The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Another 150 teachers jobs on the cutting block, confusion and hardship as parents try to cope with school properties being sold off...
so you wonder where the education money is going these days?

http://www.newson6.com/story/17354806/inside-tulsa-public-schools-high-tech-security-center

At least the kids will know who George Orwell was.  :D

But seriously, why did the ability to intercept 911 calls and divert them to campus security become necessary?

What a ridiculous waste of money. Things like this would be much better to add after (in this order):

More teachers are hired and buildings and technology are updated.

The intercepting 911 calls very little sense to me, also.

Tulsa public system is the number one bureaucracy in Tulsa surpassing even the glass cube of city hall.   They seem to have no intentions to educate the children but instead to provide for the collections of taxes for the maintenance of their bureaucracy.  Under the guise of the well used cliché “It is for the children” it continues to burden the working poor with children who have a need for public education.  The fundamentals needed to educate the children are written off when increasing monies are spent on sports thus leaving the book learning to a disinterest group of teachers and students.

If the citizens would close the coffee shop, in the education center and reduce the staff to people without a teaching certificate, placing those qualified to teach in the class rooms, it not only would reduce taxpayers cost but provide a more balanced education.  The old saying that the bigger makes it better does not apply in the Tulsa public system.     
   

I also thought interfering with a 911 call was a federal crime. 

My wife is a middle school teacher for TPS.  She is fully dedicated to education of young people.  From my observations of her struggles with project school house it seems that alot the districts problems are administrational.  The new principle at her school was so bad, the classes so overpacked that the parents all complained.  The story made the world.  Additionally, she spends so much time fruit to comply to endless reading standards and testing programs, I'm surprised that she does have time to teach anyone anything.

The amount of regulation and broad sweep standardization has ruined the public education system.

I think that's an overly simplistic statement. Many of the regulations were and are absolutely necessary to get districts to provide the resources necessary to educate kids with disabilities, minorities, and others who were for a very long time almost completely ignored by the public school systems. That's not to say that there aren't any useless or even harmful regulations, mind you.

I suspect much of the "decline" in many districts is due to them no longer being able to kick out the people with learning disabilities and/or nonviolent behavioral issues and stricter enforcement of truancy laws and laws against child labor that keep the people least likely to be high achievers out. In other words, they're no longer allowed to juke the stats by ignoring a large part of their "customer" base.

And I bet that one of her top five complaints is lack of parental participation in their children's education.

Oh, you mean the kids that think too much or have trouble following along so the schools answer is to tell the parents to drug em into a zombie state so that they are easier to handle?

No, I mean that in the past the school's answer was to not let them attend. How do you think it is that so many charter schools end up with better stats than the public system? It's not because they're generally "better." (although in some cases that may be true) It's because they simply refuse to deal with kids with behavioral issues, learning disabilities, or other problems.

A friend of mine has a kid that was diagnosed with dysgraphia and bipolar disorder. The charter school she attends has a solution: Ignore the problem so they don't have to hire an occupational therapist to help with the writing issues and ignore the bipolar diagnosis and refuse to make reasonable accomodations when she has trouble controlling her behavior, instead choosing to send her home. There's a long story behind why she's in the charter school to begin with (and why she's still there), but suffice it to say it's been an enormous challenge to get them to comply with the law.

And that's why there are private schools and schools geared towards special needs children out there. Don't like public schools, send them elsewhere or home school. Given the resources available, union demands, safety, parental apathy, and every other factor outside actual teaching, I'm surprised public schools are doing anything well.

I too was diagnosed with dysgraphia.  Getting an iep and having it constantly maintained took a lawsuit.  Anyhoo...

My wife complains a bit about parental involvement.  Some of her students have told her that she is nothing more than an overpaid babysitter because that is the level at which their parent(s) value education.  When a kid has a parent or both parents that work menial service jobs (wal-mart, home depot etc.) it is codified in their minds that that is what adults do.  Why bother finishing your hs education when the result is the same (menial job) whether they do or not?  It's an endemic, multi-generational apathy.

My kids teachers have always loved me, because all they had to do was ask if my kids if they wanted them to call me and they would straighten up real quick.  They said that so many of the kids would respond that the parent wouldn't care, the reason why is because they wouldn't.  I've been known to sit in my kids classroom with them if they didn't want to straighten up (now that they are older they are horrified at me doing this again).  Your right, the lack of parental involvement is a big problem with the school systems, but that doesn't mean that we should lower our educational standards to match the parents apathy.

Not just poor parents with that attitude.  Just saw an Edmond school mom complaining about a plan Edmond is working on for a late start one day a week.  She had the 'soccer mom' look and the big SUV behind her to back it up!  Complaining about how the kids would be her responsibility for an extra hour a week...

   A thought occurred to me that so much of our school problems are related to the kids not having good parents with good life skills/habits and parenting skills.  This even spills over into the "special needs" debate and the cry for "simple accommodations" for them.  If the teacher is struggling to take care of the average kid and keep the classroom in line, they aren't going to have much time for that next level of effort taking care of the special needs kids.  But even then many a special needs kid can have a better lot if their parents are also capable.

  Anywhoo, the thought was, if its the parents that are a good portion of the problem... Why don't we then really focus on teaching kids how to be good parents and people with good life skills?  Todays students are tomorrows parents.  They may not excell on the math tests, but their children will.   Break the generational cycle.

  This doesn't need to be done in every school.  I have always said that not every program will work for every school for the demographics are different. 

  Back to breaking that generational cycle.  I have seen many an instance where the parent may not have been all that educated, but they were good parents who made sure their children learned their good life/parenting habits AND made sure their children learned in school.  It may be that in many an instance we are teaching the wrong things in some of our schools. 

That pretty well covers it.  Tough sell, ain't it?

Kind of like preventative care in medical field reduces costs dramatically.

Dang it!  Just read Shadow's post and all I can see in my head is this guy.
(http://www.treknews.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/andorian-blue-blood.jpg)

Anyway. . .Anyone up for a voucher program?

The least we can do is take public education out of the bureaucracy of government and allow private enterprise to run it and compete for students through better programs, higher test scores, and more competitive academic offerings.

. . . or we can just throw more money at it.

My wife is a teacher (no longer practicing) and most of her friends still teach in TPS and Jenks.  They all echo the same frustrations.  Teaching has become a bureaucratic nightmare of standardized evaluation and regulation not designed to recognize the unique way that each child learns, but rather to maintain a minimum performance level for the class.  As a result, rather than cultivating excellence, the system is designed to maintain minimums.

In any education platform, parental involvement is absolutely necessary.  The best way to encourage that is to provide education as an investment, giving parents the ability to choose where to spend that investment.  When you do that, the parents "own" their child's education. 

The current system encourages irresponsible parents to view public education as free daycare.

I only marginally agree with this. I think the major problem with education is in the schools, not at home. Sure, parents need to be involved in education, and a teacher cannot complete their job without the help of parents, but the biggest problem is in the way children are taught. Administration, as well as some teachers, believe that children should be taught for the next test, and that reading a good ol' textbook is the best way to learn. Test scores look good on paper, but what is really being learned?

For example, does one better learn science by reading a textbook and copying vocabulary lists, or by performing experiments and getting outside to see how things actually work? Is it okay for a teacher assume that every child should learn something in the way they instruct them?

I encourage all of you to research the Reggio approach, and share your opinions.

I'd say both are important.

I think we'd all be better off if each and every child was educated in a Montessori school, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Most parents freak when they hear their kid was washing dishes all day or whatever other unproductive (in the sense of school learning) thing they happened to do one day or even a whole week at a time.

I’m a parent of children who spent part of their elementary education in Montessori and I’m a huge believer.  Personally, I’m a very kinetic learner, books always bogged me down.  I learned far more about physics, chemistry, and advanced math after I left school and could see it in ways which better appealed to my sense of curiosity.

If you mean the way that Marie (?) Montessori wanted it taught, then I agree. If you mean the way it is taught in many "Montessori" schools, then I disagree.

If only everyone were like you and I, Conan. ;)

Wait, no. That would be awful. There would be no women.  :o

ZYX, please elaborate.

I have been told by my mother's head of school that Ms. Montessori would roll over in her grave at the way education is performed in many of the "Montessori" schools. She wanted a very open ended and child led approach to education. I have been told, that in most Montessori schools, doing things the "wrong" way is discouraged, something that she advocated against.

Children should not be mere subjects in the classroom, they should be a loud voice in their own education.

I can’t speak for all Montessori schools, but from my experience, Undercroft was very child-led.  Children were given some structure to work, there has to be some sense of structure or it would be chaos with 5 to 8 year olds in the same class room.  ;)  Their guides (not teachers) would help facilitate the process.

I do believe there is some sort of certification process to become a Montessori school and to maintain the designation.

That was also my experience going to a Montessori (run by the nuns!) in Fort Smith as a kid. And it matches quite well what a friend of mine who teaches at Undercroft says their program is like. It's difficult for a lot of parents to understand, though. There are many days where a kid learns next to nothing (or at least nothing you'd expect a school to be teaching a kid) in Montessori schools and it sometimes freaks the parents out.

Over the long term, I think kids get a much better education in that environment. It's not just about facts and figures and math, though. Montessori helps kids learn how to learn. Traditional school doesn't do that very well. Which, by the way, is completely understandable. They are working within a framework that was initially designed to supply somewhat educated factory workers. And there's nothing really wrong with that, I just don't think it's the best we can do.

Well stated.

It breeds libs, those schools....why do you think home schools are so popular?

If public schools breed liberals I'm a flying purple people eater.

One eye?  One horn?  (Just stick to the words of the song, nothing else intended.)

How about a "Witch Doctor"?

Written tests are probably overrated.  I know because my brother is not a good test taker.  I am a bit luckier but not as lucky as some.  At some point the student needs to demonstrate that they learned at least a minimum amount or the diploma becomes nothing more than an attendance certificate.  How do you propose that a student demonstrate some level of learning without tests of some sort?

Would you like your Physician or Dentist to have a Certificate of Attendance?  How about the Architects and Engineers that design the buildings everyone wants for "downtown"?  He**, I even want the food handlers at the fast food drive-ins to have absorbed at least enough information to wash their hands after using the rest room. If they can't remember, I hope they can read the sign saying that employees must wash their hands before returning to work.

Did I say that I'm against all testing? I think a certain amount of testing, even written tests, is neccesary. However, I don't think you should memorize answers, and then take a test. You should learn, and put into action the concept, and then take a test over it. A teacher should not be frequently saying "This will be on the test."

And how would you compare those privately operated voucher schools to decide which one gets the privilege of using taxpayer dollars to educate your children? On what basis do you think they will  promote themselves to you? My limited inteface with investments and the people who promote them is negative at best.

Letter from Ballard:

Given our forecasts, below are some of the hard choices that principals may have to make:

    In secondary schools, we anticipate a reduction of about 60 teachers
    Programming cuts being considered at some schools include foreign language
    Other possible program cuts include:
        Theater, dance or orchestra
        Upper level science classes
        Low-enrollment classes
    Competitive athletics may be offered strictly as an after-school activity
In elementary schools, 25 of the 54 schools will be affected by a reduction in teachers.

No mention of the expenses of duplicating a police department, nor costs involved in their surveillance network... just a plea to parents to ask the legislature for more open-ended money.

So, you are against the taxpayer funding public school security? Even after the shootings on school campuses across the country? It is not accurate to call it a duplication. It is an extension of the department. But your focus on the evils of policing is blinding you to the fact that state legislators want to starve public education into failure, then obliteration, so that their concept of superior religious oriented private schools may fill in the vacuum.

"Look at the new boss...same as the old boss...we won't be fooled again!"  Yes, we will.

Nope, just the emphasis on keeping bad news out of the papers.
Most of the time you even hear of school violence now is when an angry parent calls the media.

As for how much it costs, Rep Sullivan asked for $1,647,500 just for campus police alone. http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/ED_2554.html

The millions they've spent on the Lobby Guard system at some schools is hilarious too. 

We had a musical performance for my daughter's class this morning.  They had to have 3 teachers helping parents use the Lobby Guard.  The system is incapable of scanning and reading the license of anyone.  Today my name was R0077 3AZRAR.  One of the Dads, my neighbor, keeps his Lobby Guard sticker from the first of the year stuck to his rear-view mirror in the car, and just re-affixes it when he visits his daughter.  Another neighbor thinks it's funny to use a certain movie star name from the 70's known for his impressive . . .uh. . .apendage size.

You used to have to check in with a person at the office who would check to see that you were "on the list."  Now it takes a group of three, a computer network that functions improperly, and special name-tags with a barcode that lets teachers know you are a porn star from the 70's.

And there are a lot of those angry parents. Many of whom are angry at all institutions and are looking for revenge. I work in a support role for Tulsa Public Schools. As an organization, public or private, they are no better or worse than any other I've worked for. That includes a top ten oil company, one of Tulsa's major hospitals, the metro newspaper and a host of smaller companies. If anything, they are more cognizant of their public visibility and as their role as the most convenient whipping boy in town and drum it into the employees psyche. The whole world's watching...the whole world's watching.

It falls on deaf ears to me when people start a diatribe with, "Well, my wife (best friend, mother, sister et al) is a teacher and she thinks....blah, blah, blah...." You will get a different approach from every teacher and every administrator you run into because few of them have access to the full scope of their institution and the process they are faced with. They only see their little part. Most of my neighbors are presently teachers or once taught in post secondary, elementary, middle school in both public and private institutions and they would agree with these remarks. That's where they came from.

Bottom line is, public education is under assault at the state level and has been for at least a decade. State leaders lie, cheat, mislead and misinterpret in an effort to convince a gullible population that it is an unnecessary state expense that promotes liberalism and is held hostage to tyrannical labor unions. Oh...stop...you had me at liberalism! Yet when pushed to consolidate school districts in the rural areas that are rife with top heavy admistrative costs....well, we don't need no state interference. We mean them city liberals!

Play with them at your own risk. They refuse to answer direct questions like the ones I posed to Gas and are vehement in their mistrust of public education. They cannot show any improvement of learning under charter schools, private schools or home schooling without resorting to editting out the special needs, low performers and behavioral problem children that TPS is forced to handle. You might as well compare mortality rates at Hillcrest with those at St. Francis.

Aqua, you're almost always be of the most sensible contributors on here. Do you honestly breve this?



There seems to be this misconception that private schools just kick out anyone who doesn't fit their role of a model student. I simply don't see this happening as often as popular belief. The private school where my mom works has children with disabilities, special needs, behavioral problems, whiny parents, lazy parents, etc., just like others schools. Yes, it's a very small fraction of them, but they exist, seemingly in about the same proportion as many public schools. Yet, their students are more creative, insightful, and better prepared for the world.

Maybe it's time we really stop and think about our teaching style. I believe we students are being done a disservice with public education. It's not inherently bad, but it crushes creativity, free thought, and inquiry-based learning.

Oh, no, they don't kick them out or anything that crass. They just fail to meet their responsibilities with regard to the special needs students in the hopes they'll go away. As I mentioned earlier, a friend of mine is having direct experience with that as we speak, and I've seen it elsewhere in the past.

Granted, public schools used to be the same way. However, after having their asses sued off repeatedly, the vast majority of districts have come around and provide the required accommodation without so much difficulty.

That said, as we figured out yesterday, we both agree that the teaching style in most public school classrooms leaves much to be desired.

I personally have not seen that in the private schools I've come in contact with, however, I won't deny that it happens, just not everywhere.

I'll propose this question, not as an insult to your friend, but as a sincere question.

Why would you pay to place your special needs chiod in a private school that does not fit them well?

She wasn't diagnosed when she was placed in that school. She remains there because her father is a twit and refuses to let her attend another school.

That makes more sense. It'd be a very frustrating position to be in.

I got a kick out of that too.  I thought it was opposite day for a moment.

When I was in high school I ran with a rough crowd.  Some of my acquaintances were "invited" to leave public school.  Metro Christian, Holland Hall, and Casa were where most of them landed.  In fact Metro was known as a place that took problem students from public schools and really turned them around. Not one of those kids grew up to be an adult criminal, though that was the path they were certainly on in the public system!

Private schools have a "vested" interest in the performance of each student that is measured in tuition money.  Basically each student represents money, and to get that money improvement must be measurable.  Teachers are bonused based on that improvement because it is tied directly to money.  Well performing students are every bit as important as poor performers, disabled, and disruptive students because they all equal the same amount of money.  No student represents risk, because the focus is on individual improvement rather than some imposed group minimum.

To the public schools, each student represents risk.  Fewer students represent smaller class sizes and therefore less risk.  A teacher with 12 students faces far less risk than a teacher with 27.  A teacher in a school in South Tulsa with one Hispanic student learning English as a second language faces less risk than one in East Tulsa with 13.  A child with remarkable potential who exhibits free and creative thought represents risk because he/she threatens to require more attention from the teacher to cultivate that potential, therefore putting others at risk.  A new teacher who works miracles and builds a foundation for her students that impacts their education in a positive way for the rest of their lives presents a bigger risk than the teacher who gets her students passed with the minimum requirements, but has 23 years tenure. 

To the Public school administration the world is different.  They also focus on minimums but they also focus on maintaining maximum occupancy.  Their district's future and funding is based on heads.  As long as those heads can meet minimum performance standards they are golden!  They are also top-heavy with massive administrative bureaucracy to manage a spectrum of regulations and requirements that are, in many cases, meaningless to the teachers and the students they serve.

Private schools are focused on individuals. To a private school the performance of every individual student is tied to $$$.  The performance of every individual teacher is tied to $$$.  The pedigree of being able to show interested parents statistics illustrating that 98.8% of all students went to college, and 45% to graduate school, and the wall of photos of doctors, and lawyers, and such is important, as well as references from other parents and students. The individual product and service is, as in any other business, important.  The lines between administration and teaching are blurred and in many cases non-existant.

The funny thing is that many of the private schools are comparable in price to what we spend on public school educations.  If this state offered vouchers, most parents could send their kids to the best private schools with little or no additional investment, and new educational offerings would spread like wild-fire to fill the gaps and compete for the chance to serve our greatest resource, our kids.

I’m not so sure vouchers are necessarily the panacea to educational problems.  It’s still throwing money at a problem for which a fair amount of it starts at home, and not necessarily the school.  To my knowledge, none of the religiously-affiliated private schools around Tulsa are run as “for-profit”.

In order to keep pace with a rapid influx of new students and their vouchers, this would almost necessitate the development and construction of for-profit schools.  What happens when the for profit educators start cutting corners to maintain profitability?  Keep in mind, most of the area private schools have pretty low overhead due to a high degree of donations for their land, buildings and other improvements as well as even funds for their utilities, etc.

What? Are you high? Are you not aware of how it is that schools come to have those impressive numbers? They do it by kicking the little bastards out if they aren't good enough. Those kids don't count toward the numbers. At my high school there was a district policy that "transferred" dropouts from the "good" high school to the alternative school so as to protect their graduation rate. The same thing happens in private schools, but they aren't forced to serve as the educator of last resort.

Why is that?

In this case I am closer to seeing a clear understanding of organizations in Conan's remarks than with yours Gas. I asked you those two questions for a specific reason and I'm glad you finally chose to address them. In the end both organizations are fighting for and making pleas for support based on money. It doesn't matter whether it is public money or private tuition money, they are basing their success/failure and futures on money. You seem to think that a private school is using different teaching methods to get better results. Yet the teachers mostly come from the same colleges and are learning the same techniques. So, their administrations are better? Well, certainly easier to run a religious oriented private school with 400 students from solid middle/upper class heritage than a huge public school system free and open to the masses for sure. You have me there.

And how do you measure those results? The same way public schools do, testing, college admissions and puffery. The same way Gas. Only for some odd reason you throw in $$$ as some kind of teacher incentive. Private school teachers tell me they don't make any more money and have to put up with more pressure from prima dona parents whose tyrannical demands are in excess of norms at public schools. They should be getting paid real well if they are succeeding above public school levels wouldn't you think? So perhaps there is no $$$ incentive to perform only the risk of losing your position if you don't. Yes, that is a truly business approach.

Then I would ask how and why some public schools show major improvements, high graduation rates, high college admission rates, high ACT/SAT test results, NHS memberships and merit finalists yet they come from this flawed model of risk you assure us can't work? The teachers move around in the system so it can't be just outstanding teaching. Administrators vary but TPS is famous for finding the good ones and squeezing them into under performing positions or schools. The magnet schools are used as teaching models to spread new teaching concepts around. But wait, wouldn't that entail high risk for the administrators if it doesn't work? It does and they stand to make little increase in pay if either way. So, there goes your model.

In reality vouchers are an effort to move public dollars into a private system that already works pretty well and subtract them from a system that needs the funding desperately. I wouldn't welcome that if I were an administrator of a well operated private school. Too much risk that I would be forced to mimic the measures that public schools have had to adopt to survive in a republican run state.

Zyx, it is kind of you to refer to me as a sensible contributor. A decade ago I would have thought my remarks to be extreme. It is becoming clear that with Fallin & co. you cannot be too extreme. It pains me to see the state graciously invite the bloodletting of its school system in favor of political dogma. But they did it with guns, gambling, alcohol and income tax. They actually believe their dogma. My last kid goes to OU this fall so in effect, I have no dog in this race. My oldest is saving his money to send his kids to private school and if I could have sent mine to Holland Hall I would have as much for the great relationship potential as for education.

The problem is not funding, it's funding linked to achievement!!!!!!!!!!

I don't really care about "some public schools."  Some public schools are excellent, just like some McDonald's are excellent.  Overall the concept of continuing to increase funding for public education as a panacea is flawed.  Because the money is not directly linked to achievement, it is as in any government enterprise, diverted to building more bureaucracy and sustaining administrative structure and growth.

