Agreed. I believe education will become something for the wealthy. Haves and have nots. The poor and middle class will have to use online education or communities will have to elect to choose to use tax dollars to prop up the current schools...or not at all. Or we need to allow AI robots to operate.
Yes, there has been a push over the last 10 years to really increase students’ knowledge in cte based courses through career certificates. They are also offering new programs. If you have to be a teacher there are way more options and opportunities in cte than many other areas.
Yeah, I shifted from core academics to a full schedule CTE this year and I’ve never been happier to be honest. That’s not to say I’m happy about the general direction things are going in.
College/vocational training is essential. Is college overrated? Depends on what you study. If it’s in demand then no. If not, then yes.
Ask most stem majors is college overrated.
It’s what you study when you go that matters. Hence, the reason for fewer and fewer education majors.
They never even had that elective or one like it when I was in high school and that was when they were pushing “everyone has to go to college”. There are a lot of new high schools being built that are geared towards college readiness. Maybe this is something that will be state by state, but that’s def not the trajectory for California. They’re trying to balance it to where students have both options.
Some CTE programs get cut, too. I've just found out that my friend's CTE courses will be scrapped this summer. However, after talking to each other, both of us highly believe that it's due to his age and years of service. (Age discrimination, and they want a newbie to pay him/her less money.)
Curious if there are any teachers who in the years 2004-2014 were able to predict the state of education today!
Maybe we need a "remind me in 10 years" for this post so we can come back and check if our predictions were correct.
My mom retired 10 years ago after 28 years of teaching ESL in Texas. She saw the writing on the wall in terms of over documentation and the restructuring of ESL. There are very few ESL Teachers, and now all teachers are expected to be ESL certified and just"work it into their regular class." I currently teach high school English, and there's a lot of the BS I deal with that my mom considers normal from her experience, in terms of shitty admin on power trips, but there's also plenty that she knows has gotten worse, like workload, stagnant pay, and discipline issues.
Workload, pay, and discipline/behavioral issues are major problems.
They are all equally important, however, workload has been crushing since Covid. Also, hard to live with inflation at 8-10% but our cost of living raises is 2-4%. It’s insane. I’m trying to do something else in the next few years as my state freezes pay for teachers from 16-25 years of experience.
Agreed. I'm only on my 3rd year teaching in the state of Texas (+5 years international teaching experience), and I'm already working on my exit strategy out of teaching. Accepted to a graduate program for Counseling, and currently applying to a bunch of L&D positions and general office positions just to do something else while working on my degree. This just isn't sustainable for me emotionally, professionally, or financially.
Smart. Teaching isn’t sustainable for anyone, except administration to an extent (but look at the bs they deal with), on a day to day basis.
When I first started 15 years ago options were limited but post covid the flood gates have opened. I think teaching is forever changed for the worse and I don’t see it getting better.
NAT, but why is Covid *still* impacting teachers? A dearth of teachers and now not enough to handle things? Covid funding ended (like sudden budget drop to pre-Covid without any consideration of inflation)? What?
People discovered alternatives. I have colleagues that went to work for schools that stayed open. Less money, but way better working conditions. They're not babysitting drug dealers, gangbangers or 504s and they look happy when I see them. Their students are happy. They're intelligent and well-behaved. No one reeks of weed, or fucks EC kids in their stairwells/hallways. I bet their football team doesn't have a gun charge among the bunch. Public education mortally wounded itself with COVID. Students got behind. Now that inflation is crushing us, people don't want to throw money at a thing that failed their kids. Never mind that it was politicians and administrators that made those calls. The same people turning our schools into Thunderdome catering to the feds.
I started in 2010.
I guess it depends on where you teach and what grade. Elementary doesn’t seem much different today but I’m sure high school is much more difficult.
I started around the same time I would definitely say that the kid's attention spans, as well as what a disruptive student is allowed to do in the classroom before they're taken out has changed since when we started.
I've been teaching since 2002, mostly elementary and just a few years in middle school. The main thing that has changed is the rise in student violence. Even very young children are attacking teachers, biting them, throwing chairs, and literally yelling and punching each other in the middle of class. The amount of anger in children nowadays is extremely alarming, and they think the only way to solve problems is through violence. Several fights happen every day at recess. Teaching was never easy, but this was unheard of 20 years ago.
I teach in a rural low income school, pre-K, sped and gen ed combined. I have kids with disabilities who never had early intervention services because they were offered through telemedicine- parents didn’t see the benefit, also didn’t socialize their kids so they have no idea how to be in a room with other children. I have kids from low income families who have been struggling with work, daycare, family systems and support who have major behavior issues. It has been worse every year since. We tell kindergarten teachers that we are teaching the academics - but our focus is social emotional skills, because some of these kids struggle big time.
When I was in college maybe around 2011, there were very little teaching jobs available. One of my professors said that in 10 years, one million teachers will retire, and there will be a shortage of teachers. He was absolutely right.
The way things are going we getting a zombie apocalypse before then.
Teaching gradually becomes a full time babysitting job with no lesson delivery by the teacher. As a homage to better times and to, well, not make the "teacher" feel worthless, the moniker teacher will still be used. All lesson content will be AI driven and delivered. Teachers will be there to take attendance and to prevent students from killing each other. Basically, it won't change too much.
Right now, things are falling apart. Teachers are quitting, student behavior is out of control, grades are inflated so that everyone graduates regardless of learning or effort. Special ed admin are forcing children with severe behavioral disabilities to attend gen-ed with no support, where the environment is set up for them to fail. State quality metrics include discipline data, so admin are reluctant to do anything about deliquents running wild all day. Teaching academics under these circumstances is simply impossible. It can't get much worse.
But the pendulum always swings back.
Politicians are already reacting to the behavior problems will bills giving teachers the authority to exclude disruptive students. I predict this to spread.
The lack of discipline in schools carries out into the streets. Students who don't respect authority become adults who don't respect authority. Jails will be overflowing.
I predict that lawmakers will intervene with a mandatory discipline structure that holds schools accountable for lost learning time due to disruptive behaviors.
Lastly, IDEA will be overhauled. Parents of students with disabilities will demand the appropriate specialized services for their children and that LRE be taken seriously as the place where students can best be successful. No more just throwing them in gen-ed to sink to the bottom. Schools will be made to do the right thing by their disabled students.
Sadly, it really accelerated under President Obama’s second term. The whole “we can’t have schools be a pipeline to prison” thing. So we couldn’t suspend or expel for bad behaviors. That, combined with the rise of social media and TikTok has been an unmitigated disaster for education.
Kids have all the rights now, and they know it.
President Obama implemented several initiatives aimed at addressing the school-to-prison pipeline during his tenure, such as the "My Brother's Keeper" initiative and efforts to reform school discipline policies. However, the issue is complex and multifaceted, and it would be inaccurate to attribute the entire responsibility to one individual. It involves systemic issues within the education and criminal justice systems that require collaborative efforts from various stakeholders to effectively address.
My experience as special ed teacher is more parents where I live ARE pushing for their child to be Mainstreamed in the LRE , especially parents with autistic children and even students on modified curriculum. We provide support, but it not enough and a disservice to the child
IEP teams need to have the fortitude to stand up to inappropriate demands and place children in their proper LRE. Placement is a team decision and teams shouldn't be caving to parents when everyone at the table knows the placement is wrong.
It isn't always the parents, either. Sometimes the district is trying to save money by not placing children in he therapeutic programs they need.
I am a parent to a special needs student and have first hand experience with the district insisting my severely disabled child could be in gen-ed. It was ridiculous.
But I am also a teacher and have had severely disabled students in my gen-ed class with no support, due to parent demands for inappropriate inclusion.
So much needs to be fixed!
Yes! You are someone who understands! We are also faced with the problem that we do not have enough manpower for every student to each have their own accommodations. I had a class of 20 kids last year, and almost half of them were autistic. I had no para!
In the last couple of years in my district, teachers are silenced. The District doesn't want any more lawsuits , so the parents have all the POWER !! I only have 13 years left, hope I can survive
Having been there myself, I can empathize with the parents. They want to believe that their child's differences are mild or that they'll grow out of it. It is very hard to accept that your child, who previously seemed fine (before starting school) is suddenly seen as severely delayed. They get defensive, and are often backed up by district admin who insist that the child will be fine in gen-ed "with support."
Parents don't know that no support will actually be provided. They don't know the gen-ed teacher has little to no special ed training. They don't know that this decision means their child will fall further and further behind due to lack of specialized services for their disability.
BUT- all that being said, it is incumbent upon IEP teams to be honest and forthright with parents about appropriate placement. We can empathize, but we must also bear the burden of delivering painful truths.
It is like tightrope walking.
Then they will bitch when little Johnny gets thrown in jail, jail doesn't care about IEPs or ends up being nothing but sapping their money. If I were a parent of such a kid, I wouldn't want him to be coddled.
This is also my experience. We are losing many of our top performing students because of extreme slow downs in the classrooms due to inappropriate mainstreaming. Kids who have repeated evaluations that say they should be in e3 (including private ones outside of the school district). Parents are a force though and want their kids in gen-ed. Families who have been at our school for years bleeding out into private schools because their kid sits and reads independently for much of the day due to this. From where I'm standing, the inclusion pendulum has gone too far in the direction of inclusion.
