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Knuckledragger

TLAR Engineering hack
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Or in to the black hole! School district announced a 1k student count decrease and a subsequent $5m funding loss. Programs and staff cuts on the table. All the aerospace initiatives we've been preparing for, maker space, materials, speakers, and club schedule just got put on hold. Grrrrrr Lost momentum...
 
Or in to the black hole! School district announced a 1k student count decrease and a subsequent $5m funding loss. Programs and staff cuts on the table. All the aerospace initiatives we've been preparing for, maker space, materials, speakers, and club schedule just got put on hold. Grrrrrr Lost momentum...
That seems odd. Around here most school systems know exactly how many students they have and have surprisingly detailed projections for the student population year-by-year for the next five to ten years. It seems odd (almost impossible) that they could be surprised by a shift that large.

That said, I'm sorry that you and other educators have to deal with the fallout.
 
Sad. We seem to invest so little as a society into educating our kids.

We invest a boatload of money into educating our kids, but most of it gets redirected to underfunded pensions instead of going to the classroom. We just went through this in Los Angeles where the teachers union held our kids hostage for several weeks.
 
We invest a boatload of money into educating our kids, but most of it gets redirected to underfunded pensions instead of going to the classroom. We just went through this in Los Angeles where the teachers union held our kids hostage for several weeks.

I disagree with you 100% its not the teachers who held your kids hostage it was your school board and other people much higher up than the teachers. Just look how many high paying jobs that each school has that has nothing to do with teaching your kids. Its always the teachers who take the blame. Go a head get a teachers job and let me know how you feel. No I am no teacher but its the same at any job the pee on always gets the blame for the fat cats mistakes.
 
Not true, at least as far as money goes. We spend more than any other country in the world:

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country-spends-most-education.asp


Tony
But, as people referenced above, how much of that education budget actually makes it to the classroom?

Also, this:

The U.S. also spent less of its total wealth on education than many of its counterparts. In terms of the percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) spent on education, at 6.2% it trailed Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom.
 
I live in Ok. We have the lottery, which is a big joke. What little is supposed to go to education, most goes to higher education. WTH! Unless we invest in lower education there will be no need for higher education. We also had a teacher walkout, can't call it a strike, illegal to go on strike. Ok. among lowest paid in Nation. Daughter got a ~$6000 raise and surprisingly it got funded.
Yep to much funding goes to non-educator experts with to much control of schools and curiculum and 2-3 different counselors per grade level that can't handle any situation.
 
manixFan said said:
Not true, at least as far as money goes. We spend more than any other country in the world:

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country-spends-most-education.asp

But, as people referenced above, how much of that education budget actually makes it to the classroom?

Most of it.

I don't have nationwide data, but based on our school district's public records, out of $43.0M annual budget, the expenditures are as follows ($$, M):
Payroll for instructors (regular, remedial, special, athletics): 17.9
Support services (tuition transfer, health, guidance, library, etc): 9.5
Employee benefits: 7.1
Maintenance & Plant: 2.5
Student transportation: 1.4
Gen. Admin: 0.8
School Admin: 1.5
Capital Equipment: 0.3
Debt service: 2.0

Thus, employee payroll and benefits (top 3 lines) add up to 80.2% of annual budget.
Our school district's average teacher's salary is in high 5- / low 6-figures (elementary vs. specialist), plus benefits.

I would argue that funding for education, or its allocation, is NOT the problem.

To back that up, below is the list of the top-50 spending NJ school districts, we are not on it.
Nor is any of the other school districts ranked in top-10 in NJ, year after year.
The WORST school districts spend the MOST:
https://www.nj.com/education/2018/09/the_50_nj_school_districts_spending_the_most_per_s.html

The vast majority of the funds are being spent on SG&A + benefits.
Somehow, the return on that investment in K-12 education, in the US, is mediocre.
Somehow, the ROI on college/university education, is stellar.
I don't know why the wide gap in outcomes.

