Thoughts on homeschooling?

[A Theist]

OH NOES! Paying teachers is eating up your districts educational budget! LOL, I wish every district had this "problem".

Should we adjust the salary of doctors or engineers to adjust for the local average A Theist, is there something inherently wrong when either of these professionals earn wages much higher than the local average (if not then why does it bear mention in the case of teachers)? Let's not forget that you actually have to spend some time in college to be a teacher, if we want people to become educators when they could just as easily get a degree in the business, engineering, or medical fields we have to make the compensation competitive (which it is not btw). That -some- private educators make less than public educators isn't surprising bud, a private school is business. That business is most likely -not- in the business of making it's employees money.......

(teachers unions can be a pain in the ass for alot of reasons, so I'm told (by teachers, no less), but trying to get teachers paid - probably not the best example.)

Yes. There is something inherently wrong when school districts are stuggling financially and teachers unions refuse to step up and help out by making necessary concessions in their contracts. That's why we have movements in states like Wisconsin to reign in the high costs of maitaining public sector unions.
As far as doctors and engineers, (private sector jobs), I can always find another doctor who's fees are more competitive. But as far as public sector teachers, taxpayers are stuck unless there's a move to reign in their high costs.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes. There is something inherently wrong when fast food restaurants are stuggling financially and servers refuse to step up and help out by making necessary concessions in their contracts.

IDK, that doesn't sound very solid. I mean don't get me wrong, I feel for a district that can't afford to educate it's citizens. I suppose, if we're going to keep invoking private business as some sort of guiding light in this regard that perhaps they should just board up the doors and windows. I'm guessing that the citizens of your district probably wouldn't be doing themselves any favors if they decided to go that route though. Might just make the revenue issue worse, you know..maybe...

As far as doctors and engineers, (private sector jobs), I can always find another doctor who's fees are more competitive. But as far as public sector teachers, taxpayers are stuck unless there's a move to reign in their high costs.

Can you now....lol? You know they have unions as well. What high costs? We have a very cheaply bought public education system (that might explain why it has such a spotty record..but hey, no reason to split hairs). Here's what I want you to do for me amigo. Tally up what you pay in taxes - and how much of that goes to education. Now compare that number to yearly tutition at any private school. Tell me how competitive the two are (I don't need the numbers, that's your privacy and all)? Now I know, I know, alot of people don't have kids, so if we wanted to go a step further we could adjust this on those metrics. Tally up the total spent on education yearly (in your district), divide that by the number of students(in your district), and again compare that to the yearly tuition at a private school.

Now, all of this assumes, of course, that everyone could send their kids to a for-profit private school (because we wouldn't want to suggest that some people just shouldn't get an education - you know, too poor and all, maybe so poor that their district can't afford to cover the costs of their education...rgr?). Are private schools in your district capable of availing themselves of public funds btw? Do they (if they are, of course)?

[A Theist]

Yes. There is something inherently wrong when fast food restaurants are stuggling financially and servers refuse to step up and help out by making necessary concessions in their contracts.

IDK, that doesn't sound very solid. I mean don't get me wrong, I feel for a district that can't afford to educate it's citizens. I suppose, if we're going to keep invoking private business as some sort of guiding light in this regard that perhaps they should just board up the doors and windows. I'm guessing that the citizens of your district probably wouldn't be doing themselves any favors if they decided to go that route though. Might just make the revenue issue worse, you know..maybe...

As far as doctors and engineers, (private sector jobs), I can always find another doctor who's fees are more competitive. But as far as public sector teachers, taxpayers are stuck unless there's a move to reign in their high costs.

Can you now....lol? You know they have unions as well. What high costs? We have a very cheaply bought public education system (that might explain why it has such a spotty record..but hey, no reason to split hairs). Here's what I want you to do for me amigo. Tally up what you pay in taxes - and how much of that goes to education. Now compare that number to yearly tutition at any private school. Tell me how competitive the two are (I don't need the numbers, that's your privacy and all)? Now I know, I know, alot of people don't have kids, so if we wanted to go a step further we could adjust this on those metrics. Tally up the total spent on education yearly (in your district), divide that by the number of students(in your district), and again compare that to the yearly tuition at a private school.

Now, all of this assumes, of course, that everyone could send their kids to a for-profit private school (because we wouldn't want to suggest that some people just shouldn't get an education - you know, too poor and all, maybe so poor that their district can't afford to cover the costs of their education...rgr?). Are private schools in your district capable of availing themselves of public funds btw? Do they (if they are, of course)?

We're not talking about food servers in resturants. We're discussing reigning in the costs of public sector teachers unions which put a burden on states and schools districts budgets. I already have our district's financial data and I know its average cost per pupil. School districts and school boards of education should be given the tools to lower their current ACP's.

I would like to see state legislators pass laws that would help reign in the public sector union costs, (esp. teachers unions),

1). Eliminate the strike option
2). Eliminate contract negotiations for benefits packages
3). Eliminate automatic step increases, (longevity pay) and replace it with performance pay
4). Increase the amount of students per classroom

Only the state funding portion of taxes that school districts receive follow the students to the private schools. The local taxes, (including the property taxes), remain in the school district. I'm assuming that you wouldn't object to local taxes following a student to the private schools as well.

