The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[Donerail]

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Amendment.

[Donerail]

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Well that's just cheap. I find this revision to be much more acceptable than the similar one introduced some time back. I'll review and double-check, but I don't see any immediate concerns with this legislation.

[Donerail]

So can we proceed to a final vote and get on to buying out parts of rural Tennessee perhaps?

[Donerail]

Aye.

[Donerail]

In the queue, which Jbrase can select from at his leisure:

• Imperial Empiricism Act (the Antarctica thing, not not officially sanctioned by the feds)
• The monstrosity of an education bill (mostly finished, actually)
• Oklahoma Relief Act
• Petition for a separate subboard for the different regions
• Humanization of puppy mills
• Repeal of blue laws
• Regional parks system bill that's currently still in the works

[Donerail]

As soon as I get back home I'll check what was left to discuss besides article 1.

[Donerail]

I'm still going to be a stickler about the language requirements and say it should be one year. My compromise number is two.

And didn't we agree we'd subsidize continue learning for teachers up to a certain amount at community colleges? I think that's important to specify, just do we're not spending too much money.

I'd also be interested in saying that we'll match private donations for after school activities up to however much money. "It takes a village."

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[Donerail]

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Okay. Is this even necessary?

That's section 1, which has been disputed and disputed forever; the current text there is a placeholder.

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Again, I hate year round schooling. I think private and magnet schools can do whatever they want with their schedule, but making public schools year round is a bit too far.

This would just cut summer by around two weeks and add on a President's Day and Columbus Day break, not institute year-round schooling.

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Are we sure they will donate their income to education? Seems a bit risky to base an increase in funding on whether people will donate X amount of dollars to a program. And if this tax credit MUST go to education then why have it at all?

It'd be like "if you donate X amount to school Y and have a receipt or whatever to prove it, you get that much money deducted from your taxes". Having a tax credit also gets individuals personally invested in a school and means they're more likely to donate even without the credit, or volunteer or otherwise get involved with the school.

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I don't know how realistic that is as I don't know how the teaching profession really works. I have seen teachers aids in grade school but as I moved to high school, a year long intern teacher seems strange. What happens to the students who are taught by them? I'm not sure anyone wants to be a guinnea pig.

I also don't know if parents need to evaluate them. Many of them can be biased and some might not even care, I think leaving the decision up to the school and the people in charge is a better route.

I don't think parental evaluations were in the original text. I would favor eliminating them. As for the intern teacher, it's basically a way that teachers could start teaching without having a locked-in contract; it makes it easier to simply not hire bad teachers, while being able to realize good teachers and keep them in the business. It'd be just like being taught by a first-year teacher.

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Shouldn't a teacher be board certified regardless of their degree?

I don't think that the majority of teachers are nationally board certified; it's an advanced teaching credential on top of regional teacher licenses, and is typically pursued as it provides a salary bonus or may help in career advancement.

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Never been a fan of government oversight committees. I like giving the teacher a bit more freedom to choose which textbook they wish to use. Maybe they can recommend books but some teacher's fit a textbook style more than others.

It'd be mostly fact-checking books; maybe make it so they basically rank books on their quality/accuracy, and then teachers or teacher's unions or some sort of teacher's group can make a selection for county/statewide purchase?

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I would say two years. I don't know if all students in these schools will be able to take three years of something, and it might making graduating much, much harder than it would need to be. I am just being realistic.

Two is acceptable.

[Donerail]

Sorry I've been inactive the past few days. This school bill must be haunted.

     Yeah, this is getting pretty bad. Since we have a pretty long queue, maybe we should create a new thread for this bill and discuss other bills in this thread.

Maybe go to what the ME/NE do and have different threads for different bills, with this being maintained as a general discussion thread?

[Donerail]

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Agreed. This can be ruled by collective bargaining, doesn't need an act.

This is gonna be expanded on.

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That's an original way of putting it. But as it has been noted : either the credit has to be donated to education, and then why not give it ourselves as we collect it ? or the credit is the taxpayer to dispose of, encouraged to give it to education, and then we could be screwed. Nevertheless, it could be a good try, so I'll go for it.