However, I can't find any evidence that throwing more money at K-12 teachers is producing positive results.
This is just data. I have personal stories to back this up as well (even in top-1% school district, far too many teachers just plain suck, bigly).

a
 
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based on numbers from previous and NEA (included below)

Average # Students per teacher is 15.9
Cost per student is $12,157 for Kindergarten through 12th grade. Total for 13 years $158,041
Assuming 1 teacher per class (obviously conservative) that is $193,296 per class,
Teacher salary about $50K, add another $10K in benefits (may be conservative)
$133,296 per class after paying for teacher.
is $8,383 per student AFTER paying the teacher.
How much does it cost per student for books, buying the school building, heating and cooling it, paying the housekeeping staff...……

God bless the teachers, but that's not where the money is going. How we can be spending this much and still graduate kids who are reading at 6th grade or lower level, can't write a paper, can't do basic math.

??





https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country-spends-most-education.asp

In 2014, the U.S. spent an average of $12,157 per student on elementary and secondary education, over 30% more than the
average of $9,419

from NEA
https://www.nea.org/home/rankings-and-estimates-2013-2014.html

The average number of students per teacher declined from 16.0 in 2011–12 to 15.9 in 2012–13.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th.../nation/average-teacher-salary-in-every-state
Average teacher salary $50k. I will add another $10 K in benefits
 
Teacher salary about $50K, add another $10K in benefits (may be conservative)

Not anywhere in the US where I ever lived.
Try $75K starting salary for phys ed K-12 teacher. Tenured teachers in sciences are in 6-figures.


God bless the teachers, but that's not where the money is going. How we can be spending this much and still graduate kids who are reading at 6th grade or lower level, can't write a paper, can't do basic math.
??

God bless our teachers, but they are taking 80+% of my school district's budget.

And they are driving many parents nuts with apathy, superficial and frivolous adoption of technology (elementary school kids - check the web site for homework, I'm not going to give it to you in class), and overwhelming "we are in a union, you can't talk to us that way" attitude.

Most teachers are focused on meeting state's minimal educational standards (condition for getting tenured), and don't give two sh$ts about anything else.
Younger ones still care, and excel at getting kids interested.
Older ones are in full cruise-control to retirement mode, but can't be fired due to tenure.

Since when did we start tenuring K-12 teachers?
For what purpose?

a
P.S.: My wife is a tenured professor, so I do appreciate the pro's and con's of tenure at college / graduate level. And I am generally sympathetic to educators.
P.P.S.: If I tried to share what she thinks about our K-12 educators' incentives, my post would be immediately censored or turned into @#$@%^#%^
 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th.../nation/average-teacher-salary-in-every-state
Average teacher salary $50k. I will add another $10 K in benefits

In Los Angeles, the benefit costs are much higher. The problem though is that the teachers unions have driven up the costs of pensions and other retiree benefits. The district pays full pensions and full health benefits to retired teachers, and the teachers refuse to consider more modern, efficient 401k style retirement packages. The other problem in LA is that the district enrollment is shrinking and has shrunk dramatically so that the district gets less total money with shrinking enrollment, but has large numbers of retirees on the benefit rolls from when enrollment was larger. On top of that, the union has set up the seniority system so that younger teachers get laid off first when the district has money problems. The seniority based lay-offs ensure that the most expensive teachers are retained, regardless of performance, which drives up average teacher costs and pension costs since your pension is determined by years of service and ending salary.

Los Angeles spent $16,000 per student before the strike, and one of the explicit demands of the teachers union was to drive that per student spending to $20,000 (?!). In order to maintain the status quo for retired teachers, that per student number is going to have to steadily increase as the ratio of retirees to teachers continues to increase. The teachers pension fund is only 65% funded, but the union seemed unconcerned with the fact that their pensions are under threat, and demanded that reserve funds be allocated to hiring nurses, librarians, and counselors instead of shoring up the pension fund - that's mind bogglingly short sighted.

One of the complaints from the teachers during the strike was that the cost of living is too much for teachers to afford to buy decent houses. Yet, the teachers union has continually supported policies that increase the cost of living - the new state law that all new houses have solar panels (+$30k minimum to the cost of a house), increased property taxes to pay for more costly union benefits, high speed rail, and policies that have driven up the cost of health care and health insurance.

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to address is that while the cost of teachers has sky rocketed - the competency of teachers is dropping.

