I saw this very same thing when I lived in Greece for two years. It was one public service group after another. One month the teachers would strike. After a few months they would get a raise and the bus drivers would strike to get their raise. Then the garbage collectors. It was a never-ending circle - exactly as you identify.

Yes. And this is what made my hackles stand up in the comment I responded to. I have come to find that you can't just point to a kid who rides the small bus and say, "You'll amount to nothing. You don't deserve our efforts." You simply can't do that without eventually having to eat crow. I wouldn't be surprised one bit if a "special needs kid" finds the cure for cancer.

My son's recovery from autism has been unprecedented. He and I've been in a documentary about the topic. We are the curve wreckers. He still struggles, but he is an inspiration. Saturday morning we were at the local Starbucks (dad had to work and he had to do some homework). I noticed he kept looking at a child sitting just outside the window - a child with severe autism. The conversation he and I had about that was very special and something I'll keep to myself, probably forever.

Not everyone has the time or the ability to home school. Private schools are the answer. I wasn't smart enough to send my kids to a private school and their education was mediocre at best. My son who is smarter than me, sent the kids to a Montessori up until high school, where they got a superior education, with dedicated teachers that we still communicate with. (Grandkids are now 23, 25, & 31 respectively).

Every profession has a distribution of talent. There are great teachers and there are terrible teachers and most are somewhere in the middle of the bell curve. The ones I have met in my role as a parent in our public school system appear to be motivated and dedicated. I'm mostly pleasantly surprised when I meet them VS the stereotypes. No doubt I benefit by living in a pretty decent area. I don't agree that there is a pile of poop, but maybe we need to be careful where we step.

If a teacher chooses to teach in a publicly funded system with the protection of collective bargaining they should not expect the compensation system to reflect a total meritocracy. If they want a meritocracy go work in straight commission sales or open a business and put something at risk. Teacher salaries vary quite a bit from region to region, but in general they are vastly better than they were when I was in school, and far more attractive VS other career choices. Especially when you factor in benefits, time off, security, etc. We should be attracting better talent and I think we probably are, but I have no data to back that up. All I know is there is more competition for the full time slots in our area.

The funding of education reflects the age old dilemma of redistribution VS pay for services/personal responsibility. Right now every tax paying property owner pays no matter what their use of the system based on the the premise that public education is a "greater good". I agree that there is a greater social benefit to public education, but I believe the cost burden has shifted too far? Why not subsidize post middle school non-trade focused education by charging a tuition? Means test it, allow for some school choice? Why shouldn't we allow vouchers for people who choose private schools? Why should seniors who have paid into the system all there lives be forced to continue to support it in retirement? Why should a family with 5 children in the system pay less than a family with 1 just because they have a lower tax assessment? At some point we penalize the people who make the most responsible choices. Inner-city low income schools are often trotted out at the poster-children for maintaining the status quo of subsidies, but these schools continue to have abysmal conditions and results. Is this really a funding issue or a problem we would rather not discuss and face? Poverty.

The big mistake (where the pile of poop can be found) is to believe that the goal of teachers unions are aligned with the goals of society or even teachers. The job of the union is to guarantee its survival by negotiating better compensation for it's members. The pitch may be that its "all about the kids" but their actions tell a completely different tale. Unions resist anything that introduces accountability into the system or threatens the current funding model. Well meaning teachers often drink the Kool-aid because they are the beneficiaries, and it's easier to sleep at night if you buy into the pitch. The unions aren't all bad, but they are big and powerful and often overwhelm their fragmented opposition. When all of their money comes from statutorily mandated taxation its not a level playing filed and hard to defend.

Abaco.. I doubt that most people, especially parents, feel that special needs of special kids, constitute an unnecessary expenditure. Where the real waste in public education is administration and tenure. I have known many teachers over the years and at 90 % of them are diamonds. I live in NYS, so I do not know the financial arrangements in other states, but here teachers are employed about 6hours max per day, 5 days/week. approx. 34-36 weeks per year. Not a rigorous regimen....BUT, the teachers' union is a total pawn of the democrats and the democrats give the teachers nearly any thing they demand...including exemption from dismissal for incompetence and even theft and child abuse...check on NYC for how many teachers earning over 100 grand are obliged to spend years attending "school" and sitting all day with no assignments because they have to for their salary and retirement. The system is corrupt...by the people who teach civics and behavior.We have about 14 teachers in the State who are not democrats...Money is wasted on unproductive teachers who have no accountability for their output or quality as long as their vote is guaranteed,

Good story, dukem.

