Quote Originally Posted by mopar34
...Public education in this country has gone to hell. I don't think the liberal educators will ever allow it back on track. I heard the other day where the cost per child to go to public school in the area where I work, was about $31,000 per year... I agree that good educators should be paid well, but poor ones should be fired and the top heavy administrations should be sliced to the bone.
Education began to go to hell when corporal punishment was removed from the school. I got my ass blistered when I was a Senior in high school and sent back to class with tears running down my cheeks. I, and two of my friends, did something incredibly stupid, got caught, and we took our punishment. It did not teach me "it's OK to hit people" or turn me into a violent person; it taught me that there are consequences for doing wrong (It wasn't my first paddling). Nowdays, we can't really do anything to a misbehaving kid and they all know it.

It has nothing to do with "liberal educators" (whatever that is). Most of us are very moderate leaning to conservative. The real problem is that the laws and guidelines that regulate education are made by people who know nothing about teaching and/ or running a school. (I don't know of a single legislator or senator that started out as a public school teacher.) The most recent example of that is the George Bush - Ted Kennedy (Yes, they collaborated on it ) law called "No Child Left Behind". If it was applied to football it would go something like this: Every community must have a high-achieving football team. Each team must win a championship within two years. Teams who win championships can keep doing what they are doing, but may be required to help non-championship teams. Teams who do not achieve a championship within two years will have their equipment taken away until they achieve a championship... Does that make sense? It's the kind of stupidity we teachers deal with! It is part of the reason that teaching is the #4 stress-related job in the nation.

If your school district gets $31,000 per year per student I wanna come there to teach! Teachers up there must be making millions! Actually FTE funding is about $3,200 per year per student. If you divide that by 180 school days it comes out to a bit under $18 per day. That is less than a babysitter costs!

Administrations have become very top-heavy and wasteful. When I started in this county 19 years ago, the Vocational-Technical county office had a director, two resource teachers, and two secretaries. Since then, we have lost two Automotive programs, two Masonry programs, at least eight Wood shops, all the junior-high Industrial Arts shops (8 or 9), two Construction labs, and one HVAC program. While the schools were losing programs galore, the Vo-Tech office has swelled to 20+ employees! When the Superintendent came here, he publicly stated that there were "too many chiefs and not enough indians". Since then he has almost doubled the size of the county administration while the student population is declining!