Doctors are not the only ones complaining about pay?

[DoctaJay]

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Maybe I'm the only daft one here, but I'm not exactly getting how in the world judges can complain about jobs.

Now I really don't know much about the process of becoming a judge. But dont' you just got to law school for 3 YEARS, get a job at a firm or wherever RIGHT OUT OF law school, then practice till your salary increases to the millions; and then eventually accept a call to be a judge? Now your salary may drop to a measley $175,000/year (read: sarcasm) but the only thing that would prevent a judge from living on that salary is his/her previous high standard of living. There is no $280,000 worth of school debt, along with 3 to 7 years of working for $50,000/year, along with decreasing reimbursement. Even if a neurosugeon is making $800,000/year, he would have taken at least 10 years longer than a lawyer to hit that point and probably will still be paying off his debt. Just my .02 cents.

 

[Tired]

I understand that New Jersey spends something in the neighbohood of 10,000 bucks per kid per year on education and they still have crappy schools. With a typical class of 30 that's $300,000 per class. Where does the money go? For 300K you could hire a full-time Harvard professor, a degreed teacher as an assistant, and rent a conference room at a decent hotel for the entire school year. Hell, you could pay the professor and buy a small house and still have money for free lunches and breakfasts.

The amount of waste in the public schools is staggering and the people running the show, the NEA for example, cannot be trusted to solve the problem.

See, now you're starting to use typical right-wing straw man arguments. You don't usually do this, why are you starting now?

1) What do you and I know about where the money goes in a public school system? We have no idea. For instance, what is the cost of administration, facilities, supplies, extra cost for Special Education, etc? Unless you're now going to tell me that, in your former life, you were an accountant for a major urban school system, the truth is that we know little about this.

2) I don't know my school economics, but I do know that the NEA doesn't "run" anything. They are a national advocacy organization, not a union or administration organization. It's like saying, "We can't count on the NRA to clean up illegal gun sales in this country." Just doesn't make sense.

 

[Tired]

Your sympathy for minimum wage earners is inversly proportional to how many minimum wage jobs you have worked.

By show of hands, how many of you have worked fast food, labor, or retail sales?

(One panda paw raised in the air. Crickets chirp in the background.)

Oh man, big hands up right there. I've got fast food and labor, but only if you count Nursing Home CNA as "labor" (and if you've done it, you know what I'm talking about).

 

[deuist]

Maybe I'm the only daft one here, but I'm not exactly getting how in the world judges can complain about jobs.

Now I really don't know much about the process of becoming a judge. But dont' you just got to law school for 3 YEARS, get a job at a firm or wherever RIGHT OUT OF law school, then practice till your salary increases to the millions; and then eventually accept a call to be a judge? Now your salary may drop to a measley $175,000/year (read: sarcasm) but the only thing that would prevent a judge from living on that salary is his/her previous high standard of living. There is no $280,000 worth of school debt, along with 3 to 7 years of working for $50,000/year, along with decreasing reimbursement. Even if a neurosugeon is making $800,000/year, he would have taken at least 10 years longer than a lawyer to hit that point and probably will still be paying off his debt. Just my .02 cents.

Few lawyers ever make millions of dollars---a rare few even get to firm where the earning potential for partners is that high. Many will struggle to find employment after law school at the paltry sum of $40,000. I can't find the website now, but there is a blog by a U. Arizona law graduate that talks about the myths of an attorney's' salary.

 

[deuist]

1) What do you and I know about where the money goes in a public school system? We have no idea. For instance, what is the cost of administration, facilities, supplies, extra cost for Special Education, etc? Unless you're now going to tell me that, in your former life, you were an accountant for a major urban school system, the truth is that we know little about this.

My mother is public school teacher and has been for many years. She also once worked for the school board. The amount of middle management is staggering. So much money is wasted on the salaries of people who never see students that I'm confident that New Jersey is spending more than $10,000 per student. Just look at the federal Department of Education. It has an annual budget of nearly 70 billion dollars, yet it does not directly pay teachers' salaries. It instead gives grants for things like horticulture. If you really want to get your blood boiling, read The Worm in the Apple. According to the author's estimates, there is a 1:1 ratio of adults to students in the American education system. However, very few of those adult employees are actual teachers.

 

[Law2Doc]

Few lawyers ever make millions of dollars---a rare few even get to firm where the earning potential for partners is that high. Many will struggle to find employment after law school at the paltry sum of $40,000. I can't find the website now, but there is a blog by a U. Arizona law graduate that talks about the myths of an attorney's' salary.

Few by percentage perhaps, but not few in number. You have to realize that the number of lawyers in the US dwarfs the number of physicians several times over. Associates right out of law school who go to large law firms in large cities earn $145k. The partners they work for generally earn significantly more, and millionaire incomes are pretty much the rule for partners at such firms. But law schools crank out more lawyers than the market can bear each year, and so the bottom of the classes tend to pull the averages down (when you average each million dollar partner's salary against several dozen legal aid types earning $30k, it brings the average down pretty quick.) But because there are so many more than them, it's a pretty reasonable estimate that at least as many lawyers out there earn as much or more than physicians (again, by number, not percentage). It's only when you cannot be in this top of the pack, or you look at it by percentage, or averages, that you see the realities I'm sure this Arizona person is talking about.
(And FWIW, Arizona is not a salary competitive region of the country in law).

