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Originally Posted by itshotinvegas
I think before anyone talks about school funding amounts, we need to address how the money gets spent. Upwards of 80% of a school's budget goes to payroll. The issue is, the union(s) prevent maximizing the return on that investment. I'm all for paying teachers more, but I'm adamantly opposed to paying teachers more without that pay being tied to results. Teacher unions actively compete with the public's interst, just as all public sector unions do, but I don't think you can win local elections without the teacher unions.
Canada is usually ranked top 5 in the world in K-12 education. In our district, over 91% of our budget goes to payroll, and there is absolutely no tying of pay to results. Nor tying funding to results. And AFAIK, this is the case across the country.
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Originally Posted by Inso0
Teacher merit pay makes sense as a thought experiment, but the implementation is nigh impossible. Paying districts based on results is how we've gotten to where we are today with the behavior issues. DPI tracks stats on suspensions and expulsions and that has just led to schools refusing to issue punishments so as not to tarnish their stats.
Well, the last part is a good result, even if it's for the wrong reasons. Suspensions and expulsions aren't the answer, and should be used sparingly IMO.
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Originally Posted by Inso0
We need what would probably best be described as military-style boarding schools to send the 15% of kids in the inner city who are ruining the education of their peers. That'll make a bigger dent in outcomes than any merit pay program. Your kid gets picked up in August, and we'll deliver them back to you in June. The teachers know who these 15% are. We're poisoning an entire generation because it's uncomfortable to label certain kids as a lost cause.
Wow. Just, wow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inso0
Sorry for using my own locale as a baseline for the statement. In Southeastern Wisconsin, the schools in question are invariably in Milwaukee's inner city. This is not to say that ALL inner city schools are a problem, because that's not true either. Some have managed to cultivate a reputation for excellence and draw the attention of parents who care about their kids' education. Involved and truly engaged parents make all the difference in keeping kids on a productive path.
Swap "inner city" with whatever shorthand you'd use in West Virginia to describe the problem areas and move on. It's those 6 or 7 kids in the class of 30 that prevent any meaningful education from taking place. They need to be escorted out of the building and put on a bus to military school. You are entitled to a public education, but if you refuse to accept it, we need to stop letting you ruin it for the rest of your peers.
Has it ever occurred to you that the "problem" with inner city schools might not be the behaviour of the students, but their socio-economic status? If you really think that 15% of the kids need to be written off as lost causes and sent to a military school, you have zero credibility on this topic IMO.
As an outside observer, I see a couple of issues that seem to plague the US K-12 education system:
- Funding based on results. This one just boggles my mind. SO many problems with this.
- Two (or multi) tier education system. We have private schools here, but the difference in education isn't all that dramatic. From everything I read, it sounds like the US has huge discrepancies between the education available at different schools.
Again, these are just my observations as someone with no experience in the US system, so I could be off on either of these.