74 replies to this topic

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

I think when most people think of the term "back to school" they think of elementary, middle and high school primarily. That was I meant, anyway. I was thinking we might use avatars of us as kids, maybe at a school function, like a play or something, if we had them.

School starting in August is a very Southern thing, I think. In the Northeast it usually starts after Labor Day (although this year because Labor Day falls late we are starting on September 1). We get out at the end of June (June 23 for the upcoming school year, June 25 this past one). If they tried to make kids go back in August up here I think they'd have a revolution on their hands!

Unrelated side note: The cover story in Time magazine this week is about the idea that summer vacation should be done away with. I'm interested to read it.

Anyway, as to the August theme, no one seems to get that I suggested Holy Roman Emperors as a joke.

Why not combine wacky politicians and alcoholic beverages and call it "Boobs or Booze?"

[Thrash]

Unrelated side note: The cover story in Time magazine this week is about the idea that summer vacation should be done away with. I'm interested to read it.

I'd just LOVE to see Teachers' reaction to that should it ever come about. "YOU MEAN I HAVE TO WORK 12 MONTHS A YEAR?????????????????? I'M GOING TO NEED MORE MONEY"

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Unrelated side note: The cover story in Time magazine this week is about the idea that summer vacation should be done away with. I'm interested to read it.

I'd just LOVE to see Teachers' reaction to that should it ever come about. "YOU MEAN I HAVE TO WORK 12 MONTHS A YEAR?????????????????? I'M GOING TO NEED MORE MONEY"

Speaking as someone who works a teacher's schedule, let me address this. Because it's a common refrain, and it's completely unfair.

In my state, in order to be a teacher you need to have a master's degree. With that master's, you can expect to make, at the top end of the teacher's pay scale, something like $60K per year. That may sound like a lot, but it's not, especially when you consider that most people with comparable levels of education make much more. And that's at the top end. Teacher's pay starts at around $37K per year. Most of the teachers in my building make in the mid-40K range. Considering the time, effort and expense that goes into their training, that's a pittance.

In Germany, by contrast, teachers are at the top end of the professional pay scale, along with physicians. They are also a lot more respected, unlike here, where they are seen as glorified babysitters. Let me assure you, that's not the case. Being a good teacher is difficult, exhausting work.

Now let's talk about time off. Most highly educated, professional people have at least 6 weeks of vacation a year. Many have a lot more. I had a nurse manager (master's level) once who had 12 weeks of vacation a year. A typical summer vacation is 10 weeks. But, although most people don't know it, most teachers don't have that whole summer off. In our school system they return in mid-August to do orientation, get their rooms cleaned and prepped, make lesson plans, do necessary certifications and training (CPR, first aid, etc.), etc. So that's two weeks gone. They are also usually here for a week at the end of school for all the "winding down" stuff that needs to be done. Another week gone.

So now we're down to 7 weeks off, plus fixed school vacations throughout the year (usually at Christmas, then again in February and April). So, yes, they do have a decent amount of time off, but it's certainly not out of line with what comparably trained (and much better paid) professionals get. But there's one major difference: Other professionals can take their time off whenever they want. Teachers cannot do that. Instead they are locked into the predetermined school vacation schedule. And as anyone who has ever tried to book a trip at those times knows, the prices go sky-high. Speaking for myself, I can no longer really afford to take trips, because I make much less at the school than I did at the hospital (although I am one of the highest paid professionals in the building) and the rates for airline tickets, hotels, etc. are so much higher during the fixed times I have off.

I would also note that most schools now have summer programs to address the needs of students with specialized needs (called an IEP or Individualized Education Plan). In this age of special education run amok, that's a LOT of kids (around 20-25%). So many teachers work all summer. I am writing this from the computer in my office at work; I have to be here because there are kids in the building all summer.

