bostonbubble.com

[john p]

Hold the Phone:......

the districts:

Silver Lake Regional District:

Kingston, Plympton, Halifax. The town that split off was Pembroke.

Back when they split, what I said was true:

When they were together as Silver Lake in 2004 they were ranked 126.

The next year Pembroke split off. Pembroke improves to like a combined average of 112 and Silver Lake falls behind to 165.5.

2005 10th Grade ranking (1-278)

Silver Lake: 165 Math, 166 English
Pembroke: 120 Match, 104 English

Then something happens along the way, they put a commuter rail in to serve Halifax, Plympton and Kingston and guess what happens? Their schools improve dramatically. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a school district improve like this.

2009 10th Grade ranking

Silver Lake: 102 Math, 110 English
Pembroke: 141 Math, 145 English

Silver Lake goes from an average of 165.5. to 106 and Pembroke goes from an average of 112 to 143.

I really think Silver lake is going to go up from there. It was a town that was inaccessible to Boston prior to the late 90's and since, it has become a professional bedroom community to serve those that want peace and quiet and an easy commuter rail ride in.

I think it is going to go up from there because look at all the suburbs out by 495 that are affordable and look how improved their districts have gone. Take Groton (8th), Medfield (8th), Medway (8th), Westford (8th), Hopkinton (16th), Westboro (16th), Littleton (32). Now Littleton beats fucking Marblehead. LITTLETON BEATS MARBLEHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was totally right when I was telling you guys that the "up and coming towns" were the affordable towns were young families who cared about education would go. It has less to do about how much money you have than most claim to think.

LITTLETON BEATS WESTON IN 10TH GRADE MATH. Good for them. I love it. My wife and I got married in Littleton; it is a blue collar town that people would make fun of as being "in the sticks". Good for them.

[john p]

Here's the link:

http://www.boston.com/news/special/education/mcas/scores09/10th_top_districts.htm

[Kaidran]

Typically private schools pay a lot less but are seen as better work environment, usually with much smaller class sizes.

CCs point is a good one. If being a teacher was easy we would all be trying to change careers.

[balor123]

[balor123]

I think the easiest way to see where the pay should be, as valued by the free market anyway, would be to look at other countries whose markets aren't manipulated as much. Part of the reason why engineers make comparable to teachers here I think is that H1Bs keep the supply of engineers high while teachers not only don't have immigrants to compete with but also unionize to keep all other teachers out. I feel like I keep repeating myself but as another poster pointed out BP teacher pay is not representative of teacher pay. It is abnormally high and that's why we should find it offensive.

Eliminate the union and also the implicit "immigration" union for all professions and I think you'll find very different numbers. In India, for example, engineers and primary care doctors make about the same amount of money ($10k/yr). High quality engineers can make more even (I think my peers in my division make about $30k/yr for example but they are top of the top). In the rest of the US, engineers make about 2-3x what teachers make. Only in Boston do they make the same and the union makes it possible. I don't know how much teachers there make but I suspect far less. Again, this doesn't make teaching easy it's just a matter of where the supply and demand is and there is a surplus of people who can teach but a limited supply of those who are able to, thanks to the walls put up by the unions that allows them to maintain that high pay here.

[BD]

Teachers Unions don't keep anyone out. There's especially a need for qualified math, science, and SPED teachers. My school hires new teachers every year.
Several years ago BPS cold called me to invite me to interview for a math position. I had not even sent them a resume.

[balor123]

Do unions protect jobs? If so, then they're keeping others out who could replace them.

[BD]

I've worked in two unionized suburban Boston school systems. In my experience, it just isn't the case that unions protect incompetent teachers. My school fired a tenured English teacher last June, and will fire a tenured Biology teacher this June. And nontenured teachers don't get renewed routinely. I think anti-union groups perpetuate this misinformation for whatever reason. But if you worked in a school system, you'd see how it really is.

Also, there's a grat deal of self selection in the teaching field. Almost half of new teachers leave the teaching profession within five years.

Am I the only teacher here?

[balor123]

Maybe you are right and I don't know. Maybe BP has the best teachers in the country and the pay is justified. People don't like unions I think because they are anticompetitive and give the impression of having an unfair advantage at the bargaining table. While companies can't corroborate on the prices that they charge their customers, people can corroborate on the prices that they charge their customers. Especially with the recent Supreme Court decision that corporations are legally equivalent to people, it seems odd that unions are permitted to continue existing. I think if the unions were disbanded people would harbor a lot less hostility towards those professions, though there will always be non-obvious unions (AMA, restricted immigration, etc).

[Kaidran]

My wife was a teacher before the kids so I got to hear some stories. The main problem was the politics. The head would cave to every parent whim and would not stand up to teachers that would not coordinate. There was poor coordination between schools too. This was not a Boston suburb so possibly life is better there because the town demands it.

CC: I agree that American kids are not well positioned. For that though I mainly blame the parents. Kids learn quickly that the teacher has no real power and a chat with mommy can make most of it go away. American schools mostly have much better resources than England but expectations seem to be much lower, school day is shorter, and school year is shorter.

[jfunk138]

[BD]

Years ago, I taught AP Calculus in one of the W towns (an "immune" community). I was not a facilitator. I obsessed everyday about my lesson plan.

Boston doesn't have the best teachers (I know you were being sarcastic). As I said, I think it's battle pay. Most teachers wont teach in Boston.

And my union doesn't seem very powerful at all. We're on our second year without a contract. Soon to be third year. The'yve offered 0% and 0%.
There's no end in sight until the economy picks up.

[Boston ITer]

[Devlin]

John P

You know any good contractors in the Kingston area. Also, do you think Cordage Park will ever come thru and allow the Plymouth station to actually allow commuters to use the Plymouth stop?

[balor123]