Very sad

My wife has been a teacher for 30+ years....and the answer is obvious...get big government the hell out of education...these people don't know anything about education, yet they sit up in an office somewhere and hand down stupid-@$$ policies like No Student Left Behind and dump meaningless tests on the schools that do nothing more develop a bunch of statistics and kill time for everybody....then they point at all the money they spend on education...$$ per student...which includes the money they pay themselves anf like Ridge says, all the top-heavy administrators...

When my girls were in school, ALL their teachers and principals knew me personally...I was on the school advisory council in every school they attended and instrumental in all their sports endeavors...too many parents see school as just a place to send their kids for the day....parents gotta be INVOLVED, and they just aren't doin' it...parents IN...govt OUT of education and it'll turn around quickly...but of course that ain't gonna happen...
 
reelapeelin said:
My wife has been a teacher for 30+ years....and the answer is obvious...get big government the hell out of education...these people don't know anything about education, yet they sit up in an office somewhere and hand down stupid-@$$ policies like No Student Left Behind and dump meaningless tests on the schools that do nothing more develop a bunch of statistics and kill time for everybody....then they point at all the money they spend on education...$$ per student...which includes the money they pay themselves anf like Ridge says, all the top-heavy administrators...

When my girls were in school, ALL their teachers and principals knew me personally...I was on the school advisory council in every school they attended and instrumental in all their sports endeavors...too many parents see school as just a place to send their kids for the day....parents gotta be INVOLVED, and they just aren't doin' it...parents IN...govt OUT of education and it'll turn around quickly...but of course that ain't gonna happen...
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100% agreement. As I said before, I was a member of the PTO (Parent-Teachers Org.) for all the years my son was in school. I might add that most of the parents in my town are involved and we do take an active role in our kids ed. Maybe that's one of the reasons we are ranked as one of the top 10 school systems in the state and one of the top 100 in the nation. But it comes at a price...a large one. Our property taxes are some of the highest in the nation. We recruit the best and we pay our teachers a lot of money. But even with all of that working for us, it's almost impossible for the teachers to actually teach. They are required to fill out form after form for each child and do endless paperwork to satisfy the requirements of some lame politician that has to justify his or her job by makeing the schools and the teschers jump thru needless hoops. Admittly this is just one of the needed solutions to the overall problem, but I think it's one of the major ones. There are others for sure, like getting rid of tenure so you can dismiss sup standard teachers. Paying the teachers you do have a decent rate of pay. Requireing parents to play an active role in their childs ed. Allow parents to send their child to whatever school they want...and that includes private schools. Giving parents that do send their children to private schools tax breaks since they do not use the public school system. Lots of other things that I'm sure others here can come up with.
 
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also have a wife in education, classroom teacher 17 years, assistant principal 5 years, principal 6 years and now county level administrator for 3 years.
what is it about V-20's that attracts education majors?
 
They are cute I will give you that!

I just want to say something that has been an observation of mine for several decades now.
Anytime, I repeat, anytime, the government (especially at the federal) gets involved in something it gets topsy turvy in the most absurd ways.
We have great teachers, no doubt.
How many are forced by a hierarchy to teach an agenda based curriculum?
How many could do better than the curriculum demands they teach?
How many are teaching to qualify for some federal mandate? Or to some government mandate test?
How many would segregate those students that need remedial work and those who are exceptional and should be brought along on a higher level?
Said differently, how many are forced to teach to the level of the lowest achiever in their class?
How many teachers have their hands tied with discipline problems that should be dealt with immediately and hard or removed entirely from the classroom?
How many teachers would work differently if tenure did not exist and the union did not control the board of education? (truth here shows character!).
How many teachers would love to set up your own school plan to teach math and the sciences so their kids would excel in life? In the world they will compete.
All these things and many more are what I have heard complained about from some very good teachers.
There is a common thread.
An over powerful centralized government controlling thought, critical thinking, and decisions by those people closest to the issues.
We need to return education control to the states.
If you do not like how you school system is run you can move to the next county or next state.
You vote with your feet or you get involved locally and change it.
There should not be one directive coming from an over powerful federal government, period. It destroys everything it is involved with. It is why our Founding Fathers left these things to the States.
And I am sorry but I will offend some here. The unions are in bed with the Federal government. Have been for decades and their hierarchy is as responsible for the decline in our education as the Progressives in government. The unions in effect have sold their souls for better pensions and higher salaries, they support the Big Fed agendas and their money goes to support big Progressives in government. No matter what anyone says to the contrary that has been the marraige with Satan for decades now.
Our children have suffered, our Nation has faltered, and we as Citizens have watched it creep up like the way you cook a frog.
We need big changes, many in the education system will fight it.
If the children, the American Citizen wins we will all eventually win.
If the teacher union bosses and their *****masters in Washington win, well, we all will lose. Starting with the children.
 
