New York Times columnist Joe Nocera went to the Aspen Ideas Festival and learned about a brilliant new strategy for the new economy. The status quo thinking of American business today is that the road to profit requires constant cost-cutting: Hire the lowest cost workers, outsource jobs to countries that pay less than American workers expect, cut, cut, cut.
We have seen the same mindset in education, where school boards bring in Teach for America and welcome teacher churn because it means young workers who won’t stay around long enough to qualify for a pension. It also means that experienced teachers are a burden instead of a treasure, because they cost “too much.”
Joe Nocera heard a radically sensible idea from a professor at MIT named Zeynep Ton. She said that instead of cutting costs to the bone, employers should “provide employees a decent living, which includes not just pay but also a sense of purpose and empowerment at work.” This strategy “can be every bit as profitable as companies that strive to keep their labor costs low by paying the minimum wage with no benefits. Maybe even more profitable. Getting there requires companies to adopt what Ton calls “human-centered operations strategies,” which she acknowledges is “neither quick nor easy.” But it’s worth it, she says, both for the companies and for the country. Surely, she’s right.
Nocera writes:
Her thesis comes out of research she did early in her academic career on supply chain management in the retail industry, focused especially on inventory management. What she and her fellow researchers discovered is that while most companies were very good at getting products from, say, China to their stores, it was a different story once the merchandise arrived. Sometimes a product stayed in the back room instead of making it to a shelf where a customer could buy it. Or it was in the wrong place. Special in-store promotions weren’t being executed a surprisingly high percentage of the time. She saw this pattern in company after company.
As she took a closer look, Ton says, she realized that the problem was that these companies viewed their employees “as a cost that they tried to minimize.” Workers were not just poorly paid, but poorly trained. They often didn’t know their schedule until the last moment. Morale was low and turnover was high. Customer service was largely nonexistent.
Yet when she asked executives at these companies why they put up with this pattern, she was told that the only way they could guarantee low prices was to operate with employees who were paid as little as possible, because labor was such a big part of their overhead. The problems that resulted were an unavoidable by-product of a low-price business model.
She sought out companies that valued employees and treated them well. They had middle-class wages, better morale, good training, and minimal turnover. Their employers wanted to keep them for a long time.
These findings reflect the work of scholars like Edward Deci, G. Edwards Deming, and Dan Ariely (summarized in Daniel Pink’s “Drive.”) People are motivated to work harder when they are given autonomy, support, and respect. Deming wrote that people want to take joy in their work, and their employers should make it possible for them to do so.
Could someone share the news with the corporate reformers in education, who love disruption and churn, and who think that motivation stems from threats and rewards. Their thinking reflects the behaviorist ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor, now a century old. Time to enter the 21st century.
Excellent, but that does not mean pushing everyone into lame top-down leadership/mgmt positions. It entails real reorg. for those stuck in that stacking pattern.
Diane, I think you misunderstand the whole purpose of TFA. TFA teachers enter the classroom because they already have a sense of purpose. One so strong they turn down lucrative alternatives to focus on an honorable profession like teaching.
And TFA has nothing to do with lowering costs, that’s merely a byproduct. Nearly every one of those districts wants the TFA teachers to stay. They want an experienced TFA veteran to whom they pay a Step 20+ salary and a lucrative pension. And a non-trivial percentage of TFA teachers do stick around. We used to hear the bald-faced lie that only 50% of teachers survived past 5 years in teaching. Now that we know the number is closer to 85%. But even if TFA teachers are retained at a rate of 33%, that is still quite a haul when you think of the high quality candidates they attract.
Let’s recall this UNC study that set out to measure the effectiveness of teacher training programs. They didn’t even plan on measuring TFA performance but decided to include them on a lark. Surely, those TFA teachers lost out to “veteran” teachers. To “master” teachers? Well, certainly they would lose out to “visiting faculty”? Nope, nada and heck no! TFA teachers had greater positive effects than the next most effective group of teachers in every subject and at every level. Note that I’m not saying that TFA beat master teachers in all areas but lost to visiting faculty in just the middle school math area. I’m saying if you take the next best group in each subject and at each level, TFA beat them hands down in effectiveness!
We understand why you are so terrified of programs like TFA. They demonstrate that when we get teachers from the top third of academic performance (SATs, GPAs, etc.),, then we will get demonstrably better results. If only we published private sector pay so that potential candidates would know that teachers are well paid and well cared for (best medical plans of any industry) and we could recruit more and better teachers. Surely you would agree on that one, right?
Virginiasgp, read Julian Vasquez Heilig’s studies of TFA. Having high test scores does not make a better teacher.
Very interesting, you only reference people who agree with you. Most of the time it is other blogs where anything goes. Blogs do not have to rely on facts.
