However Other Groups Continuing to Back Millionaire’s Tax
Governor Brown has had to fight not only the right on his tax initiative, but his own base in the form of at least two competing measures. This week, however, the governor gained key support as the California Teacher’s Association’s State Council of Education, comprised of 800 elected educators from across the state, endorsed the governor’s tax plan at their quarterly meeting in Los Angeles on Sunday.
“Educators know that California cannot continue to cut its way out of ongoing budget problems. We also know that not everyone in California is paying their fair share, and that’s why we are supporting the governor’s tax proposal, which taxes the wealthiest Californians in order to bring additional revenue to our schools, colleges and other essential public services,” Dean Vogel, president of the CTA and a Davis resident said in a statement on Sunday.
“The governor’s initiative is the only initiative that provides additional revenues for our classrooms and closes the state budget deficit, and guarantees local communities will receive funds to pay for the realignment of local health and public safety services that the Legislature approved last year,” he continued. “It’s time to put California back on track and this initiative is the best way to do that. It’s the right choice for our students and their families, our communities and our state.”
Polling analysis released last week from the Public Policy Institute of California shows strong support by the public for the tax measure as a way to fund education.
68% percent of likely voters, including 53% of Republicans, favor the tax measure.
Education is clearly the driving force behind that support, as John Myers from KQED noted: “As several other questions in the poll make clear, it’s probably not Brown’s proposal that they love so much… but rather the consequences of its failure that they hate.”
If the tax measure fails, the governor has proposed automatic cuts to education.
“There’s no question that if this were just a general tax increase,” says PPIC president and pollster Mark Baldassare, “that you’d have a whole different response.”
The governor has proposed to get the revenue largely through two different types of taxes – one an increase in the income tax on the wealthy and the other an increase in the state’s sales tax. The initiative would temporarily increase the state sales tax and the personal income taxes of wealthy Californians, with the new revenue going to K-12 education.
“The challenge the governor faces with his tax initiative is that one generally popular tax increase – raising personal income taxes on the wealthy – is paired with one generally unpopular one – raising the state sales tax,” Mark Baldassare notes.
Writes Mr. Myers, “Undoubtedly, the governor’s most liberal supporters will see that kind of poll data as proof that any one of the other tax initiatives that are out there is better than his. And Brown has yet to dissuade all of those groups from launching their own campaigns in competition with his.”
That is exactly the problem that the governor faces. Restoring California, the coalition of educators and community leaders, is sponsoring the Millionaires Tax initiative for the November ballot.
This week their campaign has won key new adherents, as well.
“We are excited that our initiative to provide permanent funding for public education and vital services has won the support of AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] District Council 57, the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC), and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE),” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and a spokesperson for the coalition said in a release early today.
Rev. Dr. Art Cribbs, executive director of CLUE California, said his organization endorsed the Millionaires Tax because “[w]e are seeking a more equitable means to raise revenue in California to meet the needs of our children in public schools, elders on fixed incomes, and disabled residents who require vital services. The Millionaires Tax offers the brightest prospect of getting voters’ approval and making our state’s economy more stable. It is not too much to ask the most prosperous citizens in California to pay a few pennies on each dollar over $1 million earnings. It is fair and long overdue.”
“California schools need new revenue and the Millionaires Tax is the initiative that would provide permanent revenue without parents and students digging deeper into their pockets,” said FACCC Vice President Dean Murakami, a Sacramento-area community college professor.
The move reflects a growing movement on the left toward tax reform and an emerging issue of tax fairness that has generally been the province of the right.
While ultimately groups like CTA would like to see the tax code reformed to produce a more equitable tax structure and a more stable revenue base, in the short term they recognize that the governor’s proposal represents the best chance to get immediate general fund revenue that would go to education.
“For my part, I am determined to press ahead both with substantial budget cuts and my tax initiative. The cuts are not ones I like but the situation demands them,” Governor Brown said during his State of the State address
“As for the initiative, it is fair. It is temporary. It is half of what people were paying in 2010. And it will protect our schools and guarantee – in the constitution – funding for the public safety programs we transferred to local government,” he argued.
“Given the cutbacks to education in recent years, it is imperative that California devote more tax dollars to this most basic of public services,” the governor argued. “If we are successful in passing the temporary taxes I have proposed and the economy continues to expand, schools will be in a much stronger position.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
The CTA supports a Brown plan to raise taxes. Gee, what a surprise. Why should this be news?
