California state is cutting down

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
no_vaseline said:
awgee said:
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." - H.L. Mencken

Just something to think about.
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I wholeheartedly disagree.

If a child is bound and determined to be a sheep, they'll be a sheep. More often than not, the parent at home wants them to be a sheep. I'm with blk when he says that a medium/high achieving student is better served in a worse school than a good school because it's easier to stand out. But that's a different discussion for a different thead.

Lets talk class sizes and staffing levels and ratios.

In 1976, the elementary school I went to had two classes per grade K-6, and a class size about 25. That's twelve teachers and six aides (half a day per teacher). It also had a full time school nurse, a head custodian and two assistant custodians, three lunch ladies, a full time speach pathologist, a principal, and two secretaries. 11 staff, 14 teachers, and 6 teachers aids(full time). We also had two teachers dedicated to the MGM program, but they weren't teachers, so there's another 2 admin.

(Are teachers aids admin or teaching staff? I think only teachers count as teachers, everybody else is admin).

By 1978, prop 13 had passed. We now had 28 students per class, twelve teachers, a principal, one secretary, and two custodians, and three lunch ladies, and two teachers aides for grades K and 1 (part time). The sole remaining Nurse worked for the district and was responsible for 9 campuses. 14 teachers, 2 aids (part time), 7 admin.

And then it got worse. By the time 1982 got around, we were 35-37 deep in class sizes with the same staffing.

They have not, to my knowlege, radically increased staffing since then. So, who do you lay off if you want to cut back 50% of admin?

You need a principal (1).

You need somebody to perform custodian stuff (2).

You need a couple of lunch ladies (3).

You need somebody to answer the phone and do admin(1).

Do you ask the teachers to come clean thier own rooms?

Do you ask the principal to put in more than the 70 hours he's currently doing (I know a couple, this is pretty standard)?

Do you close the cafeteria and violate federal mandates for school lunches?

Do you stop answering the office phone?

This ignores all the extra stuff schools are asked to do now (Megans law compliance, the whole No Child Left Behind drama). More unfunded mandates.

I'd argue you already got your 50% reduction in staff. It happened in 1977. The fat left in 1976 when Prop 13 passed.

The only solution to increase efficenticy in public schools is to increase class sizes. For real. It is the only actionable cost reducer you can do. Oh wait. We've voted in manditory class size maximums so we can't do that. Another voter driven mandate that ties the hands of Sacramento and local school officals.

You notice the luster has come off of Greenlight and the other private charter school groups? Notice they can't get thier costs in line either? Hmmnnnnnn............

I often wonder who'd want to be a teacher these days. I look at potential teachers candidates the same way I look at politicians. Why would any sane person want this crap job?
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Many good points still the question stands: the difference between Santa Ana USD and Irvine USD performance is what?

Why does IUSD work and LAUSD doesn't?
 
When I was in elementary school, we cleaned our own class rooms and did some light yard work. Our teacher stood by and supervised.

As for death row inmates, if you add up everything (prosecution cost, housing, etc.), it's more than $20 million a year per head.
 
momopi said:
When I was in elementary school, we cleaned our own class rooms and did some light yard work. Our teacher stood by and supervised.

As for death row inmates, if you add up everything (prosecution cost, housing, etc.), it's more than $20 million a year per head.
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This is also a topic for another thread, but the cost effective solution is to commute thier sentences to live w/o parole and stop spending $20M a year to house and defend them for like, what, eleven executions since they reinstated the death penalty?

Commute 'em all and lock 'em up for $40K a year is a solution, but again, requires a change in the law.
 
skek said:
Tony Strickland has been a long-time critic of the waste in LAUSD. As an example of where some cuts could be made in education, see his position paper on LAUSD from the 2006 election:

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has a 22% dropout rate + some say it is as high as 50%. Students who do stay in school score in the bottom third on national standardized tests, and too many of those will never pass the exit exam. What do you expect, ask its defenders? It's a big district with big problems.

In fact, its very size may be part of the problem. LAUSD is big. Huge. Mammoth.

If Superintendent Romer wanted to meet with all of LAUSD's employees, Dodger Stadium would be too small. There are over 77,000 employees, making it the second largest employer in Los Angeles County. The district phone book is 39 pages long. And that doesn't include any schools! The senior staff organization chart includes 46 bureaucrats, all multiple levels removed from the classroom, including somebody for "Youth Relations" and another for "Student Integrated Services."

LAUSD is so large, it is segmented into eight sub-districts. Theoretically, an organization would benefit from savings based on scale, but LAUSD has proven to be the example that breaks the rule. The other unified school districts in California averaged $7,151 in spending per student in 2003; LAUSD spent $8,302. That's 16% more money per student for the worst education in the state.

