Jump to content

Menu

Will more money fix our public education system?


Recommended Posts

Our local school board had to come up with 40 million dollars worth of spending to cut for next school year. The very specific list includes many items that I agree can be cut and some items that will hurt. The total budget for our city's schools is still going to be close to $600 million dollars. Ironically, just as our state is going to allow homeschool students participation in sports, one of the items to cut is middle school sports. So, will our students suffer with a 40 million dollar cut? How much money is enough?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, it won't.

 

 

I believe they tested that theory and created a school with everything you could hope to have, and it didn't do any better. Someone else will have to come up with the name of the school and an article because I can't remember any more details than that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Generally, no.

 

In this particular case, I would want to know how much the system is spending per person, and how much of that goes to the classroom (versus administration). The problem with cutting programs and so on is that it won't necessarily confront the reason costs are rising -- pensions are often a culprit, or a school system that spends too much on administrators and too little on teachers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is so much waste that cuts should not hurt. However, they will probably choose to cut in areas that do hurt.

 

I honestly believe that schools are over-funded. Hey, let's just throw money at a problem and hope it goes away. The education system is never forced to be *smart* in their decisions, but they're suppose to teach our kids?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html

 

 

For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, "You can't solve educational problems by throwing money at them." The education establishment and its supporters have replied, "No one's ever tried." In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.

 

Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.

 

The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.

 

The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can't be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.

 

 

No, it won't.

 

 

I believe they tested that theory and created a school with everything you could hope to have, and it didn't do any better. Someone else will have to come up with the name of the school and an article because I can't remember any more details than that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More won't fix it, but cuts tend to hurt a lot. Most of the reason is that while a lot of money has been thrown at schools, it's been thrown at schools with so many strings attached that little actually got to the classroom. If you are required to (for example) place 5 children each with an aide in general ed classes, as opposed to giving those 5 children ONE teacher to work with them at their level, the cost increased. Special ed funding isn't enough to pay for what it costs. ELL also comes with major mandates, more than the funding provided.

 

NCLB came with a bunch of funding attached-but almost all of it was spent on people who didn't actually work with kids. They worked with data and told teachers how they were messing up. And testing multiple times a year with different measures is expensive in and of itself.

 

And even when money IS appropriated for student resources and services, a lot of times it's restricted. So money can be spent on technology, but not on textbooks/literature books. There was a program in my former school where kids were sent home with PLAYSTATIONS and special Playstation software to practice skills. I know other schools that provide iPod Touch systems, netbooks, or iPads. All funded from this "technology equity" tax that sits on your phone bill. I have to wonder how many of these techno toys actually are used to improve academics-and how many are used to play Angry Birds?

 

 

What I'm seeing here,and hearing from friends who are still teaching, is that the cuts are coming out of, not all these extra mandates and strings, but out of the general budget. So the public sees only that a ton of money is being spent on schools-which is true-but doesn't see that the classrooms have about 10 kids more in them than they did 10 years ago, that the books are falling apart because there's no funding to replace them (few textbooks can handle being carried back and forth to school in a backpack for a decade), kindergarten classes no longer have the extra pair of hands so one teacher is left trying to teach while also simultaneously help little Jimmy get his pants back up after leaving the bathroom and Cathy tie her shoes, librarians have been cut out of many elementary schools, and so on.

 

The biggest difference I see between the school my church runs and the public schools I taught in is that almost ALL of the funds the school brings in via tuition go to the students and into the classroom-they pay salaries, books, materials, and resources for the students. The staff paid from tuition that aren't teaching are limited to the secretary, the principal, and a janitor to clean at night. As a result, they're able to do a lot more, despite spending a LOT less per student.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It won't fix it unless allocated appropriately. However, more money used wisely could indeed help certainly.

 

:iagree:

 

I hate that in these debates there's a knee-jerk sense that either schools are terribly underfunded, teachers are underpaid and money would fix it OR schools are wasting our money.

