re: Being/becoming a public school teacher in America is the worst career possible

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In other words, it's like every other corporate job.

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I had a few teachers complain via Facebook that they really aren't off during their summer break. That they still have to watch their own children so technically, they aren't off.

That's not how it works, honey.

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Your quality of school correlates to the quality of student, which is primarily decided by parental action and DNA.

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Parental action (and inaction), definitely.
Not by DNA. That is defeatist thinking at best and dangerously close to judging someone for who they are and not what they do at worst.

I did that teaching gig at inner city schools here in Baton Rouge for 22 years.

Not every parish pays the same. Compare East Carroll Parish pay to Jefferson Parish pay.

Inner city schools here in BR are overflowing with culture. Most of the middle school kids I taught could read but they could not explain to you what it was that they read. Math? Lol, I had a class of kids adamantly tell me that I could not subtract 19 from 27 because the '9' was larger than the '7'.

But the largest problem was administration and those standardized tests. The kids did not give a damn about those tests and administration would constantly grind on the teachers about making the students 'more intelligent'. The administrators would never berate the students about their lack of care about education or about their low IQs.

Then there was the Student Violence.

It has become like a Mini Prison.

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Better parents usually have had better parents…that has yielded better economic opportunities for their descendants

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"Better parents" value education. This is the primary distinction. Its kind of funny, but many private schools operate with less resources than public, and do a much better job.

Every child in America has access to the knowledge required to be successful in this life.

Every kid in my neighborhood graduated college, few of their parents did. It was very working class.

Ive always said we need to adjust our model at the HS level drastically. When a kid gets to their junior year a decision is made if they want to go on a university track or a "career" track. If they choose university track then they take courses like algebra 2 and whatever they may need for success in college. If they go on a "career" track then courses like algebra 2 that they will never need will be replaced with financial literacy courses or the like and they can take technical skills courses that will help them in whatever field they want to go into.

It pisses me off the amount of kids I get in Algebra 2 that couldn't give 2 shits about it and I can't blame them because they'll honestly never need it. I know there's other classes this happens this is just the one that I deal with the most as a math teacher.

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Every teacher I know teaches summer school and busts their arse lesson planning for the next year.

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Cool anecdotal evidence. Every teacher I know brags about how easy their summer lesson planning is and most work side jobs to support their shopping & starbucks habits.

Hell, before they had kids a handful would go on a 2 week girls trip every summer and knock out lesson planning together on the beach or in the condo. Oversimplified the work, but basically said the plans were similar year-to-year, just needed to update for any new administrative rules and then curtail them as the year goes based on pace of the classes.

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I did that teaching gig at inner city schools here in Baton Rouge for 22 years. Not every parish pays the same. Compare East Carroll Parish pay to Jefferson Parish pay. Inner city schools here in BR are overflowing with culture. Most of the middle school kids I taught could read but they could not explain to you what it was that they read. Math? Lol, I had a class of kids adamantly tell me that I could not subtract 19 from 27 because the '9' was larger than the '7'. But the largest problem was administration and those standardized tests. The kids did not give a damn about those tests and administration would constantly grind on the teachers about making the students 'more intelligent'. The administrators would never berate the students about their lack of care about education or about their low IQs. Then there was the Student Violence.

It has become like a Mini Prison.

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End of thread.

Case closed and thank you for your years of service and post.

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End of thread.

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The placation of bad behavior and below standard academic progress led to this. Teachers have very little recourse if there is a behavior problem and the admin does not support.

The system is a day care center that adds a little educational value.

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If you are punching in at 745 and out at 315 you probably aren’t a very good teacher.

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I’ve won teacher of the year? Graduated top of my masters program? Lead professional development for my school system multiple times a year? Have been hired as a consultant for local community colleges? Published three academic papers?

But you’re right. I don’t spend countless hours after work bitching about how much work I have, so I must not be good at this most challenging job of teaching teenagers grade-school level content.