Education Cuts

know1 wrote:

You've got your second vote here.

Thank you, thank you! Unfortunately, I am not old enough to run for president, rich enough, popular enough, and I have long hair (which I don't plan on cutting any time soon) and if you've ever heard my music it's very NOT PC . I ask that you throw all your weight and a reasonable amount of campaign money to my homeboy Ron Paul-- it's the closest you'll get to a VINNY GOOMBA presidency-- actually, I think he'd be slightly better at it than me .

fife wrote:

I also believe that i big reason Education is also cut is due to the fact that youth don't vote. I find it shocking that if you pay attention to the world and the countries that are doing well, they are increasing money on education. Canada and America are falling behind in all rankings in the world concerning education and that is just sicken and bad for our future.

that is CERTAINLY the case up here!
i think the voter turnout was like 30% for people of my generation :roll:

dps79 wrote:

The simplest thought I've had on this is this...for so long now all we've heard is how we are living in a global economy. If that is true then why are we all not spending the same amount of money on education globally? If you have more people that are educated the right way, that would lead to more people obtaining better paying jobs and put more skillful people in the workforce globally. It just seems that the majority (not on this thread) are content with saying to teachers, hey you know what yeah you are responsible to educate kids, you're responsible to babysit too, but if you ask for a penny more we throw shit fit and try to take away your union. I do understand both sides you guys have made here and I truly do appreciate the replies, I'm just trying to get outside of my own opinion and views and try to learn more from other people here and to be exposed to some thoughts I might not have arrived at myself...

YES :thumbup: Well stated Dave. :clap:

"Why in the hell is Education spending cut every time shit hits the fan in this country?"

Having spent 7 years of my working life (though not currently) in public education as a teacher , I'll throw in my two cents worth:

For the most part, public education in America is about training worker bees- training them to punch in and punch out, to perform in a specified manner, to produce specified units of goods or services and to be obedient. For the most part, our public education system does not encourage critical thinking, skepticism or creativity. Teachers are strongly encouraged to follow specified formats. It does not take a lot of money to produce worker bees and apparently it is still easy to find teachers who will work for low professional wages and who accept that they are expected to work within specified parameters.

If this sounds like a bleak description- it is. I've know several teachers who went into that occupation with lofty goals and high expectations for doing something good and useful and eventually found that avenue to be one of futility. I'm a book dealer now. I get to spend at least as much time turning kids on to good reading as I did when I was teaching and no one chews me out for recommending books that happen to be on a banned book list. I make less money, but I'm much more content and the kids always come back for more good reading ideas.

Public Education will never receive proper funding until it becomes respected, honored and actuated as education rather than training and teachers will never be paid as they should until they are asked to be educators rather than trainers and baby sitters.

What everyone needs to understand is that New York and Ontario don't represent education systems everywhere. Of the many, many teachers I've known, I have NEVER known a teacher who made even close to 80 grand, even by the time they retired. The teachers I know can barely afford to retire (unless their spouses have better jobs).

After 30 years of teaching, my mom still makes only about $40,000/year. The state legislature controls educators' annual raises (including mine) and they have not given us one for the past 4 or so years. Instead, they have taken money from our paychecks every year for the past 3 years so the state could use that money for its general fund. The only way for my mom to get a raise is to go back to school and get a master's degree. (She wanted to get one when she did her bachelor's and nearly had enough credits, but her academic advisors and professors told her it would be useless & she had two babies to raise & pay for, so she went straight to work instead.) Since retirement benefits are a percentage of your annual salary averaged over the past few year (and they're trying to make that time frame longer so we get less), she feels like she can't afford to retire unless she gets a master's. And they're telling us now that our retirement fund is facing solvency issues. Oh, and let's not forget that much of the money it takes just to run the classroom - paper & ink for the printer, the printer itself, etc. - comes out of her pocket.

Many of the teachers I have known have had to get second jobs while working and get jobs after retirement just to make ends meet. You know those old people who greet you at Walmart? Start asking around and you'll find that many of them are retired teachers.

My mom gets to work at 7 every day and school lets out around 2:30, but she frequently stays until 5-10 o'clock at night and goes in on the weekends. (I'd like to know, lukin2006, whether or not YOU were at school during nights and weekends and, if not, how can you say anyone else wasn't?) And just because the kids are out of school for three months in the summer doesn't mean the teachers are. She usually ends up getting about 6 weeks off after subtracting all the work that needs to be done to prepare for the next school year, including required meetings starting a month before the school year begins. And that's not counting all the time spent during the summer taking phone calls from kids and their parents. Oh, and those preps & lunches? She spends them either subbing for other teachers' classes to make a little extra cash (I think it comes out to about $10/hour) or helping her students with their schoolwork or social problems. Many days she never even has a chance to eat her own lunch; she sure as hell doesn't have all kinds of spare time with nothing to do.

This has been the experience of all the teachers I have known.

