Posting Towards Gomorrah

[SlaveNoMore]

Sidd Finch
Man, I hate running into fats in transit. Their flab pours over the armrest and into my chair.

I always figured you for more of a Trans-Am guy.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Ty - sometimes you are just cruel. First I say:



quote:
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Originally posted by Spanky
Testing and small class sized seem like a no brainer to me, but in California smaller class sizes has no support from either side of the aisle. This is not a partisan thing, just no one supports it.
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Then you response is:

I would suggest that one reason that teachers' unions seem to have so much influence is that educational policy is hard, abstruse stuff, and that people who care in the abstract about the issue have a hard time figuring out how to translate their interest into political action. I would vote for political candidates who were going to improve the schools, but I don't think they (a) know how to do it, and (b) know how to sell that in a political campaign.

This leaves the field wide open for the unions to assert their own self-interest.
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You respond to my question of why smaller class size has no support but then you don't answer the question. I think you are going to clear up this baffling mystery and then you don't.

You would think the Teacher's Unions would want smaller class sizes. Wouldn't you? If you were a teacher wouldn't you want less students? And why would Republicans be against small class sizes? Republicans are always pushing for more money to go to the classroom and not the bueracracy. What better way to make sure money is spent on the class room than forcing smaller class sizes? This seemed something obvious everyone could agree on, and for a while they did.

So why did everyone get together and push through small class sizes for elementary schools but then let it go for Junior High and High School? Could it really be what they told me that some stupid study showed it didn't help and they all dropped? Are there more sinister forces at work? Why did this happen Ty? Why Ty Why?

I don't know. I would think that if any reform could attract support, it would be smaller classes.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I don't know. I would think that if any reform could attract support, it would be smaller classes.

Smaller classes = more teachers = bigger, more powerful union. Seems like a no-brainer if you're the union.

That the new people would be less likely to be qualified is just icing for the unions and democrats who hate our children and America.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I don't know. I would think that if any reform could attract support, it would be smaller classes.

Exactly. It seems just crazy. How could anyone be against smaller classes? It must be something in the water in Sacramento. My sister thinks it is because of the lizard people.

[Penske_Account]

The Demos and their shit bag union comrades ruined public education in America.

You liberals should be ashamed of yourselves and any defense of the demos is even more embarassing.

So sad.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Smaller classes = more teachers = bigger, more powerful union. Seems like a no-brainer if you're the union.

Yes and more dues. So why didn't they keep pushing? Why did they stop at elementary schools? Smaller class sizes must be really bad for some special interest group, I just haven't figured out who it is yet.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes and more dues. So why didn't they keep pushing? Why did they stop at elementary schools? Smaller class sizes must be really bad for some special interest group, I just haven't figured out who it is yet.

Prison guards?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes and more dues. So why didn't they keep pushing? Why did they stop at elementary schools? Smaller class sizes must be really bad for some special interest group, I just haven't figured out who it is yet.

with larger class sizes the teachers can only medicate the square pegs, not tend to them. the drug companies are fighting the smaller class sizes.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes and more dues. So why didn't they keep pushing? Why did they stop at elementary schools? Smaller class sizes must be really bad for some special interest group, I just haven't figured out who it is yet.

The coalition of people who hate America's children and want to see its future be one of subjugation by the Islamofacist hordes, i.e. the Howard Pelosian DNC.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
The coalition of people who hate America's children and want to see its future be one of subjugation by the Islamofacist hordes, i.e. the Howard Pelosian DNC.

The problem with that theory is that the Republicans aren't complaining the program was discontinued. It seems to be a pretty big conspiracy.

[Spanky]

Education's moving target

By George Will

Common sense and conservatism, which are usually similar, said that the No Child Left Behind law, which vastly expanded the federal government's supervision of education from kindergarten through 12th grade, was problematic for two reasons: A few of the 50 state governors are apt to be wise innovators, so let policymaking remain at state and local levels. And when Washington makes a mistake, as it has been known to do, it is a continental mistake.


