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Txhazeleyes
Member
02-12-2008
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 12:10 pm
"my dad used to get so angry because the money that goes toward education never trickles down to the classroom it's spent largely on administration and there's alot of school administrators with some huge salaries." I know exactly what you mean. My rural school district has teachers who make 30k a year who have been here for some time, and almost fainted when I found out the school secretary, and I use that term secretary very loosely, considering her main job is using yahoo messenger and acting as receptionist, made $38k last year. But she was required to get her GED before they hired her! :D
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Earthmother
Member
07-13-2002
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 12:38 pm
I guarentee you that the clerk and secretary in our school don't have the time to be playing on the internet. They are nurses, parent notifiers, counselors, aides,babysitters, seragate moms, you name it. They work side by side with us to give as much support to our kids who don't have it at home. AGAIN,,,this is what you can do; If you have a couple of hours a week volunteer in one of these schools, just becaues YOUR kid doesn't go there doesn't matter to a kid who needs extra help. Make sure you are well read on your politicians and that they revere good education, not demean it. VOTE AND TALK, VOTE AND TALK. You would be surprised how little time and energy it takes to make a difference.
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Jenjackso
Member
02-10-2009
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 12:39 pm
I don't think the problem is that there isn't enough money going to education, it's the greedy people between the money and the actual schools that are making $100,000 a year plus from that money before it gets to the school level. Cutting the Federal Department of Education would be the best thing in the world. Let States run their education, get rid of the middle level people who are collecting a salary but not really making any difference in the kid's lives. Pay the good teachers more, get rid of the bad teachers (would have to eliminate union to succeed in this). I have said this before so I hope that I don't sound like a broken record. I am not a join the PTA volunteer, I'm just a regular mom who goes in and helps teach kids who are struggling. I can teach a kid any concept with a pencil and a piece of paper. I don't need Smart Boards or laptops or any other expensive items to help them. I will say that we are very fortunate in our school in that the statistics that they publish in our newsletter is how many parents couldn't make it to conferences and last time it was 8 families from the whole school who didn't have a conference. Despite that, I see huge waste in my children's schools. When I was in high school, we had a class of 800 and we didn't have a separate principal for each grade. My child has a class of 500 and they have a principal and assistant principal for each grade in the high school. It's a ridiculous waste of money if you ask me. The problems my children are facing in high school are exactly the same as they were in my day with the exception of sexting issues. There is plenty of money going towards education, it is just being utilized for people in middle more than the children who need it.
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Jenjackso
Member
02-10-2009
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 12:41 pm
EM, that ties into what I'm saying. In our schools there are a clerk and a secretary and then 4 more office workers plus a nurse, counselor, speech therapist, etc. Your school is struggling and ours is obscenely over-staffed. I know we're in different states so there isn't much that can be done but a little balance would be nice, wouldn't it?
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Oliviamimi
Member
05-30-2009
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 12:50 pm
Everything said and all considered, NO we can not give up. We have no option but to keep trying.
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Earthmother
Member
07-13-2002
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 1:00 pm
How many really poor (homeless), children make up your student body Jenjackso? Are you in an affluent school district? Are there a lot of stay at home parents? These are the things that we don't have. We are understaffed and face the same decreases as our most affluent schools, but the impact is so much more dire. Being fair doesn't mean everyone gets the same thing, it means that everyone gets what they need. Why let so many teachers and support staff go when a school that doesn't have the volunteer support???? because they claim it's fair.
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 1:09 pm
It's time this country stopped thinking of education as an unneeded expense and start thinking of it as an investment in the future of this country. Spend the money for good teacher salaries, good schools (with all the latest supplies and computers, etc) and it will more than pay for itself in the long run. If we keep pulling funding from our collapsing school system, we'll have even more problems in the future. Hmmmmm, I wonder how much funding will be cut from education with that debt ceiling bill?
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 1:15 pm
$7 billion was cut from education in the debt ceiling bill. ETA: Pell Grants were increased, while student loan monies for college were decreased. In terms of public school education (K-12), those cuts don't kick in until 2013; and can be avoided if the Congress agrees to savings in 'other areas.' Yeah, right.
