<p>Xiggi: for me, the reason it’s important for parents to stay with the district, as long as its functioning, is because having caring, concerned parents involved means people who volunteer, people who vote for the budget, people who speak up at PTA and Board of Ed meetings in favor of sustaining and improving the quality of the schools. Commonly, those who withdraw to private schools or who homeschool are then not invested in the success of the public schools, to the detriment of the students left behind. Obviously, there are exceptions, but I believe that this is most often true.</p>
<p>re funding for public schools.
districts are paid by the state for the students they enroll.
Example- my daughters school by the district is allocated money for roughly 1500 students. However the district assigned roughly 1700 students to them, so some students do not have full class schedules and they wont be adjusted until I-728 monies are released.
If the district enrolls 40,000 students they recieve ______ amount of money from state- I am not really sure how you are figuring that private school students are paying for education they don’t use and that the school is getting the money.
It is true that a small portion of property tax goes to the schools but that comes from every household whether or not you have school age children, it isn’t a case of only private school parents paying for something they “don’t” use.</p>
<p>Mini, I just want to say brava to your niece. You may recall, however, that when I noted a few months ago that the child of teachers, nurses, or firefighters could come from a home earning more than 125K, thereby qualifying for your “preppy index” as you measure colleges, you and many other posters had a fit and pointed out that no K-12 teacher/fire fighter combo could possibly make that much $.</p>
<p>I don’t live in Manhassat- far from it, but surgical nurses in my community make in the 80’s; cops earn over 100K with overtime, whether on the city clock or privately; teachers earn comparable to nurses. That’s for a 9 month work year, by the way; many work summers at a variety of other things and boost their take home substantially.</p>
<p>Just don’t be a hypocrite. I still maintain that a kid attending Williams or Yale or wherever whose family income statistically makes them “upper class” and not qualifying for aid can still be living in Queens (a nice commute to Manhassat by the way); renting half of a duplex; living a middle class lifestyle, and still earn your scorn for being a preppy.</p>
<p>EK, here are a few numbers for two cities in Dallas County: Dallas and Mesquite. The bulk of property taxes do go to the local school districts, if not to other school districts via the Robin Hood plan. </p>
<p>Owning property in Dallas does pay for the school district, regardless if your children attend public or private schools. As far as being a “small” percentage, that seems to be open to interpretation. </p>
<p>A home valued at $500,000 contributes directly $8,300 to the DISD. For people who live in Dallas and send students to private schools, such a tax bill is rather common and probably on the lower side. </p>
<p>Taxing Entity
Tax Rate Per $100 Assessed Value
County - Dallas 0.54366
City of Mesquite 0.58148
Mesquite ISD 1.76000
Total Tax Rate 2.88514</p>
<p>Tax Rate Per $100 Assessed Value
County - Dallas 0.2039
City of Dallas 0.7197
Dallas ISD 1.669
Dallas Hospitals .254</p>
<p>Same here as in TX. Real estate taxes are based on property value. The income goes to the city; a large proportion of real estate taxes goes into public education. So whether a property owner has children or not, sends children to public or private school is immaterial. </p>
<p>The importance of having engaged middle class families in the public school system was illustrated in my post (#51) describing two programs in the same building, getting the same amount of funding per student, using the same–pretty good–facilities. In many ways, it is far more important than fuding levels. Many neighboring districts spend far less per pupils than we do, but they have more uniformly engaged families in each schools. In our district, family involvement is spotty; great in some schools, non-existent in others.</p>
<p>our schools get much less
I guess my question would be, if you live in a district where the schools are so well funded, why would you need to send your kids to private schools?
Shouldn’t public education be a common good and obligation, like fire/police/ water, etc services?
I think we all benefit from good schools- even if I didn’t have my kids in local schools I still would be involved with them</p>
<p>
Because the issue…isn’t…money. It doesn’t matter how many computers you have. It’s all about the ethos.</p>
<p>Well-funded does not necessarily mean well managed; it does not mean the money goes to where it is most needed; it does not mean the curriculum and pedagogy are the best. Again, EK, I refer you to my post 51; one program was funded exactly the same way as the other; one produced half of the district NM awardees and the other has been failing.
It is not the fault of the parents for not being able to come to meetings if they work two jobs; it is not their fault for not being able to help their children with homework because they have limited English and are unfamiliar with the curriculum But they present problems for which throwing more money at the schools is not going to help.
