This can be a problem. Generally speaking, most teachers don't have an agenda but simply are not able to be experts in all the things they must teach. I corrected a teacher once to was using materials that said muslims were the victims of the Crusades and villianized the Christians. When I showed her historical information to the contrary, he changed his position. On the other hand, those people that prepare learning materials, textbooks, etc... tend to lean toward the wrong side (left).
Teacher Sick Out
- Thread starter Henogee1975
- Start date
This can be a problem. Generally speaking, most teachers don't have an agenda but simply are not able to be experts in all the things they must teach. I corrected a teacher once to was using materials that said muslims were the victims of the Crusades and villianized the Christians. When I showed her historical information to the contrary, he changed his position. On the other hand, those people that prepare learning materials, textbooks, etc... tend to lean toward the wrong side (left).
Full disclosure: I'm a member of KEA, but I'm the equivalent of a Easter/Christmas church member. Pay my dues and have that insurance in case some kid trips and falls and it's all my fault.
"The state should advocate for its CITIZENS"... since the vast majority of those CITIZENS children attend public schools...shouldn't that be the focus and not privileged few that attend private schools?
"The only ones against it are the unions..."? Huh? Seeing that "the unions" only represents a small fragment of the population were that the case then this would be a slam dunk. There are many public school advocates that see the unintended consequences of this bill.
"That stuff about only best students will benefit is B.S. " BS? So you are saying all the good students who want scholarships can already get them?
Again, some truth in what you say.
KEA does promote actions that may ultimately benefit kids but their first objective is ALWAYS to best serve members. I know this for an absolute fact. They may care for the kids, but that is secondary to the objective of serving members.
For example: As a person that once hired teachers and made decisions relative to salary increases, my position was always that the best reason to increase pay was to enable my people to attract superior teachers or encourage the best and brightest to choose the field.
Here's the difference:
Administrator: Best interests of kids first. It's good if teachers benefit.
KEA: Best interests of teachers first. It's good if kids benefit.
There is some sort of windfall law re: social security that prevents double dipping. If you retire as a teacher, then pay your quarters in a ss paying position, you cannot draw ss. Indeed, it's not fair. I've known teachers who became teachers after working in other professions (paid ss). If they work long enough to retire as a teacher, they will not be eligible to draw ss.
Cutting the sick leave benefit for retirement purposes is just another example of pushing state costs down to the local level. If a teacher takes a sick/personal leave day, the district has the expense of paying their daily wage plus the expense of the substitute for the teacher. As a retirement benefit, the value of the unused days is reduced to 30% of their value, saving the school districts money but costing the state extra retirement.
This is just one example of the state trying to push costs to the local level. Another would be transportation costs, which the state fully funded at one time, but has since pushed 40% of transportation costs to come from local funds.
The list goes on but the continued effort of the state to pass costs to the local level will continue. It makes the local school districts look like the bad guy with local school tax increases and the state legislators look fiscally conservative for not seeking new dedicated revenue for schools.
I'm going to say some severely controversial things here, so I hope you won't misinterpret my intentions. I have spent a number of years (10+) working with public school populations in california with a NSF funded program and have spent the last 3+ years as faculty at a private university. You are right with you assessment above. Many people take advantage. Here is my take:
1) By and large, teachers are very competent individuals who are underpaid for the service they perform. The lack of compensation and an idiotic, antiquated application of teachers unions, pensions, and tenure generates an incentive structure where the majority teachers only do the bare minimum to stay employed.
2) A disturbing fraction of students, and by extension their parents, do not take school seriously. We live in an era of unprecedented resources and access to information. Going to school is a privilege that should be taken seriously. Of the students that don't take school seriously, the generalization is that they largely come from *either* wealthy backgrounds or poor backgrounds. Parents of these students treat school as baby sitting. Folks from the wealthy backgrounds send their kids to private schools and ancillary education (Kumon, SAT classes, etc. ) at a disproportionately higher rate. This access of *even more resources* does not translate to better performance at the rate it should. Folks in the middle are fairly opportunistic with public school resources.
3) A majority to students do not need to go to higher education for the vocations they choose. Many students don't even go to school for the education, but instead for the experience. If you can afford it, great, enjoy the ride. If you can't, and depend on scholarships, you should be held to a minimum standard of effort. The higher education industry including the University of California system and the University of Kentucky is not a sustainable enterprise. This is a bubble that will burst. When it does, people will take public education more seriously.
To sum it up, education is an opportunity that comes at significant time and money costs (for the public), not an experience. If we need to transform the system so that people take it seriously, we should consider having families pay for public schools and pay teachers significantly better salaries.
You’re absolutely correct in that it’s a law . . . at the federal level. It’s called the General Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). One reduces your social security benefit based on having a public pension, while the other reduces your spousal benefit based on having a public pension.
The issue is this: Say a teacher never used a sick leave day. When he retires, he receives 30% of the value of those days. That's a good thing because 1) it keeps teachers in classrooms vs having subs 2) the district has to pay both the teacher's salary and the sub costs when a teacher is absent. The problem is this: If it is determined the value of teacher above unused days is $30 K, not only does he receive the money, but that amount is added to his last year's salary figure and is further included in calculation of retirement benefits.
Thanks. I wonder what the reasoning is when you have paid into it before teaching or other pension-type jobs? Is that just considered a donation to Uncle Sam?
-not a funding issue. Period. Ky spends/pays a little over 10k per student...on par with countries like Germany/Japan/Finland. More than the avg oced country spends.
-you can buy a quality private education for that money.
-public education needs to be decentralized. Federal department of education didn't exist until the late 1970's. Local contol will address quality and spending problems.
-throwing more funding to a mediocre system wont do the trick. Systematic changes need ro be made.
-you can buy a quality private education for that money.
