I can attest to this. My wife is in her 27th year of teaching in a high-income district and has a Masters degree in curriculum. She makes 62K a year. Not a ton more than a current first year teacher. Starting pay in Texas is decent..but the raises are abysmal. Her benefits are actually pretty poor so all of our insurance comes from my job at a non-profit. Yes she has an ok pension, but to be fair..I'll get just as much from social security that she'll get from her pension (she's not allowed to receive social security.) Every year they are changing the qualifications to receive the pension making it harder and harder for younger teachers to actually get a pension. Currently, 50% of teachers leave the profession before they are able to qualify for their retirement benefits.
I mean, cutting athletic funding is a common solution posited and is a super easy thing to point at but I'm skeptical as to how much that actually solves the problems. Apparently coaches aren't making any money. I suspect there is a lot more poorly spent money in bureaucratic bloat, administrators on top of administrators, poor decisions, corruption and other administrative nitty gritty but that's far less easy to identify from an outsiders perspective then "Don't give them that gosh darn new football stadium." We see the football stadium. We don't see the money be absorbed other places as easily. The solutions, likely, involve reigning in bureaucratic bloat and eliminating the Miltons of the system but that's very difficult to accomplish. It's hard to cut or eliminate the fruits of bureaucratic bloat once established. "We need this department or this position" - Do we really? The error was allowing it in the first place. I have the same convictions about the military budget. I want to see it slashed dramatically. You could ask me "Well what do you cut HTM?" - IDK specifically but that doesn't invalidate the sentiment.
@ElPigto said he worked in the public sector and that it's impossible to fire people so they just get put to the side and continue to receive their salary and benefits. I suspect a certain % of education spending meets a similar end. If we could eliminate the Miltons, that money could be spent on teacher supplies or teacher salaries or something.
unfunded state and federal educational mandates have also contributed to the budgetary struggles of virtually every school district out there
I didn't say impossible, I did say that it takes time to get rid of someone and a mountain of paperwork. And by "Milton'ing" people, I mean they were essentially put in a role that wouldn't affect the overall operation, but they were put to work somewhere. I guess I exaggerated a bit. I mean usually when people get laid off in the public sector is because of budget cuts, otherwise your job is mostly safe, even if you are only performing at the bare minimum. Once again, just my observation. I'm not necessarily the guy to quote on studies and ****, I'm not as smart as some of you guys here that keep up with every stat and article out there.
Yea, of course, it's not literally "impossible" for someone to get fired from a public sector job. I think most can recognize the hyperbole there.
I don't know man, when people are arguing back and forth they start focusing on wording in order to get ya . I just wanted to clarify my position.
I come up with a direct solution. You haven't yet. And while its possible coaches salaries can be excessive I suspect that most coaches double as teachers and don't get excessive salaries. I am talking about facilities. Like stadiums: https://www.maxpreps.com/news/VFHT4...ve-high-school-football-stadiums-in-texas.htm And like gymnasiums: https://www.maxpreps.com/news/p9YZM...ool-basketball-gyms-to-see-before-you-die.htm And workout rooms and other practice facilities: https://www.texasstandard.org/stori...nding-millions-on-indoor-practice-facilities/ https://www.powerliftusa.com/customers/high-school/allen-high-school Some of these high school football stadiums are larger than the Ratcliffe Stadium (seating 13,000) at Fresno State up until my senior year (when they built Bulldog Stadium). Nice stadiums and gyms are nice, but the millions spent on them could be better used on teaching.