Forcing middle class families to join schools that are seen as failing is not the answer, either. They will leave the district or send their children to private schools. We saw that happend a few years ago when a misguided principal tried to foster equality by getting rid of honors tracks.</p>
<p>well I guess it was a rhetorical question
I know that some of the parents where my daughter worked and attended ( same place the Gates and Bezos kids go) were intrigued that I sent her sister to public school. ( horrified but intrigued)
However, the way you feel about schools when your kids are 8, may change by the time they are 13 and want to be more involved in the choice.
Private schools aren’t panaceas either.
When my daughter was in elementary- they didn’t have a cafeteria- had a mediocre to meanish gym teacher- little dance except by parent volunteers, same with music.
What they did do, they did very well, but public schools are expected to be all, to everybody, while private schools get to attract a certain population. ( one reason why I am for choice in public schools- especially in high school)</p>
<p>marite I do see your point
Our daughters school gets the same amount as other schools- actually a little less according to weighted student formula
Schools that are smaller actually get more money per student- because so much is requred for building- administration etc- that is not dependent on how many students you have.
Some schools choose to remain smaller- while Ds school takes more- and does a pretty good job with the money that it gets.
School quality is really uneven and it doesn’t depend on how much money there is. I do worry though, that this will be seen as a reason to close these schools, instead of trying to duplicate successful programs. There is always a resistance to duplicating successful programs that have wait lists, I don’t know why, they would rather overenroll the school, than replicating it in another building.</p>
<p>EK:</p>
<p>We’ve had experience trying to duplicate the successful program in the other one. It just did not work. The teachers were fine; some were great. But somehow, the two programs just could not mesh. You do need to take drastic measures.
Eventually, because of declining enrolments (the result of a number of factors, including some misguided educational decisions), some failing schools were declared closed. What it meant in reality was that their students were merged with the students from the more successful programs; some of their teachers were retained, others let go. In both cases, the programs that got moved were the successful ones, with highly involved parents. The results have been mixed. Where the communities decided to really work together, it has worked out fairly well, thanks partly to the dedication of the parents from the successful program who really pitched in over the summer and schoolyear to make the merger a success; but in some schools, the families vociferously objected to moving and were less prepared to form a new community with the students from the “closed” school. This year, they’ve calmed down considerably, so I expect they will turn their energies to supporting the school they find themselves in.
I don’t know whether the influx of highly involved parents has had an effect on the level of involvement of the other parents who had previously not participated in school activities.</p>
<p>What I got from the last few posts is that apparently I need to move. No teachers in Alabama make $85K. I can assure you that. Starting salary for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree in my district is $30K (and I moved here from MS because the pay was better here). I’m an experienced teacher with a doctorate and I make less than $50K. Apparently I’m missing out. (I’ve seen the top of my salary schedule and even with 25 years of experience I will make no where near 85)</p>
<p>I hear a lot going back and forth between public and private schools. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with parents pulling their kids from public and sending them to private if the school where their kids would be is a mess. Their child shouldn’t suffer just because the district can’t get their act together. However, I do agree that when middle class parents pull out of school in favor of private or suburban districts that it makes a huge impact on the school. I’ve taught in both environments and it’s much easier to get things accomplished with parental support. In lower income districts sometimes the parental support isn’t there because education is not a priority, but sometimes it’s because leaving their hourly wage job to go to PTO or to volunteer at the school would be a huge financial burden. The parent volunteers at the school where I teach now are priceless and we are thankful for them every day they walk in the door. I never had that prior to where I teach now.</p>
<p>cost of living matters a great deal- I imagine cost of living is more expensive in mnhasset from the sounds of it compared to other areas- it isn’t news that cost of living varies
My brother in a bedroom suburb of Chicago paid $ 150,000 a couple years ago for his 5 yr old, 5 bedroom colonial in a “gated” community.
Our 105 yr old 2 bedroom cottage in a blue collar neighborhood of Seattle would sell for $350,000
Government workers, including teachers get pretty regular increases in cost of living, not all fields have that benefit
A teacher with 20 years of experience will collect double what my husband will collect after 30 years at the same company.
