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As the Carly Simon song says...."you probably think this song is about you" and I'm assuming you're talking about me.
I'm not opposed to a tax increase (I supported the re-upping of the 1 cent SPLOST for schools) as long as it is truly necessary and FAIR. You seem to ignore that part of my comments and harp on "conservative" and other buzzwords.
The problem we often experience is that raisng taxes is used as the first choice and not the last. We go right to soaking the taxpayer instead of first reducing spending and becoming more efficient. I have 3 children in Cobb County schools and if there was truly a choice between 40 student class sizes or higher taxes, then I'd be OK with a tax increase, but I would also make it contingent on repeal when tax collections resume at previous levels.
EDIT: Another thing that bears mentioning and helps explain my general feelings....families and individuals don't have the luxury of raising their salaries when taxes increase, the way government can just raise taxes. Something else has to be cut to balance the family budget. I think some people forget this simple fact when they ridicule those of us who object to raising taxes as the knee jerk reaction to every problem. We constantly hear the mantra that the world will fall apart if we don't raise taxes, but the world usually keeps on turning.
Yep. I don't fail to understand the basis of your concerns. At least, I think I understand. The difference between us here is that a couple of weeks ago when there was alarm over Fulton's $100 million shortfall it struck me as obvious that (a) Cobb would be in a similar position and (b) there just isn't anything like $100 million worth of "bloat", "overhead" to cut out of CCSD's budget, therefore there would be drastic impacts in the classroom.
You considered neither of those things to be in the least bit obvious and therefore concluded that I was a expressing a "knee-jerk" enthusiasm for raising taxes for every little thing. Your extra comments above still harp on that same theme ... people don't understand about family budgets, "knee jerk reaction" etc.
However, you're now also saying oh well if there's a serious crisis here, of course you wouldn't reject a tax increase out of hand. I've just been assuming that we were talking about a serious crisis, all along, and that was the reason I was saying I would prefer a millage increase over devastating the schools. But (if my vague recollection is correct), you suggested language like "devastation" was overreaction. As I said before, I hope you're right.
I have 3 children in Cobb County schools and if there was truly a choice between 40 student class sizes or higher taxes, then I'd be OK with a tax increase, but I would also make it contingent on repeal when tax collections resume at previous levels.
...
We constantly hear the mantra that the world will fall apart if we don't raise taxes, but the world usually keeps on turning.
The world will assuredly keep turning if your children (or some Cobb county students) find themselves in 40 student class sizes next year, and this appears very likely to be the case. A tax increase doesn't seem to be on the table, and since teacher salaries take up most of the school system budget, getting rid of teachers by increasing class sizes to maximum is the only place that sufficiently large savings can be found.
Rainy and Neil, you are both excellent wordsmiths because I find myself agreeing with you both.
I posted earlier about reducing central office staff to trim a budget before school operations are tampered with because of the same concerns that Neil has brought up. How do we know that Cobb or any other school district looking to cut budgets have started here first? I know of school principals that got reassigned to central office jobs nearing 6 figures because they were having serious difficulties in the school. Why pay central office types salaries like this? How much of the budget is going to this kind of middle man when it should be going straight to the school? How do we as taxpayers know that the central office is being run as efficiently as possible when it comes time to cut expenses?
Something in me thinks it is this type of person who leaks threats of 40 student classrooms to get the public to agree to a tax hike so their job (which should be the first to go) can be safe. Am I too jaded or overly skeptical to think this?
Hi Saintmarks - good points, of course. We don't entirely have to speculate. Here's what the Cobb district is currently saying about where they're proposing to cut: http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice...ddOnSingle.pdf
Edit (more info): Note also that according to the AJC article at the top of this thread, the 40 student number occur because the state maximum of 32 students per high school class is actually an average. When you factor in gifted and AP classes which are limited to 20 students by a state law that isn't being changed, and science labs that can't accommodate more than 30 or so at most, some other classes have to be much bigger in order to bring the average up.
By the way, all of my own child's academic classes would fall under the 20 student limit, unless the school board decides to cut back AP offerings. I'm not concerned for my own family so much as for everyone.
Last edited by RainyRainyDay; 04-02-2010 at 05:52 PM..
Hi Saintmarks - good points, of course. We don't entirely have to speculate. Here's what the Cobb district is currently saying about where they're proposing to cut: http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice...ddOnSingle.pdf
Thanks for the link. They are cutting central staff I see, $8,100,00.00. Wonder what that percenatge is to the overall central office budget? Is that in ratio to the maximum class size reduction which at $53 mil is almost half the deficit and the one causing the most ire in the general public? Is that a reasonable sacrifice in central staff compared to the burden it will put on teachers?
