Thread

Has Violence Against Teachers Become Accepted by Society?

148 points · 332 comments · obscurette

ValueTheory · 1790606717 · focus · HN ↗
"The parents of the student who assaulted me sued the district, claiming it had failed to prevent the incident. Suddenly, I found myself on phone calls with administrators and attorneys questioning whether I had done enough to stop the assault."
This is the root of the problem. Of course, civil lawsuits are important to correct actual wrongs, but school districts seem to be so cowardly in the face of bad lawsuits that they are willing to throw teachers under the bus to avoid them.
1. toomuchtodo · 1790606824 · focus · HN ↗
  Like management and shareholders aligned against workers, parents and administrators are aligned against teachers, who are underpaid, under resourced, and being asked to deliver far beyond what they can accomplish on their own. I recommend being a teacher to no one, and will help any teacher who wants out into a better career or industry.
  From a systems failure perspective, they are where the forces from system failure are being directed. Teachers cannot fix poor parenting.
  (last I checked ~2 years ago, ~1600 school districts across 24 states in the US are on 4 day weeks to attempt to retain teachers)
  Schools across the U.S. are trying a 4-day week. Why? To retain teachers - <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1211632901/schools-across-the-u-s-are-trying-a-4-day-week-why-to-retain-teachers" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1211632901/schools-across-the... - November 8th, 2023
  Teachers are calling it quits amid rising school violence, burnout and stagnating salaries - <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/us/teachers-quitting-shortage-stress-burnout-dg/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/us/teachers-quitting-shortage... - May 31st, 2023
  Four day school week? In rural Missouri, more districts see it as a way to recruit teachers - <a href="https://www.kcur.org/education/2022-06-11/four-day-school-week-in-rural-missouri-more-districts-see-it-as-a-way-to-recruit-teachers" rel="nofollow">https://www.kcur.org/education/2022-06-11/four-day-school-we... - June 11th, 2022
  1. nailer · 1790607011 · focus · HN ↗
    > teachers, who are underpaid, under resourced, and being asked to deliver far beyond what they can accomplish on their own
    Look at the recent Nicole Hannah Jones article on regretting her daughters education choices. The 'bad' school with the disruptive children had 52K of funding per student. Something is up but I'm not sure it's underfunding.
    nemomarx · 1790607177 · focus · HN ↗
    How much of that goes to the teacher? It seems to be soaked up by administration.
    zdragnar · 1790607394 · focus · HN ↗
    The teachers who didn't grade homework and passed students who hadn't actually learned anything? They're utterly powerless and more funding won't help them. The schools need to radically change their approach to education, top to bottom.
    mrguyorama · 1790608711 · focus · HN ↗
    Those teachers wanted to fail the kids, but administration told them they couldn't.
    Because of changes that mostly started with No Child Left Behind, which tried to not leave children behind by not letting them be held back when they didn't learn!
    Why are kids suddenly so uneducated? Well what happened roughly one 18 year long education timespan ago? No Child Left Behind.
    zdragnar · 1790610059 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm calling BS here. The article on NHJ would have had the failure rate around 50% or higher based on how poorly the students performed. The school literally cannot accommodate so many students failing a grade level and being held back.
    Further, no child left behind punished schools based on standardized test scores, not the artificially inflated grades the students were getting.
    Instead, they are getting 52k per pupil to not even grade homework? That's definitely not a consequence of no child left behind.
    TitaRusell · 1790617430 · focus · HN ↗
    Schools are for education. They are not for raising kids. That is the parents job.
    If the home situation is fucked up it doesn't matter how much money you throw at the schools.

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