Finally, any proposal to expand the school year would probably retain the same amount of vacation time, it would just be spread out throughout the year instead of in one big block in the summer. Most school systems in the United States have around 180 days (36 weeks) of school per year. If they eliminated summer vacation they would probably do what they do in Europe, which is to go all year on a four weeks on/one week off schedule, with a couple of two-week vacation periods here and there, probably at Christmastime and in high summer.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

heh, you'd have a student (and maybe teacher) riot if they took away summer vacation

Anyway, I told the poll to end in 4 days, if no one has objections. If today is a good math day, that should end it at the end of July 31

Actually, you'd probably have a parent riot too. A lot of people make their summer plans around school vacation, particularly in August. But people would get used to it. A week off every four weeks is a pretty good deal, after all.

But still I bet they'll never change it.

[Thrash]

I've never known anyone in my life who has 6 weeks of vacation. 4 is the max I've seen anyone get and that's after they've been with a company for like 20 years.

Myself, I've never had more than 2 weeks, of which I spend about 50%-60% for snow days.

Also, teaching doesn't require a Masters, most teachers only hold a Bachelors degree.

Here ya go, salary information and degree obtained for every teacher in the state of NJ:

http://php.app.com/edstaff/search.php

[Shotgun Willy]

yea, but most teachers at my school hold a Masters regardless, though there are a few Bachelors still left, but they're either the really experienced ppl with Bachelors or really lucky. There's a lot of competition for teaching jobs in my district, and as I recall, I think most teachers have to teach elsewhere for a few years before being considered unless they have some friends, but that's just Klein ISD. Houston ISD and most of the other ISDs around here, on the other hand, sucks ass, if only 'cause the bad crowd is prevalent around those parts

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

I've never known anyone in my life who has 6 weeks of vacation. 4 is the max I've seen anyone get and that's after they've been with a company for like 20 years.

Myself, I've never had more than 2 weeks, of which I spend about 50%-60% for snow days.

Also, teaching doesn't require a Masters, most teachers only hold a Bachelors degree.

Here ya go, salary information and degree obtained for every teacher in the state of NJ:

http://php.app.com/edstaff/search.php

Thrash, you're comparing apples and oranges. Highly educated people with graduate degrees tend to get a lot of vacation time. Hell, most of the physicians I've worked with take a week off every five or six weeks! You can't compare someone with a master's with someone in a lower-level job that requires less education. I'm not trying to be a dick by saying that -- it's just the reality.

In the state of Massachusetts you must have a master's degree or be in the process of getting one in order to be a certified teacher. Ohio and New York have the same requirements. A quick Google search of the subject finds that other states have different requirements, but very few of them allow teachers to work indefinitely with only a bachelor's, New Jersey being one of the few.

I randomly searched positions on that website. I did all my searches for elementary English teachers to keep it consistent. The highest paid one I found was just over $80K. She only had a bachelor's, but I would be willing to bet you that she a) has been working for the school system for 20+ years, does some extracurricular stuff (i.e. coaches a sports team, etc.) that adds to her base salary, and/or c) holds an administrative position on top of her teaching position (assistant principal or head of the English department or something). By comparison, a bachelor's degree RN working at Children's Hospital Boston with that much experience could expect to be making over $100K.

The highest paid teacher in our school system makes around $85K. He has been here since the 1980s and he also coaches several sports. And ours is a wealthy district.

And there's no point getting angry at the unions, either. Their JOB is to look out for their members. We should all be so lucky. And it's not like they act alone -- it takes both sides to agree to a contract.

Bottom line: Teaching is not some free ride. People look at it from the outside and think it is because they have no idea what's involved. They think, "Oh they just hang out with kids all day and have the whole summer off." Let's see them do it if it's so easy.