Somehow, the ROI on college/university education, is stellar.
a

The evidence is overwhelmingly the opposite - the ROI on colleges has dropped dramatically in a generation. College students are ignorant, ill-informed, prejudicial, and incapable of basic critical thinking skills, which is probably the root of the problem when it comes to public education - the teachers are the products of higher education systems that have failed in their core mission, but still managed to drive up the costs of college degrees.
 
Privatize public education, 10k per pupil per year
Give vouchers
Let parents choose.
Kids that don’t want to learn can go to a public trade school.
Money saved goes to special needs kids.
 
My knee-jerk reaction to education is that if my wife and I happened to spawn a little giblet, we would probably want to home-school our progeny since we both have an abundance of education, knowledge, practical skills, life experience, hobbies, etc. that would result in a well-rounded person.

That said, I reluctantly admit social skills perhaps matter more than anything else, and to that end would ultimately send our kid to public school. But with an independent home school twist full of adventures.

Private school to me is a joke. Anything done "for profit" is all about the profit. Any ancillary benefit that happens to arise for the good of humanity is inconsequential to the profit-makers. Shareholders don't care about the future of the human race, they only care about the future of their bank accounts.

Stick a kid in a random public school, and they will have to adapt and overcome myriad issues that test their character and flexibility to change on the fly. Stick them in an inoculated special snowflake private school and they will merely become automaton 63507 in the assembly line of graduates from Pretentious Asshole University LLC (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stepford Wives International Corporation and Prep-School Harvard/Yale Grad Fast-Track to Politics Corporation).
 
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Grade school Substitute teacher REQUIRES four-year college degree.... pays minimum wage.
Obtain a teacher certification AND a college degree... start pay, $32,000... NAH!
(Pay back school loans and state certification and still try to make a living??)
 
I don't know of well teachers are remunerated in the US but I can tell you in Canada they have it made. My wife is a teacher in the private system and they are paid on par wit the public sector, same pension plan and the benefits while not on par wit public sector are certainly much better than what you would get in the private sector. A fully vested teacher makes about 100,000 for 10 months of work. Their pension is indexed for inflation and fully vested in 32 years a $90,000 salary works out to just under a 58,000 annual pension. On top of this the days off are so ridiculous compared to the private sector, they get discounts on many things, such as software, museums, art galleries, zoos, gym, retail stores, group health, medical, dental, life insurance, the list goes on and on. Honestly as an entrepreneur in the private system the public sector perks are ridiculous.

BTW I have both listed to and read the rhetoric that a private education is inferior, bought and corrupt, as compared to a public education. While that may be the case in some circumstances or even in the US I can tell you that in Ontario a private education is superior in many ways that are not always intuitive.

As for unions contributing to bankrupting our budgets, don't even get me going. I spent many years responding to the public sector "RFP" (Request for Proposal) prices and participated in many public sector projects. I can tell you conservatively that when you introduce a union work force into a public sector job, and they have to be in Ontario, you can double the project costs as compared to a private work force. Having personally witnessed this over and over again anyone who disagrees with this is either not aware or a shill and part of the problem.

Bottom line in Ontario unions are the biggest drain on our budgets by far.
 
I have two sisters that teach high school here in the US. They do okay but they aren't living high on the hog. Their spouses work as an ER trauma nurse for a "for-profit health care" corporation and as a technician for a "for-profit public utility." Their spouses in the private sector don't get health insurance, retirement, etc. Those benefits come from the wives' teacher's unions.

It's interesting to me that the husbands happen to be anti-union, anti-public-funding, anti-tax, anti-anything etc. yet get their health care, retirement, children's benefits, etc. from their wives' work as public school teachers.
 
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I have two sisters that teach high school here in the US. They do okay but they aren't living high on the hog. Their spouses work as an ER trauma nurse for a "for-profit health care" corporation and as a technician for a "for-profit public utility." Their spouses in the private sector don't get health insurance, retirement, etc. Those benefits come from the wives' teacher's unions.

It's interesting to me that the husbands happen to be anti-union, anti-public-funding, anti-tax, anti-anything etc. yet get their health care, retirement, children's benefits, etc. from their wives' work as public school teachers.

