California has given teachers here a pay cut. There’s also a budget freeze for school districts, so they can’t get any more equipment. It sucks. My AP Statistics teacher says he might move to Michigan. An AP Calculus teacher here says he is moving to New York. These are both really good teachers. I graduate this year, but I feel sorry for my siblings and those who still have time in school. Hell, I think it may affect me too…after all, I’m going to public university…California State University Northridge or Cal State University LA.
This is my opinion on how to fix Public Education. Abolish it altogether.
Require that every parent pay for school, a school of their choice. Abolish compulsory attendence laws. A big problem that bloats and eats away at a public district school budget is security, and babysitting people who don’t wish to be there in the first place. Let them drop out. Someone has to work at McDonalds. It is unfair for teachers to have to put up with gang members and malcontenets just because they “deserve an education”. This is a reason schools are broke.
Schools would be in competition with each other, so your teachers are going to work that much harder that their clients have top scores, and their clients get to go to colleges and Universities. The schools would have the power to expel any student that fails to meet standards in scholastics or discipline. Schools in Japan and Europe are good models.
Sounds like BS? Look at your public schools versus private schools. Which is nicer? Who offers a better education? Which is safer? How can parents afford this…?
By reforming a government out of control, by doing away with the IRS, giving communities local control, doing away with 95% of governemt wasteful spending (such as the Public School system and the Department of Education). Without an IRS, a Social Security, and Income tax (they will be illegal constitutionally), a parent would have plenty of money to invest in a student’s education.
There is NO EXCUSE that one of the wealthiest places on Earth (Calif.) cannot provide for its citizens.
www.lp.org-Learn a new way, Libertarian
Yeah, sure. Under shep’s recommendation, I wouldn’t have made it through high school, most likely. And I definitely would not have a younger sister in med school and another in grad school. Because my parents wouldn’t have been able to afford to send us to school.
I don’t think I’d have gotten past elementary school, Kat. My mom had NO money after she and my dad divorced. He was great about his support payments, but we were pretty poor, nonetheless.
I’d think a REASONABLE solution would be for people to realize that teachers are actually important and should be paid decent salaries. Guess where the money for that would come from?
Taxes. Right. Sometimes taxes are a GOOD thing, people.
Ah, yes–the Libertarians.
“Government doesn’t work–and if you elect us, we’ll prove it!”
Without even a highschool diploma, these “malcontents” will never be able to get a decent job, and will soon dicover that crime pays much better than McDonalds does.
Just because one is a rebellious teen does not mean that they will never straighten up and become a productive member of society. Without any education, they’ll never have a chance.
So Shep, only people with money deserve education? Please.
It will definitely affect you: the CSU budget just got cut by $60 million, and part-time lecturers (who do over half of the teaching) are getting cut left and right. So there will be fewer classes offered, which means that it will take you longer to graduate. Oh yeah, and tuition just got jacked up 20%, so you’ll be paying more for less of an education. Woes, indeed.
I feel your pain too, Sinful. My high school gave pink slips to several teachers and there’s talk of cutting a bunch of programs. There’s plenty of money raised from bonds stuck for construction but due to lobbying by those companies, it’s illegal to redirect money from those projects to saving jobs.
As for the private versus public debate, my public school beats up all the other privates in the area in terms of test scores and the placement of students into colleges. All without needing to charge exorbitant tuition.
Somewhere, there has to be a solution to this. I was in a checkout line this week and the lady in front of me said she just cannot afford public education because of school book fees, supplies and all the other stuff kids must buy. She said if she did not pay the fees her kids could not go to school and if they were seniors, they would not get their diplomas. She was already worrying about next year.
My Mom, age 82, says when she went to school, Public meant everyone could go to school and all of their supplies were provided the first day of school. It was part of the point of being public. Everyone could go.
What is happening here?
San Diego Unified School District has already laid off over 1,800 teachers. The only reason my school district hasn’t had to lay anyone off is because we’ve had something like a 20% increase in population and three senior teachers are retiring at the end of this year.
shep, speaking as a teacher, I would much rather babysit those gangmembers (and I have a few) so long as I have the support of my principal and superintendent - which I do. While it sounds like a quick and pretty solution to kick out the troublemakers, the end result is that you have a bunch of kids with nothing to do and no supervision wandering the streets. The potential for crime skyrockets, and their potential for a good life bottoms out.
