DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Trump Cutting Education Bigly!

My guess as to why the US per pupil cost is so much is due to 1) Overpaid administrators, 2) Building costs and 3) cost of transportation.

LOL.......not one person responded to my comments even though I probably have more experience in education than anyone here.

It very telling. People are more interested in protecting their political views than in really improving the situation. The same thing happens in government.

Y'all are getting what you deserve.

Well if it makes you feel better I always read your comments.

LOL...........sorry about the mini rant, but it's frustrating.

Not one person even wanted to discuss why we don't have one national standardized test?!? That astounds me!!!

It seems like everyone just wants to take sides and assign blame. That is what the politicians and bureaucrats do. It freaking sound righteous and important, but it solves nothing and only adds to our problems.

Education is very important to me!!!! It blows my mind that more people are worried about what side is doing what than actually trying to correct the problems. <<sigh>>

How can we design such an assessment that measures more than just rote memorization? When I hear "standardized" I think of the "bubble all your knowledge into these circles", and this seems to act as the total antithesis of education.

I refuse to let some silly assessment, one not designed in measuring the learning modalities of each student, to proclaim how effective I am. Our jobs mean much more than some silly data point to make politicians feel good about themselves.

So, you are saying that it's better to be evaluated and compared to your peers across the country by administrating different tests and different pass/fail percentages?

That makes zero sense to me.

Charters can choose if they want to accept students on IEPs. Public schools MUST follow IEPs.

Note: IEPs are individualized education plans. These exist for students who need extra help due to a mental, physical, or other such condition.



Sure!

A teacher teaches an academic concept in class, and the students must go apply their learning in the outside world.

Students learn about non-fiction concepts in a ELA (english-language arts) classroom, and then they must go write a nonfiction objective news report about something going on in town.

A science class learns about anatomy of animals, they go catch a salmon on the beach, they bring it back to the classroom to dissect it, and the meat gets donated to the village elders.

A math class builds a community sculpture using perfectly constructed triangles with the use of trig functions, and Pythagorean theorem, etc. (You could probably think of decent engineering examples for this)

A history class researches the history of their village, makes a media encyclopedia on an event in the town, and then presents it to the community.

Etc.



Many believe in a magic panacea that will fix everything in education. Quick fixes damage the system more than waiting to see a program work. I'm sure Vers and other teachers can attest to this.



Resources and time for actual education. These countries barely concern themselves with standardized assessments. They're more concerned about developing authentic curriculum that engages all learning modalities.



I'd love to hear it. I'll credit you in my masters thesis

Oh, and you are missing out on my point. The reason we don't have one national standardized test is due to money. Different testing companies competing w/various states. It's a freaking sham.

If they insist on doing standardized testing, they should have one test designed by people in the national education department rather than commercial companies looking to make as much money as they can.

I'd be for any sort of assessment that authentically measures all learning modalities. These current models fail to measure multiple learning modalities.

Edit: Just saw your reply. I think we're pretty much on the same page.

How to fix education? Break up the National Education Association. Unions do not belong anywhere near the education of our children.

jc

http://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-bal...-in-state-tests

____

6 Baltimore schools, no students proficient in state tests

Booker T. Washington Middle School
Frederick Douglass High School
Achievement Academy at Harbor City
New Era Academy
Excel Academy at Francis M. Wood High
New Hope Academy

High school students are tested by the state in math and English. Their scores place them in one of five categories – a four or five is considered proficient and one through three are not. At Frederick Douglass, 185 students took the state math test last year and 89 percent fell into the lowest level. Just one student approached expectations and scored a three.
____

I looked up cost of spending per student and another site said that Baltimore spends $16,000 per student per year, the fourth highest in the nation. Apparently the teachers are well compensated and the schools have nice amenities.

What the heck is going on there? I am somebody who thinks in situations like this, getting more information is useful, whatever that information may be.

Here's a simple proposal: an investigative journalist should go into one of these schools during a school day, walk around, talk to students and faculty, and ask what is going on. As it is important to shed light on the overall environment in these schools, little or no editing should be done to the video.

SC doesn't have a union for their teachers and its education program is a complete mess.

Alright, I give up. LOL

Vers, what do you think about the Baltimore schools piece I posted above? I have to say, even as somebody who is a realist when it comes to these things, those results are a bit shocking. I'm not really sure what to make of it beyond what's obvious.

What is obvious is we are looking at symptoms of a Broken System.

