Chicago teachers on strike

[mjiorle]

You don't think it would restrict them? It could have just the opposite effect and restrict them even more. In a service industry where you are essentially competing for business the customer is always right. If it does what you think, than I would be all for it. I just think there are just as many problems it would create. Enrollments could change drastically from district to district thus teachers would be following the population. The good schools would get the better class of students, and the others the leftovers and non concerned parents creating even more of a divide between the achievement of schools.
Hard to find good answers with this situation!
My question regarding class size was more of a personal one. Regardless of whatever was used to evaluate performance in the TN case, I think most parents would like smaller class sizes for their children. Especially in the elementary grades.
Mike

[caryalsobrook]

You don't think it would restrict them? It could have just the opposite effect and restrict them even more. In a service industry where you are essentially competing for business the customer is always right. If it does what you think, than I would be all for it. I just think there are just as many problems it would create. Enrollments could change drastically from district to district thus teachers would be following the population. The good schools would get the better class of students, and the others the leftovers and non concerned parents creating even more of a divide between the achievement of schools.
Hard to find good answers with this situation!
My question regarding class size was more of a personal one. Regardless of whatever was used to evaluate performance in the TN case, I think most parents would like smaller class sizes for their children. Especially in the elementary grades.
Mike

Do I think it would restrict teachers? Absolutely not. The only thing limiting teachers would then be the degree of success or lack of it. Has the current system been shown to be a failure? I think so, given the amount of money spent on it and the lack of success it has achieved. Has a voucher system been shown to be successful? It certainly was in the District of Columbia where only dissadvantaged minorities, the very ones you say would be poorly educted were allowed to have vouchers and go to the school of their choice. Their scores skyrocketed until the President in one of his first actions discontinued the pilot program and made those kids who had made such great strides, return to the very schools where they had been such low achievers.

As to class size, I read your post touting STUDIES, not personal opinion as your arguement for class size reduction. As to what the public would want to class size as a priority of where to spend the available money, we don't know because THEY HAVE NO SAY IN THE ISSUE!

[Gerry Clinchy]

I don't think that parents would care if the class size is 20 or 30. They would only care if their kid gets educated. We have been told for a long time that 30 is too high, but that is not always true, it would appear. In a cooperative classroom environment where the students are engaged in their learning, it can work. Let us not forget that today there are also "teacher's aides", something unknown years ago.

A very great factor in our most underperforming schools is violence, gang activity, etc. If the environment is not at least safe, how can teachers teach and students learn?

As for how schools are situated geographically, that was not always done in a logical fashion. Economies of volume led to centralization of schools. Maybe that has turned out to not work as well as anticipated?

There ARE students from low-income areas that DO want to learn. Their parents must care as well, since they were quick to use the voucher systems when available. Such kids and parents deserve a chance to get to a better school.

[murral stark]

My sister-in-law is a teacher at an inner city school in Kansas City. There is not enough money in the world to get me to put up with these kids she deals with everyday. What she would like to do and what she can do, are way opposite of each other.

[mjiorle]

Gerry, Parents do care. Cooperative classrooms are great, but can be difficult to run with large classrooms. Teachers aides are also good, but their not teachers and they're not as common as they should be. Also, most classes include special needs students. In many cases, law requires a certified special needs teacher present with many of them. These laws have also contributed to money and staffing issues. I don't disagree with all your arguments, but there is a lot more to it than appears. Trust me, I'm in complete agreement that education has taken many turns for the worse, and there's a lot to be fixed.

Cary..... Please don't twist my words. I said parents not public. Parents (good parents)are concerned about their kids first. Public is concerned about themselves ie taxes in this case. Read my first post on this thread. The teachers will always lose in the court of PUBLIC opinion in cases like this. I think we'll agree to disagree on this thread.

Let's all go train some dogs!

Mike

[BonMallari]

Let's all go train some dogs!

Mike

Mike clear your box out, tried to send you a PM...

[caryalsobrook]

Gerry, Parents do care. Cooperative classrooms are great, but can be difficult to run with large classrooms. Teachers aides are also good, but their not teachers and they're not as common as they should be. Also, most classes include special needs students. In many cases, law requires a certified special needs teacher present with many of them. These laws have also contributed to money and staffing issues. I don't disagree with all your arguments, but there is a lot more to it than appears. Trust me, I'm in complete agreement that education has taken many turns for the worse, and there's a lot to be fixed.

Cary..... Please don't twist my words. I said parents not public. Parents (good parents)are concerned about their kids first. Public is concerned about themselves ie taxes in this case. Read my first post on this thread. The teachers will always lose in the court of PUBLIC opinion in cases like this. I think we'll agree to disagree on this thread.

Let's all go train some dogs!

Mike

Mike, it never dawned on me that someone would segregate parents from the rest of the public. As a former employer, I desperately wanted employees properly educated because those were the ones that could be properly trained. As a consumer, buying goods and services, dealing with someone who was improperly educated and trained was always distasteful to say the least. As a former employee, having to work with someone who was poorly educated and trained always meant that their work fell on those that were competent. So, not only parents want well educated childen. As I said, we spend more on education than any country in the world, yet there are at least 20 countries that provide their children with better educations. We are and will in the future pay fo it.

Just so you don't misunderstand, I have no idea if teachers are paid too much or too little, because there is no real market for their services. If they are paid too little, then far too much money is wasted elsewhere in education. The US has increased the funding of eduction over the last 50 years at an extremely high rate and yet, the quality of education has declined. Maybe it is time to try something different than just spending more money on a system that has been proven to be broken.

By the way, I just got back training my dogs. Also had a friend of mine make a video of one of my girls who will have puppies in Nov.

[mjiorle]

I wasn't really segregating, just trying to make the point that parents generally prefer smaller class sizes. You are right, we do need well educated people in society. There have always been well educated and poorly educated people, and there is no real way to measure if those numbers are increasing or decreasing. The types of jobs are definitely changing as manufacturing continues to be done elsewhere. Therefore we end up "educating" people for work rather than training.

I agree 100% that there is a gross mis-management of money in education. The list of ways would be too time consuming to type. Unfortunately the public only sees salaries at times like this. Payroll is the biggest expense of districts, but if the general public saw and understood where some of the other money was going there would be just as much anger.

Good luck with the pups!

Mike

[Marvin S]

I agree 100% that there is a gross mis-management of money in education. The list of ways would be too time consuming to type. Unfortunately the public only sees salaries at times like this. Payroll is the biggest expense of districts, but if the general public saw and understood where some of the other money was going there would be just as much anger.

Good luck with the pups!

Mike

In the district I was on the SB - 80% went to salaries & benefits - 63% Certificated (Teachers & Administrators) & 17% to the others - Transportation, utilities, books & various incidentals used up an additional 18% with 2% to be allocated at the discretion of the SB.

I'm fairly good with numbers - the only place I could see a lot of room for efficiencies was ensuring every staff member was worth what they received - in a district not delivering that could be significant , do you have something better to offer?

[mjiorle]

1st how would you determine what each teacher/ staff member is worth? 2nd there is a lot of money in schools that is not always part of the budget. Grants etc... Money for programs that further restrict teachers, and end up going by the wayside in a couple of years. That happens all of the time. I was also in a district that would hire outside consultants for all sorts of things at high price tags, when there were in house people that could have done what the consultants did at a fraction of the cost. (the grants are often gvt. BTW)
Mike