You dislike CREDO reports since you do not accept their studies without any basis. You disagree with one and all if they have their own thoughts.
Anyone who believes test scores measure teaching, or that a few weeks of training is equivalent or better than several years, or that people who see teaching as a temp job rather than a real profession are just as effective, or that TFA is NOT in the profit business… has already disqualified themselves from the discussion based on a lack of evidence, experience, reason, AND facts.
Seems TE has many pseudonyms.
Raj, majority of educators/education researchers disagree with TFA. Even some alumni are very critical of what they are doing.
“…experienced TFA veteran….”
Oxymoron.
Dienne: what you said. I think your ox gored that idea pretty darn well…
😃
And if someone truly wants to see what an experienced teacher that started out in TFA thinks, go to—
Link: https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com
His name is Gary Rubinstein.
And if a certain commenter has any rheephorm numbers & stats to throw around, forewarned is, well, commit a Rhee Flee because:
He’s a math teacher. And he’s debunked many a massaged, twisted and tortured rheephorm number & stat.
Any takers? [The sound of silence.]
😎
Start here: “Julian Vasquez Heilig: What Did the Latest Teach for America Study Reveal?”
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/03/12/julian-vasquez-heilig-what-did-the-latest-teach-for-america-study-reveal/
The implication here seems to be that without TFA, idealistic and purpose-driven people with high GPAs would not go into teaching. Why not? I was in the top tenth of my university’s graduating class, and when I decided to become a teacher, I enrolled in a master’s degree program, because I believe teaching is a profession that — like law, medicine, or business — requires study and reflection and critique. It requires historical and sociological and philosophical understandings of education, and a broad familiarity with many aims and methods, as well as practical observation and experience. Experienced teachers should indeed be “well paid and well cared for,” but those solid medical and retirement plans were built by the public schools and unionized teaches that TFA’s backers seem eager to dismantle rather than reinvigorate. No, thanks.
Because teachers who go into teaching as a career DON’T have, “a sense of purpose?” You’re kidding me.
Teachers who have done it the right way have MORE of a sense of purpose than any fly-by-night do-gooder who is only trained for five weeks and only stays for two years. I spent five years on my degree and have taught for 15 years. My friend who started as an engineer, with a MUCH lower GPA than mine, made almost double my salary right out of college.
I had a 3.98 GPA. Almost my entire faculty graduated Cum Laude or better. Stop bashing teachers.
And even with teacher’s “wonderful” benefits (which have really eroded in the past 20 years), I still make much less than other professionals with my level of education. I know this because all public employees have their salaries posted, by name, in my state, and I talk to people working in the private sector.
My daughter in the private sector (in the city) earns over twice the salary that a teacher her age and experience earns. She also makes quite a bit more than the salary I received the last year I worked. Her husband earns a similar amount, also in the private sector in the city. No teacher in Buffalo earns that much, not even the gym teachers.
She’s 36. He’s 32.
Actually, many join to further future opportunities. They know they can become a CEO of a school through TFA after a few years or have their student loans forgiven. They also can enhance their resume as they join the corporate world. Most of them have no intention of being a career classroom teacher. The only group TFA competes with are other alternate certified teachers. The UNC study was also reviewed. TFA really isn’t all that. What do you do for a living besides agitate?
“More than 87 percent of TFA teachers say they don’t plan on remaining teachers throughout their careers, compared with 26.3 percent of non-TFA teachers working in the same subjects, grades, and schools.”
http://cloakinginequity.com/2015/03/16/march-madness-teachforamerica-trying-to-disappear-their-disappearing-act-via-repjrod/
“What do you do for a living besides agitate?”
Bingo! virginiasgp has been known to troll WaPo’s Answer Sheet (by Valerie Strauss) and inundate it with reformster comments
Virginiasgp, I agree with Diane’s recommendation that you read Juilan Vasquez Hellig’s studies of TFA. It’s also a mistake to place too much weight on single point in time standardized assessments.
You should also re-read the UNC study that you linked to as it does not support some of the claims you say it does.
The study has no finding regarding the modeled gains of TFA vs. veteran teachers. The analysis limited the dataset to teachers with five years of experience or less in each year. Further, the model specifications adjust for teacher experience.
There were no “master teachers” in the study. You may be thinking of the graduate prepared teachers who earned a bachelors in a non-education major and then earned a masters in education for their teaching preparation. This is a pathway or portal that was endorsed thirty years ago in A Nation Prepared, but while completers of this pathway tend to be well prepared no one claims they are master teachers as a group.
You say “TFA teachers had greater positive effects than the next most effective group of teachers in every subject and at every level…hands down.” The positive effects were statistically significant in five of nine, not all, and in two the number of TFA were too few to calculate an estimate.