 

[Hawk2007]

My mother is public school teacher and has been for many years. She also once worked for the school board. The amount of middle management is staggering.

I've always found it funny though in the public education system that the farther you get away from the students, the more money you make. For example, the superintendent for the school system I graduated from made $250K per year.

 

[Wizard of Oz]

I've always found it funny though in the public education system that the farther you get away from the students, the more money you make. For example, the superintendent for the school system I graduated from made $250K per year.

Trudat 👍

Ultimately the problems with teacher pay (and American social problems in general IMHO) stem from the desire of just about every US taxpayer wanting to pay as little taxes as possible without realizing said ramifications.

 

[deuist]

Ultimately the problems with teacher pay (and American social problems in general IMHO) stem from the desire of just about every US taxpayer wanting to pay as little taxes as possible without realizing said ramifications.

That's the myth of educational funding. The United States spends more per student than any other country by far. The problem is not the amount of funds, but the distribution. When paper pushers at the school board are making $60,000 a year while the teachers on the front line start at $25,000, there is little wonder that a teacher shortage exists. Other troubles abound: parents are a horror that refuse to deal with their children, bad students can never be expelled or even disciplined, teachers have no negotiating ability of salary---meaning that there is no incentive to hire talented teachers versus duds.

 

[OrangeTide]

2) I don't know my school economics, but I do know that the NEA doesn't "run" anything. They are a national advocacy organization, not a union or administration organization. It's like saying, "We can't count on the NRA to clean up illegal gun sales in this country." Just doesn't make sense.

The NEA is the front for al-qaeda operations in the US.

 

[8744]

See, now you're starting to use typical right-wing straw man arguments. You don't usually do this, why are you starting now?

1) What do you and I know about where the money goes in a public school system? We have no idea. For instance, what is the cost of administration, facilities, supplies, extra cost for Special Education, etc? Unless you're now going to tell me that, in your former life, you were an accountant for a major urban school system, the truth is that we know little about this.

2) I don't know my school economics, but I do know that the NEA doesn't "run" anything. They are a national advocacy organization, not a union or administration organization. It's like saying, "We can't count on the NRA to clean up illegal gun sales in this country." Just doesn't make sense.

What you are talking about is called "overhead." Overhead is unavoidable but like I said, if you have $300,000 to spend per class, a small fraction of that can support a large amount of overhead considering that most of the physical plant of a school is not paid for directly but amortized through the sale of bonds and other financial instruments. As for administrative costs, I paid about $5000 per year per kid to send them to a nice private school in Shreveport. They had very little bureaucracy, were able to deal with my oldest son who has Asperger's syndrome, and delivered a superior education to anything public in town. It is no "straw man."

Complaining that the public schools need more money to pay for increased administration is like the Menendez twins asking for leniency because they are orphans. The educational establishment has created the current bloated byzantine bureaucracy.

The NRA, by the way, is in an adversarial relationship with the BATF. THe NEA, on the other hand, is in bed with the Department of Educations at the state and federal level. That is a profound difference because the NEA will successfully pull the puppet strings of the Department of Education to resist any meanigful reform.

The NEA is a union, by the way.

 

[OrangeTide]

The fact is if we knew how much was spent to educate one kid in America, we'd all throw up. It's one of those dirty secrets that the government doesn't want anyone to know. It's not particularly the fault of any political party, but one is more to blame than the other, we'll see if anything gets fixed with their newly discovered power.

 

[8744]

The fact is if we knew how much was spent to educate one kid in America, we'd all throw up. It's one of those dirty secrets that the government doesn't want anyone to know. It's not particularly the fault of any political party, but one is more to blame than the other, we'll see if anything gets fixed with their newly discovered power.

Don't count on it. The NEA is heavily Democratic, almost exclusively, and the teacher's unions are a core Democrat constituency. You cannot expect the wolves to guard the hen house.

 

[deuist]

Complaining that the public schools need more money to pay for increased administration is like the Menendez twins asking for leniency because they are orphans.

That's got to be the best analogy that I've heard in a long time. I'm going to start using it from now on.

 

[Tired]

What you are talking about is called "overhead." Overhead is unavoidable but like I said, if you have $300,000 to spend per class, a small fraction of that can support a large amount of overhead considering that most of the physical plant of a school is not paid for directly but amortized through the sale of bonds and other financial instruments. As for administrative costs, I paid about $5000 per year per kid to send them to a nice private school in Shreveport. They had very little bureaucracy, were able to deal with my oldest son who has Asperger's syndrome, and delivered a superior education to anything public in town. It is no "straw man."

You're comparing the bureaucracy and management of a single school with a couple hundred kids (if that), to the bureaucracy and management that comes from running entire school districts with tens of thousands (or more) students? Larger systems require larger bureaucracies. And physical plant issues are initially funded with bond offerings (school construction), but anyone watching legislative agendas knows that maintenance and upkeep are paid for year by year through state budgets.

The NRA, by the way, is in an adversarial relationship with the BATF. THe NEA, on the other hand, is in bed with the Department of Educations at the state and federal level. That is a profound difference because the NEA will successfully pull the puppet strings of the Department of Education to resist any meanigful reform.