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Sunshyne4u
Member
06-16-2003
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 2:01 pm
Some of us live in Canada here at TVCH so i truly dont know what its like All OVer the USA. You are a large country, not as big in land as Canada but HUGE population spread. I do want to be clear with this point tho. It CHILD NEGLIGENCE not to feed children at home. IF teachers/ schools know kids are being mistreated at home the Infrastructure of your Politics and Protection of Children needs to be addressed. Here in Canada, Social Services is called BY THE SCHOOL. poverty isnt an excuse ( Mom or Dad may Drink or smoke the food money away) i KNOW this for a fact as it happened to an Exfriend. She used to spend around 300 a month on smokes and the kids got alphagetti or Mr Noodle for all dinners. The school noticed that they werent getting lunches and WHammo, they were on her. I am just not sure that Feeding kids at school is a solution when its the Family home dynamic that seems to be the issue.
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Earthmother
Member
07-13-2002
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 2:14 pm
You also have free health care in Canada, we don't. Most of these kids are malnurished as well as undereducated and some haven't seen a dr or dentist for years. Unfortunately if the majority of the POOR were white I believe they would get more support. Call it what you will but the facts prove me right. Where are these kids supposed to go when the parents are charged with neglect? If you put them into the system where does the money come from to take care of them, these programs have been cut to the bone? Should they be pushed from one foster home or group home until they are 16 and then they don't get the support? I wish it were that easy to just sit back and say, the family home dynamic is the problem, so we shouldnt be feeding these kids...They are NOT STRAY DOGS~!!How do you make a parent, be a parent, through incarceration? Wow, then we get to pay for three hots and a cot for them, but what about their kids? What the hell happened to pro fing life!!!! Let's just keep forcing poor women to have unwanted kids, after all everyone deserves to live right??? irregardless of the pain and torture that these poor kids face every fing day. A nerve has been hit, so I better take a break.
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Dedonjo
Member
08-20-2006
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 2:43 pm
Wow. As another teacher who visits this board regularly, this discussion has prompted me to post for the first time this year. I am a resource teacher at an elementary school with about 41% families who are struggling financially. The school I used to work at (a small, neighborhood school with high need but a strong community) closed a couple years ago, and I now teach at a school twice the size. Along with increasingly bigger class sizes and other cuts, it is shocking to me the difference in what I am able to do now for my kids compared to two years ago - so much less. There is such a huge variance in how people perceive what is happening in schools, basing opinions on what they hear in the media, what their kids report (from their perspective, which is often quite narrow at whatever age - most see what goes on in their personal bubbles but have no idea of the large picture), what the politicians (many who have no clue, experience, or knowledge of education at any level) say, or what they remember from their own experience, even though it may have been years ago and quite a different situation than now - different world, different standards, etc. I so agree with Earthmother - go volunteer in one of those schools that are struggling, one of the high need schools. It will be quite a different experience from the school in the higher socio-economic neighborhood a few miles down the road. And they need you more. "I can teach a kid any concept with a pencil and a piece of paper. I don't need Smart Boards or laptops or any other expensive items to help them." I wish we had the luxury of working with every child one on one on a regular basis. If we did, certainly most, if not every, child with that advantage would learn 'any' concept. Not to mention that you are certainly not the only person who has worked with any given child on a 'concept'. Please don't overestimate the 'simplicity' of educating or learning. It's insulting to educators and to those students who struggle. One of the issues with technology is that we are trying to prepare kids to function in a technological society - we need technology to do that. And truthfully, there are those children who are helped immensely with the help of technology, used properly. That includes not only the hardware and software, but also training for the adults charged with using it. Which - costs money. My district has cut training to virtually nothing. Really sad. other comments- "...Was it when guilt at not having enough time with their kids due to two parents working took over and made parents want to be "friends" with their kids instead of parents?" In my ten years of teaching, I've never met a parent who didn't care, or who didn't want their child to succeed. I know a lot of parents who are struggling to survive, exhausted from working one or multiple jobs to pay their rent and put food on the