300,000 education jobs lost, White House urges investment

http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/18/white-house-report-urges-investment-after-300000-education-jobs-lost/

Quote :

""Think about what that means for our country. At a time when the rest of the world is racing to out-educate America, these cuts force our kids into crowded classrooms, cancel programs for preschoolers and kindergarteners, and shorten the school week and the school year. That's the opposite of what we should be doing as a country," the report quotes President Barack Obama from an address in June."

Quote :

"The report, which comes in an election year for Obama, also stressed the need to invest in education and praised Obama's plan to provide $25 billion to prevent layoffs and strengthen public education"

Should we increase federal spending on education by $25 billion?

I personally am against it... there has not been a correlation between education spending and academic performance increasing based off the increase in spending since the 1970's. Maybe it could be justified if we didn't have a massive deficit and had a surplus. It seems like we keep increasing spending. Politicians tend to have a case of the gimme gimme's.

Some teachers in some states cost so much to the state (tax payer) given their pension plans. People tend to overlook this, but this is part of the reason why some states can't hire more teachers. New York state is one of the states I am talking about... In Buffalo, NY, the school district pays for teachers to get plastic surgery. It costs around 5-9 million a year. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-does-buffalo-pay-for-its-teachers-to-have-plastic-surgery

8/18/2012 9:28:24 PM

The whole system is messed up.


Personally I think we should start by cutting federal aid to schools and abolish the Federal Department of education.

[Edited on August 18, 2012 at 10:25 PM. Reason : .]

8/18/2012 10:25:33 PM

agreed, and end teachers unions

8/18/2012 11:06:11 PM

^^Yeah, I totally trust those southern states to get the science and sex education right. In my opinion there currently isn't enough oversight.

8/19/2012 8:01:56 PM

^ There has to be a system of checks and balances. Issue really is bloated spending on huge pensions related to unions in some states. Leaving up the curriculum 100% to the states seems like a bad idea... so I agree with you on that.

Some states wanted to put in "creation science" in biology books... it is a pseudo-science just as astrology is a pseudo-science that deserves no place in a science course. It can be put into a philosophy course to distinguish between what is pseudo-science and what is science though.

[Edited on August 19, 2012 at 10:26 PM. Reason : *]

8/19/2012 10:26:02 PM

I don't mind the Federal government stepping in to help states that hit a rough spot, but my only fear is that such "temporary" spending may become permanent and give states a pass in restoring some sense of fiscal sanity to their budgets. They may end up using Federal funds to pay for their education then spend the money they would have spent on education to blow on other pet projects.

8/19/2012 11:20:37 PM

I don't think any government within the U.S. is really trustworthy or responsible enough to fix the education system and produce excellent schools. The federal government is too distant, too complex, and really shouldn't be the primary education department; states try to force some subjects and others out (creationism, evolution, sex ed, etc) based on religious principles, some just don't know what they're doing (hello Mississippi), and others can't seem to provide an honest budget (hello, N.C.: the lottery will only add money, we won't take any away! Lies - though I am not against the lottery).

So am I for privatizing education? I don't know, that's a big step and expensive... I think every child (<18) has the right to a free basic education (what they and their parents do with it is a separate issue), but it seems the government has trouble doing even that, regardless of how much money is thrown at schools.

8/20/2012 8:48:53 AM

I see most of the problems with education in this country as a result of our culture of ignorance rather than a problem of government inefficiency. The vilification of intellectualism has to end before any education system public or private will work well. Sadly, don't see that happening before a particular set of belief systems is no longer dominant in our country, which could easily be never.

8/20/2012 8:54:28 AM

Quote :

"Sadly, don't see that happening before a particular set of belief systems is no longer dominant in our country, which could easily be never."

Too true.

*cough*religion*cough*

As long as education and the curriculum that is taught is subject to the whims of the public you'll always have people's stupid opinions forced onto your kids, whether you're a southern baptist who calls dinosaurs "jesus horses" or your a socialist who believes that capitalism is the cause of most of the wests problems and wars over the last 100 years.

The best option is total privatization or a full on voucher system. Let like minded people group together and allow outcomes to be what they will be.

8/20/2012 9:02:30 AM

Quote :

"^ There has to be a system of checks and balances. Issue really is bloated spending on huge pensions related to unions in some states. Leaving up the curriculum 100% to the states seems like a bad idea... so I agree with you on that."

But without federal funding how can there be any checks or oversight? How would the federal level control the states?

If Utah starts teaching Mormonism as fact in history and science class, what can the federal government do to stop them? Cut their funding? Oh wait...

