Campaign 101: Obama Wants $25 Billion to Prevent Teacher Layoffs
President Obama released a 20-page report this morning intended to make a case for sinking $25 billion into preventing teacher layoffs and supporting “hundreds of thousands of teacher and other education jobs.”
This latest “investment” plan from the White House is destined to become a hot topic on the campaign trail, as the report indicates more than 300,000 local education jobs have been lost since the end of the recession and the president ties further projected losses to the GOP budget plan.
The national student-teacher ratio increased by 4.6 percent from 2008 to 2010, the White House said, “rolling back all the gains made since 2000.”
“Think about what that means for our country. At a time when the rest of the world is racing to out-educate America; these cuts force our kids into crowded classrooms, cancel programs for preschoolers and kindergarteners, and shorten the school week and the school year,” Obama said. “That’s the opposite of what we should be doing as a country.”
The report also opens up a new strategic front against GOP vice presidential pick Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), claiming that the House Republican budget slashes education funding for special-ed kids and would leave even more teachers jobless. “If cuts were distributed evenly, this budget would imply $2.7 billion in cuts to basic Title I education grants, meaning that nearly 38,000 teachers and aides could lose their jobs as a result of cuts to Title I spending alone,” the report states. “Cuts would also be made to early childhood education and special education, significantly impairing schools’ ability to best serve their students.”
“That’s backwards. That’s wrong. That plan doesn’t invest in our future; it undercuts our future,” said Obama. “If we want America to lead in the 21st century, nothing is more important than giving everyone the best education possible – from the day they start preschool to the day they start their career.”
The report places a heavy focus on class size in its arguments, providing figures through 2010 and noting that school administrators were projecting both increased class sizes and additional layoffs ahead.
“Parents know from common sense that laying off teachers, increasing class sizes, and cutting back on crucial programs hurts students,” the report states. “And a detailed look at the evidence – based on well-designed randomized experiments – confirms that larger class sizes have lasting negative effects: lowering high-school graduation rates, reducing the chance that students take college entrance exams like the ACT or SAT, and lowering the chance of college enrollment and completion.”
Citing an “unprecedented decline in local education jobs,” the White House noted that Obama’s teacher provision of the American Jobs Act “remains stalled in Congress.”
“The Congressional Republican plan could result in 200,000 low-income children losing access to early education,” the report states, adding that Medicaid cuts in the GOP plan could also “potentially further crowd out education funding.”
“The visions of the President and Congressional Republicans on education present a choice with important consequences for families, children, and communities.”
Obama coupled the report’s release with his weekly address, devoted to hammering Congress to back his $25 billion plan.
“Part of the jobs bill that I sent to Congress last September included support for states to prevent further layoffs and to rehire teachers who’d lost their jobs. But here we are – a year later with tens of thousands more educators laid off – and Congress still hasn’t done anything about it,” Obama said.
“In fact, the economic plan that almost every Republican in Congress voted for would make the situation even worse. It would actually cut funding for education – which means fewer kids in Head Start, fewer teachers in our classrooms, and fewer college students with access to financial aid – all to pay for a massive new tax cut for millionaires and billionaires,” the president added, rolling it into his call for letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for upper-income brackets.
Only a fool thinks that by massively ramping up the number of teachers the economy will improve. Teachers do not produce something that can be sold locally or overseas to boost the income of a country. They only can help equip those who intend to work and produce and earn. The number of teachers should bear a direct relationship to growth in the economy and consequently in jobs. It is not the increase in state employees that is going to get the economy booming. It is rather the growth in the kind of jobs that efficiently and cost effectively produce goods that can be sold all around the world. I don’t know of a single country in the world where a large increase in the number of government employees has led to the long term economic growth of that country. It is time Obama realized and admitted that history is not on his side.
I don’t agree with the Anonymous comment that teachers are not as important as goods that can be sold. Schools are an important ingredient in overall child development. But public schools are under the control of teachers unions, authoritarian in their focus on teacher benefits, and not focused on teacher competence and the curriculum, which ignores many of the skills that future citizens require. This is an enormous problem and as a former high school teacher, and now as a Ph.D. familiar with the construction of the humanities curriculum everywhere, I have had lots of analytic essays on the subject. See this index to hot topics in education: http://clarespark.com/2012/05/03/index-to-blogs-on-education-reform/. So far, the intiatives have come from within the Democratic Party. It is time that we all look more closely at the importance of schooling in a supposed democracy.
There is no importance in schooling children. What is important is giving them a love for learning. Education as practiced today is about efficiency not effectiveness. Until we abandon the efficiency model of education nothing will change.
A love for learning is worthless if you don’t learn the basics properly. You can teach yourself algebra IF you can read and do arithmetic. The problem is that many students fail to learn the basics because they aren’t taught properly.
Love of leaning has to be instilled at home…starting at birth. And you don’t get college credit for it. I was shocked when I first taught gifted kids that they didn’t have a love of learning or intellectual curiosity. Anything wihout a grade was ignored. Through the years I learned that the kids were on such busy schedules that they really had no time for anything that was a personal interest. Some parents put a lot of pressure on them to achieve and to get into a prestigeous college.
As far as teachers being laid off…..I worked in a very large school system which always laid off teachers in the spring. In the fall, when the school population stabilized. those teachers were rehired. There was a state requirement that those being laid off were notified in the spring.
Long ago and far away I wasted 6 years that I’ll never get back; 7th,8th,9th,10th,11th and 12th grade! Can’t immagine what the total wasted nation wide is by now! ;^÷€€√°£_=׶®£ it!c
Privatize education.
It’s the only correct answer.
Let the gummint keep some schools so “the poor” can have all their precious give-aways and can’t argue that they didn’t get their “fair share” but let the rest of the nation decide which schools they want to send their kids to.
