Here's An Idea For Education: Fund The God-Damned Public Schools To Begin With!

[stopbush]

All this talk of merit pay and charter schools ignores that fact that our public schools are grossly underfunded. I challenge ANY business or private enterprise to meet or exceed their goals under the duress and lack of funding that our public schools endure.

Yet with all the challenges they face, our public schools still get DRAMATICALLY better results than do charter schools. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E0DE103FF934A2575BC0A9629C8B63

Let's end under- and un-funded mandates like NCLB that punish schools while ignoring the government holding up ITS end of the bargain. Let's trust the data rather than the dogma and admit that charter schools are a BS RW proposal aimed not at better educating our kids but, rather, at destroying the public school system.

Fund the schools, period.

Fuck merit pay and offer a living wage to our teachers in the first place. If you don't think a teacher worrying about how they're going to pay their rent affects the way they teach your kid, then you don't know any teachers or have any kids in schools.

Offer them job security based on their commitment to the needs of our kids and the dynamics for success - smaller class sizes, lunch programs, up-to-date & reliable textbooks, etc - that have been and still are the tools for success.

Provide teachers with the basic tools they need - like fucking pencils and pens! Every teacher I know is buying these things for their classrooms with money out of their own pockets! What the hell is that about?

Our schools don't need an overhaul. What they need is what they used to have - ie: the funding necessary to do the job and a commitment from the public that every kid is entitled to a good education, not just the rich or connected.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Massive teacher layoffs in CA this week.

While know-nothings are whining about merit pay because their 5th grade teacher scolded them too harshly for being a dumbass.

[stopbush]

9. Tell me about it. My kid's school system CUSD put out about 400

pink slips. They pink-slipped every HS-level music teacher regardless of tenure, years of service or results. So, my son's HS band director who last year took the school's wind ensemble to NYC where they played a concert at Carnegie Fucking Hall gets pink-slipped. If that's not a successful teacher, then who is?

Ah-nold has proposed cutting $3.1 BILLION from CA's education budget for next year. This in a state that has a yearly GDP of just under $2-TRILLION. That's 13% of the GDP of the USA. We pay the SIXTH-HIGHEST tax rate in the country while our median income ranks only 11th. We pay $10.66 in taxes for every $100 we earn. That means that we're paying about $200-BILLION in taxes every year.

Our tax dollars flow to the rest of the country - we get back about $.76 on every dollar we send to DC. That means that we get back only $152-Billion of the $200-billion we pay out in taxes.

Imagine if we got 100% back? We could do a lot with an additional $48-billion a year, dontcha think? Like, NOT cut $3.1 billion from our education budget!

[Mollis]

35. His tax cuts would take a few million from my school.

It's already too expensive as it is. And it's only freaking community college. I can't afford to do general ed at a university. He's just making it worse. :mad:

[Sirveri]

47. do not complain about CA CC rates. They are CRAZY cheap.

I used to live out of state. Community college rates in the states I was living in ran thousands of dollars per semester, not the 40$ per unit we get in this state. It's a great deal and it is what makes this state so awesome. But even with a rate hike it's still incredibly cheaper than other states.

[sense]

13. Part of the problem

is that people don't trust the bureaucrats to apply the funding in a responsible way. We've clearly learned from history. I think the schools need more funds, but the people at the top who allocate those funds do so from a place of ignorance or greed. More funds should result in things like smaller class sizes and that's not what happens. If we could be assured that the funds would be used in ways that have been shown to benefit the actual children in the classrooms instead of just giving more to the people at the top or middle managers, I'd be all for it, as would most people.

[stopbush]

15. Currently, the people at the top in DC are screwing the states on the coasts

and/or with high Democratic populations, while feeding the red states with monies earned in the blue states.

