Education (Not Just UT)

It's on the front of the Tower facing the Capitol but doesn't seem to have had much effect on those occupying that grand building.
 
Why I homeschool. This needs to get a lot of focus from the Adminstration and from Congress if Trump wins. DoDEA is teaching service members' kids some very bad stuff. And if you have time, click on the link in the article to the actual report.
 
A foundation of the problem:

Among many who lobby and vote (especially in the "little" elections), public K-12 education is viewed, in large part, as a jobs program rather than as a pathway to best educate the youth. This is especially true in small towns and rural areas.
 
So should high school government/civics classes come straight out and teach the youth that our government is corrupt, has plenty of officials who are not legitimately holding their offices, and is full of liars and cheats?

Or do we keep up the grand illusion to prevent chaos, destruction, and anarchy?

Thus far, we’ve opted for the second option. But now, We’re on or over the line where people can see that the emperor has no clothes, and that there’s a man behind the blinds operating an illusory Oz.
 
The adults in this country, much less the youth cannot stand to know the hard cold truth, which less than 2% of the population speculates, much less knows. It ain't pretty.
 
Chop said:
So should high school government/civics classes come straight out and teach the youth that our government is corrupt, has plenty of officials who are not legitimately holding their offices, and is full of liars and cheats?

Or do we keep up the grand illusion to prevent chaos, destruction, and anarchy?

Thus far, we’ve opted for the second option. But now, We’re on or over the line where people can see that the emperor has no clothes, and that there’s a man behind the blinds operating an illusory Oz.
Click to expand...

Unless we shut down the Dept of Education (which I am a fan of doing), they would never allow anything different to be taught or risk losing funding (which shouldn't be a stipulation to begin with).
 
Chop said:
So should high school government/civics classes come straight out and teach the youth that our government is corrupt, has plenty of officials who are not legitimately holding their offices, and is full of liars and cheats?

Or do we keep up the grand illusion to prevent chaos, destruction, and anarchy?

Thus far, we’ve opted for the second option. But now, We’re on or over the line where people can see that the emperor has no clothes, and that there’s a man behind the blinds operating an illusory Oz.
Click to expand...
You call it the grand illusion. I prefer to think of it as the aspirational target. I think you can acknowledge that there have been and still are individuals that twist our government to their own ends without dwelling on it as the norm. Much like the conversation about racism, you can acknowledge that it impacted peoples lives and still exist without dwelling on it so much that it by itself becomes the principal argument for failure. Yes, it is selling a slightly enhanced version of us. But particularly in youth, you teach the aspirational. Because if you teach all the faults, then the natural tendency of most youth, particularly teenagers is to use the bottom of the chart as their metric, rather than the top.
 
www.kwtx.com

‘I have been blinded’: Corsicana educator says she lost sight in one eye after student attack

“I still believe in God for a miracle for restoration of my sight,” the teacher said.
www.kwtx.com www.kwtx.com

"CORSICANA, Texas (KWTX) - Candra Rogers, the assistant principal at Collins Intermediate School who was airlifted to a hospital after she was attacked by a student on Aug. 15, revealed she has lost sight in her right eye after the attack knocked her right eye out of her socket.

The attack happened during lunch when a behavioral teacher at the school called administrators on the radio for assistance with an aggressive student.

Rogers said she was the first administrator to arrive at the classroom and encountered students and the teacher outside the room. One student who was assaulted by the aggressive student was holding his head, she said. The aggressive student remained inside the classroom."
 
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Chop said:
www.kwtx.com

‘I have been blinded’: Corsicana educator says she lost sight in one eye after student attack

“I still believe in God for a miracle for restoration of my sight,” the teacher said.
www.kwtx.com www.kwtx.com

"CORSICANA, Texas (KWTX) - Candra Rogers, the assistant principal at Collins Intermediate School who was airlifted to a hospital after she was attacked by a student on Aug. 15, revealed she has lost sight in her right eye after the attack knocked her right eye out of her socket.

The attack happened during lunch when a behavioral teacher at the school called administrators on the radio for assistance with an aggressive student.

Rogers said she was the first administrator to arrive at the classroom and encountered students and the teacher outside the room. One student who was assaulted by the aggressive student was holding his head, she said. The aggressive student remained inside the classroom."
Click to expand...
"A Corsicana assistant principal says an enraged student blinded her during a "disruption" in a classroom earlier this month and that underfunded schools and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are partly to blame."

"Gov. Greg Abbott holds some accountability in the safety of our students and our staff. For years, our schools have suffered unfunded mandates, which included pay raises," Rogers said. "Our basic allotment, which funds our day-to-day expenses, have not increased since 2019 even though we have had rising costs on absolutely everything, including new unfunded mandates. This is 2024."

Rogers said that as schools struggle with funding, more could be done to improve policies that support students' mental and emotional health. She said some of the state's $32 billion budget surplus should be used to better fund education and the needs of all students, but the governor is not releasing those funds "because his political priority is school choice."