It isn’t that we don’t value education, their union is able to negotiate a pretty good pension, but workers in general, we don’t value, when was the last time minimum wage was increased?</p>
<p>I agree that not everyone sees education as a priority. They don’t have the time/energy/interest to take on the schools, or even attend open houses.</p>
<p>However I quit my job and took on volunteering in the schools, to try and get a decent education for my daughter and others who don’t have anyone to advocate for them. It wasn’t that we easily can afford it. We can’t. But some things you can’t put dollar amounts on, you just have to do it.</p>
<p>The problem of educational discrepancy is quite complex, and can not be solved simply by money, nor can it be solved through admonition to read to one’s child or be more involved in schools. Many of the most desperate kids have parents who are barely out of the teens themselves, and cannot read well, or do math well. Their vocabularies are not what is what it should be to adequately prepare their children for the academic language needed for school success. Many want more for their kids, but lack the tools to do much about it. Many kids have no fathers. If this cycle is to be broken, it means there will need to be massive intervention beginning in pre-K, not simply a little more Headstart funding. Vocabulary, sentence usage, instruction following, a history of responding to and learning from positive feedback all need to be vastly improved. I tested 1500 inner city K students. Over 50% did not know their first and last names. Nearly 80% could not adequately respond to the multiple use of the word next as in turn to the “next” page vs. stand “next” to the door. These kids in 10 to 15 years will be parents themselves, and the cycle is maintained.</p>
<p>There is very little evidence that teachers will move for a salary increase. Clearly it does happen but there are still teachers in the lower pay tier and openings in the higher tier schools, our society is not that mobile, yet. Sometimes it is because an allegiance is built between the teacher and their school, sometimes it is the barrier to entry that is too great…confusing certification requirements…(I moved to a state that pays better, but my reason for moving was not salary, it was my children’s educational opportunities)</p>
<p>While some would look at NCLB as an approach to raise standards, my anecdotal evidence is that many experienced teachers have or plan to retire earlier as a result of the increased bureaucratic hurdles. There appears to be a correlation between teaching experience and skill, but it is unclear whether teachers who stick it out have gained skills or that poor teachers bail out earlier. </p>
<p>Complaints about teachers not teaching between the curriculum or offering re-mediation are widespread, I suspect a lot of this has to do with the cookie cutter approach that many districts are directing their schools to take. If this is Tuesday, you should be on page…of you math book, …of your reader…and district test will be held …</p>
<p>Teachers, whom I know, are scrambling to help the students who came into their class below the standard and who need extra assistance. In my district I have heard of teachers being “written up” for not being on the day’s lesson, because they had stopped to work on fractions or multiplication when their students could not do the work. This hurts students in underperforming schools more than students who are already performing at grade level.</p>
<p>I meet with students three days a week after school (unpaid) to review areas of arithmetic that students cannot do yet but which are outside the algebra curriculum. I have also had one Saturday class where 13 students showed up to work on fractions and mixed numbers. Snacks and supplies for these classes often come out of my own pocket. </p>
<p>Comparisons of teacher retirement to private retirement rarely include the stock options private sector professionals get. Any arguments about teacher compensation would have to include a response to why there aren’t more Ivy graduates racing into education.</p>
<p>My daughter was planning on going into education and her school charges more for tuition than Harvard, but while she is interested in education and she is great with kids- she would rather work with adults. It isn’t the pay- as she could work in a relatively safe and comfortable atmosphere- have a lot of great perks- and a lot of autonomy at her job. But she has been working with kids- through her volunteer jobs during the school year and through her summer resident camp positions for about 10 years.( not to mention working 20 hours a week last year running a science program along with attending school full time)
She wants to try something else for a while.</p>
<p>RE: retirement. I don’t know what prevents anyone from investing in any company- don’t teachers invest to supplement the 60 % of their salary they will collect upon retirement?
Whatever the benefits some employees may invest in-with their salary- compare the union negotiated benefits of state workers inc teachers, to a union which has lost more than half its members in the last 5 years, and see who comes out ahead re: pensions</p>
<p>xiggi,
you said:
I graduated from a private high school with a tuition of less than $5,000 per year for FULL paying students. About 50% received financial aid. The school would dream to have the same spending as our local public schools. The school is right in the middle of town and next to the poorest public school. How much grass do we have- and I mean the kind you walk and play on? Not a square foot! That did not stop us to win the State championship in soccer. When we traveled 14 hours to the site of the final, we piled up 7 or 8 into PARENT’s cars. We slept 6 in a room in a motel 40 miles away from the fields. When the local public school went to the same venue, the team FLEW back and forth and stayed in a posh city hotel. </p>
<p>Some of our school books were twenty year old and were kept together with duct tape. </p>
<p>So xiggi, why didn’t you go to the public school instead?</p>