I’ll also add that most of the statistically significant positive effects for TFA were at the high school level where end-course assessments were used and because the researchers included end-course assessments that meant that they were not using assessments on a continuous scale with low and uniform standard error. As a result, and they note this, they needed to employ a value-added model that standardizes each score by within grade, subject, and year. Most value-added researchers would acknowledge this approach embeds more imprecision from the beginning.
Regarding your point comparing teaching to private sector pay, I will agree that the deferred compensation is often undervalued by individuals. However, when you control for education (advanced degrees) teaching is not as well compensated as other professions. Loudon County has much higher than average educational attainment, but only 20.6% of adults 25 or older have graduate or professional degrees according to the 2013 American Community Survey (Census ACS), so I don’t think comparing a putative households with two teachers holding a masters or doctorate to the county household median income say much about how teacher compensation compares to other professions. YMMV.
TFA is an end run of proper training. After 25 years, they’ve got no excuse and are not the best and the brightest if they can’t fix their most basic flaw.
To Brian/Virginiasgp:
You clearly and deliberately narrow minded.
Dr. Ravitch has 23 million + viewers in her website = Dr. Ravitch solidly know/understand her subject of public education.
You are the one who misunderstanding the concept of TFA from greedy business CORPORATION who undermine “”the”” DEMOCRACY in American citizens.
Please DO NOT twist the TRUE teaching PEOPLE versus the intentional LOOTING PUBLIC FUND in TFA concept.
In this world, NO SHORT CUT can yield the glory. Even the true DIAMOND (=born to be genius) still need the best jeweler (=the conscientious teacher) to shine it (=to be useful or helpful) to the world.
If you are new to this website, please read a short NOTE from a poor, shy little immigrant girl who becomes the best HUMAN and productive American CITIZEN, thank to CONSCIENTIOUS Teacher Rafe Esquith in LAUSD.
[start quote]
“”Rafe showed me the world, but he also showed me:
The value of HUMILITY and HONESTY.
He taught me that SUCCESS is NOT defined by HOW MUCH YOU MAKE or how famous you are, BUT that IT IS HONORABLE to BE HONEST and DO GOOD.
I am still trying to apply that to my life and practice today, and the classroom motto of ‘Be Nice, Work Hard’ follows me wherever I go.
He showed me that I could achieve my dreams but also made me think about how those DREAMS could DO GOOD and HELP OTHER PEOPLE.””
[end quote]
The above short note was taken from a letter, as follows: (if you care enough to read in order to correct your view about EDUCATION, that Dr. Ravitch supports as in this GENERAL example, NOT an EXCEPTION)
This is from Jiyeon Hwang, an amazing former student of Rafe’s. She’s cc’ed.I am terribly upset at how the school district has handled the situation. Rafe Esquith, the most passionate teacher I have ever worked with during my school years, should not have gone through this kind of treatment to begin with but the fact that it has gone on for this long is ridiculous. I was one of the lucky students who was able to join the Hobart Shakespeareans in 1997 and I have never lost touch with Rafe and the classroom. I would like to tell you a bit about my background here:I was a really shy kid when I was in elementary school. I overcame my fear of talking in front of a big audience through the Shakespeare plays I participated in. I was able to attend Marlborough School, a prestigious all-girls school, on a full scholarship. It was due to his urging that I tried multiple times to achieve this goal. After high school, I was accepted to 12 different colleges and decided to go to Cornell University, where I received by Bachelors and Masters in Chemical Engineering. Since then, I moved to San Francisco and started working for a software company that primarily works with major process engineering companies, such as Exxon Mobile and Cargill. I’ve moved up to become a Project Manager for the entire Engineering department. The reason I’ve listed these achievements is to show you how big of an impact Rafe has had on my life.
In short, Brian/Virginiasgp, please be open minded in order to be conscientious human, NOT BEING business people who are without conscience and view everything as a number/data.
We are human race, NOT ROBOT or machine to be assembled or discarded.
Be nice and work hard
NOT be cruel and loot well.
Back2basic.
Virginiasgp, Publishing private sector pay is up to private sector companies. You should go ask them. Let me know how that turns out. But you can get an idea on industry pay from various web sites. Teacher pay is public info. Starting teachers run in the $30,000’s in our area. Charter teachers in the high $20,000’s. Median in our state about $55,000. I’ve worked private sector in professional jobs, and health care offerings are identical. Pensions are better if you last long enough, but 401ks are terrible and the biggest scam on American workers in our history. Now if you are comparing teaching jobs to fast food or part time, yes, teaching appears better.
