Under Act 10 Wisconsin successfully rids itself of bad and unnecessary teachers

[krazen1211]

If you really care about the increase in education spending during the 70's and 80's that much, I suggest running against Governor Tony Earl.

It is the voters of Union Buster Scott Walker who care, as well as those freed from draconian taxation.

Mr. Scott Walker was a student in Wisconsin in the early 1980s. He knows full well that such levels of spending were sufficient prior to the liberal Union assault on the public treasury.

[King]

Interesting points, Krazen.  I have to say I've learned quite a lot from you by reading your posts on the matter and have become educated in the negative role of teachers unions in public education.  You are quite the teache--OH NO YOU'VE BECOME ONE OF THEM.

DESTROY DESTROY

[pbrower2a]

If you really care about the increase in education spending during the 70's and 80's that much, I suggest running against Governor Tony Earl.

It is the voters of Union Buster Scott Walker who care, as well as those freed from draconian taxation.

Mr. Scott Walker was a student in Wisconsin in the early 1980s. He knows full well that such levels of spending were sufficient prior to the liberal Union assault on the public treasury.

Cut K-12 school spending enough and you get more school dropouts because schools have no means of rescuing at-risk students. Underfunded K-12 schools imply that fewer of their graduates are able to compete in a college environment. Add to that, the K-12 school system has become in effect a point of first contact for social welfare work.

The dream of the Hard Right is to have Third World wages and a depleted public sector but First World productivity. Such is as realistic as going into a Mercedes-Benz  dealership and expecting to buy a new Mercedes Benz with the cash suitable for buying a seven-year-old Chevrolet sedan. But at least a seven-year-old Chevrolet sedan may be useful for its purposes. Educational failure has no benign consequences.

Good government requires adequate taxes. Good work requires solid pay so that workers have an incentive other than abject fear that makes life hopeless.

Scott Walker is the sort of fellow who reminds me of the fellow who thinks that he can save money on cars by not doing oil changes and not getting the car washed in the winter (without those washes a car rusts out due to salt sloshed onto the chassis and frame) . Remember -- a seven-year-old Chevrolet sedan may still run well if it gets regular and necessary oil changes and regular winter car washes if the car is driven on roads salted to prevent icing. If it doesn't get them it is junk within seven years.

 

[krazen1211]

If you really care about the increase in education spending during the 70's and 80's that much, I suggest running against Governor Tony Earl.

It is the voters of Union Buster Scott Walker who care, as well as those freed from draconian taxation.

Mr. Scott Walker was a student in Wisconsin in the early 1980s. He knows full well that such levels of spending were sufficient prior to the liberal Union assault on the public treasury.

Cut K-12 school spending enough and you get more school dropouts because schools have no means of rescuing at-risk students. Underfunded K-12 schools imply that fewer of their graduates are able to compete in a college environment. Add to that, the K-12 school system has become in effect a point of first contact for social welfare work.

The dream of the Hard Right is to have Third World wages and a depleted public sector but First World productivity. Such is as realistic as going into a Mercedes-Benz  dealership and expecting to buy a new Mercedes Benz with the cash suitable for buying a seven-year-old Chevrolet sedan. But at least a seven-year-old Chevrolet sedan may be useful for its purposes. Educational failure has no benign consequences.

Good government requires adequate taxes. Good work requires solid pay so that workers have an incentive other than abject fear that makes life hopeless.

Scott Walker is the sort of fellow who reminds me of the fellow who thinks that he can save money on cars by not doing oil changes and not getting the car washed in the winter (without those washes a car rusts out due to salt sloshed onto the chassis and frame) . Remember -- a seven-year-old Chevrolet sedan may still run well if it gets regular and necessary oil changes and regular winter car washes if the car is driven on roads salted to prevent icing. If it doesn't get them it is junk within seven years.

  

Too bad the real facts show that education spending is enormous by historical standards. We haven't cut education spending 'enough'.

The interesting thing about education is that failure leads liberals to demand more funding, so that liberals can continue the failure, so that liberals can demand more funding, so that liberals can create more failure! It's a great way to extort the treasury in a circle.

The dream of the left has been realized, in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The government education industry complex is looting well over $11k per student per year. $700 billion a year in the aggregate is looted from the productive sector.

