New York City Department of Education Reviews

Pros

You can make a difference in many children's lives.

Cons

It is difficult to achieve a work and life balance if you truly care about these students. Most of the time, you need to spend money out of your own pocket to buy the things you need to maintain your classroom and teach.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to fund teachers more.

Pros

vacations, holidays and summers off

Cons

management and politics keep you from doing your job with passion and creativity.

Pros

Working with students, making a difference.

Cons

Administrators mismanage and teachers are not respected in many cases.

Pros

The benefits and staff are pretty awesome.

Cons

The salaries are not competitive.

Advice to Senior Management

More competence and leadership characteristic.

Pros

Great benefits and time off. Some of the students were a joy to work with! Many opportunities for professional development.

Cons

Professional development sessions provided great info, but never a detailed plan on how to put the great ideas into practice. Working with the kids was a struggle, especially because there was minimal parent involvement! Administration expected miracles from students who simply refused to perform!

Advice to Senior Management

Take some of the pressure off of teachers to perform miracles with students who simply did not want to learn!

Pros

Great job benefits such as medical/dental/optical insurance with a solid retirement plan. Reliable pay. Many days off that are PAID. Great for parents as you are always home when your child is home. Fairly secure job because of the UFT, the Union representing teachers. Customer service (human resources) is also good both for the Dept. of Ed. as well as UFT.

Cons

The main reason I left this organization was the pay. After 6 years, and 2 college degrees, I made $60k a year before taxes. After tax, about $42k comes home. That's it. All that schooling and years of hard work educating teenagers to become successful in their lives, and I took home so little. I saw no bright future for myself so I quit and took my talents to another field of work. A few other reasons - I could not say how I felt to my supervisor. For example, I was told by my supervisor to observe a 1st year teacher and learn from that person. I was not able to point out what was ridiculous or I would be "written up." I understand this might be the norm in average jobs but not one where you hold 6 years of professional schooling. It is demeaning to a professional who has worked for years doing the same thing, successfully might I add, to be asked to observe and learn from a rookie in that rookie's first month on the job. At one point, I couldn't take it anymore - not being able to say how I will do my job and just saying yes yes yes. I will also say this much although I could have handled it with supervisor support: the students are VERY disrespectful to teachers. If they don't curse you for trying to be strict and enforce discipline, they may fabricate lies against you. It does happen although it never happened to me because, well I guess I was just fortunate to be very careful. Anyhow, teaching starts at a pay rate of $39,000 annually. Paid days off are usually spent (not kidding) creating tests, organizing unit plans, grading, contacting truant students' parents, etc. There is nationally a 50% quit rate in this industry after 5 years. I guess I fell into that statistic at the end of my 6th year.

Advice to Senior Management

You don't offer the most important person in the building, the teacher, enough support. Meanwhile, your pencil pushers in the building are ready to "write up" or disapprove of said teacher's methods, even when they have proven successful. Teacher's aren't children and if you work in this organization, you will notice that they are treated as such. It's quite demeaning to talk to a grown man or woman in a condescending manner which discounts his or her past educational and performance credentials. Also, if you want star teachers, you need to pay $100k and higher. I only came into teaching because of paid college degrees by programs. I would NEVER have invested by taking a loan into this industry. What idiot would spend $20k on loans (on average) AND years of his or her youth (the most valuable time in your life when you have energy to chase a major) only to make less than a McDonalds manager, meanwhile have the liabilities of managing minors? Makes no sense. And NO. Pay raises do NOT rise tremendously. They rise accordingly to inflation (and sometimes there are pay freezes across the board!) and are commensurate with post-grad education - in other words, you will get back what you paid in dollars for that education and that's it. Don't expect to raise your standard of living or a better future, the American Dream. Just keep dreaming, that's it.

Pros

They overall have pretty good benefits and the pension is very decent.

Cons

There is no appreciation for anything done. Nothing is ever good enough either. Give them a finger, they'll take your whole arm and still not be satisfied.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to what the teachers are saying and respect them as professionals and employees! Follow their advice, they're not out to steer you or the children wrong!

Pros

Benefits - health and savings
Decent starting salary
If you enjoy teaching, it is rewarding
Keeps your mind fresh
(Theoretically) A protective union

Cons

The union does not help if you are new
Administration is mostly incompetent in dealing with arising issues
No clarification as to what is allowed/disallowed by administration (i.e. you will get lots of work that you did not sign up for)
(yes there is the contract and yes there are Chancellor's regulations, but good luck reading through everything while you're planning and teaching 5 days a week)
Teachers are quickly becoming (if not already) the scapegoats for poor performance of students

Advice to Senior Management

Hire some competent management
Be clear and concise in expectations
Student management policies need to be revamped...teachers must be given some power to control their classrooms aside from "take anecdotal of student misbehavior"
Stop blaming teachers for (literally) everything and take responsibility (or share it!) for failures

Pros

You have incredible job security. Your retirement is automatically paid for. Everything good comes at the end. Hours are very short.

Cons

No oppurtunity for advancement. Job is discouraging.
Salary is small for jobs with comarative educational requirements. Coworkers are some of the dumbest .

Pros

The salaries of New York City Dept. of Ed. teachers is higher then most other public districts teacher and instructors salaries.

Cons

The new York city Dept of education lacks strong central organization and management. The quality of principals and schools varies wildly.

Advice to Senior Management

Principals should be held accountable for supporting their teachers and staff to learn, grow, develop and improve in driving towards student achievement.