Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And you know, or should know, that most of those studies are based on aggregate spending which includes facilities, and administrative cost. In short, your conclusive studies are as meaningless as your post when it relates to the topic at hand.
While I shy away from anecdotal evidence, I recall a certain school board that spent millions of dollars constructing a new school board headquarters unaffectionately referred to as the Taj Mahal, complete with imported marble and what was proposed - a bullet proof dais (until a modicum of sanity was injected in their plans) while students languished in antiquated trailers. I stood before that same school board and made the suggestion that they should move their over indulgent asses into the portables and let the kids study in the school board's new palace.
Now if you want to discuss taxpayers being ripped off, I'm all for it, but I will be damned if I am going to sit back and vilify folks who day in and day out try to keep our kids not only safe, but try to instill into them as much information into their little brains as possible.
What is hysterically funny about all this is that only a few years ago, folks all across the country were talking about paying good wages to encourage young folks to enter the classroom. To regard teachers as one of the most important profession in our communities. It is simply amazing how all of that bull**** went out the window as mental midgets have risen to positions of power as of late. Folks who value ignorance above all else.
Luckily I won't live long enough to see the total destruction of this country by the know nothing, tea bag ignoramus sycophants of corporate interests. But I'll be damned if I won't be laughing all the way to the grave watching you folks do it.
How do you get by with all that namecalling? I get in trouble because some mods think that talking like you just did is calling out certain people and I think you just got by with calling out some names to certain people.
Looks to who? Not the studies that I am reading. Now we can sit here all day comparing studies, assuming that you know where to find them, have read any of them, or understood what you read to begin with. But that would be a side issue.
The point is many school boards require a master's degree particularly for math and science teachers. If you are going to attract the best and brightest into our kids classrooms (thank god mine has already graduated from a school run by a sane liberal school board) you are going to have to pay, and you are going to have to pay more for those that hold those advanced degrees. If you want your children taught by bright and engaging individuals many of whom are graduating with undergraduate degrees that have left them holding a debt equal to the GDP of some third world countries, you are going to have to pay. If that is tyranny, so be it. You want to argue about living in a capitalist society, well folks be they public or private have a right to sell their labor for as much money as the market will bear. If you want dumb stupid people teaching your dumb stupid kids, then so be it. Just don't ***** about not being able to find a employee that can count over 10 without having to take their shoes off, or the clerk who can't figure out your change even though the register tells them the amount. AND for god's sake don't ***** about some company outsourcing their IT work to so Pakistani with a master's degree because a U.S. firm can't find anyone to do the job for 3 times as much.
Name calling, false accusations and profanity. Yes, that gives a post credibility indeed.
Guess what, the market cannot bear the teachers' unions demands! They still want to force a raise in taxes when their salaries/benefits in WI are twice again that of the average taxpayer. Union demands exceed market resources.
Quote:
“The bottom line is we are trying to balance our budget and there really is no room to negotiate on that because we’re broke,”
I'd leave that up to the school district and school board to determine measureable results based upon many factors and in a number of areas. Additionally I believe teachers should have to undergo approved continuing education in teaching methods (problem based learning & emotional intelligence), testing in subject knowledge and professional standards, and that their rankings of testing and merit should be fully transparent to parents of district students.
Great ideas but I don't think that many teacher unions will go along with what you say. It comes back to that one dirty word, union.
...I believe teachers should have to undergo approved continuing education in teaching methods (problem based learning & emotional intelligence)...
Be careful with problem-based learning. It's a highly ineffective learning method for anyone other than those who already possess expert-level knowledge.
Wisconsin parents should be protesting against these teachers, too many of whom are clearly motivated more by tenured job security rather than improving student performance.
This is exorbitant for professionals with a master's degrees, years of experience and regular courses for certifications? Get ****ing real!
How many times are people going to say these folks all have master's degrees? Most likely don't, as the minimum qualification for teaching in WI is a bachelor's. Obviously if you are entering the profession, you don't have years of experience. In addition, the "regular courses for certifications" are not as "regular" as you would have us think. One poster on here stated he has to do continuing education one summer every five years. Yeah, so tough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto
Fine, then hire idiots to teach your idiot children. Problem solved. Turn the country into a the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Idiots.