It has been proven over and over again that when the government takes charge of something, it cannot control its own costs, grows absurdly large and out-of-control. There is no reason on Earth why teachers should get the ridiculous pay that they do. It’s not a question of “value” as a teacher used to go into the profession for the passion of it. But along with the “me” generation came also the desire to have material wealth without the return in services the private market would encourage.
In other words, the best teachers, with the best salaries, in a competitive market, would earn more. The worst teachers would be out of a job, as it should be.
So, teachers, good or bad simply drain the economy of its wealth and are partly responsible for turning out generations of kids with entitlement mentalities and who demand fairness in the wrong sense of the word.
But, like everything Obama sees, the repair is to simply throw money at it like all politicians do, with the added bonus of that money, if he gets it, will never end up in the hands of the people who he claims need it most.
I have been saying it for years now. He steals. Most of us know this but not in the way I mean it. He takes money with the sole purpose of simply draining it out of the economy. Thus, the “green” energy projects that he knows will lose money. Anything he can identify where money will simply disappear that cannot get returned to the economy of the nation, he’s all for. Its sole purpose is to be spent. To make money vanish. To break the nation financially.
This has been one of his goals all along. I still submit that if he has the stones to remain in the US after he’s finished, he’s going to face harshness wherever he goes because people will slowly figure it all out. He’s the guy who comes into your house who won’t leave and ends up costing you a lot of money. He’s doing that on a grand scale and only when the congress became republican-heavy was it put to a stop. So far, every additional dime he’s demanded has been denied since November of 2010.
Either they’re onto his lies or they simply understand that we just can’t keep spending everything we have and much of which we haven’t.
Privatize education. It’s the only correct answer.
Of course this is true, but that policy would not be counter intuitive, and that’s how the Faculty Lounge folk like things that seem nonsensical except to the elites running things, including the schools.
To expand on PJ’s proposal:
1) Force all schools, which would all be private, to pass a national test regimen administered by a Dept. of Education of about 200 professionals.
2) 100% of education funding comes from the states, as per the enumerated powers.
3) None of the 200 professionals may have any degree or work history in education.
4) The federal test would cover only reading, writing, arithmetic, mathematics and science.
5) Outlaw education degrees.
6) Make it a felony to teach a curriculum that indoctrinates students on political matters, or to drag students along to political protests (Madison state house, et al).
7) Public school teachers applying for jobs at private schools must first pass a performance review evaluation of how their public school students performed. The only appeal allowed for failing the performance evaluation must be based on the racial composition of their public school students.
This may seem harsh, but so are the test results over the last thirty years. And the human resources of the nation are more important than the feelings of teachers or guaranteed votes for globo-socialist politicians.
“Force all schools, which would all be private, to pass a national test regimen administered by a Dept. of Education of about 200 professionals.
“…Really? So, perhaps it will come as a surprise to you that educational standards and quality have precipitously fallen as a result of the policies of that self-same cabinet-level department? Pray tell, how did this nation educate itself before this cabal of lawyers and bureaucrats came into existence in the Carter Administration? I believe that the states – or more precisely, local school districts and parents – had that responsibility. Pathetically, the evidence continues to suggest that they do a better job of it too!
It is immoral what these so-called educators have done to ‘the children’ in the name of helping them!
#1 on your list should be: close all teacher’s colleges
Start up the printing presses.
http://uselections2012blog.blogspot.ca/
For starters we should shut down the Dept. of Education IN WA DC, they have a budget of $ 68 000 000 000.00, yet they don’t teach even ONE student.
Every state already has such a dept. , but thanks to the peanut farmer we got stuck with this DO NOTHING bunch of bureaucRATS.
Do the math, how much money can be saved over 10 years by eliminating this moronic bunch of DO NOTHING fools?
Democrats and the NEA. Has there ever been a more destructive alliance? Both groups have been completely infiltrated by communists. Both groups are corrupt to the core. Look for teacher strikes this fall.
My sentiments exactly, TT.
Obama pandering for not only more unneeded union employees but hiring back the horrible teacher’s who were *hitcanned. Knock me over with a feather.
As for his using Special Ed for evermore private sector bucks into the sinkhole that is public education, that’s complete BS.
Also, Special Ed teacher’s have been inundated with Severe E D (emotional disorder) children in their classrooms and only getting worse each semester/ school year.
Whereas the state WILL NOT remove and/ or commit these children to an institution better suited for their needs and essentially providing a safer environment for the other students.
Instead they’ll look the other way or have an evaluator come by that classroom for a few minutes and tell the teacher, teacher’s assistant, ‘They’re not too bad’. A shame.
If there was ever a NEED for more charter schools, home schools – our pathetic, abysmal state of our public education system is the proof needed.
Special Ed teachers can be assaulted with no legal remedy. The children are immune from prosecution and taught its not their fault, its their disease. We process tons of claims for workers comp. on assaulted teachers. Many never work again because the district is self insured and no claim gets denied.
Perhaps the issue is inadequate training in the SpecEd classrooms, and/or too low a ratio of aides to children. My son has been assigned to SpecEd classrooms conducted no better than glorified childcare of a caliber I would not have willingly exposed him to. We have had to fight for enough aides in the classroom because SpecEd kids get shortchanged in the budget. We have kids needing year-round services who are maliciously deprived of their rights to due process and denied the needed therapies because the special ed therapists paid by the school district don’t want to jeopardize their multiple summer jobs. Cry me a river about spec ed teachers, or public school teachers in general. Their interest is their own wallets, pure and simple; the kids are just helpless pawns in their hands, and the parents are expected to put up and shut up.
