You make some very good points. First let me say that I'm not a teacher but I do not believe that cutting a teachers pay is the answer. With few exceptions (i.e. Nevada) most teachers are significantly under payed. These are the people that are teaching our children. Teachers must be made to meet qualifications but we need to offer teachers more money in order to attract the very best possible. In this case forget the school district, your kids are worth it.

 

Excellent post. I agree, teachers, good teachers which the majority are, are worth a very high price for pay as far as I am concerned. I am with you about ”forget the school district, your kids are worth it” to this point:

Our kids are worth it and the teachers are worth it however the school district bureaucracy is not worth it. It needs to be dismantled and rebuilt into a lean business structure. There is extremely too much money pumped into the current bureaucracy. It is easy to see because the more money we spend the less we see.

There are still many schools in disrepair when there is plenty of cash to just about rebuild them from the ground up. No AC in the summer, no heat during winter? What is up with that?

The kids can not do much but the teachers and parents sure can. The teachers need to play the role of a leader, they need to lead and not follow. They know what is needed in the schools and it is most defiantly not more tax payer money, there is a ton of that just laying around that can be used, except the bureaucrats siphon it off the top and leave the teachers and kids to scrounge for any crumbs left over and it is the PARENTS and TAX PAYERS who end up ”Making ends meet”

It is time for those of us who “really” are concerned about the children and teachers to stand up and say NO MORE, NO MORE MONEY for the bureaucrats, time for them to figure out how much fat needs to be cut so the budgets are balanced, the schools are in top working order and teachers are making a high and fair salary, while returning money back to the taxpayer…

Those who continue to feed the bureaucrats do not and never will ”care about the children”…

 

Well, here in California there was 1 school commitee that didn't want to lose 3 classrooms because of school budget cuts. They wanted to preserve small classroom size.

They raised $40,000.00 . The school board found that it was unacceptable because other schools in the district didn't have the same advantage.

So they divided the money between 26 other schools in the district.

This is what boggled my mind, that money allowed the school district to keep ALL of the schools classrooms the same size.

So WTF???? 40K ???? Hmmm... sounds like someone started snooping into their books.

 

LGJ -

Which one are you - A War Eagle or a Terrier ??

 

01, I agree with your disgust totally. A public school education is supposed to be free. What part of free don't they understand?

Around here, it is school supplies. At the beginning of the school year, students have to buy $100-$150 worth of school supplies, like paper and pencils (not so onerous) and glue, and scissors, and special assignment notebooks, special pen sets, and the list goes on and on.

I live in an area with the highest property taxes in the state, a state with no income tax so property taxes are really high. Yet they have to nickel and dime the parents because they can't cover their own costs.

Raoul, high schools around here generally have at least 2000 students. There were 3000 at the three year high school I went to way back when in LA.

The thing is, the cost, say $15 per student (or even $50) is nothing when added to the overall tax bill. That might be adding between $1 and $5 to everyone's annual tax bill. Taken another way, that might be one or two less teachers (or more students per teacher) for the whole school. Then to make it mandatory!

That amounts to a special tax on kids. They are required to go to school, but the government won't pay for the whole school bill. Sounds like a tax to me...

Just my two cents worth...

 

Hey '01, how bout some feedback from one of the worst public school systems in the US..........Florida. I've got a number of comments based on what I've read throughout this post, so forgive me if I ramble a little.

First, regarding teachers being under paid, I recently read a study on this topic performed by a private research group here in Florida. It found that when they factored in days worked annually, time worked per day, current pay levels, and various other factors, teachers in Florida make an equivalent wage to engineers. The problem we have in Florida is that we don't expect enough out of the teachers or the students.

Second, in response to the comments in another post regarding "negotiating" for the things they buy, I recently bought a photocopier for my company (8 employees total). According to my friend who's a school administrator here locally, his district bought four of the very same copier, and paid almost twice per copier that I paid. Ever here of the term Purchasing Power? Wanna know where your tax money is going?

Third, like another poster from Florida noted, I pay approximately $2500 a year in taxes specifically marked for education, which is only part of my total tax bill. In addition (and my choice, I realize) I fork out around $10K a year for my two boys to attend private school. The thing about this that causes me the most agravation is when my neighbors who send their kids to public school comment that I shouldn't get a say on what goes on in the public school system since my boys go to private school! Talk about p*ssing away money down the drain, without even so much as a thank you!

