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Politics : Socialized Education - Is there abetter way? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (88)	1/18/2007 1:16:02 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1513

Meanwhile, this increase in spending is not uniform across the board; while wealthier districts are building taj mahals, inner city schools are falling apart." Can you provide evidence of this? What do you mean by evidence? Here's a new school under construction in the Bedford school district in Westchester, NY: I guarantee there is no school in inner city Chicago or most any American city that looks like this school; and I guarantee none are as well equipped as this one either. There is substantial evidence that increasing spending does not lead to increased educational results. Yes, I've heard that before.......I don't believe it. The one pending area most likely to translate to improved performance is spending on classroom teachers' salaries. This might have a short to intermediate term negative impact in some instances as marginal teachers keep the jobs for the higher paychecks. I see.....they are marginal teachers but somehow extra money brings out what was previously hiddent talent. I guess I am not buying that one either. Applying a performance result test to a significant portion of the increase would probably reduce the impact of that effect. Can you see teachers' unions allowing pay for performance? Why would anyone agree to such a proposal? Would you as supervisor agree to base your pay on the performance of your staff if you had never met them before, obviously did not train them nor had any say in their hiring? If you did agree to such an unfair arrangement, you're a likely candidate for failure. BTW I love the way people who don't have a clue what it is to be a teacher are so sure they know what's best for schools; for the students and for the staff. I love the way parents expect teachers to make up for their bad parenting or lack of parenting. American schools are in trouble but the blame does not rest solely on the shoulders of teachers.....not by a long shot.