8/20/2012 9:22:38 AM

Quote :

" I think every child (<18) has the right to a free basic education"

Disagree. Education is not a right. It's an entitlement.

That said, it is a *good* entitlement. Education benefits everyone and creates a productive country that generate far more economic activity than if they didn't have access to said education.

I realize I'm being pedantic here, but people use the term 'right' way to liberally (pun intended).

A right is something you do, not something you get.

8/20/2012 10:34:49 AM

All rights are given. You dont just wake up with rights.

[Edited on August 20, 2012 at 10:52 AM. Reason : Dobt]

8/20/2012 10:40:43 AM

a true right is something that you do wake up with.

you have a right to breathe.
you have a right to feed yourself.
you have a right to clothe yourself.
you have a right to jerk off.
you have a right to build yourself shelter on land that is unclaimed by another.

Anything you can do if you're stranded by yourself on a desert island is a right.

Anything that depends on the will of others is an entitlement.

8/20/2012 10:56:18 AM

why do we have state dept of education and a federal if the federal dept makes all the rules? Seems redundant.

And Im against this as well. Get the feds out of it. Provide some money/incentive to the states if they reach some level or goal set by the fed.

8/20/2012 11:05:18 AM

I got ya.

8/20/2012 11:05:36 AM

The Federal dept doesn't make all the rules. That's how individual states are letting bullshit into the curricula. Hell, even the states don't make all the rules. Franklin County school board ripped sex ed pages out of the health books when I was in high school there.

As I said more oversight is needed, not less. Just like civil rights, "trusting the scientific method for some topics but not others" should not be decided by the population because the population are dumb racist fucks.

8/20/2012 11:09:15 AM

There are two sector where I don't mind my tax dollars being spent:

1. Infrastructure
2. Education (k-12)

8/20/2012 12:29:47 PM

^^ And yet after years of ever increasing government oversight, would you say the state of education in this couny has improved? It would seem to me that centralizing the control over school curriculums would cause you to be more likely to have to deal with the ignorant masses. Or to put it more simply, if you don't trust e population of East Bumfuck NC to educate their own kids properly, why the hell would you want to give them the power to vote on what your kids learn?

[Edited on August 20, 2012 at 2:26 PM. Reason : Stupid auto correct]

8/20/2012 2:25:55 PM

"ever increasing government oversight?" That's funny. What we have isn't oversight. It's "do whatever you can to get test scores up or we'll reduce funding." What we need are actual federal standards of education that emphasize science education that are enforced (meaning, teach reality or be fired, bonuses for actual achievement).

Let me be clear: parents can do whatever the fuck they want with their own kids. But the time children spend being educated on the public dollar needs to be fixed with actual oversight and not "let local school boards (or a system of private-only schools) do whatever the fuck they want with everyones' kids."

I don't want East Bumfuck NC voting on the curricula any more than I want them voting on black people going to their restaurants. I'd be fine with the NAS handing down the curricula by decree and the DOE enforcing it.

8/20/2012 2:56:33 PM

In a way I can agree with that. Even though philosophically I'm pretty anti-government I think if you're going to have the government do something it needs to be done by one government, not a mish-mash of several local, state, and federal entities all trying to circle jerk together some semi-functional system.

Frankly, even though philosophically I'm a libertarian I'd prefer a complete restructure of our governmental systems with either almost total state autonomy or a much more powerful central government. Ever since 1865 states have been pretty well marginalized and people just don't have as much local or state identity as they used to.

My preferences would be:

1 - No government involvement in education
2 - Federal voucher system
3 - Federally funded, run, and mandated education
4 - State run education with no federal involvement

8/20/2012 3:30:44 PM

dont we as a nation already spend more per student than anyone else?

8/20/2012 4:08:47 PM

4th according to this: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_pri_sch_stu-spending-per-primary-school-student

point?

8/20/2012 4:14:13 PM

is more money the answer or is it a change in the system?

doesnt seem to be a money problem to me.

8/20/2012 4:18:56 PM

I don't know whether it's a money problem because we're not doing it correctly in the first place. I don't know whether actual oversight and enforcement of science education standards would cost more or less than what we're currently doing. It'd be worth it no matter which IMO.

8/20/2012 4:27:12 PM

As a teacher, I reflexively wince every time I hear of a new federal Dept. of Ed. initiative. So "no," not if the $25 billion will filter through the federal government.

8/20/2012 7:16:40 PM

As a teacher, are you aware that policies directly affecting you are implemented by your state?