Comments from a Baltimore teacher acting as a whistleblower (voice changed, face edit out), very insightful stuff here:

https://youtu.be/Pr9ExX_DKq0?t=260

Much of this is paraphrased so I apologize for the choppy nature of it. However, he part about the Freddie Gray riots are in quotes and verbatim.

Whistleblower Teacher:

- Part 1 review: school conditions (quite bad), lack of student discipline or support from administrators, and they talk to a city council member

- Interview (re)starts at 4:20.

- Teachers are very limited in what they are allowed to do (freedom of movement)

- Cell phone policy is outdated, they have no control over it. Nobody enforces the policy. They're supposed to be locked in locker; in practice, they constantly call people, disruptive

- Union colludes with the city. Union President always reelected. Want to spend a million dollars to upgrade Union headquarters. Teacher can't get consistent heat/air.

- "Freddie Gray" riots. He was told about this walking into the school.

"Those kids... when they had the riot last year. I was told about that walking into the school. Kids came up to me, said there's going to be a purge. There was nothing about Freddie Gray. A bunch of kids going out, doing a purge, they were going to meet up in Dallmon (sp?). Kids were leaving my room throughout the day to go join up. And you know, do the purge thing. It kind later morphed with some people making this about Freddie Gray. I would say really kind of like the press and white people came to the neighborhood and saw black people freaking out.. oh my goodness, let's figure out why these poor minorities are... but that's not what the kids were sending around on their Facebooks and their texts.

Interviewer: What were they saying?

Teacher: They were saying there's going to be a purge, like the movie. They were going to go out, they were going to do dumb things. Which they were doing, right, they were throwing rocks, they were ripping motorists out of their vehicles, and breaking stuff, and stealing stuff out of the shoe store. They weren't marching. Noone was saying we're doing this for Freddie Gray, we're tearing up our neighborhood for Freddie Gray.. noone was doing that. That kind of came on the back of the beginning of the riot. I think what happened is we got out of control, when they shut down the bus and trains there and the kids got stuck there. 7 or 8 high schools where the kids got stuck and they come out and there's armed police in riot gear and it just exploded from that. I don't think it was solely about Freddie Gray

[Video shows a black male police officer smacking a black male rather forcefully 2-3 times, tells him to go home, and get the **** out of here, kicking him in the arse (literally) as he's leaving.]
- Teacher says he has close sources that say the kid spit on the female officer who was next to the male officer on the video. Of course, the spitting was not caught on tape.

- These kids are rough. My day everyday, and those police officers every day, is being physically and verbally postured and threatened, and sometimes attacked. Daily, not occasionally. Even if it was occasional that's too much. Everytime you challenge a child, you're going to get challenged back, and they'll threaten you just for saying go to class. They escalate very quickly, just because you address them.

- why? socioeconomic issues, fetal alcohol syndrome, more of the common explanations. kids like structure. When kids can say and do terrible things, all day every day, and there is no consequence... what kind of environment will that be? It's dog eat dog, strongest will survive.

- I watched a college teacher come in once, black woman, first day she was all excited, high level professor, and didn't even get to the end of the day. I saw her running out, mascara and hair disheveled, clothes wrecked. The suitcase she had wheeled in behind her... she left, and she was literally running at the door.

Teacher asks where are you going?
College teacher: these kids are animals!
And just ran out... What about your stuff? You can have it!

All this stuff... you wouldn't believe it... you have to be there to see it. It's that crazy.

- Video of students confronting teachers that is shocking: daily occurrence, happens all the time. Schools underreport violence.

- Kids hanging out in teacher's lounge, said they have to leave, gets predictable verbal sparring and cussing. Girl slams opens(?) door on him as he addresses other kids, one of them (an athlete) is trying to swing on him, others are holding him back. Teacher goes to administrator's office. Police are gone because there was a brawl in the lunchroom.

Finds an administrator coming from the cafeteria, informs them what happened... the kid that assaulted him before tries to attack him again while he is with the administrator. The teacher gets lectured by the principal for an hour about improving his conflict resolution skills.

They never did anything about the girl who assaulted him (with the door.)

- Principals rarely/never report the assaults to the union. They never follow the process. The union is completely useless and in collusion with the city. They don't follow the process, unless the teacher doesn't follow the process, then they're all over you.

- How many times assaulted? Depends a lot on the definition. Physically assaulted, many times. Only to court 2-3 times.

- Common for teachers to be attacked and administrators won't report it. They won't report it. School system won't allow the school to suspend students who have committed assault.

- Young student tried to assault me this year. Teacher confronted him and a couple others in hallway (for being loud/disruptive, got cussed out. The student service rep is wasting time, not doing what he's supposed to.

