Shopsmith on steroids --- Felder CF 741

Mabee in some.. Not in the local school where I taught - and it was a pretty good school. In a good area.

Perhaps it is different in the USa - where the results DO appear to be a bit poorer - but the teachers are paid less, etc etc etc.

On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 19:27:06 -0600, Leon wrot

SNIPP

Your taxes are double mine on 3.4 the house value.

The mil rate changes from year to year, but is fixed for the region for the year.

The US average is $12K. NYC schools cost well over $20K per student and it looks like West Texas isn't any less.

You're not going to convince me that the results (by any measure you want to use, besides "participation trophies") justify the costs.

Less?????

$100K salary isn't rare, absolute job security, and 100% retirement after 30 years, isn't pocket change. There is _no_corelation between teacher pay and student performance. Of course, administration costs don't help anyone, except administrators.

Now you have me confused. If the mil rate changes from year to year, you're more like Vermont. That makes more sense than having budgets controlled by real estate values (as it is here).

By "region", do you mean across many taxing entities? Cities pay the same as towns, pay the same as unincorporated areas? Schools aren't localy controlled? Roads, fire, and police aren't locally controlled?

If the locals weren't totally mucking it up I would agree with you. But they are and have been for as long as I can remember.

How would you like to trade tax bills? ;~)

I was talking to a teacher, a policeman, and a firefighter in Flkorida about 15 or so years ago, and they were all paid so poorly they had to work second jobs to make ends meet - less than $40,000 for each of the three. That's what I based my comment on.

A good teacher with a lot of experience who really does their job in an inner city school might be worth on the high side of $100,000, but an idler in a decent school? I agree with you - no way. There ARE a lot of teachers who should be retired (or fired) but there are also quite a few MORE who are there for the love of teaching

- passing on knowlege to the kids - who would teach for half their salary if they didn't have to put up with the politics and bullshit from the ministry and board level.

Up here we have "regional government" In our region it is two level - in some it is single level. A lot of the costs are shared throughout the region (school, hospitals, water, sewers, transit, main roads, etc) while other services are handled by the local second level - township or city. All the former small towns are now part of a larger entity. There is a regional component to our taxes, as well as a local component. In my case, the City of Waterloo, but there is also the township of Woolwich, the city of Cambridge, the township of Wellesley, the Township of Wilmot, etc. The budget is set by council after much deliberation, balancing the "wish list" against the revenue available from the current assessment without raising the mil rate by an unacceptable level. We've owned this house for 25 years, and our taxes have gone from roughly $800 to $3200 (while the value of the house has gone from $67000 to somewhere around $380,000) The taxes have not increased as fast as the value of the property - for sure.

The property prices are going up like a rocket right now as we are only 100km (60 miles) from Toronto - where the average cost of a detatched home has reached about 1.2 million. In the whole region there were only 111 active listings the third week of december - down from a normal 300+, and there are bidding wars on just about anything. Not at all out of the ordinary for a house to go $40,000 over asking price with several Torontonians fighting over it. Making it pretty hard for locals to buy a house.... There is only a limitted amount of development land available as most good farmland is now protected.. There are some half acre lots with nice 1960's bungalows that would have sold 5 years ago for $500,000 or so selling for upwards of $600,000 to be bulldozed for the lot - to build a monster house (McMansion) worth close to $,2,000,000 - or more.. In other cases, the lot is devided and TWO monsters are built. It's called intensification and infilling.

I can tell you I couldn't affoird to sell my house and rent here - If I got $380,000 for my house (definitely on the high side - 3 years ago it was valued at about $328, but things are going crazy) I could, at today's prices, rent a nice apartment (2 bedroom) or half decent half a house for about 18 years. and I'd have my taxes ($3000 a year) left over.

snip

An interesting comparison is looking at metrics like graduation rate, reading "levels" upon graduation, college bound percentages, etc. and comparing that with money spent per student. Very little correlation. There are differences in students (poverty rates, etc.) but I find it hard to believe that more money == better students.

Teachers are the "front line" in this war, pay for performance, not seniority. Someone who commits to excelling in teaching (like with any other profession) should reap the rewards.

-BR

DOH! (beat me to it!)

-BR

And your solution is? Be specific, don't speak in generalities like "eliminate the federal education department", or "return control to local school boards".

The goal is to provide a uniform, quality education to all students nationwide in an environment where both parents must work full-time to afford housing and basic living expenses and pop culture denegrates smart children.

You'll note from the per-pupil spending chart above that it's the Rural areas where the spending-per-pupil becomes higher than average; which makes some sense, as the fixed overhead for facilities and staff is distributed over a smaller student base.

None of the teachers (with 25-30 years in the classroom) that I'm aquainted with make $100k, although one (with a Masters degree) is pretty close to that.

Please ensure that your suggested plan includes education for _everyone_, including those with various physical and mental disabilities.

snipped-for-privacy@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in news:j%qfA.5418$ snipped-for-privacy@fx37.iad:

First, be careful of the uniform bit. It can be interpreted different ways, like teaching all 12 year olds the same bit of book. Some of them will be bored silly, others will not be ready for the material, and one lucky kid will get the stuff he needs when he's ready. That's not to say I don't support some form of standard, I do. It's just uniform is SO easy to do wrong!

One simple thing you can do is solicit feedback. I don't mean "do a survey for a chance to win a $100 gift card" feedback. Those don't help. Go talk to the kids and find out if perhaps the teacher would be better assigned elsewhere. (Don't ask them that directly, just ask about their understanding and whether the teacher seems to care.)

It's more effective, but hard to get kids to take charge of their education. It was great to get to college and have teachers say "Here's a heap of problems relative to what we've discussed today. Do as many as you think you need to know how to do it."

Let's go back to why it's hard to get kids to take charge of their education... 7 hours a day, 30-45 minutes for lunch, classes start while they're still tired, and they're forced to sit there and listen as some teacher drones on. As a kid, you don't have a choice. At least when you have a job, you have the option of quitting. You really want someone to take charge of a situation when you told them they have to be there and are basically IMPRISIONED?

Puckdropper

Sure, I do but I'm not buying your story. If people are losing their homes, there is something else going on besides an 8.5% increase in their monthly housing cost. The utilities are fixed cost, too?

No, I don't get into other's business. They're adults. Sink or swim, it's the same to me.

There is no "looking the other way" anymore, if there ever was. A credit report tells just about everything about what's owed. No-doc loans are a thing of the past.

I repeat. There is something else going on that they're not telling you. Check for a boat in the driveway?

I don't think this is nearly as common as it was ten years ago. Money is still pretty loose but not *that* loose.

But there is no difference. They all get paid the same.

So get rid of the slackers, and everyone in the way. Drain the swamp, as it were.

Banning public sector unions is a start. Barring that, right to work would go a long way.

No, that's not the goal. I have no business telling people in Iowa what to do with their lives or their children.

Bullshit.

I know several. A lot of school boards publish salary information. You'd be surprised what the high end of the scale makes.

Elimination of unions. Vouchers (competition). Pay per performance. Shitcaning the illiterate.

It's been since forever that locals have been in control.

Or a gambling problem, or too many Cigaraettes, or booze, or a mistress,, Lots of "money holes"