OK Teacher walkout
- Thread starter tlwwake
- Start date
I'm a well-paid engineer. But like you, I am paid less than my counterparts in other parts of the country because of our lower cost of living.
Having said that, I'm in support of teachers getting a raise.
The same reason we shouldn't wait to win the war on terror before we fund bridge repair
Why?
I said it several days ago. Raise the GPT, give the teachers a $15,000 raise, give support staff a raise as well. Give them two years and if test scores don't improve start firing their asses. Start with brt then move to any overpaid economics professors.
Federal level conversation. Ability to leverage debt. And egregious characterization of competing interests requiring too many variables to control. Apples and oranges.
Should I be surprised that you can't articulate the value in collaboration with trade-offs?
No it's apples to apples. It is conditioning something that needs immediate attention on an open ended ambiguous goal.
No that's you.
Irreconcilable disagree on first item.
Second item, I'll help you start: we do not know what is fully possible as far as funding, etc without including trade-offs.
Can you think of additional reasons? I can.
Good job articulating the nuances of your insistence that there's only one way (or that there's clearly a superior way) of at least attempting to optimize the state of Oklahoma education.
Really fleshed out the fine points and value-add byproducts.
more word salad
It is you that has failed to "articulate the nuance"
of your insistence that education funding be conditioned on some ambiguous reduction of waste.So far you have come up with "we do not know what is fully possible as far as funding, etc without including trade-offs." Word salading in the hope that no one will notice you ignore the possibility that you can fund education to the fullest extent possible right now, then reduce waste and add the amount saved to education funding. No delays or conditions required.
more word salad
It is you that has failed to "articulate the nuance"
So far you have come up with "we do not know what is fully possible as far as funding, etc without including trade-offs." Word salading in the hope that no one will notice you ignore the possibility that you can fund education to the fullest extent possible right now, then reduce waste and add the amount saved to education funding. No delays or conditions required.
What is your definition of fund education to fullest extent possible? Since with the bill signed into law last week we are now on par with Texas for per pupil spending ... do we need to double Texas spend? Be 10% more?
whatever else they can squeeze out of the state leg. The union demands are good reference point, plus or minus some token concessions.
Do you think that near 100% of Superintendents are (i) in agreement that district consolidation is a practical path toward efficiency as measured by efficacy of spend and (ii) when 2 or more districts are combined, who is going to lose their job to phasing out. Similar situation for any area where efficiency gains are going to crash into parties interested in maintaining status quo.
Negotiation of trade-offs is the prioritizing and settling of market (and submarket) results of competing values. It is the mechanism by which optimization occurs. 6k to each teacher certainly demonstrates goodwill to the situation and represents an large step in the right direction (even if you and others don't represent it wholly accurately).
The education sector needs to prioritize its hierarchy of expenses as well as the state of Oklahoma (in addition to valuing potential tax increases against cuts).
"Squeezing" the state is not desirable. You are squeezing other priorities without ordering them.
You live in Oklahoma I'm sure. Which Superintendent is phased out, Haileyville or Hartshorne, Frink-Chambers or Savannah?
Translation: my pet political project of rationalizing school districts in order to save hundreds of thousands of dollars is both hard and unpopular so in order to get what I want we should condition popular things with political leverage on my priorities.
Buddy, I'm with you. Education funding should be conditional on marajuana legalization and criminal justice reform.
So now you are trying to say district administration consolidation is only worth “hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings”. Just a couple of pages ago it was tens of millions (which is the amount factually). If we keep this thread up a couple of more pages then we will be at your “dime” comment.
It's a rhetorical device called hyperbole. Any source for that tens of millions figure?
I contend that you're advocating for the most authoritarian version of finding resolution.
Further that your path will result in a suboptimal solution; it is least representative and maximizes lack of due diligence by all parties.
You don't live in Oklahoma, do you.
