[lukejduncan]

As a former Michigander with family in education I can say that your comment on pension and retirement is wrong. My mom is about to retire and they just officially TOOK AWAY her retirement.

Teaching is an interesting profession. In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. We call them incompetent, fire the youngest members of the profession first, underpay them, and then public ridicule them.

I would think people who live in the Silicon Valley world would agree: if you want to solve hard problems you need great talent. If you want great talent, you need to attract them, not repel them. Education is a hard problem and we treat teachers like unskilled labor.

[anamax]

> In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class.

They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice.

> fire the youngest members of the profession first

That's what the teacher's unions demanded in negotation, so if you think that it's wrong....

[lukejduncan]

Wait, I'm sorry, are you saying teaching isn't a profession?

[Duff]

With the exception of teachers, "professionals" are licensed workers who carry liability for their actions. If a Registered Nurse is negligent in the course of her duties, she can lose her license to work as a nurse and potentially be held personally liable.

Teachers want to called "professionals" when negotiating for pay and benefits, but simultaneously want to retain strict union seniority, guaranteed employment and other benefits more commonly associated with regular civil service and blue-collar workers.

I have a half dozen friends who got laid off from teaching jobs this year. These are really smart, bright people who should not have been let go. In the case of one of my friends ALL of the layoffs in his district could have been avoided had the folks with 30+ years who are eligible to retire at 75% pay decided to do so. In the "professional" world, those folks would have been laid off or forced to retire.

[sp332]

They can't be considered "professionals" because they're not held to any professional standards.

[lukejduncan]

Seriously? I can see the arguments for accreditation, but to say they aren't held to professional standards is a joke.

Again, solving hard problems means finding top talent. People love to slander teachers as lazy, but what can you really expect from an industry that repels talent - especially young talent. Teachers are vilified are underpaid ($60k is nothing for the type of problem being solved, and many teachers make closer to $30k).

I promise you, if we treated teachers as well as we treated Software Engineers we'd have a much healthier education system.

[CWuestefeld]

to say they aren't held to professional standards is a joke.

Sample non-professional behavior:

--- quote [1]

A video [2] posted on YouTube titled "Teacher's Union Gone Wild" claims to capture New Jersey teachers ... using racial slurs and joking about tenure. The undercover video was ... recorded during the New Jersey Education Association's leadership conference this summer.

... Another woman is shown playing a video game laughs that taxpayers are paying her to play it. Another clip shows people sarcastically talking about tenure that it is a "joke" and teachers can do almost anything without being fired.

--- end quote

[1] http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/new_jersey/teache...

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdqQTIQhn5A

[sp332]

When was the last time a tenured teacher was let go for underperforming?

[lukejduncan]

Teachers Unions are a part of the problem. We need more advocates like Michelle Rhee who both know it's wrong and are in the position to do something about it.

>They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice. I'm not sure where this definition is coming from. By that definition a software engineer isn't a professional.

At least from Wikitionary (better source?) http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/professional_class

1) A social and economic demographic, commonly identified as part of the upper middle class.

2) (plural) the groups in society composed of highly educated professionals

[scythe]

>They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice.

Even programmers?

[ori_b]

Programmers aren't professionals in the sense that he's using. There is no accreditation procedure, there is no regulating body, there is no licensing, there is no code of ethics that must be followed by all programmers, and there is no liability attached to malpractice.

[lukejduncan]

Note that there are accreditation procedures, regulating bodies, and licensing for teachers.

So how are teachers not professionals?

[anamax]

> Note that there are accreditation procedures, regulating bodies, and licensing for teachers.

> So how are teachers not professionals?

Those are schemes for limiting the number of people who are allowed to teach in certain circumstances. They don't have much to do with quality teaching.

If you disagree, the following questions are relevant.

(1) How often does a regulating body discipline a teacher?

(2) In what circumstances are licenses actually revoked?

Feel free to compare the numbers to the corresponding ones for stock brokers. (I don't think that stock brokers are clean enough, so if teachers are worse....)

[ori_b]

Point. I don't really know how teacher accreditation works in the states, so I don't know if they'd qualify as professionals or not.