Educating Children/ Teachers needed

[Tahunatics]

This is the ONLY reason we are still on the mainland still is for our kids to finish school at Lake Tahoe in one of the top high schools in country. Our hearts are in Puna and it tears us up to still be here, but we are putting our children's education first. This countries priorities are messed up when someone can make over $100 million dollars per year to throw a baseball part time and we are spending $8 billion per month on a war based on lies (war begins with W) and we pay teachers barely enough money to eat!

[HADave]

www.educationbeathawaii.org/index.lasso

broad range of info here

[punagirl]

I have a friend who moved over to teach and stayed two years. He got the moving bonus, no problem. If I remember correctly they helped him out of a contract here in Atlanta that had something to do with the school system her and his Master's degree reimbursement. He taught at Keaau Middle in the Special Ed department. He had less than flattering things to say about the school system, administration and Keaau Middle. He said it was a total mess and has warned me that my child (no, still not pregnant yet!) would have a horrible education on the BI. He said there was ZERO parental involvement, lots of drugs and fighting. He thought about changing schools but decided to go back to the mainland. He is now teaching at a rural school in Ohio making a lot more money.

I am still planning the move and plan to send my kid to school there. If things don't improve by 2nd or 3rd grade we will re-think the situation and determine if we need to move elsewhere. I am totally against home schooling and really not too fond of the private school thing.



Atlanta/Pahoa

[Tahunatics]

Anyone have any experience with the charter schools?

http://165.248.6.166/data/schoollist_pcs.asp

http://www.k12.hi.us/~bwoerner/hacs/news.html

Edited by - Tahunatics on 09/12/2006 12:11:03

[David M]

"What am I missing here?"

Don't confuse the purpose of the unions with education - it's power & politics.

David

Ninole Resident

[HADave]

I'm not sure how or if this fits in but it does provide background info w/regards to;

The "Hawaii State Teachers Association and The Hawaii Department of Education." (paragraph title) mid page: [quote]

"Unlike their mainland counterparts, primary and secondary school teachers in Hawaii's public school system work in a statewide education system in which elementary and secondary schools are organized into one school district. As a result, their Union representitives bargain with the State's Department of Education, rather than with local school officials. In addition, funding for primary and secondary education comes from income and excise taxes instead of from local property taxes specifically allocated for education, which means that public education vies more directly with other public services for funding."

This paragraph continues @ http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cb20021213ar01p1.htm

I presume charter school teachers are not members of the Teachers Association? and that everthing is privately run/funded??

[HiloHaole]

Here's a link that discusses charter schools.
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/list.aspx?...ation+Beat

They have to abide my the collective bargaining agreements (union rules). The DOE and the labor union consider the charter schools as a nuisance and wish they would go away. Charter schools also provide another comparison whereby the traditional public schools can be graded. That doesn't set well with the DOE, either.

[Jared I]

As the husband of a teacher I have many thoughts.

First: I believe taxpayers should be given a breakdown of where the funding for each student. Think of this each student gets $8000 there are 20 in a class that is $160000 for the class. Proper classroom curiculm cost $2000 spead over 7 years, so each year $286. $1000 a year on materials and we are up to $1286. Facilities figure 10% for each child or $800 and another 10% or $800 for administration, if these numbers dont seem correct they are I worked many years in management & business and service (people) companies normaly have lower facilities and admin costs. So we are up to $2286. Next teachers lets consider $50k a reasonable salary, so each student gives up $2.5k for a new total of $4786. Through another $1000 for misc and transport and we are at $5786. An we have $2214 left over. Forget more money means better education.

Second: I believe parent should have be able to send students to any school using the state tution as a wavier. Schools throughout Europe and the rest of the world allow this and it works out fine. Sure the school has to pass all the same state standards. Argue all you want that this will make the public schools weaker, it won't. If will make them more competitive and we want competitive schools and students. I.E. Netherland schools.

Third: Schools should be responsible to the local school board and parents not some office at state headquarter. Hiring and firing should be preformed, allocation of funds at the local level. The more centralized the less control the community has.

Fourth: Adopt a state wide circulum. California did it and it save millions of dollars and put all the students on a firm track. Instead of new books coming in with every new year or principal, students also were able to move in the state and pickup where they left off.

Fifth: Standards based report cards. How do you or a new teacher know how your child is doing if they just have a 4 box report card with abcd? How do you know where your child is performing when all you see is an C in Language Arts, what parts is he struggling on and in what parts is he excelling?

Finally teachers: Take away a teacher's guarantee of a position. No other union has this or other business. Senority for a job yes, guarantee for life no. Next require teachers to have a specific degree for the course they are teaching. Math degrees teach math, english teach english, most teachers have degrees in early childhood development and a credential. Its not away to teach if you don't have a full understanding of the subject, from 1-12 a specific teacher teaching a specific subject. This is how it is done in other countries why not here? And I would also add performance based pay.

It is a poor comparison between teachers and pro ball players. It is supply and demand economics. It is also a poor analogy between what other things cost and education(ie education and the military), sure you would pay more for better teachers but education quality is generally not based on money. Dutch students have less alloted funds than US students but their education is much better and they kick our rears in US history of all things. I was lucky enough to be educated in foriegn schools and always dreaded going back to the US schools.

Jared

[David M]

Jared - you make some thought provoking statements.

I totally agree this cost break out should indeed be public knowledge and ALWAYS available. Several years ago, someone was able to get this break out for one of the school districts near Atlanta (Gwinnett County if memory serves). Not a hyprothetical, but actual breakout. It proved to be rather embrassing to see how little went to direct student-teacher-classroom and how the majority went for administration and non teaching type positions.

I know "everyone" decries the statewide DOE and wish for local control, but I've never seen anyone acknowledge the costs of such a system. First, the DOE won't go away, even if augmented by local control, so little or no savings to be gained. Each and every local unit will become a big budget item - think local superintendent, staff, facility - and will grow over time. Additionally, these local units will become the breeding grounds for local politicians either running for school broad or promising control of the now local office and how they can do better. Having grown up in a local "town" situation, then experiencing School Administrative Districts and other large type units, I found great appreciation for the Department of Defense school system which could be likened to the statewide system minus 95% of the politics. It had benefits as you describe, like standard cirriculum/books.

Of course, the above just reflect my humble opinions

David

Ninole Resident

[JinShing]

My sister recently moved over to the Kona side for a teaching position. She did receive her relocation bonus, a whopping $1500, and actually compared to Oregon wages she makes about $4,500 more per year in Hawaii. However, she is a recent Master's degree, so didn't take the no pay for experience hit like many do. She figures she can make it for a year as is, and in the meantime will do the testing and certs that will increase her wages a bit. Since she only started in July, I'm sure as time goes on she will get more of a handle on how the system operates....but so far it seems just OK. She was able to get out of a situation here where she had over 40 special ed students in her care, and now has a classroom of only 10-15 at a time. She feels like this is an improvement, regardless of the pay issues. But as time goes on and COL sets in, she may have to reconsider.