The Cost of Education

[seedcorn]

Cat, who thought of this and promoted it into law? Who told them how it would be administered? The educational system is it's on enemy.

We used to have pass/fail. Now it's pass/pass.

As one poster wrote, we require the school system to feed, clothe, entertain, teach humanistic morals, and least of all teach which is what they are paid for. When they do teach and expect discipline, we yell the teacher picks on poor little Johny

 

[Ridgerunner]

It is a complicated problem, certainly societal. As with any complex problem there is a simple solution that sounds great on the surface but simply does not work when you try to put it into practice.

I don't have a good solution, simple or complex. I think the solution revolves around parental involvement. Every kid in the gifted talented program my kids were in had parents deeply involved that appreciated the value of a good education. We knew all the parents of these kids because we saw them at school (regular hours and extracurricular activities), at the playground, at scouts, at church, wherever their kids were involved. And their kids were involved.

How are you going to get all the parents involved in a positive way? Pass a law with consequences? Talk about government taking away your personal freedom!!!! That sure is not going to happen.

I've seen parents try to set their kids straight. They don't know how. We had several enroll their kids in Scouts, thinking that would help. It doesn't. Scouts can really reinforce good behaviors but those kids learn how to act at home from their parents, not some program that may get them for an hour a week plus one weekend a month most months. A lot of parents don't know how to help their kids. Are you going to try to teach parenting classes in schools? How many are in favor of that? Again, you are interfering with the parents teaching their kids. Actually, I'd like to see some parenting classes taught but coming up with an acceptable curriculum will be very rough. A lot of people see that as interfering with how they raise their kids.

Government sees the problem and is trying to help, mainly with your tax money. How can they do that unless they take the kids away from the parents. Do you want then to take your kids? I sure don't. Oh, just take them from the bad parents? Who decides who are the bad parents? The people elected by majority vote? Bureaucrats? Where do you get the money to raise millions of kids? Do you want the schools run like an Army boot camp, including your kids? What do you want government to do?

I hate the name "No Child Left Behind". I've been around enough kids to know that not only should some be left behind, they should be isolated from society, not mainstreamed. Often, they have parents that should have been isolated years ago.

You can talk about what parent should do all you want, but that is living in fantasy land. A lot of parents are not going to do what they should. They are going to do what they are going to do.

To me, the problem is not the schools or the government. It is the parents. It is what the parents are teaching (or not teaching) the kids at home. I can't control what people do in their own homes.

You can talk about single parents, broken families, and all that. I agree that that is a symptom of the problem but I've seen enough problem kids from homes with two parents and enough good kids from single parent homes to believe that those arguments are anything except a smoke screen. Some parents know how to raise their kids right and do it, even in hard circumstances. Some parents don't have a clue how to be parents.

If anyone has a solution that has a chance of being implemented I'd love to hear it. But just passing blame to teachers, school administrators, or government is not a solution to me. I don't have a solution with any but my own kids. That's what I could control. I'm very happy how all of them turned out.

 

[OldGuy43]

Good points Ridgerunner, but I still contend that spending money on supplies and equipment does not equate to a quality education. Yes, the environment at home is a factor, but the deciding factor is still the teacher.

I have been blessed with many good teachers, a very few were great. The greatest educator and the worst were both experienced while I was still in high school:

THE BEST
While there were many who were good the best was Atile Chiti. (sp?) His family had immigrated to the U.S. from Italy when he was a small boy. He spoke, read and wrote 5 languages fluently. He demonstrated his skill in languages once by having a student read a random passage from a book. He would translate it into one language while writing it on the blackboard in yet another. He could have made a lot more money with this skill alone, (He had been offered a job at the U.N.) but he chose to teach. He loved teaching.