The very worst thing for a child’s education is to be just a normal, well-behaved kid. If they’re rich or very bright, they get in the honors programs and might actually get a decent education. If they’re “developmentally disabled” or just totally out of control brats that can be labelled ADD so the school can get more money, the parents that whelped the defective child get to negotiate and Individual Educational Plan, pick the teacher, demand individual “resourse” help from either specialized teachers or special aides. The “special” kid gets an A for getting ten questions right that the normal kid has to get 90+ questions right to get an A.
Sorry, lady, but it is only the rarest “special needs” kid that will ever even be able to live independently, and by independently I mean on their own without subsidies, and only the very, very rarest will ever make even the most negligible contribution to society. ‘Splain to me why vast resources should be taken from my normal kid and given to “special needs” kids. That “special needs” kid is your problem, not mine.
Tommy,
This is buying votes! What happened to all of the 787 billion dollar teacher bailout and the 300 billion omnibus (I mean teacher bailout)? We need JOBS, not bailouts for pensions and health insurance!
Buying those votes again!
Our educational system will improve when we shut down the Dept. of Ed., have a conservative or truly non-political teachers’ assoc. that will provide substantial legal assistance and insurance to protect the teacher in litigation (where even good teachers can be vulnerable — our kids being what they have become & their parents becoming increasingly sociopathic — current conditions being what they are in the public schools, it is a brave teacher indeed who doesn’t pay for protection from the terrifyingly Leftist NEA), return to a pedagogy that encourages truly critical and independent thinking (and individual, not group, work) — aka a pedagogy not derived from Dewey’s love for Soviet educational ideology, instruct teachers properly (instead of signing them on as ‘social engineers,’ their primary purpose according to a grad. level ed. text) in their field of study, develop textbooks that are rooted in fact, not in propaganda.
The list goes on.
As a former public school teacher, I highly recommend parochial or home schooling (particularly if you have a nearby co-op). Be vigilant in reading the textbooks and assignments. Watch for propaganda!
Democrats and the NEA. Has there ever been a more destructive alliance?
You’re right. I was thinking maybe the Democrats and the UAW, but that alliance ruined only the domestic automotive industry, while the AFT/NEA alliance has ruined the nation.
If the GOP, after the WI re-election of Walker and the teacher’s union fights can’t hit this one out of the park, they’re gonna be doomed to “do it for the kids”.
The Republicans should welcome addressing the nature of Obama’s education initiatives. He wants to keep urban schools academic hellholes so they are easier to community organize around an “Economic Justice” political vision and the Regional Equity Movement. That was a big part of what the Building One America conference was about once you take Kurtz’s book and follow the names.
He is forcing the urban so-called Best Practices template that he funded with Ayers at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge on suburban schools to stop their knowledge emphasis. Making changing the child’s values, attitudes, and beliefs at an emotional, psychological level the point of the school day.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/do-you-live-in-a-district-piloting-deep-and-continual-personal-change-in-the-individual-student/
Since I wrote that post I got a letter from an experienced English teacher on what Common Core supposedly requires making it clear that the teachers are being coerced upon threat of firing to adopt this template or else. The letter was to all parents but the coercion involved was apparent. Make the children’s personal experiences and interactions the point of the classroom or find a new vocation without your expected retirement in this economy. And this group claims to want to protect teachers. Only the insurrectionists, the naifs, and the docile ones.
Finally, Obama and the fed DoED is turning higher ed into a paper credentialing process where you must pay up to get the certificates to get a job in our politicized economy to be built on Sustainability. Knowledge though is being stripped out as inequitable. As always Obama found a Chicago institution to be a primary beneficiary of coordinating such a coup at our expense, in this case the Dean of the ed school where Ayers worked. He created Global Perspectives to be tied into Lumina’s Diploma Qualifications Profile. Which cares about what you do and believe if you want a degree in Obama’s 2nd term.
Robin,
Your post is insightful. Do you have a blog?! Have you forwarded some of this material on Best Practices to Rush or Hannity?
These models also dovetail with the UN’s Agenda 21, and in a conference on the 10th grade writing test I attended in NC some years ago, I noticed the use of the consensus model with everyone divided into smaller groups (creating an atmosphere of genteel unanimity, as if we SHOULD all agree — on everything).
Agenda 21 is taking hold in every area of our lives, including education. (If you don’t know about Agenda 21, please check it out. Many Tea Party groups around the country are fighting A21 and ICLEI in their own cities and towns.)
Also, grad texts for educators explicitly pronouncing that “social engineering,” not instructing students in a particular field of study, is the “primary purpose” of classroom teachers.
The early history of the pedagogical Revolution is traced in Stormer’s old “None Dare Call It Treason,” a book you should devour as soon as possible.
Your comment is insightful but Our education system was designed by UNESCO many years ago.
Robin…. Have you read Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt’s “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America”
deliberatedumbingdown.com/index.html
newswithviews.com/iserbyt/iserbyt101.htm -Timeline of Education in US
americandeception.com/index.php?page=usercat&catid=9 – Here is a cache of information
I recommend reading these.
I would really be curios to see what percentage of this 25bil would be going to bail out state governments in California, Illinois and New York? You know, the liberal blue states that are bankrupt.
That’s what this is really about. It’s a backdoor bailout of states that can’t meet their own payroll- by and large the blue states. The feds can’t directly subsidize all teachers, but they can shovel in more money for federal programs and that’ll free up more for everyone who has their nose in the trough.
A quick way to fund schools would be to eliminate the Dept. of Ed and spread its $25 billion budget among the states.
“Think about what that means for our country. At a time when the rest of the world is racing to out-educate America; these cuts force our kids into crowded classrooms, cancel programs for preschoolers and kindergarteners, and shorten the school week and the school year,” Obama said. “That’s the opposite of what we should be doing as a country.”
