Posted on 06/18/2006 5:50:31 AM PDT by Valin
Nothing like a little nuance on Sunday morn.
Myths are the worst possible of lies, The Big Lie, unless they point to the truth.
No amount of money can "fix" public schools at this point. More money means more of the same, only moreso.
About ten or eleven years ago I had a short discussion with Oliver North on his radio program about this very subject. Nothing seems to change much unfortunately. The croaking death of the MSM may help.
Yes, they certainly do. However, they don't get a free-time "planning period" built into their day.
The best start towards a good education would be for the schools to have the right to kick out the kids who are disruptive, disrespectful and refuse to learn. You cannot work with the product of a dysfunctional home who chooses to bring that same dysfunction into the classroom. This article only demonstrates one side of the coin.
That said, the unions, themselves, hurt new teachers. Since the people at the top of the union are the ones doing the bargaining, they tend to starve out the new teachers so that the bulk of the money is spread around among those who have been there the longest (ie, themselves). While experience is rewarded in any job, the spread is often disproportionate among teachers. The result is that sometimes the best of the teachers leave early on for something that will pay better.
It's the Democrat solution to all problems. After much deep thought (sarc.) they arise and shout "Throw more money at it!" (and raise taxes to pay for it).
Years ago (almost 12 years) I read an article by Cal Thomas that made so much sense. He said the public schools weren't going to change unless they were motivated to, and they wouldn't be motivated to unless people starting pulling their kids out of the system "en masse." It was that article that motivated us to homeschool. Nothing has changed, well, that's not exactly true...schools have gotten worse especially in the area of pushing liberal propoganda on the kids.
Oops, forgot to finish reading. Oh, well.
Would you say gee, I should have given him more money.....or would you say gee, I've been bent over?
That usually gets people thinking.
And its corollary: more money for schools equals better schools.
The correct conclusion, one unassailable on the facts, is that more money for schools equals more expensive schools. If the education improves with the additional expenditures, then it is arguable that the additional costs are worth it. But if the quality of education declines or remains constant while the cost increases, then the per-unit value of that education (the "efficiency" if you will) has decreased.
I'll leave it to you to decide whether the cost of education has increased, and whether the quality of education has risen correspondingly, remained static, or declined.
Probably. It would at least give competition for the "public school dollars" to non-public schools.
We did take advantage of the "dual credit" program when my son was in high school. He was able to get his AA during his high school years, and it was tuition free because it was supported by the public school system, and I guess that's a sort of voucher program. (finally reaped some of the benefit of all those tax dollars we had been paying into education.)
"concommitant"(sic)Now that's an educators word!
Salaries may be low, but total compensation is not. My mother was a grade-school teacher and complained that I made more right out of engineering school than she made after 25+ years of teaching. True, if you just looked at salaries, but she also (a) never paid into Social Security; (b) had a pension (which she is now drawing) worth 95% of her ending salary for the rest of her life, plus full medical. When I did the math and amortized her salary and all the bennies for a life expectancy of 80 years, she was pulling in ~$65K/year (I didn't even factor in the 3 month vacations).
Of course, the other side is that the home schooled children win all the prizes and a hugely disproportionate share of seats in competetive colleges. The Baptists were expected to withdraw their children from government schools by vote at their convention this week.
More schools will close, but many will remain. Suburbs are happy with their schools, and poor will undoubtably take whatever they can get.
There's nothing new here. The school establishment knows the real facts, and the public chooses to remain ignorant. Nothing to see, everybody move along ...
Does the Palm Beach story get any ink or TV time?
I was certainly unaware of it.
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