VOX has an interesting piece that explains why the Educators in some conservative states have had it...
Now I am against:
However I also have to balance this with the unfortunate reality that the education system personnel keep resisting compensation and employment system improvements.
And as I usually say... The most unfortunate part is that as these adults argue about their pocket books and processes, the needs of many unlucky kids are poorly met.
On a related note... CNN The Big Myth about Pensions
Now I am against:
- tenure, steps, lanes
- seniority based compensation, job protection, job allocations, etc.
- collective bargaining and work contracts
But I whole heartedly support:
- paying well based on the challenge of the school, classroom and subject
- paying well based on the capabilities and results of the Teacher
- removing ineffective administrators and teachers from the system
- placing the most capable Teachers with the most challenged students
- ensuring that our society funds the education system well
Therefore reading the VOX piece frustrates me because:
- The Conservative Voters are being CHEAP and GREEDY as usual.
- They are under funding the systems that our children rely on.
- Therefore proving my old saying that "those who have union problems probably deserve them,
However I also have to balance this with the unfortunate reality that the education system personnel keep resisting compensation and employment system improvements.
And as I usually say... The most unfortunate part is that as these adults argue about their pocket books and processes, the needs of many unlucky kids are poorly met.
On a related note... CNN The Big Myth about Pensions
38 comments:
"placing the most capable Teachers with the most challenged students."
So, you favor the Mississippi system? Remember, to do this, you have to assess teacher capability, and if you do that, you can (and should) pay them accordingly?
The other thing you left out was a sensible and effective discipline policy-- witness the chaos in the StP schools.
And I will say it again, and you will pooh-pooh it again, but a review of per-pupil spending vs academic achievement shows a NEGATIVE correlation. It isn't money spent, it is HOW it is spent.
I don't think I would hold Mississippi up as an poster child for good education. Their funding is about as bad as their results.
Your right.. Pooh pooh... Some schools / districts having:
- active gang members in attendance
- high special ed populations due to poverty / housing / addicted parents
- kids who don't get fed at home
- kids who are worried about being shot of the way to school
- kids who spend a lot of time alone because single parent is working
- kids who have really poor role models
may influence the discipline issues and per pupil spending...
If conservative voters are cheap and/or greedy, why do they want to increase the funding received by charter and private schools? Isn't that a contradiction?
==Hiram
Of course school demographics matter, but that incomprehensible State school funding formula "fully accounts" for all these things, so that the resulting academic achievement is equal across all schools, right? So how can you explain why academic achievement is 2:1 different between two schools with the same PP spending? Is it possible that one school has a better instructional model, better teachers, less overhead,....?
Hiram, I think us crazy conservatives want to see funding follow the child, and equalized, regardless of school setting. Right now charters are being starved for funding while the publics get more.
Jerry,
If you think education is "fully funded" in alignment with the mandated requirements, I think you are in the minority of Minnesotans.
No... They just have better Parents and Students... Rdale has common processes, people and curriculum across the district... And everyone knows which schools / neighborhoods to avoid.
As I wrote over on the MP Mpls Funding post in response to Paul blaming school choice for our problems.
"I have no doubt that choice is the primary problem.
I mean we American citizens are free to move whenever we wish and can afford to. So whenever a neighborhood gets a bit old, unsafe, lower income, etc... People pack up their families and move to a new "better" neighborhood with "better" houses with "better" neighbors... And therefore the children of very similar successful Parents congregate in the schools in that area and they are "perceived as better schools".
Now school choice is simply a way for people who don't want to or can't afford to physically move to have some choice in the school their child attends and the student body they associate with. My guess is that a lot of questionable communities would lose even more families if they did not offer magnet, charter, private, open enrollment, etc school choices.
I know that the 2 Magnets and AP/IB programs in Robbinsdale have kept thousands of excellent families from moving further West... Which is good for New Hope, Golden Valley, Plymouth, Crystal, Robbinsdale, etc. And our Middle and High Schools."
Did you know that in China people can not just move to a new school district?
They have to meet a bunch of requirements before the government approves them to use services in a city like Shanghai.
"Fully funded" is how the State school finance system is defined. "Underfunded" is the word the Union uses when they don't get all they want. There are X dollars to be spent, and the highest per-pupil amounts go to schools for "compensatory aid," that is schools with FRL, ESL, and other needs based on the demographics of the school. NOWHERE has that formula been tested to determine what KINDS of adjustments the school should, can, or must make to teach to those different demographics. It's just more money, and there is ZERO accountability for "AYP" or "reducing the gap" or anything else that would specifically help. Now, if the formula was $8500 per pupil, every pupil, that would be really simple and fair. Then if certain districts wanted more money because of demographic challenges, they should be required to go to the Legislature or State DOE and make a proposal- "if we had $3000 more per pupil, we could get every (or 95%) child to grade level reading by grade 3, with our 3 by 3 program. It's worked other places." They would get it, with the requirement that they meet the objective in the specified timeframe (e.g. 4 years), or it goes away. We have to start paying for results rather than empty promises.
