Comments on: $60 Million Shortfall?

By: Think Again

Think Again — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:01:48 +0000

Well, that's a nice story, Melyssa, and I'm sure she's telling you the truth. But the overwhelming majority of charters don't have student bodies like that.

By: melyssa

melyssa — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:09:10 +0000

I recently met a young teacher from an east side Charter School. She teaches 6th grade. She says it is very hard to maintain control with these kids and teach. She says they come to her with horrible skills. I'm basing what I say from what she tells me first hand.

Charter schools do more with less.

By: Think Again

Think Again — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:02:55 +0000

Melyssa is right. Educrats are eating us alive. In Washington Twp, taxpayers threw a stink recently when their overfed Super proposed a board-backed salary increase. The result? A cut in the increase of nearly 50%. If only all school boards took their responsibilities so seriously in these tough times.

But please, Melyssa, stop with the charter school comparison. Their student bodies, by and large, are 40-50% better-prepared to take the standardized tests. They have proportionately fewer students who are difficult-to-educate (and therefore, their student bodies are usually much less expensive to educate).

Still, there are a good many charter schools, by the last statewide testing example, who perform no worse or better than many public schools.

Charters work for some folks. They don't work for everyone. Let's stop comparing them to public schools for performance-based issues. It's apples and hedgeapples.

By: pascal

pascal — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:43:41 +0000

Ok. I looked. What did I see? The salaries vary all over the map. The real question should be, “Are we getting a dollar's worth of value for each dollar of salary?” And, that needs be asked of every teacher as well. For the most part, and I think most folks realize this, the value is NOT there. The exchange is out of balance. And, it is so because it is not a free market exchange but a government forced monopoly run by incompetents, all 150 of them, aka, legislators. Education and the State, available from Liberty Press, explains the original lies of alleged market failure. But, the failure exists in government schools regardless whether you read a book or not. We don't have Real Education in Indiana even if our roundtable could read.
There is no need that I can see for laying off teachers. First survey the community to discover the % paid by private sector employees for their health care “insurance” and then legislate that % be applied, by law, to all the parasites in school systems. All systems of schools would then show great amounts of BLACK INK and no teachers would be out of a job. In estimate, taxes could be cut.

By: melyssa

melyssa — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:55:51 +0000

I forgot to add. You never hear them threaten to layoff administrators, do you? It's always teachers they threaten.

By: melyssa

melyssa — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:54:09 +0000

I think we need to immediately start looking at the salaries of anyone paid by tax dollars whose paycheck is bigger than the Mayor or the Governor's.

There is one school administrator for every three classrooms in at least two school districts closest to me. I bet we could save quite a bit of money statewide if we offered a choice of salary cut or layoff to every overpaid educrat in our state.

I promise there will be no shortage of well educated capable people who would work for $150k a year rather than $200k and up. Doncha think? Afterall, Charter Schools perform very well (in fact better) with far less funding.

Belt tightening is good for the soul. The government should be going through the same downsizing as their constituents. Our state should be proactive so we don't end up like Illinois or California.

By: Think Again

Think Again — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:01:48 +0000

Well, that's a nice story, Melyssa, and I'm sure she's telling you the truth. But the overwhelming majority of charters don't have student bodies like that.

By: melyssa

melyssa — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:09:10 +0000

Charter schools do more with less.

By: Think Again

Think Again — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:02:55 +0000

By: pascal

pascal — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:43:41 +0000