Education in Minnesota..

[goGopherBill]

From Pioneer press...Joe Soucheray

Claims of education funding cuts just dont add up..

All those concerned parents with kids at our state capitol monday...
Wasn't that a school day?

HE wrote look at all those signs the kids were holding up....'put education first" and "put kid #1"

"Education stands at roughly $12 billion in the current two-year budget" or "43% of the states budget"
"the 12 billion figure keeps growing even though the number of total students is declining"
he continues with
"the dirty secret ,of course,is that school boards negotiate contracts with teachers for amounts of money they dont have and when it comes time to pay the piper they end up selling this balderdash about how we have cut spending."
"The school boards should negotiate contracts based on the money they can afford ,not the amount of money they hope they can coerce out of the next legislative session"

So add federal dollars to this 43% and I think even Gorf will have a hard time saying we screw educators.
But this is a negotiating year...and the pro teacher unions are hard at work.

Or start charging teachers the same amount kids need to pay for parking..make them work a full 8 hrs per day with only 2 breaks like the rest of the people get...and work year round ...so our kids get a better education and we get a better bang for our dollar.

[Deleted]

Damn those lazy, greedy teachers!

I have a better idea, goofy. Howzabout we make CEOs work 8 hours a day with two breaks _and_ only pull in $40,000 a year. Just imagine what we could do with all _that_ money.

[Gorf]

Bill, you keep trying to mix your issues.

Educator funding isn't the same as Education funding.

Over the past 20 years teachers salaries were ~20th ranked in terms of increasing salaries for those in the field of education.

Teacher salaries when adjusted for inflation over that time frame has been at a relatively flat level.


Does Soucheray mention how much of the expenses he's reporting were dedicated to meeting the mandates put in place by GWB's "no child left behind" act that actually does leave plenty of children behind but does significantly raise the expenses for every school and at a level for which new funding promised for the act was never delivered?


Certainly there are other education related items that could be looked at which are probably getting excesses spending levels, but I bet the people that complain the most about education spending levels would also complain about their schools not getting spiffy new football stadiums and that sort of thing.


In terms of teachers and the anount of time they spend at work. I bet most teachers would love to be able to work an 8 hour day Bill.

If I use my wife for an example, she was at shool in excess of 12 hours yesterday and had more work to do last night in terms of talking to parents and planning work for the next day. An 8 hour day would probably be considered a luxury for most teachers.


How about we make people in every field of endeavor take additional courses (at their own expense for the courses themselves and no reimbursement for the time away from their jobs) each year in order to maintain their licensing to be able to keep their jobs as is done with teachers?


How regulated is your industry Bill?

Do you have to maintain you licensing every year by having to take extra multi-week long courses at your own expense?

[Deleted]

I just find it humorous that folks like Bill want it both ways: they want great teachers and they want them on the cheap.

It all comes down to what priorities this country has. Is it educating their kids? Helping the less fortunate? Keeping the air and water clean for future generations? Keeping the planet hospitable to life? Providing adequate health care for its populace? Taking care of its elderly?

Nope. It's letting Corporations and the wealthy keep as much money (which is NOT theirs, by the way) as they can.

Oh. And invading other countries under false pretenses. Somehow that became a priority too.

Now _those_ are moral values for you.

[goGopherBill]

How regulated is my industry..constuction..
heee...wanna take a yearly drug and alcohol test..

Like teachers?

wanna be regulated by the government in eveything..
Do you want to work in a FOR profit Company ..that looks every week to see if you are driving quality and proffits..
When you get older...just like football teams...younger workers get the job despite your Union dues...

Your teaching hours Vs. what a yeary construction worker works dont come close...we know many teachers who work during the summer in construction...why...because they have nothing to do...and can use the extra money.

Your claim that teacher wages havent kept up...
my predudice comes from my own life experiences...at 18 my english teacher asked why I wasnt going to The U.? I replied I make $5 bucks and hour as an apprentice...and will make 10 as a journeyman.
He just smiles and said thats what he makes...
Fast forward...today my Hrly wage nears $35 with benifits...but who works a full year in construction ? At over 50 ? My yearly wage is surpassed by even North Branch teachers...especially those with same years of service.
Remember teachers over 50 are impossible to get rid of....even if newer teachers are better..There is NO guarranty that older teachers are better or worth more than a GREAT beggining teacher who is paid less.

So all wages ..not just teachers have not kept up to inflation ...we all KNEW our jobs going into it...complaining about dollars not going to teachers is wearing a bit thin among many voters....it was supposed to be about the kids...remember?

Of course the teacher unions dont want any child left behind...it puts Unions on notice we will not tolerate poor teachers ...or poor test results...it has been shown that throwing money for the best schools and highest paid teachers does not mean a better education..just a more expensive one. Kansas city study a few years back...

