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And are you saying less teachers will somehow improve the teaching??
I am saying the ranks are stretched to thin. How many people would want surgery from the surgeon ranked number 2.5 million or the attorney who has 2.3 million better than. There is competition on the part of some districts for the best and others are not as competitive or not as able to pay and that results in considerable salary differences. It is the reason why there is so much debate about teacher quality for all students. How good is baseball player number 2.4 million. Yes, we might be better off with fewer teachers and not havin to dip so deep into the pool. Perhaps with technology we will begin to make strides.
And are you saying less teachers will somehow improve the teaching??
Over 55 million and the provided link will say over 3 million teachers including not classified. I still work with a number that is dated but if 2.8 million is hard to believe over 3 million would be even more. It is easier to understate the number of than to overstate.
Center for Education Reform - K-12 Facts (http://www.edreform.com/Fast_Facts/K12_Facts/ - broken link)
There are also over 13,900 school districts competing for those teachers so again you can see the seeds of salary disparity.
Over 55 million and the provided link will say over 3 million teachers including not classified. I still work with a number that is dated but if 2.8 million is hard to believe over 3 million would be even more. It is easier to understate the number of than to overstate.
Center for Education Reform - K-12 Facts (http://www.edreform.com/Fast_Facts/K12_Facts/ - broken link)
There are also over 13,900 school districts competing for those teachers so again you can see the seeds of salary disparity.
I'd love to see a breakdown on average per pupil expenditure. Here, as of 2009, the state allotted about $7500 per student per year. Nearly $5000 less than the average from the site you linked to. The numbers for private schools are also lower here. I'm sure Michigan is nowhere near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to funding schools.
Liars figure and figures lie.
Let's see, if the $12,000 number is good and the average student to teacher ratio is 16:1 (another figure I take issue with as the average here is 22:1 which means some other state must be averaging 10 students per class to average with our 22) with the average teacher's salary being $49K, then the teacher's salary is just under 25% of the money brought in. I beleive the average here, in Michigan, for public schools is something in the mid 50's or about 1/3 of the funding brought in from the state (not counting local infrastructure monies). Assuming just awsome benefits, you still couldn't get to 50% of state monies going towards teacher salaries. It would be interesting to see where the money goes.
Teacher quality is directly correlated to student achievement. Cutting teacher salaries will lower teacher quality.
I'd love to see a breakdown on average per pupil expenditure. Here, as of 2009, the state allotted about $7500 per student per year. Nearly $5000 less than the average from the site you linked to. The numbers for private schools are also lower here. I'm sure Michigan is nowhere near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to funding schools.
Liars figure and figures lie.
Let's see, if the $12,000 number is good and the average student to teacher ratio is 16:1 (another figure I take issue with as the average here is 22:1 which means some other state must be averaging 10 students per class to average with our 22) with the average teacher's salary being $49K, then the teacher's salary is just under 25% of the money brought in. I beleive the average here, in Michigan, for public schools is something in the mid 50's or about 1/3 of the funding brought in from the state (not counting local infrastructure monies). Assuming just awsome benefits, you still couldn't get to 50% of state monies going towards teacher salaries. It would be interesting to see where the money goes.
Teacher quality is directly correlated to student achievement. Cutting teacher salaries will lower teacher quality.
The above is the link within the link that reconciles several different ways to calculate per pupil expenditure. One method that yields a lower number is based on opening enrollment and the one that yields a higher number is based on daily attendance. As you know attendance in some urban schools is terrible yet the cost of teacher salaries is the same even if the kids don't show up. That is another thread entirely. Schools staffed on numbers in September that are not functionally there in January. Not saying at all that lowering salaries is a good thing. However reducing class size is going deeper into the pool and that can be a challenge if the pool is not sufficient. When top districts reduce class size they are hiring more teachers, often the cream of the crop and reducing the number of top candidates available elsewhere.
I have heard that nurses in MN are well-paid; I'm assuming (dangerous, I know) that is in Mpls where nurses are unionized. Not so much here in metro Denver. I'd guess that's not the case in rural MN.
Many rural MN nurses are union as well-depends on which hospital system they work for and they are also well paid, often better paid, then their counterparts in the larger metro areas because supply is lower in the rural areas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
I'd love to see a breakdown on average per pupil expenditure. Here, as of 2009, the state allotted about $7500 per student per year. Nearly $5000 less than the average from the site you linked to. The numbers for private schools are also lower here. I'm sure Michigan is nowhere near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to funding schools.
Liars figure and figures lie.