(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7128/7070510991_e774dbb3f3.jpg)

Since 1970, inflation adjusted public school spending has more than doubled http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_181.asp?referrer=list . Over the same period, achievement of students at the end of high school has shown no improvement, and high school graduation rate has declined by 4 or 5%, according to Nobel laureate economist James Heckman.
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ltt/
http://ftp.iza.org/dp3216.pdf

Taxes for education have increased by $300 Billion without improving outcomes. Researchers at Stanford University and the University of Munich have come to the same conclusion that academic achievement is directly related to economic growth, and quantity of education spending is no substitute for quality of education.  http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG07-01_Hanushek_Woessmann.pdf

Public schools could correct this problem if individual student academic performance and improvement was directly tied to funding.  Unfortunately this flies in the face of how any unionized, or government agency works, because to accomplish this paradigm shift you would need to incentivize performance among employees, cut wasteful bureaucracy, and eliminate employees who fail to perform. 

There are several reasons this will never happen (we can discuss that if you like but I think you already understand why), so the more reasonable option would be to transition education from government bureaucracy to private enterprise.

I really enjoyed your reference to the public school system as "a system that needs the funding desperately."  It's like an alcoholic pleading for one mor drink. Public schools have no need to factor profit into the equation, so if you look at a public school that spends $14,000 per student per year, that's $14,000 that is spent on the student, materials, administrative/payroll costs, and facilities.  Now if you look at a private school that charges $12,000 per student, that amount covers the same expenses right?. . . but it also maintains a profit margin for the operators of the enterprise and pays bonuses, marketing, and recruiting expenses.  So in reality, our private school may only spend $7,000 per student cost less in total tuition, and still outperform the school spending twice as much!

The nature of government in general is to grow.  Every agency, bureaucracy and department's primary function above any service they provide is to increase funding.  That is just the nature of the beast.  Throw in a unionized labor force, and you introduce other factors such as the resistance to individual incentivization, and an inability to impose performance measures.

We've now had decades to observe this, yet the alcoholic keeps asking for one mor drink, and promising that everything will change.  An intervention is in order.

Bishop Kelley is owned by the Tulsa Diocese of the Catholic Church.  Budget shortfall through it’s own operations? Go to The Church.  Property tax?  Do churches pay property tax in Tulsa County?  The property has been paid off for years and I would suspect it may well have been a donation from a prominent Catholic family some time back.  I’m sure there’s information available somewhere.  Assuming there are still priests and nuns within the administration and teaching staff, that saves somewhat on overhead attributable to the operations of the school.

Cascia Hall, it’s run by the Augustinian Order of the Catholic Church.  The Augustinian instructors and members of the administration are given food and board, a communal car and a modest stipend.  IIRC, most all the land was donated to the school many years back by a wealthy oil family.  At least when I was there, Cascia did it’s capital expansions via donation and fund-raising drives within the school community.  They also have a very strong alumni association.

Holland Hall is affiliated with the Episcopal Diocese in Tulsa.  I know nothing of how they came to own the land they are on.  Aside from having probably the highest tuition rates in the city, I believe they also have a really good foundation of alumni and parents who help fund capital projects.

Grace and Victory I would assume are heavily subsidized by their parent church operations which, I believe, would also give them certain tax advantages and lower operating costs when you can share grounds-keeping, custodial, and other services and again, if there is a budget short-fall make a plea and pass the buckets one more lap around the sanctuary on Sunday morning.  I know nothing of Metro’s operation, but IIRC, they got a pretty sweet deal from TPS on their building.

Unless a for-profit private school were given the sort of tax breaks the other schools apparently enjoy and can develop a donation base for capital needs, they simply won’t be able to compete.  Where’s the benefit to Cascia, Holland Hall, BK, or Metro to double their student population?  It’s not going to make them more money, it just becomes a logistical nightmare of where to put the kids and having to double the staff to maintain classroom ratios they are comfortable with.

Holland Hall and Cascia require you to test in for admission (at least they did +/- 30 years ago) because, as alluded to by Nathan, they want the best students.  They don’t want the public school rejects.  They want to keep their standards higher.  Certainly there are students in the community who would do quite well there whose parents simply cannot afford to send them there, but neither school has near the capacity to add new students.

Vouchers are an interesting talking point, and I’m the first to admit I have paid little attention to what they purport to do since my kids are both college age (and one will be post college in another month!) and Jenks was a great fit for them after they left Montessori.  If you have apathetic parents with no interest in their kid’s education who move their kids to private schools with vouchers, their disruptive and poor student just followed your child to private school and you have the same situation we have now in the public schools.  Vouchers to me sounds like nothing more than a funding shift.  If you apply certain academic standards to qualify for vouchers then you end up with all sorts of discrimination claims and suits because you have drained all the best achievers from the public school system and left the public schools looking somewhat like a reform school.

You and I are 100% on the same page as far as more funding for public schools not being tied to achievement is a complete bust.  Look at the Washington DC school district.  Either the highest or close to the highest spending per pupil and some of the worst results in the country.

Feel free to better educate me on the topic, I simply have never jumped on the bandwagon for it because it doesn’t seem workable to my private school educated mind. ;)

The point I wanted to make in asking that question is that Parents, alumni, private individuals, and religious organizations support these institutions through donations, and those donations are spent responsibly. What a wonderful way to mitigate overhead.  Pride from the community that these institutions serve results in low overhead.  So for someone to claim that they have an unfair advantage just because the community chooses to support them is rather entertaining.

It's like saying "the only reason McGill's food is so good is that people pay more for it."  It's a backwards economic assumption.  People are willing to pay more because the food is good!

If Holland Hall had a track record of producing deplorable performance marks and produced decades of welfare recipients and dropouts, you would probably not see those folks donating vast sums of money back to the school that helped them to achieve dependence!  You would also not experience the affiliation and funding from organizations.

The private schools to pay Tulsa County property tax, because only land and facilities used primarily for worship are exempt.  However, I personally can see no better reason for tax exemption than offering it to private schools that provide exceptional education of our children, and I think that should certainly be another incentive in building a successful voucher system.  It's a win-win for the city and the operators.  Great idea!

There’s really two reasons private school students excel.  One is they are pretty much hand-picked for academic excellence.  Secondly, and as you expanded on:  is that the parents have more of an investment in their child’s education and typically higher-income families are going to be more involved at home and at school with their child’s education.  People who had high standards of their own when they were in school will expect no less from their children and will help them to achieve their goals.

That said, please enlighten me on who could participate and how a voucher program would be implemented if the existing private schools had no interest in accepting vouchers or simply could not fund the expansion required to do so.

Like any smart business, if you have a line of folks out the door, that represents unrealized profit.  If you fail to take advantage of the demand, someone else will.  As with any change like this it would have to be phased in over time, and the state would need to work with private institutions and create incentives for the creation of new institutions like the property tax credit we brilliantly devised above.  Public schools would continue to exist, they would simply be phased out over time, and/or purchased by private organizations.  Good teachers will always have jobs, but the poorly performing teachers woud be free to explore new career options. 

I disagree with your statement about private schools hand-picking students for academic excellence.  Again, I have several friends that were sent to private schools specifically because they were failing miserably in Jenks, and Memorial.  Every one of them without exception became successful.

Sorry I should have clarified Holland Hall and Cascia do hand-pick via entry exams rather than making a blanket statement about all area private schools.  BK, Metro, and others I don’t believe have as high of standards.  Us Cascia rats always referred to BK as the "Catholic reform school”.  We had some love ups but they were a very small minority of the school population and even the stoners got good grades.

There was one point you made in an earlier post that I was not familiar with: teacher bonus pay for performance.  Personally, it’s something I’d love to see at the public level as an incentive for great performance.  At least when I was at CH, there was no such thing.  It was even explained to me by a couple of instructors that the pay scale was one year behind TPS but those two considered the better working conditions at Cascia to be worth the small pay difference.  Oh, and just like the students, CH hand-picked the instructors they wanted as well.  I really do consider myself fortunate to have had that opportunity.  I can honestly say the three years I spent there far better prepared me for the outside world than my spotty college career did ;)

As usual you do a lot of work to repeat  other peoples politics without questioning them. For instance, you are assuming that not exceeding 300 on an NAEP test is de facto a failure. Frankly I am not aware of the test so I don't know if thats a good score or a failing score. At some point you can either read or you can't. You can either add/subtract/multiply or you can't. Dump tons of public or private school efforts on increasing past that and it means diminishing returns.

That brings up another important point. Meaningful achievement. Whose tests? What levels? Are tests even relevant as has been pointed out. Memorization isn't learning. Then, what do you do when one teacher shows massive improvement over the others? I want my kid in that class don't you? And next year if she drops I want my kid in the next amazing achiever's class. I am not naive enough to believe that there are no bad teachers, but I want mine with the amazing teacher and I won't take no for an answer. TPS takes that teacher and moves her into administration or to a low performing school to lead others. Your model would likely create a lottery or premium to be in that class.

And then you think you have an airtight case without noting that school systems had built a system to handle the huge demands of the baby boom generation only to have to dismantle much of it in the 1970's-80's then start rebuilding again to process the grandchildren of the boomers. That see saw process means inventory and employment out of synch with needs. Your graph doesn't care about that because it doesn't make for good arguments. These are huge systems that are criticized for bloated operations when the student population drops and underfunded when student population surges. Mostly because they are such an easy target for politicians and union haters.

Then you lump private for profit, private non profit and private religious schools into the same hopper and make business analyses that relate to for profit only. Meaningless to do so without noting that the non profits, and parochial schools rely heavily upon donations and shared buildings and smaller populations.

I know you don't care about some schools. That was an indulgent remark. I'll take the best of TPS any day vs the best of for profit private schools. Eisenhower, Booker T, Thoreau, Lee, Elliot, Mayo etc may not win that battle but they will compete well. The only private school that would consistently exceed BTW is Holland Hall and  I'm pretty sure its at a premium cost per student. These public schools are using the latest in technology and teaching methods, and draw solid parental support to produce the results you think can only be made with private schools. They are working hard to leverage what they've learned into the rest of the system but the legislature listens to your arguments rather than theirs.

Good luck with assimilating the general population into your model with the expectations that business can solve the problems of drugs, poverty, abuse, hunger and criminality that they bring in their baggage. Your naivete will soon result in a system that looks like the old TPS.

We both understand that neither of us will change the opinion of the other.  So, lets both accept that.  So let's explore the solution in another fashion and see if we can make the two different angles meet in the middle somewhere?

1. Is the solution simply to throw more money at the problem?

2. Or is the solution to change the structure of the organizations?

3. If it was possible, how would you accomplish a change in structure?


I'll go first:

1. No, money is not the answer. In most cases we already exceed what we know to be necessary to produce a powerful and positive educational experience for a child.  All we need to do is apply that structure to the public system.

2. Yes.  Today they resemble the typical government bureaucracy.  Top-heavy, slow-moving, wasteful, and ineffective in serving the needs of the individual student, and only moderately effective in serving the student community at large.  The product and service they currently provide is of lesser value than the investment they require.

3. You may have more insight into this than I can provide.  My answer is already established. . .eliminate the government bureaucracy by transitioning it out of the hands of government.  Your answer would need to illustrate how, within the public system, a restructure could be possible, and would the unions ever allow it?

You don't see how this makes you look pompous do you?

I've skimmed a lot of this.  In the debate about private school vs public school has anyone mentioned teacher tenure?  It is much harder for a public school to fire a teacher than it is for a private school.  IMO, that is a game changer.

Why?  I'm seeking a solution rather than just hammering at each other.   There may be factors and strategies that I fail to consider because I approach the argument from a single dimension.  What is wrong with seeking other solutions rather than just offering a target for others to shoot at?

You do wriggle and wiggle when you can't go point to point. They could have used you in the Spanish Inquisition..."We know, sir, that you have sinned against nature yet we have yet to discern whether it was beast or fowl and what your atonement might be. These are our answers, perhaps you could share your's with us. 1. It was a pig 2. It was a chicken 3.Punishment by hanging. What say you, sir?"

My short answer? Contract out education to another country.

So, you're done?

You don't have to provide answers to my questions if you don't wish to.  Provide the solutions that you feel strongly about.  Just provide something other than criticism and snark.

It may appear so but I've never seen anything to prove it is the difference between the two. Consider the alternative choice. A teacher spends their career dedicated to teaching other people's children, obtaining continuuing education to stay sharp and earn increase pay and achieves success in the field. Then one supervisor doesn't like her methods, her personality, her carriage, her politics, anything about her and decides he can hire two younger teachers for what he pays her and is willing to risk poorer performance to meet budget restraints. So he fires her. Oklahoma is an at will state. Doesn't take much to fire someone.

That is what happens without tenure.

You ended it. You have no interest in changing your viewpoint and have steadfastly ignored the points Conan and I have made. I can curse at the wind or I can close the window.

This coming from the king of snark?

Pot/Kettle/someneutralcolor?

That is a valid argument, but is that the exception or the norm when choosing to hire or fire an employee?  Typically, business people choose to retain the most talented, and productive employees over the least productive.  Sure, there are bad bosses out there, but why punish generations of children just to safeguard a workforce from a small minority of bad bosses.  Additionally, supervisors who employ that decision making process ultimately find themselves out of a job because their performance is judged against the success of others.

I've seen people terminated for the wrong reasons, and I recognize that it happens and is tragic.  I also recognize that the primary responsibility of an educational system is the children, not the employees.  If we choose to take actions that serve to protect the employees at the expense of the children, we do more harm than your supervisor who terminates a teacher for the wrong reasons.

 

I are a graduate of public schools...

Oklahoma has cut education funding dramatically. The 2012 budget is $300 million less than it was in 2010.

Total general fund revenues in Oklahoma are up 15% this year over last year (up $283 million).

Why is the legislature saying they are going to cut education funding again?

Because they can and because we let them.

This chart is completely useless. It does not account for student population nor does it break down what is being spent on the actual mission of education, what is being spent on buildings, what is being spent on maintenance, what is being spent on utilities, and what is being spent on sports, what is being spent on security, and what is being spent on special ed. Without that breakdown it tells us only what we all already know, that spending has risen and aggregate outcomes have not.

Schools pay for more things now than they used to. Some schools in poor areas serve three meals a day now, for example. We seem to have decided that high technology is somehow necessary in schools, so you get districts spending millions on iPads. I suspect that much of the budget increases are due to aging infrastructure and the aforementioned cost of educating even the unruly.

Nathan, I believe the metric is spending per pupil which seems to be the most logical metric everyone looks at in being able to compare from large to small school systems.  At least that’s what was used when they tried to get the billion tax grab via cutting other state funding a year or so back. I have no idea if capital expenditures are considered as part of the spending per pupil.

That's easy to answer.  According to the Department of Education, enrollment is only modestly higher (46 million in 1970, and 50 million today) http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_003.asp .  You are correct, while it does account for inflation, it does not account where the money is spent, and that is part of the problem.  It simply divides the money by total enrollment.

Most of us don't send our kids to elementary and secondary school to learn football or the African drum, however those are part of the spending that probably needs evaluation.  As for "aging infrastructure" and "educating the unruly," infrastructure expenses have always existed and always will, as will the potential for delinquency.   The measures taken to address those expenses and challenges are all subject to review.  

The point I am making is that we are continuing to attempt to solve the same problems using the same approach that has never worked in the past.  That approach is to appropriate an ever increasing amount of funds from tax payers and continue to produce little or no return.  Reason would dictate that a different approach is necessary.  My proposal is to replace public enterprise with private.  What do you propose?

Never? You think all the kids turned out by our school systems who ended up doing things like sending men to the moon and robots to Mars weren't successfully educated by the system as it existed from the 50s to the 70s?

Given that private companies can't successfully run prisons, I don't suspect they'll have much better luck running schools.

Let me see if I understand you.

You are fine as long as the public system can turn out a minority of success stories and pass on the rest with little improvement.

You feel that schools are similar to prisons, and based on that assumption you think that private industry is less productive than public endeavors.

I suppose you subscribe to Tom Daschil's philosophy that you cannot professionalize unless you federalize.

You still have yet to propose a solution, is that because you don't believe a problem exists?

You clearly aren't interested in having a reasonable discussion given this post, so I'm just going to bow out here.

Just trying to squeeze an answer out of you.  Good bye.

I propose a MicroSoft solution.  They consistently get different results with the same input.
 
 ;D

It is the norm. The reason teachers work for tenure is that it is such a politically tenous position. With the election of a new wave of legislators you can suddenly be forced to change your principles and learning to match theirs or your out. Imagine if a Santorum administration came to power and you had no tenure. You may very easily be canned for teaching basic biology. For failing to teach creationism etc. It already happens on an informal basis with school boards bullying administrators in Kansas. But that is not a problem in a for profit business. If they tell you Yield means go then you go or find another place to work.

 You're organizational business naivete is stunning. You actually believe that stuff and it just makes me giggle that I once felt similarly. You are too long in the business world to not understand that competence, productivity and performance are not closely related to corporate personnel decisions or success in climbing the corporate ladder. Those are the exceptions. Its CYA, all the way baby and the Peter principle is alive and well. It works fine for profit making businesses but sucks when your task is to teach someone else's child.

Your first paragraph, I completely agree with. However, it seems to support the argument to take education out of the hands of government, and therefore remove it from under the political thumb.

I don't agree with your second paragraph in any way.  The majority of successful businesses and business people achieve success by offering a product or service that is valued at a greater level than the investment nessesary to acquire it.  When that ratio changes, they are no longer in business or employed.  The only way this is different is if external and artificial market forces are applied.  The Peter principal is found in the greatest concentration within government.  In fact, bureaucracy cultivates it, by breaking down and compartmentalizing responsibility and discouraging responsibility beyond an established scope.  Nowhere do you hear the phrases "That's not my job", "I cant help you with that", and "That's not my department" more than when attempting to acquire a service from a government employee.

Gaspar, here’s my fear on vouchers and the possibility of for-profit schools created via a voucher system:

Since the government would be providing the vouchers, you will still have a bureaucracy to oversee the dolling out of vouchers.  Politicians and bureaucrats will still have oversight over the curricula as well as needing to have regular inspections and certifications for facilities, curricula, teaching staff, and administration.  Funding per student will still be on the whim of government.  I also suspect graft and corruption will follow as school conglomerates vie for a limited amount of permits or licenses, not unlike the private prison system.

On the flip side, I can definitely see where the threat of losing certification would be one hell of an incentive to keep your standards high.  If the standards slip, you are out of business.  However, looking at other regulated industries in our state like nursing homes, there’s been many cases of inspectors being paid off to look the other way or outright draft bogus condition reports to leave certification in place.

My only real experience with for-profit schools was technical/occupational schools with my ex’s two children, so my experience is limited but I was not impressed.  I honestly didn’t see anything which purported to place student well-being above profit.  Those schools exist to make money and collect federal student loan dollars.  They did not provide job placement services, and really didn’t seem to care if a student finished up their course work or not, as they had already received the loan proceeds which the student was on the hook to pay back whether or not they finished the program.

Admittedly, I’m not well-read on the subject other than reading a Wiki entry on it so ignorance may be my guide here.  I’ve still not seen any conclusive evidence that vouchers would necessarily improve results. Sure you can tie teacher bonus pay to performance, you could also fire ineffective teachers much easier I suspect, assuming private schools were successful in keeping unions out which serve to protect the low-hanging fruit in our educational system.  As it is now, aren’t many less-tenured teachers on year-to-year contract subject to review in most public school systems?

Government simply is not going to step out of the way and allow private enterprise to run the educational system as it sees fit.  You might lose some supervisory positions, but you still have the same net amount of students to educate and have to have some sort of infrastructure in place to do so.  Then there has to be a profit margin for the private schools on top of that.  Legislators are not simply going to cede one of their pet campaign issues to the private sector and disappear.  They will still ride roughshod over it.

Since I prefer solution-oriented rather than problem-oriented thinking, here’s my two-prong approach:

Honestly the very best investment we can make is in education when it’s invested wisely.

1) Develop a partnership program for home-schooling and make tax credits available to parents who choose to do so.  Also make equipment and learning supplies available using a sliding-scale means-based system.

Provide a sensible tax credit which would help a family financially to home-school their children.  There’s good likelihood the results are going to be better when a parent is responsible for the education of their child, the statistics are favorable with home schooling.  With today’s technology, there’s really little reason why more people cannot do this and use lesson plans on computer or iPad.  Certainly not every family can afford this approach and it’s not the best learning environment for every child.

2) Provide incentives for the best educators in the public school system.

Take away tenure and make job retention and bonus pay commensurate with measurable results.  Standardized testing seems to be a fair yardstick as well as in-class evaluation of a teacher’s skills.  As with many different industries, craft financial rewards for the best producers.

I don’t think I’m ever going to be a believer that for profit private schools are that great a solution.  I also think there should be means testing on who gets vouchers.  Should a family with an income of $250,000 really be getting vouchers when they can afford private school?  Let’s face it, their kids have more options available to them than the family earning $50,000.

You can't seem to grasp that organizational behavior is not differentiated by their r'aison d'etre. (sp?) Organizations are political whether they exist to make profit, to operate government, to serve humanity or to provide entertainment. Mostly because humans run them I suppose.

I have a friend who interviews engineers for his company and he shared with me the story of a truly impressive candidate who worked his way through engineering school at OU while taking care of his aging, invalid parents. Because of that his grade point was a mere 3.25 yet he had shown the responsibility, loyalty, integrity and drive that any company would covet. He recommended hiring to his group. They objected that his grade point was too low and he was not an OSU grad. Denied him the job. That my friend is the reality of business.

