33 kids in classroom in upper middleclass neighborhood, teachers cut last

[cidliz2004]

year.

I just found this out and I am really surprised. Our area is growing like crazy - retail business is coming in like crazy - increased revenues.... Our immediate area is well established - no new housing in immediate area. Teachers were let go last year due to budgets??????? I just don't get it.

[LynneSin]

1. Damnit, we have a war to fight, why do you hate America so much

:sarcasm:

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. This is one of those

Wake Up America issues. Budget cuts and NCLB are going to ruin public education as we know it.

[cidliz2004]

3. It just makes no sense, the revenues in this area are really going up

and AGAIN it isn't going to schools?

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. I don't know where you live

but in most places, it's the federal dollars that are not reaching the schools. Some states are holding too much back as well. Some local districts just don't have the tax base (property values) needed to support their schools. But I see the federal budget as a source of many of our financial woes. I recently saw pictures of remodeling done at the US Dept of Ed in D.C. THAT is where too many of our tax dollars end up.

[Bouncy Ball]

4. What the school district does is, they let go of teachers

and give more students per teacher to the remaining teachers. A lot of states have limits on how many kids elementary school teachers can have, but secondary teachers often don't have limits, or they are very high.

I've seen districts where they used team teaching (and it was WONDERFUL), the kids got a lot out of it, but the district realized they could save money on payroll, so they got rid of the team teaching (when teachers each had about 60-80 students, this is secondary, and they had each group of students 90 min per class period) and this caused each teacher's total number of students to go up, some by as much as 50% (ex: from 70 kids per day to 140). They also saw the kids only 55 min per group, down from 90 min.

Now, the district DOES save on payroll, because they get to let go of some teachers, but the quality of teaching goes down. Imagine going from 20 kids per class period, three class periods a day of 90 minutes each to 25 kids per class period, five class periods a day of 55 minutes each.

60 kids to 125 kids. And you see them almost half as long. It's inevitable that the quality goes down. But the districts are often strapped for money. You can thank states and federal governments and right wingers for that! Assholes.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. We were under a court order

and part of it involved reducing class sizes. In our secondary schools, each teacher could have no more than 125 kids per day. But that was an average. So one teacher could have 150 while another teacher had 100. It was a joke.

[MissB]

17. Assholes is right

At some point, someone will hopefully figure out that you need an educated work force in order to keep our country safe. Is that too difficult of a concept?

These freaks are unpatriotic in many, many ways.

[MissWaverly]

5. our tax dollars at work

I read that 1800 of your federal income tax return goes to the military, we know this is not for the Humvees, it's for high tech
military toys some of which are obsolete and 1100 goes to fund interest on our debt, we just legalized the estate tax permanent repeal, another tax cut for the extremely wealthy, Oh, education, you were asking about education, oh, $25.00 (That 2 ten dollar bills and 1 five bill) of your tax dollars goes to education. George wants everyone to have a special education, a really special education, no, that's not special enough, I meant an excellently special education.

[Hollowkatt]

6. I'm in Michigan,

and I was going to school for my teaching degree, however, the law just changed and they now require a Masters Degree in education before you can teach. The catch 22 is that schools here won't hire you if you have a masters because you would be over qualified and could demand a higher pay rate.

[cidliz2004]

7. Sorry to say this, but what is up with Michigan?

A friend of mine is going to school to become a Chiropractor. She has a massage certification and is working as a massager therapist to help pay for school. She used to live in Michigan, but doesn't think that she will return when she graduates from school because Michigan won't allow her to do massage and be a Doctor of Chiropractic. She has to do one or the other even though she is properly qualified and licensed/certified for both?????? I cannot figure that one out either.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Hang in there for a few years

There is a critical teaching shortage in some areas. Before too long, the districts will be hiring anyone who is certified and applies.

[livetohike]

8. When I taught school twenty years ago that was the average

sized classroom.....very tough to manage at the elementary level with no teacher's aides.

[LWolf]

9. This is the status quo in many places.

My state and district, for example. We have more than 30 students in every classroom, including kindergarten. We have one administrator for 2 days a week; long enough to do paperwork, but all student discipline is done by the teacher, in the classroom, during the instructional day. There is no support staff outside of our speech & resource teachers, and they are running caseloads of 60 - 80 students each. No classroom aides. Every teacher is on his/her own. We have no more music or sports programs, our library staff has been cut so that next year libraries will be open 2 or 3 days a week, our tech support staff is gone. We do our own recess duty and PE; our one "off-duty" period is 30 minutes for lunch. Our playground supervision staff has been cut to the bone. It is so overcrowded and understaffed out there, a trip through the playground resembles "Lord of the Flies." In addition to our contractual duties, we are being asked to staff before and after school programs for "extra duty pay" (a pittance), and run district departments by committee after school and evenings, since they can't afford to staff those departments anymore.

Our funding isn't local; it is state and federal. That's where the cuts are coming from.

You can mask the cuts with student population growth for awhile, but it will eventually catch up.

[lonestarnot]

10. So does anyone else besides me have budget override ballots on the

agenda? I just don't know how to vote on these because I fee a vote to override give administrators raises and does little to benefit teachers or students.

[northzax]

11. poor middle class white kids

welcome to the reality for poor people. The average black elementary school student in an urban area goes to school in a building that would make you cry. I'm talking 38 fifth graders in the corner of the library, wearing hats and gloves because the heat doesn't work. That's NORMAL.

[CatholicEdHead]

15. Private tutoring corporations have to like this

the ones like Silvian Learning Center. Get the kids so far behind they have to catch up with private tutors. Also this helps the Community College market in the future (remember it is the silver bullet that will solve everything according to the Debates).

[MissB]

16. Does your state have an equilization formula?

That could be part of the problem. In our state, it doesn't matter how much is collected from property taxes. The highest taxed neighborhoods get the same amount of education dollars. In fact, most of the money collected for education in this particular neighborhood are not used in this neighborhood- they're sent over to the other side of the state.

The way our district gets around it is to have a private foundation that raises money and uses it to reduce class sizes and pay for the extras that the state will not deal with. On edit: as an example, our class sizes average around 15 to 18 kids. That money isn't coming from the state.

[left15]

18. Where does all the money go?

I just ran google, and the ave cost per student is just over $6000/ yr

If you have 25 kids in a class, that's $150k per year.

If the teacher costs $50k with benefits, books at $200 each is $5K, supplies $5k, utilities $2k, Repayment of Bond (like house payment $10K )(btw all of this is per classroom) Bussing $20k, Janitor/ maintenance $10k. Misc. $8k)

All of this, and I think my numbers are high, only add to $100k. I know you still have to pay for admin, but hopefully it's not more than 1/3 of the budget.

What am I missing, or are there a lot of schools trying to get by on $3,000 per student while others are spending $12,000 per student?