The other approach. Which one will have better long-term fiscal results?
[quote]New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he intends to reduce income taxes within two years to stimulate the economy.
A lower tax rate would help the state compete with neighbors including Pennsylvania, which has a top margin of 3 percent compared with New Jersey’s 9 percent, Christie said in a radio interview today on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene.
“We’ve got to do that,” said Christie, 48, a Republican who took office in January. “You can’t be competitive when your top marginal rate is three times your neighbor.”
The state is still not seeing any measurable improvement in tax collections and needs to assume the “worst-case scenario,” Christie said. New Jersey’s average residential property-tax bill was $7,281 in 2009, the highest in the U.S., according to the state Department of Community Affairs.
Christie’s budget for the year that began July 1 forecast revenue will climb to $28.2 billion from $27.8 billion in fiscal 2010, still well below the peak of $32.6 billion in 2008. Tax collections for the two months ended Aug. 31 were $3.4 billion, 2.5 percent below expectations, according to the state treasury department.[/quote]
You mean the governor who cut $800 million out of the state’s education budget in New Jersey? The cuts that were ruled unconstitutional?
[url]http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/education/New_Jersey_Education_Cuts_Unconstitutional_Ruling_032211[/url]
JB: In 2008-09, NJ spent over $16K/student, annually, on education (source ([url]http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/09f33pub.pdf[/url])). By contrast, California spent over $9K/student (& DJUSD regularly spends less than the state average). But New Jersey consistently gets good results on NAEP (“Nation’s Report Card”) ([url]http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/statecomparisons/withinyear.aspx?usrSelections=1,WRI,5,2,within,0,0[/url]). If Christie & legislature choose to do this, it will be interesting to see if it ultimately affects student outcomes.
Now think about this – if public employee pensions are headed in the direction of 401(k)s, think about that. 401(k)s do only as well as the stock market, and can take a nose dive when the country goes into a recession. Suddenly seniors are horrified to note their investments/pensions they had counted on for medical costs and to live on for basic needs plummet in value. If the country is headed for the idea of 401(k) type pensions for gov’t workers, then we need to seriously reform Wall Street and how it operates. From where I sit, Wall Street seems to benefit the wealthy, but not the retirement plans, that really take a hit in the economic recession…
Oops, commented on the wrong article!!! Sorry about that!!! Ignore my comment…
[quote]”Educators know that California cannot continue to cut its way out of ongoing budget problems. We also know that not everyone in California is paying their fair share, and that’s why we are supporting the governor’s tax proposal, which taxes the wealthiest Californians in order to bring additional revenue to our schools, colleges and other essential public services,” Dean Vogel, president of the CTA and a Davis resident said in a statement on Sunday.[/quote]
Is the CTA supporting the hike in sales tax, the most regressive tax there is – which disproportionately effects the poor? And I wonder what the ultimate result will be in raising the taxes on the wealthy, who may relocate outside the state? It will be interesting to see if this idea backfires on the governor, or actually works. I’m against the sales tax increase, since CA has the highest sales tax in the country, and the sales tax is regressive and hits the low income so hard. It is the tax on the wealthy that I have mixed feelings about – just not sure it is going to work the way it is intended to – only time will tell…
Just as an aside, if the governor were more serious about gov’t waste and tackling needed reforms, I suspect people might be more on board with his tax ideas. But what has he done in the way of reform? Sloughed off the state’s responsibilities onto local gov’t, from what I can tell…
You oppose the sales tax, don’t know about the income tax? So do you prefer that the education budget be cut? Brown’s proposal is a compromise.
My guess is that cuts to the New Jersey education system will result in some drop in student outcomes because the teachers union that controls the agenda will want it to occur… because this would serve their political interests and to demonstrate that the cuts would NOT cause student outcomes to decline would be a blow to their strategy for extorting greater pay and benefits from the public from fear that the “kids will be harmed”. The only way to combat this is to introduce vouchers and choice at the same time cuts are made.
However, all of this is mute because New Jersey, like California, has had to make the cuts because the budget problems were unsustainable and education is by far the biggest line item on the liability end of the balance sheet.
The difference is that California has a Democrat governor bought and paid for by the public employee unions and he is pushing to increase taxes on the more successful hoping that they won’t leave. While Christy, the Republican that was elected despite the millions spent by New Jersey public employee unions and the millions spent by the national teachers union consortium, is lowering taxes to attract more wealth and business to his state.
