Obama proposes $1B for science, math teachers

[Old Rocks]

Ok, all unions are bad to you, get the fuck out of here, this is the retarded ass one sided type of thinking that stinking up the whole country. If it wasn't for unions or union type activity you wouldn't have the labor laws you have now and employers would be able to run all the fuck over employees, saying that no unions are good is implying that all union members are fucktards and bad.


Money per pupil varies by STATE since the STATE and LOCAL governments mainly fund schools and don't give that private charter company bullshit because they tried that in Philly and it failed.

And some states that spend less per student do better than states who spend significantly more.

So money is not the issue.

Utah spends the least per student yet we are in the middle of the pack from a testing standpoint. Much of that has to do with parental involvement. The crappy thing about THAT is that most of us are busy enough without having to spend an hour or two every night tutoring the kids.

Sad. The real income of most Americans has declined in the last thirty years to the point that most couples cannot afford to maintain a decent level of life for them and their children without both parents working. While at the same time, the very wealthy have seen a huge increase in their income.

So, we blame mom and dad when they are just too tired to have adaquete input in their childs education, blame the teachers, cut their salaries, then wonder at the quality of teachers such low salaries attrack.

Yet, the 'Conservatives' are just so sure that these workers are overpaid, and we should cut teachers salaries even more. Goddamned wonderful logic there.

 

[Katzndogz]

Putting them to work in factories is a good idea. If they don't like working in a factory, perhaps they would be more motivated to get an education.

 

[DiamondDave]

Oh I'm fine. College educated. Great career in a great industry. Thanks for worrying about me! But this isn't about me. This is about a single mom working two minimum wage jobs trying to make rent and put food on the table. She has no time to help her kids with home work or get them excited about going to school to learn. Now, I know you don't care about her, but still, the best way for her to help her kids is to have more time with them, which means less time working, which would mean more money from work.

It's simple math.

Oh right, we're not good at that.

And her decisions, actions, efforts, etc got her to where she is... and there are consequences to our actions... and that is not the problem or concern of government, her neighbor, or the guy living on 123 Any St. in Bald Knob Arkansas...

Again.. having PRIVATE charities that you VOLUNTARILY donate to to help people you wish to help, all well and good... but to force everyone (society or the populace) to take over her responsibilities is quite another

Until you can get that thru your thick skull, you will simply not understand

And what about the people YOU don't wish to help? Fuck 'em? Or more to the point, fuck the kids? Because, you know, that's what you're doing here. You're saying, since the mom made bad decisions or had bad things happen to her, the kids should be punished. The kids should have less time with their mom, because the mom screwed up.

Look, as I said, I know you don't give two shits about the mom or dad in this scenario. You're only concern is the extra couple of bucks a year you pay in taxes. But stop with the hate for one second and think about it. If you think about this, you'll agree that paying people more would fix this problem. Now, maybe you don't want to do that, in fact, pretty sure you don't want to do that, but you can't deny that it would allow parents more time with their kids which would help the kids in school. That is fact.

You are responsible for the situations of others?? Nope... sorry... in this free society, you can choose to donate to a charity for disabled persons and if you for whatever reason choose not to donate to a charity for recovering drug addicts, you do not have to... nor should you be forced to

YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU... and again... her decisions, actions, efforts, etc got her to where she is... and there are consequences to our actions... and that is not the problem or concern of government, her neighbor, or the guy living on 123 Any St. in Bald Knob Arkansas...

 

[Old Rocks]

All we have been doing is throwing money at education and yet we fall further and further behind other countries.

Seems to me it's about time we stop throwing good money after bad at teachers etc and try something new.

By God, you are right. Just put those little bastards to work in the factories. Worked out so well in Dickens time.

The continued antipathy of the 'Conservatives' toward education and science is evident on this and other boards. They are doing their very best to create a third world nation here in America.

Once again completely full of shit. What we have is scum like you unwilling to properly fund your education depts. Being that greed is what drives democrats the thought of ponying up yourself is out of the question. You need uncle sugar to cover your end.

Dumb fuck, I have been a property owner most of my life, and have paid the taxes on that property. Have voted for, and canvassed the neighborhood I was living in, to get votes for school bonds.