florida is trying to make some changes along those lines. our schools are county based and teachers are county employee's with different pay rates, benefits, etc. according to the county they teach in. my daughter has just graduated with a bs in history & a masters in education. if she gets a job, it starts @ $32,000. not great, but it's the field she chose and we knew the pay going in. current hires will not get continuing contract and will be hired on a yearly contract, which can be on renewed or not every year. a lot of older teachers are upset, but if you do your job, you should be fine. hell, most of the people i know have a one week contract. all administrators have yearly contracts that are renewed or not annually. we also have superintendents that are elected, so top administrators are subject to non renewal if they back the wrong horse. union representation in our district is about %25, florida is a right to work state.
 
phatdaddy said:
florida is trying to make some changes along those lines. our schools are county based and teachers are county employee's with different pay rates, benefits, etc. according to the county they teach in. my daughter has just graduated with a bs in history & a masters in education. if she gets a job, it starts @ $32,000. not great, but it's the field she chose and we knew the pay going in. current hires will not get continuing contract and will be hired on a yearly contract, which can be on renewed or not every year. a lot of older teachers are upset, but if you do your job, you should be fine. hell, most of the people i know have a one week contract. all administrators have yearly contracts that are renewed or not annually. we also have superintendents that are elected, so top administrators are subject to non renewal if they back the wrong horse. union representation in our district is about %25, florida is a right to work state.
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Sounds like you're on the right track. The town I live in has all new teachers on a three year probabation. They still get tenure after that time if they are kept, but at least it gives us a better chance to not renew the sub-standard ones. It's a start.

lumberslinger said:
Their cute
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Yup...gotta admit there are some really fine teachers...<sigh>
 
phatdaddy said:
florida is trying to make some changes along those lines. our schools are county based and teachers are county employee's with different pay rates, benefits, etc. according to the county they teach in. my daughter has just graduated with a bs in history & a masters in education. if she gets a job, it starts @ $32,000. not great, but it's the field she chose and we knew the pay going in. current hires will not get continuing contract and will be hired on a yearly contract, which can be on renewed or not every year. a lot of older teachers are upset, but if you do your job, you should be fine. hell, most of the people i know have a one week contract. all administrators have yearly contracts that are renewed or not annually. we also have superintendents that are elected, so top administrators are subject to non renewal if they back the wrong horse. union representation in our district is about %25, florida is a right to work state.
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The part you missed though is teachers that had a contract BEFORE the hiring process for the 11-12 school year KEPT tenure. ONLY new hires lost tenure. ANother key note is that the state has the option to come in at any time they choose if your test scores are not high enough and take over the counties educational program. My wife is also a history teacher, but opted not to get a masters as having a masters right now makes you less desireable as that means you get $2K more per year for that(she got her last teaching over somebody with a masters because teh county didn't want to pay the extra money out for the teacher with a masters). It's all screwed up down here. I feel there should be tenure, but they should also have a testing system to evaluate the teachers. they have one now, but from what my wife said it is school employees doing teh evals, and it just doesn't sound right to me from what she told me of her first eval. If they are going to do evals, I feel it should be done by a NON affiliated evaluator who has nothing to gain or lose by there evaluation. With the current system this is just not the case.
 
It isn't all bad. The teachers we have experienced have a sincere desire to teach my student. As a parent, the time spent every evening with my third grader and her homework is "together time" and I love it. Nothing better than working with my little one and seeing the lights come on.
Everyone on here is right on the money IMHO. Yes the teacher has to teach to the least advanced student in her class. At least there isn't 45 students to deal with. Our educators also use a couple of assistants and mentor/volunteers to help the students that need additional help. Overall, they seem to be ahead of where I was when I was in the third grade...
 
