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Old 06-21-2012, 09:54 PM
 
Location: Mid-Atlantic
12,528 posts, read 17,443,200 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by villageidiot1 View Post
I had around 600 in my graduating class and there were many senior classes larger than that in the 1970s.
So, is that want you want for your kids?
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Old 06-21-2012, 10:44 PM
 
Location: A coal patch in Pennsyltucky
10,268 posts, read 10,505,282 times
Reputation: 12560
Quote:
Originally Posted by villageidiot1 View Post
I had around 600 in my graduating class and there were many senior classes larger than that in the 1970s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goinback2011 View Post
Yep, I attended Mt. Lebanon High School in the early 70's. Almost all of my classes had 45+ students. Some classes had over 100 students. We were ranked in the top 5 high schools in the state at the time. We had students going to MIT and Cal Tech after their junior year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Copanut View Post
So, is that want you want for your kids?
What is wrong with having 600 students in a senior class? It has nothing to do with classroom size. My HS class sizes (in the early 70's were smaller than Mt. Lebanon's with around 28-30 in a classroom and I went to an HS that was below average.

My elementary class sizes were around 30-32 students. My brother went from grades 1-6 with 36-38 students in his class. This would never fly today. Parents start to complain if a classroom has 24 students. There are substantial benefits to the smaller class sizes for the younger students, but the advantages as not nearly as important in HS.

BTW, does anyone remember when Penn Hills used to graduate over 1200 students in a class?
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Old 06-21-2012, 11:26 PM
 
Location: Penn Hills
1,326 posts, read 1,997,499 times
Reputation: 1638
Quote:
Originally Posted by squarian View Post
Ontario has advantages that PA doesn't. Like, say, a simple, direct and efficient way for political decisions to be made when needed. There, if she's convinced of the need, the Minister of Education can get a reform passed into law and action very quickly, as long as the department civil servants can produce a convincing white paper and she can get the Cabinet and Premier to allocate it parliamentary time. Alas, the local version of checks and gridlock here means that even an obviously sensible, no-brain step, like terminating the least-viable zombie districts by merger, is nearly impossible to achieve. Duquesne SD, for instance, has been a rotting corpse for at least a decade, and the state Secretary of Education can't even choose a shovel to dig its grave.
Oh, I'm aware. There are also other issues, like the existence of single payer health care there, and individual school boards not directly footing as large of a health care bill (though they do pay for a supplemental insurance, that's not even close to the same thing), and a much higher percentage of education funding coming from the province, not local taxes. There are a lot of reasons behind the differences, but in a democracy, I don't see any reason why the people can't decide to abandon this "small school district" concept and change it at the state level. Of course they won't though, because no matter how much many complain, it seems the majority like their inefficient, ridiculous little school boards, and the inequality and segregation that comes with them.

Ontario has its own set of problems in the education system, of course, like all the publicly-funded religious school boards, and issues with immigrants, particularly in the Toronto area, but larger school boards beat these 500-3000 student school boards any day.
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Old 06-22-2012, 06:44 AM
 
4,684 posts, read 4,552,795 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sparrowmint View Post
Oh, I'm aware. There are also other issues, like the existence of single payer health care there, and individual school boards not directly footing as large of a health care bill
Yep, these pension and legacy cost crises would be much easier to untangle with a sensible system of public insurance keeping medical spending in check. Not that many people here in PA are going to understand this connection (and in that respect, the OP is very representative of the general population).

Quote:
in a democracy, I don't see any reason why the people can't decide to abandon this "small school district" concept and change it at the state level. Of course they won't though, because no matter how much many complain, it seems the majority like their inefficient, ridiculous little school boards, and the inequality and segregation that comes with them.
Ontario is not paradise, but like Canada as a whole and the rest of the civilized world, it is a democracy. Not sure the same can be said here - the farthest I'd be willing to go is "archaic republican system of government". It's that checks-and-gridlock thing.

Quote:
Ontario has its own set of problems in the education system, of course, like all the publicly-funded religious school boards, and issues with immigrants, particularly in the Toronto area, but larger school boards beat these 500-3000 student school boards any day.
I entirely agree.

Last edited by squarian; 06-22-2012 at 07:08 AM..
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Old 06-22-2012, 07:57 AM
 
43,011 posts, read 107,636,560 times
Reputation: 30710
Quote:
Originally Posted by mountainlove View Post
With regards to statements on teachers being overpaid, I have to ask - do we as a state (and country) pay more per year to educate one child or to incarcerate one adult?
There is a big difference between the two. Incarcerating an adult is much more expensive than educating a child because the state takes on the entire expense of the incarcerated adult---all meals, medical, shelter, clothing, etc.