 

[Old Rocks]

Putting them to work in factories is a good idea. If they don't like working in a factory, perhaps they would be more motivated to get an education.

Yeah, that would appeal to you.

 

[flacaltenn]

You cannot reasonably believe that the current programs in place will do JACK crap for folks troubled with a history of "bad decisions". The kids with the crack mom will be no better off if you pay teachers more. The ONE thing PROVEN to work is one on one counseling and mentoring and a DESIRE on the part of the afflicted to CHANGE their lives.

That's where the massive PRIVATE, VOLUNTEER safety net comes in.. Coaching GED students is MORE about mentoring than math. I know.. I've done that. Changing their personal habits to find a way to employment isn't something that Govt excels at.

The idea that $30B more in taxes from the rich is gonna go to the most needy is the WORST kind of faulty faith in Govt and general ignorance of the REAL problems one can find. And it's actually quite destructive to minimize private charity and volunteers while counting on the Govt to do the "hard cases" for you.

So would you be OK with the government giving a parent a voucher for 20 hours of remedical mentoring from an approved source if their kid makes less than a C? To keep it all 'fair' we could dock the teacher's pay.

There's a value to your suggestion -- but you have the conditions all wrong..
You lept to the conclusion that mentoring (as in the form of tutoring) would solve the problem. Problem might be a crack mom or a bro in a leadership positionn in a gang. Or it might be physical or mental.

1) I trust the teacher to make the call for intervention. Unfortunately, they are in the trenches and cannot work miracles for 6 kids every school year and adequately teach the other 22 kids. We wouldn't need to have small classes if the kids were all motivated and parented correctly.

2) Don't want to dock their pay for discovering a social work problem.

3) You need a central triage facility that can diagnose the problemS. And then refer to competent agencies. Those should include ALL AVAILABLE volunteer and for profit agencies. If being faith based is a political hot potato -- FIRE the govt triage agents and find a neutral 3rd party.

4) Encourage the use of charity and volunteers to provide one on one time with these cases. Big Brother/Big Sister does more to actually solve issues than any single Govt program.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Stats, Mr Union and Teacher hater?

Pay particular attention to the piece of the graphic that shows the national average percentile scores. And before you whine about the source of the graphic, you'll notice the last block has a list of all the sources used in gathering the stats.

Are you suggesting that the answer to our failing science and mathematics standing can be solved by nationwide homeschooling?

No I'm suggesting that throwing money at teachers will not change anything.

If an average person can outperform a so called professional educator then it's not money that's the problem but the teachers themselves.

 

[flacaltenn]

Putting them to work in factories is a good idea. If they don't like working in a factory, perhaps they would be more motivated to get an education.

Yeah, that would appeal to you.

Appeals to me to.. The options should be CLEARLY SPELLED out to the kids as soon as they are able to comprehend. We need to encourage more highly skilled workers. Otherwise those who believe that ALL WORK is the same will be the problem for the next gen to argue about as Low Skilled jobs continue to disappear..

THAT -- would be on your concience. The B.Obama concept that we ALL WORK HARD adequately demonstrates the misunderstanding on the left of doing it with a shovel and doing it with remotely controlled heavy equipment.

This message got to me before I left High School.. Largely came from sweating my ass off making roof trusses in the hot Florida sun. That was before the owners found out that I could calculate sines and angles and shit like that on a computer. Moved indoors to an air conditioned office and helped DESIGN those trusses..

 

[JoeNormal]

Pay particular attention to the piece of the graphic that shows the national average percentile scores. And before you whine about the source of the graphic, you'll notice the last block has a list of all the sources used in gathering the stats.

Are you suggesting that the answer to our failing science and mathematics standing can be solved by nationwide homeschooling?

No I'm suggesting that throwing money at teachers will not change anything.

If an average person can outperform a so called professional educator then it's not money that's the problem but the teachers themselves.