The idea is that if we give people a tax credit for their donations to education, they give their own money to the school rather than the government taking it and funding the school, which makes the people have a stronger connection to the school and possibly be more involved with the school in the future.

5.) Magnet schools (defined as public schools with specialized courses or curricula) shall be established throughout the region as a draw for gifted, talented, or otherwise extraordinary students, in order to challenge these students academically. The Governor's Schools of Virginia shall serve as a model for this system.

I'm clearly not buying that. There can be any contests, rallyes, honors, for the most gifted students, but I fail to see why every student shouldn't have the same schools. It's basically institutionalizing a two-geared education that I'm thinking we should be fighting. You'll have to convince me hard on this one. And maybe explain it to me a bit more, it may be less evil that what I'm getting for now. [/quote]

This provision allows greater specialization and training up the best of the best. Some of them would be, for example, an arts magnet; one might be a science/tech magnet; one a marine/environment one; one a government/international one, that kinda thing. It lets us specialize, and through that specialization provide a higher caliber of education in such a field.

7.) Class size in schools shall not exceed a 25:1 student-teacher ratio for core academic subjects (including science, mathematics, English, foreign language, and social studies); class size shall not exceed a 35:1 student-teacher ratio for teachers not in those subject areas.

35:1 is already a hell of a class to teach in front of ! Do our finances allow these thresholds to be decreased to 24:1 for core subjects and 30:1 for others ? And is threshold likely to be seldom, often, or nearly always reached ?[/quote]

25:1 is the high school norm; I wanted to give more flexibility for elective classes (and more people getting the elective they desire).

8.) Teachers shall first undergo a two-week-long observation period of several classrooms, then a three-month-period as a teacher's aide, then a year-long period as an "intern teacher", during which they shall be treated as a full teacher.

   a.) After finishing the period as an intern teacher, evaluations of the teacher from parents, other teachers, and administrators shall be compiled in order to determine if the teacher should be hired.
   b.) Review of teacher performance shall be performed every five years after date of hiring to determine whether said teacher is still performing to an adequate standard.

I'd fire the parents also, can't see what they could bring here.
As for the teacher's formation, I think it is widely underestimated, but I guess for now we'll have to take it that way. Is there any period at all dedicated to learning pedagogy ?
Finally, this might surprise you, or not, but I am one who thinks that public servants, as they have certain advantages, should be exemplary workers, and I would review their activity once a year with an academic inspector of some kind, don't know if that function exists here.[/quote]

Yeah; we could bring that down to 2-3 years, but having one every year might put on a good deal of financial strain.

11.) Schools shall be reviewed by an engineering contractor in order to assess the integrity of the building upon request of the principal or 40% of teachers; in the event that the school is found to be inadequate infrastructure-wise, steps will be taken to either fix the problems or to create a new building.[/quote]I think the Fire department should have a look at the buildings every other year to check fire safeties. But I don't know if that should enter this bill.[/quote]
Pretty sure that already happens, where the fire marshal comes around and checks school buildings and instructs teachers to take down posters and such if there's too many.

12.) An independent textbook review board, comprised of shall be created to select standards for IDS textbooks and then select the most accurate textbook submitted by a textbook corporation.

   a.) Said board shall be comprised of 35 members; each shall hold a Ph.D in one of seven different fields or other closely related fields, for five experts in each field. These fields shall be: math, physics, chemistry, biology, english, history, and political science.
   b.) A member may only rule on a textbook in that person's field of specialty.

I'm a bit split on that one. Is there a possibility for this board to emit an advice on several textbooks in each subject rather than only one ?[/quote]
Yeah, we were discussing reforming it to make it a review board that would give reviews on the truthiness of books to school districts, who purchase the ones they need.

13.) To graduate high schools, students shall be required to take at least three years of a useful foreign language at any level of their educational career or be able to prove proficiency in at least two languages. Such a language is defined here as: English (for non-English speakers), French, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, Italian, Malay, Chinese, Dutch, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, or Swahili (not all languages are available at all schools).

