Is funding the primary problem with public schools?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

I spend a lot of time here reading threads and responding to those that peak my interest. Rarely do I post my own...but I would like have your opinion in light of a couple (granted, a limited number) of examples.

Is funding (or lack thereof) the primary problem with the public school system? We know that it there ARE problems...but what do you think is the root? I do not think that funding is the PRIMARY problem due to a couple of examples. Specifically in ATL the city schools average about $13,000 per pupil and are among the worst in the country while Cobb County School System and Gwinnett County School System spend about 40% less (around $7,000 per pupil) and have some of the better schools in the country...and they are literally adjacent to ATL City Schools.

My belief here is that school systems are not underfunded. Rather that some of the school systems are so bloated with bureaucracy and top heavy management that most of the monies allocated to those systems are misspent.

What say you?

subjectProdigal

[MadMaddie]

1. I think you answered your question...it's politics plain and simple.

it's the quality of teachers, the curriculum etc, the adminstrative top people make too much money while the teachers get pennies on the dollar for long days, unruley classrooms....and in some cases disintrested parents....

[SharonAnn]

79. Children need more than some families provide and schools could

provide some of it. If they did, it would cost more than we currently spend.

In poor areas, children may not have enough to eat. They may not get enough sleep (irregular family hours, no heating or air conditioning, insufficient beds, etc.) They may not be supervised after school. They may not have a place to do their homework and encouragement to do it. They may have no "educational" interaction with their family: talking with them, reading to them or being read to, educational and recreational outings, etc.

When a child shows up hungry, tired, inadequately clothes, insecure, unparented, stressed and even homeless, we are expecting schools to teach according to the old way in spite of these problems. And then we blame it on the schools if the child doesn't succeed.

And we even have hcildren from affluent families who are well fed but ill-taught at home. They are sometimes disdainful of rules, misbehave badly and parents try to protect them, bully others and escape consequences for their actions. And then we blame it on the schools if the hcild doesn't succeed.

It's like Andy Rooney said a few years ago about the situation. "We don't need better schools, we need better parents."

But until we have better parents, as a society we have to decide if it's in our benefit to help the hcildren. If it is, then we should provide what children need, even if it's through the schools.

[WindRavenX]

2. It's racism

Racism that has become so ingrained into society that it becomes impossible to discuss any facet of society without discussing the impact that racism has on it--especially in education.

I could go on and on and on on this topic, but I won't. I will simply say that poor, urban and rural schools alike, are punished for struggling, instead of helped.

IMHO, the NCLB act is one of the most racist acts ever passed on our soil, but in a very subtle way that most people do not recognize or simply do not care.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

5. but how can you say that when the predominately

African American system is getting nearly double the money that the predominately Caucasian school systems are spending so much less? That seems to go against your premise...I could see if it were the other way round...but...

sP

[MichiganVote]

11. Title I schools may get more money b/c they meet the criteria

and for that reason, they may employ more staff for remedial purposes. To assume that schools with a heavy minority population are getting "nearly double" the money that predominantly white schools get denies different funding streams.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. but I am not talking about WHERE the money comes from

I am talking about spending. Per the budgets of these school systems and their annual outlays the ATL schools are SPENDING nearly double what the two county school I referenced are spending. Unless they are spending money without documenting it (which would be nearly impossible with the scrutiny that these boards are under) then your statement doesn't work.

sP

[MichiganVote]

21. All school systems issue an annual report with expenses, etc.

have you bothered to read them? If not, why not? Compare the two or three and see what you think. But remember, even if a system is spending nearly double, the reasons may be as as diverse or complex as the school systems themselves.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

28. yes, I have read them and that is why I am asking

I have seen the numbers and they don't add up. The expenses in the larger school system in ATL are much more heavily weighted toward 'administrative' functions...is that a waste? It would appear to be given the performance.

Have done something to tick you off? You are being rather rude in your tone. Have I 'bothered' to read them? Trust me, it was no bother...

sP

[MichiganVote]

37. In some school districts a heavier emphasis on administration costs

can be related to programming that is offered. Most administrators wear more than one hat and manage a range of programs responsible for anything from operations to curriculum. Again, it depends on the area. Can dollars be wasted with too many administrators? Sure, that happens in any large organization usually b/c it takes time for systems to swing around to new planning for new challenges. Any three martini lunches? Not likely. Expensive junkets paid for by lobbyist's? Impossible. Perks? Sure, usually in terms of administrative time or reimbursment for transportation costs. All health care is being cut across the US. Are there 'political positions', absolutely and I've seen some very bad decisions made on that score. But in the big picture of multi million dollar budgets, operations, staff salaries, and transportation cost much more.

As to your comments about my 'tone', I work in the schools and I know schools. I have experience about what works and what doesn't. There are scores of people just like me. And then there are the detractors who ask questions that sound more like accusations. Schools function like families, some are more functional than others. So how would you like it if a member of your family was at fault for something and someone came to you and suggested, 'your family is getting too much money' or, 'as the head of the family you didn't teach/prevent junior from breaking the neighbors window so your paycheck is being docked.' Suppose your home is riddled with inefficiecy, the roof leaks, the boiler is busted---and the court of public opinion says---sorry, your kids can't move into a better environment to learn or grow. Do you get it? People who care about education, people who care about kids, are the ones who work with kids in all kinds of schools daily.

You want to improve the schools without more money? Ok, the answers for the public are to attend your school board meetings, your parent meetings, your conferences, the sports and music programs.
Its all in the hands of the public. But rather than take the time to do these things that were once commonplace in our society, people whine about money and schools.

Sorry for the tone, but frankly, you're just one more in a string of people who want to solve a non money problem by framing it as, well, a money issue. Have you looked at what is really happening in education lately? People are leaving it. They are retiring or retiring early, they are not signing up for education classes, they are leaving the profession because its not valued. Education has become society's whipping post. So whip away and then just like nursing today, the shortages of teachers across the US will begin in earnest.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

46. my parents were both teachers and I taught in the

public schools for one semester before running screaming into the night. So I do have a bit of first hand experience. While I do not teach now (at least not in a public school arena) I am still freshly impacted by memories of my experiences so there is no need to teach me about teaching 'families.' I lived in one.

If your home is riddled with inefficiencies, you fix the inefficiency. And yes, you spend the money to fix the roof and the boiler. But if the head of your household is wasting money...you get control of that. If I were wasting money in my family, my wife would see it and take the reigns...and rightly so.

You say something interesting. "Its all in the hands of the public. But rather than take the time to do these things that were once commonplace in our society, people whine about money and schools." What used to be commonplace in our society was parents who worked hard for the education of their children. My parents as an example. My education and therefore a good chunk of my success later in life was of huge importance to them. So much so, that they sacrificed in areas of their own lives to better my own (and those of my siblings).

I think you misunderstand my concern. My concern is that funding is NOT the primary problem. The primary problem is society and the parents of these children who are failing. We DO undervalue education. People blame teachers for their childrens' failing grade when the parents pay no attention to the child until there is a problem. People blame teachers when children have no moral grounding when the teachers should not have to be teaching that. People blame the schools for throwing away children for the sake of testing when the real problem is the parents (or the situation that the parents are in...some parents would kill to have the time to be more involved with the education of their children but cannot be due to survival needs).

How do we convince people that the schooling IS worth the time and the effort? My concern is that we are not addressing the ROOT of the problem...and to my thinking that root is not the school nor even the child...but the society that has been created where parents could care less about their child as long as someone is watching them for about 8 hours a day...

sP

[MichiganVote]

52. Short answer: You change the economics in this country

There are a percentage of people you're just not going to reach. They are any color and on any level of the income strata. Plenty of rich kids are literally dying for a real live parent. These are underachievers, sometimes they present as slow learners or they are delinquent. They are hurting kids and they grow up to hurt their kids.