I'm not necessarliy saying that we need to pay teachers better (although I don't think they're overpaid at all). But we need more of them.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Are you suggesting that the answer to our failing science and mathematics standing can be solved by nationwide homeschooling?

so you admit the DOE is FAILING the students even with the billions of dollars ALREADY spent on schools.?
So what does Obama suggest, throwing more money at it...cause he has money to BURN

I don't think the DOE is failing because they have not been given the task of educating our students. Around 10% of school funding comes from the federal government. America has historically insisted that Schools be run at the local level. Funding is local, school boards are local, teacher hiring is local
Globally, US students are falling behind foreign students. One thing those foreign schools have in common is that they have more federal involvement in the school system not less

No the DOE like any other government agency holds state education systems hostage for funding. If schools don't implement what the fed tells them to they get no federal money.

It's just like every other thing the feds do. If a state wants to raise the speed limit on interstates or have the drinking age lowered to under 21 they risk losing all federal highway money.

It extortion plain and simple.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Ok, all unions are bad to you, get the fuck out of here, this is the retarded ass one sided type of thinking that stinking up the whole country. If it wasn't for unions or union type activity you wouldn't have the labor laws you have now and employers would be able to run all the fuck over employees, saying that no unions are good is implying that all union members are fucktards and bad.


Money per pupil varies by STATE since the STATE and LOCAL governments mainly fund schools and don't give that private charter company bullshit because they tried that in Philly and it failed.

And some states that spend less per student do better than states who spend significantly more.

So money is not the issue.

Utah spends the least per student yet we are in the middle of the pack from a testing standpoint. Much of that has to do with parental involvement. The crappy thing about THAT is that most of us are busy enough without having to spend an hour or two every night tutoring the kids.

Yeah god forbid you have to make sure your kids learn.

If you don't want to take care of your kids you shouldn't have had them

 

[Skull Pilot]

All we have been doing is throwing money at education and yet we fall further and further behind other countries.

Seems to me it's about time we stop throwing good money after bad at teachers etc and try something new.

By God, you are right. Just put those little bastards to work in the factories. Worked out so well in Dickens time.

The continued antipathy of the 'Conservatives' toward education and science is evident on this and other boards. They are doing their very best to create a third world nation here in America.

You fucking idiot knee jerk sheep.

Where did I say throw kids in factories?

If you can't see that blindly throwing taxpayer money at a problem does nothing to fix that problem then you need to open your fucking eyes.

 

[freedombecki]

I'm to the point of this; take 5 or 10 states in different make-ups, different parts of the country and do the following over the next 5 years.


Take:
VT and ME

MO and KY

LA and AL

UT and ID

In the first states mentioned, VT, MO, LA, UT, give these states a choice to where their parents can choose vouchers or public schools. Fund it through the federal government. Just vouchers; no other major changes to the curriculum/pay schedules, etc.. that wouldn't have been made anyway.

In the 2nd States Mentioned, ME, KY, AL, and ID make it all voucher driven.

At the end of 5 years, if the first group is better than the other 40 states, we have a solution. If the 2nd group is superior to the first group and/or the 40 other states, we have a more definite solution.

If the 40 states are kicking the other 10 state's asses, well, that would speak for itself too.

Candycorn, your idea is ok, but I have a problem with just one thing. Our math education system is not an interstate problem, it's an international problem. We should be #1. Instead, we're #23, down from being #11 several years ago, which is way down from where we were in or around 1955-1965.

Excellence in higher science is 1000% dependent on having good mathematicians. Period. Education has lost its way without excellence in mathematics in this day and age.

Granted.

But a lot of other factors are state-specific. Demographics for one of them. Which is why I have the midwest, west, south, and New England all represented.

What I proposed, in no way, does anything to injure the study of science and mathematics. It addresses, I feel, the mystery of the "bedrock" problem of what works better...funding schools or just funding students and letting them pick their schools.

I have to say, Obama has this one item right, but he placed this hurting priority below priorities which will cause the nation to founder financially in the future.

With Obamacare extracting as much as the GNP in 5 years, there's nothing left for anything else that is important.

We spent a lot of money on war, and we have a lot of men and women who were wounded there that we need to take care of on a priority basis because of their sacrifices.