Why do we have a record number of people going to community college? because industry after industry reports high school and many college graduates are not prepared for the REAL world... where we need to show a proffit...for every hour worked.

Education is broke...despite what teacher unions would have us believe...there is little competion for jobs..no teacher testing for competence...and our kids are not better educated than I was back in high school..buying new computors every 2 years for every student does not encourage thinking...maybe better typing and spelling skills.
Advocating having teachers for suspended kids like St.Cloud wants is beyond stupid...its all about adding additional teachers.
When student scores go up...and teachers demonstrate they are the reason...it still is a public funded non proffit and there are only so many dollars to go around..
43% of any budget should be enough.

[Gorf]

goGopherBill said:

How regulated is my industry..constuction..
heee...wanna take a yearly drug and alcohol test..

Like teachers?

Obviously they know something about you Bill.

wanna be regulated by the government in eveything..
Do you want to work in a FOR profit Company ..that looks every week to see if you are driving quality and proffits..
When you get older...just like football teams...younger workers get the job despite your Union dues...

Your teaching hours Vs. what a yeary construction worker works dont come close...we know many teachers who work during the summer in construction...why...because they have nothing to do...and can use the extra money.

Doesn't this pretty much contradict what you've said earlier?

Ask those teachers sometime how many hours per week they average, how many extra hours they work at home on grading papers, making lesson plans, talking to parents of their students or participating in other required activities outside of normal school hours.

Your claim that teacher wages havent kept up...
my predudice comes from my own life experiences...at 18 my english teacher asked why I wasnt going to The U.? I replied I make $5 bucks and hour as an apprentice...and will make 10 as a journeyman.
He just smiles and said thats what he makes...
Fast forward...today my Hrly wage nears $35 with benifits...but who works a full year in construction ? At over 50 ? My yearly wage is surpassed by even North Branch teachers...especially those with same years of service.

Doesn't this contradict at least part of what you said above?

You claim above that teachers don't work nearly as many hours as construction workers, then here you claim they earn more than your annual wage at $35 / hour.

A standard work year is 2000 hours. In order to make you happy I'll make it 1500 hours for teachers with their summers off.

The "average annual salary" for teachers last year was ~$44,000. In order to make the math easier I'll take that up to $45,0000.

That an average teacher last year earned $30 / hour.

If you are being paid hourly you earned more for each hour over 40 / week that you were paid. Perhaps even double or triple time in some instances if you worked holidays or weekends or even just in excess of 40 hours / week.

Teachers (as with many / most salaried people) don't get extra pay for the hours they put in in excess of 40 hours / week, when working evenings on grading papers and class plans for the following week, or on weekends.

If you are an hourly worker your pay rate stays at $35 / hour regardless of the number of hours you work.

Teachers wage lowers as they work more hours, and every teacher I've ever known has put in a lot of extra hours. For special education teachers they need to write IEP's for each student in their classes - they are written from home on their own time and take from what I've seen 2-5 hours per IEP. They also have meetings (largely outside of normal school hours) with parents of those special education kids, and make regular phone calls (again outside of school hours) to those same parents as well.

Remember teachers over 50 are impossible to get rid of....even if newer teachers are better..There is NO guarranty that older teachers are better or worth more than a GREAT beggining teacher who is paid less.

I guess you haven't noticed the many hundreds of teachers laid off in this state over just the past few years. Many of those are older teachers that are put into "forced retirement".

So all wages ..not just teachers have not kept up to inflation ...we all KNEW our jobs going into it...complaining about dollars not going to teachers is wearing a bit thin among many voters....it was supposed to be about the kids...remember?

Its supposed to be about the parents working with their kids as well, remember?

Over the past couple of decades more and more parents don't work much (if at all) with their kids, they send them to school to be their personal babysitters and refuse to take any responsibility for anything negative their kids do at school or anywhere else for that matter.

Teachers get assaulted by students more now than ever before.

More and more kids believe they can do whatever they want because of their "teachers can't touch me" attitudes.

How many kids (or anyone for that matter) come to your contruction sites with knives, guns, or just plain looking for fights?

Of course the teacher unions dont want any child left behind...it puts Unions on notice we will not tolerate poor teachers ...or poor test results...it has been shown that throwing money for the best schools and highest paid teachers does not mean a better education..just a more expensive one. Kansas city study a few years back...

ROFL.

Bill, your beloved president put into place a system that is very expensive and didn't fund it to nearly the level he promised. You give him credit for "increasing education funding more than Clinton" then complain that "education spending is too high because of the liberals".

Why do we have a record number of people going to community college? because industry after industry reports high school and many college graduates are not prepared for the REAL world... where we need to show a proffit...for every hour worked.

A record number are going to community colleges because they're cheaper than regular colleges like the U of M.