In WI, Milwaukee specifically, the idiots ARE teaching and turning the children into idiots as well, as is evidenced by the stats cited in the OP, which have been cited elsewhere on numerous occasions in the past week or so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HistorianDude
What makes taxpayers special?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but taxpayers foot the bill for public services, in case you were not aware. If a private corporation is willing to pay exorbitant salaries and shell out for benefits, that's up to the corporation...they won't do it if it's not sustainable and good for the bottom line. It has been proven time and time again that paying public sector workers in this manner is not sustainable nor fiscally sound. These workers believe they have an unending pocketbook to spend from...the gov't will just raise taxes to continue to pay them. In a state where taxes are already very high, it is NOT sustainable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaggy001
No way I would ever want to be a teacher.
First of all, the money is rotten for the level of qualifications required.
Secondly, you have to deal with a bunch of spotty, ungrateful and usually averagely intelligent kids.
Third, you have to deal with their parents who actually believe that their kids are smart, that butter wouldn't melt in their mouths and it is your job to act as baby-sitter and generally compensate for any of their failings.
Finally, you get to be a political football to be kicked around by whichever disreputable politician needs some sound bites.
That's what they signed up for, though. They weighed the pros and cons going in and decided to go forward. They can only blame themselves. I don't personally want money hungry folks teaching children, I would rather a compassionate, truly caring person came in to do the work instead. That's how it's supposed to be in this type of profession...you CARE about the kids and thus, want to do what it takes for them to succeed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lifelongMOgal
There has been a proven inverse relationship between the amount spent on public education and student performance. The more we spend the worse it gets. Throwing good money after bad hasn't solved the problem. Spending smarter, not more thrown at teachers' unions would seem to be a starting place to cut out what is ineffective.
Exactly. Can't rep you again, though. People (mostly liberals) fail to see that money (well, other people's) doesn't solve everything.
It's always about grabbing more of the taxpayers' money for the lefties.
Meanwhile, an extensive article explaining what the real problem is in our schools:Be sure to read the subsections entitled, The Incubus of the Sixties and The Shock of College-Level Demands. They explain what went wrong and why: FAILED leftist education ideology. The Other Crisis in American Education - 91.11
What you describe here is scary. The case seems to be that the school system is not recognizing intelligence when it is seen and thus not promoting to higher-level courses or grades, or that they are just dumbing everything down to the lowest level of students (and/or worrying about problem kids) so the intelligent students and even the average students are not challenged adequately.
From personal experience, I know that it can be a little tough to get to where you need to be, at least before entering high school, since then you have options for different class levels. I was always the kid raising my hand to answer questions in my kindergarten class, and my teacher kept saying "Anyone other than Andrea?" She made me cry on picture day. My mom finally got the details out of me (I was only 5) and went to talk to the school. I got promoted to first grade shortly thereafter. The teacher did not take the initiative to see about promoting me, have a parent-teacher conference, nothing. Then to enter the gifted program a few years later, my brother and I had to take IQ tests, which are not cheap, to prove to the school that we could do the work...even though our classroom performance to that point should have been enough to prove that. This after both of us complaining of boredom and wanting to learn new stuff at home (a major clue to our parents that something was going wrong at school). We relocated a year later and my brother ended up skipping 2nd grade, and I believe the teacher did in fact bring that up to my parents so it could be handled properly.
Basically, it seems schools and teachers don't necessarily care too much about the students. This all happened about 20 years ago now, but it seems not much has changed. I feel our gov't-run schools are fundamentally broken and that teachers don't know how to do anything other than stand up front and lecture (and some can't even do that). They cannot deal with the vastly different children in their classrooms, with varying intelligence, motivation, behavior problems or lack thereof, extraversion, learning disabilities, etc. It can't be a one-size-fits-all approach anymore. And if teachers can't accommodate that, they shouldn't teach. Period. Paying them more will not solve the problem.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
People (mostly liberals) fail to see that money (well, other people's) doesn't solve everything.
