School superintendent requests school be turned into prison • Hacker News Board

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#21

Post by anamax » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:18 PM UTC

skimbrel wrote: post #11

TomOfTTB wrote: post #5

First I agree the cost Michigan pays per prisoner is too high. Texas manages to get by at $13,000 per prisoner Michigan shouldn't need $40,000. But that's for all the expenses to keep them alive (room, board, medical, etc...). So the comparison isn't an accurate one. But let me ask this: Michigan is a state where the average teacher makes $57,958 per year BEFORE benefits ( http://www.teacher-world.com/teacher-salary/…

Really? Please don't blame the teachers for this. This line of reasoning has never made any sense to me -- why does everyone blame the public employees and want to take away their (hardly that great when compared to the rest of the country) salary and benefits? The solution isn't to cut them off at the knees; the solution is to raise everyone else up to the same standards. If you want someone to blame for this, start…

> This line of reasoning has never made any sense to me -- why does everyone blame the public employees and want to take away their (hardly that great when compared to the rest of the country) salary and benefits?

Oh really? Public employees are far more likely to have pensions than the rest of us. Public employees earn significantly more too and have greater job security.

We blame them because they have a huge effect on who gets elected, which directly affects how much we have to pay for them.

> If you want someone to blame for this, start with the No Child Left Behind act that forces schools to waste their budgets on meaningless standardized testing,

What's your method for determining whether children are learning? We tried trusting teachers and schools - that didn't work.

> Or you could just go back to the root of the problem and blame the robber barons who, through well-paid lobbyists, have convinced the federal government to dismantle itself and its services year after year since 1980

Education spending steadily increased (after inflation) during that time, so if services went down, it wasn't because of spending.

Note that the US Department of Education was a shadow of its current self in 1980, so if you're going to argue that the federal govt has dismantled itself wrt education, you get to explain why it's much bigger wrt education.

The US govt collects about as much in taxes per person as the "high tax/high services" countries. (The US actually collects significantly more per person than Canada.) Yet, we don't get the services. More money can't solve that problem.

Before you start about rates, they're not the only term in the equation. The US collects a smaller fraction of its economy, but it has a larger economy (per person). And, even with much higher rates, the US has never collected more than 22% of the economy in taxes. The sustainable max appears to be around 20%. (People "adjusted" to the 21.9% and got the number back to 20. That's going to happen when the tax code is used to encourage/discourage.)

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#22

Post by lukejduncan » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:27 PM UTC

anamax wrote: post #19

lukejduncan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former Michigander with family in education I can say that your comment on pension and retirement is wrong. My mom is about to retire and they just officially TOOK AWAY her retirement. Teaching is an interesting profession. In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. We call them incompetent, fire the youngest members of the profession first, underpay them, and then publ…

> In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice. > fire the youngest members of the profession first That's what the teacher's unions demanded in negotation, so if you think that it's wrong....

Teachers Unions are a part of the problem. We need more advocates like Michelle Rhee who both know it's wrong and are in the position to do something about it.

>They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice. I'm not sure where this definition is coming from. By that definition a software engineer isn't a professional.

At least from Wikitionary (better source?) http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/professional_class

1) A social and economic demographic, commonly identified as part of the upper middle class.

2) (plural) the groups in society composed of highly educated professionals

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#23

Post by lukejduncan » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:31 PM UTC

anamax wrote: post #19

lukejduncan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former Michigander with family in education I can say that your comment on pension and retirement is wrong. My mom is about to retire and they just officially TOOK AWAY her retirement. Teaching is an interesting profession. In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. We call them incompetent, fire the youngest members of the profession first, underpay them, and then publ…

> In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice. > fire the youngest members of the profession first That's what the teacher's unions demanded in negotation, so if you think that it's wrong....

Wait, I'm sorry, are you saying teaching isn't a profession?

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#24

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:31 PM UTC

anamax wrote: post #19

lukejduncan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former Michigander with family in education I can say that your comment on pension and retirement is wrong. My mom is about to retire and they just officially TOOK AWAY her retirement. Teaching is an interesting profession. In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. We call them incompetent, fire the youngest members of the profession first, underpay them, and then publ…

> In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice. > fire the youngest members of the profession first That's what the teacher's unions demanded in negotation, so if you think that it's wrong....

[deleted]

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#25

Post by scythe » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:37 PM UTC

anamax wrote: post #19

lukejduncan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former Michigander with family in education I can say that your comment on pension and retirement is wrong. My mom is about to retire and they just officially TOOK AWAY her retirement. Teaching is an interesting profession. In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. We call them incompetent, fire the youngest members of the profession first, underpay them, and then publ…

> In fact, teachers are often treated as if they aren't part of the professional class. They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice. > fire the youngest members of the profession first That's what the teacher's unions demanded in negotation, so if you think that it's wrong....

>They're not. Professionals are liable for malpractice.

Even programmers?