[krazen1211]

Interesting points, Krazen.  I have to say I've learned quite a lot from you by reading your posts on the matter and have become educated in the negative role of teachers unions in public education.  You are quite the teache--OH NO YOU'VE BECOME ONE OF THEM.

DESTROY DESTROY

No, I am not one of them. My wisdom is free of charge.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Interesting points, Krazen.  I have to say I've learned quite a lot from you by reading your posts on the matter and have become educated in the negative role of teachers unions in public education.  You are quite the teache--OH NO YOU'VE BECOME ONE OF THEM.

DESTROY DESTROY

No, I am not one of them. My wisdom is free of charge.

They say things are worth what people will pay for them.

[pbrower2a]

Too bad the real facts show that education spending is enormous by historical standards. We haven't cut education spending 'enough'.

The interesting thing about education is that failure leads liberals to demand more funding, so that liberals can continue the failure, so that liberals can demand more funding, so that liberals can create more failure! It's a great way to extort the treasury in a circle.

The dream of the left has been realized, in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The government education industry complex is looting well over $11k per student per year. $700 billion a year in the aggregate is looted from the productive sector.

Of course it is huge. There are more children in school, and costs of everything related to education from teachers' salaries to heating and cooling fuel have risen.

Face it -- the American Right wants cheap, cowed labor that has two options -- work to exhaustion for near-starvation pay or starve. For those cast off there would be only starvation. For that one needs an uneducated workforce that would never be able to read a piece of anti-capitalist tract.  But if it is simply poorly educated it is usually ill-paid and unable to see anything wrong with "Workers of the World, Unite!"

Education is productive expenditure. It adds to later productivity, and one ignores it only if one expects children not to survive into adulthood.    

[krazen1211]

Too bad the real facts show that education spending is enormous by historical standards. We haven't cut education spending 'enough'.

The interesting thing about education is that failure leads liberals to demand more funding, so that liberals can continue the failure, so that liberals can demand more funding, so that liberals can create more failure! It's a great way to extort the treasury in a circle.

The dream of the left has been realized, in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The government education industry complex is looting well over $11k per student per year. $700 billion a year in the aggregate is looted from the productive sector.

Of course it is huge. There are more children in school, and costs of everything related to education from teachers' salaries to heating and cooling fuel have risen.

Face it -- the American Right wants cheap, cowed labor that has two options -- work to exhaustion for near-starvation pay or starve. For those cast off there would be only starvation. For that one needs an uneducated workforce that would never be able to read a piece of anti-capitalist tract.  But if it is simply poorly educated it is usually ill-paid and unable to see anything wrong with "Workers of the World, Unite!"

Education is productive expenditure. It adds to later productivity, and one ignores it only if one expects children not to survive into adulthood.    

Actually in many states there aren't. Nationwide, the public school K-12 student population has barely grown since 1970.

That didn't stop the looters. DC public schools are up to $21k per year now looted from the treasury. Teacher salaries, benefits, and lavish pensions have of course skyrocketed in costs. That much is true.

You seem to cling to the curiosity that dumping more money into the government education industry complex is actually about productive expenditure.

[pbrower2a]

Too bad the real facts show that education spending is enormous by historical standards. We haven't cut education spending 'enough'.

The interesting thing about education is that failure leads liberals to demand more funding, so that liberals can continue the failure, so that liberals can demand more funding, so that liberals can create more failure! It's a great way to extort the treasury in a circle.

The dream of the left has been realized, in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The government education industry complex is looting well over $11k per student per year. $700 billion a year in the aggregate is looted from the productive sector.

Of course it is huge. There are more children in school, and costs of everything related to education from teachers' salaries to heating and cooling fuel have risen.

Face it -- the American Right wants cheap, cowed labor that has two options -- work to exhaustion for near-starvation pay or starve. For those cast off there would be only starvation. For that one needs an uneducated workforce that would never be able to read a piece of anti-capitalist tract.  But if it is simply poorly educated it is usually ill-paid and unable to see anything wrong with "Workers of the World, Unite!"

Education is productive expenditure. It adds to later productivity, and one ignores it only if one expects children not to survive into adulthood.    

Actually in many states there aren't. Nationwide, the public school K-12 student population has barely grown since 1970.

That didn't stop the looters. DC public schools are up to $21k per year now looted from the treasury. Teacher salaries, benefits, and lavish pensions have of course skyrocketed in costs. That much is true.

