Let’s say I’m hiring you to build me some cabinets, but rather than paying you I will insist that you build the cabinets using precision laser cutters instead of saws, because precision laser cutters work so well.
Even though nobody has any laser cutters yet, and nobody could afford them anyhow, I will only pay you if you use laser cutters. Never mind the foundation that’s cracking beneath your feet, that’s not your concern. We have foundation experts for that, and they assure us that it can be fixed for a third of a penny or so.
The timing of my payment to you will depend on how some crazy people who hate cabinet makers feel about you getting paid. If they yell too loud I just might decide not to pay you at all, or I might decide to take the money and use it for a new garage door opener or garbage disposal instead.
In any event, you must build my cabinets, because you are a cabinet maker.
Some wingnut is going to slyly point out that cabinet makers are not teachers — and you will be left wondering if there is any way on God’s green earth for you to reach them.
As John Donne wondered if women had souls, I wonder the same of Republicans’ brains.
Not a wing nut. A former teacher. Teachers aren’t cabinet makers. And, more importantly, children aren’t cabinets. Or widgets. Or easily replicated things.
I’m a fan of this education reform bill and have been from the start. I am sick of hearing the WEA whinge about full funding rather than proposing rigorous standards for teachers and students that put our students’ ability to enter society as productive citizens ahead of fears about jobs and budgets. I am tired of not having the conversation about how schools are being asked to address all of society’s ills and the fruits of generations of dysfunctional families and the only tools we’re given are one-shot tests that lay punitive measures on the schools, not the parents who don’t read bedtime stories and who don’t share meals with their kids but who feel perfectly justified in telling their child’s teacher how they aren’t doing their job.
This isn’t a Democrat issue or a Republican issue. This is about who we are as a community and where we place our priorities. Schools have 42% of the state budget. Will there ever realistically be a day when schools will have “enough” funding? I welcome the relative rigor and high(er) standards in this legislation. It’s a welcome addition to the conversation. It’s not the solution, but it’s a start.
@2: 42% of the state budget is a meaningless number. The Constitution requires that the public education of 100% of it’s residents to be the “paramount duty” of the state.
We perennially rank among states in the bottom half of education spending (sometimes way in the bottom half) in any meaningful way there is to measure it.
You can mandate any standard you want. Without funding, mandates are meaningless. There isn’t an inverse relationship between funding and results. Cutting funding in response to low graduations rates doesn’t really address the problem.
hey @2
glad you’re NOT ‘teaching’.
you want us to recognize all the ridiculous expectations dumped on schools and pay for them, AND
you want a ridiculous bunch of new UNPAID for expectations dumped on schools.
no wonder the rich scum have such an easy time cratering PUBLIC education, they have allies like you.
IF I’m against more unfunded mandates, THEN I want the kids to be stupid?
if it ain’t paid for, then it is bullshit. PERIOD.
rmm.
@2: Public education did not cause dysfunctional families, rotten kids, or terrible parents. Public education will not cure this condition either, no matter what new whizbang “standards” are dreamed up. The causes lie elsewhere (income disparity, poverty, etc.).
Teachers are production workers. Underpaid ones.
It’s pretty damnned simple.
Perhaps our education system could have helped VP Joe Biden (who’s daughter is a coke-snorter if I’m not mistaken)
Here’s a list of 14 cringe-worthy “Bidenisms” made during the vice president’s more recent political career.
Jon,
Your analogy is amusing, but not accurate – educating our children is not a luxury like installing new kitchen cabinets. The children of our State deserve education on par with other States’ and other Countries, and the population of this State needs to prioritize this investment.
It seems obvious that in this state both Basic Ed standards and funding are chronically insufficient to keep the State’s commitments to its children and parents. Further is seems to me that the WEA (who continually oppose education reform) and the Tim Eyman/Republicans/Anti-tax-crowd (who continually block new funding) have conspired to keep our kids poorly educated.
The Education reform bill that passed the House and Senate this session is a partial solution, but as such is better than nothing. Ross Hunter especially is to be applauded for his leadership on this difficult issue.
Now it’s up to the rest of us to fund this in June, or November, or whenever we get a referendum on revenue.
re 2: “…Rigorous Standards”??? Like cops have ticket quotas?
Watch your driving at the end of the month!!
Weall know when a cop or district atorney has political ambitions. Their enforement ‘rigor’ suddenly becomes more ‘stringent’ — always at the expense of justice.