table and clothing on their children. These parents care, they just can't do more than they're already doing. We also have parents who are not educated themselves, and want more for their kids but don't have the ability to help them. This is a societal issue, not that of individual, "uncaring" parents. Not every parent is educated themselves, not every parent has the luxury of time to sit with their children every night, not every parent has had the training, whether academic or social, to send us kids socially and academically "ready" to learn to the standards we have set. They need us, the schools, to fill in those gaps. There is so much 'blaming' going on. It's the parent's fault, it's the teacher's fault, it's the overpaid and underworked administrators (ha - just try to step in and do a principal's job for a day, it is an extremely difficult job that I, for one, would not do for any amount of pay). "Pay the good teachers more, get rid of the bad teachers (would have to eliminate union to succeed in this)." I take strong issue with this. Teacher's unions represent teachers and teacher's concerns. They are strong advocates for students and quality education - because this is what teachers are all about. At the same time, teachers are 'workers' just like any other workers in this country, and certainly have the right to advocate for salary, working conditions, and other labor issues. There are systems in place that, when utilized, give support to struggling teachers and provide a route to removing those who should not be teaching. There is value in experience and seniority in this profession as in most others. Sorry for the lengthy post, a subject I clearly have strong feelings about... Earthmother and Sanfran, kudos on both of your posts, I so agree. Thanks.
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Oliviamimi
Member
05-30-2009
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 4:26 pm
I know for a fact it is not the teachers fault. It disturbs me when teachers are blamed for schools that do not succeed. Through the years I have had so many friends that were and are teachers. Most of my peers that taught have now retired. I know how HARD teachers work. I have 6 nieces and 3 are teachers. Two work with special needs children. When my children were in school I volunteered for everything that came up, even when I worked I volunteered. There isn't too much I can do now because I work part time, keep my grandchildren and care for my elderly mother. I do however vote and provide school tools for our local school. Wish I could do more. Just not enough hours in a day.
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Earthmother
Member
07-13-2002
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 5:20 pm
You have no idea how much that helps Oliviamimi. My dream is that one day we will be funded well enough that we won't have to beg people to help with the education of our future leaders.
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Oliviamimi
Member
05-30-2009
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 6:14 pm
Earth 
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Sunshyne4u
Member
06-16-2003
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 7:35 pm
You also have free health care in Canada, no we dont. that is just something USA people like to repeat . We pay Monthly Premiums to our Medical Services Plans. I also pay extra money for My extended coverages. One of my meds is $380 out of my pocket each time I get it. ITS NOT FREE! I dislike blanket comments. In my ten years of teaching, I've never met a parent who didn't care, or who didn't want their child to succeed. I I've met many parents who value their own personal needs over their children's. I'm not in teaching but i'd Guess that a parent who didnt care would never voice it to an authority. My experience is real life. Parents who eat steak / smoke/ drink and feed their kids spagetti with ketchup cause 'they dont have money' but have a great stocked bar. Their dating life and Personal holidays are more important then their children BUT they'd never admit it in those words. actions speak louder then words. I'm in my forties, I've worked with Hundreds of people thru the years and seen heard a ton of stuff. I've always put kids first and would go without food myself before I would give a child mr noodle for every meal. there IS no easy solution. NO one is blaming the teachers.
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Tntitanfan
Member
08-03-2001
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 9:10 pm
The parents that teachers see ARE the concerned parents - and far too few of them in my neck of the woods. Here waaaaaaay less than 10% come to teacher conferences or concern themselves with their children's education in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Even more alarming is parental attention to their children's nutritional needs during the summer! Only about 17% of school-aged children - who are eligible for school-provided breakfasts amd lunches during the school year - receive ANY food supplements during the summer. Their "care-giver" is too wrapped up in their drug or alcohol habit or latest "uncle" to give attention to feeding their kids. We are out there in the trenches and doing all that we can, but some impetus really needs to come from the home front, and i have no idea how to stimulate that.
