Posted on 04/05/2008 6:11:04 AM PDT by Perdogg
Hear hear! I've made many a late-night run for cough syrup and appreciated their perky little faces.
Hey, me too! I’d take 40K a year, and be thrilled with it. :-)
Uuuuuuhhhh .................. Maybe I'm not seeing the BIG PICTURE here but judging from the results of their efforts I would that the vast majority of our teachers are abject failures with chips on their shoulders. In my opinion they are vastly over rated and paid way beyond what their performance justifies.
Nothing you or I can do will provide every kid in America with a world-class education. So you and I focus on the ones we have responsibility for and do the best we can.
I never asked you to pay me more.You are not getting the big picture, and no matter what I type you never will. I don't know which is more appalling, your arrogance or your ignorance. It doesn't matter because the end result will still be the same.
I'm sorry you think the problem is I don't comprehend 'the big picture'. I do; I just don't believe the way to reverse it is to continue to support a failing system.
Did you come by your education all by yourself? If not, who contributed more... teachers or the folks on the garbage truck?
You don't seem to like the system much, but I bet you haven't got one clear idea about how you would change the system. Of course, that would require you to do more than complain and trash the folks that are still in the good fight.
lol, sry 4 my rudim3nta4ry sklz, rofl!!1! ru ntz?
My typing skills are awesome. :-)
All right, so forget the world-class education. Would you say that the public schools are providing a solid education for 99% of students? Are they producing literate, curious, independent thinkers? Do they teach anything about the political process? Do they teach our nation’s history? Do they encourage exellence in readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic?
No, they don’t. They can’t. The system doesn’t work and never will. I’m changing it by not participate in it, as are many other young families. Believe me, it requires much more than just complaining and trashing teachers. That takes up maybe 2% of my time. <-—[This is a joke]
I would not ‘change the sytem’, I would eliminate it. That’s my “one clear idea”. Property taxes would plummet, the few good teachers would find success beyond their wildest dreams as highly-paid private tutors, and the mediocre ones could become sanitation workers, if they could manage it.
How did I come to be such a well-read, charming(har!) and erudite individual, you ask? I was homeschooled. I took college classes. I became a Marine.
So no, I’ve never had much contact with teachers, but I have met the fruits of their labor, and I’m not impressed.
One more thing to bring me back on topic, and then I need to go sleep.
Teachers (Not you, other teachers) whine and moan that about being held up to a standard, then demand that the standards be eliminated so they can excuse their terrible results. The truth is, the success of a school CAN be measured, the same way the success of a sanitation company can be.
Do they deliver what they promise?
Yes, when you're out of diapers at 5:00 a.m., or out of Ibuprofen at 2:00, the value of all-night retail workers becomes clear.
“You don’t seem to like the system much, but I bet you haven’t got one clear idea about how you would change the system.”
I do not believe that the question is so much whether I like the system or not as it is one of whether we can afford to sustain and grow the current system. I found and perused my local school district budget and was shocked by what I learned. My community of around 150,000 people has a school district with budgeted expenditures of $291,000,000 for the 2007/08 school year. 75% of that figure is salaries. The cost works out to around $2,000 a year for every man, woman and child in my community. $291,000,000 to educate 30,536 K-12 kids for a year does not seem like a reasonable rate to me.
I am a manager and I can honestly tell you, based on my personal experience, we are not getting what we pay for as far as an educated at even a rudimentary level work force goes. Every one of the employees here has a high school diploma and most cannot read or write well or do simple tasks such as fill out a time sheet unless I spend my time showing them. I cannot simply hand them the instructions and be done with it because most cannot comprehend written English well enough to follow the instructions correctly and most write even worse than they read. I spend a lot of my time fixing basic errors on reports and other correspondence prepared by high school graduates.
One clear idea I have would be to introduce competition by instituting a voucher program to allow for choice. A voucher program would probably not save any money but at least the kids would get a basic education. I think that privatization of the system should be considered. The current system is probably too damaged to be meaningfully repaired and we should consider trying something else. I also think that we must at some point cut the largest part of the education budget which is salary. I would start with administrative staff and special education programs. I do not believe that the current rate of expenditure is sustainable or even remotely justifiable based on the finished product delivered by the existing public education system. Keep in mind that the numbers I am quoting are from the budget for a relatively small district; the total amount spent on public education in the United States must be truly staggering.
PS: Calling me garbage because I do not think teachers are underpaid is not an effective method of getting your point across.
I am glad to see that you have looked at the problem and are willing to propose a solution. The idea that somebody else will take care of the problem is what got us into this mess in the first place. As some parents shirked their responsibilities the school system picked them up one by one. That's what got us this unholy mess that we call publik skool in the US.
I never asked for more money. I specifically stated on this thread that I do my job because of who and what I am, not because of the paycheck. Now that's twice, three times I've had to say I don't want more money. Money won't solve this problem.
I never called you garbage. I stated that if a person values their sanitation workers above their teachers, then they should sit on the curb the next morning when the trash man comes by. I will not retract that statement.
I'm sorry that you were offended, but try reading my posts before you get upset. At that point, if the shoe, or in this case the trash can, fits... so be it.
You might also note that I teach at a university. You would not believe what I see coming in from the high schools these days.
And just so there is no ambiguity whatsoever... a nation which values its garbage men above its teachers will get great trash removal and an awful educational system.
I believe that you and I actually agree. Thank you for your post.
It’s all about replacability. There’s only 1 Mariah Carey, like her or not there’s demand for that product and a limited supply. More teachers get degrees every year.
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