And tell me, where are the states in all of this? Obama always sees the states and helpless victims (which is what liberals do best). Never does he demand that the states start balancing their own budgets. Here in New Jersey governor Christie has put his entire administration on the line by taking on the teacher’s union. He did and now we are finally getting some control over the horrific partisan Democratic spending that has been going on in this state. The contracts and financial promises that were made under the previous Democratic Corzine administration were obscene, nearly bankrupting the state. Christie put a stop to that and now at least New Jersey has a fighting chance at NOT going bankrupt. But to do that Christie had to take on the Teacher’s union and cut back their many benefits, like teachers not paying for any of their health insurance and allowing retired teachers to not only get large pensions but free health benefits for themselves AND their families for life. New Jersey just couldn’t sustain spending like that and it is being stopped.
Similar reforms are going on in other states like Wisconsin. It just shows you how states can be saved once they break the evil grip of unions. Those states that don’t do that, such as California or Illinois, are now on the brink of bankruptcy. So before the Federal government gives out any more money, maybe the states should be required to do more in bringing down costs. I know a far-left liberal like Obama would never go for that, but eventually we may have no choice in the matter. Because if we don’t start doing that, the entire country will just go broke.
Scott Walker can handle this one and knock it out of the park. Every two years its the same scare about teachers! our children! our future! How many emergency measures have their been? when does it end?
These guys are as predictable as can be.
Has there been any measurable gains from the push for smaller classes? No. Yet it would be horrific if we go back to 2000 levels? What about boomer levels with corresponding discipline? Not with all the lawyers. How about this idea, instead of cutting teachers we cut ‘crats,the fascilitators, essentially the compliance police making sure teachers cant teach to the individual and instead comply with the ever changing program? Btw I agree on the dems & unions as well as b of ed too
Obama’s protestations might make sense except for the fact that there is not a correlation between how much is spent and the quality of education children receive.
For instance, at the macro level, Wyoming spends the most per capita (that’s a statistic that should lay to rest the meme that Republicans don’t value education!) yet ranks 16th in SAT scores. And this pattern is repeated on down to the school level where parochial schools are often cheaper per student than public schools, and yet have better outcomes by almost any measure.
Unfortunately, I think that the education system in this country needs to hit rock bottom before administration, teaching and teacher union reforms are finally undertaken. The pendulum is definitely swinging that way, and until the arc is complete, as little money as possible should be wasted on our bloated public educational system.
Having worked in a title 1 school for 5 years I can safely say it is as wasteful as any government program. Schools do not need more Title 1 money they can just flush down the toilet. Someone should do a study on this. Also perhaps a study on how much food gets thrown away by “hungry” children in the Universal Breakfast program.
If one lesson has been learned from head-master Obama, I and most other hard working American citizens are worthless. Most recently he tells me that my business of 20 years was not of my doing. All Summer I and most hard working Americans citizens (Unless you are a TEACHER, POLICEMAN or FIREMAN) have been told by Union boss Obama, we are pretty much insignificant. With all due respect to teachers, policemen and fireman, thanks for what you do, but since no one else in this country appears to be forthcoming with any accolades for your accomplishment, let me take this opportunity to thank everyone, even you worthless politicians, for all you do to make this country great–you remember that wonderful time–the ‘pre-Narcissist’ era.
I have never noticed a difference between having 15 classmates and 30, nor can I see that teachers have produced results that merit spending more money to prevent layoffs.
We don’t need more teachers with crap credentials and a deep sense of entitlement.
We need better teachers with a deep sense of quality and patriotic purpose.
The last thing the kids need is more morons to mislead them and dumb them down.
First, clean house.
Meantime, just say no.
how’s about we pass a new law (in general, i’m against ANY new law, but this one is different) that says that any teacher who votes for obama has to take a test for competancy or have their compensation cut in half.
Since they all MOST CERTAINLY are competant, particularly the ones who have parsed that obama is good for the country, it really can’t hurt the profession, right?
Absent some precipitious decline in revenue, say in the 20-30% range, any school district or other government that is claiming it needs to lay off employees that perform a direct service to the public is lying for political effect. It’s a deriviative of the old “if we don’t get more taxes we’ll have to end football and honors programs” gambit. I know I could peel 10-20% out of any budget with no perceptible impact on direct services. That isn’t to say there wouldn’t be impact over time because such general decrements always result in the internal control structures being reduced or eliminated and the potential for fraud, waste, and abuse goes up dramatically.
When I was in government school, ’55 – ’67, I don’t think I was ever in a classroom with less than 30 kids, but there were desks in rows, kids in them, and you WOULD behave. Also, the “developmentally disabled,” or the retarded as we called them then, had their own special class in their own special building. My stepkids were in public schools in the ’90s to mid-’00s. All three of them were at least once assaulted by a “mainstreamed” special ed student. Since there is no discipline in schools, misbehaving kids, especially boys, are labelled ADD, put on Ritilin, and made into “Special Education” students for the extra federal money the SD can get for them. There can be no tracking because of the threat of discrimination suits and the dogmatic belief in educating “self-esteem,’ and consequently the classes are filled with criminals and mental defectives, students many grades behind academically and many centuries behind socially, and many kids that don’t want to be there and have no parental support for being there. The kids that do have some interest in behaving and learning are just overwhelmed by the mess. By saying they have no responsibility for socialization, the schools are indeed taking over the socialization and they are producing children that are ruinously unsocialized because all of them fall to the lowest level. The great promise of integration and all the progressive educational models of the late ’60s and early ’70s was that just giving everyone the same resources and curriculum would quickly erase any academic deficits; it hasn’t, it has made it worse and spread it throughout all demographic strata.