I really don't like the phrasing "useful foreign language", I think our Legislature and Region would be made fun of by "useless-language-speaking" countries and peoples. We should just not say it that way. No problem to have a list of languages though, as we cannot recruit teachers in virtually every language on Earth...
As to make this a requirement to graduate, I don't know, two years or even three years is not enough to really learn and master the language anyway if you didn't take it before that. I think we should stress on Spanish learning, this could merit even more than three years, and maybe just two years to discover another one of choice.
[/quote]

Yeah, change it to "commonly-used languages". I supported the higher years, and languages are typically available as an elective, but having a two-year mandate means there will be language teachers available if needed for additional learning, and kids who aren't good at languages don't have to take 3+ years of it. As for Spanish learning, I dunno; if a kid wants to learn French or Chinese or Italian instead, I say let em.

[Donerail]

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Current form of the bill.

[Donerail]

The latter.

[Donerail]

Okay, all that's left is to quantify "higher pay". I don't think we can work merit pay, because there's no way we can base it off of any kind of merit. If we base it off of test scores, it favors teachers in wealthier neighborhoods where the children come well-prepared to school. If we base it off of improvement, it penalizes teachers who teach high-performing students who can't post large gains. Plus, if we've got teachers currently erasing wrong answers on exams to avoid having their school labeled as needing improvement and the region coming in and scripting their education, imagine what'd happen when they'd also get a raise out of it. If we have, say, admin staff rank them, they could rank them as all excellent, making the program vastly too expensive, or they hand out rewards to their favorite teachers and not the best teachers. It doesn't work.

[Donerail]

It might be in the GM thread.

[Donerail]

     So, what should we do for section one? I'd suggest a base salary of ~$50,000, with teachers being able to earn more by teaching classes that are determined by an independent commission to be exceptionally challenging, in whatever fashion.

Maybe add in degree bonuses as well? But I'd support bonuses for people like AP/IB teachers.

[Donerail]

If I'm technically speaker pro-tem right now, I move that we place this bill on the table in order to begin consideration of the National University deal that recently passed the Senate, since it could impact provisions of this bill and thus needs to be dealt with first.

[Donerail]

I'm sorry this university bill passed, folks. In the end, you will probably be cornered into accepting the federal funds. If the IDS declines funding, it will go to another region.

So. I don't want to say "accept the funds"... but it's tough to see how rejecting them will be of any benefit. Regional rights really lost out on this one. Best of luck; I don't envy the decision you'll have to make.

There's always the Zaporozhian option (in which we tell the President precisely where he can put his university)...

[Donerail]

I suggest using the money to establish "completely unrelated" colleges where colleges go bankrupt for not accepting student loans (for ideological or fiscal loans (ie: not for-profit universities)).

[Donerail]

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Current form of the bill, with my changes. If nobody has much more, I'll act on my authority as Speaker Pro Tem and bring it to a vote in 24 hours.

[Donerail]

I nominate San Juan, having a lower per capita income than any other MSA in the region.

[Donerail]

I accept Duke's amendment as friendly.

[Donerail]

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Current form of the bill, with Duke's amendment. Don't see any more issues. Want to move this to a final vote?

[Donerail]

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As it has been over 48 (just about 68) hours since there has been any debate on this bill (any suggestions for changes or general opposition to any provisions), so acting on my authority as speaker pro tem (I think I'm still speaker pro tem), I declare this bill to be at final vote. Legislators, please vote aye, nay, or abstain.


If I'm not, then I request this bill go to final vote.


If I am, then AYE.

[Donerail]

If I need to restate it since I don't have that power anymore, Aye.

[Donerail]

I propose San Juan, Puerto Rico, as it currently possesses the lowest GDP per capita of all major metro areas in the IDS, and needs something big, like this university, to get it on track to parity with the rest of the IDS. It also keeps Fed U from being too close to the heart of our region.