I just would like to see a return for the increased money being spent on education. We are spending more and getting less, it seems. I don't think that means teachers are overpaid...but I think, looking at the spending charts, that the system would seem to have other problems than lack of funding. I believe one thing...my little county of 128,000 doesn't need 12 public school districts and all of the administrative bloat and overlap that goes along with having so many.
I am pretty certain that classroom size has a ton to do with that equation and I am sure also that it's not an arbitrary stat.... the kids perform better with a smaller student to teacher ratio than a larger one. I know that plus the education level of the teachers and spending per pupil are signifcant criteria in ranking our nation's public schools and along with that ranking is the correlation of standardized test scores etc.
The high school I went to was mixed by race. White, black, hispanic, asian.. the white kids might have held a slight majority but if so, not by much. The kids were rich, poor and middle class. The average size of our classrooms was right under 40 kids per teacher. The smallest classes I had were maybe 25-30. The school has a 99% placement rate for 4 year universities over a 55 year span. Quite often the 1% are guys who go into the military. We had good parents, shitty parents...all a big grab bag. The difference is and was the teachers. I worked at a public high school and was aghast at the 'I don't give a ****, I'm just covering my back' attitude that plagued the VAST majority of the teachers there. There was no reaching out to kids. There was no challenging kids. Just pass em along. A big issue is that we have politicized education. There's no accountability from anyone and that often includes the parents. Not everyone is going to be a doctor, but if you don't challenge kids, no one will get better.
I agree with that statement and it works for both sides. If Limbaugh followers... and that include the Politicos that listen to what his masses have to say... become convinced that all teachers are bad.... that the school system is nothing but a tax sucker with no benefits to be had then the idea of education has become politicized at the expense of our nation's kids. When teachers feel that this group of conservatives have them backed up against the wall they probably adopt an us against them mentality not ripe for compromise and not conducive to inspired teaching. When workers are continually criticized and cut with no positive feedback for the job they do they may work out of fear but there's not much room for inspiration in that scenario.
I don't post as often as I could...I read the current events that excite one or the other and try to put myself in their position.... But having enjoyed the goodness of "one crown and coke" I have got to say to the rest of the workers of the good ole USA. Get a life, appreciate the job you have. You have nothing to bitch about, put yourself in my shoes or those like me. Pretty confident that most folks don't know that farm workers do not get overtime, have never gotten overtime and probably in my life time will never receive it...Even though I make a great salary with a furnished vehicle and fuel I am gone on a slow week 60 hours. On a busy week its 70-100 hours. Don't forget the wonderful skin cancer, mosquito's, high humidity and 97 degree days where you are exposed without a cubicle in sight. No pension, no collective bargaining, social security and whatever you paid in toward the 401K. 90% of farm managers have a 4 year degree, the others have a masters degree so the dues have been paid and most likely are still being paid with college loans. There is no group looking out for us, no Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton because we are mostly white and mostly heterosexual. Our families do not see us like other families see their loved ones and the national news does not report anything about our trade unless it concerns someone getting sick.... So please appreciate my hope for those needing it, and forgive my lack of compassion for those asking for compassion while receiving benefits not granted a majority of workers.
Ralph, Well said. Dave, I'm fairly certain this is not the chicken/egg argument you're making it out to be. The Unionization of many professions politicized them. As for how you get from education to Rush.
The following link will illustrate some of the nonsense that occurs within the education system of NJ. This fellow was the superintendent in the town my businesses is located in so some of his "lifestyle" was funded by yours truly. Two other disgraced area supers are mentioned in the article as well. This is just in our immediate area. While this has nothing to do with teachers per se, it highlights the level of corruption in our 586 school districts which is aided and abetted by the NJEA, the monolithic teachers union who Chris Christie took on when elected. http://www.app.com/article/20130809/NJNEWS2003/308090092?source=nletter-top5
You sure about that? That rather long (and quite thoughtful) article/research study you linked to regarding getting higher quality top-of-class students to choose to go into teaching seemed to question that.
