Massive Teacher Layoffs in Texas - Perry Says State Not to Blame

Crushing some teacher unions would hurt the class and education. I agree that teachers who are good at their job should get bonuses, and those that aren't should find another line of work, but their are varying degrees of being good at the job.

Providing incentive for teachers who teach at risk students would hopefully draw the best teachers to those classes.

The teacher's union I belong to helped institute teacher standards that teachers are evaluated on and held accountable for. If the teacher fails to meet those standards two years in a row they can be terminated. That initiative comes from the teacher's union.

The teacher's union I belong to found enough waste to save thousands of educators from being laid off last year. The district would have continued their wasteful spending, paying the bigwigs money, and hiring outside "consultants" to do the work already being done by employees, but the union found the waste and saved more than 8,000 jobs of teachers who had already gotten notices they would be laid off.

I'd rather not have that kind of productivity crushed. It isn't good for the students, the community or education in general.

 

Putting aside all the partisan bickering and general piling on Perry, tea-baggers, etc... Few people here really grasp the heart of the issue. The firing of teachers is simply the outcome of a monopolistic top-down approach system. It has little to do with politics and more to do with human decision making. Take any system arranged in a hierarchy structure whether government or private corporation, and mandate it to reduce spending. Almost always, the result is each level of the system starting from the top, will pass the buck to the one below until finally the person at the bottom has no one below to pass it to. This works in government as well as in the corporate world. Those in charge of the system whether administrator or executive, will not give themselves a pay cut no matter how pathetic their contribution to the system might be. So, before you pick up stones to hurl at your governor, be prepared to do the same to your local school board administrators.

This whole system of government controlled education monopoly is collapsing beneath the weight of its own behemoth bureaucracy. Those who see the fatal flaws in the system have been advocating free, open, and market-driven education for decades now. But we continue to play the blame-game instead. Every time someone mentions privatization of education, people become enraged as if it is the unspeakable has been said. I have been a huge supporter of the Milton Friedman privately-run but publicly-funded schools.

My real issue with the current government run system is that it provides for inefficient allocation of resources. Thus, if given the task to seek efficiency or in this case a reduction of spending, the allocation is decided by administrators instead of end consumers. In a Friedman open education system with full implementation of a voucher program, the allocation would be decided by the end user. So, if overall public funding was decreased by a given amount and every voucher was equally reduced in value, then the market would eventually decide which schools and teachers are to receive the decreased allocation meaning parents would continue to seek the best schools and the market demand for such would force those schools which are inefficient to either improve or close. The beauty of the system is that even when some schools close, the pool of available funds remains the same hence the aggregate value of the vouchers is a constant. Therefore, naturally entrepreneurs will develop better and efficient schools to fill the market needs and attract the consumers which left the previously closed schools. This risk-taking creativity is missing from our current system where schools believe they have god given right to exist regardless of the quality of education they provide. This sense of entitlement has become a plague in this country and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. I know my ideas are a complete free-marketeer's fantasy in our current age of NEA dominance, but still I wish we could come to some kind of compromise and begin dismantling the system before it's too late.

Anyway, continue with the non-stop rhetoric chorus of bashing X, Y, and Z for the failure that is the U.S. education system.

 

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I cannot speak about the union you are a member of, and I do respect your passion for the issue and I can tell that you put effort into your profession based on our banter back and forth.

A few points... I do not think that simply paying teachers a higher salary for teaching at risk children is the right answer. There must be some measurement of performance by the teacher.

Tenure needs to be abolished.... but I have no problem with an elite teacher making over 100k... but I do have a problem with pay being linked to how long, not how go a teacher is.

 

I agree that performance should be measured for teachers. I also think that incentive pay for at risk students should also be included.

 

katy cutting 500 teachers.

 

Yes I think Texas has the worst students and the elite will make sure they keep it that way . An uneducated population is easier to control.

 

If you pay them, they will come.

Talent follows the salary.

We suck at this.

 

This derp makes my herp derp.

Seriously, clutchfans is a great thing, but the platform it gives to some of these views can only be a bad thing. It's like a microcosm of what's wrong with democracy in general.

 

Awesome.

 

i wish they had fired the teacher that did you so wrong. we can agree on that.

and as someone with many friends who are dedicated and outstanding teachers in that district who are now faced with losing their jobs, i would just like to say go **** yourself, you fascist **********.

 

Maybe it's been mentioned, but the title of this thread makes it sound like Texas is only laying off fat teachers.

 

that's the worst post you've made in your entire posting career. I've never been more disappointed.

 

i would hope and pray that mr. meowgi and his wife lose their jobs, but gay p*rn fluffer and assistant crack w**** are really recession proof.

 

That's what they do at NASA nowdays?

Damn, where do I sign up?

 

I'm just giving you a hard time and sticking up for Devo in the process.

 

he never worked at nasa...he was just sad that the shiny rockets outside the facility would go bye-bye if obama cut funding.

 

Devo is where it's at... for the record.

just when I think you can't get any worse....

I can't tell if you're just trolling or if you're really that repulsive.