Now That SQ 744 Has Tanked, What To Do About Common Education

[Townsend]

 If public school is the only option, parents should be allowed to send their kids to any district they want.  

That's an interesting thought.  Why even worry about brick and mortar schools?  Why not 100% online?

You'd save on construction, upkeep, power, transportation, lunches.  Any student could be taught in any district/state/country.

And screw text books.  They should be updatable readers of some sort.

[waterboy]

Aw, hell, be done with it. We don't need no schools with fancy learnin. The church did a fine job for hundreds of years. Got us through medieval times just fine till folks learned to read the bible on their own. Then the problems began. We're the leaders of the world right now, right here in Oklahoma. We're the fattest, the dumbest, the most unhealthy and the most opinionated. We have the most mosts. So lets show the rest of the world how to do it.

First, teachers are a waste of money and prone to thinking outside the church since they have read many more books than the bible and have been exposed to girls gone wild and science. Useless...need retraining at the least. Give the internet to the Catholics who will know how to use it for real teaching, wrest the rest of the media from the Jews and give it to the Southern Baptists who are experts on good taste and moralism. Then extend the ban on Sharia law to include rap music or any music that uses the word love or any of its myriad of pseudonyms. That ain't the way to have fun, son.

The real advantage is that if there is any waste, its confined to non taxpaying entities. Win win for everyone. Unless of course, you tithe which even then should be limited to the middle and lower classes so as not to interfere with the prosperity of those wealthy members who are most carrying the heaviest burden in the expansion of downtown churches.

Pretty soon Oklahoma will be revered for its steadfast resistance to well funded public education, moral turpitude in the form of liberalism and of course, the outside world. Not in my lifetime, but soon I'm sure. i'm kidding, i think.

[guido911]

Aw, hell, be done with it. We don't need no schools with fancy learnin. The church did a fine job for hundreds of years. Got us through medieval times just fine till folks learned to read the bible on their own. Then the problems began. We're the leaders of the world right now, right here in Oklahoma. We're the fattest, the dumbest, the most unhealthy and the most opinionated. We have the most mosts. So lets show the rest of the world how to do it.

First, teachers are a waste of money and prone to thinking outside the church since they have read many more books than the bible and have been exposed to girls gone wild and science. Useless...need retraining at the least. Give the internet to the Catholics who will know how to use it for real teaching, wrest the rest of the media from the Jews and give it to the Southern Baptists who are experts on good taste and moralism. Then extend the ban on Sharia law to include rap music or any music that uses the word love or any of its myriad of pseudonyms. That ain't the way to have fun, son.

The real advantage is that if there is any waste, its confined to non taxpaying entities. Win win for everyone. Unless of course, you tithe which even then should be limited to the middle and lower classes so as not to interfere with the prosperity of those wealthy members who are most carrying the heaviest burden in the expansion of downtown churches.

Pretty soon Oklahoma will be revered for its steadfast resistance to well funded public education, moral turpitude in the form of liberalism and of course, the outside world. Not in my lifetime, but soon I'm sure. i'm kidding, i think.

[Red Arrow]

Aw, hell, be done with it. We don't need no schools with fancy learnin. The church did a fine job for hundreds of years. Got us through medieval times just fine till folks learned to read the bible on their own. Then the problems began. We're the leaders of the world right now, right here in Oklahoma. We're the fattest, the dumbest, the most unhealthy and the most opinionated. We have the most mosts. So lets show the rest of the world how to do it.

Not gonna happen.  We are so bad we can't even be the worst, only 49 out of 50.   

[guido911]

Not gonna happen.  We are so bad we can't even be the worst, only 49 out of 50.   

No matter how hard I try, I just cannot be the fattest or dumbest or most opinionated. I bet there is a school somewhere for this though.

[Conan71]

Aw, hell, be done with it. We don't need no schools with fancy learnin. The church did a fine job for hundreds of years. Got us through medieval times just fine till folks learned to read the bible on their own. Then the problems began. We're the leaders of the world right now, right here in Oklahoma. We're the fattest, the dumbest, the most unhealthy and the most opinionated. We have the most mosts. So lets show the rest of the world how to do it.