8/20/2012 11:17:20 PM

you'd be hard pressed to find an initiative that has more negatively affected teaching in the last decade than nclb, and that was a federal initiative

8/20/2012 11:19:33 PM

Yeah, enacted by one of the worst presidents in history.

8/21/2012 12:13:04 AM

Don't be fooled by the amount we spend per student. A large chunk of that is just feeding the education industrial complex and funneling profits into large corporations. Norway and Switzerland don't have that problem so they get much more bang for their buck and it shows in the results.

8/21/2012 12:56:29 AM

Yeah, no shit, that's why a lot of people are making the point that throwing more money into that same sinkhole may not be the best way to solve the problem. Maybe, just maybe, massive reform or a large scale overhaul is needed.

8/21/2012 1:29:30 AM

Not just in education though. The number one issue needs to be getting corporate money out of government.

cough**Citizens United**cough

8/21/2012 2:44:17 AM

There are way too many organizations with their fingers in the education pie. The federal government needs to take control of education or, at the very least, states need to take control from local districts.

I have no problem with private schools per se, but wholesale privatization would be worse than what we have now.

8/21/2012 3:03:50 AM

^^ And the best way to get corporate money out of government is to make sure only big corporations can participate in the political process? They sure didn't have to spend as much to buy the government before, given the lack of competition, but I wouldn't call "successful bribes for less money" an improvement.

8/21/2012 8:51:30 AM

What if we paid teachers a decent wage so the profession would attract skilled, hard-working, and passionate people, rather than just serve as a fallback for people with degrees that can't find other work?

Alternatively, stop making public school funding largely reliant on local property taxes, but that would put a kink in the infrastructure that supports the American aristocracy...

[Edited on August 21, 2012 at 10:07 AM. Reason : .]

8/21/2012 10:02:07 AM

Quote :

"What if we paid teachers a decent wage so the profession would attract skilled, hard-working, and passionate people, rather than just serve as a fallback for people with degrees that can't find other work? "

I was up in Pennsylvania last weekend and my cousins are all teachers up there. They say their pay tops out in 6 figures. Not bad for 9 months of work.

8/21/2012 10:21:40 AM

Quote :

"The number one issue needs to be getting corporate money out of government. "

Yet you will never ask why they "invest" in government to begin with. You would have to deal with that to stop the flow of money to govt.

8/21/2012 10:23:55 AM

Quote :

"I was up in Pennsylvania last weekend and my cousins are all teachers up there. They say their pay tops out in 6 figures. Not bad for 9 months of work."

I live in Pennsylvania and my brother is a teacher. Your cousins, or you, are lying. Even with a masters degree, most public school teachers lifetime maximum salary is somewhere in the 60-70k range. With a bachelors, starting salary in most states is less than 40k, and in many closer to 30k.


[Edited on August 21, 2012 at 10:33 AM. Reason : .]

8/21/2012 10:26:25 AM

Quote :

"What if we paid teachers a decent wage so the profession would attract skilled, hard-working, and passionate people, rather than just serve as a fallback for people with degrees that can't find other work?"

I agree, but this also requires paying for performance, not time on the job; ending tenure; firing shitty teachers; and weeding out the fallbacks trying to get in on higher money.

8/21/2012 10:32:32 AM

It's "Higher money" than Starbucks, if that's what you mean.

8/21/2012 10:34:56 AM

Quote :

"What if we paid teachers a decent wage so the profession would attract skilled, hard-working, and passionate people, rather than just serve as a fallback for people with degrees that can't find other work?"

And how can we hire such teachers when it is nearly impossible to fire bad teachers?

The current education system has structural problems that throwing more money at cannot fix.

Quote :

"Alternatively, stop making public school funding largely reliant on local property taxes, but that would put a kink in the infrastructure that supports the American aristocracy..."

Nail on head. I'd love it if the federal government slashed all the crap it currently wastes money on and gave education vouchers to all the country's children. Then everyone can go to private school, or if they want local government can continue operating public schools supplementing the vouchers with local tax dollars. It would eliminate most of the bureaucracy by creating an important safety valve for failing public schools by making the option to leave more affordable.

More importantly, it would dramatically reduce the drain on local resources, allowing reduction of perverse forms of taxation such as property and sales taxes.

[Edited on August 21, 2012 at 10:42 AM. Reason : .,.]

8/21/2012 10:38:38 AM

Quote :

"And how can we hire such teachers when it is nearly impossible to fire bad teachers? "

I have yet to see any proof of this besides "Teachers unions exist, tenure exists, therefor its impossible to fire bad teachers."