It’s in society’s best interest to educate all children, regardless of their parents’ ability to pay for education. If we didn’t, the next generation wouldn’t possess the knowledge or abilities to work in a technological society, and everyone would be worse off.
And sinful, you think things are bad now. Just wait until Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” Act kicks in. Be glad you’re graduating when you are.
Great! Since the government school teachers do such a crappy job, on average, they should have their pay cut.
Even more great news! That means my taxes won’t be going up to pay for incompetent teachers who put out an inferior product. I never could figure out why teachers at the government schools are lauded and lionized by some people.
A 20% increase in population? Wow! Where did all those extra students come from? Is that why the California gov is always bitching about more money for education? Because of the massive influx of students?
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And sinful, you think things are bad now. Just wait until Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” Act kicks in. Be glad you’re graduating when you are.
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Wasnt’ that the law which was wrote by Ted Kennedy? And why is the Fed Gov spending any money on education anyway, since it’s certainly not Constitutional.
For community colleges, the $11.00 per unit may rise to $24.00 per unit. And the class sizes could easily increase to twice their normal size, if they haven’t already. I feel for the students and their teachers.
Lets look at the bright side! Davis and the Kalifornia legislature(democrat controlled) passed a law giving illegal aliens in the State universities subsidied tuition.
Thats right, illegal aliens in Kalifornia receive a subsided education at taxpayer expense. That means an illegal alien from Mexico would pay a lower college cost in Kalifornia than a legal resident from any other State. Thank you Governor Davis. Democrat!
But until such time as they straighten up, they become disruptive of the learning environment where they have no desire to be. Forcing them to be there serves no one and is unfair to the kids who are there to learn.
Our local public school district is in big trouble too, Sinful. We’re going to end this school year $46 million in debt and we’re making cuts like you would not believe.
I sympathize, and I worry about the children in classes of up to 38 kids, and teachers having to “wrangle bodies” as much as teach.
To those of you who feel it’s necessary to take stabs at the “system” rather than contributing to improving it - thanks for nothing, and kindly take a flying leap.
God. I would kill for $24 per hour. Thats almost hard for me to imagine. I’m paying $195 per quarter hour. Keep in mind that a 3 semester hour class is normally a 5 quarter hour class. Fucking sucks.
FUCK THE BOOKSTORES!!
Carry on.
I’m sorry for the teachers, too. My cousin was laid off (eh… fired) for the 2003-2004 school year. She teaches in Illinois, in one of largest school districts of the state. From what she told me, they laid off many teachers, and moved teachers to another districts, but she wasn’t among those because she doesn’t have seniority.
KarlGrenze - sounds to me like your cousin worked for our school district (second largest in the state of Illinois, behind Chicago Public.) A LOT of excellent teachers were dismissed because cuts had to be made in teaching staff, and those without tenure were hit first and hardest.
Tenure is one of those stupid things that so far no one has figured out how to deal with. Certainly having seniority ought to count for something, but it seems to count for entirely too much, IMHO. In one school in our district, 90% of the teachers were non-tenured, and therefore cut. Sure, they’re going to do some shifting of teachers into the school, but in that particular case it’s not a good thing. It’s a special-needs school, and teachers were recruited based on their willingness to work in high-stress, low reward positions with very high-maintenance kids and many parent-initiated programs. The teachers who will be filing those positions come fall are teachers who chose NOT to apply to that school or who were already rejected as unsuitable for that situation… so you can imagine how the parents of those kids are feeling right now!
Ah, seniority. AKA the teachers unions looking out for the old and fucking younger teachers.
My brother, when he started teaching, had zero job security, few benefits, and low pay because the contracts favor older teachers, including many that ceased being effective teachers decades ago.
There are a lot of burned teachers that would have moved on to other fields years ago, except that the pay and benefits to older teachers are very good, especially for only nine months work per year.
That being said, whiterabbit, I have to take exception with something you said. Sure, teachers are important and deserve respect, but they are not more important or deserve more respect than other fields of endeavor.
I’m sick and tired of this fetish, the noble, hardworking yet unappreciated teacher. This bullshit has to stop.
It’s a job. Some people in it are good at it, others aren’t. Some are underpaid, but many, when their performance is considered, make far more than they should, just like any other job. If teachers don’t like it, or aren’t good at it, they should do something else. Weed out bad teachers through merit appraisals, and the salaries for those left should go up to compensate.
Then we can look at those of our citizens truly underappreciated and underpaid - namely, our military forces.