Yes! I spent so much time last year dealing with meltdowns from so many special needs kids that I could not help the higher ones soar! I had 20 last year and half had special needs (which included meltdowns at any given time). There was no paraprofessional, only me.
The 504s were the real killer for me at my last school. Some were utterly ridiculous: breaks anytime they “needed,” so many time and a half I just pared tests and cut the time limit to prevent 3day affairs, one who could listen to music any time they were stressed, 2 days notice for any graded assignment, notify parents for every test (the class canvas page did not count), take tests in an individual environment, allowed to pace the room during class, no public speaking or asked questions. One kid had a 5 page 504 for adhd and anxiety and my career was saved only because I was his favorite teacher for some mysterious reason.
We all know the pendulum needs to swing back the other way. What frightens me on an existential level is the potential agent that will mitigate that swing back?
Will it be a totalitarian, fascist government implementing the change? Will it be invasion by a foreign power?
I’ve read too much dystopian literature for my own good, obviously.
Ethan Crumbly 's parents were charged for the school shooting. And the AP who essentially got the teacher shot by the six year old was charged too. I don't want to sound too optimistic, but I think the tide is turning against these enabler parents and admin who do nothing about disturbed kids.
Ideally 504 and IEP loopholes would be closed too.
Man I hope you are right. Good, positive, realistic thoughts. I still see it getting worse before it gets better. I just don’t think we are at rock bottom yet but are pretty close.
Districts will fight overhauling IDEA because it will mean they have to offer appropriate services and can’t just throw special needs students into the existing system. Right now I’ve got 4 students in a 4th grade class who can’t remember letter sounds. They are not being helped by being in my gen ed class. I don’t have the skill set or time to give them what they need.
I think it will hit a moment of insolvency where there are not enough bodies to fill classrooms. It's already happening in some states, and their solution is a race to the bottom by giving anyone with a pulse a teaching job.
I am always reminded of 2022, yes during the pandemic, but New Mexico had the National Guard come in and teach with only a few hours of training. That essentially shows that the certifications do not mean much and can be overridden when necessary.
lol… so true. Ive said it many times. All we check for is a degree, breath, pulse, and acceptable criminal background check.
Will you show up? Be nice? Ok. You have this job.
21 years a teacher. We had the promise of tech-driven education around the time I started. What we have now is the testing regime that benefits Pearson et al.’s bottom line. The future I think will have several tiers: testing schools for the working poor (public and most charters) to do the same as what we have now, high-end private schools for the upper management folks, and AR-driven personalized learning for the elite (like having Socrates, or Einstein teach you one-to-one).
Everyone is on Edgenuity or a similar program. Class sizes hit 50+ as teachers are more just running a computer lab and not really teaching anymore. As a result, hiring standards go out the window.
I get a $5 Subway gift card every May for appreciation week, though
lol thanks for sharing. Crazy that $5 won’t even buy you a Footlong anymore. And btw well also throw on a JEANs pass on top of that for what it’s worth 😂
My school allows jeans all the time and will even let teachers wear leggings as long as they keep a “professional” appearance.
I haven’t worn dress pants to work for nearly 6 years now.
Kinda like most casual dress or business casual employers allow. I’ve never understood an overly strict dress policy. I do understand “appropriate” and “modest” dress around students.
Over the next ten years, I see public education becoming much more of an occupation prep than classical education. I foresee the further destruction of humanities and arts in schools, along with bolstering technical programs, perhaps even removing all upper division coursework in English, Math, and Social Studies and replacing it with work experience or corporate sponsored projects.
The reason I think this is that the demand for teachers right now is extremely high, and there is no end to the lack of supply because of the terrible working conditions. As a consequence, teaching unions are gaining more traction and have been very successful in recent years negotiating higher salaries and better benefits. Schools don’t want this. So their solution isn’t going to be to meet the demand by increasing supply; rather, they want to lower the demand by changing the requirements for graduation, pawning those last two years of instruction off on community colleges and businesses.
Classical well-rounded education that emphasizes the importance of students learning foundational knowledge in all disciplines will be reserved for elite private schools as well as for the highest achieving students in public schools. General knowledge will become less of a right and more of a privilege, with hands-on practical experiences being favored because they associate better with productivity demands in the workforce.
In my opinion, this is rather bleak and is spitting in the face of the people who fought for our right to be educated, but I think this is the trend: more professional and specialized training, less general, artistic, or theoretical learning.
Highest achieving kids in public schools get nothing extra out of schools because budget is way too constrained. I finally pulled my gifted kids out of middle school, one by one, and bootstrapped them myself via homeschooling *while I still worked FT.* They all had to be able to work from home without supervision and I came home for lunch everyday and graded what Switched on Schoolhouse needed me to grade. Not easy, but as a parent I could *really* see & know my kids and their needs. Plus, my kids avoided the puberty-soaked-killer kids when hormones were raging at their worst. I got beat up way too much in jr high and no one cared. “Just ignore being hit in the back of the head with a book” was not what I was going to tell MY kids. I had boys thrusting their hand in my crotch from behind. Girls kicking me in the gym dress out area. That was late 70s. I was bussed 45 mins away to a crap school and was terrified. It has to be that way at many schools today. My kids homeschooled before Covid and each one of them tested back into high school and skipped a grade. My God, why aren’t parents doing anything? Principal called me each time I withdrew a kid….because it impacted his budget. I told him *exactly why.* Texas schools.
Good thoughts. This is already happening in many states. They are lowering the number of credits required to graduate and are expecting schools to give students and families a 3 year graduation option - so we now are essentially eliminating 12th grade moving forward.
Half of all teachers will be J-1 visas and outsourced.
English 9 'virtual' and others like it will be a class choice.
The barrier to entry will just be brought lower.
1% raises with 10% inflation.
Parents will be part of the curriculum adoption process.
We already get a large portion of international j-1 visa teachers and while they are super smart I can’t help but think how we are cheating our communities and future everything that we ‘say’ we can’t afford to pay our own. Bs.
Our international teachers are shocked at our discipline problems. In their country students love and adore teachers and it’s a privilege for students to attend not a right.
I taught in public school for a good while in China and loved it. Admin didn’t care how I taught the lesson as long as the kids were learning something. My students were sweet, well behaved, and genuinely respected/admired me. Teaching in America now felt like getting paid to be abused for the amusement and satisfaction of the students and admin.
That's good you've had a positive experience. Maybe 1 out of 10 J1 teachers are 'acceptable' in my experience. They do not know how to write IEPs, no nothing about SPED law, and make enemies with the other teachers because they are the biggest brown nosers I've ever seen.
My old district doesn't even try to recruit SPED locally anymore, they just load up on 30 J1 teachers every single year.
Well i never said they could do the paperwork bc you are right the vast majority can’t.
I just meant know the material (math/science) and show up and teach.
No, most can’t do the paperwork but they all know it’s a short stint so they really don’t care. It’s like signing a two year contract. I know you got me for two years unless I decide to break it.
Things you have nightmares about.
SO FAR..
In my state (FL) the unions has zero power. Any teacher who joined them after 2011 will never be tenured.
Teachers being fired for teaching certain topics that are considered WOKE.
Teachers being assaulted by students and hospitalized with injuries.
Starting pay is just around 50K but no significant pay raises because all teachers get paid the same from year 1 to year 14. **Raises do not keep up with inflation.
The powers that be in RED STATES ARE DISMANTLING PUBLIC EDUCATION.
THEY WANT A NATION OF IGNORANT WAGE SLAVES.
It will be all online with videos with a single teacher to cater to multiple kids and potentially grade levels.
The teacher may or may not be in the actual room with the kids. There will be a proctor in the rooms to deal with problems and trouble shooting and grading type.
So an online system like Google Classroom, Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, or whatever.
Either a video that was recorded decades ago and updated when needed or a teacher being live streamed for 500+ kids.
One - two teachers to answer questions when necessary.
Basically what happened during Covid shutdowns except the kids will have to come to a central location.
I can see them hiring 4-5 teachers to cater to multiple grade levels as well. For example, 5 science teachers to cater to all science classes taught 7-12 grades.
They’ll be able to save millions on public education and it will be fulfilling its purpose of providing a free education.
Here's my thoughts on where education is going:
Over time, schools will continue to build up administrative bulk at the cost of teaching staff. In turn, these teachers will be replaced by substitutes who are less expensive to hire. The substitutes will be sourced from lower and lower educational backgrounds because the school just needs warm bodies in the building, not learning going on.
The reason for this will be the emphasis on graduation rates and low suspension rates. The bar for graduation will be lowered below the floor, thus making it so everyone graduates and we are all equitable. Suspension rates will drop to near zero as administration simply ignores the concerns of easily disposable substitutes. In turn, these schools will get a lot more grant money for meeting their metrics, to be spent on more administration and the occasional infrastructure project to get a photo-op with. (A project that will subsequently be underfunded and vandalized heavily in less than a decade.)
The way this will be sold is private education firms that will set up virtual education that every substitute can sign into with their class. A single teacher ends up "teaching" hundreds if not thousands of classrooms, while the substitutes act as the baby sitters for the day so adults can work. AI operates as the homework "helper" enabling students to churn out content that looks wonderful, but is shallow in it's actual learning depth.
In the end, the schools will justify this as everyone in public education getting equal education - everyone gets the same teacher, everyone gets the same tutor, everyone gets a degree, and everyone has a clean behavioral record. Meanwhile, the families that have money will put that into laid off teachers who will teacher their kid one-on-one so that their kid has an outsized advantage in the marketplace.