What will be more interesting is the delta in economic growth and job growth between these two states.
My guess is that New Jersey will win by a long-shot.
[i] because the teachers union that controls the agenda will want it to occur…[/i]
You’re assuming teachers will intentionally undermine student learning and sabotage their performance? Really?
Elaine: Cuts proposed by Gov. Brown: [url]http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/01/brown-budget-cuts-1-billion-from-welfare.html[/url]
It is not as maliceous as that… they will refuse to do more with less… they will cut services and programs comensurate with the cuts to their budgets.
This is their way. It always has been.
[quote]”slashing nearly $1.4 billion in welfare and child care aid for the poor while holding voters liable for $5 billion in education funding with a November tax measure.”[/quote]
Not enough slashing and too much raising taxes at a time when taxes should be slashed too.
We already spend too much and our taxes are already too high. There is no compromise room left.
[i]My guess is that cuts to the New Jersey education system will result in some drop in student outcomes because the teachers union that controls the agenda will want it to occur.
they will refuse to do more with less… they will cut services and programs comensurate with the cuts to their budgets. [/i]
So, just to clarify: you agree that cuts to services and programs leads to poorer student outcomes?
[quote]You oppose the sales tax, don’t know about the income tax? So do you prefer that the education budget be cut? Brown’s proposal is a compromise.[/quote]
I do oppose the sales tax increase – bad idea. However, I’m willing to try the higher taxes on the wealthy, just not sure it is going to truly work the way it is intended. Then I would have preferred Brown to tackle reform before calling for draconian cuts to education and before implementing something as drastic as an increase in sales tax. Does that make my position clearer? I want Brown to address some serious issues we have in this state, e.g. prison refor, but not just by sloughing the problem off onto local gov’t and taking a pass on trying to reform the system. However I also recognize Brown has a tough row to hoe, bc the state legislature is so completely dysfunctional…
Correction: prison reform…
[i]”So, just to clarify: you agree that cuts to services and programs leads to poorer student outcomes?”[/i]
Education services and program. For example, the education system will cut arts and vocations classes, and afterschool programs instead of figuring out ways to maintain them by accepting cuts in other things like their pension and healthcare benefits… or cutting out low-performing deadwood teachers and consolidating certain subjects that work well enough in a classroom of 100+ kids.
JB: [i]…consolidating certain subjects that work well enough in a classroom of 100+ kids.[/i]
Please elaborate. What subject(s), grades do you think would work in a classroom of 100+ kids, apart from a really big symphonic band, or maybe a choir?
wdf1: Didn’t you take classes in college with hundreds of other students?
Realted…
Note the jump in the number of hours worked like wages remained relatively stagnant and jobs fell of the cliff and have only recovered about half way.
Obviously the private sector has had to require employees to do more with less.
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscjeff/hiring.jpg[/img]
How does the public sector respond to this need to cut… they cut services and hours.
JB: [i] Didn’t you take classes in college with hundreds of other students?[/i]
I’m thinking of K-12 education. I’m not familiar with a K-12 class that has regularly run with 100+ students. In a college setting, there is usually a screening process that would select students that could probably work independently.
Aw, come on now wdf1, you really seem to have trouble just admitting facts that don’t support your worldview. You know there are many large format classrooms where subjects that are taught this way. There are large hall-sized classrooms at all the junior colleges and universities. If the format is lecture with note taking and homework assigned, then why not have 100 or even 200 high school kids in the room? If the teacher is crappy, then why not just get the bad class over with all at once?
If you are worried about all those troubled kids, then split the school into those that can succeed without attention and pile them into a big hall room so they get used to what college will be like, then put the struggling/problem kids in the classroom with a lower number of students per teacher so they get the attention they need. Since Davis has so many gifted kids with educated and helpful parents, I would think we could do much more considation than say Dixon or Woodland.
The thing is… you and other know very well that the district could save money and do the same or better job with consolidation and optimized use of teaching resources. However, that would mean a reduction in teacher jobs. It is better for you and other supporters of the educaiton status quo to make the case that ALL classes should be 20 students since that means more union employees, more union dues for the Democrat campaign war chest, and more reliable Democrat voters.
Wow.
Classes of 100 – 200.
“Get the bad class over with all at once.”
And all of us who support smaller class sizes than that are just cynical union-supporting Democrats trolling for voters.
