UT opinion article on SB 1021 and Prop 30

[Coronita]

That said. My impression so far with the Carmel Valley public school district has been pretty positive. Obviously, things could be better, but at the same time, I think one of the reasons why this district is good, there are good teachers, and as important, many many actively involved parents, as I’m sure is the case in many other parts of other districts in San Diego…Better than when I attended public schools…
We’ll see once we getting into upper grades…

[livinincali]

[quote=CA renter][quote=livinincali]Here is the latest SDUSD complete budget I could find.

http://www.sandi.net/cms/lib/CA01001235/Centricity/Domain/13/budgetbooks/SD-Unified_Budget_Overview_2011-12_FINAL.pdf

On page 9 they say total enrollment including charter school in 131,541. It also says non charter enrollment is 117,249.

On page 35 you can see the breakdown of expenses excluding charters so it’s probably more accurate to compare expenses to 117K students.
The 3 major ones being.
Certified Salaries 516 million
Classified Salaries 218 million
Employee Benefits 311 million <- This is the invisible killer. Employees don't see it on their paycheck as an amount but it's increased from 276 million in 2007-2008 even with fewer staff. Everything else has decreased. Total expenditures on page 38 are 1.11 billion. So it seems pretty accurate to say 1,111,000,000/117,000 ~ 10K spending per kid. On page 36 you can see the number of positions by type. Basically 5000 classroom teachers and then about another 2500 employees related to special education. That is only 7500 of a total staff of 12,848. So there's quite of bit of not in the classroom staff in the budget.[/quote] Sorry, after so many pages on this thread I'm not really sure which post you're referring to here. This is the only one I could find where I asked you for proof of your assertion that 2% of any increased funds goes toward new teachers, supplies, infrastructure, etc. Also, I can't see where half of the new money is going toward raises, much less 10% raises! Can you please link to the data showing where teachers have been getting raises that would consume half of the increased funding? From everything I've seen and heard, most teachers have either seen stagnant wages (declining in real terms) or nominal cuts (making the cuts even more devastating in real terms), some being quite severe, since the recession started in ~2008. [/quote] I didn't post the budget as a response to you. It was posted just so anybody that wanted to look at the number could. [quote] Is this the post you were responding to?: [quote=CA renter][quote=livinincali]The problem with giving schools more money is that it’s never used for the things they say it will be used for. Say we gave SDUSD a 10% increase in the budget. Anybody want to bet that least than half of that increase is going to give the existing teachers and administrator raises? They might use 2% of that money to hire new teachers and make a big spectacle about how they hired those new teachers but the vast majority of that money is going to the existing employees in raises. Not only that but the biggest portion is going to go to those people that have a short time left in the classroom (i.e. nearing retirement) or those already not in the classroom (Administrators). Why should we give money money to schools when we know the money isn’t going to be used to improve the education experience. The existing administrators and teachers are the ones that are failing and giving them all 10% raises isn’t going to suddenly make them better teachers or administrators.[/quote]

Again…evidence, please![/quote][/quote]

I wrote Anybody want to bet? I would think most people would assume that would be a speculation on my part. A bet is an agreement on 2 differing speculations on future outcomes. You don’t usually use evidence to justify a speculation.

The problem in this case that it might be rather hard to prove the winner in this type of bet. It speculates on the amount of the increase in funding and it speculates what the district would do with that money. It also ignores the question of, are increases in benefits pretty much the same thing as an unseen raise. I can tell you through the budget number that total compensation has been going up per employee because of the increases in the benefits budget. That’s with a pretty flat budget number. Not only that but since teachers have gone without raises for quite some time I’m guessing that the union is going to hammer on the district to provide raises soon with any little increase in funding.

Do you really want to take that bet knowing everything that’s going on. I get the impression that you don’t really want to take that bet but you also want my statement to be false.

[CA renter]

I have a problem with people making grand, sweeping accusations against people/entities without anything to back it up. The privatization movement relies on people like you making these kinds of remarks on blogs (not saying you’re one of their paid shills, but they absolutely do employ people to post things like this on blogs of all types) in order to fool the sheeple.