 

Clearly some schools are wasting money in some ways and some funds are really being used in the wrong ways. But teachers are hardly underpaid and money can help fix some of the issues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Question for US: What could you do with $12,000 to $19,000 per year per student?

 

Seriously.

 

I looked up our county records and here they are allocated less than $7,000 per student yet the education my older dd is getting at ps middle school this year is actually really good. Her core subject teachers all have MS degrees and she feels challenged. What's interesting is the schools in my county get so little (compared to others) and the majority of students live in close to million dollar homes. :001_huh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes!

 

It hurts schools and students when they cut programs and increase class sizes (or cut days) due to budget cuts. There are direct negative impacts.

 

Bill

 

:iagree: Money doesn't magically make a bad system stellar, but budget cuts can really hurt students.

 

California is a sorry example of the pain inflicted by cuts. In a neighboring school district, some first grade classes have more than 30 students. Four years ago, the kindy classes in my school district had 13-15 students plus an aide, now its 21-23 students. Fourth and up, it's 27 or more students per class. PE, Art, Music and Laboratory Science classes are provided through private dollars (ie the parents are asked for 1k before classes start). The same private money pays the salary and benefits of the librarian, reading specialist and instructional aides. All afterschool enrichment activities in elementary school are run by volunteers. I imagine other districts do without.

 

Also, California just cut all funding for non-special Ed student transportation. How are students supposed to learn if they don't even have a way to get to school?

 

I live in one of the highest COL states and it spends well below the national average per student even though it has a high percentage of ELL and low SES students. I spent more on daycare when I was working than our local elementary district spends per student. Funding cuts hurt, and they hurt the kids who need it the most.

 

Christine

Edited by ChristineW
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Depends on what the money is spent on. When money is spent on highly trained teachers and specific, proven programs, yes it helps. When budget cuts mean teachers are cut, yes it hurts.

 

Just throwing money at schools without a plan doesn't help, though. They've been trying that in Michigan: trying to even out spending to increase performance, but it hasn't helped.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:iagree:

 

I hate that in these debates there's a knee-jerk sense that either schools are terribly underfunded, teachers are underpaid and money would fix it OR schools are wasting our money.

 

Clearly some schools are wasting money in some ways and some funds are really being used in the wrong ways. But teachers are hardly underpaid and money can help fix some of the issues.

 

 

I think if the money went to the teachers instead of overpaid administrators that it WOULD help. Teaching needs to become well paid and prestigious, not something parents discourage their bright students from doing for a living. As it stands, it's hard to find a field with LESS return on your time spent in college and at work. It can be VERY difficult to support a family on a teacher's salary and once you factor in general public disdain and no real control over curriculum, it's no wonder we have a crisis on our hands.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think if the money went to the teachers instead of overpaid administrators that it WOULD help.

 

My dh is an administrator. He makes less per day than the teachers, and he works 60 plus hours a week, taking phone calls all night and all weekend. He took a cut in pay this year when the teachers got a raise. He stays because he loves the kiddos. He got the job because he was an excellent, excellent teacher, plus he completed the required additional schooling for the job. He investigates teachers who abuse special needs students, he trains teachers who are struggling, he works hard to prevent drop-outs and students being pushed out of school because they have special needs and are difficult to handle. Not really sure who would do that if he wasn't there?

 

Talk about public disdain. :lol:

Edited by angela in ohio
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dh is an administrator. He makes less per day than the teachers, and he works 60 plus hours a week, taking phone calls all night and all weekend. He took a cut in pay this year when the teachers got a raise. He stays because he loves the kiddos. He got the job because he was an excellent, excellent teacher, plus he completed the required additional schooling for the job. He investigates teachers who abuse special needs students, he trains teachers who are struggling, he works hard to prevent drop-outs and students being pushed out of school because they have special needs and are difficult to handle. Not really sure who would do that if he wasn't there?

