Sandra Dodd

"Some administrators said they recognized that spending time with
their parents at work could be a valuable educational experience for
children, but it does not justify pulling them out of the classroom �
even for one day.
"Stakes have never been higher for student achievement," wrote
Virginia B. McElyea, the superintendent of the Deer Valley Unified
School District in Phoenix, Ariz. "Every day your child is out of
school his or her learning achievement suffers.""

OH BROTHER! One out of 180 or more days of school is more valuable
than the only day in the year (or sometimes a lifetime; Keith's job
hardly ever has an open house) is deemed (by school) not to be
sufficiently important.

School will soon tell people what to wear and when to go to bed.
Oh... wait... they do, don't they?
School sent a contract home for my sister to sign that she tore up but
I wish I had it. All parents were to promise to give aeach child a
private permanent homework area, and a book on Christmas and birthday,
and no more than an hour of TV, and... (if anyone has one or a link to
one I would love to look again; it's been years).
Anyway...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_kids_at_work_backlash




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Melissa

Wasn't this unbelievably ridiculous?!? I frankly think that they are afraid the kids might figure out there is a real world out there and what they are learning in school has very little relevance to that real world, and then what - they might question that value of their countless hours in school!! Anarchy!

A colleague of mine brought her son to work today (an event he enjoyed last year, admittedly in part so he could get away from school), and she got an e-mail today from his school saying that this would be an "unexcused" absence.

I said "horrors"!! Unexcused! Oh no!! Of course I have no idea what ramifications getting an unexcused absence would have in the schooled world (and she didn't care).

As you say, as if one day would even matter over any other day.

I am continually shocked by how people allow themselves and their lives to be manipulated this way. I guess it shouldn't shock me, but it does.

--Melissa


--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> "Some administrators said they recognized that spending time with
> their parents at work could be a valuable educational experience for
> children, but it does not justify pulling them out of the classroom —
> even for one day.
> "Stakes have never been higher for student achievement," wrote
> Virginia B. McElyea, the superintendent of the Deer Valley Unified
> School District in Phoenix, Ariz. "Every day your child is out of
> school his or her learning achievement suffers.""
>
> OH BROTHER! One out of 180 or more days of school is more valuable
> than the only day in the year (or sometimes a lifetime; Keith's job
> hardly ever has an open house) is deemed (by school) not to be
> sufficiently important.
>
> School will soon tell people what to wear and when to go to bed.
> Oh... wait... they do, don't they?
> School sent a contract home for my sister to sign that she tore up but
> I wish I had it. All parents were to promise to give aeach child a
> private permanent homework area, and a book on Christmas and birthday,
> and no more than an hour of TV, and... (if anyone has one or a link to
> one I would love to look again; it's been years).
> Anyway...
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_kids_at_work_backlash
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

keetry

--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> "Some administrators said they recognized that spending time with
> their parents at work could be a valuable educational experience for
> children, but it does not justify pulling them out of the classroom —
> even for one day.
> "Stakes have never been higher for student achievement," wrote
> Virginia B. McElyea, the superintendent of the Deer Valley Unified
> School District in Phoenix, Ariz. "Every day your child is out of
> school his or her learning achievement suffers.""
>
> OH BROTHER! One out of 180 or more days of school is more valuable
> than the only day in the year (or sometimes a lifetime; Keith's job
> hardly ever has an open house) is deemed (by school) not to be
> sufficiently important.
>
> School will soon tell people what to wear and when to go to bed.
> Oh... wait... they do, don't they?
> School sent a contract home for my sister to sign that she tore up but
> I wish I had it. All parents were to promise to give aeach child a
> private permanent homework area, and a book on Christmas and birthday,
> and no more than an hour of TV, and... (if anyone has one or a link to
> one I would love to look again; it's been years).
> Anyway...
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_kids_at_work_backlash


Wow! Wow! I don't know what else to say.

Alysia

keetry

I've thought of something to say. I wonder if this has to do with the fact that schools are losing so much money they are having to lay off 10s of thousands of teachers. They have to find a way to make school look like the most important thing so people don't lose their jobs.

