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

[mom'sfolly]

Here in suburban Austin, I live in a very college oriented area. What I see is a total Texas idea that UT is the best university in the world and A & M is second (or maybe the other way around

). Yes, both are very good schools, but I see so many people with very bright children who's highest goal is UT, kids that could get into schools like Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Northwestern etc or schools like Carleton, Reed, Amhearst or Pomona. The highest aspiration of extremely good students of educated parents is to a good state school.

I've lived in three other states, and this didn't seem to be the trend in those places. I look at the places my friends from high school ended up, and I look at these kids and I think they are capable of so much more.

I haven't met that many drop outs here in Texas, but it might be a reflection of where I live. I do feel that Texans in general have a much different idea of education than people I knew when I lived in the North (east coast, west coast and in the middle). The expectations of what education and schools offer seems to be much lower, and the emphasis on sports seems much higher. I admit I didn't have kids when I was in those other states, but I was educated in two of them. I know lots of people who spend thousands of dollars on elite sports and coaching for their kids, with the expectation that their kids will get a sports scholarship. They would be better off investing the money and paying for the college.

The highschool that my kids will attend has six football teams: Freshman A and B, sophomore A & B, junior varsity and varsity. This allows more kids to participate in the program, but at what price? I would much rather see the money spent on life sports: swimming, tennis, golf, running. I don't know anyone who as an adult plays a weekly game of football, I know lots of people who run everyday.

The dropout problem in Texas is horrible. Most districts don't show true dropout numbers, either. My highschool has listed dropout rate of 1.2%, but it has a freshman class of 700 and a senior class of 633, which looks more like 10% to me. This is a good district with a low dropout, some of the Houston schools start 30-50% more kids than they graduate.

 

[the-bird-man]

i live in utah and did school custodial for over 5 1/2 years and i have seen things from both the student side and the staff side. the school district in i went to/worked for had for one of the highest payed public officials in the united states as our superintendent. he made about a million dollars a year, his school district car was a high end bmw, he had his home/cell phone paid for along with internet and cable and he had food provided too. all while the district was short on money. they cut jobs all over but he would not cut any of the things he had. in the state of utah large family's are normal, i know a lot that have 15 or more kids but the normal size is around 8. our schools are struggling and yet they just wast money on things like heated sidewalks. it is very bad here

so i know how you all feel. thank god i was able to quit

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

The school systems are like any other system - they are delicate balances. Unfortunately, some of them are out of balance.

A system which is financially dependent on the area it exists in and working with the children of the local system will reflect THAT system. As long as you expect the entire system to meet similar standards, but fund them differentially when they are starting with different needs you are going to have disparity. Add human frailty, and the corruption that besets every human system and you're going to get failing children who reflect more the place they are from than any school.

Vouchers will not create competition because the system will still not be anything close to a level playing field. Competition cannot work under such distorted circumstances. All it will do is create more distortion. As it is those who can afford to do so move to "better" districts. Scores are published and housing prices rise as houses in those districts become more expensive. That is how the free market works and it is fine to some degree. Throwing more money at the problem won't fix it, but taking money from "failing" schools will only exacerbate it.

Schools don't fail because teachers don't care. They do fail when the staff and teachers stop caring. But, ANYONE would quick caring if they poured their heart and soul into taking care of other people's children for years and have parents yell at them for their children's failures when the parents keep the kids up all hours playing sports but don't get them to do homework. Or you spend 1/5 of your income re-investing back in materials for your job and have people like Scott Walker and Fox news call you greedy and lazy.

You want good teachers but somehow people think that abusing the teachers we have will encourage our best and brightest to join them. Charter schools have corruption problems and theft and fraud issues too. Vouchers will increase the divide between districts full of the bright kids of well heeled well educated parents and those districts striving to teach those who enter the classroom with serious deficits and leave it every day to go back into that environment.

 

[mom'sfolly]

What she said...

Again, I have no problem with vouchers if every school accepting public money has to provide ALL the same services as public schools.

 

[mamawolf544]

I live in Texas and we are in a very small school district which I love and my 3 GK's attend.


My BIG question????? Where the heck is our lottery money going???? General fund......

I went to school in Ohio, way back when. And we had the lottery, all the money went to the schools and roads. And we had excellent schools. And Ohio makes nothing in lottery sales compared to Texas.
Texas makes millions of dollars a week selling tickets and we are laying off teacher's. Something is not right there.