First, teachers are a waste of money and prone to thinking outside the church since they have read many more books than the bible and have been exposed to girls gone wild and science. Useless...need retraining at the least. Give the internet to the Catholics who will know how to use it for real teaching, wrest the rest of the media from the Jews and give it to the Southern Baptists who are experts on good taste and moralism. Then extend the ban on Sharia law to include rap music or any music that uses the word love or any of its myriad of pseudonyms. That ain't the way to have fun, son.

The real advantage is that if there is any waste, its confined to non taxpaying entities. Win win for everyone. Unless of course, you tithe which even then should be limited to the middle and lower classes so as not to interfere with the prosperity of those wealthy members who are most carrying the heaviest burden in the expansion of downtown churches.

Pretty soon Oklahoma will be revered for its steadfast resistance to well funded public education, moral turpitude in the form of liberalism and of course, the outside world. Not in my lifetime, but soon I'm sure. i'm kidding, i think.

You deserve an award for the best attempt at channeling Shadows that I've seen.  Until that last sentence, I thought you'd been sipping out of one of his mason jars.

[waterboy]

Just having a little cerebral fun. I love Oklahoma even though she's like the girl from Ipanema for me. Some counseling is in order.

[Townsend]

Why not skip brick and mortar schools?  Would it have a huge effect on the child's ability to get along in crowds?

They'd save on school clothing.  No need for much of the admin cost.  Text books would be almost un-needed.

The build and upkeep of schools must be a huge expense.  HVAC being one of the things that'd be almost instantly cut.

Am I way off here?  I'm asking.

[Conan71]

I'm looking for logical and serious solutions.

I've heard a lot about what the problems are:

-Underpaid teachers,

-Student teacher ratio is too high

-Too many school districts and administrative overhead

-Administrators and legislators will be reluctant to accept consolidation

-Massive amounts being spent on school building projects like performing arts centers and athletic training facilities

-We cannot cut funding

Here's the real numbers from NCES as it relates to the issues:

Oklahoma has a student/teacher ratio of 13.9:1 vs. a national average of 15.3:1

Arkansas & Kansas have populations of approx. 2.4mm people each.  Arkansas lists 1151 schools, Kansas lists 1447.  Oklahoma has about 800,000 more residents and 1806 schools.  Colorado has approx. 900,000 more residents than Oklahoma and 1837 schools.  I'd say that makes a reasonable case that Oklahoma is operating too many schools.  All four of those states have large chunks of rural areas, so I think it's a fair comparison.

Teacher pay is actually on par with other occupations requiring a bachelor's degree given the number of work days per year and the benefit package is generally better than those in the private sector

Solutions:

-Consolidate rural districts, find a logical population size and what would constitute an unusual hardship for travel to and from school to determine which districts must consolidate.

-Higher teacher pay to attract better teachers into common ed instead of the private sector or university level instruction

-Tone down the thirst for facilities which don't directly affect the learning process

-Find and eliminate waste wherever possible, come up with some sort of reward system for school districts who are determined to be operating at an efficient fiscal level and achieving performance results

-Target areas of wasteful state general spending so those funds can be placed into common education (this is precisely what SQ 744 was attempting to do)

-More home-school programs

More ideas, please.

[Conan71]

Why not skip brick and mortar schools?  Would it have a huge effect on the child's ability to get along in crowds?

They'd save on school clothing.  No need for much of the admin cost.  Text books would be almost un-needed.

The build and upkeep of schools must be a huge expense.  HVAC being one of the things that'd be almost instantly cut.

Am I way off here?  I'm asking.

That's basically what home schooling is.  I think it's a great idea worth investigating.  It would require one stay at home parent or one with a very flexible schedule.  I like the idea.

[Townsend]

That's basically what home schooling is.  I think it's a great idea worth investigating.  It would require one stay at home parent or one with a very flexible schedule.  I like the idea.

No no, I don't mean homeschool.

I mean log in and learn online.

webcams, attendance can easily be tracked with a response every few minutes.  The technology is there.  If anyone has issues with expense, the PC/laptop/Ipad would easily be cheaper than the schools/textbooks/HVAC/janitor etc.

Maybe start at junior high level.