Jeff, you amaze me.
Don, what can I say? I make a valid point and it is ignored and deflected. It sure does seem like there is a hidden agenda here. At the very least, there is a great bit of political self-interest to question. Especially when good ideas are ignored.
Do you dispute my point about the existence and commonality of large classes?
Also, work from the Gates foundation and other independent studies had found almost zero correlation between outcomes for smaller class size for secondary school kids. It does seem to help the little tykes. My point about getting the bad teaching over quicker… it is my opinion that smaller class sizes allows bad teachers to more easily hide. Let’s consolidate into a larger class and then we should be better able to evaluate who can do the job.
I’m sorry, what valid point was that? And what is the hidden agenda?
Yes, I dispute ANY notion that classes of 100+ are common or desirable in K-12 except perhaps for very limited purposes (of which I can’t think of any).
Your comment about the Gates foundation is a syllogism. No correlation between smaller class size most certainly doesn’t lead to the conclusion that class sizes of 100 to 200 are better, or even that they would be comparable.
We’re not ignoring good ideas. We aren’t seeing any. If conservatives are now saying that we should quadruple class sizes rather than fund education, we have really reached the end of any rational discussion.
It is an education establishment canard that we must have smaller class sizes. There is no data to support that smaller class sizes improve outcomes for secondary school students except for special needs kids.
We can get selective about what classes and what students are well severed in a larger class sizes, and free up employee FTE headcount that can be used to satisfy other needs.
Large classes can be effective and inspiring — a way to get the best teachers in front of the most students. Students benefit from larger classes with stronger competition and peer-pressure as well as a larger potential for interaction with other students. More get to hear the questions and answers from fellow students and the teacher. There is a greater chance for them to hook up with like-minded students to work together.
Grades 11-12 specifically should start adding more larger format class sizes if the public schools are doing a good job preparing kids for college… since that will be their reality.
I think we can take many of the classes and revamp the format to a much larger size using high-tech presentation and interactive tools. With fewer teachers, we could instead hire more counselors and one-on-one tutors. I think that would be a more efficient and effective model of education for a larger population of kids.
How else do you do more with less?
These aren’t black and white issues, and it is important to note that there are big difference between what is desirable for K-3 than for High School students. Instead of thinking K-12, we should be evaluating what is best at each grade level.
I think Jeff is right that there are High School classes that would do just fine with many more students than is typical for a K-3 class (although I think his ‘100 – 200’ comment was mainly designed to ‘pull someone’s chain’ as it were).
What is frankly very frustrating for me is the near complete refusal on the part of the teachers union (and supporters) to consider any changes to the current system, and at the same time, the ‘righties’ refusal to admit that some aspects of the current system actually works. The correct answer is somewhere in between the extremes so maybe it is time we stop spewing ‘talking points’ and actually start listening.
[i]although I think his ‘100 – 200’ comment was mainly designed to ‘pull someone’s chain’ as it were[/i]
Well I confess that I sometimes yank chains because the best dialog emerges. However, on this point, I am being honest. It would require design, but I can see it working just as it works for colleges. Note that most of the college large-scale classes are in the undergraduate instruction side. It is not just an issue of student maturity.
Let me ask you this… how do you get 500 young adults in a movie theater to behave and pay attention?
I think we are just stuck in prehistoric education paradigms. It is time to open up the noggin and reform the beast.
Gates on class size and teacher pay. I think he is 100% spot on.
[url]http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2011/02/bill_gates_talks_about_teacher.html[/url]
From Mayor Bloomberg:
[quote]“Education is very much, I’ve always thought, just like the real estate business. Real estate business, there are three things that matter: location, location, location is the old joke,” Bloomberg said. “Well in education, it is: quality of teacher, quality of teacher, quality of teacher. And I would, if I had the ability – which nobody does really – to just design a system and say, ‘ex cathedra, this is what we’re going to do,’ you would cut the number of teachers in half, but you would double the compensation of them and you would weed out all the bad ones and just have good teachers. And double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students.”[/quote]
These pieces from a 2006 UCD article:
[quote]The average lower division class size is about 70 students, and for upper division, about 39, according to the campus’s Office of Resource Management and Planning Web site.
For example, mathematics lecturer Lawrence Marx this quarter is teaching Math 16B with 195 students.
