Posted on 05/09/2012 7:02:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
Head Start, a preschool program for low-income kids has been a spectacular success, not for kids, but for teachers and teachers' unions.
Please consider Miami-Dade County seeks to unload Head Start program, salaries
For more than four decades, Miami-Dade County officials have managed Head Start, the storied preschool program for children from low-income families. But the county now wants out — and “generous” salaries are partly to blame.
On average, Miami-Dade paid its Head Start teachers $76,860 in salary and fringe benefits in 2011, county records show. That’s about 90 percent higher than the second highest-paying Head Start provider in the county, Catholic Charities, which paid its teachers an average of $40,418 in salary and benefits.
On the administrative side, 17 county Head Start staffers made more than $100,000 in salary and benefits.
Last week, the county submitted paperwork to offload much of the Head Start program to three local agencies: the Miami-Dade school system, Easter Seals of South Florida and the YWCA of Greater Miami-Dade.
But the plan has been met with resistance from some parents and politicians, who say the shake-up would hurt the current Head Start staffers.
About 400 county employees would face the prospect of either losing their jobs or accepting substantial pay cuts if the new agencies hire them.
“You’re talking about great people who worked with kids for their entire lives with the county and now we’re saying, ‘We can do it cheaper,’?” said Evelio Torres, president and CEO of Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe. “You’re talking about people who are trying to pay their mortgages and support a family.”
Head Start was created in 1964 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society campaign. The program provides free, full-day preschool and social services for low-income children.
Head Start has been a consistent money-loser for the county, in part because Miami-Dade pays its Head Start employees much higher salaries and better benefits than any other local providers, records show.
Last year, the average Head Start teacher on the county payroll made more than triple the $19,441 in salary and benefits given to Head Start teachers at Paradise Christian, Miami-Dade’s lowest-paying Head Start provider.
The county’s highest paid Head Start employee was director Jane McQueen, who received $188,624 in salary and benefits.Key Concern of Politicians and Unions
Notice the key concern.
But the plan has been met with resistance from some parents and politicians, who say the shake-up would hurt the current Head Start staffers.
Where the H is the concern for kids?
Logic would dictate that if teachers' salaries were lower, then the county could afford a much higher teacher-to-student ratio.
Instead, the concern is for the teachers and administrators. The problem is corrupt politicians are in bed with the unions and administrators. The former seeks to buy votes from the latter. The latter does not give a rat's ass about the kids.
Head Start is yet another of the massive, trillion-dollar Black welfare complex, and I for one am SICK of it. We need to cut them off at the knees. I am sick of seeing EVERY SINGLE black female in my local grocery swipe their EBT card, while every white person PAYS for their groceries. Why are we putting up with this???
No goobermint program is ever a failure. it’s simply underfunded.
It doesn’t end there, it goes
taxpayer => public employee unions => democrat party
The money going into education is mostly to buy the educrat vote. The remainder is to create an appearance.
We should shut down the Dept. of Education and get the Feds entirely out of education. Leave it to the States and the People.
Really, is it that obvious?
I mean, EVERY black female you’ve checked out is on foodstamps? I can believe it.
We are putting up with this because we’ve been cowed into a fetal position for fear of being called “racists”.
It’s the ongoing and perpetual “reparations” that they keep demanding more and more and more of.
It wasn’t for the poor. The parents had to attend and it wasn’t every day. Parents were in one room. Kids were in another. It was a big waste of time. Playing with the kids on the street was much more beneficial. Head start was supposed to be about socializing....but really it was about “conforming”.
Study after study has shown that headstart is a waste of money and that by the 3rd grade there is no difference beteween headstart kids and kids who did not attend head start. Headstart is nothing but a way to give free babysitting to low income parents and to put more union teachers on the payroll.
Much of the ‘Poverty Programs’ are merely Make Work sites for those who couldn’t make it in the private sector. Their agenda is perpetual work for government employees. Solving the problem is NOT on their goal.
I know because I went to college for Social Work. Being young and dumb, I thought that my upbringing and experience with overcoming poverty would translate into helping people. My time in Practical Experience taught me that the system didn’t want my kind of solutions. So I quit college and moved on. Problem solving skills in the bulk ag business help alot.
Right-so these same 'low income parents' will be free to go on in their career of making really poor life-choices and irresponsibly reproducing with perfect and unencumbered impunity AND at continuing taxpayers' expense
Right on the button, Nip!
No difference between Reverse Start kiddos and non Reverse Start kiddos.
This is an enormous waste of money.
Thank LBJ and your War on Poverty.
Right on the button, Nip!
No difference between Reverse Start kiddos and non Reverse Start kiddos.
This is an enormous waste of money.
Thank LBJ and your War on Poverty.
Yeah, Torres, that's pretty much it. TS.
My wife and I disagree about this all the time. She thinks EVERYONE should go to college and get a degree of some sort. Me, I know not every teen is made for school. There is nothing wrong with going to a trade school after graduation. In fact, I see nothing wrong with identifying teens who are not suited for a traditional classroom setting, for whatever reasons, and sending them to votech schools.
A single well trained plumber is worth more than 100 Liberal Arts degree holders; probably more.
“We must learn to honor excellence in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
—John Gardner, “Excellence”
I am of the opinion that grade qualification testing should be condidered each year in elementary. There are a lot of 3rd graders who still lack 2nd grade math or reading or science skills.
By black welfare complex you must be counting all the "teachers" and administrators. They must be 90% black with a few Hispanics thrown in. These parasites are Obama's loyal troops. All on the Gov't tit while pretending to do useful work
Idiocracy.
poor liddle teachers....such poor pay, and those LONG HOURS....its just a crime....
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