 

[WyandotteTX]

Mamawolf, I read a good article about the lottery money issue the other day. Once you take away the prizes, money to the lottery company and then the money to the retailers it is only a very small percentage of each dollar of sales. The money does go into the general fund but its not as much as we would all want it to be. I did read however that we give a massive tax break to natural gas drillers in the state who use the "fracking" technique which is almost 90% of all drilling in Texas. If that tax break was to be taken away it would give the state a WHOPPING $2.8 BILLION dollars in new revenue....that would make a serious dent in the deficit but the natural gas companies are of course fighting their tax break in spite of making hundreds of millions of dollars in the last decade.

I have WHAT, very good post.

 

[chickened]

If money could fix the problems with government schools one would think it would be fixed by now. Most government schools if not all have taken the focus off of what is best for the kids and now the battles are over teacher pay and benefits so consequently the money goes there as well. Our government could fix the schools if they wanted to but squeaky wheels get greased.

Someone made a comment about a level playing field and that vouchers would not work, well I got news for you it is not a level playing field now, students that excel in studies and have promising futures do not receive the due recognition, the system is more concerned about not hurting anyone's feelings instead of preparing them for the real world.

Unless you have been living in a cave on an island or something does any teacher not know the risks and public resentment surrounding government run schools before they choose that career path? I Mean my business has down turns and yes it sucks but I knew that going into it. My business relies on the public also and I treat my customers with a servants attitude something the schools have forgot. They work for me the public, the people, and are subject to the people and things happen that we may not like and yes it sucks.

I think I might like your Texas governor, I see a sweeping across the nation starting in Wisconsin about how government spends and if we really want to educate our children let us show them how we can live within our means, teach them those skills, get away from the entitlement mentality.

Not every kid will make doctors and lawyers, for years our schools have neglected the trade skills and the kids that should have those skills come out of high school with no plans for college and have no skills for blue collar jobs. Maybe why they choose military? (absolutely nothing wrong with it either) Our government schools have poor results compared to other countries (sorry Wyandotte no offense) that is a fact and trying something else that is proven to work might be a smart move. Any Texan knows you don't beat a dead horse.

 

[redhen]

The No Child Left Behind law has caused a LOT of problems...

 

[Dunkopf]

Quote:
Voucher systems are designed to help the well off and punish the poor. The cost of sending a child to a public school is approximately 50% of what a private school cost to attend. So Mr Jones gets a voucher each month for 900.00 and sends his kid to St Marys for 1800 a month. He used to have to pay all 1800. Now he pays half of that. Meanwhile Mrs Shacklefoot gets a 900.00 voucher and needs to come up with an extra 900 to send her kid to school. Since she works for 7.50 an hour cleaning houses, there's no way she can afford Saint Marys. So she gets to send her kid to some school run by a bunch of shysters and her kids learn less than they did going to the public school.

Our nations newly elected governors are in the process of trying to eliminate public schooling. When you get rid of education for all you develop a much larger work force that will work for slave wages with no benefits. More money to the top and less at the bottom. Business as usual. When are people going to wake up.

I bet you St Marys has all the crossing guards they need as well as a few police cars sitting around.

 

[WriterofWords]

No Child Left Behind = All Good Teachers Punished

NCLB was the worst thing to happen to education in a long time. Schools are punished financially for doing good, and money is thrown at the schools that are doing so bad. If you meet AYP, Annual Yearly Progress, they take money from your budget, give to a school that did not make AYP for tutoring. After a few years of this they then start taking money away from the failing schools and leaving them without enough to pay for what they need to even attempt to succeed. It's a vicious circle that is going nowhere. The idea of cutting teachers in a school district to save money is ludicrous! Teachers are the ones the schools are built to house, they are ones who are instructing the students. Our district cleaned out the main office, a couple of years ago. They are running on a skeleton crew but guess what? Our superintendent is also a Senator,, she introduced and passed a bill that screwed us to the wall. Our new Governor ran on a pro eduction, pro teacher platform and her first insult? Grades for schools, the schools will be ranked A, B, C, D. I would like to know where her grades for the student's parents are? Where is the student/family accountability?

As much as I hate to say it, the only way teachers are going to be heard is to do something drastic. Walk out and shut down the district. The only problem? We can't afford to do it.

ETA: NCLB was a good idea, if it had been implemented in the right frame of mind. Make students accountable, force parents to be involved, hold teachers to a high standard, but don't make it impossible for us to do our job.