 

Talk about public disdain. :lol:

 

Your DH doesn't sound like an overpaid administrator to me. I'm talking about those school systems that have really broken down because of corrupt administrations where the money is poured in to 'fix' it but isn't actually used in anyway thatwould benefit a student.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your DH doesn't sound like an overpaid administrator to me. I'm talking about those school systems that have really broken down because of corrupt administrations where the money is poured in to 'fix' it but isn't actually used in anyway thatwould benefit a student.

 

My dmil always tells me that she's sure I'm doing a great job, but all those other homeschoolers are terrible. ;)

 

(Not denying that there are bad administrators, just like there are bad teachers, bad homeschoolers, bad lawyers, bad doctors. It's just not the biggest problem by far.)

Edited by angela in ohio
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not a one answer question. Questionable pedagogy, bloated or unethical administration, under paid teachers, overpaid pensions, etc., etc. Those figure in but don't touch on stressed families, non-existent families, and the cultural expectations that are playing a huge part in this. Our local community voted to close schools and bus children further over giving up football and basketball. Obviously academics aren't always what people want from their schools.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pay for a tutor for each student so that it is one on one and do away with class rooms.

 

Good luck finding a qualified tutor for that amount of money. :confused: And are you busing them to school or feeding them or providing services to special needs students or paying someone to hire, manage, pay, and fire those tutors?

 

Don't forget the number of children who come in sadly damaged and need intensive help (yes, we could have someone other than the sschools do that, but then we'd just have to shift the money to that organization,) lawyers, building and maintaining actual schools...

 

It sounds great to dream of what we could do with the per pupil amount, but it's just not that simple. It's not divided evenly, and it has to provide a lot of other things than teacher's salaries.

Edited by angela in ohio
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I went to school (in the late eighties and nineties, not the dark ages), we had thirty children in a class.

 

AFAIK there isn't research to support smaller class sizes improving children's performance.

 

Yep, we had 32 almost every year. But we only had one student with behavior issues (Donny Green, I'll never forget that kid :D,) special ed students were not mainstreamed, and parents were usually supportive of the teacher's discipline. It was probably easier to have those 32 than 20 today.

 

I'm not a fan of the teacher's unions or the educational garbage that comes out of teacher's colleges and I think that teachers are paid pretty well in many areas (like here, where dh supported us for years on a teacher's salary,) but the teachers themselves are dealing with a lot of things they never had to before.

 

But I agree with you that just making the classes smaller isn't the answer. Fixing all the other stuff going on in the classroom would be more effective.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, the emotional atmosphere has to go back to learning from teacher, rather than freely expressing one's frustrations with life.

 

Grouping by instructional need, rather than sitting the child in a classroom operating 3 grade levels beyond his acheivement level, is sorely needed in many underperforming schools.

 

:iagree:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good luck finding a qualified tutor for that amount of money. :confused: And are you busing them to school or feeding them or providing services to special needs students or paying someone to hire, manage, pay, and fire those tutors?

 

Don't forget the number of children who come in sadly damaged and need intensive help (yes, we could have someone other than the sschools do that, but then we'd just have to shift the money to that organization,) lawyers, building and maintaining actual schools...

 

It sounds great to dream of what we could do with the per pupil amount, but it's just not that simple. It's not divided evenly, and it has to provide a lot of other things than teacher's salaries.

 

Let tutors go to the students homes and have them tutor more than 1 student in a week. If a tutor had 2 or three students they would make a reasonable living. Let the parents provide food, transportation, and child care for their kids. Let the parents be responsible for hiring and firing tutors.

 

If the parents have done major damage to the kids, putting them in the current public school system doesn't fix things now.

Edited by Mama Geek
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hate that in these debates there's a knee-jerk sense that either schools are terribly underfunded, teachers are underpaid and money would fix it OR schools are wasting our money.

 

:iagree: It is really not so simple.

 

Idealistically, we may say that money won't fix anything, but the reality is, it costs money to pay teachers and staff. It costs money to buy books, computers, and other technology. Not to mention upkeep of the buildings, transportation, music, sports, cafeteria, on and on and on.

