I have to ask-when did public schooling-and manditory public schooling-first come about in the US?
And was it a reaction to youth getting in trouble out on the streets and/or child labor?
I don’t understand how people can complain about paying for schools. Education benefits EVERYONE. Dammit.
I wouldn’t complain, Guin, except that I, like most folks, like to get something for my money.
DC currently has a per-pupil cost higher than any state in the Union, along with the worst test scores and school buildings falling to the ground.
How the DC school system is a benefit to anyone is a mystery to me. Guess I’ll have to keep complaining.
(Disclaimer: I live in Northern Virginia)
Hijack:
How are things in Pittsburgh, Guin? We’ll be there at Easter, bringing the twins to their ancestral homeland!
I don’t mean that teachers should be considered more important than anybody else, necessarily. I do think they deserve more respect and better compensation than they get now. My aunt, who has taught special ed, had to quit a job mid-year recently because of a total lack of support from the administration. Even the school districts don’t respect their own employees.
I’ve had a wacko teacher or two, and I agree, something’s got to be done. But wiping out public schools altogether is just asking for trouble, IMO.
Whiterabbit, teachers should be respected by their students, primarily. I will drill this into the Moto children, you betcha.
From anyone else, teachers have to earn respect. They need to do so by getting results. By acting professionally. By showing respect, in turn, to parents, students, administration and to taxpayers.
They, and their unions, should not tell me that they deserve sainthood and a fat check for condescending to put up with my kids every day. I put up with them too, and don’t get paid for the privilege.
Why should school districts respect teachers when their unions resist efforts to get more effective teaching from them? The NEA is concerned primarily with left wing politics and job security for its members. Actual learning is a tertiary concern, at best.
I don’t support wiping out public schools, either, but the goal shouldn’t be to have good teachers, nice public schools, good ratios, and enrichment programs, contrary to rhetoric on the right and left. The goal is the education of children, and we are failing.
Yea, my cousin was in that school district… 
(or 
) It’s really sad, according to her account it was a job she enjoyed, and she had a bilingüal program for the kids, and many materials to help teaching. She wanted to move on to teach first grade kids in that district(she teaches kindergarteners).
Cite? (Or in more obvious terms, what the hell are you talking about?)
Without knowing the specifics of your . . . uh . . . rant, as a California taxpayer and graduate of the UC system, can I ask why you’d care if out-of-state residents get shafted? The UC system is supported by California taxpayers. Why shouldn’t out of state students have to pay a premium if their parents (presumably) haven’t contributed dime one to UC until the student shows up freshman year, having displaced a California resident for their spot at the school? Republican!
Amen, hallelujah and preach on, Brother Moto.
In our district, 33% of our budget is spent on teachers’ salaries - and that’s fair, considering that we have very few overpaid teachers, and we ask them to put up with a lot. Not to mention that teachers really don’t work “nine months a year” - they do a lot of unpaid planning in the off-season, are required to attend unpaid conferences and so on. Plus a first-year teacher can expect to spend $1500-4000 of his or her own money on classroom enrichment supplies (this is considered standard among teachers I’ve talked to, and I’ve talked to LOTS.)
BUT (and it’s a big BUT)…
Teacher benefits account for an ADDITIONAL 16% of our yearly budget. And that’s just too damn much. It’s the equivalent of 50% more salary! I can’t think of one private sector job that offers benefits that good.
And tenure is a whole 'nother can of worms. Teacher salaries and tenure should be based on performance, not on length of service.
(I’ll stop now. I can rant on variations of this theme for MONTHS.)
I sense . . . hostility, Captain.
I guess I’m wondering HC, do you believe that all teachers are incompetent or just too many of them? And if it’s the latter, what about the taxes that pay the competent teachers? And, what exactly is the product that teachers put out? Are you speaking of students? Because I think I can promise you that we don’t actually assemble human beings in our classrooms. That may sound like a flippant remark, but to speak of young people - or education - as things that are made both misses the point and twists the definition of what we’re doing into something completely different.
