sam callahan said:

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I present to you the $400,000,000 stadium that Beaumont United plays in (operating and maintenance costs not included).



Their latest test scores show 22% proficiency at reading and 6% at math.

That's on reading and math tests that were probably easy for 8th graders in the 1950s.

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Calling a football stadium an "Educational Support Center" has got to be one of the greatest levels of chutzpah I've ever seen.

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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BusterAg said:

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schmellba99 said:

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Lots of blame to go around, but some of the biggest contributing factors IMO:

1. Almost every administrator has zero real world experience. By "real world" I mean experience managing anything outside of the education bubble. They use stale and often many times over failed principles. More value is placed on how many degrees most admin managers have versus actual experience managing.
2. Zero incentive for anybody to really do more than the bare minimum. Zero incentive to save money, zero real bonus incentives outside of the superintendents.
3. Top heavy - by a huge margin - admin versus staff.
4. Parents don't parent for the most part. Little perfect didntdunuffin can do no wrong. About 90% of teachers and administrators' dime is spent dealing with 10% of the students, and those are typically the bottom 10% who cause problems routinely.
5. We have outlawed the idea that breaking kids up by their capabilities is a good thing. So you have ******s in with very smart kids, and the smart kids are the ones that suffer ultimately.
6. Money is tied to attendance, so that is the main objective - not learning, not performance, not discipline - just make sure butts are in the seat so that check can come rolling in from the state and feds.
7. Money is tied to special ed, so any and all effort is made to classify students as special ed no matter what.
8. TEA. It needs to die.
9. Supers need to get a backbone and start telling the TEA, parents, etc. to pound sand and focus on what the school exists for.

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#3 and #4 is 80% of the problem.

Fix class discipline issues by keeping kids accountable, and reduce taxes by reducing the number of administrators, and things work much better.

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Top heavy is mostly due to federal special education mandates/laws. Our ESC is probably 40% devoted to special education services. That doesn't include campus level people.

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Yeah, you point to another huge problem: something like 15% of all Texas public school students are considered "special ed". That is not OK. In the words of Buddy Pine: if everyone is special, no one is.

aTmAg said:

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zooguy96 said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

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Yeah, that person had obviously never been in a classroom full of students who don't want to to be there. Larger class size…..lolololol.

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LOL.. you think that a smaller class size with crappier teachers would make them want to be there? No wonder our schools are failing, you guys have no idea what the hell you are doing.

You know how you make them want to be there? By ACTUALLY PUNISHING THEM for not doing their work and booting them out of school if they are disruptive. When I was in elementary school, I didn't go to recess if I didn't finish my morning work, and I had to stay after school each day that I didn't get my work done for the day. Guess what? Students busted their asses to get their work done by the time school was out. Amazing how that works!

And if the student was disruptive? They were GONE. For good. So guess what? Parents made damn sure their kids were not disruptive. Weird how that works too!

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Except none of that happens. Students don't get punished for not doing work. A lot of schools are moving to giving them a 50. Students aren't booted for being disruptive. There are only so many spots at the alternative school, and once they are filled, you are stuck with the students. Schools don't want to get rid of students because of $$$. So all of the things you are proposing don't actually happen in real situations. It would be nice if they did, but they don't.

Well...their school motto is "Excellence is NOT a choice"

so...

sam callahan said:

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I present to you the $400,000,000 stadium that Beaumont United plays in (operating and maintenance costs not included).



Their latest test scores show 22% proficiency at reading and 6% at math.

That's on reading and math tests that were probably easy for 8th graders in the 1950s.

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I believe it was around $50M to build, not $400M

That would explain their 22% reading proficiency.

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I believe it was around $50M to build, not $400M

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you are correct.

School choice fixes a lot of these problems.

Once school districts realize that the standard student that doesn't receive any special funding has the ability to move out of the school district if they don't actually do something for them, the incentives of the administrators change drastically.

Now, instead of trying to look for every additional federal dollar related to special education, ESL, etc. to increase their revenue, they have to start providing better service to the general population, or gen pop starts to go away, hitting their bottom line.

Put yourself in the shoes of an admin that has to decide whether or not to increase class sizes by 5% in order to make room for a new federally supported program.

Without school choice, the decision is a no brainer. The general pop students are not going anywhere, and the new program gives me more money, which makes admin salaries go higher. Screw gen pop, let's train our teachers on how to add 4 + 3 using hieroglyphics so that we can get more federal money.

With school chose, that federal hieroglyphics money doesn't look to promising, as you will lose as much revenue to parents moving their elementary kid to a school that teaches math using Arabic numbers as you would gain from the federal grant.

sam callahan said:

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I've waited for your alternatives, I also guess you can't come up with one that doesn't require motivated students and parents?

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My alternatives to what? Actual education or solving all the problems we are tasking our schools with?

I suppose either way it's the same answer. Moves toward personal responsibility. The more serious you are, the bigger and faster the movements required.

We are subsidizing all sorts of bad behavior and like the old saying goes, we are getting more of it.

Do you not see how we have tried to use the school system to make-up for parenting failures more and more over the years?

Look at just one area: food. We went from kids packing lunches in a pail...to well, not everyone has the same lunch, so we need to start providing them....to we need to feed them a hot lunch...to well, we need to subsidize the lunch cost for some...to well, we need free lunches...to we need to offer breakfast, too...and of course those have to be subsidized and free...to hey, if our school has a high enough percentage of free lunch students then we qualify for all the extra federal programs, so lets do no-verification apps and beg our families to sign-up...to hey, we have such a high number of people on free lunch that we should make it free for everyone...breakfast, too...and you know what, let's start sending them home with food on the weekend.

Mission creep has been immensely destructive. You are training generations of kids that it's the government's job to feed them and because its run with other peoples money through a monopolistic system and lacks market forces, it provides a low quality product. You aren't helping the families financially as you are divorcing them from responsibility and freeing up cash for amusement park tickets or liquor store runs.

So we set out to help a couple of kids have a better lunch and ended up spreading a lot of misery around to everyone. And that's how the whole system will inherently go.

