Educational system reforms

[RoyalShock]

This is prompted by a post by @Rlh04d: in the Baltimore thread about how our educational system needs to be reformed. I am curious what thoughts anyone might have about how to go about that task. I placed this topic here because I think we have more activity and participants here than on the politics board. I would hope we could refrain from this discussion turning overly partisan, though I realize that may be tightrope. And if necessary I will move it.

I several friends and acquaintances who are public school educators or administrators. What I've gathered is that those within the system believe Kansas Republicans (and Brownback in particular) hate the public schools and by extension, teachers, and are actively trying to destroy the system in order to move all schools to a private model.

[Aargh]

Privatizing schools (and putting them into a "for profit" model) would allow ideologies to be taught, specific religions to be honored (or vilified) and countless other things emphasized that a state-run system isn't allowed to do.

Parents could choose to use vouchers to send their kids to whatever form of indoctrination they chose for their children - and I don't use the term "indoctrination" lightly. The free market would drive the subjects taught and how they were taught in privatized schools.

There is the possibility for a system like that to go horribly wrong.

Here are just a few examples of schools that would likely pop up

Schools where not even the most rudimentary sex education is taught.
Schools where the students learn the Earth is 6,000 years old and fossils were placed here by God to test our faith.
Schools in "privileged" areas that would hire the best and brightest teachers.
Schools in less "privileged" areas who would have to teach by lowest bidder to keep the doors open.
Schools teaching radical Islam ideologies.
Schools taught exclusively in non-English languages.

Colleges in Kansas would have to eliminate the requirement that any graduate of any HS in Kansas must be admitted. The range of knowledge coming out of a privatized system could be too wide-spread to accept everyone. You have to know there would be a huge demand for schools where the courses were easy and everybody got great grades. Those schools would probably win all state-level athletic competitions.

[WuShock16]

Colleges in Kansas would have to eliminate the requirement that any graduate of any HS in Kansas must be admitted. The range of knowledge coming out of a privatized system could be too wide-spread to accept everyone. You have to know there would be a huge demand for schools where the courses were easy and everybody got great grades. Those schools would probably win all state-level athletic competitions.

VERY good points. The only slight change in will add is that schools (the Regents ones anyways) don't have to accept Kansas high school graduates. There are some achievements that must be met first. You either need a 21(?) ACT, top-third of class, or completion of specific set of courses. Not over-bearing to get one of these, but it does put some parameters out there.

Still, I like your train of thought.

[Rlh04d]

This is prompted by a post by @Rlh04d in the Baltimore thread about how our educational system needs to be reformed. I am curious what thoughts anyone might have about how to go about that task. I placed this topic here because I think we have more activity and participants here than on the politics board. I would hope we could refrain from this discussion turning overly partisan, though I realize that may be tightrope. And if necessary I will move it.

I several friends and acquaintances who are public school educators or administrators. What I've gathered is that those within the system believe Kansas Republicans (and Brownback in particular) hate the public schools and by extension, teachers, and are actively trying to destroy the system in order to move all schools to a private model.

My grandfather could go on for hours about how angry he is with the Kansas school system. He was a math teacher at a Wichita High School (I believe Heights) for 40 years, and he was absolutely miserable with the school system by the end. He's teaching at Butler CC twice a week now and much happier. I'm sure he taught many on here.

I'm an econ guy -- I generally believe economics provide simple and fair solutions to most issues in life. The average starting salary in Kansas for a teacher is around $33k. An E1 in the United States military stationed in Wichita would make almost $40.5k, once you adjust for all of the many parts of the military pay that aren't evident (paid insurances, non-taxed BAH/BAS, etc.).

So in one case you can go to school for four years, rack up significant college loan debt, and begin your career making $33k at 22 ... or at 18 years old a week out of high school, you can make $40k, with significant, constant room for promotion and a guaranteed raise every year, with zero college loan debt, likely a signing bonus, free tuition while you're in the military, and a GI Bill that's currently paying me $80k tax free on TOP of my tuition/books once you're out.

I knew young military folks in Hawaii making ~$110k a year by the time they were 23, with zero education. Why would anyone in this country become a teacher?