Jim Biardi, who teaches introductory biology, also thinks the instructor-student connection is important. His 330-student Biological Sciences 1B class has 15 teaching assistants in total, all of whom are available through office hours. Biardi also consults with students during his own office hours or through e-mail.
“We try to be as available as possible,” Biardi said.
Susan Keen, an introductory biology lecturer, admits that a large class presents challenges — like connecting with students — but adds that the environment can have its advantages.
“In a large classroom you’re always going to have some people who are really up with it,” she said, “and those students can bring up the rest of the class. They give the rest of the class something to shoot for.”
Keen, who received a 2006 Academic Federation Excellence in Teaching Award, will lead a seminar this fall through the Teaching Resources Center on teaching large classes. She said the discussion will focus on techniques for fostering interaction among so many people.[/quote]
JB: [i]Gates on class size and teacher pay. I think he is 100% spot on.
[/i]
From article on Gates:
“Most of the new money pumped into public education has been spent on new teachers. For every 1,000 students, public schools employ 125 adults, an 8-to-1 ratio, comparable to the student-faculty ratio at Swarthmore College.
The number of instructors per 1,000 students has more than doubled since 1960, from 40 to 85.”
From the bottom of your article, a very salient comment:
[quote]Since 1960, not only have most school districts added reading and math specialists, they have also added speech, art, music, p.e., kindergarten teachers. and special ed teachers. (We had none of these when I was in school in the 60’s.)[/quote]
In California in 2002, per 1,000, we had 49 teachers, 17 support staff, 11 administrators, and 15 other staff for a total of 92 adults per 1,000 students. 2007 source, pg. 47, Table 4.7 ([url]http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_107TGR.pdf[/url])
This is all after class size reduction was implemented in California. Since then we have shed teaching staff in California for the past 3 years, and will likely do it again this year. Looks like California staffs efficiently.
It’s also interesting to see that Bill Gates is negative on smaller class sizes after pouring money into initiatives for small high schools, like Davis’ own Da Vinci HS, from 2000-2008. (Gates Foundation source, pg. 3 ([url]http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/Documents/reflections-foundations-education-investments.pdf[/url]))
JB: [i]There is no data to support that smaller class sizes improve outcomes for secondary school students except for special needs kids.[/i]
OK, but why do you think 100-200 students would make no difference for high school student outcomes either? I don’t know of high schools that have rooms big enough to hold that many, unless you got rid of the music program.
“…
JB: Didn’t you take classes in college with hundreds of other students?
Yes, I did. And for the most part they disproportionately manifested all the ills you frequently cite for public education. The format was usually that of a single instructor “droning on” as you have described the lecture format. No meaningful chance for question and answer, let alone discussion, all of which occurred in the individual sections or labs of about 25-30. No sense of individual engagement and no sense that the instructor cared about the learning of any given individual unless you were a regular at office hours. While this model suffices where students are more mature, self motivated and in the most successful cases “driven” having decided upon a definite goal and have defined a definite path to achieve it, I see no evidence that this is likely to be successful for high school students many of whom are still undergoing the brain development that allows them to develope these traits. I would like to see actual data that supports the superiority of classes of 100-200 at the high school level before I would advocate ” taking a wrecking ball” to our current system as you have advocated in the past.
medwoman: [i]”I see no evidence that this is likely to be successful for high school students many of whom are still undergoing the brain development that allows them to develope these traits.”[/i]
wdf1: [i]”OK, but why do you think 100-200 students would make no difference for high school student outcomes either? I don’t know of high schools that have rooms big enough to hold that many, unless you got rid of the music program.”[/i]
Resource optimization has been a primary job responsibility for me for most of my career. I am facing the same challenge today. My company has grown in employee expense at the same time the challenges for doing business have significantly increased. I think this is a similar situation that schools find themselves in… the difference being the denial and resistance accepting the point that the challenges for their business has also significantly increased.
Like the leaders of the business of education should be doing, I am working hard to solve the puzzle for doing more with less. That is to reduce my per-unit cost of service while also increasing my service-levels. We made about 100 small business loans throughout California last year. We need to do about 150 without hiring any additional staff other than another loan officer working in the field.
There is nothing sacred in our current work model and work processes except satisfying our customers. Everything but that is open to change. For example, I would consider redesigning our office space if it would help us be more productive.
