13 Comments - Leroy - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 6:15 am: Haha…so even with the increases there is ’still not enough’ All the money in the universe is not enough for these people. Stop listening to them. Never forget the mantra of the bureaucracy: “For years, critical services have been starved for resources. Now many are at the breaking point. It’s time to reduce the cuts and restore services.” - Cassandra - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 7:24 am: Beyond a certain basic level of funding, I don’t think there is any evidence that more money equals better student performance. Chicago and suburban schools are already lavishly funded and as a group their performance is spotty. Only two high schools (one Chicago suburban, one city) were on Newsweek’s best high schools list recently….in all of Illinois. These schools are well funded, but there are many others with equal or better funding who did not make the list and who are not competitive generally. There are, however, many ways of finding more money for schools without increasing taxes. One is reducing the huge and porky state management bureaucracy we are currently being forced to fund….there is huge duplication, patronage, and waste. Not giving them raises unconnected to performance is fine, but it doesn’t go far enough. When money is short, as we are told, it needs to go directly back to the people, not into the bank accounts of a bloated state bureaucratic corps. Cut the waste and duplication and move the money directly into the school fund. - Reality Check - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 9:26 am: It took the Trib 13 paragraphs to get to it, but here’s the important part: “the increase in state aid for next year doesn’t even match inflation.” That, my friends, is called a CUT. - Truthful James - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 9:38 am: Anytime the NEA wants another increase they call upon the ISBE and its school funding pet to hire a firm, Augenblick and Myers, to determine how much more money is needed to make all students above average — just as in Lake Woebegone. A&M has never, and would never, dare to come up with anything but a funding increase. They do provide the “expert” cover for the ISBE. According to them, if we had paid the skipper of the Titanic more money, the ship would not have hit the iceberg. It was a design flaw which caused the sinking. The Education system in Illinois is flawed. - Anon - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 10:06 am: Sounds like a broken promise. Let’s see if the education lobby holds him accountable. Let’s see if Meeks follows through. - Leroy - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 10:15 am: >That, my friends, is called a CUT. So its not up to the education industry to control costs? Just blame it on ‘inflation’? It cost $20/hr to sweep the gym floor last year, this year it costs $22/hr. Springfield increases the floor sweeping budget to $21/hr. The school HAS NOTHING ELSE IN ITS ARSENAL to fight this situation? - Reality Check - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 10:42 am: Good idea, Leroy. There is always an alternative to rising costs for anything. Diesel for the school bus fleet too expensive? Stuff the tanks with banana peels. Bananas are cheap. Costs to heat the school going up? There’s got to be some wooden desks or chairs to burn. Computers getting too pricey? Hey, Abe Lincoln got by with a slate and a piece of coal. Food for school lunches higher? Let them eat Asian carp. - THE HANKSTER - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 10:49 am: Cassandra: In the sense that money can be put towards things that have been proven to increase student performance, your “thought” that more money does not mean better performance is, simply put, wrong. When schools have the resources to pay for more and better qualified teachers, it has been shown that students tend to do better. It also seems likely that having money to pay for books not decades old (this may be a shock to you but many schools still use these books) or to have computers, probably helps teachers teach and students learn. - Truthful James - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 11:28 am: Hankster, “textbooks decades old”, a canard, could have been updated — if there was a change in the information which needed to be taught. Districts chose to spend money otherwise. Salary jumps to maximize post retirement pensions to be paid by the states. “paying for more and better teachers” I can not tell if you are admitting to the low quality of some teachers. We have qualified (by subject matter) possible teachers retiring from the military service every year. They could be used immediately…but can’t under the rigid rules of the state. Money does make a difference if you start from a zero base, but performance at a certain level of funding varies from District to District. Glenbard expenditures are a good bit less than New Trier, but the ACTs are comparable. The ISBE in service to the teachers rather than to the parents has dumbed down the ISAT and normed the results. This makes the school look better. ‘it has been shown’?? ‘probably helps’ Buzzwords - PalosParkBob - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 11:32 am: Hankster and “Reality Check”, do a little research and find out where the money is a actually going. It isn’t into improving “student