In closing, I'm not going to crank on liberals or conservatives. Our school system in Florida is in shambles, and everyone's had a hand in it's demise. So, here's my take (from running my own business for the past 10 years) on what needs to be done to start fixing the problems we've all been talking about, regardless where a school is physically located.

-1- Cut the support infrastructure (i.e. administration) by a quarter each year for 3 years. For the past several years everyone else in the business world has had to do more with less. Some major fat and dead wood can be cleared in this step.

-2- Reorganize the support infrastructure for the schools into a simple organizational layout that would insure responsibility and simplify decision making. No more passing the buck or hiding from responsibility for one's actions!

-3- Break the teacher's union. This would allow all teachers to be paid what they're worth regardless of tenure (a big problem down here). It should also draw more qualified individuals to the teaching ranks.

-4- Teacher pay should be directly tied to the performance of their students. If the students succeed, so will the teacher.

-5- Hire a group of businessmen to run the school district like a business, and hold them accountable for it's success. Success should not only be measured in $$$ but in the scholastic aptitude of the students.

Can ya tell I'm a little passionate about this topic! So ends what is unquestionably my longest post to date.......

-Mike-

 

25,400 (approx. starting salary for NC teachers, and by the way it only goes up less than 1000 per year for each year served. That means that the average teacher in NC with 30 years experience is making less than 55,000 per year.) per year is still 25,400 per year regardless of how much time per day, days worked annually, etc. It's pretty hard to live on that salary. Especially when it's a 5 day per week job that takes 8 hours per day. Leaves little room for getting that other job that will pay another 25 G's or so to suppliment your income. Teaching is a fulltime, not parttime job, so the pay should be above a subsistence level based on the educational requirements of the job. Those studies don't include the amount of time the average teachers spends at home working. You only have to go to any faculty parking lot and watch the arm loads of papers, etc. those teachers are carrying out to their cars. They aren't taking it home to add to their recycling or use it for kindling.
I do agree with the fact that we should expect more from our teachers and our students!

Here in NC we have a dollar limit on what can be purchased by finding the lowest price for the service regardless of the vendor. If it's over that amount, you must use state contracted vendors. Supposedly the price of that vendor is already negotiated down to the lowest possible bid, but that is not always the case. It is an archaic system that should be revamped.

Just for the sake of being a Devil's Advocate, that same neighbor could concievably ask to get a say in how that private school is operated. After all the thousands of individual vehicles that crowd the road around that school are putting a strain on the traffic situation. The water, sewer, power, roads, etc. come from the tax base that he contributes too. Not to mention some of the teachers at that school were educated by colleges and universities that receive tax dollar subsidies that encourage public school service, but they carried it to the private sector.

Number -4- Teacher pay tied to student success sounds good on the surface, but let's look at what that will promote. (no pun intended)
The success of the student will have to be measurable. Therefore there will have to be a standardized test. Sure, we've got plenty of them out there. BUT, as soon as you label one or more of them as the primary method of judging someones salary, that someone is going to teach, study, preach, to one end, jamming that test down a student's throat. Well, there goes the ability to take a thought where ever young minds want to go. Learning is an adventure, there won't be much adventure in teaching to the test.

Number -5- Hiring businessmen to run the school district. I agree, that could enhance the financial aspect of running the schools, but the lack of Educational leadership would leave a void where you most need it, at the curriculum development level. Trained educators are best for educating our youth. We need to combine the two. Where school systems have been traditionally weak in the past is the administration of the financial end of the business. Most systems are hiring professional accountants and consultants, the problem is balancing the bottom line with the educational line. Most times, the two don't compliment each other well at all.

Thanks Mike for a well thought out post, I really enjoyed it and agreed with most of it.

john

 

This is a very thorny issue. I don't believe anyone wants children to recieve a poor education, but there are problems that get in the way. A few examples of abuse of the "free public education" system in the country that I have first hand knowledge of:
1) I had a "neighbor" down the street who was a Doctor in Peru. Their house here was vacant most of the year, but the family spent the Summer in South Florida. The seasons being opposite (Northern vs Southern Hemisphere) their school years were also opposite. The good Doctor enrolled his children in the local school system during the off season. Not illegal, but a little cheesy.
2) Different neighbor had a daughter she wanted to enroll in local school for first grade, but the girl's birthday fell just outside the range. She packed up her child and went to New York and lived with her mother for a few months, and enrolled her daughter there (different start date/age requirement). After a few months she "transferred" her daughter to the local school here in Florida who then had to accept her because she had been "previously enrolled". Nice.
3) A woman my wife knows (divorced) has moved her daughter (17) to three different schools in the last year by moving from city to city. Why? She is trying to find a school where her daughter "fits in". The paperwork alone must be staggering on that one.

