09-13-2006, 04:51 AM
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
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