Schools without budgets

[maddmaxx ★]

Because the State of Connecticut has no budget yet, most matching funds for schools from the state have been cut off.  Many town have had teacher layoffs.  Most have hiring freezes for any who left including maintenance staff, IT etc.  Shortages include books, paper etc.  For example womaxx tells me that the annual paper bill of $10,000 will be filled by less than $1,000 this year.  I hope they are all set up for the paperless environment to handle memo's, assignment pages and all the other communications necessary.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

Perhaps, then, it is time to start thinking about ending the government monopoly on K-12 education, privatize schools, and make education a competitive market.

Much the same that 4-year college, masters, and doctorate education is.

[Square Wheels]

6 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

Much the same that 4-year college, masters, and doctorate education is.

And look how that turned out.  You can get a bachelor's degree for about 100k, all to learn to say "Do you want fries with that?".

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

1 hour ago, Square Wheels said:

And look how that turned out.  You can get a bachelor's degree for about 100k, all to learn to say "Do you want fries with that?".

That's not the fault of the educational institution.  It's the responsibility of the student to select a major that will result in gainful employment after graduation.  Purportedly those attending colleges are mature enough to make those decisions and abide by the consequences.

For the K-12 students, the parents would make those decisions.  Presumably, if K-12 education were offered on a competitive basis they would select the best school with the best teachers for their children.

I think you'd find parents becoming more involved with their children's education as well.  Schools would offer tuition offsets for parental involvement where the volunteer work would in turn offset school costs.

For example, my children went to a very good K-6 private school because the public elementary schools looked the other way when 4th graders were smoking pot outside the school at lunch, among other things.  I showed the private school how to cut its electrical costs by changing the lighting systems.  They bought the lights, I installed them, and they saved hundreds of dollars every month the school was open.  I also re-organized the fund raising programs so they brought in enough money to equal the salary and benefits for one teacher.  The school, in turn, offset the tuition to a level we could afford. 

[maddmaxx ★]

Public education is an attempt to eliminate class and money from the equation.  It doesn't work, but I see the privatization of education as a potential disaster.  I foresee the people who brought you credit checking agencies and investment houses running schools.  I say this in spite of having attended a private school for the second half of my high school years.

[Ralphie ★]

I have never understood how the plethora of colleges has not led to any price competition.  What really frosts my gourd is the online schools charge just as much, so they have to be making a killing.  The excuse up until now has been the baby boom echo created too much demand, but it should be interesting to see now that that wave is collapsing what happens to college costs.  Already I have heard of some colleges closing which has heretofore been unheard of.

[ChrisL]

Dealt with this crap for 8 years as my kids were in HS.  I was a softball and baseball booster president, my wife a volley ball booster.  The school & district prioritized educational funding so we had to completely redo the softball fields and we put a storage bin on campus for equipment storage.  Then we had the district break our fence gate with the mowers and tell us it's your gate, you fix, it.  Then they tried to take the storage bin we purchased, permitted and had installed.  It's on district property so it's district property.  I told the principle to go fuck himself (yes I actually told him to go fuck himself after the gate issue) and told him the storage bin is the private property of the boosters and we'd rather pay to remove it and sell it than have you use it. He relented.  Had similar battles with baseball.  New principle told us we couldnt operate unless we joined the PTA (so they could siphon our funds).  I told him to pound sand and he threatened to "shut us down". I reminded him we were a private non affiliated non profit and he couldn't do shit to us.... And he didnt.

I get that the schools were hurting for money but what chapped my ass was when they tried to rape the boosters for non athletic purposes.

[Dirtyhip]

12 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

That's not the fault of the educational institution.  It's the responsibility of the student to select a major that will result in gainful employment after graduation.  Purportedly those attending colleges are mature enough to make those decisions and abide by the consequences.

For the K-12 students, the parents would make those decisions.  Presumably, if K-12 education were offered on a competitive basis they would select the best school with the best teachers for their children.

I think you'd find parents becoming more involved with their children's education as well.  Schools would offer tuition offsets for parental involvement where the volunteer work would in turn offset school costs.