Crew follows teacher around, threatens him, "I'ma **** you up, etc." Teacher is not going to run away, every day, in his own room

They didn't really do anything to that student

Within a week and a half, that student, along with his brother, had stomped two other students. Literally stomped and beat two kids. First was bloodied up, ended up in hospital. Second one stomped, similar thing, and they let him back in the school.

- Another example of "stompings" (different group), cracked a girl's cervical spine. They let them back in, so their graduation numbers would stay up.

- Another boy in his class jumped on one of the administrators, pounded his head, he was suspended, and then let back in.

- Pregnant teacher gets attacked, and the student that attacked her was let back in... to her class. This sometimes happens, teachers have to teach kids who have previously attacked them.

- Several more examples, one with several assaults who waved a gun around in class, ran from cops, cops never went to arrest him at his house (??)

- a couple of the administrators genuinely do work really hard, hands are tied by North Ave.

- The boy who threatened to shoot me in the face for asking about his uniform, was put out a couple years before for the same kind of thing. He tore up parent's house, tore up Juvie, judge felt sorry for him, put him back in school

- Hostile work environment, a lot of kids don't come to school because of this stuff.

- Graft and corruption. Money disappears. They didn't balance the books, didn't want name attached to it. We're in debt, despite all the money we got.

- Talks about online education, especially for problem children. Get the feeling that the teacher is at wits' end, just doesn't want to deal with all this nonsense

If I were reading or hearing about the above for the first time, I wouldn't believe it. Actually, when I was in school, a couple teachers tried to explain situations like that and most of us were so naive to understand that they meant these things literally.

I've talked to teachers over the years and those who have worked in different environments say pretty much the same thing. It sounds made up to a lot of people who haven't actually been in the situation themselves. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

By the way, this is why we need school choice. I'm not sure how else to put that. The money is there... it is one of the highest funded school districts in the country. That is not the issue. You have to be very dense to not see what is actually going on.

You know like 3 of these schools are alternative schools and one of them is an adult high school, right?

Haus, I'll say this the nicest way possible. Thinking like yours damages my profession, endangers the opportunity of ALL American children, and will lead to an even worse American caste system.

The problems you describe remain symptoms of poverty, a failure of the school system to engage with the local community in a meaningful and authentic way, and archaic thinking on electronics. But hey, keep on looking for that conformation bias. Unions are needed, but a closer watch is needed on some.

I think you mean well, but I also think you are young and naive and won't consider explanations outside the ones you were taught in school.

If I lived in a zip code that required me to send a loved one to the type of school described in that very long post above, I would be furious. As should anybody.

Of course, we should try to fix those schools. We already spend a tremendous amount of money to do so, and unfortunately those in charge have been unable to do much meaningful with it. If anything, things are getting worse. Since I am a see it to believe it kind of guy, I have no choice but to have my current attitude.

Why would I send my kid to a school full of drugs, violence, gangs, where just getting home safe is a success.. forget about learning. This has far less to do with funding (addressed many times) or socioeconomic status than you and many others suggest. There are plenty of schools in poor neighborhoods that are nothing like this. It's like half the people who talk about this subject miss the most obvious things.

I'm sure and it's obvious that you believe you know more about the education system in our nation than those who actually teach in it do.

It's also obvious you are trying to use the most extreme examples you can find to try to portray our education system as a whole. In case you missed it, that's not flattery.

We spend our education dollars on the wrong things. I'm quite sure a lot of the cash gets puts towards ridiculous assessments that only measure a single learning modality, but all kids learn in different ways!

We need actual authentic education, I doubt many of actually received an authentic hands on education, and we must get away from the data score lust that plagues ours current education system.

Nah, you're just misguided and look for the horror stories to reaffirm your misguided beliefs. I've student taught in a plethora of different environments, and completed four successful years (next year is #5) in an environment where the average shelf life of a teacher or principal is 1-2 years.

So go ahead, tell me I'm naïve and misguided. Discredit all of my ethos. You lack the understanding needed. I'm willing to teach, but you MUST remove your red colored ultra-right glasses to learn.

I walk my talk.

You would do well to get in the trenches somewhere in the works, and drop your extremely dangerous worldview.

Ok, I think I understand.. so the teaching remains largely the same but the assignments associated with the teaching are closer to home and the kids can "take ownership of it"...

I can get behind that.


Ok but that doesn't really answer my question about how they pay their teachers so much and offer these great lunches I see on-line, etc.. yet still spend the same or less than we do on education.