You haven't come up with a solution. You've made one vague and not totally thought or planned out suggestion. Does your suggestion materially correct the waste, fraud and ineffiencies assuredly found in the system? Kids and communities still need facilities to run, swim, play football etc etc. or are you suggesting cutting all sports and Physical education from schools? So out of $640 billion spent annually how much are you going to save? I agree we could use less large stadiums but I disagree in that I think waste and inefficiencies are going to be found a much larger degree and scale in the bureaucracy, administrations and systems. The things I pointed are more difficult to identify and correct but are far more worthwhile. How could I possibly be aware of every consideration that goes into how the $700 billion spent and what specifically should be cut and in what specific ways? Get a grip. "CuT AtHlEtiC BuDgeTs"- Wow, great suggestion, you just solved the entire problem. Glad we had you here to suggest that. I think with our $640 billion we spend, we should be able to find room in there for teachers to have stipends for school supplies, "WhErE dO We Cut HTM" - IDK specifically but I imagine there are plenty of places. I'll ask again. Do you think the defense budget should be cut? If so, by how much and where specifically are you making those cuts? That's the kind of question you're asking.
@NewRoxFan Here, this article has some ideas. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/where-school-dollars-go-to-waste/384949/ Adam Edelen, was quoted blaming the problem on "an unchecked bureaucracy that has become bloated and inefficient at the expense of the classroom." - Wow. Shocking. Bloated bureaucracy and inefficiency is immediately identified as the main culprit. I guess you better call this guy up and tell him about those swimming pools.
This does a good job of looking at bureaucratic bloat and its drain on classroom spending. http://www.laits.utexas.edu/~anorman/long.extra/Student.Projects/ZAC.ZEITLIN/three.html A 1987 review of Chicago public schools, for instance, revealed that 3,300 people are employed by central administration departments. At the same time, the Catholic Archdiocese in the city employed only 36, though it served a student population 40 percent the size. A similar situation exists in New York City, where 6,000 administrators work for the public schools, while only 25 can be found in Catholic system, which is patronized by one-fourth the number of students.[4] The large group of public school administrators, moreover, also appears to be well compensated in comparison to their counterparts in other fields. Employees such as secretaries, food service personnel and janitors typically earn much higher - by 50 to 100 percent - salaries than employees in similar private sector positions.[5] @NewRoxFan
Defense budget? You must really be struggling to divert the discussion to defense spending. Has nothing to do with education costs or teacher salaries. You really got me with that one. And I haven't claimed I solved anything. I don't necessarily believe we are spending too much on education. I certainly don't think we are spending too much on teacher salaries. I simply pointed out an area where education spending could be cut. I list out examples of HS districts spending millions of dollars for upgraded sports facilities that quite honestly are unnecessary and you pooh pooh. I am guessing excessive spending on stadiums doesn't fit your partisan story. You, on the other hand, babble incessantly that teachers are not underpaid. And you claim there is money that could be better spent. So far you haven't come up with any solution. You take the partisan position that there must be waste in education (surprised you didn't substantiate that by saying you saw HS principals drive to school in Mercedes Benz and BMWs). But you didn't identify any real area of waste. So I guess its up to you to come up with something. Anything. Or you can continue to babble about teachers salaries being too high.
Again, what are the areas that should be cut. And why should I care what some politician in Kentucky thinks? Maybe he should work on fixing the below average schools in Kentucky?
lol "partisan theory" - What's my partisan theory? I'm looking at trying to reform a system that spends $640 billion annually but still cannot afford to adequately supply teachers will classroom supplies. How do we do that? It's complex dude. Plenty of people are looking at this. You're talking about like 0.01% of the budget and making peanut sized suggestions.
How old is this study? And one of its suggestions is to "Minimize the Diversity of School Programs and Encourage Charter Schools". Seriously?
for what it's worth, capital improvements are most likely not coming from the same pots of money as teacher salaries
You think those administrative bodies have shrunk? The administrative comparisons speak for themselves. 3300 vs. 36. 6000 vs. 25. Good grief.
Partisan... you know, right wing, conservative, republican, trump supporting? And again, you haven't identified areas of waste or areas you would cut. Cut administration? OK, where. How many school administrators are you cutting in an environment where school attendance continues to grow. Which school administrators are your firing? Or perhaps the clerical staff? Librarians? School psychologists? Custodians? Oh... its complex, but it seems your mission to root out waste. So where is it?
