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[Frankenkubota]

The "defund the police" crowd has never been anywhere with no police force.

The "defund the schools" crowd has never been anywhere with no public education.

i think i saw just yesterday that MN supreme court said it was constitutionally ok to defund the police.

 

[goeduck]

The "defund the schools" crowd has never been anywhere with no public education.

I have never heard of anyone saying schools should be defunded. But I know a lot of people that say they are not run with any cost control in mind.

 

[Torvy]

The "defund the police" crowd has never been anywhere with no police force.

The "defund the schools" crowd has never been anywhere with no public education.

I work in public education. It really does need to be torn down. The biggest problem with education provided by a government entity is that everyone thinks they should decide what need a to be taught...administration has grown 8x Faster than actual educators. There is a public good from an educated populace, but government is horrible at service delivery. Public should pay for basic education only. Electives should be eliminated or charge tuition. Better yet, give parents a tax break specifically earmarked for tuition. Parents take that to whomever they choose to teach their kids. The state has basic skills assessments to ensure every citizen has basic reading, math, and civics understanding. Your kids fail the test, strike 1. They fail again and no more public funding. All citizen privileges would be predicated to having passed the tests.

Milwaukee's voucher system worked pretty good. NEA complained, but when we lived in the area the cost of education was about $7000 per student. Voucher was for $5000. School districts had more money because they were effectively getting $2k for every student who opted out. Parents and students won because (most) private schools were more effective in delivering quality education. Taxpayers won because fewer students had to repeat a grade.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I have never heard of anyone saying schools should be defunded. But I know a lot of people that say they are not run with any cost control in mind.

You heard it here first, then. "Why should I pay school taxes if I don't have any kids?" That is exactly "Defund the schools."

 

[goeduck]

You heard it here first, then. "Why should I pay school taxes if I don't have any kids?" That is exactly "Defund the schools."

No it is not, he just asked a question. With your logic you justified how effectively schools spend their money and the quality of education that they produce.

Check out where we rank according to PEW

U.S. students’ academic achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries

U.S. students continue to rank near the middle, and behind many other advanced industrial nations, in international math, science and reading assessments.

www.pewresearch.org

 

[Torvy]

No it is not, he just asked a question. With your logic you justified how effectively schools spend their money and the quality of education that they produce.

Check out where we rank according to PEW

U.S. students’ academic achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries

U.S. students continue to rank near the middle, and behind many other advanced industrial nations, in international math, science and reading assessments.

www.pewresearch.org

I'm no fan of our public schools, but comparisons to other countries are ludicrous. We have universal free education AND that pesky 14th amendment means you have to teach everyone equally. A lot of countries weed out those who are academically incapable or unmotivated. The data only counts those at the top level schools.

 

[goeduck]

I'm no fan of our public schools, but comparisons to other countries are ludicrous. We have universal free education AND that pesky 14th amendment means you have to teach everyone equally. A lot of countries weed out those who are academically incapable or motivated. The data only counts those at the top level schools.

If you are not a fan of our public schools, we are on the same page. Lack of competition (none) breeds inadequacy. Captive source for funds (taxpayer) builds even more inadequacy.

 

[Torvy]

Ironic, since I am a public school teacher...huh?! There are a few teachers who try to fix what they can from the inside. Way too many would never be able to hack a regular job. Most would be fired for attendance problems. Salaried positions, supposed to be professionals... Yikes! Don't get me wrong, there are some good, hardworking teachers, but way too few to change the culture in schools.

 

[goeduck]

cIronic, since I am a public school teacher...huh?! There are a few teachers who try to fix what they can from the inside. Way too many would never be able to hack a regular job. Most would be fired for attendance problems. Salaried positions, supposed to be professionals... Yikes! Don't get me wrong, there are some good, hardworking teachers, but way too few to change the culture in schools.

I appreciate your honesty. There are many, many teachers (one of my nieces and one of my nephews are included) wanting to do the right thing but the system stonewalls them. The interesting aspect is that the non-teaching staff has increased way ahead of the teaching staff (at least locally). What is that all about?

We all need an educated youth and most are pleased to fund that. But wasting the tax dollars is wasting the youth's opportunities in life.

 

[Torvy]

The original idea of non teaching staff was to take administrative tasks off teachers' plates so teachers could maximize time teaching kids. Now, administration thinks its job is to take state or district initiatives and pass the tedium down to teachers. Sometimes, they just don't make sense. A few of us worked 'real' jobs long enough to know that the job of anyone in management is to get stuff off of the plates of the people doing the work. One of the initiatives was to call parents every 6 weeks. As an employed parent, I don't want anyone calling me during the work day unless it is life or death. We have email and texting. They were not even open to the idea of asking the parents. Some of the parents don't speak English. I don't speak enough of anything else to really communicate. I can have someone translate an email. SMH. Remember in HS the kids have at least 5-7 different teachers...we all were supposed to call. As a parent, I would be livid.