Funny thing about people who grow up in poverty. They are exhausted. They lack the human fuel needed for education. I've seen some kids who live in an absolute rot gut existence with IQ's in the 120-150 or higher range who end up in an alternative ed. setting where they fool around and later drop out. In another life, another family, they'd be in the paper for making the Dean's list. As it is, the children in too many of our families are corrupted, are poor, are angry and are utterly undisciplined.

Our society is driven by a corporate culture that sells success with every purchase that is made. More purchases, more success. Its all just one overgratifying visit to Walmart after another.

The fact that you have known different makes you a teacher whether you like it or not. Start small. Choose one kids to deveote your time to in a school 1 hour a week. There are so many kids that need watering to bloom......

[proud2BlibKansan]

56. You are on the right track

The problem is that society needs to address its problems before schools will improve much. Schools will NEVER be able to solve society's problems. But positive changes in society will definitely produce positive changes in education.

[proud2BlibKansan]

55. And yet they keep reducing our title I funding!!

We no longer get enough to pay for people. Our title I budget pays for supplies - period. At one time, we got enough to pay for 6 paras and 2 teachers - plus all those supplies.

[WindRavenX]

12. I'm almost positive, though, that black districts get...

...considerably less money than white districts, especially true in urban enviroments. I'll try to get some numbers to post so I can say for certain.

Take into account that the NCLB act punishes cuts funding to failing schools--mostly minority majority districts-- I stand by my statement.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

19. i would venture that in smaller communities that may be true

but it definitely doesn't hold true here in the ATL area. The white schools are less funded with better success rates (if you count testing as a success).

As was stated in another portion of this thread, I think most of it comes down to parental involvement, not the amount of money spent on each child. So, how do we correct THAT problem?

sP

[proud2BlibKansan]

58. Think of them as urban schools

That sounds more p.c. than 'black' schools. And that's the term we use in education.

[proud2BlibKansan]

54. It costs more to educate kids from low income homes

Here's the best example I can think of - let's say you are a kindergarten teacher and you want to teach a unit on animals. In a suburban school, your kids have probably been read to at home, and have been exposed to books about animals. They have probably been to the zoo. (I know when I was a kid, my dad took us all to the zoo a couple times a year.) They may even have been to a farm and seen farm animals.

In a low income school, it is highly likely that the kindergarteners have NOT been read to at home. I know this sounds unbelievable, but I have spent nearly 3 decades teaching in urban low income schools and very few of our kindergarteners have been read to at home. They have probably also never been to a zoo or to a farm.

So in which class will this unit on animals be easier to teach? Which class will need to go to a zoo and to a farm to have hands on experiences with animals? In which class will this animal unit take more time to cover?

So yes it takes more money, more community resources and more teacher time to teach low income kids.

[raccoon]

80. Good example. Thanks for that. nt

[msongs]

6. maybe so, maybe not....

your steroetypical view is only valid if there are the same results in any school districts regardless of racial makeup. ie, the same result occurs in multiple districts in a given area that are nearly all one race, and that same result occurs no matter what race predominates.

which does not preclude racism in some or many events.

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art
get YOUR pics on shirts!

[WindRavenX]

13. Could you be a little clearer?

I'm a bit confused as to what you mean :hi:

[ananda]

8. it's corporofascism of which racism is a vital part!

For some reason, people want to control control control... to the nth degree of micromanagement... with test scores as the ultimate criterion. But all this is also an excuse for privatization and reconstituting low-performing schools.

It's all so crazeeee I can't even begin to tell you. And it has nothing to do with learning or with the way kids learn by nature.

Sue

[proud2BlibKansan]

49. I agree 1000%

But I think it is racism against poor people, not just people of color.

[WindRavenX]

53. true

Those are two seperate issues, but right now they're one and the same...

[proud2BlibKansan]

59. Not all schools serving low income areas are in all black neighborhoods

My school is in a very poor urban neighborhood. 90% of our kids are on free lunch. And 90% of our kids are Hispanic. Until recently, we were pretty evenly divided - one third black, one third Hispanic and one third white.

So I see it as discrimination against the poor.

[cmd]

76. Not racism, poverty n/t

[porphyrian]

83. Racism and classism are inextricably intertwined.

Both are systemic problems, and likely won't be resolved until the entire system is corrected.

[cmd]

85. The system cannot be corrected without addressing those issues

In the public elementary schools, poverty is the overriding factor in pupil performance. Of course, there are more poor minority children than poor white children which makes it look like a race problem. The root problem is poverty. Most parents in poverty striken areas have given up hope. They pass their hopelessness on to their children. The children enter schools without a goal. They are hopeless and have no dreams. Parent intervention has to be done early in the lives of those children if we are to make a difference. It's not just getting parents involved in the schools, the schools have to become involved in the lives of the parents. The whole family needs to be educated and lifted up.

[porphyrian]

86. Our only disagreement is in your reluctance to admit the racism.

As I said, the racism and classism are inextricably intertwined, especially in the South. You can't separate the two, nor can you deny the existance of either. If you do, you won't be able to effectively address the issue.

[cmd]

95. You may have a point about some areas.

I am a northerner. Around here the poor Blacks, poor Hispanics and poor Whites are all in the same boat - a sinking one. Race may carry more weight in the South. Do the middle class and wealthy Southern blacks fare as poorly in school as the poor ones? I don't know. I have no experience in that area.

[porphyrian]

100. There are some places you can hardly tell the civil rights movement...

...happened at all, especially the more rural areas. The Good Ol' Boy Network runs the system. There are almost no labor unions, and the ones that exist are virtually powerless. People weren't over-reacting when they called racism on the Katrina response, they just weren't mentioning the classism involved as well. Again both racism and classism have been part of the system here for so long that they are largely unnoticed by those who aren't affected by it, but it is definitely there. Much of what makes the bush family intolerable comes from their attempts to nationalize the Good Ol' Boy Network, which has unfortunately had some success.

[cmd]

102. On our way to Florida

when our children were younger, we passed an accident scene in NC. My husband was an EMT, so we pulled over to see if he could help. He got back to the car shaking his head and angry enough to spit nails. A black man in one car was critically injured. A white man in the other car had minor scrapes. When the ambulance arrived, the white man was loaded and was sent off to the hospital. My husband stayed with the black man at least 15 minutes longer until a second squad arrived. Yes, I believe every word of what you say.

[lastliberalintexas]

99. Actually there are more poor whites

In raw numbers anyway. Minorities have a higher per capita poverty rate, though.

[msongs]

3. some of the problems I would cite are

1)lack of parental involvement, lack of parental time involved with kids, lack of parental give a damn about their kids,
lack of adult guardians spending time with their kids etc

2) hugely excessive amount of time kids spend on electronic media - tv, chell phones, video games, berries, pods, malls, porno my spaces, etc

3) bloated bureacracy is a biggie as it would be in ALL bureaucracies

4) lack of parental involvement....I believe kids with adults who pay attention to them and help them and insist that education and reading and studying are important will do better, on average, than will kids who spend their time zoning and vegging out, NO MATTER what their socio-economic status.

then again, even a C- average is good enuff to be president if your old man is a connected millionaire who bails you out after each of your failures, even when everything you tried failed.

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art
get YOUR pics on shirts!