Of all my tax dollars, the ones going to support my local schools are the ones I most gladly see being pried from my stingy fist.
A university prof with a lecture class of hundreds of students does not grade those students' papers. As well as attending the huge lecture sessions, students are typically assigned to a tutorial section or lab where they have the opportunity to work with other students and a teaching assistant in a small group setting. The grading is done by teaching assistants, who are typically graduate students.
There's no comparison here with a high school teacher who is expected to lecture, lead discussions, advise, facilitate and do all the grading for his or her classes, single-handed.
It is clear you are clueless. So just stop there
You are welcome to visit the social sciences/english/anthropology/geography/mathematics departments of UGA/GSU/KSU/GsU etc and tell that to the students and teachers. Don't hide behind the internet with your false claims of something you saw in a movie.
You are welcome to visit the social sciences/english/anthropology/geography/mathematics departments of UGA/GSU/KSU/GsU etc and tell that to the students and teachers. Don't hide behind the internet with your false claims of something you saw in a movie.
Uh, I have a lot of personal experience in academia and come from a family of academics. However, I have no direct experience of Georgia universities. I had no idea they were as pathetic as you imply.
However, you're now also saying oh well if there's a serious crisis here, of course you wouldn't reject a tax increase out of hand. I've just been assuming that we were talking about a serious crisis, all along, and that was the reason I was saying I would prefer a millage increase over devastating the schools. But (if my vague recollection is correct), you suggested language like "devastation" was overreaction. As I said before, I hope you're right.
No, what I'm saying is that many time there is hysteria about a "crisis" and many times there are dire predictions of what will happen if taxes aren't raised. Those dire predictions are almost always overstated and made to elicit an emotional response (our kids will suffer...old people will die in the streets...etc).
I'm not saying that Cobb isn't up against a budget shortfall, and possibly needs additional money to avoid cutting to the bone, and my point is that if that is truly the fiscal situation we're in, then OK. My point that you seem to ignore or miss is that tax increases should be the action of last resort. Government and schools should exhaust all other means of solving problems first. Tax money is not money the government generates or is entitled to, but rather is earned by citizens, and in a down or fragile economy, increases in taxes are always a bad thing. Again, if it's the last resort, then OK, but it should really be the last resort.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,763,471 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay
A university prof with a lecture class of hundreds of students does not grade those students' papers. As well as attending the huge lecture sessions, students are typically assigned to a tutorial section or lab where they have the opportunity to work with other students and a teaching assistant in a small group setting. The grading is done by teaching assistants, who are typically graduate students.
There's no comparison here with a high school teacher who is expected to lecture, lead discussions, advise, facilitate and do all the grading for his or her classes, single-handed.
That is true. There is no comparison at all. Professors mainly do research and publish stuff. The class might have their name on it but a student is lucky if the professor actually "teaches" at all.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,763,471 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by MovedfromFL
I used to teach in FL at an overcrowded school. We had 36 4th graders in one classroom, but there were two certified teachers. (this was temporary while we waited for the new building to be constructed) It was a very bad situation every day. A workload of 30+ students for one teacher would be unheard of in terms of paperwork and just safety of the students. For example, in 4th grade, FL required 7+ letter grades for 5 subjects for each student! That's at least 35 graded work samples for each student x 30 students per marking period. That works out to 1,050 grades to process per marking period for every 4th and 5th grade teacher.
Couple this with the drastic pay cuts that our teachers are taking this year and it is just sickening.
You simply cannot conduct a hand on science lab with 35-40 students. The planning, set up, materials, and physical space requirements would not be workable in most cases. How can we even pretend we are preparing our kids for the future in math and science with these kinds of conditions?
We are going to burn out a lot of teachers in the next few years. With layoffs, we will also lose a lot of teachers from the profession forever. These are teachers that the district has spent a lot of money on in terms of recruitment, training, continuing education, etc. If funding comes back and we need to hire more teachers, all of the up front costs will have to be repeated. Teachers can't afford to sit and wait for a teaching job to maybe open up sometime in the next 1-3 years. Many will retrain for other careers. Some will move if they are able to (I am). Others will retire because they are unable to handle the workload of having 40 students in each class.
If these types of radical proposals are being floated in Cobb, imagine what is happening in the smaller, less well to do districts.
When I was in grammar school in the 60s it was the same way. We had about 32 (counting my class picture from then) but we had our main teacher and a student teacher who was usually a college student studying to be a teacher in the class 4 days of the 5 day week. The main teacher was in the school all year but the student teachers only did a semester- after Christmas a new one came in.
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