Education Stats: High On Cost, Low On Results

You want to talk about better teachers. When I was in college at a major university known for its' "College of Education", the number one reason cited why those becoming teachers were doing so was "I want my Summers Off" The PE teachers called it getting "Paid to Play" and "Working a 6 Hour Day" Enough Said.

The absolutely busiest time of the year for Maintenance departments ( if they've not been axed/decimated/reduced to a shell) is the summer break. While teachers and Administrators lolly-gag all JULY long, mayhaps take a class in June or August, we hard-working, under-funded,un-respected,decimated facilities people, whose ranks have been thinned each and every time there's a budget crunch are flat-out demoralized. As an EX Confidential Employee/ Management, I will tell you that my guys and gals were so demoralized that they contributed to the problem. "I don't care" attitude comes from the top-down from the Superintendent who treats people like cogs to the principals who have ridiculous expectations. After awhile it's obvious you don't count, and then you start seeing WHY there are UNIONS to begin with. We've all seen the largess and the reckless spending by administrators, school principals and then hear them speak of money issues. I got severely chastised and called an "Obstructionist" when I said "NO" to ridiculous ( water-less urinals...retro-fitting existing plumbing in asbestos-filled walls..) and to wasteful spending ( playing musical chairs with Computer Lab locations ). IF we simply took the business of BUILDING MANAGEMENT away from School Districts we'd see buildings last twice as long, we'd see more efficient use of our tax dollars and certainly see a stop to the abject mismanagement of public property. Next we should thin the herd in Administration.

2 issues. Merit pay for teachers. Horrifyingly bad teachers in many union areas get the SAME exact pay as excellent teachers. Why would a teacher bother to excel? No child left behind => Every child pulled down to the level of the least intelligent and least motivated. Again, why bother to excel when you aren't allowed to learn more quickly. All the money is being spent on forcing an education on the largely unwilling who don't want to learn. Maybe 2-1/2 issues, since a largely overlapping problem with NCLB is social passing. If a student doesn't know the material, they should be held back. End of story. Promoting children without the requisite knowledge holds back those who have the knowledge and sets the lacking children up to fail, since they know so much less than their peers. If the president feels having a playoff to assess the best football team in the nation is worth his time, shouldn't he feel that allowing students a chance to associate with the best academically is worth his time? I guess the BCS (unlike the NEA) didn't donate enough to his campaign!

It is amazing that those who run our educational system can no longer teach children how to read and write.The Capital may share some of the blame ,but we need professional people at a local level to recommend how to meet the students needs.How we have evolved to depend on politicians and lobbists to set policies and programs is ineffective.Secondly,too much weigh is assigned to apparent need.The more you can show need ,generally the more money you will get.I cannot imagine how some of the suggestions that are funded will help someone read or write any better.The main highly ineffective ,yet very expensive is spend millions to remodel the school.Another million dollar idea is to close the school and bus them some where else.If a VOUCHERED school works,why dont we pattern our system after there sucess?The school board can afford all these efforts but why not upgrade the teaching experience with aides and materials including computers, and ipods.By now a portion of our students should be able to graduate after 10 years and the last 2 or 1 years should be college or technical learning.

I worked for the largest teachers' labor union for 6 years and know these people inside and out. They are extremely active and extremely left politically - that's why they are so loved by our Socialist government. They spent hundreds of $M in 2004 (with no success) and more in 2008 (with a complete success). The unionized teachers care mostly about their unbelievable benefits and preserving status-quo. Do you know that in many states (like my home-state of NJ) teacher MUST belong to the union to be hired? Do you know that teacher is "certified" by the board of education if he/she "achieves" C-grade on the subject she's supposed to teach? These are all hard facts. Of course, there're many honest, hardworking teachers around; but the unions - National Education Association, foremost - are completely corrupt and left-wing driven. It's in the best interests of all Socialists - including our current administration - to keep people in the most ignorant, dumb state: it provides the most fertile ground for all "revolutionaries", starting with Lenin and all the way to today's Socialist-In-Chief. It's scary. Very scary.

Almost all governmental funded enterprises are very disfunctional.One reason is the way funding is approved.The more need,the more money is needed.This may sound good but is very flawed.As a matter of fact, if all the money isn't spent or hid ,the budject will be reduced.The government should use need as a component ,but it should also make sure the program is working or at least find those that are more sucessful.I find it amazing that schools cant teach students how to read or write.Their answer is a variety of expensive alternatives.What happened to basic education?I would imagined by now what i was taught in 12 years,could be taught in 10.A 12 grade education today should be producing way more college or technical qualified graduates.

I always love this year-round school and longer day remedy. I'm not a teacher but my kids are school age. When exactly will they be allowed to just be kids? No homework, no worries, just trying to figure out the most fun way to do nothing every day. You did it. I did it. The world functioned and America excelled for 200 years when kids played homerun derby, rode their bikes, went fishing or just stared up in the clouds laying in the grass of their backyard. Everything is being damaged and taken away from us today, let's not rob the young of their youth too.

Of course we spend the most and get the least. That is becoming the new American Way. Of course the teacher's union is going to oppose longer schoold days and year round attendance. If you give someone an above average salary, (most teachers I know make above the national average of 34k per year)and 16 weeks paid vacation per year plus health benefits, six hour work days, defined benefit pension, 14 holidays per year, plus sick time, why would they want to change and work like the rest of us. We also need to restore disipline in the schools via the teachers and get support and cooperation from the parents. This one will be a tough one, we would have to remove the lawyer's influence from the school system and require that all students learn and speak english, instead of printing everything and speaking in two or three different languages.

This illustrates a growing problem with our government. Just throwing money at something doesn't mean it will fix what ever problem you're trying to solve. What we need to be doing is spending money in the right places. One great place to start is to be able to fire a sub-par teacher, increase pay for the remaining teachers (attracting more highly talented individuals), increase schooling for teachers. It isn't surprising that our results are so low when I've had econ teachers that have never had a college level econ class. I've also had Spanish teacher's who's only qualification for the job was being able to speak Spanish. Then, in CA our high schools only require students to get a D in Algebra to graduate. Or two years of science, out of the 4 years in HS? We need better teachers, teaching subjects they have been trained in, and we need to just push our kids more. Tell me what math skills are really in between fractions (6th grade math) and algebra (high school graduation). That's 6 years to learn something that can relatively easily be done in one or two. So, throwing money at it this problem isn't going to fix it. We just need to expect more from our students and demand more from our teachers (and pay them accordingly). It really isn't a hard problem to figure out if you can step away from the BS politics of it.

It's really too bad that you repeatedly look at issues superficially despite efforts to better inform you.