[Autumnlicious]

Wow. Holy simple mindedness Batman! While we're at it, let's be fascistic!

1). Eliminate the strike option

Work you little wage slaves! If you don't like it, you can't all complain and stop working!

Jesus. Striking is the last option available when negotiations between a large group of workers and the business break down.

Pro-tip: When most of your workers are refusing to work, it's not them. It's you.

2). Eliminate contract negotiations for benefits packages

In favor of what?

3). Eliminate automatic step increases, (longevity pay) and replace it with performance pay

Who gets to decide performance?

And what are the consequences for a teacher trying to deliver in a historically poor performing district? Would they be penalized and lose resources when they're already underresourced?

4). Increase the amount of students per classroom

Ah, conservative simple mindedness.

Large classrooms both diminish the individual attention given to a student and spreads out the teacher to managing even more people.

What are you smoking? Teachers aren't magic managers of kids.

They're more akin to the low end of university graduates who can't get into industry.

[Whateverist]

Now, all of this assumes, of course, that everyone could send their kids to a for-profit private school (because we wouldn't want to suggest that some people just shouldn't get an education - you know, too poor and all, maybe so poor that their district can't afford to cover the costs of their education...rgr?). Are private schools in your district capable of availing themselves of public funds btw? Do they (if they are, of course)?

Anyone who thinks there is just oodles of wasted dollars in education and so a profit to be made by the private sector isn't living in the real world.

Republicans have such a huge sense of entitlement while not wanting to pay for anything. Education should be cheap and therefore there should be qualified teachers who will work for chump change. Any teachers must just be un-American if they won't tighten their belt even more to support the fantasy that everything needed should be available without taxing the citizenry.

Which republican was it that came up with the great idea of using the children of the poor to replace janitors who refuse to work cheap enough? Too bad republicans don't support cloning. Otherwise perhaps they could raise up an army of clones to work for nothing and to fight in our military adventures.

[The Grand Nudger]

We're not talking about food servers in resturants. We're discussing reigning in the costs of public sector teachers unions which put a burden on states and schools districts budgets.

Actually, I think you were talking about employees buckling up when whatever outfit they work for is under-performing..but if that wasn't your intention, so be it.

I already have our district's financial data and I know its average cost per pupil. School districts and school boards of education should be given the tools to lower their current ACP's.

Excellent, so how does it measure up against private school tuition? Can we get a head to head?

I would like to see state legislators pass laws that would help reign in the public sector union costs, (esp. teachers unions),

1). Eliminate the strike option

Hmn, so what are the employees of this organization to do when they feel they're getting shafted? I assume you would also like to eliminate this option in the private sector?

2). Eliminate contract negotiations for benefits packages

Why? Should we also eliminate this for the private sector? I don't see why people shouldn't be allowed to negotiate (or renogotiate) the terms of a contract.

3). Eliminate automatic step increases, (longevity pay) and replace it with performance pay

Do you imagine that this practice is unheard of in the private sector? It's a tool used to reward longevity in an employee. I'm sure it can be abused/misused etc, don;t get me wrong, but this is another case where you seem to be singling out the public sector for something that's pretty standard in the private sector. Performance pay is going to be difficult to determine, the arguments both for and against performance pay are pretty complicated. Perhaps you would like to explore this issue further?

4). Increase the amount of students per classroom

Wow.....this one is beyond the pale. I can see where some of the others are really just extensions of ideology that isn't specific to education and I can understand why you might feel that they should be uniformly applied (I'm assuming that you are proposing that we uniformly apply all these restrictions to business btw......), but this one? I'm not aware of anyone who is stumping for this. This, out of everything you brought up, appears to me at least, to be a unilaterally bad idea.

Only the state funding portion of taxes that school districts receive follow the students to the private schools. The local taxes, (including the property taxes), remain in the school district. I'm assuming that you wouldn't object to local taxes following a student to the private schools as well.

At that point, whats the difference between a public school and a private school? Taxes earmarked for education flowing into education sounds like a system working as intended. Are there some cases where public funds shouldn't follow a student into a private school..yeah, probably. Are we going to get that head to head comparison at some point btw?

So, lets recap....

You would like to prevent educators from striking, negotiating/renegotiating some portion of their employment contracts, eliminate longevity pay and instead attach their wage increases to the ability of their students (whatever those abilities may be)....and since we're really looking to fix this broken system...you want to cram more students into each classroom in addition to all of this?

[Whateverist]

2). Eliminate contract negotiations for benefits packages

In favor of what?

I'm guessing robots, clones or slaves depending on the available technology.

What are you smoking? Teachers aren't magic managers of kids.

They're more akin to the low end of university graduates who can't get into industry.

I mostly agree but there are some of us who actually prefer the teaching gig to industry, some so much so that they actually leave better paying jobs in industry to do work with so much tangible social relevance. I admit that that is part of the reward I work for, I just don't accept that it should substitute for dollars.