Destroyer...my sincerest apologies for my poor use of vocabulary. Know that I would never use that term to describe somebody that actually had a disability. Strangely that word has transformed in our pop culture to mean somebody that's just a knucklehead and or doesn't use the common sense that god gave them which was how I was using it. But still that is not the origin of the word and I should have been more responsible putting it out there to a large audience knowing that it could hit home with somebody.
 
ridge, i had to quit giving homework help when mine got to the 6th grade, after that i had to send them to their mother. i am the ditch digger in the family.
 
RidgeRunner said:
It isn't all bad. The teachers we have experienced have a sincere desire to teach my student. As a parent, the time spent every evening with my third grader and her homework is "together time" and I love it. Nothing better than working with my little one and seeing the lights come on.
Everyone on here is right on the money IMHO. Yes the teacher has to teach to the least advanced student in her class. At least there isn't 45 students to deal with. Our educators also use a couple of assistants and mentor/volunteers to help the students that need additional help. Overall, they seem to be ahead of where I was when I was in the third grade...
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This is one of those topics (Talking about class size) where I personally have very mixed feelings.. On the one hand I can see the wisdom of smaller classes. In theory, it lets the teachers give more time to each student. And that's certainly a good thing. But on the other hand, I recall when I went to school that our average class size was 34-39 kids per classroom, and truthfully, we learned more back then than kids are learning now. So the arguement that smaller classes = better learning for our children really doesn't hold water in the harsh light of reality. (And I would also like to point out that the average class size in Japan is 50 children per classroom). So why are we constantly being told that smaller classes = better teaching?

As much as I hate to go in this direction, the only thing that I can think of is the teachers union. Think about it.. if you have 500 students, and each class size is 35, then you need 14 teachers (union members paying dues) to teach those students. But if each class size is 20 students then you need 25 teachers to teach those same 500 students. A net gain of 11 union paying members making the teachers union that much richer. I'm not saying this is the only reason that teachers unions want smaller class sizes, but it certainly smells a little fishy to me that the single biggest voice in wanting smaller classes is also the one that stands to gain the most money from it. Just one more thing to think about.
 
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RWilson2526 said:
Destroyer...my sincerest apologies for my poor use of vocabulary. Know that I would never use that term to describe somebody that actually had a disability. Strangely that word has transformed in our pop culture to mean somebody that's just a knucklehead and or doesn't use the common sense that god gave them which was how I was using it. But still that is not the origin of the word and I should have been more responsible putting it out there to a large audience knowing that it could hit home with somebody.
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Rob, you're a good friend. I owe my very existance on these forums to you. I know that politically we don't see eye to eye on every subject, but then again, who does? I'm sure that you didn't mean any ill will or harm, and that, to me at least, is far more important than the words themselves. Since no harm was meant, your apology is not necessary.
Also, I acknowledge that it takes a real man to step up to the plate and offer one, so thank you for it. :beer:
 
lumberslinger178 said:
Rob I knew what you were trying to put forth ....I think this tread need to be put to bed..
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I concur.. I also knew what he was trying to say, which is why I took no offense to it. When I made my comment about hating that word it was not directed at Rob, but rather at the word itself. As to putting this thread to bed... well, ....it's true that we've hashed it out for several pages, but personally I think that it was a good discussion, and I don't really like closing off discussions... I'd rather see them die off naturally, rather than be closed. but that's just me. :head:
 