I would venture that classroom discipline, or the lack of it, may have as much impact as sheer numbers. I went to Catholic shools in the 60s and early 70's. I don't think I was ever in class of less than 35, often 40-45. But nuns with rulers and later priests and brothers who were not above physical confrontation seemed to keep us focused. And our parents gave them their full support.
I could use George's post word for word to describe my education more than a decade prior to his, including the class sizes.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Better question George is when did Dave start listening to Limbaugh...... or is he just reporting what he heard on cnn or msnbc :lol: :lol: :lol: as for teachers salaries.... Jim and I put a bid on a new house yesterday but not sure how it is going. only thing saving us is Jims ability to invest our money..... wisely and make money.
Seriously? http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/03/18/face_it_teachers_run_an_easy_money_scam_on_fellow_citizens http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/11/01/the_truth_about_teacher_salaries http://mediamatters.org/video/2012/06/11/limbaugh-the-idea-that-police-teachers-and-fire/186817 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/20/947342/-Rush-Limbaugh-Calls-Teachers-State-Workers-freeloaders# http://onevoiceamongmany.newsvine.com/_news/2011/02/18/6079779-rush-limbaugh-calls-wisconsin-teachers-anti-democracy-parasites Google "Limbaugh teachers" and hundreds of articles come up where Rush shows his idiotic hatred for teachers. Of course Rush makes 50 million dollars per year by being a firebrand speaker for conservatives.... gagging up vitriolic diatribe often not substantiated by fact.
Listen, Dave. I rarely listen to Limbaugh. But even you can earn $50,000,000 per year if you can entertain and provoke thought in an audience every day for three hours, five days per week. And if you can grow that audience to over 20,000,000 and maintain it for 25 years. You need to work on your delivery, though. I get bored with you after a post or two. Never have been enamored with crybabies.
Could find a newer article if I looked but this one is pretty succinct: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/05/rush-limbaugh200905 Limbaugh still has a great influence on the GOP because no one on the right wants to be on his bad side. It's sad..... but true.
:roll: That article was written by Michael Wolff. Here's more on Michael Wolff... In its review of Wolff's book Burn Rate, Brill's Content criticized Wolff for "apparent factual errors" and said that more than a dozen of the subjects he mentioned complained that Wolff had "invented or changed quotes" that he attributed to them. [20] In a 2004 cover story for The New Republic, Michelle Cottle wrote that Wolff was “uninterested in the working press,” preferring to focus on “the power players—the moguls” and was "fixated on culture, style, buzz, and money, money, money.” She also noted that “the scenes in his columns aren’t recreated so much as created—springing from Wolff’s imagination rather than from actual knowledge of events.” Calling his writing "a whirlwind of flourishes and tangents and asides that often stray so far from the central point that you begin to wonder whether there is a central point" she quoted one daily New York columnist thusly: “I find it nearly impossible to read his columns. They’re flabby. I don’t know what the **** he’s trying to say.” One journalist who knew Wolff told Cottle, "He can't write. He doesn't report." [21] Cottle subsequently called Wolff “possibly the bitchiest media big foot writing today.”[22] The Columbia Journalism Review criticized Wolff in 2010 when he suggested that The New York Times was aggressively covering the breaking News International phone hacking scandal as a way of attacking News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch. CJR called Wolff's analysis “pathetic”, “disgusting,” “twisted,” and based on “zero evidence.” [23] In 2013, Gawker.com cited Wolff as a major example of “trolling,” whereby media run stories designed solely for the purpose of outraging their consumers and thereby provoking public reaction. Gawker wrote, “Wolff is intelligent enough to be an actual, serious media critic; he's also canny enough to know that few people give a **** about serious media criticism, so he can get a lot more readers by tossing off ridiculous white wines [sic] about restaurant reservations and incendiary mansplanations; and, he's both needy and amoral enough to just, you know, insult people for attention.” [24] New York Magazine has called him an "angry man for pay" and a "media provocateur". [25]