Would you judge a public defender on how successful they are at defending the guilty? You missed the point about the judgers of the cabinets being haters of cabinet makers.
By the by __ I am also a former teacher.
See, Jon. Teachers aren’t cabinet makers — except the shop teacher.
re 6: Why not just give us the link to your wingnut grievances website. Then we won’t have to ignore the copious (big) lists you present us with that you have not researched on your own.
re 1: I’m surprised some wingnut has not referred to John Donne to display his erudite nature.
We all know he was a secondrate pitcher in the WW II Yankee system. He and Bobbie Snickers re famous for being OK.
What did cause it? After all, there have always been dysfunctional families, rotten kids and terrible parents. What changed in the public educational system from the 60’s to the 2000s, besides the politicizing of the teachers union into a fund-raising branch of the democrat party.
There has always been poverty. What has changed to the point public education is yet another failing government program.
re 12: Economic distress caused by cheap labor capitalists caused it.
I object to your characterization of this bill as a No Child Left Behind make the pie higher style piece of legislation. School districts will not be punished for failure to implement these programs should funding not materialize. However, the state will be forced to find more money in the budget for education or face lawsuits citing the state constitution. (And its mandate that we fund basic education, which will now be re-defined to align more closely with modern reality.)
If we’re going to criticize this bill, let’s focus on the actual content of the legislation.
@12: The biggest change in my opinion is that graduating from high school has evolved from being a “nice thing if you do it” luxury in the ’50s to being a requirement for most anything in life today. You can’t drop out and go get a job at the factory any more, because the factories all closed.
The practical impact, then, has been far more attention paid to graduation rates than we had a half-century ago, and what gets lost in that analysis is that the graduation rates are BETTER than they were at that time.
There could be a legitimate argument about whether the schools have changed enough to match the changing times, but condemnation of the whole system writ large is just silly.
proposing rigorous standards for teachers and students that put our students’ ability to enter society as productive citizens ahead of fears about jobs and budgets.
And this is all just gobbily-gook and mumble-jumble BS (much like the legislation’s ostensible intents) until the society (all of its members) begins to have real philosophical discourse regarding what type of social, political, economic organizations will be sustainable and functional in our future. Political partisanship requires dumbed down stupid kids who are raised to not question the tropes of mediocre leadership working for the corporate elites who quest for more consolidation of economic and political power. What the fuck is a productive citizen? One who behaves and conforms, submits to the dominant hierarchy?? One who accepts their token service sector role??? Only the 10% of the elites who will graduate from universities to replace the educational hierarchy thus insuring its status quo??? Really, this is just all BS.
I would prefer to see a moratorium on all educational processes until we, as a society, sit down and answer why we want/need to educate. We have gotten very far away from Jefferson’s vision of public education.
Marvin whines: “After all, there have always been dysfunctional families, rotten kids and terrible parents.”
Sure. But public education was not previously tasked to correct that condition and then be blamed because it could not succeed.
Marvin again: “…..is yet another failing government program.”
Exactly. I give you Homeland Security, our prison system, and the Department of Defense…all programs that lickspittle Republicons believe can solve a problem by “throwing more money at it” unlike programs they detest in which case they claim “you cannot solve problems by throwing money at them”.
This is usually followed by solemn declarations that conservatives “stand on principles”.
If not for the tragic result of conservative misrule, it would be funny.
PTBHisOwnASS:
Isn’t that the Democratic way with education? If that’s the case why aren’t the WA DC students the brightest in the world with spending estimated between $24,000 to $26,500 per pupil?
What a libtard spending fool you are!!!!!!!!
So you can look it up fool
http://cfo.dc.gov/cfo/frames.a.....2_of_2.pdf
Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education $4,917,325
DCPS (k-12 relevant items only, see below) $593,961,000
OSSE (k-12 relevant items only, see below) $198,277,000
Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization $38,368,800
Non-public Tuition** $141,700,442
Special Education Transportation** $75,558,319
Capital funding $239,033,000
Total DC k-12 budget $1,291,815,886
DCPS official total enrollment (incl. special ed.) 48,646
Total per pupil spending $26,555
Here is another link ProudASS:
http://cfo.dc.gov/cfo/frames.a.....evised.pdf
Here is another link ProudASS:
http://cfo.dc.gov/cfo/frames.a.....3_of_4.pdf
buttpudder: So you will join progressives advocating a dramatic shrinking the defense budget?
Didn’t think so, loser.