Jan

The only good thing about my HS closing while I was in my Junior year was that I got to skip the Prom!! I had been dreading that since Freshman year. Fortunately, I had taken all solid courses and was able to graduate as a Junior, and went straight to college...but without Senior math and physics, the path of my life changed.

Jan

Thanks for the insight, and for the caution. I do not have children and have little empathy with them (these two things are not unrelated), so it is easy for me to deride education and the difficulty of educating children - special needs or otherwise.

I am glad that your child is such a go-getter. More power to him.

Jan

Yes. This is kinda like the 'robots in fast food' discussion. Human beings are reluctant to change, but if you block their traditional path you will force them to innovate.

So let's have home schooling, charter schools, and McRobot.

Jan

I have to register a strong disagreement with "Teachers are just blue collar union employees..." SOME teachers are, but some are neither blue collar or union! I taught for 25 years, and I have two advanced degrees, and never was a member of a union!

If I had a kid, which I dont, I would want them to learn what they wanted to learn, when they wanted to learn it. To encourage their own curiousity in the process.

Government indoctrination centers (public schools) are there to make young people into sheep always willing to accept the government line. I spent some useless time in public school and I dont remember hardly anything from it other than language (which I probably learned at home anyway) and maybe reading. I spent more time on YOUTube lately and remember a lot of it. I have learned so much more on YOUTube, from new product design details to home repair.

It is about time that people realize that spending more money on public schools is just as effective as spending more money on EPA and Global Warming, TSA and National Security, American Cancer Society and other charities, the Welfare and the War on Poverty, as well as the War on Drugs. And, now, on ObamaCare. More money on any of these simply means less money for you and more money for the parasites. Or, maybe it's not about time to realize that yet, as long as most people remain adolescents influenced by the TV.

With all the angst about "results," you'd think that someone would come up with the idea of going back to what worked.

If you want your kid to LEARN, homeschool him.

If you think you can dump your kid on the teacher, and get an Einstein, you're crazy. The teacher has a student for less than an hour per day, attempting to teach his something. There's no way to force him to pay attention, or to do his homework, or to make him take notes or ask questions, or even to take tests during the year. To impose responsibility on the teacher for one test at the end of the year is ridiculous.

I taught math for 5 years, and I noticed that special ed kids worked a LOT harder than regular students. Sometimes they had to solve problems differently, but they put in the work. Sometimes, they did better than the regular students, which should have made the regular students ashamed, given that they were so much "smarter," but didn't. The takeaway from this is that, as Edison says, it's 90% perspiration.

Well, golly gee, guess I have to be that cranky old man talking about the "good old days." It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. : - )
I went to an "inner city" junior high and high school in the late fifties, each with maybe 300 to 500 or more students in non air conditioned old brick buildings (this was in the South), with all the old creaky wooden desks, etc., hall passes, strict discipline (all that bad old stuff).
Staff consisted of a principal, assistant principal, dean of boys, dean of girls (as I said, this was in prehistoric times), a secretary, someone else who did some paperwork, and a janitor.
Went to my fiftieth reunion five years ago, and it was amazing how well they all turned out. They can actually, spell, write, think, talk, and they (or others like them) built the world that existed until fairly recently. Most did not go to college. There was even some paddling going on in the early years.
We went through racial integration about midway through all of that, and the kids worked it all out without adult counseling and reporters and armies and such.
It is a different world now, and of course all there is to do is work with what we have with a positive vision for the future. But there was a time when the country actually worked, as did the school systems that produce citizens who built a damned good country.
Having reread this, I appear to myself like the reporter in the movie "Network". Cantankerous, cranky, but still a little kid wishing it all would turn out better. But it won't without a whole lot of effort, and Galt's Gulch is where I come to get re-inspired.

Agreed. And wouldn't it be wonderful if teachers were paid for results, instead of just showing up. And worse yet, for being paid to brainwash our kids into socialist thoughts.

Where I live in Texas the ISD is in the 10% bottom of the school ratings for the state. YET the are spending $50,000,000 on a water park and golf course. I always thought that there are 3 "R"s and not a 4th one called Recreation.

Schools are nothing but big piles of babysitters. We send the children there to learn much of nothing but they are occupied for 7 hours or so and allow us to do other things. Then they come home, do home work and sit in front of the electronic babysitter (TV) or on the computer. Sorry but my education experience was not much to talk about at that time. It was better than what the kids get now but still lacking. I learned more in my first 3 years in the Navy than I did in 12+ years of school. Granted it was something to build on but it in no way prepared me for real life.