The federal government has recently made one that subverts a promising development in education at the state level. That development is the 65 percent requirement: 65 percent of every school district's education operational budget should be spent on classroom instruction.


Nationally, 61.3 percent is so spent. The 3.7 percentage point difference amounts to nearly $15 billion, which could pay for 370,000 teachers at $40,000 apiece, or a computer for every K-12 student in the country. Only three states today hit the 65 percent target. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia spend less than 60 percent.


Although Georgia already was at 63.6 percent, Gov. Sonny Perdue won passage of a 65 percent requirement. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed legislation making 65 percent "the public policy goal of the state of Kansas." Texas Gov. Rick Perry did it by executive order.


Louisiana's legislature unanimously asked the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to enact the 65 percent goal. (It has not yet done so.) In Colorado, an initiative to mandate 65 percent is on the November ballot. Signatures are being gathered to put such an initiative on Oregon's 2008 ballot. When Minnesota's Democratic-controlled Senate blocked passage of a 65 percent requirement, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty called for a 70 percent requirement. Republican gubernatorial candidates in Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin endorse the idea.


But in July the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Education Department, undermined this national effort. A report on expenditures for public elementary and secondary education for the 2003-04 school year contained this finding: "The percentage of current expenditures spent on instruction and instruction-related activities was 66.1 percent in 2003-04 for the nation as a whole" (emphasis added). Seasoned students of government verbiage noted the suspiciously vague phrase "instruction-related activities."


Opacity is a sign of insincerity: Government language becomes opaque as the government's conscience becomes uneasy. When no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were found, the U.S. government began speaking foggily of finding "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."


Now that Americans' concern is shifting from how much money is spent on education to how much education the money is buying, government has blurred the measurement in a way that says 66.1 percent of education dollars already reach the classroom. If the "instruction-related" criterion is not added, the percentage of dollars devoted to instruction has declined for five consecutive years, to 61.3.


The 65 percent standard requires transparency from state education establishments, which may explain resistance to it. In Oregon, the House majority leader and chairman of the education committee have asked school districts for documentation of spending patterns, but no district has responded. A state senator says a lobbyist for the Oregon School Boards Association told him that he had asked them not to respond.


Perhaps Oregon's school bureaucrats are similar to Oklahoma's. The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a think tank, asked all 539 school districts for spending details such as the number of employees making more than $75,000 a year; payments for lobbying and public relations; information as to whether competitive bidding was required for maintenance, food and transportation services; and the number of automobiles owned or reimbursed by the districts. (Many districts purchase vehicle insurance through the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, which can spend the profits it makes from this on lobbying the legislature and whose members have gone to court to keep a 65 percent requirement off this November's ballot.) Two-thirds of Oklahoma's districts have not responded.


Warren Buffett has written that "yardsticks seldom are discarded while yielding favorable readings," but when readings are unfavorable, "a more flexible measurement system often suggests itself: Just shoot the arrow of business performance into a blank canvas and then carefully draw the bull's-eye around the implanted arrow."


No Child Left Behind supposedly promotes education accountability by mandating reliable data to measure progress. But Washington looks like an untrustworthy manipulator of data when it uses the phrase "instruction-related activity" to draw a bull's-eye around the status quo.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
Education's moving target

By George Will

Common sense and conservatism, which are usually similar, said that the No Child Left Behind law, which vastly expanded the federal government's supervision of education from kindergarten through 12th grade, was problematic for two reasons: A few of the 50 state governors are apt to be wise innovators, so let policymaking remain at state and local levels. And when Washington makes a mistake, as it has been known to do, it is a continental mistake.


The federal government has recently made one that subverts a promising development in education at the state level. That development is the 65 percent requirement: 65 percent of every school district's education operational budget should be spent on classroom instruction.


Nationally, 61.3 percent is so spent. The 3.7 percentage point difference amounts to nearly $15 billion, which could pay for 370,000 teachers at $40,000 apiece, or a computer for every K-12 student in the country. Only three states today hit the 65 percent target. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia spend less than 60 percent.