The UNC study is interesting but does mention the difficulty of scaling up TFA as any effective means of education. Teacher pay in our state is so low, probably why most TFA do not stick around. I am in teaching from a different “portal” but anecdotally my experience doesn’t support the UNC study. Like any profession, you get out what you put in. There are excellent teachers and not so great regardless of “portal”. The issue is more complex. Now the study is based on standardized test sores which, as I’ve mentioned, have serious contradictions and other more capable researchers than I have questioned, the ASA for one. It could just be that TFA has policies that encourage teach to the test or favor the measurement method in the study (bias). Multilevel stats requires such gyrations and tweaking to appear valid for teaching, it just isn’t a credible application.
I am not terrified of TFA and could care less. They are and never will be a solution unless all other jobs are reduced to McWalmart level. I suspect most TFAers can’t wait to move on to law school or a corporate job.
One of my daughters graduated from UB with a degree in math. Buffalo was short of math teachers and desperate so she was basically hired off the street with NO education background except that both her parents were teachers. The district had an orientation and continuing workshops throughout the year. It was sink or swim and she ended up treading water. Despite being offered a position along with financial help in getting certified, she declined and moved on to other things.
She actually enjoyed teaching algebra, but it was all the other nonsense, plus the student behaviors, that had her running for the door. And this was preCC.
Buffalo is now buying into the TFA movement, assigning them to work with the ESL or refugee population. (Buffalo has the highest percentage of nonEnglish speaking residents in the country). Let’s see how that works out.
No comment!
Our school began receiving TFA teachers about 12 years ago when that program pushed out the successful Mississippi Teacher Corps that had been in place for a number of years. The percentage of TFA teachers who remained at our school was 0. One stayed an extra year, but she bailed at Christmas of her third year. Several others didn’t last a full semester of their first year.
I’ve been teaching for 30 years, the last 22 at the same school. The problems that our students have are entrenched and are neither caused by school nor resolvable by school. We can help mitigate and not exacerbate their problems, but they are beyond the scope of any single institution. That the school is ineffective at addressing the students’ problems is a separate issue from the problems that the students bring.
I say this with intimate knowledge of my students, their families and extended family structures, the area in which they all live, and the goals and aspirations that they bring with them, gained over the course of teaching these extended family members over the course of nearly two generations. Unfortunately, the main goals of many of my students are extremely short-term and usually revolve around staying alive and fed for another day. Even more unfortunately, in their daily experience, people do get killed and go hungry. It was the same for their parents.
School is just not on their radar, so when they arrive, they are still in survival mode. If what the school offers doesn’t help them immediately, they are not interested. Many of our students are under court order to attend school, and wouldn’t be there if the alternative weren’t a jail cell.
So when TFA teachers come into our school, with stars in their eyes and their academic and social differences so stark to our students, the culture shock is overwhelming. The ones who have stayed are great people and did great things with the students who responded, which is all that any of us can do. They just had other things on their agenda, which was usually going to graduate school after their student loans were forgiven due to their TFA participation. Several of them told me that the only reason they joined TFA was for the loan forgiveness.
I think that it’s great to have them come in and show the students what life is like elsewhere, but you can’t run an entire school with TFA twofers because you need institutional memory, especially in a school with a long heritage and legacy as we have as the first high school for African Americans in our state. It’s great that the TFA corps members come in with that sense of purpose, but most of the staff who have stayed through thick and thin are still there because we too have a purpose. We do have to staff our school with low-quality warm bodies because we are the bottom of the bottom of the bottom and no one wants to come here, but that doesn’t mean that no one here is a quality teacher.
TFA quit coming to our school several years ago. I guess their sense of injustice at our continuing plight has evaporated. I miss them, but they weren’t the only heroes here. We were all young once, but I still have the fire that I once did. The difference is that now, I also have the wisdom and experience that helps me guide the young teachers as they grow. TFA corps members just choose to grow after they leave the classroom.
Kudos to you, LHP.
There are many teachers such as yourself, but instead of getting the recognition they deserve, they are chastised for “low test scores”.
How absurd!
Keep on “trucking”. Your values are in the right place even if those outsiders looking in don’t have a clue about the needs our students face. It’s unfortunate that there are so many children in the United States who live in third world conditions. Too bad politicians aren’t focusing on the real issues instead of scapegoating the ones who actually are making a difference.
Here’s my pat on your back.
“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.” John Maynard Keynes
Thanks for the quote Teacher Ed. I will be using it far and wide…
It is better than the sentiment that reliably springs to my mind when I think about businessmen.
Which I won’t share because I do not want to offend our gracious blog-host.
I’m with Betsy. Keynes quote has gone in my little book that was inspired by KrazyTA.
My pleasure!
Here’s another quote that’s apropo, also from a famous economist:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in more philosophy, that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness” John Kenneth Galbraith
Sorry, that should have said “moral philosophy,” not “more” (even though that works in describing greedy, selfish people, too).