 

Here's an example: We brought DS8 into the ps here to be tested. He tested 2 grades below grade level but they did not code him SLD. They said if he was there at the school, they would give him help thru aides, but not Spec Ed. Oh, and they don't have anyone to help with math because that was cut. This was actually stated to me at the meeting. :glare:

 

Fast forward to now, when the proposed budget for next year has come out with some $900,000 in cuts that need to happen. Nine aides are being cut. Nine. Who helps my son (or children like him), then? :001_huh:

 

We are less than 10 minutes away from a wealthy school district. We cannot afford to buy there (we live on a ps teacher's salary, after all!), but we will rent there so our kids can go to ps in that district. Yes, we will follow the money. It really does matter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that more money will fix certain things in the public schools, especially those districts that have been most affected by the extreme budget cuts during recent years.

 

But I don't think more money will fix the problems with actually obtaining a decent public education in this country. That problem is complex and will not be solved with a simple fix like money.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let tutors go to the students homes and have them tutor more than 1 student in a week. If a tutor had 2 or three students they would make a reasonable living. Let the parents provide food, transportation, and child care for their kids. Let the parents be responsible for hiring and firing tutors.

 

If the parents have done major damage to the kids, putting them in the current public school system doesn't fix things now.

 

That would be great if every family had a parent to stay home with the children all day (I'd have to look up the stats on single-parent households, but that would be a big factor, too) or even a stable environment in which to learn.

 

And yes, students can be helped in the public school system. My dh has done it time and time again. Social workers, caring teachers and administrators... for some students (boy, I'd even say many,) school is a haven.

 

(In theory, I agree with you about parents directing education instead of schools, and in theory I'd go back to for-profit and religious schools in combination with home education, but not with all the needs we've seen in dh's experience. It just wouldn't work with society as it stands now.)

Edited by angela in ohio
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that more money will fix certain things in the public schools, especially those districts that have been most affected by the extreme budget cuts during recent years.

 

But I don't think more money will fix the problems with actually obtaining a decent public education in this country. That problem is complex and will not be solved with a simple fix like money.

 

Money doesn't "fix" homeschool problems either. I've seen situations where a family pays $$$ for outside classes, and then doesn't hold their children accountable at home. Sometimes they are shocked when their child fails because they failed to monitor the grades on an ongoing basis. And then they are all over the teacher, believe me. Or they blame the kid and the kid takes it out on the outside teacher.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very interesting points being made in this thread. I have many ps teachers and ps parents that I see regularly on Wednesdays and that was the hot topic for discussion last night. The school board is recommending cuts, many of which the parents and teachers don't agree with, but I'm of course a little bit more out of the loop and trying to view the debate a bit more objectively. There is an on-time bonus for bus drivers and custodians, in addition to their regular pay, that's being slated to cut and would save over 2 million dollars. There is also busing for gifted students to academies on the chopping block. Middle school sports would be gone. I agree with some cuts and disagree with others. The main argument used last night was that our whole community will suffer, housing prices will do down, etc. if these cuts are put into place. That lost me a little bit since many of the cuts could be considered smart for the whole system. I also did not say anything as the only homeschooling parent present in the room.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We spend more money per child now than we ever have - even after adjusting for inflation. Our results are worse than they ever have been.

Now - that may be a coincidence, but it certainly argues for the idea that more money won't help.

 

:iagree:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No. More money won't fix the problems.

 

Pretty much the rule is you can only do one thing well. Because so many schools have to be so many things to so many people they can't do their one thing.

 

If all schools had to do was to educate the children and educate them well, I think we could muddle along with what we have. But schools, and teachers by extension, have to parent, feed, house, mediate, teach, be a refuge, etc., it isn't working any more.