I don't know why we can all (most of us anyway) see that city run grocery stores are a bad idea, but somehow expect schools will end up differently.

And as for your point on socialization, how is that working out for you?

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Better than any alternative. You can't send 12 yr olds or 16 yr olds into the military. You leave them on the streets and "feral" behavior as well as emotional/psychological issues get worse.

Ending free lunch? Thats is a somewhat related ($$$) problem, but not at the core of annswering what Sam is going to do with these kids for (at least) 6 or 7 years.

Again, I don't have a better answer and freely admit it. I left education for a reason (check my name) for a reason and it wasn't warm fuzzies.

Again, what is your alternative? I think you said the words to the effect that we were focusing on kids who don't want to be there. OK, so what do we do with them?

HTownAg98 said:

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aTmAg said:

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t_J_e_C_x said:

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aTmAg said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

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To the contrary, the fact that you don't recognize this basic fact points the finger of idiocy at you. Take it to the extreme to recognize how wrong you are:

Why not hire one teacher for EVERY student? Each student gets INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION! And best of all, the teachers unions are ecstatic! The problem? 99% of those teachers will suck, as they would have to lower standards to a ridiculous level to hire that many. And that doesn't even go into the ridiculous cost that such a system would impose on society.

There is a point between 8B students per teacher and 1 student per teacher that is the peak. Where is that peak? It sure as hell is not where we have it today. How do I know? Because our schools have been reducing class sizes for many years and our education keeps getting worse and more expensive. A rule of thumb is this: if a union is behind a given policy, it is likely wrong.

How should these sort of things get set? By complete privatization. Schools that find the magic formula will thrive, and those that do not will fail. Will it be 300 students like in college? Probably not, but only competition can say for sure.

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You really couldn't be more wrong about all of this. What data or facts do you have to show that schools have been reducing class sizes and failing? I work in education and, while the goal is smaller classes (which historically do better), they have been getting larger.

You think the state of Texas and local ISD bureaucracies are going to pay the kind of sums necessary to keep high performing teachers for a 300 person classroom? Forget the massive behaviors that'll happen and the loss of instruction on practically every child. You're willing to stimy an entire generation of young, dependant learners on an education model that is used to support students who have had 12+ years of education, maturity, growth, and development?

Brother good luck.

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First of all, did you actually READ my post? I didn't say we should simply push class sizes up to 300 students. That was an example. And BTW, you suck at math. You don't understand that paying far fewer teachers costs less than paying more? Even at higher salaries?

And do a grok search. It will give you all the sources you need to understand that you are wrong. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, among many others, class sizes have been shrinking across America over many decades.

And talk about stymying a generation. You guys have done that to GENERATIONS. Go watch Tim Cook's comment about the education difference between here and China. No longer is it about cheap labor in China. He says that for any given narrow and highly valued skill, they could fill football stadiums full of experts. Where we have almost nobody (and they are probably pretty damned old now).

A free market education system is the only way to reverse the decline of our education system. Get government out of it. They suck at everything they do.

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This is what happens when you rely on AI to either confirm your priors or don't understand the data. Would you like to take a guess at why the data shows classroom sizes are decreasing? The answer is because of all the SPED classes that have 5-6 kids in them pulls that average down, and with the emphasis on SPED education over the past 30 years, you have more and more small classes for those kids, and those small class sizes skew the average downward. This is why average classroom size and teacher:student ratio data is bunk.
Go ask any core curriculum public school teacher in the state of Texas if their classes have gotten bigger, smaller, or stayed the same. I bet I could count on one hand the ones that would say they've gotten smaller.

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This I beliieve with the addition that there is so much demand for SPED that many end up back mainstreamed in a regular class, despite requiring a lot of additional attention and sometimes being very disruptive.

HTownAg98 said:

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aTmAg said:

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t_J_e_C_x said:

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aTmAg said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

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To the contrary, the fact that you don't recognize this basic fact points the finger of idiocy at you. Take it to the extreme to recognize how wrong you are:

Why not hire one teacher for EVERY student? Each student gets INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION! And best of all, the teachers unions are ecstatic! The problem? 99% of those teachers will suck, as they would have to lower standards to a ridiculous level to hire that many. And that doesn't even go into the ridiculous cost that such a system would impose on society.

There is a point between 8B students per teacher and 1 student per teacher that is the peak. Where is that peak? It sure as hell is not where we have it today. How do I know? Because our schools have been reducing class sizes for many years and our education keeps getting worse and more expensive. A rule of thumb is this: if a union is behind a given policy, it is likely wrong.

How should these sort of things get set? By complete privatization. Schools that find the magic formula will thrive, and those that do not will fail. Will it be 300 students like in college? Probably not, but only competition can say for sure.

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You really couldn't be more wrong about all of this. What data or facts do you have to show that schools have been reducing class sizes and failing? I work in education and, while the goal is smaller classes (which historically do better), they have been getting larger.

You think the state of Texas and local ISD bureaucracies are going to pay the kind of sums necessary to keep high performing teachers for a 300 person classroom? Forget the massive behaviors that'll happen and the loss of instruction on practically every child. You're willing to stimy an entire generation of young, dependant learners on an education model that is used to support students who have had 12+ years of education, maturity, growth, and development?

Brother good luck.

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First of all, did you actually READ my post? I didn't say we should simply push class sizes up to 300 students. That was an example. And BTW, you suck at math. You don't understand that paying far fewer teachers costs less than paying more? Even at higher salaries?

And do a grok search. It will give you all the sources you need to understand that you are wrong. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, among many others, class sizes have been shrinking across America over many decades.

And talk about stymying a generation. You guys have done that to GENERATIONS. Go watch Tim Cook's comment about the education difference between here and China. No longer is it about cheap labor in China. He says that for any given narrow and highly valued skill, they could fill football stadiums full of experts. Where we have almost nobody (and they are probably pretty damned old now).

A free market education system is the only way to reverse the decline of our education system. Get government out of it. They suck at everything they do.