Perhaps they are "anti-union" because (not despite) they know how much of their wives' salaries are diverted to health insurance and pension costs and they understand how over-priced those two "benefits" are.

You mean their spouses in the private sector would have to pay out of pocket for health insurance and they are able to save for retirement on their own. If they live in the US, the nurses and technicians pay into Social Security, which eats up 12.4% of their paycheck. The fact that Social Security is barely enough to live on in retirement, yet costs 12.4% of one's paycheck should be disconcerting. Pensions - especially for public employees - are underfunded all of the US, and are unlikely to be paid out in full for future generations. The teachers who "get" pensions and who "get" health insurance aren't getting them for free- those are costs that would otherwise go to their salaries - and they aren't cheap.
 
Private school to me is a joke. Anything done "for profit" is all about the profit. Any ancillary benefit that happens to arise for the good of humanity is inconsequential to the profit-makers. Shareholders don't care about the future of the human race, they only care about the future of their bank accounts.

I don't understand the comment - When something is done for profit, it means I as a consumer have a choice to not pay them if they don't do a good job. I don't have choice in public education, and they don't have to do a good job. Public Education has turned in to the "for profit" bogeyman that you are referring to, except with a captive audience. Public education is run by greedy corporations - teachers unions - who do, in fact, profit from the public education system. The union "earns" at least 1.5% in profit from education each year. On top of that, the "shareholders" (teachers) get to continually increase the prices they charge while parents cannot opt out of the public system without losing the money they pay for the enterprise.

For profit companies are a good thing SO LONG AS consumers have the ability to take their money somewhere else - that's the reason our standard of living in the west is so high. For profit companies are bad when they have a monopoly. The fact that teacher's unions (or any public employee union) is employed by the state, doesn't mean they aren't driven by a profit motive - they just have the added benefit that they have a state-sanctioned monopoly that nobody gets to vote out or fire.
 
As the owner of a 'for profit' Montessori School for 25 years, I can see the social input from the NEA is hard at work here. (Did you know they own the PTA too?) All of my parents, pay their taxes for the public schools, and then pay tuition to me so their children can receive a quality education from 15 months to Grade 6. For the record the most profit we have ever made is $6500, with 140 students and 27 employees. You don't get into the school business for the money, you get in the school business for the children. Public school is based on a system devised by Dooey, the decimal guy from the library, and it was created to make factory workers, that's why it will always produce mediocre results. And the NEA is in the business of protecting their members, not educating the students (if you want to you can look up the quote from the Pres), the only thing we know for sure in education, is that we have no idea what the jobs will look like 15 years from now. So, we concentrate on critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork and interpersonal skills. (As well as, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic). And yeah, the children in my elementary class do Rockets, and build robots, oh and they assembled all of the PCs we use at the school except the laptops. The solution is vouchers, allow competition into the game and those who don't perform get weeded out. But, don't listen to me, because I'm biased, go read about the East Houston School District, that implemented a Public Montessori School Program, and their results.

just my .02
-Mike

"World Peace through Education" -Dr. Maria Montessori
 
A lot are getting it completely and utterly wrong. Money helps but it isn't the complete answer.

There is a very impoverished community across the river from me. This school system is mostly african-american and my wife worked in that district for 20 years. I was told several times that I was racist for not sending my kids there and if my wife worked there taking advantage of that system it was unfair that I sent my kiddos to a private school. I was told, "If those stupid teachers had their own kids in those schools it wouldn't be so bad."

My response: "I'll make you a deal, as soon as you get the overwhelming majority of parents to care as much about their kids education as I do I will happily send my kids to that system." End of argument.

The real issue is, and always will be, how much parents care about their child's education. The reason that impoverished community has crap schools is because the community is does not care about education. Plain and simple. This isn't a race thing - it's a localized cultural thing. The state makes available to those schools millions upon millions of dollars and the schools still suck. They can't retain teachers because none of the parents cooperate with the teachers and that makes it impossible for them to do their job. This community is a microcosm for a lot of schools in the USA. Parents just expect the schools to just do it all. In other words, raise their kids. THAT'S the giant pink elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. You could have the best funding available and the highest paid teachers in the world and the education is going to suck rocks if all the parents don't care. I guarantee it.

