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A sobering look at Georgia's educational budget woes

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by novelist_wannabe, Mar 7, 2010.

  1. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    I don't want an average working stiff teaching my kids, I think a teacher should be much more valuable than that.
     
  2. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Well, if we get all the kids into private schools ... oh wait, that won't solve that problem, now will it?

    As long as part of the charge of a public-school system is to attempt to educate people who don't want to be educated, public schools will continue to struggle.

    Find a way to drive home the value of education and you might start getting somewhere. On the other hand, bring the level of education for everyone up and all you've really done is raise the floor. If everyone has a high-school diploma, then a high-school diploma ceases to be special.

    And the idea that teachers shouldn't get raises is absurd. No one would work in the same job for 20 years for the same pay. Why should teachers be expected to do that just because the taxpayer pays their salary?
     
  3. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Yeah, Wolv apparently wants to utterly disregard the laws of economics when it comes to paying for education. You might as well walk into a Mercedes dealership with the down payment for a Hyundai and demand to be allowed to buy a car.
     
  4. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    A lot of teachers make the same sweeping generalization about newspapers.
     
  5. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    I took my kids out of private schools and put them in our public schools, and I couldn't be happier. I'm in not in a district that by any stretch of the imagination would be considered top shelf.

    However, I find that my kids are able to thrive and follow their interests, that the student population is far more diverse (giving my kids a range of experiences at dealing with many different kinds of people), and that the parental politicking and kowtowing to people for their skills at writing big checks is way, way, way, way, way down. Oh, by the way, we also found out the actual education was better, especially in math.

    Granted, I'll give you that I live in a weird area of the country when it comes to the private-public competition. Here, the Catholic schools have been able to not worry about competition, while the public schools bend over backward to show you to sell you. With the economy (and the Catholic church) as it is, the Catholic schools are being caught flat-footed as people discover there are other, cheaper options that turn out to be better than they'd thought. When we first switched, other parents came up whispering to us like we were members of the French Underground, wondering how they could join our cause. Now the Catholic guilt isn't there so much anymore.

    You might argue this is the exact reason why private schools provide competition that public schools need, and I might agree with you in part. On the other hand, a big reason why the public schools have more to offer is because they have to in order to handle a general population. In the Catholic schools, if you didn't have a certain kind of kid, the school didn't know what the fuck to do. And the profanity is very intentional to give an idea just how flabbergasted they would get.

    (One more thing: my next-door neighbor teaches at a Catholic school that, in a rarity for the south suburbs of Chicago, is NOT populated by parish kids, instead mostly by city kids -- mostly black -- whose parents didn't want them in Chicago neighborhood schools. She said she's never been happier in her job, because parish politics don't matter anymore, and the people who are sending their kids aren't doing so because their parents did, but because they're committed to the school.)
     
  6. WolvEagle

    WolvEagle Well-Known Member

    I never said that.

    My points are these:

    1. Teachers should have to pay some money for their benefits, just like us working stiffs. Legacy costs are killing school districts in my neck of the woods. Employee costs are 80 percent or so of many districts' budgets in my area. School districts cannot survive like that.

    2. There is no justification for small school districts in suburban areas. Merging small districts would eliminate duplicative administrative salaries and save per-unit costs on things like copy paper, food, school buses, etc., etc., etc.

    That is my point - nothing more, nothing less.
     
  7. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Private school teachers most often are lower paid than public school teachers. Private schools also do not for the most part recognize anything to do with special education.

    Trust me, you are getting better teachers at a public school.
     
  8. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Wolve, I agree the small districts should be merged, but you realize that when districts do this they are eliminating some of the upper crust positions who would be doing the merging in the first place.

    No one is going to cut their own throat.
     
  9. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    There's plenty of educational research out there that shows that smaller classes/schools produce better results.

    And if the benefits are part of the compensation package, then what does it matter how much they pay? If you force them to start paying, then you've effectively given them a pay cut, which isn't gonna do much for morale/results. If you increase their salary so they can pay for the benefits, then what was the point?
     
  10. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Education is a labor-intensive activity that requires highly skilled labor to be performed well. Ergo, it's expensive, or else it's an inferior product.
    It never fails to amaze me the high percentage of American employees of other businesses who, when offered the opportunity to be a kind of boss of others, namely public employees, immediately demand wage cuts. Fine. Just don't be bitching on this board about furloughs or benefit cuts at YOUR newspaper or other place of employment.
     
  11. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    Well, they don't spend money on steel, lumber, and electronics, for example, like a construction company. Your major cost should be labor if you don't manufacture anything.

    If the amount of state funding they receive is directly tied to enrollment ($x amount in direct state aid per enrolled student, I think it's about 6K in my state), then it is a smart move that more than pays for itself. Add 20-30 kids to your district, and you've added $120,000-to-$180,000 to your budget.


    And if the public schools could select who they choose to enroll, they'd be far better than they are. But they can't. They have to take everyone. It's easy for a private school to simply eliminate the problems public schools can't by simply not accepting them for admission.
     
  12. WolvEagle

    WolvEagle Well-Known Member

    That's why it hasn't happened in our coverage area. No one wants to surrender their power, even if it's for the well-being of the schools. The schools would need roughly the same number of teachers because the number of children would remain the same. It's the higher-ups that would hit the road.
     
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