I have arrived at the third and final post of how I’d like to see the stimulus money used to stimulate the economy. Why education? Because in an ever changing, increasing complex technological environment we need to be sure we can provide a competent workforce to retain and expand business.
So, how best to accomplish this? How about first, we abandon “No Child Left Behind?” Our students would be better served by finding ways to attract intelligent, effective, enthusiastic people to teaching. Also, ensuring they all have had breakfast and that each school has adequate supplies of paper, pens, computers, etc.
The imbalance between schools in wealthier areas as opposed to poorer areas needs to be corrected. The federal government needs to establish a minimum standard for every school in the country that must be met by states that want federal funding. Too often, wealthier districts receive a share of the money that they don’t really need thereby reducing what is available to poorer districts.
I’m going to invent a new word here; no, I am not a socialist, I am a societalist. I want to see ALL Americans living their dreams and I don’t want a single child to have to continue living in a nightmare.
Safety in schools has become a real issue and we need to talk to those on the ground to find out what THEY think would be most effective. The answers might surprise us all.
Scholarships for those who cannot afford to go to college without it. Too often it is NOT our best and brightest continuing their education but simply those whose family can afford to send them. Current programs don’t go far enough. We need to be able to walk into the poorest school in the most dismal area of any city and tell a child even if you graduate high school with one pair of pants and no shoes, if you have the grades and the desire, you will go to college. Because the most important thing we can do for the future of our country is to ensure that the best minds are at work on all the challenges our country may face.
And to those who will now argue about the cost, I give you these thoughts. We have the stimulus so we use that to get started. Certain federal tax monies goes back to the states annually even now. Many states have an education lottery so there is that money. And, if we have a healthy economy and educated people getting good jobs, we can have an annual scholarship fund drive. Attach it to the IRS form where the political donation block is already. I’m betting with the right kind of campaign explaining the scholarship program, many Americans will gladly contribute.
Let’s ask for something in return; pay for a doctor’s education and then have him/her work in one of the critical areas of the country for four years. Kind of a domestic Peace Corp. I’m sure we could find other areas in need for graduates in other fields to serve.
I know we have some educators who contribute/visit here at the Swash Zone and I’d be very interested to hear their ideas.
So, what do YOU think about education and the stimulus package?
Great post rocky. Education is so important - I would say the MOST important thing. With high quality education, other problems begin to crumble. Crime goes down, the economy does better - not to mention that a good education actually forces people to think for a change.
ReplyDeleteBecause of this larger societal impact, we should spare no expense in creating the best education system in the world - from preschool through all types of graduate school. The secondary savings in reduced crime and a stronger economy alone will likely far outweigh the costs of building that education system.
Rockync: I know we have some educators who contribute/visit here at the Swash Zone and I’d be very interested to hear their ideas.
ReplyDeleteMust be speechless (hint).
Okay, I am troubled by our current educational sytsem but as I have no direct experience with our educational system nowadays all I can really do is ask questions.
ReplyDeleteKids today are pretty bright and they know alot of things. So obviously teaching to tests is working. I am not sure that teaching to tests is the right way to teach people to think, and I do believe that the ability to think is more important than the ability to crame data in a mind...
Our schools are also forced to deal with so many other issues other than just teaching kids.
Then we have the issue of parents. Teachers seem to have no authority and parents believe their kids over the teachers when a conflict develops. I cannot count the number of times I have heard my nieces and nephews claim favoritism and or personality clash as a reason for them having an issue with a teacher...and the parents buy this and defend their child. How do children learn if the authority figures in their lives have no authority?
Do we really believe, as a society, that a high school education and or a college education actually DOES make a difference in ones life?
Can we actually tell our kids that doing well in school WILL, guaranteed, make a difference in their lives?
I sometimes wonder if the discussion about money is just a way to cover other issues up.
My nieces and nephews are always running their papers by me to get my praise...and these are all straight A students. The grammar, the spelling, the logic of their argument is pathetic. I told my one nephew on his last paper that if he was going to cut and paste crap from the internet he at least could attempt to cover the fact by making sure that the english was similar from one paragraph to the next. He changed nothing and got an A....and I told him that the grade did not represent a measurement of his own achievement but rather the total disregard for education on the part of his teacher.
Students rely on spellcheck and calculators way too much.