Alysia

lalow66

> "Some administrators said they recognized that spending time with
> their parents at work could be a valuable educational experience for
> children, but it does not justify pulling them out of the classroom —
> even for one day.
> "Stakes have never been higher for student achievement," wrote
> Virginia B. McElyea, the superintendent of the Deer Valley Unified
> School District in Phoenix, Ariz. "Every day your child is out of
> school his or her learning achievement suffers.""
>
it is because they really could care less what the kids learn or how great an experience it is if the experience doesnt lead to better test scores. SOL testing has no question about what your parents do all day. Its all about testing student achievement and nothing else really matters.

Sandra Dodd

-=-I've thought of something to say. I wonder if this has to do with
the fact that schools are losing so much money they are having to lay
off 10s of thousands of teachers. They have to find a way to make
school look like the most important thing so people don't lose their
jobs. -=-

Let's look at that, then.

WHERE is all the school tax money going? IF 10% of the kids are being
homeschooled, shouldn't there be MORE tax money and state and federal
funding for each remaining student?

They always said "OVERCROWDING. If only there were fewer children
everything would be WONderful." But classes have not gotten smaller.
Except special ed. Some of them are one child and two teachers.

It's not only parents who pay school taxes. It's different different
places, but it's a general tax of some sort (property here) and that's
one reason retired people resent seeing kids out during school hours
sometimes. What they're getting for their taxes is six or seven hours
of relative quiet, the figure.

Another place it might be going ( anyone who knows, feel free to add
or correct) is retirement funds for retired teachers. Had I kept
teaching, I would have been retired already, because I started at 21
and the formula was age plus 30 years or something. I'm sure the
general plan was that retirement funds would "fund" themselves, but
contracts are contracts. So at some point even if schools were to
close, taxes would still need to pay for retirements and the storage
of the equipment or whatever. The office, to send out transcripts.

It does seem that somewhere, somehow, the distribution of funds should
be revamped to benefit the kids still in school.

blah blah blah.
sorry

But if any of you are running for government office or school board,
ask around your own neighborhood to find those things out. You might
get yourself on Good Morning America! (or run off the road by a
teacher's union lawyer who wants to collect HIS retirement)

Sandra

Sandra

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dapsign

. >"Every day your child is out of
> school his or her learning achievement suffers.""
>

Including weekends and holidays?

Dina

m_kher

When the winter olympics were on a couple months ago, there was an 11 year old who hade come to watch her mother ski-jump. I might have the sport wrong, but that's besides the point. The announcer mentioned many times how she was missing school to watch her mother. Like school would provide more education than the experience of going to another country to wath the olympics.

Manisha


--- In [email protected], "dapsign" <dapsign@...> wrote:
>
> . >"Every day your child is out of
> > school his or her learning achievement suffers.""
> >
>
> Including weekends and holidays?
>
> Dina
>

Sandra Dodd

-=- The announcer mentioned many times how she was missing school to
watch her mother.-=-

How much like prison is school becoming if people have to get a
furlough to be with their families on momentous occasions!?
It's scary.

Sandra

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Jenny Cyphers

***A colleague of mine brought her son to work today (an event he enjoyed last year, admittedly in part so he could get away from school), and she got an e-mail today from his school saying that this would be an "unexcused" absence. ***

I wonder what she could've said to make it an excused absence. My child was sick today? He had to go to an appt.? I mean she could say those things, he was sick of being in school that day and had an appt. with his mother!





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Jenny Cyphers

***Another place it might be going ( anyone who knows, feel free to add
or correct) is retirement funds for retired teachers.***

That is the unspoken reason why the state of OR is bankrupt. All public employees, including judges get that retirement fund, so I don't see it changing.

I know 2 retired school counselors who live a VERY cushy retired lifestyle. They retired around the age of 50. They've remodeled their home, bought a really nice motor coach and travel around.

