Posted on 04/26/2010 6:58:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The contestant was a seventh grade teacher. She couldn't do the fifth grade work. At the end of the show, she had to face the camera and say "My name is Sally Smith and I may teach seventh grade, but I am not smarter than a fifth grader."
Right there, people all across the country should have been getting out of their chairs shouting, "We've got a problem!"
The teacher unions need to be broken.
A good portion of the money collected from taxes does not go directly to the students education. A huge chunk goes to administrative jobs. Like the secretary to the assistant vice principal. When I was a kid there wasn’t even an assistant vice principal let alone one with a secretary.
And teachers unions don’t really care about you childs education either. The head of the teachers union in N.J. is paid a half million dollars a year. He doesn’t even teach.
N.J. residents pay more for education than any other State except N.Y. and the test scores are only a fraction above the State that pays the least.
Education has become an insatiable greedy monster.
We need to pay our teachers more so they'll have incentive to work harder as teachers and so they won't HAVE to embarass themselves on tv for money. /sarc
“Why not provide through the public and the private sector a rich stew of learning systems and allow everyone a government voucher to learn through one of these systems? Is there much doubt that people who choose the most interesting way for themselves to learn will learn more easily and more joyfully? These people might well acquire that priceless gift of a lifelong lust for learning.”
Yet another author who can point to problems with education by govenment , but then reverts to more “hair of the dog” to solve them - vouchers and “accountability” (and “accountability” to whom one might ask?)
The private sector already provides the “rich stew” he is looking for. All that is needed is the complete defunding and dismantlement of the state sector.
When you say huge chunk of the money that goes into the education system does not go directly to the students’ education what is the percentage? 66%, 75%, 90%?
Any one have an answer?
So -- how well has that worked?
Why not try a school system with non-union teachers who are really passionate about teaching? Oh wait -- those are charter schools.
Spot on in California a teacher can earn 35.00 to$45.00 an hour for teaching K1 to 12 grades not bad work if you can get it.
GCC Ping!
That’s a really good question. One that the unions wouldn’t want to be made common knowledge, I’ll bet.
In N.J. it’s even more convoluted because of what’s called Abbott Districts. 31 school districts get tax money from the rest of the state.
Years ago it would have been simple to figure.
1. teachers salary
2. materials, supplies, books.
3. building cost and maintenance
4. Administrative costs.
Now, you would have to add unused showers in the gym, swimming pools, ski trips, etc. teachers lounges, teachers weekends in resorts,
new sod for the football field, etc.etc.
Next will be money for the girls wrestling team.
The teacher unions need to be broken.
In my NE Blue State - education budgets have risen by 7-8% per year for many years, while enrolled students have declined steadily by 1-2% per year. Where does that money go?
My own child’s school has administrators for everything. Paid lunch monitors, 1 person to simply take attendance, multiple library staff. They have become an army, all automatically enrolled in the union they day they start.
What we need is an accountable, diverse, market-driven system available to children and to adults of all ages so that we are motivated to learn and to keep learning all our lives. What is the best hope for Social Security entitlement stability? Create a system in which those near retirement can learn to do a job that they love, which allows them to contribute rather than consume, and which keeps them active and healthy.
This sounds like nothing but a lot of market-driven lipstick-on-a-pig double-talk.
How about we try creating a system where those of us near retirement age can actually RETIRE without some market driven libertarian pinhead trying to turn us into "contributors" instead of "consumers".
Darn "market-driven" pseudo-conservatives are no different than the marxist 'rats.
Hand a child one of these with K-12 software preloaded. You'll pay much less than $1,000, and the Great NEA Scam is all over. High-overhead, Prussian-style classroom instruction using existing, state prison-style infrastructure is as dead as buggy-whip manufacturing, it's just still kicking hard enough to hit contribution-hungry politicians in the butt now and again. :)
It is terrible, in my state a 74 yr old man has been running the teachers union since I was a child (a long time ago), he’s also a prominant democrat. I heard on the radio this morning that he has such a stranglehold on the state that he actually sits in on legislature sessions and gives thumbs up or thumbs down on laws that impact all of the citizens of our state. It is disgusting.
Right. Many years ago, unions were a good thing. Now they are so corrupt that they are tearing this country apart.
Disgusting indeed.
The primary function of “public education”
now is the rejection of the Christian value system.
I have a relative that has attempted to talk us out of homeschooling with the argument of
“they won’t be exposed to the diversity of ideas that they would be in public school”
to which I reply
“that’s the whole point of homeschooling”
Government? Government? What is this man suggesting? That we expand the government school socialist entitlement to **all** people.
Wow! Talk about making a serious government created problem even worse!
We already have a system of vouchers on the college level. ( Pell Grants, and student loans) So?...What happens every time Pell Grants and student loans are increased? Yep! The colleges and universities raise their tuitions!
We will see the same phenomenon if we have universal government vouchers for private K-12 education, or, as this author suggests, lifetime adult education.
And you are right about the testing. Who will be in charge of making people accountable? My bet is it will be the Marxists who will stand at the gates that control the lives and careers of the people.
I remember a report was released in the LA Times back in the 90’s about an audit of the Los Angeles School district that showed 90% of every dollar spent went to non classroom expenses.
I doubt it has gotten any better today.
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