Authoritarian and unrepresentative is rich coming from the guy insisting his unpopular policies piggy back onto the popular policies
I used the nea.org "Ranking & Estimates: Ranking of the States 2016 and Estimate of School Statistics 2017"
Other interesting stats:
schools overcrowded: My wife says they definitely are. We rank 35th in this category.
average salary per teacher: Report says $45,276 (this is before the 18% pay raise)
maybe spend to much on higher education?: We are 25th on per capita state spending when all levels of education are included.
maybe spend to much on buildings: We are 17th in per capita capital spending
K-12 funding improved compared to other states: Still not great, but we were 46th in 2015 and 44th in 2016 for per pupil spending with average attendance. And we ranked 45th in 2015 as a percentage of personal income and that improved to 40th in 2016
And this from oklahomawatch.org
Some school districts nearly as much per pupil as New York: Greasy School District spends nearly $18K/student compared to Oklahoma average of $8400
All districts don't get money evenly: If the state had the same amount of total funds per pupil as the OKC School District we would rank 36th. As much as Tulsa Public Schools - 35th
Change the thrust of the conversation, smart.
Rich is favoring "squeezing" the state after a 6K raise and coming at the expense of students.
Get the hell out of here with your attempted shaming. Most don't live in your world of hyperbole.
Shaming? I'm just using your words Brad. Chin up bucko.
It also rich to be accused of "changing the thrust"
of the conversation by the guy who just declares things and asks others if they can "articulate" a justification for his unsupported claim.
Shaming? I'm just using your words Brad. Chin up bucko.
It also rich to be accused of "changing the thrust"
Chuckle.
Shaming? I'm just using your words Brad. Chin up bucko.
It also rich to be accused of "changing the thrust"
There are 527 superintendents in Oklahoma. Say they make an average of 80k and I bet it's actually higher ... that's 42mm right there. Then throw in the fact they all have secretaries. Insurance. Etc etc. my guess is we likely spend 60mm or more on these superintendents. I grew up in Ellis county. There are maybe 4000 folks in the entire county and yet they have 4 superintendents. If we could cut it by 2/3 you've got at least an extra 40mm.
Listen ... my wife and eldest daughter are both teachers. I'm all for seeing them better taken care of. I also think this state needs education to improve, or we'll soon be Mississippi, but there's waste and there are terrible teachers and before I throw money at it, I'd sure like to see some financial reforms and common sense.
So you are thinking we could cut the number of superindents by roughly two thirds?
I will admit that cutting the number of school districts by three quarters will probably save tens of millions of dollars.
CowboyPhil, congrats. You have succeeded where I did not.
Yes, we can save tens of millions of dollars by cutting fat from our $324M annual school administration fees.
As I have said before.
Here in Florida we have 22 million people and 77 superintendents, one per county.
Oklahoma has 4.5 million and 527 superintendents. many per county.
Here in Florida we have 22 million people and 77 superintendents, one per county.
Oklahoma has 4.5 million and 527 superintendents. many per county.
Yet somehow Florida spends more per pupil on administration
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Okie superintendents = county commissioners of the past. Several fiefdoms are about to be eliminated in the next few years. They will fight and cling to the 500 plus districts, but it’s pointless.
I think we should do 10k students per superintendent, 2k per principle and 500 per assistant principle.
So, group schools accordingly. Rural districts will need some consolidation and wavers and principles, but it can happen. Education at the student level would not be hurt at all.
The argument against considation always gears toward "the impact of shutting down schools." I don't think any schools need to be shut down. But there's no reason they can't cost share appropiate administrative functions. Eliminate superintendent and middle management positions, not the actual schools.
Having a superintendent for every 100 pupil school district is just dumb management considering other superintendents do just fine with thousands of students under their watch.
But but but, law mowing and bus driving.
Florida is unique compared to Oklahoma because they have a lot less school districts. They are similar to Oklahoma because both are on the low end of funding per pupil (Florida is 41st in per pupil spending).
However, Pilt was incorrect. Florida spends LESS per pupil on administration. Oklahoma spends a whopping 21.5% more on school and general administration than Florida. But they allocate 16% more of their funding to teachers.
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html
To do that you better have some really good school policies because you are going to run principals and their assistants ragged. Either that or offload all parent contact to a central group. A damn good assistant principal that is managing and overseeing 20 classroom teachers and probably 5 specialty staff wouldn't have time to talk to parents too.