[Invicta]

My father is a professional (very well educated) computer software developer who writes extremely complex and extremely expensive (like tens of thousands of dollars for a single install) financial analysis software used by organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nestle, J. P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, etc. He has been working there a long time, and though he started in the '70s when there WERE no graduate programs in software development, his experience is considered more valuable, and he is higher ranked/paid more than a lot of kids coming out of school with a masters in computer science or something. He specifically asked (in his words begged) for an extra week of paid vacation instead of a bonus each year during his early years, and got it. He now has more paid vacation time than basically any other employee aside from the Directors and the company President. I won't post what he's making but lets just say it's solidly over $100k, and his amazing vacation? 4 weeks paid (20 days specifically), plus personal days, sick days, normal company holidays etc. Europeans, at least French people, who pretty much regardless of tenure or pay scale take a month of vacation at once plus regular holidays, plus using some vacation time to form les ponts (the bridges), where a holiday is on a tuesday or a thursday and taking the monday or friday results in a four day weekend. Basically nobody works the Mondays or Fridays before/after holidays. And they have a lot of mandatory holidays. I did some quick research and found out that the American averages for paid vacation are much worse than you're letting on.

Actually, most countries REQUIRE a minimum number of paid time off days and company holidays. The U.S. doesn't, at all. A company can legally give 0 time off in the US. Compare that to, say, Finland where the legal minimum is 30 days (6 weeks) paid vacation and 14 (basically 3 weeks) paid public holidays, or France with 30 days minimum and 10 (2 weeks) public holidays minimum, even the United Arab Emerates gives 30 days minimum and 9 public holidays by law. The US average from large public firms with minimum 10 years tenure is 15 days paid and 10 public holidays. The only countries whos legal mininmums for full time employment are worse than America's averages for full time employment at major firms with 10 years tenure are Canada and nine countries from Asia. In Canada it's 10 days paid (2 weeks) plus 10 days public holidays. To put that in perspective, everybody in Europe, South America, the Middle East, and Africa get better vacation time as a minimum than the US averages, plus several people in Asia, such as Japan.

It's abysmal. Henous in fact. We have the worst labor laws pretty much anywhere, and people wonder why I want to do International Law for a major US firm in England, France, Norway or somewhere along those lines.

A distressing quote, from CNN, on the subject:

Besides getting less vacation than workers in many other countries, Americans often don't use all the time that they do get, and what vacation they take is spent in small slices and often in contact with the office, according to findings from other studies.

This is not like France at all. In France when they take vacation they take it; they are NOT in contact with their workplace. People in America don't know how to relax at all.

Another distressing quote:

Another study, by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), found the norm to be much lower when considering companies of all sizes and workers of all tenures: 9 days of paid vacation with 6 days of paid holidays. It also estimates that almost one in four U.S. workers don't get any paid days off at all.

Joe Robinson, who runs the Work to Live Campaign and advocates for a minimum paid-leave law in the United States, contends a vacation system based on tenure, which is typical at U.S. companies, leaves U.S. workers with consistently low vacation benefits given how frequently people change jobs during a career.

All members of the European Union, by contrast, must provide workers with a minimum of 20 paid vacation days a year plus public holidays.

Here is one that illustrates why Europe = good and US = evil:

What's more, Sullivan added, companies in Europe are more likely to encourage workers to take at least two-week breaks at a time because they have seen an increase in work-stress-related absences and are increasingly concerned about potential litigation or long-term sickness or disabilities that result from work-related stress.

I know in France you can take your paid vacation whenever you want. There may be rules on advance notice, but you don't have to ask permission. If you schedule it properly you can take it when you want it, in large chunks. Most of the people I know in the US with multiple weeks of vacation aren't ALLOWED to take it together, and often can't get vacation time when they want it.

I don't know about the rest of Europe but I don know that in both France and Germany companies go out of their way to pay 100% on preventative medacine whenever necessary, because they know happy employees are good employees, and also that it saves them money when people have to take time off for health reasons, and then they have to pay for treatment after the fact, plus workers comp, disability, or whatever. Working in Europe is safer. *sigh*

[linkkjm]

We start school in late August here in California....They would never get rid of summer vaction here in CA, Considering my stupid state is bankrupt it would cost way to much to have it run through summer.....They are considering giving kids more days off of school so they can pay less.

