School districts, layoffs and other things of interest....

[chickened]

I don't know the figures but in Oregon we had what was called the O&C Land Grants which money from federal timber went directly to the counties that harvested it and then to the schools. During that time some of the most beautiful school buildings were built schools had more money than they could spend. Thank the greenies for that going away.

Looked it up and about 11% comes from the feds but ironically the Dept of Ed. has a discretionary budget third in line behind the DOD DHS.
Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png

It was always my understanding that the bulk of the money used for schools is generated from local taxes and not federal taxes. Does someone know the accurate percentage? I don't.

 

[chickened]

Lincoln understood what this country was founded upon and what it needed and why.

 

[kstaven]

Quote:
He did. But from everything I have read on the man he would have to say that EDUCATION begins at home and then is furthered by an educational system. Parents overall need to take a more active roll and teachers need to be allowed to teach and have the ability to actually discipline and correct within reason without fear of the petty legal garbage we see all too often.

The country needs to learn to take personal responsibility, talk to each other, and leave the legal system as the last resort rather than the first.

 

[redhen]

Quote:
He did. But from everything I have read on the man he would have to say that EDUCATION begins at home and then is furthered by an educational system. Parents overall need to take a more active roll and teachers need to be allowed to teach and have the ability to actually discipline and correct within reason without fear of the petty legal garbage we see all too often.

The country needs to learn to take personal responsibility, talk to each other, and leave the legal system as the last resort rather than the first.

Yep... i remember being spanked in elementary school by a teacher (in Florida)...
And i deserved it.,. trust me.

 

[Imp]

Quote:
He did. But from everything I have read on the man he would have to say that EDUCATION begins at home and then is furthered by an educational system. Parents overall need to take a more active roll and teachers need to be allowed to teach and have the ability to actually discipline and correct within reason without fear of the petty legal garbage we see all too often.

The country needs to learn to take personal responsibility, talk to each other, and leave the legal system as the last resort rather than the first.

Yep... i remember being spanked in elementary school by a teacher (in Florida)...
And i deserved it.,. trust me.

Why am I not surprised.

Imp-

 

[PineappleMama]

Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png

It was always my understanding that the bulk of the money used for schools is generated from local taxes and not federal taxes. Does someone know the accurate percentage? I don't.

A couple weeks back there was a thing about TX state ed funding cuts... that it was X, but next year will be Y and at that time I found a site that told how many kids were in public schools in Texas and I divided X and Y by # of kids... think it ended up being in the $1600/kid range... though now I can't remember if that was the before cut or after cut number. Point was that at the time I thought $1600 in state funds... and the districts saying they spend upwards of $15000 per student... haven't yet figured out where the other 13400 comes from... what portion is maybe federal funds (coulda had a boost there like every other state but not going to happen thanks to an Austin Dem in DC's personal war with the gov and co. Thanks for nothing there buddy) and what portion is city, even county, taxes. But overall it seemed like the state wasn't contributing all that much... roughly 10%... considering that the Fed (supposedly) depends on individual states to control and fund education it just surprised me. *shrug*

 

[mom'sfolly]

Here's the breakdown of my district's funding:


Total: 336,000,000
Local: 211,000,000
State: 124,000,000
Federal: 900,000

I'm not sure if this is before or after the state spending cuts. Typically, most school funding is local. Federal school money is often tied to programs run through schools for disadvantaged students. About five years ago the state dropped property taxes that went to schools, and vowed to make up the money with sales taxes. This works if the economy is booming and there is consumer confidence; it doesn't work so well when the economy tanks. So the state limited the local taxation authority, but promised to make up the money to schools, and they can't, but districts aren't allowed to raise the property taxes to get back the funding.

Everyone on the board should be able to go to their district and find out what the revenue streams are and how the money is spent.

 

[AquaEyes]

Quote:
WARNING: Extremely Long Post

Politicians say things to audiences that their audiences want to hear. Their speeches are often written and/or edited by others. What they say in private life and put into law are often different things. Lincoln was a politician and was speaking to the people. In his own private life, he was frequently accused of being an atheist.

See my signature for two among many other quotes regarding religion from presidents going further back in our country's history. I keep a list handy for these times.

The following are FACTS -- documented quotes that can be verified -- except where noted as being my opinion. I am not debating whether there is or isn't a god. I am debating the assertion that this country was founded upon Christian ideals. This is presentation of FACTS, not an argument of OPINION. If you wish to read the quotes below and continue to believe that this country was founded upon Christian ideals by affirmed Christians, you are free to do so. Everyone can believe what they wish, that's the great thing about our country. But to form an opinion on the matter, one needs to see the data.