I know we have issues with our educational system because I used to give a simple math test to all employees that involved addition, subtraction, muplication, and division along with converting fractions based up 12, because everything in apparel is based upon dozens. College students always did the worst followed by young high school graduates while middled aged high school graduates did the best. Yes, I had young people who walked out because they could not use a calculator and the first question was, how many eggs in a dozen? To know that people missed that question really hurt.
The break down of barriers in schools today certainly seems to have taken on epic proportions.
ReplyDeleteStudents attacking teachers both verbally and physically with impunity, teachers having sex with minor students and while it may seem that students being taught to tests is successful, has anyone ever watch Jaywalking with Jay Leno?
Several times I have seen teachers or college students whose major is education and they can't anser the simplest of questions!
On the other side of the coin, I had a son who, in the 7th grade, was a quiet, well-behaved straight A student, who, in the space of one semester, plummeted to an "F" in English while other grades also suffered. After a long talk, he told me that his female English teacher favored the girls, picked on the boys and had them reading inappropriate material that showed males in a negative light (I checked his books) and it seems she was using him as a scapegoat because it was easy. I talked to other parents and discovered this was NOT an isolated incident. This teacher, after a bitter divorce, apparently made it her mission to destroy the male pysche of her students.
I had a conference with the principal, the teacher and several others. Unlike my son, I am not quiet or the least bit shy and my pysche is quite firmly attached so I let them all have it. And I filed a complaint with the state education dept. All to no avail. Seems she had tenure and was in a teachers' union and getting rid of unsatisfactory teachers was near impossible. I had the kid pulled from her class, I told her what I thought of her - probably should have sued her just to make my point clear, but I didn't. My primary concern was my son's well-being. He rebounded, pulled up his grades, grew up and is now a physicist.
So, seems we need checks and balances going in both directions.
There should be a review team in each school who hears from all sides and mediates. Help the teacher if they are having trouble in an area, hold the kid and the parents accountable if he/she is just being an insufferable toerag.
In nursing, it is accepted that what we learned in school is just the beginning and once we entered the "real" world our true education begun - we have a mentoring period and inservices to improve our skills and share with others.
Teachers probably need some sort of mentoring when they start out so that we can cultivate good teachers and prune out the incompetents.
8pus - we might not be hearing from the teachers because they are probably still at school, teaching! LOL!
ReplyDeleteYeah, yeah - ok. I don't know about Dino - but this post overwhelms me. I am so intimately caught up in the dysfunctional state of our education system that I am at a loss as to how to constructively & succintly respond to your post, Rocky.
ReplyDeleteBut a couple of observations based on what others have said.
Most freshman entering college have deplorable writing skills & study habits. Many of them also do not have a realistic idea about what "achievement" means. They expect A's or B's at least & consider a C to be tantamount to failing. Grade inflasion is the result. All of us are aware of this & want to fight it but we can not (esp. those of us un-tenured) because of the dreaded course/teacher evaluations at the end of the semester which allow students to anonymously trash a teacher if their expectations are not met. Increasingly these evaluations are used as criteria for pay raise & promotion - my school is an example.
All of this points to the fact that higher ed is being run like a business & considers that students & parents are consumers whose expectations need to be met. In other words - parents & students rule. This past year the Chronicle of Higher Ed featured a couple of stories about faculty trying to fight back & maintain strict academic standards & facing opposition from administrators.
I notice increasingly with college students a lack of respect for the system & faculty which I can only guess they are getting from their parents' attitude that their child's education is a consumer product & the customer is always right.
I have a lot of wonderful students. I do not mean to make it sound like they are all falling victim to the consumer mentality. However, increasingly many are. As are administrators which is why popularity with students counts as much as academic standards.
As for pouring money into education - where to begin?!
As for the question of the value of educating as many as possible in our society at the college/university level - there is increasing pressure - beginning in high school - about higher ed being practical - in other words, leading directly to a well paying job. The idea of getting an education for education's sake & trustng that an employer will want to higher you based on your BA alone is fading. Again - consumer mentality. If I pay for my education what will it guarantee me?
I do believe in making higher ed affordable - I personally am going to be paying off my student loans until I am on medicare - I am NOT kidding, folks. But this is tricky because tuition is going to be going up. Count on it. I could go on about this - it is such a complex problem - but I'll spare you all. Suffice it to say that higher ed is a mess financially - & has been for some time - BEFORE wall street crashed. Now it just got worse.