Although Georgia already was at 63.6 percent, Gov. Sonny Perdue won passage of a 65 percent requirement. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed legislation making 65 percent "the public policy goal of the state of Kansas." Texas Gov. Rick Perry did it by executive order.


Louisiana's legislature unanimously asked the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to enact the 65 percent goal. (It has not yet done so.) In Colorado, an initiative to mandate 65 percent is on the November ballot. Signatures are being gathered to put such an initiative on Oregon's 2008 ballot. When Minnesota's Democratic-controlled Senate blocked passage of a 65 percent requirement, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty called for a 70 percent requirement. Republican gubernatorial candidates in Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin endorse the idea.


But in July the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Education Department, undermined this national effort. A report on expenditures for public elementary and secondary education for the 2003-04 school year contained this finding: "The percentage of current expenditures spent on instruction and instruction-related activities was 66.1 percent in 2003-04 for the nation as a whole" (emphasis added). Seasoned students of government verbiage noted the suspiciously vague phrase "instruction-related activities."


Opacity is a sign of insincerity: Government language becomes opaque as the government's conscience becomes uneasy. When no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were found, the U.S. government began speaking foggily of finding "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."


Now that Americans' concern is shifting from how much money is spent on education to how much education the money is buying, government has blurred the measurement in a way that says 66.1 percent of education dollars already reach the classroom. If the "instruction-related" criterion is not added, the percentage of dollars devoted to instruction has declined for five consecutive years, to 61.3.


The 65 percent standard requires transparency from state education establishments, which may explain resistance to it. In Oregon, the House majority leader and chairman of the education committee have asked school districts for documentation of spending patterns, but no district has responded. A state senator says a lobbyist for the Oregon School Boards Association told him that he had asked them not to respond.


Perhaps Oregon's school bureaucrats are similar to Oklahoma's. The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a think tank, asked all 539 school districts for spending details such as the number of employees making more than $75,000 a year; payments for lobbying and public relations; information as to whether competitive bidding was required for maintenance, food and transportation services; and the number of automobiles owned or reimbursed by the districts. (Many districts purchase vehicle insurance through the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, which can spend the profits it makes from this on lobbying the legislature and whose members have gone to court to keep a 65 percent requirement off this November's ballot.) Two-thirds of Oklahoma's districts have not responded.


Warren Buffett has written that "yardsticks seldom are discarded while yielding favorable readings," but when readings are unfavorable, "a more flexible measurement system often suggests itself: Just shoot the arrow of business performance into a blank canvas and then carefully draw the bull's-eye around the implanted arrow."


No Child Left Behind supposedly promotes education accountability by mandating reliable data to measure progress. But Washington looks like an untrustworthy manipulator of data when it uses the phrase "instruction-related activity" to draw a bull's-eye around the status quo.

Wow. First time I've seen him make sense.

If I had my way, I'd fire all the administrators and let the teachers run the places. I'm sure they could manage the schools among them at a fraction of the cost of the administrative salaries. Throw a "Dean" title around here or there, give a $5000 bonus for taking on administrative tasks, and rotate the top responsibilities.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Wow. First time I've seen him make sense.

so this gives you hope to encourage you to keep posting? I suppose it's only electrons and your time. both have a net value of nil so go to it.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Wow. First time I've seen him make sense.

If I had my way, I'd fire all the administrators and let the teachers run the places. I'm sure they could manage the schools among them at a fraction of the cost of the administrative salaries. Throw a "Dean" title around here or there, give a $5000 bonus for taking on administrative tasks, and rotate the top responsibilities.

You have obviously never run a school. Stick to socking, at least you have most of the simpletons here fooled on that score.

[SlaveNoMore]

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Wow. First time I've seen him make sense.

If I had my way, I'd fire all the administrators and let the teachers run the places. I'm sure they could manage the schools among them at a fraction of the cost of the administrative salaries. Throw a "Dean" title around here or there, give a $5000 bonus for taking on administrative tasks, and rotate the top responsibilities.

Like most of these "tenured' teachers have a clue.

I'd fire everyone, torch all the schools and sell the property off to the highest bidders, dramatically cut taxes and make education a private concern.