The few people who do feel strongly enough about helping the next generation that they accept a terrible salary to become a teacher are not the best of the best. You will get some who are, but you simply cannot pay that low of a salary and attract quality teachers. The people who choose to become teachers given the economic constraints they're forced to live with are absolutely commendable, but by not offering a competitive wage you simply miss out on tons of quality teachers that could bring new ideas and reinvigorate the profession.

So given my viewpoint on the world, I would begin any serious educational reform with economic considerations. Pay teachers more to attract better quality teachers. The average starting salary for a teacher in this country should be $70k. I would also increase economic benefits on becoming a teacher -- 100% student loan reimbursement if you teach in any public school for a set number of years following graduation.

Public school financing through property taxes is another giant problem we have. My cousins all went to Andover High School, because it's an excellent school paid for by wonderful property taxes from a wealthy community. That kind of financing simply institutionalizes generational wealth gaps, though -- you simply get a better quality education, even in public schools, based on the wealth of your parents and the location of your house. That's disgusting to me. The goal of public education should be a quality baseline that exists across the geographic spectrum, so that a student in an inner city has the exact same access to quality education as a student in a wealthy suburb.

That would be a start, at least.

Hell, I might even consider a federally controlled education system, if we wanted to go with an off-the-wall idea. Could the feds really do much worse than Kansas is currently doing? As it is, public schools are all too often a punching bag for state and local politicians. If we had a federal commitment to public education, one that could centrally manage the movement of teachers and resources, reliant only on Congressional funding, paid for nationally by corporate taxes ... I could see that being an improvement. If it adopted tenants of the military, it could work. "Enlist" in an educational corps of instructors, with student loan repayment, ongoing tuition assistance to continuing educating our teachers, national standards, etc. Continually move teachers the same way members of the military are, to prevent stagnation. That would be one way to effectively raise salaries nationwide while controlling quality of education regardless of property rates. It would also prevent insanity like we have in Texas, where they manipulate educational standards in textbooks to fit political and religious motivations. And it would probably solve the issues we have with public schools in over-emphasizing athletics over education -- you wouldn't have the massive football stadiums you see in Texas, or as many problems with teachers inflating grades of athletes, because they aren't as influenced by local factors.

[shoxlax]

Not that I want into this debate because I don't, but wasn't there some sort of sign on bonus proposed a few years ago for teachers who went to either very underserved or very poor school districts?

[shock]

1. Tax amateur and professional sports at 75%. Tax entertainment at 40%. Raise vice taxes. Channel that to each USD to spend on salaries and classrooms, not sports and extra curriculars.
2. Get rid of Fed standards. Turn the power over to the states. Make the school boards more powerful to give the public a voice.
3. Get the public to care.
4. Because of #1, discontinue mill levies to pay for education.

I will post more on this tomorrow after I think about it at work all day.

[shock]

Not that I want into this debate because I don't, but wasn't there some sort of sign on bonus proposed a few years ago for teachers who went to either very underserved or very poor school districts?

Yep, its called loan forgiveness and its awesome

[jdshock]

Public school financing through property taxes is another giant problem we have. My cousins all went to Andover High School, because it's an excellent school paid for by wonderful property taxes from a wealthy community. That kind of financing simply institutionalizes generational wealth gaps, though -- you simply get a better quality education, even in public schools, based on the wealth of your parents and the location of your house. That's disgusting to me. The goal of public education should be a quality baseline that exists across the geographic spectrum, so that a student in an inner city has the exact same access to quality education as a student in a wealthy suburb.

This is, without a doubt, one of the single most important problems faced by education today. And it's not just that the inequality exists, it's that this process functionally furthers inequality; what makes property values increase? A big part of it is the school district. Districts like Andover get property value increases because of the good schools, which increases the tax base. Crappy neighborhoods are taxing themselves at a higher percentage but the base is so much lower that they're bringing in less money. (I don't know that much about Kansas policies, but in Missouri it is really bad. In Missouri we have caps on the property tax rates you can charge. Communities are voting to tax themselves at the highest rate just to try to keep schools accredited. A big problem is that the poorest neighborhoods are primarily industrial with little residential. That seems great since you can tax those corporations. Unfortunately, all of those industries were given tax breaks as an incentive to join the community, so no money comes in.)