As long as you continue to view business in the same way a Christian views the Bible or a Jew views the Torah, that is, to take it on unquestioning faith, you will never see its reality. No amount of anecdotes, no amount of stats will shake your faith. Your remarks are almost management survey course in nature. Professorial. I am not trying to criticize you personally or diminish those lofty goals.  One has to have a belief in the afterlife, angels, forgiveness, love, etc to get through the day. One has to believe business works the way you describe to be able to see a path for moving up within its confines. If that convention works for you then it is your reality.

 

This is pure confirmation bias. It happens constantly in any company, large or small. My SO deals with it almost daily in her dealings with clients. So do I, and most of my clients are no more than 20 people strong. It happens in organizations of any size. Conversely, I fairly regularly have interactions with government employees who are going above and beyond their job description to help me get data under a license I can use, among other things.

Of course I'm bias.  I have yet to encounter efficiency in government bureaucracy.  When I do, I will re-evaluate my stereotypes.

LOL!  Back in 2002 I had an employee of mine say "That's not my job" when I asked them to check on another one of my salesman's clients.

They quickly found that phrase to be very correct. 

That works on the other side of the fence too.

Yes, I know, government is always the problem and private enterprise is always the solution.  ::)

You mean have unquestioning faith in the principles of business that Gas espouses? I can see that in religion, but in business you have to compare what you see and experience with what you've been taught. When the two diverge, you simply have to question the teaching or question what you've seen or both. Business is quite pragmatic and reality based or it fails. His view of business is quite like the faith of a religion. He prefers not to question what he has been taught. Perhaps that is why he never sees efficient government. He was taught it doesn't exist.

Yesterday, I called the IRS and was promised help within 10 minutes. Nine minutes later I was served, treated respectfully and with clear communication. The employee understood my problem, asked me several questions and within a few minutes had it solved. She was unclear as to why the FAFSA website was not working correctly and gave me the number of their offices to contact. I saw that as efficient, especially so close to tax deadline. Others may have construed it as "not my job". Of course it is government. I called FAFSA and they said it was probably an IRS problem!

To be fair to the government I should say these three words...Bank of America. You want to hear some crazy fun stories talk to anyone who tried to do a loan modification through them.

Try calling at&t when your leased line goes out. They will blame everything but their equipment even when it's obvious their equipment is the problem. Even when the MRC looks more like a (yearly) salary range than a phone bill. There was something satisfying about telling the engineer to reboot his router, though. It ended up being an almost 24 hour outage for no reason other than their obstinance. I called them at around 11 in the evening. They could have immediately issued an emergency maintenance notice, waited the requisite hour, and had it back up by 12:15, but they refused. One of the twits even refused to escalate at all, blaming our equipment for the better part of a day, even after we swapped it with a spare.

It finally got fixed some time after I went to bed at 7 the next morning. How? By at&t rebooting their bucking router.

Needless to say, there was a change in ISP not long after that. Luckily, they run a tight enough ship that I haven't had to get involved.

BOA and AT&T as common paradigms for business?  Large behemoths yes.  They’ve got far more in common with a large government agency than the majority of businesses in America.  I think Gaspar’s point was totally lost on you two. 

The majority of businesses do not do the majority of business in America.

I don't think I missed the point at all, I merely disagree with it. Gaspar seems to think that business is automatically better than government. It is not. There is plenty of bureaucracy in any business that's large enough to have management that isn't the owner and it only gets worse when multiple layers of management become necessary.

There have been some interesting sociological studies on this point. Basically, organizations of greater than 20 people or so will almost always end up with a bureaucracy of some sort. It doesn't matter if it's government, business, or a social club.

Nathan is right. Gaspar didn't define his business size. He espoused business platitudes. Nonetheless, we provided three examples of business ineptness from three different arenas. And one example of government working. No amount of anecdotal, logical or statistical examples will suffice.

So, the public school system works just fine as a government beurocracy and desperately needs more money to continue to build that beurocracy. Got it!

The jobs of the teachers are what's important. Any failure to perform is the fault of the increasing number of hooligans that those teachers are forced to deal with. Got it!

Government does a far superior job managing enterprise, budgets, and personnel than private enterprise, and produces superior results. Got it!

So what's the problem? Let's just continue to increase funding for the public system. 

Free beer cures alcoholism.

So saith the lord of business. Can we have an amen brother MBAs!? Your religion offers you no other options does it?
Your switch is either on or off. The concept of a rheostat on a dimmer switch is just not there for you.

You noted that we could not change each other's views and I don't want to change yours. But mine comes from a great deal more experience having just been on the planet longer, having struggled through the entire process of child raising, having worked for the very institutions you criticize and praise with the very people you praise and denigrate. I would be thrilled for you to come to the same realizations I did, after having my foundations shaken. Don't let others think for you when they have no direct experience. Your arguments will always be weaker.

Listen carefully to what I am going to write now and not what you think I represent. I offer it with the most generous of motives. If you can afford to, get yourself into a lower level position at a school system, private or public, in any area from administration to services. Then spend 6 months observing, listening, interacting with the participants at all levels. Especially pay attention to the youngest children, what they say, how they interpret, their family behaviors and don't draw any conclusions. Just take it in. Stay in the lower levels because you are less likely to be bombarded with philosophical platitudes and more likely to draw your own conclusions. At these levels, all participants are dealing with all the issues of the world everyday and just trying to make it all work.

 If you can still come away with these dogmatic, political viewpoints that are so easily spewed by others who have never been in the belly of the beast, then I will buy you a Marshall's whether you're alcoholic or not. BTW, i think you're easily one of the most creative, humorous posters I've ever come across. It doesn't escape me that humor and intellect go hand in hand. You are unassailable in your creative skills but like my house painter father once told me, "Everyone is an expert when it comes to painting houses (but few actually do it)."

Cancer cures smoking.
 
 :D

If you really think that's what I actually wrote or it is implied by what I wrote, you need to take a remedial reading comprehension course. I suspect you were just trying to score "points" because I know you're not that dumb.

Just in case, let me draw an analogy. Fighting bureaucracy just because it's bureaucracy is like fighting the tide with a bucket. It's simply what happens when humans get involved in large projects. There are many reasons; you're more than welcome to look it up. However, bureaucracy thrives on rules. It, as a "thing" of its own larger than the individuals involved, love to follow rules. You have a problem with the way a bureaucracy works? It's really simple: change the rules.

As it stands, public schools are accountable to their constituency through elections. Through what mechanism do you propose to make private schools directly accountable to the public that funds them with vouchers or whatever your plan is? Take away the voucher money? Why would they care? They seem to have no problem with the status quo, so I don't think threat of a return to it is likely to provide any incentive on its own.

The challenges for public schools are many, but the one stat that keeps me sober is the number of poor kids that are found in public schools compared to private schools. 61% of the kids in Oklahoma public schools come from homes that qualify for free or reduced price lunches. The number in Tulsa Public Schools is 83%.

Low-income families often don't have the resources to be involved in the children's education. Often both parents work in jobs that don't allow them to participate more in schools-sponsored activities. Those same parents are not able to contribute financially to help the schools as well.

I don't know what the solutions are, but I do know that this single fact makes it difficult to compare results between public and private schools.

Prohibit private schools K-12.  As well as home schooling.  Several good things would come from that, the biggest being the socialization of all kids with their peers - the people they are gonna have to work with the rest of their lives.  Better parental support.  As well as financial.

This just highlights your apparent "youth" (in a business sense) and/or that you have not really worked in very many different places in your career.  The Peter Principal is alive and well in business at ALL levels, from small 25-50 people shops to multi-billion dollar multi-national corporations with hundreds of thousands of people.  And yes, "not my job" is more common than you appear to realize.  (The little 8 person shop I worked in once was almost immune, but still suffered a mild case.)  And yes, I have been in all, as well as an assortment in between.

And there is PLENTY of "not my job" sprinkled throughout every one of those and yet, they are all still cruising along with reasonable amounts of success.  

I don't remember hearing how big your current employer is,  but if there are more than about 6 of you, there is bureaucracy.

Platitudes and dogmatic blinders....come on, you are smarter than that, and you do know better than that.

I have worked for monsters and mice.  I'm not saying that bureaucracy does not exist in private industry, I am simply saying that bureaucracy IS government business.  ;) . . .and the preservation and growth of bureaucracy is the natural goal of government.

Funny, most people I've known who complain the loudest about being passed in favor of an "donkey-kisser" for a promotion aren’t very honest when it comes to self-evaluation.  I’ve seen that both from the management side and peon side.  Not hard to see when one person consistently hits or exceeds goals and objectives and the other doesn’t.

Anyone else notice this is the same as the base argument in favor of HCR?

Pretty much all areas of human endeavor.  It's in our nature.


Tonight - right NOW, on NBC is Betty White's new show, "Off Their Rockers".  It is hilarious!  Kind of a cross between "Punked" and "Candid Camera".  Warning; you may have to be old to understand!

It's in our nature to build process, not bureaucracy.  Bureaucracy is what happens when people strive to maintain inadaquate process as a means of self-preservation.  A mechanism fails, so instead of fixing it, you set up a second mechanism, and a mechanism to monitor the first mechanism, and a steering committee to synchronize decisions for all of the mechanisms, and a review and oversight position to monitor the actions of the steering comittee. Bureaucracy is born out of a desire to preserve that which does not work.

Elegance is simplicity.

Once again, in your world, where you get to contrive the definitions...that all makes great sense.

Like the word "Liberal" or the estate tax, bureaucracy has been demonized to serve political purposes. Humans just love cynical, negative, gossipy stuff. Just break down the word. Bureaus are entities within government set up to serve them operationally on a long term basis. Since leaders come and go the bureau retains a sense of stored knowledge. When the system relies upon them for leadership instead of as a tool, it is governing with the bureau as leader rather than as a tool, hence "bloated" bureaucracy.

Every organization interested in long term operation makes sure these entities survive them, though to some it may appear that they are greedily serving themselves. Otherwise they have to keep making the same mistakes over and over. Periodic analysis of the bureau by leadership can edit out those who are featherbedding vs those who are streamlining. You would throw out the baby with the bathwater.

My wifes family is a long line of teachers and my neighbor is a teacher.  I know the wifes family takes and took the job very seriously, many teachers expend their own money on many supplies for the class.  The primary problem I see with schools are the parents.  They take very little interest in what is going on and are looking for ways gaming the system.  

In our days, if you got in trouble at school, you were going to be getting in trouble at home.  Because our parents trusted the teachers.  These days, Parents will take the side of their kid, and say that the teacher is to blame and if they complain to the Principle, there is a good chance that the principle is not going to question the parent because it is easier to question their subordinate.  Because of this, teachers become vanilla in their approach to educating the kids.  They don't ruffle feathers, and don't expect anything more.  In many of our times, we had teachers that were gruff and were not afraid of any smurfing thing.  But those were some of the best teachers.  You didn't want to get along in their style of class?  There is the door, go chat with the principle.

FWIW, JC, I think that is one of the primary issues that school systems face. And that includes private systems as well. The teachers and administrators are no longer the masters of their classrooms. Since so many abused that privilege and a proliferation of lawsuits ensued, it is rare to find those strong charactered teachers who don't fear for their survival. Faced with a college graduation rate of 4 lawyers for every legal job (lawsuits have become a means of employment for them and easy money for plaintiffs), loss of protection through tenure, declining funding and exploitation by unscrupolous politicians they have migrated into other professions where a masters degree is worth the investment. Sales, marketing, entrepreneurship.

The really good schools with highly skilled, motivated personnel rarely get attention and are highly sought after. I expect that their personnel will be raided by well run charter schools. The hard luck schools get held up as examples for idealogues as failure of the system.

That is not bureaucracy.  That is process.  A little over 10 years ago, I became a fan of Michael Gerber's works because I was working with small businesses who mistook burocracy for structure.  Though they had multiple feedback loops and QCs they still faced failure because they spent more time working within the structure of their business rather than working on them.

What happens is individual employees become so crucial to the survival of the business, that if you lose one of them for some reason.  Everything crashes.  Dorris is the only person who understands how to process payroll out of the ERP system and import it into payables.  Dorris gets hit by a bus and Jim is late on his mortgage and quits, 4 venders fail to get paid and increase prices and the moon falls from the sky.  Dorris was with the business for 30 years, and payroll was one of 100 processes that were never documented.  

Process documentation also identifies waste, incompetence, and performance.  If done properly it eliminates the need for many additional layers of oversight.  Ray Kroc was never interested in selling hamburgers or french fries.  He sold the process that allowed for a consistent business model that required little oversight and training.

Businesses can either focus on process, or they can build Rube Goldberg machines.  You can use an Abram's tank to kill a fly, or you can use a fly swatter.  Either will work, but the fly swatter will offer a lower failure rate, be less expensive, and deliver a consistent result.

No, it isn't!  To an engineer, maybe, but not for normal human nature!  Bureaucracy is what humans do.  Just like so many of us migrate to be close to the oceans (about 50% within 100 miles of an ocean across the planet) - it is programmed in there at some level.

Elegant simplicity is an engineering thing - not a normal societal thing.

Abram's tank.... just saying...

What you are describing is "empire building" - self preservation.  i.e if I am the only one who knows how to do ?????, then I am indispensable.  And then, I need minions to help, so I build the "castle", then populate if with my "team" (serfs).  Building castle walls is one symptom of bureaucracy.  Hence, the term "throw it over the wall..." to whichever entity is next in line.

Ok.  You live that way.  I like my way.  ;)

Even if you aren't an engineer, you have too much technical exposure to live that way.

Funny you say that, my wife says the same thing. Kid is an problem at school, gets disciplined, parent calls boss (principal/athletic director), boss is all up in the teachers face for doing their job and not putting up with crap. It makes teachers not want to stand up to it in fear of making waves. The boss ALWAYS takes the side of the parent, not the teacher. Or at least in this specific case he/she does.

As the old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  Plain and simple.... some children need to be left behind.  They do not have a desire to learn and it is not and should not be the responsibility of a teacher to make that child learn.  If a parent is telling their child that a teacher is nothing more than an overpaid babysitter, it is most likely because that parent was that student.  They received nothing from school and unfortunately, that is what they are passing along to their children.  These are also the parents who think their kid is an angel and it must be the fault of the teacher.

Regardless, there is a problem and it cannot really be solved by the current processes.  They need security in schools because you have people who just don't care about learning.  They figure out other activities that they can do or groups they can get involved with, good or bad.

We try to force EVERY child into the same mold.  But, that just doesn't work.  You are setting everyone up for failure.         

Except when the simple approach ends up in a disastrous failure, as it so often does. Elegance and simplicity fail to account for the real world. The one that you live in, not the world as it is in your daydreams of Randian utopia.

It's a lot more expensive to imprison someone than it is to educate them, even when that education requires more work than normal.

I sense some inconsistency.

+++++1.

And how do you educate someone who has no desire to learn?

Sometimes I have a hard time phrasing things the way I want... let me try that first one a little better. 

15-20 years ago- "If you don't want to learn and just cause a disruption, there is the door, go visit the principle".

Today- We are going to teach in one specific manner because instead of educating we are going to see if you can just understand through repetition... What little susie?  You want to know more about X topic?  I am sorry but that is not on the standardized tests and therefore you do not need to learn about it.  What Johnny?  You have an interest in building cars???  You know how to bore and finely tune an engine but have not grasped simple division?  Tough, you must stay in school and learn because we said so.

Silly me. I actually referred to an old business text and a dictionary. Too simply elegant I guess. Process was not the same thing, isn't the same thing. Now I know where you're coming from. "There are lies, damn lies and statistics." And there is bs, damn bs, and consultant bs. People who get paid for re-interpreting and re-labeling obvious facts to ignorant managers to suit their consultant summaries. In fact your second paragraph and Ray Kroc are the justification for creating institutional memory.

Should be a lot of consultant work opening up once you eliminate all that bureaucracy. Bon Chance!

That'll teach you to use out of date documentation.
 
 :D

Great! That's what I figured.

I have a question, not really directed at you specifically but towards everyone.

What do standardized tests accomplish? Now, that so many teachers' goal is to get their students to score well on the test, what has become the goal of the test?

Listening to the talk about modern education teaching to the test, I would say the standardized test has less meaning than when I was in High School.  If students are taught that 5 x 2 =10 but don't understand what that really means, then it is essentially useless information and they will not be able to expand it to 5 x 3 = 15. That's a shame.   I am as willing as the next guy to forgive typos, I make my fair share.  Not knowing the difference among: where, wear, ware; they're, their, there; two, too, and to is really inexcusable for someone with a high school diploma.  That's where I got my idea for calling it a Certificate of Attendance in an earlier post.

I am an old guy (surprise?) and have no offspring (they would be adults by now) so I haven't kept up with the teaching methods.  I believe that classroom discipline is not what it used to be (it's worse now) but I went to school in a mixed white and blue collar neighborhood, not an inner city school.  It was public school though.

Way back before rocks turned into dirt, we were taught (hopefully) the course material.  Knowing the material allowed us to do well on the standardized test.  Like any other standard, the tests provided a basis for comparison.  In this case, a way to compare what a student learned compared to what was expected at some level beyond the local school.  It helped a college in Idaho to determine the chance for success of a student applicant from Florida or New York with some degree of certainty without knowing the details of those school districts.  As a made up (obviously exaggerated) example, if a school in Poverty, OK decided that no math was required beyond 6th grade because everyone was going to work on the farm (or bore and tune engines); a student with a diploma from that school would probably not do well in Engineering, Math, Accounting and so on in college.  The standardized test would show that.  On a realistic note, my sister started 9th grade when we moved here from PA.  Ninth grade in Bixby was essentially a repeat of 8th grade in the old hometown for her.

Two choices:

1. Force (does not work)
2. Change the way they feel about learning.

What a simpleton version of the world.

We can stop divorce if we just change the way people think about their spouse. We could just stop obesity if we change the way people feel about food. Why, I bet we could stop war if we just change the way people feel about killing.

Marriage is the leading cause of divorce.  We can stop divorce by stopping marriage.
 
 ;D

There are only two ways to end marriage. One partner watching the other one die is the preferred ending over divorce.

So do you believe that killing your spouse to watch them die is preferable to divorce?

You're a teacher.  You have a charge who is not interested in learning what you have to teach.

What do you do?

You're a sales manager. You have a salesman who is not interested in selling.

What do you do?

Remember now that you can't fire them.

Nobody said anything about killing spouses.

Ok, I guess I'll answer the question.

If he is not interested in selling, the incentive for selling is either too low or his comfort level (not to sell ) is too high.  So I adjust those.

It's always a value proposition.  If a person realizes value in taking certain actions that is greater than the value in not acting, they are likely to change their behavior.

In other words, you change the way they feel about selling.

What other way is there?

Right, which is what left that option open.  Your simple statement of watching someone die did not specify the how or why they were dying.  Perhaps the spouses could die together in a big fireball car wreck.  They probably wouldn't actually watch each other die but it would not be divorce.

(I know that is not what you meant)

How do you do that as a school? What are the incentives you can give a kid?

Remember that you have limits on your actions (no swats nor free ice cream).

These are not adults. They often come from broken homes and are very poor. Sometimes they are the only one in their family who speaks English. The state law says we will have 25 kids per classroom and suddenly you have 30. Often there are nor even enough chairs or textbooks.

The problems facing are public schools are immense. Thousands of dedicated people are doing all they can to work the problems.

It is insulting to every educator to say the simple answer to fixing education is to make kids feel differently.

RM, The solution is simple, the job is very hard.  I can't even imagine the patients it would take to do it, and when you are responsible for more children than hours in the day, there is no way that you will be able to manage that job.  

Just because the job is difficult does not change the nature or application of the solution.  Many kids may have the same set of motivations, but some will simply be motivated by other prizes.  True for all people.  

Back to the original discussion, the solution has always been to throw more money at the problem, which is in-turn used to build more complexity rather than to directly solve the problem, yet it is still proposed as the only solution.

While I agree that the problem is rarely solved by throwing money at it, it is never solved by taking money away.

The state legislature just continues to take money away from public education and now we have a state education superintendent who thinks killing public schools will make her Governor someday.

All we seem to do with our tax dollars is build museums for OKC, prisons for powerful politician's districts, and four year colleges for small towns. Just wait until they make the official ask for the hundreds of millions to fix up the state capitol building. 

None of this is applicable to Oklahoma due to the facts that RM is talking about - education is not keeping up, which means it is being cut.  If we were even in the top 1/3, then the notion about "throwing money" might be a point to look at.  But since we are about #45 or so, that whole premise is a typical Fox type BS moment - cutesy little sound bite, but only the most casual connection to planet Earth reality.

So you're saying we simply need to spend more money, and then, once that money is wasted, assess why spending more money hasn't helped anything?

Whaaaaaa?

So, you are as simplistic as Gaspar??

Oh, wait...maybe I missed something here...not reading and comprehending the last few posts?  Are you gonna try to claim "public school educated" on us?

Was there anything else I was supposed to read into that? How is throwing more money at schools not a simplistic answer?

If feel as though I've made my opinion as to what the problem with our schools is pretty clear. My solution would cost money, but would require a change in the system, which would therefore not be simply throwing more money at the schools, but a solution.

Because, it is NOT just throwing more money at it.  It is about much more, like getting to the point where we are competitive to other states in our immediate neighborhood.  It is about getting enough materials, equipment and infrastructure in the classroom, so we don't have all these local campaigns - fundraisers - to get the items needed in a classroom to conduct a class.  

Cutting class size has been the "holy grail" since I was in school, and we never had it here in Oklahoma, for either myself, my kids, and now the grandkids.  We had it in another state where I lived for a few years during elementary school.  The actual support by that school system explains why it took from 6th grade until 8th grade in Oklahoma to get into NEW material that was already covered in the other state.  This problem goes back a long, long time - and no sign of being fixed.