I’m pretty arrogant about knowing how to solve a lot of problems with government but, frankly, trying to fix the education mess has broken my pick. The problems are so systemic and pervasive; everything about public education is wrong, yet I strongly believe that an educated populus is essential to a republican democracy and that a free public education should be provided.
My tern daughter and the bus driver were assaulted by one on Thurs. He had been kicked out last spring by an assault of another girl. It is crazy making
“My tern daughter….”
What on earth is a “tern daughter”?? If your remarks are supposed to have an impact with readers, we have to be able to understand them.
Try looking that a standard keyboard. The “r” key is next to the “e” key, so it seems pretty clear that the word was supposed to be “teen”, not “tern.” If all you can do is nag people about petty typographical errors, you’re not adding anything of substance to the conversation.
Absent some precipitious decline in revenue, say in the 20-30% range, any school district or other government that is claiming it needs to lay off employees that perform a direct service to the public is lying for political effect. It’s a deriviative of the old “if we don’t get more taxes we’ll have to end football and honors programs” gambit.
I agree, based on my experience, that 20% – 30% in cuts could be obtained with no ill effect on the level education. Hell, the cuts in administrative overhead would help, although they may put a district into non-compliance with unfunded federal mandates.
***
Several years ago a big school district in the south suburbs of the Twin Cities campaigned heavily for a levy increase on the premise that without it the district would go broke, and be forced to layoff teachers and even close schools.
The levy increase passed. Later, it turned out that the claims were false, the district had about $150 million in the bank at the time of the levy increase campaign. The district superintendent was tried and convicted under a state law that made it felony to present lies in a campaign. The superintendent went to prison. I don’t recall if the extra taxes remained in place, but they probably did. After all, the Minnesota state motto is Land of 10,000 Taxes.
Maybe Art, it just comes down to attitude.
Back when we were kids, teachers were stern but fair, some less than others..or more. The gym teachers were stereotypical knuckleheaded jocks, etc. However, all of them seemed to know what excellence meant and desired to see kids learn and have a positive education experience, with some exceptions who never seemed quite right to us kids. (Any system has its cracks)
But the pervasiveness that I see is the liberal mind that worries not about kids and their education anymore, but about how as teachers their own lives are affected. In other words, dedication to the student has taken a back seat.
This is due, in part to the unionization of teachers’ cabals, the “labor” mentality and the loss or abandonment of dedication, devotion-to-learning and excellence in the classroom. Sure, they’ll still call it that (and more) but decidedly, I have noticed the general slump of common knowledge over the last couple of decades. And when seeing statistics of the numbers of kids who can’t read just pales me completely.
Yet the answer seems to always be to throw money at it. Sure, get the school new computers…but Charles “Cool Breeze” Williams can’t identify 99% of the characters on the keyboard, let alone use a computer. How about instead, emphasizing the basics? Oh…because that requires work, it immediately causes “teachers” to start brandishing terms like “unfair”, “cruel”,etc on behalf of the student who, might actually get something out of learning to read. But he’s 17 now and they’ll graduate him and he’ll have a hell of a life after school is over…
One thing I learned, as we probably all did, in “yesteryear’s” classes, is that some kids were rather gifted intellectually…others were not. But, the socialist system of education has, as it does with all things, caused those who excel to be frowned upon and punished while the non-gifted or just plain lazy get more attention.
You’re right, there’s a lot wrong with our education system. Most of that can probably be blamed on people with degrees who don’t know how to do anything, let alone how to teach. But also as important is attitude. I think it’s currently Laissez Faire leadership: http://tinyurl.com/bpn8o86 which results badly for all.
However, heavy-handed leadership isn’t the answer either. The answer is most likely attitude, starting with the individual who “wants to be the best teacher they can” and is encouraged to do so with a conservative leadership behind that type of teacher who strives for the goal of excellence with kids. Not, indoctrination or creating another useful idiot.
In my tenure in government I became a disciple of “heavy-handed leadership.” In fact, I considered autocrat to be the highest compliment. I don’t want any damned committees. I certainly don’t want any damned consensus; consensus is the refuge of wimps, the way to make sure nothing gets done.
The whole thing is that somebody steps out with a plan that he can get the people or political authority to buy. S/he implements the plan and it fails or succeeds. Likewise, the proponent of the plan fails or succeeds. If you don’t have the guts to put your livelihood on the line on whether your plan succeeds or fails, nobody should listen to your plan.
I dealt with about 20K unionized employees. The unions ranged from “you can do business with them” to “PITA” to outright communists, mostly the latter two. I came to believe that the issue was almost never bad employees, though God knows there were enough of them, but rather just truly Godawful bad management. Employees will do what they’re told if given enough information. The neccesary information is, “Do this or I’ll fire you.” It is the rarest political manager who’ll give employees that binary choice. That said, I understand the reluctance because one day there will be a Democrat mayor, governor, or President and your name will be on the hit list if you’ve given that choice. The differences really are irreconcilable.
It’s dishonest but the fool vote will eat it whole, Then there’s our media, another so called issue to use against Romney. Expect much more of “Obama to the rescue with federal cash” crap. Buying votes with other peoples money, no wonder leftists are successful.
Yeah, sure. Why bother doing something for the 24 million unemployed Americans when you can funnel more payoffs to your Teachers’ Unions cronies?!?
A favorite quote of mine, from Instapundit:
One question: and where did all of the ever-increasing monies we’ve all already spent on teachers go? The continual mantra is, “we need more money,” but damn! it never seems to equate to much better performance by our kids in school.
I don’t know about you, but after so many iterations of the same promise, “things will improve if,” and I’m done. Fini. Game over, Man.