[Lance Uppercut]

Jorost is a little off here. As a teacher, in MA you can start with a Bachelors but have to obotain a masters within five years, and have to take at least three courses a year during those five years in order to keep teaching. Once your done with your masters, you must continue your education in order to get raises and keep your job. So, a basic classroom teacher will need a masters plus 45 additional credits in order to reach the top of the payscale. Thus, you get many teachers who hold two masters degrees.

As far as vacation time goes, Thrash you are looking at the wrong fields. You cannot compare mid level for profit jobs to teaching as its benefit structure is closer to non-profits. Having worked both as a teacher and at several non-profits I can tell you that a starting level social services worker, without a degree can expect at least 3 weeks vacation, four personal days and about 5 weeks of sick time to start. Then if you hit two years you go to four weeks vacation and so forth.

Also, you are working for the wrong companies. Many companies that are owned by GE have fantastic time off policies. When I worked for them I started with three weeks vacation, 20 sick days and 2 personal days annually. They also allowed staff to buy back days off. Once you have been there for over ten years you get 6 weeks off a year and it goes up from there. My cousin has worked their his entire career, so about 30 years and has so much vacation time that there is no way he can possibly take it all during a calendar year and get his work done.

[Thrash]

Wow, 5 weeks of sick days???? I get ZERO. When I did get them in the past, the max was 5 DAYS.

[Invicta]

Lance; the GE jobs sound nice, but that is tremendously far from the average in the US. The figures I posted were quoted by CNN as coming from recent and independently verified research studies on the subject. For people with ten years + seniority in a major company in the US the average is 15 days paid time off, plus 10 public vacation days. That's it.

[Lance Uppercut]

Glenn, have you ever had a real job?

[Invicta]

Yes, why do you ask? I fail to see how that relates to A) My Dad's experience (he was standing here explaining it to me literally while I typed my post). My experiences living in Europe. C) The indipendantly verified research data which I quoted. None of that relates in any way to my own job experience. Just the fact that there is no federally mandated minimum in the US galls me.

Then there are things I DIDN'T quote, like average work weeks, average incidents related to job related stress, on-the-job injuries, non time-off related benefits, all areas in which the US sucks abysmally compared to most civilized countries. I've even spoken (in detail) with very highly experienced lawyers who specialize in US Labor Law. Literally for hours. One had 30 years practicing experience and was not retired, the other was a former practicioner in the field and a current professor in a major Law School on the subject. Without going into detail they both said that US labor laws were the worst they were aware of in what I guess we now call the first tier group of nations. They went into a lot of detail, but the fact of the matter is that there are a LOT fewer laws in defense of workers than the average American employee thinks. They assume a lot of the "standard" policies are legally mandated. They aren't. It would apall you to know just what companies could legally get away with.

This is actually a subject that's concerned me for years, and a subject which I studied a bit in Europe mostly out of shear curiosity. When I quoted averages to people in France they literally didn't believe me. Until I showed them the sources they thought I was lieing/exagerrating to make a point. US work conditions suck a lot. Even in little areas; like in France people who work checkouts at your average grocery store have chairs that they sit in... in the US they are required to stand, often for hours, which isn't good for you and certainly isn't comfortable.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

LOL.

I agree with Glen that the amount of time off Americans get is abysmally bad. Europeans are often appalled when they find out how little time off we get. However, I would also like to make a couple of points:

Thrash, I have never known anyone over the age of 18 with a full-time job who did not get paid days off. Sick days are required by law in most states. If you don't have sick days then you have a really shitty job, and one that may even be breaking the law.

Glen, four weeks of vacation for someone at the level you describe for your father is very poor indeed. Most high-level executives get a lot more time off. Now, a lot of that time may be off the books, like when they "work from home" or take business junkets, but nevertheless it would hardly be called "work" by most measures. Go into any company in the world on a Friday afternoon and try to find anyone from senior management. You won't be able to, and you can bet your bottom dollar they're not taking vacation time.