The really savvy teachers, retire, get their funds and moonlight in other jobs, even other teaching jobs.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Ed Wendell

***Another place it might be going ( anyone who knows, feel free to add
or correct) is retirement funds for retired teachers.***




Well I'm a teacher and I'm two years away from being eligible for retirement and I can say, at least with my school district, that my retirement will be half of what I make and that would not include any type of insurance or taxes - what my net is now would be my gross then. A third of what I'd get would go to health insurance and that would be just for me not my family. Considering what I pay for my family's health insurance now I'm thinking it would take almost my entire retirement income to pay for health insurance. Some in some districts might live really well on retirement but most of the ones in my district HAVE to get another job just to make ends meet. The other way they might be living well is their own retirement investments. I know the ones in my district that retire without getting another job have lived frugally and invested their own funds into independent retirement accounts just like others in the work world do.

School district employees from my district also pay into social security but I would not be eligible for that until - what? - age 67 or 70? or some such like every one else.

The state of MO is weird in that St Louis and Kansa City school districts do not belong to the state teacher's retirement fund - so we have to pay into both Social Security and the district retirement fund and then most of us try to put something of our own away too.

But yes, there is money going into retirement funds - same as with many jobs - though that seems to be changing in recent years - my sister is a nurse and she pays into a retirement fund at the hospital. One of my mother's husband's (one of 4) retired from some type of plumbing job and lived really well on that retirement and his own savvy investing.

There are a host of other things most people do not think about districts paying for - at least the larger districts - the small rural districts probably don't waste as much money IMO - : paying for lawyers, buying out Superintendent's contracts that the school board no longer wants to keep employed (huge amounts of money - done several times while I've been here the past 23 years) employee travel to training and events that are supposed to help the district progress and improve ;) it goes on and on. I see a lot of waste - then turn around and spend my own money to be able to do the activities I want with the children. I just spent $50.00 at the grocery store tonight for some activities to go along with our trip to a dairy next week. I've bought pencils just so my children had pencils to write with.

Oh - the formula for retirement in my district (maybe the state - not sure on that) is your age plus years in the district have to equal 75 to be eligible. THEN there is another formula to figure out how much you would get - so the average of your salary for the last 4 years times how long you've been in the district times .02 would determine how much you'd get. After 30 years you get no more credit in the figuring of your funds - in other words if you work for 40 years they would use 30 as the number of years employed. I figure I'll not stay past 30 which is in 7 years. I'll be 55 and I'll find something else to do at that point if not before.

At least this way - being a teacher - I get maximum family time. Summers off, 2 weeks at Christmas, spring break, a few three day weekends, I can be home by 3:45 if I need to be. I love working with the children. There are perks that benefit my family.


Lisa W.

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k

There were a LOT of kids at the Earth Day event in Brian's workplace
and probably could have been more. Karl got to play in one of those
bounce houses, pet a python, a turtle, animal pelts (yikes! bear paws,
I almost croaked), baby goats, etc. I got plant things.

It presented zero interference in learning achievement.

~Katherine



On 4/22/10, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
> "Some administrators said they recognized that spending time with
> their parents at work could be a valuable educational experience for
> children, but it does not justify pulling them out of the classroom —
> even for one day.
> "Stakes have never been higher for student achievement," wrote
> Virginia B. McElyea, the superintendent of the Deer Valley Unified
> School District in Phoenix, Ariz. "Every day your child is out of
> school his or her learning achievement suffers.""
>
> OH BROTHER! One out of 180 or more days of school is more valuable
> than the only day in the year (or sometimes a lifetime; Keith's job
> hardly ever has an open house) is deemed (by school) not to be
> sufficiently important.
>
> School will soon tell people what to wear and when to go to bed.
> Oh... wait... they do, don't they?
> School sent a contract home for my sister to sign that she tore up but
> I wish I had it. All parents were to promise to give aeach child a
> private permanent homework area, and a book on Christmas and birthday,
> and no more than an hour of TV, and... (if anyone has one or a link to
> one I would love to look again; it's been years).
> Anyway...
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_kids_at_work_backlash
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

keetry

I have no idea where the money is going. Population growth?

