California Schools don't have enough money?
 

At mine (I'm looking at the "unaudited" figures online), admin is 26% of the budget. Financial aid is 13% of the budget.

annual giving supplies 11% of the revenue, and the endowment supplies 10% of the annual revenue. (I doubt your school uses too much of the endowment--most places don't like to draw it down too much, however large it is).

So, anyway, the relevant figure here is 26%, but on a higher base (presumably, as tuition covers 74% of the revenue, and tuition, as my parents remind me, is quite high).

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

So are you. Who do you want teaching your kids? You may not need law school grads but you surely don't want high-school dropouts. We want a particularly well educated segment of society.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Sort of agree, sort of not. I want smart, empathetic people who like to teach kids. I'm not that concerned about the well-educated part. (Obviously, some undergrad degree in their subject, but no need for higher ed for anyone pre-10th-grade.) We pay cops, firemen, nurses, even physician assistants less than $55k. I think you can draw from the same groups.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

I just wouldn't characterize them as well paid professionals. That's us. They are professionals, but likely paid at the low end for their educational and professional background. Indeed, at $55,000, a good comparison would be cops and firefighters, who are often in about that same area but have more overtime opportunities and less education and training.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

I think we're quibbling over small beer. Factor in a three-season work year, and you're there.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Hmmm. Perhaps where you live the starting salary for teachers is $55,000. Here in flyover land, the starting salary is $20,000 (statutory minimum) to $36,000.

aV

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

My kids have had rather good teachers paid whatever they're paid. The problem with public schools are in the schools that suck. Do you think they pay teachers less and that explains why some schools fail kids?

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Right. The correlation between "good school results" and $$/child is not all that high. The most direct correlation comes with "good school results" and "percentage of kids living in two-parent homes".

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Yeah, go read the NY Times on Sunday, which had a pretty length article on this. Among the many points are (a) no one considers themselves upper or lower class and (b) $55k is a pretty solid salary for most people.

Are views are entirely distorted by being among the upper 5% in overall education and, in many cases, the top 5-10% in annual income. If you can't live on $55k, at least in most U.S. areas (exclude, NY, SF, LA, DC, and perhaps others), you're not trying hard enough to economize. Start by trading down to a used F-150.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

$55,000 was the average in California - I assume they start below that. But, yeh, that's high, and it's well above what my mother was paid as a teacher with 30 years experience when she retired.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

My understanding is that the biggest correlation is to class size, which does relate (not correlate but relate) to amount you've got to spend.

If you look at some of the studies done by the Annenberg Foundation, you'll find that education gets much, much more effective, no matter what group you are teaching, as class sizes shrink.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

I haven't looked it up in about three years, but I think the $55k figure is fairly high for most schoold districts for all but the most senior teachers. Around here, they tend to start closer to the 30s

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

I'd never thought you to be the home schooling type.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

They say a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

And my understanding was that the strongest correlation is to overall school size. The so-called "small schools" theory.

Funny. Three posters, three different understandings of even what exists as accepted social theory.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Architects of my acquaintence would be very, very happy to get $55K a year. They're fairly highly educated.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

My father was a carpenter. Funny, he neglected home repairs. your mom seems to have neglected work at home also.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Do firemen have undergraduate degrees? This is not a question of whether they deserve more for putting their lives on the line, but rather of what they can earn elsewhere. I suspect that people with college degrees, particularly with a specialization certificate (as many states require for teaching) average higher than $55k. (As for nurses, $55k is pretty low, at least by SF standards. Of course, $1MM for a glorified toilet stall is cheap here, so....)

By excluding pre-10th grade from the discussion, you exclude some 20-25% of teachers, don't you? Doesn't that skew the number a bit? People with post-college educations tend to earn a good bit more than $55k.

In sum, while there are innumerable problems with public ed and public ed spending, I am not inclined to believe that it's really an issue of teachers being overpaid. I am much more inclined to believe that there are excessive administrative costs, at least in some districts. And certainly know that unfunded mandates are a particular problem.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Excessive administrative costs as in padding, or excessive administrative costs as in high compliance costs? "Compliance" encompassing federal, state, local rules/regs, I guess.

ETA to what extent are public school employees protected by the due process stuff w/r/t termination of employment and discipline and stuff? I vaguely remember this from BarBri or something. This seems like a PITA to comply with.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

You're trying to engage me in a discussion of benefits, you brazen little hussy. It won't work.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Teachers here, in the "rich" urban area, start at around $28k. Outstate, it might be $20k. $55k for a nurse here would be top-of-scale, in a top facility, for a supervisor.

Maybe I said it wrong - I meant to exclude about 80% with that. K-9 not needing post-grad, 10-12 (in the sciences, at least) needing some grad.

Note that I used "well-paid", not "overpaid." For my area, at least, (remember that you live in one of the four most expensive places to live in the world) $55k goes a long way, and is a realistic target for the typical college grad. They can buy their large $200k house, and live okay, on that. As for excessive admins, I regularly sleep with someone who is working in the schools (non-admin) who tells me that, in spite of what she used to think, there are no admins sitting around doing nothing - they are running the school, or doing something that is needed to comply with some federal requirement - usually involving preparing compilations and reports and the like.