However, as is usual for us, we are getting off track! The original comment to which I was responding was the assertion that somehow teachers are overpaid and have it easy because they have the whole summer off. I don't believe for a moment that either is true. I see what teachers do every day, and it is tiring, difficult, often thankless work. That people devalue it so much ("they're just glorified babysitters") shows not only how little importance people place on teachers, but how little importance they place on children.

Now, on the issue of summer vacation, I happen to think that it should be done away with. It could be done in such a way as to keep the same number of school days -- just spread the days off over the whole year instead of having one big block from June - August (or whatever your schedule happens to be where you live). For example, what if there was a 4-day school week all year round, with a few weeks off around Christmas and in the summer? Or we could follow the European model of a week off every 4-5 weeks. Frankly either of those would probably result in better rested kids who were more prepared to learn.

But like I said, our school schedule is so entrenched that I cannot imagine it ever changing. That's a shame, because kids lose a lot over the summer. The first month of school is generally spent trying to get them back to the place they were academically at the end of the previous year.

[Invicta]

Glen, four weeks of vacation for someone at the level you describe for your father is very poor indeed. Most high-level executives get a lot more time off. Now, a lot of that time may be off the books, like when they "work from home" or take business junkets, but nevertheless it would hardly be called "work" by most measures. Go into any company in the world on a Friday afternoon and try to find anyone from senior management. You won't be able to, and you can bet your bottom dollar they're not taking vacation time.

To be fair, my Dad works at home all the time. Literally. The company is based in the Financial district of NYC (to be fair, directly across the Hudson, literally on the Hudson, from the Financial district of Manhattan, in a city called Hoboken. But it's a ten minute metro ride to what used to be the World Trade Center metro stop. So it counts ). He lives in Richmond, and works in a pretty much state of the art office in his bedroom. He flies to NYC for meetings for two nights (parts of three days) every other week or so. Very occasionally he flies to deal with clients in places like Europe, it used to be more frequently but they hired full time people to do that (my father believe it or not didn't like flying to Europe and likes this development, whereas I would kill for a job that gave me that opportunity, lol). So as he says it's a very good job, what with the 10 second commute from his bed to his computer desk.

However, as is usual for us, we are getting off track! The original comment to which I was responding was the assertion that somehow teachers are overpaid and have it easy because they have the whole summer off. I don't believe for a moment that either is true. I see what teachers do every day, and it is tiring, difficult, often thankless work. That people devalue it so much ("they're just glorified babysitters") shows not only how little importance people place on teachers, but how little importance they place on children.

I completely agree with this, the way teachers are treated in this country is awful. Though to be fair, the education of educators in this country sucks a LOT, ironically, thus resulting in comparatively poor teachers (on average, certainly not across the board) in this country compared to some others. But that's not the teachers fault, and it doesn't mean they don't care, don't work hard, or don't deserve tons of recognition.

Now, on the issue of summer vacation, I happen to think that it should be done away with. It could be done in such a way as to keep the same number of school days -- just spread the days off over the whole year instead of having one big block from June - August (or whatever your schedule happens to be where you live). For example, what if there was a 4-day school week all year round, with a few weeks off around Christmas and in the summer? Or we could follow the European model of a week off every 4-5 weeks. Frankly either of those would probably result in better rested kids who were more prepared to learn.

My Australian relatives have a system where they get two weeks off four times a year, basically in quarters, and occasional time off for other major Holidays. They seem to like it and think it works very well actually. I think something like that would be great; I don't even ENJOY the super long breaks over the summer, I'm ready to get back to class like, 3 weeks in usually.

