From:  (Larry Starkand)
Subject: Re: California Public Schools Funding: A Masterplan for Failure
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 19:11:29 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Apple Computer Inc.

In article <1992Nov19.073901.12388@pei.com>, fred_s@earwax.pei.com (Fred Scott) writes:
> 
> In article <1992Nov19.020640.3459@pcnntp.apple.com> (Larry Starkand) writes:
> >In article <1eeivdINNefe@mizar.usc.edu>, genzuk@mizar.usc.edu (Michael Genzuk) writes:
> >> Where in the world do you come up with these figures?  They are totally
> >> erroneous.  It is one thing to disagree with a point of view, but 
> >> certainly  another to fabricate statistics that are non-existant to
> 
> >Several newspapers have quoted the statistic that the California 
> >school system employs 110 administrators for every 100 teachers,
> >this would equate to less than 50% of the school staff being 
> >teachers. This statistic is straight from the california state
> >dept of education.
> 
> Well, you seem awful sure of your stats.  That would be good if they do, in
> fact, turn out to be true.  But why not post the exact cite?  WHICH newspapers?
> Date and page, please.  (And no, we're not going to call the California State
> Dept. of Education to verify YOUR stats.  Do it yourself.)
> 
These statistics were reported in the San Jose Mercury News last
May (About the tine the big fight over the voucher initiative started)


> >Furthermore just recently in san Jose their was a big brouhaha about the
> >fact that the S.J. Union school district spent close to 7 Million (? on the
> >figure it may have been 1 million) dollars on creating new administrative
> >offices (refered to as the pink palace), while the kids were still being
> >taught in temporary buildings (you know, the ones that look like quansit
> >huts).
> 
> This is a very superficial (and perhaps one-sided) report of the incident.
> Buildings cost a lot of money and I can't a large school district doing without
> one for administration no matter how much you cut down the number of
> administrators.  Or do you disagree?  If you don't, then the question is "how
> badly did they need it?" vs. "how badly did the students need the capital
> spending dollars?".  Just saying they were being taught in "termporary
> buildings" proves little or nothing - the temporary facilties might have been
> quite adequate and cost effective for all we know.
> 
Apparently not so one sided when the information was reported in the Merc, the school
district nearly lost their funding. It was decided to allow the construction to con-
tinue since to force the district to pay for it from their general funds would likely
bankrupt the district and hurt the students more. I hardly think that executive con-
ference rooms and a private shower in the principal's office are necessities. 
As to the temporary buildings, it was reported by the merc at that time that many
of them were in use due to the poor conditions of the classroom.

> >Maybe what they need are better educated teachers, recently a junior
> >high teacher taught her english class  that only 2000 people were
> >killed in the concentration camps during WW II.
> 
> Flame bait!  Anecdotal evidence is worse than worthless and I'll tell you
                  ^^
> why: out of all the godzillions of teachers in the public school systems in
> California, I would expect at least one to be incompetant.  It's impossible
> to make sure every single teacher is competant in the course of hiring a large
> number.  Does that mean that the hiring process (or firing process) is broken?
> Not necessarily - it just means it isn't perfect.  I wonder how many private
> school teachers have done as bad or worse.  But you're ready to damn the whole
> system on the weight of one incident.  It's just stupid to bring something
> like this up and pretend it's an argument.
> 
> Fred

Therre is a way to ensure at least a minimum competency among teachers, it's called
a competency tests. Several states hove implemented these tests - against the wishes
of the teachers union- with great success. In order for this to work though we need
to combine the tests with Merit Pay for the best teachers. Between tests, regular 
reviews and merit raises for the best teachers  (and denial of tenure for the worst)
our school system would improve tremendously.

L.S.

These opinions are my own, but if you like them you can have em for a song
Xref: sparky ca.general:1542 ba.general:5061