[havocmom]

10. You get my vote for education analyst of the year

All starts at home. If parents aren't paying attention, no way in hell teachers can be all things to all kids, and administrators, and tax payers... Teachers can not fix all the shortcomings of our culture's treatment of children.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

16. ok...now we are getting somewhere...thanks

it has been a thought of mine for some time that parental involvement is the number one contributor to the child's success in public school. With that being the possiblity, wouldn't it make more sense to spend the money elsewhere? On other programs rather than directly to the schools? I don't know what the solution is...but something that would enable parents to focus less on themselves (and in some cases just plain old survival) and more on their childrens' success?

sP

[havocmom]

32. You're kidding, right? If parents were more involved, schools would get $$

If parents saw the ratios of students to teachers...
If parents were faced with what teachers actually make...
If parents took time to notice some schools don't provide toilet paper due to low funds, that underpaid teachers are reaching into their own wallets to try and get supplies for enrichment and just plain old daily school work...

No, we need $$ for schools. But we need parents to raise kids who respect others and understand responsibility and accountability. We need decent pay to draw more teachers into the field and we need parents to support those teachers instead of insisting their unsocialized darlings never do anything wrong and should be excused from doing assignments and projects.

We need parents to go to school board meetings and make sure education policy is done the best it can be done. We need them to run for school boards if they see a lot of problems.

We need new buildings in too many districts. We need more books and computers. We need equipment for decent science classes. We need funds in our schools.

But it all starts with parents. They have to raise the kids, pay attention and not assume things are fine and dandy.

And those of us with no children or grown children need to stay involved with education. We all benefit from an educated population. It is in all our interests to tend to the needs of children.

To do it right cannot be done on the cheap. Don't think parental involvement will get society off the hook for funding what is necessary.

My ol granny used to say: "You pay for what you need, whether you buy it or not. Her wisdom seems particularly relevant to education.

[raccoon]

81. "You're kidding, right? If parents were"

Great post!

Especially this part:

"But it all starts with parents....And those of us with no children or grown children need to stay involved with education. We all benefit from an educated population. It is in all our interests to tend to the needs of children."

Your old granny was very wise!

[Bill McBlueState]

41. I think you're onto something

I suspect that if urban parents are less involved in their children's education than their suburban counterparts, it's that they have to spend their time making ends meet instead of attending PTA meetings. A single parent with a full-time job, unreliable transportation, and a substandard education is much less equipped to help her kid with her homework than a stay-at-home mom with a college degree.

Schools need to be funded well, but it needs to be part of a broader program of support for the entire community.

[MissB]

I don't think it is either/or

Rather, I see it as a both/and problem.

There needs to be parental support, plus money available for classrooms.

I live in a district where not only is there strong parental support/involvement, but there is money available to keep the classes small and keep things like P.E., music, foreign language and art fully in the school. The base for the district is wealthy, so there are less "problems" to deal with - kids arrive clean, well rested and ready for school.

And the results? We easily meet the No Child Left Behind crap.

It isn't just money in the schools - it is the societal things like parents who aren't stressed about the everyday life problems that we all encounter. You cannot legislate that parents must be involved with their children, encouraging them from day one. You can possibly create a society in which education is a priority and the literacy rate is 100% - but that is probably easier to accomplish in a smaller country like Norway.

Some people will even question if public education is even the best option for instructing children. I believe very much that it is one of many possible educational routes for children, but not necessarily the best for each child.

If children are happy and healthy and there is money available for schools to have small classes and all the extras, then public education is quite capable of being successful. If there are issues in the family (homelessness, drug abuse, parental neglect), then even the best small public school probably won't be as successful as we'd like without serious familial intervention. If children arrive at school ready to learn but they're placed in a classroom of 35 to 40 kids, well, then the results won't be quite as spectacular as they could be.

It isn't an easy problem to solve.

[Yupster]

47. Ask any teacher who's been in the classroom for 30 years

what the difference between now and then is and they'll tell you the kids are just different.

They're much more disrespectful, more defiant, they don't do their work and shrug it off.

That's not a money problem.

Class sizes are smaller today than they used to be. There are many more aides than there were 30 years ago. There are many more special programs than there were 30 years ago. Teachers are getting paid much more than they were 30 years ago.

Money isn't the answer at all.

[proud2BlibKansan]

62. You can ask me - 26 years now

You are right, the kids are much harder. But from that point on, I disagree. We have ALWAYS been underfunded. Much more so now than in the past. So yes, it is still (partly) a money problem.

And you know what? Those harder kids take more resources to teach. We need social workers and counselors today and we got along without them or shared them 30 years ago.

And I don't know where you are, but class sizes have gone up, way up where I am. Paraprofessionals are just a dream, when they used to be very common. We can't afford them anymore.

And sure I am making a bit more than I once did but my mortgage is higher and so are groceries. My salary has definitely NOT kept up with inflation. Health insurance is another very expensive commodity, and it used to be free. (One of my co-workers is retiring and will have to pay $750 a month for health insurance since she is moving out of state and out of our health provider network.)

So yes, money would solve a LOT of our problems. It is naive to assume it won't.

[Yupster]

64. I started teaching 25 years ago

and of course each state is different, but here in Texas, teacher salaries have way more than kept up with inflaion. Not even close.

Also, class sizes were routinely 32, 33 back then. There wasn't any 22-1 ratios that the schools were supposed to meet and sometimes did and sometimes didn't. Today class sizes where I am are much smaller than they were 25 years ago.

Of course more money will help. There isn't a worker in the world who doesn't think that if his department would only get more money he'd do better. That's just the nature of work. But most districts are now somewhere around at least $ 8,000 per kid. If there's 25 kids in a class, that's $ 200,000 per classroom per year. I know $ 50,000 is going to the teacher and her benefits, but where's the other $ 150,000 going to? I think that other $ 150,000 is where more money can be found for education.

[proud2BlibKansan]

67. You can't measure it that way

There are so many expenses other than teacher salaries and expenses for each classroom.

I teach special ed. I had 8 kids this year. Do you honestly believe, using your figures, that it cost only $64,000 to run my classroom all year? My salary is higher than that.

You are leaving out a lot of other necessary expenses. Like transportation.

[Yupster]

88. You're making over $ 64,000

a year and you're saying that your salary hasn't kept up with inflation over the last 30 years?

What was your starting salary 30 years ago? Mine was $ 13,000 25 years ago. Yours was probably lower than mine was.

I don't have a future value calculator handy, but going from $ 12,000 to $ 65,000 in 30 years I think would beat inflation.

I'm not leaving out anything. I'm just saying that most money in a school district goes to stuff that is outside the classroom. I think there's a lot of savings that could be had there. I know when I was on the district's teacher pay committee, I looked at the budget line by line and was amazed at how much money was spent on "stuff" that didn't have anything to do with the education of the students. Just as one example, there were administrators who in my opinion were completely unnecessary, and they each had secretaries.

[proud2BlibKansan]

96. Are you forgetting to add benefits?

When we budget to hire people (as we used to be able to do with Title I funds) we had to include benefits, which can run as high as $15,000 a year, depending on the health plan your district offers.

No, my salary has NOT kept up with inflation. In fact, I bring home less money now than I did when Clinton was in office, even though I get a modest salary increase every year. Bush's tax cuts have done me no favors. Raises in health care premiums take away any raise I get from year to year. So since my take home pay has gone down, I think I can safely say my salary has not kept up with inflation. Yet, I am one of the higher paid teachers in my district. I honestly don't know how the younger ones manage financially.

I also don't understand why administrators don't need secretaries. Maybe there are too many administrators, but I see nothing wrong with them having secretaries.

