School districts say they're just telling it like it is

Star Tribune ^ | 10.13.02 | Norman Draper

[wallcrawlr]

With both Halloween and election day coming up, it's only fitting that horror stories are making the rounds about what budget slashers will do to schools if they don't get more money.

In the sprawling Anoka-Hennepin district, the school board has already approved closing four elementary schools and one middle school over the next two years if voters don't approve a property tax increase request on Nov. 5. North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale, another large suburban district holding a tax referendum, has warned that voter rejection could lead to the loss of all sports and other extracurricular activities throughout the entire district. That means no football, no baseball, no homecoming, no student council, no National Honor Society, not even yearbooks.

[oct11]

Oh Lord, please let all the hateful threats from these corrupt government bureaucrats come true.

The angrier people get at the school system scam, the more they'll look for effective alternatives like flexible private schooling and family-friendly homeschooling.

[TopQuark]

That means no football, no baseball,

Oh no, not this! This will surely ruin the quality of our education. We already have the system that is best in the Western world: name another country where every junior can read at a fifth grade level.

What's next? If they eliminate football, the students will have to learn to count. What is this country coming to? If this is allowed to continue, we'll start putting learning before sports... Terrible.

[Sam Cree]

I think it would be fine if a few of these socialist indoctrination centers close.

No matter how much money they get, the schools will be a disaster anyway, since they do not require the students to actually learn (what is presented as) the curriculum.

Conversely, not much money is really needed once there is actually a requirement that students learn the material.

How do these idiots think it was done for most of America's history? Certainly much more was both taught and learned in the 1800's in small town school houses with almost no budget.

[freemama]

They are trying to get a referendum passed in my district too. The Village President published a letter in the paper supporting it. It is ironic that he was asking us to voluntarily raise our own taxes two weeks after every house in the village received a reassessment notice! Our property value was raised a third.

I never see them threatening to cut administrative positions in these referendum cries.

[general_re]

What's next? If they eliminate football, the students will have to learn to count. What is this country coming to? If this is allowed to continue, we'll start putting learning before sports... Terrible.

LOL. The fun part is, here in NY, they have the voters over the barrel no matter what. By law, if a school budget is rejected at the polls, the district automatically operates under a "contingency" budget, which cuts "nonessential" activities.

Of course, the only things defined as "nonessential" are extracurriculars - the contingency budget is literally 98% of what the rejected budget would have been. Salaries, benefits, capital improvements, et cetera - these things are all untouchable by law. There is no way at all to affect the core spending of school budgets - you vote the budget down, and they do everything exactly the same as before, except without football. The districts win no matter what the vote is, and sure enough, budgets spiral higher and higher every year.

I don't care - I vote against every budget, bond issue, and school board candidate that comes before me, no matter what. It may not make a difference, but I'll trade football for competent teachers and literate students any day of the week...

[ladylib]

Will they cut salaries?

[ladylib]

Gee, I wonder if it would really be cheaper if either Mom or Pop stayed home and spent a few bucks on a decent school curriculum for their new little homeschooler. In the long run, these "hostages" of the public schools (both students and parents) might be better off, monetarially as well as morally, emotionally, spritually, etc., etc.

I bet property taxes would really go down.

[oct11]

How To Start Homeschooling

[Teacher317]

"I know they have to cut significantly. What else are they going to do, have 70 kids in a classroom?"

How about getting the unions out of the way so that the districts can be as efficient as possible... just a suggestion.

[Teacher317]

You know, I forgot to mention that far superior solution!

[Dan from Michigan]

I learned much more from football than wasting my time in a classroom. While not all classes were a waste, the majority of them were.

Education is much more than memorizing book stuff and calc equations. There is street smarts, teamwork, and handling adversity as well.

[Dan from Michigan]

I think it's time for some scare tactics at the school board elections. The board will follow through on their cuts too, BTW.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

I learned much more from football than wasting my time in a classroom.

How true...and many like you have wasted many hours of time in the classroom and kept others from learning. And, if the teachers didn't make it easy enough for you to pass in order to play football...they lost their jobs. You honestly don't want to get me started...so read this and let it go.

[TopQuark]

There is street smarts, teamwork, and handling adversity as well. For millennia, this was called growing up, not education.

It is clearly not your fault that you were not taught to differentiate them, but not you are on your own, and you should know the difference.

[Dan from Michigan]

How true...and many like you have wasted many hours of time in the classroom and kept others from learning.
I never kept others from learning. Where the hell did you get that from. Assuming?

And, if the teachers didn't make it easy enough for you to pass in order to play football...they lost their jobs.
I got by alright without any problem outside math(and as much as I hated math, that wasn't a waste of time - because I dealt with adversity there). I didn't really learn much. Most of what was important I learned on my own. It was 180 days of old stuff and definition remembering for something that I really didn't need for real life.

You honestly don't want to get me started...so read this and let it go.
Let's see here. No.

[Dan from Michigan]

Actually, what you referred to as 'growing up' IS part of an education

education (American Heritage Dictionary)
1. The act or process of educating or being educated.
2. The knowledge or skill obtained or developed by a learning process.
3. A program of instruction of a specified kind or level: driver education; a college education.
4. The field of study that is concerned with the pedagogy of teaching and learning.
5. An instructive or enlightening experience: Her work in the inner city was a real education.

[RAT_Poison]

Putney painted her own unpleasant scenario. "It's 2:30 in the afternoon, and 4,000 teenagers have nothing to do," she said.

Nothing to do? What about homework? Or chores? When these are done, how about a part-time job? Give me a break!

[metesky]

"No one wants to see their local schools closed," Durand said.

I want to see all gooberment schools shut down and the clownish educrats all out pounding nails for a living.

[TopQuark]

Of course, I am familiar with the uses of the word. It should have been clear from the context (school) that I referred to formal education.

The emphasis on the streat-smarts, etc., is a part of moral relativism and multiculturalism that has been perpetrated onto you. Saying, as you did, that there are "other kinds" of learning, "other kinds" of intelligence is precisely the pretext for replacing knowledge with "feeling good" and making "everyone a winner."

Most people, sooner or later learn to be street-smart. Neanderthals were excellent at coping with and overcoming adversity. They were not able to read and count, however, nor were they able to communicate with each other well. Knowing the fundamental facts and notions that have been left to us by previous gerneations; the very basics behind the functioning of the universe; the rudimentary ability to appreciate art -- that is what differentiates us from Neanderthals.

This difference is getting lost in our country with every passing year.