Change is good.  Wish we could get some.  Spending on a par with surrounding states is kind of like giving a small drink of water to someone lost for a week in the desert - the first step in change.  THEN it becomes possible to change clothes, shower and eat something.


We spend about $8,000 per year (2009) per child in public schools.  guido has mentioned a number of $30k for his two kids to go to private school (does that include books and supplies?).  Which means the private school solution is to throw $15,000 per year at the problem - almost 100% more than our public schools.  If that doesn't fit your definition of "throwing money" at the problem, I guess there is no such thing.  Texas is about $9 k - and they are going down.  National average is around $11 k.  So we are more than 3,000 behind.  About 30% increase from our current budget.  And still way behind the "private solution."

The school system is severely under-funded.  So bringing it up to the fund level it needs to at least operate is not throwing money at it, it's common sense.  Do we need to do more beyond that?  Obviously, but we have to get to that point first.  Continuing to keep the system operating on shoe string budgets because giving them enough to actually do something with would be considered throwing money at the problem is just asinine. 

If the private school presents material in about the same way as a public school, then yes, that is just throwing mney at the problem.

Why can't we add money to the schools, AND make a major change in the system at the same time. We aren't going to see any kind of major change simply by giving more funding to schools. Do they need it? Yes. Is how they operate working as well as it could? No.

That's why I feel that we should give more money to the schools only when we are ready to make a change in them. Otherwise, it's just spending more money to procrastinate on a solution.

I don't propose we keep under funding them. I propose a change in the way that schools are run and students are taught. Otherwise, giving the schools more money is simply giving more money to a broken system.

Why do we think the quality of TEACHING, which is what schools are meant to do, will increase with more funding. Sure, class sizes may be smaller, but that only helps if the teacher has the right attitude going into it. The public school (as well as certain private) teaching philosophy is flawed. That's what really needs fixed.

I said it already, but I'll say it again. My solution requires more money to be spent, but it is Presenting a solution to the problem that is only partly consisting of money. The vibe I am getting from some participating in this discussion is that the only problem with schools is that they are under funded. That is purely incorrect.

I already said we need more than just funding, but right now we need funding before anything else.  It's hard to have any teachers worth anything when other states are willing to pay them more.  What makes you so sure the system is broken?  Have you ever seen it fully funded and running?

That would be fine if there was evidence of a correlation, however there is not.  California, Nevada, New Mexico, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Hawaii, and DC all spend far more than we do, and produce lower performance.  Then there are states like Utah and Idaho that spend far less and perform unbelievably higher. http://www.census.gov/govs/school/

To say that we have to "keep up with the Jones'" just for the sake of spending money does not address the problem, however it does represent classical liberal entitlement philosophy. "They are spending more, so we should spend more. They have more, so I should have more."

Throwing more money at the problem is not a solution, it's a symptom of the problem itself. This is the Oroboros. I am fine with increasing funding to education if there is a return, however we keep doing it without return.

Here is the kernel of your mistake. "....once that money is wasted...". You assume a negative, then no further argument is acceptable. No details of waste, no description of amount, nothing to back up the statement other than common belief.

How indeed does one look at a 45th out of 50 states in per pupil expenditure then say we are spending too much money and can't throw anymore at it to solve the problem?

Bear in mind, Gas has a feature on his software that drops the words, "entitlement philosophy, liberal, unions, wasteful government spending" and a host of other phrases into every missive. He then must fashion sentences around those phrases.

The link is problematic. He leads you to believe that it makes his point but it requires you to download excel documents to do so and strangely, there is no document related to the likely spurious correlations he made regarding the results of those two small, sparsely populated, high per capita income states. Well, maybe not so strange....

Bottom line. There is no evidence he produced that would show how spending less money on education would correlate with increased performance on a ceteris paribus basis. With few exceptions when you spend 30% less on a product you cannot expect it to outperform it competitors.

While there is a problem with TPS, I think the overall problem is statewide.  OK has way too many school districts which absorb money for administration.  Now for some data that will probably just confuse the situation.

OK has 603 school districts for a total of 626,160 Students.  Approx 1038 per district.  27258 "other than teacher" staff, which is 45 staff per district.
KS has 308 districts for a total of 470,500 students/1527 per district.  25115 staff/81 per district.
ARK has 341 and 454,523/1332 per. 27791 staff/81 per district
Utah has 60 and 491,206/ 8186 per.  13,459 staff/ 224 per district
Kent has 196 and 663,886/3387 per.  41553 staff/ 212 per district
LA has 86 and 727,709/8461 per.  42865 staff/ 498 per district
TX has 1265 and 4,331,751/3424 per.  256,815 staff/ 203 per district
OH has 895 and 1,845,428/2061 per.  105,706 staff/ 118 per district

Now I am not going to sit and say that there is any connection between these items, but OK has the least amount of students and staff per district and it is consistantly ranked in the bottom 5 in the nation.  I am almost willin to say that if you pull the data for the other consistent low ranked states you would find some ties to either being too high or too low from the average.


I did just check an article from the Tulsaworld that stated in 2010 the average pay for a superintendent is $97,000 for an annual outlay of $58,491,000... I don't even want to know the cost for benefits.

This popped up on my feed.

http://49thisnotok.org/write/ (http://49thisnotok.org/write/)

The site makes it easy to contact your rep about flat funding for education.

There's a link included to look up your district.

If you are spending that "on the product" rather than in the institution that produces the product. How many more levels shall we create?  

I suppose you see no fault in the population of 200K administrators and mid-managers to oversee teaching Johnny how to read?

Liberals want progressive solutions to problems, right?  Why not with education?   Why do they work so hard to protect the increased funding of the status quo?

Why do they attack when people propose change over just spending?  

Why are they so quick to blame the kids?

Read back through this thread and see who is defending the education of the children vs who is defending the institution.

The rural districts imo are where our poorest returns exist. We spend more by not consolidating them and don't show any remarkable performance in exchange. Sometimes the rural administrators/board members are the highest paid residents of the county. Then those excessive administrative costs get averaged into the total to skew the statewide results.

I see your software gave you a new word, "they". Powerful word, that.

Would you say that money spent on institution does not have a direct influence on money spent on product? Or that in most instances they are one and the same? You would if you're being honest and not doctrinaire.

When Chrysler spent tons of money, (some of it government $) on R&D to create a new generation of X cars, mini-vans and performance vehicles it was pretty hard to deny the resulting success. It also increased dramatically the amount spent on the institution and the manufacture of the product. 

I like where you are now headed with this.  Why don't we explore increases in per-student spending and see if we can establish a correlation?

Do you want to go there?  ;)

Not if you do. ;)

I wouldn't find that helpful anyway. You like to look at everything as business. So, you know that focusing on per unit cost can be deceiving. For instance, the cost of a Corvette in 1973 was around $5500. GM probably sold 15,000 of them. By 1980 the cost of a Corvette with primarily style changes in the previous 7 years had grown to nearly $20,000 as GM decided to sell fewer units at much larger margins. In fact they did that across the product line. That yielded an increase in per unit cost but a great bottom line increase as well.

Car manufacturers at least have a comparable measure of their success each year....net profit. In education the criteria for success are not that easily pinned down. They are primarily testing, graduation rates and successful college applications. All suspect as meaningful or even trustworthy.

LOL!  Excellent job in pre-qualifiying the debate!

So, we can't use testing, graduation, or college applications as measure of success. :D 

What do you suppose we use as a meaningful indicator?

This should be rich.

And Idaho is one of those where they have just started (2008-2009) to do major cuts in their education spending, so the results are likely to take at least a few years to filter through.  But they are in a race to the bottom and will get there.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/may/31/idaho-ranks-low-falling-school-spending/

College graduation or vo-tech graduation, and employment with accompanying self-sufficiency are the only valid measures of success.

Its not that reliable measures are not available.
 
Its that we can't agree on one any more than we can all agree on anything else. Texas considers it a success if students pass a course on Creationism. Utah may be happy with acceptance of Mormons as Christians. Kansas may only find home schoolers who think dinosaurs walked with humans as success. Idaho may think that being able to break down a rifle and re-assemble it in 10 seconds is success. And in Oklahoma it may be acceptance of personhood beginning at two weeks before conception as successful, meaningful education.

And in some people's world, rich, is what is considered a meaningful indicator of education.

Not to be too glib...I have to go back to work now and prove the value of my education, though my wife is becoming more and more suspicious of that each paycheck.

You can't be that simple.

All testing does is capture a student's snapshot in time.

Let's take a school that has 50% of the students passing the test in 3rd grade and 75% of the kids passing the test next year as 4th graders. Compare that to a school where 90% of the kids pass the test as 3rd graders and then having 90% of the kids pass the test as a 4th grader.

Which teacher did the better job? According to your simple answer, the second teacher did a better job because more of her kids passed the test.

What is better evaluation is what TPS has starting doing.
http://www8.tulsaschools.org/4_About_District/academic_performance_main.asp

This has gotten interesting.  

Apparently the argument has now morphed.  Our schools are not failing, it's just that we are testing the wrong things. 8)  How stupid of me!

They need an ever increasing budget to test the right things. . .right? . . .and additional layers of administration and complexity assure that.

Just because Johnny can't get into college, or tell you how many States there are, or who the first president was, or how to calculate change for a dollar does not mean he was failed by his teachers.  It means that he was just tested incorrectly or at the wrong time.

Come on!  People have been educating children for thousands of years.  Sure, methods of teaching have changed, but at the end of the day, the child either knows that 2 + 2 = 4, or he does not.  Tinkering with the definition of "4" changes nothing.  

My 2 cents as a non-parent?

We truly will not have change in public schools until the PARENTS GET MORE INVOLVED.  I'm not saying that you guys don't.  But overall as opposed to the past?  How many parents now are involved in PTA?  How many parents shoo off their children when they need real help with homework?

Remember, the teaching begins in the home.  I was never fortunate enough to have children.  I have, however, watched my younger brother bring up three incredibly smart and gifted children.  And it wasn't from letting them run wild and rampant after school or ignoring their teachers, either.

We've been told over and over by Jenks SE parents "the difference is the parents are involved".  We now live in Jenks SE district.

Back on page one of this - that was one of my original comments - all the teachers I know have always said that is the biggest problem they face beyond the actual mechanics of having adequate tools available.

Lousy administration is usually a close second.

As for schools actually failing...well that is an ever changing spectrum that moves from one end to the other over time.  Heard last week that Nathan Hale is on to be taken over by the state.    It has obviously changed a lot over the years in spite of what appears to be at least some level of parental participation (not close enough to see if more or less than previous years) and a semi-active alumni association that does things from time to time for the school.

We have always had 25% drop out rate.  And parts of McGuffy's reader seemed a lot harder than what I had to study.  There appears to be an ongoing 'watering down' of curriculum.  Makes it tough to pass the end of school tests.

Ok, so whats your plan to get these bad parents to be good parents?   Perhaps walk up to them and say "Hey you! yea you over there! be a good parent!"   That ought to do it.  Problem solved.  Right?   I can see them all scratching their heads and going "Oh?  Wow, thanks for telling me that, it had just never occurred to me."  "Gosh I am glad you were there to tell me I needed to be a good parent, I wouldn't have known to do that otherwise."

Never said I had a plan, William.  It's not my place to do so.  My SUGGESTION is that parents get more involved.  Do you have children?  I'm just curious.

Parenting should be like driving.  Take a course, get a license before you do it.  Although that's not realistic, I know I'm not the only who thinks that way.

Passing tests was part of my college days.  Taking tests in High School was good preparation for that.

lack of parental involvement is one of the biggest problems facing the school systems (lack of proper funding being another, a crappy curriculum is yet another).  It's also the one problem we really can't do anything about.  As far as taking a course?  I've yet to find someone who has actually figured out how to raise every kid.  Sure, this method might have worked with johnny, but poor tom still is having trouble even though the same method is being used on him.  Come to think of it, this is another problem in the classroom, they try to treat them all like they are all alike.  

I'm sure not too much has changed in that time period, so I'm would go out on a limb and say that just like today the instructors in college put together their own tests which matches what and how they were teaching.  Not to mention most college students ask around and find what instructors are best suited to what they are trying to do (learn something, get an easy a, be challenged). 

If only 50% of the 3rd grade students pass "the test" in 3rd grade and then only 75% of them pass the 3rd grade test as 4th grade students, maybe some of them should have repeated 3rd grade.  Maybe they just haven't matured enough and need to be held back a year to catch up.  I wouldn't necessarily flunk a kid based solely on a written test score.  Other evaluation methods should be available for poor test takers that actually have learned the material.

I took my 2nd college literature course from the same prof as my first lit course partly because I got a B and partly because the prof presented material in an interesting manner.  She explained the social events going on when the books were written and they made a lot more sense.

Courses in engineering were a lot more limited in choosing when you took a course and who taught it.  The options of what courses to take were also pretty well defined with most semesters at 18 hours each.

Hey, even licensed drivers are pretty stupid!

"Parental involvement" is like a bumper sticker. If you mean PTA, back to school nite, parent/teacher conferences, fundraisers, help with homework, then yes, that is good to be involved and it is usually associated with performing students. It is not a necessary component for performing students. Some parents are just poorly prepared for any parenting at all. Do you really want them involved?

If you knew the many tasks and roles that teachers, counselors, security, police, administrators, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and others all perform as "in situ" parents you would simply be amazed. To criticize them for students performance as though they were solely responsible is pretty offensive to those who see and work with these kids every day.

Discipline, structure, compassion and social skills are huge deficits these kids bring with them from parents who are poorly educated, whose parents beat them, who are stressed economically and who often see their kids as either an anchor or a meal ticket. This all didn't just start in 2008. These problems have been building for a long time. The best solution is more widespread economic stability for lower and middle class segments, basic levels of funding that aren't dependent upon political dogma and the ship will start to right itself within a decade. Anything else is just pure bs.

From your link.
I hope the instructor teaching about airplanes knows more about airplanes than the author of this:
(Emphasis is mine.)



Cessna 150s were never a four-seat airplane.  There are two adult seats and an optional/auxiliary seat primarily for children.  The limit for the seat is about 120 lb maximum.  The seat is in the baggage area behind the pilot.  The auxiliary seat and passenger weight are in place of baggage, not in addition to baggage.  The auxiliary seat was available from the earliest model 150 in 1959 through at least 1969.  I have only personally seen one Cessna 150 with the auxiliary seat.  I know of one more from a friend.  Overall, it appears to have not been a popular option.  That is all the newer my information goes.  The 150 was produced into the early 70s when it was replaced by the 152.

Some way the kids must be convinced that economic stability is related to education.  If not, the ship will continue to list.

Without a doubt. The teachers as leaders are competing with TV, internet, music, casino's, lotteries and criminal industries who argue against them. Guess who's winning?

I know this is Oklahoma but I am going to add sports.  Sports is a high profile way out of poverty but only for a very few in the big scheme of things.  For those who make it, if they never learned enough to manage their life and money, they will end up poor again.

Agreed.

No I do not have children. 

Didn't mean to sound harsh or anything.   Just voicing the frustration of seeing and hearing the comments "It's the parents fault."  "The parents should be involved more".  etc.  over and over.  People often say that and then think they have come up with the solution, problem solved, put a smug look on their face and the conversation moves on to a different topic.   But if they were to think it through for only a moment, you would then see that in order to get these people to somehow be "good parents, etc"  it would require even more work, thought, volunteering and or bureaucracy, money, etc. than it would to get the kids to learn.  You would basically have to set up a whole other costly system of education/motivation/enticement, etc. for these adults.  Who would pay for that and or volunteer to do it?  And then we are essentially right back where we are now arguing about how best to do just that, but now on two fronts.  Part of the key imo is to remember that, todays kids are tomorrows parents.  Perhaps if we are in an area where parenting skills/life habits are lacking, then thats something we should be emphasizing and teaching in the schools.  Perhaps thats just as basic and essential a set of skills to learn, or even more so, as the three R's?   

You can't.  Bad parents don't always produce bad kids though.  So you can't give 100% of the blame to a busy mom or dad. The child can be empowered to make marvelous improvements in their own lives in a number of ways, but sometimes I think our Public school system prevents, or acts as an obstacle to that because of how it structures what a child can and cannot have responsibility over.  

Basically, there is so much focus on structure, to provide equality in education from child to child, that exceptional qualities like leadership, and creativity are discouraged.

The British and Indian educational system in many ways offers an interesting model that we might take a few pointers from.  The administration has far fewer tiers, and the curriculum is strictly set by the state and branches off at about age 16 when kids are allowed to pursue specialized focuses.  That's not the interesting part though, the culture of the schools encourages the opposite of American public schools.

First, the house system still exists in most schools, where children are put in different houses or classes that then compete against each other academically, athletically, and intramurally.  This creates a community that I think kids need.  Kids are going to do this anyway because it's natural, but without such a system, it morphs into what we have here, where each sport becomes a click, and the kids not involved in those sports in many cases create their own "houses" in the form of gangs and other primitive community structures.

Second, the cultural norm is that the younger kids admire and "serve" the older kids in exchange for inclusion in activities and respect. Basically a fraternity type system.  Basically the older you are the more you are expected to act as a role-model, mentor, and "executive" over the younger kids.  In many cases, when younger kids get in trouble with a proctor, the older children in the "house" are punished for allowing it to happen.  

This system gives a great deal of responsibility to kids that grows as they mature.  Their class becomes, in many cases, their family, and the necessity (while it still certainly exists and is important) for constant parental oversight is less critical to the development of a child's understanding of responsibility.

I have a very close Indian friend who grew up in GB and Mumbai, and is very passionate about how the British model could improve our education system.  The more I am exposed to the system through my own kids, the more I realize that he has a point.  We do the opposite.  We discourage competition between classes and children because it's "unfair."  We do not engage the development of structured communities among classes or kids, and, as I learned last night from my daughter, they are not even allowed to sit with the same kids every day for lunch.  This forces kids to develop these groups on their own and create the hierarchy on their own, which is usually primitive and more tribal, or gang like.

I think this may be worth more exploration.

But the schools shouldn't be free babysitters.  They weren't that when I went to public school and I turned out ok.

We have been meaning to talk to you about that.

In case anybody was wondering, this thread topic, public school policy, is one of the few thing one CAN get a masters in at OSU-Tulsa.  My wife is working on her masters in this subject now.

We're taking an all day class next Saturday.  No license though.

Yes, there needs to be remedial parenting for many people. 

And yes, it IS the parents fault - at least for the vast majority of poorly performing kids.  The parents are absentee's.  They are either too busy with their own lives (the BEST possible case), or sitting stoned or drunk in front of the TV when they aren't out chasing down the next hit of meth or crack or heroin or the mind warp du jour.  And when they have lost every job they get, then they start stealing ("dumpster diving for copper that someone just left laying around), breaking into houses/businesses, committing robbery, or hooking (trading sex for either drugs or cash to get drugs.) 

Check your local elementary school - pick one at random - and ask how many of the kids show up every morning without having breakfast (or dinner the night before.)  Way too many!  And then, if you can look at the parents behind those kids, you will find the majority in that drugged out cycle of sh$t.

Teachers here (or spouses of teachers who have heard the stories) - agree?  Disagree?

It is not foreign to TPS. You have just described the system my youngest son went through at Mayo starting 13 years ago. The structure and techniques they used were based on then current studies on how the brain processes and sociology. It was open architecture but divided into segments (houses) as you describe with emphasis on older student mentoring. Kids progressed in subjects at different speeds and thus migrated within the group to the level they were ready for. To guard against claims of cherry picking students, parents from all over the city were invited to apply and great effort was made to assemble an economically, racially and socially diverse student body. It worked very well and was intended to be used as training for teachers to implement in other schools.

I was quite pleased to be part of a recent field trip with kids in a West Tulsa school and watched as the teachers were using crowd control techniques that obviously came from the Mayo experience. The kids behaviors were fantastic yet they were still having fun. You know, even though the Mayo formula worked well (my kid loved it and is now finishing the high school IB program and headed for college) it was controversial and considered elitist by other parents and schools. Even success in TPS is met with hostility. The principal who successfully led the program was moved up to train other schools in how to implement it.

Yes, but it is not a majority. Public schools are a microcosm of the community at large. Some schools seem unaffected (Patrick Henry) others are disaster zones (Frost comes to mind). Even Lee had a parent who would walk up the street begging money after dropping his kids off. Talk about cross culturalism.

If the burbs and the private schools handled the same percentage of special needs and low income households as TPS does, their performance numbers would be drastically different. Poverty and crime are focused in certain areas of the city and the schools in those areas have the lowest performance.

I hear less about drug use and crime than I do about endemic indifference or hostility towards education.  My wife has had students tell her "My mom says you are just an overpaid babysitter."  Or better yet, "you can't punish me, My mom will come and beat you up."  Apparently the latter has happened.

What is it now, about three months away?

Yep.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5IWHt4OoNk[/youtube]

That's where the remedial parenting might help.  Perhaps a "court" like environment where parents could be held responsible and assigned educational opportunities - kind of like "grown up" court where there is community service or assigned classes.

Very difficult problem.

I wonder if this has any chance of further investigation or traction.  Many of the problems we encounter in the public school system are related to pressures that students place on each other due to the lack of a "structured" outlet for the basic social desire to be a member of a group.  

As children, before we develop/choose our individual identities, it is common for us to affix ourselves to people, groups, or ideologies that give us an identity we like, or separate us from identities we dislike.  Because the school does not foster a structure for this, kids have to develop this on their own, and frankly, when you are that young, you make some idiotic decisions because you are not equipped to forecast the outcome of your choices.  