The other side of that too many administrators argument is that research indicates administrators have a greater impact on student achievement than teachers do. They make decisions that affect everything we do. They buy supplies and allocate resources and hire and fire teachers. Much of what administrators do is invaluable and unappreciated work. Yes, some districts are top heavy, but administrators are a necessary evil.

[proud2BlibKansan]

61. My school is what they call a 'community based school'

We have medical, dental and social services for all of our families. We have before and after school care (and had it long before most other schools did) and we have adult education in the evenings, like English and computer classes for adults. Our building is the center for many community groups, from a crime patrol to a neighborhood improvement group. This year we added a cooking class. Each family that participates in the class takes home $20 worth of groceries after every class.

We believe in teaching the 'whole child'. It is a model developed by a guy from Harvard named James(?) Comer. If a child is sick, hungry or hurting emotionally, he can't learn. So we address all of those needs as well as his education needs.

And it works! Our test scores are among the highest in our district. We have also won a couple state and national awards for excellence in urban education. And we are the only elementary school in our state with a dental clinic.

We think all schools should be like ours. And until the repukes took over in DC, they were expanding our program into other schools. But not anymore. And we have to fight the repukes in our state capital for funding every single year now. It sucks big time.

[unschooler]

4. I don't know the answer, but I'd guess there's a lot more family

resources in terms of time, money, parental education level, etc., etc., going into those Cobb County kids as compared with Atlanta district kids. It does take more resources of various types to get disadvantaged kids "up to speed" than to just guide the educational process for kids from middle and upper middle class kids from educated homes.

As far as government waste in the school system, I think it exists in some areas (I'm a former PS teacher), such as perhaps the textbook acquistion process, which I think makes way too much money for textbook companies at the expense of taxpayers and students.

I also think it's harder to educate kids who don't see education as being a path to success, which is probably the case in Atlanta.

[wtmusic]

7. Yes and no

New Jersey spends the highest amount per capita on public education -- nearly 50% of the state budget. NJ public ed students consistently rank near the top in testing and college placement.

The correlation isn't nearly as defined as you go down the totem pole. A lot has to do with individuals with insight and commitment working wonders with less than perfect budgets and facilities.

[MichiganVote]

9. Your question assumes that all school systems have the same

capacity for excellence. Not so. Every school system is charged with a differnt mandate in large part b/c of their school population. Many things conspire to produce the goals and outcomes of public education besides funding.

You write,
"My belief here is that school systems are not underfunded. Rather that some of the school systems are so bloated with bureaucracy and top heavy management that most of the monies allocated to those systems are misspent."

So, if you've already determined the answer, why ask anyone for more information?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

14. I know what I think

the reason I am asking is because I have an opinion but other people have them as well and may have better information for forming said opinion than I do...so I am soliciting for other views...that is all.

Why should one school have better capacity? Isn't that assuming that certain schools may just be a lost cause? Perhaps I am misreading you. But all school are charged with the same thing: Education of the populace. Could you expain what you view as a different mandate?

sP

[MichiganVote]

23. School systems and schools within the various districts revise

specific goals for improvement based on their previous year's test scores, NCLB demands, state and federal requirements and changes in special education laws. As such, depending on funding streams, the choices of voters and even hurricanes, one or another school or district will have better capacity. The huge demands of technology, the need for bilingual education....all of these and many more contribute toward building the capacity for greater teaching/learning.

The days of the little red schoolhouse are really over despite the 'Little House On The Praire' attitude people seem to want to continually bring to the discussion of schools, school funding, school improvements, etc.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

26. i can't help but feel that you are disparraging my opinion

as somehow less than 'valid'. I am under no illusion that the 'little red schoolhouse' no longer exists and that modern schools are vastly different. But many schools is large metropolitan areas face the problems you mention and yet have VASTLY varrying levels of success. The immigrant population in Gwinnett County and Cobb County is actually higher than that of the city of Atlanta so they have more bilingual issues than the city schools. They have the same technology at their disposal in either school system.

I would venture that the determining factor is more the home than the school as to the success of the child. That has nothing to do with Little House on the Prarie and it looks as if, from your post, that you believe that money is the solution. I am trying to show where I see that money is specifically NOT the issue and proferring my opinion that changes in the home will make more difference. I speak to myself as an example in a previous post. Do you believe that money will solve all the problems? If so, my question then becomes, "How do we get the money to the direct benefit of the children rather than to the swollen bureaucracy?"

sP

[Dinger]

17. In Wisconsin, The School Funding Formula Is All Screwed Up

The northern half of the state gets screwed the worst, trust me. My school is cutting a lot of classes, adding split classes, cutting staff, field trips, etc., and they wonder why there is a problem with declining enrollment???? Declining enrollment, among other things really affects rural districts, a lot.

[Bigmack]

18. "You can't improve the schools....

by just throwing money at the problem." That's been the cry of the cheapscrews who want a Bloomingdale's education for a WalMart price.

Let's just do an experiment. Let's just fucking ONCE throw money at the problem. I mean some serious money.

Kids get laptops! Kids get materials to work with. Classes are small. Starting teachers get paid as much as garbagemen. Schools don't schedule their day around the damned buses.

One of local schools was "adopted" by a big business in the area, and the laison people from the company couldn't believe the stuff the kids and school didn't have. They provided tons of stuff and damned if even the dumbshit standardized test scores didn't go up! Those areas unrelated to standardized testing skyrocketed.... attendance went up, disciplinary actions went down, kids liked school.

Let's try throwing the amount of money being pissed away on Iraq on schools instead.... for a few years. Then we might have a serious answer to the question as to whether money = quality in education.

Short answer: Richer community = better education

[ProdigalJunkMail]

20. but that is partly my point

we are in some situations thowing the BIG money as you call it at the schools. And in situations like the one I present, the more money you give the schools the less the students seem to benefit. How can money equal quality when the spending of more money does not result in a better educated child? Should we not be focusing on parents as much or more than the kids as THAT would seem to be a higher return?

My parents and my family were poor by the standards of the community where I went to school. We didn't have much in the way of 'things'. But we had a safe home and I had parents deeply involved in my education. Consequently, I did VERY well in school...much better than some of my peers who had 'more' in the way of money...but less care and involvement from parents. So, might it be that money is not the problem?

sP

[MichiganVote]

24. I think you are confusing the idea of a 'better educated child' with

a child who may or may not value their education, make use of it, contribute to society. Schools do educate. They do provide education. They don't provide parents who care, families who are safe and reliable, and income to sustain a family. When a child has a problem that requires an educational fix, the schools can and usually do fix it. Not always and nothing is perfect, but in the main, that is true. When a problem exists in the family, the school can't fix it, they can only provide services that assist the family to fix their problems.

Money is a problem for schools and money will always be a problem for schools. That is just a fact. Schools need money to function and children need buildings and other items that are expensive and contribute to their education. How much, too much, too little....usually a regional decision.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

30. all I am asking about is the targeting of the money

I feel as if we are pissing money away on administrative overhead in many school systems. Money that could and probably SHOULD be spent in other areas that could more benefit the child. I guess maybe fixing (or helping to fix) some of those 'family' problems would be a better use of the time and money. Social progams outside the schoolhouse might be a better use of the money because the success or the failure of the school seems to be more community based than money based. And that would lend itself to an explanation based on a societal problem...rather than on a funding problem.

sP

[LizW]

34. What administrative matters do you consider expendable?

You have labeled administrative costs "pissing away money"? What types of things are you talking about? The school system my kids are in has about 11,000 students and there are tons of administrative duties to be done. Who should go?