The NEA is a union, by the way.

The NEA is a union the way that the AFL-CIO is a union; in name only. True teacher representation is done through local affiliates. The NEA does not actively participate in local issues, and instead focuses on a national legislative agenda.

I would be interested to know what everyone is so worked up about regarding public schools. I graduated from one and did fine. So did most of my friends. Are there a lot of failures? Well of course, it's bound to happen when you have to take everyone who applies. But all in all, we seem to produce a decent workforce and good-sized college-bound population of kids.

In general, it seems like parents who send their kids to private schools do more complaining about the public system than parents who send their kids there.

My favorite is when the TV news folks interview parents who say things like, "50% of children score below average on standardized testing, and that is simply unacceptable."

 

[soeagerun2or]

I agree. Idealistically speaking, we should have a uniform salary of $50K whether you're a newspaper vendor, neurosurgeon, or Supreme Court justice. However, the problem with such as system is that people tend to take the easiest job for the pay and too few will go to school for 15 years or whatever it takes to become a neurosurgeon. Same thing in law -- who's going to want to go to law school if it pays the same as becoming a musician, which may require no college education at all. Pay is an important incentive even if it's not the only incentive.

If you get paid the same regardless of what you do why wouldn't you go to school for 15 years? You get paid to go to school the same as if you were a janitor or out of school as a doctor. As it stands currently the only way to get out of the incredible debt most students acquire in professional school is to seek a large salary.

 

[8744]

You're comparing the bureaucracy and management of a single school with a couple hundred kids (if that), to the bureaucracy and management that comes from running entire school districts with tens of thousands (or more) students? Larger systems require larger bureaucracies. And physical plant issues are initially funded with bond offerings (school construction), but anyone watching legislative agendas knows that maintenance and upkeep are paid for year by year through state budgets.




The NEA is a union the way that the AFL-CIO is a union; in name only. True teacher representation is done through local affiliates. The NEA does not actively participate in local issues, and instead focuses on a national legislative agenda.

I would be interested to know what everyone is so worked up about regarding public schools. I graduated from one and did fine. So did most of my friends. Are there a lot of failures? Well of course, it's bound to happen when you have to take everyone who applies. But all in all, we seem to produce a decent workforce and good-sized college-bound population of kids.

In general, it seems like parents who send their kids to private schools do more complaining about the public system than parents who send their kids there.

My favorite is when the TV news folks interview parents who say things like, "50% of children score below average on standardized testing, and that is simply unacceptable."

You have no idea how large the public school bureacracies are. Our little private school in Shreveport had about 800 students and five non-teacher employees. Do you think if I built a network of publiuc schools I would come even close to the level of adminstrators required in the public schools?

Besides, the administrative overhead in the public schools is self-perpetuating, like most bureaucracies. They hire adminstrators to adminstrate administrators. And then you need support personnel for the administrators and pretty soon you have a big, rolling snowball of paper-producing employees, working diligently at nothing.

Dude, the public schools in Shreveport, with a few exceptions, suck. Hard. I feel sorry for the poor who have no choice but to send their kids to them, those of them who care about education I mean. I also understand that many public school teachers send their kids to private schools. (25 percent?) that's what I call quiet complaining.

It also requires nothing to get into and graduate college. There is a college for almost everyone and as long as the federal financial aid dollars keep flowing crappy insitutions like Grambling State just down the road from my home town will keep the warm bodies flowing. So this is hardly evidence of fantastic public education so much as it is evidence of decreasing academic standards.

The AFL-CIO isn't a union? And the NEA doesn't participate in local issues? Dude. Try to insitute teacher competency standards in your town or state and try to keep the NEA out.

 

[8744]

You're comparing the bureaucracy and management of a single school with a couple hundred kids (if that), to the bureaucracy and management that comes from running entire school districts with tens of thousands (or more) students? Larger systems require larger bureaucracies. And physical plant issues are initially funded with bond offerings (school construction), but anyone watching legislative agendas knows that maintenance and upkeep are paid for year by year through state budgets.




The NEA is a union the way that the AFL-CIO is a union; in name only. True teacher representation is done through local affiliates. The NEA does not actively participate in local issues, and instead focuses on a national legislative agenda.

I would be interested to know what everyone is so worked up about regarding public schools. I graduated from one and did fine. So did most of my friends. Are there a lot of failures? Well of course, it's bound to happen when you have to take everyone who applies. But all in all, we seem to produce a decent workforce and good-sized college-bound population of kids.

In general, it seems like parents who send their kids to private schools do more complaining about the public system than parents who send their kids there.

My favorite is when the TV news folks interview parents who say things like, "50% of children score below average on standardized testing, and that is simply unacceptable."

Well, no kidding. Parents who are willing to spend money to send their kids to good schools by definition are concerned about their children's education. The level of parental involvement in private schools is probably several orders of magnitude greater than that of the public schools. And many middle class parents complain because they pay high property taxes for schools to which they cannot send their children. It's kind of double taxation.

Not to mention religious parents who don't want their values trashed by predominantly leftist or left-leaning teachers.