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This is what happens when you rely on AI to either confirm your priors or don't understand the data. Would you like to take a guess at why the data shows classroom sizes are decreasing? The answer is because of all the SPED classes that have 5-6 kids in them pulls that average down, and with the emphasis on SPED education over the past 30 years, you have more and more small classes for those kids, and those small class sizes skew the average downward. This is why average classroom size and teacher:student ratio data is bunk.
Go ask any core curriculum public school teacher in the state of Texas if their classes have gotten bigger, smaller, or stayed the same. I bet I could count on one hand the ones that would say they've gotten smaller.

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A single classroom out of so many is not toing to bring that average down much. And the average had been decreasing prior to the SPED push.

zooguy96 said:

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aTmAg said:

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zooguy96 said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

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Yeah, that person had obviously never been in a classroom full of students who don't want to to be there. Larger class size…..lolololol.

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LOL.. you think that a smaller class size with crappier teachers would make them want to be there? No wonder our schools are failing, you guys have no idea what the hell you are doing.

You know how you make them want to be there? By ACTUALLY PUNISHING THEM for not doing their work and booting them out of school if they are disruptive. When I was in elementary school, I didn't go to recess if I didn't finish my morning work, and I had to stay after school each day that I didn't get my work done for the day. Guess what? Students busted their asses to get their work done by the time school was out. Amazing how that works!

And if the student was disruptive? They were GONE. For good. So guess what? Parents made damn sure their kids were not disruptive. Weird how that works too!

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Except none of that happens. Students don't get punished for not doing work. A lot of schools are moving to giving them a 50. Students aren't booted for being disruptive. There are only so many spots at the alternative school, and once they are filled, you are stuck with the students. Schools don't want to get rid of students because of $$$. So all of the things you are proposing don't actually happen in real situations. It would be nice if they did, but they don't.

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And guess what? If all schools were privatized, then this would no longer be the case. Students would get punished and booted. Why? Because no paying customer would tolerate their kids getting a crappy education because some brat is disrupting the class. Schools would lose more money than gain by keeping these idiots around.

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but not at the core of annswering what Sam is going to do with these kids for (at least) 6 or 7 years.

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The core is you think it's my problem to solve. My answer is that even if I wanted to, I can't do it for them, and neither can anyone else.

Children that age need parents. The government can't be a good parent. The government trying to be a good parent makes worse parents and worse children.

You aren't advocating for public schooling. You are advocating for public child rearing.

If you are insisting that the state provide daycare, call it daycare and be done with it. But quit conflating it with education.

It's not just one class, it's multiple classes. A school of any size doesn't have one SPED class, they have many because so many kids are now classified as SPED. And while classroom sizes may have been shrinking over many decades, they definitely have not over the past 20 years, especially in core curriculum in Texas.

sam callahan said:

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but not at the core of annswering what Sam is going to do with these kids for (at least) 6 or 7 years.

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The core is you think it's my problem to solve. My answer is that even if I wanted to, I can't do it for them, and neither can anyone else.

Children that age need parents. The government can't be a good parent. The government trying to be a good parent makes worse parents and worse children.

You aren't advocating for public schooling. You are advocating for public child rearing.

If you are insisting that the state provide daycare, call it daycare and be done with it. But quit conflating it with education.

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I think one of the things we could do is to do what Mississippi did to get their scores up. They started requiring reading proficiency in third grade. They hired reading coaches, trained their teachers how to effectively teach reading, and most importantly, held students back if they didn't pass the proficiency test. And believe me, Mississippi has a similar cultural and demographic problem as Texas does. The compounded problem that Texas has is kids that don't read English at all in Kindergarten. If we as a state wanted to get serious about making the system better, doing something like a third grade reading proficiency would go a long way in improving things. But it's going to take money, and the state has proven time and again to **** on schools when it comes to funding the right things.

HTownAg98 said:

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It's not just one class, it's multiple classes. A school of any size doesn't have one SPED class, they have many because so many kids are now classified as SPED. And while classroom sizes may have been shrinking over many decades, they definitely have not over the past 20 years, especially in core curriculum in Texas.

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Still wouldn't account for the stats. Again, they started going down well before that.

The reality is, public education isn't going away. Voters have demanded it and asked it to do lots of functions and that won't change.

But its shortcomings are driving people to alternatives and that will in turn put pressure on public schools to compete.

That competition will take one of two forms. Either they will have to find the fortitude to change the things we know need changing or they will have to handicap the alternatives with the same (or worse) burdensome regulations they deal with.

My gut and experience say it will be the latter. One malnourished child will be the rallying cry for homeschool inspections/reporting.

But sometimes I see glimpses of hope for the former, like the recent cell phone ban.

The other good news is that there are a lot of innovative ideas flourishing in private education.

My son started some classes in a coop two years ago.

It's a group of former teachers and other professionals that are/were involved in homeschooling their kids. A wide range of subjects are taught and families decide which classes to enroll their kids.

This year, I started teaching Physics. I get paid based on the number of students that sign-up for my class. I also charge a lab fee. If the kids hate my class, my enrollment will go down. If the parents think the kids aren't learning, enrollment will go down. If I don't manage disruptions in my class, enrollment will go down. If I don't spend enough on labs, people will balk at the fee. If I spend it on the wrong things, my labs won't be as good and enrollment will go down. It's very much a market-driven and results-based enterprise.

This model isn't a panacea. But it's definitely part of the potential answer towards progress. It also requires breaking free of the one size fits all model.

MasonB said:

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The reality is, public education isn't going away.

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Then our education will continue to decay, our skills will fall behind, and future generations will suffer more and more.

It's that simple.

MasonB said:

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The reality is, public education isn't going away. Voters have demanded it and asked it to do lots of functions and that won't change.

But its shortcomings are driving people to alternatives and that will in turn put pressure on public schools to compete.

That competition will take one of two forms. Either they will have to find the fortitude to change the things we know need changing or they will have to handicap the alternatives with the same (or worse) burdensome regulations they deal with.

My gut and experience say it will be the latter. One malnourished child will be the rallying cry for homeschool inspections/reporting.

But sometimes I see glimpses of hope for the former, like the recent cell phone ban.

The other good news is that there are a lot of innovative ideas flourishing in private education.

My son started some classes in a coop two years ago.

