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What I don't understand is why Arizona ranks near the bottom in terms of education. Is it due to lack of funding, the demographics (high hispanic and native americans), or other factors? I understand education is local. For example, my school district is rated highly (Kyrene).
It's not like we have the lowest taxes in the nation, so where is the money going? This state will go nowhere if it's schools are on par with Mississippi's. Good grief!!
I heard a story on the tv news that Casa Grande is hiring teachers from the Philippines! Not that the Philippine teachers are bad (on the contrary), but it shows this state is dysfunctional on a very basic level if it can't retain its American teachers.
Lots of illegals using up those tax dollars. If Arizona spent as much money as they do on education but didn't have to educate hundreds of thousands of illegals, I'm guessing Arizona would rank far better than they do.
What I don't understand is why Arizona ranks near the bottom in terms of education. Is it due to lack of funding, the demographics (high hispanic and native americans), or other factors? I understand education is local. For example, my school district is rated highly (Kyrene).
It's not like we have the lowest taxes in the nation, so where is the money going? This state will go nowhere if it's schools are on par with Mississippi's. Good grief!!
I heard a story on the tv news that Casa Grande is hiring teachers from the Philippines! Not that the Philippine teachers are bad (on the contrary), but it shows this state is dysfunctional on a very basic level if it can't retain its American teachers.
It's from all of those factors. We spend amongst the lowest in the entire country, but we also have a large Spanish speaking population (who require additional $$). The reason they are taking teachers from the Phillipines is simple. We pay our teachers very little nationally. We have three great teaching colleges (NAU, ASU and GCU) but they leave. Why would you accept meager pay to teach students who require additional resources when you are provided with minimal resources?
A lot will blame Illegal Immigrants after this post, but I post that we have lost 25% of our illegal immigrant population in the last 8 years (they move where the economies are booming like Texas oil right now). Yet at the same time our ranking has continued to move down. We spend a lot of money on Charter schools is another part of it.
Pima County actually received such a large cut in State funding to their school that they will have to increase their property taxes just to meet the demand. Pima County already has the highest property taxes in the State.
Imagine the state you live in is loosing population at such a rate, the only way to stop the loss, is you're forced to be a sanctuary state for illegals. That's how you keep your population up.
Imagine your property taxes just TRIPLED! example: You were paying $1000 a year, and now you're paying $3000 a year.
Imagine you have the worst roads and bridges in the Country. (Manhole covers 4" below grade, pot holes everywhere.) plus you pay more per mile for road maintenance than anywhere in the Country.
Imagine your state is run by unions, and still you have the worst schools and infrastructure in the region.
Imagine you pay more for fire protection than anywhere in the Country by double, a Fireman can easily earn $100,000 in over time pay!
Imagine your state has double the state workers as a neighboring state, that is 8 times the size, and double the population.
This what Progressive Democratic control has brought us. We are little Greece.
I've been to Arizona many times, some of you have no idea what you have.
Just curious, were you referring to CA, IL, NJ, or NY? they all fit your scenario.
What I don't understand is why Arizona ranks near the bottom in terms of education. Is it due to lack of funding, the demographics (high hispanic and native americans), or other factors? I understand education is local. For example, my school district is rated highly (Kyrene).
It's not like we have the lowest taxes in the nation, so where is the money going? This state will go nowhere if it's schools are on par with Mississippi's. Good grief!!
I heard a story on the tv news that Casa Grande is hiring teachers from the Philippines! Not that the Philippine teachers are bad (on the contrary), but it shows this state is dysfunctional on a very basic level if it can't retain its American teachers.
Why don't you look at the bigger picture instead of focusing so heavily on where we rank in the nation on per student funding? Too many people see that statistic and criticize AZ ... but the fact of the matter is: 50% of the state budget is allotted to public education, which is the greatest expenditure by a wide margin! Look at the breakdown of your next property tax bill, and you'll likely notice that between 60 & 70% of your property taxes go toward public schools. Plus, a certain portion of sales taxes go to education. We spend more on education than we do on just about anything else ... but yet, the quality is still inferior compared to most private schools, and the bleeding hearts still gripe about there not being enough money.
If it's true that schools are bringing in teachers from overseas, that should tell you how bad the system is. We don't need to keep throwing more money at the problem because there is enough evidence to show that is not the solution. The solution is to privatize education and run it like a business. I've presented a number of statistics on here over the years about how superior private education is to public education, and how the long term benefits would help all of us. Keeping the government in education and forcing taxpayers to flip the bill is socialist. We need LESS socialism and more capitalism, as well as more personal responsibility.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rosco917 View Post
Imagine the state you live in is loosing population at such a rate, the only way to stop the loss, is you're forced to be a sanctuary state for illegals. That's how you keep your population up.
Imagine your property taxes just TRIPLED! example: You were paying $1000 a year, and now you're paying $3000 a year.
Imagine you have the worst roads and bridges in the Country. (Manhole covers 4" below grade, pot holes everywhere.) plus you pay more per mile for road maintenance than anywhere in the Country.
Imagine your state is run by unions, and still you have the worst schools and infrastructure in the region.
Imagine you pay more for fire protection than anywhere in the Country by double, a Fireman can easily earn $100,000 in over time pay!
Imagine your state has double the state workers as a neighboring state, that is 8 times the size, and double the population.
This what Progressive Democratic control has brought us. We are little Greece.
I've been to Arizona many times, some of you have no idea what you have.
Just curious, were you referring to CA, IL, NJ, or NY? they all fit your scenario.
The state I live in is Rhode Island.