Maybe it’s the written media and the lack of voice tonality and body language, but I get the feeling that you doubt my statement. Yes, the population of our very small district increased from around 430 students to nearly 550 students in a year and half. A small portion of the students come from families that moved here from other towns in California, another slightly larger portion are students who have been shuttled from their immediate family to more extended family members because they are less likely to get in trouble in such a small town and our small school system means they get a lot more attention from faculty, staff, and administration.
By far, though, the largest segment of our new population is Latino, and usually non-English speaking at that. You may have noticed that there are a lot of brown people in California. Some were born here, some emigrated here from Mexico - legally or otherwise. The California state constitution says that public schools have an obligation to educate all children, and legal precedents have established that this obligation has nothing to do with their nationality or the legality of their residence. So, get mad at the state constitution if you must, but please don’t blame the teachers and schools.
I don’t know if Ted Kennedy had a hand in it. If he did, he’s an even worse idiot than I thought. However, Bush has been bragging up and down the airwaves about his bill, so he’s the easiest target. What it boils down to is that this piece of legislation doubles our testing schedule and requires that within five years all of our students - that’s 100%, including second year English language learners, special ed kids, and every other disadvantaged population you can think of - to pass every portion of the federal standardized tests or the government not only yanks our funding, but they force us to pay parents to take their children to any other school. With no extra funding.
Yeah. That’s going to work beautifully. The only schools that won’t meet those requirements are those ones filled with kid-hating troglodytes interested only in sucking off the public teat. :rolleyes:
Yeah! Davis and the Democrat legislature in California passed a law which grants illegal aliens a taxpayer subsidy if they attent a UC college. So a real citizen, from another state, who wanted to attend the UC system would have to pay a much higher rate than an illegal alien who attends UC.
Thats right. The UC system is supported by California taxpayers. Being so, why are illegal aliens who by law cannot pay taxes given a tuition break?
And speaking of “taking a California residents spot at the school”, thats exactly what these illegals are doing. Taking Californians spot in the UC system. I’m glad you agree with me.
Oh, by the way, I’m not a Republican. Although I certainly don’t consider it an insult.
PhoukaOh, BTW, I realize that 100% of the student increase in Kalifornia is due to immigration. Thats what I meant by my sarcastic remark yesterday.The native population stabilized a long time ago. If not for immigration, they would not have to build ANY new schools in the State. The taxpaying population would not have to pay for any new school bonds.
I also don’t believe that ALL teachers are incompetent. I just believe that with the massive demographic changes going on in the State, teachers are going to have a much much more difficult time teaching students, if they are able to teach them at all.
I’m not going to argue your point here; you are right. However, if teachers are treated the way my aunt was, they’re not going to stay teachers for long.
She applied to two districts for a job as a special ed teacher, and chose one for various seemingly sound reasons. She had a small class, and there were a couple of students in there she was concerned about. They were bigger than many of the others AND very close to out of control. She was afraid somebody was going to get hurt, and that she’d have to spend so much time keeping the two in question under control that the others would be cheated of whatever teaching she could give them. So she went to the principal with this issue, and was told that to even consider that one’s students might be “dangerous to others” was not PC and to go away. Her opinion was that the students in question needed to be in a different class than hers for everybody’s own good, including theirs.
She didn’t feel she could handle these students on her own and received no help at all from the appropriate outlets. Turns out that she was the third teacher in this particular position in the last year or so; the principal in question, from what I’ve heard, seems to regard PCness as more important than the physical safety of the other students. Had I been put in a class like this for any reason, my mother would have pulled me out of it and possibly sued the district.
So yes, students should respect teachers. However, teachers should also be treated with respect – earned respect, I will add – from above in the administrations. Because if they are not, they will get out of the field. My aunt is now job hunting elsewhere. And I’m sure she’s a damn good teacher.