<p>I graduated from a top public high school in NYC in 1967. At that time, all kids in New York City attended public schools except-those from religious families who wanted Catholic schools or yeshivas and the very wealthy- perhaps top 5-10% income. Today in NYC (Manhattan) almost every middle class family who can scrape the tuition money together sends their kids to private schools–unless the kids are super bright and get into exam schools like Hunter or Stuyvesant. As Kozol pointed out–the schools are 75% Black-Hispanic. Other parents choose to use their resources by moving to a white affluent suburb. This change came about from the mid 1970s. That’s the reason for the Apartheid–and this must be addressed or it will continue separate and unequal.</p>
<p>EK-You accidentally deleted the part about why I don’t see any other Ivy League graduates teaching. Or Why top students choose law, engineering and med school over Education? Thanks for the tip…save and invest mmore, I will share that with my fellow teachers who are struggling to get a home.</p>
<p>I am glad that your daughter has had many positive experiences working with kids, and I am also pleased for her that she is not becoming a teacher. It is a thankless job, with too many people blaming teachers for the failures of our society. I have encouraged my children not to become teachers because there are too many experts who haven’t been in a classroom in at least five years telling teachers what to do, while voting to underfund school budgets.</p>
<p>Poverty kills and maims our children in so many ways, the most defenseless of our society labeled as failures because they didn’t pass a test with a high enough score. I am amazed at how some of my students make it to school on a regular basis. I am glad that your daughter is not becoming a teacher if she thought having autonomy exists in teaching anymore, because it only exists on a subversive level. Most elementary classrooms in my district are on the same page of their Saxon (extremely scripted) and joy less math-book and if they take a lesson to help kids learn or remember how to do something not on that page…they risk getting written up. Come into my school, every room has to have the same posters up describing their rights, their penalties, and so forth. </p>
<p>I am glad your daughter is not becoming a teacher, and of course its not the money, but most teachers I know can’t afford private school tuition or even half of private college tuition so let me know if she finds a professional job with a lower pay scale. Please don’t pretend to justify a nation where executives earn hundreds of times what the workers do.</p>
<p>We are returning to the days of serfs and lords…so much of a days work goes to the landlord, the car payment and for most people in my schools neighborhood, there is not a lot left over.
Mini is so on the money…</p>
<p>she actually as I have mentioned earlier, had been working at a private elementary school of which she is an alum, the same school where big money folks like Bezos and Gates send their kids. The teachers are paid well and do have a great deal of freedom re curriculum. Private schools are not obligated to prove themselves with the testing mania that has gripped public education across the country.
In fact, except for weekly spelling and math tests my daughter was not tested at all until she applied to a different school for 6th gd.
I didn’t realize that because both my kids attended private school, I gave the impression that our jobs were highly paid. I know both principals and teachers in the public system who send their kids to private schools, they probably can afford it better than we did, although we were able to get good scholarships and barter for tuition.
My husband works at Boeing- he is on strike right now with his Machinist union. He is paid about $48,000 a year for full fime work( more with overtime) after 20 plus years with the company and 10 plus years in a related field ( Shipyards) which have all but closed down. It is very physcial, requires him at 50 to climb in and out of wings and work at heights.
Of course I do have executives in my family. My brother in law who is in his late 50s has a financial background. He has had about 12 jobs in the last 20 years. He was originally internal auditor for several different banks but lost his position when the banks closed/were bought up.He has been CFO for several other companies that convinced him to take his pay in stock options which haven’t done him a lot of good when they went bankrupt. He hired headhunters who didn’t find him anything, currently he is trying to sell insurance and vinyl siding / windows and borrowing money from his brother in law who works at Microsoft to pay bills.
I know many former execs who are in the same position, their companies fold, downsize, and especially when they are in their 50s it may be impossible for them to get anything close to their former job descritption. Take a look at the people working at HOme Depot, I bet 10 years ago they would have never dreamed they would be spending the years when they should have been planning their retirement, in retail sales.
Wheras teachers are allowed to retire at 60 % of their income and go back to work- knocking new teachers out of their jobs</p>
<p>“So xiggi, why didn’t you go to the public school instead?”</p>
<p>Do you REALLY want to hear all the reasons why students do not mind putting up with the small things wer could be missing? While we would have loved to have new books and a stadium on par with a college, in the end those attrbutes are NOT relevant to the quality of education. The bottom line is that a school -in this case built by Jesuits- demonstrates it can operate in a very old building, offer a great education at a fraction of what the local public schools spent, and send virtuallly all its graduates to 4 year colleges. </p>
<p>All you need is to simply walk through the schools and you’ll see the differences for yourself. A few hints about the differences are quality of education, safety, teachers, discipline, and small things such as the respect of ethics, equality and morality, not to mentaion lessons on how to combine conservative views and a sense of compassion. </p>
<p>Public and private schools come in a wide range of flavors. There are cities where public schools might be equal or even better than private and parochial schools. This is simply not the case in our community. I do not have to offer any excuses why my parents made the sacrifice to send me to a private schools. I prefer to leave the excuses to the officials of public schools; they are the perennial experts at offering excuses for failing to educate their students adequately and within their stated budgets.</p>
<p>PS Before you think about using the race card, the private school I attended is well above 80% Hispanics -probably 90%.</p>