Posted on 12/19/2006 3:42:04 PM PST by achilles2000
Talk of high property taxes and fraud in the administration probably cause you to think of issues on Capitol Hill. Well, not in this case. These are two major problems facing suburban school systems nationwide.
According to a recent Yankee Institute of Public Policy study, the cost of suburban schools has risen far beyond the rate of inflation because of an opportunistic relationship between parents and the public educators they are supposed to be regulating. Parent PTA members and school board members can vote on issues that directly affect their families, such as: subsidized trips abroad, full paid sabbaticals for teachers, and athletic, technology and curriculum perks.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that public schooling in the suburbs is a form of upper-middle-class-racketeering,” Lewis Andrews of the Yankee Institute writes. Parents and educators collaborate under the banner of “advancing education” to serve their own narrow interests at the expense of the broader taxpaying community.
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
A third major problem in increasing costs is the funding of the illegal populations.
Each child in our school system is pulling in about $4,750 in county, state and federal dollars.
With about 22 in the standard classroom that's $104,500 per classroom with the teacher getting about $35,000.
That other $69,500 is going somewhere but it sure ain't on their education.
To the Ed industry the illegals and their anchor children are a welcome source of enhanced revenue. They also offer an opportunity for making lugubrious pleas to legislators for even more funding because of the "problems" these children present.
Is that the total? It seems very low.
There are practically no illegals at elite suburban schools. That is not the topic under discussion.
I supppose that this author wants the suburban schools reduced to the low level of city schools.
Hey now, easy there big guy. :-)
I live in a low wealth county located in NC.
We do the best we can to pretend we're in the big time.
The article mentions how suburban high school principals brag about the Advanced Placement courses they offer, even though most of the AP students either don't take or don't pass the AP exam.
Things have gotten so bad in the last year or two that the College Board, which creates the AP curricula and exams, has had to start auditing high schools to ensure that the schools are indeed teaching AP-level material. Apparently, many schools were labeling courses "Advanced Placement" when they were nothing of the sort.
I remember back in the early 80s, we went through a very rough time. I had all I could do to come up with 25 cents for lunch for each kid and I got upset when the 4th grade teacher asked everyone to bring in posterboard for a project that he did every year. I complained to the principal and he said if the teacher did the same project every year, he should put it in his budget request.
By the time my twin daughters were in high school, things changed somewhat. My husband and I went to the Open House and visited their French teacher's classroom. He said he couldn't understand why my twins hadn't signed up for the trip to Paris. I looked at him like he was insane. I told him we couldn't afford it. He said, "Well, why don't you send one this year and one next year?" I wanted to bop him.
"Each child in our school system is pulling in about $4,750 in county, state and federal dollars.
With about 22 in the standard classroom that's $104,500 per classroom with the teacher getting about $35,000.
That other $69,500 is going somewhere but it sure ain't on their education."
You are right! And it certainly isn't the teachers getting any perks! If the parents and teachers could deal directly with the school boards, the education $ would be spent properly. Like Duncan Hunter said about the Dept.of Education employees not showing up for work making no difference in what goes on in a classroom. Most school system administrations could be done away with, and most likely that is where the $69,500 you spoke of went!
Au Contraire...for example, in Texas our very elite suburban schools have many illegals/anchor babies. I'll bet that is the case elsewhere too, although perhaps not in a few of the elite areas in the East.
Course labeling fraud is rampant. One educator told me that some students in precalculus were doing arithmetic, which he said technically was precalculus ;-) Across the country the typical "algebra" course is what the relatively few math major school teachers call "pretend algebra" - it's really just 6th grade arithmetic. In our district the experienced math teachers with a math major are punished if they point out the obvious degeneration of the system (e.g. saying things like "we are no longer teaching geometry in the geometry course")by being forced into a "growth plan". For those unfamiliar with "growth plans", think of it as an opportunity for a mouth breathing ed major to lecture about some vacuous ed theory (e.g. whole math/fuzzy math) to a more experienced, smarter teacher, and then the ed major gets to make the beneficiary of the "growth plan" do inane homework assignments involving collages or some other drivel. Administrators are now targeting older competent teachers to force them out. In our very special district where all the schools are "different" - so much so that people pay a lot of extra dollars to live here - th edistrict head of the math program is a music major who looks like, and has about the same comprehension of math as, a lunch-lady.(Ah, the wonders of affirmative action!) And, no, I'm not a teacher - I just know lot of them.
Does the 35K include the cost to the school for health care benefits and retirement contributions?
I can only go by what is in the paper.
Just asking how many employees the county school system has is an act similar to a dog chasing it's tail around a tree.
Since some teachers are paid by the county, some the state, some grand funds it all depends on who you talk to at the time.
The federal meal funding (full/partial) is a full blown scam and the local paper has reported on it in full. But nobody cares. The more kids you get on it the more money the county gets. The system will tell a parent that their application was found to be a fraud as they hand them a new application. Since the county is required to check only a certain percent they take in the new application with a straight face and wait for the money.
Kids in $200,000 homes on free lunch? Any why would the parents of the kids even turn in an application? And people wonder why some kids are a bunch of cheats.
It is the parents who are paying the taxes that are making the decisions. I don't mind this. The PTA is made of active parents. This is fine. Maybe if those who are upset with this get off the couch and attend some meetings, they can have a voice.
Maybe if those who are upset with this get off the couch and attend some meetings, they can have a voice.
But it's so much easier to complain about gubmint schools.
Does the 35K include the cost to the school for health care benefits and retirement contributions?
Even if it doesn't that is still not a lot of money. I mean the retirement check after 40-50 years of teaching is what 1900 dollars, maybe 2200 dollars. I doubt teachers went in to become millioniares.
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