Quote :

"or if they want local government can continue operating public schools supplementing the vouchers with local tax dollars."

How can you say "nail on the head" when you go on to propose an even more aristocratic system?

[Edited on August 21, 2012 at 10:41 AM. Reason : .]

8/21/2012 10:40:20 AM

Well, sure, the only real way to crush to aristocracy is to abolish the whole of the government. But that's not an option, might as well minimize the destruction these systems impose upon society.

And what? How does liberating poor urban children from failed public schools make the system more aristocratic? By aristocratic, do you mean capitalistic?

When I think of aristocracy I see poor parents being put in prison for trying to send their children to a good school, not the act of providing parents with the resources to better their children's education.

Quote :

"I have yet to see any proof of this besides "Teachers unions exist, tenure exists, therefor its impossible to fire bad teachers.""

It is right there in the statistics. Teachers have the lowest turn-over of any service sector employees, lower than college professors. The statistics are muddled because some public school systems are quite good and regularly fire under-performing teachers, but some are absolutely trapped. In most years the number of teachers fired by the City of New York is single digits, an impossible feat in a city employing tens of thousands unless the game is rigged.

[Edited on August 21, 2012 at 10:50 AM. Reason : .,.]

8/21/2012 10:46:31 AM

Quote :

"I live in Pennsylvania and my brother is a teacher. Your cousins, or you, are lying. Even with a masters degree, most public school teachers lifetime maximum salary is somewhere in the 60-70k range. With a bachelors, starting salary in most states is less than 40k, and in many closer to 30k. "

I dont know enough about it honestly. One is going to be a principle. I did a google search and it seems they can make around the 80k mark. Maybe they were including benefits. Still 70k for 9 months of work is good money. But my cousin did say the top pay was in the low six figures. I was surprised, why I remembered it. Where in PA are you? They are in a nice district in Washington PA, outside of Pittsburgh. Apparently there is a waiting list to get a job in their district.

8/21/2012 11:00:49 AM

Quote :

" have yet to see any proof of this besides "Teachers unions exist, tenure exists, therefor its impossible to fire bad teachers." "

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill

google teacher rubber rooms for your proof

8/21/2012 11:02:51 AM

I mean superintendents of large districts make 6 figures easily, but you can't exactly advance to there via promotion from teacher.

8/21/2012 11:20:45 AM

Quote :

"As a teacher, are you aware that policies directly affecting you are implemented by your state?"

Implemented under coercion from the federal government. NCLB, and now Race to the Top, are completely optional-- so long as we're willing to give up hundreds ofn millions in federal funding. And they're really, really dumb.

Also, with all this talk of teachers unions, are people in this thread aware that teachers are prohibited from unionizing in NC? Anyway, if unions were the problem, one would think they'd be correlated with poor student performance, but they aren't. Take a look at this report on our NAEP scores:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/studies/2011458.pdf

And notice how union v. non-union states do. I marked states with >50% union membership in red:





[Edited on August 21, 2012 at 1:52 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2012 1:51:42 PM

No I think most people think education/performance is based on priorities in the home mostly. But paying more for the same results seems dumb.

Looks like Southeast is on the bottom, North and Northeast on the top. hmmm

8/21/2012 2:03:27 PM

Quote :

"I think most people think education/performance is based on priorities in the home mostly."

One would think this is a fact that all political persuasions could agree on, but it isn't. The people in charge of education reform from both the right and the left (Arne Duncan being one) are convinced the problem is primarily teacher quality. You mention that socioeconomic factors correlate to student achievement waaaaay more than teacher quality in every study ever made, and you're accused of making up excuses.

Quote :

"But paying more for the same results seems dumb."

Take a survey of your local school's teachers, and ask how many of them came from PA, OH, NY, etc... The union states get first dibs on teachers; the non-union states get leftovers. The best teacher in my dept. just moved north to get higher pay.

As price goes up, so does supply (of good teachers). Why do so many people pretend the law of supply doesn't apply to teacher pay?

[Edited on August 21, 2012 at 4:46 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2012 4:45:29 PM

^ pay usually increases with quality, I agree. The problem is that with union contracts that always isnt the case. Also I have seen some of my friends who are paid well to teach in poor performing schools take less pay to teach at a private school and LOVE it.

The reason neither side can agree with us Boone is bc it is not PC to do so.

8/21/2012 5:05:37 PM

Teachers make a load of cash in NYC.

But the conditions are not the best.

8/21/2012 5:10:58 PM