I also have a problem with teachers (or other public sector employees) being maligned when the vast majority of them are some of the hardest working and most dedicated people around…and it’s particularly irksome when the people who are spreading the lies and misinformation are, by far, some of the biggest beneficiaries of government largesse, like Doug Manchester.

As for the budget, as mentioned before, I’m not familiar with all of the negotiations at each school district, but many teachers across the state (and country) have been giving up wages and benefits over the past ~5 years. While the pension contributions will most certainly rise after Wall Street decimated the pension funds (after Wall Street and its minions began pushing these funds into ever-riskier investments over the years), many teachers have been paying more toward their medical costs and/or getting inferior medical coverage, and have been taking pay cuts in order to help pay for some or all of the increased costs.

So, even if you do see an increase in benefit costs, that is far more likely the result of:

1. new teachers, and

2. increased contribution amounts that have been offset, to one extent or another, by wage cuts and benefit reductions/increased contributions on the part of the employees.

[CA renter]

[quote=flu]
I didn’t even realize we were talking about CAR until now. CAR if you took it because you think I was referring to you, I’m sorry you did, because I wasn’t…

[/quote]

Thanks for the clarification, flu, and I apologize for jumping on you there. It’s just that this has been a pattern of yours: making snide remarks about me to AN on threads regarding this type of topic. I usually ignore them, but I thought you were accusing me of incompetence, so it really pissed me off.

[livinincali]

[quote=CA renter]
So, even if you do see an increase in benefit costs, that is far more likely the result of:

1. new teachers, and

2. increased contribution amounts that have been offset, to one extent or another, by wage cuts and benefit reductions/increased contributions on the part of the employees.[/quote]

Just look at the budget that I linked CAR. It’s not because of new teachers. Look at page 36 of the budget. Right there it tells you that there were 5589 teaching staff in 2007-2008 and now there’s 5020.

If I do the math it looks like this.

2007/2008 Total money in compensation 579 million certified + 244.5 classified + 276 million benefits for a total of 1.1 billion / 15,042 total staff = 73140 average salary and benefits.

2011/2012 Total money in compensation 516 + 218 + 311 = 1.05 billion / 12848 total staff = 81474 average salary and benefits. That is an increase of 11.4% over 4 years or just about 2.8% compounded.

So individually SD Unified staff that has managed to keep their jobs have been getting average increases of 2.8% per year in total compensation with a flat budget.

The benefits are unseen compensation but it’s real money for the taxpayers funding education.

Also just suppose for a minute that they froze avg salary and benefits at the 73400 2007/2008 level. How many employees could they have saved with the smaller budget. 1.05 / 73400 = 14312 – 12848 = 1463 employees and at a minimum the 500+ teachers they decided to layoff. They didn’t so it sort of proves to me that the bias is to ensure total compensation continues to go up at a rate greater than inflation and GDP.

[an]

[quote=CA renter]I’m willing to bet that if we were to record all the goings-on at your house when you had 20 kids there every weeekday for a year (including disrespectful ones, angry ones, ones who never listen to you, etc.), we’d hear things that would make most people want to call CPS on you. I’d lay money on it. Now imagine if we could cut away all of the conversation before and after the worst thing you’d say so that we don’t have context, how do you think that would sound?[/quote]I’d take that bet. What would I get if I win? FYI, school hours is only ~6 hours. You provide the kids/classroom and I’ll do the teaching.

But really, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Don’t make excuses. That’s what being a teacher is all about. I seen great teachers who can control the class easily. Make the topic fun and the students enjoy learning. I’ve also seen bad teachers who lose control of the class or don’t know how to teach the topic and keep the student engage. The students get bored and act out.

As for your context argument, you might not have context but those who are involve do. You have no context, yet your first response is, the teacher is right. It’s the kids who cause the teachers to do/say those bad things. Seriously, if that’s logic, there’s nothing more to discuss.

[scaredyclassic]

The big lie of school is that education is always good more is always better and that you get it in a school.

The lie is falling apart.

Student loans will be the start of a psychic uprising.

Mistrust schools …

[all]

Anyone tried unschooling?

[CA renter]

[quote=all]Anyone tried unschooling?[/quote]

I think scaredy unschools, but will let him chime in here.