You seem to cling to the curiosity that dumping more money into the government education industry complex is actually about productive expenditure.

The payoff isn't quick; underinvestment is costly.

I have been a substitute teacher, but I have never seen a school budget. School teaching is an extremely labor-intensive activity. 

$21K per year? You must be talking about new construction. Otherwise...

Teachers' salaries are a huge chunk of school cost. I am going to guess that they are about half the total cost of K-12 education, which probably shows how efficient public schools are at constraining cost. Public schools just don't have huge bureaucracies, which indicates how efficient teachers are (contrast retail salesclerks who have to be watched closely). There's about one supervisor to every dozen or so teachers who of course are better motivated than retail clerks.

That's before I talk about school staff, noon meals, heating and cooling expenses, supplies, textbooks, and bus  transportation.

The average certified teacher in Florida (probably close to the US average) makes $45K a year. For a class of fifteen (and in elementary school you would not want more than 15 students per teacher) that is about $3K per student.  The cost per teacher is probably higher in a shop class in high school -- but at that, kids taking shop class are going to have -- one hopes -- a quick payback as they get well-paying blue-collar jobs.

Do the math. $3K per student as teachers' salary probably translates to $6K per student. $21K per student might apply to (auto body) shop or carpentry shop, but I think we can accept that. Successes in shop classes are going to stick around, get good pay, and pay taxes.   

If the cost in an elementary school is $21K per student, then you might have good case for an audit. Note well: most school districts go through the accounts of the district very closely. Maybe Detroit doesn't; if I were in charge I would turn auditors loose and see whether money is going into something unrelated to education, physical plant, student transportation, or necessary administrative costs. If someone is putting liquor on an expense account or renting Mercedes-Benz vehicles while attending 'professional seminars' in Hawaii, then maybe that practice had better die.   

[opebo]

$21k/year sounds reasonable to me.

[krazen1211]

Too bad the real facts show that education spending is enormous by historical standards. We haven't cut education spending 'enough'.

The interesting thing about education is that failure leads liberals to demand more funding, so that liberals can continue the failure, so that liberals can demand more funding, so that liberals can create more failure! It's a great way to extort the treasury in a circle.

The dream of the left has been realized, in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The government education industry complex is looting well over $11k per student per year. $700 billion a year in the aggregate is looted from the productive sector.

Of course it is huge. There are more children in school, and costs of everything related to education from teachers' salaries to heating and cooling fuel have risen.

Face it -- the American Right wants cheap, cowed labor that has two options -- work to exhaustion for near-starvation pay or starve. For those cast off there would be only starvation. For that one needs an uneducated workforce that would never be able to read a piece of anti-capitalist tract.  But if it is simply poorly educated it is usually ill-paid and unable to see anything wrong with "Workers of the World, Unite!"

Education is productive expenditure. It adds to later productivity, and one ignores it only if one expects children not to survive into adulthood.    

Actually in many states there aren't. Nationwide, the public school K-12 student population has barely grown since 1970.

That didn't stop the looters. DC public schools are up to $21k per year now looted from the treasury. Teacher salaries, benefits, and lavish pensions have of course skyrocketed in costs. That much is true.

You seem to cling to the curiosity that dumping more money into the government education industry complex is actually about productive expenditure.

The payoff isn't quick; underinvestment is costly.

I have been a substitute teacher, but I have never seen a school budget. School teaching is an extremely labor-intensive activity. 

$21K per year? You must be talking about new construction. Otherwise...

Teachers' salaries are a huge chunk of school cost. I am going to guess that they are about half the total cost of K-12 education, which probably shows how efficient public schools are at constraining cost. Public schools just don't have huge bureaucracies, which indicates how efficient teachers are (contrast retail salesclerks who have to be watched closely). There's about one supervisor to every dozen or so teachers who of course are better motivated than retail clerks.

That's before I talk about school staff, noon meals, heating and cooling expenses, supplies, textbooks, and bus  transportation.

The average certified teacher in Florida (probably close to the US average) makes $45K a year. For a class of fifteen (and in elementary school you would not want more than 15 students per teacher) that is about $3K per student.  The cost per teacher is probably higher in a shop class in high school -- but at that, kids taking shop class are going to have -- one hopes -- a quick payback as they get well-paying blue-collar jobs.