Let's see, if the $12,000 number is good and the average student to teacher ratio is 16:1 (another figure I take issue with as the average here is 22:1 which means some other state must be averaging 10 students per class to average with our 22) with the average teacher's salary being $49K, then the teacher's salary is just under 25% of the money brought in. I beleive the average here, in Michigan, for public schools is something in the mid 50's or about 1/3 of the funding brought in from the state (not counting local infrastructure monies). Assuming just awsome benefits, you still couldn't get to 50% of state monies going towards teacher salaries. It would be interesting to see where the money goes.
Teacher quality is directly correlated to student achievement. Cutting teacher salaries will lower teacher quality.
Our district in Mn is in the $9500/per pupil range and that falls right in the middle of the state for per pupil average according to what I see published in our local papers. Our district is one of the top in the state and one of the top in the nation. I also wonder if your figure of $7500 is just what your school gets from the state-don't you get local money as well. I know our district is taking a $15,000,000 CUT from state funding but hoping, and probably will, make that up through local funds (increases in property taxes). We have a large district so that cut comes to under $100/YEAR in tax increases on average per family in the district.
Student characteristics such as poverty, non-English language status, and minority status are negatively correlated with student outcomes, and usually significantly so.
and:
However, the relative contribution of student population characteristics and school inputs is an important one to pursue further.
In other words, this study did not look at that issue. The results are listed by state, not by district.
How do you think that they figured out that your first quote (you know SES) was negatively correlated if they didn't measure it? What they did not do was separate out every single possible demographic but from your own quote you can see they looked at SES (you realize that all of those factors are part of the SES equation right?)
I have no idea what you are talking about district and state level for. I never said that TQ as the best predictor had a stronger r value at state or district level.
How do you think that they figured out that your first quote (you know SES) was negatively correlated if they didn't measure it? What they did not do was separate out every single possible demographic but from your own quote you can see they looked at SES (you realize that all of those factors are part of the SES equation right?)
I have no idea what you are talking about district and state level for. I never said that TQ as the best predictor had a stronger r value at state or district level.
They didn't measure it in that study.
P. 29: Before conducting the multivariate analysis, initial bivariate correlations of school resource variables and student demographic variables with state average student test scores were conducted to examine the relationships among variables and to select variables for inclusion in the multivariate equations. These analyses confirmed several findings reported elsewhere:
Student characteristics such as poverty, non-English language status, and minority status are negatively correlated with student outcomes, and usually significantly so.
The variables they used did not include SES. I will get in trouble if I quote any more from this article. The variables are on p. 29.
This study looks only at state scores on the NAEP exam, not at individual districts. And it does give the caveat that I posted previously.
In any event, I am all for improving teacher quality, and I do not want to give the impression that I am not.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 06-27-2010 at 09:33 PM..
Many rural MN nurses are union as well-depends on which hospital system they work for and they are also well paid, often better paid, then their counterparts in the larger metro areas because supply is lower in the rural areas.
Our district in Mn is in the $9500/per pupil range and that falls right in the middle of the state for per pupil average according to what I see published in our local papers. Our district is one of the top in the state and one of the top in the nation. I also wonder if your figure of $7500 is just what your school gets from the state-don't you get local money as well. I know our district is taking a $15,000,000 CUT from state funding but hoping, and probably will, make that up through local funds (increases in property taxes). We have a large district so that cut comes to under $100/YEAR in tax increases on average per family in the district.
I was able to find one district spending over $10K per student. They had a 20:1 student to teacher ratio. I'd really love to see where the averages on the center for reform's website come from. I don't know of a single public school at a 16:1 ratio or of a single district that spends $12K per pupil let alone those being the averages.
I was able to find one district spending over $10K per student. They had a 20:1 student to teacher ratio. I'd really love to see where the averages on the center for reform's website come from. I don't know of a single public school at a 16:1 ratio or of a single district that spends $12K per pupil let alone those being the averages.
It comes from converting a ratio based on opening enrollment to one based on average daily attendance. How much it actually cost after the fact compared to at the very beginning.
Student-teacher ratio is greatly affected by the special education population. At our school, for example, we have ten SPED teachers whose ratios are very low compared to the regular classroom. The self-contained class has about 10 students with a teacher and an assistant. The other teachers have a regular schedule of 6 blocks of students on an A/B block schedule, but their classes are limited to about 12-15 students, giving them a class load significantly lower than the typical teacher.
At the other extreme, the art, choral music, band, and PE classes are exempt from the state limits on class size (max. 33 in HS). One art teacher took 37 badly behaved Art I students to lunch last year. She did not have a good year.
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