One thing I find confusing about budget cuts is that a lot of times it doesn't mean less money. It means not as much of an increase as was expected or asked for. I don't know if that applies to this situation with so many of the state public school systems.

That John Stossel report cited some schools, public charter schools, I think, that used a lot less money than the other public schools and had much better results. So it seems, more money isn't necessarily the answer.

Alysia

Jenny Cyphers

***One thing I find confusing about budget cuts is that a lot of times it doesn't mean less money. It means not as much of an increase as was expected or asked for. I don't know if that applies to this situation with so many of the state public school systems.

That John Stossel report cited some schools, public charter schools, I think, that used a lot less money than the other public schools and had much better results. So it seems, more money isn't necessarily the answer.***


One way that I've looked at it is this. Teacher contracts and all other school related contracts come with salary increases and set costs that increase over time whether or not the increases are affordable or not. So, like now, in an economic downturn, those contracts are still there and being renegotiated. Unless the tax structure changes, the money to meet that may or may not be there. Here, where I live, when the state is facing a budget shortfall and the current tax structure takes 60% of tax dollars to fund education and almost every tax dollar comes from income and property, well you can see how they'd be unable to meet those contracts and renegotiations. There is a very high unemployment rate here and the housing market was hit hard, the 2 main sources of funding for education.

Instead of restructuring the monsterous beast of educational funding, it's easier to raise taxes. All tax ads have to do is make people scared that schools will close and that their children will lose out on their fundamental right to a good education. Done and done. It just happened here. Yet, here's the really sad thing, with all that extra tax money the state just received, they are still going to lay off a huge amount of teachers and close a huge amount of schools. This happens ALL the time. People get used to living in a feeling of scarcity and fear. Our culture helps to maintain that.

You can see that in many of the backlash of criticism to unschooling being in the news. The very fact that people have chosen NOT to accept that into their lives makes it hard for those that do, to accept it or even acknowledge that it CAN be another way.

What I've found as a pleasant side effect to unschooling is the idea of living in abundance. It's a powerful feeling. Even when money is tight and my own family struggles financially, we STILL live in abundance, it's a state of being and thinking that changes EVERYthing!





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keetry

== One way that I've looked at it is this. Teacher contracts and all other school related contracts come with salary increases and set costs that increase over time whether or not the increases are affordable or not. ==

I think there was something said somewhere about having to keep tenured teachers with larger salaries. I wonder how many non-tenured teachers have to be let go for every one tenured teacher. Are teacher's unions part of the problem then?

== All tax ads have to do is make people scared that schools will close and that their children will lose out on their fundamental right to a good education. ==

I've been wondering what would happen if the schools had to shut down, if the system just collapsed.

== You can see that in many of the backlash of criticism to unschooling being in the news. The very fact that people have chosen NOT to accept that into their lives makes it hard for those that do, to accept it or even acknowledge that it CAN be another way. ==

I have to admit that all of this media attention on unschooling makes me a little nervous. I'm afraid people will want to start making laws against it.

I don't think that there's a secret society of people somewhere coming up with ways to take our children away and put them in schools so they can be indoctrinated. It's possible in the way that anything is possible. I do think that there are a lot of well-intentioned people who think they are helping the "greater good" (my mom comes to mind) by forcing parents to send their children to school.

Alysia

Jenny Cyphers

***I don't think that there's a secret society of people somewhere coming up with ways to take our children away and put them in schools so they can be indoctrinated.***

It's not secret at all, it's very blatant. Read anything by teacher's unions and the agendas that they like to push for. Some of those agendas are only well intentioned for the greater good of the teacher's union.





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Su Penn

On Apr 24, 2010, at 2:05 PM, keetry wrote:

> I have no idea where the money is going. Population growth?

Sometimes I get curious about something and spend some time reading up on it, lots of books and good articles and so forth. A few years ago I did a reading project on school financing. It was very interesting, and of course by now I don't remember a lot of it. I remember that a lot of money that schools get from various sources comes with strings attached--it's for a specific purpose, and not available for other things. So one frustration schools might experience is that they have, say, a big federal grant to upgrade computers but what they really need is a new roof, but there's no money for capital improvements, and no way to shift money from new computers they may not need to the roof they really do.