We’re what I call hybrid unschoolers. I do have our kids follow an online curriculum, and I do work with them one-on-one, but they pretty much get to choose what they want to do and when they want to do it, within reason. They are given a lot of free time to do what they want, which is one of the main ideas the homeschooling philosophy, especially on the unschooling side of the spectrum. It works because they pursue things when their minds are open and ready to absorb that particular information.

We have other friends who are “radical” unschoolers, and I think their kids are awesome. They tend to be more creative and driven in their own way. The goal is to allow the kids to fully pursue their own interests, basically without any parent direction at all. When you look at people who are very successful, you’ll see that most of them were very narrowly interested in a particular subject/topic/hobby and were almost obsessive about following their passions. That’s what many unschoolers are trying to foster. From what I’ve seen, it does work.

[scaredyclassic]

basically im still rebelling against my mama, who is a lifelong dyed in the wool hardcore union teacher in NYC. and who is a true beleiver in the system.

i dissent.

im not opposed to teachers getting a chunk of the pie, they’re not bad people for the most part, and do what they think is best, sort of, in a way.

I just think they’re lying.

i better get back into therapy…

[scaredyclassic]

the unschooling is over. the oldest is in college, the middle is in hs just won his first game minutes ago in a jv tennis match; oh man; so sweet; he needs the win….); the youngest is a part timer at a charter school and follows his mama around the other days, plays piano, practices magic tricks. so clever and interested. i left a rolling stone article around the house from this month about jesse snodgrass, an autistic kid at a local temecula hs who got busted in an undercover sting by a manipulative cop. heread it in full, we discussed…kid’s only 11…stuff like that is worth a week or more in school from my perspective. lots of dead time in school…

hell, I don’t know what the longterm outcome is. but they can all read and write and do their maths so fast it makes my head spin…

[CA renter]

[quote=AN][quote=CA renter]I’m willing to bet that if we were to record all the goings-on at your house when you had 20 kids there every weeekday for a year (including disrespectful ones, angry ones, ones who never listen to you, etc.), we’d hear things that would make most people want to call CPS on you. I’d lay money on it. Now imagine if we could cut away all of the conversation before and after the worst thing you’d say so that we don’t have context, how do you think that would sound?[/quote]I’d take that bet. What would I get if I win? FYI, school hours is only ~6 hours. You provide the kids/classroom and I’ll do the teaching.

But really, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Don’t make excuses. That’s what being a teacher is all about. I seen great teachers who can control the class easily. Make the topic fun and the students enjoy learning. I’ve also seen bad teachers who lose control of the class or don’t know how to teach the topic and keep the student engage. The students get bored and act out.

As for your context argument, you might not have context but those who are involve do. You have no context, yet your first response is, the teacher is right. It’s the kids who cause the teachers to do/say those bad things. Seriously, if that’s logic, there’s nothing more to discuss.[/quote]

I didn’t say that the teacher was right, only that we need to know the context in order to truly understand what was going on. I always want to know the context before making judgement about anyone or anything.

And when was the last time you were the sole person in charge of 20+ kids for 6+ hours, much less on a daily basis? And were there any expectations of you, outside of simply controlling them, like your having to teach them a lesson so that every single one of them was proficient at the end of the lesson? Did you have control over which children you were in charge of, or were they randomly assigned to you from a pool of students that included children who were learning disabled, violent, defiant, etc.?

Since you seem to think that you could keep your cool in any situation, how would you have handled these students?

(I get the message this guy is trying to make, but he focuses too much on the man vs. woman issue, my focus is on the video he shows.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Fj3nNnAnU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFBAk4qcoNA

I’m honestly interested in hearing about your methods that would enable you to keep your cool and not say anything that a student or parent might find even the least bit offensive.

[CA renter]

Congrats on your son’s win, scaredy! 🙂 Very cool!

