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Forums - General - US Education Reform

That Guy on 27 March 2009
Kasz216 said:
That Guy said:

This became an interesting topic on like page 20 of another thread, and I think it deserves its own thread.

Obviously the US Education system needs fixing. Kids keep falling through the cracks, Teachers are overworked and underpaid. Incompetant teachers with tenure are pretty much untouchable due to crazy union laws. How would YOU fix it?


You'd be surprised.

The Department of Education in cleveland used to have a website where you could see what teachers made.  They made so much that the site got taken down because people got pissed.

For example Cleveland City schools are facing a shortfall of 83 million dollars.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/01/budget_deficit_could_force_cle.html

This equals the average pay and benefits of 900 teachers.

So a quick review of the math.

83 million/900 teachers =  $92,222.23

$90,000 a year isn't underpaid for 9 months work.   That's 10K a month.

Cleveland City schools are some of the worst in the area.

It's not a matter of funds in Clevelands case at the very least.

 

The average Salary for a teacher is something like 50K not counting Benefits... which almost all of them get.


I mean 50K for 9 months work I wouldn't call underpaid... espeically when most classes the same syllabus and assignments can be used year after year.

These numbers are straight from the AFT by the way. (American Federation of Teachers.)

 

Pay + Benefits =/= Pay.

 

When you get employed for say, 10 bucks an hour, the employer also has to pay workman's comp and insurance and whatever, so it may end up being more like 20 bucks an hour that the employer has to dish out. 

A teacher may probably more realistically see 40k of that in actual pay (before taxes); but I suppose they do get a killer insurance plan. (Not sure just speculating)



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mesoteto on 27 March 2009

My wife make just ofer 30k and does have a killer insurance plan since she is a government employee



 

Kasz216 on 27 March 2009
That Guy said:
Kasz216 said:
That Guy said:

This became an interesting topic on like page 20 of another thread, and I think it deserves its own thread.

Obviously the US Education system needs fixing. Kids keep falling through the cracks, Teachers are overworked and underpaid. Incompetant teachers with tenure are pretty much untouchable due to crazy union laws. How would YOU fix it?


You'd be surprised.

The Department of Education in cleveland used to have a website where you could see what teachers made.  They made so much that the site got taken down because people got pissed.

For example Cleveland City schools are facing a shortfall of 83 million dollars.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/01/budget_deficit_could_force_cle.html

This equals the average pay and benefits of 900 teachers.

So a quick review of the math.

83 million/900 teachers =  $92,222.23

$90,000 a year isn't underpaid for 9 months work.   That's 10K a month.

Cleveland City schools are some of the worst in the area.

It's not a matter of funds in Clevelands case at the very least.

 

The average Salary for a teacher is something like 50K not counting Benefits... which almost all of them get.


I mean 50K for 9 months work I wouldn't call underpaid... espeically when most classes the same syllabus and assignments can be used year after year.

These numbers are straight from the AFT by the way. (American Federation of Teachers.)

 

Pay + Benefits =/= Pay.

 

When you get employed for say, 10 bucks an hour, the employer also has to pay workman's comp and insurance and whatever, so it may end up being more like 20 bucks an hour that the employer has to dish out. 

A teacher may probably more realistically see 40k of that in actual pay (before taxes); but I suppose they do get a killer insurance plan. (Not sure just speculating)

50K according to the AFT like I said.

Besides benefits are more important then pay half the time... cause you often get so much more in value then their listed cost.

The only way to claim teachers are underpaid are to compare then to other degrees that take similar length in schooling like Marine Biology while ignoring the fact that said degrees are harder.



Coca-Cola on 27 March 2009

I taught for 7 years and I don't think teachers are underpaid. I didn't have any complaints about it at all. I got summer off, winter break, nice salary, heath care - what else do I need?
I left teaching cause I didn't enjoy it as much.
I think vouchers should definitely work, and this crap about not being able to fire bad teachers is stupid. Plus I always liked the new teachers much better - more energy, goals, passion for the job, and they seem to really care more for the students.

I got two kids so for about $40k a year, I can hire my own teacher and homeschool my kids.



SciFiBoy on 28 March 2009
TheRealMafoo said:
SciFiBoy said:

in addition, parents can hold the government to account for failings and errors, they cant hold a private school to account as the school dosent have to listen, the private sector allways has its own agenda, whats to stop schools from forcing there political or religous views on the children? whats to stop private schools giving certian people prefferential treatment? state education is the only way to go, its fair, can be held to account and is cost effective if done properly and funded by progressive taxation.

 

 

Everything in this paragraph is wrong. Everything.

If you don’t like what the school is teaching your kids, change schools. In the UK, if you don’t like the school your children are in, what’s your options?

Also, the last sentience is funny. You can have an inefficient system that you make the rich pay, but doing so does not make it “cost effective”. It just makes a very non cost effective system paid for by the rich.

Collecting taxes and spending taxes are totally independent. Finding ways to collect more money to pay for an inefficient system is a very poor solution to the problem. If you’re spending too much money on something, fix it.

yes, because every parent can move home to get there child into a good school, everyone is made of money?

so cost effective is putting poorer people into debt? how can making the rich pay more than the poor not be cost effective?

sigh, read my posts properly, i agree the system needs to be improved, but i think the best way to do that is to keep a state education system

 



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akuma587 on 28 March 2009

For whatever reason, people ignore a lot of factors when comparing the operating costs of private and public schools. Private schools are designed to make a profit. Public schools are not. Their operating structures are completely different. Here are three examples.

1) Public schools have to serve every area in the country (including rural towns) and do not just operate in larger cities where it is easier to be profitable.

2) Public schools cannot reject people based on their academic or other problems like a private school can. Public schools have to take everyone, no matter what problems they have. This drives up cost as some of these kids need a lot of extra academic attention.