services”. Last year the NEA rankings showed Illinois instructional staff raises AVERAGED about 5.5%. Tap caps allow increases that generally run a little over the 3.3% inflation rate. From where did the rest of the raises come? Well, the children can live with those ten year old books a little longer, can’t they? Screw the kids. Give the money to the union. Class size? Hey, we can load up the non-tenured faculty’s classrooms to overflowing, then fire them just before they get tenure. More bucks available for senior faculty raises that way, and “end of career” raises to fatten pensions. What about the kids who’ll be underserved by being jammed into classes with the least experienced teachers? That’s just their tough luck. The NEA showed that our instructional staff last year were the third highest paid in the nation and had the biggest raises. We spend the ninth highest overall per student. Check our test scores (Iowa, Stanford, take your pick) and you’ll see we’re not performing commensurate with what we’re paying even considering our demographics. “Reality Check”, you say that there is always an alternative to rising costs for anything, then proceed with a ridiculous argument. How about telling us how to control costs in rapidly rising teacher salaries, end of career raises that result in $120,000 per nine month drivers ed instructors, and guidance counselor salaries that approach those of MDs? A top union public school teacher in Illinois once provided the following analogy for getting public school resources to benefit the children. She said it was like trying to feed puppies in a cage filled with wolves. No matter how much meat you put into the cage, it’s a good bet the puppies are still going to go hungry. The only way you’ll ever be able to feed the pups is to put them in another cage without the wolves. Take that as you will regarding her position on school choice. - the Patriot - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 12:14 pm: I certainly hold the opinin the teacher unions are a major part of the problem, but not the whole problem. I am not concerned with teachers making 80-100k after 25-30 years of service, especially depending on school disctrict and cost of living. The problem is the high salaries are have become an entitlement, and not a reward. I every business those who perform well get good raises and keep their jobs. Not in teaching. Everone gets a standard raise. A teacher making 120,000 doesn’t concern me. A teacher who performs poorly annually making that much concerns me. We need a merit based pay scale. If you kids beat the average of comparable school districts on state testing or what ever criteria is agreed upon, you get a raise that reflects that. If your students are subpar, then so should be your raise. If you perform subpar on an annual basis, you should look for other employment. Equalizers can be used by comparing similar schools with similar resources to ensure parity, but we can’t just keep throwing money at the problem. - THE HANKSTER - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 12:23 pm: Truthful James: I agree with you. I said IF money was spent in certain ways it would and has been proven to increase student performance. Patriot: Call it crazy but I think qualified and good teachers should be paid very well. They teach our children, its a shame our society does not put more value on that. - Truthful James - Tuesday, May 9, 06 @ 12:53 pm: Thanks, Hankster – A serious look needs to be taken at Education Value. We are in a 21st Century world economy. How does the value of our primary and secondary education stack up? Against the schooling in western Europe? Against the Asian tigers? The fact is that we are at the bottom of the heap 4th percentile world wide in math; zero percentile in science/physics - -and these are our Advanced Placement Classes You may want to refer to — and most likely have not seen — the following 2004 study. Written by the President’s Advisory Commission on Science and Technology “Sustaining the Nation’s Innovation Ecosystem”, available on the web. http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/FINALPCASTSECAPABILITIESPACKAGE.pdf Of course it is not all the teacher’s fault. I liken the learning process as being based on a three legged stool of knowledge, on which the student sits. The first leg is the parent; the second is the classroom teacher; the third is standards established for the educational system Each has a role to play in preparing the student for exit from school. Foreshortening any one of the legs means the stool becomes unbalanced and the student does not obtain the knowledge so needed. In some parts of the State we have created what is now a third generation of families. They do not see education as either an economic or a social good. They have given up on interclass mobility. Their existence is one reason why the outcry against illegal aliens is not louder. They must be helped with remedial programs as a condition of welfare. The problem is further complicated when the State agency for quality control, as I mentioned earlier, fails to adhere to standards — for learning, and by implication for teaching. Not just punching the clock with education courses, but real, current subject matter mastery, coupled with an evident love of that subject. Unfortunatelu, I see nothing approaching that in Illinois. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.