Education
Educated Inside Insight
March 2, 2006 
GUARDIAN READER (insider) VIEW.
Take a trip to Victory Road. Check out Boise School District Facilities. Then, go to Caldwell and check out their retrofit building from the turn of the 20th century. I would agree that the facility on Victory Road was an excessive use of public funds.
Yes, BSD piddles money away on useless testing and overpaid positions within the bureaucratic rungs of the Boise School District. Yes, the teachers in BSD make more money than other districts mainly because of the age of the teachers and the fact that most of the teachers have their masters degrees. You can also thank the unions, sorry… I mean associations, for driving up the cost of statist education.
If you support the current public education model (tax money supporting a 30% drop-out rate) and student success (outsourcing due to poor student performance) then you should support the bond. They are planning to sell valuable land after several schools are leveled. They will consolidate students into newer facilities with better equipment and lower operational expenses. I hear the ol’ timers say “it was good enough for me 40 years ago, darn it, its good enough for the kids now…” Not true. If we want to maintain the old brick and mortar style of education we need to keep up with facilities and technology. The current facilities have been adapted time and time again trying to make do with their resources. Many schools can’t afford (speaking in terms of structural integrity) to have more holes drilled in the walls to support more technology that is deemed necessary for American students to compete globally. Many BSD buildings are literally crumbling apart.
Other countries have quite a focus on education. Fortunately for many of those countries schools are private and competition is fierce. Our ‘entitled’ education is a fatal flaw in disguise.
The teachers are doing their best working in the current model of education. They are told to spread their creative wings and teach the students everything they can…. as long as it aligns with Idaho State Standards, O.K.ed by the Board of Education, passed by the Department of Education, applies to the End of Course exams, and the regulation associated with the Federal Program of No Child Left Behind.
In defense of the teachers; stop attacking their pay. Remember new teachers still start at $27,000+/-. In order the make the Big Bucks teachers must get their Masters Degree and pay for it themselves.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Mar 2, 2006, 4:02 pm
The mailman delivered a letter today from the school district. Looks like the Boise School District doesn’t mind spending the tax money they get from us to promote their bond election. Isn’t there a law against using tax funds to influence elections?
Ed Note–Not sure what you got, but chances are it does NOT advocate a yes vote and simply has a series of made up questions and answers along with “voter information” on where and when to vote. The Idaho supreme court recently ruled public money can NOT be used to promote a particular view in an election.
Mar 2, 2006, 5:01 pm
There is no reason there can’t be a statewide blueprint for a grade school, a middle school, a high school. If you want to be unique in all the world..paint your house purple. The money that could be saved by this alone, would boggle the mind. No bell towers, no frills, just a plain old school with amenities that are easy to replace when somebody’s disrespecful kid tears the crap out of it.
The post that equates a Master’s degree with higher salary is laughable. I know plenty of teachers without the Masters who work their tails off to be interesting and involved and cutting edge. I know plenty with Masters (and some with Phd) who are coasting to retirement. Most Charter schools wouldn’t hire them on a bet. Let’s pay them for doing a GOOD JOB! But, I know, I know, then we have to have somebody with no clue define what that looks like and yaddayaddayadda. Everytime I hear the Teachers UNION rep on TV I feel like hurling. John Stossle did a great story on the state of education in this country and the biggest problem cited was the UNION. Rewarding mediocrity has gotten us no place. Throwing more money at it can’t really be the answer.
Mar 3, 2006, 6:50 am
Your 30% included illegals migrating to the area to work in the fields and move on (or they join a gang)…
It doesn’t matter how much money the schools get or how fancy their facilities are. They don’t teach. Corporatons are struggling to find somebody who knows how to work and is honest enough to work by themselves. Kids who know how to read when they enter school at age 5-6 and then regress. When they graduate they are only at the 4-5th grade level. Why should we pay for more of that?
Kids work at the restaurants…ever watch them give change…if you throw in the penny to make for less change, they don’t know what to do.
Ever talk to kids? They are impolite & rude if they can get past the “kinda like, you know”.
And, why do they need to know about sex at age 6 or why do they have to watch graffic homosexual movies to indoctrinate them as if it were a sign of maturity and intelligence?
I don’t complain about the teachers pay. I complain about the teachers backbone…afraid to really teach because of the intimidation of the ACLU and the liberal school boards that hate God and want to pander to all the evils in our society.
When the freedom of religion is allowed in the schools, I’ll donate some money. Since they took religion out, they have nothing to complain about with the results.
Mar 3, 2006, 12:06 pm
Well, John, I went to Boise Schools all 12 grades…I have no memory of anybody teaching religion of any kind. That was in the 50’s. Did you go to school here? Every once in awhile someone makes that same comment about religion in schools and it is very puzzling to me.
Mar 3, 2006, 1:04 pm
Wow, John sure has read some disturbing news articles. Unfortunately, his entire post is anecdotal and contains no evidence to back up what he writes. “Graphic homosexual movies” – which Boise (or Idaho) school is showing those movies? Who are these mystery children who have regressed? And where is the evidence that our High School Seniors are reading at 4th/5th grade levels? (there isn’t any because it’s not true)
I understand that there may be better educational models around the world, but you’ve taken hyperbole to the extreme John. Our teachers do a great job and, believe it or not, our children leave school with more knowledge than any of us did. If you’ve met some rude children, don’t blame schools, blame their parents. If a child graduates from High School and can’t read or write adequately— shame on him/her first, shame on his parents second, & shame on the schools last! Also, when you’ve run into these multitudes of inept fast-food workers who can’t make change, did you try to teach them or did you just complain (shame on you)?
To focus on the ills and rare exceptions in education found around the country, and project them on OUR public schools does a disservice to OUR community. We need to continue to support the current system until a better one is chosen.
I challenge anyone who feels the way John does about our public schools to spend a day in the classroom. Sit through some chemistry, calculus, computer science (I’m sure those “kids” knowledge will put a lot of “adults” knowledge to shame), English, Biology, Law & other classes. You will find that OUR teachers (your neighbors) are just as “conservative” as you, are just as “religious” as you, and truly want to succeed in the education of our children – JUST LIKE YOU. And, you’ll find that the MAJORITY of our kids are intelligent, curious, and motivated to learn – not the blithering idiots John would have you believe they are.
Mar 4, 2006, 10:36 am
John, John, John……..you need to visit one of our schools. Understand the challenge we face and the work being done. Leave your book at home but come ready to learn. Then maybe you’ll support the effort to improve our schools.
Mar 6, 2006, 11:53 am
You can always tell when somebody has something to sell you. They identify a problem (“kids these days…”), then they tell you that somebody else doesn’t have that problem, then they show you the brightly colored box from “Mac Schools”.
Do a little fact checking, and you find that those “other countries” don’t use “Mac Schools”.
The rich kids in Japan go to public schools. The famous Indian engineers came from a public school system. The public school model is strong in the countries that produce the best students.
Whatever problem we have is not with the buildings, not with the teachers, but with the parents, and society in general.
Public education, free and compulsory for all, is one of cornerstones of an enlightened society.
Education should not become another big business. The business of business is to make a -profit-, not a better product. The quality of the product is always weighed by the consumer against cost. And it is the -perception- of value, fine tuned by marketing psychology that moves a product. What would it be like if the people who suceeded in the marketing of SUVs took on schools as a product to schlepp off to “savvy education consumers”?
The thought makes me cringe.