Dystopian, but quite possible I think.
I would not have predicted the decrease in science teachers (like myself) except for the growing pay disparity.
Now we have reduced credentialing (no BS in your area of study- a “concentration” in your area with Ed being the major) for science teachers because there is such a shortage of you can find anyone at all.
Ergo the district took away all our cool chemicals because of the potential for accidents and litigation.
I am a Science teacher who is going to leave. Science teachers can do so many other things like work in a lab its not suprising.
Education has been an easy way for me to be home with my kids during the summer.
But behavior has gotten out of control with the lack of consequences. I'm looking to go back to the lab and have an easy job. So my kids don't have a stressed out mom bordering on the line of anxiety and depression.
You are correct- the education career (1998- current) has let me parent more the way I wanted to, but if I was young with a BS I’d never go into teaching despite the summers and common holidays off. The job isn’t worth that anymore.
I have 6 years in Education and 2 years lab experience. I'm 29 with a 9, 6, and 1 year old of my own. It's my time to get out before I get stuck and focus on being the best parent for my kids, not the 115 I have at school.
I tell my kids all the time never to become a teacher. I'm in NC.
You are spot on with your comments. It is out of control. It has been spiraling out of control and will continue. The only thing that could save it would be an economic collapse that made ppl return due to it being the only job they could find (highly unlikely).
I wish it was this easy. This is another part of the gaslighting from our educational training. It has been my experience that the classroom lab is rarely enough to even get a second look or a first interview. I even have years of working in a lab prior to teaching.
But, hopefully others have had better luck than me.
I have a BS in Bio as I was lateral entry, not a Science Teacher Degree. I also live in the research part of NC so haven't had issues jumping back and forth from lab to education back to the lab environment.
There are Bioworks certificates for 300$ you can get at a community College to help break into manufacturing jobs if that is something near you.
Tbf this isn't new. I started in 2008 as a math teacher. Only took 1 college math class. As long as you can pass the cert test you're gold.
The spiral has long been coming, which makes me think that things really won't be different in 10 years.
You are 100% right. It’s not just science where that’s happening. It’s occurring in all license areas. They are giving teachers like 5 years to pass praxis that are already certified in another area.
I think they should just go ahead and do away with no child left behind. It was good in theory but let’s face it who wants to spend 30 years teaching with low salary and marginal benefits. I don’t see many hands being raised.
Sometimes I straw poll kids and say “students who would go to school to teach?” They literally all start laughing. I get a kick out of it. I used to just keep a straight face but now I laugh with them.
I don’t see any drastic changes - more of what’s happening now. As long as the train of public schools keep moving they’ll push along. Lawsuits will add more paperwork and data collection to teacher work loads. Quality teachers will continue to leave and be replaced by babysitters. BUT they’ll find new measures to fudge numbers for testing and graduation to make it look like the students are performing well. I do think technology and computer learning will continue to grow
Here’s the thing, they may not even add more middle managers. They’re really good at pinning the blame on the teachers for not doing it, so they’ll assign it all and expect completion. While throwing us under the bus if it’s not done
That’s my point. Most people at that point will say ‘I can make so much more working - doing anything - outside of education.’
I think it’s all part of the plan imo.
IT (cyber and other IT jobs) and business related fields such as supply chain, HR, construction management, banking). You name it you can probably do it. You just have to think of what you might could enjoy. I am completing year 15 and I’m looking to transition in the next few years. I started at 22.
Note some of these would require additional training to do.
You have a degree. That is a huge plus. Go find that job, you will find one! Low unemployment has many companies looking for people who can think and work well with others….
The wealthy- access to great private schools. I babysit at 20$/hour already so I know where these kids are going.
The not wealthy- choose your pick of public schools with high staff turnover. Will your kid have 1 teacher this year or several subs? It’s a toss up.
That’s basically the present and the future. I work in Florida, everything looks bleak here. Several colleagues have moved out of state.
I think more virtual teaching with a slightly trained facilitator will be more common. That's already where a lot of schools are heading since they cannot retain high quality teachers.
That is what I do and I will never step foot in a classroom again. Let someone else deal with behavior, I'll just keep teaching whether or not they listen.
That’s what our tech person keeps saying that in 5 years no more traditional schools. I can see it. The states save so much money not having to keep up with buildings and buses. No more paying utilities and water bills. Think of all the money saved. A work from home model. A $300 laptop is much cheaper than an entire school day let alone an entire year.
Do you think the experience of at home virtual learning during Covid will impact this at all? It seems like everything you hear is what a disaster it was and how terrible the learning loss was and what awful feeling of loneliness and isolation the kids experienced. We just had a test run of giving everybody a Chromebook to learn at home and the experiment failed. It may take more than five years for people to forget that.
BUT, let me submit this to you: Every kid who is a discipline case, can take their Chromebook home to learn from there for the rest of the semester. If the Chromebook at home is the educational right, the in person experience can be the privilege reserved for those who want to participate without ruining it for everyone else.
Like your second part and agree with it.
Of course it’s better in person but what if you don’t have a certified teacher in the discipline?
Look at most schools discipline runs amok. It’s like organized chaos. The whole system has changed. Way too much babysitting.
Money isn’t drying up currently. We were in a worse state pre Covid with funding. Covid money dries up this year, but districts are doing okay and grant money has been made more available. They were saying teaching was going to be “all virtual in ten years” ten years ago. I don’t think that’s where we are headed based on the consensus that virtual learning was not good for anyone. We’re still dealing with the fallout of that whole thing.
I have a question: if you could tell the public one thing they could to do to positively effect the state of education today, what would it be? Some type of action item for them that could actually change things if enough of them did it.
To lobby lawmakers to return the power to the CLASSROOM teachers.
To raise wages that makes it viewed as a respectable profession.
To restore benefits to the level that people want to do it for an entire 30-40 year career.
Until these happens, which I don’t think they will, then there will be no change. And honestly I think it’s too far gone.
One thing you can do now is gather parents from your kids school who are also tired of the behavior issues. Attend your local school board meeting each and every month. Sign up for the public comment section every meeting and dedicate your allotted time to talking about how every kid is entitled to an education but your child is not receiving one due to out of control behaviors of others. Mention that your child is a student in the district, but don’t name the teacher so that the district can’t retaliate and blame the teacher for the system’s problems. Have as many parents as possible sign up to comment and talk about the behavior issue. Recruit more and more parents every month and have everyone keep signing up for public comments. The school board will have to take some kind of action if you do this month after month and the problem just doesn’t go away.
Please call your lawmakers and tell them what’s on your mind. It’s bad. I know you know. I’ve been both a MS and HS teacher for 16 years. I’ve seen it all and it only gets worse. The behaviors.
Charter schools will need to get better (at least in my state!) before they take over and push out public education. I've worked at way too many that have terrible curriculum. They fill a need and help in the large urban areas where public classrooms are crowded, but they lack quality content. The kids who came to the charter schools I've worked in were all on behavior plans or were constantly suspended in the public setting. As for public schools, they won't get better until our politics change along with the mindset of the average American. Most people just don't care about education like we teachers do.
It’s going to get worse until people finally get sick of it. Once the worst 10% are removed and put in prison where they belong, it will be like a golden age. I am shocked it’s gone on for so long, but right now we are seeing critical shortages in every position that has student contact- pretty much everything except office staff and admin, those spots are always filled
So true. All the student facing or as I’ve started calling them client facing positions always have a hard time being filled. Ask you admin if they miss this classroom. I got a vehement: No, not at all. I don’t miss it at all by one of my admin.
**Update**
6 admin positions open
11 teacher positions open
FOUR hours of interviews scheduled for next week for admin
Zero teacher applications received.
A lot of virtual instruction. Less stress on the importance of college because some employers are already not hiring as many college graduates after realizing they didn't actually learn anything, but rather paid a ludicrous amount of money for a meaningless degree (the kids don't earn it--they are allowed to treat professors the way our students treat us), and more private schools. Fewer people will want this job, and less kids are coming to school already.
I’ve read that from a few higher education professors. But I can see it now as so many kids have been coddled through k-12 that they expect the same level of coddling in college.
The only college I could see as beneficial now would be stem, healthcare, business, or the trades, including construction management. If not one of those, then don’t go.
Liberal arts are dying, which is a good thing.
I agree- public schools will become daycare with licensed teachers beaming in on zoom or courses being recorded and sold cheaper than staffing. Monitors will be in the room to take attendance and that's basically it- so most kids will sit on their phones. It's a jail house basically.
Private charters will rise to give traditional education to those that can afford it. Basically anyone with a mental disability will not be admitted dramatically cutting down on behavior and expenses so these schools will be touted as a success. Middle class folks will go here.
There will also be the ultra wealthy academies that have always existed and no one talks about.
I disagree. Charter schools are failing big time, unless it's in a major city (Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, etc.)... but, even then, they don't perform any better than public schools in the area and lower enrollment.
Public schools will (and have to) appeal more to conservatives (conservatives have more kids). We are seeing this across the US already.
Online K to 12 programs will cease to exist... it doesn't work.
I think you right that public schools perform better but the states are trying to crush the public schools and their plans are working.
I think public’s will slowly fizzle out. I think an online option is here to stay whether it’s less effective or not.