Facts and data
Special Ed Cross Subsidy
"Special education services are critical to ensuring students with special needs can reach their full potential. However, insufficient special education funding from the federal and state governments has created a $715 million shortfall in the current school year. As a result, school districts must use general education revenue to cover the mandated special education services that are so important to our students with special needs.
Governor Mark Dayton’s supplemental budget recommendations include funding to increase state special education aid in order to reduce the special education cross-subsidy. Specifically, the Governor proposes to increase funding for special education by almost $17 million in FY19 and more than $43 million over the FY2020-2021 biennium."
I think your point is that the schools are not fully funded, but that is incorrect. By definition fully funded means the legislature has allocated X dollars for education, and that the whole amount will be available. That the federal government has created vast unfunded mandates doesn't mean more funds should be allocated by the State, especially without some justification that it is money well spent, and saying we need to be "nice" to some interest group isn't sufficient. There may be better things to spend 17-43 million$ on.
My point still stands. Why are we giving ever-increasing sums to the educracy for never-improving performance?
I think the point of the post slides is that many States have been giving them ever less and expecting better results.
And if you look at the statistics alone, we could IMPROVE test scores by cutting funding 20%. SE aside for the moment, I think States SHOULD expect results to improve with the current level of funding. Either that, or they should be cut back to some basic level and require all additional funding to be conditional on a plan and commitment to improving results. Sort of like NCLB was supposed to be. We give you extra funding now, and you get 3-5 years to make adequate AYP, or (1 remedy was) every kid gets a voucher to go somewhere else.
Sorry, I've been responding to your words and not the slides. Just as well. The whole point of those slides is that education quality is determined by teacher salaries, and it is just plain false. I think a few teachers SHOULD lose their jobs because of plain old incompetence, (I think a few teachers should be paid more) but I think we could do with far less and perhaps give kids a better education. For example, we recently passed a levy here because, if we did not, we were told, average class size would increase, IIRC, from 21 to 22. First off, I don't believe (and the science says) that really matters, but what shocked me was taking the number of FTE teachers, allocating them a full day of teaching an "average class size" and dividing that into total enrollment, I found a need for about 900 fewer teachers than we are paying! It is one reason why I believe school boards are doing TERRIBLE financial management and we shouldn't be covering it up with more money while the kids get short-changed.
For someone who claims to data knowledgeable, you sure do say foolish things that can not be backed up...
Proof please... "we could IMPROVE test scores by cutting funding 20%"
And same question, different post.
Proof please. "other schools are doing "it" better (sometimes much better)"
And how are you removing the variation in parents and self selection from your assessment?
Simple. Look at the graph of academic results vs spending. The least-squares fit shows clearly that schools spending half the max have 20% higher scores. That's strictly what the math shows, nothing else implied. It also shows that schools that spend the same amount have a performance difference of almost 2:1, so the correlation is weak, but definitely negative.
How am I removing the variation? I don't. I report that 99% of all parents who move their kids from one school district to another (to "get a better education for the kids") never return. QED.
The only selection that matters here is that those with the means and/or the opportunity to leave these "failing schools" generally do so, and those without the means or opportunity are trapped in them. Can you really justify spending more and getting less, for a captive class we are supposed to be helping?
Definitely too nice of a day to waste it on this circular discussion.
Agreed. Come back when your head is clear.
I am very clear, parent quality and dedication is the number one factor in where the child will end up. Closing schools full of unlucky kids will not help them...
And of course folks don't go back to their old dysfunctional neighborhoods full of poverty crime and somewhat challenged neighbors. That is not a school issue at all, it is a personal association choice issue.
Are you as a Parent willing to leave behind all the "losers" for the good of your child?
Or do you want to stay close to your dysfunctional friends and neighbors?
It is like an addict who is trying to change their ways.
They have to leave the old friends, ways, habits, beliefs, etc behind if they want a chance at a better life.
And the research is very clear that the number one factor in educational achievement is a good teacher. That result will be lower for disadvantaged kids, but still much higher than if the good teachers flee the school for fear of their safety, or for other reasons.
Closing schools full of unlucky kids is exactly what should happen. Some schools can be "reconstituted" under new management and staff, with strong discipline and academic expectations, while others simply hand out the vouchers and let the kids find "better schools." These public schools are forcing the comparisons to be made, and that is why home, charter, speciality and online schools are growing so fast. Competition is supposed to cause change, where quality goes up and price comes down. Why insist that the publics do not have to compete?
"That is not a school issue at all, it is a personal association choice issue."
Number one reason people buy a new house? "Good schools."
And if it is a choice issue at all, why do you want to deny anyone that very important choice?
Please remember that "Good Schools" are code words for no poor kids...
Just take a look at the best school districts in the State...
And yet many of those schools spend half of what these FAILING schools do. If funding were the solution, the best schools in the state would be the ones spending the most, and the opposite is true.