This is not to suppress "individuality", it's just that many elementary and high-school kids base the development of their individual identities on attention seeking endevors over achievement, skills, or unique gifts.  They are developing individuality without the necessary information or skills to promote happiness in the identity they choose.  Sometimes this only results in wasted years, but other times it results in misery, disfigurement, disability, incarceration, or death.

Requiring kids to wear uniforms is a powerful step in eliminating some of the primary influences that force them to identify with a group. Simple observations that even my 6yo can make, "Johnny is poor," or "Susie is rich," or "Timmy is weird" are mitigated through unified dress.  It forces the child to make character judgements using a different criteria rather than artifactic adornment or appearance.

Then providing the kids with a group identity (house or team) within the school that has structure and can develop heritage, removes the need to seek this group identity elsewhere.  Providing mentors within these groups, gives kids an exposure to good and bad leadership at a young age, and also gives the older students an opportunity to develop the skills necessary to be benevolent leaders rather than overlords.

The final positive step is to create an atmosphere of competition between students and groups. I think that would be the hardest thing to accomplish in our current psychobabble addicted society.  We are going so fast in the opposite direction, trying to eliminate competitive environments, soften failure, and re-defign success in order to make all of our little snowflakes feel like winners, that to create an environment where one group can win, and the other can lose, as a means of personal development, is blasphemous.

I would like to hear you public school haters on why some public schools are doing so well. Some of you guys seem to spew commentary about how everything is taught wrong and the teachers can't motivate kids to learn, yet many of our local schools seem to be doing very well.

Here is a good example. Hoover Elementary is in a moderate neighborhood (23rd and Darlington, just southest of Expo Square. They are 48% white, with Hispanic, African American, and American Indian students evenly splitting up the remainder. 71% of the kids qualify for reduced or free lunch based on their household income.  

By your mindset, the teachers must be failures and the kids ignorant.

Yet the teachers succeed every day in teaching the kids. Of the 39 staff members, 19 have Bachelor degrees and 20 have a Masters degree. 24 of the teachers have been there 11+ years. The daily attendance for the 568 kids is 94%. The test scores exceed the state target by 20 to 30% in every subject.

This school is succeeding despite many challenges. But I am afraid it can't continue this success with continual reduced funding from the state. The legislature cut almost $100 million dollars out of the education budget last year and you could see a direct correlation with Hoover's class sizes growing and test scores down about two points in every subject. The average class size is now going to increase by another one or two children next year. The average class size in high school is now going to be 29 students

State surplus revenues are not going back into education funding. 75 more teachers will be cut this. Counselors, clerks and coaches will be cut. Most art programs are now at risk. All tutoring programs will be eliminated next year.

Some public schools are succeeding wonderfully, yet the continual budget cuts are threatening even these best schools. It is time to say no more cuts to education, especially in a surplus year when they are talking about reducing taxes.

What is it about this school/teachers/parents/students that the others don't have or do?

No one is calling all public schools bad, or all teachers bad, or all public school students ignorant.  We are only commenting on where the money is spent and why there is such a struggle.  The debate is about math, and waste.

Hoover is an excellent school with excellent teachers.  The state currently takes in approximately $4.8 million dollars in taxes every year to support this single school (around 570-650 students).  The question becomes, why does it cost $7,500-$8,000 per student?  Where is that money actually spent, and why do some schools with twice that budget produce a lesser educational product?  Conversely, why can schools with smaller budgets produce superior educational products?

A single classroom size of 29 students at Hoover represents over $230,000 in school money every year, more than enough to split that classroom in two, give the teacher a raise, pay for supplies, and facility maintenance and transportation.  So, there are obviously other expenses that must come into play outside of the educational experience that are NOT contributing to the excellence produced at Hoover.

That's where the debate is.

We moved our kids from a Montessori program to Jenks SE, and they adapted amazingly well.  Jenks manages to get fantastic results with some of the lowest per pupil spending and higher-than-average pupil to teacher ratio (18:1 vs. 15:1 state average).  Sort of blows Heir’s supposition that the classroom size hasn’t improved since he was in school.  I recall 25-30 kids in a classroom as a rule rather than exception when I was in public school.  I’d say that’s an improvement.  Also according to this source, JPS spends about $7200 per pupil.

http://www.education.com/schoolfinder/us/oklahoma/district/jenks-school-district/

Excerpts from this .pdf of the 2008-2009 annual report makes for an interesting read:


Yet, JPS consistently produces great students?  What’s the secret?  Are they hand-picked like many private schools? No.  Is the housing so expensive it keeps lower income students out?  No.  In fact, Jenks’ district encompasses lower income apartment complexes, trailer parks, and affordable neighborhoods.

2008-2009 report: http://www.jenksps.org/pages/uploaded_files/Jenks_AR_08_09%20compressed.pdf
2009-2010 report: http://www.jenksps.org/pages/uploaded_files/JenksAnnualReport0910%20reduced.pdf

These are the last two reports on the JPS web site.  In the ’09/10 report it says future funding cuts from the state would create special challenges.  I highly recommend you read both reports if you want an idea of what a well-run school district looks like.  Spending per pupil isn’t much of a yard stick if a district is inefficient and top-heavy on administrative and facility costs.

JCNOwasso presented probably the most outrageous statistic of all, and one which I’ve seen before: Oklahoma has many more school districts per pupil than our neighboring states.  

Unfortunately, public education has been treated like pork in Oklahoma for decades just like our penal system and university/college system.  We have far more duplication in costly facilities and administrative positions than we really need.  Less fiscally-minded legislators have helped create the sprawl as it’s increased employment in their district.  More fiscally-minded haven’t wanted to risk raising unemployment in their districts so they restrict funding rather than simply owing up to the idea there’s no need for five school districts in a 10 square mile area.  It’s a way to get re-elected by either "bringing in jobs" or “cleaning up waste in government expenditures”.

At some point when Oklahoma was much more of an agrarian state, it made sense to have school districts which were reasonably close to a number of kids so they could walk or bike to school, their parents could get them there conveniently, or so that kids didn’t need to be on a school bus 4 hours a day.  We simply don’t need that many districts to serve 77 counties.

Finally: If more spending is THE solution, I’ve got to ask:  

Do you really think there are teachers out there who would say: “I’d be a much better teacher if they paid me $10,000 more per year!”  If a teacher thinks a simple raise will make them better at their job, they are in the wrong line of work.

Do smart boards make for smarter students or better results?  Everyone in my generation came from blackboards and text books with computers just coming into the classroom.  If you needed to to advanced research for a project, you had to get on a bus or talk your parents into taking you to   the city library.   We couldn’t look things up on line.  However, look at today’s generation of business leaders, leading researchers, legal minds, and medical minds- many are from the same era I am when spending per pupil was even less and we had far less ways to collect information to learn from.

I agree, there are certainly things like the computer which have revolutionized the educational process, and then again there are things I’d classify as nothing more than gizmos created to rake in profit off school districts with all sorts of suspect promises.  I suspect e-readers and iPads or their equivalent will be the next learning revolution.  Certainly, there’s never been more information available to students than today, and I’d think with the advent of being able to cut out paper waste, school districts should be able to operate at a lower expense.

Those of us who don’t believe throwing more money at a problem aren’t being cheap or not considering consequences.  And I don’t think there’s anyone here who believes blindly cutting school funding is any wiser than blindly raising it.  At least from Gaspar or ZYX’s posts and knowing where I stand, we are simply saying that unless you really take a look at things like how many non-educational jobs are funded by a school district, how much is being wasted on out-dated facilities, or how much is wasted on new un-needed facilities like indoor baseball training centers you can’t possibly make a blanket statement that funding should be raised or cut for that matter.  However, there’s some odd correlations between the districts with highest expenditures having worse outcomes.  

You can’t simply raise a budget because it makes you feel good or because another district raised theirs.  You have to expect that additional expense or investment is going to provide desired results or a return.  You have got to put some sort of measurable yardstick on what the results are and establish a system of accountability as well.  Standardized tests are the only way to get an accurate measurement of how one districts students stack up against all other students.  Districts which exhibit wasteful practices (again not a hard yardstick to fashion- compare non-educator jobs and facility costs vs. total budgets) shouldn’t get more funding until they can demonstrate they have addressed their waste issues.

Take a closer look at the aspects not related to funding in successful districts and I suspect you will find your best solutions.

I don't know the answer. They are not the top school in Tulsa, yet they had kept succeeding until the last couple of years of budget cuts.

Many people think you have to go to Jenks or Union to get a good education, yet both of those districts have made their reputation on their excellent high schools. Tulsa Public has the best elementaries in the area, but also the worst.

As a parent who lives in a school boundary with a subpar school, I did my homework and applied for the magnet programs. Now, the parents at my kid's schools hold continual fundraisers to help fund arts and computer programs and teaching assistants.

I just learned that one of my favorite counselors at my daughter's school is being laid off. Years ago she motivated my son to learn chess as a hobby and he went on to win three consecutive Tulsa School championships. Next year she will be out of teaching.  

Aside from great educators, I suspect it has a fair amount to do with what sort of families live in the area.  I live a few blocks away, most of the neighborhood kids I personally know of come from two parent homes.  I’m sure there are also plenty of single parent kids as well, I simply do not know them or their families.  The neighborhood housing is affordable enough that many families could get by on a single income, but it’s nice enough that rents and home prices tend to discourage seedier elements from creeping into the neighborhood which usually typify areas where schools have more of an “at risk” status.

If I were a good teacher and I knew there were a few schools in the district with better parental participation, better standardized test scores, other teachers who cared, and really great administration, I’d want to work at one of them.  The results at Hoover are really nothing new, as far as I know.  I suspect better teachers are easily attracted to such a school.

Let’s be honest here, if a child grows up in a good relationship with two successful adults as role models, they are far more likely to expect success of themselves than if they grow up with one or two parents who can’t hold down a job, have substance abuse issues, or whose paradigm is nothing but hopelessness and helplessness.

When I was in the Jaycees, we had “adopted” Hoover as our school.  I suspect community partnership programs have helped Hoover as well.

The average income per household for Jenks Southeast is twice the amount of Tulsa for one.

But look what has happened to Jenks Southeast since the legislature has been aggressively taking money away.

Here are the test scores for third grade at this school (first year of testing)

2008 Math 98  reading 100
2009 Math 94  reading 95
2010 Math 93  reading 91

http://www.schoolreportcard.org/DistListWebOutput.asp

Yes, even the mighty and rich Jenks Schools test scores are dropping like flies.

Thank you Oklahoma legislature. You guys must just want a stupid populace.

According to my daughter's first grade teacher at Jenks, that has little to do with funding, and more to do with the changing composition of her class.  She has several bright young students who's parents are very involved, yet they don't speak a word of english.  Though the teacher speaks Spanish, teaching english as a second language on top of the standard curriculum is far more challenging than teaching a class of native English speakers.

While this is a typical challenge faced by schools in other parts of Tulsa, it is relatively new to Jenks based on exactly what you cited as income statistics in the area.  As the area has developed over the years the density has also increased and rental options built in the 90s that used to go for $800/mo are now available for $400/mo.  The 91st and Delewhere apartment offerings are very attractive for families who can't afford a South Tulsa home but want their kids in a South Tulsa school.  

The positive is that the parents willing to make that sacrifice and relocate for the sake of education are usually some of the most involved, despite cultural obstacles. Jenks will simply have to adapt.  Jenks SE teachers are fantastic. All you need to do is tour a Jenks SE classroom to realize that money is not the problem. The classroom resources they have at their disposal are phenomenal.  Smart boards in every classroom, amplified wireless microphones, computers, books, and supplies that require creative solutions just to find storage for.  

Involvement by parents at Jenks SE is so intense that parking becomes the biggest challenge.  

So which is it?  Higher household income or more spending that makes a difference?  I thought the results were highly dependent on how much money the schools spend.

Really?

I know quite a few Jenks teachers and they are all, every single one of them, up in arms over class size and funding. They do toss some of the blame at Kirby but mostly at the state. My son's fifth class has 28 or 29 students in a room built for a class with more like 20 kids. The teachers are getting overwhelmed. My son gets very little homework anymore simply because the teachers can’t grade all of it. The difference from five years ago when my daughter was in fifth grade is striking. I’m not shocked test scores are going down, I’m shocked they aren’t down even more.


Don’t confuse the outstanding funding for capital projects and facilities that Jenks gets from bond issues with state funding problems that impact teacher pay and class size. Jenks has access to all the local money they want through bond issues, but that money by law has to be spent on capital projects. They stretch the definition of capital pretty far already.

Swake, when I went to Jenks 25 to 30 per class was the norm.  English, science, math, social studies, PE didn’t matter, it was 25 to 30 students middle school through high school with the exception of some elective classes which might be smaller.  The teachers didn’t have a problem assigning and grading copious amounts of homework back then.  There were also far fewer resources available to teachers back then.  They didn’t have instant communication with parents via email or internet-based blackboard sites to keep assignments straight.

What’s changed that has made it so difficult for these teachers when it wasn’t an overwhelming problem 30 years ago with even fewer resources at their disposal?

Maybe you missed this TulsaWorld story, gaspar (or more likely, you didn't remember it because it was in conflict with your beliefs).

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=19&articleid=20120411_19_A1_ULNSrn828293

administrator: Schools' crowded classes 'an embarrassment'
By KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer
Published: 4/11/2012  

JENKS - With the city's rapid growth and a school district still reeling from years of state funding cuts, school administrators continue to struggle to find a solution to overcrowded classes. "Class sizes in some areas are abysmal," Jenks Superintendent Kirby Lehman said at a recent school board meeting.

"It's such an embarrassment. As class sizes creep up, it makes me sweat. It's not good for us, and it's not good for the kids."

He fears students will pay the ultimate price for the class-size crunch. "It's hard for elementary school students to learn well in a class of 27," Lehman said. "I have a strong feeling about this. We want to have a quality education system."

Jenks isn't the only school district in Oklahoma experiencing such problems, particularly with diminishing state aid. But in the Tulsa area, Jenks appears to be feeling it more acutely than many because of its population boom. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's population rose 77 percent between 2000 and 2010.

This year, Jenks has had an influx of more than 400 students while seeing more than $2 million cut from the budget, school officials say. State per-pupil spending at Jenks has trended lower for years. Per-pupil spending was at $6,293 in 2009-10, compared with projected per-pupil spending at $5,830 in 2011-12.

"Our state aid is back to 2004 levels, yet our district has gained nearly 1,700 students over that time," Jenks Middle School Principal Rob Miller said. "Without increases to state aid in future years, we will continue to be challenged by very large class sizes."

Smaller class sizes, especially from kindergarten to third grade, significantly boost student achievement, according to a study published last year in the Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics.

In Jenks, the average class size at the fourth-grade level is 28.4, meaning some classes have 30 or more students. The average for the district's kindergarten classes is 26.2 students, Lehman said. "We're expecting significant student growth next year. What we're asking for is to get fourth-grade classes down to perhaps 25," he said.

Lehman said the district has stellar programs that administrators have chosen to keep. "We keep programs that are good. But if we don't have appropriate funding in place, something has to give," he said. Clearly, the district needs to hire more staff, said Jenks Deputy Superintendent Stacey Butterfield. Ninety-five percent of the district's budget is used for personnel, and cuts have left the coffers dry, she said.

The Jenks school board is considering lowering the district's fund balance, which is similar to a savings account, by 1 percent to hire more teachers and staff. The district currently requires that 8 percent of its operating funds be set aside. The fund balance can't drop too low because it is used for the first month's payroll next year, which comes before the state makes its initial payment to districts. The extra 1 percent would free up $627,000 to hire more teachers and support staff, Lehman said.

He also has spoken out against legislative efforts to reduce personal income taxes, which provide a major source of funding to support state services such as transportation, public safety and education. Jenks and all other Oklahoma schools simply can't take further cuts, Lehman said. "We have wonderful programs. That's part of why we're a great school," he said. "But I don't think we'll be a great school if we don't do something about class size."

Same here.  I always had 25-30 or more kids per class, and there was no such thing as a "teaching assistant" as my kids teachers have now. 

Today my daughter's whole class had a field-trip to the Jenks High School Planetarium, built on the exact spot of my 9th grade history class, where I used to throw gummy bears at the ceiling and learn about dead dudes.

I don't think I ever had a class with less than 20 kids?

Hmmm, crickets.

Pay me more for less work and worse results!

Test scores mean nothing. For all we know, those teachers could be teaching strictly for the test and that is why the scores are so high. Most likely this is not the case with the majority of teachers. However, there are probably some who do, just like in any school which places a priority on standardized testing.

For all I know, Hoover could be a great school filled with great teachers. For all I know, it could be just the opposite. This is not an attack on teachers, because there are many fantastic ones out there. I've just come across so many that aren't that I have become immune to the "meaning" of test scores. I don't qualify them as a reliable way to determine the quality of a school.

While I don't believe Gaspar is lying, this is much more of the vibe I receive from Jenks teachers as well.

gaspar just knows a teacher who whines about having hispanic kids in her class.

Of course, he believes her version of the story because it seems to make sense to him.

If the legislature had intelligent people voting for them, they would not be in office, so yeah, they want a stupid populace.  And they got it in great part because they DO keep getting elected.

Union is having problems.  I had a kid living with me for three years until last year attending Union intermediate on Garnett, north of 81st.  She had 25 to 30 in her classes.  She said Union was, and I quote, "so ghetto..."!  And this is a kid who KNOWS ghetto from living in one in southeast area of Louisiana.  

Then proceeded to describe the drugs just outside the doors, the kids having sex in various places around the school - mostly outdoors, but some inside.  Weapons from time to time - mostly knives.  Good times!!  Just like I remember from high school!!!

No school system is immune (I can remember some of the Catholics from Holland Hall when I was a kid who were VERY fun to party with...and since they were rich, they always had the best party supplies) to problems.  Jenks and Union may have some areas that are better than average - but maybe not - and they do have parents who tend to be more active, but in somewhat more denial.

Does anyone remember my comments about concentric rings of decay?  A good deal of union schools was building the late 70's early 80's.  Thirty years later and the honkeys have run even further out from city center (Think 101st and what the hell in broken arra).  When that happens the 20-30 yeard houses turn into rent properties and decay (they wern't meant to last longer than 50 years anyway) and lead to suburban slums.  Look at north or east Tulsa.  As long as people maintain this racist notion about what it means to be "in the city" we will have flight out to the boonies.  The socially and economically marginallized will get the left-overs of an older generation of white flight.  The only good thing is that I know where those psuedo-klan, redneck, inhoff voting mouthbreathers are - nowhere near my awesome kid!

(Sorry for my ranty thread drift.  I'm in a weird mood.)

For the record, My wife and I (ok mostly her) have decided that our daughter WILL be attending public school.

Whether it is/was white flight or rich people just wanting something else or newer, "The socially and economically marginallized will get the left-overs of an older generation".  It's called affordable housing in most cities.

Part of it, and this will sound bad but it true, part of it is the mainstreaming of special needs kids. Kids that used to not be in regular classrooms or even in regular schools now take up huge chunks of teachers time. Special needs kids are a big part of the big run up over the last 20 years the cost of public education. I understand that it's better for these kids to be with regular students but if that's going to be the case class sizes have to be smaller.

Teachers aren't as good as they used to be either. Don't get me wrong, there are still many excellent teachers but the career options for women used to be very limited and education was a place that talented women could find a good job. But over the last few decades teacher pay compared to other jobs has declined and women now have many career options. The real reason I think we need more money in schools is to make teaching pay to the point that it is a destination career instead of a low pay, dead end and often thankless job. 

I think the problem with this is that a lot of young women go into teaching because they think it will be an easy job where they get to be with the kids all day and have fun, and best of all, not take any work home and have summers off.

This couldn't be any more wrong. A teacher gets to deal with behavioral issues, parents who think they have authority over the teacher or who try to compete with the teacher for authority over their child, parents who don't care, children who don't want to participate, etc. A good teacher finds ways to deal with this. They take work home on occasion. They stay late when needed. They provide tutoring to their students. They don't take the job lightly.

There are too many teachers right now who seem to take the job lightly and then try to get every child to conform to their narrow mindset. A good teacher says to their self "How can I get Johnny to participate?" "How can I make this lesson more fun and engaging?" A bad teacher says to their self "Johnny will do things as I want him to without further consideration!" and "Students should accept that school is not always fun and that I know best for them!"

As for funding, I support increasing funding for public schools. Really, I do. What I don't support, is handing over more money to this system which is not prepared to educate students for today's world and today's challenges. Give the schools more money and help them start a new, revitalized plan designed for the needs of today's children. Don't give the schools more money and let them continue down the same dead end path.

It's also the concentric rings of decay.  And even later on, the inner core sometimes sees rejuvenation.  

There was a house around 23rd, about two blocks west of Peoria that was for sale back in the mid '70s.  It was a great looking two story brick with lots of bedrooms and baths for about $60,000.  Little bit rough shape.  Now, it has been reworked, and would probably go for 5 or 10 times that.  Part of it is the rework, but even though Maple Ridge has always been where the "elite meet to eat", it seems to be even more so today.


It has seemed like the rate of population growth here (US) has been slowing for some time.  And apparently is projected to keep slowing.  So as we age as a nation, and boomers downsize their housing - which is a big trend now, and then disappear by dying off, how can housing continue to be as big a part of the economy as it has in the past?  The McMansion has always been an incredibly stupid way to spend money on housing, but how can it continue when the market is shrinking?

  

Un be lievable!

You don't know any women teachers - especially young women - do ya?  Or women.  Or anyone who has ever had a passion for a job.

One of my Aunts was an elementary school teacher in the 60s.  She always had papers to grade or something from school whenever she and my Uncle visited on weekends.

My mother is a private school teacher. My mom's two very best friends in the world are both public school teachers. She is great friends with most of the people she works with, and I talk with them on a first name basis.

