Declining support for education in the US

My wife spent 31 years working in a major city school district in our state. Your claim contradicts her experience.

 

A strong strain of anti-intellectualism in the US has always existed.

The Alt Right and the trumpers seem very opposed to critical thinking, objectivity, and the use of empirical data.

 

The problem with the education system in this country is its mismanagement of public funds. One example is smart boards that cost taxpayers thousands of dollars each. Most public schools have them, yet they still use desks from the 1980s and 1990s. Many schools are also buying up a lot of tablets and laptops, when it not what kids need. The problem was never technological, but it had a lot to do with content areas.

Many classrooms are overcrowded, because schools have no money to hire new teachers due to the fact that tenured teachers take up a great portion of their funds. As a results kids do not get individualized attention they deserve. Many of those young college grads who could have been great teachers are forced to work in other fields, due to the fact that many schools, especially in big cities have no funds to hire them. As a result, the kids get a less effective education and many are unprepared for college.

I work in an academic field and I have personality seen that most kids who go to private schools get an education that is vastly to superior to those who are in public schools. That is not to say that public schools do not have some talented kids, it's just that the level of education they are getting is less effective.

 

In private enterprise, when a corporation wants better resumes for hiring they increase compensation and/or improve job description.

Today, public education DOES compete with private enterprise for smart capable individuals.

 

What numbers are you using? Maybe because they work 3/4 the months everyone else does?

 

The easiest way to gather votes is to turn the country into Ky and La.
The dimmer they are, the easier to brain wash.

 

What I take away from this thread is that most agree that spending little on teachers, and supplies such as books is a good idea and that more generally education is not greatly valued in the United States (well at least on this board). Which of course is why states cut spending 30 percent for education in real terms.

Saying we spend more than we ever have (for which no evidence is presented) ignores that we have more people than ever, inflation, and the fact that 50 years ago they had little technology in class rooms.

And, as always, the debate ended up being little more than liberalism is bad. Not a debate on whether it is a good or bad idea to spending little on teaching or for that matter books, classrooms and the like. My own bias is that we would do far better economically is we invested more in education.

But that is very much the minority view these days.

 

So, you're big plan for teachers is to fire them if they get raises???

Here in Seattle, tuition for private not for profit high schools is thousands of dollars per student year higher than what the state spends.

So, are you proposing a large increase in education spending?

Are you interested in firing teachers that make a good salary?

I'm a little confused here. I think there could be elements missing in this plan.

 

No, I am not proposing that we fire tenured teachers. One exception is if they are under performing as educators. Their kids have to know what they are teaching. If they failing their tests, then something is wrong. Schools also have to be smarter with their spending. They do not need that many smart boards, laptops and other technology. They just need smaller classrooms. As far as salaries are concerned, while some of them do get paid more than college professors, this is not the issue.

Initially it would mean states would have to hire new teachers, which might increase spending, but it should also coincide with reverse in that trend to provide more technology to classrooms. A talented teacher would not need a smart board to explain a material.

From my experience, students who go to private schools do better because their teaching methodology is superior. I remember having to teach high school seniors (who go to public school) how to write their essays. This is a skill many private school students master by the time they are in middle school.

I am not stating that all public schools are bad. I have seen some really good public schools, which are managed exceptionally well. However, without some changes from the top, the children will continue to lag behind their European and Asian counterparts in subjects such as math and science.

 

The spending is per pupil.
It is adjusted for inflation.
And with little technology in the classrooms we got better results. The Dick and Jane books taught us to read and a blackboard and chalk taught us math. We had 28-30 students in a class and in the 50's during my 3rd and 4th grades we did double sessions. One half went to school in the morning one half the afternoon.

And we all got a good education. So what has changed?

In the county next to me with it's big city the county school the operating budget is 750 million and they just said there is a 35 million shortfall. That's not the capital budget for building schools and buying big equipment. The operating budget. There are 61,000 students. That's almost $13,000 per student per year. And their educational achievement numbers are just as bad as anywhere else. My county which is half the size it's $11,700 per student and gets a slightly better but not great outcome.