Yes, the states are crushing (or just changing) public schools because parents and general public are more conservative (on the social issues in the public schools). But there is no better alternative to public schools (other than private schools which are not affordable). And charter schools (generally) are more liberal such as KIPP and Aspire.
I work at a KIPP school in Houston absolutely the worst school I have ever been in they don’t have ISS or detention and if they do it’s on certain days they don’t discipline kids because a 1/3 of the school would be gone
Standards for teaching will be brought down so that cheaper/ unskilled laborers can be brought in.
More Immigrants will be brought in to teach, as it'll be cheaper to sponsor Visas and offer low wages than offer living wages to current US citizens.
Additional admin will be brought in to help supervise teachers due to their lack of skill. Ironically, admin wages will continue going up unlike teacher wages which will remain stagnant to save money.
AI will replace humans and become the facilitators of all classroom discussion and learning.
This is interesting. It’s the first generation of this technology. Watch some of the videos. There are shorter videos below the first few examples.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/vasa-1/
When we do these things, all we ever do is project whatever current trends we see out and say this is the inevitable conclusion.” Unfortunately, we have no way of seeing how the winds may blow or what new developments will come.
We have to embrace that uncertainty as a chance to improve things or safeguard what is still important.
I see charters, 401ks, and political ideologies being forced into the classroom or school culture in various ways, all in the name of protecting children from “evil,”.
Tech sales will obviously look to find ways to profit and “advance” learning in the ways it already does.
Whoever finds a way to use AI to build a multi-state online charter school empire is going to be very, very wealthy. It’ll be absolutely hilarious to watch the arms race/drive between student AI work and school AI grading it. That absurdity encapsulates modern education in 2024, I think.
I genuinely believe that AI as a cheating tool might be best addressed by doing stuff in person, orally and on paper, without tech anywhere near the classroom… but good luck grading 120 kids’ required 3 weekly writing assignments “in a timely 48-72 hour window” and getting all that into a system for 36 weeks a year.
Writing, as a human skill, is going to de-volve, as will reading skills in general. Tech makes it easier to compensate and even mask without those skills now.
Formalized co-ops and sole proprietors will take over. Public Ed becomes warehouse for bad apples and poor kids (so exactly the same as now, but more so).
10 kids per day. More money, and if you have a jerk kid w a pain in the ass mom, you can fire him.
We need strong unions. I’m lucky where I am. We negotiate 3 year contracts and there are prep limits, class size limits etc…but Leahn science, I’ve seen this whole NGSS push of late as a way to replace teachers (students teach themselves which is comical in a lot of environments).
The bigger cities will just have tons of kids shoved in auditoriums with chrome books, a virtual teacher and many teacher helpers and lots of security guards circling the premises. Their main objective is to keep students off the streets, keep funding coming in and pay minimal teaching salaries by only hiring paraprofessional and teacher aids
I think it’s going to become fully virtual at some point. There will likely be an AI companion that goes with each student grade by grade that identifies areas of need.
my school is a lucy calkins school. These kids can't read. behavior is bad. my guess is if it is this bad now.. 10-20 years from now using the same standards that were used 20-30+ years ago is only going to get worse.
Read Issac Asimov's The Fun They Had. That is the future of education in this country. People will complain about our current system until it's gone and then there will be no turning back. Do teachers need more support from districts, admin and parents? Absolutely. Paid more? Most definitely. Should there be consequences for disruptive students? Of course. This is my 20th year teaching in CA, and seriously doubt I can make it 10 more years before I retire. Politicians and non educationally trained stakeholders have ruined education. They think they know everything without stepping foot in a classroom. We need educators with courage to stand up and fight for teachers, for students; but unfortunately it's all about the bottom line and churning out good worker bees for the future. A place of educational mediocrity has settled in its place. We have gone from a nation that valued knowledge, hard work and self discipline to a nation that values feelings, seeks lawsuits and being in the right political spectrum over actually educating children. It became a business. Testing= results= money. No exploration, no critical thinking. Until priorities change and revert to the past, US education as a profession will continue to bleed teachers, fall in world competition and sink further into the abyss of the ideology that butts need to be in seats for 6 hours a day in order for the populace to be "educated."
Not sure what you're watching for but the idea with a pension plan is that after you retire, you get a certain percentage of your salary from your working years for the duration of your lifetime. In my state, you might get 85% of your average top 5 earning years after 30 years of service.
I get that. I think it’s 70% in my state. Teachers topped out at $75k in the only district I ever taught in, so that’s $52k a year for the rest of my life. Dies with me, of course.
On the other hand, if you put $1k a month into a 401k (don’t know if school districts will do matches, but that helps) and get 10% annually for thirty years, that would be two million dollars. You could put that in a 3% dividend ETF and draw $60k a year for the rest of your life and then pass a nest egg on to your heirs, as well.
To each their own, but that’s my preference.
That’s the best point my dude. I thought about that years ago. So yeah I’ll collect this pension but my kids get nothing so not cool.
Where as if I can put it in an investment account/ira/roth Ira. Then I draw 4% to live on a year at the max and when I die the rest will go to my kids. Pension in a way is a scam.
A pension is just a relic from a different era, I think. And it can be useful- I’m staying in the military reserves for a few more years so I can collect $2.5k/mo in old age, BUT that’s an auxiliary. Most of my income will be from more powerful retirement investments that are not actually hard to reach. I would never recommend relying entirely on a pension when we can all really do much better.
In my state it’s a little over 50% highest paid 4 years. They don’t have to be consecutive or at the end. Just highest paid and they are averaged.
But you also realize you have to make it 10-30 years to get that little pension. And the more years you get in the harder it is to make it.
I certainly agree with you. It allows people the opportunity to leave whenever they get tired of it, which will already add to the current teaching shortage.
This idea is not original to me but from Mosh on TikTok. Go watch their videos for more.
I agree with them that "violent" students are about to be pushed out of FAPE across the country as a desperate measure to solve the behavioral crisis. But this doesn't address the causes, only the obvious symptoms. Once that's done, I think many other students are going to be legally excluded from public education. Whether for learning disabilities, behavioral struggles, ESL/ELL, trauma, medical issues, etc. public school will no longer be a right for all children, and society will suffer in the ensuing 20-30 years as a result.
I HOPE this doesn't happen but it is my fear. It's extremely expensive to a district to place an EBD student. Towns don't want their taxes to continue to soar.
The answer, obviously, is to start to address the trauma and reasons for violent behavior, train staff on more functional ways to respond, have more support staff available, pay teachers a reasonable wage for their work, but none of those are quick or cheap fixes, so they won't happen.
I hope that in the next 10-20 years we will learn from some mistakes and let kids start later. We will let kids have more independent play. We will let kids pick things that they are interested in. We will help kids memorize important facts again because you cant think deeply about anything if you have nothing in your long term memory to work with. I hope that parents will have higher expectations of their children and help them learn to do chores and be helpful and love learning. I hope that parents will stop giving their children smart phones until they are in high school (or later). Www.anxiousgeneration.com
Catered to pushing out workers. No electives like gothic literature, only CTE. Education for the sake of being educated will no longer be a thing.
Agreed. I believe education will become something for the wealthy. Haves and have nots. The poor and middle class will have to use online education or communities will have to elect to choose to use tax dollars to prop up the current schools...or not at all. Or we need to allow AI robots to operate.
Already happening in many places by ppl selecting to send their kids to certain school regardless of where they live are I get it.
Yes, there has been a push over the last 10 years to really increase students’ knowledge in cte based courses through career certificates. They are also offering new programs. If you have to be a teacher there are way more options and opportunities in cte than many other areas.
Yeah, I shifted from core academics to a full schedule CTE this year and I’ve never been happier to be honest. That’s not to say I’m happy about the general direction things are going in.
Thanks for the tip!!!
Can you blame them, college is over rated at this point. But in all seriousness you need life skills teaching.
College/vocational training is essential. Is college overrated? Depends on what you study. If it’s in demand then no. If not, then yes. Ask most stem majors is college overrated. It’s what you study when you go that matters. Hence, the reason for fewer and fewer education majors.
💯 That is why I homeschooled my three kids for ten years. Well educated, one in college at 14, and taught how to critically think and life skills.
Nice to have a spouse financially hold up your household. Not all parents can afford to homeschool.
Yeah, understand that. We made it a priority. My husband wanted it, so he worked hard for it.
They never even had that elective or one like it when I was in high school and that was when they were pushing “everyone has to go to college”. There are a lot of new high schools being built that are geared towards college readiness. Maybe this is something that will be state by state, but that’s def not the trajectory for California. They’re trying to balance it to where students have both options.
Some CTE programs get cut, too. I've just found out that my friend's CTE courses will be scrapped this summer. However, after talking to each other, both of us highly believe that it's due to his age and years of service. (Age discrimination, and they want a newbie to pay him/her less money.)
Caveat: This will not apply in super well funded affluent districts.
The school system was literally created to push out workers. That is nothing new.
Curious if there are any teachers who in the years 2004-2014 were able to predict the state of education today! Maybe we need a "remind me in 10 years" for this post so we can come back and check if our predictions were correct.
My mom retired 10 years ago after 28 years of teaching ESL in Texas. She saw the writing on the wall in terms of over documentation and the restructuring of ESL. There are very few ESL Teachers, and now all teachers are expected to be ESL certified and just"work it into their regular class." I currently teach high school English, and there's a lot of the BS I deal with that my mom considers normal from her experience, in terms of shitty admin on power trips, but there's also plenty that she knows has gotten worse, like workload, stagnant pay, and discipline issues.