Jobs are fewer under GWB, people living below the poverty level are dramatically higher under GWB, people without health care and other benefits are dramatically higher under GWB. They can't afford the tuition at schools like the U of M so they go part time to community colleges.

Education is broke...despite what teacher unions would have us believe...there is little competion for jobs..no teacher testing for competence...and our kids are not better educated than I was back in high school..buying new computors every 2 years for every student does not encourage thinking...maybe better typing and spelling skills.

How often are you tested for competence Bill?

When was the last time someone from your group was let go because they failed a competency test?

The legal system makes it nearly impossible to fire anyone in pretty much any endeavor because companies are afraid of law suits being brought against them that would cost them more than it would to keep people working for them and not performing.

Advocating having teachers for suspended kids like St.Cloud wants is beyond stupid...its all about adding additional teachers.

Many hundreds of teachers have been laid off in the past few years Bill.

How does that equate to being "all about adding additional teachers"?

When student scores go up...and teachers demonstrate they are the reason...it still is a public funded non proffit and there are only so many dollars to go around..

43% of any budget should be enough.

Education spending is 27% of the total state budget, it is 40% of the "general" state budget. These are numbers from the Minnesota's fiscal planning web site.

It looked like about 1/6th of the amount in either case was spent on "higher education" (ie, schools like the U of M) not K-12 which we've supposedly been discussing.

Do you, or the newspaper (reporter) you copied the 43% from have some sort of agenda for reporting spending against something that isn't the total state budget?

[goGopherBill]

So ..now you go and get your own set of numbers to back you up...
How democrat of you...

You claim hundreds of teachers are laid off?
Why?

Is it because they live in an area that had such declining student populations that they closed schools?

Was it beause the voters living in their districts did not want to fund Total teacher union agenda?

Or was it because they were bad teachers?

I bet an apple it was because of the first 2 ...

Ask any one working in any other field about job security..Construction workers get laid off so often its almost part of their society...
You become a teacher and expect a life with no lay offs ever? great ...thats in touch with todays workers.

How often was I tested for job complience,
EVERY day...and private companies lay people off legally in many ways...I have seen forman lay a guy off because they didnt like the way the guy looked.

And yes fights still occur on job sites (constuction is still one of the most dangerous workplaces) and makes makes schools look like churches.

Your wife should be pissed ..she works hard and gets the same as one who just gets by.
In school we all knew the great teachers..and knew several that were not teachers...just wage earners.

[Gorf]

goGopherBill said:

So ..now you go and get your own set of numbers to back you up...
How democrat of you...

At least I report numbers directly from the government sites where your republicans are mostly in charge these days Bill.

You claim hundreds of teachers are laid off?
Why?

Is it because they live in an area that had such declining student populations that they closed schools?

Was it beause the voters living in their districts did not want to fund Total teacher union agenda?

Or was it because they were bad teachers?

I bet an apple it was because of the first 2 ...

I guess you haven't paid attention to the news or the government reports over the past few years?

Ask any one working in any other field about job security..Construction workers get laid off so often its almost part of their society...
You become a teacher and expect a life with no lay offs ever? great ...thats in touch with todays workers.

I guess if you want to look at it like that and say that teachers have seasonal jobs like some construction workers then 90%+ of teachers get laid off every summer.

How often was I tested for job complience,
EVERY day...and private companies lay people off legally in many ways...I have seen forman lay a guy off because they didnt like the way the guy looked.

You go through formal job compliance reviews every day?

No wonder houses and building projects in general take much longer than promised to be completed if they review every single little thing you do every day you work.




"I've seen teachers laid off because they..."

I guess we're even on that one.

And yes fights still occur on job sites (constuction is still one of the most dangerous workplaces) and makes makes schools look like churches.

Dangerous in terms of general difficulty because of the nature of the work, or because people come to the work site threatening the workers?

I know inner city schools have significant issues with kids carrying weapons. Especially in other states.

Your wife should be pissed ..she works hard and gets the same as one who just gets by.
In school we all knew the great teachers..and knew several that were not teachers...just wage earners.

For myself, I don't remember hardly any teachers that were simply trying to "slide by". But I was in school a long time ago and perhaps those things have gotten worse.

I know my wife has mentioned one particular teacher where she works that's like that. But one teacher out of the numerous others she's mentioned to me doesn't come close to comparing to the number of people of that type in the various places I've worked over the years.

I imagine schools are no different than any other work place in that respect overall though. Just because you can find some teachers that exhibit the behaviors you don't like doesn't mean you can't find as many or more people in other jobs that do the same things.



I guess we could just get rid of all government funding to schools at all levels and made all education a "pay as you go" system.

I wonder how many people would simply never bother with going to school with that sort of system because they can't afford it or don't care about it.

I wonder how the levels of overall education for everyone would be impacted when a significant portion of the population decides they don't need to know none of that readin', writin, and rithmatican' stuff.