Another thing I remember is that the size of administrative staffs has dramatically outpaced growth in student populations in recent decades. One big difference that some researchers found is that Catholic school systems have tiny administrative staffs compared to similar-sized public school systems serving the same number of students. So one place the money is going is into (bloated?) bureaucracy.

Su, mom to Eric, 8; Carl, 6; Yehva, 2.5
tapeflags.blogspot.com

Cara Barlow

> I have no idea where the money is going. Population growth?

In my pre-homeschooling life I served on my town's school board for five
years. That was six years ago, but when I was on the board over 75% of my
district's expenses were driven by teacher, support staff and custodial
salaries and health insurance. I think that's probably still true.

Most of the other costs, like special ed costs and other requirements from
the state or federal government, were out of our control - they were
delineated by state or federal regulations. When we wanted to cut the
budget, guess where we could cut - books/learning materials and building
maintenance.

What drove my district's budgets up were mainly increases in healthcare
costs. The school board actually had (in my time) very little control over
the budget except during teacher contract negotiations, when we could try to
switch the teachers to a lower cost healthcare plan.

I began homeschooling the year No Child Left Behind was implemented. I still
live in the same small town, so still cross paths with many people who work
in the schools - the school is the second largest employer in my town.

They tell me that salaries and health insurance continue to drive the budget
(I don't know how the recent healthcare bill will affect that) and now
there's the added administrative costs of NCLB. They all hate NCLB.

Private schools can keep their costs down by offering low salaries and maybe
not providing health insurance. They don't need to comply with NCLB, the
special ed laws and other federal regulations. In my state (NH) there is
less state regulation of private schools than there is of homeschoolers. And
religious schools are often subsidized through their church or denomination.

Regarding population growth - Though it will vary from town to town (some
places are more attractive to families than others) we're currently in a
population "lull" in the schools. For the most part the baby boomers' kids
have passed through K-12. Maybe it will go back up in the future - I don't
know.

Best wishes, Cara B


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

jennifer.neary

>
> That John Stossel report cited some schools, public charter schools, I think, that used a lot less money than the other public schools and had much better results. So it seems, more money isn't necessarily the answer.
>
> Alysia
>

Please keep in mind that John Stossel comes from a place where everything is better done by the private sector. He's against schools because they are run by the government. That's why he pushes vouchers, for profit private schools and "learning centers" etc.

Even though charter schools are "public" much of what happens there is not under the same set of rules as regular old public schools. No unions for charter school teachers for example, which I'm sure is a huge part of the "savings." I'm sure that is a big reason why Stossel pushes them. No fan of unions is he.

I have a friend who is currently organizing charter school teachers. You'd be amazed at what these teachers are asked to do for the smallest of salaries. Like be available every evening and on weekends for homework help. These are well meaning young folks who want to give something to struggling communities and they quickly get burned out by these for profit companies who run the charter schools. (And that's where the money is going, by the way, to the companies who run them.)

It was no accident that Stossel failed to mention homeschooling as an option. He cares less about children than he does about his "small government is the best government" agenda.

Pam Sorooshian

On 4/25/2010 6:46 AM, jennifer.neary wrote:
> I have a friend who is currently organizing charter school teachers.
> You'd be amazed at what these teachers are asked to do for the
> smallest of salaries. Like be available every evening and on weekends
> for homework help. These are well meaning young folks who want to give
> something to struggling communities and they quickly get burned out by
> these for profit companies who run the charter schools. (And that's
> where the money is going, by the way, to the companies who run them.)

I'm not some well-meaning young innocent, I have over 30 years of
teaching experience - but I am available to my students on evenings and
weekends for homework help. I teach college distance education courses.
I find the flexibility of helping them when they need it vastly
preferable to having scheduled office hours. Better for me AND my students.

I'm an economist and have some knowledge of school financing. It is
different in different states. But - I'm having a hard time seeing how
this discussion is related to unschooling.