Getting back to schools. The problem we have in the business of education is the convergence of the following:
– Higher costs per unit
– Reduced service
– A changed market where more service is required
– Greater competition for funds that might otherwise be used to invest in growing services in the higher-cost model
This last bullet is our reality that the education establishment fails to accept. They think they can hold out long enough that we will find that magic money tree, or that a tyranny of the majority angry about a further drop in their child’s education service voting to tax the rich. Neither of these results will fix the long term problem of a growing cost per unit. As designed, the beast must be fed, and it will continue to feed itself by shedding service instead of optimizing its resources.
We need to redesign schools and teaching methods and we need to leverage technology to best optimize the human resources required to deliver the best possible education service.
The argument that high school kids are still developing and therefore should not be subject to the same large class-size that they will be required to handle in college is silly given how Davis parents clamor to see their kids take so many AP classes in preparation for college. If the job is to prepare them for college, then it seems more than reasonable that the models and methods used for teaching should sync up.
My thinking is that the gifted kids lucky with resourceful and helpful parents would do just fine in large class formats as long as the teacher was trained and skilled in this and we had some lower-paid helpers/tutors to assist the students getting stuck, and we had high-tech tools that allowed much greater access to robust self-learning and self-help resources. The money freed up by a lower cost per unit for these older and more capable kids could then be used to provide more counselors and subject experts, plus reducing class size for younger students, special needs and non-template learners.
[quote]Aw, come on now wdf1, you really seem to have trouble just admitting facts that don’t support your worldview. You know there are many large format classrooms where subjects that are taught this way. There are large hall-sized classrooms at all the junior colleges and universities. If the format is lecture with note taking and homework assigned, then why not have 100 or even 200 high school kids in the room? If the teacher is crappy, then why not just get the bad class over with all at once? [/quote]
Jeff, there is one major flaw in your 100-200 students in a class model. Most college classes of 100-200 students have smaller discussion sections scheduled throughout the week, of 20-30 (or less) run by a grad assistant – to give students the opportunity to ask questions that were not facilitated by the lecture format. So the economy you are advocating for wouldn’t really happen if there was the necessity of breaking the larger class down into discussion groups…
It would barely save any costs, it would require significant infrastructure costs, and it wouldn’t promote better outcomes. It would require a lot of other teacher aides, who don’t exist. It might end up happening as a product of necessity, but it isn’t a desirable way to teach 16-year-olds.
Like medwoman, I took the classes that had the large lecture sections. As a science major at UCD these were the introductory classes in chemistry, physics, etc. Chem 1A, for example, had 450 students when I was an undergrad. I met the professor once. My TA was a graduate student from China, who barely spoke English. The class was that big because it is a prerequisite for every science major. But that approach is pretty much sink or swim. On the plus side, it does weed out a lot of pre-med candidates. Flunk that, you’ll never get to med school, so it gave you a chance to change your major while you still had time.
Don: [i]It would barely save any costs[/i]
I completely disagree. The majority of education costs are employee costs.
Don: [i]it would require significant infrastructure costs Reduce the salary[/i]
Reduce the employee expense and you have extra budget capacity to do this. Ask taxpayers to approve temporary tax increases to fund the improvements which will provide long-term imporvements in education value. Asking for tax increases to protect the status quo is different than asking for investments in reforms that have long-term paybacks in a better service and greater value.
Don: [i]it wouldn’t promote better outcomes.[/i]
I disagree. Frankly, there is nothing you our others are promoting that would provide better outcomes. Spending more on the current model does not provide anything close to a comensurate return.
Don: [i]It would require a lot of other teacher aides, who don’t exist.[/i]
Sure they do… they are second, third and fourth year undergraduate college students and grad students that need jobs to earn money to pay for their hyper-inflated college costs. You could get several of these resources for the fully-loaded cost of a single teacher.
Don: [i]It might end up happening as a product of necessity[/i]
If it is inevitable, then get in front of it to make sure it is done well and not as a requirement of crisis.
Don: [i]but it isn’t a desirable way to teach 16-year-olds[/i]
The current way is not desirable based on outcomes and the requirements for a changed and changing world. I think there is a much better model out there that includes consolidation of teaching resources; high-tech presentation, practice, testing and help tools; and larger class sizes for some students and subjects.
JB: [i]Asking for tax increases to protect the status quo is different than asking for investments in reforms that have long-term paybacks in a better service and greater value. [/i]
A solid majority of Davis residents think Davis schools are good. What you propose isn’t realistic in the current environment.