 

[deuist]

Tired, you are correct in saying that private school parents complain the most. I would too if I paid $10,000 a year to send my kids to a private and still had to pay taxes to send other people's children to public school.

Panda, I agree with everything you said except the part about leftist teachers. While many of them are politically liberal, I've known lots of public school teachers who have pushed their fundamentalist Christian views on students. I had one teacher who routinely quoted the Bible and would tell us that we needed to go to church.

 

[TX_Longhorn]

Somehow people in this country got into the mindset the everyone deserves free health care. It's as if the Declaration of Independence should be rewritten to "...life, liberty, and access to heath care." I fail to see how medication is some kind of inalienable right. Further, I don't see why doctors are made out to be some kind of public servant. Just because we have a higher education doesn't mean that we are required to provide for everyone with a complaint. If that were the case, everyone with a professional degree should be just as giving. I want my free lawyer and CPA.

👍

 

[Tired]

Tired, you are correct in saying that private school parents complain the most. I would too if I paid $10,000 a year to send my kids to a private and still had to pay taxes to send other people's children to public school.

And I get this, believe me. I'm not putting down parents who send their kids to private schools. I just find it a touch interesting when the parents with the least amount of experience with the public school system are its strongest critics.

Personally, I did great in public school. My step-daughter is doing just fine in her public elementary school. Granted, if I saw things that disturbed me, I would certainly pull her out and we would send her to a private school. But so far, I see no reason to send her off to a private school when her public school is doing such a good job.

And if I can ever find left-leaning teachers, I will immediately transfer the girl to that school. If there were a Jesuit school in our area, I would send her there. Unfortunately, the private schools are all Protestant or Right-Wing Evangelical, and I want to keep her away from that.

 

[JadedSurgeon]

The only reason most of us do anything is for the money (or the things we can buy with money.)


All of us doctors/future doctors should all admit that at some level we are all in it for the money and come together to stop the cuts by congress, insurance comanies, etc.

 

[Tired]

The only reason most of us do anything is for the money (or the things we can buy with money.)


All of us doctors/future doctors should all admit that at some level we are all in it for the money and come together to stop the cuts by congress, insurance comanies, etc.

I'm Navy, and my salary will be the same regardless of how many patients I treat, what Medicare reimburses, or what congress does with Medicaid.

That's my way of saying, "I hope you go broke." 😀

 

[JadedSurgeon]

You are a lucky S0B then..


I am thinking of taking the HPSP or FAP for that very reason. Pretty soon, military doctors will be the highest payed doctors and the rest of us will be begging for the chance to serve our country.

 

[Tired]

You are a lucky S0B then..


I am thinking of taking the HPSP or FAP for that very reason. Pretty soon, military doctors will be the highest payed doctors and the rest of us will be begging for the chance to serve our country.

Not a chance. You'll be driving your BMW long before I string together a down payment on a house, even with your loans.

Unless you do General Peds. Then you're boned.

 

[8744]

And I get this, believe me. I'm not putting down parents who send their kids to private schools. I just find it a touch interesting when the parents with the least amount of experience with the public school system are its strongest critics.

Personally, I did great in public school. My step-daughter is doing just fine in her public elementary school. Granted, if I saw things that disturbed me, I would certainly pull her out and we would send her to a private school. But so far, I see no reason to send her off to a private school when her public school is doing such a good job.

And if I can ever find left-leaning teachers, I will immediately transfer the girl to that school. If there were a Jesuit school in our area, I would send her there. Unfortunately, the private schools are all Protestant or Right-Wing Evangelical, and I want to keep her away from that.

I send my kids to public school, by the way. But we had to search for a good school (all of the scores, ratings, ethnic make-up, and etc. are on line for every public school in the country) and then pay about twice as much for a house in this school district in this particular neighborhood than if we didn't care and just wanted to send them to any old crappy Lansing public school.

It used to be that you could, with a few exceptions, move anywhere and find a public school of reasonable quality but this is not the case anymore.

Not being able to find left-leaning public school teachers is a little like not being able to find Catholics at the Vatican. You must have your eyes closed. Either that or you don't understand what "left-leaning" means.

Please don't tell me that public education is a hotbed of conservatism.

Hey, the third graders in every evangelical private school I have ever heard of can read which is more than you can say for many of the public schools.

 

[NonTradMed]

And for the record, I'm glad I got to sit through classes describing how RNA reads and translates DNA to make proteins. I'm glad they were given in excruciating detail over the course of a week until I was sick of it. I'm also glad I learned enough embryology to speak intelligently about it, enough biochemsistry to be able to read about it without scratching my head in puzzlement, and enough physiology to explain things to my patients in simple but concise terms.

It is a sad day on SDN when your disgruntled Uncle Panda is the one sticking up for the medical profession.

It's good to know all that junk I just crapped out of my brain last semester may actually be useful someday.....

Your sympathy for minimum wage earners is inversly proportional to how many minimum wage jobs you have worked.

By show of hands, how many of you have worked fast food, labor, or retail sales?

(One panda paw raised in the air. Crickets chirp in the background.)

I have held a few minimum wage jobs. I feel split about my sympathies for my former coworkers. On one hand, many had the chance to go to school, better themselves and choose not to for whatever reason and that's their decision, however, these low end jobs may also fail to have things like health insurance or allow one to support a family so I am sympathetic to those people that tries to do both with such a low income.

