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As for Boomers, don't get me started, but I firmly believe that their self-absorbed approach to everything their entire lives is at the root of many problems in our society today. We will be better off when they die off. It seems odd, but the greatest generation raised the worst generation.
What generation are YOU from, and what advanced degrees/ life experience do you posses that makes you a socio-economic expert, and qualifies YOU to say what generation has ruined society?
Talk about closed minded, generalizing, stereo typing...
The budget bill was passed this morning and the Gov has signed it. It addressed pay raises and additional money for staff and general operations. Is it enough. No, AZ is still near last in educational commitment. It's over for now, but teachers plan to work through the initiative process to get a reliable education funding source going forward as the legislature is not politically capable of addressing the problem. All schools should be open tomorrow.
Teachers and the millions of Arizonans who stood alongside them have tasted their power. As Brewer said a couple days ago, a sleeping giant has awoken.
My reading comprehension might be off but what you wrote here means MO MONEY!
Boomers aren't the only ones moving here for the low COL. Plenty of families move here from states they can't afford.
What I hear from you and mkpunk is just put more money in and everything will be alright. No real ideas for fixing education. It's not your fault, the whole system is ridiculous and it starts at the very top: DC. Here's a great paragraph from an article on the Success Academy in NY:
... teachers in the U.S. are left stranded. The reason isn’t terrible union contracts or awful management decisions. The fault, I came to see, lies in the (often competing) edicts issued by municipal, state, and federal authorities, which add up to chaos for the teachers who actually have to implement them. It’s not uncommon for a teacher to start the year focused on one goal—say, improving students’ writing—only to be told mid-year that writing is no longer a priority, as happened just the other day at a Boston school I know of. We could hardly have designed a worse system for supporting good teaching had we tried.
I'm not going to get into charter vs public, but I would love to hear some fresh ideas that I could get my vote behind instead of just more money.
I never said "throw money at education" and you know that. All I said is teachers and support staff need better wages. Support staff shouldn't be minimum wage employees on welfare and teachers shouldn't be effectively making welfare wages.I also said students shouldn't be taught in classes where students have to work on the floor because there aren't enough desks or go to schools that should be condemned. I also realize that privatizing education isn't the answer either because it hurts the poor and working class.
Yes, you say the problem is cultural, but you say right there, that the problem is also money.
And, you conveniently leave out the part about rot coming from the top and a lack of original ideas on education.
And if the greatest generation (let's not forget, it's just the name of a book, there wasn't an actual competition), raised the worst generation, how can they be the greatest generation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by wase4711
What generation are YOU from, and what advanced degrees/ life experience do you posses that makes you a socio-economic expert, and qualifies YOU to say what generation has ruined society?
Talk about closed minded, generalizing, stereo typing...
So what do you two suggest we do given what we've got available today? And don't say "privatize" because that's not a be all end all answer. Privatizing won't fix the parents or the kids nor is it a solution that can be put in place with a wave of a wand tomorrow.
I'd suggest looking at year round school for one.
So what do you two suggest we do given what we've got available today? And don't say "privatize" because that's not a be all end all answer. Privatizing won't fix the parents or the kids nor is it a solution that can be put in place with a wave of a wand tomorrow.
I'd suggest looking at year round school for one.
It is not. I say this because it removes some vital time during the summer for students and staff.
For one, it removes summer school. Summer school hasn't been used just as a grade correction, it is also used to speed up graduation. Particularly the district I work for up until about the time I went, use to offer full credit and now only offer half for summer session. That and should a child fail a single class, how do they stay on track in a full year school calendar?
It can also it can create similar child care issues through out the year if schools break for 180 days through out the entire year to snow days and the walkouts of several states. These often proove devastating to lower income populations who cannot afford childcare.
For staff this can be a nightmare too. Having support staff have three weeks off at a time with no option for other work is not ideal. Even one or two weeks off makes me worry and hope my savings is adequate. Imagine now having a second or third week to worry about? I mean during summer they have two months they can dedicate to working. For teachers, this also removes summer planning and can effect their time to get master's to be better teachers.
Also another thing I see is that summer vacation is a long recharge period. As a former student, it was the light at the end of a long long tunnel. Two to three weeks depending in term may not be long enough for a recharge. My recharge during the summer was Boy Scout camp and national conferences. I don't see how being open for three weeks opening the opportunity for more camps and in far will just drive prices up similar to Disney Parks and Resorts driving up hotel and even park ticket prices during peak tourist seasons.
I would seek to understand the criticism of the program as it exists already in programs with all year calendars as their are many and try to figure out the ways to do better before making the change over. I agree fall to spring school is semi arcane, but besides summer slide, I haven't heard many good reasons to truly change the system and the new all year calendars pose several issues that I foresee as hindrances already.