It's a group of former teachers and other professionals that are/were involved in homeschooling their kids. A wide range of subjects are taught and families decide which classes to enroll their kids.

This year, I started teaching Physics. I get paid based on the number of students that sign-up for my class. I also charge a lab fee. If the kids hate my class, my enrollment will go down. If the parents think the kids aren't learning, enrollment will go down. If I don't manage disruptions in my class, enrollment will go down. If I don't spend enough on labs, people will balk at the fee. If I spend it on the wrong things, my labs won't be as good and enrollment will go down. It's very much a market-driven and results-based enterprise.

This model isn't a panacea. But it's definitely part of the potential answer towards progress. It also requires breaking free of the one size fits all model.

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It's going to be the latter. You're absolutely right it'll just take 1 case, and I wouldn't even put a false flag out of the question, to get the governments paws into home schooling.

No way will the government let people succeed in spite of it. Unfortunately since about the 60s we've been a society that caters to the lowest common denominator. The chickens are starting to come home to roost.

It's going to get really spicy when we have to educate our kids in secret in contravention of the state - that is where this road is heading eventually. Not saying our lifetimes. But it'll happen if there isn't a culture change in America.

aTmAg said:

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zooguy96 said:

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aTmAg said:

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zooguy96 said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

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Yeah, that person had obviously never been in a classroom full of students who don't want to to be there. Larger class size…..lolololol.

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LOL.. you think that a smaller class size with crappier teachers would make them want to be there? No wonder our schools are failing, you guys have no idea what the hell you are doing.

You know how you make them want to be there? By ACTUALLY PUNISHING THEM for not doing their work and booting them out of school if they are disruptive. When I was in elementary school, I didn't go to recess if I didn't finish my morning work, and I had to stay after school each day that I didn't get my work done for the day. Guess what? Students busted their asses to get their work done by the time school was out. Amazing how that works!

And if the student was disruptive? They were GONE. For good. So guess what? Parents made damn sure their kids were not disruptive. Weird how that works too!

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Except none of that happens. Students don't get punished for not doing work. A lot of schools are moving to giving them a 50. Students aren't booted for being disruptive. There are only so many spots at the alternative school, and once they are filled, you are stuck with the students. Schools don't want to get rid of students because of $$$. So all of the things you are proposing don't actually happen in real situations. It would be nice if they did, but they don't.

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And guess what? If all schools were privatized, then this would no longer be the case. Students would get punished and booted. Why? Because no paying customer would tolerate their kids getting a crappy education because some brat is disrupting the class. Schools would lose more money than gain by keeping these idiots around.

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Except those kids in the private school won't get kicked out because the parents are paying for it.

1 kid from a wealthy family can ruin it for everyone else. The school is going to do what is best for their bottom line, so the priority is the higher paying families, and donations, not unlike how university is treated.

The other issue with private school, how many of you would have been able to have go to one? Were your parents so well off that you would have been able to go? Savings in property tax isn't that much. Houston has like $10k / yr in property taxes in the area I lived in. That doesn't go to the shool.

School of choice is a good idea except, Southlake Carroll, Allen, Highland Park can't take all the kids outside the area, creating the issues we see today are problems.

The biggest issues is a Republican President (Bush), with Congress passed No Kid Left behind. The states, Texas in Particular, ran by Bush before Presidency, Perry, and now Abbott ( all Rebpublicans) have done nothing to back up school districts. Now it's "my sweet child can do no wrong" (not the liberal's with this mindset), and sue the schools. Schools adjust and adapt and now we can't remove kids because funding is tied to enrollment. School boards are local elected community officials that only care about football coaches, and old folks don't understand how their property taxes work, so vote no on everything despite it helping the kids get out of the abestos filled building that the old folks attended when new, but screw em.


The education system is in shambles and it has nothing to do with wok ideologies but people not actually helping kids. Save the children, except when they are in school.

We are worried about funding, how crap our education is, but don't want to pay teachers, inflate admins who won't stand up for their district to the state, and parents wanting to ban books from a library instead of focusing on preventing school shootings. Y'all have made it a hellscape for education to do any good, and with two kids of my own about to enter this, I have y'all to deal with and your stupid unhelpfulness voting for idiots.

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Lots of blame to go around, but some of the biggest contributing factors IMO:

1. Almost every administrator has zero real world experience. By "real world" I mean experience managing anything outside of the education bubble. They use stale and often many times over failed principles. More value is placed on how many degrees most admin managers have versus actual experience managing.

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This is definitely a problem. There is a real lack of innovation. Some of that problem is tied to state and federal programs that limit options, but also there isn't any way for new ideas to be infused into education management. You have to be an educator to make into management, and most educators only know what they've seen.

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2. Zero incentive for anybody to really do more than the bare minimum. Zero incentive to save money, zero real bonus incentives outside of the superintendents.

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The state is trying to change some of that through programs like the Teacher Incentive Allotment. But, again, really making change requires innovation in a field where there isn't much original thought.

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3. Top heavy - by a huge margin - admin versus staff.

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As was mentioned elsewhere, many of those positions are running required programs. Also, for positions such as curriculum directors, many of the people in those positions don't really know how to make decisions based on data (or how to make sense of the data they have), so they run programs likes medieval witches appealing to magic.

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4. Parents don't parent for the most part. Little perfect didntdunuffin can do no wrong. About 90% of teachers and administrators' dime is spent dealing with 10% of the students, and those are typically the bottom 10% who cause problems routinely.

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Definitely agree with this.

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5. We have outlawed the idea that breaking kids up by their capabilities is a good thing. So you have ******s in with very smart kids, and the smart kids are the ones that suffer ultimately.

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Yes, and add to that putting special education kids into regular ed classes as much as possible (for their self esteem), and providing "support." The regular ed teacher is overwhelmed with the amount of "differentiated instruction" that is required for each class, and often times the support teacher is MIA or just doesn't feel the same level of responsibility that the regular ed teacher has.

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6. Money is tied to attendance, so that is the main objective - not learning, not performance, not discipline - just make sure butts are in the seat so that check can come rolling in from the state and feds.

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Yep. And districts don't want stats that show they have a bunch of discipline problems in their schools.