[Conan71]

No no, I don't mean homeschool.

I mean log in and learn online.

webcams, attendance can easily be tracked with a response every few minutes.  The technology is there.  If anyone has issues with expense, the PC/laptop/Ipad would easily be cheaper than the schools/textbooks/HVAC/janitor etc.

Maybe start at junior high level.

I think it's a great idea, the initial knee-jerk response I can hear will be parental supervision where you have two income families.  How do we get around breaking down that paradigm?  I'm not making a problem here, just seeking a solution to how we deal with the supervision issue to make sure little Billy isn't surfing porn or playing X-box in between responses.

[TheArtist]

  What bothers me about this discussion is its primary focus on money first,,, then not really taking much consideration at all about performance and quality, improving test scores, graduation rates, etc.  That just seems backwards to me.  

The tendancy seems to be to focus on shuffling around money, adding money here, taking it from there, having the kid learn there, with a book, with a computer etc.  

I would look at the programs, the process, the methodologies, etc. that are needed to get good student performance outcomes, THEN most of the rest will fall into place for then you know what you need to do. Now I agree we need to cut costs and consolidate when and where we can, but lets not lose sight of the most important goal which is to improve student performance.

Example

When I was a kid I went to a grade school in east Tulsa.  Then over time the demographics shifted.  Many of the teachers stayed the same, the new ones werent any worse per the pay than the ones I had.   I could go on but suffice it to say that it wouldnt matter much on the test score/student performance if the pay was higher, the school was in a larger district, waste was cut or whatever IF THE PROGRAMS, TEACHING METHODS, etc. dont change to meet the change in demographics, the particular needs of the school.

Improving education and our schools to me means focusing on student performance outcomes.  Money is something we can talk about, but it seems to be putting the cart before the horse until you know what type of schools, programs, etc you need to fund first.  Adding to teachers salaries doesnt do that, thats just money talk again and not fixing the problem.  Smaller class sizes? To what end? Whats the whole program your implementing?  Having the same books, computers, teachers and teaching methods and shifting the size of the classes may not do a danged thing to "improve education".   It may in some situations with some demographics with some programs, but in others, may not do a danged thing.

I will watch these documentaries where in some school district they implemented a particular type of teaching program and test scores went up, graduation rates went up, etc.  Now it may or may not have cost more money, they may or may not have shuffled money from here to there, BUT the focus was the right program to fit the circumstances FIRST.

Again, consolidate if thats warranted, add to teacher pay if thats warranted. BUT thats a side show imo, an important side show no doubt, but thats not what is ultimately going to improve our schools, our educational system, and our student performance outcomes.  And I dont see hardly any talk about the things that will.

[TheArtist]

In a Nutshell...

If ya found every bit of waste, consolidated every school ya wanted, doubled teacher salaries...

  If you had the teachers doing the same thing, teaching in the same way, in the same school/program environment...

You wouldn't have improved education one bit.

[Conan71]

William, thank you for your usual good insight.  Improving quality is first and foremost on my mind with this discussion.  Money isn't the end-all in a better education if we look at the example in Washington DC.  I primed the conversation with finance as that was what 744 was all about in the first place, finding more funding for schools.  As you know, I'm a huge believer a great education starts at home and nothing will ever change my mind about that.  But, it would be nice to examine where we can make education more efficient from every angle, including classroom resources and spending.

I make the point repeatedly that there's no credible study which can honestly say that there is a magic teacher to student ratio for optimum learning results.  In my mind, it's simply the teacher's unions trying to convince the public we need more teachers who would be dues-paying members.  I grew up with 25 to 30 student classes, without assistants, aides, or paraprofessionals and I can't see that education results have markedly improved in the last 30 years with down-sizing of classrooms and adding more people to each classroom.

We are becoming a lazy society.  Rather than finding solutions which require time and people caring about their work, we are increasingly believing that additional funding is always the solution.  It's not a liberal or conservative issue.  It's an issue of misguided government and believing government will always have the appropriate solution if they can just throw enough money at it.  The reason this happens is because lobbyists and people who run SIG's are feeding out of this trough.  This is how they stay in a job: funneling government money in all sorts of directions and they wind up with a cut.