My mother once introduced me to a single mother who worked three jobs to support her two kids. She looked perpetually sleep deprived and zombied out. I think my mother wanted me to show me how the 'other side lived'. However, that lady also made poor choices in her life (like having a kid at age 15 and then having another one a few years later!) and her kid was doing the same (prego at age 15 as well), so I know that people can be victims of their own poor decisions. I think an ideal system would be not to guarantee people a certain 'lifestyle' but a minimal standard of living, and an opportunity to leave a life of poverty if one chooses to do so. Upward mobility is more important to me than the actual standard of living.

 

[NonTradMed]

Hey, the third graders in every evangelical private school I have ever heard of can read which is more than you can say for many of the public schools.

Ability to read has very little to do with religious or political affliation. You can't compare private schools to public schools because public schools must accept everyone while private schools can selective filter out students. Also, it's more likely that parents who can send their kids to a private school will also be active participant in their children's education than your average public school parent who may or may not care about their kids' educational aspirations. And parental involvement is shown to be a heavy influence on children's educational performance.

I think you may find that just as many third graders can read in a secular, left leaning private school as you could find it in a private, evangelical school (but you know, I learned to read a semester after entering first grade as a nonenglish speaking student and I went to a public school!). You need to compare apples to apples. Teachers can only work so much with the students they are given.

I think the problem in the US educational system is NOT in the NEA, "leftist" leaning teachers, or wasteful management of money (although this probably is an issue), but in the societal and parental attitudes that allows students to slack off in school.

I just came back from a trip to China and I was very impressed with the stress on early education in that country. In particular, I dropped by a rural, hole in the wall "preschool" center that was family owned where the local peasants dropped their kids off of before going into the fields and even though the facilities were run down, the teacher to student ratio was abymal, and most students were running unkempt, they were teaching the little 3 and 4 year olds how to read and write and a little bit of math. This is expected at even a crappy, 4th rate daycare center run that catered to farmers who probably never went past middle school.

My cousin, who is in a middle incomed family and finished high school, sends her kid to a preschool that teachers addition/subtraction, (Chinese) reading, (Chinese) writing, English and music. She wants her kid to go to college even though she wasn't smart enough to test into one herself. Her situation isn't even unique. Many Chinese familes expect to spend money and time to ensure their children are given the best education possible. Another cousin is planning on having their first child in 2008 and even though now they are allowed to have two kids (becuase both are only childs), the wife has already decided they will only have one child since they can't afford a good education for two kids.

Chinese society, IMHO, tends to put a higher value on education than American society and kids push themselves accordingly. I've met few Chinese people who showed disrespect for 'overeducated' intellectuals that I see in US society. The fact that I am acquiring a doctorate level degree is met with uniform respect in China while I've met a few people in the US who think I'm just being stupid for going back to 'skool'. That right there says something about how much value people place in education.

We can make great schools by placing more value on education. I don't think inviting more conservative teachers or banning the NEA will teach kids to read or do math any more easily than having liberal teachers and the NEA at their beck and call.

 

[8744]

...Ability to read has very little to do with religious or political affliation. You can't compare private schools to public schools because public schools must accept everyone while private schools can selective filter out students. Also, it's more likely that parents who can send their kids to a private school will also be active participant in their children's education than your average public school parent who may or may not care about their kids' educational aspirations. And parental involvement is shown to be a heavy influence on children's educational performance...

So what's your point? We agree that private schools do a better job educating "normal" children. Since most children are "normal," what is the problem with the public schools? The fact that public schools cannot filter out children who are discipline problems, for example, and have no interest in school, is part of the problem and why many public school teachers are so frustrated with the system as they are forced to scarifice their well behaved students for the sake of the disruptive ones. But this is the result of liberal, non-judgemental, bleeding hearts, not conservative ideas. In the old days, you could get not just suspended but expelled for a fraction of what we yawn at today.

The philosophy of the public schools, especially the crappy, inner-city ones, is "graduation at all costs," even if the student can't read the diploma and is as ignorant leaving as he was when he came in. Just so long as the meat was moved through the system they call it education and everybody congratulates themselves on the fine job they are dong ensuring that their drop-out rate is low.

It would be better to just let people drop out. A high school diploma is universally recognized now as a useless piece of paper so what's the big incentive to pretend the ignorant are being educated? A GED is just as good for those who have change of heart later in life.

Public schools also started "mainstreaming" slow children to the detriment of their normal peers, simply because the liberals believe that it's not fair that some kids have to ride the short bus.

And I would also point out that the collapse of the family which is the root for most of our social pathology is the result of liberal (or progressive or whatever the hell leftists want ot be called) social policies. It's not as if conservative have not been warning everybody for the last fifty years about the consequences of illegitmacy, casual sex, drugs, permissiveness, and welfare dependence.

 

[8744]

...We can make great schools by placing more value on education. I don't think inviting more conservative teachers or banning the NEA will teach kids to read or do math any more easily than having liberal teachers and the NEA at their beck and call....

No, but leftist ideas as they are usually based on wishful thinking are the root of the problem.

