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California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

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Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#51

Post by aiiane »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #48
aaomidi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we expect schooling to get…cheaper? The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing.

> vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers My 1,500-student public California high school currently lists 7 administration-team members (principal, executive assistant, three assistant principals, school-facilities manager and food-services manager) and 11 administrative-support members (school data-processing specialist, print-center technician, senior-clerical assistant, separate registrar and attendance roles,…

Which of those roles specifically would you say are fluff?

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#52

Post by pclowes »

tyre wrote: post #17
pclowes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Or! People understand that everyone makes mistakes and firing anyone who does only leads to people prioritizing hiding their mistakes vs. fixing them. It’s helpful, whenever you find yourself saying something like, “the only real explanation to me”, to think of a good faith version before assuming that the most cynical take is reality.

I think there are mistakes and then there are mistakes.

There is a point where the postmortem needs to stop being blameless.

Getting things like this wrong is an existential risk to a important institution. We can’t be genuinely concerned about lost faith in institutions and also not hold them to the highest levels of accountability.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross »

aiiane wrote: post #51
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers My 1,500-student public California high school currently lists 7 administration-team members (principal, executive assistant, three assistant principals, school-facilities manager and food-services manager) and 11 administrative-support members (school data-processing specialist, print-center technician, senior-clerical assistant, separate registrar and attendance roles,…

Which of those roles specifically would you say are fluff?

> Which of those roles specifically would you say are fluff?

Food-services manager (it's all oursourced to Aramark), data-processing specialist, print-center technician, senior clerical assistant, one of registrar or attendance, two of site maintenance, one of the network specialists (probably both–one across the district is plenty), and probably at least one of the counselors and the separate social science & athletics person, who should just be one of the physical education teachers. That's about ten people, or a million dollars–minimum–in annual savings.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#55

Post by nxm »

aiiane wrote: post #51
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers My 1,500-student public California high school currently lists 7 administration-team members (principal, executive assistant, three assistant principals, school-facilities manager and food-services manager) and 11 administrative-support members (school data-processing specialist, print-center technician, senior-clerical assistant, separate registrar and attendance roles,…

Which of those roles specifically would you say are fluff?

Can some of the roles be done by fewer individuals? Do you really think there's 0 waste in ever growing schools administrative staff?

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#56

Post by reducesuffering »

xp84 wrote: post #35
mlmonkey wrote: post #31

> California's legislative leaders have known for months but did not make the issue public. Why would they give up a chance to make more money from the people? The government never misses an opportunity to pad its coffers. Reminds me of the CA State Parks department, which squirreled away millions of dollars and then was crying about lack of funding and hence wanted to shut down some parks.

Fun fact: I recently vacationed in Hawaii and couldn’t help but notice, despite groceries costing about 2x, gas there is a dollar cheaper than at home in California. California just can’t get enough tax money.

Not really a fact, more of a bad anecdote. Currently HI gas is just $0.17 cheaper than CA, and I see many CA gas stations at $5.09, just like HI. A decent chunk of that comes from strict CA low pollution refining, you know, to help you breath better...

https://gasprices.aaa.com/state-gas-price-averages/

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#57

Post by gruez »

aaomidi wrote: post #43
oatmeal1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The education system seems one of the only places where vastly improving technology over the past 30 years has not translated to cost savings or improved outcomes.

Why would we expect schooling to get…cheaper? The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing.

>The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing.

Only if you assume if per-teacher productivity can't increase.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#58

Post by SilentM68 »

My Opinion:

Anyone who thinks this is a glitch in the system, or an honest mistake, should shift their mindset and start thinking more like a detective and less like a politician.

California has been steadily declining for years, now. Waste, mismanagement, fraud are commonplace. This needs to be investigated by impartial third parties that can't be bought and paid for whose commitment must be verified via polygraph. Those that are found guilty need to be prosecuted and jailed.

Being that this is California, what will end up happening is that the politicians will end up investigating themselves and miraculously be found not liable.

******

Unbiased-AI Deep Dive:

https://archive.ph/jdyO4

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#59

Post by nyc_data_geek1 »

gruez wrote: post #57
aaomidi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we expect schooling to get…cheaper? The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing.

>The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing. Only if you assume if per-teacher productivity can't increase.

This is not creating widgets or lines of code, not creating a product for consumption, this is fostering the development of inquisitive minds, hopefully encouraging them to become critical thinkers and ultimately the next generation of leaders who will push the bounds of human knowledge further than ever before.

Why would better tools be expected to do enable teachers to do that for more students at a time?

There is a lot of research out there showing worse educational outcomes as class sizes increase. This is one of the areas where wealth disparities in education manifest; rich areas tend to have smaller class sizes, and historically the very rich would pay for private tutors for their kids, whereas poor kids are stuck with bigger class sizes, less individual attention from educators, and typically average worse educational outcomes.

Re: California has more money than projected after admin miscalculated state budget

#60

Post by mertd »

gruez wrote: post #57
aaomidi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we expect schooling to get…cheaper? The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing.

>The vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers. It should be staying in line with inflation or even increasing. Only if you assume if per-teacher productivity can't increase.

What I observe as a parent; 95% of the teacher's job cannot be scaled with technology.
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