 

The current social experiment that we are living in isn't working. And the results are that many kids are suffering. Their education is lacking. Their home life is crazy for one reason or another. So few get to be children.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm on our local school board and I see the way the cuts affect the kids. No, I don't think merely throwing more money at the problem will fix the public schools. However, cutting our budgets to the extreme that they've been cut obviously won't help either. What would help? Less unfunded mandates from the state. A governor who sees the importance of education (in PA he has cut funding for both the public schools and the public universities--I believe he wants to cut 30% from the universities this year). There was one district in our state who is bankrupt. The teachers are now teaching for free as long as they are individually financially able to. All they want is an advance on their June subsidy payment from the state and the state said no because they had been fiscally irresponsible in the past. What they don't say is that the state had been in control of the district for the past 16 years. Yes, it is one of the poorest districts in the state, and one of the most under-performing. However, leaving 3000 students with nowhere to go isn't the answer either. Yes, there are things we can cut. I don't disagree with that. However, we can't cut programs and raise class sizes and still be expected to meet the NCLB guidelines pushed on us. There is no simple answer, but cutting our budgets to this extreme certainly isn't one of them. It's all to make the governor look good. He can claim that he hasn't raised taxes since he's been in office. Meanwhile, local districts are forced to raise taxes just to fund things like math.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Christie (my Gov) is proposing a voucher bill that will allow parents to send their kids to private/parochial schools.

 

What will happen, is that parents in Camden, who want their kids out of those massively sucktacular school districts (and can't afford Parochial/private), will use those vouchers and those failing public schools will collapse.

 

So, in this case, money isn't solving it, but I think parent choice will. :001_smile:

 

 

NJ.com

 

The volley began when Christie lashed out at the union official, Vincent Giordano, for a comment he made on the NJTV program "New Jersey Capital Report" on Sunday about school vouchers, which would provide students public money to attend private schools.

 

 

Commenting about how the poor can’t always attend private and charter schools, Giordano said, "Life’s not always fair and I’m sorry about that."

Earlier in the conversation, he had said poor parents should have access to the same options as those who can afford to send their children to high-performing schools: "We don’t say you can’t take your kid out of the public school. We would argue not and we would say, ‘Let’s work more closely and more harmoniously.’ "

Giordano's kids, of course went to fantastic schools, and the Camden school district (which they were talking about) is so utterly wretched it's like walking into a war zone (shootings, and such) but he thinks that there's something to be worked out....because there's just this little knot that has to be fixed, you know, not like this has been happening for decades...:glare:

 

So, it'd be interesting what vouchers would do to the country...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have many friends who are teachers. It is a very difficult place. The teachers I had growing up did not have to deal with a class of 30, with 10 kids with IEP's, plus so much more. I was in classes with 27-32 kids, and we seemed to do alright, but my teachers LOVED to teach, had parents who supported them, we didn't have discipline issues, and kids who fell at different ends of the spectrum were accommodated accordingly...although I think mainstreaming encompasses many more students than it did when I was in grammar school.

 

Out of the 5 grammar schools schools I attended, two schools really followed this model well. They weren't perfect, but they tried (I still did my share of cross-age tutoring, in-class tutoring, running the smelly copies, cutting out billboard letters...etc.) Out of two middle schools, one did this very well. All of the high schools made an attempt...but the standards/expectations for the high schools I attended in the 9th and 10th grades were far below the standards of the one excellent middle school I attended in the 8th.

 

Money would *not* have made a difference in most of the "bad" schools. What made them "bad" wasn't a lack of books, class size, or parental involvement... but the philosophy and the standards they applied, along with some bad teachers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No. Having people in charge of education putting the actual education of kids first, and spending the money they have wisely is more important. In my neck of the woods (and I am sure this is common) school districts routinely cut the things that will make parents vote for levies first: Transportation, electives, sports, art, music....with the idea that if you take away the things that are either helpful for the parents, and that the kids love/need you will vote them more $$. Ugh. They need to re-organize their priorities. Does the school really need a state of the art programmable LED announcement board outside the school?

 

If I had even a fraction of what these districts pay per child, I could do wonders.

 

Anyway, the school choice vouchers already has been going on in my state for a few years. You can only use them if your local public is a low performing school. You can use it to go to any private/parochial school. I have heard that they still don't use all the vouchers allotted. Every parent iin one of these schools is given the opportunity to use them.....and they don't. That's sad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.