Nothing criminal going on here, but it is costing time, effort and money to support things like that.

My one suggestion for cutting costs in education would be the abolishment of the local School Board. The administration of local school issues has to exist, but the bureaucracy that exists to decide what courses are taught, programs take place, and textbooks are used can be consolidated at a State or National level. Good money is being wasted by having people in thousands of school districts independently decide how to make 2+2=4.

 

fonman, You and I are on the same wavelength with the school board comments.
School Boards have served a purpose in the past, the distant past. When schools were first established in the U.S. teachers were picked by what they couldn't do rather than whether they could teach. If you couldn't work on the farm, you were married to the local preacher, etc. There were no educational requirements. School Boards were put in place to protect the community from gross incompetence, and to show some leadership and local input into the teaching process. We don't need them anymore! They are just a bunch of elected farmers, business leaders, retired people, etc. All school systems have people leading them that have Doctorates in Educational Philosophy, Masters Degrees in Teaching, etc. These leaders know the educational theories and methodology. Why do they need a bunch of people overseeing their decisions whose only prerequisite for the position is that they went to school when they were kids. If Professional Administrators don't do a good job, the County Administration that hired them should fire them. (Or if they were elected, vote them out of office.)

School Boards, for the most part, don't have the power to tax. If they lack taxation power, that means they have to negotiate with the County Commissioners for every dime they get. Why not allow the Commissioners to talk directly to the Superintendent and his/her staff to settle the funding problems as they arise. When you put the school board in as the middleman, you introduce an whole new set of personalities that have political and local ties to every decision they make. Save the money the School Boards require to exist and leave the decisionmaking to the people that are trained and paid to do it. Plus, that puts the blame squarely on the Superintendent and County Commissioners rather than all the finger pointing that goes on now whenever there's an issue.

Ah, I need to go back to one of the other forums where the problems are more clearcut.

 

Well, this really sucks now. Everyone is saying we don’t need school boards.

I was thinking about running and then enacting:

- School uniforms.

- Sports, were it is mandatory that someone loses.

- Weekly updates in every classroom of where the top ten students stand in grades (this shows the top 10 WINNERS, those who MADE it, while letting the others NOT on the list
know, there no one special and future McDonalds employees)

- A review of all history books to insure they are indeed accurate. (insure they refer to America as being great, and communist and socialist countries as bad) It is the opposite now in history books.

- Not allow any material that makes mention to “Lisa has two mommies, or Jimmy has two daddies” It is ill relevant and has nothing to do with “education”.

- Basic home finances, money and credit card management will be a mandatory class in the 11th or 12th grade. Those who do not pass the course do not graduate.


Well, that’s about all I have for my first week. I am working on my second week…


01 for school board, your kid’s won’t have time to surf the net…

 

The way I see it is $50 isn't too bad. Sure its above and beyond everything else you pay into it, but hopefully there is some return, in the form of a decent education/experience for your child. What always got to me was that, I may never have a kid and yet I still need to pay as much as the guy with four or five kids going to the local school.

I haven't done a ton of thining about the subject, but I don't see a major problem with having the parents of students pay a little extra??!!!!

 

Wrong!
The guy with four or five kids gets $2800 exemption per kid at the Fed level and who knows what at State/Local.

Not to mention the $500 Credit per kid (Credit equals direct subtraction from tax bill)

That guy pays much less than you, not "...as much".

(Sorry, didn't mean to depress you)

 

I was thinking just in terms of personal property tax (friggin' missouri), but your right on the State and local taxes.

I have no problem with paying my dues, because a better school district means higher resale value for my house, etc., but chances are, by the time I have any kids, I won't even live where I do now.

BTW, that isn't to say I can't get laid!!!!

Its just that KIDS SCARE ME!

 

You're one of the good guys.
Go reproduce yourself.

 

you're right, my remote is broke and I need someone to change the channel!