The profession of teaching is definitely being de-professionalized. I think we all feel it. First of all, it no longer feels like a profession, but only a disrespected job. My hours beyond my master’s degree was once highly respected, but now the deformers have hammered and hammered that my advanced degree means nothing. The deformers repeat over and over that my advanced degree does not make me a better teacher. I was once very proud of my years of experience in the classroom, but the deformers have hammered and hammered that veteran, career teachers are incompetent people who need removed from the classroom before they do any more damage to their students’ learning. No other profession treats their experienced people in this way. Veteran teachers leave the classroom beat down, exhausted, and feeling no value. Once you turn 40 in this job,
the deformers want you replaced.
One time someone shared with me that I will see the day that bachelor’s degrees will no longer be required for teaching. I thought this person was crazy to say this, but with the current state of things this person was exactly right. The deformers are ruining our once wonderful profession. No one in their right mind will walk into this abuse. By lowering the educational requirements, teaching will be done for around 25,000 dollars per year. Twilight Zone for sure….. but, I feel it coming. Teaching will be like serving a Big Mac at McDonald’s drive through window. Teaching will be part of the service industry, along with the even lower pay and total disrespect.
If advanced degrees mean nothing then I should be able to be a licensed Physician with just my Bachelors Degree correct? I’ll wait for a response from the shitheads who claim that extra education is meaningless. However, I won’t be holding my breath.
Sad Teacher. The main reason that “someone” is telling you that advanced studies, and certifications, and years of experience do not matter is that economists are the main source of these “your qualifications don’t matter” ideas.
Economists are interested in your “productivity” as a worker. They value scores on standardized tests as one of your outputs, often treating it as the most important thing in the world–their world.
They do not give a wit about the students you have taught who leave, come back in three years, then hang by your door because you made a big difference in their lives.
The economic studies take the scores of students on statewide tests and link those to their teachers. Then they get some some numbers to represent your experience, degrees, salary, GPA in college, entry tests for teaching if any. They put these and other numbers in a statistical mix-master, churn out some correlations and wow– there are some low and probably unstable correlations of the test scores of your students and all of those other reductive numbers that are supposed to be truly representative of your professionalism.
I call this the econometric turn in education. It is being pursued with a vengeance by economists who seem to be unwilling or incapable of looking beyond the inferences they can make by running their numbers.
The worst part is that legislators and school administrators listen to economists as if they had special wisdom, experience, and education for a job that is much tougher than crunching numbers–teaching and valuing all of the indicators of learning.
You don’t need to have a completed degree to be a substitute teacher in Buffalo, just some credits.
It’s great that there’s some focus on private sector failings instead of the scolding lectures to working people who actually have very little voice or leverage at work unless they’re managers.
This whole “inequality” debate has centered on what people with the least influence and control “must do” which strikes me as ridiculously skewed towards protecting people with actual power and influence. At the very least there has to be two sides to this equation if anyone actually wants to solve it.
And yet the statement, “Their thinking reflects the constructivist ideas of John Dewey, now a century old” would pass with nods of approval…
But why would a for-profit charter school adopt this policy? The goal of such a school is not to provide a quality education. As long as it can fill seats with students, it will get money from the state, and it seems to me that good marketing is a better way to fill seats than by offering real quality. After that, if it can cut costs it will increase profits. Unhappy employees can simply be replaced.
This is one of of the big problems with approaching education like a business. In education, happy employees don’t necessarily increase efficiency in terms of using fewer resources to produce more goods.
Compare this with a car company. A car company could maximize profits by treating its employees well if that boosted efficiency or quality, or both. Happy employees can work harder, smarter, better as a group, etc. They can innovate. They can be involved with finding solutions to production problems, and so on.
But at a school, how is the production line going to be streamlined? Sped up? Made more efficient? Basically, teaching and learning take a lot of time. Students also need individual attention. I have yet to see a way to scale up or speed up good teaching.
In general, I don’t think that good teaching and student learning fit well with a for-profit business model. I think that this is especially true at the K-12 level.
Odd that the statement, “Their thinking reflects the constructivist ideas of John Dewey, now a century old” would generally be met with enthusiastic nods of approval…
Why is that odd?
It’s certainly not odd to people like Arne Duncan, Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel, all of whom sent/are sending their kids to the University of Chicago Lab School, which was established by Dewey and is still providing a Progressive Education with constructivist methods. They knew better than to send their own kids to public schools stuck with the old fashioned carrot and stick Behaviorism that they gave other people’s children.
It seems to me that the economic push for short term profits and the devaluation of experience go hand in hand with a societal turn away from taking the long view.
Economically it is well established that corporations care far more about short term profotability than long term stability. CEOs are hired to plump up the stock price. They know they will only have a few years to do so before they themselves are replaced, so it reinforces the short term over the long term. This also plays out in training of employees. Why invest in your workers when they have no real investment in the company.