Quote:
■Pennsylvania citizens must annually pay out about $36,000 for each state prisoner and about $20,000 for those in county jails. Prisoners who are 65 or older cost between $65,000 and $100,000 per year for medical care.

Prison Facts |
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Old 06-22-2012, 08:09 AM
 
716 posts, read 759,695 times
Reputation: 1013
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goinback2011 View Post
Yep, I attended Mt. Lebanon High School in the early 70's. Almost all of my classes had 45+ students. Some classes had over 100 students. We were ranked in the top 5 high schools in the state at the time. We had students going to MIT and Cal Tech after their junior year.
You were raised by very different parents than the current high school generation is.
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Old 06-22-2012, 08:33 AM
 
Location: North by Northwest
9,314 posts, read 12,905,441 times
Reputation: 6162
Quote:
Originally Posted by squarian View Post
Ontario has advantages that PA doesn't. Like, say, a simple, direct and efficient way for political decisions to be made when needed. There, if she's convinced of the need, the Minister of Education can get a reform passed into law and action very quickly, as long as the department civil servants can produce a convincing white paper and she can get the Cabinet and Premier to allocate it parliamentary time. Alas, the local version of checks and gridlock here means that even an obviously sensible, no-brain step, like terminating the least-viable zombie districts by merger, is nearly impossible to achieve. Duquesne SD, for instance, has been a rotting corpse for at least a decade, and the state Secretary of Education can't even choose a shovel to dig its grave.
It's absolutely pathetic. Money is certainly not a catch-all solution, as not all well-funded districts are good performers, but the Duquesnes, Clairtons, and Wilkinsburgs, et. al. are far and away from being able to meet the "necessary minimum" on their own. If the PA public school situation isn't solved (or at least moving in the right direction) by the time I'm some big-shot attorney , I plan on making this my personal crusade.
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Old 06-22-2012, 08:42 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA (Morningside)
14,360 posts, read 16,873,163 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mtl-Cns View Post
You were raised by very different parents than the current high school generation is.
Special pleading.
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Old 06-22-2012, 09:07 AM
gg gg started this thread
 
Location: Pittsburgh
26,137 posts, read 25,777,749 times
Reputation: 17378
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Magarac View Post
Herbert Stein's law will tell you how it will play out. "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."
Don't think he ever dealt with a teacher's union around here and he was in a different generation. Good luck in your beliefs, but my faith is about nil. All the workers that are being paid by our tax dollars are doing the same thing. Milking us dry. Look at our teacher's salaries and look at San Francisco's. I like using them as an example because even someone living under a rock knows it is much more expensive to live in S.F. We are out of our minds letting the school boards get away with this robbery! 180 days!!!

Anyway, it is going to get worse and worse. Same as PAT Bus, who also gets tons of money from our taxes. PennDot? Please! The entire system is wildly out of control. What I am most concerned about is education. Yes, believe it or not that is of the utmost importance. We have painted ourselves into a corner.

So you think things are going to change? Teacher's unions are going to back down? I think we will just keep raising taxes to the point we will all be like Dormont. $4K per $100K of value. Will we see district at $5K per $100K? We might. Glad everyone here can afford that. Maybe we all can, but is it really worth it?
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Old 06-22-2012, 09:18 AM
 
716 posts, read 759,695 times
Reputation: 1013
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
Interesting. I would think the true logical fallacy would be trying to compare modern educational standards and parenting to those of 40 years ago.

Edit: sorry, realized I meant to equate with, not to compare with. In other words we could go back to a little house on the prarie one room school house too- I'm sure it would save tons of money. Is it what's best for educating our populace? Of course not. Education is very different today than it was even 10 years ago. Students interact with technology on a daily basis today that didn't even exist 10 years ago, let alone in the 70s. Of course education has had to change to keep up with this. And I'm speaking on a pedagogical level. On just a personal level, can you imagine what would happen if you put 60-100 high school students in a lecture hall today? It would be 60-100 kids playing on their iPhones, not giving a damn what is going on in the classroom. Education is now interactive, not lecture based. And this is one of the many reasons parenting has changed so much In that time period as well.

Last edited by Mtl-Cns; 06-22-2012 at 10:04 AM..
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