I don't know how to run a school district. That's not my area of expertise, but I know this isn't the way.
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Emphasis added. Link here.

By the way, LAUSD has a budget of over $13 billion dollars, two-thirds of which comes from the state.
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I used to listen to Romer on KPCC, fielding calls. It always seemed to me he was trying to wrestle a bear while fighting off a lion while somebody was trying to drown him. IMO the problem with LAUSD is two fold.

First, it's too big. It goes from Palmdale to Long Beach. And that makes it overly bueaucratic because it has to be because its so big you can't manage it.

Second, there's a big difference between schools in LAUSD and if you bust it up, you cause a big fight between the haves and the have nots, and really cause a big fight with the schools on the margins of the good/bad districts. Remember the whole deal about succeeding the San Fernando Valley away from LA a couple years back? Different color of the same fight.

I'm going to come up light on cites on this one, but somebody in LAUSD sued in the early 1970s because their kid in Compton wasn't getting the same state funding as the kids in, say, Toluca Lake. And they won. The theroy was that the state would increase funding to Compton to "catch up". What happened was they reduced funding to Toluca Lake to the same level as Compton. The parents picked up the slack with bake sales/book drives/whatever. You can't keep motovated parents down.

I'd argue that's the difference between Irvine and Santa Ana is the cultural and general attitude of the parents toward education, but I'm trying to not be (as my wife described me the other day) a "f---ing classist".
 
I screwed up my example. In 1976 we had two full time librarians and one part time assistant.

By 1978 they dumped the assistant and one of the librarians became part time.

I guess you could argue that the library isn't important to the school anymore. Google has kind of made it obsolete. Books too now that I think about it.
 
No_vas - 70% of admin salaries are paid to people who do not work at the schools and the children never see them. Sorry, I should have been more clear. I am not speaking of ANYBODY who actually works at a school. The principals and teachers could do a much better job without all these doctors of education second guessing the principals and teachers. The highest paid admin in most private schools is the principal.
 
A FORWARDED MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE REPUBLICAN CAUCUS:

Help Pass a Responsible Budget

Dear Taxpayer:

This is an urgent request for your assistance in solving

California's budget crisis. Assembly and Senate Democrats want to

increase government spending by $3 billion and raise taxes and fees

by $8.5 billion -- taxes we cannot afford.

Please sign the petition at Senate Republican Budget Solutions

http://cssrc.us/web/96/petition.aspx demanding a responsible

budget from the legislature. California needs a budget that contains

meaningful reform and does not hurt our already fragile economy.

Republicans have solutions to this budget deficit that do not

involve tax increases. We are committed to common-sense budget

reform and NO tax increases but we need your help. We have brought

proposals to the table that promote economic growth, budget and

government reform, protect education and do not raise taxes.

Californians are struggling. Gas is over $4 a gallon. Groceries are

at an all time high and people are losing their homes and jobs. This

is not the time to ask taxpayers to bail out a spending-addicted

legislature. This is the time to demand common-sense reform.

We must act now to have our voices heard. I urge you to take action

to stop these tax increases. I would also ask that you forward this

email to 5 of your friends or family members.

Help get the word out -- before it is too late.

Sincerely,

Senator Dave Cogdill

Senate Republican Leader

Visit our website dedicated to the 2008-2009 budget crisis

http://www.SenateRepublicanBudget.com and have your voice heard in

Sacramento.

CONTACT: Kevin Roberts 916-448-9496
 
freedomCM said:
Actually, that is a lie.

The repugs have no plan, other than putting their fingers in their ears and stamping their feet.
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Which is still a better plan than increasing spending and hiking taxes in a recession.
 
no_vaseline said:
I'd argue that's the difference between Irvine and Santa Ana is the cultural and general attitude of the parents toward education, but I'm trying to not be (as my wife described me the other day) a "f---ing classist".
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I'd argue that the difference is less cultural or attitudinal and more a lack of time, money, and resources. I went to schools in both Irvine and Newport, and I was one of maybe 5-10 kids in a single-parent home. I also went to school in Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, and Westminster where I had plenty of kids just like me who went home to an empty house. Given the choice, most parents would choose to be more active in their kids education. The problem is that most don't have that choice, and there is no good substitute available from any governmental source unless we start paying people to be parents.
 
sure, they can shut down the gov't.

who need CHP, schools, public health, fire protection.

certainly not the self-reliant OC crowd!
 
