Removing union rights and instituting merit based pay & promotion practices would be the most effective way to balance school (or any other government entity) budgets, as salaries generally make up ~80% of a district's budget.

Then I ask again: how do you keep track of how well a teacher teaches in comparison to their coworkers?

 

And keep in mind that there are lots of variables that can go into how well a teacher teaches, one of the most prominent is probably the student to teacher ratio. In my city/area, that ratio has definitely been going up

Also, not every student learns the same way.

Removing union rights and instituting merit based pay & promotion practices would be the most effective way to balance school (or any other government entity) budgets, as salaries generally make up ~80% of a district's budget.

Then I ask again: how do you keep track of how well a teacher teaches in comparison to their coworkers?

Isn't this what standardized tests are for? I'm not saying to the degree of No Child Left Behind (which was horrible), but if one teacher legitimately teaches, his/her students should be doing much better than students whose teacher shows them movies all day on these standardized tests. The cheating that teachers go through can easily be mended by immediate collection of the test materials (maybe one government official/assistant appointed per school on testing days).

 

At my (private) school, each department (Mathematics, Science, English, Social Studies, Business, Foreign Language, Fine Arts, Computer Science, Physical Education, and probably some more I'm forgetting) has a Department Head (usually the most senior teacher from the department) who will sit in on classes of other teachers in their department sporadically throughout the school year (the principal sits in on the Department Heads' classes). They do teacher evaluations for every teacher twice a year. In addition to this, every teacher has a one year contract only, so if he/she just plain sucks at teaching, they won't be coming back the next year. In addition, for any given class, (e.g. English III or Algebra II), every class of that specific subject, regardless of the teacher, is administered the same final exam. Scores are submitted to the vice-principal before any final marks are given out. He evaluates it so if one teacher's classes did significantly worse than another, the matter is investigated. The system seems to work pretty well as many of the bad teachers have been fired as a result. I'm not saying this would work at every school, but we end up with more National Merit Scholars, higher average ACT/SAT/PSAT scores, and more students' going off to more prestigious universities than any other similar sized school in the state. Honestly, in all my years at this school, I have encountered only one bad teacher (and 9 outstanding teachers), which I think is pretty good for a faculty of 73.

They make the most money and sponsors from sports. It's just a simple fact.

 

It's surprising how many people don't realize this, especially at a university level. Just last week my school announced in partnership with Nike, a revamp of our school uniforms and logos for the upcoming school year when we turn into the Pac-12. I saw a lot of backlash both on twitter and facebook from fellow students that the money spent on the rebranding could have been spent more wisely on academics and student aid but what they are obvious to is the fact that with all the recent state budget cuts to higher education is that the school is trying to earn back the money it's losing to support student aid and further our current academic programs.

If there is anything to NOT cut, it would have to be arts. Having been a musician for 8 years now, and most of those around me having played the same or near the same length of time, it isn't just a hobby we do at school for fun, it's something our lives have been devoted to. Money is hard enough to come by already as the school gives NO funding at all to the arts at our school and we have to raise everything through fundraising. They even cut our ABILITY to charge a yearly "band fee" which was used to pay for buses to shows, uniform and instrument repairs, etc. We have been doing fundraisers nearly every other weekend the entire year just to attempt to keep it going, even with raising over 10,000$ on two huge fundraisers, we don't have enough money to do what we usually can. Every year, we march the Disneyland parade and could not get the money this year. Couldn't go to regionals, cut 2 field shows we were going to do, etc. And that's JUST the band, I'm not sure how the other programs are doing.

Unlike sports programs, we don't make money off of our performances, they're free or cost us.

Hearing art program getting cuts is always sad to hear about as they are so important culturally to society. On the other hand from an administrative perspective it's the easiest to cut since their goal is to education and move you on to the next thing be it the entry level job market, or higher education and hope that if you re really passionate about the arts, you will continue them outside of an academic environment.

Standardized tests are great for seeing how good students are at standardized tests

^That was my brother's defense every time he finished in the 25th percentile.