New Mexico is the leader - they get 200% back in Fed money each year from what they send the fed in taxes. To put that in perspective - if the Feds viewed CA as they do NM and wished to send CA 200% in fed funds from what they received from CA, then fully 55% of Fed discretionary spending would go to CA. The other 49 states would get to divvy up the remaining 45% of fed taxes taken in...which means that - on average - each state outside of CA would receive less than 1% of fed discretionary spending.

See here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1397.html

[Thothmes]

20. Lets go ahead and apply this principle to all social programs

I suspect you would have overwhelming Republican support for the proposal. A long standing Democratic prinicple is that those who can afford to pay,
have an obligation to help those that cannot.

[stopbush]

22. I agree, but as a person living in CA I'm a bit tired of hearing from

people in other states that benefit directly from the taxes that we pay that CA is fucked up, and that the problems we face in the most-populated state in the Union occur in isolation from the way the system works.

When it comes to the social contract, you'll excuse me if I don't respect the *implementation* of that policy when it means cutting $3.1-Billion from CA's public schools while at the same time funding the various and sundry bridge-to-nowhere projects in the red states with money from CA. I'm all for we Californians lifting the lives and living conditions of those less fortunate. But I'm sick and tired of our state being the punching bag for those who hold up state governments and the people who live in those states as examples of what's wrong with the country.

I'm only trying to offer a perspective on who is paying for what (and where) as a way of pointing out that the current discussion of what is wrong with schools - especially those in CA that are under budgetary assault - has nothing to do with teachers and everything to do with how things do and don't get paid for.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. The problem...

is that shitheads want to blame schools instead of paying taxes.

[stopbush]

18. BINGO!

[sense]

19. I agree

There's some of that too.

[Norquist Nemesis]

26. They also overlook the top end and just blame the teachers

Anyone looked up the pay of Superintendents and administration lately? The "top 200" here in Illinois are ALL well into the top 2% pay range, and that's just Superintendents! Do a little shuffle on those paychecks and they can come up with a few more dollars for teacher salaries, or supplies, or paint, or...

It's too easy to blame teachers. They're all *gasp* UNION!

[CrispyQ]

31. I'm so sick of the "I don't want to pay any taxes" assholes!

I have a friend who is like that & it's affecting our relationship. She & her husband make over $300k a year & have unbelievable expenses to maintain their lifestyle. I don't begrudge them that, but I do get pissed that they begrudge paying their fair share of taxes for the Common Good. (They voted for McCain because their taxes would go up under Obama.) When I hear her complain about how much her daughter's cheer leading club costs her & I think of kids who don't even get a hot meal during the day, her anti-tax attitude pisses me off.

Last week I read a DUer post, a teacher, who was giving two different perspectives of teaching - one from a well funded school district where her friend taught, & one from a district without funds, where she taught. I was stunned to read that in some cases, the well funded school issued two sets of textbooks to the kids so they wouldn't have to carry them home, while the underfunded district frequently didn't have books or extremely outdated ones at best. What the fuck???


And yet so many of the well-to-do say, "If you only work hard you can be as successful as you want." Well, that might be true if we were all starting from a level playing field, but that isn't the case in our country & it's getting more skewed every day.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. So very K&R!

[NightWatcher]

3. they are prob gonna cancel summer school here and are toying with a 4 day week

first rule in digging yourself out of a hole. STOP DIGGING.

We is gettin dummer an dummer.....

[Hello_Kitty]

4. What really gets me is the jagoffs who compare teaching to the business world.

Like teachers have the ability to fire underperforming students.

Frankly, I think merit pay is mostly popular with parents who want a convenient scapegoat to avoid accountability for their own shortcomings. The kids who do the best in school tend to be the ones whose parents are engaged and stress the importance of education.

[alstephenson]

5. Um. Charter schools ARE public schools.

The differentiation was with "regular" public schools. The article takes a very narrow approach to quantifying "results", but overall I agree with your assessment: FUND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, INCLUDING CHARTER SCHOOLS.

