Chapter 9 Professional Issues: Who Will Influence My Career?

Fraser TEACH © 2011 McGraw- Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.

Chapter 9Professional Issues: Who Will Influence My Career?

Fraser TEACH © 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.

Historically Speaking: How Has Teacher Work Changed – For Better or Worse?

• Educator Margaret Haley’s 1904 speech to the NEA contained the following criticisms of teaching conditions: – Salaries are too low– Teachers lack job security and pensions– Overcrowded classrooms– Lack of respect and demands for

conformity to external rules


Historically Speaking: How Has Teacher Work Changed – For Better or Worse?

• Haley believed that by creating a professional teacher’s union, these problems could be fixed

• Though conditions have definitely improved, many of these problems still exist today


How Much Do Teachers Get Paid?

• The average teacher salary is $51,009• The average starting teacher salary is

$35,284• Teacher salaries vary greatly depending

on the state, district, and cost of living• Teachers receive substantial benefits in

terms of health care, pensions, and job security



• In the past, many groups of teachers have received unfair salaries– 1920s: Many female teachers had rebelled

and received comparable salary to men – 1940s: Minority teachers earned 40% less

than white teachers – 1960s and 1970s: All teachers, with the help

of unions, demanded and received increased salaries and improved benefits

How Much Do Teachers Get Paid?


What is Tenure? • In the past, teachers could lose their jobs

based on political favoritism • Tenure is the right of a teacher to keep

his or her job subject to good behavior – Often awarded after a short probationary

period, normally 3 years• Now, some educators worry that tenure

makes it too difficult to get rid of an ineffective teacher


Will I Join a Union?

• Two largest teacher unions: – National Education Association (NEA)

• 3.2 million members– American Federation of Teachers (AFT)

• 1.3 million members


Will I Join a Union?

• Controversy over teacher unions today– Critics claim that unions are a barrier to

progress in education reform – Union advocates say much more needs to

be done to achieve appropriate salaries and professional respect for teachers

– Some argue not against unions, but for union reform


What About Me?

• What are your thoughts about unions? How might they affect your professional, and personal, life as a teacher?


Why is Professional Development Important? • Since 1975, professional development

has seen remarkable growth – Professional development is an activity

focused on helping experienced and beginning teachers strengthen their capabilities


Why is Professional Development Important? • Teachers are becoming more

intellectually engaged with their profession through:– Higher level activity during professional

development events – More time spent talking with other teachers – Becoming “reflective practitioners”


Who Are the People Who Impact a Teacher’s Workday?


Who Are the People Who Impact a Teacher’s Workday? • Fellow teachers

– Many teachers isolate themselves in their own classrooms

– Teachers, especially novices, greatly benefit from interacting and sharing ideas with colleagues

– When teachers work together, they can represent an organized, focused front when rallying for changes in a school or district


Who Are the People Who Impact a Teacher’s Workday?• Administrators

– Administrators have different work lives and responsibilities than teachers

• Sometimes have differing views on issues• Teachers will most likely face both effective and

ineffective leadership during their careers – “Good” schools are usually characterized by

strong, consistent, and inspired leadership


Who Are the People Who Impact a Teacher’s Workday?• Parents and community members

– A third of teachers list “communicating with parents” as their most significant problem

– Teachers need to do everything they can to connect with other adults in their students’ lives

– Effective schools keep a balance between less healthful community invasion and community alienation


Who Are the People Who Impact a Teacher’s Workday?• Don’t go it alone

– Relationships with administrators, fellow teachers, unions, parents, and community members are not always easy, but they are essential

– The idea of the “lone teacher” does little in the way of producing wide-sweeping reforms that benefit all students


Who Are the People Who Impact a Teacher’s Workday?• Students – Class size

– Current research is divided on the benefits of smaller class size

• Advocates for smaller classes cite findings from Tennessee’s Project STAR and other studies

• Many critics claim that teacher quality is far more influential than class size

– With decreasing budgets, schools have to decide between smaller classes and cutting funding for other programs or activities


Join the Dialogue

• What are your thoughts on smaller class sizes? If you were in charge of a school’s budget, would you choose to enlarge classes to save money before cutting other programs? Why?


Who Are the People Who Impact a Teacher’s Workday? • Students – The reason we teach

– Students are the point of all of the work that goes on in schools

– Student-centered teachers do not forget about the other adults in the school, but they do keep their “eyes on the prize”


Reading: “Why Teachers Should Organize” by Margaret Haley • Haley protested against the lack of moral

and financial support for public schools and teachers

• She credited many of these problems to the struggle between two opposing ideals present in American education:– The Industrial ideal: Worker is subordinate

to machine and product – The Democratic ideal: Humanity is placed

above all machines


Reading: “TURNing Unions Around” by Adam Urbanski • Urbanski pushes for union reform, but

writes that: • “[U]nless it is voices from within the teacher

union movement who are driving the call for reforms, there is a great risk that the voices from outside would be viewed as hostile ‘bashing’”

• He claims that unions need to build on their “foundation that has been laid” but focus as closely on professional issues


Reading: “The Desecration of Studs Terkel: Fighting Censorship and Self-Censorship” by Bill Bigelow• Bigelow writes of his personal

experiences with administrative censorship and support

• Ineffective administration can be a censoring agent but Bigelow believes:

• “[T]he most powerful agent of censorship lives in our own heads, and we almost always have more freedom than we use”

• Most often, administration is supportive and encouraging rather than repressive


Reading: “Two Teachers of Letters” by Margaret Treece Metzger and Claire Fox • Fox writes to former teacher about how many

have trivialized her decision to become a teacher

• Teacher, Metzger, writes of the benefits and annoyances of teaching– She writes, “I know that teaching well is a

worthwhile use of my life. I know my work is significant”

– Metzger also writes of problems associated with teaching, including classroom management, school politics, monotony, and poor pay

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Chapter 9 Professional Issues: Who Will Influence My Career?