 

[8744]

One word: Ebonics.

If you can't explain that then, with respect, you all need to "STFU" about theglories of public education.

 

[deuist]

I just find it a touch interesting when the parents with the least amount of experience with the public school system are its strongest critics.

What makes you say that those private school parents have the least experience? I went public through the 10th grade and only did private for 11th and 12th. I've got lots of experience in the public school sector---which is why I can compare the two systems.

 

[NonTradMed]

So what's your point? We agree that private schools do a better job educating "normal" children. Since most children are "normal," what is the problem with the public schools? The fact that public schools cannot filter out children who are discipline problems, for example, and have no interest in school, is part of the problem and why many public school teachers are so frustrated with the system as they are forced to scarifice their well behaved students for the sake of the disruptive ones. But this is the result of liberal, non-judgemental, bleeding hearts, not conservative ideas. In the old days, you could get not just suspended but expelled for a fraction of what we yawn at today.

The philosophy of the public schools, especially the crappy, inner-city ones, is "graduation at all costs," even if the student can't read the diploma and is as ignorant leaving as he was when he came in. Just so long as the meat was moved through the system they call it education and everybody congratulates themselves on the fine job they are dong ensuring that their drop-out rate is low.

It would be better to just let people drop out. A high school diploma is universally recognized now as a useless piece of paper so what's the big incentive to pretend the ignorant are being educated? A GED is just as good for those who have change of heart later in life.

Public schools also started "mainstreaming" slow children to the detriment of their normal peers, simply because the liberals believe that it's not fair that some kids have to ride the short bus.

Well, if you think that children with discipline problems should be kicked out of school, where do you suggest we sent them to? The streets? The problem of what to do with troubled youngster is not the result of 'bleeding liberals', or 'redneck conservatives'. I have seen nowhere that conservatives are advocating kicking dicipline problem students out of schools, at least not without an idea of putting them somewhere else. Also, I don't think it's fair to 'give up' on a student simply because he/she had discipline issues at the age of 11. Many people who were troubled children can grow up to be good students. There is a line to draw about when to kick disruptive kids out of schools but what to do with them thereafter is an issue that society has yet to find a good solution to. It is an issue that society has tackled with for as long as there as been mandatory public education. Children who are discipline problems who have no school to go to tend to find trouble on their own.

I do agree that mainstreaming is a bad idea and I'd also stick my neck out and say that the amount of money spent on special education is unfair to the 'special needs' kids on the other end of the spectum, namely gifted students. Every disabled student is given, by law, the right to an education that caters to their disability, but gifted students are left to their own devices. I'd like to see a more equitable distribution of money in this regard.

And I would also point out that the collapse of the family which is the root for most of our social pathology is the result of liberal (or progressive or whatever the hell leftists want ot be called) social policies. It's not as if conservative have not been warning everybody for the last fifty years about the consequences of illegitmacy, casual sex, drugs, permissiveness, and welfare dependence.

....

No, but leftist ideas as they are usually based on wishful thinking are the root of the problem.

"Collapse of the family"? The sky is falling much? 😛

Personally, I liked most of the social changes the past 50 years. As a Chinese female, I have been an engineer and am now in med school. I don't think I could have easily accomplished any that had I gone to school in 1957 back when familes were uncollapsed and life was supposedly so much better for people. And I'd point out that drugs was around long before the 20th century. My own glorious native country was populated by opium smoking addicts long before the sexual revolution (even fought a war over it). And welfare dependency is just a replacement for the poverty of the 50 years ago. Not saying one is better than the other, but I don't think 1957 was a better time to be poor than 2007. IMHO, all those social problems that you say is the result of the collapse of the family has always existed, but only been thrown out into the open in recent times. Dysfunctional families have been around as long as there has been families. My own mother grew up in those touted 1950's in China at a time when divorced was nonexistant, but she knew families that were essentially broken up. The 1950's were different from 2007 only in that people hid their problems from each other, giving an illusion that everything was fine.

I guess you and I will just see things differently. You seem to view things from a political 'this is a liberal/leftist' philosophy as many of your nonmedical commentaries seem to revolve around this idea.

I do not view things in such a black and white dichotomy. There are many problems in this world, and the ideas that I best see to resolve them is not all 'leftist' or 'rightist'. A good idea is a good idea no matter which side of the political coin suggested it. I think social "leftists" have many great ideas such as the idea of allowing women and blacks into med schools, and I believe there have been dudes like the 'new math' crap. I also think the same of conservatives and agree with some ideas suggested like focusing on 'back to basics' but disagree with abstainance only education.

I'm not one to believe that any one political group has been dictating social/educational policies for the last 50 years. For one thing, if it was the liberal's fault for the current state of education, then it is just as much the conservative's fault for letting those horrible policies to lay claim on the political scene.

However, I believe that the current educational problems we have is the result of both conservatives and liberals who have tried to push their own political agenda onto the educational system.

One word: Ebonics.

If you can't explain that then, with respect, you all need to "STFU" about theglories of public education.

Aren't there private schools that teaches creation science and how those evil evolutionists that are trying to turn everyone into atheists? 😉



I went to public schools through high school, then a private college, now a public med school. I don't pick a school base on their political/religious philosophy, although one could choose to do so. I choose my school based on where it could give me the most bang for my buck. Some public schools are crap, some are are great, ditto for private schools. I believe the education issues in this country is not a private vs. public issue but the result of a general disrespect for education by society.