The whole system sucks a lot. In general, from a standpoint of ideals, I'm actually against Homeschooling despite the fact that being home schooled (partially) actually worked out very well for me. However, in this country in some districts its the only way to get a decent education (without paying a fortune for a high-end private school), and there are other situations that can make it pretty much necessary. I wish we had a public education system that was so good that homeschooling wasn't really an issue from an academic standpoint. As it is home schoolers often (obviously not always) have better scores than their public-schooled counterparts on standardized testing. I see this as a massive failure of our education system, especially considering how much states spend per-child-per-year on education.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

I am 100% opposed to homeschooling. I have dealt with a lot of homeschooled kids over the years, and I can tell you that every one of them, without exception, had serious social-adaptive problems.

School is about more than academics. A big part of it -- arguably the most important part -- is learning how to get along in a social environment. How to make friends, how to work with others, how to deal with people you don't like or disagree with. We are social creatures, almost everything we do in life has a social aspect, whether we like it or not. So being able to work and play well with others is vital to one's future success.

Interestingly, in many countries homeschooling is either illegal or else it is so difficult to do (i.e. meeting educational requirements) that it is all but impossible. There was an article in Time a few months ago about Germans seeking asylum in the US so that they could homeschool their kids (which is strictly prohibited in Germany).

[Invicta]

I've known a lot of homeschoolers over the years, and many of them did have social adapative problems, but FAR from all of them. A lot of parents include their childern in large coops that essentially amount to more anarchistic private schools, they include their kids in public-school sports programs (like I played baseball with the public-schoolers), which is allowed in most states. Stuff like that. It is possible to do it without totally isolating your kids. In my case, I started in public school and only switched when my family started moving about over six months. From what I've seen there are basically two categories of homeschooling parents; those who homeschool because of unique academic situations (their school district sucks and/or their kids have special needs), because they move constantly, because their kids really want to study specific things not offered in their district, etc. The second category is parents who homeschool because they hate the evil propaganda of the public school system and want to hide out int he woods so they can bring their kids up properly in their militant anarcho-fascist ways. Obviously the second is a bit of an exaggeration, but for some of the people I've met it's not by much.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Most of the homeschoolers I have met fall into your second group, Glen. Usually their desire to keep their kids separate comes from their strong (some might say extreme) religious views. That may not always be the case, of course; I'm just telling what has been my experience. Massachusetts is generally considered to have the best public schools in the country, so possibly there are fewer people homeschooling here on academic grounds.

Also, Glen, on the socialization issue, I would gently point out that you yourself are hardly Mr. Social Skills! In fact I think you have said as much. Do you ever feel that you missed out on something as a result of being largely homeschooled?

[Invicta]

Trust me, I was never mister social skills . In fact I would say my social skills (despite being homeschooled) improved mostly after I was out of public school. It's just a fact of life for me; I'm a textbook introvert, and there are a number of other just random idosyncracies I have to work around. To a large degree interacting with other people for me is a matter of "translating" what I think into "normal" terms. Which isn't to say I think in a BETTER way, it's just different. If I fail to do that correctly people missinterpret it, and get mad at me. Sometimes out of frustration I just say "screw it", sometimes I start off wrong, even on purpose. Whatev. All that to say it's not a matter of homeschooling for me. I was VERY well socialized while being homeschooled, I actually did quite a bit with public schoolers during that time.

However, like I said, I have met some VERY socially well adapted homeschoolers, some that were far and away better socially than people I met in college who had been public-schooled all the way through. It varies. Also, there are a lot more homeschoolers in VA in general than there are in a lot of north-eastern states. It varies a lot by state, and even by region, so I'm not surprised you've mostly encountered crazy holdouts rather than people doing it for academic reasons or because they travel alot. But trust me, there are very definite exceptions to the homeschoolers-can't-interact-socially rule.

Edit: To be clear on my inherent lack of socialness, I have long bordered on agoraphobia. I sometimes get physically ill if I'm in a large disorganized crowd of people, just from being overwhelmed by all the noise and the motion and the people and all that jazz. It really bothers me. I prefer small, tight closed off spaces, and small groups of people I'm familiar with.