With corporate types moving into the education arena, that type of thinking is also being applied, with disastrous results.
This fascination with the short term plays out larger as well. The tech revolution has changed the way we read, the way we get our entertainment, the way we expect to interact with others. With cell phones as common as dirt, we assume everyone is available at all times, day or night, and we get upset when that short term desire to speak to them is denied. We don’t wait for our favorite shows to air, we watch them on our own schedule online. We demand immediate satisfaction – and reject delayed gratification.
We have trained ourselves to be as focused on the short term as the corporations are. I am not a pessimistic person, but I think that this focus on the short term is a bigger factor than just a few companies realizing they can be more profitable if they treat their employees like the partners in success than they are.
I hope we can move away from this attitude.
This short term thinking stems from globalization which promotes stagnant, low wages through competing with the lowest common denominator. We survived NAFTA’s bad ideas, only to have Obama sell out the American worker once more with the TPP.
This is why I favor grade band testing. The fixation with incessant testing is part of this short term view. Change/growth take time and frequent testing of students implies that important learning can occur overnight. A focus on the short term is one small part of the problem but an important part to my mind.
As Diane Ravitch has succinctly put it, ‘Schools are not a business’, so application of any business model (even a “good’ one) to a school is fundamentally flawed
“Schools are not a business”
Schools are not a business
Profit’s not their purpose
Thinking, must reverse this
Business model’s worthless
TAGO!
Please stop using the word “pension.” Teachers do not get pensions. We have a savings plan with a percentages matched by the state, much like the private sectors 401k. Employees do not contribute to a pension. My father received a pension from Bethlehem Steel when he retired. He didn’t contribute any of his money for his pension. Teachers have a “forced” savings plan with an employer match up to a certain percentage. Our retirement savings are a 403vs 401k. The difference is that teachers must contribute; with a 401k, the employee may elect not to participate. At best, when referring to teacher’s retirement plans, the word “pension” is Orwellian, still used to mislead the public that teachers receive a pension. We do not receive a pension.
Obviously there are differences from state to state and from district to district.
In New York City, qualifying teachers (10 yrs of service) do receive a defined benefit pension. Teachers do have to contribute to the fund, but it is a nominal amount, 2-4% of gross pay for a certain number of years, that even in the most bullish market doesn’t come close to matching what is paid out. Additionally, public pension income is exempt from New York State and local income taxes, and teachers are entitled to Social Security. Teachers also receive retiree health care and have access to a separate 403b plan with a guaranteed (by the taxpayers) minimum 7.5 annual rate of return.
It may not be Orwellian to pretend that the many districts that provide a defined benefit pension are funding them wholly by taking a few hundred dollars from each teacher and putting them into a magic piggy bank, but it sure isn’t giving people the straight dope, either.
Tim: New York State retirees can participate in the state health plan, but it is not a free benefit. Some districts may offer to defray some of the cost through unused sick days, but it all depends on local contracts. Others have to carry the cost themselves. Once the NYS retiree hits 65, Medicare becomes primary and the NYS employee becomes secondary. Again, unless there is a local deal, the premiums are paid by the retired teacher.
Ron, deferred compensation is part of our total compensation. You are right that the contributions into a retirement system do not have to be deducted from an employee’s paycheck. However, if there is no employee contribution and everything is directly contributed from the employer this will still be budgeted as part of the total compensation cost.
It varies by plan (by state, locality, etc.), but typically when people say pension they are referring to defined benefit programs compared to defined contribution programs like 401k or 403b.
The difference in terminology is simple.
It is a defined benefit versus defined contribution plan.
In the defined benefit plan which many teachers belong to, he or she is guaranteed to get a defined benefit as per the rules of the game. This defined benefit in many states includes health care benefits. The state and local governments make the majority of the contributions to this defined benefit plan. The bad state of the pension plans, (CALPERS and CALSTERS in California) is now being discussed in the public. If the money set aside for this benefit is not adequate which seems to be the case in a majority of the states, the state and the local taxes must be increased to pay for it. But every one knows what happens when the taxes are increased on every one. Currently we seem to have reached a maximum on taxation in many states. This by definition is a pension.
Defined contribution are like the 401k of 403b (educators) plan. Here the employee pays into the fund a defined contribution, nominally a small fraction of his salary, before paying taxes. The employer also may add a small contribution, most employers match the first 3% of the contribution from the employee. The total contribution is invested with some control by the employee and the employee will get it upon retirement. At this point he/she may manage it on his own as an IRA or convert it to an annuity. Any withdrawal from this 401k or 403b is taxable upon withdrawal. This is what almost all corporations nowadays have. In one respect it is superior, because it is portable. The money goes with you when you change jobs. These plans were created by congress in the mid 80s and are a powerful driving force to the economy.