 

[8744]

"Collapse of the family"? The sky is falling much? 😛

Name one social problem we have today which is not either the direct result of or greatly exacerbated by the lack of family stability, especially among the poor. The children of the intelligentsia may do all right with their divorced parents but 17-year-old single, multiparous women are set up for failure both as parents and in life. Everybody on this thread admits as much when they opine on the difficulty of maintaining didcipline in the classroom and the poor behavior, lack of parental support, and malaise of the system, all of which are the result of shoddy or absent parenting.

Or as the mother of one of my patients who shot his girlfriend in the vagna because she smoked some of his crack put it, "He's a good boy and I am a good mother...he has a 4.0 in school."

Uh huh.

 

[8744]

And I assure you that things have not always been this way. I am second to none in my admiration for the heros of the civil rights movement but I understand, for example, that the literacy rate was higher for blacks in the 1950s than it is today. I need for somebody to explain to me why civil rights should translate into lower academic standards and crappier schools...which is what I think you were getting at by saying that things are better today.

Sure, some things are but we're talking about American public education which everybody agrees has gone, in two generations, from the best in the free world to worse than even some third world countries.

 

[Miami_med]

Maybe -- especially since Roberts is bemoaning the fact that more judges are coming from the public sector instead of the private sector. Public sectors lawyers tend to be more liberal than private sector lawyers. His argument there holds little merit for me, too, because why do we necessarily care that the courts are comprised of more judges who formerly worked in the public sector? Is that necessarily a bad thing? Sure, it's an historical change, but it certainly doesn't rise to the level of being a "constitutional crisis" -- at least, I'm not seeing the crisis yet.

His idea about lower pay essentially destroying the value of life tenure has the most merit, I think, of any of his arguments. However, as we've seen, judges are still making plenty of money and still have lots of incentives to keep their jobs. If they were to give up the protection of their tenured job, it wouldn't be out of desperation or poverty.

The more interesting question is a social one: If justice is blind and judges really just uphold the law, why is the background of the judge important?

It is amusing that at even the highest echelons of government, no one really believes that there is such a thing as an impartial judiciary.

 

[Miami_med]

I went to public schools through high school, then a private college, now a public med school. I don't pick a school base on their political/religious philosophy, although one could choose to do so. I choose my school based on where it could give me the most bang for my buck. Some public schools are crap, some are are great, ditto for private schools. I believe the education issues in this country is not a private vs. public issue but the result of a general disrespect for education by society.

There needs to be something to respect first.

I went to a private elementary school, public middle and high schools, public university, and private medical school. My wife used to be a public high school teacher. My mom used to be a private elementary school music teacher. I am as qualified as anyone to discuss this issue.

The best education I received before college was in my parents living room and part time jobs, while school pretty much got in the way. College was pretty much a search to find some real knowledge in a sea of tenured "idealists" who have lived off of the state their entire lives and never held a job where they had to produce everything. The difference between high school and college was that I could find the knowledge if I tried hard enough. Many people with degrees did not.

Medical school is interesting. I like my school, but at this level, private vs. public is irrelevant. So much public money goes to all of the private schools, that they are only private in name. Public schools also receive huge amounts of private funding. I figure I learn biochemistry and physiology on private dollars, while I get to learn "professionalism," and "medical ethics" on public dollars. I'll let you decide whether these courses have anything to do with ethics or professionalism at all.

I had a student in my class last year who was incredibly left-leaning in every way, except education. He was a teacher for underpriveleged kids in a different state for a few years. This guy favored nationalization of all sorts of things, but he favored privatization of public schools. Go figure.

 

[Miami_med]

P.S. School Doesn't equal education.

 

[Tired]

Not being able to find left-leaning public school teachers is a little like not being able to find Catholics at the Vatican. You must have your eyes closed. Either that or you don't understand what "left-leaning" means.

Please don't tell me that public education is a hotbed of conservatism.

Hey, the third graders in every evangelical private school I have ever heard of can read which is more than you can say for many of the public schools.

Don't have time to go through this whole thread right now, but just wanted to point out one thing. The politics of the teachers in public schools are a mirror of the politics in the community you live in. If you're in the heart of NYC, you will have liberal teachers. If you live in Mormon Country (not too far from me), you will have conservative teachers. Private schools can cherry-pick their teachers based on politics, public schools do not.

Yeah, I get left-leaning, because I am falling over in that direction.

And I don't care about other people's kids being able to read. In fact, I don't care about other people's kids at all. My kid is in the second grade, and is reading a grade level above her age. That makes me happy.

 

[8744]

Don't have time to go through this whole thread right now, but just wanted to point out one thing. The politics of the teachers in public schools are a mirror of the politics in the community you live in. If you're in the heart of NYC, you will have liberal teachers. If you live in Mormon Country (not too far from me), you will have conservative teachers. Private schools can cherry-pick their teachers based on politics, public schools do not.

Yeah, I get left-leaning, because I am falling over in that direction.

