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Over ten years ago (when I was in high school) the school I went to ended the metal shop class that I took. We were told that it was ended because of a lack of

Over ten years ago (when I was in high school) the school I went to ended the metal shop class that I took. We were told that it was ended because of a lack of funding to support the class. Soon after they closed the class the school sold off the metal lathes and CNC machines. It was pretty sad. I agree that outsourcing and manufacturing automation has had an effect on the size of our skilled labor workforce. But let us not forget that our underfunded schools are another part of the problem.

CWuestefeld 15y ago
our underfunded schools Sigh. At what level of funding will you finally consider it adequate?
- wiredfool 15y ago
  I'll settle for "not another 20% cut this year". (hey downvoters -- that's what's happening to my kid's school. It's a little personal)
  - anamax 15y ago
    If that school was in CA, we've been increasing spending for decades without any benefit. Since increasing spending didn't help, any harm from cutting spending is sabotage or incompetence by the public school folk. We're spending enough money, so if you're not getting what you want, you need to talk to the folks who are in charge of turning that money into decent education.
    - wiredfool 15y ago
      Nope, Washington State. I'm already volunteering in the classroom, working on getting the library sorted out, figuring out where we can help with enrichment classes next year (where enrichment == not reading/riting/rithmatic), and getting the chairs recovered because the cushions are worn out. And they (the state legislature) is trying to cut all funding for our school secretary and remove any janitorial services. Because, apparently, they don't realize that the secretaries actually run the damn place. I'm not sure where you are, but my experience is that most of the teachers are pretty good and care for the kids. We've got one that we wish we could ease out the door, but we've got a few that are just great. That is, if we get to keep them, because their hours will be cut and the district reshuffled.
      - anamax 15y ago
        > I'm not sure where you are, but my experience is that most of the teachers are pretty good and care for the kids. I didn't suggest otherwise. I said that in CA, like many other places in the US, we've been increasing spending on public education for decades and haven't gotten any benefit from that extra money. It may well be that this money never made it to the classroom and that the classroom is being cut while "the black hole" is being protected. My point is that enough money is going into "the system" as a whole. You're saying "enough money" isn't going where it's needed. That's a different problem, one that won't be solved by adding money. Doesn't it bother you that your kids are being used as an excuse to line someone's pockets? (And no, I don't mean tax payers.)
        wiredfool 15y ago
        So, Who's pockets are being lined? It's not the food service, their contract is really crappy. I'd be happy to cut it, but there are enough kids on free lunch that it's really important. It's not the teachers, they keep getting cut. It's not the administrators, there aren't that many of them, and they've been cutting right along with the teachers. And the administrative load doesn't get smaller, since there are an ever multiplying number of federal compliance issues. It's not maintenance, as they don't have the resources they need to keep the aging infrastructure going. They could double their staff for a year and still not get through stuff. It's not transportation, they're getting hit by fuel costs. It's not the secretaries, they're getting hit too. The text books, meh, most of them are pretty old. Maybe it's technology, but that's a separate levy and a different pool of money. We've got old buildings, one should have been closed years ago. That could save a teacher or two per year, but there's community pressure to keep it open. Frankly, we spend less on education here per student per year than I would spend to send a kid to daycare for the same time. And they're expected to learn enough to compete in the modern world.
        russell_h 15y ago
        You should take a look at what is being spent on teacher benefits. The school district in my hometown (Anchorage, Alaska) signed a contract whereby they're obligated to pay $1180/month for healthcare for each teacher.
  - CWuestefeld 15y ago