I was fortunate enough to attend his class on World History during my sophomore year. On the first day he announced that this would be a class like no other. The powers-that-be in school administration had decreed that he must teach the text book and give homework. He announced that in his class we would not be doing that. He would utilize the Socratic Method. Open discussion, questions and answers, freedom of thought. He expected to learn as much from us as we learned from him. (His words.) Another innovation that he used was we never sat in the same seat every day.

While all of these things endeared him to his students, they were not the best thing he did as an educator. He announced that we would not be memorizing a lot of dates. We would learn that history is not comprised of isolated events. It is a great sweep of small events, one leading to another and finally to its inevitable conclusion.

In short, he taught us to think! A true educator of the first water. I will never forget him. I owe him much.

THE WORST
While I have known some who should not have been teaching including some so sadistic that they shouldn't have even been allowed anywhere near children one sticks in my mind, my typing teacher. I only took one semester of typing. I didn't need the credit. (I started my senior year only needing 2 credits to graduate.) I took typing because my handwriting was than and still is today atrocious so I thought (rightly so) that typing would be a good skill to learn. I told her so when she asked, on the first day of class what we expected to learn. (I believe that she didn't really care. She just asked the question because it made her seem interested. She had no intention of changing her lesson plan to suit the needs of her students.) She failed me not because I didn't have enough typing speed to get a passing grade, but because of my "attitude".

The incident that led up to this happened when she said, "This is how a business letter is formatted." Well, being young and foolish I raised my hand and asked, "What if your boss says he wants something different?" Her response I found shocking even at 17 years of age, "Well, you just explain to him that it just isn't done that way!" Of course where angels fear to tread so I said, "You think we should tell the man who is paying you how things are done?"

When I asked why she'd failed me she cited that incident saying, "You were disruptive to my class and questioned my authority."

If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
-Bill Gates-

 

[thistlebloom]

RidgeRunner said: "What do you want government to do? "

I think there's a root problem right there- expecting the government to solve problems. Personally, I want to see less govt. involvement in personal lives. Including education.

"To me, the problem is not the schools or the government. It is the parents. It is what the parents are teaching (or not teaching) the kids at home. I can't control what people do in their own homes. "

Agreed. But what has been the greatest influence in our lives as a whole society? Schools have been. We have been taught what to think, and except for a very few exceptions, as OldGuy stated, not how to think. The vast majority of us attended govt. schools, where the curriculum is set at the Federal level. I believe what the outcome is, is a homogenized society, living in a moral vacuum.

It is a complex problem that didn't suddenly appear yesterday, and like you RR, I tried to control what I could, and that was my own children's education. Not just academics, but teaching them that there is right and wrong, and many things are black and white. And that we are accountable for everything we do to GOD Almighty.

A little personal responsibility goes a long way.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

part of the exorbitant costs are just to get those kids to their schools on those BIG yellow buses (and those small ones can cost just as much)!

i work for a small company that does the SPED (special education) billing to Medicaid so those schools can get back some of the costs for health related services to the kids. i can't get into too much detail but most of this is already available to those that look it up or go their local budget meetings, or request this directly from your city/town since it would be more detailed (no specific names).

i do the billing specifically for the transportation side but i've seen all sorts of stuff come to our office. in our neck of the woods i've seen paperwork for those large buses costing upwards of over $200/day to transport about 60-70 kids! but those little buses that can transport anywhere from 1 kid up to 16 kids at a time could cost that same amount! add special equipment for Johnny or Jane, a bus monitor to watch over for behaviors, a nurse because of medical reasons to work that special equipment or child's medical need, or because the kid is going to a special facility that the local school just can't provide the level of care needed for their disability and it costs more because of the distance. you're talking another $50-$150 per day on top of the bus cost!