In my own district we recognized that the district which has little control over the number dollars it takes in could not negotiate contracts when health care costs were skyrocketing so much faster than the cost of living. As a result, we (the union membership) negotiated a formula which for the first time ever saddled us with a portion of our healthcare costs. We were able to then able to establish checks and balances to ensure that we received as much compensation as the budget would bear. To do so is in the students best interest and the district's best interest as well as our own.

[cratehorus]

Public school should be abolished, everyone knows this is all apart of the liberal agenda, to indocrinate our children into their hippie lifestyle.

To tell our children that world wasn't created 6000 years ago, and that dinosaur's didn't walk with humans IS SATAN WORSHIP.

Why would THEY tell our childen this? I think it's because they all worship Satan. Everyone knows the only way to acheive happiness is through the church.... so why would they want us to educate our children outside the church?

Is it because the Satanists want to trick them with other watered down forms of devil worship? Like Moslemism?

Everyone knows learning about new religions only promotes witchcraft. Why do you think Eve was banished from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of WISDOM???? Read your bible's people

Therefore all liberals (as they like to call themselves) are really witches in disguise, you just dont see it WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!

People all over the world are WAKING UP to the reality that the anti-christ is near and we shall all parish..... unless we are raptured of course...... CONVERT to christianity NOOOOOOW!!!!!

The Satanists will tell you "public schools" are a good thing, but everyone knows that ALL christan schools will give free education to all poor people..........but of course they don't want you to know that, because they DON'T want your children to be raptured because they are emissaries of Satan.

So they lie and tell you publc schools are necessary to educate all children regardles of race religion or ethnicity.......... but as I've already proven that's just liberal satanist talk


If you atheists want to lie to your childen and tell them lies like the first human beings weren't adam and eve or that world was created 14 billion years ago or whatever made up number your so-called "science" tells you.

Then why don't you make your own atheist private schools and don't STEAL!!!! my CHRISTIAN tax dollars and spend them on spreading your lies!!!!

[Whateverist]

Public school should be abolished, everyone knows this is all apart of the liberal agenda, to indocrinate our children into their hippie lifestyle.

---

To tell our children that world wasn't created 6000 years ago, and that dinosaur's didn't walk with humans IS SATAN WORSHIP.

Why would THEY tell our childen this? I think it's because they all worship Satan. Everyone knows the only way to acheive happiness is through the church.... so why would they want us to educate our children outside the church?

Is it because the Satanists want to trick them with other watered down forms of devil worship? Like Moslemism?

Everyone knows learning about new religions only promotes witchcraft. Why do you think Eve was banished from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of WISDOM???? Read your bible's people

Therefore all liberals (as they like to call themselves) are really witches in disguise, you just dont see it WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!

People all over the world are WAKING UP to the reality that the anti-christ is near and we shall all parish..... unless we are raptured of course...... CONVERT to christianity NOOOOOOW!!!!!

The Satanists will tell you "public schools" are a good thing, but everyone knows that ALL christan schools will give free education to all poor people..........but of course they don't want you to know that, because they DON'T want your children to be raptured because they are emissaries of Satan.

So they lie and tell you publc schools are necessary to educate all children regardles of race religion or ethnicity.......... but as I've already proven that's just liberal satanist talk


If you atheists want to lie to your childen and tell them lies like the first human beings weren't adam and eve or that world was created 14 billion years ago or whatever made up number your so-called "science" tells you.

Then why don't you make your own atheist private schools and don't STEAL!!!! my CHRISTIAN tax dollars and spend them on spreading your lies!!!!

---

[Autumnlicious]

I mostly agree but there are some of us who actually prefer the teaching gig to industry, some so much so that they actually leave better paying jobs in industry to do work with so much tangible social relevance. I admit that that is part of the reward I work for, I just don't accept that it should substitute for dollars.

I don't mean to shaft teachers. I was a bit too fast with my paint brush -- I was attempting to illustrate that the Wall Street bankers, hot shot software developers, etc whom A Theist would be familiar with are usually skimmed from the best.

Most teachers for California come from state colleges, not our excellent universities.

That's not to say that teachers are failures, but only that the majority comes from the middle to lower end of the spectrum.

Then again, a lot of shit washes into industry too.

I still think the life of a teacher is a pretty shitty one. One with many, many restrictions, little recourse to dealing with abusive students, double-standards enforced by busybodies who really should be shot on sight, etc,.

Case in point that comes to mind -- My argument with Kyuuketsuki on AtheistHeaven about a woman who once upon a time did prostitution then cleaned up and became a teacher. He was adamant that "as a parent" that he had the right to insist she lose her job.

Yes, lose her job over a part of her past that she left behind. Nothing says atheists have to believe in good ol' redemption and changing your ways, no more than Christians actually believe in such.

Bleh.

I try to dissuade my friends of teaching, only because I don't want them to be broken down with a job that never ends but with a constant stream of parents, moral crusaders and shitty, ill disciplined child-monsters you'd wish to end.