In addition to all the work she officially does for school, my mom spends countless hours helping out her students and former students with social issues. They call her at night, on weekends, and in the summer when they can't get along with their parents or foster parents. She buys them meals when they haven't eaten in days. She gives them rides to work and to doctor's appointments. She helps them figure out how to get pregnancy tests and birth control. Many of her students are in the foster care system (you know, that system that so many people seem to think is so great, for the unwanted kids that supposedly don't exist). They "age out" at 18 or 19 and essentially get kicked out onto the streets with few resources. Who do you think helps them find jobs and homes once the state stops giving a shit? Their teachers and former teachers, that's who. My mom. All this while being treated like shit from student and the public. All this while oftentimes having to fear for her own safety. She's too old for this shit (and no one should have to be treated as badly as teachers are anyway). But, hey, if she wants a decent retirement so, after sacrificing for kids for 30 years, she doesn't have to be an old lady facing down violent, grown students because she's too broke to retire into safety, I guess she's just fucking selfish, right? :roll:

Sure, there are some teachers who don't care enough about their students. (I guess there are, since there are selfish people in every profession. It doesn't really make sense, though, that a person who cares more about themselves than the kids would stay in a profession where they are not well-respected or well-compensated.) But for people to claim that "teachers" as a whole, or even a majority, don't care about their students is complete and utter bullshit - and it's fucking offensive. Every one of you who sits here writing disrespectful shit about teachers is able to do so only because of the wonderful teachers who taught your snot-nosed, smart-assed selves how to read and write. (I know you were snot-nosed and smart-asses because all kids are snot-nosed and smart-assed at some point.) How quickly people forget those to whom they owe their success.

_ wrote:

What everyone needs to understand is that New York and Ontario don't represent education systems everywhere. Of the many, many teachers I've known, I have NEVER known a teacher who made even close to 80 grand, even by the time they retired. The teachers I know can barely afford to retire (unless their spouses have better jobs).

After 30 years of teaching, my mom still makes only about $40,000/year. The state legislature controls educators' annual raises (including mine) and they have not given us one for the past 4 or so years. Instead, they have taken money from our paychecks every year for the past 3 years so the state could use that money for its general fund. The only way for my mom to get a raise is to go back to school and get a master's degree. (She wanted to get one when she did her bachelor's and nearly had enough credits, but her academic advisors and professors told her it would be useless & she had two babies to raise & pay for, so she went straight to work instead.) Since retirement benefits are a percentage of your annual salary averaged over the past few year (and they're trying to make that time frame longer so we get less), she feels like she can't afford to retire unless she gets a master's. And they're telling us now that our retirement fund is facing solvency issues. Oh, and let's not forget that much of the money it takes just to run the classroom - paper & ink for the printer, the printer itself, etc. - comes out of her pocket.

Many of the teachers I have known have had to get second jobs while working and get jobs after retirement just to make ends meet. You know those old people who greet you at Walmart? Start asking around and you'll find that many of them are retired teachers.

My mom gets to work at 7 every day and school lets out around 2:30, but she frequently stays until 5-10 o'clock at night and goes in on the weekends. (I'd like to know, lukin2006, whether or not YOU were at school during nights and weekends and, if not, how can you say anyone else wasn't?) And just because the kids are out of school for three months in the summer doesn't mean the teachers are. She usually ends up getting about 6 weeks off after subtracting all the work that needs to be done to prepare for the next school year, including required meetings starting a month before the school year begins. And that's not counting all the time spent during the summer taking phone calls from kids and their parents. Oh, and those preps & lunches? She spends them either subbing for other teachers' classes to make a little extra cash (I think it comes out to about $10/hour) or helping her students with their schoolwork or social problems. Many days she never even has a chance to eat her own lunch; she sure as hell doesn't have all kinds of spare time with nothing to do.

This has been the experience of all the teachers I have known.

In addition to all the work she officially does for school, my mom spends countless hours helping out her students and former students with social issues. They call her at night, on weekends, and in the summer when they can't get along with their parents or foster parents. She buys them meals when they haven't eaten in days. She gives them rides to work and to doctor's appointments. She helps them figure out how to get pregnancy tests and birth control. Many of her students are in the foster care system (you know, that system that so many people seem to think is so great, for the unwanted kids that supposedly don't exist). They "age out" at 18 or 19 and essentially get kicked out onto the streets with few resources. Who do you think helps them find jobs and homes once the state stops giving a shit? Their teachers and former teachers, that's who. My mom. All this while being treated like shit from student and the public. All this while oftentimes having to fear for her own safety. She's too old for this shit (and no one should have to be treated as badly as teachers are anyway). But, hey, if she wants a decent retirement so, after sacrificing for kids for 30 years, she doesn't have to be an old lady facing down violent, grown students because she's too broke to retire into safety, I guess she's just fucking selfish, right? :roll:

Sure, there are some teachers who don't care enough about their students. (I guess there are, since there are selfish people in every profession. It doesn't really make sense, though, that a person who cares more about themselves than the kids would stay in a profession where they are not well-respected or well-compensated.) But for people to claim that "teachers" as a whole, or even a majority, don't care about their students is complete and utter bullshit - and it's fucking offensive. Every one of you who sits here writing disrespectful shit about teachers is able to do so only because of the wonderful teachers who taught your snot-nosed, smart-assed selves how to read and write. (I know you were snot-nosed and smart-asses because all kids are snot-nosed and smart-assed at some point.) How quickly people forget those to whom they owe their success.

Actually I am there at night and they would have to sign in if they were to come in on the weekends, other than the one's who are coaching sports and it's a select few, they are gone by 2:30. The one's who sign in on the weekend is usually the Principle and custodians. I can only speak from personal experience, but from the most part teachers in Ontario have it pretty good, not to mention they are refereed to having one of the best pensions in the world, maybe only Canadian politicians have better.

As for the time off thats how much they get.

They are a very me oriented group...because of the recession and the Ontario deficit the provincial government has approached them about a wage freeze when their current contract expires, we'll see how that plays out, a few I spoke to are not happy about it, so we'll see how it plays out.