By Starla Pointer • Staff Writer • 

Mac schools expect funding shortfall

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Comments

fiddler

“...paying staff what they deserve is the cost of doing business”
"Oregon ranks low for student performance..."

Businesses base salary increases on performance. Teacher performance is low, so they do not deserve an increase until they increase Oregon's student performance rates.

Teachers work 9.5 months per year (including about 3-4 weeks paid time off). The average Oregon Salary is $71,842 (2023), or $8,346 per month. They can't live on that salary?

They complain about overtime? Welcome to reality; private sector professionals work overtime as the job demands and they don't get compensated.

And the educational system is a dinosaur, designed in the 1800s; it's outdated and ineffective for today's market demands. Look to Finland for ideas. Update!

Bigfootlives

PERS is going to choke out state budgets, this is just the beginning. They have no control and it is never changing, wait until the contribution is 7% or 8.5%.

In the editorial section of the paper there is a commentary about a national study that ranks Oregon DEAD LAST. Is this the part the superintendent is proud of?

She says that states with better results pay their teachers more. The editorial says that Louisiana blows us away at $13 per student and we are dead last at $17 per student.

Let’s say we pitch in another $5 or $10 an hour for the teachers. Will that improve the situation? Are the teachers we currently have holding back from our kids, sandbagging for more money? Or will the superintendent fire the current teachers and hire better teachers with that extra money. The obvious answer to both questions is NO, but it shows how ridiculous and tiring the same union talking points.

The superintendent’s comments are embarrassing and disrespectful to the parents who pay her salary.

tagup

Fiddler- performance based incentives ( other than CEO’s) are much easier for business as they have more reliable measurements for progress. Sales, revenue, market share, etc can be qualified by consistent research & accounting practices. The variables when measuring “student success” are much more nuanced and harder to determine. Is a low test score due to the teacher? Or the student’s individual learning ability, interest in the subject matter, or the learning environment at home? Those are questions that “test scores” don’t consider.
The tired argument that teachers only work 9 months doesn’t take into account that teachers generally work 10+hour days, do prep work on weekends, and volunteer their time for school functions & projects. I think if you monitor the hours teachers work during the school year they would compare favorably with a 9-5 schedule in the business world. I have never heard complaints about overtime from anyone I know.
Bash PERS or the union if you must, but let’s not disrespect the efforts the majority of educators give to their students.


Don Dix

Oregon sets maximum teaching hrs./day rather than minimum - it tops out @ 8.5. Most don't have classes for more than 5 hrs./ day. Student class time is about 165 days per school year (find a month in the 'school year' that has 4 full weeks of school). And if one notices a teacher monitoring or taking tickets to an event, they are being paid extra (usually hourly).

tagup

Don- drop in to a grade school class sometime (maybe in a smaller district) and I’ll guarantee that teachers are spending more than 5 hours/day with students, and more than 8.5hrs on the job.

Moe

Moe says:

Cut school day in half:
Offer choice of morning / afternoon session.
Cut staff by 50%.
Replace PERS with modest defined pension.
More or less go back to the 3 Rs.

And do something about those foolish textbooks.
Last time I looked at an algebra text ...

It was so blindingly stupid I couldn't read the darn thing. I think my I.Q. was way too high. Even an average I.Q. would have been way too high. It's like trying to get the gears to mesh with one (normal mind) going way faster than the other (moronic textbook). Never mind many errors, some of a deep conceptual nature. The good thing about errors, to an extent, is a serendipitous teaching moment, including learning not to accept something just because some "expert" says so!

And physically, textbooks have gotten too heavy. What could be contained in a lightweight manual might be spread out over a textbook of hundreds of pages. Worse yet, color prints mean using paper with a high clay content, adding a huge amount of weight. Think of the spine injuries and muscular strain in children from trying to hold those books up to read, and lug around.

Lulu

There has always been too much "dead wood" in the teaching profession. I'm referring to boring, rote lesson plans, lack of enthusiasm, read-the-chapter-and-answer-the-questions formats, pitiful scarcity of writing assignments and studying word origins, using the identical, fatigued tactics great for the overachievers but ignoring the rest. As is true in every profession, there are the electrifying, stellar, inspiring role models and those who should have chosen another career. One more point: the school day begins too early for most --particularly adolescents--they're usually not fully conscious until 10 a.m.

Moe

Yes, school day starts too early.

How about cutting staff by 75%.
And offering a choice of an early or a late afternoon session. Two hours a day is plenty to learn to read at the 12th grade level in 12 years.

Lulu

No, two hours a day is absolutely ridiculous. Plus, daily writing should be stressed (although it takes twice as long to correct/evaluate). By that, I mean starting at 10 minutes in a daily diary, (in which spelling doesn't count), an opening sentence for a story students will complete in a brief period of time, spelling of useful words (it's not a hilarious situation when "wiener" is included as a useful word--abandon any words with suggestive meanings, of prefixes and suffixes, creation of a game board with directions on how to start and what constitutes winning--this is very popular, and all the materials (dice, spinners, markers are available in school supplies.) They feel great excitement watching other students play their games. Shake it up and make it fun!

Lulu

One more point: I am completely convinced some disruptive behavior stems from not knowing how to act in specific situations and manifests itself in false bravado. Use two prop telephones: Ask Pancho to pretend to call Raymond. He will learn to say, "Hello, this is Pancho from school. May I speak to Raymond?" Language arts combined with etiquette--sorely lacking in the school system. In teaching the Dewey Decimal System, try some philosophy--Descartes' tree falling in the forest is a fabulous beginning. Let them argue the point--they feel very passionately about this subject and become quite talkative; no hands raised; just establish their beliefs and don't talk over others. After they leave class, many make their arguments far more colorfully outdoors (I always figured however they express themselves outside the classroom is their business.)

Moe

LuLu:

How about a word origin for "doge."

Can we now use DOGEing, DOGEed, and so on?

Moe

Sorry Lulu, "LuLu" was just a senior moment.

Lulu

Sorry (Sari): Apparently, you (ewe) might (mite) have benefited from some (sum) more (Moor) school hours (ours).

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