-public education needs to be decentralized. Federal department of education didn't exist until the late 1970's. Local contol will address quality and spending problems.
-throwing more funding to a mediocre system wont do the trick. Systematic changes need ro be made.
The two paths, teacher interests and student interests, are not single paths without interesection. The teacher’s work environment is the child’s learning environment. If you improve one, you indirectly improve the other.
You are an ignorant leftist tool if you don't think teachers aren't bringing their politics into schools. You have proven your socialist bent over and over again with your inane posts.
Last edited:
The education issue is evolving into a funding issue. Kentucky passes around $4,000 per student back to local school districts in the form of SEEK funding, which is the primary funding source for school districts. That amount, according to legislators, is the highest dollar funding amount per pupil in Kentucky’s history. What they don’t tell you is that adjusted for inflation, it’s 14% less than districts were receiving 10 years ago. Which in turn, has forced districts to up local school tax options. A system of fiscal inequality has morphed due to this within school districts. More affluent districts with higher incomes and property values aren’t feeling the pinch. Less affluent districts are slowly bleeding out. KDE has several of them on watch lists for becoming insolvent. They don’t have the local tax resources to cover what the state is passing on to them.
Last edited:
If it were as simple as a dollar amount goes to each student, then yes, the figure seems substantial. However, Special Ed. students need more staff and resources than regular ed. do. So do gifted/talented kids. There is a lot of perhaps unnecessary staff in most districts, but it is starting to thin out in some. There are a lot of variables that go along with the per-pupil funding.
-im talking about *current* spending levels. Inflation is immaterial.
-we(Ky) *currently* essentially spend the same amount as Canada/Sweden et al., yet our system is underperforming. I sincerely ask: Why?
-bitching about lack of funding is lazy and ignores the failures of the system. "Funding" is a political football.
-edit for funky. Im sure other countries have to account for special/gifted kids as well. No?
-we(Ky) *currently* essentially spend the same amount as Canada/Sweden et al., yet our system is underperforming. I sincerely ask: Why?
-bitching about lack of funding is lazy and ignores the failures of the system. "Funding" is a political football.
-edit for funky. Im sure other countries have to account for special/gifted kids as well. No?
I couldn't do it for one reason and one reason only.. I'm not a fan of public speaking and standing in front of people, day in and day out, lecturing them.. Is not for me.
On my side of the table? I have deadlines. When I don't meet those deadlines, I get fired. No tenure. No "OK time to clock out." .. As an IT engineer there is no "work day". I'm on call. When my "students" act up, I don't turn around and blame everyone else. I wake up at 3am and I fix it.
And when summer hits? No time off. I don't just wipe my hands clean. The job doesn't stop because it's nice out. It's 24/7 365. Why is that? Because technology moves fast. I don't just get to stick with the same technology for the next 30 years like teachers do with earth science.
You think the private sector gives a **** about my kids being home alone? You think I can drop customers and clients and deadlines because Timmy got off the bus?
This is why everyone groans when a teacher continuously whines about their job.
Call it insane if you want but it’s $2,000 below the national average per pupil expenditure, as well as $8,000 a year behind the state’s that spend the most.
It didn't work out very well for the teachers. The GOP maintained its majority in both state houses. There was almost no backlash from the general voting public over the attempted pension reform.
Too many single issue voters. People who would vote for a tree stump if it had “Pro Life” carved into it.
In my local races, the incumbent State Senator and State Representative campaigned together with a slogan of “Brothers in Christ” and the rural church vote bought into it hook, line, and sinker.
Had an exchange student from Germany about 10 years ago. Asked her what % of the students in her new (our) public high school would be in her high school in Germany. She said about 1/3. She went on to say they "redirected" students after around grade 5 and around grade 8. Said some/most went on to some sort of vocational training. Let me handpick 1/3 or 1/2 the students from any high school in Ky and I'll guarantee we'll make that school one of the top 5 in the state.
-hey guess what gang the cost of living is higher on the west coast and in the northeast!!@2!! Red herring.
-speaking of: Ky ranks 8th in teacher pay adjusted to cost of living.
-i am pro public schools. My kids go to public school. Funding isnt the problem.
-speaking of: Ky ranks 8th in teacher pay adjusted to cost of living.
-i am pro public schools. My kids go to public school. Funding isnt the problem.
Yeah... voting against murder... I see why that might not be important to people like you.
Funding is NOT the problem. Regulations that protect disruptive students and require watering down of curriculum for children that can't achieve at high levels are two of the main problems
Well if you cant get killing the unborn correct maybe you dont deserve much support ? But those pesky ignorant Christians just dont know how to vote correctly .... ha ha jokes on you.
Whatever . . . anyone who casts a vote on a single issue is simpleton. The wolves will take them to the cleaners on every other single issue and throw them one morsel (which the state legislature has little control over) to use them for their vote come election time on an issue the legislator has no real deep rooted feeling about. If someone is compelled to waste their vote on that issue and be screwed over on everything else, more power to them.
And a large contributing group of that tax base no longer have anyone in public schools for a variety of reasons.
Actually, those states are doing pretty well. Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont are all at or near the top in per pupil spending, as well as at or near the top in student performance on standardized testing.
Maybe we should make loans for grade school and high school nondischargeable in bankruptcy. Then, everyone could send their kids to private school and we could pay the teachers far more than they're worth. Works for college.
Hopefully the science classes are teaching the children that if a loud enough group of people claims something is true, it is in fact true. It's science.
It's always good to see a group from Jefferson County, a county that has NOTHING in common with the other 119 (except maybe Fayette), leading the charge on any particular issue.
Though you may stumble on a good one, for the most part, college teachers are the worst teachers in all of education. A lot of them know their stuff, but couldn't teach a dog to bark.