Poll of the Day > I just want a job that lets me fuck around as much as the police get to.

(+) Yeah! (+)

You can shoot/kill innocent people and not lose your job. That's some fucking job security if I've ever heard it!
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To 500!
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Action53 posted...

To 500!

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To 17!
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Lazy trolling/10

Overlooking that a lot of the people they shoot/kill aren't "innocent" -- it's more a matter of excessive force (such as shooting an unarmed suspect) -- they only keep their jobs when a panel or IA rules that it was a reasonable use of force.

At any rate, if you want REAL job security, join a teacher's union. You can no-show or just sit there reading a paper instead of teaching and still keep your job. That's REAL job security.
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Zeus posted...

At any rate, if you want REAL job security, join a teacher's union. You can no-show or just sit there reading a paper instead of teaching and still keep your job. That's REAL job security.

I'm a teacher. I need to have comprehensive documentation for each and every lesson I have in the event the superintendent checks on me or I get audited. Also, there is no such thing as a permanent contract, and my job is always in jeopardy each year.
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Zeus posted...

Lazy trolling/10

Overlooking that a lot of the people they shoot/kill aren't "innocent" -- it's more a matter of excessive force (such as shooting an unarmed suspect) -- they only keep their jobs when a panel or IA rules that it was a reasonable use of force.

At any rate, if you want REAL job security, join a teacher's union. You can no-show or just sit there reading a paper instead of teaching and still keep your job. That's REAL job security.

I think the cops who shoot and kill innocent people should lose their jobs.
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Lol, teaching does not work that way, especially when your first starting off, and you can easily lose a job if they are downsizing (and many schools are), even if you have been working there forever (although most schools go by seniority, if your a bad teacher that can change.

Heck in the recent past in CA whole schools where closed all over, tons of teachers lost their jobs and the competition for teaching jobs was crazy. Good luck getting a job without 2 years of teaching experience (When you still need to be semi-monitored). Then if you do happen to win the lottery and get a job without experience, if the school downsizes etc, guess who is top of the list to be let go?

So yeah, the days of teachers not being able to be fired are long gone, enough positions are being lost, that it gives plenty of opportunity for schools to get rid of any teachers who are not doing their job (even if it's probably social politics more then work ethic that determines who gets let go).
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faramir77 posted...

Also, there is no such thing as a permanent contract, and my job is always in jeopardy each year.

He's almost certainly referring to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_tenure

And honestly, I'd argue my own school experiences absolutely support his point (though admittedly, my own school experiences also happened 20-30 years ago). His comment about "just sit there reading a paper instead of teaching and still keep your job" pretty much describes my 5th grade math teacher to a tee (and a succession of math teachers like that is a large part of why I never felt comfortable with math, and eventually avoided STEM fields like the absolute plague in spite of always being interested in the sciences in general).

It depends on where you're teaching to some degree, but the assumption that older teachers can essentially become bulletproof once they're tenured is wide-spread for a reason. Because the system DOES open a lot of possibilities for abuse.

If I went back to every teacher I had from K-12, I can name more than a dozen of them who had absolutely no business teaching, and at least a few who probably shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near kids in the first place. But student or parental complaints generally went absolutely nowhere, and even in cases involving multiple complaints or systemic issues, they'd be more likely to bump a teacher down to a lower grade level than they would to fire them outright.

And that's in a school system that was generally considered to be vastly superior to most of the other regions in the state in a state that consistently ranks towards the top of the list for the overall US. I can only imagine the problem would theoretically be worse in districts where standards were lower or administrative corruption was significantly higher.

The usual assumption (and one that's been supported by people I know who went on to become teachers themselves) is that the earlier years of teaching are the hardest to "break in", but that once you're established it becomes harder and harder to dislodge even problematic teachers. And that the system itself tends to encourage apathy in teachers over time because administrators rarely have an interest in "rocking the boat" and risking problems if the status quo is considered acceptable.



wolfy42 posted...

it gives plenty of opportunity for schools to get rid of any teachers who are not doing their job (even if it's probably social politics more then work ethic that determines who gets let go).

I know my old college absolutely used to decide who to retain and who to fire based on political views, which even then I found to be utterly fucked up (and still do). After a certain point, it starts to feel a bit too distastefully like a deliberate attempt at brainwashing people who are still too inexperienced and trusting to know better. If the administration is actively silencing what they consider to be political dissent, they're basically shitting on the entire reason the tenure system was created/is supported in the first place.

I know there was at least one case in my college where a professor was essentially denied tenure because they found out, by reading his private e-mails without permission, that he harbored political views that weren't sufficiently "liberal" enough for their taste, so they wanted to prevent him from acquiring tenure and becoming harder to dislodge later. And keep in mind, this isn't even a case of "Well, he's espousing racist/criminal/ideologically corrupt viewpoints, and I guess it's okay to deny tenure to someone if they're a Nazi/KKK/etc". I'm talking about cases where the logic basically boils down to "Well, his views aren't progressive enough, so fuck him."


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So then join the police force?
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Well at least you tried.
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faramir77 posted...

Zeus posted...

At any rate, if you want REAL job security, join a teacher's union. You can no-show or just sit there reading a paper instead of teaching and still keep your job. That's REAL job security.

I'm a teacher. I need to have comprehensive documentation for each and every lesson I have in the event the superintendent checks on me or I get audited. Also, there is no such thing as a permanent contract, and my job is always in jeopardy each year.

You should teach in a major American city then.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/city-spend-29m-paying-educators-fire-article-1.1477027

The teachers and school administrators are accused of abusing kids, breaking rules or just being lousy educators. But they're still collecting salaries because of a controversial firing process that makes it too difficult to terminate bad employees, education officials charge.

Back in 2010, Mayor Bloomberg and the city teachers union agreed to eliminate the shameful "rubber rooms" that house these expensive educational pariahs, but critics say the only difference is that today the accused teachers are spread out in spare offices across the city instead of being herded together.

It's a process that often drags on for years, all the while they still collect full pay. That's not counting teachers who were caught turning their class into a glorified study hall while they read a newspaper, talked on a phone, etc, who merely got a reprimand thanks to their unions.
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