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7. Money is tied to special ed, so any and all effort is made to classify students as special ed no matter what.

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I'll disagree with you on this one. Yes, there's money there, but the process and time spent per SPED student probably makes the juice not worth the squeeze. There have been a few news stories about how Texas as a state seems to be under-reporting SPED students.

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8. TEA. It needs to die.

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Honestly, no opinion on this one. TEA is good and bad.

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9. Supers need to get a backbone and start telling the TEA, parents, etc. to pound sand and focus on what the school exists for.

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This is probably true. But the people they have to tell is the board, and the board is who determines if they keep that high-paying job.

Two other thoughts:
1. The teaching profession has been so maligned that nobody wants to teach. Districts are struggling to find teachers, especially certified teachers. It creates a problem because the state wants districts to have certified teachers (although charters and private schools don't have the same requirements). So as easy as it sounds to "get rid of bad teachers," it exacerbates an already strained system. (Unions in Texas don't have much say in teacher contracts, but state policy and legal interpretations also make it more difficult to let bad teachers go.) Until teaching becomes a desirable profession again, schools will keep getting bottom-of-the-barrel teachers.

2. K-12 Education is probably the area that higher education affects most. College professors, many of whom have little to no classroom experience, come up with ideas that they foist on their students. Ideas like not grouping students by ability or adding special education students to general education classes are very much driven by a utopian ideal rather than practical implementation. Many "looks good on paper" ideas make it to classrooms, where experienced teachers know they won't work.

(edit to get rid of dead space)

Quote:

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The other issue with private school, how many of you would have been able to have go to one?

---

part of these reason our society has devalued education is because we have convinced them its "free".

Of course, we pay more for education than most anywhere and don't get the results commensurate with that...because parents don't have skin in the game.

"Why should I feed my kid? That's the school's job."

"Why should I care if they will be able to support themselves? That's the government's job."

Lack of personal accountability strikes again.

And you can bemoan the wealthy donor kid getting special treatment. How are those star athletes treated in the public schools?

Both happen. One has market forces to push toward correction. The headmaster may grant leeway, but only so far until he starts losing students and/or staff.

Quote:

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1. The teaching profession has been so maligned that nobody wants to teach. Districts are struggling to find teachers, especially certified teachers. It creates a problem because the state wants districts to have certified teachers (although charters and private schools don't have the same requirements). So as easy as it sounds to "get rid of bad teachers," it exacerbates an already strained system. (Unions in Texas don't have much say in teacher contracts, but state policy and legal interpretations also make it more difficult to let bad teachers go.) Until teaching becomes a desirable profession again, schools will keep getting bottom-of-the-barrel teachers.

---

Main reason I left. I had 15 years + of professional experience in my field, 10+ years of teaching experience, rated as a 5* teacher via test scores, and was teacher of the year.

Wasn't worth it any longer, as I spent most of my time dealing with discipline instead of teaching, and was not supported by admin.

Left at Spring Break. Had left the same school twice before; they had always welcomed me back. Will never teach again; will let my license lapse. Never again.

leftinright said:

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aTmAg said:

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zooguy96 said:

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aTmAg said:

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zooguy96 said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

---

Yeah, that person had obviously never been in a classroom full of students who don't want to to be there. Larger class size…..lolololol.

---

LOL.. you think that a smaller class size with crappier teachers would make them want to be there? No wonder our schools are failing, you guys have no idea what the hell you are doing.

You know how you make them want to be there? By ACTUALLY PUNISHING THEM for not doing their work and booting them out of school if they are disruptive. When I was in elementary school, I didn't go to recess if I didn't finish my morning work, and I had to stay after school each day that I didn't get my work done for the day. Guess what? Students busted their asses to get their work done by the time school was out. Amazing how that works!

And if the student was disruptive? They were GONE. For good. So guess what? Parents made damn sure their kids were not disruptive. Weird how that works too!

---

Except none of that happens. Students don't get punished for not doing work. A lot of schools are moving to giving them a 50. Students aren't booted for being disruptive. There are only so many spots at the alternative school, and once they are filled, you are stuck with the students. Schools don't want to get rid of students because of $$$. So all of the things you are proposing don't actually happen in real situations. It would be nice if they did, but they don't.

---

And guess what? If all schools were privatized, then this would no longer be the case. Students would get punished and booted. Why? Because no paying customer would tolerate their kids getting a crappy education because some brat is disrupting the class. Schools would lose more money than gain by keeping these idiots around.

---

Except those kids in the private school won't get kicked out because the parents are paying for it.

---

Totally wrong. They DO get kicked out.

Quote:

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1 kid from a wealthy family can ruin it for everyone else. The school is going to do what is best for their bottom line, so the priority is the higher paying families, and donations, not unlike how university is treated.

---

Private schools today are competing for high level clients. That would NOT be the case if all public schools were replaced with private schools. Now suddenly, new schools would pop up (in probably a lot of the same buildings) trying to compete on price and quality. And a rich customer would have about as much say over other customers as a rich guy buying a Ford pickup truck has over other Ford customers (basically none).

Quote:

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The other issue with private school, how many of you would have been able to have go to one? Were your parents so well off that you would have been able to go? Savings in property tax isn't that much. Houston has like $10k / yr in property taxes in the area I lived in. That doesn't go to the shool.

---

You are talking about current schools. Who's customers are people who can afford to pay all of these taxes AND pay for tuition on top. That would not be the case if public schools were replaced by private schools. Those schools would cost less than public schools today and provide a much better education.

Quote:

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School of choice is a good idea except, Southlake Carroll, Allen, Highland Park can't take all the kids outside the area, creating the issues we see today are problems.

---

Wherever there is high demand, providers will come.

And the rest of your post is nonsense that is not worth my time.

sam callahan said:

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Quote:

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but not at the core of annswering what Sam is going to do with these kids for (at least) 6 or 7 years.

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The core is you think it's my problem to solve. My answer is that even if I wanted to, I can't do it for them, and neither can anyone else.

Children that age need parents. The government can't be a good parent. The government trying to be a good parent makes worse parents and worse children.

