Teacher Todd wrote:
We tend to have a few to many hang on at the end that should have retired already.
I think that's one of the big problems with education nationwide. That, and teachers who only got into the field so they could have summers off. Not that that wouldn't be a nice benefit! But more than anything, it's administrators who make the same dumb decisions as administrators in other fields. Funny, when academic and music programs are cut, you almost never hear of layoffs or even cutbacks in expenditures at the district administration offices. I once asked a teacher during parent-teacher conferences why she didn't have any maps in her classroom. She replied that her "allowance" wasn't enough to buy them and that as a 1st-year teacher her salary wasn't high enough for her to buy them herself (which she would have done otherwise - how crazy is that!?). Yet, that very afternoon they had approved the purchase of 24 new laptops for use by district administration personnel. This in a district with over 27K students and a $220 million budget. But no maps unless the teachers buy them on their own.
Sorry for the hijack, this is a hot button for me. I believe administrative negligence and waste in public education is one of the biggest dirty secrets in the U.S. And if you say anything about it, then "...you must not be in favor of
the children."