The politicians here who recently cut school funding used the same arguments. The schools have plenty of money. "Throwing money" at the schools won't make them better. The administration is bloated.

But who is going to do this work? The classroom teachers? If you fire the special ed coordinator, who coordinates special education programs system wide? A teacher in her "spare" time? Who plans professional development? Who makes the budget and files all the paperwork required for the federal programs?

I sometimes feel that people want to argue that money is not the problem, because if it's something else, that is conveniently someone else's problem to fix. If the problem is funding, then guess what the solution is?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

39. let's see...

to list a couple...paying contractors to do work never done. Accepting and paying for delays in construction of new school facilities when a private industry would have penalized the builder. Money 'under the table' for a contract to provide laptops for students (see Codd County for that one). Paying three people to do the work of one (each 'Principal' in a school having an assistant is a bit of a waste).

I am not necessarily speaking about headcount in the administrative side...though sometimes that can be a problem. The problem is definitely not 'someone else's'...it is everyone's problem and therefore a solution is critical...for all. We are headed downhill. I feel it is societal...not a funding issue.

sP

[LizW]

66. Not every system has criminal issues.

Criminal issues are anomalies. They need to be corrected. But they do not represent the entirety of public education, and you shouldn't use systems that suffer from corruption as a gauge by which to measure public education as a whole. That's another attempt to skew perception against the school systems so it's their fault.

It's not convincing to pick a system that has corruption and argue that ALL systems have plenty of money. It doesn't follow.

Okay, if you're not talking about headcount in administration, what are you talking about? You said they are pissing money away. I ask again, what should be cut? "Paying three people to do the work of one" is a matter of opinion. Please provide some basis for your evaluation of the workload of a school principal. The ones I have seen do the work of three people.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

69. I did not mean to imply ALL

and I think if you could take the time to read my other posts (and I know most of us are stretched for time) you would see that I am not opposed to funding the schools to the hilt as long as the problems that arise in the systems are corrected (or at least have a menthod for being corrected).

As for the workload of a principal...I have taught in public schools and have first hand experience with a principal (in a predominately white school) who was little more than a local mouthpiece for the school board. His actual workload was a bit of a joke.

sP

[MichiganVote]

43. I agree that some admin. salaries are overblown. In some areas

they are. But bear in mind that the average day of any administrator is usually 10-12 hours a day and often weekends plus evening meetings. School principals work extremely hard if they want to run a good school. The regulations that the Fed's keep putting in place require ever increasing need for special help for at risk kids. Shut down the Fed's for about 5 years, give schools the money they need to function and improvements would abound.

[cushla_machree]

93. pissing it away?

I feel as if we are pissing money away on administrative overhead in many school systems.

Isn't that the case in MANY businesses? Face it, schools have a budget and need to be run. I don't know how one reduces that overhead there, we need a secretary to answer the phone at school, we needs principles. we need janitors. we need to pay them all. what do you suggest?

I think reducing administrative costs should be a priority for any school, as in running things efficiently...but there are some things that cannot be cut. And i am sick of hearing that administrators get paid too much. they make more than teachers because they are contracted to work more days out of the year (they work summers) and spend at least 70 hours a week on the job.

[Bigmack]

31. How much of the "per pupil" cost...

of some of the schools is actually spent on the pupil?

I just watched a bit on the nightly news that the US paid a contractor $23 per yard to get rid of NOLA debris. There was a ton of subcontractors under that one, until finally somebody got $3 per yard. And nobody has to account for anything. Governments piss away a LOT of money.

Seems to me that the schools need to tighten up on non-classroom spending, but hell, why not use the same spending theory on the schools that's used on.... oh....say.... military procurement.

Sure, if you throw billions and billions at the schools, there will be waste, but let's just see what happens. It's just as important to have the best students as it is to have the best, most expensive weapons, isn't it?

If your parents were involved in your education and you did well.... that's to be expected. What happens to the kids whose parents aren't involved? There's no way we can compel parents to give a shit.

Let's spend enough to give the kid breakfast (you can bet he didn't have one at home), some one-on-one tutoring, the best teachers money can buy, lots of materials, a good lunch, after-school programs with more than basketball, a snack before going home, and perhaps even evening programs with the Internet. If the parents aren't involved, perhaps we can give the kid the attention he/she needs. But you can't do that with herds of kids for every educator.

Will it work? I dunno. Will democracy come to Iraq after a couple of trillion bucks spent? I'd bet on my education program having a better chance of success.

[raccoon]

84. It's the same with nursing home aides and day care workers.

People want top-notch, well-qualified care for crap wages.

"That's been the cry of the cheapscrews who want a Bloomingdale's education for a WalMart price."

[dsc]

22. It is lots of things

Parents are huge factor. The extent to which they value educations is directly relevent to the extent to which the children will. You site a comparions of Atlanta to neighboring counties (Cobb and Gwinette). Is Atlanta a great deal more expensive to live in? If so, much of that extra money is being spent merely paying teachers an equivalent amount of money. Atlanta probably has a lot of teacher turnover due to conditions. Teachers value power over their enviroment over money in many cases. It really does go back to parents.

[Yupster]

44. I'll blame the breakup of the family across the country

When I taught the biggest problem stopping learning was the lack of discipline.

I believe the kids are less well-disciplined than they used to be because so many are growing up living away from at least one of their parents. I think it's especially true for teenaged boys living in communities where no one lives with their dad.

Take a community where there are no at home dads. Then send the boys to elementary schools where the only men are cutodians and you're asking for trouble.

I think the problems of the school just reflect the problems of society as a whole.

When I went to school almost everyone lived with their moms and dads. Today there are some communities where almost no kids live with both their moms and dads. That's a major societal shift.

[LWolf]

25. Funding is ONE major problem.

Having worked in public education since 1982, and seen how everything from salaries to toilet paper is funded, I can assure you that funding is a huge issue. Some of the issues related to funding include:

Unfunded and partially funded mandates of all stripes;

Overcrowding; too few, too small classrooms. Too few, too large schools and class sizes.

Understaffing; too many pupils per teacher, not enough support staff to address all the social, emotional, and behavior management issues, not enough school hours and playground supervisors to ensure enough breaks, not enough money for "extra" help outside of the regular classroom unless the child is designated "special ed," and then the caseload is large and the prescription narrow. Not enough money to fund before and after school programs to offer true "extra" help or enrichment without pulling out from core instructional time in the classroom, or homework help, tutoring, etc.; efforts in this area usually rest on teachers adding to an already long day for no pay, or for "extra duty pay," at the regularly calculated hourly rate on top of a full day already. Teacher burnout resulting.

Money for resources is limited; I have purchased just about everything but textbooks myself. Pencils, art supplies, classroom library, supplemental materials, math manipulatives, software, you name it, if it's in the room, it probably came out of my paycheck. This month it was poetry books and marshmallows; last month it was buckets, soap, water, sponges, etc.. The month before, an $80 toner catridge for the donated laser printer.

Is funding the primary problem? No. But it sure as hell helps promote the "failing schools" propaganda, doesn't it?

The primary problem is politics. Top down use of fear and greed to control the system, standardizing everything we do and crunching formulas with test scores to keep us marching in line, keep the drill, kill, and memorize functions going, keep the love of learning and discovery out of the building, keep learning a distasteful chore that trains people to bubble obediently, whether it be a test or a ballot. All that excess testing, by the way, comes out of the budget. So do all the mandated reforms required of those who don't keep the "continuous improvement" model moving test scores further above "average" every year. :eyes:

Of course, all the mandated programs, inservices, workshops, etc.. are big political contributors, as are the testing companies. Sound like a primary problem to you?