    If that's what's happening in your area, you need to understand that yours is a one-in-a-million area. Where I live, and everywhere that I'm aware of, has monotonically increasing annual school budgets. Or are you one of the people that counts a reduction of the proposed increase as a "cut", so even though you're getting more than last year, it's lower than what you asked for, so you consider it a cut?
    - wiredfool 15y ago
      Nope, those are real cuts. And really, it's at the very least, 1 in 50, since the budget at the state level in WA is being balanced by axing a lot of school funding. Federal funding is also way down this year. Our school district has had to cut teachers for the last few years(I think 5 by now). They do it based on seniority, within each endorsement. Now, there are no teachers with less than 14 years of teaching experience in the district.
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      In a monotonically increasing population, a monotonically increasing budget can still result in cuts in important metrics like per-pupil spending.
      - CWuestefeld 15y ago
        In principle, yes. But that's not what's happening -- at least in my district, where I know the numbers. The per-student expense is also increasingly monotonically.
        nitrogen 15y ago
        If only that were the case everywhere. As far as I know from the teachers among my friends and family, in my state budgets are being cut, class sizes are increasing (there are more students than desks in many classes), teacher count is decreasing, the curriculum is being dumbed down, etc.
        15y ago
  - Duff 15y ago
    My parent's school taxes were $1,800 in 2000. Today? $6,500. From 2006 when I bought my home to today, my school taxes are up over 60%. This year, the school wants a 6% increase. The library district 25%. My pay has been frozen for 3 years. Of course I live in New York, where the teacher's union essentially governs the place. During those timeframes the local schools have gotten worse by just about every measure. So the technique of paying 20% of the teachers $100k+ isn't working.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  I would like to see a breakdown of financial distribution between skills-building classes versus special education. I imagine that metal shops are closing due to legal liability while special ed/needs spending is up due to legal obligation.
  - jbooth 15y ago
    ++, when I was in local politics we had a single student who cost the district 100k a year, several more at 20-50k, and the average spending per student was around 8k. Federal and state legislators can pass an unfunded mandate ("I will not stand by while we ignore these kids"), do a photo op, then cut the funding going to local districts and take credit for balancing the state budget. I'm not advocating eugenics or anything, just pointing out that after all the rhetoric and grandstanding, it's the school districts that wind up eating it.
- Kadin 15y ago
  When the average person who comes out of it can get themselves a living-wage job without loading up on debt for "higher education" in order to learn a marketable skill? High schools used to concentrate on teaching young adults what they needed to know in order to survive independently. At some point they stopped doing that, perhaps because they're still trying to teach them to read. But that seems like a problem.
  - jerfelix 15y ago
    So how is this change in strategy a "funding" problem?
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      Funding is being allocated to the wrong areas. Therefore it is a funding problem.
mike_organon 15y ago
My first thought on reading Rowe's speech was this might be a symptom of public education itself. Do-gooders using other people's money to push their agenda (higher education is the American dream) on other people. It means the people making decisions are disconnected from the outcome and reality. The result is a distortion of of the market, and also the distortion of culture that not getting higher education is disrespected (as Rowe says). Unfortunately, Rowe wants to use the government to push his agenda.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  Every plan of action is somebody's agenda[1]. Some are better than others, and whatever the best plan is, it's still going to be someone's agenda. Government can't exist without "pushing" some agenda. [1] agenda - A list or program of things to be done or considered.
  - mike_organon 15y ago
    The difference is using large amounts of other peoples' money.

