It’s another institution that has been taken over, and destroyed by, the left.
8 thoughts on “How A Teachers’ Rally”
Sending your kids to public school will also do the trick. Thirteen years ago, I was a happy (ignorant) advocate of public education. Now I would cheerfully burn the entire system to the ground, and deport every K-12 school administrator and 90% of the teachers to Afghanistan.
There is no substitute for The Golden Rule. (“He who has the gold rules.”) When I have a problem with my cell phone I call up Verizon and they fall all over themselves trying to fix it, because they know their salaries and bonuses are at risk if they don’t. When I have a problem with the education of my kids, the school shrugs its shoulders. So? We know better. Shut up. Send us more money, though. And teach your kids to respect us, you hooligan. As Lily Tomlin used to say about the phone system: We don’t care. We don’t have to.
My local K-12 schools get the equivalent income (if they were private) of $6000 per year per student — $180,000 per classroom! — to do the job, and the results are appalling even by American, let alone world standards. Give me that $6000 and I’m sure I can find some entrepreneur who’ll work very hard indeed to earn it. And when I have a problem, I’m sure he’ll be very attentive, knowing that $6000 is mine to take away if I choose.
How does US public school funding work, is there a single government school in a certain catchment basin or can there still be competition? In the Netherlands we have a kind of hybrid, anyone can start a school (subject to government oversight) if they can get enough parents to enroll their kids and the government will then provide funding.
The only forms of competition in U.S. school systems is either privately run (usually nonprofit) schools or publicly funded “charter” schools that operate with varying degrees of independence from the public school system — and by “varying” I mean from “barely more than a crumb” to “none at all.”
Within the conventional public school systems the main-track schools generally have exclusive attendance boundaries, but there have been innovations such as “magnet” schools, and some districts have adopted looser rules for attendance so kids can go to schools other than where the attendance boundaries put them — but there are always attendance boundaries, and whenever they’re adjusted it’s a big deal with a lot of complaints.
U.S. public schools are also way too expensive, which is why charter schools were proposed, and why vouchers keep coming up as an alternative form of school funding, allowing parents to send their children where they please without paying twice for only one education.
McGehee, I pay once for zero.
Recently read an article about the horrible sate of funding for Idaho public schools. Idaho public schools are almost at the bottom of the list of spending per student. Outrageous! BUT it turns out their students test above the national average.
When teacher’s unions advocate for more education funding they should say what that funding would go for. If funding is just to pay teachers more money, people might be less inclined to pay more in taxes but if there was a specific program they wanted to fund people might be willing to pay more.
Teacher’s union: “Spend more on education!”
Tax payer: “OK what should we spend it on?”
Teachers union: “Increasing teacher salaries!”
Tax payer: “Um no.”
I recently read that school districts in Wyoming are balking at a state-imposed mandate to reduce class sizes to an average of 14 students — with noncompliant districts not receiving state funding.
I’m sorry, but wasn’t there a big hullabaloo a few years back about “unfunded mandates?” And what evidence has there ever been for the idea that smaller class sizes mean better education? WTF good does it do for each individual student to get more attention from the teacher when the teacher doesn’t know a damn thing about the subject matter? The only benefit of smaller class sizes I can think of is, it presents the teachers with fewer prospects for their unlawful sexual relationships.
When I was in school class sizes ran in the 30s and kids came out of the schools better educated than they do now.
I don’t really know much about American public schools, but the majority of English ones are if possible worse and for all the same reasons.
One thing I do agree with the protesters about, however, is the slogan “bankers to the gallows”.
Sending your kids to public school will also do the trick. Thirteen years ago, I was a happy (ignorant) advocate of public education. Now I would cheerfully burn the entire system to the ground, and deport every K-12 school administrator and 90% of the teachers to Afghanistan.
There is no substitute for The Golden Rule. (“He who has the gold rules.”) When I have a problem with my cell phone I call up Verizon and they fall all over themselves trying to fix it, because they know their salaries and bonuses are at risk if they don’t. When I have a problem with the education of my kids, the school shrugs its shoulders. So? We know better. Shut up. Send us more money, though. And teach your kids to respect us, you hooligan. As Lily Tomlin used to say about the phone system: We don’t care. We don’t have to.
My local K-12 schools get the equivalent income (if they were private) of $6000 per year per student — $180,000 per classroom! — to do the job, and the results are appalling even by American, let alone world standards. Give me that $6000 and I’m sure I can find some entrepreneur who’ll work very hard indeed to earn it. And when I have a problem, I’m sure he’ll be very attentive, knowing that $6000 is mine to take away if I choose.
How does US public school funding work, is there a single government school in a certain catchment basin or can there still be competition? In the Netherlands we have a kind of hybrid, anyone can start a school (subject to government oversight) if they can get enough parents to enroll their kids and the government will then provide funding.
The only forms of competition in U.S. school systems is either privately run (usually nonprofit) schools or publicly funded “charter” schools that operate with varying degrees of independence from the public school system — and by “varying” I mean from “barely more than a crumb” to “none at all.”
Within the conventional public school systems the main-track schools generally have exclusive attendance boundaries, but there have been innovations such as “magnet” schools, and some districts have adopted looser rules for attendance so kids can go to schools other than where the attendance boundaries put them — but there are always attendance boundaries, and whenever they’re adjusted it’s a big deal with a lot of complaints.
U.S. public schools are also way too expensive, which is why charter schools were proposed, and why vouchers keep coming up as an alternative form of school funding, allowing parents to send their children where they please without paying twice for only one education.
McGehee, I pay once for zero.
Recently read an article about the horrible sate of funding for Idaho public schools. Idaho public schools are almost at the bottom of the list of spending per student. Outrageous! BUT it turns out their students test above the national average.
When teacher’s unions advocate for more education funding they should say what that funding would go for. If funding is just to pay teachers more money, people might be less inclined to pay more in taxes but if there was a specific program they wanted to fund people might be willing to pay more.
Teacher’s union: “Spend more on education!”
Tax payer: “OK what should we spend it on?”
Teachers union: “Increasing teacher salaries!”
Tax payer: “Um no.”
I recently read that school districts in Wyoming are balking at a state-imposed mandate to reduce class sizes to an average of 14 students — with noncompliant districts not receiving state funding.
I’m sorry, but wasn’t there a big hullabaloo a few years back about “unfunded mandates?” And what evidence has there ever been for the idea that smaller class sizes mean better education? WTF good does it do for each individual student to get more attention from the teacher when the teacher doesn’t know a damn thing about the subject matter? The only benefit of smaller class sizes I can think of is, it presents the teachers with fewer prospects for their unlawful sexual relationships.
When I was in school class sizes ran in the 30s and kids came out of the schools better educated than they do now.
I don’t really know much about American public schools, but the majority of English ones are if possible worse and for all the same reasons.
One thing I do agree with the protesters about, however, is the slogan “bankers to the gallows”.