[stopbush]

12. Yes, I know that. Private schools are another matter altogether.

But the push for more and more charter schools seems to ignore the problems and the bad track record these schools have.

Wiki has a good basic overview of charter schools: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_school

[ColbertWatcher]

14. End charter schools.

Charter schools are an experiment that has not proven it can work--just like the invasion of Iraq.

End them now.

It seemed like a good idea, but they don't work. No need to keep funding this failed idea.

It's time we stop building walls between people. That's why we're in the trouble we're in.

If someone doesn't want to use public transportation, they can invest their own money in a private vehicle. If they don't want their kids to go to public school, they can go to a private one.

But, they cannot siphon off funding from the general welfare to fund their own private purposes.

[noamnety]

34. Some people would like to use

the city bus system. Others would like to use the city subway. It's very rare to hear public transportation advocates complain about the city bus taking away funding from the subway. The city bus still serves the general community and common good in a way that private vehicles don't.

[ejpoeta]

6. it really says something when teachers have to spend their own money

to get supplies for their class. it's ridiculous. and then we wonder why the schools are doing so poorly.

[Jakes Progress]

7. But it's so much easier

to rant about teachers and then cut taxes so. Then you can seem to be for children and education as you help starve them. The media helps us do this so that we can be selfish without feeling bad.

[lib_wit_it]

8. K&R!

[wickerwoman]

10. Amen, brother.

If it came down to a choice between merit pay and air conditioning, I'd pick bloody air conditioning every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

:toast:

[Lorax]

11. K&R!

I'm not so sure about the charter school thing, but to everything else I say yes, yes, yes and YES!

Oh yeah, I forgot about having to buy pencils and papers and folders for my kids. Thanks for reminding me of yet another reason I have more money now that I DON'T have a job than I did when I was a teacher.

[FloridaJudy]

17. Amen! eom

[noamnety]

21. 5 year old article.

This is more current: "Charter schools managed by for-profit organizations serve a far higher percentage of poor and minority students than the national average of these students (as do nonprofits).(10) Moreover, when one compares their performance on state assessments with the average statewide performance, "the average gains for the for-profit managers relative to state gains round to 5, 6, and 8 percentage points for one-, two-, and three-year intervals."

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/eag/227383.htm

As has been noted elsewhere, this doesn't take into account that the people most likely to enroll in a charter school are the ones whose needs aren't being met in a traditional school.

That said, this from your OP bears repeating: What they need is what they used to have - ie: the funding necessary to do the job and a commitment from the public that every kid is entitled to a good education, not just the rich or connected.

Local bond issues increase inequities - with the result being that the rich get the best schools, and those in power don't have a personal stake in fighting for better funding overall.

Another issue is not recognizing that different students learn best in different environments. The best funded school of 2000 students isn't going to create the same environment as a school with 200-300 students. I stayed 3 hours late today, for example, beyond my part time (cutback) schedule, because a student I knew had special needs asked if he could use one of my computers after school while waiting for his ride. He's not my student, I've never had him as a student, but I've had meetings with the special ed teacher to talk about how I can best serve his needs (at my request), and I've stayed hours late on several occasions because we're a small enough community that we know the students who need extra care from time to time. Funding doesn't address that - and even the best teacher with the best skills can't know the needs of all the students when they are being churned through school factories. Alternatives - one way or another - are needed so students can find what best works for them.

I figure the kids aren't so different from adults. Some of us thrive in more disciplined environments at larger companies, some thrive in small creative environments, some thrive best when they are outside and working with their hands. More funding is needed, but with a one size fits all approach to every kid in the community, schools will still fail various segments of the population. That's the reason charters have sprung up - it's not funding; very very many get by with less funding than traditional schools. (Ours gets 2,000 less per student than the state average). They spring up because where there's a vacuum, something will fill it. People need to be willing to ask themselves some hard questions about WHY so many minority students feel there is a vacuum in the public schools. Funding is only one part of it. I think some charter school opponents are unwilling to face the deeper issues that have created that vacuum.