This draws a lot of parallels with the issues we have in the UK, but action has to be taken (although America really should cut on it's military spending a bit, although I know you never will). I would say that field trips should be the first in line to be cut, I'd say they're the least cost effective for stimulating children into learning. That's not to say that field trips aren't worthwhile, but the damage would be minimised if they went first.

 

Don't cut teacher's salaries. The motivation of the teachers affects everything that happens in a school.

 

My order of preference of what should be cut first:

 

1. Eliminate funding for field trips and special events

2. Eliminate funding for new textbooks and materials

3. Eliminate funding for all district arts and music programs

4. Eliminate funding for all district athletic programs

5. Force district employees, including teachers, to take a pay cut

I support paying them based on how well they teach. If they don't teach well we should be able to get rid of them.

How do we monitor how well a teacher teaches?

 

In the UK, Teachers get "observed" every so often by a peer colleague such as a member of a senior leader team or headmaster, or external moderators when required, though not sure if this is the same for the United States. Basically they sit in the back of the classroom for a lesson and take notes on how the teacher is performing, how well the students are interacting with the lesson and how well they interact with and control the students. It also goes on (though I don't agree much with this) exam results of one class compared to another.

 

I think these methods aren't 100% though, being in a lesson where teachers are sat right behind you observing makes you feel you're the one being observed and not the teacher, so everyone tends to behave better and it seems a little false compared to what normally might be going on :P . I think the "pay by skill" strategy is a hard one to implement, as it's immoral nowadays to say "Her students are better, she'll get more than you for it" and such. However I do agree that if the teachers are terrible, then they should receive no pay at all and asked to leave :P.

 

On this poll I voted for least opposed to cutting budgets for Field trips and special events. I would have been more towards cutting athletic programs, but I think they play a vital role in getting kids interested in Sport and exercise which in the long run will increase lifespan. I think Students should be involved with the subject as to go out and experience it out in the open in the wide world themselves, without being taken there especially. I know that's not always possible with family income and such, but with technology moving on these days, you can be virtually transported to a field of work like a mountain formation for example with just a click of a button, and it's not always imperative to go there with good resources, though it is of course not the same :P

 

I voted for most opposed to Teacher cuts. There are less and less teachers nowadays who want to go into the profession because of poor pay and unruly behavior in schools, and I think education is the most important thing we can give our kids, and without Teachers it just doesn't happen. :thumbsup:

As a teacher, I have to say that I am suprised that there isn't more support for cutting spending on books and materials.

 

I could teach kids with nothing more than a small blackboard and a piece of chalk. Theres wayyyyy too much money being spent on flashy technology and books, which won't improve the quality of information that I am conveying to the students.

 

The single most important factor in the classroom is having a good teacher. Take away our books, internet, and computer projectors. We'll make it through.

 

Most of us spend our own money for the good materials anyway, because the districts buy useless junk.

 

The next thing that should be cut after that is field trips. Then music/arts. Then athletics.

 

Sure, athletics isn't that important to kids recieving a good education, but the athletics programs basically pay for themselves..I mean it wasn't uncommon for us to bring in nearly 2000 dollars just from selling raffle tickets at a football game. If you're going to cut anything in athletics, it could be the pay for the coaches. Teachers who can also coach make like 50% more, and it definitely is not 50% more work.

Take away the internet? What?

 

It's one of the best ways to find and share information and up to date news. Why would you want to take it away completely?

 

Your argument is definitely very circumstantial. Certain courses can be well taught with nothing but a blackboard and a piece of chalk. Some courses are best taught in a laboratory, and some are best taught in the computer room. Take Economics for example: It's good to have the internet in the course, because the students are more likely to better develop their application skills if they're working with relevant and recent material. However, I would agree that sometimes, the funding could be better used.

 

I would argue it's not just the teacher salaries that has to go up, it's the motivation levels and the ability of the teachers. Good pay does not necessarily imply good teaching quality, nor does vice versa.