I think we have to consider separating sports and public education. I know it's a very unpopular idea because sports brings communities together and many of us have very fond memories of playing high school sports.. but these athletic department budgets for a high school run in the $500K to $1M... per year, per high school. Good information is very hard to find because in looking for it you can't find total expenses.
You see the budget but some of that is offset with ticket sales and player fees but still, these budgets are not small amounts of money that is being put into public education and being spent on sports teams. Then some of them have team transportation in a transportation budget and grounds maintenance isn't in the AD budget, etc.. it's treated like a shell game. I couldn't find any information that says, "Our sports program cost us $XXXX last year" but I bet for a lot of schools it's close to $1 million.. plus....

and that doesn't count the other costs... I recently did a cost estimate for a high school in NC. The estimated cost to build the high school was about $45 million. I believe that approximately $6-7 million of that was for the football stadium, baseball stadium, and basketball gym. (they would need a gym for PE but not with big scoreboards, bleachers, etc). And that doesn't count, at all, the land cost, the county had to purchase a 40 acre site to accommodate all of these fields instead of a 25-30 acre site just for the school, parking, and a recreation field. How much is 10-15 acres of real estate worth?

If you make this argument, about removing sports from schools, invariably you get the push back that if left to the community, they would have to charge big fees and poor kids wouldn't be able to play.... which is a reasonable point, so get sponsorships, get business involved, get donations, do something other than make education pay for it.

There are 26 high schools in Wake County (where Raleigh is).. if each one of them cost $7 million more to build than they needed to... if each of them spends $1 million a year to sustain athletic programs... do the math.

A large point in some reading I did this past semester, it's a masters in Cross Cultural education, came to your idea about community ownership on local athletics. You further outlined many reasons why it could work as a fantastic idea.

About the money, it's hard to say with 100% certainty, but I'm quite sure we spend our money on the wrong things. We out too much towards test that only measure the kids ability to memorize informterion, and don't assess the learning modalities of all kids.

Yeah, such a system would take more time to evaluate, but we need to treat education as a work in progress.

At least in Ohio (and most states), schools are funded by property taxes mainly. So why should someone pay their high taxes, for a good school system, if someone not from that district, and not paying in, can go there for free?

This whole conversation reeks of naivety. If you look at the "pro-option" people, they're screaming about how we have too much money for education to be an issue. But throwing money at things doesn't help usually. It just makes a bigger mess. No where in this topic has anyone discussed the bearing that kids and parents have in education, which is large. Now if you want to have a real dialogue about education in America, then money cannot be the first answer.

I agree and it's getting worse by the year.

I have to get back to work but I'm pretty sure we could devote hours and dig deep into this... which I'm all for, just can't be right now.

I assume you are talking about "open enrollment"?

If so, the money follows the student. Say kid lives in school Y district, but open enrolls in school Z district. School Y loses the state money for that kid, and school Z gets it.

There's more to it than that, but that's the gist of it. (and for it to happen, the school districts must abut at some place.) It doesn't change the COST from the state, the state just sends that money to the school district attended.

And again, that's a simplistic explanation, but you get the gist of it.



Agreed. Parents play a HUGE role in education - if only for the simple fact that they somehow get involved. As simple as "sit down and do your homework", and on up.

Now, this will get me in trouble, at least around here, the problem schools aren't the "poor" schools, they're the schools in poor areas. Most often inner cities. That would raise the "poverty student" issue. But, is that the end all to the issue? Or, more than likely, there are several other issues is what I think.

What I outlined above is more common than you think. We had a related discussion on here a while back. The consensus was that, in many schools, things are far more chaotic than almost anybody realizes.

Do I think I know more about the education system in our nation than Rocket? No, I don't think that. He has a wider base of education-related knowledge, hands on experience, and I have little doubt that he is a skilled teacher.

Of course, the same can be said of any number of smart and experienced teachers who I've collaborated with over the years, most of whom have ideas that are closer to mine than they are to Rocket's. Widespread experience has a way of changing teachers' views. Rocket thinks this 'old guard' of teachers is part of the problem but I think they have wisdom that should not be dismissed.

You can watch this all unfold yourself. Find yourself a graph that charts our inflation-adjusted expenditure versus our schools' performance. The first one goes up and up and up..... the other stays more or less flat (or even decreases a small amount.)

You'd think somebody, or some school, SOMEWHERE, would have figured out a way to spend this money effectively. If it's happened, please let us know where... this has been going on for decades and improvement is hard to find.

You have hit the nail on the head with those posts!