For example, my children went to a very good K-6 private school because the public elementary schools looked the other way when 4th graders were smoking pot outside the school at lunch, among other things.  I showed the private school how to cut its electrical costs by changing the lighting systems.  They bought the lights, I installed them, and they saved hundreds of dollars every month the school was open.  I also re-organized the fund raising programs so they brought in enough money to equal the salary and benefits for one teacher.  The school, in turn, offset the tuition to a level we could afford. 

What about the low income students.  People barely scraping by can't afford private schools. 

I don't understand why a first world country doesn't place more value on an educated populace. An educated population is a strong one. 

Usually, I agree with your opinions.  Not on this topic.  

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

5 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

What about the low income students.  People barely scraping by can't afford private schools. 

They would do what Mrs. TK and I did; at least they would if their children's education were important to them.  We couldn't afford the full tuition to send all our children to a private school, so we traded our time and talent in ways that offset costs to the school.  In return the school set the tuition at a level we could pay on a monthly basis (we paid even in the months school was out).  As a result we had no money for luxuries or Disney vacations, but my children received an excellent education in a safe environment.  In the end, the school saved far more than they would have earned by charging us full tuition. 

It's not as if government-run schools, as maxx noted, are having outstanding success with low income students either.  At several inner city schools in my area, the graduation rate hovers around 50% and never exceeds 60%.  Throwing money and more money at that problem hasn't budged that rate.  Year after year after year the existing system demonstrates how it fails low income students, setting them up to trap them into perpetuating their condition, never inspiring them to see education as a way lift themselves out of that cycle.

[maddmaxx ★]

Don't put the responsibility of education those kids on their parents.  That direction is hopeless.  The end results will do none of us any good.  The only way to break the poverty circle is to get those kids the education they need that their parents don't care about.

[Dirtyhip]

2 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

They would do what Mrs. TK and I did; at least they would if their children's education were important to them.  We couldn't afford the full tuition to send all our children to a private school, so we traded our time and talent in ways that offset costs to the school.  In return the school set the tuition at a level we could pay on a monthly basis (we paid even in the months school was out).  As a result we had no money for luxuries or Disney vacations, but my children received an excellent education in a safe environment.  In the end, the school saved far more than they would have earned by charging us full tuition. 

It's not as if government-run schools, as maxx noted, are having outstanding success with low income students either.  At several inner city schools in my area, the graduation rate hovers around 50% and never exceeds 60%.  Throwing money and more money at that problem hasn't budged that rate.  Year after year after year the existing system demonstrates how it fails low income students, setting them up to trap them into perpetuating their condition, never inspiring them to see education as a way lift themselves out of that cycle.

Some low income people are working two jobs just to make ends meet.  Where is this extra time gonna come from to donate skills?  What if they have no skills.  Remember, we are talking about the people with great need. 

Your solution is a solution for the affluent.  It still doesn't address the forgotten ones.  We need everyone educated, or at least try to educate all.

 

[Indy]

9 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

What about the low income students.  People barely scraping by can't afford private schools. 

I don't understand why a first world country doesn't place more value on an educated populace. An educated population is a strong one. 

Usually, I agree with your opinions.  Not on this topic.  

Currently, in a lot of areas we do place a lot of value in it, but schools are highly inefficient and that answer to everything is we need more money and that's the problem, eventually you run out of other peoples money as we can't fund everything to everyone's satisfaction.

[Indy]

32 minutes ago, Tony Snark said:

Don't put the responsibility of education those kids on their parents.  That direction is hopeless.  The end results will do none of us any good.  The only way to break the poverty circle is to get those kids the education they need that their parents don't care about.

And that is the catch.  If the parents don't value the education, they are not going to push the kids to do well in school or even go for that matter.  The only answer is send all the inner city kids to boarding schools to get them away from the bad influences like their parents.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

2 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

Your solution is a solution for the affluent.