[aikoaiko]

27. Anti-intellectualism -- its hard to put a finger on it, but its there.

I see it in students and parents. Of course many students don't like school but their seems to be more disdain for it. Too many parents don't get involved and fail to even do homework with their children.

Its gotten to the point that children and parent expect that everything to needs to be learned should get learned while in school. Parents would rather have their kids do well in football or cheerleading than learn school subjects and get good grades.

[cally]

29. The major predictor of high test scores is the demographics of

the area. When you have high incomes, college educated parents/guardians, stable families then students do better. (I'm basing this statement on studies I read 10 to 15 years ago when I researched the issue for my job at that time.) I think spending more per pupil will increase test scores but you can't compare two diverse communities without looking at all the factors that influence test scores. I don't know the specifics of the two districts you cite, but I do know in California better off areas will collect additional funding from parents for tutoring and afterschool activities. These numbers do not show up in the overall per pupil spending.

What increases student spending greatly is special education programs. Some students require a fulltime aide, many others require one on one tutoring for learning problems. That is why private schools appear to spend less per pupil. Most do not provide special ed programs and if they do, generally the state pays for them.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

33. thanks for all the input

it would appear that YES, funding can be a problem...but it seems that most of the responses here indicate that something other that is more difficult to address. I would agree that if we could throw more money at it and solve the problem that we SHOULD do just that. So in some areas higher funding may be necessary (or better use of the funds issued...pay for a tutor rather than another 'administrative overhead' as an example). But societal pressures seem to weigh more heavily in the success of the school and the children therein. How could we focus more on those pressures? I know, I know...let's just solve all the problems of the world with a few posts on a message board... ;-)

sP

[MadMaddie]

35. Many of these points are valid...

and I want to point out a glaring oversite....

We know there is a population of parents that don't give a damn....but there is a larger population of parents that are working 2-3 jobs to keep the roof over their kids heads and and food on the table....lump in supplies for school and wages that have not been keeping up with inflation....we have a huge problem...

NCLB I would say racist to a point..but I would submit that it is impacting ecomonomically poorer schools... in poorer districts....these schools could be white, black, latino...

It's kind of hard to meet the expectations of NCLB when the kids can barely read, write and do basic arithmatic....

Just my two cents...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. It's not a simple yes or no question

First of all, remember that urban schools have to deal with societal problems that are not present in most suburban schools: including large numbers of poor children, children from unstable homes and neighborhoods, and immigrant children who don't speak English. These children are simply more expensive to teach.

Second, and never forget this, American schools are locally controlled. If the school district is not spending its money wisely, then it's up to the voters to throw out the school board and start over. But take the often-cited example of Washington D.C. schools. The school administration is famously corrupt, and yet the many affluent residents who are politically savvy seem not to have the will to vote the bums out--because their own children are in private schools. Meanwhile, the parents who are affected the most are mostly not politically involved or are deluded by right wingers who tell them that their only hope is vouchers for sending their kids to private schools.

I repeat, American schools are locally controlled. That's why college towns invariably have excellent public schools and poor rural backwaters usually have schools thatt go through the motions of teaching the kids just enough to hold down a backwater job.

Now in the case of Atlanta, remember one thing about Cobb County. It's full of white flight suburbs and affluent people. It's Newt Gingrich country. Do you really know that Cobb County schools are "better," or are they just whiter with newer buildings? As a disgruntled graduate of a supposedly "excellent" suburban school system, whose only discernible "excellence" was in its buildings, I'm skeptical.

Now do white voters in Atlanta care one way or the other about how schools are administered, or do they take the attitude that the students are mostly black, so it doesn't matter?

[Lars39]

38. Some school systems are top-heavy with administration.

Schools didn't always have as many layers of bureaucracy as they do now.

[countingbluecars]

40. Underfunded-no question in my mind,

http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html

[Snaggletooth]

42. We have been throwing more money at the problem for decades...

without any noticeable change in the outcome. The reason is that the Republicans/Conservatives/Corporacrats (or whatever they are calling themselves these days - a turd by any other name, ya know!) have been opposed to public education since day one, because they consider it a form of socialism. They insist on attaching over-site provisions to all education spending bills at the Federal and State levels. The net affect of these provisions is to create a permanently expanding bureaucracy that not only consumes the entire increase in funds, but also drains off funds previously used for teacher's salaries, text books, additional classrooms, etc. This way, it appears as though we are spending more money per student while, in reality, less money is being spent on actual education.

The point is to prove that public education doesn't work. And of course it never will as long as those who are opposed to the concept on principle are writing the laws that finance and govern it.

Blaming the parents for their un-involvement is a favorite regressive response. In my life time alone, the amount of free time the majority of the working class has available for anything other than struggling to provide basic necessities has been reduced to nil. It requires both parents with degrees and experience to work full time just to maintain anything close to a middle class existence. At the lower end of the income spectrum, both parents must work multiple jobs to acquire access to the basic resources necessary to maintain their existence...but not their health. So, those who choose to blame the parents for focusing on providing their children with food and shelter at the expense of parental oversight are playing right into the Life-haters hands.

But then, I never have met a Bluto that didn't blame his/her victim(s) for his/her crimes. Life-haters look for opportunities to assign blame, Life-lovers look for opportunities to explore solutions. Which one are you? (I am not referring to the author with that question)

Snaggletooth the Crone

[otherlander]

45. I think that it would be better if schools were financed by

state instead of local taxes. The way it is now, people born into poor areas stay poor because their home doesn't have enough money to give them a good education. It seems that there would be much more opportunity and equality in the school systems if an amount of money were collected from taxes by the state and redistributed to individual districts according to the number of students within the district.

But I know that not a lot of people are going to agree with that, at least not enough to change it, because it's seen as falling under the legal power of local government, and people are reluctant to turn that power over to the state, especially those in wealthier areas. And, hey, money talks. So I see what you mean about bureaucracy.

[proud2BlibKansan]

48. Public schools are reflections of the communities they serve

If a school is in a high poverty area, it costs more to educate those kids than the kids in a wealthy suburb. Yet often, that suburban school will spend lots more per pupil than the school in the high poverty area. And that school in the suburb is more likely to be modern, with up to date technology and air conditioning. There are usually more computers in suburban schools. Yet, most of those kids are coming from homes with computers. Schools serving low income kids are likely to have older facilties, no air conditioning and lots fewer computers, while kids from poorer families are more likely to NOT have a computer at home. So the funding formula is very flawed and doesn't address the needs of communities.

Initially, state and federal funding was supposed to help high poverty schools provide an equal education to the suburban schools. But the suburban schools began to complain and ask for more state funding. In my state, many complained that their tax dollars were being used to support schools that were not in their community. It's a lot like the Social Security fight.

I think the #1 problem with public education is that we don't value kids in our society. If we did, they would all go to school in modern air conditioned buildings, with the most up to date technology. Think about it - what other industry or business in our society functions without air conditioning? That says a lot, IMO.

An excellent book that explains school funding is SAVAGE INEQUALITIES by Jonathan Kozol.

[LeftyMom]

50. The system doesn't work

In communities where people have the resources to supplement thier child's education, teach to thier interests and address thier gaps in knowledge that fact is somewhat concealed.

It doesn't help that in many communities the teachers with skill and experience tend to flee to the suburbs as fast as they can, but ultimately the problem is structural.

