All right, troops. Tenhut! All those ready to get your Indiana automatic refund, take one step forward. Not so fast there, silly Hoosier!
By his own account, Gov. Mitch Daniels never expected his automatic taxpayer refund to kick in while he was in office.
Now a state tax processing error resulting in $320 million more in the bank for the state and improved tax collections could put a nominal amount back in Hoosiers' purses and wallets next year. But a bi-partisan thirst to restore education funding and pay down state debts that languished during the recession could just as easily take that refund away.
Man, they really do hate to give any money back once they've gotten their grubby little hands on it, don't they?
Comments
Given that they've taken money away from schoolteachers, perhaps they could give some of it back. I know you hate all government spending, but can we at least agree that education is worth something?
Education is definitely worth something.
But there's a difference between education and schooling - and where they've cut the payroll is in schooling. Figure out a way to improve education, and most taxpayers would be happy to restore that funding.
Cutting funding for fire departments can result in greater losses from fires, and consequently higher homeowner insurance rates. What's the optimum funding rate for fire departments? I don't know. Maybe we're already paying too much. Maybe we need to double the funding. Someone working on his doctorate in public administration ought to do a study to figure this one out.
Does it take a ph'd to teach a 1st grader? How about a 12 th grader? Giving money to a particular sector is being ignorant of cost and need. I would like to see Tony Bennet fired. It is great that there is a focus on education, but standardized books, lesson plans and what is taught makes us all the same.
When a company hires people, do they wan everyone to know the exact same stuff? Every company I have worked for looks for people who are complimentary to others (they bring something to a group that the group is lacking).
Paying teachers more does not improve education, similar to throwing dollar bills into a fire to stay warm.
A man who doesn't know the difference between "complimentary" and "complementary" has clearly been short-changed by the educational system. Perhaps better pay would have attracted a teacher who could have taught you the difference. My wife, who just had her hours lengthened and her take-home pay cut, could be of help.
Small-Place-To-Take-A-Pee: My gosh, don't you have ANYTHING to do?
Could she, Littlejohn? If we tested her students at the start and end of the school year, what percentage would know the difference between complimentary and complementary?
If we gave her 20% more, would she be a better teacher? If so, why is she goofing off NOW?
"Paying teachers more does not improve education, similar to throwing dollar bills into a fire to stay warm."
But paying teachers better attracts better people to the profession. Pay teachers as a whole badly enough, and no one with any sense of self worth or preservation will want to be a teacher or stay one.
"Could she, Littlejohn? If we tested her students at the start and end of the school year, what percentage would know the difference between complimentary and complementary?"
Are you implying that percentage is low, Harl? Are you trying to make some inference about littlejohn's wife's teaching ability? Are you saying it doesn't matter what her teaching ability is because the kids she's given are either just too rock-stupid to learn or too intelligent in the first place to need her instruction?
"If we gave her 20% more, would she be a better teacher?"
I think you know that's not the point he was making.
"If so, why is she goofing off NOW?"
And that's just a jerk thing to say. You should know better, Harl. But at least you veiled your being obtuse under the pretense of discussion, unlike John B. Kalb's simple direct insult.
Chris, calling William uneducated is lame, since he's obviously well-spoke, and well-informed on a variety of reasons. And the high level of performance of students in Amish schools, where they often have teachers without credentials, underscores his point.
And it's not an insult to either student or teacher to suggest that teachers rarely are effective in problems of affect/effect, complimentary/complementary; most highly-educated people have to stop and think hard on those pairs, for it doesn't come naturally. They should feel proud if their students don't loose weight, and loose/lose don't even sound the same.
The problem in our schools isn't a money problem; my first grade had 1 teacher, 33 kids, and today's classes with 25 kids who had kindergarten for a running start, and 2 to 4 adults aren't taught as well.
Principals should have the flexibility to pay more to retain effective teachers, and should have a low base pay with a big bonus for scholastic performance relative to costs. You think chain restaurants pay all managers the same, or all cooks the same? If you make your restaurant highly popular, you can get substantially more - and that can work in schools, too.
But the teacher's unions want the same pay for playing with little kids as for teaching valences, want to only work 36 weeks a year, and want no tests that would show how much a teacher is helping students. With nobody being paid to make sure kids benefits, we end up with prisons for kids instead of places where kids learn. Good teachers would benefit from a change; bad teachers need to find something else to do. Tossing more money at the problem without addressing it is like buying a bigger furnace instead of patching that big hole in the wall.
Attracting more people isn't what we need. Attracting better people is - and more important than wages in attracting them is a sense of fulfillment. Good teachers don't want to be lumped in with dullard prison guards.
Sense of fulfillment more important than wages? What world u come from? It's the Hoosier mindset. We used to sell double Meijer grocery coupons as an incentive for a reporter to come to fort wayne and overlook the crumbs as wages.
Harl, my wife is an excellent teacher who puts in 10-12 hours a day, including weekends. She's also working on her second master's degree despite the fact that under the new rules, it won't increase her pay.