Respectfully, it is not.  Mrs. TK and I could in no way been considered 'affluent' at the time my children were in grade school.  We both worked, we struggled to make ends meet, and we went without, but we put the education for our children as a priority.

There were other parents who made less than we did, parents who both worked two jobs, who had their children in the same school.  They found the time to participate and contribute, and in turn the school worked out a tuition level that they could afford too.

It can be done because it has been done, I've personally seen it done and I've done it myself.  It's a matter of how much importance parents place on the education of their children, and what level of sacrifice and effort the parents are willing to make.

[Randomguy]

On 9/10/2017 at 0:25 PM, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

That's not the fault of the educational institution.  It's the responsibility of the student to select a major that will result in gainful employment after graduation.  Purportedly those attending colleges are mature enough to make those decisions and abide by the consequences.

This is so beyond the scope of the vast majority of 18 year olds, 18 year olds like I was.  My degree is in organizational communication, and just what the hell do you do with that degree?  No, TK, youngsters have no idea how to pick the particular cubicle that will crush their spirits and will to live.  They will also reject their parents suggestions or demands to pick a particular box to fit into.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

15 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

 No, TK, youngsters have no idea how to pick the particular cubicle that will crush their spirits and will to live.

If that is so, and I would agree you are indeed correct in many cases, to what do they owe such lack of direction?  What is it that they aren't receiving that results in the lack of vision, or such diminished powers of reasoning?

I would still hold to my statement that student remains responsible for selecting their major and for paying for their education.  It is a separate issue from the issue if they have a clue or not of what they want to be when they 'grow up'.  A student may be totally clueless about what profession or trade they want to follow, but the choice, the consequences of that choice, and the costs associated with that choice remain their responsibility.

Because in the end a stupid choice, an uninformed choice, or even a bad choice is still a choice, and no person is forced to go to college and rack up a $100K in debt. 

 

[Randomguy]

3 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

If that is so, and I would agree you are indeed correct in many cases, to what do they owe such lack of direction?  What is it that they aren't receiving that results in the lack of vision, or such diminished powers of reasoning?

I would still hold to my statement that student remains responsible for selecting their major and for paying for their education.  It is a separate issue from the issue if they have a clue or not of what they want to be when they 'grow up'.  A student may be totally clueless about what profession or trade they want to follow, but the choice, the consequences of that choice, and the costs associated with that choice remain their responsibility.

Because in the end a stupid choice, an uninformed choice, or even a bad choice is still a choice, and no person is forced to go to college and rack up a $100K in debt. 

 

We owe that lack of direction to everyone and everything.  Seriously.

If someone doesn't have family that have gone to college, then the family has no advice to give, they think that the going to college is plenty impressive and you will shirley succeed.  

If you family has gone to college, chances are good that they might have gone back when liberal arts degrees meant that you had a broad range of skills that you could take in any direction, so they did.  Thus, they have no dire warnings for their offspring to not pick that amazingly stupid art history major as it is worthless, mostly.  They had a nice degree, like organizational communication or somesuch, and they eventually found a field that suited them, so the pup will, too.

Add to that that it is grossly unfair to expect anyone to pick some random field when they are 18 years old that they will stick with until their death and expect that to be the right choice.  I have no idea what field I want to be in at 53, and we expect some 18 year old without any reasonable frame of reference to do that and pick well?  I couldn't credibly ask that of someone.

I wish I was able to pick something that would have shunted me into a particular hell-hole that would have paid well and left me slightly less dissatisfied with my choice than other people were, but how the hell are you supposed to know all this?  You have a better shot of knowing it now, what with the internet and all, but only slightly better.

 

 

[maddmaxx ★]

There I was, White, National Merit Scholar finalist, 1597 SAT, freshman Physics Major at RPI, son of a school teacher/principal.  

 

 

2 enlistments in the Navy and a bit of war later I began to understand who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.  From that point on everything happened by accident and the results were on me. I don't believe that the majority of kids coming out of poverty struck families, and I mean real poverty not two parents working, stand much of a chance at all.  Schools may be inefficient, but an improved version is the only chance these kids will ever have beyond asking if you want fries with that.