Try cutting some of your bennies and lay off all of those dead weight administrators that seem to proliferate like dust-bunnies. And suddenly we’d find that there’s plenty of funds available.
44 cents of every dollar Obama gives away is borrowed. 44 cents. Our grandkids will pay and pay.
putting money into the teachers’ pockets is a short term fix that asks tax payers to bail out failing school systems.
In Torrance, the Stimulus was touted to have saved some 30 teaching jobs, not created any, and the news story was that if the private sector didn’t pick up the stimulus funds, would be a one year patch.
So let’s stop with the nonsense of taxing more, and spending on what gets dismal results, and isn’t even honest.
The schools are broke, but in the los Angeles area, the school district could spend on 2 new schools close to $1 Billion on their construction. We were told that those funds had to build those two schools, and I ask, why do we need to spend close to $1 Billion on 2 schools, Think the physical structure makes for better students, as I laugh all the way to the poor house being taxed for this nonsense.
Exactly. The stimulus was a short term patch. If we get unemployment down, then local and state governments will have the tax revenue to support hiring more teachers.
What Obama wants is to ensure the teacher’s votes and to get some of that money kicked back to his campaign.
They already pulled this stunt before. Funnelled 26 billion or so to the teachers unions claiming it was needed to prevent job losses. Did we not find out that their numbers of “potential jobs lost” were based on calculating RAISES expected to be given out, then dividing the total by the number of existing teachers to get a number for “saved teachers jobs”.
Or are we now dealing with another stunt to protect the teachers unions from having to cough up a few dollars for their medical plans like everyone else? I’m sure there are plenty of idiots who will fall for the demagoguery and accuse anyone opposing this of hating children, but it’s long past time to put a stop to this taxpayer-funded racketeering.
Another one people are just ignoring and I can’t understand why: The “21-26 on your parents medical plan” gimmick is a taxpayer freebie for anyone that age who has a parent in the government employee unions, regardless of their means to pay themselves. That’s what it was all about. Local/state taxpayers will be paying for a Caddilac plan for every single person in the entire country in that age group with a parent employed by government. Every single one of them. Don’t people get this? Was there some crisis that justified this blanket freebie from the taxpayers?
It also means a business owner who is heavy on employees with “children” that age will be footing the expenses for other employers heavy on 21-26 year olds. When are people going to get a clue? Why on earth should business A be paying for medical insurance for someone working for another company? And once again, was there some crisis where every single person in the country in that age needed this handout? I’m sick of the stupidity. Just sick of it. It’s time to start moving towards about a secession movement.
The Obama campaign has the pedal to the metal.
Locking up the teachers’ vote tighter than ever before with taxpayer squandered money was another great tactical move for Obama. One of many he’s made without a thought to what it means for overstrapped taxpayers, a plodding economy or our nation as a whole. Just one of many similar ObamaActions.
Leaking secrets to the Russians to assuage Obama’s anti American Marxist base was another. Obama’s almost four years has been filled with them.
Like letting in a sea of illegal aliens to get their vote and swarm over Arizona like a pack of locusts. There are so many of these moves to win the election and degrade the integrity of the nation that, coming so fast and furious, people cease to remember them.
Obama simply executes the American-damning double play over and over.
Screw the country. Sew up his election. Fox and Aparicio weren’t any smoother.
And as half of the nation cheers them on apparently not giving a rat’s ass about the future of this country as a beacon of liberty; they’ll sure as shootin’ toast to the 30 trillion dollar debt by 2016 which breaks our back, and destroys our ability even to defend ourselves.
But there’s no defending the nation against Obama.
The first line of defense was the press, and they were the first traitors to everything America ever stood for. In fact, they continue to use with Marxist enthusiasm their constitutional guarantee of a free press to enslave this nation economically, politically and militarily.
The last line of defense against enemies of freedom was supposed to be our vote.
Isn’t that what Supreme Court John Roberts said? But every day of his Presidency, the press covered for Obama, praising him, regurgitating his talking points to the point that 47% of the people are voting for our nation to commit mass suicide; re-elect the doomsday President.
And when we go into the mother of recessions in Obama’s second term, many if not all of the leftists will believe the NY Times, Wash. Post and LA Times’ lying fabrications that things would have been a lot worse under Romney. Or whatever excuse is used to deflect blame.
No more Ernie Pyles live in today’s mainstream media. The ink bottle is filled with pens damning the ideals of America, reporting only what makes Obama look good and in general making a mockery of what a free press is supposed to be all about.
Friends, a week ago I said that Romney would lose if he didn’t start attack ads within a week. Well, the week’s over, along with Romney’s chances to win.
The sea change happened yesterday when likely voters were polled and this morning Rasmussen reported that Romney is sinking like a stone and Obama, for the first time since January is up by 2 percentage points.
In an election, if one participant is doing all the attacking, and the other (Romney) is doing all the counter-attacking, the attacker wins every time. Do you think the allies would have won WWII if all they did was counter-attack?
Invading Normandy was a huge attack; with unexpected timing, it was a huge success.
Romney hasn’t run a single attack ads to date.
He’s the consummate counter-puncher. The Obama campaign has been running a blitzkrieg for months. Except for Biden and a few verbal idiot gaffes on TV, it’s been the perfect campaign. For the Obama campaign, it’s September 1, 1939 every day of the week.
Romney’s communications campaign is filled with amateurs and political hacks who haven’t had an original thought in thirty years. Romney doesn’t even have an advertising team that specializes in advertising. Fact is, Romney’s people wouldn’t know how to write attack ads if their lives depended on it. Well, their political lives do.
With 80 some days to go, it’s all over but the shouting and blaming.
At points like this, I can’t help but shudder and smirk. From this great website, to Hewitt, to Malkin, to Perreto, to American Thinker etc., nobody can see the forest through the trees.