I'm quoting from them only because that's the accepted CASE LAW right now. As for your insinuation about me and the ACLU let me be real clear, as far as I'm concerned the ACLU long ago swerved way left from their original mission to a point where all they care about is getting themselves in the news, raising money and supporting far left issues kind of like the Souther Poverty Law Center. I've got NO use for them as they exist today.
I had a neighbor who was a founding member of the ACLU and even he agreed that they've strayed well away from what he and the others started and intended for them to be those many years ago...
Don't take it so personally. I was actually surprised that you would quote anything from the ACLU, but I'm not surprised at all about the ACLU believing free education is a guaranteed right in the U.S. Constitution. Anybody who believes this would also likely push the idea that free health care is a right, as well as promote things like giving DLs to illegals. This is primarily why I reject pretty much anything the ACLU says anymore. They have their own biased interpretation of the Constitution ... and for that matter, so do the lawyers/judges who accept this nonsense about education being a "right" as case law.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wase4711
What generation are YOU from, and what advanced degrees/ life experience do you posses that makes you a socio-economic expert, and qualifies YOU to say what generation has ruined society?
Talk about closed minded, generalizing, stereo typing...
He and many others have this notion that Baby Boomers are selfish, but then he strongly believes the government should increase education funding & that everybody should pay more taxes to support other people's offspring. Not surprisingly, many who think this way are the ones with kids in the public system, so they believe all of us should subsidize their life choices under the guise of "children are the future", or "public education benefits everybody". Talk about self absorbed!
I never said "throw money at education" and you know that. All I said is teachers and support staff need better wages. Support staff shouldn't be minimum wage employees on welfare and teachers shouldn't be effectively making welfare wages.I also said students shouldn't be taught in classes where students have to work on the floor because there aren't enough desks or go to schools that should be condemned. I also realize that privatizing education isn't the answer either because it hurts the poor and working class.
Interesting use of quotes. Are you quoting me? Yes, you did say teachers and staff, AND you also said money was needed for upgrades. That is exactly the kind of open ended budgetary jargon that leads to wasted cash.
You say you work in the Dysart District? Which schools have no tables or desks? Which schools should be condemned?
Last edited by Burning Madolf; 05-09-2018 at 04:32 PM..
So what do you two suggest we do given what we've got available today? And don't say "privatize" because that's not a be all end all answer. Privatizing won't fix the parents or the kids nor is it a solution that can be put in place with a wave of a wand tomorrow.
I'd suggest looking at year round school for one.
I don't have all the answers, that's why I was asking.
But I would encourage educators in this state to look closely at what worked in places like New Orleans and NY under Eva Moskowitz and try to steal some ideas.
We can't just keep doing the same things that have financially buried other states and hope for a different result.
The greatest cognitive dissonance among people that argue for more money for schools because its for the kids is that because of terrible financial management (at every level), by the time a kid graduates high school they are already saddled with the debt his/her chosen local has already accumulated. That's without the debt they might accumulate going to college for a degree that may or may not end up being worth it.
Interesting use of quotes. Are you quoting me? Yes, you did say teachers and staff, AND you also said money was needed for upgrades. That is exactly the kind of open ended budgetary jargon that leads to wasted cash.
You say you work in the Dysart District? Which schools have no tables or desks? Which schools should be condemned?
Interesting use of buzzwords and deflection here. You made the claim that I said to throw money at education when I have not said that. I've said it to pay teachers more, give them more monies so they don't have to spend as much to replenish supplies out of said money and pay support staff who do stressful jobs and don't nearly get adequate pay. The only wasted cash is none used on students. Better paid teachers and support staff makes the best teachers and staff stay. If they aren't paid fair wages or have adequate situations, many walk out at some point. So much so we are short 2,000-5,000 teachers depending how you define that stat. A t my school alone, we staff don't have enough walky-takies for all staff especially paraprofessionals like myself which is a need especially for the type of special education students we have at the school that we work at and another school I worked at (a high school) had a hard enough time getting them and they too need them as well.
AFAIK Dysart has great schools, mainly because about half are within fifteen years old due to Surprise being a boomtown. In fact, there are about two/three different housing developments going into the area around the high school I worked at. The schools continue to have more and more students go, especially the high schools. I wouldn't be surprised if Dysart has to get land to build another high school. Other towns even neighboring towns have this problem, Glendale had a pair of schools that recently (within the past few years) close for renovations during the year.
This isn't throwing money at education at all. If you think this, that is your problem because you are wrong.
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