Comments on: Teacher evaluations — and surveys of students and colleagues

By: J.R.

J.R. — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:15:40 +0000

Chris,
As per the posted links above, most of the fat in this state are the pension obligations,and interest of which the taxpayers are on the hook for. The pensioners are making more than when they worked(because they get raises), and there aren’t enough taxpayers to pay for it.

http://www.calwatchdog.com/2012/04/13/why-pensions-are-going-broke/

By: Christopher Scheer

Christopher Scheer — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:23:28 +0000

OK, J.R., but I just don’t see much fat at the school sites. Even the lousy teachers are still babysitting 30 kids every hour.

Especially when you factor in that, unlike the emergency services, we get ZERO overtime pay.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:40:20 +0000

Cranky,
I (as well as other taxpayers) realize quality education is an expensive proposition, but with less taxpayers pulling the wagon(and more people jumping into the wagon)something is going to give, because this is an unsustainable situation. We are getting to the point where we will just be able to keep those services that are most critical and necessary to society(Doctors,nurses, Police, some fire, Teachers and so forth. Example of how to cut costs: Most fire calls are accidents,and respiratory distress so it would make more sense to down-size the size and number of fire depts and use ambulance crews with paramedics instead, which will cost less money and be more efficient. Paying six figures to fire personnel for part of the time waxing and washing the trucks is not financially smart. In schools there should be one maintenance janitor on each site(for situations that cannot wait), and contracted outside janitorial services that handle the cleanup and janitorial work. Tax money is not limitless, and that is the weakness of the public sector, they do not create wealth, value per se in an of themselves. Some public sector services are more essential than others, and some really aren’t necessary which is just the way it is. If the NEA,CTA and others really want to do something constructive with their political pull, they can help to dismantle all these big budget commissions, boards and agencies starting with CARB which are just scams.

http://killcarb.org/

By: Cranky Teacher

Cranky Teacher — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:24:24 +0000

J.R., I agree with you on bureaucracy and redundancy. It is often hard to see what the district does which the schools could not do directly.

As a fan of decentralized decision-making, I could see giving the money straight from the state to individual schools. Parents would largely keep schools accountable, although a beefed-up credentialing system would help.

But the reality is that even when you cut “the fat,” quality education is an expensive proposition. One of my kids is in private school and they are CONSTANTLY begging us to give more money on top of the crushing tuition costs. Do I think they are a scam? No, but they are a bit top-heavy, and they are providing a very high teacher-student ratio.

Most school costs are paying teachers and paraprofessionals, plus building and maintaining the physical plants.

Finally, if you break the public service unions, the economy goes down further and you lower labor costs, you are driving down the local economy, since those jobs are the bedrock of our local middle class, which pumps that money straight back into the economy..

By: J.R.

J.R. — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:06:20 +0000

Cranky,

“J.R.: What you leave out J.R., is that California as a whole is ranked #47th in spending”.

I have covered this time and time again(you just did not want to read and be informed), those that work and pay taxes are supporting those that do not, and it is getting proportionally worse.

http://www.fiscalaccountability.org/california-golden-states-self-inflicted-crisis-a777#

We are 47th in spending, but we are 1st in wasteful spending away from classroom.

http://www.hjta.org/california-commentary/taj-mahal-lausd

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/26/3727843/six-figure-pensions-soar-for-california.html

http://www.calchamber.com/pressreleases/pages/californiaeducationstudyrevealsdisturbingtrend.aspx

Take OUSD for example where the percentage of free reduced lunches are 70%(as Katy reported). That means that 30% of taxpayers in Oakland are in effect subsidizing 70%. California has by far the largest proportion(33%) of the US people on public assistance(who not only don’t pay taxes, but I knew several personally who got tax refunds as well, imagine that). California has huge financial obligations to taxpayers mandated in effect(but not paid for)by the federal government, chiefly hospital ER care for indigents and illegals. This may seem off-topic but anything that affects the state budget has an impact. Keep in mind that California has a large number of schoolchildren whose parents are undocumented, and don’t pay taxes for their child’s education, because as you know, teachers need to be paid so they can keep a roof over their head and feed their families too.