You'd get more bang for your buck if you took the math teachers of America, and offered them a $2,000 bonus for every 98% math score of their kids on the SAT scores. Teachers are human, and the incentive to get kids to do excellence is the only way you can throw money at a problem and get results. Unionizing teachers didn't do it, it converted them to thinking in terms of entitlement rather than excellence.

Oh, and tap the Professional Engineers Society that conducts MathCounts tests to check the results with tests of their own.

No slouching from the peanut gallery who might be tempted to ahem "fix" scores to enrich themselves. The Society of Professional Engineers won't let that happen. They are pledged to a standard, and they simply do not steer off course. And they'll fund it themselves like they do MathCounts. Additionally, they will privately fund college tuition and lifelong good jobs for the top scores.

So taxpayers won't be out $1B. It might cost a couple of million in postage and communication fees, but not a billion, and not 50 additional teachers per state either.

American students should be kicking ass on international mathematics scores.

Instead, we have a lot of students now who are the victims of entitled teachers molesting them at an alarming rate in almost every school system from coast to coast. There's too much personal shit going on in the schools and not enough reading, writing, and arithmetic.

The way to do that is to get the teachers back into excellence mode and out of entitlement mode.

That will not happen under the current administration of Marxism into every aspect of health care under Obamacare due to the expenses of making all hospitals and patients subdue to unions.

Sick people in a hospital setting must never be subjected to what Wisconsin teachers subjected children to in confronting the governor of that state a couple of years back. Getting kids to sing mean political songs in a state capitol without their parents knowledge or consent is one of the world's worst spectacles since the spectacle of Hitler's youth were used to murder minority members of society in Germany from the late 30s through 1945.

It's international test scores that tell us where we are, not interstate.

Wow...talk about leaving the reservation...Marxism....Obamacare.....Hitler.....you left out the kitchen sink.

Well....you blame the teachers which I guess is a culpable party to the education but not the parents? Okay....I think you're wrong there.

I also think that the teachers could do a much better job; teachers unions need to be dialed back in terms of their influence. I agree with some of what you say as far as using a disinterested third party to assess progress but until parents step up; all of the teaching in the world isn't going to make much of a difference. Perhaps incentivizing the parents to a degree in the forms of scholarships and grants for continuing education would help.

"Marxism" (redistribution of wealth by presidential order)..."Obamacare" (which unionizes all aspects of health care into a Democrat-controlled and controlling union) "Hitler" (marginalization of ethnic groups, namely the Jewish who are marginalized at every turn in Obama/Hillary's foreign policy dictates) ....

I'm right and I'm not wrong, madam.

 

[rightwinger]

Pay particular attention to the piece of the graphic that shows the national average percentile scores. And before you whine about the source of the graphic, you'll notice the last block has a list of all the sources used in gathering the stats.

Are you suggesting that the answer to our failing science and mathematics standing can be solved by nationwide homeschooling?

No I'm suggesting that throwing money at teachers will not change anything.

If an average person can outperform a so called professional educator then it's not money that's the problem but the teachers themselves.

Your average person outperforms professional teachers stats are nonsense

Give your homeschool parent a student who refuses to listen and has parents who don't give a shit about education and see what results homeschooling gets

Homeschool kid obviously have parents who care about their education and generally come from upper middle class families. Children of accountants, engineers, doctors, professors and small business generally do well in classes. These kids will perform well regardless of whether it is homeschool or public school

 

[rightwinger]

so you admit the DOE is FAILING the students even with the billions of dollars ALREADY spent on schools.?
So what does Obama suggest, throwing more money at it...cause he has money to BURN

I don't think the DOE is failing because they have not been given the task of educating our students. Around 10% of school funding comes from the federal government. America has historically insisted that Schools be run at the local level. Funding is local, school boards are local, teacher hiring is local
Globally, US students are falling behind foreign students. One thing those foreign schools have in common is that they have more federal involvement in the school system not less

No the DOE like any other government agency holds state education systems hostage for funding. If schools don't implement what the fed tells them to they get no federal money.

It's just like every other thing the feds do. If a state wants to raise the speed limit on interstates or have the drinking age lowered to under 21 they risk losing all federal highway money.

It extortion plain and simple.