 

Not sure where I'm going with this now. I'll leave this here

^That was my brother's defense every time he finished in the 25th percentile.

 

I've always been a straight A's and B's student and got a scholarship toward my first year at university, tests don't mean [bleep].

In my opinion, merit-based/test-score based teacher pay is a bad idea. Not everything that is tested is useful, and not everything useful can be tested.

Here's a fun story about my high school. We're having so many budget cuts and our test scores are so low that we are apparently in the red zone. So what does the honorable and righteous school board who cares about my future do?

 

1. Stops Early Bird-Early bird is an hour before school and allows us to take PE or ROTC to open up an hour for an elective. We don't have this anymore, thus stopping students from failing electives.

2. Makes PE A Full Credit Class That Counts Toward GPA And Class Rank-Thus, with my A in PE, my GPA looks better, and the overall GPA's of everyone in the school looks good.

3. Recommends We Take Two PE Classes- Yes, in order to make themselves look better, the district recommends we take two hours of PE.

4. Dropping People With Less Than A B From Enriched Courses- In order for grades and GPA's to be better, people with C's, D's or F's in enriched courses are automatically put to basic classes, which are now called "regular" courses so that enriched kids don't feel like they're losing out. Now enriched kids with C's will get A's in basic because the work is way to freaking easy.

5. Study Hall Counts As A Class- The past few years study hall has not counted for anything and was just an hour where people who didn't take an elective went. Now, they get credit for it and it's called "Study Skills" to make it sounds like they're actually learning and not slacking off and getting credit for it.

 

All so the schoolboard can say "Hey, GPA and test scores have vastly improved now! Isn't that great!" Then the lady in charge can go back to the state she comes from, get a better job than administrator, and say she made our test scores and GPA's better by making us take shortcuts. People with C's in enriched classes can't continue enriched courses, but they can do Advanced Placement college level courses if they wish. That makes a lot of sense. That's what I'm doing though for my history classes, not because of bad grades in history, but because college credit is nice and the only way to take European History is through AP.

 

So anyway, the school board are idiots. I hate my school district. They pink slip tons of teachers yet bus kids from the south side up to the north side schools on a daily basis.They can't manage money, nor care about the welfare of the students once they leave the district and go to college.

The district here has been cutting more and more each year, it's been interesting to see what has changed. I know both music and athletics have taken hits, class sizes have increased, and our schedule this year was changed so most students ended up taking less classes.

 

Music fees associated with instrument rental and uniform rental both increased in the last couple years. Orchestra has taken a hit at my school because the teacher is only allotted certain hours and has to go between a bunch of schools to be full time. I can't say anything about choir because our program is no good, there are too Manu better choirs in the community. Band boosters raise a ton of money, but due to district cuts, they lost the biggest part of marching band: the field show. They did finally get new uniforms this year after 30+ years, but that was set in the budget long ago.

 

Athletic activity fees have increased, but I don't think any sports have been eliminated yet. I've heard the fees have gotten to be slightly ridiculous though.

 

In elementary school classes started to get bigger each year, that problem has been going on for a while now. It doesn't affect me much personally since there's not such high demand for the classes I'm in, but it's still going on.

 

Our schedule last year was an eight period day, where all students had one period for lunch and many had another period for study hall. This year, it was reduced to seven periods and everyone has lunch during 1/3 of fourth hour. Since there are only seven periods, scheduling has become more difficult, so fewer students have seven classes. They're going back to eight periods next year though (they just happened to make this change during my senior year, how kind of them).

 

A lot of people complained this year when we came to school and found all new computers and software, but the money for the technology upgrade was put into the budget years in advance. Also, we have these stained glass projects going on, but money was raised or allotted for those separately from other items. It's hard to say what should be cut and what shouldn't be for me because I've seen cuts in a lot of things and I can't say where the worst effects have come up. I personally don't want the arts cut because they have value beyond what most people consider (and I don't think they'll be cut here because of grad reqs), but athletic fees are getting high to the point that people reconsider playing sports, materials are put into the budget years in advance (or at least new textbooks and tech upgrades), teachers deserve more than they get already, and we barely have field trips anymore besides the ones covered by grants (last year we had to pay to go to another high school in town to the planetarium because the money just wasn't there for transportation). It's sad.