Do the math. $3K per student as teachers' salary probably translates to $6K per student. $21K per student might apply to (auto body) shop or carpentry shop, but I think we can accept that. Successes in shop classes are going to stick around, get good pay, and pay taxes.   

If the cost in an elementary school is $21K per student, then you might have good case for an audit. Note well: most school districts go through the accounts of the district very closely. Maybe Detroit doesn't; if I were in charge I would turn auditors loose and see whether money is going into something unrelated to education, physical plant, student transportation, or necessary administrative costs. If someone is putting liquor on an expense account or renting Mercedes-Benz vehicles while attending 'professional seminars' in Hawaii, then maybe that practice had better die.   

New construction in DC, where the public school population has been chopped in half since the late 1960? What a funny joke! $21k is the posted average for DC for all classrooms. It is of course not a mystery how this happens, as DC simply employs more unionized employees than comparable districts and lets them sit on the dole.

For the record, in the United States, salaries for instruction are a mere 35% of total education expenditures.  It used to be closer to 40% in the early 1990s when education cost the taxpayers much less money. Mathematics of course details a tripling of expenditures in certain designated categories, also known as 'Employee benefits'.

The unions, you see, were winning.

[pbrower2a]

$21k/year sounds reasonable to me.

Maybe for high-cost cities like New York, Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, Honolulu and anywhere in Alaska. Teachers should not be expected to live in 'low-income housing' and live on ramen noodles.

[pbrower2a]

$21k is the posted average for DC for all classrooms. It is of course not a mystery how this happens, as DC simply employs more unionized employees than comparable districts and lets them sit on the dole.

For the record, in the United States, salaries for instruction are a mere 35% of total education expenditures.  It used to be closer to 40% in the early 1990s when education cost the taxpayers much less money. Mathematics of course details a tripling of expenditures in certain designated categories, also known as 'Employee benefits'.

The unions, you see, were winning.

Employee benefits are part of the compensation. With those included, teacher compensation is still somewhere near 50% of the cost of K-12 education.

Unions were not 'winning'. Costs of medical care and hence medical insurance have been skyrocketing. That is not a choice of the unions.

By the way -- teachers need unions to protect them from political pressures (make sure that you give the "right" spiel on partisan politics") and at times parents who use pressure groups to get unfair and probably detrimental advantages for their kids. Considering how I teach -- I expect all students to pay attention to me and to do assigned work in the classroom -- I could easily run into accusations of racist behavior. I believe in honest grading as part of the essence of academic freedom and good pedagogy. 

[Badger]

Krazen, not that I think any woman would have sex with you without using cash or roofies, but IF you ever reproduced (God forbid), would you want your child's public school's funding cut?

Or are you just assuming you'll have money to send any of your procreated seed to private schools, so you happily say "F$%k the world!!" to everyone else who doesn't?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

New construction in DC, where the public school population has been chopped in half since the late 1960? What a funny joke!

I guess if you don't want things like computers in the classrooms, you could get away with that.  At a minimum, a 1960s classroom will have had to be rewired by now, and that doesn't even begin to count all the other improvements in physical surroundings parents expect.  I went to school in South Carolina in August without air-conditioning four decades ago.  I don't think you could get away with that now around here.  Maybe up north where you don't have summer the way we do here and you often don't start school until Labor Day.

[krazen1211]

$21k is the posted average for DC for all classrooms. It is of course not a mystery how this happens, as DC simply employs more unionized employees than comparable districts and lets them sit on the dole.

For the record, in the United States, salaries for instruction are a mere 35% of total education expenditures.  It used to be closer to 40% in the early 1990s when education cost the taxpayers much less money. Mathematics of course details a tripling of expenditures in certain designated categories, also known as 'Employee benefits'.

The unions, you see, were winning.

Employee benefits are part of the compensation. With those included, teacher compensation is still somewhere near 50% of the cost of K-12 education.

Unions were not 'winning'. Costs of medical care and hence medical insurance have been skyrocketing. That is not a choice of the unions.

By the way -- teachers need unions to protect them from political pressures (make sure that you give the "right" spiel on partisan politics") and at times parents who use pressure groups to get unfair and probably detrimental advantages for their kids. Considering how I teach -- I expect all students to pay attention to me and to do assigned work in the classroom -- I could easily run into accusations of racist behavior. I believe in honest grading as part of the essence of academic freedom and good pedagogy. 

