Great article. Not really hacker news-worthy though, is it?
Paul Graham, the site founder, has a great interest in education policy, if his essays
http://paulgraham.com/articles.html
are any guide to his interests.
School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
31–40 of 73 posts
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
With the exception of teachers, "professionals" are licensed workers who carry liability for their actions. If a Registered Nurse is negligent in the course of her duties, she can lose her license to work as a nurse and potentially be held personally liable.
Teachers want to called "professionals" when negotiating for pay and benefits, but simultaneously want to retain strict union seniority, guaranteed employment and other benefits more commonly associated with regular civil service and blue-collar workers.
I have a half dozen friends who got laid off from teaching jobs this year. These are really smart, bright people who should not have been let go. In the case of one of my friends ALL of the layoffs in his district could have been avoided had the folks with 30+ years who are eligible to retire at 75% pay decided to do so. In the "professional" world, those folks would have been laid off or forced to retire.
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
They can't be considered "professionals" because they're not held to any professional standards.
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#34"Education funding is being slashed left and right" - uhm no - most states aren't getting the increases they want. The University of Minnesota loves to use this tactic in press releases that their funding was cut, when actually, their increase in funding was cut. I hate politics for the acceptance of lies as standard practice.
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#35Kudos 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…
>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?
Yes. And no. Economic problems arise because of a complex interactions between individuals and institutions. Both share responsibility -- while individuals should never go into a debt that they will likely struggle to repay, institutions shouldn't make it possible, or even easy.
>Nowhere does it say you need a house with a spare bedroom and a bathroom for each person. You aren't entitled to a car, let alone two. It isn't some birthright that you go on vacation or buy a flat screen through credit.
No, it doesn't.
But consider: many people are financially illiterate -- they don't understand just how long it'll take to pay off revolving debt when they are paying interest + 1%, they don't know how to save money, and so on.
And when the credit card company says "don't worry 'bout it, we will give you a year same as cash", they're not going to read the fine print that says if the payment is late even one day the APR resets to 30%.
And when the mortgage company tells them that "housing prices always go up, so you just get the ARM now and refinance later!" they aren't going to think what happens when the bubble bursts.
Now, those people must share some of the blame, not only for what happens to them but what they do to everyone else. But at the same time, we need to ask two important questions:
1. How do we get people to stop living paycheck to paycheck and on easy credit, and start learning to save money, read the fine print, and understand finances?
2. How do we get institutions to provide a more critical evaluation of a persons finances before they offer them a huge loan, both in bad times and in good?
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#36First 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/…
If having good teachers is a priority, then teachers should earn whatever is required to lure qualified people away from private-sector employment.
Public sector teachers make more than private sector teachers.
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 effec…
> 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.
So you're saying public employees are one of the few segments of the US population who have enough input on how they're compensated (via electoral control of their bosses). If private-sector workers are unable to negotiate comparable compensation for their work, then maybe we should blame labor practices in the private sector. Unionized industries aside, compensation is almost entirely at the discretion of the employer. Isn't that a little screwed up? Again, what I am saying here is that the solution to "hey, those public employees have a better deal" is not "take it away from them", because nobody wins in that case. Instead, demand the same deal from your employer. It really wouldn't hurt their bottom line that much.
> What's your method for determining whether children are learning? We tried trusting teachers and schools - that didn't work.
I will admit that I don't have a real answer to this. But I am a fairly recent graduate of the public education system (finished high school in 2006) and I can tell you that 90% of my graduating class managed to pass the tests but were still complete idiots who couldn't think for themselves. (Sadly, I could say this about at least a few of my fellow UC Berkeley 2010 graduates as well.)
Mandating testing gets you graduates who are good at passing tests. Tests are not the real world.
> 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.
Okay, then how do we solve it? For one, we could stop spending a trillion dollars per year on our military. Beyond that, we could probably eliminate a lot of bureaucracy. My high school had a principal and three assistant principals for 900 students. Probably a little unnecessary.
Teachers are not the ones to penalize here, dammit. When I have kids, I damn well want their teachers to be well-paid and happy with their jobs. Forty hours per week for thirteen years is a huge amount of time, and there's a lot that can be done to screw up a kid in that time.
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#38"Education funding is being slashed left and right" - uhm no - most states aren't getting the increases they want. The University of Minnesota loves to use this tactic in press releases that their funding was cut, when actually, their increase in funding was cut. I hate politics for the acceptance of lies as standard practice.
The University of California and California State University are facing a one billion (yes, that's billion with a b) dollar cut from their EXISTING level of state funding. That is not a lie. That is education funding being slashed.
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/Revised/BudgetSummary/HigherEd...
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#39"Education funding is being slashed left and right" - uhm no - most states aren't getting the increases they want. The University of Minnesota loves to use this tactic in press releases that their funding was cut, when actually, their increase in funding was cut. I hate politics for the acceptance of lies as standard practice.
Pennsylvania's state budget is currently proposing a $1 billion cut to the education budget.
http://www.paschoolfunding.org/2011/05/2011-2012-budget-upda...
And this isn't about not getting increases--program funding is getting rolled back, and some program funding is getting cut entirely.
Re: School superintendent requests school be turned into prison
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 effec…
> 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.
Good benefits yes, good salary, not so much: http://www.onlinedegrees.org/calculator/degrees/education
for instance. I really have no idea how people complain that teachers are overpaid. It beats picking lettuce, but consider the opportunity cost of a bachelors and a teaching certificate. They could be making a lot more money if they were doing anything else.