Finally - higher ed is still largely the privileged place of white students from affluent backgrounds. The most diverse populations can be found in the 2-year, community colleges. However, academic standards are weak at many of the 2-year schools - I know - I've worked there too. Soooo....there is still a lot of classism at play in our country's education system.
Much of what I have said is in the form of generalizations. Some situations at some schools are worse or better than others. But generally speaking these are the trends & economics of the situation as I have lived them.
For what they are worth - my 'couple' of thoughts.
Thank you for weighing in, Squid. I don't have children in school and I'm not directly involved myself, but what I have heard from others pretty much reflects what you are saying.
ReplyDeleteStudents and parents treat education as some sort of game like being on a reality show and they just need to make the score by any means they can - including cheating.
There is no incentive to be a "good" teacher; a popular one, an easy one, but not a good one. The teachers who were the toughest on me are the ones I not only gained knowledge from but also learned skills that have served me all my life. They are the teachers for whom I have a deep and abiding respect.
A large part of this problem is within our society itself. We can't make parents raise their children to be responsible, honest and respectful. And we should applaud those parents that do.
Unfortunately that means the school must do what the other parents will not or cannot do.
Every school must have a minimum standard of conduct that each student must abide by, period.
Every school must have a procedures manual on how situations will be handled.
Every school must have a way to monitor classes and review teachers by a panel of peers. The idea that students should be allowed to assess their teachers is preposterous.
Every school must be safe, both from within and without. Given what has happened with school violence over the last several years it seems, at the minimum, main entrances should have bullet proof glass, be locked at all times and a guard or resource officer on duty at all times. All ancillary entrances should be locked and a key provided only to those who need them. With today's technology, there's no reason the doors could not be wired into the fire system to automatically open if an alarm goes off so students can be evacuated.
Other schools may need metal detectors, a strict dress code or more resource officers to be available to respond to emergencies in the school.
And we need to be get back to basics. While I think it is amazing how much my grandchildren can do with computers and calculators, this should not take the place of learning the basics, like times tables and spelling and historical events such as "In 14 hundred and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." They should know how to use a globe, identify continents and know where Russia is.
Not everyone is suited to higher education and going to college just for the sake of not having anything better to do is a waste of everyone's time. But no one should be denied an education just because they can't afford it. We must find a way to bring costs down and then require something in return that would benefit the country thereby making it an investment and not just a handout.
Rocky: we might not be hearing from the teachers because they are probably still at school, teaching! LOL!
ReplyDeleteThank goodness!! I was afraid they were "Going Galt."
What a vast topic?
ReplyDeleteLet me throw in something completely different on the topic of cost.
We have billions and billions invested in buildings and land holdings and such. Our current system of standard education only uses them about 1300 hours a year out of 8700 or 14.5% of the time.
Some districts rent out their facilities but the bulk of it is wasted.
Why hasn't more school districts adopted a year around system which cuts class space by 1/3 and increases the use of facilities to 20% and reduce facilities by at least 20%?
Why hasn't anyone adapted the high school program to be an afternoon to evening schedule using the junior high building more as all purpose with minimum daily work requirements for high schoolers? If they were required to work 10 hours a week as part of their grade it would greatly improve community and personal achievement. Programs such as this would cut facilities and costs by 1/3 and develop a much better member to society.
Why hasn't anyone incorporated a daycare program into elementary schools so that working parents don't have to worry about secondary transportation and care? I don't think we are going to end dual parent and single parent workers given our governments hunger for greater taxes. We need a better way to facilitate this. I am not suggesting using tax money to fund such an adventure but perhaps facilities and entrepreneurial interests.
Just thought I would mix it up a little.
ablur - it IS a vast topic and one of such importance to the future, I think we should be "mixing it up a little."
ReplyDeleteDaycare in elementary schools is a great idea and could work well with a work for welfare program.
And multitasking the buildings, while requiring extra planning is certainly more cost effective.
I think the year round school is a good idea and it has been put on the table since my kids were in school (and that's a long time ago!) Parents seem to be the biggest deterrent mostly because they don't understand how it would work. You know, presentation is 90%of any new idea, so if a well planned presentation with visuals was launched, I believe it is an idea that could finally get off the ground.
Thanks for the input; good ideas.