[i]The current way is not desirable based on outcomes and the requirements for a changed and changing world.[/i]
And now we’ve come full circle. The ‘current way’ is supported by most parents, outcomes at DJUSD are excellent overall, and you aren’t proposing anything that would make outcomes better. DJUSD graduates seem to do very well at getting into college, and I would guess at getting jobs. School options like DaVinci make great use of “high-tech presentation” etc. School options like DSIS have all sorts of alternative options for learning. The choices are there. The only thing new that you’re proposing is to quadruple class sizes, fire teachers, and replace them with college kids. I doubt that reform will go very far with the public.
Here’s the course catalog: [url]http://dhs.djusd.k12.ca.us/files/counseling/documents/DHS_Guide_V8-final.pdf[/url]
If you’re serious about your suggestion, go through it and identify some classes you think would be amenable to college-lecture-style teaching. Make a proposal and send it to one of the DJUSD board members and see what they say. Here are their contacts: [url]http://www.djusd.net/district/boe/board/contact[/url]
I know them all, at least casually. They are all smart people who consider the best interests of the students as they navigate these budget issues.
JB: Have you taught classes before? Have you ever considered teaching on the side, just to test out some of your ideas?
Why do you limit your model to 100-200 students? Why not more? 600? 700? I used to suggest as a facetious extreme that the district take all 8500 students and place them at the DHS football field with one teacher and save money that way. I no longer ask you this facetiously, but seriously. Why do you limit yourself to 100-200 students in your model and not something bigger? What is the basis for setting your class size limit?
Each class at DHS is 600-700 students. Why didn’t you propose building three 700 seat auditoriums and have students from each class sit in their respective auditoriums all day long and have each teachers of the required 6-7 subjects walk in and lecture from the stage?
When I look at other private schools in the area, hear their ads, look at their websites, they tout their low class sizes. Why do you think new families would still move to Davis when they hear of classes that are 100-200 in size? (or bigger, if you want to argue that way)
And even then, I question whether you will see overall positive outcomes of students in your model.
Meanwhile in Alabama:
[quote]State Sen. Shadrack McGill defended a pay raise his predecessors in the Legislature passed, but said doubling teacher pay could lead to less-qualified educators.
….
McGill, R-Woodville, said a 62 percent pay raise in 2007 – passed first by a controversial voice vote and later in an override of a veto by then-Gov. Bob Riley – better rewards lawmakers and makes them less susceptible to being swayed by lobbyists.
….
Teachers need to make the money that they need to make. There needs to be a balance there. If you double what you’re paying education, you know what’s going to happen? I’ve heard the comment many times, ‘Well, the quality of education’s going to go up.’ That’s never proven to happen, guys.
“It’s a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach.
source ([url]http://times-journal.com/news/article_16355b2a-4c64-11e1-a0b1-001871e3ce6c.html[/url])
[/quote]
Does this mean that politics is not a calling; that it’s something one does for purely selfish purposes?
wdf1: [i]”Why do you limit yourself to 100-200 students in your model and not something bigger?”[/i]
This reminds me of my argument against increasing the top tax rate… why not make it 100%?
I used the term “optimization” for a reason. Can a class of 500 students be made to work? I don’t know. Maybe. Some colleges are doing it. They are well-respected colleges. They use a teacher’s aide model to provide the face time for the kids that need it. Of course the education establishments dislikes it… they would rather have more union members.
You can have 30 kids and a droning and disconnected teacher using a caulk board and frayed textbooks, or 150 kids and a charismatic and engaging teacher-performer using high-tech, networked, presentation, research, study, and assessment tools, and the larger class will do a better job getting the information into the brains of more kids, IMO. Remember, the other part of the idea here is to free up money that can be used to build, hire or acquire more help resources.
Teachers spend all that time creating lesson plans and giving lectures. What if most of this was done for them for common subjects and their job was to facilitate around it helping each student that needed help. And the teacher would know who needed help as the hi-tech presentation was interactive using the terminal or iPad that each student in the class had, and it would provide perpetual quizzing and the results would be available real-time. What if the kids also had real-time online chat help with a central teacher’s aide desk? What if they could replay the class presentation at any time? What if they could even do this while sick at home?
There are about 1250 public high schools in California. There are about 80,000 public high school teachers. Think of how many of the exact same subjects are being taught in each of those 1250 schools. In the large schools there are even multiple simultaneous copies of the exact same class. All of this is screaming for consolidation. All of this is screaming for the great state of California – the one that dominates in higher learning, the one that dominates the entertainment industry, and the one that created and dominates our global computer and network technology industries – to create the next great education system.