Unlike the defined benefit plans enjoyed by a majority of public workers, the state or the local government is not liable for any losses or gains in the 401k or 403b.
Powerful driving force to the financial community you mean.
Not to the rest of the economy and certainly not to the American worker.
It varies. In MA, I paid 11% of my salary into my pension fund over my 36 years of employment. Now, in retirement, 92% of my defined benefit check has been paid by me.
Mine does not include health care. I pay for that separately.
Ron, I teach in NYS and I will certainly receive a pension, assuming the NYS Constitution isn’t amended in three years and the provision for guaranteed pensions isn’t removed.
I paid into my pension for ten years a percentage of the annual total. The rest was paid by my employer.
The NYS teachers Retirement Fund is one of the best managed pension funds in the US. Had localities been required to keep their contributions at former levels during the early 2000’s all NYS pension funds would be in excellent shape.
Alas, that was not the case, with the exception of the teachers fund.
I left 20 years of employment as a professional geologist in part for the pension benefit. I’d never had a single employer who had a pension plan, let alone a 401k plan in place. Of course I took a 30% reduction in annual salary as well, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Other states are not as fortunate as NY is in the administration and financial stability of its pension plans for public employees.
Always better to do your work well than to do it cheaply. You can go point to point down Deming’s list of fourteen and see that almost every one is violated by the current school reform model.
It seems as though everyone is applying the idea of autonomy to the teaching profession. Has anyone given the same thought to students? How they should also have autonomy?
That’s a good question Beth, which isn’t addressed nearly as much as it should be. Alfie Kohn has been posing this challenge for 20 years, and it’s yet to catch on, even with some of the most caring educators and activists.
Speaking of Kohn, “Punished by Rewards” was published 15 years before “Drive.” I haven’t read the latter, but it looks a lot like a repeat.
Actually, it caught on in Early Childhood Education long ago, where Kohn might possibly have had the greatest influence, probably because we typically address the whole child and integrate the disciplines. Children have a lot of autonomy in classrooms where they are encouraged to create the class rules, plan, implement, document review and extend investigations and in-depth projects, based on their interests, select from a wide variety of resources and materials, and chose to work independently or become involved in different groupings with peers and teachers in their pursuits.
“Actually, it caught on in Early Childhood Education long ago, ”
Early Childhood Education is like a different world than the rest. Good on them. Though with the common core disaster I know the early elementary grades have been sabotaged and there’s been no room for student autonomy in public schools, not even room to raise the question.
” with the common core disaster I know the early elementary grades have been sabotaged”
Yes and, sadly, CC changed Kindergarten into the new 1st Grade, which then resulted in Preschool turning into academic prep. Early Childhood Education (ECE) professionals responded to such developmental inappropriateness and dogma, handed down from on high by non-educators who know nothing about ECE and child development in all domains, by organizing and advocating for children through Defending the Early Years: http://deyproject.org
Yes. See also Tom Little’s recent book “Loving Learning,” which describes examples of schools around the country where student curiosity and student initiative are highly valued. But to Beth’s question, it should not surprise us that the kind of leadership or governance teachers experience is often the kind they create in the classroom, so that top-down, punitive school systems result in top-down, punitive classrooms.
“Yes. See also Tom Little’s recent book “Loving Learning,” ”
I’ve had that book sitting on my shelf since it was released. Finally about to read it. Can’t wait. 🙂
“Loving learning…”
To clarify my earlier comment: the kind of schools in this book, or as described by Kohn, are in the extreme minority. The issue of student autonomy is still rare in educator discussion. So yes, it’s “caught on,” but only with a very small group of people.
While I haven’t read Little’s book, I did read the comments on Amazon. If you read the critical review, it made sense to me, that his suggestions are impractical and could feasibly only apply to the wealthy. I also agree with the reviewer where schools should not be replacing parents or families.
“While I haven’t read Little’s book, I did read the comments on Amazon. If you read the critical review, it made sense to me, that his suggestions are impractical and could feasibly only apply to the wealthy. I also agree with the reviewer where schools should not be replacing parents or families.”
Beth, be careful what you determine from ONE dissenting voice out of FIFTEEN (the other fourteen reviewers gave the book five stars.) I have not read the book yet, but we should be extremely skeptical of the stance that schools valuing student interest and autonomy are “impractical” and “could only apply to the wealthy.” Then, the argument that “schools should not be replacing parents or families” is also a poor one, as it is a strawman claim — progressive educators never say schools should serve this purpose, but acknowledge the fact that not all students DO have the opportunity at home to become ethical and well educated, so schools must do the best they can in absence of social equity.
Good points. I should have mentioned that I did agree with his suggestions of banning testing, grades and ranking. Out of 14 reviews, the majority were very similar, but the one critical review caught my attention because she was pointing out how much his progressive schools cost. Just not affordable .. .