i've seen school districts pay for stuff to parents that probably should never have been paid just because they can claim it was SPED related. cable bills, certain foods because a kid 'can't eat like the others'-textural or had to be prepped special (not medical at all). i've seen vacation trips to other states submitted because their child was going out to see a specialist over there for 1-4 hours maybe for 1 day and mom, dad, and sibling just had to go and enjoy themselves on the taxpayer's dime for 5 more days. i will let you know that this stuff cannot be paid out by Medicaid but the school are still paying parents to do this stuff in many areas here. some parents get reimbursed to transport their kids to school but then they are considered an employee and will need to claim this on their taxes at the end of the year. if mom or dad's vehicle has equipment or it is behavioral they can claim it on Medicaid.

my job makes me question everything i see!

btw, using the Medicaid to Schools/Healthy Kids Gold program (that's what NH calls it), does not interfere with a child's normal use to go to the doctor or other outside school related visits to specialists. tax payers are already paying for the SPED program to each child regardless and they are also paying into the Medicaid system through their pay each week! so you are already getting socked with the bill. and if any of you are questioning the ability for schools to submit the health related services to get $$$ back you can look up IDEA. this was enacted in the 70's but before Regan got in there was no way to fund most of it. so he said that Medicaid could fund the medical part! some states have lost the ability to claim while some have just got back the ability to claim these services.

as long as we allow government to get bigger and bigger there will always be things to complain that aren't being done to our satisfaction with the school situation. whether we are parents or not

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm an engineer by training and that's just the way I am. I look for solutions. I don't see mindless rants when certain buzz words show up as a part of the solution. I see it as something to get the emotions flowing and cloud the mind to any real possible solution.

Thistle, we are the government. The people we elect are running things, whether on the national scene or locally. The people I vote for usually don't win, but I try. Like Churchhill said, our system of government is really lousy, but it happens to be the best one we have. If you can come up with a better system of government, let's hear it. I'm talking about a system of government, not a personal philosophy. We all have different personal philosphies and I think yours and mine are not that far apart in many ways. I've always taken responsibility for myself and what I can control. I try to influence some things that I can't control, but I'm not going to tell other people how to live their private lives and I don't expect others to interfere with mine.

The people we elect run the schools. They set the curriculum and provide the means, which means they spend tax dollars. I consider that government. You can consider that whatever you want. If you can come up with another word that doe not get you all riled up, that's fine. Let me know what that is and I'll use it.

You don't need a hammer to drive a nail. I've done it with a wrench, but I really prefer a hammer. The right tool makes the job go easier and quite often you get a much better result. The school boards set a curriculum and determine what tools the teachers need to teach that curriculum. How are you going to provide those tools? Raise taxes so we the government provides them? People don't like taxes, or at least I don't. Should the teachers have to buy them themselves. Many do spend their own money for things they need. Should the parents provide them for their own kids? Hey that sounds great, but what do you do if a parent doesn't do that? People don't always do what they should do. That's reality. That's life. Many schools have actually worked out a solution to the problem. They ask parents to provide more than their kid actually needs. They have figured out over time how much they need to ask for so the parents that do provide it provide enough for the classroom. If there is still a shortfall, many teachers just buy it themselves, though some don't. Is that just? Is that fair? Of course not. Life is not fair. But it is a solution that works and it is an easier solution than some other things you can come up with. Not necessarily better or fairer, but easier.

OldGuy, I've had a few exceptional teachers, one in grade school, one in high school, and two in college, both college teachers in the math department surprisingly. I've had a few really awful teachers. Most have been OK but not exceptional. Certainly the exceptional teachers don't need all the same tools that the mainstream teachers need. The are really exceptional people. But most teachers can do a better job if they have the right tools for the job. I'm looking at the majority of the teachers, you know, reality, what we are actuallly dealing with, not the very few exceptions. I try to base my decisions on what I'm actually dealing with, not a fantasy of what I'd like to be dealing with. I'd love for all teachers to be exceptional, but that is not reality.