I think we're simply stuck with the idea that, in an era when teachers realistically expect to be well paid, (meaning, able to support a decent middle-class lifestyle), and where we expect schools to fulfill a lot of functions that have not traditionally been within the mission of education, education is going to take a big chunk of cash.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

And on the bottom line we come out the same.

I think there are a lot of things in education that aren't dependent on cash. There are great teachers and mediocre teachers, and which you get is critical, but they may well be paid the same.

But, in today's world, you aren't going to get a quality education without paying a fair bit of money. McClintock aside.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Interesting, seemingly on-point. Boy am I ever glad I have no kids.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/05....ap/index.html

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

If starting salary for teachers is $28k in your area, then I suspect the average salary is not $55k. Ditto the outstate areas. Or does their pay skyrocket at some point?

In general, I would say that teachers receive decent pay, but hardly high pay given the qualifications and demands involved.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

From everything I see, the Gates Foundation has done very impressive work in schools. Interestingly, they have supported a very broad range of schools and students -- from working with near-basket-case schools to providing scholarships to top students (I recently met a high school senior who received a Gates Fellowship that will pay for his education thru PhD level).


It's easy to avoid the travails of public schools. You just need to be willing to blow, say, 15k a year.

For f'ing kindergarten.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Heh. No fucking way.

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

All of our words-passing-in-the-night aside, I agree with this.

Wednesday funnies
 

http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/Cartoons/05-18-2005.gif

(I love this guy.)

You have to hand it to the Catholics.......
 

Clearly we just don't speak the same language. I blame the public schools.

Wednesday funnies
 

Heh-heh.

Here's another --

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2005/db050511.gif

Well, I think it's very appropriate that in order to install conservative judicial activists on the federal bench, Bill Frist is willing to declare unconstitutional a Senate rule that he was using just a few years ago. This is a matter of principle, and the conservative principle here is that if the law doesn't say what conservatives want it to, we need to get rid of that law and interpret ourselves a new one.

eta:

At least Justice Janice Rogers Brown has been candid about this:

• Republicans, and their conservative allies, have been willing to make . . . lame arguments to rescue even nominees whose jurisprudence is questionable. Janice Rogers Brown, one of Bush's nominees has argued that there is properly 'an extra-constitutional dimension to constitutional law.' She has said that judges should be willing to invoke a 'higher law' than the Constitution. She has said that judicial activism is not troubling per se; what matters is the 'worldview' of the judicial activist. If a liberal nominee to the courts said similar things, conservatives would make quick work of her.

That would Ramesh Ponnuru on her.

Well, if by "the law", you mean "something that nobody seems to have voted on before", and by "we", you mean "the majority" and not "the minority" or "some activist lawyer in a Judge's robe", than, uhm, actually, yes.

Bitch, please.

link

Geshundteit.

The fact that you did something 5 years ago (or last night) does not mean that you actively considered whether it was legal in all respects of the Constitution; nor does it mean that it was in fact legal in all respects of the Constitution.

The great burden of leadership that Delay carries is that he is now in a position where he is expected to know and understand all of the rules, requirements, obligations, laws, provisions, amendments, preambles, penumbras, permutations and everything else on behalf of his constitutents, his party, and the whole U.S. of A. No more sleeping in homeroom for ole boy Bill.

And the fact that he voted for a filibuster does not mean that he had considered the underlying issue of whether filibusters of that particular type would stand up to challenge. Lots of things legislators do don't stand up to challenge. You expect they are worried about what every critic in a robe might think? No. They carry about what their constituents and contributors will think.

Take some small measure of comfort that in the year 2250, the tables will be turned on the Republicans and the Martian Cooperative will gleefully shoulder aside a filibuster attempt of this sort. Til then, bye bye baby!

Aw, c'mon. Both sides are crying "unConstitutional!!", and all of us on these boards know both sides are wrong.

Maybe you should scroll up one post and read what your compatriot says. There's still time to edit this.

I don't have compatriots. I have interests.

(Which compatriot? You mean Ty??)

Assuming the question is serious, Say Hello. He seems to believe that it is, in fact, unConsitutional, and that Frist is being honest and pure as the driven snow.

Assuming it's not serious, then Atticus. I often think you're both full of shit.


[psst-let's not go round and round again]just kidding, no offense intended[/psst-let's not go round and round again]

It was serious. I was responding to SH's belief, disagreeing with him. Frist and Reid are simply bloviating and lying, pandering to all those voters who have no effing clue what a filibuster really is, and what the Constitution says, while they play out their strategies and tactics. There's nothing unconstitutional about denying a vote through filibuster, or wiping out judicial filibusters. Similarly, there's no abridgment of freedom of speech (asshole Reid) by invoking cloture. They're just trying to spin to get the most uninformed support. Anyone who paid attention to two or three pertinent law school classes knows this. This is all simply a fight over votes, not principles, on both sides.