Teachers’ unions can get out of hand, no doubt about it, I finished high school in Los Angeles and saw the weirdness myself. But I think the whole point of the pileon in this thread is that getting rid of the school system is ridiculous, and in that I know we’re in agreement.
You know, I think that there are some damn good teachers. I just think that the whole government school/education system is corrupt.
I mean, the purpose of the government school system is not to teach, but to fill chairs for the day so that the burocrats can get paid for the daily attendance. And then, changing demographics make it much more difficult to teach. But then, the teachers can’t speak out because of political correctness, they might be called "racist’ or “zenophobes”. And then the student test scores are used to grade the teacher, but depending on the students in his/her class, the teacher can’t really have much of an influence.
Yes, damn all those zenophobes who are against races! Just because they are afraid that Achilles can’t catch the tortoise doesn’t mean we should outlaw races in our schools!!!
Anyway, Hermann, I get the idea that you are indulging in a lot of armchair theorizing about education. When were you last in school (and are you living in the same state)? Do you have any kids in school currently? I’ll certainly be interested in hearing about your experiences with the current education system that form your opinions of it.
Graduated High School 1983.
3 kids in Kalifornia government schools.
The teachers I have experience with care more if my kids are sitting in their desks, than in giving them an education. See, the teachers get paid on attendance, not on actually teaching my kids anything.
phouka had an excellent point: Would you prefer them wandering the streets with nothing to do? Would you prefer that they have no chances whatsoever for meaningful employment?
If a kid wants to learn badly enough, he/she will overcome all obstacles in order to do so. I know I did.
Life is unfair, and conditions are not always perfect. In a way, the experience of learning in spite of adversity can make a person more determined and less easily distracted. I know I would have greater respect for a person who graduated from an inner-city school with excellent grades than a kid who attended a quiet rural school. Learning to work under pressure and myriad distractions is actually a valuable asset. (Not, of course, that I would recommend it for everyone.)
KarlGrenze and LifeOnWry, I’m a product of the aforementioned school district, and my younger sister attends one of the high schools. I’ve also done some freelance volunteer work for that district. I can say, with confidence, that the teachers get treated fairly crappily.
For instance, there is still a problem with the payroll. This has been present for over two years now. For a while, many teachers weren’t getting paychecks, as the computer system was farked up. The school board’s reaction to this problem has been a lot of “aw, shucks” weaseling–many teachers are still waiting for money that they’re owed.
Second of all, whilst teacher’s benefits account for a large part of the budget, teachers aren’t paid all that much in the district. My AP calc teacher moved to a better-paying district as soon as he could. Also, many/most teachers have families that they have to support.
Finally, a crapload of the budget goes towards some of the stupidest shit ever. For instance, I was part of the first class of the Gifted and Talented Academy (School within a school). You know what they did for our academy? They built us columns. A whole bunch of columns. They built a brand new facility for one of the other academies. Most of the money is going towards these stupid things that really don’t facilitate learning. Instead of focusing on teaching, they focus on things like decoration or a new stage.
Now, the district is in a severe budget crisis. The people in charge–and I’m sure you two are aware of this, but others aren’t–basically lost track of several million dollars. They’re in that much of a debt. It’s really pathetic.
Almost all extracurriculars are going to be cut, more than likely, as well as the Academies (with the possible exception of the one I graduated from, as there are no added costs to the program). I’m watching the district that I grew up in get worse and worse. With all the students that are coming in, we need a bigger budget–instead, we have debt. Things look REALLY bad, and no one’s going after the guy who used to be in charge of the district. And it’s quite possible that the needed referendum won’t pass.
So it ain’t just California.
No child who is sincerely, studiously attending class for an education should have the distraction of being afraid of students who are hostile, threatening, intimidating, insolent to the teacher, disruptive, etc.