Have you read The One World School House by Salman Khan (of Khan Academy)? He has many similar ideas and suggestions as Little . . . eliminating grades and standardized testing . . .
“Have you read The One World School House…”
No I haven’t. I know very Little about Khan. 🙂
As for progressive schools being expensive. That’s why we look at them as evidence and transfer those ideas to public schools. It CAN be done, the question is will we allow ourselves to do it.
I wonder how many teachers would be willing to adapt his ideas? I think the majority (teachers and parents) are familiar and comfortable with what they know . . . individual subjects, schedules, grades, etc,, that it takes a 180 degree turn to think outside the box. Classroom management would be completely different. I am not sure how it can be done with 20 plus students and one adult. I love his ideas, but just wondering how practical they are for public, compulsory schools. If you can, read Khan’s book. While he might be viewed as a progressive and linked with Bill Gates, he does have similar suggestions that are for the betterment of the students.
When teachers had more autonomy in their classrooms, many in ECE were able to do this on a shoestring budget, including myself. I asked families to contribute only recyclables, which the kids repurposed and made into many different creative things representing their investigations and project work. We have some Montessori public schools in my district, which have mixed age groups as well, and those materials cost much more money.
“I wonder how many teachers would be willing to adapt his ideas? I think the majority (teachers and parents) are familiar and comfortable with what they know . . .”
Definitely. It’s not going to be easy, nor will it happen overnight. But it’s arguably better for students and our society, so we have to move in that direction.
Agreed. Will not happen over night. And definitely better for students. This is where I see a dismantling of the current system in order to create something new. Not that I agree with the way it is happening.
Yes, things need to change. Of course, we’ve been going about it all wrong. 😦
Why don’t all the economists that spend their time trying to develop a bogus system to rate and rank teachers actually spend their time trying to improve the economy so we won’t have so many poor people? After all, economics is their area of expertise; they should apply themselves to reducing income inequality, bringing back the middle class and reducing poverty. They should keep their noses out of teaching since they know nothing about it.
Why are there so many economists in the first place?
They didn’t have what it takes to teach.
Economists are like psychics.
From a probability standpoint, the more you have, the greater the likelihood that one of them will be right about something some time or another purely by chance.
And when that happens, everyone will naturally think “Wow, that economist predicted the future”, not realizing, of course, that s/he was singled out (largely by their very loud “Look at me, I was right” bragging) and that for every one who got it right there were 1 million other economists who got it wrong. No one focuses on the latter, of course (and those who get it wrong certainly don’t ever point that out themselves!)
the upshot is that economics schools cultivate a large crop to maximize their chances that one of them will get it right and thereby keep their whole field afloat.
hope that helps.
Remember that “trickle down economics” was a load of garbage, and so are the “market” and “supply side economics” when applied to education. I seem the recall that “austerity” has been a huge flop in Europe.
Corporate ed reformers should take a strategy from another playbook… look at what happened at Market Basket (a small family owned grocery chain in MA) to “read the tea leaves”. I have no doubt that Harvard’s B school is using this case as a study. But the big question is… who learns from it???
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/28/market-basket-case-a-rare-workers-win
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
We have been using the popular books “Drive” and “Mindset” ias texts in teacher preparation for a few years with the intent of helping teacher candidates to design their classrooms so that students have a sense of autonomy and purpose. These ideas work, in part because employing non-cognitive skills such as self regulation and perseverance effect learning. I was not surprised when I read about the study. I don’t think of this as humanistic-centered rather as cognitively-informed.
Providing decent work conditions is not a new concept, nor is the idea that people will work harder if they are invested in the outcome whether emotionally or financially. This new idea of eeking every last drop out of an employee while paying them an unliveable wage is a throwback concept to the days before unions. I say penny wise, pound foolish or you get what you pay for. It doesn’t work in business and it definitely doesn’t work in education.
My son worked for an upscale bistro for four years, from the time it opened. He worked his way up from dishwasher to head cook/assistant manager. While on vacation, the corporate headquarters, looking to streamline costs, fired and replaced the current manager. My son found he no longer had a place in the kitchen. They had effectively gotten rid of the core of workers who had given this restaurant its good reputation. The new manager hired inexperienced staff at minimum wage and the results were that eventually he, too, was fired and one year later this once thriving business is now closed.
It’s the same with education. New “management” comes in and makes willy nilly changes without regards to the actually needs of the clientele – in this case the students. The cheap workers are not vested in the outcome and quit when they get tired of the hassle (which is what often happens in the restaurant industry). It’s a vicious cycle. Now the new standard is “reinventing” schools which, when they don’t produce, are closed and “reinvented” under a new title.
That’s the business model. Do we really want to use this sort of template when the clientele are our own children? I don’t think so.