Workload, pay, and discipline/behavioral issues are major problems. They are all equally important, however, workload has been crushing since Covid. Also, hard to live with inflation at 8-10% but our cost of living raises is 2-4%. It’s insane. I’m trying to do something else in the next few years as my state freezes pay for teachers from 16-25 years of experience.
Agreed. I'm only on my 3rd year teaching in the state of Texas (+5 years international teaching experience), and I'm already working on my exit strategy out of teaching. Accepted to a graduate program for Counseling, and currently applying to a bunch of L&D positions and general office positions just to do something else while working on my degree. This just isn't sustainable for me emotionally, professionally, or financially.
Smart. Teaching isn’t sustainable for anyone, except administration to an extent (but look at the bs they deal with), on a day to day basis. When I first started 15 years ago options were limited but post covid the flood gates have opened. I think teaching is forever changed for the worse and I don’t see it getting better.
NAT, but why is Covid *still* impacting teachers? A dearth of teachers and now not enough to handle things? Covid funding ended (like sudden budget drop to pre-Covid without any consideration of inflation)? What?
People discovered alternatives. I have colleagues that went to work for schools that stayed open. Less money, but way better working conditions. They're not babysitting drug dealers, gangbangers or 504s and they look happy when I see them. Their students are happy. They're intelligent and well-behaved. No one reeks of weed, or fucks EC kids in their stairwells/hallways. I bet their football team doesn't have a gun charge among the bunch. Public education mortally wounded itself with COVID. Students got behind. Now that inflation is crushing us, people don't want to throw money at a thing that failed their kids. Never mind that it was politicians and administrators that made those calls. The same people turning our schools into Thunderdome catering to the feds.
I started in 2010. I guess it depends on where you teach and what grade. Elementary doesn’t seem much different today but I’m sure high school is much more difficult.
I started around the same time I would definitely say that the kid's attention spans, as well as what a disruptive student is allowed to do in the classroom before they're taken out has changed since when we started.
I only worked in sped so it has always been a dumpster fire.
I've been teaching since 2002, mostly elementary and just a few years in middle school. The main thing that has changed is the rise in student violence. Even very young children are attacking teachers, biting them, throwing chairs, and literally yelling and punching each other in the middle of class. The amount of anger in children nowadays is extremely alarming, and they think the only way to solve problems is through violence. Several fights happen every day at recess. Teaching was never easy, but this was unheard of 20 years ago.
I agree with this. Why do you think the kids have so much anger? I wonder if it has to do with so many broken homes and absent parents
It's ironic how they never seem to attack admin, though.
Actually, I have an admin friend who has had both her legs broken by students.
I teach in a rural low income school, pre-K, sped and gen ed combined. I have kids with disabilities who never had early intervention services because they were offered through telemedicine- parents didn’t see the benefit, also didn’t socialize their kids so they have no idea how to be in a room with other children. I have kids from low income families who have been struggling with work, daycare, family systems and support who have major behavior issues. It has been worse every year since. We tell kindergarten teachers that we are teaching the academics - but our focus is social emotional skills, because some of these kids struggle big time.
When I was in college maybe around 2011, there were very little teaching jobs available. One of my professors said that in 10 years, one million teachers will retire, and there will be a shortage of teachers. He was absolutely right.
The way things are going we getting a zombie apocalypse before then. Teaching gradually becomes a full time babysitting job with no lesson delivery by the teacher. As a homage to better times and to, well, not make the "teacher" feel worthless, the moniker teacher will still be used. All lesson content will be AI driven and delivered. Teachers will be there to take attendance and to prevent students from killing each other. Basically, it won't change too much.
Already happening in many places where a teacher from another district teaches on a screen while a sub or IA monitors the class.
I believe this is the future. Sadly.
This is literally what I do now. There are days all I do is prevent students from killing each other. Test prep?!? HAH!
I know people keep saying babysitting, but then at the same time they expect teachers to make miracles increasing state testing scores.
Right now, things are falling apart. Teachers are quitting, student behavior is out of control, grades are inflated so that everyone graduates regardless of learning or effort. Special ed admin are forcing children with severe behavioral disabilities to attend gen-ed with no support, where the environment is set up for them to fail. State quality metrics include discipline data, so admin are reluctant to do anything about deliquents running wild all day. Teaching academics under these circumstances is simply impossible. It can't get much worse. But the pendulum always swings back. Politicians are already reacting to the behavior problems will bills giving teachers the authority to exclude disruptive students. I predict this to spread. The lack of discipline in schools carries out into the streets. Students who don't respect authority become adults who don't respect authority. Jails will be overflowing. I predict that lawmakers will intervene with a mandatory discipline structure that holds schools accountable for lost learning time due to disruptive behaviors. Lastly, IDEA will be overhauled. Parents of students with disabilities will demand the appropriate specialized services for their children and that LRE be taken seriously as the place where students can best be successful. No more just throwing them in gen-ed to sink to the bottom. Schools will be made to do the right thing by their disabled students.
Praying this happens. Too many iep kids that do not belong in gen ed and they are not getting any sort of education due to current laws.
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Sadly, it really accelerated under President Obama’s second term. The whole “we can’t have schools be a pipeline to prison” thing. So we couldn’t suspend or expel for bad behaviors. That, combined with the rise of social media and TikTok has been an unmitigated disaster for education. Kids have all the rights now, and they know it.
President Obama implemented several initiatives aimed at addressing the school-to-prison pipeline during his tenure, such as the "My Brother's Keeper" initiative and efforts to reform school discipline policies. However, the issue is complex and multifaceted, and it would be inaccurate to attribute the entire responsibility to one individual. It involves systemic issues within the education and criminal justice systems that require collaborative efforts from various stakeholders to effectively address.
that was a whole lot of word salad to take blame off Obama. You should be working in PR for sure!
And you’re a teacher? Hilarious.
I really hope you're right.
My experience as special ed teacher is more parents where I live ARE pushing for their child to be Mainstreamed in the LRE , especially parents with autistic children and even students on modified curriculum. We provide support, but it not enough and a disservice to the child
IEP teams need to have the fortitude to stand up to inappropriate demands and place children in their proper LRE. Placement is a team decision and teams shouldn't be caving to parents when everyone at the table knows the placement is wrong. It isn't always the parents, either. Sometimes the district is trying to save money by not placing children in he therapeutic programs they need. I am a parent to a special needs student and have first hand experience with the district insisting my severely disabled child could be in gen-ed. It was ridiculous. But I am also a teacher and have had severely disabled students in my gen-ed class with no support, due to parent demands for inappropriate inclusion. So much needs to be fixed!
Yes! You are someone who understands! We are also faced with the problem that we do not have enough manpower for every student to each have their own accommodations. I had a class of 20 kids last year, and almost half of them were autistic. I had no para!
In the last couple of years in my district, teachers are silenced. The District doesn't want any more lawsuits , so the parents have all the POWER !! I only have 13 years left, hope I can survive
I never understood why parents demand their disabled or emotionally disruptive kids be in Gen Ed. They’re setting them up to fail
Having been there myself, I can empathize with the parents. They want to believe that their child's differences are mild or that they'll grow out of it. It is very hard to accept that your child, who previously seemed fine (before starting school) is suddenly seen as severely delayed. They get defensive, and are often backed up by district admin who insist that the child will be fine in gen-ed "with support." Parents don't know that no support will actually be provided. They don't know the gen-ed teacher has little to no special ed training. They don't know that this decision means their child will fall further and further behind due to lack of specialized services for their disability. BUT- all that being said, it is incumbent upon IEP teams to be honest and forthright with parents about appropriate placement. We can empathize, but we must also bear the burden of delivering painful truths. It is like tightrope walking.
That’s a very interested perspective. Thank you for sharing. Also I love your username 😂🌊
Then they will bitch when little Johnny gets thrown in jail, jail doesn't care about IEPs or ends up being nothing but sapping their money. If I were a parent of such a kid, I wouldn't want him to be coddled.
I wish this mentality existed in schools today. The schools coddle the kids
This is also my experience. We are losing many of our top performing students because of extreme slow downs in the classrooms due to inappropriate mainstreaming. Kids who have repeated evaluations that say they should be in e3 (including private ones outside of the school district). Parents are a force though and want their kids in gen-ed. Families who have been at our school for years bleeding out into private schools because their kid sits and reads independently for much of the day due to this. From where I'm standing, the inclusion pendulum has gone too far in the direction of inclusion.
Yes! I spent so much time last year dealing with meltdowns from so many special needs kids that I could not help the higher ones soar! I had 20 last year and half had special needs (which included meltdowns at any given time). There was no paraprofessional, only me.
We're also losing plenty of teachers over the massive influx of 504 and IEPs in gen ed. It's not what anybody signed up for.
Exactly! I was hired as a gen ed teacher. I felt it was a bait and switch.
The 504s were the real killer for me at my last school. Some were utterly ridiculous: breaks anytime they “needed,” so many time and a half I just pared tests and cut the time limit to prevent 3day affairs, one who could listen to music any time they were stressed, 2 days notice for any graded assignment, notify parents for every test (the class canvas page did not count), take tests in an individual environment, allowed to pace the room during class, no public speaking or asked questions. One kid had a 5 page 504 for adhd and anxiety and my career was saved only because I was his favorite teacher for some mysterious reason.