I would love to see curriculum include courses in how to study, set and achieve goals. And teambuilding and leadership. I had all this training in past careers and it helped me in many ways. I wish I could have learned these things in high school and seen how my life would have turned out. Most parents have no idea how to teach their children these skills. For the most part, kids are sent to school and if they fail, the parents say I sent you to school to learn this. The school failed. The teachers and administrators say the parents aren't involved. I sometimes think many parents need schoolng more than their kids.
ReplyDeleteThis may be a useless rant. I'm no expert. Just an observer of the human condition. Teaching and learning ain't easy. Till Mom and Dad turn off the TV and video games and do homework with the kids, things will keep going downhill. And here I sit in front of a computor when I should be helping my youngest with her homework or setting a good example by reading a book. Don't blame me. I'm a victim of the system and her teacher should be making her do homework anyway.
Maybe I should change my moniker to Dunce101.
LOL, Truth! Sometimes we get sidetracked, but your rant does have merit.
ReplyDeleteParents need to be more like, well like parents! Turn off the TV, make them sit at the table and do their homework! I used to park them at the dinner table and no one watched TV until everyone was finished. Of course my poor children only had one TV in the livingroom, poor things.
And,yes, let's get some practical courses in the curriculum and i'd like to see a basic finances course where they learn about budgets and checkbooks and how credit works and more importantly, the costs of credit.
Maybe the could call them life courses!
I got a couple daughters with PhDs in science. Yup...its the parents.
ReplyDelete(yeah, sure) but, kids with supportive interested parents have a leg up. I know quite a few folks in education, and I am always surprised by how much attention is paid to discipline, administration,
mainstreaming, etc. IMO, motivation is the key and good teachers utilise it. Public ed gets an unfair rap..my wife retired from Jr. High..now goes back as a volunteer..and is forever buying mittons, crayons and even calculators to take. Most of them are like that, believe it or not.
BB - I agree, most educators I know are dedicated, caring people who pay for much of their own material and supplies and it should not be that way.
ReplyDeleteThey also spend far too much time on discinplinary and administrative issues.
I want teachers to make a decent living - teaching. Getting them the kind of programs and support to make that possible is long overdue.
I want good teachers to get the recognition they deserve and they are the teachers whose input should be sought in setting a curriculum.
Ablur: We have billions and billions invested in buildings and land holdings and such … Some districts rent out their facilities but the bulk of it is wasted.
ReplyDeleteOn Jog Road in the sub-tropical paradise of Boca Raton Florida, a city known for posh multi-million dollar retirement communities, is a run-down regional-school. The school’s perimeter is lined with 10-foot high chain link fencing … faced with advertising billboards: Rent-A-Pizza. The law firm of Bogus, Numb, and Dumb. One-Stop Hair Removal and Debt Consolidation. Get the picture!
Those advertising billboards are a neighborhood blight and an insult children! Every time I passed this school, I thought: “What kind of message does this end? What kind of mentality would so disrespect children by turning their school into a Pottersville?” One would suppose the millionaire retirees of Boca Raton mandated these billboards to offset their property taxes. One would suppose, but I prefer to think of these billboards as the middle finger of "FU" raised to the children who belong to someone else.
Ablur, is this kind of multi-use facility you have in mind? If you want to improve education, start with an attitude change … one that respects children and sees them as the future of our civilization and therefore worthy of investment, instead of a tax burden.
"but I prefer to think of these billboards as the middle finger of "FU" raised to the children who belong to someone else."
ReplyDeleteI think that if this country were founded today, the National Bird would be neither the eagle nor the turkey, but the finger.
Oh, dear, 8pus, I was envisioning something like civic groups or other organizations renting specific areas such as the auditorium or cafeteria for special events.
ReplyDeleteThere was recently a news segment done on a church that rented a school auditorium for services rather than ownong a building so they could use more money to help those in need.
I guess mutiuse of school property would have to have guidelines, the school in Boca sounds like a nightmare.
Octo- My rant has more to do with using our money to actually educate the children. Notice all my points had to do with improving education without simply buying stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe average cost per year per student is $10,000. Very little of this makes it to actual education. We need to rethink how we use this money. Private schools across America have 25-35% the cost per student and usually out educate public schools. These private non government models of achievement need to be examined and the best practices adopted to achieve higher education for everyone. There are great ideas and great schools out there. We need to step out of the public school mentality and create a new system that looks at all the quality ideas and puts them in play. Many of these ideas are cost cutting so that the cost of education mostly goes to the purpose.