[walldude]

51. Can't speak for everyone else but in my neck of the woods

(Denver suburb) my kids teachers are paying for things they need out of their own pockets. It's ridiculous. Audio Visual presentations are done with half working projectors and shown on screens made out of flipchart paper. There are 10 computers in the whole school. The kids get 1 hour of computer lessons a week. That's going to prepare them for the real world :eyes: To be honest I can't imagine why anyone would think that schools are well funded, and the whole "money is being wasted on administrative things" is a cop-out. Billions of dollars are spent every year on weapons that we don't need and weapons that don't work, all so the defense contractors can maintain their budgets for next year. To be honest when I think about this shit, and I start researching budgets, I start to go insane, so I think I'll stop here.

[proud2BlibKansan]

63. Colorado has an especially tough time funding schools due to TABOR

We fought it vigorously here in MO and used CO as an example of why we don't need it here. TABOR restricts state funding so badly that some school districts in CO are now asking parents to pay for textbooks. It's a mess and you all have my sympathy.

[Telly Savalas]

57. Read "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol

It's over a decade old, but the situation it describes has probably not changed a whole helluva lot. While lack of funding isn't the only problem, this book describes how in many school districts the absence of cash is the bedrock for all other problems. How's a school supposed to teach when it can't even afford to supply all the students with books?

And maybe I'm tired and overlooked it, but it's funny nobody's brought up NCLB. My contacts in U.S. public schools say that it's a nightmare and that the task of staying compliant with it interferes with the educational process.

[proud2BlibKansan]

60. My favorite education book!!

It is a masterpiece and remains on my top ten list of great reads. Such a wonderful book and reading it helps even a non educator understand school financing.

Jonathan Kozol is also one of my heroes. I read his first book when I was in high school and I was so inspired!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. My contacts say the same thing

It sounds like a perfect illustration of the remark, "Floggings will continue until morale improves."

[Hekate]

72. I bring up NCLB in my post, #71

:hi:

The thing is an abomination invented by people who at bottom want public education to fail, imho.

Hekate

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

90. Bingo.

Kozol's great.

[JCMach1]

68. Funding is NOT equal across the board... this causes huge

discrepancies...

[sutz12]

70. I think that 30 years of unrelenting attack from the right

has something to do with it. They demonize everything they want to destroy.

They have been attacking the education system since the 80's at least.

They have been weasling fundies on to school boards surreptitiously, by not revealing their real agenda until they are elected.

They have been pushing their creationism and basically anti-everything rational in an attempt to repeal the enlightenment.

Funding is up there, but hatred for anything rational is up there too.

[Hekate]

71. Repair old buildings: ka-ching. Build new schools: ka-ching. Hire more...

...teachers: ka-ching. Raise teachers' base salaries commensurate with their education: ka-ching. Smaller class sizes: ka-ching. Libraries: ka-ching. Librarians: ka-ching. Playgrounds and sports equipment: ka-ching. PE teachers: ka-ching. Funnel nutritious surplus food to the school cafeterias: ka-ching. Actual nutritionists: ka-ching. Art programs: ka-ching. Music programs: ka-ching.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Unfunded mandates from Washington, like No Child Left Behind Act: ka-ching.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Well, I know which one I'd cut, but unfortunately it's a mandate.

Everything worthwhile costs money, and we fund what we truly value. Apparently this country truly values war and weapons research. Apparently we do not value education or health care.

Over half of our entire federal budget is devoted to the military-industrial complex and making war. What miniscule percentage is devoted to actually educating our children or keeping our people healthy?

To answer your original question: Yes, funding is the primary problem with public education. Just not the way you meant it.

Hekate

[ProdigalJunkMail]

73. then how do you respond to situations like the one I gave as an

example? A situation where more money is being spent and less results are being obtained. Would you suggest to continue to fund that school system in the manner in which it is being funded now or at even higher rates? Or would you suggest perhaps finding why that school system is having it's problems and fix them prior to adjusting their funding levels?

I do not disagree with you that we as a country waste IMMENSE amounts of money on things MUCH less important than education. But giving that money to a system that is failing despite the money it has already been given may not be the smartest way to approach the problem.

sP

[Hekate]

75. Google for "Christian Reconstructionists + public schools" & see who's

... behind the idea that taking money away from public schools is the best way to "fix" them. The Christian Reconstructionists/Dominionists have been trying to eliminate public education for some 30 years. They promote home schooling and school vouchers for Christian schools -- and they spend a good deal of energy telling the world that public schools have failed.

Please read up on them -- but keep a bucket handy for when the nausea kicks in. They really and truly mean to destroy public education as we know it.

No one knows better than I that public education needs help: after my daughter dropped out of high school my husband and I put our son in a private school. (Vouchers, by the way, would have been a laughably small part of his tuition if they had been available.) My daughter was lost in big classes; my son's classes averaged about 10 students. It was expensive -- we spent his college money doing this.

I have a lot to say about public education: some schools are outstanding, some are in trouble, and the whole thing needs rethinking.

It is well-known by now that not everyone learns in the same way, yet for the most part our children sit in rows listening to the teacher talk. Actively participating in art and music have a way of opening up minds to other, seemingly unrelated, subjects, yet these subjects have been slashed from school curricula across the country as "frills." Learning to write fluently in our common language has likewise been de-emphasized in many schools. Students only learn these things by DOING them.

It has been well-known for generations that the smaller the class size, the greater the chance that students will learn. The smaller the class size, the more control teachers are likely to have in the first place.

I've been hearing this all my life, but my daughter's high school was nearly shut down by the district for alleged low enrollment -- there were 1600 students, for God's sake! There were so many kids in her GATE English class that those who skidded in as the bell rang actually had to sit on the floor! No one even noticed when she stopped coming to school, and no one called me to ask where she was.

I'm still hurt and angry over what happened, but I just believe all the more that taking money away is not the answer.

Public school has been one of America's greatest assets, where our children learn to speak a common civic language. We have to figure out how to keep what works and fix what doesn't.

A note on teachers' pay: Until a generation ago, nearly all K-12 teachers were women. Women who wanted to work in a profession were steered into teaching, nursing, and secretarial work. Not much else was available, so a lot of very bright women were in those professions despite the low pay. Society at large considered these women's wages were only supplemental to their husbands' wages anyway.

This is 2006. Women have vastly greater career options available to them, and the best and brightest can earn wages multiples of times higher than what teachers make. Psst -- I hate to tell you this, but after paying for 5 or 6 years of college, teachers start at very low wages compared to other people. You want the best and brightest back? Pay them more and give them smaller class sizes.

Hekate

[cushla_machree]

94. The old throw money is not the answer analogy I see

Does throwing money at a problem solve it? No.

But here is an idea, clearly there are a lot of factors that infulence quality of education. Money is one of them. It also has a lot to do with the demographcis and the school system itself. You are not going to get the same results in every school district on the same dollar.

Thats the problem here, schools are not businesses. You can't get more for less. And you can't expect every district to function the same, on the same amount of money.

What kind of examples are you thinking of? Schools in my state are very costly and don't perform as well as others places. The problem is not that too much money is given to them and they are wasting it, the problem is they are underfunded, do not have qualified teachers, the kids are plaugued with behavorial problems and many require aids in each classrom, the schools have no supplies and are falling apart, parental involvement is low or non-existant in a lot of them.

Every community is different. Clearly our society has abandoned our notion of a healthy and involved community of people (schools, healthcare, environment) for more self involved, i don't give a crap about anything else, military spending society. And why not, wealthy persons just throw their kids in private school, middle class people mortgage away their homes to send their kids to private schools, and the poor are screwed. and the christians just home school their kids and work to divert funds to vouchers to parochial schools, with the ultimate goal of subverting our public educational system. Of course it does not work, because you have people fighting to improve the system, while others are working to destroy it.