But here's what the low pay in Fort Wayne will do: It will cause the best teachers, such as my wife, to mail their resumes off to other states where the pay is better. That leaves only the worst teachers who can't get a job elsewhere. If that's who you want teaching the kids, then you live in the right place.
As for John Kalb: Sir, you do understand that when you make fun of my name you're also making fun of your own, don't you? Also, "john" is slang for "bathroom," not a small place to pee. That would be a urinal. Or your hat.
And no, my wife's kids wouldn't recognize either "compliment" or "complement," much less understand the difference. My wife doesn't get them until they're in high school, where they exchange baby pictures and bags of dope. They're pretty hopeless at that point, largely because they grew up in single-mother homes where Mom stays stoned and nobody reads anything.
I think that's tragic and would love to see more intervention, not less, at an early age, to improve their odds of eventually supporting themselves and their multiple illegitimate children. I presume you prefer to give up on them. I hope you have a shotgun handy, because they're the ones who'll be breaking into your house to steal your television.
"Chris, calling William uneducated is lame, since he
"But that
"I often disagree with his conclusions, but he quite often shows facts that lead him to that conclusion, and evenwhen I disagree, I can see how he reaches his conclusions."
His quality of writing and the quality of those conclusions, however, is still a matter of opinion.
"Credentials aren
Littlejohn, serious question. What should your wife make? Give us a number.
I hear a lot from a few that teachers are underpaid, but I never hear a number. What's the number?
"I didn
"You think McDonalds pays burger flippers the $51,300 average pay for FWCS teachers?"
I don't know, include the managers and franchise owners (but not corporate) in the calculation as well, and come up with the mean as well as average pay as well, to make it something like a valid comparison.
Do the people in your other comparison get paid for all the hours they work? Because apparently teachers aren't.
"According to your rules. you
teachers in the midwest? bcause of the college degree and what goes for median and how vital education is, easily $60,000 a year after a few years. let's make them comparable to GM welders and public safety employees.
I will admit that I do not see as well as I once did. My right hand and fingers do not work as well as they once did. I admit I should spend more time proof reading, but my dial up modem at 28K kicks me off if I spend too long responding. I guess I stirred up a hornets nest. How many work for a company where you know there are slackers? Do those slackers ever get let go/laid off? Are they paid less than those who produce? Teachers, Fire and Police for the most part are paid based on a level, time in service, etc, not what they produce. Paying more does little to solve the problem. $60,000 for a teacher who works 192 days with sick days is pretty darn good. An added bonus is their schedule matches any school age children they have the best of any occupation. When comparing these professionals to others in terms of after hour work, keep in mind those who travel, work weekends and nights put in a lot of extra hours without pay. Salary positions generally do not pay for extra hours. A salary position is one that the employer cannot define the hours needed to complete the task nor the task itself 100%. Hourly positions generally are able to define the hours worked and the task to be completed.
My wife has a elementary degree with math and science endorsements. She taught for a few years and found it extremely difficult due to the state premise that if a child correctly answered 3 out of 4 math problems, they had mastered the lesson.
What amazes me is that the human brain is what I would call rev 0 (past 10,000 years). We learn the same way we always have. We remember things the same way. The brain stores memories the same way. Little has changed. Prior to 1970 it was common to use pencil, errasor and black board. We had people who became engineers; went to the moon, built cars, ships, airplanes, dams, roads, etc. Teachers taught the same material every year.
Now at Carrol High School there are about five types of economic classes where 30 years ago there was one. There was one algebra 1 & 2 class, but now there are three and possibly four different classes offered (advanced, standard, dumb down and combination of math and pre algebra). As you break the basics down to smaller elements, you become more like a GM with a thousand different options for a car; quality control becomes a problem, consistency and repeatability become problems).
When did education begin to decline and why? I have my opinion on this; computers, calculators and subdividing of classes. No longer did practice make perfect exist, but cut & paste did. Thinking about what and how you were organizing a paper went out the window - leading to less preparation and thought. I believe in the 60's students were "lained" by ability. This lasted a short period of time. Educators found that even the slowest students benefits from being in classes with the advanced students.
Testing children to determine their ability is not as accurate as one might think. The ability of the senses to compensate is very strong. A person with bad eye sight may develop spatial relationship capabilities far beyond those with 20/20. Hearing can also compensate for sight handicaps. The same can be true of testing. I know many who do not test well, but are very creative, imaginative and resourceful.
Too much is spent on technology that will be totally different when the student reaches a job. Unlike the 60's with no computers or calculators, internet, but books, slide ruler and manual type writer, these students created the science that is then applied to build useful items. Technology is not the computer, camera, cell phone or any of the common things we buy today, but these are simply applied technology in a useful way.
I will guess I have made at least ten spelling errors and may have misused a word or two. English was not and is not my thing. Problem solving, math, science and physics are.
Nicely put William, as always!