Jon Ralston gives Clark County public school teachers their due

Wednesday, June 7, 2006 | 7:39 a.m.

Clark County teachers finally are getting some TLC, and for those who don't think they deserve it, the results are quite illuminating.

It may not be the Tender Loving Care some teachers need and have every right to demand considering what they do every day. But the Teaching and Learning Conditions survey recently completed by the district - and first reported on Tuesday by the Sun's Emily Richmond - exposes some canards routinely put forth by education establishment critics.

What strikes me right away is the response rate for the exercise - nearly half of the 17,341 teachers and other education professionals returned the extensive survey, which is phenomenal for such an endeavor. Richmond focused on how many teachers - 40 percent-plus - say they work other jobs to make ends meet. But here are some more results that may surprise you:

And for those who think there is too much bureaucracy in the School District, there may be too much bureaucracy for the teachers to handle. More than half said they have too much paperwork they are required to do, which, of course, cuts into their effectiveness in the classroom.

How much overtime you think they are collecting for those extra hours, folks?

I can hear the cynics: Yes, but that just means they rubber-stamp the bad teachers, too. Let's hope not.

There is a lot more - the survey is extensive. But what's so provocative here is that when people fill out these types of surveys, you expect a disproportionate response from those who want to whine or complain.

But the teacher population either is generally a happy, satisfied bunch despite the limits of growing class sizes and too much mandated paperwork, or the naysayers and cynics were just too lazy to fill out this particular paperwork.

What's also fascinating about these results is how simple it will be for those on either side of the ideological spectrum to leap on the survey as evidence for their point of view.

Aha, the advocates of higher pay and more money for education will yelp - these folks work so hard and have such a great attitude and yet they are constrained by class sizes and other strictures.

Aha, the proponents of holding teachers more accountable will scream - they are pretty content and yet the quality of public education is low, so they are all covering for each other.

Either way, judging by how human nature operates, this TLC survey is unlikely to result in a great amount of TLC from either side.

(If you want to see the entire survey, go to my blog www.vegaspundit.typepad.com, and for more information go to www.nvtlc.org.)