And I don't care about other people's kids being able to read. In fact, I don't care about other people's kids at all. My kid is in the second grade, and is reading a grade level above her age. That makes me happy.

This is not true at all. One thing that annoys conservative parents in predominantly conservative school districts is how hard it is for them to exercise their political clout (through elelction to the school board) on the entrenched liberal teaching establishment.

 

[p9142]

Aren't there private schools that teaches creation science and how those evil evolutionists that are trying to turn everyone into atheists? 😉

While we do have schools like the ones you mention, those same schools in Louisiana do a much better job of teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic than the public schools.

It is unfortunate that they feel the need to indoctrinate the students with their non-science agenda, but if I had a child I would send him to one of these schools over a public school any day.

 

[45408]

I understand that New Jersey spends something in the neighbohood of 10,000 bucks per kid per year on education and they still have crappy schools. With a typical class of 30 that's $300,000 per class. Where does the money go? For 300K you could hire a full-time Harvard professor, a degreed teacher as an assistant, and rent a conference room at a decent hotel for the entire school year. Hell, you could pay the professor and buy a small house and still have money for free lunches and breakfasts.

The amount of waste in the public schools is staggering and the people running the show, the NEA for example, cannot be trusted to solve the problem.

No kidding. I went to a private Baptist K-12 school with tuition under $3500/year with classes of <22 students. Guess what? Our standardized test scores in 8th grade were in the 99.9th percentile. They wouldn't even know what to do with $300,000 per class

 

[45408]

I have held a few minimum wage jobs. I feel split about my sympathies for my former coworkers. On one hand, many had the chance to go to school, better themselves and choose not to for whatever reason and that's their decision, however, these low end jobs may also fail to have things like health insurance or allow one to support a family so I am sympathetic to those people that tries to do both with such a low income.

I've pulled weeds for $6.50/hr and responded to 3am 911 calls for $7.97/hr, and worked with people making the same. My dad owns the landscape business, and he's had employees that have been making the same amount of money for years. They could get pesticide licenses and CDLs and get raises, but they don't. They complain about not having enough money, but they're the first ones out the door at the end of the day, and don't even think about asking them to come in on a Saturday. There are a lot of people who just like to complain. It's just how they cope.

 

[Tired]

I've pulled weeds for $6.50/hr and responded to 3am 911 calls for $7.97/hr, and worked with people making the same. My dad owns the landscape business, and he's had employees that have been making the same amount of money for years. They could get pesticide licenses and CDLs and get raises, but they don't. They complain about not having enough money, but they're the first ones out the door at the end of the day, and don't even think about asking them to come in on a Saturday. There are a lot of people who just like to complain. It's just how they cope.

Just as I always suspected: Poor people are poor because they want to be poor.

 

[Miami_med]

Just as I always suspected: Poor people are poor because they want to be poor.

It is often not so much a want to be poor, as much as an unwillingness to do what is necessary to not be poor. During one of my MANY warehouse stints, I worked with a guy who did some part time work there. He admitted to pulling in about 70k a year. He wasn't very smart, and he had minimal education (high school dropout), but he worked HARD. He held multiple jobs, learned to operate heavy machinery on a job, and he never stopped working.

70k is not rich, but it is by NO means poor. He had a wife who stayed home, and he appeared to get along just fine. Anyone with a work ethic could have done what this guy did.

 

[deleted77919]

And I don't care about other people's kids being able to read. In fact, I don't care about other people's kids at all. My kid is in the second grade, and is reading a grade level above her age. That makes me happy.

I care deeply about other people's kids being able to read. I'll be awfully mad when someone who can't think of any better way to get money than to mug me as I leave the hospital kills me all because that person didn't have an education.

My only point is other people's circumstances can affect you more than you might realize.

 

[Tired]

I care deeply about other people's kids being able to read. I'll be awfully mad when someone who can't think of any better way to get money than to mug me as I leave the hospital kills me all because that person didn't have an education.

My only point is other people's circumstances can affect you more than you might realize.

Actually, I would summarize your point as, "If all the children aren't reading at grade level, they will become criminals!!!!! <insert assorted smilie graphics here>"

The topic at hand is the quality of education children receive in public vs private school. The issue is not what drives individuals to a life of crime.

Save your alarmist nonsense for the Pre-Allo forum.

 

[45408]

Just as I always suspected: Poor people are poor because they want to be poor.

Hey, look, someone putting words in my mouth!

The people I was referring to don't fit into the poor category, more like lower-middle-class, and they're there because they don't care enough to work hard enough to move up a notch in financial status.

 

[OrangeTide]

If you get paid the same regardless of what you do why wouldn't you go to school for 15 years? You get paid to go to school the same as if you were a janitor or out of school as a doctor. As it stands currently the only way to get out of the incredible debt most students acquire in professional school is to seek a large salary.

arguing with socialists is like beating a dead horse. I've personally found that some of them are so fanatical about their thinking that even if you make a good point, they won't believe you.

 

[OrangeTide]

I care deeply about other people's kids being able to read. I'll be awfully mad when someone who can't think of any better way to get money than to mug me as I leave the hospital kills me all because that person didn't have an education.

That's a little disheartening that somebody in the medical field assumes that just b/c a person is uneducated, they'll turn to crime.