The word you used in your prior post is salaries. Thus, I posted the figure for salaries. I presumed you meant salaries when you say 'salaries, especially as your own math doubles the $3k into $6k to cover, well, something or another.

For the record, Philadelphia public schools has well over $14k per pupil in district run schools, and still whines for additional funding. Neat, eh? I would would how that audit would go!

Actually, they did one. They buy lots of stuff and don't know where it is.

What is not in dispute, of course, is that these unions request more expensive health care than the nation as a whole, which is why Teamsters is whining about Obamacare. That of course was their choice. Here in Philadelphia the unions are a primary opponent to commonsense cost saving mechanisms like consolidation of excess school capacity.

[krazen1211]

Krazen, not that I think any woman would have sex with you without using cash or roofies, but IF you ever reproduced (God forbid), would you want your child's public school's funding cut?

Or are you just assuming you'll have money to send any of your procreated seed to private schools, so you happily say "F$%k the world!!" to everyone else who doesn't?

It would certainly not be a bad thing given how expensive public schooling is.

A more prudent question is whether Badger wants Badger's children's taxes raised, because that will be required if spending per pupil, skyrockets, again, over the next 30 years, like it did over the past 30.


To provide a more practical example, Mr. Scott Walker's sons (born in 1993 and 1994) attended public schools in Wisconsin. I believe one or both have graduated in the last couple years, even after Mr. Walker's minimal haircut to spending. Some liberals earlier decided to smear them on facebook.

[barfbag]

Krazen, not that I think any woman would have sex with you without using cash or roofies, but IF you ever reproduced (God forbid), would you want your child's public school's funding cut?

Or are you just assuming you'll have money to send any of your procreated seed to private schools, so you happily say "F$%k the world!!" to everyone else who doesn't?

Well another way to look at it is would you want your child to have inefficient teachers?

[opebo]

Why would anyone think $21,000 per pupil was unreasonable?

[pbrower2a]

$21k is the posted average for DC for all classrooms. It is of course not a mystery how this happens, as DC simply employs more unionized employees than comparable districts and lets them sit on the dole.

For the record, in the United States, salaries for instruction are a mere 35% of total education expenditures.  It used to be closer to 40% in the early 1990s when education cost the taxpayers much less money. Mathematics of course details a tripling of expenditures in certain designated categories, also known as 'Employee benefits'.

The unions, you see, were winning.

Employee benefits are part of the compensation. With those included, teacher compensation is still somewhere near 50% of the cost of K-12 education.

Unions were not 'winning'. Costs of medical care and hence medical insurance have been skyrocketing. That is not a choice of the unions.

By the way -- teachers need unions to protect them from political pressures (make sure that you give the "right" spiel on partisan politics") and at times parents who use pressure groups to get unfair and probably detrimental advantages for their kids. Considering how I teach -- I expect all students to pay attention to me and to do assigned work in the classroom -- I could easily run into accusations of racist behavior. I believe in honest grading as part of the essence of academic freedom and good pedagogy. 

The word you used in your prior post is salaries. Thus, I posted the figure for salaries. I presumed you meant salaries when you say 'salaries, especially as your own math doubles the $3k into $6k to cover, well, something or another.

For the record, Philadelphia public schools has well over $14k per pupil in district run schools, and still whines for additional funding. Neat, eh? I would would how that audit would go!

Actually, they did one. They buy lots of stuff and don't know where it is.

What is not in dispute, of course, is that these unions request more expensive health care than the nation as a whole, which is why Teamsters is whining about Obamacare. That of course was their choice. Here in Philadelphia the unions are a primary opponent to commonsense cost saving mechanisms like consolidation of excess school capacity.

Sorry about the confusion. Compensation is the right term, and that includes medical insurance and pension contributions. Businesses consider that all labor costs, and so should school districts. Detroit is in big trouble because in efforts to stave off economic calamity in the past it pushed aside such costs to what was then the future -- like 2013, which seemed far off in 1973.

Obviously, teaching in a big city school district is one of the less attractive of careers because of difficult conditions. Kids who get more influence from mass media than from parents and for whom the mass media are a more benign influence are tough to teach. I'd need very good pay to teach in such a school or a lack of alternatives.