The ironic thing though is that schools are taking paycuts, and for what? Schools give humanity an educated future. Military, well, not really.

From a Keynesian point of view though, the military provides jobs on the front line, but also creates demand for weapons contractsand raw materials which again keeps people in employment.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you; I would rather military spending on our Trident project be used elsewhere in the UK. But there are undoubtedly pros for military spending.

Here's a fun story about my high school. We're having so many budget cuts and our test scores are so low that we are apparently in the red zone. So what does the honorable and righteous school board who cares about my future do?

 

2. Makes PE A Full Credit Class That Counts Toward GPA And Class Rank-Thus, with my A in PE, my GPA looks better, and the overall GPA's of everyone in the school looks good.

3. Recommends We Take Two PE Classes- Yes, in order to make themselves look better, the district recommends we take two hours of PE.

5. Study Hall Counts As A Class- The past few years study hall has not counted for anything and was just an hour where people who didn't take an elective went. Now, they get credit for it and it's called "Study Skills" to make it sounds like they're actually learning and not slacking off and getting credit for it.

 

All so the schoolboard can say "Hey, GPA and test scores have vastly improved now! Isn't that great!" Then the lady in charge can go back to the state she comes from, get a better job than administrator, and say she made our test scores and GPA's better by making us take shortcuts.

 

So anyway, the school board are idiots. I hate my school district. They pink slip tons of teachers yet bus kids from the south side up to the north side schools on a daily basis.They can't manage money, nor care about the welfare of the students once they leave the district and go to college.

 

Lol everything left my school has been doing for years.

 

And I'm most opposed to cutting funding for books/materials. I learn government out of a book printed in 1995, a chemistry book from 1994, and what the hell are books you have to read for English? Book reports? Nah, haven't done one since Freshmen year. (Partly because my Enligh teacher is a piece of [cabbage].

As a future teach in the fine arts, I can see this as a huge problem for me once I graduate college. This is a hard choice for me, because all the thing that might be cut are very important to schools. I would have to say sports funding could be cut to a lesser amount. I know at least in my high school they were getting a lot of money, actually more then they needed so that's what I would cut.

 

Which one I would oppose would be fine art programs. The fin arts already suffers from not enough kids being it, to cut funding from it would be another nail in the coffin for the arts.

As a future teach in the fine arts, I can see this as a huge problem for me once I graduate college. This is a hard choice for me, because all the thing that might be cut are very important to schools. I would have to say sports funding could be cut to a lesser amount. I know at least in my high school they were getting a lot of money, actually more then they needed so that's what I would cut.

 

Which one I would oppose would be fine art programs. The fin arts already suffers from not enough kids being it, to cut funding from it would be another nail in the coffin inch in the hole for the arts.

 

Fixed. Some schools have already stopped funding the arts and even eliminated them completely. Which blows. I'm not much of a sports guy, i'd much rather look at an amazing picture someone drew, or a beautiful song someone sung, or read a fantastic story somebody wrote, than watch a game of football/basketball/baseball/hockey/hackysack/hockey/whatever other thing people want to call a sport.

Isn't that down to personal preference though? In which case that isn't much of an argument. :unsure:

That wasn't my point. My point was a lot of schools have already all but eliminated the arts all together, and a few have even done that.

That wasn't my point. My point was a lot of schools have already all but eliminated the arts all together, and a few have even done that.

I guess that is true in a some parts of the country. Around where I live the arts are something that won't be taken away, at least anytime soon. Our biggest issue where I live is the how much teacher's are making (or not making). If I had more time to research I'd look into this, but I think that in West Virginia we have some of the lowest paid teachers in the nation. I can't claim that at the moment, but that has been a hot topic for some time now.