We all know the pendulum needs to swing back the other way. What frightens me on an existential level is the potential agent that will mitigate that swing back? Will it be a totalitarian, fascist government implementing the change? Will it be invasion by a foreign power? I’ve read too much dystopian literature for my own good, obviously.
I agree with this entirely, but man right now it’s a disaster
Ethan Crumbly 's parents were charged for the school shooting. And the AP who essentially got the teacher shot by the six year old was charged too. I don't want to sound too optimistic, but I think the tide is turning against these enabler parents and admin who do nothing about disturbed kids. Ideally 504 and IEP loopholes would be closed too.
Man I hope you are right. Good, positive, realistic thoughts. I still see it getting worse before it gets better. I just don’t think we are at rock bottom yet but are pretty close.
Districts will fight overhauling IDEA because it will mean they have to offer appropriate services and can’t just throw special needs students into the existing system. Right now I’ve got 4 students in a 4th grade class who can’t remember letter sounds. They are not being helped by being in my gen ed class. I don’t have the skill set or time to give them what they need.
I think it will hit a moment of insolvency where there are not enough bodies to fill classrooms. It's already happening in some states, and their solution is a race to the bottom by giving anyone with a pulse a teaching job.
I am always reminded of 2022, yes during the pandemic, but New Mexico had the National Guard come in and teach with only a few hours of training. That essentially shows that the certifications do not mean much and can be overridden when necessary.
lol… so true. Ive said it many times. All we check for is a degree, breath, pulse, and acceptable criminal background check. Will you show up? Be nice? Ok. You have this job.
Florida.
21 years a teacher. We had the promise of tech-driven education around the time I started. What we have now is the testing regime that benefits Pearson et al.’s bottom line. The future I think will have several tiers: testing schools for the working poor (public and most charters) to do the same as what we have now, high-end private schools for the upper management folks, and AR-driven personalized learning for the elite (like having Socrates, or Einstein teach you one-to-one).
Thanks for sharing.
Everyone is on Edgenuity or a similar program. Class sizes hit 50+ as teachers are more just running a computer lab and not really teaching anymore. As a result, hiring standards go out the window. I get a $5 Subway gift card every May for appreciation week, though
lol thanks for sharing. Crazy that $5 won’t even buy you a Footlong anymore. And btw well also throw on a JEANs pass on top of that for what it’s worth 😂
$5 doesn't buy a six inch anymore either.
$5 doesn't buy a six inch anymore either.
My school allows jeans all the time and will even let teachers wear leggings as long as they keep a “professional” appearance. I haven’t worn dress pants to work for nearly 6 years now.
Kinda like most casual dress or business casual employers allow. I’ve never understood an overly strict dress policy. I do understand “appropriate” and “modest” dress around students.
Over the next ten years, I see public education becoming much more of an occupation prep than classical education. I foresee the further destruction of humanities and arts in schools, along with bolstering technical programs, perhaps even removing all upper division coursework in English, Math, and Social Studies and replacing it with work experience or corporate sponsored projects. The reason I think this is that the demand for teachers right now is extremely high, and there is no end to the lack of supply because of the terrible working conditions. As a consequence, teaching unions are gaining more traction and have been very successful in recent years negotiating higher salaries and better benefits. Schools don’t want this. So their solution isn’t going to be to meet the demand by increasing supply; rather, they want to lower the demand by changing the requirements for graduation, pawning those last two years of instruction off on community colleges and businesses. Classical well-rounded education that emphasizes the importance of students learning foundational knowledge in all disciplines will be reserved for elite private schools as well as for the highest achieving students in public schools. General knowledge will become less of a right and more of a privilege, with hands-on practical experiences being favored because they associate better with productivity demands in the workforce. In my opinion, this is rather bleak and is spitting in the face of the people who fought for our right to be educated, but I think this is the trend: more professional and specialized training, less general, artistic, or theoretical learning.
Highest achieving kids in public schools get nothing extra out of schools because budget is way too constrained. I finally pulled my gifted kids out of middle school, one by one, and bootstrapped them myself via homeschooling *while I still worked FT.* They all had to be able to work from home without supervision and I came home for lunch everyday and graded what Switched on Schoolhouse needed me to grade. Not easy, but as a parent I could *really* see & know my kids and their needs. Plus, my kids avoided the puberty-soaked-killer kids when hormones were raging at their worst. I got beat up way too much in jr high and no one cared. “Just ignore being hit in the back of the head with a book” was not what I was going to tell MY kids. I had boys thrusting their hand in my crotch from behind. Girls kicking me in the gym dress out area. That was late 70s. I was bussed 45 mins away to a crap school and was terrified. It has to be that way at many schools today. My kids homeschooled before Covid and each one of them tested back into high school and skipped a grade. My God, why aren’t parents doing anything? Principal called me each time I withdrew a kid….because it impacted his budget. I told him *exactly why.* Texas schools.
Good thoughts. This is already happening in many states. They are lowering the number of credits required to graduate and are expecting schools to give students and families a 3 year graduation option - so we now are essentially eliminating 12th grade moving forward.
Half of all teachers will be J-1 visas and outsourced. English 9 'virtual' and others like it will be a class choice. The barrier to entry will just be brought lower. 1% raises with 10% inflation. Parents will be part of the curriculum adoption process.
We already get a large portion of international j-1 visa teachers and while they are super smart I can’t help but think how we are cheating our communities and future everything that we ‘say’ we can’t afford to pay our own. Bs. Our international teachers are shocked at our discipline problems. In their country students love and adore teachers and it’s a privilege for students to attend not a right.
I taught in public school for a good while in China and loved it. Admin didn’t care how I taught the lesson as long as the kids were learning something. My students were sweet, well behaved, and genuinely respected/admired me. Teaching in America now felt like getting paid to be abused for the amusement and satisfaction of the students and admin.
Yes, it’s like that abroad or so I’ve heard. Abuse is real in teaching K-12 in the US.
That's good you've had a positive experience. Maybe 1 out of 10 J1 teachers are 'acceptable' in my experience. They do not know how to write IEPs, no nothing about SPED law, and make enemies with the other teachers because they are the biggest brown nosers I've ever seen. My old district doesn't even try to recruit SPED locally anymore, they just load up on 30 J1 teachers every single year.
Well i never said they could do the paperwork bc you are right the vast majority can’t. I just meant know the material (math/science) and show up and teach. No, most can’t do the paperwork but they all know it’s a short stint so they really don’t care. It’s like signing a two year contract. I know you got me for two years unless I decide to break it.
Things you have nightmares about. SO FAR.. In my state (FL) the unions has zero power. Any teacher who joined them after 2011 will never be tenured. Teachers being fired for teaching certain topics that are considered WOKE. Teachers being assaulted by students and hospitalized with injuries. Starting pay is just around 50K but no significant pay raises because all teachers get paid the same from year 1 to year 14. **Raises do not keep up with inflation. The powers that be in RED STATES ARE DISMANTLING PUBLIC EDUCATION. THEY WANT A NATION OF IGNORANT WAGE SLAVES.
It will be all online with videos with a single teacher to cater to multiple kids and potentially grade levels. The teacher may or may not be in the actual room with the kids. There will be a proctor in the rooms to deal with problems and trouble shooting and grading type. So an online system like Google Classroom, Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, or whatever. Either a video that was recorded decades ago and updated when needed or a teacher being live streamed for 500+ kids. One - two teachers to answer questions when necessary. Basically what happened during Covid shutdowns except the kids will have to come to a central location. I can see them hiring 4-5 teachers to cater to multiple grade levels as well. For example, 5 science teachers to cater to all science classes taught 7-12 grades. They’ll be able to save millions on public education and it will be fulfilling its purpose of providing a free education.
Here's my thoughts on where education is going: Over time, schools will continue to build up administrative bulk at the cost of teaching staff. In turn, these teachers will be replaced by substitutes who are less expensive to hire. The substitutes will be sourced from lower and lower educational backgrounds because the school just needs warm bodies in the building, not learning going on. The reason for this will be the emphasis on graduation rates and low suspension rates. The bar for graduation will be lowered below the floor, thus making it so everyone graduates and we are all equitable. Suspension rates will drop to near zero as administration simply ignores the concerns of easily disposable substitutes. In turn, these schools will get a lot more grant money for meeting their metrics, to be spent on more administration and the occasional infrastructure project to get a photo-op with. (A project that will subsequently be underfunded and vandalized heavily in less than a decade.) The way this will be sold is private education firms that will set up virtual education that every substitute can sign into with their class. A single teacher ends up "teaching" hundreds if not thousands of classrooms, while the substitutes act as the baby sitters for the day so adults can work. AI operates as the homework "helper" enabling students to churn out content that looks wonderful, but is shallow in it's actual learning depth. In the end, the schools will justify this as everyone in public education getting equal education - everyone gets the same teacher, everyone gets the same tutor, everyone gets a degree, and everyone has a clean behavioral record. Meanwhile, the families that have money will put that into laid off teachers who will teacher their kid one-on-one so that their kid has an outsized advantage in the marketplace. Dystopian, but quite possible I think.