Thomas Jefferson's original wording for the Declaration of Independence (altered by others for the final draft): "All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable."

Episcopal minister Bird Wilson of Albany, New York, protested in October 1831: "Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism."

INSERT: My opinion -- Consider this: IF indeed the members of the First Continental Congress were all bible-believing, "God-fearing" men, would there ever have been a revolution at all?

"For rebellion as is the sin of witchcraft." 1 Samuel, 15:23

INSERT: My opinion -- Would they have initiated a rebellion if indeed they thought it was equal to witchcraft (a crime punishable by death)? But that's only the tip of the iceberg. The New Testament gives clear instructions to Christians on how to behave when ruled under a monarchy, as were the Founders.

1 Peter 2:13: "For the Lord's sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right."

Paul wrote in Romans 13:1: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resist authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

INSERT: My opinion -- The Founders clearly did not heed what was written in the bible. If they were in fact "good" Christians, there would never have been an American Revolution. Compare the above passages with the Declaration of Independence:

"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations... evinces a design to reduce (the people) under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security..."

INSERT: My opinion -- Anyone who can think for themselves can see that the Founders were not Christians.


FAMOUS QUOTES:

James Madison

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."

AND

"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

- James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785



"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
-James Madison, in a letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774


"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
-James Madison in an 1803 letter objecting use of gov. land for churches


John Adams


"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
-John Adams in a letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816


"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved-- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"
-John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson


"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."
- John Adams, in a letter to John Taylor

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.
- John Adams


"The question before the human race is, whether the God of Nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
- John Adams


"God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there will never be any liberal science in the world."
- John Adams

". . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."
- John Adams


"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."
- John Adams



Thomas Jefferson


"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose."
- Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814

"Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a common censor over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
- Thomas Jefferson in "Notes on Virginia"


"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787


"It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests."
- Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1803


"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
-Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813


"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."
-Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816


"Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself."
-Thomas Jefferson in his private journal, Feb. 1800


"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism, he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it."
-Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816


"The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
- Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823


"They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live."
- Thomas Jefferson, personal documents

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever."
-Thomas Jefferson in Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law."
-Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814


Benjamin Franklin

". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
-Benjamin Franklin, personal documents

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
-Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanac


"In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it."
-Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanac


Thomas Paine -- the "firebrand of the American Revolution"

from various writings and propaganda pamphlets that inspired the American Revolution:

"The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.''

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

"What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith."

"Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies."

"We do not admit the authority of the church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufactured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins. It was by propagating that belief and supporting it with fire that she kept up her temporal power."

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

"The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar."

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion."

 

[chickened]

The figures for funding are on file at each District in Oregon, public record law.

Our schools are carried by property taxes as well. Part of the problem is it is not a stable source of income for schools albeit more stable than a sales tax which we do not have.

Someone said earlier that they did not want merit pay. Well without it you get arbitrary cutting and indiscriminate layoffs. In a Union setting employers will eliminate a position rather than firing. In the real world I must perform better than my co-worker to avoid being laid off. This is how the non-government crowd lives and works. A fact that is often overlooked is public workers WORK FOR ME and I AM their boss ultimately that is just the way it is and that gives me a say in what happens,(Constitutional right) sorry if you don't like that part.. Now I know someone will say but it is different but no it really isn't we all should live and work by the same rules. Private sector gets cut so should the public sector.

I heard Dave Ramsey say last night that the problem he sees most in finances is no organization and overspending, not from a lack of money and living within a prearranged budget helps also..

Who was the last president to balance the budget? Don't tell me it cannot be done. Ronald Reagan was IMO the last great president. (He was president of the actors Union also) he made tough choices that brought us out of the Carter inflation years which is where we are headed if we do not quit spending.

Another problem with budgets is the way they are structured. Agencies must spend all they get so they will keep their budget allowance where it is. There are no rewards for government agencies to save money if they don't spend it they get their budget reduced the next budget cycle. That could be changed also, isn't change what you all voted for?

 

[mom'sfolly]

Clinton was the last president with a balanced budget, and a budget surplus. Reagan ran a deficit every year. Before that, the last president with a balanced budget was LBJ, and before that Eisenhower. You have to go back to the middle of the previous century for a republican with a balanced budget.