Then we spend more money on NCLB with millions in testing (that goes to testing companies friendly with repukes), expensive text books, or no text books at all.

[Hekate]

98. "Schools are not businesses" Thanks; I forgot to mention that

There are paradigms and there are paradigms.

"Business" is the WRONG paradigm for education. It's also the wrong model for health care.

Hekate

[cushla_machree]

104. republicans think you can use the business model for schools

It doesn't work that way. Every student is different, and you can't use the same standards for each community of students. The bottom line does not work for PEOPLE, because you can't get more for less. IT is going to be costly to begin with, while reducing the costs are important, its naive to think that you can teach kids in a business model.

[ulysses]

74. I teach in APS.

The question is simplistic. I would point out, to begin with, that many of our students are very poor and come from homes where education is often a low priority. Many of their parents or guardians are illiterate or partially literate themselves. A great number of my kids live in University Homes near the AUC, and they don't go home to quiet, studious environments like the suburban kids in Cobb and Gwinnett do.

The kids in my middle school sometimes arrive in the morning drunk or stoned. 97% are on free or reduced price meal plans, and if the bus comes late, they may not get breakfast (the cafeteria workers are privatized, work for a private company that cut back their hours this last year to 5 1/2 per day). It is not this way in Cobb.

Money is one issue, yes, largely in how it gets apportioned. The district spent $12 million renovating our building three years ago, but we're short-staffed - the general ed teachers all have to teach social studies one period a day because we can't hire social studies teachers.

Also, our kids have largely lived their lives within a few blocks of their homes and have only the slightest understanding of even the larger city in which they live. Of course, with gas prices being what they are, the district put a moratorium on field trips starting last fall, so we can't go anywhere unless we either walk or contract with a private bus firm and get the money from the parents. Blood from a turnip, as they say.

As I recall, you're fairly conservative and became a DUer after your grandfather died. I've always appreciated your presence here, and if you live here in town, I'd invite you to come down to my school next fall and shed a few of your misconceptions about APS. Vine City, between MLK and Simpson. Let me know. :)

[woo me with science]

91. How often do middle school students arrive drunk or stoned?

When that happens, do you report it? What happens from there?

[ulysses]

92. it gets reported to the resource officer

but it's not always proveable. In the past we've had some ineffective administrators who've tended to not do much about these kinds of problems, but we ended this year with two very effective interim principals who dealt with those kids quite well.

[Orsino]

77. Yes, they're all underfunded.

For decades, local, state and federal governments have looked on educational allotments as free money, which they can raid with impugnity. I think that your comparison of ATL versus Cobb/Gwinnett is spurious. They are all underfunded and loaded down with stupid NCLB mandates designed to hamstring public school teachers, administrators and students.

The problem's even bigger, though. The colleges that are turning out teachers have also been cut to the bone, so today's educators are helping to perpetuate these ills.

Fixing this will take proper funding and time, perhaps the quarter-century that the neocons have had to strangle the Department of Education.

[Vidar]

78. No. It's lack of support for teachers by parents, administrators,

government, school boards....You name it. Teachers are honored in Europe. Here, they're mere whipping boys. I had the misfortune to teach in this miserable country for 20 years.

[WinkyDink]

82. Having spent my entire career (30+ years) in the system, here's my

opinion:

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS are the bane of public schools.
First of all, the professors struggle mightily to turn their "findings" and "studies" (complete with standard deviations up the wazoo) into "science"---never mind that replication isn't ever possible short of wholesale grade retentions of the studies' subjects.

Secondly, once a grad student is accepted into an Ed.D. program, he's in like Flynn. The Bursar's Office wants his $$, and the University wants a high success rate (I have an M.Ed., but since all my electives were English Lit courses, I can't say the M.Ed. per se is a piece of cake.). Very "you scratch my back,..".

Thirdly, the resultant Superintendent-wannabe's go back to their respective schools and force (by "teacher committeee consensus", wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more) onto the teaching staff "innovations" in the guise of improving teacher and student performance but which in reality are salary-boosters (principals are often paid extra per annum based on new programs) and resume-padding items to be checked off.

Examples of the above: "Block scheduling", purportedly a counterpart to college-style schedules, except who has ever heard of taking a 90-minute college class five times a week?; the infamous "New Math"; the denigration of the teacher and the elevation of the student as able to teach himself, with the expression "Don't be a sage on the stage; be a guide on the side" (with no irony in using the term "sage" as a pejorative).

It is the last, more than anything, IMHO, which has served to severely reduce the breadth and depth of knowledge amongst our public-school students.

"Facts" are now the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, to be dreaded. Why read about the Great Depression when you can ask your students not to buy lunch one day, and then ask them how they "felt", and can they draw that---in a group, on large poster paper? Oh, and don't forget to divvy up the group responsibilities: team leader; recorder; speaker; materials gatherer. Wait; maybe this activity doesn't account for all 12 Types of Intelligence (or is it 7? No, that's Steven Covey's Principles of Highly Effective People), so let's get up and DANCE! But hold on there, Sparky; are you ignoring the 4 Quadrants of the Brain? The 5 Senses? (Dang; sarcasm has no place in a world of Emotional Intelligence.)

So---is our children learning? Obviously, some "is". But no thanks to the Education Establishment, which about 35 years ago declared war on the institution that theretofore had produced many of the greatest achievements known to man.

Then again, the psychopaths running our country went to private schools, so what do I know?

[Greyhound]

101. The primary difference between the private academies they attend

and the schools the rest of us get is that they are taught to think and to question. Ours are taught to obey. Reading, Math, History, etc. are irrelevant as long as they get the message that they are to accept the authority of their "betters".

[mopinko]

87. got a link to those numbers?

i, personally, have never seen an urban, poor system outspent by a suburban system.

[mopinko]

89. about those parents

gee, destroy unions, push down wages, force women into the workforce whether they like it or not, refuse to accommodate them with things like flexible schedules, so that they can be there for their kids, and kids "are different" than they were 30 years ago? surprise, surprise.

yes, more money will improve education. it will allow smaller class sizes, just for one thing. that would go a long way toward filling the gap in children's lives where full time moms once were. moms used to be a major force for good in their communities. and especially the schools. but they have no worth, you see, because they don't make money. see?

schools are just one more victim of a culture of greed.

[Greyhound]

97. Agreed. I worked a long term contract with the LA Unified School District

and saw, first-hand, the incredible waste and abuse that the administration commits there. The LAUSD administration building is a palace with, literally millions of our dollars spent on artwork, furniture, catered breakfast and lunch and every meeting, while the actual schools are literally falling down. Administrative salaries are inflated beyond all reason, and the sheer numbers of administrators, all drawing salaries several times that of a teacher, is mind-boggling. Nothing is ever accomplished because they are all engaged in full-time turf wars, trying to justify their existence.

Shameful.

[CabalPowered]

105. Most big California districts return Fed monies

back to the Feds every year because they don't spend them. Garden Grove, San Diego, San Bernadino.. they all turn SDFS and Title I funds back to the Fed every year because they go unspent.

[sweetheart]

103. The subversion of truth and knowledge

I believe the problem runs deeper, with the new approach towards science and knowledge
as "just another opinion". When we subvert knowledge to this degree, then there is
nothing to teach in school besides various "opinions", and the entire framework is
subverted that we ultimately break up public schooling and have children attend
well-funded "opinion schools" like liberty university.

It has nothing to do with education, really, there are lotsa good people that do that
for a living and will get the job done right fine if we get back to a concept of
celibrating knowledge and high culture as preferrable over low culture. But as
this disctinction is erased politically, then what is left?