You aren't advocating for public schooling. You are advocating for public child rearing.

If you are insisting that the state provide daycare, call it daycare and be done with it. But quit conflating it with education.

---

It is both. And they are absolutely conflated.

Go back in US history. Jefferson, Adams, Webster -- they all spoke at great lengths on the need for public education to ensure an informed public, learn necessary social virtues, gain the knowledge required for the responsibility of self government.

That is the pupose of education in the eyes of our founders, not AP Calculus.

I understand that online forums are a great place to b***h and moan, and that is great. I have no problem with that if that is why you are here. But, imo, its more difficult for those of us taking you seriously, if you don't have constructive suggestions.

I don't know how much more clear my constructive suggestions could be. Anything that moves public education towards private options is a good thing.

Staying on our current path is being complacent with dumbing down "producing an informed public" to " keep them locked up in a building during the day to keep them from being a menace to society"

Back in our founding Father's Day, you could count on American values being taught. Not so now.

As someone more articulate than me said. "You can't send your children to Caesar to be educated and be surprised when they come back Romans"

aTmAg said:

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leftinright said:

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aTmAg said:

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zooguy96 said:

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aTmAg said:

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zooguy96 said:

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HTownAg98 said:

---

This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

---

Yeah, that person had obviously never been in a classroom full of students who don't want to to be there. Larger class size…..lolololol.

---

LOL.. you think that a smaller class size with crappier teachers would make them want to be there? No wonder our schools are failing, you guys have no idea what the hell you are doing.

You know how you make them want to be there? By ACTUALLY PUNISHING THEM for not doing their work and booting them out of school if they are disruptive. When I was in elementary school, I didn't go to recess if I didn't finish my morning work, and I had to stay after school each day that I didn't get my work done for the day. Guess what? Students busted their asses to get their work done by the time school was out. Amazing how that works!

And if the student was disruptive? They were GONE. For good. So guess what? Parents made damn sure their kids were not disruptive. Weird how that works too!

---

Except none of that happens. Students don't get punished for not doing work. A lot of schools are moving to giving them a 50. Students aren't booted for being disruptive. There are only so many spots at the alternative school, and once they are filled, you are stuck with the students. Schools don't want to get rid of students because of $$$. So all of the things you are proposing don't actually happen in real situations. It would be nice if they did, but they don't.

---

And guess what? If all schools were privatized, then this would no longer be the case. Students would get punished and booted. Why? Because no paying customer would tolerate their kids getting a crappy education because some brat is disrupting the class. Schools would lose more money than gain by keeping these idiots around.

---

Except those kids in the private school won't get kicked out because the parents are paying for it.

---

Totally wrong. They DO get kicked out.

Quote:

---

1 kid from a wealthy family can ruin it for everyone else. The school is going to do what is best for their bottom line, so the priority is the higher paying families, and donations, not unlike how university is treated.

---

Private schools today are competing for high level clients. That would NOT be the case if all public schools were replaced with private schools. Now suddenly, new schools would pop up (in probably a lot of the same buildings) trying to compete on price and quality. And a rich customer would have about as much say over other customers as a rich guy buying a Ford pickup truck has over other Ford customers (basically none).

Quote:

---

The other issue with private school, how many of you would have been able to have go to one? Were your parents so well off that you would have been able to go? Savings in property tax isn't that much. Houston has like $10k / yr in property taxes in the area I lived in. That doesn't go to the shool.

---

You are talking about current schools. Who's customers are people who can afford to pay all of these taxes AND pay for tuition on top. That would not be the case if public schools were replaced by private schools. Those schools would cost less than public schools today and provide a much better education.

Quote:

---

School of choice is a good idea except, Southlake Carroll, Allen, Highland Park can't take all the kids outside the area, creating the issues we see today are problems.

---

Wherever there is high demand, providers will come.

And the rest of your post is nonsense that is not worth my time.

---

Private school would not be cheaper than public education for the families today.

Of those $10k property tax, only about $1000 is to the school, maybe $2000. How much is private school tuition?

Also, if we remove public school access, then we are accepting the fact that kids will never have an opportunity to go further in life because of their bad luck to poor parents, or not even poor, just not quite able to afford private school.

Another current example for private school costs is, child care costs now. That is a great look at what private shool would look like. Currrently, it is $380 per week for child care, who is trying to compete for the general client as you put it. It is a smaller center, so I could go to the cheaper child care center for $200 per week, and get less quality of education but it is more affordable, but still expensive.

In only privatization you so wish to have, where does the affordability come in? I get options, but quality will vary wildy and maybe I don't get a choice regardless, because the nicer place requires applications and waiting list.

how does it become better? Building costs aren't going to be funded by bonds in this scenario, so cheaper buildings, more shortcuts. Security won't be a priority. Things get sacrificed for "private quality" education, who will have to cater to the money.

The Thales link I posted is 7,000 a year.

There are cheaper options.

What does it cost per student in Texas public schools?

Looks like the most recent number is $17,700 per student in Texas. No idea if that included all the facilities that we are constantly reminded that "is separate money" (as if it should be ignored).

Quality is going to vary? You bet. That's a positive. It drives improvement. As opposed to the massive quality disparities in public schools that languish because nothing drives change.

Daycare is not a good comparison because it is heavily regulated. If you heavily regulate private schools, you will drive up those costs (for questionable benefit and likely harm).

If parents have skin in the game, they will be far better quality control than any government regulators. Independent ratings systems could also have a role.

Scholarships, work programs, shared spaces, micro-schools...there are lots of innovative things that can drive down costs and improve quality.

leftinright said:

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aTmAg said:

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leftinright said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

zooguy96 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

zooguy96 said:

---

HTownAg98 said:

---

This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

---

Yeah, that person had obviously never been in a classroom full of students who don't want to to be there. Larger class size…..lolololol.

---

LOL.. you think that a smaller class size with crappier teachers would make them want to be there? No wonder our schools are failing, you guys have no idea what the hell you are doing.