By: Nextset

Nextset — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:13:53 +0000

Meant to say in 3rd paragraph from bottom that …the Charters ARE running TV Ads…

By: Nextset

Nextset — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:12:05 +0000

JR: I wrote something in response to #15 but it was wiped out when I tried to post it.

In a nutshell, my points again are:

1> It doesn’t matter how low class the parent is. A good school can take lower class students and make them employable. That’s been done so well in the first half of the 20th century despite the depression, Wars, broken homes, alcoholism and family abandonment, ESL, etc – it’s just not up for debate. What we haven’t seen is this strong of a black underclass before – government bred. However rural blacks moving to Chicago, New York and other such cities were assimilated before as well as the foreign immigrants including those without functioning families. OUSD could manage these kids while disregarding their trash parents – it’s been done across history.

2> The ONLY problem with disrespect and discipline is that OUSD doesn’t demand it. By that I include breaking those students who have a discipline problem. OUSD is not willing to fight black/brown students to make them come up to white standards. That was never a problem in the black schools my family grew up in and taught in going back to the 19th century. We can fix that real fast. If we want to, which OUSD doesn’t.

3> The only problem here is that because of the OUSD refusal to IQ sort and track the students you have gross miss-matching of students to educational program. The reason for this is that OUSD intends for its students to fail. Programs that intend for it’s students to succeed do not ignore miss-matching, not the Army, Not the NFL, not any organization that has a lot of HR. You cannot run a one-size-fits-all set of classrooms and not have angry frustrated dulls sitting next to bored brights – least of all in a metropolitan area. Yet OUSD does. Wonder why the kids are ornery.

In short, OUSD is a failure factory and that failure is planned. Educrats do know better. They (OUSD Educrats) have nothing but scorn for the students who are so low class they are put into OUSD rather than a real school. Beneath it all, there is nothing but scorn for the chillun’, cloaked in PC pats on the back.

The thing is, the Charters are not running TV ads touting Internet classrooms. Even poor blacks and browns have choices now, and those choices will increase steadily due to technology and political decisions on educational choice.

So this is all going to end. It remains to be seen what results will emerge from the changes.

Brave New World.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:15:35 +0000

Cranky,
As I have said time and again, the problems are many and diversified, an agrarian model whose time has passed in it’s current antiquated form. Starting from the top of the education system, we’ve got bureaucrats who are overpaid, and no one is quite sure what they do on a day to day basis, or even if it’s necessary. We have redundancy at the federal,state,county, and local level. Finally we have guaranteed ownership of jobs, come hell or high water(performance or not) , and a system written into law where systematic protection and funneling of money in politically driven unions persists.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:00:43 +0000

Nextset,
I deviated somewhat because the problems with the education system are multi-faceted. The system is not child centered(it’s primarily in the interest of adults, just look at all the unions),and learning success oriented(just look at the percentages of drop-outs and functional illiterates who need to be remediated post high school.That is an objective measure, and someone just explain how a child can attend twelve years of school and still be ill prepared for life, I’ll give it a shot:

1.Parents not committed to the cycle of learning.

2.Students lack the discipline, respect. and diligence
to learn.

3.Classwork not sufficiently rigorous(per state curriculum) and interconnected from a young age(and the no retention policy does not help).

By: Cranky Teacher

Cranky Teacher — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:57:14 +0000

J.R.: What you leave out J.R., is that California as a whole is ranked #47th in spending.

Of course I don’t have time or knowledge to break down why Antioch has less money to spend than Oakland, if that is true. Construction? Loans?

Nor am I in the business of managing OUSD, measuring corruption, analyzing spending. We do know that OUSD has traditionally been in violation of the law that 55% of monies go to the classroom.

I also refuse to be painted into a corner of believing money is the ONLY problem. Of course not. Families matter. Discipline matters. Motivation matters. Turnover matters.

However, my point was that in a district where all site adults are stressed, we are rationing paper, don’t have working technology in classrooms, and are NOT given anything but the most token “instructional coaching”, it seems ludicrous to talk about sophisticated 360 Degree evaluations that take more time and manpower.