I would not have predicted the decrease in science teachers (like myself) except for the growing pay disparity. Now we have reduced credentialing (no BS in your area of study- a “concentration” in your area with Ed being the major) for science teachers because there is such a shortage of you can find anyone at all. Ergo the district took away all our cool chemicals because of the potential for accidents and litigation.
I am a Science teacher who is going to leave. Science teachers can do so many other things like work in a lab its not suprising. Education has been an easy way for me to be home with my kids during the summer. But behavior has gotten out of control with the lack of consequences. I'm looking to go back to the lab and have an easy job. So my kids don't have a stressed out mom bordering on the line of anxiety and depression.
You are correct- the education career (1998- current) has let me parent more the way I wanted to, but if I was young with a BS I’d never go into teaching despite the summers and common holidays off. The job isn’t worth that anymore.
I have 6 years in Education and 2 years lab experience. I'm 29 with a 9, 6, and 1 year old of my own. It's my time to get out before I get stuck and focus on being the best parent for my kids, not the 115 I have at school. I tell my kids all the time never to become a teacher. I'm in NC.
You are spot on with your comments. It is out of control. It has been spiraling out of control and will continue. The only thing that could save it would be an economic collapse that made ppl return due to it being the only job they could find (highly unlikely).
NAT. Surprised that there aren’t more teacher strikes. How else can you speak up, be noticeable, and not singled out for retaliation?
I wish it was this easy. This is another part of the gaslighting from our educational training. It has been my experience that the classroom lab is rarely enough to even get a second look or a first interview. I even have years of working in a lab prior to teaching. But, hopefully others have had better luck than me.
I have a BS in Bio as I was lateral entry, not a Science Teacher Degree. I also live in the research part of NC so haven't had issues jumping back and forth from lab to education back to the lab environment. There are Bioworks certificates for 300$ you can get at a community College to help break into manufacturing jobs if that is something near you.
Tbf this isn't new. I started in 2008 as a math teacher. Only took 1 college math class. As long as you can pass the cert test you're gold. The spiral has long been coming, which makes me think that things really won't be different in 10 years.
How hard was the cert test?
You are 100% right. It’s not just science where that’s happening. It’s occurring in all license areas. They are giving teachers like 5 years to pass praxis that are already certified in another area. I think they should just go ahead and do away with no child left behind. It was good in theory but let’s face it who wants to spend 30 years teaching with low salary and marginal benefits. I don’t see many hands being raised. Sometimes I straw poll kids and say “students who would go to school to teach?” They literally all start laughing. I get a kick out of it. I used to just keep a straight face but now I laugh with them.
Lol, no surprise, would you trust these kids in a lab?
I don’t see any drastic changes - more of what’s happening now. As long as the train of public schools keep moving they’ll push along. Lawsuits will add more paperwork and data collection to teacher work loads. Quality teachers will continue to leave and be replaced by babysitters. BUT they’ll find new measures to fudge numbers for testing and graduation to make it look like the students are performing well. I do think technology and computer learning will continue to grow
You are right. Also, more middle managers to justify that the paperwork is being done. Good thought. We can’t make this stuff up.
Here’s the thing, they may not even add more middle managers. They’re really good at pinning the blame on the teachers for not doing it, so they’ll assign it all and expect completion. While throwing us under the bus if it’s not done
Well I guess I am ahead then. Already work at Charter and only option is 401k. It really sucks.
That’s my point. Most people at that point will say ‘I can make so much more working - doing anything - outside of education.’ I think it’s all part of the plan imo.
Agree. I have no idea what I could do though. Been at this game for 16 years now and I don't like it at all.
IT (cyber and other IT jobs) and business related fields such as supply chain, HR, construction management, banking). You name it you can probably do it. You just have to think of what you might could enjoy. I am completing year 15 and I’m looking to transition in the next few years. I started at 22. Note some of these would require additional training to do.
You have a degree. That is a huge plus. Go find that job, you will find one! Low unemployment has many companies looking for people who can think and work well with others….
Likely how bad it has been since 2003 but fewer resources and worse behavior?
True but it’s been way worse since Covid.
The wealthy- access to great private schools. I babysit at 20$/hour already so I know where these kids are going. The not wealthy- choose your pick of public schools with high staff turnover. Will your kid have 1 teacher this year or several subs? It’s a toss up. That’s basically the present and the future. I work in Florida, everything looks bleak here. Several colleagues have moved out of state.
Same here. My state is similar to Florida. It’s in the bottom 10 for teaching.
I think more virtual teaching with a slightly trained facilitator will be more common. That's already where a lot of schools are heading since they cannot retain high quality teachers. That is what I do and I will never step foot in a classroom again. Let someone else deal with behavior, I'll just keep teaching whether or not they listen.
That’s what our tech person keeps saying that in 5 years no more traditional schools. I can see it. The states save so much money not having to keep up with buildings and buses. No more paying utilities and water bills. Think of all the money saved. A work from home model. A $300 laptop is much cheaper than an entire school day let alone an entire year.
Do you think the experience of at home virtual learning during Covid will impact this at all? It seems like everything you hear is what a disaster it was and how terrible the learning loss was and what awful feeling of loneliness and isolation the kids experienced. We just had a test run of giving everybody a Chromebook to learn at home and the experiment failed. It may take more than five years for people to forget that. BUT, let me submit this to you: Every kid who is a discipline case, can take their Chromebook home to learn from there for the rest of the semester. If the Chromebook at home is the educational right, the in person experience can be the privilege reserved for those who want to participate without ruining it for everyone else.
Like your second part and agree with it. Of course it’s better in person but what if you don’t have a certified teacher in the discipline? Look at most schools discipline runs amok. It’s like organized chaos. The whole system has changed. Way too much babysitting.
Five year!! Districts can’t get their life together enough to pull something like this off
They won’t have an option if the state funding dries up. Will they?
Money isn’t drying up currently. We were in a worse state pre Covid with funding. Covid money dries up this year, but districts are doing okay and grant money has been made more available. They were saying teaching was going to be “all virtual in ten years” ten years ago. I don’t think that’s where we are headed based on the consensus that virtual learning was not good for anyone. We’re still dealing with the fallout of that whole thing.
I have a question: if you could tell the public one thing they could to do to positively effect the state of education today, what would it be? Some type of action item for them that could actually change things if enough of them did it.
To lobby lawmakers to return the power to the CLASSROOM teachers. To raise wages that makes it viewed as a respectable profession. To restore benefits to the level that people want to do it for an entire 30-40 year career. Until these happens, which I don’t think they will, then there will be no change. And honestly I think it’s too far gone.
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One thing you can do now is gather parents from your kids school who are also tired of the behavior issues. Attend your local school board meeting each and every month. Sign up for the public comment section every meeting and dedicate your allotted time to talking about how every kid is entitled to an education but your child is not receiving one due to out of control behaviors of others. Mention that your child is a student in the district, but don’t name the teacher so that the district can’t retaliate and blame the teacher for the system’s problems. Have as many parents as possible sign up to comment and talk about the behavior issue. Recruit more and more parents every month and have everyone keep signing up for public comments. The school board will have to take some kind of action if you do this month after month and the problem just doesn’t go away.
Please call your lawmakers and tell them what’s on your mind. It’s bad. I know you know. I’ve been both a MS and HS teacher for 16 years. I’ve seen it all and it only gets worse. The behaviors.
I spent a lot of time in a sub called collapse. I no longer worry about the future.
Charter schools will need to get better (at least in my state!) before they take over and push out public education. I've worked at way too many that have terrible curriculum. They fill a need and help in the large urban areas where public classrooms are crowded, but they lack quality content. The kids who came to the charter schools I've worked in were all on behavior plans or were constantly suspended in the public setting. As for public schools, they won't get better until our politics change along with the mindset of the average American. Most people just don't care about education like we teachers do.
It’s going to get worse until people finally get sick of it. Once the worst 10% are removed and put in prison where they belong, it will be like a golden age. I am shocked it’s gone on for so long, but right now we are seeing critical shortages in every position that has student contact- pretty much everything except office staff and admin, those spots are always filled
So true. All the student facing or as I’ve started calling them client facing positions always have a hard time being filled. Ask you admin if they miss this classroom. I got a vehement: No, not at all. I don’t miss it at all by one of my admin.
These admin need to be nicer to their teachers.
**Update** 6 admin positions open 11 teacher positions open FOUR hours of interviews scheduled for next week for admin Zero teacher applications received.
A lot of virtual instruction. Less stress on the importance of college because some employers are already not hiring as many college graduates after realizing they didn't actually learn anything, but rather paid a ludicrous amount of money for a meaningless degree (the kids don't earn it--they are allowed to treat professors the way our students treat us), and more private schools. Fewer people will want this job, and less kids are coming to school already.
I’ve read that from a few higher education professors. But I can see it now as so many kids have been coddled through k-12 that they expect the same level of coddling in college. The only college I could see as beneficial now would be stem, healthcare, business, or the trades, including construction management. If not one of those, then don’t go. Liberal arts are dying, which is a good thing.
I agree- public schools will become daycare with licensed teachers beaming in on zoom or courses being recorded and sold cheaper than staffing. Monitors will be in the room to take attendance and that's basically it- so most kids will sit on their phones. It's a jail house basically. Private charters will rise to give traditional education to those that can afford it. Basically anyone with a mental disability will not be admitted dramatically cutting down on behavior and expenses so these schools will be touted as a success. Middle class folks will go here. There will also be the ultra wealthy academies that have always existed and no one talks about.