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 9:24 pm
Man, where I live it is so different. I don't know officially, but I suspect that 100 or near 100 percent of parents go to conferences. And open houses are so ridiculously overpacked that you can hardy even say hi to the teachers. It is the same at elementary and middle school level. Not sure what it's like at the high school level. And there are all sorts of races and eco. classes covered.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 10:25 pm
Be grateful Julie. We average only 20% of parents at our high school level. We also have over half our kids on free-reduced lunch, a 25% alcoholism rate, the second or third highest poverty rate in the state, and almost 20% unemployment. There are many reasons parents don't come - some can't, some won't, some have given up, some are afraid of language barriers - but all of it results in a distinct lack of value given to education in our community. Only 16% of the adults have a college education, and given all of the above, that number won't be changing any time soon as many kids can't afford higher ed. Thank you for those who offer support. It helps, and we all need to hear it more often. Take for example my experience this past year - a first in 19 years of teaching. I called a parent about a failing student and his response was "I don't give a rat's ass about Spanish." In that case, that particular parent had a LOT to do with his son's lack of effort in my class. Thank goodness that is not true for all students, but in 50% of the parent phone calls I made in one marking period, the parent I talked to complained about how I was the problem - never asking once how their child could improve. It's demoralizing, discouraging, and I don't even teach in a "rough" school. It's been at least 5 years since I've been excited to go back to school in the fall, but that doesn't have one thing to do w/my students. It has everything to do w/the public perception and attacks. That's a long way of saying the kind words are sooooooo much appreciated. It proves again that we have a special place here in TVCH and only the kindest posters! 
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Maineiac
Member
08-24-2009
| Wednesday, August 03, 2011 - 8:06 am
Just like Olivia, I have many friends and family members that are educators and I don't believe for one minute that teachers are to blame for our failing system. I do believe that we have teachers that get burnt out or discouraged and "give up" on kids. But frankly, I can sympathize. I've spent many hours in the classroom and have seen first hand what teachers deal with. I give them all the respect they deserve. My children are now in high school and it disturbs me to hear the stories they tell. The lack of respect and discipline these kids have in the classroom contributes to the lack of education our children are getting. Like I've said before, it starts at home. When the parents are disrespectful of teachers, the students follow. I have a quick story about an awesome teacher. When my youngest daughter was in the 5th grade, she struggled with math. She was in danger of failing the Standardized Test for 5th grade math (No Child Left Behind) which would keep her from moving on to 6th grade. Anyway, her teacher spent many hours tutoring her and other children, includng after school and in the morings. It gave my daughter the confidence and knowledge she needed. In April, she not only passed the standardized testing but she exceeded! Fastfoward to today, my daughter just started her freshman year in high school on Monday. She was placed in an Advanced Math class. To this day she says Mrs.!! is the reason she is good at math, loves it and plans to be an Accountant. Teachers have the opportunity to make a lifelong impact in a child's life, good or bad. To all the educators on this board, thank you for everything you do.
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Earthmother
Member
07-13-2002
| Wednesday, August 03, 2011 - 8:52 am
I get very sad when I read that some don't think that good nutrition for America's kids are not important. We can't force parents to be good to their kids. As many have stated there are many reasons parents don't seem attentive enough, but the facts are that many just don't care about education. It's a fact that I don't understand, but there are too many of them to think it doesn't exist. I personally think that NCLB would not be so useless if it included things that parents must do, but we all know that the smaller government people (who deny rights to gays and tell a woman what she can do with her womb) would rail against such intrusion. The hypocrisy has no bounds to these legislators. Anything that will fix the problem has to come from government intervention, but until we get some sane people on the hill we are doomed to be led by the socially ignorant. Two things in this world give you power; Money and knowledge. If we keep both of those things from the poor and disadvantaged then the fat cats always have someone they can use as thier scapegoats for what's wrong and they will never fix what is really wrong.
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Angelrsg
Member
08-08-2005
| Wednesday, August 03, 2011 - 11:36 am
Teach, unfortunately I see that attitude all the time. I am Teacher's Assistant (Para) in Special Ed classes. Last year I was in a 5th grade class. Every day I sent home a progress report in the kid's homework folder that gives a grade for the kid's behavior, classwork, and homework for that day. The parents are then supposed to sign the report and return it. Out of 6 students in the classroom, only 2 did their homework consistently. Notes would be sent home that needed to be signed and returned, calls placed to the homes. Nothing changed. One parent actually sent me a note back asking me to make sure her son did the homework because she had 6 other children and she couldn't check on him. These are the students that need help the most, and it's a shame that they don't get to support they need.