-pam

Sandra Dodd

-=-I'm an economist and have some knowledge of school financing. It is
different in different states. But - I'm having a hard time seeing how
this discussion is related to unschooling.-=-

I think I brought it up. If people (anyone, journalists or not)
anywhere in the world want to do a useful and interesting story, go
find out WHY having so many fewer kids in school due to homeschooling
is bringing NO benefit to the kids still in school. If figures are at
all true, they should have 10% more funding to deal with if they would
revamp the way it's distributed. They're going by student per day
where I live, and somehow that should be changed so that they also get
their "share" for all the kids who could potentially be going there,
it seems.

The tax money that should cover all these homeschooled kids is going
down some rat hole.

So my suggestion was that curious journalists should go THERE, not to
what we're doing at my house.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Ed Wendell

Same here in MO, what the schools receive in funding is based upon enrollment - daily attendance even - So with fewer students the school's funding goes down. So although a person is still paying taxes it must go down a different rat hole ? I'm not positive but I really don't think it is used for snow plowing nor fixing pot holes in the roads around here! ;)

Then there is Federal funding for Title One which is based upon income. Every student in my school is on the free lunch program. So there is breakfast and lunch to pay for. Taxes pay for that too. We only have one school in our whole district that is not a Title One school.

My district is closing almost half our schools - consolidating schools - trying to cut 55 million from the budget - almost mind boggling!!! Why have they put it off so long - they should have been closing and consolidating all along - IMO.

Lisa W.



NO benefit to the kids still in school. If figures are at
all true, they should have 10% more funding to deal with if they would
revamp the way it's distributed. They're going by student per day
where I live, and somehow that should be changed so that they also get
their "share" for all the kids who could potentially be going there,
it seems.

The tax money that should cover all these homeschooled kids is going
down some rat hole.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pam Sorooshian

On 4/25/2010 10:20 AM, Sandra Dodd wrote:
>
> The tax money that should cover all these homeschooled kids is going
> down some rat hole.

The total amount of tax revenue does not depend on how many kids are in
public school. So, yes, the total gets spread among fewer children when
some kids don't go to school - because they go to private schools or
homeschool. So, yes, the per child amount of money is higher, the more
private and homeschooling there is.

But - how that affects individual schools and/or school districts
depends on how the school financing is done in that particular state.

In California, for example, all tax revenues are collected at the state
level and distributed to districts based on school attendance. So the
individual school districts have a motivation to get more kids into
their district schools, to get a bigger share of the state funding.
They especially benefit from low-cost-to-educate kids. They really
benefit when they have a class max of 35 and they have, say, 33 kids in
the class. They can add 2 more kids to that class - $16,000 of revenue
to the school - at almost no extra cost since they don't need another
teacher.

Sometimes they benefit especially from special needs kids who get extra
funding in addition to the attendance-based funding.

Some states don't fund schools at the state level, but at the local
level based on property values. For locally-funded schools, more kids in
the school means nothing but spreading the money between more kids.
Except they also might get some special funding from the state for
low-income or special needs kids.

-pam

Jenny Cyphers

***I began homeschooling the year No Child Left Behind was implemented. ***

That year and the few subsequent ones after that drove hordes of folks out of public schools. That was THE primary reason that most people stated on local homeschooling boards as their reason for taking their children out of school.





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Sandra Dodd

-=-They especially benefit from low-cost-to-educate kids. They really
benefit when they have a class max of 35 and they have, say, 33 kids in
the class. They can add 2 more kids to that class - $16,000 of revenue
to the school - at almost no extra cost since they don't need another
teacher.-=-

That should be known to more unschooler and to the critics of
unschoolers. All my life teachers have said they could teach better
if the ratio of students to teachers was closer/smaller, and all they
needed was more money.

