Teachers, an absolute JOKE

[Psyber]

Fair pay is a widespread issue.

One of the reasons I left medical practice, for a more assessment and reporting type role, was that after paying all running expenses I wasn't earning much more than a Senior Constable for a 40 hour week and still had increasing unpaid paper work to do to communicate with bureaucrats and helper organisations. I eventually worked out there was a better way to go.

GPs can form large groups to afford to pay Practice Managers to do all this for them, but that means the local GP disappears in favour of supermarket type practices you have to drive to. More specialised medicine doesn't work this way, so you congregate in subsidised specialist centres at private hospitals near the CBD, and the outer suburbs get neglected. I did consider taking a salaried job at a public hospital several years ago and found out that while they have vacancies the state government in Victoria doesn't actually supply the funds to fill them. [I ran into that in SA back in the 1980s too.] NSW and QLD are constantly advertising jobs at good salaries.

As I have said elsewhere, pollies and government bureaucrats think they are the only ones who should get decent pay, and that they, and only they, should get paid "commensurate" with the few top flight executives in big business.

Interestingly, in the UK, after 54 years of screwing doctors, they reached crisis point of staff shortages in 2003 and put doctors salaries up 35%. I think teachers and nurses do much better there now too. It took the UK from 1949 to 2003 to wake up to the fact that what is happening now in Oz doesn't work - eventually you can't get anyone to do the jobs.

[Mic]

Could the state teachers out there please inform me of the total package received by teachers. Not having a crack , just would like to know the break up. Wage is one component, however conditions such as super and what teachers can salary sacrifice into all have a monetary value.

For a 10 year teacher I would think total package should be in the order of $ 90K-100K to constitute as a fair and reasonable deal.

Package consisting of : Only my guess next to each item here .

Salary 65 K?
Super 9%? minimum - extra if they make private contributions which are supplemented by more $$$ from Govt. I think the current PS scheme offers 10.5% if a PS puts in 4.5% themselves.
Salary Sacrifice alternatives ? Yes. Whole of Govt but realistically it is only worth taking some of the options.
Annual Leave 4 weeks? Minimum for all. Add "school holidays" which every teacher says they work. IMHO they should have 4 weeks like everyone else and work normal hours while kids are on holidays. It would give them a chance to work on curriculum and mean they could go home earlier in term time.
Sick Leave 8 days? 10-12 days from memory.
Carers Leave 2 days? Think it is up to 5 days but sacrificed from sick leave.
Maternity leave 3 Months paid? 14 weeks
Study Leave etc. ?Yes

Re teacher's performance reviews - yes. But they dont like the skills test because they fear it will be used to rate their own performances.

I do not know any teachers who ´fear´the skills tests.

[bulldogs]

Primary school teachers on $70,000 want a pay rise of 21%

My sides are splitting with laughter...

$70,000 dont think so

[Squawk]

It's not the test itself Mic - is the possible ramifications that might arise for teachers vis a vis

elite schoools;
performance of teachers (eg the suggestion that if their class is below a line of sorts that this suggests that they are not teaching to a high enough standard);
parents wanting to know the results of schools and teachers and wanting to send their kids to state schools with better all round results, etc.

The AEU (national and state branches) do not want to see this happen because it will divide the membership and place undue pressure on the union when it has to choose sides between 'happy' members and unhappy members. And that is any unions worst nightmare - member vs member vs union.

[Mic]

It's not the test itself Mic - is the possible ramifications that might arise for teachers vis a vis

elite schoools;
performance of teachers (eg the suggestion that if their class is below a line of sorts that this suggests that they are not teaching to a high enough standard);
parents wanting to know the results of schools and teachers and wanting to send their kids to state schools with better all round results, etc.

The AEU (national and state branches) do not want to see this happen because it will divide the membership and place undue pressure on the union when it has to choose sides between 'happy' members and unhappy members. And that is any unions worst nightmare - member vs member vs union.

Teachers know that skills test scores do not give a clear indication on their teaching performance.

I have a lot to do with the AEU. That is not why they discourage the idea of schools (or teachers) being compared like a league table.

[zipzap]

The NAPLAN skills tests are another issue entirely but teachers don't like them because they are restrictive, politically driven and not a true indication of a student's true ability.

A good example this year was the narrative writing section where older kids were expected to imagine, plan and write a story in 30 minutes. I don't know anyone, child or adult who can produce a quality piece of writing in 30 minutes in a test situation! The fact that the assessment criteria is not even remotely interested in quality, merely how well a student robotically follows the pre-prescribed structure of a narrative, gives no room for creativity or advanced thinking skills. I still recall one of the best, most literate students I have ever taught absolutely bombing out on the LAN test because she was literally too clever and creative for it.

It's certainly nothing to do with teacher 'fear' as Squawk puts it, other than the concern that the results are used for political purposes, which they are.

[Psyber]

The NAPLAN skills tests are another issue entirely but teachers don't like them because they are restrictive, politically driven and not a true indication of a student's true ability.

A good example this year was the narrative writing section where older kids were expected to imagine, plan and write a story in 30 minutes. I don't know anyone, child or adult who can produce a quality piece of writing in 30 minutes in a test situation! The fact that the assessment criteria is not even remotely interested in quality, merely how well a student robotically follows the pre-prescribed structure of a narrative, gives no room for creativity or advanced thinking skills. I still recall one of the best, most literate students I have ever taught absolutely bombing out on the LAN test because she was literally too clever and creative for it.