Yeah they do. It's called diversion and demogoging.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-salestax6-2008aug06,0,7136732.story

Still, it's hard not to take the suggestion as a sad reminder of the state's infinitely long learning curve. Voters jettisoned Gov. Gray Davis for many reasons, including a general and not wholly unearned dislike and mistrust. But at the top of the list -- and at the top of Schwarzenegger's campaign agenda -- was fury over reinstating a vehicle license fee that had been in place for decades but was lowered in recent years of abundance. That "car tax" was so bad, Schwarzenegger said, that Davis should be recalled and replaced; the gap in revenues surely could be filled by the waste, fraud and abuse that would be so easy to find and fix.

Davis was recalled, Schwarzenegger was elected, and the new governor re-lowered the car tax. Six billion dollars a year was removed from the state's budget, and the hole has never been filled. Schwarzenegger, like scores of angry reformers who preceded him, came to see that there really weren't billions to be had in the fabled waste, fraud and abuse. The state really does have to strip aid to children, the elderly and the poor (and shift the burden of unaddressed problems to future generations) or get additional revenue from taxpayers.
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Call me a cold hearted bastard, but I'm okay with all of the above. The voters of California, however, have proven time and time again to not be.
 
well, more poor means more crime. and more undernourished kids with shitty education means more crime. and since we are going to reduce police, i guess you should use that tax savings for ammo.
 
freedomCM said:
well, more poor means more crime. and more undernourished kids with shitty education means more crime. and since we are going to reduce police, i guess you should use that tax savings for ammo.
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You seem to be under the impression that more spending by government reduces poverty, provides better education, and reduces crime despite four decades of ever increasing spending by governments, both state and national, that has failed to eradicate poverty, provide higher graduation rates or higher grade averages, or reduce the overall level of crime. Better education isn't a funding issue, it's a parenting issue (see my previous comment) that cannot be resolved by government. Poverty isn't a funding issue, it is a job issue that is exacerbated by higher corporate taxes that drive jobs and companies out of the state or out of the country as they seek lower costs across the board. Create enough high-paying jobs that allow one parent to stay home while the other makes enough income to support a family and these issues largely resolve themselves. Raising taxes and increasing government spending can not accomplish that.
 
While I am happy to agree with you that these things have happened over the past 50 years, I don't see any cause and effect.

Perhaps things would be 5x worse if not for the societal intervention. How can we know?

Taxes were certainly high in the 50s and 60s, which you seem to allude to as golden times (and remember, they were only golden if you were a middle class white male, lower classes, women, and minorities need not apply).

Taxes are high in the scandanavian countries, yet they do well. (monoculture, maybe?)

I guess we are just supposed to take your word (and other repugs) words for it that high taxes are the problem?
 
freedomCM said:
well, more poor means more crime. and more undernourished kids with shitty education means more crime. and since we are going to reduce police, i guess you should use that tax savings for ammo.
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Behavior which is taxed will decrease.

Behavior which is subsidized will increase.
 
We subsidise children.

We subsidise people's right to own property at the expense of people who work and buy stuff.

I wonder............
 
Call me old fashioned, I look at Irvine, I look at LAUSD.

I see Irvine spend 20% less than LAUSD.

My solution is to look at LAUSD and say, you get as much as Irvine. Mr/Mrs Adminstrator, you're in charge of LAUSD. Your mission is to improve and met Federal and State guidelines. If you do not show improvement, you will be terminated.

You are free to quit. We will offer the job to IUSD, who I suspect will decline. We will find someone else.

If that doesn't work, I will give the parents of LAUSD a voucher worth the value of LAUSD spending redeemable and payable to which school will take it. How many students do you think Irvine will take since each comes with 20% more funding and the motivation?

Since LAUSD is already spending 20% more than a high performing school, I see little if any reason to through even more money at it.

It is broken. Money will not fix it.
 
No_Such_Reality said:
Call me old fashioned, I look at Irvine, I look at LAUSD.

I see Irvine spend 20% less than LAUSD.

My solution is to look at LAUSD and say, you get as much as Irvine. Mr/Mrs Adminstrator, you're in charge of LAUSD. Your mission is to improve and met Federal and State guidelines. If you do not show improvement, you will be terminated.

You are free to quit. We will offer the job to IUSD, who I suspect will decline. We will find someone else.

If that doesn't work, I will give the parents of LAUSD a voucher worth the value of LAUSD spending redeemable and payable to which school will take it. How many students do you think Irvine will take since each comes with 20% more funding and the motivation?

Since LAUSD is already spending 20% more than a high performing school, I see little if any reason to through even more money at it.

It is broken. Money will not fix it.
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I still don't think Irvine would take it. The bottom line is that students in these schools are challenging and there isn't one researcher or study that has ever found the "be all, to end all cure" to these problems. Poverty and uneducated parents are, and have always been a challenge in education. I really don't even want to comment on the improper use of the word "through" rather than "throw", but when a person is purporting to know something about education, he or she should actually be educated.
 
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