Even here, I try to sound the alarm siren and report that Romney’s snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, but everybody is busy with their own take on things. And apparently has never been in a political campaign for real. And eschews the importance; the crucial need to attack with all guns blazing.
Last week, the window was still open for Romney to run TV advertising that attacked Obama on every front. Ironic because there’s such a treasure trove of attacks to make. Romney’s people can’t pull the trigger. When they need to shoot heavy artillery at Obama, they mistake the ordinance for water pistols. He runs no attack ads, instead shooting himself in the foot because he’s run out of time.
Effectively, Mitt Romney not only has let his campaign get overrun by Obama, Romney’s let America down.
Without attack ads, any vice presidential pick Romney could have made wouldn’t have made a difference. Paul Ryan is a great Republican. But in a campaign as misrun as Romney’s, even the prolific, acutely astute, Ryan can’t stop the Obama juggernaut.
A combination of Obama’s attack ads and a complicit main stream media has forced me sadly to say the fat lady has sung, her tune still ringing in my ears.
On November 6,Obama will emerge the winner. The America some of us knew and loved not only is the loser, but will cease to exist soon thereafter. The America that Kennedy proclaimed would pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty quietly fades into the annals of history.
The dye is cast. We have met the enemy and it is us.
This is an epic concern troll post. Or you’re pathologically, irrationally defeatist. It’s like you haven’t noticed anything the Romney/ Ryan campaign has been doing since Ryan was picked VP.
FYI, Romney can’t use much of his general election war chest (campaign funds) until after he’s officially nominated, i.e. after the convention. Obama doesn’t have that obstacle. Obama’s been spending money like crazy; it looks like Romney will have the money advantage in the crucial last few months (when people will be paying attention).
And oh yeah, that “misrun” Romney campaign you’re blasting? Let me remind you, that’s the Romney campaign that *picked* Paul Ryan in the first place.
As far as I’m concerned, anyone who says right now that “Obama will emerge the winner”– especially at a moment when, in so many ways, he’s on the ropes– is either a Democrat or a concern troll, or might as well be one. If you’re a concern troll? Get a life; your trolling won’t affect Republican & conservative enthusiasm to vote for R/R against Obama. And if you are in fact a Republican/ conservative? Quit the tiresome chicken little act; all campaigns are rough going complicated white knuckle endeavors, with polls (of varying accuracy) going up and down.
Constructive criticism is a good important thing; irrational defeatism– (Obama has already won!)– is contemptible.
The NEA is whining at Obama for more cash, the union holding out its “support” as a bribe ?
Already those self-serving, not too bright eddukators have turned eddukashun in America into the sewer.
They ought to hide their faces.
Besides which, cash won’t fix what’s wrong in American education and beseeching more of it from their DC Fixer is pathetic.
One quick fix to the problem would be to evaluate how many teachers would have to go and then look at the administration and see who could be tossed. One admin gone could equal saving 3 teaching positions or whatever. They complain about private companies and the top-heavy compensation of CEOs. Yet they never look at their own bloated administrations which have just as bloated compensation packages in comparison to private sector companies but less accountability.
The real problem with public is there are too many teachers, and all of the poor ones are protected by tenure. So long as there is a collective bargaining relationship between public schools and teachers unions, public schools will never escape mediocrity.
Only about half the states have collective bargaining for teachers. That isn’t to say that the NEA and AFT in the guise of their “independent” state education associations aren’t a powerful political influence in the nonunion states but they can’t bargain for wages, hours, and conditions. Even in the states where they can collectively bargain, educational policy isn’t a subject of bargaining and there are real limits on their ability to bargain class size, etc. Which isn’t to say that in the Blue states Democrat governments don’t bargain all sorts of stuff they shouldn’t and don’t have to bargain.
A lot of stuff gets blamed on unionization of teachers that really isn’t a function of collective bargaining but rather is simply the fact that there are one Helluva lot of teachers and they have a lot of political clout whether union or not.
Under the last Democrat governor in Alabama, they come out and said that schools were very underfunded and taxed needed to be hiked significantly. Of course, they wanted to soak the “rich.” Here is how they planned to do is.
1. Reclassify property to its highest taxable classification. That meant many farms would be reclassed from agricultural to industrial or residential. They sort of managed this because every single year they keep trying to change farm classifications to something with a higher tax rate.
2. They would raise property taxes on houses. Well, houses valued over $50,000 which would leave a lot of the Democrat voters untouched.
3. Land use limitations. Simply put, one could own and pay taxes on all the property you want, but you could only farm or otherwise use only about 2,000 acres. This one was amusing because it was not only a propaganda slop to Democrats but it would also a sop to the big companies who could buy up and use all the land they wanted. This point is hard to find information on on the net, but it was part of the plan.
All of this was designed to raise double the amount of money the schools were supposed to need. When their plans were shot down, lo and behold, they found the money the schools were short, several hundred million, there in the budget all along. Thing is, I don’t think they ever cut the pensions to the top union people, some of whom were making 6 figures easy.
Wasn’t $23 Billion enough back in 2010? Did inflation cause the remaining teachers to need a $2 Billion raise to save/create the remaining jobs this year? I’ve got a plan. REQUIRE any salaried government education position that requires a teaching certificate, to teach a class. Lot’s of fudge room for the rules, but forces and allows the teacher passion to reenter the real world. Administrators in a classroom could change the student/teacher ratios. I’d love to see Arne Duncan (Secretary of Education)and other bureaucrats help students on a micro level instead of creating edicts to lower the standards of millions in the name of fairness. Imagine how awesome it would be if the daily “lesson plans” were available online.