 

$3400 a month (slightly more than $40000 a year) is not acceptable wages for a teacher with ten years in the system. This is Oklahoma.

 

What has changed is that local control has been surrendered to the state and the feds.

That happened because of the social crisises of the 1940s to the 1970s, which were genuine problems of a large magnitude.

One change would be parents once again becoming involved nightly in their kids' homework.

 

Bull...I can speak with some authority of the situation in Portland Maine...Way back in 2005 I got very interested in their budget. The 'average' salary of a public school teacher was over $54K while the median income of the folk being taxed to pay those salaries was under $40K...Now figure in perks and cheap health care and we had a situation of the relatively well to do going back to the relatively poor demanding more money...every year

Then we have the other changes...in 1987 the district has 14,000 students and 1100 employees...In 2005 there were 7,800 students....and 1100 employees...

No, the poverty claim by our fine educators is a scam.

 

Hasty generalization ^^^^ that. But it can begin there.

 

Listen. The bottom line is that if you want quality work, you have to pay very good wages. Pay offering comes first and then the employer selects the best. Don't try to spin my words into anything like saying we can get existing teachers to improve by paying them more. We got ourselves into this hole by neglecting teachers' pay and attracting the lesser ones to choose from.

 

And people with salaries of $35,000 and $40,000 are being taxed to pay the $180,000 salaries of politicians. So what's your point?

And while your district saw such huge shrinkage in the number of students in the district, the number of students in the classrooms increased, right? So what's your point?

 

Donald Trump believes that the progeny of Deplorables don't need an education because it detracts from their understanding of his message which is that their misery is the fault of Mexicans, Blacks, Muslims, Democrats, and foreigners and that the shitholes of Deplorables are better than the shitholes of foreigners because of Donald Trump's personal efforts to make sure of that.

 

There are other factors I went to parochial schools largely K-12 except for a stint in a military base school which was a good school have one thing in common with any other private school lower income to rich the parents tend to give a damned they are paying for their child to go to school its not taxpayer money. This means parents at a minimum from my experience back the school and teachers over their child in areas of discipline and doing work at school. My parents picked my classes with me and the teachers, if I acted up or had issues they came down on me but sided with me on issues due to disability with a vengeance my mother would push for all my needs being met. Often the schools didn't want to spend the extra efforts and costs but for at the time corrected for inflation tuition of $9k a year it was an issue for them. They paid and they in the end expected I get the best education I could handle. Where is the incentives for public school especially if the parents don't care how often is education the schools job and the parents don't think its theirs or they should just expect their child to do well?

And I would say the big difference is teachers in a private school even if not paid well are allowed to be teachers, they tended to handle their curriculum, no one breathed down their backs unless they weren't good at their profession and the students are more likely to be told to do what the school and teachers said to do and students and parents respected the teachers. Money isn't everything you need parents to care and teachers shouldn't have administrators micromanaging them.

 

Well, there are a whole lot more teachers to pay than politicians. Although I feel any elected office should not have a defined benefit pension. My school taxes are $6,000 a year and my home is worth around $250,000. That is in addition to any real estate taxes.

 

Some studies I've read say even though private school teachers are paid less than public schools, they are generally a lot happier with their job.

 

I find that to be true I have family members my sister is a public school teacher with a graduate degree in elementary school and seems less satisfied than a cousin who does so at a parochial school earning sixty percent her salary. But what's key is the former has top to bottom oversight and the latter bottom to the top the parents having the say but she does her own education planning working with the school PTA and other teachers but now she is the principle of her school she teaches part-time only and earns close to thirty eight thousand dollars a year.

 

Three quotes do not constitute common perception. Nor does common perception qualify as credible.

Maybe you should look up "cherry-picking"

 

Since we have the highest cost of education per student on the planet and among the worst results, one would have to opine logically that more "support" would make things worse. The problems with our schools aren't financial. They are cultural and political.

 

That's why I'm wondering if there is some other support they are talking about or whether they are just avoiding the word money.

 

So the current crop is not qualified?