Saturday, June 25, 2005

Where have all the good coaches gone?

I am sure Lamar R-1 Superintendent Mike Resa made some of his hard working teachers happy with his comments from today's Joplin Globe story.
The article, which concerned last Tuesday's Board of Education meeting, talked about a question asked by new board member Michelle Crockett, who wanted to know why extra duty pay for coaches was being increased, while the same thing was not being done for teachers who work with students involved in other extracurricular activities.
According to the article, Resa said he had "made the decision to raise the stipends for coaches so that the district could be competitive with other schools in recruiting coaches."
I doubt that if that answer satisfied Mrs. Crockett. It sure as heck didn't satisfy me.
Though I am probably running afoul of every sports fanatic in The Turner Report's readership, I stress emphatically: This is what is wrong with education today.
Don't get me wrong. I love school sports. I wrote more than 3,000 sports stories during my newspaper days, including more than 1,000 Sports Talk columns, but don't tell me that this is the kind of message that should be sent to teachers who pretty much donate their time to work with students in academic-oriented extracurricular activities.
In most cases, these teachers only receive a couple of hundred dollars, compared to the four-figure stipends received by coaches. I love it administrators say they would rather increase the extra-duty pay of coaches (who already receive more) than add a few dollars to teachers who handle Student Council or Math League or Academic Bowl, and then they wonder why the teachers don't love them for the fine human beings that they are.
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Continuing on the same general subject, many people don't realize that a large number of teachers, especially those with less than five years of experience, do not get paid a cent for the extra duty work they do, especially at smaller schools. After five years, Missouri teachers become eligible for the state's Career Ladder program (if their schools are paying a portion of it, which many don't). At that point, quite a few school boards and administrators in this area are content to let the teachers get paid for working with students on extracurricular academic activities through that program, while they continue to make sure that athletics are fully funded through the regular school budget.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree. However, one question remains, why did the school board go along with? Everyone who sits back and watches bears some responsiblity. We need to let our school board members know how we feel.

Anonymous said...

You need to pay coaches more because when teams are successful, schools sell more tickets which means more revenue for the district. You don't see thousands of people at a math bowl, but you do at football and basketball games.

Anonymous said...

Hey, its a good ole boys network. Where do you think alot of the superintendents came from? Their former coaches who werent worth a hoot as a teacher so they became an administrator. Theres way to much disparity in teachers pay and what administrators are paid. I have never seen any administrator make a difference in a kids learning. School should be about learning, not making some administrator wealthy.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand how paying a coach more money makes a team successful. If the educators really care about the students, they will do the work (aka coach the team) for nothing...or the same amount that the teachers who advise student organizations get paid.

It doesn't cost anything for the public to attend a Math Bowl
Competition, but I never saw people there who were not parents.

And what about the school's swim team. The public indoor pool is not large enough to hold competitions during the school term, so the school can not make any money on the team, even when the team is producing state qualifying swimmers. Does the swimming coach 'get a raise' with the rest of the coaches?

The problem with our public and collegiate education systems is where the importance is placed. Unfortunately, our society sees importance in the amount of money an object contains or receives. Why are sports put above academic excellence?