You know how you make them want to be there? By ACTUALLY PUNISHING THEM for not doing their work and booting them out of school if they are disruptive. When I was in elementary school, I didn't go to recess if I didn't finish my morning work, and I had to stay after school each day that I didn't get my work done for the day. Guess what? Students busted their asses to get their work done by the time school was out. Amazing how that works!

And if the student was disruptive? They were GONE. For good. So guess what? Parents made damn sure their kids were not disruptive. Weird how that works too!

---

Except none of that happens. Students don't get punished for not doing work. A lot of schools are moving to giving them a 50. Students aren't booted for being disruptive. There are only so many spots at the alternative school, and once they are filled, you are stuck with the students. Schools don't want to get rid of students because of $$$. So all of the things you are proposing don't actually happen in real situations. It would be nice if they did, but they don't.

---

And guess what? If all schools were privatized, then this would no longer be the case. Students would get punished and booted. Why? Because no paying customer would tolerate their kids getting a crappy education because some brat is disrupting the class. Schools would lose more money than gain by keeping these idiots around.

---

Except those kids in the private school won't get kicked out because the parents are paying for it.

---

Totally wrong. They DO get kicked out.

Quote:

---

1 kid from a wealthy family can ruin it for everyone else. The school is going to do what is best for their bottom line, so the priority is the higher paying families, and donations, not unlike how university is treated.

---

Private schools today are competing for high level clients. That would NOT be the case if all public schools were replaced with private schools. Now suddenly, new schools would pop up (in probably a lot of the same buildings) trying to compete on price and quality. And a rich customer would have about as much say over other customers as a rich guy buying a Ford pickup truck has over other Ford customers (basically none).

Quote:

---

The other issue with private school, how many of you would have been able to have go to one? Were your parents so well off that you would have been able to go? Savings in property tax isn't that much. Houston has like $10k / yr in property taxes in the area I lived in. That doesn't go to the shool.

---

You are talking about current schools. Who's customers are people who can afford to pay all of these taxes AND pay for tuition on top. That would not be the case if public schools were replaced by private schools. Those schools would cost less than public schools today and provide a much better education.

Quote:

---

School of choice is a good idea except, Southlake Carroll, Allen, Highland Park can't take all the kids outside the area, creating the issues we see today are problems.

---

Wherever there is high demand, providers will come.

And the rest of your post is nonsense that is not worth my time.

---

Private school would not be cheaper than public education for the families today.

---

Hilarous claim. In EVERY area that government competes against the private sector, the private sector is not only vastly superior, but is cheaper too. Education would be on different.

Quote:

---

Of those $10k property tax, only about $1000 is to the school, maybe $2000. How much is private school tuition?

---

You are comparing tuition TODAY that is geared towards the wealthy. They aren't competing against public schools for low cost education, since public education is "free". Your question is like asking "How much is a super yacht?" when comparing the cost of transporting a single soldier by transport ship to Jeff Bezos sailing to Europe on on his yacht. They aren't comparing the same thing.

Quote:

---

Also, if we remove public school access, then we are accepting the fact that kids will never have an opportunity to go further in life because of their bad luck to poor parents, or not even poor, just not quite able to afford private school.

---

Those students (and more) are more screwed with our current public system. That's why they are basically a permanent under class. Thanks to the policies you support.

Quote:

---

Another current example for private school costs is, child care costs now. That is a great look at what private shool would look like. Currrently, it is $380 per week for child care, who is trying to compete for the general client as you put it. It is a smaller center, so I could go to the cheaper child care center for $200 per week, and get less quality of education but it is more affordable, but still expensive.

---

BTW, this is a result of other leftist policies that push the cost of living so high that both parents have to work. If we got rid of welfare, SS, and all the other ridiculous entitlement spending, then everything would be cheap again, and mothers could stay home and watch their kids for cheap.

Quote:

---

In only privatization you so wish to have, where does the affordability come in? I get options, but quality will vary wildy and maybe I don't get a choice regardless, because the nicer place requires applications and waiting list.

---

Are there waiting lists for grocery stores? For Ford Escorts? No? You know why? Because the private sector would rush in to fill the void.

Quote:

---

how does it become better? Building costs aren't going to be funded by bonds in this scenario, so cheaper buildings, more shortcuts. Security won't be a priority. Things get sacrificed for "private quality" education, who will have to cater to the money.

---

LOL.. You ever compare a FedEx store to the Post Office? A doctors office to the VA? The notion that the private sector would "sacrifice" important things over public is LAUGHABLE. It is exactly the opposite. Unlike the public sector, they would cut things that DON'T MATTER. Rather than build cathedrals, they would build steel buildings. Rather than build football stadiums they would buy better curriculum.

It's impressive how oblivious you are to the world around you.

aTmAg said:

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leftinright said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

leftinright said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

zooguy96 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

zooguy96 said:

---

HTownAg98 said:

---

This is up there with the dumbest posts on this thread.
College is a completely different environment than high school. You can get away with classes of 300+ students primarily because of maturity, but there's a whole host of other reasons.

---

Yeah, that person had obviously never been in a classroom full of students who don't want to to be there. Larger class size…..lolololol.

---

LOL.. you think that a smaller class size with crappier teachers would make them want to be there? No wonder our schools are failing, you guys have no idea what the hell you are doing.

You know how you make them want to be there? By ACTUALLY PUNISHING THEM for not doing their work and booting them out of school if they are disruptive. When I was in elementary school, I didn't go to recess if I didn't finish my morning work, and I had to stay after school each day that I didn't get my work done for the day. Guess what? Students busted their asses to get their work done by the time school was out. Amazing how that works!

And if the student was disruptive? They were GONE. For good. So guess what? Parents made damn sure their kids were not disruptive. Weird how that works too!

---

Except none of that happens. Students don't get punished for not doing work. A lot of schools are moving to giving them a 50. Students aren't booted for being disruptive. There are only so many spots at the alternative school, and once they are filled, you are stuck with the students. Schools don't want to get rid of students because of $$$. So all of the things you are proposing don't actually happen in real situations. It would be nice if they did, but they don't.

---

And guess what? If all schools were privatized, then this would no longer be the case. Students would get punished and booted. Why? Because no paying customer would tolerate their kids getting a crappy education because some brat is disrupting the class. Schools would lose more money than gain by keeping these idiots around.