You do not pull yourself up by the bootstraps if you don't know what a bootstrap is.

[MickinMD ★]

"For example womaxx tells me that the annual paper bill of $10,000 will be filled by less than $1,000 this year."

They'll be hoping teachers bring in their own reams of paper.  We had a departmental code for our schools photocopy machines after we got rid of the old mimeographs.  Each department had a certain allotment for the year.  For some reason, we always had enough in the budget for paper with the mimeograph machines and there was much more wastage due to bad copies than with the photocopy machines.  But with photocopies, we almost always ran through our supply of paper before the school year ended and had to start bringing our own - which meant the teachers buying it themselves.

When I retired in 2006 it was said that the average teacher spent $700/year on supplies they needed but their school systems didn't supply.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

3 hours ago, Tony Snark said:

National Merit Scholar finalist, 1597 SAT, freshman Physics Major at RPI

These are worthy marks of intelligence.

3 hours ago, Tony Snark said:

and the results were on me

This is a sign of wisdom.

5 hours ago, Randomguy said:

Add to that that it is grossly unfair to expect anyone to pick some random field when they are 18 years old that they will stick with until their death

I'm not sure where that expectation arose in our discourse, but I agree such an expectation of a person that age would be perhaps not unfair, but could certainly be unreasonable.

 

I think maxx/Tony fairly illustrates the point:

A person with considerable abilities makes decisions in life, and then accepts that he owns those decisions and makes good because - or in spite of - them.  To people with such a philosophy I give considerable credit, as it is well-deserved.

Not a philosophy of "It's not fair."

Or "It's not my fault."

Or "I couldn't help it."

Or "They didn't give me what I needed."

RG makes several notable points about placing expectations on young adults.  I think everybody recognizes life is a plan (mostly just barely!) and people must adjust as they go.  At some point people do realize their plan won't achieve their goals.  Then they must sort through the alternatives and reason which will serve them best.

And this is what I believe is most sorely lacking in most of today's educational systems - teaching students how to reason.  When helping my daughters with their homework I never gave them the answer.  I taught them how to reason the problem to solve this one, and every one thereafter.  At times they did not like me very much, but they have each told me how much they hated it then but how much they value those skills now.

If you look carefully I believe you will see most educational systems teach the value of feelings, of consensus, and self-validation.  I believe if you look carefully you will find much less emphasis (or even none) on rationale, reasoning, self-confidence, and self-responsibility.  This is what I believe most students are missing, which in turn leads them to make poor decisions that so negatively impact their lives later on.

 

[maddmaxx ★]

I've often thought that 18 year old's are more in need of a couple of years in the real world as part of their education than they are a fast track to college and a choice of what they should study that is often dictated by the opinions of others from parents to counselors to teachers.  Many of them may find more interest in technical schools than the college of fine arts and science.  Nobody who ends up $100,000 in debt for a degree they got because they didn't know any better is being well served.

 

If I could do it again I'd rather attend General Motors Institute than RPI.

 

[Caretaker]

Education shouldn't be confused with vocational training.

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, Caretaker said:

Education shouldn't be confused with vocational training.

In this country, that's exactly what happens.  HR requires a degree to get a job but most degrees aren't qualified for that job.  All this has changed within my lifetime.

[Randomguy]

13 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

And this is what I believe is most sorely lacking in most of today's educational systems - teaching students how to reason.  When helping my daughters with their homework I never gave them the answer.  I taught them how to reason the problem to solve this one, and every one thereafter.  At times they did not like me very much, but they have each told me how much they hated it then but how much they value those skills now.

If you look carefully I believe you will see most educational systems teach the value of feelings, of consensus, and self-validation.  I believe if you look carefully you will find much less emphasis (or even none) on rationale, reasoning, self-confidence, and self-responsibility.  This is what I believe most students are missing, which in turn leads them to make poor decisions that so negatively impact their lives later on.

I agree with this 100%, logic and reason are seemingly never addressed in a school environment, and this should be a major focus in any schooling endeavor.