Here's a government website to track spending across districts.

For example, Shawnee Mission East near KC has $3200 per student and has an average teacher salary of $66,000. More rural Larned has $2600 per student and an average teacher salary of $35,000. Moreover, rural schools lose out in terms of number of students. Big schools are more efficient since you only have to pay one principal, have one facility, etc, and that cost is distributed among a lot of students. That means the same amount of spending per student goes significantly further in big schools. Shawnee Mission East has 1800 kids and Larned has 280 kids. Despite having significantly less money per student and lower teacher salaries, I would be shocked if Larned had a lower percentage of property taxes going to education than Shawnee Mission.

And since this discussion stems from a post in a thread that got turned to race, one additional point about this: this idea of keeping property taxes within the district all comes from a Supreme Court case that prevented students from being bussed across district lines. It functionally re-segregated our school districts.

Here's a cool, short video that gives an idea why equal funding in education is important: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mA8...ature=youtu.be

[Rlh04d]

what makes property values increase? A big part of it is the school district.

Absolutely. My uncle specifically moved into the Andover school district so that his kids could attend school in that district. It reinforces economic segregation, by increasing property values, pushing the richest people into buying property in the best school districts, and leaving the poorest people stuck in the worst school districts, where property is naturally cheapest.

I currently live in the third richest country in America ... it's amazing seeing the attention paid to schools in these wealthy school districts, after attending military schools where income was irrelevant, or low income public schools in Florida. Housing prices are perfectly correlated to school districts here.

[ShockBand]

The strongest predictor of standardized test scores? Property values.

[shocka khan]

1. Tax amateur and professional sports at 75%. Tax entertainment at 40%. Raise vice taxes. Channel that to each USD to spend on salaries and classrooms, not sports and extra curriculars.
2. Get rid of Fed standards. Turn the power over to the states. Make the school boards more powerful to give the public a voice.
3. Get the public to care.
4. Because of #1, discontinue mill levies to pay for education.

I will post more on this tomorrow after I think about it at work all day.

After watching our sorry excuse of a state school board here in Texas, I would definitely disagree with you. They are into creationism, are anti science and want to rewrite history.

How about if we had a state school board where the members were selected on merit and the politicians could never, ever change it to an elected system. That way you would have qualified people and keep the axe-grinding politicians out of it.

[WuShock16]

After watching our sorry excuse of a state school board here in Texas, I would definitely disagree with you. They are into creationism, are anti science and want to rewrite history.

Let me guess. The Trail of Tears brought some Indians to Christianity and the KKK was well-intentioned and misunderstood. That sort of revisionist history?

[shocka khan]

Pretty much along those lines, WuShock16.

Now that I'm thinking about it, one of the big flareups was over the civil war. They wanted to say it was started because of state's rights (and not slavery), but anyone who ever studied Kansas history knows something about Quantrill's raiders and John Brown.

We know that it was started (cities were burned and people were killed) over the fight that ensued when Kansas tried to enter the union. Kansas = Free State, Senate had a majority and could abolish slavery.

The south didn't want that.

[pinstripers]

What?

[SHOCKvalue]

USD 259 (Wichita schools for those out of the area) has a starting salary and pay scale that exceeds many suburban districts. My wife works for a suburban district and makes at least $10K-$15K less per year at this point (including salary and value of benefits) than if she would have instead taken the USD 259 offer out of college. A married couple of two USD 259 teachers just out of college would rank somewhere around the 70th percentile nationally for household income. That's not a low income level - not in any context or stretch of the imagination. As a general rule, the concept that teachers don't have two pennies to rub together and live in near poverty is a total farce nurtured by their unions.

As an aside, if you asked my wife she would tell you that she would need much more than that margin to move over to USD 259 employment. Part of the reason they pay at near the top in the metro area is that they are the last district most want to work for.

Overall, being a teacher is not a bad gig, but the national narrative on the subject is dominated by irrational union nonsense.