This is what I collect from attending a public school.

EDIT: Bear in mind that I never said this is the majority of teachers. Most teachers are not like this, but there are some that seem to think like this. Even if they didn't think the job would be easy, they want to force you into their way of teaching. I have had many teachers that are great and that I wish every student could have. I have also had many (although not as many) teachers who I think should be fired.

Concentric rings brings visions of waves in an otherwise still pond after dropping a rock into it.  I will go along with wave fronts but don't necessarily agree with "concentric rings".  When the inner core is rejuvenated, I would expect a potential wavefront of rejuvenation.


The place is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I think people are too quick to jump to high prices for housing based on "the value can only go up".  We know that isn't always true.  I view it as something like a gas station advertising the best smelling gas in town for $10/gal.  Someone will buy it.  Sometimes it is space availability.  That's what's driving the absurd price of hangars at RVS.  No more hangar space is available.




McMansions are stupid.  If you have the money, build a real house that will last longer than 20 years.  McMansions are showy but not as solid as the old money houses around the country.

They cannot possibly gone into teaching thinking that.  There is an idealistic component, to be sure, that is driven out quickly, usually while doing their "internship" as seniors in college.  Mostly, there is a passion to try to help and educate and bring something good into a child's life.  Oh, yeah...don't forget the money!!!

It is a thankless job that I would not put up with - at least not until college level (full disclosure - I have been an instructor at TCC in the past.  Way past).  And I am very glad there are many who can and will.  I am surrounded by teachers in the family, from parental unit to cousins, aunts, uncles, in-laws, and miscellaneous others near and distant.

I can’t really argue with your logic on this and appreciate your candid observations.  Two things I’d add:

I’m not so sure that special needs kids are best served assimilated into all “regular” classes.  I’m also curious what is defined as “special needs” these days.  When I was at Jenks, they had an outstanding special needs program and the instructors were able to provide adequate attention to each child.  Those kids were what was referred to as “slow” 30 years ago.  Physically-handicapped kids were in the “regular” classes.  I think the total HS enrollment in the special education program was 20 or less.  No idea on elementary level.  That’s where my question comes from as to what qualifies as special needs these days.  Autism? ADHD? Severe mental retardation?  Are these kids who previously would have been at Hissom? Someone please enlighten me.

It was a noble idea to want to give special needs kids the same experience as all the other kids, but if it has disrupted the learning environment for the rest of the students, it ultimately is a failure for all students.  

I can’t argue that to get the best and brightest away from the private sector you have to pay more.  But, I’ll still argue that on an hourly basis, teacher’s pay and benefits is on par with their college classmates working in the private sector with bachelor’s degrees. We’ve examined on here before that starting pay is not vastly different than other careers right out of college, if you look at hours worked in a year vs. compensation.  

There’s certainly plenty of ways to quantify teacher performance.  Structure a “reward” pay program for the best and brightest.

Very insightful. And controversial. Special needs is about to explode into the middle and high school populations. I was amazed to see how it has mushroomed already. There is an increase in the number of diagnoses for psychological handicaps like Autism and Attention Deficit. Part of it from better diagnoses and partly from  environmental degradation. As it increases in the general population it will be mirrored in the public schools. It isn't nobility that puts them into public school systems, its their taxpayer families that demand it, courts who agree and the closure of publicly funded institutions where they once were relegated.

It is true that many kids who are just challenged by family deficits, social deficits and anger management problems end up in special needs. The teachers tire of being the only one responsible for their behaviors and strive to have them tested and re-assigned. The whole process can be heartbreaking.

As far as teacher quality, everyone would agree that the more training you get, the more education you attain, most likely the better teacher you become. However, once you attain a masters degree in education the opportunities and the pay are better outside of the teaching arena, public or private. Unless you have a conviction to teach at all costs, you move on. So the teachers left are there for the personal satisfaction or to draw a paycheck. Pretty much like any other industry. RM noted that about 75-80% do get their masters. Pay them to stay is a good plan.

I frankly think it is folk legend that women gravitate to teaching for the reasons ZYX listed. Its also pretty demeaning.

I’m not talking about kids who are simply Physically-handicapped but those children certainly exist too and they impact school funding, but I would not think as much since they don’t have learning disabilities. 

I haven’t been in a special needs class so I can’t speak to what those classes are like. I should ask because several of the teachers I know are actually special needs teachers. It certainly seems that a large percentage of the teachers at Jenks are for special needs kids, but it may just be the teachers I know. I also don’t know if Jenks is an outlier with a lot of special needs kids that move to the district for what is from all accounts an excellent program. I would assume that a lot of these kids may have been in homes like Hissom in the past, but those classes are for kids that are NOT mainstreamed. Some of the kids that have been mainstreamed into my kids classes include kids with ODD (a often severe and violent type of ADD/ADHD), severe emotional disorders, Aspergers, all ranges of autistic children and then just kids that just attended remedial classes during parts of the day It’s all over the place. In some of the more severe cases the kids have had their own teacher’s aide that follows them around all day.

Mainstreaming does seem to do good for the kids, at least some of them. I know one parent whose both kids are my kids age, the older girl is a good student and friends with my daughter but the younger one, who is my son’s age, is autistic. In Kindergarten she was completely non verbal and the mother was told that it was likely that she would never speak. The little girl has been in class with my son a couple of different times over the years and now after six years of mainstreaming you have to really pay attention to her to even be able to tell she is autistic. This is a great thing in all aspects, this was a child that a couple of decades ago would have been institutionalized all her life but today she’s going to have a somewhat normal life. In terms of her quality of life, her cost to the public, everything her growth is a win. But she had to be very expensive to the school system, especially in the beginning. She was one of the kids with their own aide for the whole day when she was younger.

Another boy that I hated having in my daughters class was severely ODD and very violent. But after years of mainstreaming (and I am guessing a LOT of drugs) he’s seemingly doing fine. There are also kids that they attempted to mainstream that got taken out and never came back.

This new world for special needs kids is a lot of the increase in the cost of public schools over the last 25 years. One of the problems with Charter Schools is that they don’t have to provide programs for these kids so they can take the lower cost average students and leave behind the high cost special needs kids.

Sigh. I want to have an intelligent and meaningful conversation, but nearly everything I say is shot down and deemed as nonsense. Please at least consider my opinion.

My mother is a teacher. She is one of the hardest working people I have ever met. Teaching is not not not not not not not not not an easy job. I don't try to pass it off as one. However, I think there are those who think "How hard can it be?" I have had teachers that literally do nothing, rarely giving assignments or moving form behind their desk. They're out there, they do exist and they piss me off. It pisses me off when I hear other students talk about how "teachers help us solve problems that we wouldn't have without them." It makes me angry when teachers refuse to do their job. It makes me angry when teachers try to blame their lack of effort on us.

I think the reason this makes me angry is because I see how hard my mom works. I am with her on Sunday nights, up at her classroom, cleaning because construction workers have left it a mess, helping sort through kids work, etc. Most teachers work hard, but not all do.

I have teachers that make up lesson plans right off the bat, and ones who spend hours thinking of what to do. I have teachers who make an effort to make school fun, and ones that are really just jerks and demand that everything be done their way and on their schedule, with no room for creativity.

Here's my ultimate position. I will stand up and defend teachers that work hard and care about their students. I will advocate the termination of those that rely solely on a textbook and are plain rude to their students. Teaching is not a job to be played with with. You either go into it and try your best or you leave.

It's hard to find a harder working person than a really good teacher. They deserve their summers off. They deserve higher pay. They deserve all the thanks we can give them.

As for funding, I hope public schools are given more. I hope that with those funds they decide to start truly making innovations in education. If public schools are given more money only to continue down the same path, then I will consider it a waste if money. I don't see why this is such a criticized position.

Your personal experience is irrelevant when it’s not someone else’s conjured reality ;)

I thought it was a very relevant post.

So, which school system are you in?

Do you find it any different from what I wrote about from the kid I had living with me going to Union intermediate high?  Sex, drugs, and rock & roll...chips and dip, chains and whips...it's a party!!

I commented more on the environment, but she also had plenty to say about the teachers - some were good, some were bad.  One science in particular made a very good impression, as did the ROTC people (Sgt).

ZYX,

"I think the problem with this is that a lot of young women go into teaching because they think it will be an easy job where they get to be with the kids all day and have fun, and best of all, not take any work home and have summers off."

I'm sorry, I just didn't perceive this as intelligent and meaningful. Perhaps you didn't conceive of what that must feel like when read by a woman, or a hard working young female teacher. It implies that they are lazy, narcissistic, and shallow. Also that they never were aware of how hard their teachers worked or slept through their on job training.

Forums aren't the best place for conversations but we all just muddle through. Some tips to help? Avoid posts that start, "I'm not a lawyer but..." or "My dad was a doctor and I'm sure that's...." or "Jane, you ignorant slut!" :)

Wow. I'm impressed.  Way to call him out on his misogyny.

You're no fun.
 
 :D

I showed one of those clips to my philosophies of life class to see if they could tell me which logical falicy was going on there.  Thats right, ad hominum.  I'm looking at you!

Those clips were obviously intended that way.  If what Jane had said was truly a because she was an ignorant slut and the subject was about ignorant sluts, would it still be an ad hominum?

I'm so confused.....(Vinny Barbarino?)

Most kids aren't even remotely aware of how hard their teachers work. I believe that I'm way more aware of how much work a teacher puts in than most people. Perhaps this is why I get frustrated when I see some of my teachers (generally about one a year) put in sub-par effort.

I know many hard working, young, female teachers that I know don't take their job lightly. I'll say it again, I believe most teachers work hard, man of which I don't agree with their methods, but I know they work hard. I just see too many (yes, one a year is too many) that don't and it's frustrating. Perhaps if tenure wasn't so easy to get and administrators didn't look the other way this wouldn't be such a problem.


I can't tell if you're serious. I'll say you aren't.  :)

There is a difference between being a misogynist or whatever and saying misogynist things. Problem is that if you say things that look misogynist, people will think you may just be misogynist, even if you're not. Best not to give the wrong impression if you can help it.

Before I bow out of this conversation I do want to express my frustration with the whole teaching process and the unrealistic expectations that people have for it. There are kids who make it to high school without being able to read or write at better than a 6th grade level. Not just a few. There always have been. They come from poor families, they come from middle class families and from households dominated with generations of substance abuse and child abuse. We test them and hold them back. We test them again and when they fail we are hesitant to keep a now 6th grade size child in a 2nd grade class, so we promote them. What else can a public school do? Move them to institutions? Send them to private school? Spend inordinate amounts of funding (which isn't available) on specialized teaching? Move them to special needs where they also don't fit? They can only do what the law of the state prescribes and that seems to be "do more with less". Bloodletting for a new generation.

We graduate them and put them on the street and they can barely fill out an application. We give them driver's licenses, food handler's permits and gun permits. We let them care for our children, our aged parents and hospital patients. They work on school bus assembly lines, appliance assembly lines, warehouses, work in food prep or food processing . They also sell drugs, make meth and father more children who then go to public schools. And it starts over again and the division of the country by class increases.

In the distant past, these kids, along with handicapped and behavioral problems were simply punished, dropped out of the system, joined the military, learned skills through unions, private industry, government and trade schools or moved to agriculture or institutions. Now we blame it on teachers and, remarkably, resort to the same "white flight" syndrome that fueled the suburban movement in Tulsa, namely private schools, charter schools and home schooling. It seems that if we can't figure out a solution then the only solution is to just separate ourselves from the symptoms.

My family has landed on the upside of the process, partly by luck that we haven't been tethered to a life time special needs or handicapped child, and partly by my struggle to learn the system and use it to my advantage. I don't know the answers but I am concerned at what I see and the uninformed, apathetic, dogmatic reaction to obviously critical education shortfalls.

Wow! Sounds like an explanation of why illegal immigration is bad! ;D  That also is a tether on some teachers- having kids who do not have a grasp on the English language and who don’t have anyone to speak it with at home to help reinforce the learning process.  That’s every bit as much a drag on the educational system as special needs kids being mainstreamed is.

I suspect you and Mrs. Aqua have also been more involved parents than those you mention above.  Parents either help reinforce what the child is learning in school or they are completely apathetic toward the process and present it to their children as something the law requires, not as an opportunity to improve their station in life and achieve success.

Though I think it goes beyond the parental involvement.  To be honest, we are using an outdated system for teaching. We essentially teach our children the same way that they taught children 200 years ago.  The problem with that is, there is so much more information to teach them, and education is so much more important then it was then.  We really need a new way to teach.  This isn't to say that parental involvement isn't important, but that I think so many of the problems go deeper than just that.  I wish I knew how the system could be revamped to meet the educational needs of society today, but I personally don't have a clue.  I just know it's time for something new.

The Montessori approach is incredibly successful.  The child focuses on lessons that interest them and work at their pace with a “guide” to help facilitate the process and keep them on track.  The student takes responsibility and somewhat of the control of their learning process.  Problem is, there may not be enough structure for all kids.  

I was one of the kids who simply would sit on my thumbs if I thought I was doing something to please my parents or teachers unless it was a teacher I related well to and had a great rapport with.  Those teachers I was afraid to disappoint.  Once I matured and realized I needed an education to succeed and it rested on my shoulders, my grades improved vastly.

Per Tulsa World (We hate buildings in downtown Tulsa) FB post:



I bet they participate with their children.

Watch out!  In about three seconds people will be screaming UNFAIR, and demand that the money be plundered.

In Arkansas, it would probably be unconstitutional for the district to accept the money for opex.

I thought it was illegal for any local group to raise money for public schools above the anointed allotment.  Raising money for local kids put other kids at a disadvantage.  You have to keep reminding yourself that we all strive for the Lowest Common Denominator.   DO NOT FORGET.....LCD.  It works to keep education fair for everyone.
 >:(

. . .and the trees are all kept equal, by hatchet, axe, and saw!

So no donating jackets or anything?

Tulsa schools are about to lose their music budget.

That's sad.

Buses are probably next.

Truthfully, I don't see public education in Oklahoma long term as sustainable in its present form. About 20% of the population is outraged by its systematic strangulation and foresee its consequences. Roughly the equivalent to the appx % of upper level degrees in the state.

The remainder either don't know, don't care or gleefully applaud the process in hopes parochial, for profit and home schooling will replace it. Good thing we have casinos, lotteries and evangelism to get us through.

That's the impression I have.  I'd be glad to be proven incorrect on this issue.

Should have known you'd quote Geddy Lee.

My kid's schools raise thousands of dollars each semester. My daughter's elementary school raised $41,000 this month just to fund a PE teacher.

People give private money to public schools all the time. My family gave more money to public schools this past year than we did to our church.

Jenks just reached out to some wealthy parents. There is nothing wrong with taht. Tulsa Public Schools accepted.

This story ran last summer...

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=19&articleid=20110627_19_0_Ananon334874

Anonymous donor funds eight TPS social worker positions cut from budget

By ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer
Published: 6/27/2011 

An anonymous donor has stepped forward to fund eight social workers' positions that had been eliminated in a $4.2 million cut from the Tulsa Public Schools special education budget for 2011-12.

 The district announced the $175,000 donation in a Monday afternoon press release. Superintendent Keith Ballard expressed gratitude in a written statement. "Of all the programs we were forced to cut, this is the one that troubled me the most," he said. "Special education services are so critical, especially when we have such a strong desire to help students beyond state-mandated minimums. Additionally, it is a good leverage of school dollars when combined with the resources of DHS to provide for these positions. We are so grateful to our anonymous donor for pitching in when our own state legislature doesn't provide adequate funding to support these mission-critical programs."

 With the restoration of the eight positions, social workers can continue to get students connected to services ranging from food, clothing and shelter assistance to crisis intervention services because of abuse, loss or suicidal thoughts. TPS slashed its special education budget in preparation for state funding reductions and the expiration of federal stimulus funds.

 The cuts included 65 of the 140 special education employee positions that were being paid for with stimulus funds and $1.3 million for student counseling services provided by mental health agencies.

 

You have just impressed me.  ;)

I like the music, but I could do without Geddy's politicking.

Do what I do.  Ignore it.  I like a lot of Nugent's music.  I ignore his insanity.

Easier said than done since some of Rush's best music is paired with ultra-libertarian polemics. ;)

Keep in mind that Geddy does not do much writing of music.  Most of Rush's music is written by Neil Peart.

That would be Neal, not Geddy.  ;)

I could swear I've seen them both together on some show or another promoting their philosophy. I have been known to be wrong on occasion, though. ;)

Just kick back and relax.  Put on the headphones and bask in the goodness....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvQ2JF-glvw

Neil himself has described himself as 'a left-leaning libertarian', which is how I align somewhat.

So speaking of public school spending, I saw an article last night noting that the birth rates for whites has fallen below that of the "minorities." It occurs to me that we may just want to do something about the schools and systems that are leaving many of our poor minority children behind before we end up with another round of flight from the cities.

Also, any of you who have Netflix should consider watching The Pruitt-Igoe myth. It's interesting to see how a declining city, racist policies, idiotic rules, and the refusal to fund maintenance led to the project being such a disaster.

Edited to finish the effin post..

I happened to pick up the USA Today with that article on the front page today, still need to read it.

Sounds like they studied Oklahoma.

Second verse, same as the first.

(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/530941_499087580112258_1568882158_n.jpg)

We always seem to be at the business end of a pointy finger with someone saying "shame".

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/budding-scientist/2012/02/01/u-s-state-science-standards-are-mediocre-to-awful/ (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/budding-scientist/2012/02/01/u-s-state-science-standards-are-mediocre-to-awful/)

Wow, we're behind Arkansas. Let that sink in for a minute.

And Mississippi

Tulsa's quality of life is sinking. This is a huge liability.

Whole lot of blue states at C or worse.  Sort of blows this meme out of the water:

(http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/educated-voters-2012.jpg)

That's college education.  It still stands.

Tulsa School Superintendent Seeks Technology Improvements

http://www.publicradiotulsa.org/post/tulsa-school-superintendent-seeks-technology-improvements#.UQAdsctFYC0.facebook (http://www.publicradiotulsa.org/post/tulsa-school-superintendent-seeks-technology-improvements#.UQAdsctFYC0.facebook)

If their solution ends up being buying every kid an iPad, this may he the first time in my life I feel the need to vote against school funding...

I'd support that if they discontinued printed text books.

I don't know. My son has an iPad and we get him his books (not his text books but the reading books he needs for language arts) on his iPad and it works great. No hunting at bookstores, no waiting for Amazon to ship. No book to misplace. It's cheaper and easier. Text books could work too.

I think we're on the same side.

Seems like too easy a target for theft to me. Not to mention great for increased eye strain, among other issues. It would be a lot nicer than lugging forty pounds of dead trees around, though. If they wanted to replace books with (good) eInk readers, that would be fine by me. It's a better fit for a book replacement, IMO. Not to mention a quarter of the price.

Tablets could be useful for shared classroom use, though.

Any tablet replacing printed text books would be an improvement in my opinion.

edited to add:  ibooks2 was specifically designed to replace paper text books.

TCC has been doing it for some of their programs for quite some time now.  Works very well.  The school gets a deal on the iPads from apple and then sells them to the students with the appropriate texts pre-installed.  I believe the School of Nursing is doing that.

What have been the negatives?

This won't be for iPads.  I believe you will see it used for a reading tablet of some sort.  The struggle the technology and library departments are having is figuring out what standard to go with.  When you try and deploy that many tablets with a long replacement horizon you need to get it right.  You'd hate to end up with betamax.

TPS lacks basic technology.  Many of the district's PC's cannot run recent operating systems.  The catch 22 for schools is they have to use operating funds, which are in short supply, to upgrade (ie, new RAM, etc) or repair existing PC's.  They can't use bond funds to do this.  Bond funds can only be used for brand new equipment.

I serve on the foundation board for a Tulsa Public middle school. We are constantly raising money to pay for things like new computers.

Here's a thought...teach reading, writing, and arithmetic....BEFORE we through computers at the kids....

Especially writing - the hand/eye coordination needed extends to other areas of endeavor, and slows down the "putting on paper" enough to let some mental editing occur inside the process.


Musings - pros and cons....

http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2012/06/08/the-pros-and-cons-of-using-computers-to-teach-students-how-to-write/

"through" computers at kids?  ;)

Right?

I have heard only positives.  The woman that works part time with me (while attending school at TCC) says it is so much better than carrying around texts, and the ability to highlight and index selections from the books making them searchable is also a plus.  All of her books and notes are in one place, and backed up in the cloud with Dropbox.

Technology can help with that. And has been since the days of the Commodore 64. Aside from the penmanship aspect, anyway, but that's a lost cause.

Don't get me started on the racket that publishers are creating in higher ed with digital textbooks.

I prefer the digital racket over the printed text book racket.  Some things won't get fixed.

...throw....


Early and still half asleep....not to mention, I'm a high school graduate!!

I will put a number on it.  No computers until 9th grade.  (I also say no calculators until 9th grade...)

My friend's kids have more computing power in their pocket than NASA had to land on the moon.  1st grade and 3rd grade.

I know, I know..."land on the moon"  (https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRGxjvZ1hXX6n9WU12KaGxTgJeQPZPE147LyAWIYj9Qq_NdCMaStw)

At least with the printed book racket you can buy used unless your professors choose to participate. ;)

That was rare for me.

Also, I'm thinking more for the younger grades.  Our public schools spend an insane amount of money on constantly out dated books.  Why not have easily updatable tablet texts?

As I said, don't get me started on the textbook racket in higher ed. ;)

I think I mentioned before that I don't have a problem with ereaders in general, I just don't think iPads (or any other LCD-screened tablets) are the way to get there.