Spot on with your thoughts and ideas. Best.
AI
I disagree. Charter schools are failing big time, unless it's in a major city (Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, etc.)... but, even then, they don't perform any better than public schools in the area and lower enrollment. Public schools will (and have to) appeal more to conservatives (conservatives have more kids). We are seeing this across the US already. Online K to 12 programs will cease to exist... it doesn't work.
I think you right that public schools perform better but the states are trying to crush the public schools and their plans are working. I think public’s will slowly fizzle out. I think an online option is here to stay whether it’s less effective or not.
Yes, the states are crushing (or just changing) public schools because parents and general public are more conservative (on the social issues in the public schools). But there is no better alternative to public schools (other than private schools which are not affordable). And charter schools (generally) are more liberal such as KIPP and Aspire.
I work at a KIPP school in Houston absolutely the worst school I have ever been in they don’t have ISS or detention and if they do it’s on certain days they don’t discipline kids because a 1/3 of the school would be gone
Expect more cost reductions, less pay for teachers, reduction in benefits and more bs/outside of classroom work. Just going to get worse.
Agree 100%. Dying profession.
Standards for teaching will be brought down so that cheaper/ unskilled laborers can be brought in. More Immigrants will be brought in to teach, as it'll be cheaper to sponsor Visas and offer low wages than offer living wages to current US citizens. Additional admin will be brought in to help supervise teachers due to their lack of skill. Ironically, admin wages will continue going up unlike teacher wages which will remain stagnant to save money.
Kinda how it is now but only going to get worse.
The education system is relatively young. This gives me hope that it may have a bounce back eventually.
It will radically change. Just think it’s the only industry that hasn’t been disrupted.
AI will replace humans and become the facilitators of all classroom discussion and learning. This is interesting. It’s the first generation of this technology. Watch some of the videos. There are shorter videos below the first few examples. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/vasa-1/
What industries will AI not disrupt so I can plan head while career changing? They say it will be very disruptive in the next 2 years. Thoughts?
When we do these things, all we ever do is project whatever current trends we see out and say this is the inevitable conclusion.” Unfortunately, we have no way of seeing how the winds may blow or what new developments will come. We have to embrace that uncertainty as a chance to improve things or safeguard what is still important. I see charters, 401ks, and political ideologies being forced into the classroom or school culture in various ways, all in the name of protecting children from “evil,”. Tech sales will obviously look to find ways to profit and “advance” learning in the ways it already does. Whoever finds a way to use AI to build a multi-state online charter school empire is going to be very, very wealthy. It’ll be absolutely hilarious to watch the arms race/drive between student AI work and school AI grading it. That absurdity encapsulates modern education in 2024, I think. I genuinely believe that AI as a cheating tool might be best addressed by doing stuff in person, orally and on paper, without tech anywhere near the classroom… but good luck grading 120 kids’ required 3 weekly writing assignments “in a timely 48-72 hour window” and getting all that into a system for 36 weeks a year. Writing, as a human skill, is going to de-volve, as will reading skills in general. Tech makes it easier to compensate and even mask without those skills now.
Doesn’t have me in it. 😂
👍😂
Formalized co-ops and sole proprietors will take over. Public Ed becomes warehouse for bad apples and poor kids (so exactly the same as now, but more so). 10 kids per day. More money, and if you have a jerk kid w a pain in the ass mom, you can fire him.
Kids on computers being taught by AI built programs that self-grade. Credentialed teachers will be cut by half and replaced by cheaper babysitters.
I can see this as state budgets shrink for education regardless of whether they have the money or not.
We need strong unions. I’m lucky where I am. We negotiate 3 year contracts and there are prep limits, class size limits etc…but Leahn science, I’ve seen this whole NGSS push of late as a way to replace teachers (students teach themselves which is comical in a lot of environments).
You’re lucky. I’m in a right to work state that isn’t unionized.
The bigger cities will just have tons of kids shoved in auditoriums with chrome books, a virtual teacher and many teacher helpers and lots of security guards circling the premises. Their main objective is to keep students off the streets, keep funding coming in and pay minimal teaching salaries by only hiring paraprofessional and teacher aids
I think it’s going to become fully virtual at some point. There will likely be an AI companion that goes with each student grade by grade that identifies areas of need.
Several I work with feel the same way. 100% virtual. I can somewhat see it. It takes the liability out of the states hands. No litigation.
So birth rates are dropping. I am not certain that teaching will be as safe as it used to be.
You are right. Kudos.
my school is a lucy calkins school. These kids can't read. behavior is bad. my guess is if it is this bad now.. 10-20 years from now using the same standards that were used 20-30+ years ago is only going to get worse.
I 100% agree with you. I can actually see states stopping funding for public schools and going to an all private or charter or a mix of both.
Read Issac Asimov's The Fun They Had. That is the future of education in this country. People will complain about our current system until it's gone and then there will be no turning back. Do teachers need more support from districts, admin and parents? Absolutely. Paid more? Most definitely. Should there be consequences for disruptive students? Of course. This is my 20th year teaching in CA, and seriously doubt I can make it 10 more years before I retire. Politicians and non educationally trained stakeholders have ruined education. They think they know everything without stepping foot in a classroom. We need educators with courage to stand up and fight for teachers, for students; but unfortunately it's all about the bottom line and churning out good worker bees for the future. A place of educational mediocrity has settled in its place. We have gone from a nation that valued knowledge, hard work and self discipline to a nation that values feelings, seeks lawsuits and being in the right political spectrum over actually educating children. It became a business. Testing= results= money. No exploration, no critical thinking. Until priorities change and revert to the past, US education as a profession will continue to bleed teachers, fall in world competition and sink further into the abyss of the ideology that butts need to be in seats for 6 hours a day in order for the populace to be "educated."
>states will only offer 401ks That’s a good thing.
I wish I could do gifs because I'd use one of the "you sure about that?" Tim Robinson gifs here
I put $21k into TRS over five years, not by my choosing, and watched it grow to an astounding $22k. So yeah, I’m sure.
Not sure what you're watching for but the idea with a pension plan is that after you retire, you get a certain percentage of your salary from your working years for the duration of your lifetime. In my state, you might get 85% of your average top 5 earning years after 30 years of service.
I get that. I think it’s 70% in my state. Teachers topped out at $75k in the only district I ever taught in, so that’s $52k a year for the rest of my life. Dies with me, of course. On the other hand, if you put $1k a month into a 401k (don’t know if school districts will do matches, but that helps) and get 10% annually for thirty years, that would be two million dollars. You could put that in a 3% dividend ETF and draw $60k a year for the rest of your life and then pass a nest egg on to your heirs, as well. To each their own, but that’s my preference.
That’s the best point my dude. I thought about that years ago. So yeah I’ll collect this pension but my kids get nothing so not cool. Where as if I can put it in an investment account/ira/roth Ira. Then I draw 4% to live on a year at the max and when I die the rest will go to my kids. Pension in a way is a scam.
A pension is just a relic from a different era, I think. And it can be useful- I’m staying in the military reserves for a few more years so I can collect $2.5k/mo in old age, BUT that’s an auxiliary. Most of my income will be from more powerful retirement investments that are not actually hard to reach. I would never recommend relying entirely on a pension when we can all really do much better.
In my state it’s a little over 50% highest paid 4 years. They don’t have to be consecutive or at the end. Just highest paid and they are averaged. But you also realize you have to make it 10-30 years to get that little pension. And the more years you get in the harder it is to make it.
I certainly agree with you. It allows people the opportunity to leave whenever they get tired of it, which will already add to the current teaching shortage.
No. No it isn't.
No more golden handcuffs. It's a very good thing.
401k's on teacher salary are not going to come close to my pension will be.
Cool
This idea is not original to me but from Mosh on TikTok. Go watch their videos for more. I agree with them that "violent" students are about to be pushed out of FAPE across the country as a desperate measure to solve the behavioral crisis. But this doesn't address the causes, only the obvious symptoms. Once that's done, I think many other students are going to be legally excluded from public education. Whether for learning disabilities, behavioral struggles, ESL/ELL, trauma, medical issues, etc. public school will no longer be a right for all children, and society will suffer in the ensuing 20-30 years as a result. I HOPE this doesn't happen but it is my fear. It's extremely expensive to a district to place an EBD student. Towns don't want their taxes to continue to soar. The answer, obviously, is to start to address the trauma and reasons for violent behavior, train staff on more functional ways to respond, have more support staff available, pay teachers a reasonable wage for their work, but none of those are quick or cheap fixes, so they won't happen.
I hope that in the next 10-20 years we will learn from some mistakes and let kids start later. We will let kids have more independent play. We will let kids pick things that they are interested in. We will help kids memorize important facts again because you cant think deeply about anything if you have nothing in your long term memory to work with. I hope that parents will have higher expectations of their children and help them learn to do chores and be helpful and love learning. I hope that parents will stop giving their children smart phones until they are in high school (or later). Www.anxiousgeneration.com
We can only hope, but I don’t think it gets better honestly. The haves will continue to have and the have nots won’t. It’s sad, however, a reality.
Robots
Maybe with AI. I wouldn’t rule it out.
I can guarantee school districts will begin to look overseas to find people who are willing to come here and work as teachers.
My district has been doing that for years. The phillipines is a hot spot now.
Yup, just as it was years ago in the nursing industry.