[alstephenson]

23. Exactly. Thanks for posting, noamnety.

I work for a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that makes loans to non-profit organizations, including charter schools. Most charter school educators are dedicated, committed, and selfless and do so much with so little funding. Charter school programs provide an alternative to "regular" public schools and can be bilingual, arts/performance oriented, tech oriented, etc. These educators often work with the most at-risk student populations - kids that would drop out otherwise become engaged in their education, as do their parents (parental involvement is often required). I've seen kids actually "blossom" before my eyes - it's a treasure to behold.

[stopbush]

24. From the same article you cited, a bit further down the page:

"Evidence
Do students learn more in public charter schools?
The most-studied static competitive effect is the impact on students who choose charter schools: do these students learn more or less than they would have learned in a regular public school?

That's a difficult question to answer, because the students who choose public charter schools may be quite different than students who remain in the regular public schools. (Demographically, public charter schools closely resemble the regular public schools nearby, but their students could also differ in motivation, prior school success, etc.) The most highly regarded studies control for this by looking at the annual gains of children who switch from regular to charter public schools, or vice versa.

Unfortunately, that significantly limits the scope of the conclusions that can be drawn, for several reasons: (1) students who switch may be quite different than students who do not; (2) very few states have a longitudinal database of individual student test data for both charter and regular public schools, and those states may be quite different from each other and from other states; and (3) this data is only available for reading and mathematics as measured by state tests, so the studies are only able to evaluate the effectiveness of public charter schools in what has become the core learning agenda of the regular public schools.

The general conclusion of this handful of highly regarded studies is that on average, after a few years of experience, public charter schools perform about as well as regular schools as measured by annual gains in state test scores in reading and mathematics:

Frustratingly, regardless of the methods used, the results are mixed, some positive about charters and some negative, with null or mixed findings the most common. One additional fact is that whether studies draw positive or negative conclusions about charter school effectiveness, the differences are not strong....The five most sophisticated studies focus on the four states where especially good data on student achievement are becoming available (i.e., Arizona, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina)....Of these studies, two are positive about charter school effects, two report mixed results, and one finds in the negative.(19)
Do students learn more in regular public schools that face competition?
Another important question is the impact on students who remain in the regular public schools: does competition from public charter schools benefit these students, or not?

Again, the evidence is mixed. In Michigan, Hoxby (2003) found positive effects, while Benninger (1999) did not. In North Carolina, Holmes et al (2003, 2006) found positive effects, while Bifulco and Ladd (2006) did not.(20)

Booker et al (2005) found positive effects in Texas, with the interesting wrinkle that in districts facing competition from public charter schools, student performance improved at low-achieving schools and fell at high-achieving schools. "These results raise an interesting question," they say. "Does charter competition lead districts to reallocate resources to poorly performing campuses and away from highly performing campuses?"(21) If so, I suspect the mechanism is probably by reassigning their best principals (who know how to get rid of bad teachers and attract good ones)."

I'd also note that the paper you cited unabashedly cites the same 5-year-old study that I did - and that you disparaged as being old and out-of-date - to back its conclusions.

[noamnety]

27. Still unwilling to address the more difficult issue

Why are minorities disproportionately feeling that traditional public schools aren't serving their needs?

I've yet to see an opponent of charters address that with any honesty.

As long as a vacuum exists, something will rise up to fill it.

[stopbush]

44. It's easy to address. Charter schools almost always have smaller class sizes

than public schools. On that issue alone, minorities might gravitate to charter schools.

Urban areas have high minority populations. They also have crumbling, over-populated schools. But public schools could easily meet their needs if the money was provided to keep urban schools in top physical shape, to hire great teachers and to build new schools to alleviate overcrowding. But this doesn't happen. Charter schools most often rent space. Public schools tend to build space.

Statistically, minorities still do better in traditional public schools than in charter schools, even when charter schools have smaller classes and fewer of the problems that urban schools often have.