TW tweet:

Barresi to request $37.7 million in supplemental funding for schools

and FB:

State Superintendent Janet Barresi announced Thursday that she will be seeking $37.7 million in supplemental appropriations from the Legislature.

Barresi wants lottery funds to be used for technology, not state aid to schools

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20130201_19_A11_CUTLIN449047 (http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20130201_19_A11_CUTLIN449047)

Authors dispute claim by Barresi

They say they never backed away from their criticism of the A-F grading system.

(http://www.tulsaworld.com/articleimages/2013/20130214_BarresiJanet0214.jpg)

The big question is why...?

No reason for it.  Other than to enable them to skip right over learning the basics (reading, writing, 'rithmetic) and the associated hand-eye coordination and thought process development that goes with those exercises.  Take the Luddite approach until 9th grade....pencils, pens, paper.  No calculator.

It is the way of the world.  Technology.  If they don't learn it they will be left behind.

Or we could have them write on boards with coal by firelight.

They have the phones because my friends want them to be able to contact them when they need to.  Would you put your children's care 100% in the school's employees hands these days if you didn't need to?

I've seen how they are left behind.  9th grade is plenty soon to learn technology.  I have taught the technology generation and the basics are being missed for whatever reason.  Badly.

Coal on a board would be better than a calculator.  The ancient Babylonians and Egyptians used sticks to draw in the sand, and they got the basics.  We put space flight computers in the kids pockets and they don't.  Seems like a disconnect to me.

But they sure can play a video game!!

Watching TV news isn't always the best way to learn about elementary education.  Otherwise we'd have to believe that rainbow parties ran rampant a few years ago.

Bring back Corporal punishment! By Gawd they'll learn!  >:(

Three GOP Senators Want More School Funding

http://kwgs.com/post/three-gop-senators-want-more-school-funding (http://kwgs.com/post/three-gop-senators-want-more-school-funding)

Eliminating Intangible Property Tax Means Deep Cuts For OK Schools

http://www.newson6.com/story/21527214/oklahoma-policy-institute-property-tax-cut-will-hit-public-schools-hard (http://www.newson6.com/story/21527214/oklahoma-policy-institute-property-tax-cut-will-hit-public-schools-hard)

Study finds Oklahoma worst in the nation with decline in education funding for local schools

http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/Study-finds-Oklahoma-worst-in-the-nation-with-decline-in-education-funding-for-local-schools (http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/Study-finds-Oklahoma-worst-in-the-nation-with-decline-in-education-funding-for-local-schools)

Knock me over with a feather.

I had no idea 51% of our state expenditures was for education, that actually sounds like a good amount of a state's budget to me.

So what do you do when you have issues like higher insurance costs to account for?  By covering those instead of passing the increase to the teacher, it's a compensation increase any way you look at it.

You look at a bigger picture.  This isn't a story of just teacher compensation.

I can only guess why this is happening in Oklahoma.  The less knowledgeable a populace is, the easier it is to control.

Thus we have Bridenstine, Mullen, Kern, Fallin, etc. in office and it keeps the circle going.

Hey, she's doing the best she can.  Keeping Sharia Law and health insurance reform at bay eats up a lot of resources, dont'cha know.

So, the 51% of expenditures was not really well defined. What expenditures? Just like the budget figure that did not include "other" sources of revenue like property taxes.

Just call me skeptical of a state legislature that promised increased revenues going to education from legalizing gambling and lotteries, then reduced the amount of other revenue sources used for education. Net result was less revenue for education.

Yes. But 40% of that amount goes to higher education. We spend too much money on universities and community colleges and not enough on elementary education.

If we re-jiggered that to 30% to higher ed and 70% to primary and secondary, then the complaint would become that we don't spend enough on colleges and universities.

Personally, I believe higher education is extremely important to attracting young professionals who will want to stay in the area.  I also believe though that our state college system has entirely too many campuses which results in much higher operating costs than we really need to be spending.

The complaint would remain the same. 

"Study finds Oklahoma worst in the nation with decline in education funding for local schools"

How would we be able to afford Stoops? Or that Aggie?

It needs re jiggered alright but more to the tune of 30% in primary, 30% in secondary and 35% in college level with a real increase in per student expenditures.  Then the remaining 5% as incentives going to those programs who don't have a Stoops type expense. And no, I don't care that much of those football expenses are underwritten by private interests. They could just as well underwrite the debate team.

note: On second reading it appears Conan and I are quite close except for about 5% and reality based accounting for per pupil expenditure.

We have 50! campuses (and that's counting TCC and the like as 1 single campus)
Cameron University, Duncan
Cameron University, Lawton
Carl Albert State College, Poteau
Carl Albert State College, Sallisaw
Connors State College, Muskogee
Connors State College, Warner
East Central University, Ada
Eastern Oklahoma State College, McAlester
Eastern Oklahoma State College, Wilburton
Langston University, Langston
Langston University, Oklahoma City
Langston University, Tulsa
Murray State College, Tishomingo
Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College, Miami
Northeastern State University, Broken Arrow
Northeastern State University, Muskogee
Northeastern State University, Tahlequah
Northern Oklahoma College, Enid
Northern Oklahoma College, Stillwater
Northern Oklahoma College, Tonkawa
Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Alva
Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Enid
Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Woodward
OKC Downtown College, Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City Community College, Oklahoma City
Oklahoma Panhandle State University, Goodwell
Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma City
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa
Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, Okmulgee
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater
Oklahoma State University-Tulsa
Redlands Community College, El Reno
Rogers State University, Bartlesville
Rogers State University, Claremore
Rogers State University, Pryor
Rose State College, Midwest City
Seminole State College, Seminole
Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant
Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Idabel
Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Sayre
Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Weatherford
Tulsa Community College, Tulsa
University Center at Ponca City, Ponca City
University Center of Southern Oklahoma, Ardmore
University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City
University of Oklahoma, Norman
University of Oklahoma-Tulsa
University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma, Chickasha
Western Oklahoma State College, Altus

That serve 40 cities (and somehow with all of this Tulsa STILL can't get a full University)
Ada
Altus
Alva
Ardmore
Bartlesville
Broken Arrow
Chickasha
Claremore
Duncan
Durant
Edmond
El Reno
Enid x2
Goodwell
Idabel
Langston
Lawton
McAlester
Miami
Midwest City
Muskogee x2
Norman
Oklahoma City x5
Okmulgee
Ponca City
Poteau
Pryor
Sallisaw
Sayre
Seminole
Stillwater
Stillwater
Tahlequah
Tishomingo
Tonkawa
Tulsa x5
Warner
Weatherford
Wilburton
Woodward

So, what you're saying is we have a revenue problem not an expense problem?

Maybe lowering the personal income tax to zero isn't such a great idea.

It can work if you replace the taxes with other taxes, which we are not doing.

College tuition certainly hasn't gone down any.

And yet, the 30% high school dropout rate in this state keeps on putting the same kind of people in office....

Just like they believed "Right to Work" would create "more jobs, and higher pay"....

Actually our schools nation wide are bad, we fall far behind in scores on a world wide basis. We also have some of the most expensive schools in the world and they churn out kids who can't even read a tape measure.

English or metric?

Yeah....and every single other state in the union that had done the lottery thing before us had done the same thing - they NEVER promised MORE money - they just said that some of the proceeds would go to schools.  Big difference.  And this information was available before the election.  It was NEVER about more money for schools - it was about getting a new source of income so the legislature could pull some more good old fashioned pork out of their donkey's for their good buddies.  Remember how the promise was to take the tolls off the turnpikes....?  And the remaining $1 billion + in debt that still exists today.  And only certain people can buy the bonds?


 

I'm assuming this means a cut in public education funding:

Lawmakers Will Have Less to Spend in Oklahoma; That Means Budget Cuts Ahead

http://kwgs.com/post/lawmakers-will-have-less-spend-oklahoma-means-budget-cuts-ahead (http://kwgs.com/post/lawmakers-will-have-less-spend-oklahoma-means-budget-cuts-ahead)

But...but...I thought reducing taxes would INCREASE revenue!

I bet you also thought that the Lottery and Casino gambling was going to increase school funding as well. So many illusions, so many illusionists at the state capitol.

It's the delusional fantasy being passed around by the RWRE - like a Cheech and Chong event without the good feeling!!

So glad we arent going down the Zero Tolerance road:

Picture this. School-age children with rumbling tummies move their styrofoam trays in an orderly lunch line. It’s Tuesday, and at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City that means one thing for excited youngsters: pizza day. Students fill their trays with deep-dish pepperoni slices and napa salad and head to the lunch lady for checkout.

That’s when tragedy struck for about 40 of Utah’s smallest residents, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. If a student’s lunch money account wasn’t paid up, the cafeteria workers were instructed to confiscate the child’s lunch. Because of sanitary issues the lunch couldn’t be given to another student, so it was thrown away instead, while a hungry child watched.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/30/the-schools-that-starve-students-to-punish-deadbeat-parents.html

Teachers, Parents Rally at State Capitol

http://kwgs.com/post/teachers-parents-rally-state-capitol (http://kwgs.com/post/teachers-parents-rally-state-capitol)

(http://kwgs.com/sites/kwgs/files/styles/card_280/public/201403/Teacher_Rally_2.jpg)


Think it'll do any good?

No. The people in charge at the capital are all very anti-government and anti-education. Until that crowd turns into enough votes to change an election it won't matter.

You thinking those in charge are afraid well educated masses will vote them out?

I think it matters.

Rallies are mostly exercises in futility, but this attracted a lot of republicans who had a chance to go see their legislator. Yes many of the elected officials don't care about education, but they do care when their friends show up.

Every thing helps. Thousands of people outside your office will have some impact.

No, I think they are pretty confident that they will not be voted out by well educated masses so they feel free to ignore and deride this protest. Which they are doing, led by the Daily Oklahoman. This is being portrayed as just whining by Tulsa area teachers and superintendents. And you know how much Tulsa's complaining counts at the capital.

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-students-pay-the-price-for-educators-stunt/article/3948043

http://newsok.com/planned-education-rally-angers-lawmakers/article/3931282

http://newsok.com/state-rep.-jason-murphey-simply-calling-for-more-education-funding-is-easy-way-out/article/3948033

The only way the legislature is going to pay attention is people are voted out office on this issue. Starting with Janet Barresi.

What specifically do you disagree with in Murphey’s editorial piece?

Oklahoma does have very high per capita administration costs.

Oklahoma has many school districts which could be combined.

This piece was brought to my attention the other day:


I don’t know that I necessarily agree with the notion that food service and janitorial should be out-sourced due to security concerns, but it’s at least worth looking at to see if someone like Sodexo could drive down costs to be able to hire more teachers.  The solution seems to drift away from conserving resources or better managing them in favor of simply throwing more money at the problem.  We’ve faced this issue for decades in Oklahoma and increases have apparently never been enough.

Especially when someone like Murphey brags about adding $90 million to schools - not too many years after cutting $200 million from schools....

Percentages are easy to manipulate aren't they? A 49% increase in a staff of 10 moves you up to 15 employees. And that's a whole number, not a $ budget number. So, you could include the students in high school being used on a workstudy program, student aides, and employees on grants who, if paid, make $7.25 an hour and make it look like administrative costs have soared as related to student growth. A corresponding 6% increase in students doesn't seem even comparable unless you know the ratio needed for student to administrative cost. They probably aren't linear.

I don't know the correct figures right off hand but if you really want to spin, percentages are the way to do it.

That spin can work in both directions.

You always say that but it carries little weight. Its like reminding us that humans are in fact dishonest, self serving and willing to ignore truth for our own purposes. In this case the spin is against education and they hold the purse strings.

I'll give him some slack in that he may not understand that what he is saying is politically motivated and not representative of the truth of the situation. IOW, he's kinda stupid but a good party guy. But, I believe that to quote anyone who is misusing stats makes one culpable in the mangling of truth. That's why I seldom link to just any thing I read on the net unless it seems to be factually logical and defensible.

Sodexo already does a lot of privatizing of services for TPS. They do the cafeteria, they actually do the site maintenance for landscaping, lawnmowing etc. They are abysmal and prone to the same crap any organization lives with. Remember the scandal over stadiums being rented out for private use, and the pop machine money being pocketed by coaches? That couldn't have happened without our friends at Sodexo.

Murphey's remarks about privatizing the bus system and its drivers is hilarious. He has no insights there whatsoever. They can't find enough drivers at the starting rate of $9.75 per hour and resort to using mechanics and administrative staff to fill the void. Market rate? Lower than surrounding suburbs who are lower than the market rate including garbage men and cement truck drivers. That's right. Sanitation workers make more for carrying garbage than bus drivers get for carrying your kids. Nonetheless, the rumor is that a third party will soon take over the transportation dept. and combine routes at lower hourly rates. Drivers are leaving. Teachers are leaving. Good administrators are being snapped up by private schools.

This is rural vs city, conservative vs non, mass vs well educated, privatization vs organized labor, dumb vs smart.

 

Only among those who are unwilling to think about it for a bit.

It’s no secret and no joke that Oklahoma’s rural areas exist on pork.  Lots and lots of tasty pork, like an over-abundance of school districts which require PhD’s and other advanced degrees and commensurate pay to operate.  Don’t forget about our over-abundance of privately-run prisons and state universities too.  Those all provide jobs in areas which otherwise only offer a living wage in oil or agricultural-related industries.  No legislator wants to be faced with making unpopular decisions by children having to commute 20 miles to school or by laying off well-thought of members of their community by closing school systems.

School systems are also a great source of construction income.  Rural school districts now have such amenities as indoor baseball and softball workout-fields.  Do we really need that in the secondary school system?

What superintendent making $120 to $140K per year is going to agree their little school district needs to be merged with another district at the risk of losing their well-paying job? 

The point being, there is plenty of room to combine school districts thereby reducing the number of facilities and administrators to run them.  Lower facility and administrative costs means more money to spend on instruction. 

It’s simple, eliminate waste, and wasteful mind-sets.

Here’s a copy of the State Board of Education’s FY 2015 budget request:


http://www.ok.gov/sde/newsblog/2013-10-29/state-board-education-approves-fy-2015-budget-request

The more cynical of you will call Baresi’s comments about Obamacare partisan politics.  Hey, if the reality is health insurance costs went up dramatically as a result of the ACA, it is what it is.  How many teachers could you hire with $59 million?  Have the feds stepped up to off-set those costs?  Apparently not.

How many teachers would $500 million worth of football and basketball pay for? You may not have noticed, but $59 million including both an increase in premiums, which much have been less than 10% and the cost of insuring a larger number of full timers isn't actually that much. Most employers are seeing 4-5% increases, so that $59 million probably includes $25 million of costs related to new hires. But please, go ahead and blame it on Obamacare. It shuts down the public's brain so they'll blame the feds, right or wrong.

Let’s assume all-in payroll costs for first year hires is $65,000.  That’s 907 new teachers which could be hired for $59 mil.

Activities are deemed worthy of the educational experience.  No idea how much is for athletics.  I assume that would also include extra-curricular music and drama programs.

I’m sure you are far better suited to interpret the costs associated with the ACA to state school districts than the state superintendent of education.  My bad.

(Note, I’m about as big a fan of Barresi as I have been of Mary FAIL’N)

Doesn't appear it did much good.  I'm guessing the educators were labeled as uppity and then the Senate panel voted.

Senate Panel Passes Bill to Cut Oklahoma Income Taxes

http://kwgs.com/post/senate-panel-passes-bill-cut-oklahoma-income-taxes (http://kwgs.com/post/senate-panel-passes-bill-cut-oklahoma-income-taxes)

(http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/kwgs/files/styles/card_280/public/201404/TAX_CUT.jpg)

You can't assume all that. First off if the ACA disappeared and $59 million actually showed up the current legislature would cut $59 million from the education budget much like they did lottery and casino money. Then, activities are deemed worthy unless they are music or gym class for non athletes. Both decimated in the last decades. No gym class for high school and orchestra is practically gone, now available in specialized schools. Marching bands outside of Jenks, Union and BA are practically volunteer status. Meanwhile, we invest in all new athletic facilities so we can stay competitive in football, basketball and to a lesser extent, baseball.

Two things come to mind on the increases of school costs. One, is I agree with your assessment of where the real budget sucking is going on...the rural, non consolidated school districts. They need leadership that isn't afraid of the local boards and supers. With the corresponding economic changes that would cause, the chances of that happening with current statehouse makeup....0.

And two, the additional cost to bring our schools up to date with technology. Not just the hardware, software purchases but the cost of training, operating and updating. It used to be you bought a chalkboard and it lasted 40 years. A teacher actually increased in effectiveness as they aged due to wisdom, maturity and dedication. Now you buy a power presentation board, software and internet connectivity while trying to drag pre-technology teachers, administrators and legislators along for the ride. The young teachers will work cheap and the mature, wise ones move on. Putting money in technology in the long run will pay off but the change in what education was to what it will be is like labor pains. Lots of yelling, moaning and crying about whose to blame!

No doubt there is some consolidation that could be done in some of the rural schools.  But as a person who came from a very rural school in SW OK, there is only so much consolidation that is practical.  Something was mentioned earlier about students having to travel 20 miles to school, and I can attest that doing that on a day to day basis would simply not be practical.  I graduated HS with a class of 18 (yep, count 'em, 18) kids.  And I would have loved to have gone to a bigger school, or have consolidated with a neighboring town to form a larger school, but that would have resulted in students literally having to travel 20+ miles to school each way, and at least back then (80's) this was not considered a viable solution.

Why do students have to travel to a brick and mortar every day?

40 miles once a week might not be too bad.

No Gym or band anyway.

DING, DING, DING, DING!!!

That also would address the issue of not enough instructors.  Hire fewer, but raise the pay so we can attract the brighter talent.

Remote learning, eh? Shall the kids receive their instruction over dial up, then?

There will never be technology available in the remote areas beyond dial up?

Nothing can be done? 

Mark Zuckerberg is working hard to be sure that everyone has a high speed connection to Facebook and his ads and data mining.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-humanitarian-super-villain/#!Cq6Ny

Hughesnet: “I’m getting into all this social networking thing and I just shared all our vacation pictures!”

Didn't say that.


Nothing will be done, because people aren't willing to treat Internet service like rural water or electricity. On the rare occasion someone in a position to do something about it opens their mouth on the subject, the incumbents get the goal speed watered down to something that would have been useful 5 years ago when not being shouted down entirely. As a state, we are better off than many in that we have an unusually high amount of lit fiber running to various small towns across the state, I believe even including a lot of the smaller school districts themselves, but those aren't the places where distance learning would be cheaper (in the short run) than buses anyway.

The solution is simple, and fits as well in Tulsa and OKC as it does in someplace out in rural Delaware County: Either the state or a quasi-governmental entity (in areas with electric coops, they are an excellent partner for projects like this) runs fiber everywhere and leases access to whomever would like to provide service. With such a system in place, schools can be linked to the kids regardless of whether anybody has paid the bill to get to the actual Internet, and everyone, no matter where they are in the state, can have the breadth of choice that the rest of us have.

It hasn't happened yet.  Even with cheap fiber - which has been installed over the last few years with subsidies from government....  Example: Totah Communications.  North of here in OK and KS.  Only company available in the area and stupid expensive for what you get!

Their idea of DSL is 2M/sec at about $65 per month.  Then add on the $15 or so for phone, plus another 40 + minutes fee, or so for long distance.... yeah, if you live in rural Oklahoma, you can certainly do distance learning.... not.

The problem is that the Universal Service Fund helps support the phone line, but not the broadband.   (Typical case of legislation being outpaced by technology.)   If the FCC moved the support to broadband and treated landline phones as an ancillary service, the price would drop.

And most of Europe has dramatically better service.  Prices.  Selection of providers.  As with health care and health insurance - another area where we SHOULD be taking notice of the better example.

Let's be honest.   Western Europe has great service.   It also doesn't have the low population densities that the US does.   That is how they can support things like rail.   It is hard to make any money (and thus keep rates low) when you have three telephone subscribers per square mile.

Compared to Nowata, Tulsa has great prices, dramatically better service and a selection of providers.   It's called population, it allows those things.

And compared to Lavaca, Arkansas or Prairie Grove, Arkansas, we have similar selection with worse service. Here, as there, you get a choice between the phone company and the cable company. There, however, the telephone coops have put money into their infrastructure and built out fiber to the premises. The point being that the usual excuses the incumbents use are a bunch of BS even in the current system. Those excuses are completely irrelevant to a public or quasi-public utility model.

Low population density is not something that is restricted only to North America, despite what the phone companies continue to claim.

Actually in the several square miles around where I grew up, it's closer to one house per square mile!  My folks now get their internet via microwave from a provider out of Walters, OK.  I think they have the "enhanced" plan,  1Mb (whoo hoo!) speed and a limit of 40G per month, for $35.  It is painful to be at their house and try to get anything done on the internet.  (They could step up the "Ultra" plan, and get "up to 2Mb" download speed for $45, but that's just to high-falutin' for them right now...)

Going back to the remote learning discussion,  I just can't see it being a real option for the majority of students.  In the rural areas school functions as much more than just a place to learn.  It's a community center and social hub as well.  Just about every school event (even the school plays and such) is a chance to gather.  Taking away  this social aspect, and the chance for social learning in addition to academic, would really be a disservice to that slice of the population.  And of course, as someone else noted, if sports teams are considered important (and they most definitely are in rural areas), the kids need to practice daily during that season anyway.   I'm all for bringing high-speed internet to the rural areas, but would hate to see that used as justification for increasing their physical isolation.

 

But if the money's cut from the budget...

AT&T is about 5 miles away, but won't ever 'visit' the area.... kind of like the truce between lawyers and sharks - it's a professional courtesy thing....

Or a required by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission thing.   It's called service territory.    Same reason you can't get PSO and GRDA in the same areas.