As an example of how little the parents care in that community is what has happened on numerous occasions like what the OP is talking about. These schools get state funding based on attendance on "count days." Unless its an official snow day, those days the attendance is counted and state funding is calculated off of those numbers. All of the parents know about this. But yet, if the kiddos don't want to go to school the parents don't make them. They either do not understand - or care - how their child's missing school that day negatively affects the entire system. It's ridiculous. And beyond those count days, they've had to not count school days on numerous occasions because no enough kids attended school that day and thus they had to make them up like snow days at the end of the year.

And on top of that, there is the issue that the school board is elected like a lot of communities. The problem with elected school boards is people who know absolutely nothing about education but are good politicians get those positions. Nepotism is a very common issue and causes gigantic set backs to educational progress. There's another pink elephant.

And don't get me started on charter schools. Charter schools are run by for-profit companies. Do you really think they have your child's education as a priority? Uhhh...nope.
 
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On teacher pay, Seattle's pay runs from $57K (no experience, BA/BS only) to $111K (15+ years experience, PhD). There are no increases based on years of service over 15 years, though there are COLAs. Average of that is somewhere in the $84K range. Fully loaded with benefits, a teacher costs ~$110K on average. That percentage of salary to benefits doesn't seem unreasonable or that much different from companies I've worked at as an engineer, nor are salaries that much out of whack for someone in a professional job. See also this McSweeney's list for questions people would ask other professionals if they talked to them like they talk to teachers: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles...r-professionals-the-way-they-talk-to-teachers

I do think there's a problem with mushrooming upper management. Seattle went through a time when there wasn't money for teachers, but there was always a spot at District HQ for a Deputy Assistant Superintendent for Deep Analysis, paid at $150K plus benefits. The new superintendent seems to be paring that back, which is good.

Another issue that isn't mentioned as much is the impact of leadership in the building and the district. A good principal can do wonders with a middling or poor school and a bad one can wreck a great school.

Bottom line? I went to a private high school that charged ridiculous tuition. My kids went to local public schools and got an education as good or better than I did. We very briefly considered homeschooling. My wife and I have the breadth of knowledge to do it, but we are not equipped to be teachers.
 
The dirty secret of education is that it's all down to the parents.

Let's talk funding. The highest performing school districts in many states are the lowest-funded, and the lowest-performing performing districts often have money thrown at them. This even holds at the state level:
https://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html
DC (second highest spending) has near-bottom results:
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#mathematics/state/comparisons/NP?grade=4
Utah has dead last spending, and above average results.
Someone more motivated than me can run the regression.

Now let's talk teachers. Teacher quality doesn't drive student quality, student quality drives teacher quality, and student quality is driven by parents. Teacher pay is neither as low nor as high as people think it is. For the vast majority of the country, it's within a standard deviation of the local median income, with a better than average pension. It's a middle-class job, no more and no less. The first article above shows that teacher pay is neither horrible nor a cost driver.

Good teachers migrate to places where the students respect them, and the respect causes them to become better teachers.

The one thing that matters in both cases is involved parents. Involved parents will demand that their students treat their teachers with respect, and involved citizens pay attention to local elections and finances and will vote against administrative bloat. Everything else (teacher quality, teacher pay, administrative bloat, financial solvency) is downstream from that one factor.
 
@mpitfield-100,000 salary? o_O no, we don;t have it that good.

As a spouse of a teacher, immersed in their social exchanges (read...hearing too many industry complaints), I can vouch for the fact that, while the pay is within a median range (in theory), they deal with more pressure and regulation than the average individual. for what they put up with, they do not get paid enough...Particularly when weighed against sports athletes, but then...who is...They deal with pressure from Administration, parents, and are hand tied when dealing with true 'problem children.' Even though they 'get the summer off,' they are expected to continue working on teaching during the time, and really only have a couple 'true weeks' off. The local districts recently had a pay raise freeze of 3-5 years.

They are put on the spot when a student doesn't do poorly, and many administrators 'back the parents' so the teacher is in trouble for giving the student a failing grade, when, in reality, the student earned the grade. I'm sure you remember the teacher who was fired for not giving students a 50% when they didn't turn in their work. In this, albeit isolated, case, students could actually score lower by completing the work, then by ignoring it completely.