In RI, the state is Democrat to a ratio of 7 to 1.
The progressives love to point out how lucky we are to have Brown University, RI School of Design, and all these respected universities. The problem is the students run out of the state after their education has come to an end.
The fact is, we have a low level of educated work force in the state, add this to the incredibly high property taxes we have, and you understand why we have "no cranes in the skies" as we say.
If you build any type of substantial building project in RI, you MUST use union help, it's literally written into the laws! It doesn't matter that the costs jump 30-40%
All of our Cities and towns are severally in need of restoration, and additional tax dollars, meaning...they're broke!
When you give town, city, and state workers fat pensions for the last 50 years, sooner or later you're gonna run out of other peoples money. But hey... that's how they "buy" votes I guess.
Location: The edge of the world and all of Western civilization
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DougStark
What I don't understand is why Arizona ranks near the bottom in terms of education. Is it due to lack of funding, the demographics (high hispanic and native americans), or other factors? I understand education is local. For example, my school district is rated highly (Kyrene).
It's not like we have the lowest taxes in the nation, so where is the money going? This state will go nowhere if it's schools are on par with Mississippi's. Good grief!!
I heard a story on the tv news that Casa Grande is hiring teachers from the Philippines! Not that the Philippine teachers are bad (on the contrary), but it shows this state is dysfunctional on a very basic level if it can't retain its American teachers.
I would think that's a no-brainer, but if you need an explanation...
I have worked as a teacher outside of Arizona and was paid well enough that it was a viable option. To be a teacher in Arizona (as with most states), you have to go through a long, drawn-out process to obtain a teaching certificate before a school will even interview you, AND you will have to spend a bit of your own money to do it. I started the teaching certificate process in this state so I could have a backup plan in case I needed a new job quickly. I actually applied to two schools before getting any of the processing work done and both were keen on getting me in for an interview... but wouldn't until the whole process was complete.
That being said, look at the actual job. I make more money now in the private sector than I would as a teacher. Long-term, I have the potential to make even more money at my company than I ever could as a teacher (to put things into perspective, there are promotions that would bump me up to $85,000+). Unless there's a really high workload and managerial approval, my company is relatively strict about overtime, so at 40 hours I'm out of there. As a teacher, you're stuck in the classroom actually teaching. Often you have to be there before students arrive and stay well after they go home. Usually you have to take students' homework, quizzes and tests home with you so that you can work some more to grade it all. Now the hours you put into this lower paying job far exceed what you might have in the private sector (and I've spent up to 70 hours per week doing those extras). You also need to monitor and evaluate students, who all have different learning styles and learn at different speeds, and in crowded classrooms that gets harder and harder to effectively counsel them. On top of that, you have a lot of students who don't really want to be there, give you attitude or refuse to do work... until it comes time that they face summer school or be held back. THEN you get to deal with upset parents who want you to artificially give their little sweethearts higher grades they don't deserve. If you refuse, then they go over your head and file a complaint against you. You also have a very rigid schedule, and you eat lunch/take a break when they tell you (including bathroom breaks).
So... really weigh those against each other. Which one of those options sounds better? More money for less work, or more work for less money? Teaching would keep me afloat if I had to resort to it and I could find a job teaching pretty quickly, but I wouldn't make a career of it in Arizona. Remember that others are going to face the same issues too, and if they need the income, they'll either leave the state for better prospects or will leave the education industry altogether.
What I don't understand is why Arizona ranks near the bottom in terms of education. Is it due to lack of funding, the demographics (high hispanic and native americans), or other factors?
Education rankings are derived entirely from test scores of the students. Test scores of students are based on their intelligence more than anything else. Since the average IQ of the Mestizos and Native Americans is low, anywhere they are present in large numbers you will have "bad schools". This is why California has gone from among the best schools in the nation to among the worst despite increased spending.
Education rankings are derived entirely from test scores of the students. Test scores of students are based on their intelligence more than anything else. Since the average IQ of the Mestizos and Native Americans is low, anywhere they are present in large numbers you will have "bad schools". This is why California has gone from among the best schools in the nation to among the worst despite increased spending.
How well do you think you would score on a standard IQ test administered in Spanish and one that referenced Latino centric landmarks, ideologies and idioms? . Just came back from a hospital stay in Southern California. Almost everyone in the doctors office was Hispanic. High functioning, super-smart young 2nd generation Mestizo's. What are you smoking?
How well do you think you would score on a standard IQ test administered in Spanish and one that referenced Latino centric landmarks, ideologies and idioms? . Just came back from a hospital stay in Southern California. Almost everyone in the doctors office was Hispanic. High functioning, super-smart young 2nd generation Mestizo's. What are you smoking?
Which Latino landmarks are being cited during Algebra II? Mexican-American kids are doing so badly at Algebra that many of them can't make it out of high school. The big debate over the last decade in Los Angeles schools is whether or not to drop the Algebra requirement so that the Mexican kids can graduate.
An extensive study showed that among 4th-generation Mexican-Americans, 6% of them graduate from college. Preliminary results from the 5th generation showed the same.
The only stupid people are those that are 100% staunchly to the left or 100% staunchly to the right and refuse to see things in any other way other than through their myopic view of the world. Whatever happened to being moderate on any side in addition to bipartisanship? It's always "us versus them", "red versus blue", "conservatives versus liberals", "republicans versus democrats".
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. Just came back from a hospital stay in Southern California. Almost everyone in the doctors office was Hispanic. High functioning, super-smart young 2nd generation Mestizo's. What are you smoking?