[CA renter]

[quote=scaredyclassic]the unschooling is over. the oldest is in college, the middle is in hs just won his first game minutes ago in a jv tennis match; oh man; so sweet; he needs the win….); the youngest is a part timer at a charter school and follows his mama around the other days, plays piano, practices magic tricks. so clever and interested. i left a rolling stone article around the house from this month about jesse snodgrass, an autistic kid at a local temecula hs who got busted in an undercover sting by a manipulative cop. heread it in full, we discussed…kid’s only 11…stuff like that is worth a week or more in school from my perspective. lots of dead time in school…

hell, I don’t know what the longterm outcome is. but they can all read and write and do their maths so fast it makes my head spin…[/quote]

Yes, what scaredy said. When you homeschool, you get lots and lots of time with your kids. Most of the homeschoolers I know like to have very in-depth conversations about these sorts of current events and philosophical observations. Though this might sound like a bad thing to “regular” parents, I can’t count how many nights my kids and I have stayed up into the wee hours discussing life, human nature, economics, current events, etc…even watching old music videos or Monty Python videos and then discussing the sociopolitical context. 😉 It’s the most magical thing in the world, IMO. People ask if we would ever want to go back to regular schooling…the answer is a firm hell no.

As with scaredy’s kids, our kids (especially 2 of the 3) are rabid readers — something that seems to be a common thread among homeschoolers. Our 11 year old (the eldest) has already self-published a 100+ page book; she did all the research, found out how to publish, make the cover, get the art, etc. She did the entire thing by herself. She can read and write basic Mandarin (characters, not just Pinyin), and is doing honors algebra. We don’t think this would be possible if we weren’t homeschooling.

The #1 coolest thing about homeschooling is the lack of peer pressure. Our kids still hug and kiss us in public and enjoy being with us. When you sit down with homeschooled teenagers, they are perfectly capable of holding intellectual discussions with adults…and they enjoy it! They tend to be very well mannered and lack the snarkiness and rude behavior often seen in schooled kids. I can’t say enough good things about homeschooling.

[an]

[quote=CA renter]
I didn’t say that the teacher was right, only that we need to know the context in order to truly understand what was going on. I always want to know the context before making judgement about anyone or anything. [/quote]You’re right you didn’t. But you did give a host of excuse on why a teacher might say those things without knowing the whole context. You could have just said I don’t know the whole context, so I won’t comment. But you did comment.

[quote=CA renter]And when was the last time you were the sole person in charge of 20+ kids for 6+ hours, much less on a daily basis? And were there any expectations of you, outside of simply controlling them, like your having to teach them a lesson so that every single one of them was proficient at the end of the lesson? Did you have control over which children you were in charge of, or were they randomly assigned to you from a pool of students that included children who were learning disabled, violent, defiant, etc.? [/quote]You ask for a bet to see if I can handle 20 kids for 5-6 hours. I said I’d take you up on that bet. I never said I’m a professional teacher. Why offer a bet to a person you know is not a professional teacher, only to ask for requirement that you know the other person doesn’t have? What’s your point?
[quote=CA renter]Since you seem to think that you could keep your cool in any situation, how would you have handled these students?

(I get the message this guy is trying to make, but he focuses too much on the man vs. woman issue, my focus is on the video he shows.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Fj3nNnAnU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFBAk4qcoNA

I’m honestly interested in hearing about your methods that would enable you to keep your cool and not say anything that a student or parent might find even the least bit offensive.[/quote]To solve a lot of the issues in these video, I would request to have a video camera constantly recording the classroom.
1. First video, I don’t understand why the teacher was going crazy. Is it because they were laughing at him?
2. I would have called security immediately and have that student removed from the classroom.
3. I would have called security immediately and have that student removed from the classroom.
4. I would do the same thing that teacher did. Let authority handle it.
5. Stick and stone… You know, that one phrase that we were taught growing up? But seriously, what’s the purpose of a bus monitor? I don’t understand what’s her core responsibility.

As I said before, I’m totally for segregation of student base on behavior/desire to learn/IQ. Those who do not have a desire to learn and abuse teacher should either be put in something along the line of boot camp. I never said all students are good. Learning is a privilege. If you don’t want to learn, there are plenty of things they can do, but being in a classroom with others who want to learn is not one of them.

Lastly, I would support a 3 strike & you’re out type of law. Have cameras in every classroom. If the student abuse the teacher 3 times, you’re out of the school. Have security monitor those cameras and when they see stuff like that happen, intervene immediately. Teachers shouldn’t need to get physical or deal w/ those kinds of situations. That’s what security is there for. Kids will definitely think twice about the stuff they do if they know they’re being watched and there are harsh consequences for their actions.

[Author]

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