Look, you don't give to a charity that doesn't put most of their money to the cause. Schools are not a charity but the focus of their money needs to go to the cause.
If we are only getting 15% of the value out of the cost of buildings and facilities, perhaps we are using them wrong. The ideas I present above will raise the use to as much as 60%. Now that is starting to become a value to the community worthy of the expense and that expense would be so much less.
Boca has taken this to the ridiculous and mocking is a fair perspective. I would welcome sponsors who assist with improving our schools but billboards is not what I would ever choose.
And,yes, let's get some practical courses in the curriculum and i'd like to see a basic finances course where they learn about budgets and checkbooks and how credit works and more importantly, the costs of credit.
ReplyDeleteI really wish I had had stuff like this. How credit cards work, how to get a loan, how mortgages work, questions to ask when renting an apartment, how to buy a car, how the basics of the stock market work (and don't work), how to create and maintain an effective budget, about different types of bank accounts...
On another note, I really think there needs to be an emphasis in K-12 education (and probably higher education too) on history and civics. No one seems to know how this country was set up or how it runs. Students need to be taught about the three branches of government. They need to read and re-read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address and the I Have a Dream speech and Wilson's 14 Points and the Marshall Plan and FDR's "nothing to fear" speech and JFK's "ask not" speech and Lincoln's house-divided speech and on and on.
Then too there needs to be an emphasis on writing. I feel lucky that I just happened to pick up most rules of grammar (probably by virtue of my parents speaking and writing correctly) - but I was never really taught these rules. I didn't have to diagram sentences; I didn't have rule after rule burned into my brain - they were mentioned, but that was it. Now when someone asks me to proofread a document, I can fix the mistakes pretty well (though many I know cannot), but I can't say why the changes are needed to save my life. This is to say nothing about how to effectively write argumentative pieces, which is far from taught - even at the collegiate level (I had one excellent writing class in college that made me love writing again after years of growing to hate playing a game trying to figure out what the graduate student instructors, themselves often exceedingly poor writers, wanted from me). Couple that lack of education with the general degrading of writing caused by the internet (lol and all those other abbreviations have a definite place in online communication, but people have to ALSO know how to write and speak correctly) and you have a real mess on your hands.
I hear people talk about the need for better math and science education, which, to be sure, in today's global economy would be very useful to remaining competitive with other nations. But if we don't also focus on writing, our economy is just as doomed as if we don't focus on math and science, and if we don't also focus on history, our national soul is doomed, which is the saddest thought of all.
Yes, yes, yes! There is much to be said for learning how to put thoughts in order, saying it clearly and making a point. We passionately resist any suggestion that grammar is as important to the meaning of words as the rules of mathematics are to the meaning of equations. The logically and linguistically inept are fair game for politicians and deceivers and con men.
ReplyDeleteI've watched Leno's "Jaywalking" too many times to believe the public knows anything outside the hermetic world of entertainment and yes, it's dangerous as hell because such people speak for the manipulators without knowing it.
I don't think I ever got more than a D in any English course and my papers never seemed up to snuff with any teacher, but I've seen too much of the products of their teaching to feel bad about it. I too learned English from reading everything and anything and from growing up in a household where it was spoken more or less correctly. Maybe I'm better off for it.
Remember, debate and debate teams?
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't just about what the topic was put earning points rebutting the oponants arguements. It forced you to actually listen. It forced you to be timely with your delivery, it forced you to mentally process data on the fly.
Now it is all about what I have to say, little substance and ignore anything else said during the discussion.
There are many lessons to be learned here.
Ablur: Remember, debate and debate teams?
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I do remember debating teams, thank you very much, and an academic obligation to cite authorities, footnote sources, and list references … in contrast to using factitious numbers in support of factitious arguments sans hyperlinks.
I grew up in a simple country town and went to a simple country school that had dedicated teachers. One day, my history teacher asked how many students would be interested in staying after class to learn Classical Greek. With a show of hands, four students volunteered.
Another teacher, a graduate of Columbia University, invited 4 students to visit his Alma Mater, to see the campus, the library, and to sample the ethnic foods of the neighborhood.