As you might guess, this can get emotional for me. I strongly believe in the value of a good education but don't get me started on the cost of higher education now. That is ridicuolous. You want me to get excited about the cost of a few pencils and a ruler? Just wait. I've got friends and very close relatives that teach or have taught. I've been involved in the schools. I've been involved in a lot of things for my kids. They all cost money. Schools, Scouts, PTA, any organization that does anything with the kids costs money. Yes, they want your money. They can't operate without money. Raising money is a big part of what they do because they have to have it. Reality, not fantasy.

Well, let's see if this gets me banned from the forum, Have a nice day.

 

[thistlebloom]

Whoa whoa whoa Ridge'! I don't disagree with you, and I'm not real riled up, but this is a hot topic for a lot of us!
My comments weren't intended to be personal, and I didn't mean to offend, I hope none was taken.

I've been involved too, and as a homeschooler have kept my head down for a lot of years because many in government positions don't like the HS movement and would love to shut it down. That's not hyperbole, that's fact.

Yes, I understand that we the people are the govt., and I vote, believe me, and wouldn't trade our system for any other, which by the way was established on personal philosophies. But if you think that it's not out of control and beyond the reach of Joe citizen to enact reform I want to join you on that cloud. ( oh, and when the people do vote a change in and a judge can overturn their legal votes, in a legal election, what do we call that? )

I'm not an engineer, I'm just a person who gardens for a living. I don't have a solution, I'm not that smart, but I completely agree with ChickiesMoma, if we continue to allow govt. to grow there will always be things to complain about.

Forgive me if this sounds like a mindless rant, I don't purposely provoke, and usually prefer to avoid these subjects.
But I do have an opinion.

 

[OldGuy43]

When I was in school teachers were held in high esteem, respected members of the community, placed on a pedestal even. They were deferred to and treated with honor. So what happened?

Fast forward to 1960. The United Federation of Teachers of New York City stage a one day strike resulting in a collective bargaining agreement. This sets off a rush to join the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) and similar local organizations. The result is that there are over 300 strikes by teacher's unions over the next 10 years.

Source: California Federation of Teachers

Since Mr. Chiti (see my previous post) had taught me to look at seemingly small events and their resultant effect I quickly came to the conclusion that this was a BIG MISTAKE(!) on the part of teachers. By becoming militant unionists and insisting that you be paid the same as others you knocked yourselves off that pedestal. You lowered yourselves to the same category as ditch diggers, factory workers, carpenters, bricklayers and all of the other "common folk" who toiled ONLY for wages.

Why are teachers no longer respected? You did it to yourselves. You sold out your high calling for a mess-'o-pottage. You have no right to complain.

SIDEBAR:
I remember a story from the late 1950's about a young boy who, on seeing his teacher shopping in the grocery store exclaimed, "Mrs. Smith, do you eat groceries?"

This little tale gives you a hint on how much in awe we were of our teachers. The fact that his teacher ate the same thing as we mere mortals was a shocking revelation to this child.

 

[seedcorn]

Love reading this thread and different opinions that aren't all that different. Ridge, great rant that I agree with. Don't worry about being banned, I've ticked off many here and as I long as I don't get personnal or insulting, I'm still here........altho I've had a few people block me

When I was in school teachers were held in high esteem, respected members of the community, placed on a pedestal even. They were deferred to and treated with honor. So what happened?

High esteem? In the 60's when I went, we starved them, made them do other things outside of teaching (coaching, etc) then yelled at them for not using my kid correct, if that's high esteem, beat me instead....... Don't get me started on the stories from my Dad's generation of the 30-40's........or my cousin's in the 50's (one cousin was passed along so that they didn't have to deal with him--he was ahead of his time in "no child left behind".)

 

[OldGuy43]

Fast forward to 1960. The United Federation of Teachers of New York City stage a one day strike resulting in a collective bargaining agreement. This sets off a rush to join the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) and similar local organizations. The result is that there are over 300 strikes by teacher's unions over the next 10 years.

High esteem? In the 60's when I went,

You only prove my point. When teachers started behaving like workmen instead of people with a noble calling they were no longer respected.