Looking back, though, they've kept the same concentration/ratio since
the 1950's regardless of how much money, except out of fear of
lawsuits, I guess, they took some kids out on the gifted end, and some
out on the special ed end, so there are some kids with 2:1 of teachers
(because state schools for the mentally disadvantaged and perpetually
troublesome were pretty much closed up around 1980 or whenever that
was). A friend's mom is a full-time special ed teacher with a
master's degree and a full-time aide and the two of them take care of
one child. He's in midschool now, and bigger than they are. The
teacher and the aide wear helmets because the kid flails and hits.
That's never mentioned when the schools ask voters to give them more
money every year or two.

Voters don't know where the money's going. I don't much care where
it's going, but I have not seen any journalistic exposee of that and
it might help schools AND homeschoolers for that to be laid open.

-= For locally-funded schools, more kids in
the school means nothing but spreading the money between more kids. -=-

It doesn't get spread. The schools don't say "OH GOOD! More kids are
homeschooling this year, so the money we have will go farther!"

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pam Sorooshian

On 4/25/2010 11:05 AM, Sandra Dodd wrote:
> -= For locally-funded schools, more kids in
> the school means nothing but spreading the money between more kids. -=-
>
> It doesn't get spread. The schools don't say "OH GOOD! More kids are
> homeschooling this year, so the money we have will go farther!"

No. But if they have $1,000 in revenue from property taxes and they have
100 kids or 90 kids, they still have $1,000 in revenue. The "per kid"
revenue is higher when they have 90 kids.

They don't have more money - they can't hire more teachers or anything
like that. Spending isn't really "per kid," even when funding is.

-pam

Sandra Dodd

-=-No. But if they have $1,000 in revenue from property taxes and they
have
100 kids or 90 kids, they still have $1,000 in revenue. The "per kid"
revenue is higher when they have 90 kids.

They don't have more money - they can't hire more teachers or anything
like that. Spending isn't really "per kid," even when funding is.-=-

Right.
But if eventually half the kids in our district are homeschooled,
they'll probably still only spend the same per-kid amount, and if
there ended up being one kid in school, they wouldn't pour all the tax
revenue in that district into getting him a nice office chair instead
of that crappy plastic and god-knows-what-these-days desk.

The main building of the school I grew up in and later taught in for
four years was turned into an administration building. The building
had stayed as it had been since around 1940 or whenever it had been
built by the WPA. Same windows. Same one-gas-stove-in-each-
classroom. Same wooden floors and some of the same desks.

Before clerks who had high school diplomas, and secretaries, bursars
and assistant superintendents could go in there to sit, it had the
walls redone, windows replaced, carpet, central heating and air
conditioning... It really makes me sick to think of those things.

When it was teachers and students, nobody cared that I had to light
that heater each morning with a match and hold the switch to pilot for
sixty seconds, or that my desk was WWII surplus.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

keetry

> ***I don't think that there's a secret society of people somewhere coming up with ways to take our children away and put them in schools so they can be indoctrinated.***
>
> It's not secret at all, it's very blatant. Read anything by teacher's unions and the agendas that they like to push for. Some of those agendas are only well intentioned for the greater good of the teacher's union.

I'm glad someone else said it because I'm tired of being thought of as a crazy person when I say stuff like that to people I know.

Alysia

keetry

> Please keep in mind that John Stossel comes from a place where everything is better done by the private sector. He's against schools because they are run by the government. That's why he pushes vouchers, for profit private schools and "learning centers" etc.
>
> Even though charter schools are "public" much of what happens there is not under the same set of rules as regular old public schools. No unions for charter school teachers for example, which I'm sure is a huge part of the "savings." I'm sure that is a big reason why Stossel pushes them. No fan of unions is he.>

Maybe that's why I liked the report. I agree with much of that from what I know about it.

> You'd be amazed at what these teachers are asked to do for the smallest of salaries. Like be available every evening and on weekends for homework help.>

I am not amazed. That was covered in the report. It showed teachers getting continuous calls in the evenings while at home.

> It was no accident that Stossel failed to mention homeschooling as an option. He cares less about children than he does about his "small government is the best government" agenda.>

Seems to me homeschooling would fall under that. Get the government out of dictating how we raise and educate our own children.

Alysia