Telecom companies are perfectly free to operate outside of their incumbent area if they so choose.

Edited to add: For some definition of perfectly free that allows for paperwork requirements, that is.

The Tulsa Schools have snow days to make up and yet the Tulsa  schools still closed last Monday for some protest. Go figure out that one! The lost days should be made up in full not with just tacking 15 minutes to a school day. How about some Saturday school?

True.

I stand corrected.  It can be done, just not easily or without lots of paperwork.

Whenever I need advice on education and my children's future, I think of asking you. Saturday school would be impossible for most students, parents, and teachers and would dramatically rise costs for everything from salaries to utility costs. But hey, why not do it anyway?

If anyone needs some additional school time, it's Kraut.

An Oklahoma Corruption Commission thing....

Actually GRDA is in a lot of PSO areas, like the walmart facility south of bartlesville.

A good amount of the power they generate is kind of a co-generation thing where they provide peak capacity to other electric companies.

National story on NPR about Oklahoma's success in educating the very young.

NPR highlights Tulsa for the story.

The lead in had a quote;


That's how we're viewed.  "If those jackasses in Oklahoma can do it..."

Careful Geico will jump all over that, Townsend.

“Geico. So easy even a Redneck Oklahoma Jackass can do it!"

It's frustrating.  It's a wonderful story about funding for pre-school and it makes Tulsa, for once, look good nationally.

I listened to it.  Exceptional.  I knew that Kaiser supported a private version of pre-school, but didn't know TPS had that.  There is the occasional glimmer in the state.

They're running part of the story today.  The subject today is the part of the program to help the parents (mostly mothers) learn basics of business and further their education.

It's really a wonderful thing.  The theory is, if you help the parents, you help the kids.  The program pays for daycare, classes and rewards good attendance and good grades.

I wish the rest of the state could continue forward thinking like this.

If you help people get an education to move up in life, dependence on social programs would be so much less.

Something we see completely eye-to-eye on.  I’ve always believed that with few exceptions, better parenting makes for better students.  If the parents have all the tools to support their child’s education, the child has a better chance of success.

The earlier the better to start educating people.  And ALWAYS the less expensive.

Senate Moves from Road Fund to Education

http://kwgs.com/post/senate-moves-road-fund-education (http://kwgs.com/post/senate-moves-road-fund-education)


Think something will be done to make this unconstitutional?  Is it already unconstitutional?

It has to be unconstitutional.  This is Dumbfuckistan the Oklahoma legislature, it’s like their specialty.

Think that's the point?  So they can say "the Oklahoma Supreme Court hates your kids.  They don't want them educated!" 

Then they can place their cousins and such in there.

Oklahoma Board to Consider Testing Contract

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/oklahoma-board-consider-testing-contract (http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/oklahoma-board-consider-testing-contract)

Just unreal. It's a complete clownshow at the capital.

Always.  It is one of those universal constants like pi.  Or alien abductions.

Just move here?  :o

And now Barresi is hiring husbands of cronies for $90,000 a year jobs....  Naw, we don't have any corruption in this state....

What is most amazing is how blatant she has become with her BS.  And I suspect the people of Oklahoma will re-elect her anyway.  How very, very sad is that...??

Unpossible.  She was primaried.   ;D

She's become blatant about it _because_ she wasn't re-elected.  6 months is a bunch of time to screw stuff up.

One has to wonder if she suffers from mild retardation or if she’s a sociopath.

As far as giving a contract to CTB McGraw Hill, it sounds as if someone didn’t get with the program after the last bungled testing:


http://www.newson6.com/story/26631676/oklahoma-state-board-signing-mcgraw-hill-testing-may-be-unavoidable

And she would be that someone.

Write in votes.

I know...we don't have those either...I bet Failin' will get her a nice cushy job somewhere in an Oklahoma government department nearby.

Not if Dorman wins.  That’s looking better every day.

At risk of contaminating his chances among people who follow this place, I hope so.

Year-End Tests in Oklahoma Could be in Jeopardy

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/year-end-tests-oklahoma-could-be-jeopardy (http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/year-end-tests-oklahoma-could-be-jeopardy)


Just give the kids a mulligan.

Anyone remember the former Sheriff and his female Undersheriff in a nearby county who lost in the primary and needed to fetch a prisoner from Alaska. Even though the US Marshall's service would transport this prisoner on the cheap, he and the Undersheriff drove from Oklahoma to Alaska (took the ferry from Seattle to somewhere in Alaska), picked the guy up, and drove back to Oklahoma. 8 hours per day. With breaks. Motel rooms every night, meals on the county's dime. It took weeks. A bunch of those expenses were rejected by the county commissioners with a little bit of helpful advice from the DA's office.

There needs to be a temporary injunction entered every time an incumbent loses with so much time left. Force them to continue the status quo until the end of their terms.

I wonder if there was some sort of quid pro quo with CTB/McGraw Hill. Surely not!

To close to "Dorfman" insert Animal House picture.

Better than the epic FAIL in the gov's mansion so far.

Vendor Drops Out of Oklahoma Bidding Process

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/vendor-drops-out-oklahoma-bidding-process (http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/vendor-drops-out-oklahoma-bidding-process)

Let me apologize right up front...don't really mean this, but ya gotta admit, ya kinda left the door open.  And I tried, but could not resist the temptation....


"DolfmanBob"

That was such successful PR, we had to repeat it here, at Memorial HS:


A woman is accusing a local school of forcing her daughter to go hungry, despite having money to pay for lunch.
 “Takes her plate of food and throws it in the garbage. And I’m like, 'What?'” said Robbye Goddard, whose daughter was denied lunch at school.
 
Goddard reached out to FOX23 after a lunch server allegedly told her daughter a computer glitch erased records of what students get free and reduced lunch, throwing her food out because she didn’t have money for the full price.
 
“What would it hurt, even if there was a glitch in the system, for her to take her name, take her money, ya know, write it down and let her eat,” said Goddard.
“They’re looking into their policy about throwing food away in front of children, not that they threw the food away, but in front of the kids,” she said.
http://www.fox23.com/news/news/local/mother-says-tps-free-lunch-policy-needs-be-changed/nhbm5/

Throwing money at the schools thinking to solve all the problems won't work- it makes things worse. Dooland wants to do just that.

Let's see your plan to solve the problems.

I second Townsend.... make a rational, reasoned, thought out (doesn't even have to be well thought out...) statement of how you would fix the problems...!!   



I gotta see this....

Stop talking to sauerkraut.

Awww...come on.... you're no fun any more!!

But you are right - gotta get off that mess.


Thread drift moment - did I miss the tire event this year?

The biggest school problem -as is the case in many cities- is the school system is top heavy far too many people in administration with do-nothing jobs bring home huge paychecks, cut back on administration and hire teachers. Some of the schools that spend the most money per student churn out the worst students Washington DC is one example. Throwing money at the problem has never solved any problem it just makes it worse.

While I can’t argue with the point about top-heavy administration, lack of parental participation is the biggest hurdle to education these days.

Parental participation is good but in todays world it's not always practical- today many times both parents work have no time for their kids and sometimes the parents just don't care- or there are one-parent households, divorces, kids being raised by grandparents and things like that. It's a mess out there in the world of Parents participation.

  Imho, it's wrong to start the discussion with, or have the majority of the discussion be about, "more money or less money".

I think it would be wiser to start with... 

1.  What needs to be done and why?
2.  Whats the best and most efficient/cost effective way to do it?
3.  Fund that.

I think most people could agree to that.  The trick is, how do you propose fixing that?

Saying parental participation is all that is needed is a cop-out. I agree it is the most important thing, but it isn't just an Oklahoma problem. Other states have the same lack of parental involvement and are doing better than Oklahoma. We do all we can including me serving on the foundation board for my kid's school and my wife is PTA president. I also have mentored and taught chess one hour per week at another school.

It is really about funding. Prior to Mary Fallin becoming governor teachers had reasonable workloads. Now they have 30% more students per teacher. They have eliminated languages, art, and sports that help bring parents to the school and get actively involved with the classroom.

They are destroying education by taking away all the funding to pay for tax breaks for the rich. Period.

Six consecutive years of slashing budgets for education isn't some knee jerk reaction to budgetary problems. It is an insidious plan to destroy public education.

Just out of curiosity.  How are our scores, drop out/graduation rates, etc. compared with 6 years ago?

Also, I get what your saying, but is your approach working to get the votes and change you would like?

My kids go to the highest rated school possible. Here are rankings...

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/oklahoma/rankings?int=c0b4c1

The number one and two high schools in Oklahoma are small charter schools in OKC. Number 3 is in Edmond (very wealthy) and my son's school is number 4. It is in north Tulsa with over half of the students coming from homes that qualify for free lunches because the parent's are poor.

Booker T. Washington is the best school in the Tulsa area. That link shows a college readiness of 48.1 for BTW with Jenks getting a 38.4 and Jenks getting a 21.1.

Oklahoma education is a multi-faceted problem.  You have large urban districts in OKC and Tulsa that struggle with children not ready to learn, parental involvements, aging facilities, extreme mobility among students, attract primarily young, fresh teachers, a property tax base that is primarily commercial and industrial (positives and negatives there) and an enrollment that is half of what it was thirty years ago.  Then, you have the rural districts, typically parents are very involved but children may not be exposed to as many learning opportunities, facilities are nice but not top of the line, but they have increasingly migrant populations and their administrative overhead is out of whack.  Last you have the suburban districts that tend to attract great teachers and administrators and they receive the same amount of per pupil money as the other districts, but their heavy residential and those residents have agreed to tax themselves to the legal max to build facilities that continue to attract more students.

In my opinion, we need consolidation in rural districts (too many fiefdoms in rural education), revised funding formulas that allow the board of education to fund by need and we have to continue to attack poverty in our urban districts.

Sounds like a plan to me.  Bring all school districts down to the lowest common denominator. Then the lower performing districts won't look so bad.

So what is Booker T. Doing that could transfer to our other schools?

Booker T. Washington is a magnet school. Kids apply to go there. That gives them an advantage over most other schools. But it is way more than that. They truly engage the neighborhood to be part of the school and Alumni help every chance they can.

Rare earth type?  How do you make a four year curriculum out of magnets?

Alternate the polarity so they stick together.
 
 ;D

Failin' showing again how she lives up to her nickname.  We have heard about the hundreds of millions in education cuts in Oklahoma.

Just saw the report on the news that cuts have amounted to 23.6% for each and every child in state schools!  More cuts than ANY other state in the nation - of course!  Again putting us at the wrong end of all the good/bad things lists, plus being at the wrong end of what's right for our children!!

She tried to "rationalize" it by saying that the last 2 years have seen "increases" of $150 million.... think about that for a minute....if so, then it was MUCH worse, because two years ago we were dealing with cuts that amounted to much MORE that 25% per child!!  Apparently even Failin' and Barresi do actually have a point where they do become embarrassed by their actions - and that point is hurting kids by way more than 25%!!!  Just not enough "embarrassment"!!

Will this state every learn??   I guess we will see in a few weeks.....

I'm assuming there are going to be many more education cuts by the state so there might be more and more of these.

Public Meetings Set on School Bond Proposal

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/public-meetings-set-school-bond-proposal (http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/public-meetings-set-school-bond-proposal)

My child's school is getting permanent classrooms to replace the prefabs they installed in the early 80s. Also potentially reconfiguring the entrance since you can pretty much walk in, grab your kid and walk out without the staff seeing you.

This bond package has a lot of great projects.

I'm surprised no one on this forum has latched onto the expansion and remodel of what is now Emerson Elementary just north of downtown.  TPS is trying to get OSU to give up some of their land to expand the school south and a block closer to downtown.  The school is being expanded with the downtown resident and work in mind.

TPS considers eliminating its duplicate police force

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/education/tulsa-school-board-votes-to-cut-central-office-jobs-including/article_e3d22631-8fc7-59bf-96ad-9208e98a9e3b.html

Wonderful !!   Then we can just hire off-duty police at double the cost !!

Did either of you read the article?  They aren’t talking about eliminating the police force, just a re-organization cutting it from a staffing level of 74 to 60.  If TPS were subject more to outside examination of essential school functions and waste, they could eliminate $12mm worth without affecting the educational experience nor extracurricular activities.  How long has TPS had a police force?  How on earth is this really justified or are these glorified security patrolmen we could contract for at a cheaper rate? I don’t recall a TPS police force when I was still school age.

Why yes, I did.

Young said he considered several cost-reduction measures to the campus police department, including eliminating it altogether. School districts in Oklahoma are not required to have their own campus police, and many rely on local municipal police departments, he said.

Yep.  I read it too.  The Chief of the department is working hard to keep his job by throwing some others under the bus.


But if you re-read my note, the tone that was intended was that it would be foolish to get rid of their own department.  Maybe that didn't come across quite as strongly as I wanted.   I submit it would cost more to get outside security than have internal employees.  Goe to my whole "anti-outsourcing" attitude for important parts of an organization's operation.

Not sure of your age but since I was in middle school we had security guards patrolling the campus. We definitely had them in high school. The installed a metal detector at the entrance one year but that only lasted for about a year and then it was disabled.

We had a security guard back in the 80s at Booker T Washington. I wasn’t a smoker but I always heard he was the guy to get good weed from.

A bit different from my daughter’s experience at Jenks a few years ago when campus police beat a deaf student in front of her because he wasn’t following orders that he couldn’t hear.

The security patrol designated for TPS is pretty helpful and more or less trained for dealing with minors in a school situation. When a school bus driver has a behavioral problem the dispatcher can quickly arrange for security to meet at a designated spot or the school. I suspect that would be a much lower priority and a longer wait for regular TPD patrolmen. The high schools pared away a lot of the door security they used to have who also helped patrol the parking lots where parents clog up the pickup and delivery areas because they aren't aware of anyone else's needs but their own. Most high school teachers and principals do now want to do the work those security guards did, like breaking up fights, running off dealers from the school grounds or dealing with unreasonable parents.

I am curious as to the specific amount Conan mentioned, $12mm, and exactly how that is apparent to him but not the school board?

I can't  speak for the specific need, the cost, or if there is savings to be had... I'm no expert, just thinking on my keyboard. But I could see how having a school police division or at least officers within TPD specifically trained for and familiar with the schools and school kids could really help.  Either through fear of being caught because police are always around or from respect for the officer because they know him - it could prevent some incidents.  And when something does happen, having someone the kids know could help defuse the situation and/or keep others safe.  And if that doesn't work and the officer needs to get seriously involved, I could see specific training and experience with school kids could be really helpful.

Just having the same police there over and over and being familiar with what should be going on at a school and who should be there could be very helpful.

If this could be accomplished other ways and money could be saved, all the better.  But I could see it being useful.

Then again... here's a list of the law enforcement agencies that I think have jurisdiction within Tulsa City limits, that I could think of:

Tulsa Police
Tulsa Sheriff
Tulsa Public School Police
OU Police
OSU Police
TU Campus Security
Oklahoma State Troopers
OSBI
TSA
FBI
US Marshall's
ICE
Creek Nation Light Horse Police
Osage Police
Cherokee Nation Marshall's
Secret Service
DEA
ATF
Game Wardens for various agencies
Military Police and a slew of less likely to be involved Federal police (various other military police/inspectors, Postal Police, Custom and Border Protection, BIA, BLM, NPS, BOP, DOJ OIG, etc. etc. etc.)
Did the Oklahoma insurance commissioner get armed police or not?

and that's not counting Skiatook, Owasso, Glennpool, BA, Sapulpa, Sand Springs, Catoosa, Claremore, Jenks, Mounds, Liberty, Coweta, Verdigris, Sperry, or a slew of other towns or other counties around Tulsa who have their own law enforcement officials and whose officers may from time to time have to exercise jurisdiction in Tulsa.

So maybe we could consolidate some.   ;D

$12 mil is the currently stated budget shortfall for TPS.  I was simply musing that there has got to be $12mm which could be found via cuts in administration or operations without affecting the educational experience nor extracurricular activities.

This is the problem when you ask department heads, whether it’s a public entity or corporation, to find ways to cut their budgets via lay-offs and cutting expenditures.  No one wants to work any harder or take on tasks so it is claimed that all personnel in the department are essential even though it is entirely possible for fewer employees to take on more responsibility. 

I have sold and serviced government accounts for the better part of 25 years.  I cannot even count how many times I’ve been called out for a site visit near the end of a fiscal year so that a department could spend the rest of their budget dollars for that year because if they don’t spend them they will be cut from next year’s budget.  Never mind that what they spent the money on was for equipment they really did not need for another ten years or consumables they will stockpile for two or three years.

If you ask the Superintendent of Cashion or Goodwell Schools (I’m arbitrarily throwing those out there) if they could consolidate with other school systems, you will get a flat “no”.  Every superintendent is going to protect their little fiefdom and their $150K salary and their friends who work in the school system.  Ask legislators about forcing consolidation in their own districts and it won’t happen.  They don’t want to lose their position of power by cutting jobs or expenditures in their districts. 

Probably the best answer to help larger districts who are getting cuts at the state level would be to consolidate the operations of smaller districts to make up for those shortfalls.  I know it’s not popular in rural areas but in this day and age of car-centric middle America I really don’t see where the hardship comes from.  The operation of a few more buses in rural areas is a lot less expensive than operating an entire school district for 200 or 300 students.

County wide school districts with the opportunity for larger cites to have their own independent districts. We have 77 counties so probably 75 county districts and 50-60 city or area districts. No schools need to close, just reshuffle management and administration.

Great idea.

What was it we figured out before on the number of school districts in Oklahoma?  550+ wasn’t it?

520

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Oklahoma


Consolidation has been going on for decades - many schools systems have combined in that time.  One I travel through quite a bit is the Oologah/Talala combined district.  Have relatives who work in Bartlesville, Vinita, and Miama area schools - some of which have had combining over the years.  Not sure about B'ville directly, but something has gone on in that area.  Erfalf, do you have any info about what is going on?   Maybe Dewey, Copan areas??  Dewey would be perfect candidate to combine with B'ville.  Is Caney Valley Public schools a combo in the Ramona/Vera/Ochelata area?

Oklahoma Union is a combo of many little schools up near KS border.

A lot has been done.  More should be done.

Commentary;

http://oklahomawatch.org/2014/06/28/is-oklahoma-spending-too-much-on-school-administration/

Same here.  There was always some sort of School Security. Schools never went "unprotected" the way the fear-mongering goes.
We also forget TPS police was formed because administrators were frustrated with media attention to school crime they would hear over police radio.

I haven't heard anything about Bartlesville absorbing anything in the immediate area, but in fairness, I would probably only find out once it was in the paper, unless it directly effected my kid's elementary school (which it wouldn't). Dewey is a decent sized district on it's own. In Bartlesville the high schools combined in 82, but I believe it was all within the district. Caney Valley to the south is the next closest district, and as I mentioned I really haven't heard anything. Not arguing that Dewey would not be a good fit, just that as you all know, political will is a tough nut to crack. And Dewey ain't exactly struggling, like maybe Caney or Copan.

For comparison, the ADM's for the schools in Washington County alone for 2016 are below:

Bartlesville - 6,097.83
Dewey - 1,264.33
Caney Valley - 789.49
Copan - 244.14

Combining all 4 would result in a district still smaller than Owasso is as it is currently configured, but considerably larger than Bixby.

My home town has a combined district. Deer Creek-Lamont combined in the 70's. The facility in Deer Creek serves as the elementary school while the one in Lamont as the middle/high school. No schools technically closed in the combination and it is unlikely direct employees got reduced all that much as I believe classes were combined pre-consolidation (think 1st & 2nd grade in the same room/same teacher), whereas now they are not. Obviously administration was reduced.

And in regards to busing in the above school, bus routes went out in to the country as they always did, then the last two buses are from site to site hauling Lamont elementary students to Deer Creek and vice versa for MS/HS kids residing in Deer Creek. Not really that big of a deal really.

Oklahoma Union and Oologah got their respective combinations quite a while ago. 

The northeast OK combos were done long ago, too.  Two of these resulted in fewer admin type positions after the changes were made - had an uncle who was principal in one of them and became principal of the combination.  Second one moved on.  Lots of other staff lost too.

The idea of consolidating has been around for a long time and has faced severe opposition from the counties who would tend to lose a lot of funding. I would guess those district employees live like kings in their sparsely populated areas. It doesn't help the current large school districts with their shortfalls that are likely 2-3 years even if they did something now. And they aren't doing anything, now.

But, we are assuming that the state is kicking in the requisite amounts per student necessary to accomplish their demands. I don't see any record of that. In fact we rank last or near last in funding nationwide.

Conan, the budget thing is a problem. I liked what Boren did when he was governor. Each year departments had to start at zero and justify their proposed budgets. I wonder what happened to that practice?

It got "Republican-ized".  By the Hijacked Republican Party.

520 districts for a 77 county state is beyond ridiculous.

I’m too young to remember much about Boren’s tenure as governor.  He’d already gone on to the U.S. Senate by the time I was eligible to vote and knew/cared about fiscal issues.  And yes, I did vote for him when he was in the Senate.  At that time in his career, he’d be a Republican by any measure.  ;)

So for my proposal in Washington County I would say two districts. One for Bartlesville, especially since part of the city is in Osage County and another district for all the other schools in the county.

Osage County would have one district but would lose some carve outs from city districts from Sand Springs, Skiatook and Bartlesville.

Would seem to be, but too much a blanket statement without more information about how it all works in each district.  Several examples in that one link does elaborate some.  I could see how it might actually raise costs to consolidate, depending on distances between towns/schools.

Consolidation has been going on for a long time and needs to be continued.  But how do you get an impartial group with enough localized knowledge to not screw it up?  Basically will boil down to whose high school mascot is gonna get gored??