Tulsa Public Schools Spending

[nathanm]

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.

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.

[RecycleMichael]

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.

[heironymouspasparagus]

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.

[heironymouspasparagus]

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.

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.

[Gaspar]

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.

[Conan71]

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.

[carltonplace]

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.

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

[heironymouspasparagus]

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.

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!

[Gaspar]

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.

[AquaMan]

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.

[JCnOwasso]

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.

[AquaMan]

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.

[Gaspar]

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.

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.

[heironymouspasparagus]

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.

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.

[heironymouspasparagus]

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.  

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.