Most curriculum guidance comes from the state and local level. As do textbook selection, hiring of teachers and teacher certification requirements

 

[chikenwing]

And this would reduce class size how? Are you honestly suggesting that local officials are NOT reducing class sizes and are NOT hiring more teachers because of Federal rules from the Dept of Education? What are those rules then?


How? If you and I are teachers and you're shitty and get fired, how does that make me better? How does me now having to teach your students in addition to mine help me teach better?


It's never been explained. You guys keep claiming it, but then never explain the steps. Your logic is like this:

1. Class size is too big.
2. Give more local control.
3.
4. Smaller class sizes accomplished.

How does having more local control translate to more teachers and smaller classes?

small classes have been proven with time not to be as effective as sold.

The small upstate school system my family greww up in in the 60's and 70's had 30 pulse kids in every class and NO teachers aids all trew school. We beat the pants off same district now as far as SAT and all other standardized testing

why would that be??

It could be a variety of reasons. Least of which cultural changes from the 60s and 70s.

But, you said "small classes have been proven with time not to be as effective as sold." Proven huh? That's great! Can you give us the link to the study that proved it? Thanks.

Test scores and % of graduates,its not hard to connect the dots.

What cultural differences?? its still the same old small town,with 5 times as many administrators and aids ether they learn or they don't. 2+2 still equals 4 in the real world.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Are you suggesting that the answer to our failing science and mathematics standing can be solved by nationwide homeschooling?

No I'm suggesting that throwing money at teachers will not change anything.

If an average person can outperform a so called professional educator then it's not money that's the problem but the teachers themselves.

Your average person outperforms professional teachers stats are nonsense

Give your homeschool parent a student who refuses to listen and has parents who don't give a shit about education and see what results homeschooling gets

Homeschool kid obviously have parents who care about their education and generally come from upper middle class families. Children of accountants, engineers, doctors, professors and small business generally do well in classes. These kids will perform well regardless of whether it is homeschool or public school

Proof?

And if the problem is as you say the students and not the teachers then maybe we should throw a billion dollars at the kids not the teachers.

Or maybe we should track kids like we used to instead of trying to tell kids that everyone should go to college.

 

[Skull Pilot]

I don't think the DOE is failing because they have not been given the task of educating our students. Around 10% of school funding comes from the federal government. America has historically insisted that Schools be run at the local level. Funding is local, school boards are local, teacher hiring is local
Globally, US students are falling behind foreign students. One thing those foreign schools have in common is that they have more federal involvement in the school system not less

No the DOE like any other government agency holds state education systems hostage for funding. If schools don't implement what the fed tells them to they get no federal money.

It's just like every other thing the feds do. If a state wants to raise the speed limit on interstates or have the drinking age lowered to under 21 they risk losing all federal highway money.

It extortion plain and simple.

Most curriculum guidance comes from the state and local level. As do textbook selection, hiring of teachers and teacher certification requirements

And the feds impose their own obligations if a school wants to get federal money

 

[JoeNormal]

And some states that spend less per student do better than states who spend significantly more.

So money is not the issue.

Utah spends the least per student yet we are in the middle of the pack from a testing standpoint. Much of that has to do with parental involvement. The crappy thing about THAT is that most of us are busy enough without having to spend an hour or two every night tutoring the kids.

Yeah god forbid you have to make sure your kids learn.

If you don't want to take care of your kids you shouldn't have had them

Hey asshole, this modern world of ours has turned into a time robbing monster. I can tell from your naive notions about home schooling that you haven't a clue about middle class stresses and I suspect you don't have kids either.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Utah spends the least per student yet we are in the middle of the pack from a testing standpoint. Much of that has to do with parental involvement. The crappy thing about THAT is that most of us are busy enough without having to spend an hour or two every night tutoring the kids.

Yeah god forbid you have to make sure your kids learn.

If you don't want to take care of your kids you shouldn't have had them

Hey asshole, this modern world of ours has turned into a time robbing monster. I can tell from your naive notions about home schooling that you haven't a clue about middle class stresses and I suspect you don't have kids either.

I don't have kids because i never wanted them but if I did have kids I wouldn't expect not to help them with their schoolwork and you got nothing on me when it comes to stress.