the whole afternoon was to be taken up with talks on filling in the latest batch of forms! (PD takes place in the teacher's own time.) She doesn't know how much time these school teachers spent filling in forms but her own experience in another section of the education system has the paperwork for some commonwealth funded courses taking up to one hr per teching hour! (This for a very organized person who is good at understanding administrative procedures.) In addition, testing time takes up 10% of her time with the students for some courses.

Before we start critising teachers it would be smart take the time to find out how much teacher's time is wasted by filling in forms and other time wasting, demoralizing crap. (Often justified by our obsession with "accountability".) Find out too what else should be done to help teachers teach more effectively and then put the heavies on our politicians to fix the problem.

While you are at it it may be smart to have a godd think about the magic "performance pay". Do you really want teachers to give priority to coaching your children to give their teachers and school a good performance score? Or would you prefer them to concentrate on preparing your child for the future? How much teacher time do you want devoted to teacher evaluation? Do you really think that a system that is sen to be unfair will inspire teachers to work better?

My best teacher during senior high school was the german teacher. He was one of those teachers who opened windows to new ideas and had a long term positive effect on my life. However, my grade in german was lower than than my grade in most of the other subjects. How should he have been measured?

My mother worked in a school for many years and there were some awful teachers and some very dedicated ones as you would expect.

Teachers no longer just teach. They have to be business people, social workers, bureacrats and financial wizards, and worst of all they have to conform to whatever current politically correct experiment is taking place at any one time. As a parent I've known many wonderful teachers who get overlooked because they don't 'play the game' no matter how much good they do in the classroom.

Anyone remember the open plan experiments of the 70s/80s or the idea that corrections were bad it is only the idea that counts.

Who ever said that 'teachers' had the interests of their students at heart?
Most can't teach.
A fair few are emotionally flawed by what's been mentioned above - the hate they cop from their employers in the job - the dead boring syllabus they need force down their poor victim's necks - garnished by their student's resentment at having to endure that regime of 'compulsory education' – all topped off by their need to hold on to that one very insecure job.

At the end of the day the citizens of this fair land need to work out how they’ve been dragooned into lifetime slavery by indoctrination through compulsory education.
A few moments reflection might have them consider why they’d ever want their kids to be exposed to the same.

Please regard.
Do you ever believe the children of the wealthy have to put up with what state school kids have to endure?
Or put that another way.
If you are a parent with any reasonable education and a rapport with your own kid/s –
Then why not educate them yourself at home or by private tutor?

Okay.
I’ll tell you why.
Firstly, you’ll cop repeated hell from our government. You won’t even have time to teach them the five times table.
Then despite your having the funds, connections and energy to fight them off your”Mensa’ kid will never, ever, gain meaningful occupation.

Why?
‘Cos your child will not have been ‘indoctrinated’ into the modern state system.

In closing I send this out to parents who might desire their kids to be something more than Lemmings.

Since no-one else has anything to offer Jewely, I'll say this...
J', spend some time and effort, with the girl in tow, explore all the local schools, then go further afield if you need to. Two of mine chose schools that required them to spend more than three hours per day in travel, yet excelled. It would be harder for her, true, yet with the right school and the right support.., cometh the hour, cometh the woman.
I have seen quite a few apparently air-head girls brought to Earth, and land running, and succeed well, when put to the test by a child, sometimes that extra little bit of pressure, i.e. travel time, can be the making of a person.
There can be ways found, if you try hard enough, and yet make sure she feels in control, she's going to need that in the years ahead, whatever way it plays out.
Hope that helps a little.