[i]”It’s a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach.”[/i]
The idea isn’t to just increase pay… I agree that this does not work. We have plenty of proof. There should be market equilibrium for attracting the right level of talent to the profession. Beyond that teachers need to have a percentage of their pay at risk based on a comprehensive performance measurement system.
[i]”Have you taught classes before? Have you ever considered teaching on the side, just to test out some of your ideas?”[/i]
I have taught many subjects at the corporate level. I taught project management to working adults at the UC Extension for a couple of years. As a manager, much of my job is coaching and teaching. However, I have not taught classes of children. Frankly, I don’t think I would be good at it.
[i]”Does this mean that politics is not a calling; that it’s something one does for purely selfish purposes?”[/i]
I think just about everything anyone does is done for selfish reasons. Just ask two of my employees who were raised by distant relatives because their parents were missionaries helping the most poor and miserable people in dangerous third-world countries.
We do things because we get something in return. People teach because they get something in return. Some get a swell of pride and a great sense of self-satisfaction shaping young minds. Some people teach because they like the work schedule and benefits. I know several people that said they became teachers because the work schedule matched their kid’s schedule.
I really don’t care what drives a person to be a politician or a teacher… all I care about is their performance doing the job. In consideration of their demonstrated performance I will sometimes challenge their motives… but otherwise why would I care? If someone becomes a doctor to make a lot of money and they are good at it, then it is a good thing. If someone becomes a doctor because they just want to help and heal people but they are lousy at it, then it is a bad thing.
A teacher is not, by default, any more or less moral than is an investment banker or a politician. They are all people capable of immoral or unethical acts. They are all people with potential to be good or bad at what they do.
You like referring to “crappy teachers”. If teachers are evaluated based on parent satisfaction (essentially the customers in the model), then this survey suggests that large percentages of parents are neutral to satisfied. I think you would fall in the 12% (nationally) who are dissatisfied. I suspect that the level of dissatisfaction would be the same or slightly lower in Davis.
[quote]One thousand respondents from a nationally representative panel of 15,000 were chosen to participate in the survey. Nearly half of those chosen are parents and just over 10 percent are teachers or former teachers.[/quote][quote]Views on the Teaching Profession
The Teaching Council survey also asked respondents about opinions on the teaching profession as a whole. More than 95% of all respondents felt that teaching required a medium to high level of skill. Eighty percent also agreed that teachers ‘play an important role in our society.'[/quote]Three in Four Parents Satisfied with Teacher Performance ([url]http://education-portal.com/articles/Three_in_Four_Parents_Satisfied_with_Teacher_Performance.html[/url])
[img]http://education-portal.com/cimages/multimages/16/teacher_satisfaction_survey.jpg[/img]
[img]http://education-portal.com/cimages/multimages/16/teacher_satisfaction_survey_2.jpg[/img]
wdf1: If these customer satisfaction graphs represented by business, we would be out of business. We target 95% Very Satisfied and 99% Very Satisfied or Satisfied as our goal. Anything less and employee bonus is reduced. Higher satisfaction results are rewarded with higher bonus. Likewise, even a single dissatisfied is a very big deal.
The other thing to consider is the lack of competition. Frankly, most parents don’t have any experience to compare performance. The coconut chef on your deserted island might satisfy you if all you know you can eat are coconuts.
JB: I take a glass half-full view. A few years go before I saw these kinds of polling data, I would have thought public view would be worse than it is, given legitimate deficiencies in poorer districts and the negative criticism that is generally directed at the U.S. education system in political discussions.
wdf1: I appreciate that point and your views. I think we are only a year or two away from an explosion in increased expectations as more success stories using modern approaches to education are reported. I hate to use this analogy, but the education establishment reminds me a bit of the Taliban (without the violence). It is all protective and change-resistant tribalism.
There should be nothing sacred when it comes to finding the best ways to care for and prepare all of our children for launching to a great life. The US’s education system should be our global competitive advantage. Instead, today K-12 is a liability, and higher education costs have inflated so much we are losing that benefit too.
I can go for this as one start:
States Mulling Creativity Indexes for Schools ([url]http://www.artsed411.org/blog/2012/02/states_consider_creative_indexes_schools[/url])