But I agree, parents need to support teachers, otherwise they completely ignore the main idea of school and teach their children the wrong lessons
 
Parents are certainly key. And it is not simply a matter of the level of education of the parents, it is simply a matter of whether the parents care enough to discipline their children and expect their children to apply themselves.

When I got into trouble and fights in school in first grade and fifth grade, when my Mom heard about it she got to the bottom of it and I got straightened out.

I really like Walter Williams’ weekly column. I have included an excerpt here. I have removed any reference to specific race.

https://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams010919.php3
The (school) district has shown they just can't do it. ... Now it's time for the community to step in."

That's a recognition that politicians and the education establishment, after decades of promises, cannot do much to narrow the huge educational achievement gap.......

The most crucial input for a child's education cannot be provided by schools or politicians. Continued calls for higher education budgets will produce disappointing results, as they have in the past. There are certain minimum requirements that must be met for any child, regardless of race, to do well in school. Someone must make the youngster do his homework — and possibly help him with it. Someone must ensure that he gets eight hours of sleep. Someone must feed him wholesome meals, including breakfast. Finally, someone must ensure that he gets to school on time, behaves in school and respects the teachers. If these minimum requirements are not met — and they can be met even if a family is poor — all else is for naught.......

One vital measure for community involvement in ...... education is that of preventing youngsters who are alien and hostile to the educational process from making education impossible for everybody else. That can be accomplished by ignoring politicians and the liberal vision that restricts schools from removing students who pose severe disciplinary problems. The problem goes beyond simple misbehavior. An article in Education Week last year, titled "When Students Assault Teachers, Effects Can Be Lasting," reported: "In the 2015-16 school year, 5.8 percent of the nation's 3.8 million teachers were physically attacked by a student. Almost 10 percent were threatened with injury, according to federal education data"
Read more at https://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams010919.php3#4b85FgbAtsGuT3fp.99

End of quote.

We can’t solve the problem by throwing money at it. We also can’t educate kids when discipline problems cannot be removed from the classroom.
 
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@mpitfield-100,000 salary? o_O no, we don;t have it that good.

That is Canadian, which when you exchange and take the COL into consideration it sounds like you do and more, at least based on some of the salary ranges listed above. Like you, I see my wife working hard, and she has done a lot to improve herself during the summers over the years, so it's not a case of working hard or not. It's more a case of entitlement. I work hard 50 weeks of the year and dedicate a min of 30 minuets per day towards education and I have made it a requirement for all my employees, which I pay for. This is on top of the research that we have to do as part of our job, which is easily much higher than the average job. So I personally don't view this as anything other than a normal requirement to remain competitive and competent in the work force.

Also as others mentioned I ride my spouses benefits but I am a bit confused as to the correlation between this and being pro or ant-union...it sounds like conflating two ideas to me. Besides my wife is not unionized, private schools, for the most part in Ontario are not unionized, only public sector is, mostly. I say mostly because the stats are confusing. For example whenever a pro union, mostly politician, brings up private education and disingenuously claims that the students are just buying an education and not earning it, they are including ESL and every other "school" in their claimed stats. Obviously if I sign up to take ESL or French lessons, or basket weaving as a private individual, I am buying an education so that argument has some merit but not as it applies to primary to secondary education. Possibly Primary there is but once the grades start to count in public school they certainly already have in private school if not before hand.

To some of the previous points mentioned. I agree things start at home and that discipline at school is much easier, therefore better at a private school. I would go as far to claim that these two things are paramount to success with these age groups.

Wow this thread has morphed!

We should probably wrap it.
 
And on top of that, there is the issue that the school board is elected like a lot of communities. The problem with elected school boards is people who know absolutely nothing about education but are good politicians get those positions. There's another pink elephant.

The idea that the only people qualified to run a school district are the teachers is not credible. The teachers in LA made the same argument during their recent strike, and now the district is looking at financial insolvency in less than two years because the district gave in to the teachers union's argument that future deficit projections were unreal, and the district should just spend the money now. Running a district has much less to do with knowing how to teach, and much more with knowing how to manage a budget - which is something in which teachers have no professional training.