 

The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.

 

The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can't be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.

:iagree:

 

This was probably linked at some point, the Kansas City experiment is mentioned, too. (Disregard the emphasis on testing in the video and focus on the money side of the story.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another outcome of the bottomless budget experiment not mentioned in the cited article - as of January 1, 2012, the KC school district lost its accreditation. It is now at the mercy of the state, with talk of the local school board being dissolved. Parents (the ones who actually care) are scrambling to lawfully transfer their children to nearby accredited districts. And those districts, though they will teach the students, are looking to the KC district to provide out-of-district transportation for transferring students. It is a mess beyond imagination.

 

Of course schools need money. But that money needs to be spent honestly and reasonably. The Kansas City outcome is a lesson in extravagance, dissension and corruption.

 

No, it won't.

 

 

I believe they tested that theory and created a school with everything you could hope to have, and it didn't do any better. Someone else will have to come up with the name of the school and an article because I can't remember any more details than that.

 

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html

 

 

For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, "You can't solve educational problems by throwing money at them." The education establishment and its supporters have replied, "No one's ever tried." In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.

 

Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.

 

The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.

 

The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can't be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.

 

Very interesting points being made in this thread. I have many ps teachers and ps parents that I see regularly on Wednesdays and that was the hot topic for discussion last night. The school board is recommending cuts, many of which the parents and teachers don't agree with, but I'm of course a little bit more out of the loop and trying to view the debate a bit more objectively. There is an on-time bonus for bus drivers and custodians, in addition to their regular pay, that's being slated to cut and would save over 2 million dollars. There is also busing for gifted students to academies on the chopping block. Middle school sports would be gone. I agree with some cuts and disagree with others. The main argument used last night was that our whole community will suffer, housing prices will do down, etc. if these cuts are put into place. That lost me a little bit since many of the cuts could be considered smart for the whole system. I also did not say anything as the only homeschooling parent present in the room.
Edited by AuntieM
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm also often asked why we don't send our children to charter schools. My in-laws believe they have brilliant charter schools all over the country simply because they have many charter schools in their state, NY. Our area does not have any charter schools but my bil and his wife have several to choose from in Atlanta. I will never get thru to my mil, I've accepted that fact and moved on, but it does get me thinking. Are charter schools the answer? Are they cheaper for better results? Do you have charter schools in your area? I love homeschooling but recognize that it's not the best option for everyone. What are our options?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are charter schools the answer? Are they cheaper for better results? Do you have charter schools in your area? I love homeschooling but recognize that it's not the best option for everyone. What are our options?

 

It depends. There are charter schools that do better than average, and some that do the same, and some that are worse (at least going by test scores, I say that because test scores don't tell the full story). We do not have charter schools in my area, unless you count the K12 virtual school.

 

There are no easy answers to fixing a problem with so many layers. But, getting rid of the one-size-fits-all mentality would be a start. Not thinking every kid is college material, and that labor-intensive jobs are beneath us would be a good start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It depends. I think that more money needs to be put into the right things, like increasing salaries for good teachers. I also know the effects of having budget cuts. Our town's school had to lay off 90 personnel including mostly sp ed (a county of only 16,000 mind you). There is no hs band last I heard because the director had to be laid off. Most extracurriculars have been cut. But they have a big nice building. I remember back to my school buildings when I was a kid and we at least had programs, good teachers (sometimes!), and science, though we didn't have a/c or nice shiny new things. Surely the money is being misappropriated somewhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, it won't. Simply throwing money at a broken system will not save it.

 

:iagree:

We've been throwing money at it for YEARS and it just gets WORSE!

 

To answer your question: It hasn't yet.

 

Throwing money hasn't worked in the past and it won't in the future unless there is a *HUGE* fundamental change in the way in which those monies are allocated in the public school system.

 

I agree that budget cuts hurt - but that is because it seems like the administration and overhead of the school systems aren't touched but the money is cut in teacher's salaries, books and programs that help students such as art/music!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

Ă—
Ă—
  • Create New...