"I'd like to quote a friend who gave me permission to use their words. 'If our students don't have what they need to be successful in Texas, this is not simply problematic. I hold that it is immoral. Texas has the ninth-largest economy in the world. Not the country, the world," Rogers read. "Texas has over a $32 billion budget surplus, yet we spend the eighth-least in terms of allotment per student in the U.S. Regardless of what you believe this says about our priorities as a state, this is a choice, and choices have consequences."
 
1725018977175.png
 
A major problem with education is the mindset that public schools are a jobs program--they exist for the benefit of the employees rather than for the benefit of the students.

This corrosive attitude has wrecked public schools nationwide.
 
Chop said:
A major problem with education is the mindset that public schools are a jobs program--they exist for the benefit of the employees rather than for the benefit of the students.

This corrosive attitude has wrecked public schools nationwide.
Click to expand...

This isn't a problem with education is a problem with government run education. It is the same problem with any and every government agency or government run industry. The only escape from the problem is to eliminate the government organization and have private organizations run it.
 
Chop said:
A major problem with education is the mindset that public schools are a jobs program--they exist for the benefit of the employees rather than for the benefit of the students.

This corrosive attitude has wrecked public schools nationwide.
Click to expand...

This and the DOE removing more and more power from the local district and controlling so much federally. So much money is wasted on the DOE and our education system is drastically worse than before it was created.
 
Vol Horn 4 Life said:
This and the DOE removing more and more power from the local district and controlling so much federally. So much money is wasted on the DOE and our education system is drastically worse than before it was created.
Click to expand...

The DoE never should have been created and should be eliminated. However, it is also a convenient political boogeyman for state and local education "leaders" to justify bad policy. DoE only provides about 9 percent of funding for Texas schools. That isn't meaningless, but we could do without it, and if we did, all their toxic rules and regulations would go away.

However, most of our state and local education "leaders" would never make that choice, because they don't mind those toxic rules and regulations. If DoE went away, they'd enact most of them locally, because they're left wing hacks or beholden to left wing hacks who work for the districts and corrupt business interests who contract with the districts.

So yes, DoE should be eliminated, but the rot is much, much deeper than the DoE. There'd still be a ton of work to do to fix public schools. That's why if I had to choose between school choice and closing DoE, I'd choose school choice. And it's not even a close call.
 
Mr. Deez said:
So yes, DoE should be eliminated, but the rot is much, much deeper than the DoE. There'd still be a ton of work to do to fix public schools.
Click to expand...

With the cut in DOE funding if we "cut the cord" we could directly cut bloated district administrative costs that are for the most part useless.

For example, a school of less than 1,000 students does not need a principal and vice principal for every grade level. That's a waste of easily $500k per year in just one school and this happens all over the state.

At the district level they could be easily cut 15-20% of the staff. They think they're "understaffed" all the time but I believe they make up things to do just to justify the body. Teaching children in the classroom does not need a bloated administrative staff.

With all of this cutting, we could then dedicate some of the excess back to teacher salaries.
 
Chop said:
"A Corsicana assistant principal says an enraged student blinded her during a "disruption" in a classroom earlier this month and that underfunded schools and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are partly to blame."

"Gov. Greg Abbott holds some accountability in the safety of our students and our staff. For years, our schools have suffered unfunded mandates, which included pay raises," Rogers said. "Our basic allotment, which funds our day-to-day expenses, have not increased since 2019 even though we have had rising costs on absolutely everything, including new unfunded mandates. This is 2024."

Rogers said that as schools struggle with funding, more could be done to improve policies that support students' mental and emotional health. She said some of the state's $32 billion budget surplus should be used to better fund education and the needs of all students, but the governor is not releasing those funds "because his political priority is school choice."

"I'd like to quote a friend who gave me permission to use their words. 'If our students don't have what they need to be successful in Texas, this is not simply problematic. I hold that it is immoral. Texas has the ninth-largest economy in the world. Not the country, the world," Rogers read. "Texas has over a $32 billion budget surplus, yet we spend the eighth-least in terms of allotment per student in the U.S. Regardless of what you believe this says about our priorities as a state, this is a choice, and choices have consequences."
Click to expand...

I agree Greg Abbott must have forced the kid to do it
 
Deez,

Too many problems to fix. Federal involvement in anything other than military is going to destroy its intended purpose. Equally bad is the "local" management of the districts. Just look around Texas at the atrocious management and people involved with the major districts in the state. Even the small Spring Branch ISD is pathetically run since "the evasion" occurred. (NO, not illegals). Only one district in the Houston SMSA is well run - Friendswood. Too many districts, not enough professional educators.

Hard to believe that Texas districts were better run when retired football coaches were in charge than they are with a bunch of egghead PhDs.
 
SN,

Growing up in East Texas, we didn't know a EdD from a Phd from a ThD, but we knew what State Championships in football were, and guys that won them became Principals and Superintendents.

We would later learn that you NEVER let a EdD hire coaches (no offense to you father)

The stupidest person to ever live in Port Neches (even when it was 70% coonass) was a female EdD that got hired as Superintendent. I actually told her face to face that she was the single stupidest person I'd ever met with ZERO people skills. She saved the district nearly $5,000 and got it blacklisted by the Texas HS Coaches Association. She didn't last long after that.

Quality superintendents consider the "big picture" and how their decisions affect the entire community and educational system not the smallest dot on the budget.
 
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