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No kidding - man, I am trying to tell my husband that, but he has his heart set on Florida and I figure, we better do it know while we are in our 30's before we are not attractive to employers anymore.
I personally feel that people need to educate themselves better before they are so quick to pull that lever (or fill in the dot). When the property tax reform was put up on the ballett where the hell do you think the money was going to come from to make up the difference?
It's an entitlement thing. The money should always come out of someone else's pocket!!
Florida needs to drastically cut the benefits and money that flows out of the state coffers into places the government has no business. Families.
We have no business supporting unwed mothers, paying for state funded abortions, worrying about child support or visitation, buying food stamps, or paying welfare or any other nonsense. People make these decisions without my input, and I'll be damned if my money has to pay them for their problems. Let their own families take care of them.
I agree 100%. I will not support giving any more money to the State of Florida until they get their priorities straight.
It is a shame that we have the lowest paid State Troopers in the country, and yet every year the State keeps cutting their budget. But this year the State cut the FHP budget, but wouldn't cut funding for drug rehab centers...
So drug addicts are more important to the State of Florida than state troopers are?
I won't support giving the State any more money until they get the priorities straight.
The state needs to take a serious look at legalizing slots in FL. Longtime convervative states on gambling have recently legalized slots themselves; Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, etc... to help generate money to offset huge state budget shortfalls.
Just look at how much profit the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino here in Tampa alone is making even in a tough economy. They've just proposed an expansion at all four casino locations in FL. The largest of which will be in Tampa, a $1 billion expansion that will be 4x as large as the hotel/casino what currently sits on the property. Not to mention the instant $288 million the tribe has offered the state to pass the proposal. In the mist of a deep recession, the Seminole(and Miccosukee) tribe is still pulling in huge profits.
The state revenue generated by slots could help balance the state budget, maintain or lower FL taxes and help fund education, emergency and social services, and also help compensate Citizens Insurance and/or create a state disaster relief fund. It will also create jobs and generate and attract tourists and tourist dollars worldwide.
"Dispense with the education of the schools, and have good masters at home instead."
Good education starts with the family and self-discipline. In that framework, public schools sometimes work, sometimes they don't.
I think it would be better to invest in quality people with real life experience to teach young people rather than an infrastructure in which to place inexperienced graduates with the over-priced degree in "education" and pretensions of professionalism. Most county school boards are clubs for cronyism.
Until we use the potential of industrial society to re-arrange the life cycle, humanity will not solve the problem of how to educate its children.
As it is, we have cleptomaniacs in the financial system and in government, so how is more funding going to make government schools competitive? Competitive in what?
I do understand what you are saying, and have always believed that education starts at home. However, we all know that a lot of homes these days are leaving a lot to be desired as are the school systems. Where I grew up, education still started at home, and parents were very much involved in the school system etc. The school paid over 15k per student which is 9K above the national average (came from city and property taxes) which afforded a huge science lab, major arts and music programs, a planetarium to learn astronomy, amazing field trips, small classes and outstanding teachers. The teachers were required to have a masters degree to teach in our school system. Our school system has a 98% graduation rate, and a 90% college attendance rate.
I don't lump education into book smarts, but an overall well-rounded contributing member of society where programs instill the desire to learn and not just wrote memorization that is required to pass some standardized testing, nor do I think that we can rely on "family" to instill proper education when the fabric of true family is failing in this country everyday. This is not always due to the family, but the divorce rate, the television, the economy, dual working parents, overuse of daycare due to circumstances brought on by this country's economy, underpaid working parents who might be working multiple jobs to put food on plates etc.
I will never ever feel that money in tax dollars spent on the youth of the country is misappropriated funds. There are far more ridiculous things this country wishes to spend our hard earned money on. Also, Florida will continue to fail in the schools systems for ideals such as this, and that is why school levys always fail too here in FL. No one seems realistic, as much of the population raised their kids already, most likely in other states, and would rather get the money for themselves then to pass a potential levy that would increase taxes, but help our schools. I think we might be the only state that is laying off a large percentage of their teachers when other states are hiring them.
I also believe that we should increase the salaries of teachers here which would invest in them. However, when you say to spend the money on them to teach out children, it goes both ways. They have to get educated somewhere too. Can't cut one type of education budget to spend in another. I also believe that most teachers would be insulted to hear you call their degree over-priced. Teachers are underappreciated. It is a sign of our school system that we must hire underqualified people here in FL. If we offered more to them, the students etc, you'd have more "quality" teachers applying.