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Cinnamongirl
Member
01-10-2001
| Wednesday, August 03, 2011 - 11:47 am
You also have free health care in Canada, no we dont. that is just something USA people like to repeat . We pay Monthly Premiums to our Medical Services Plans. I also pay extra money for My extended coverages. One of my meds is $380 out of my pocket each time I get it. ITS NOT FREE! My monthly premium is $60. Its not free but its affordable. And if you can't afford the $60 there is help available. My cousin in Atlanta, just recovered from a blood disease where he stayed 4 months in the hospital. His bill, for the hospital alone, is $1,780,000.00 And that doesn't include any doctors. Clearly, he is going bankrupt. I'd take the unfree Canadian plan anyday. I teachers & have several in my family.
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Earthmother
Member
07-13-2002
| Wednesday, August 03, 2011 - 11:55 am
How many of them are minorities Angel? Many kids in special ed should not be there but get pigeon holed because we don't have remedial programs that deal with their educational needs, they are not funded. Another problem is transiency. Since in my district most of the disadvantaged are minoriities, that tend to move often and change schools. These kids never really get what they need, and are always the new kid. It takes time to evaluate what they need and many times by the time you find out they are gone. Most of this is caused by inadequate housing and job loses. Poor people are limited on the kinds of jobs they can take due to child care, and transportation. I know that if these parents had the educational options that more affluent parents have they would be much better parents and therefore we would have kids who could be successful. Our government keeps them right where they want them, on the bottom. It's a crying shame. We can't blame the plight of the poor on just the parents. We have to accept the fact that equality in jobs and education are still way behind. Just because you may know of someone who is lazy and keeps having kids for the rest of us to support does not mean that the MAJORITY of the poor do this. Being poor is not what most people aspire to, most times it's not their fault. When you have to work 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs to keep a roof over your kid's head, there's not much homework and bonding time left.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Wednesday, August 03, 2011 - 12:06 pm
Ita Cinnamon: As many of you know DH and I are Canadian and he spent a week this past May in the burn unit of a hospital here in Toronto where we live. It cost us ZERO thanks to our FREE NATIONAL MEDICARE. A week later our cat spent a week at the vet's and it cost us almost 2 thousand bucks. We also have to pay for dental and physio etc, and meds have gotten really expensive, although many folks have some kind of extra health insurance to cover those things. I just say, thank heavens for our FREE HEALTHCARE for what it is, it's fantastic and I for one am very grateful! And no, at this point we do NOT have any extra insurance so things like dental and meds etc can be VERY costly, but there is just no comparison to the financial hardships our American friends must endure when they have medical situations. ETA: In Toronto our medicare is called OHIP, Ontario Health Insurance Plan. Each Province has it's own, but whatever it's called, all Canadian citizens have access to it.
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Angelrsg
Member
08-08-2005
| Wednesday, August 03, 2011 - 12:40 pm
EM, all of them are minorities. I know all too well about our educational system, as a parent and a former student. The school I work for is in the middle of the projects. I know my students and their parents. Trust me when I tell you that this particular student I spoke of, his mom was not working 2 jobs so that she wasn't able to help. We had another student that came to us from a catholic school that didn't provide the mandated services he needed for 3 years. He came to us at 12 years old and still reading at a kindergarten level. He was mandated to receive additional instruction, and his mother refused the services claiming that "he gets upset" and she didn't want him to be a problem for us. This same child also had over 100 latenesses, and would come to school 3 out of 5 days. He finally started coming to school somewhat regularly because we sent an attendance teacher to his house and the mother was reported to ACS. At the end of the year, this child told us he wished he could have come to our school sooner, because we helped and cared about him. I wish that our school went thru 8th grade so we would have more time to help these kids that we know are going to be left behind and get lost in middle school.
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