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  1. #81

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    The same goes for your claim that military spending is only '20 percent'. Twenty percent of the national budget?
    You would have done better to take on a less easily documented claim by paenme. You aren't going to win this one either, because that statistic is certainly true.

  2. #82

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    Firstly, the Wikipedia link does not show that total defense related spending accounts for 'only' 20 percent of national spending. It shows that Department of Defense appropriations account for 20 percent of the current budget. DOD appropriations do not tell the whole story. You have to add some of the 164 billion spent on national debt service to that amount. Furthermore, according to Harvard economist Joseph Stiglitz, a conservative estimate of the total budgetary and macroeconomic costs of the Iraq war alone will run to more than 4 trillion; that is the Department of Education budget for almost 80 years.
    Secondly, the link purporting to show that the US spends more per capita on education than any other country actually shows that we are 3rd. According to the same site we are 4th in terms of spending on primary students. Need I remind you that we spend almost as much on war as the rest of the world combined?


  3. #83

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    Thirdly, you post a link to a Heritage Foundation site quoting Bill Bennet, of all people, yet you have the temerity to suggest that I lack balance because I quote RAND ( a notoriously left-wing lobby. Anyway, the link argues that because reading scores were basically flat while total education spending more than doubled over a period of thirty years, education spending is therefore necessarily a 'black hole'. However, the situation is not that simple. Firstly, the figures quoted do not take account of inflation. They should be adjusted to 1970s dollars. Secondly, I am not saying that we should simply throw money at the problem. I am pointing out that there are many other factors to consider than supposedly powerful unions which protect legions of incompetent teachers which is the sole explanation in your accounts.
    Fourthly, you have yet to cite a single fact to support your central claims: 1) that American students are behind those in the rest of the industrialized world 2) that this, if true, is caused by the-supposedly- relatively strong bargaining power of American teachers' unions in comparison with other industrialized countries. You have made these specific claims repeatedly without the slightest scrap of evidence.


  4. #84

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    And, and, and... there's the claim that unions are responsible for the sluggish recovery in low-skilled employment by paenme. That's a perfect non sequitir. What on Earth is the causal link here?


  5. #85

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    Lastly, for the time being, there are the supposedly well-known cases of teacher sexual abuse which of course we can also lay at the union's doorstep. I don't deny for a minute that such things occur again and again all over the world. Freetrader suggest that since these teachers are on administrative leave they are guilty but not being punished because the union has a policy of protecting pedophiles. Yet he says that it's better not to go into detail about these cases. However, you would have to discuss them in greater detail if your point is to show that unions are preventing convicted pedophiles from being dismissed. If that isn't what you're suggesting please clarify.
    Again, the fact that members of any particular profession sometimes commit horrendous crimes on the job is not an argument for taking away that profession's ability to bargain collectively. If that were the case we could blame the Fraternal Order of Police every time some cop gets caught dealing drugs, etcetera.


  6. #86

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    Quote Originally Posted by dansande:
    Lastly, for the time being, there are the supposedly well-known cases of teacher sexual abuse which of course we can also lay at the union's doorstep. I don't deny for a minute that such things occur again and again all over the world. Freetrader suggest that since these teachers are on administrative leave they are guilty but not being punished because the union has a policy of protecting pedophiles. Yet he says that it's better not to go into detail about these cases. However, you would have to discuss them in greater detail if your point is to show that unions are preventing convicted pedophiles from being dismissed. If that isn't what you're suggesting please clarify.
    Again, the fact that members of any particular profession sometimes commit horrendous crimes on the job is not an argument for taking away that profession's ability to bargain collectively. If that were the case we could blame the Fraternal Order of Police every time some cop gets caught dealing drugs, etcetera.
    First of all, who the hell are you talking to? I'm not going to wade through the entire dreck of your pointless argument with somebody else to try and figure out when you may be addressing some point I made.

    Secondly, I am happy you agree with me on this particular issue. At no time did I condemn the teachers as a group. What I do not like is the notion of teacher tenure, which makes it so difficult to get rid of poor performing (and in some cases, apparently disturbed) teachers.

    There is no 'magic bullet' to improve teacher and student performance. All of the methods I mentioned in a previous post would certainly help; to the best of my knowledge they are fought tooth and nail by the teacher's unions. Whatever the benefits provided by society by the teacher's unions in the past (or for that matter, labor unions in general) that does not mean that everything the unions do is correct 100% of the time. It is the union resistance to reform that causes taxpayer and citizen frustration - and after all, it is for them that the teachers are supposed to be providing a service.

  7. #87

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    My mistake, the Heritage Foundation study does give inflation adjusted data. However, it still doesn't 'prove' anything about an issue where there are so many complicated variables. No one has proven anything in this whole thread, myself included. I am not attempting to 'prove' that increased education spending will necessarily improve test scores. Strictly speaking, I shouldn't have brought that up in an attempt to offer an alternative theory to the 'blame the unions' theory of why the US education system is 'broken'. Why offer an alternative explanation for something that hasn't even been demonstrated? I believe that our national spending priorities are unbalanced but that's really because I think the bank bailouts and wars are a waste of money and life. I agree that we could probably achieve better results in education with the billions of dollars already available for it.
    However, it is a fact that many states are having budget shortfalls and I do think the fact that the national government doesn't have money to bail out schools the way they bailed out parasitic bankers shows that our priorities are way out of line. If we hadn't spent-and borrowed- so much money invading another country we might now have money to save schools, and that is wrong by any standard.


  8. #88

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    Freetrader, when I address you directly you should know damned well that I'm talking to you. Anyway, it's either you or that other idiot who keeps arguing with me. Who else could it be?


  9. #89

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    FREETRADER and PAENME:I apologize for using profanity and calling people names like 'idiot'. That really isn't a civilized way to conduct debate on this forum or anywhere else. I actually agree with FREETRADER that unions are not right 100 percent of the time and, of course, that teachers accused of abusing students should not be protected by unions or anyone else. I am happy to just simply agree to disagree on the question of whether unions in general are good or bad for education. I don't actually expect to convince either of you of anything so what's the point really?
    On an anecdotal level, I can remember having lots of teachers who were either incompetent or verbally abusive. They were almost never dismissed for their behavior. In no case did it ever come to the point where the union even had to protect them. Most of the time it was just the fact that the abuser was popular with certain elements in the community because he was a coach or because he always picked on kids who didn't have parents around to complain.
    I just believe in the principal that members or any profession should have the right to sign a collectively bargained contract. What's wrong with that?

    paenme and Freetrader like this.

  10. #90

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    dansande
    In the end, you sort of agreed with what we are saying except you now have a new excuse - the current budget shortfalls and how the banks are being bailed out not schools blah blah blah. Stop making excuses and just focus on doing your job for a change! Even with the budget cut the money for education is PLENTY!!! Stop looking at other areas/groups' pots, it is irrelevant to your taking responsibilities since the resources provided to education is MORE THAN ENOUGH when compared with any other countries in the world!

    How can we expect teachers to demonstrate the right attitude, mentality, and work ethics to the children? It's hard to picture the US with a possibility of bright future when it's full of citizens with such extreme sense of entitlement.

    Last edited by paenme; 25-09-2010 at 09:43 PM.

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