It shouldn't surprise me, however it definitely disappoints me. It looks like the Governor will veto the tenure law if it shows up on his desk. This is the first time that I am really wishing that Emmer would have won. Typically I prefer gridlock, but sacrificing struggling Students for poor performing Teachers seems oh so wrong. G2A: Pro Cons of Tenure
Well I guess "Right to Work" is our next hope for helping get the poor Teachers out our student's classrooms. It must be since Ed MN is already lobbying against it. And maybe if Ed MN did not have so much money, the Gov would have chosen the poor performing Students over the poor performing Teachers.
Now why do I say that he is sacrificing the struggling Students, and not all Students? As we have discussed many times, kids like mine have a huge support system at home that can easily make up for the occasional poor Teacher. Unfortunately the Unlucky kids do not have that benefit. G2A Poor Kids: Stupid or Unlucky?
MPR: Dayton and GOP square off
MinnPost: Stripped down bill
MPR: Dayton to Oppose
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Ed MN: Dooher on RTW
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The first time? Welcome to reality. Some day you will realize that any Republican is better than any Democrat. It wasn't always true, maybe, but now; certainly.
J. Ewing
I don't know if always agree, but I sure agree today.
For folks new to the discussion, let's clarify what this bill would have done.
Let's assume Minneapolis loses ~300students from their Public Schools, possibly because people were dissataisfied with the Schools / Teachers or for some other reason. This loss of Students and the funding related to them would require that ~10 Teachers be laid off / fired.
The current law requires that the School fire the Last Teachers that were hired. (ie Last In First Out) The capability or effectivity of the Teachers can not even be considered. All that matters is when they were hired. (ie down to the day)
So the District may be forced to fire their 10 most effective and energetic Teachers. Which of course makes no sense in any way, especially if your kids are students in that school.
The bill simply would have allowed the Administrators to consider capability and effectiveness when making the Layoff decision. Nothing More and Nothing Less.
Imagine being a student or administrator in a failing district. Dissatisfied Students / Families are leaving the District. Funding is therefore decreasing, and you are doomed to keep many of the poor Teachers that are driving the exodus. Talking about a frustating situation.
Imagine that you own a business and had hired 1 employee each year for 10 years. Then the economy changes and you need to layoff 2 employees or go bankrupt. Would it make sense to layoff the 2 worst performers or the last 2 you hired? What would be best for your customers?
I like to play with numbers and, assuming you are correct, we learn the following: 300 students times roughly $10,000 per student in state aid, means a budget cut of $3 million. If I laid off 10 teachers, brand-new ones fresh out of school, I was apparently paying them each $300,000 per year. That seems like a very good policy, to lay off the youngest and highest-paid. Surely we don't pay our veteran teachers, even the poor performers, nearly that highly. :-^
J. Ewing
2 Oldies but Goodies:
G2A Why Pay More?
G2A Teacher Compensation
Assuming there is <$100K being spent on the Teacher (salary + benefits), it is hard to understand where that other $200K or more goes.
Though here is a small guess: one on one Spec Ed help, Counselors, Psychologists, Security Officers, Administrators, Transportation, Food Service, Janitorial, Utilities, Nursing, Maintenance, Business Services, Test Analysis, Lawyers, Curriculum, Technology, Grant writers, etc.
I wish they could find a way to get the 2/3 into the classroom.
I do appreciate RAS Financial transparency, yet it is hard to figure out where all that money goes.RAS Financials
The 2011-2012 ppt linked to on this site tries real hard. But that 1/3 to 2/3 relationship is pretty hard to see.
RAS Budgets
If I had won the MegaMillions, I would have given away millions here and there, but would tell 281 (or any other district) to publish some understandable financials first. We've been trying to understand that 1/3 vs 2/3 type of question for decades, still no real answer from district. And yet they get awards!
It's a mystery, ain't it? Yes, Special Ed may be one place it is spent. I wish schools would adopt (that is, be required by law to adopt) program-based budgeting, so we could all SEE where the money went and make more intelligent decisions. Right now they are required to report in the least transparent possible chart of accounts fashion, so not even the professional financial people at the schools (some are good and honest, others real game-players and number-twiddlers) can really get a handle on what's going on.
Here's one way to figure it out: Ask them for the average class size, then divide the total number of students by that number to get number of teachers required. Compare that with the number of teachers on the payroll. You may find part of your answer there.
Another part of it, of course, is overhead-- very real costs of facilities and management of the district. But remember how the unions screamed when Pawlenty wanted a requirement that 70% of the money be spent "in the classroom"? Isn't 30% a pretty high overhead allowance, even for a "service" business?
J. Ewing
The approach I want is "face time." Take the 7-8 hours my kid spends there, chop it up, including the bus drivers, lunch ladies, visiting art teacher, playground monitor, and of course teachers but in each case log only one face at any time. We would need more than one profile, like ELL, Spec Ed. But NOT free/reduced lunch - that's just financial.
Speed,
Do you know where transportation shows up in slide 11 of this presentation?
I am stumped... I am guessing pupil services?
The numbers come from pg 15 of the Budget.
OK, so if the schools and unions hide the crappy teachers under deliberately confusing numbers, what other financial mismanagement are they hiding in there? And shouldn't the teachers be complaining that the crappy teachers are getting paid too much? If I knew my employer was getting $10,000 for every kid in my classroom and I had 28 of the little dears ALL DAY, I would be wanting a little more of that $280,000! Your average brothel pays a higher percentage, I'm told.
J. Ewing
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