Exactly. My wife just retired as a teacher here in central Texas, and she would agree with your assessment. Also, the amount of paid ovehead in school district admin positions is out of control. Lots of wasted taxpayer money layered in those little empires.
I wanted to not comment but I will anyway. Disclaimer, my Mom is a retired teacher and she was a great teacher.
1. Teaching is less teaching and more of a compliance officer / minion now. The feds and government that allowed unions also brought less teaching and more regulations.
2. Teaching the test has destroyed teaching students to think. No child left behind is another Bush mistake.
3. I see youngsters who have never been taught to think all the time now in the private sector. All they want is the “answer” and there usually isn’t one.
4. Administration is an obscene cost now. How did we ever get by without a nutritionist or a library counselor in our little independent school districts. These people, and many more like them, are paid at a much higher rate than the teachers.
5. Oklahoma and Arkansas allow “double dippers” for those who have the connections to game the systems. Work in Oklahoma until retirement then cross over to Arkansas and work until you qualify on an age and years basis for enough points to retire there. I believe it takes as little as 5 years.
6. Schools have gone from adequate, attractive and functional to social statements of architecture and opulence. The local school board are dupes of people who appeal to their own vanity. Have a look at this “Education Support Center” also known as the Berry Center. Named after a superintendent of schools there who retired after just 35 years of “work for the community”.
http://www.berrycenter.net/about/about
Nobody or not enough people ask what it costs and who is going to pay for it.
and one more:
The quotes are just foolish. Allen was nothing more than a wide spot on US 75 20 years ago. Dallas has absorbed it but it is still run by some of the same people from 20 years ago.
7. Running for school board is a local popularity contest to fulfill the egotistical needs of little people who can’t go anywhere else or do anything else. The pool to draw on is small and small minded all too often.
8. Coaches are local heroes and usually legends in their own minds. Dangerous people who are in control of young, impressionable, captive, dependent minds and who often set themselves up as demi-gods. They are overpaid and over rated. They don’t make even reasonable administrators which is often where they end up.
Well, I just wasted valuable time on this.