I will concede that high FRL and ESL populations cost more to educate, but obviously decades of that spending have not improved the education and many of those schools are very rightly labelled as "failing." Until someone can put a price on what is needed to actually improve education for those demographics, or these schools take some other measures to improve with the huge amount of funding they already have, there is no reason to increase it, it's "throwing good money after bad."
"those schools spend half of what these FAILING schools" Source? Wayzata schools are pretty well funded and have incredible facilities.
"the best schools in the state would be the ones spending the most" I think that is a false assumption. What is your rationale?
The question is how much does it cost to overcome all the damage that incapable irresponsible parent(s) did and do to the unlucky kids? Those first 5 years are CRITICAL in so many ways.
As a side note with regard to cost...Providence Academy is maybe 2 miles West of me. Now that is a beautiful school with incredible results... Of course they charge $20,000+ per year now and likely have NO unlucky kids...
In that case, one pays to associate with only the wealthy and truly academically focused.
"What is your rationale?" It is EXACTLY the same rationale as those concerned that "school funding slides." It is the belief that dollars spent means better academic results and it simply is not true. It matters HOW those dollars are spent. Do we try to teach reading by "whole language" or by phonics? Do we teach "new math" or "new, new math" or "common core math" or just math?
"The question is how much does it cost to overcome all the damage that incapable irresponsible parent(s) did and do to the unlucky kids? "
OK, have it your way. What is that cost, where is it defined, and, if we are already paying it (by a huge premium paid to "failing schools") why do we not have the results we expect?
I don't know if we are willing to pay enough to save kids from incapable and/or irresponsible parents. I know that you are not, since you believe in letting untrained inexperienced parents who can not even manage to use birth control effectively have full control over the raising of their brood.
Instead of holding them accountable for their choices... You tell them it is not their fault... You find someone else to blame...
Back the truck up. /I/ am willing to pay enough to give these kids a good education-- it's the social contract. What I am NOT willing to do is to give a school that has failed a whole generation of kids a blank check to continue doing it. Somebody has to say what will be done differently and (accurately) how much it will cost, REGARDLESS of family situation.
Then if you want to remedy family breakdown, various social pathologies and the lack of education created by a long history of failing schools, have at it. But we cannot wait to give the best education we can to the kids already in school-- no excuses.
How can you say this if we do not know what it will cost to over come poor parenting?
"/I/ am willing to pay enough to give these kids a good education--"
And please note things are getting better even with the Conservative's self described social decay, though Conservatives seem to ignore that reality.
Things are getting better? Sure, nationwide we have more blacks completing HS. But that is not true of individual schools, and in MN we had to get rid of graduation tests to do it. A HS diploma that the student cannot read is not worth much in the real world. Heck, a lot of these kids go on to college, too, where at least 40% of them take remedial classes, and many fail because of inadequate HS preparation, falling most heavily on black students.
I know of at least one college graduate, an electrical engineer that could not read a simple schematic diagram. His education... a black college. I happen to think the HBC does great work, but let's not pretend that all degrees are equally valuable as indicators of academic achievement.
"How can you say this if we do not know what it will cost to over come poor parenting?"
How can you say we are not already over-funding what is necessary to do that? Just as an example: We have teachers of reading already. If we convert their classes from whole-language to phonics, the education of the kids would improve and it would cost us nothing, except maybe the trivial, one-time cost of new books. What would be the cost of volunteer tutors? No, until somebody actually says something like "our new reading program, highly successful in other districts, will cost us an additional $300 per pupil for 5 years and result in a 50% improvement in 3rd grade proficiency" it is likely as not the money they already have is sufficient.
Oh, and to be generous, a source: college dropouts
Your source says that poor people have a hard time making it through college. Seems logical to me and the Liberals in the room.
Poor people have a hard time getting through HS, too. Isn't that your point? If HS better prepared these poor kids, they would do better in life all around. Why you want to continue to deprive them of that opportunity by keeping the status quo schools I do not know.
You want to deprive them of capable responsible parents...
Seems like what we will get is incapable and irresponsible children.
Remember that apple and the tree. :-)
And it seems to me you want to deprive them of parents, period, or maybe even of life itself. If the purpose of our intervention is to produce better educated and productive citizens, then we should be concentrating on the point at which that actually is supposed to happen, the schools. Going at it indirectly, by improving "parents," belies the fact that we have already entrusted most of this work to government "experts," at least above the age of 5, and that we have millions and millions of kids already IN that system. Are we really going to /start/ fixing things for those not yet born and condemn those millions already born to lives ruined by the current failing school system?
Seems better than allowing poor ineffectual parent(s) to continue propagating the problems and dooming more kids to poverty and ignorance.
That doesn't make sense. If we fix the "system" for the kids that already exist, the next generation will benefit as well. Treat the symptoms until we can cure the disease. You complain about poor parents creating poor parents-- generational poverty-- but if we can better educate the kids we now have, don't we break the cycle? Isn't that what we want?
is this an acceptable return on money spent?
Post a Comment