... Where I grew up, education still started at home, and parents were very much involved in the school system etc. ...
... nor do I think that we can rely on "family" to instill proper education when the fabric of true family is failing in this country everyday. This is not always due to the family, but the divorce rate, the television, the economy, dual working parents, overuse of daycare due to circumstances brought on by this country's economy, underpaid working parents who might be working multiple jobs to put food on plates etc. ...
I also believe that we should increase the salaries of teachers here which would invest in them ... I also believe that most teachers would be insulted to hear you call their degree over-priced. Teachers are underappreciated. It is a sign of our school system that we must hire underqualified people here in FL. If we offered more to them, the students etc, you'd have more "quality" teachers applying.
Thank you for a very thoughtful post.
If family fails, then the society is not worth putting energy into. As I mentioned in the previous post, until we use the potential of industrial society to re-arrange the life cycle, humanity will not solve the problem of how to educate its children.
Also please do not misinterpret the comment on overpriced education, it is a mathematical statement that you illustrate yourself in your own words when describing the economy.
So I disagree in the sense that we must still rely on family (actually you sort of contradict yourself), that is the root of the problem, our economic system works against it, and I have no confidence that the public school system, by virtue of funding crony education boards and unproductive construction with taxpayer money, will solve anything.
I do agree, however, that, at least in principle, we should fund "quality" people, and not only people with an "education" degree that cost them too much and pays them too little - therefore overpriced, and what can one conclude about the judgment of such people? - but also in people with experience of the real world, successful family and business people, and pay them accordingly.
Why should I leave my business to teach if the message that I receive from the price mechanism is that only a fool or a highly idealistic person - probably both - would ever pursue such a course of action?
I do have a vocation to teach, but I will do it part time at a private school or home school, it's mathematical.
We can change the equation, but not with the class of people and mentality in this country right now, the society is at the acute stage of hyper-materialism and still high on the money supply.
If family fails, then the society is not worth putting energy into. As I mentioned in the previous post, until we use the potential of industrial society to re-arrange the life cycle, humanity will not solve the problem of how to educate its children.
Also please do not misinterpret the comment on overpriced education, it is a mathematical statement that you illustrate yourself in your own words when describing the economy.
So I disagree in the sense that we must still rely on family (actually you sort of contradict yourself), that is the root of the problem, our economic system works against it, and I have no confidence that the public school system, by virtue of funding crony education boards and unproductive construction with taxpayer money, will solve anything.
I do agree, however, that, at least in principle, we should fund "quality" people, and not only people with an "education" degree that cost them too much and pays them too little - therefore overpriced, and what can one conclude about the judgment of such people? - but also in people with experience of the real world, successful family and business people, and pay them accordingly.
Why should I leave my business to teach if the message that I receive from the price mechanism is that only a fool or a highly idealistic person - probably both - would ever pursue such a course of action?
I do have a vocation to teach, but I will do it part time at a private school or home school, it's mathematical.
We can change the equation, but not with the class of people and mentality in this country right now, the society is at the acute stage of hyper-materialism and still high on the money supply.
I will simply say that in total, I do not disagree with you. Some of my best college professors were both practical and applied in their experience, and thus able to teach both angles.
However, I will stand by what I said that taxes will help to better the school system if for nothing else offer things that FL does not currently to their children. However, if we want to talk real change, then yes, you make the point clearly....it can not just happen with tax dollars, and we can not entrust that our tax money will be appropriately spent and not squandered away by the croney school board. Taxes though, have been spent to better schools even back when the foundation of true family, forthought and values mattered. The country does have to change drastically for education to really be improved. I have long said that the public education system throughout the country is in serious turmoil. We no longer teach anything except "accepted" cirriculum (whatever that means), we teach soley to a test, we bring in propaganda and more ideals that will continue the country in the downward spiral it is in. Although, I digress.
I don't disagree with what you are saying at all, but the "fix" you speak of might be less realistic in the grand scheme of things unfortunately.
Florida needs to drastically cut the benefits and money that flows out of the state coffers into places the government has no business. Families.
We have no business supporting unwed mothers, paying for state funded abortions, worrying about child support or visitation, buying food stamps, or paying welfare or any other nonsense. People make these decisions without my input, and I'll be damned if my money has to pay them for their problems. Let their own families take care of them.
Do you have figures of how the state of FL expends its funds? Do you know the percentage of state funds that are actually allocated to the areas you mentioned? Just curious, that is a problem, but how much of the problem.
When Jeb was governor, didn't we have a surplus, so where did all the money go?
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