well,i don't see the situation as that of a "union" issue or for that matter even an issue of a union simply trying to garner more members to make their local "that much richer".that is what has been portrayed as the problem across the country by some.
some of the facts are that teachers today do not have the authority in the classroom that they had in past years.couple that with so many states dictating that teachers have to spend so very much of their time getting students ready for proficiency tests and it's little wonder that SOME kids are behind.but remember this,what we OLD people consider common sense skills,the younger generation has little use for.we may be able to use tools and our hands to fix things but those aren't the skills required in THEIR world today.things have changed somewhat.
can a system be tweaked to insure that financial responsibility is maintained? sure,and it should be because it is tax money that we are talking about in the public sector and safegaurds should be in place and monitored.here in Ohio though,one of the big points that was being made was that public sector pension systems weren't maintaining solvency as they are suppose to by the stipulations of the laws governing them.In the case of our police & fire pension system,some politicians were wiping their feet on the truth though.because of the economic downswing,our pension system was not maintaining solvency because of failed investments.BUT,the powers that be in the financial end of our pension system had submitted proposals to the state that would have brought the system back into compliance(added member contributions,more years of service,etc).the problem occurred when these politicians refused to act on the proposals because it would not have allowed them to use the solvency as an argument to further their bill proposal.since the bill has failed,the proposals are now being heard.
btw,i have witnessed 1st hand,and have participated in the fight against the assault on public sector unions here in Ohio that happened over the last year.I received a hell of a lesson about politics and to be truthful,i hope that i never have to get involved with it to that degree again.i'd rather just finish out my career then fish whenever i want to!!
Here in Ohio though,the lies that were told about public sector workers and the unions that represent us were numerous and in the end,the truth came out as it usually does when lies are told. we were told that it was "all about financial responsibility".well,then we found out that contained in this bill proposal were articles that would not have saved our state ONE RED CENT but were included for one purpose,to weaken public sector unions. these articles were meant to initially lessen the number of public sector union members,make it very difficult for locals to collect dues,and to reduce the percentage of votes needed to de-certify a union local down to 30%. the voters here saw right through the bill proposal and voted it down with 63% of the voters saying NO to it.
If this post ruffles some feathers then so be it but that isn't my intent.I'd much rather leave this forum than to sit back and not state my opinion since i have been very involved in the issue here from the introduction of the bill to it's defeat and have witnessed those in my profession be villified for no other reason than politics,and it stinks.
 
jeffmo said:
If this post ruffles some feathers then so be it but that isn't my intent.I'd much rather leave this forum than to sit back and not state my opinion since i have been very involved in the issue here from the introduction of the bill to it's defeat and have witnessed those in my profession be villified for no other reason than politics,and it stinks.
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Jeff...this is a discussion. No lies, no ill will, no right or wrong position. It is only by people talking and listening and observing that anyone learns anything. You are entitled to your opinion and you are just as entitled to to state it as much as anyone else. As long as you are not publically slandering anyone or lying you never have to worry about leaving the forums. Personally, I may not agree with everything you or other people state, but that doesn't mean you don't have the right and the obligation to state your opinions. Just as I'm sure that not everyone will agree with everything that I have an opinon about.

As to the subject at hand, if you look again at what I said, I said that it was a road that I really didn't want to go down but it was also the only reason that I could think of for the unions championing smaller class sizes. I'll stand by that comment until someone else can give me a reasonable explaination for wanting to reduce class sizes to 20-22 students per class, and also having one or two teachers aides in the same classroom as the teacher. I mean, wtf? 3 adults in one class to teach 20-22 kids? :head:

BTW, don't, for a minute, think that I'm anti-union. Although I don't choose to be a part of one at this stage in my life, I used to work for the power and light company and was a member of the IBEW for 10+ years, and was a member of other unions before that. My own personal take on unions is that they can be a great source of protection for their members. Indeed, I think that at one time they were absolutely necessary in our culture. I also think that there are a lot of them that have abused their power over the years, and because of that they have hurt their standing in a lot of peoples eyes. Like everything else in this world, there are good and bad unions.

But this really isn't a discussion on the good or the bad of unions... it's a discussion about the children in our schools getting sub-standard educations and what we, as parents, think are possible solutions to that problem. Lets stick to that discussion in this thread and leave the union discussion to a different thread.
 
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I am management and therefore unions are bad.. and that is another thread entirely.

As for the class size. You cannot use Japanese education at 60 plus per class as a benchmark as to what works in American children. The culture is very different. Americans are independent minded and the children act that way, discipline problems and lack of focus. Not so in Japan. The Japanese children are taught to tow the line and the family unit is a strong part of their heritage.

My point was that if the ratio of special needs children to regular needs children is somewhere near 1 in 20 or even 1 in 10. The burden of the teacher to handle 1 or 2 special needs children out of 20 is manageable compared to 3 or 4 children in a class of 45. To be clear there are 2 Teaching Assistants for the entire elementary school K thru 5 that float about the school and help the slower students on an ad hoc basis. Not sure how many mentors this year. It appears that any gain the teacher had with a smaller class size (ie. more 1 on 1 with students) seems to be lost due to mainstreaming the special needs children in with the rest of the class. IMHO.

Jeffmo, please comment all you like. It is just a blog amongst Snaggers.
 
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