You are trying to link juvenile delinquent reform to education of normal children like a congressman attaching a completely unrelated rider to a bill.
So better just to give up on them entirely? Toss them into the gutter? Lock them up so that they can’t use the empty time to get into mischeif?
Do you think the “real world” workforce is totally devoid of ditractions, insolence, disruptive and potentially violent people? (A lot of the time, we call them customers, at other times, co-workers.)
But I agree with you in spirit. I also think that no child should ever have to go to school hungry or covered in bruises. I think they should have a quiet study environment to do their homework in, free of squabbling parents, screaming siblings, or loud music from the neighbor’s party (or even gunshots.) I think that every kid should have new text-books, a sturdy backpack and lots of paper and pens. I think the streets they walk to school on should be empty of gang members and bullies. I think that every kid should have a kind teacher who passionately loves their job.
However, as I said, this isn’t a perfect world. There are going to be some terribly bright kids who are forced to deal with terrible environments. There’s nothing that can be done about it, since just kicking out the disruptive kids would be a cure worse than the disease.
The whole immigrant issue is a thorny one, and there are some provocative issues for debate. However, I think some of the gripes stated here aren’t based on sound assumptions.
HC, I might point out that “real citizens” from other states have the option of attending college in their own home state at an in-state tuition rate. Immigrants with no state do not have that option.
That may not change anyone’s mind about the overall situation, but I feel it is unfair to cry about how unfair it is that someone from Idaho or New York is treated “worse” by Caliornia’s policies than non-citizens.
Is anyone turned away from the California system? It was my understanding that the comprehensiveness of the system meant that any and all qualified students would find a place somewhere. Therefore, one cannot argue that one student “misplaces” another.
Finally, instead of bitching about how rotten teachers are, why not becone more activist about the education, recruitment, hiring, and retention of bright, capable, well-trained teachers?
so that dedicated kids have a chance to escape the rabble.
I do not want to hijack this thread. However, I want to make an observation about American public school education.
For the record, I attended American and German public secondary schools, an American public univeristy and a British public university.
I can not believe the WASTE in the American system! The schools seemed to spend more money on ancillary programs and fixtures than on educating the students.
For example, my German Gymnasium (a type of high school) did not have football teams, basketball teams, stadiums, field trips to DisneyWorld, a theater, student symphony, etc. It consisted of a library, several classrooms, teachers, and a small cafeteria. The purpose of the Gymnasium was to teach students math, science, history, German, English, history, literature, art appreciation, etc.
It was worse at the University of Michigan. That university had big stadiums for football, basketball, hockey, baseball, etc. The facilites for these athletes were better than professional stadiums in Germany or England! There was a student health center with state-of-the-art equipment. Student housing was luxurious: in suite bathrooms, dedicated DSL lines, cabe television. The university even had its own television station. Despite these impressive facilities, classes were taught by frazzeled graduate students and not professors. Classes like Statistics, Number Theory, and Econometrics were taught by people barely able to speak English. Of course, the football team had brand new helmets for each game and a private jet to take them to games in California, Hawaii, Florida, Texas, etc. University money was used to send representatives of the student government on a “fact finding mission” to the West Bank.
In England, my tuition was 1/6th what it was at the Univeristy of Michigan. My school did not have a football team with a 100,000 person stadium; it did not have a television station; it not have dorms with Starbucks franchises. We paid for lectures, classrooms, and library time. If you wanted to use the gym, then you paid for it. Every time you wanted to use the lap pool, you put money in a turnstyle and gained access to the locker rooms. Dorms were shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms in cold, drafty, 19th century buildings. If you wanted to pay more money, then you got nicer accomodations.
My point is this: perhaps if American schools concentrated on education and not “whistles and bells” then they could deliver quality education at an affordable price. If people want to play football or have state-of-the-art weights in the gym, then let the people who will play football (or watch the game) or use the equipment pay for it. That way people who want to go to school to learn can do so at a low cost.