---

Except those kids in the private school won't get kicked out because the parents are paying for it.

---

Totally wrong. They DO get kicked out.

Quote:

---

1 kid from a wealthy family can ruin it for everyone else. The school is going to do what is best for their bottom line, so the priority is the higher paying families, and donations, not unlike how university is treated.

---

Private schools today are competing for high level clients. That would NOT be the case if all public schools were replaced with private schools. Now suddenly, new schools would pop up (in probably a lot of the same buildings) trying to compete on price and quality. And a rich customer would have about as much say over other customers as a rich guy buying a Ford pickup truck has over other Ford customers (basically none).

Quote:

---

The other issue with private school, how many of you would have been able to have go to one? Were your parents so well off that you would have been able to go? Savings in property tax isn't that much. Houston has like $10k / yr in property taxes in the area I lived in. That doesn't go to the shool.

---

You are talking about current schools. Who's customers are people who can afford to pay all of these taxes AND pay for tuition on top. That would not be the case if public schools were replaced by private schools. Those schools would cost less than public schools today and provide a much better education.

Quote:

---

School of choice is a good idea except, Southlake Carroll, Allen, Highland Park can't take all the kids outside the area, creating the issues we see today are problems.

---

Wherever there is high demand, providers will come.

And the rest of your post is nonsense that is not worth my time.

---

Private school would not be cheaper than public education for the families today.

---

Hilarous claim. In EVERY area that government competes against the private sector, the private sector is not only vastly superior, but is cheaper too. Education would be on different.

Quote:

---

Of those $10k property tax, only about $1000 is to the school, maybe $2000. How much is private school tuition?

---

You are comparing tuition TODAY that is geared towards the wealthy. They aren't competing against public schools for low cost education, since public education is "free". Your question is like asking "How much is a super yacht?" when comparing the cost of transporting a single soldier by transport ship to Jeff Bezos sailing to Europe on on his yacht. They aren't comparing the same thing.

Quote:

---

Also, if we remove public school access, then we are accepting the fact that kids will never have an opportunity to go further in life because of their bad luck to poor parents, or not even poor, just not quite able to afford private school.

---

Those students (and more) are more screwed with our current public system. That's why they are basically a permanent under class. Thanks to the policies you support.

Quote:

---

Another current example for private school costs is, child care costs now. That is a great look at what private shool would look like. Currrently, it is $380 per week for child care, who is trying to compete for the general client as you put it. It is a smaller center, so I could go to the cheaper child care center for $200 per week, and get less quality of education but it is more affordable, but still expensive.

---

BTW, this is a result of other leftist policies that push the cost of living so high that both parents have to work. If we got rid of welfare, SS, and all the other ridiculous entitlement spending, then everything would be cheap again, and mothers could stay home and watch their kids for cheap.

Quote:

---

In only privatization you so wish to have, where does the affordability come in? I get options, but quality will vary wildy and maybe I don't get a choice regardless, because the nicer place requires applications and waiting list.

---

Are there waiting lists for grocery stores? For Ford Escorts? No? You know why? Because the private sector would rush in to fill the void.

Quote:

---

how does it become better? Building costs aren't going to be funded by bonds in this scenario, so cheaper buildings, more shortcuts. Security won't be a priority. Things get sacrificed for "private quality" education, who will have to cater to the money.

---

LOL.. You ever compare a FedEx store to the Post Office? A doctors office to the VA? The notion that the private sector would "sacrifice" important things over public is LAUGHABLE. It is exactly the opposite. Unlike the public sector, they would cut things that DON'T MATTER. Rather than build cathedrals, they would build steel buildings. Rather than build football stadiums they would buy better curriculum.

It's impressive how oblivious you are to the world around you.

---

Are you comparing the post office as being poorly run when the Rs are the ones hamstringing it because it can actually make money?

Is FedEx and the post office supposed to educate 1000s of students in their tiny little store front? Are there 5 FedEx locations in a 5 square mile area? Is FedEx in their own physical building or shared?

Better teaching curriculum? Or the one that offers the best deal? Being in projects in construction and processes companies are going the cheapest route in the chase of profits. What is the profit in private schools?

And I agree, the dumb republicans need to stop with "my footbah" voting on bonds and actually care about creating a good community for their kids.

But no yall just blame the education system as the problem and ignoring that the leadership (Abbott (r), Perry (r), and bush (r)) were the last three republican governors and its only getting worse in your eyes. So…I'm not saying correlation is causation but trends can be seen.

Mike morath is a business man leading the department of education in Texas appointed by Abbott and is an R. So who has say in what now?

Bush was president for 8 years and trump for four. Congress was r during Obama, so where did the failing education come from?

When someone can only use "profit" as pejorative, you know the conversation will go nowhere.

To hear people like that talk, they think private schools will devolve into handing out second hand coloring books in tents and charging $20,000/year for it because they think the prices and costs are set by the mean, greedy business owners. They aren't. They are set by the market and it requires buyers and sellers.

If you want buyers, you have to find their price/value ratio. Don't do that well and someone else will take your customers.

I am amazed at the number of people living in the highest standard of living the world has ever seen, fueled by capitalism, who can show no appreciation for it.

If the computer/smart phone you are posting from were produced by the government with no profit incentive, it would be the most expensive and poorly performing piece of technology you own.

Quote:

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so where did the failing education come from?

---

Government. No matter who is in charge.

Focusing on who is in charge is like entering a burro in the Kentucky Derby and blaming the jockey.

sam callahan said:

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Quote:

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so where did the failing education come from?

---

Government. No matter who is in charge.

Focusing on who is in charge is like entering a burro in the Kentucky Derby and blaming the jockey.

---

Came here to see education of leftists.

Left satisfied.

If parents taught their kids to value education, equitable grading wouldn't even be on the table because nobody would need it.

Unfortunately, no amount of laws or rules can make people care. And libs all like to blame someone else for their shortcomings so they'll never be capable of fixing themselves. Not to say deadbeat parents are exclusively on one side of the aisle, but the left has systemically chosen to address the symptoms rather than the disease.