And don't get me started on charter schools. Charter schools are run by for-profit companies. Do you really think they have your child's education as a priority? Uhhh...nope.

Good - that's why Charter Schools continually outperform public schools in the same district. What motive does a public school have to make my children a priority? I know what motive a for-profit charter school has - what's driving a union-owned public school with tenured teachers to make my children a priority?

This idea that a "for profit" charter means they don't care about your kids is completely unfounded in reality.
 
On teacher pay, Seattle's pay runs from $57K (no experience, BA/BS only) to $111K (15+ years experience, PhD). There are no increases based on years of service over 15 years, though there are COLAs. Average of that is somewhere in the $84K range. Fully loaded with benefits, a teacher costs ~$110K on average. That percentage of salary to benefits doesn't seem unreasonable or that much different from companies I've worked at as an engineer, nor are salaries that much out of whack for someone in a professional job.

The cost of a teacher to the district while the teacher is teaching doesn't include the cost of the teacher to the district once they've retired, so that $110k on average is incomplete. AND that cost excludes the fact that the teacher does not work for 3 months out of the year. So, if you compare apples to apples, a teacher cost of $110k is equivalent to $145k for an engineer. The level of education for an engineer and a teacher are not remotely comparable, so the fact that a teacher earns a comparable salary to an engineer is ludicrous.

I do think there's a problem with mushrooming upper management. Seattle went through a time when there wasn't money for teachers, but there was always a spot at District HQ for a Deputy Assistant Superintendent for Deep Analysis, paid at $150K plus benefits. The new superintendent seems to be paring that back, which is good.

Completely agree. In LA, during the strike, the district was able to pull 2000 credentialed teachers from the administration to help offset the effect of 31,000 striking teachers. I would very much like to see what those 2000 people do in the administration and why its necessary. Those 2000 teachers would go a very long way to reducing class sizes. On the other hand, I suspect the union had something to do with that during previous contract negotiations since the unions have demanded upward mobility for teachers in the past.

Bottom line? I went to a private high school that charged ridiculous tuition. My kids went to local public schools and got an education as good or better than I did. We very briefly considered homeschooling. My wife and I have the breadth of knowledge to do it, but we are not equipped to be teachers.

The public schools charge ridiculous tuition too - the district is now paying almost $20,000 per student in los angeles for a public school education. There are private schools in the area that charge less than that. The charter schools in the area get considerably less than that per student and still manage to do a better job.
 

Note the difference between salary and the total cost of the teacher, including benefits. Teachers in general don't seem to understand that one of the reasons their salaries are low is because of the costs of benefits the teachers themselves have demanded.


Teachers have pressures since they have to deal directly with parents, but the idea that teachers are more burdened than other workers isn't accurate. It doesn't really matter if teachers are "expected to continue working on teaching" over the summer - that doesn't prevent them from having 2-3 months of vacation time during the summer. Most professionals are expected to work nights and weekends, and if we truly want time off, we have to use earned vacation time.
 
The idea that the only people qualified to run a school district are the teachers is not credible.

Please do not put words in my mouth. Not what I said at all. Please re-read my post.

Good - that's why Charter Schools continually outperform public schools in the same district. What motive does a public school have to make my children a priority? I know what motive a for-profit charter school has - what's driving a union-owned public school with tenured teachers to make my children a priority?

This idea that a "for profit" charter means they don't care about your kids is completely unfounded in reality.

Right, charter schools do better because the parents bringing their kids there are the ones that give a rip about their kids education. Maybe I am old and bitter but I've seen enough of the corporate world to know beyond a reasonable doubt that a for-profit company cares about one thing and one thing only...profit. It has it's place in a capitalistic system and in essence isn't immoral but to think that they really and truly care about anything else is seeing the world through rose colored glasses. Maybe some of the underlings are making education a priority. Good for them. But at a businesses core its about profit. Nothing else.

I've been married to a public school teacher for over 25 years. Very few that I know ever go into teaching because of the money or the 2 month unpaid vacation. The teachers I know go into it because they believe in making a difference. They give a crap. And of course, just like any other profession on the planet there are crappy teachers. People who are bad at their job exist everywhere. Not just education.
 
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