This is exactly why the Feds need to stay out of education and give it back to the states.
Exactly!!
Want to improve our student’s educational outcomes without increasing costs?
1) Throw out “Everyday Math” and its “spiral learning” debacle. Allow our students to succeed by returning to traditional, building block based math.
2) Instead of increasing technology in the classroom, cut it back. The costs never end! Upgrades, security are a drain on budgets! Have people forgotten that the growth of the last century was achieved by people who learned with books, pencils, paper and their brains? No “synapse” eliminating calculators, autocomplete, spell or grammar check, etc.
3) Follow Wisconsin and other state’s leads…change public union retirement plans to 401K’s with employee contributions; Increase percentage public employees pay for medical insurance. President Obama is all for “social justice” right? Well, “social justice” should work both ways; private employers/employees shouldn’t be the only ones having to sacrifice.
With fallen real estate values, school district budgets will not increase anytime soon. We must all deal with that reality and succeed at teaching our children anyway. A “gift” from the government is not the answer. That taxpayer “gift” will only be recompensed by even higher taxes by those fortunate enough to have a job to pay them.
and completely agree with what Alice said!
Back up a bunch of notches. Before anything at all is done about education, there must be a consensus on what “education” is for. Is it to impart knowledge, and the ability to reason, or is it to brainwash the tykes into being good little minions for The State?
If you research the history of education, you will find that more often than not it is the second intent that is in play. Only a very few institutions exist that have as their charter the impartation of Reason.
Answer the question of “what is the desired end?” before you attempt to find ways to make that happen. I submit that while we all would like to believe our children are in the school system to learn how to think, in reality the stark opposite is the strategic intention.
We are obsessing over the trees while the forest is dying.
GOP leadership is too cowardly to make the case, our fiscal mess is a direct result of straying from the US Constitution, education should be funded at the state / local level. Not only have we nationalized education, the focus is now global education. I’m glad to see comments from informed readers, Agenda 21 is the problem, we have much work to do to expose it and elect citizens who will do the needed work to reverse it. Return education to the States, no Common Core Standards, let the states be incubators.
Oh – if we had any real journalists, they might ask POTUS about the report from HHS, early in his Administration which stated Head Start is not effective, so much for ending programs that have failed.
1. I agree with the many posts here advocating the elimintion of the Dept of Ed in DC.
2. Smaller class size does not equal better education. Look at the countries that are producing better educated students. A foreign exchange student from Turkey at our local high school knew how to solve hyperbolic cosine problems before she got here. In one case, she did her homework by hand calculations but they were counted wrong because they were supposed to use a graphing calculator to solve the problems (she did not own one).
3. In my state, school spending has gone up over the last 10 years at a rate over 8 times the inflation rate (much worse than health care costs) with no improvement in student performance.
4. My brother works in a large city school district as a grant writer. The school district has several million dollars in the bank that they have not spent and do not plan on spending. It is in a non-interest bearing account because if they were to earn interest on the money, they would have to report it which would alert the state to the presence of the money and they would have to give it back to the state.
5. I will belive that schools need more money after they stop their football and basketball programs and lay off all the coaches.
6. Teachers don’t know the subjects they are teaching. One teacher I know of counted several answers wrong on a math test that were done correctly by the student. The parent (friend of mine) set up a meeting with the teacher to ask why. The teacher did not know how to work the problems herself, but relied on the answer key in the teacher’s manual which was wrong. My friend demostrated how to work the problem but she still refused to accept the correction.
Many long and misleading words to state something simple; we the Gov’t want to subsidize union teachers.
20 billion for more teachers.
and when the 20 billion is gone and then the states have to pick up the tab, will they continue to pay for teachers they thought they didn’t need in the first place.
Another 20 billion in the black hole….or should I say red hole.
Time for a little math peoples.
The president needs 25 billion to stop the negative effects of a 2.7 billion cut. Doesn’t that mean about 90% pork?
300K teaching jobs lost since the recession began almost 4 years ago. About 75K per year. Let’s assume, though that the plan is to save 300K jobs. 25 billion divideed by 300K means about 83K per teacher and aide. How much are teachers paid again?
The president says the 2.7 billion cut will mean the loss of 38K teacers and aides. That comes to about 71K each.
Keep in mind, in most school districts, the last hired is the first to go (i.e. the lowest paid).
Where is the pork really going?
“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”
- Thomas Jefferson
Campaign 101: Obama Wants $25 Billion to
PreventBribe TeacherLayoffsUnions.There, FIFY.
Absolutely spot on. I did learn how to read in school, which enabled me to hone my ability to recognize bullshit. Like the kind soetoro is peddling.
I have an alternate, simpler proposal, which would cost a lot less.
Require teachers to work 5 years into their retirements, to receive their pensions.
For example, a Tier 1 thru 4 teacher in NY State can retire at 55 with a full pension. Under my system, they could still do so, however, they would have to work full time during their retirement, until age 60, to receive their payments.
Features of my plan:
1) No added expense to anyone.
2) Although they will have to work during the first 5 years of retirement, Teachers will still have far more “work free” years ahead of them than the taxpayers who support them.
3) Having these additional teachers available means smaller class sizes.
4) Compared to hiring more new teachers, we’d benefit from having a much more experienced teaching force.
5) Teachers wouldn’t complain a bit, because they always put the children first. Their union says so. And it’s for the children.
Did anyone else notice the timelines the White House quoted?
**The national student-teacher ratio increased by 4.6 percent from 2008 to 2010, the White House said, “rolling back all the gains made since 2000.”**
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t the gains realized since 2000 have occurred during the Bush Administration?
Furthermore, the increase in class size would have happened under the current administration and a democratic supermajority in both houses of Congress.
Just sayin’