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#26

Post by rapind » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:37 PM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #10

latch wrote: post #6

Kudos to the superintendent for doing his job. Whatever validity you think his point has, there's no doubt he'll get a lot of attention thanks to the clever way he's approached the problem. I'm one of those people that, whenever they hear about economic problems, always thinks individuals are responsible. I want to know, am I wrong? Nowhere does it say you need a house with a spare bedroom and a bathroom for each per…

Most parent that can already do send their kids to private school. But we have to admit that public schools often get the short end of the stick in most state budget discussions. Even if parents contribute more (taxes) it ends up not being used properly. Also, the bigger the house usually means the more taxes you pay to the school board ;p

As an example of improper use, google: tenure public schools

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#27

Post by dasil003 » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:43 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #14

TomOfTTB wrote: post #5

First I agree the cost Michigan pays per prisoner is too high. Texas manages to get by at $13,000 per prisoner Michigan shouldn't need $40,000. But that's for all the expenses to keep them alive (room, board, medical, etc...). So the comparison isn't an accurate one. But let me ask this: Michigan is a state where the average teacher makes $57,958 per year BEFORE benefits ( http://www.teacher-world.com/teacher-salary/…

The HN community generally accepts that companies should expect to pay good developers well. And, the corollary to that is if you're not willing to pay well, don't expect to get good developers.

The problem is that teaching isn't a meritocracy. We talk about how hard it is to evaluate coder skill, but it's infinitely easier than evaluating teacher skill. Throw in institutional, cultural, union factors, and how far-reaching the implications are to every single person in the country, and you can see why it's such a clusterfuck of a problem.

That said, I think teachers are undervalued and scapegoated in society in a lot of ways that certainly harm our ability to produce great teachers.

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#28

Post by hugh3 » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:47 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #14

TomOfTTB wrote: post #5

First I agree the cost Michigan pays per prisoner is too high. Texas manages to get by at $13,000 per prisoner Michigan shouldn't need $40,000. But that's for all the expenses to keep them alive (room, board, medical, etc...). So the comparison isn't an accurate one. But let me ask this: Michigan is a state where the average teacher makes $57,958 per year BEFORE benefits ( http://www.teacher-world.com/teacher-salary/…

The HN community generally accepts that companies should expect to pay good developers well. And, the corollary to that is if you're not willing to pay well, don't expect to get good developers.

You also need to pay good developers better than bad developers, and fire the worst developers, and have competition among companies for the best, and have some way of knowing who the best and worst developers are.

Imagine what the state of the software industry would be like if developers were hired like teachers! Anyone with an appropriate qualification would be given an office and told to write code. Every year their salary would go up. The codebase would get worse and worse, and everybody would complain about it but nobody would ever fix it.

Privatise the whole school system, equip children with generous vouchers, let schools compete for students. Throw in an accreditation scheme and a bunch of compulsory examinations upon graduation if you're concerned about quality. And if you must, throw in a government-run "backup" school just for any students who can't get accepted into any private school. I don't see any drawbacks of this plan.

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#29

Post by hugh3 » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:52 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #27

scott_s wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN community generally accepts that companies should expect to pay good developers well. And, the corollary to that is if you're not willing to pay well, don't expect to get good developers.

The problem is that teaching isn't a meritocracy. We talk about how hard it is to evaluate coder skill, but it's infinitely easier than evaluating teacher skill. Throw in institutional, cultural, union factors, and how far-reaching the implications are to every single person in the country, and you can see why it's such a clusterfuck of a problem. That said, I think teachers are undervalued and scapegoated in society…

The problem is that teaching isn't a meritocracy. We talk about how hard it is to evaluate coder skill, but it's infinitely easier than evaluating teacher skill

The interesting thing is that students know perfectly well who the good and bad teachers are. And really, the school principals should know this as well... and if they don't know then they could easily find out just by sitting in on classes and looking at the students' work. It's not really a big problem for a boss to know how well his individual employees are doing, bosses do that all the time.

Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison

#30

Post by Duff » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 3:57 PM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #10

latch wrote: post #6

Kudos to the superintendent for doing his job. Whatever validity you think his point has, there's no doubt he'll get a lot of attention thanks to the clever way he's approached the problem. I'm one of those people that, whenever they hear about economic problems, always thinks individuals are responsible. I want to know, am I wrong? Nowhere does it say you need a house with a spare bedroom and a bathroom for each per…

Most parent that can already do send their kids to private school. But we have to admit that public schools often get the short end of the stick in most state budget discussions. Even if parents contribute more (taxes) it ends up not being used properly. Also, the bigger the house usually means the more taxes you pay to the school board ;p

Huh?

Public school STUDENTS get the short end of the stick. Public schools as institutions get rich funding streams, second only to Medicaid at the state level.

I'd suggest looking into the $7,500 per student figure as well. Usually when school people look for more money, they lowball that figure by excluding things like capital expenses, administrative expenses and busing.