What's Wrong with School Administrations These Days?

Originally posted by digital01anarchy

I know why they did it! I have an aunt who got a ba in art and became a teacher she taught kindergarten she waited to get tenure then got her masters and her pay raised from 30k to 90k to teach 5 year olds how to finger paint and count to 10. She actually believed she should have earned 90k and would say things like I would never work for anything under 40 dollars an hour like she had some actual skill that qualified her to earn 90k.

This is my first post and while I agree with most of the sentiments expressed in this thread- it is this one that made me post.
I am the husband, son and son-in-law of a teacher and am tired of the new fad in this country that is teacher bashing.

Teaching is a skill and people deserve to be compensated for it. My wife teaches bi-lingual, special education preschool. Much of what she does is not what a lot of people would consider 'hard'- counting, abc's etc- but there are no people knocking down the door to take her job- could it be it is not so 'easy' to become qualified to teach... You talk like a MA is easy to get with no sacrifices made.

Also- I would love to know of a district in the country that gives a 60K raise for MA. Not possible- so clearly someone is stretching the truth to try to prove a point.

I apologize for being off topic but am responding to an off topic post.

It seems to me that all these school shootings and the increase in suicides from bullying increased DRAMATICALLY when "zero-tolerance" took effect.
I have raised two healthy, happy, confident, well behaved teenagers, and now I have a 4 year old that I am getting ready to start all over in the public school system. I have to say, I am MUCH more worried about my 4 year old starting school than I was with either of my teens. Even when they started the rules had started to change, but now the rules are getting out of control!! The kids now are picked over with a fine tooth comb. They don't seem to be able to make a move or say a word without someone over analyzing whatever they are doing.
Kids are kids. My 4 year old loves to run up to my teenage son and yell "bang! Bang," and laugh as he falls on the ground. Then my 4 year old will run up and hug him and give him a big kiss on the cheek and run away.
It's playful, it's something my brother used to do to my dad when we were little. My brother never shot anyone in real life, nor would he ever.
Zero tolerance is just ridiculous. Might as well just take recess away altogether... Or put all the kids in a line and tell them EXACLY what activity they can do like a prisoner. That's what schools seem to be acting like nowadays.

Originally posted by Darkphoenix77
What's Wrong with School Administrations These Days?

Nothing is wrong with them.

They are flawlessly performing their duty as instructed by the government, as they always have.

If you have a problem with "Public Schooling" you really have a problem with "Government", as they are synonymous with each other.

@ openminded First, I would like to say welcome to ATS Second, I agree with you I think blaming teachers is blame that is misplaced in alot of cases. There are teachers that enforce policy with zeal and others that are just caught in the way of bad policy. So I agree with your assessment.

@ Piper I agree with you, the policy is complete utter BS, and has gotten worse by leaps and bounds since it was introduced. Common sense has taken leave and left us with this flawed thing that leaves no room for any interpretation whatsoever.

@ Hiwatt I have no love for the way the government has conducted itself these past number of years, but government and school administration are not synonymous. Zero tolerance, was something that was instituted with good intentions I think in the beginning, but has evolved into something with a life of it's own and is a complete perversion of what it was initially supposed to be. It isn't surprising really as it was a flawed idea to begin with, regardless it's time people stood up to it and called it what it is, a policy that promotes fear and injustice. It is wrong, and needs to go the way of the DoDo......

And the madness continues

This freshman student in Arizona was suspended for having a picture of a gun laying across a flag on his laptop. The only good news is when confronted the school retracted thier 3 day suspension.

AZ Student Suspended Over Gun Desktop Background

Originally posted by Darkphoenix77


I shudder to think what the country will be like in another 10 years the way things are going. As far as teachers, no idea, I think some of them lose sight of why they wanted to be teacher's in the first place.

In defense of the teachers, they have to put up with the crap the administration deals out first hand. They (some anyway) fight against it so the kids don't have to go through some of the ignorance and get frustrated to the point that they're already at wits end. Granted, there are some that just outright suck, but the majority of them are good at what they do and have the kids best interest in mind.

The lousy ones are the future administrators

Originally posted by digital01anarchy

I know why they did it! I have an aunt who got a ba in art and became a teacher she taught kindergarten she waited to get tenure then got her masters and her pay raised from 30k to 90k to teach 5 year olds how to finger paint and count to 10. She actually believed she should have earned 90k and would say things like I would never work for anything under 40 dollars an hour like she had some actual skill that qualified her to earn 90k.

Gotta call BS on that one, public school teachers don't make 90k. Somebody's lying to you or you're exaggerating.