Oh god, that sounds terrible. We have a really strong union, so despite there always being a week of special summer training, I've just literally never gone. I don't even open my laptop to see the emails inviting me. I'm only going this year because (1) it's paid, and (2) I'm actually eager to put on a presentation for staff about behavior management, made a pitch to administration, and they gave the green light for it hoping I could do it over this event. I really wanted to do this on the first training day before kids come back, because this is still optional and the teachers who need it most won't get it because they won't come to this, but what can one do?
But god, I remember my old, non-unionized district, and having to sit through multiple unpaid courses of repeat information. It was always the same, everyone always hated it, and the main point of a training that basically everyone had to do was so staff could perform restraints, which...really wasn't great regardless of training to do them. It was so bad...
As for why education sucks so bad, I guess it depends on where you are? But I feel pretty strongly that the answer is "Standardized testing." Tests became central measures of teacher effectiveness, but the way tests are scored is shrouded in mystery. Urban and black students routinely underperform, and underperforming districts are denied state funding until their scores go up, and when every teacher is underperforming because of the population you work with, district uses it to justify under-paying, so the teachers with the hardest jobs now care the least because they're not well compensated.
Then you get into issues of special education and the RTI/MTSS triangle, which was meant to be a vague outline but is taken as gospel truth. As assessment of country-wide statistics said "Broadly, about 5% of the population would need significant individualized instruction and 10% needs some small group repetition to succeed." Everyone in a position of authority went "Got it, if a school or district has more than 5% on IEPs they are doing a Bad Job," and not one of them has been willing to hear "That's not how statistics work" for decades. Coupled with the rise of computer instruction that gives the shittiest corrective feedback known to man, the death of resource room programs that used to be beneficial assistance for students who needed additional support, and the removal of consequences for severe misconduct as schools are pressured to never suspend to make their numbers look good, and you get an absolute goddamned mess. A mess that's constantly used to blame teachers for environmental problems as administrators insist they don't teach well enough, and district management insists they don't get enough training, and parents complain teachers can't handle their kids right.
Every day I am thankful I am not a teacher. It is fucked that my position has, at lowest, been paid equal to what you all deal with. But sure, districts, pay more money into the profession that doesn't know how to analyze behavior but is expected to write behavior plans, and primarily uses biased cognitive assessments to gatekeep special education support, that'll fix it. Maybe you can integrate AI too, you fuckwits.