[noamnety]

46. I suspect there's more to it than that. :)

It's not really as easy as that, since there is an achievement gap even when black students live in upper middle class communities and attend upper middle class white schools, and come from similar economic backgrounds.

There are a lot of issues beyond poor facilities and funding. Certain segments of our population are perpetually marginalized in our history textbooks, just to name one example.

I have enough faith in our DU community to believe most of us can come up with several other examples, no matter which side of the charter school debate we fall on.

[wroberts189]

25. The pubs started all this with their "lets not just throw money at it" rhetoric

We treat Teachers like dirt and we pay them a pittance.

We have starved education budgets.

Because the pubs were in power and they hate education as educated people do not vote pub.

[bread_and_roses]

28. Now THAT's a good idea (n/t)

[cali]

29. it's such bullshit to claim that teachers don't make a living wage.

And no, it's not all just about money.

[quaker bill]

30. True

Even in Florida their pay is slightly higher than that. They are not paid all that much higher, but they are usually above the generally understood "living wage" minimal standard. Of course that is before the intended pay cuts.

[knitter4democracy]

48. Maybe public school teachers do, but it depends on the district.

There's a huge pay gap depending on where you look.

When I started in the Catholic schools in the late 1990s, I got the same pay my mom did when she started in the public schools in the late 60s. A good friend of mine in the publics made ten grand more a year than I did.

[CrispyQ]

32. Well said!

"Fuck merit pay and offer a living wage to our teachers in the first place. If you don't think a teacher worrying about how they're going to pay their rent affects the way they teach your kid, then you don't know any teachers or have any kids in schools."


"Our schools don't need an overhaul. What they need is what they used to have - ie: the funding necessary to do the job and a commitment from the public that every kid is entitled to a good education, not just the rich or connected."

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[nichomachus]

33. You can't make schools better by throwing money at them

RIGHT -- so let's not "throw" money at them. Let's spend it wisely. Let's make sure the schools are fit for human habitation (many aren't). Let's make sure they are adequately staffed. Many aren't. Let's make sure students and teachers have up-to-date and adequate supplies. Many don't. Let's make sure that teachers are adequately compensated. Many aren't.

I get hot under the collar when I heard the mantra "You can't solve a problem by throwing money at it." No one is asking you to throw money at anything. But yanking money out of the school budget to give it to corporate CEOs doesn't make the educational system better either.

However, if you start from the premise that one goal of the fascists is to destroy public education, then everything else falls into place.

Is it too late to dig up Ray-gun's corpse and drive a fucking stake through his heart?

[BlooInBloo]

36. Yah - because well-paid idiots would teach sooooo much better than ill-paid idiots.

:rofl:

[PVnRT]

37. Uh-huh. Teachers are idiots, eh?

Sounds like someone got a B+ and is still pissy about it.

[BlooInBloo]

38. Yup, for the larger part.

And: BWAHAHAHAA!!!!


EDIT: Added qualifier for the benefit of the quibblemeisters out there.

[GaYellowDawg]

40. Even better...

He couldn't hack it in the classroom as a teacher and is still pissy about it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

42. He's had some weird vendetta for some time.

Kind of like Stephen Colbert and bears.

Only it's not satire.

[Vidar]

39. Hear, hear!

[Pacifist Patriot]

41. Which requires a fundamental shift in the way we think and what we value.

People have to stop expecting five star service while only willing to pay one star taxes.

[raccoon]

43. Right on! nt

[Pacifist Patriot]

49. On the other hand...

I'd love to hear what school teachers think about the opinions on schooling expressed in the book "My Ishmael."

[wryter2000]

45. What you said

Schools aren't given near enough the funding they need to educate students. Give them the pentagon budget and make that department have raffles and sell candy to get their funding.

[noiretextatique]

50. this is the real bottom line

along with administrative reform. nothing else addresses the root of the problem.