3) Public schools have to accommodate people with every type of handicap. The amount of extra personnel, classroom space, and equipment this requires is substantial.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

TheRealMafoo on 28 March 2009
SciFiBoy said:
TheRealMafoo said:
SciFiBoy said:

in addition, parents can hold the government to account for failings and errors, they cant hold a private school to account as the school dosent have to listen, the private sector allways has its own agenda, whats to stop schools from forcing there political or religous views on the children? whats to stop private schools giving certian people prefferential treatment? state education is the only way to go, its fair, can be held to account and is cost effective if done properly and funded by progressive taxation.

 

 

Everything in this paragraph is wrong. Everything.

If you don’t like what the school is teaching your kids, change schools. In the UK, if you don’t like the school your children are in, what’s your options?

Also, the last sentience is funny. You can have an inefficient system that you make the rich pay, but doing so does not make it “cost effective”. It just makes a very non cost effective system paid for by the rich.

Collecting taxes and spending taxes are totally independent. Finding ways to collect more money to pay for an inefficient system is a very poor solution to the problem. If you’re spending too much money on something, fix it.

yes, because every parent can move home to get there child into a good school, everyone is made of money?

so cost effective is putting poorer people into debt? how can making the rich pay more than the poor not be cost effective?

sigh, read my posts properly, i agree the system needs to be improved, but i think the best way to do that is to keep a state education system

 

 

hahahah, read your post properly? Read my post properly. In my system, the best schools will be in poor areas. No one has to drive from a poor area to take there kids to schools.

You have no clue what my system even talked about. Every point you make is not an argument against my system. It's like to think I am only for rich people or something, so you didn't read it and just complained about how I am being cruel to poor people.

And you have an odd definition of cost effective.

Lastly, where every post you have here arguing against my thread is talking about the poor. Where in my system do the poor pay anything?



Kasz216 on 28 March 2009
SciFiBoy said:
TheRealMafoo said:
SciFiBoy said:

in addition, parents can hold the government to account for failings and errors, they cant hold a private school to account as the school dosent have to listen, the private sector allways has its own agenda, whats to stop schools from forcing there political or religous views on the children? whats to stop private schools giving certian people prefferential treatment? state education is the only way to go, its fair, can be held to account and is cost effective if done properly and funded by progressive taxation.

 

 

Everything in this paragraph is wrong. Everything.

If you don’t like what the school is teaching your kids, change schools. In the UK, if you don’t like the school your children are in, what’s your options?

Also, the last sentience is funny. You can have an inefficient system that you make the rich pay, but doing so does not make it “cost effective”. It just makes a very non cost effective system paid for by the rich.

Collecting taxes and spending taxes are totally independent. Finding ways to collect more money to pay for an inefficient system is a very poor solution to the problem. If you’re spending too much money on something, fix it.

yes, because every parent can move home to get there child into a good school, everyone is made of money?

so cost effective is putting poorer people into debt? how can making the rich pay more than the poor not be cost effective?

sigh, read my posts properly, i agree the system needs to be improved, but i think the best way to do that is to keep a state education system

 

Do you understand the definition of cost effective?  Cause I don't think you do.  Cost effective means getting a good result by spending little money.  Distribution of taxes to keep a system running has no effect on cost effectiveness.

 

Also what your missing is Mafoo's plan isn't a debt.

It's a non permanent tax.  That you only pay when working anyway.

VS the permanent tax the poor currently pay.

It's a net positive for the poor.



mrstickball on 28 March 2009
TheRealMafoo said:

hahah, read your post properly? Read my post properly. In my system, the best schools will be in poor areas. No one has to drive from a poor area to take there kids to schools.

You have no clue what my system even talked about. Every point you make is not an argument against my system. It's like to think I am only for rich people or something, so you didn't read it and just complained about how I am being cruel to poor people.

And you have an odd definition of cost effective.

Lastly, where every post you have here arguing against my thread is talking about the poor. Where in my system do the poor pay anything?

One should also note that, under your system, the whole goal is to eliminate poverty through good education...If someone came out of such a system that truly sought to give them the best education possible, then it'd be their own fault for coming out of the system and leading a life of poverty....

Knowledge is tied to wealth in any economy. Where there is illiteracy, high school dropouts, and low test scores, there is a greater gap in income distribution (GINI index), and less income. Thing with America is, minority education (Blacks, Hispanics) skews the entire education system....Education levels among European & Asians are at equivilent levels in their respective countries, while hispanics and blacks reduce the median to lower rates.

So how do you make it more fair for the blacks & hispanics, and bring in true equality? Not through government schools. You do it by giving the consumer - the minority, and the majority - the right to choose their education. We are commiting an atrocity on the level of the pre-civil rights oppression by forcing minorities to go to schools in their district(s) that are over-burdened, under-funded, and under-staffed, with incompotent teachers. Freedom means more competition, and more competition means more choices, so they are allowed to fight for a better education.

 



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

SamuelRSmith on 28 March 2009

What would I do to the US system? Make it similar to the UK's!

Introduce a leaderboard system, so the best schools (rated on academic performance, Ofsted inspections, etc) get awards, whilst the worst performing schools get extra funding to push them up.

This system does has its drawbacks - it provides extra support for the top 50% and the bottom 25% of students as the schools want to push their performance, but the middle 25% get ignored - this can be tackled with greater regulation, and more funding, however - both of which are happening (they've just hit the backburner for a while, because of other issues like the recession, and stuff).

But, even with its flaws, the UK's system has come up leaps and bounds since the inception of the leaderboards, just look at our progress in maths in the past few years:

MATHS RANKING 1995-2007
England's secondary pupils
1995: 25th place
1999: 20th place
2003: 18th place
2007: 7th place

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7773081.stm