These days, liability concerns, administrative red tape, and budgetary constraints would kill those simple acts of kindness that I remember from my childhood. A bygone era … those days.
These days, unfettered access to school property is no longer possible. In case you haven’t noticed, school security in a post-Columbine world is on the mind of every parent. Schools have become fair game for abductions and child predators. Sunday worship in a school auditorium might offend non-worshippers. Quick solutions are easier said than done.
Ablur: Now it is all about what I have to say, little substance and ignore anything else said during the discussion.
I did read what you had to say, but I don’t respond to narcissistic demands for attention. Indeed, there are “lessons to be learned here” ... but not from you, regrettably.
Octo- I seem to have offended you.
ReplyDeleteThis statement-Now it is all about what I have to say, little substance and ignore anything else said during the discussion. was to point out our self centered nature of speaking and our failure to listen to others. It was not intended to lift my stature or reduce anyone elses. The key was a lack of real communication because we have lost the art of listening.
I will take this moment to apologize to all here if I have offended you with my failure to clearly make my point. I am truly sorry.
Ablur: The average cost per year per student is $10,000. Very little of this makes it to actual education.
ReplyDeleteActually, a little off-road Googling brought me to the U.S. Census Bureau statistics on educational expenditures, which revealed this:
Figure 3. Percent Distribution of Public Elementary-Secondary School System Current Spending by Function:
Instruction 60.2%
Support Services 34.6
Other Spending 5.2%
With 60% of funding spent on instruction, I would hardly consider this a small percentage. Furthermore, a national average of $10,000 per pupil is not a meaningful statistic because there is considerable regional variation:
Figure 4. Elementary-Secondary Per Pupil Current Spending Amounts by State (See also Table 8, Page 8):
New York $14,884
New Hampshire $10,079
Virginia 9,447
Colorado 8,057
Oklahoma $6,961
Arizona $6,472
Utah $5,437
Even raw dollar values are meaningless unless one accounts for regional wage differentials and local living costs (note relative rankings in parens):
Table 12. States Ranked According to Relation of Elementary-Secondary Public School System Finance
Amounts to $1,000 Personal Income:
New York $59.25 (Ranked 7)
New Hampshire $48.24 (Ranked 30)
Virginia $45.09 (Ranked 42)
Colorado $41.16 (Ranked 48)
Oklahoma $48.07 (Ranked 33)
Arizona $44.57 (Ranked 43)
Utah 48.13 (Ranked 32)
Ah yes! One more thing, a proper attribution … hyperlink here.
If you note page 128 of your supplied link shows that there are expenses that are not included in your numbers. These expenses are part of the cost of education and all the facilities and structures that make our system function.
ReplyDeleteIt excludes capital outlay, debt service, and interfund transfers. It Excludes any thing not considered in current operation.
The other anomaly is how benefits and retirement programs should be allotted. Currently they are in the instruction side of the grid as a direct cost to having teachers in the classroom. With the bloated retirement programs in some states this would make a sizable cut in direct education expense if we treated this as a support item rather then an instruction item.
You make a valid point that income and cost of living vary greatly across the nation. If we had an equalizer to better average and compare the budget we may be better able to interpret this data.
60% is a sizable portion of the money if taken at face value. Knowing that administration and facility expense cost more then half of instruction is a sad statement.
Ablur: bloated retirement
ReplyDeleteOK, where is this going? Is this another assault on middle-income earners?
About the airline pilot who ditched a USAir flight in the Hudson River and saved 150 lives, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger said this before the House Aviation Committee”
I am worried that the airline piloting profession will not be able to continue to attract the best and the brightest (…) If we do not sufficiently value the airline piloting profession and future pilots are less experienced and less skilled, it logically follows that we will see negative consequences to the flying public – and to our country.
So what do airlines pilots and teachers have in common? The same needs: A decent wage and a secure retirement.
NO this is not an attack.
ReplyDeleteIn the Pacific Northwest where I am we have had a major upheaval due to PERS. The fund and its expenses have gotten so out of hand that it is causing finacial stress on the whole state(s). Any increases in funding that have occured over the last ten years have been completely absorbed by this program.
Nobody wants to tackle the problem for the very reason your ire was raised by my mentioning of it.
I want our teachers to be well compensated but I also want good teachers. There has to be a line drawn some where and on this side of the country that line is flawed.