Posted on 07/08/2012 1:15:07 PM PDT by wintertime
Things are looking grim for teachers unions. The National Education Association (NEA) membership has declined by more than 100,000 since 2010, and the union’s own projections indicate that within two more years it could have lost a total of 308,000 full-time teachers and other workers. This would represent a 16% drop in membership from 2010.
It’s not simply member numbers at stake, but the dues each member provides. If projections are correct, then the NEA budget will decline 18% and they’ll have $65 million less to work with.
Greg Toppo of USA Today reports that the NEA explains the unprecedented membership losses on a combination of long-term factors such as the expansion of online learning and changing teacher demographics. While they acknowledge things are unlikely to ever return to the way they were, the NEA remains unbowed.
Home schooling father of 5. Married 27 years. Can’t say I’m proud of all my children and their choices in life but they were schooled well by Mom and I.
My property taxes are in the $1,500 per year range. Up a bit since we moved here almost 10 years ago, but not much.
I have *seven* "school-aged" children, eight if we got Francisco into early pre-kindergarten. If we lowballed the average per-pupil cost at $6,000 each - the average is more, and I could claim at least three as "Exceptional Students," because "insanely smart" equals "autism spectrum" - that's $42,000 to $48,000 that we're saving the county/state by teaching our children at home.
I like to think that our county taxes all go to the Sheriff's department, because we like them, and our state taxes go to state parks! But anyway, we get some school-benefit when the kids go to community college, because that's county/state subsidized even if we pay the tuition in cash.
“The True Cost of Public Education”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzvKyfV3JtE
Hm?....I homeschooled three children:
$15,000 x3x13 years= $585,000
If the states really wanted to balance their budgets they would pay parents to keep their kids out of school.
‘The stated mission of the National Education Association is “to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world,”[4] as well as concerning itself with the wage and working condition issues common to other labor unions.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Education_Association
Teachers first, skrool baby goats second.
You are lucky they let you keep your kinds. Seriously, some PC zealots think you are ruining their lives. that YOU are the nut. But if one thinks about it, the factory system make no sense. In a second grade class, you have kids almost a year apart in age, which helps a young, bright kid. But what about the less swift? And what happens when they get to the sixth grade and the older girls are beginning to bud while the younger ones are still immature. But, here they are, marching through the same lessons. A colleague of mine attended a one room school house, where forty youngsters, ages six to fourteen were in the same room. The older and smarter kids took care of the younger and slower. The teacher ran the thing as if it were one large family, and it being a farm community with the parents fully supportive, it worked wonderfully. Most of the kids did famously when they went to high school, although some went their own way in the much larger school. he told me the story about this one guy, who had been friends with this girl in the elementary schools, a very pretty girl. He ended up marrying another girl, and my friend later on asked him why, and the guy confessed that if he had married his childhood sweetheart it would have been too much like marrying his sister. Not many years afterwards, they consolidated and closed the old school, in part because the farmers were moving to town.
If the states wanted to save money, they wouldn’t run them like factories or government agencies, with all this top down management. And they would do like Finland does and train their teachers better.
At one time in America you couldn’t tax a man’s land nor his labor.
Every time I read about the NEA and unionization of teachers, I recall my high school days in Virginia back in the late 60s. That was about the time teachers were talking about unionizing. One of the arguments I heard from a teacher against unionization was that doing so was unprofessional. Afterall, engineers, doctors, accountants and lawyers (other professionals) didn’t join a union. I’m sure there were other concerns. Low and behold, student performance has fallen every year, since. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that they have been forced to “dumbdown” college ACT and SAT tests!
Unions had that much of a bad rep back then?
Is that a teacher holding that semi-literate sign?
FYI
When our Founding Fathers promoted the importance of education they likely had their **own** educations in mind. They likely would be **horrified** to see the prison-like environment in which our nation's children are imprisoned today. So? What did our Founding Father's enjoy?
—homeschooling
—private tutoring
—dame schools in the homes of neighbors
—one room schools organized by neighbors
—private residential academies in the homes of tutors to prepare the brightest for entrance into college as very young teens
—apprenticeships
—Sunday schools
The “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” is very interesting.
What if:
What if individual teachers were to run schools in their homes?
What if the zoning and health requirements of these “dame schools” were no more than home-based day care?
What if parents were to get to together and hire a teacher for a one room school as some faithful Catholics families are now doing?
What if there were tutoring centers that supervised on-line schooling?
What if homeschoolers were to take in an extra child or two?
**What if parents voluntarily abandoned the prison-like Prussian model that dots the landscape like minimum security prisons?
Finland has vouchers. The money follows the child. Finland went from being last in standardized testing in Europe to first soon after vouchers were introduced. Vouchers are solidly backed by both the conservatives and liberals in that nation.
Fascinating to relate the downfall of American education and its unions, the successes of home schooling, with the actions of George Washington.
Way back when, in the late 1700’s, Americans that could afford to do so, would send their children to British schools. This did NOT go over well with George Washington, who saw the need for the youth to understand and appreciate the new Republican form of government, especially as necessary for the future well being of the American society. GW’s vision was for American schools that would teach American Republican political values, the values of the American Revolution, to the young and future leaders. GW’s extensive last will and testament gave huge sums for the establishment of school(s? might have been more than 1) for this purpose.
How the tables have turned in our public education system. Our American schools are actively fomenting our destruction.
Teaching - even 30 years ago - was seen as an honorable. Most folks looked up to teachers. It's not that way now. Seems unionizing was was a high price to pay to safeguard the jobs of the creeps who came on to students, teachers who cheated to get better evaluations, and those who were arrested but still got to keep their jobs...
Unions served the creeps well - but they let down the old fashioned hard working teachers of old...
Who's lost the most respect in the last few years? Teachers or the press?
I don’t know about other places, but we’d just been through violent demonstrations at the Newport News Shipyard. Riots, shootings, police car burned, just typical union thuggery!
...help the Democrats shove more communism and homosexuals down America's throat.
My bet is that George Washington would be horrified to see the prison-like schools that our nation’s children endure, today.
How many of the nation’s founders had their pre-college education in England?
Franklin D. Roosevelt was not an accident. All it took was one to three generations of socialist-entitlment and compulsory schooling.
Re: GW’s endowment for schooling
Perhaps if socialist-entitlement schools had not been instituted **private** education endowments would now be providing tuition-free **private** schooling for our nation's children.
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