CWuestefeld 15y ago

our underfunded schools Sigh. At what level of funding will you finally consider it adequate?

wiredfool 15y ago
I'll settle for "not another 20% cut this year". (hey downvoters -- that's what's happening to my kid's school. It's a little personal)
- anamax 15y ago
  If that school was in CA, we've been increasing spending for decades without any benefit. Since increasing spending didn't help, any harm from cutting spending is sabotage or incompetence by the public school folk. We're spending enough money, so if you're not getting what you want, you need to talk to the folks who are in charge of turning that money into decent education.
  - wiredfool 15y ago
    Nope, Washington State. I'm already volunteering in the classroom, working on getting the library sorted out, figuring out where we can help with enrichment classes next year (where enrichment == not reading/riting/rithmatic), and getting the chairs recovered because the cushions are worn out. And they (the state legislature) is trying to cut all funding for our school secretary and remove any janitorial services. Because, apparently, they don't realize that the secretaries actually run the damn place. I'm not sure where you are, but my experience is that most of the teachers are pretty good and care for the kids. We've got one that we wish we could ease out the door, but we've got a few that are just great. That is, if we get to keep them, because their hours will be cut and the district reshuffled.
    - anamax 15y ago
      > I'm not sure where you are, but my experience is that most of the teachers are pretty good and care for the kids. I didn't suggest otherwise. I said that in CA, like many other places in the US, we've been increasing spending on public education for decades and haven't gotten any benefit from that extra money. It may well be that this money never made it to the classroom and that the classroom is being cut while "the black hole" is being protected. My point is that enough money is going into "the system" as a whole. You're saying "enough money" isn't going where it's needed. That's a different problem, one that won't be solved by adding money. Doesn't it bother you that your kids are being used as an excuse to line someone's pockets? (And no, I don't mean tax payers.)
      - wiredfool 15y ago
        So, Who's pockets are being lined? It's not the food service, their contract is really crappy. I'd be happy to cut it, but there are enough kids on free lunch that it's really important. It's not the teachers, they keep getting cut. It's not the administrators, there aren't that many of them, and they've been cutting right along with the teachers. And the administrative load doesn't get smaller, since there are an ever multiplying number of federal compliance issues. It's not maintenance, as they don't have the resources they need to keep the aging infrastructure going. They could double their staff for a year and still not get through stuff. It's not transportation, they're getting hit by fuel costs. It's not the secretaries, they're getting hit too. The text books, meh, most of them are pretty old. Maybe it's technology, but that's a separate levy and a different pool of money. We've got old buildings, one should have been closed years ago. That could save a teacher or two per year, but there's community pressure to keep it open. Frankly, we spend less on education here per student per year than I would spend to send a kid to daycare for the same time. And they're expected to learn enough to compete in the modern world.
        russell_h 15y ago
        You should take a look at what is being spent on teacher benefits. The school district in my hometown (Anchorage, Alaska) signed a contract whereby they're obligated to pay $1180/month for healthcare for each teacher.
- CWuestefeld 15y ago
  If that's what's happening in your area, you need to understand that yours is a one-in-a-million area. Where I live, and everywhere that I'm aware of, has monotonically increasing annual school budgets. Or are you one of the people that counts a reduction of the proposed increase as a "cut", so even though you're getting more than last year, it's lower than what you asked for, so you consider it a cut?
  - wiredfool 15y ago
    Nope, those are real cuts. And really, it's at the very least, 1 in 50, since the budget at the state level in WA is being balanced by axing a lot of school funding. Federal funding is also way down this year. Our school district has had to cut teachers for the last few years(I think 5 by now). They do it based on seniority, within each endorsement. Now, there are no teachers with less than 14 years of teaching experience in the district.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    In a monotonically increasing population, a monotonically increasing budget can still result in cuts in important metrics like per-pupil spending.
    - CWuestefeld 15y ago
      In principle, yes. But that's not what's happening -- at least in my district, where I know the numbers. The per-student expense is also increasingly monotonically.
      - nitrogen 15y ago
        If only that were the case everywhere. As far as I know from the teachers among my friends and family, in my state budgets are being cut, class sizes are increasing (there are more students than desks in many classes), teacher count is decreasing, the curriculum is being dumbed down, etc.
        15y ago
- Duff 15y ago
  My parent's school taxes were $1,800 in 2000. Today? $6,500. From 2006 when I bought my home to today, my school taxes are up over 60%. This year, the school wants a 6% increase. The library district 25%. My pay has been frozen for 3 years. Of course I live in New York, where the teacher's union essentially governs the place. During those timeframes the local schools have gotten worse by just about every measure. So the technique of paying 20% of the teachers $100k+ isn't working.
georgieporgie 15y ago
I would like to see a breakdown of financial distribution between skills-building classes versus special education. I imagine that metal shops are closing due to legal liability while special ed/needs spending is up due to legal obligation.
- jbooth 15y ago
  ++, when I was in local politics we had a single student who cost the district 100k a year, several more at 20-50k, and the average spending per student was around 8k. Federal and state legislators can pass an unfunded mandate ("I will not stand by while we ignore these kids"), do a photo op, then cut the funding going to local districts and take credit for balancing the state budget. I'm not advocating eugenics or anything, just pointing out that after all the rhetoric and grandstanding, it's the school districts that wind up eating it.
Kadin 15y ago
When the average person who comes out of it can get themselves a living-wage job without loading up on debt for "higher education" in order to learn a marketable skill? High schools used to concentrate on teaching young adults what they needed to know in order to survive independently. At some point they stopped doing that, perhaps because they're still trying to teach them to read. But that seems like a problem.
- jerfelix 15y ago
  So how is this change in strategy a "funding" problem?
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    Funding is being allocated to the wrong areas. Therefore it is a funding problem.

mike_organon 15y ago

My first thought on reading Rowe's speech was this might be a symptom of public education itself. Do-gooders using other people's money to push their agenda (higher education is the American dream) on other people. It means the people making decisions are disconnected from the outcome and reality. The result is a distortion of of the market, and also the distortion of culture that not getting higher education is disrespected (as Rowe says). Unfortunately, Rowe wants to use the government to push his agenda.

nitrogen 15y ago
Every plan of action is somebody's agenda[1]. Some are better than others, and whatever the best plan is, it's still going to be someone's agenda. Government can't exist without "pushing" some agenda. [1] agenda - A list or program of things to be done or considered.
- mike_organon 15y ago
  The difference is using large amounts of other peoples' money.