It's certainly nothing to do with teacher 'fear' as Squawk puts it, other than the concern that the results are used for political purposes, which they are.

I tend to agree with what you have said above, though I am also concerned by what appears to be a general resistance to any impulse to measure performance in either children or teachers. I recall such efforts years ago being called "elitist" and I feared then that we were developing a culture that devalued and suppressed effort and achievement. That is why, despite my having gone to a state school and being anti-private schooling when it was offered to me, I changed my mind later and our daughter went to Seymour. We wanted some sense of assurance she was being encouraged to achieve as much as she could, and not being pressured, instead, to hold herself at the "standard" level by peer and teacher pressure to be "anti-elitist" as had appeared to be occurring in later primary school.

I realise it has been a limited sample, but among the teachers we have known socially there seems to be a strong socialist set and a committment to "the end of the private school system", rather than a tolerance of choice, or even cooperation - even some tendency to sneer about students coming out of or going into private schooling, which raises concern about how those students may be related to. It has a ring of class war and compulsory conformity about it. I have not seen the same hostility to the existence of a public system in those who work in or choose to use the private one, just concern about standards of learning and behaviour.

[zipzap]

I think your first paragraph (this misconception some parents have that private = quality & achievement, public = sub-standard) explains your second (why public school teachers may be 'hostile' towards private education).

There is definitely a class distinction but it very much goes the other way IMO with private looking down on public. As a for instance I had a really naughty kid last year, so much so that I called his parents in. This kid was to be going to Pembroke the next year (which he drummed into the 'poor kids' at every opportunity). During the meeting the dad started disciplining his kid by saying "Now listen Freddie, they would not put up with this kind of behaviour at Pembroke, they are much more strict and have higher expectations". Hang on a minute, didn't I just call you in because I, a lowly public school teacher, don't tolerate that behaviour and have high expectations?? Nice slap in the face, cheers.

[Psyber]

I think your first paragraph (this misconception some parents have that private = quality & achievement, public = sub-standard) explains your second (why public school teachers may be 'hostile' towards private education).

There is definitely a class distinction but it very much goes the other way IMO with private looking down on public. As a for instance I had a really naughty kid last year, so much so that I called his parents in. This kid was to be going to Pembroke the next year (which he drummed into the 'poor kids' at every opportunity). During the meeting the dad started disciplining his kid by saying "Now listen Freddie, they would not put up with this kind of behaviour at Pembroke, they are much more strict and have higher expectations". Hang on a minute, didn't I just call you in because I, a lowly public school teacher, don't tolerate that behaviour and have high expectations?? Nice slap in the face, cheers.

Zipzap, While I can see your point in your first paragraph, I don't think any of that justifies public school teachers at social gatherings, where they don't know everybody well, being provocative enough to propose a toast to "The destruction of the private school system." or preaching it to kids at schools. I had several occasions to refuse to drink to that, long before we made any decision about our daughter going private, and while I was still favouring state education as having been good enough for me at Woodville High. [Some more polite and good-mannered than me may have quietly not drunk rather than state their objection to the toast publicly.]

What changed our mind about private schooling were subtle changes we saw emerging in the later primary years in her attitude and effort, and seeing that sort of divisive propaganda coming from teachers at the state school she attended. While I didn't like paying the money, her general attitude and ambition did improve over the time at the private school. Years on she is still friends with the girls she befriended at Seymour, who were mostly the country kids, not the pretentious set like the ones you mentioned in your second paragraph. The kids from those families were not all that popular at the school with the kids or parents. I suspect what you describe is not a "class" divide - just a money based one, because a parent with any class would not have behaved as rudely and pretetiously towards you as in the example you gave.

I have posted elsewhere about an issue that arose over a similar "nouveau riche" family allowing kids booze, presumably trying to buy popularity.

I think it has the potential to become a bit like the situation between Serbia and Croatia - they have had hundreds of years of conflict and each thinks the other started it. There is developing a similar hostile division betwen private and public health systems that wasn't there until the late 1980s - it is there now as a political tool having been focussed on to whip up division - both political parties have contributed. Divide and conquer is the game they play with the professions, and probably other workers too. They got to Nurses and Teachers first and persuaded some to become collaborators/provocateurs.

[Mic]

Psyber, that sounds strange that teachers would be toasting that. It sounds very strange that teachers would be preaching that to students. There's no way they should be doing that to students.

I do think there are some envious feelings towards the more wealthier private schools that have the wonderful facilities and resources most publuic school teachers would love to have. But public school teachers 'hating' private schools is just silly, surely they could find better things to toast.

I actually know about 5 private school teachers, none of them have any ill feelings towards public schools, or look down at them, at all.

[Psyber]

Psyber, that sounds strange that teachers would be toasting that. It sounds very strange that teachers would be preaching that to students. There's no way they should be doing that to students.

I do think there are some envious feelings towards the more wealthier private schools that have the wonderful facilities and resources most publuic school teachers would love to have. But public school teachers 'hating' private schools is just silly, surely they could find better things to toast.

I actually know about 5 private school teachers, none of them have any ill feelings towards public schools, or look down at them, at all.

I guess there are always extremists, and perhaps I had run in to a little clique of them, mixing then with a group that included some current but unappy teachers, and some ex-teachers, at the time. It was during the late 1980s when polarisation was a strong influence in politics. I think there was a tendency to naively think that if the private schools were gone the limited resources of the era would be redeployed to the public ones.