Confirmation Bias: 101

What you did was use a source that selected certain schools, in a certain district to try to make a generalization about an entire nations education system.

You listed 3 alternative schools and 1 school that was "adult high school" those are nowhere near the average.

In a system with 320 schools.

GOP weighs subpoena for former senior Education Department official

The abrupt resignation James Runcie, the head of the Education Department’s student financial aid office, has some Republican lawmakers vowing to take a closer look into allegations that billions of dollars were mismanaged while he was in charge.

“We do not want to issue a subpoena, but he has been asleep at the switch,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News. “He owes the American taxpayers an explanation of how $6 billion was improperly disbursed by his office and he still received a $75,000 performance bonus.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/...t-official.html

Sounds exactly like my brothers experience was 8 years ago when he taught in the city schools in Rochester NY ... exactly like ... after a week he said he had a fight spill into his classroom during class ... he said it happend at least once a month ... were not talking about the fights that broke out in his class ...

He said there were a few kids in each class that wanted to learn .. a bunch of punks and some that wanted to learn but caved to peer pressure ...

Maybe the online thing is a good idea based on that fact alone ..

The charter schools in the city of Rochester work ... problem is it takes the students that want to learn out of the public school system ... to get in they have interviews during the application process and they get a commitment from the student and the STUDENTS GAURDIANS ... now ... that was about 4 years ago .. no clue whats happend since ...

So its a catch 22 ...

I don't have the answers ... i know throwing more money at it is not the answer ... and in today's America Unions are so corrupt its almost as bad as our politicians ...

Like everything else .. MONEY CORRUPTS ... LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE ... I'm sure theres some good people in the unions and some scum bags that only care about themselves ... how do u weed them out ... that'd be a good start with the entire educational system ...

Some discipline wouldn't hurt either ... ...

Some charters work and others don't. Actually the odds are about the same as public schools. The reason for that is that in the suburbs the quality of education is much better overall than in urban areas, so it all balances out.

My issue isn't really about our public education system being broken, it's more about fixing it. I think we all know it's broken. I believe my opinion on the matter is fairly balanced.

First of all we have to fix the system. At that point we will actually know the cost in terms of cutting the education budget. I believe the notion of taking away the money first and fixing later is backwards.

I'm sure if at some point we fix education in a quality manner, we could save money and have better education. There's just no way of knowing how much will be left to cut until you fix the problem.

Yes, I understand it was only six schools. The results of those six schools are particularly shocking, are they not? That was separate from the lengthy post where I loosely transcribed the whistleblower Baltimore teacher (although I suppose it is feasible that he taught at one of them.)

Hey if you want to dig up the results from other Baltimore schools, go ahead. Perhaps search for the average math and reading proficiency level-- let us know what you find. And it's not like these issues are unique to only Baltimore schools.

As I have often said, it is insightful to listen to teachers who have many years of teaching experience in a wide variety of schools. If you know someone like this, you should pick their brain some.

How much experience? It's hard to put an exact number on that and I don't want any of the SJWs to call me an ageist. Just for the hell of it, let's say that they have to be old enough to run for President (35+) with at least ten years of teaching experience, ideally split among different environments.

It's really not that shocking when you consider most of the schools on there. Then it'd require for said person to know what "alternative" school is.

Since it was you who isolated the truth by cherry picking information to bolster your argument, it's your job to do the homework not mine. Ive already proven my point about your feeble attempt to deceive people.

Face it, you found a case using six schools out of 320 in a district to try to make a point about our public education system.

I'm not going to go find an article on an isolated case to try to promote our education system because that would be just as disingenuous as your attempt was. Just be honest about it.

I find it shocking that not a single student in those four schools can read at a proficient level, alternative school or not. Perhaps I am showing my ignorance and this is more common than I initially believed.

By the way, what is the justification for the other two schools with zero proficient students?

It's blatantly obvious your alt-right glasses lead you to seek out teachers who just do the job for a paycheck, and then complain about how "the youth of America is the worst it's ever been".

I suggest you broaden your horizons beyond jaded teachers, r/The_Donald, Breitbart, and other questionable sources. Some of your arguments come from places like Stormfront for crying out loud. I'm sick and tired of people like you who try to blame inner-cities for the problems with education, and basically equating these individuals to subhuman levels. Your worldview is dangerous beyond comprehension to the future for all in America.

You like to argue for the sake of arguing, and enjoy throwing talking points. You bring little of no substance to discussions about education. Just anecdotal stories of people you know, and a biased judge mental viewpoint of when you worked in the inner-city that makes you believe dangerous ideals.