by Jack
The Calif. Teachers Association radio ad opens with, “Governor Brown is proposing spending on prisons that could educate 86,000 children (if it was spent on building new schools instead). ”
Well, I have just a few questions for the CTA. First, by educate do you mean turning out a product that rank in the bottom 5% of the nation? Or does educated translate to union job protection for a top heavy school system?
And what does it mean if those prison facilities aren’t built? Does it mean that fewer of us, including children, won’t be around… because we’re dead? What’s saving one life worth this time? Oh, wait, that only pertains to spending on gun control. When it’s a choice between spending on a bastion of liberalism (public schools) or protecting the public from harm, the choice becomes very clear…build more government jobs, er, schools!
Well, I grant you, it’s a heck of a choice when you can either spend on education or spend on prisons, but you can’t do both and do either one any justice. But, that’s the corner the liberals of California have backed us into through decades of irresponsible spending. It took a world class recession to expose this reckless squandering of tax dollars, but despite some temporary cuts here and nothing’ has really has changed. Sacramento is poised to resume spending like mad the moment the taxpayers boot is lifted off their necks.
Did you know that during the Great Recession and the subsequent protracted recovery, not one of the 364 State agencies nor the hundreds of boards and committees went out of business…not one! And during this same we have added the train to nowhere that will consume billions of scarce tax dollars. But, the CTA doesn’t mention that do they? They love big government. So, they pick on prison spending because all good liberals also hate to see evil people locked up, even child molesters or serial killers, because evil doesn’t exist in their utopian society or I should say it won’t exist, if you’ll only pony up a few hundred billion more dollars for more schools. The liberals have made it clear, they would rather defund prisons and release predators on California familes, if it empowered their union and protected their wages. Thanks for nothing…again CTA; you better check your own house before you go throwing stones at the governor’s.
Jerry Brown is no friend of the teacher’s union which I like, but I’m no fan of his devotion to overfunding our prisons. Our schools are broke and it is pathetic. Bidwell didn’t have band three years ago because we had cut band in elementary school years before that. Now PV barely has a band at all. This is crazy. What is even more ridiculous is that when Chico Unified was laying off teachers and increasing class sizes they lost zero administrators. None. We supposedly had to close a school because of low enrollment. How many administrators did we lose? None. Something has to be done to fix our schools. I don’t see how paying teachers more will make them cleaner or safer. My experience in having kids in CUSD for 15 years is increasingly filthy schools, lazier and lazier teachers (even though the curriculum gets more and more standardized), and pathetic administration.
It is crazy that parents have fundraise to have nice things at our schools. PTA buys almost all library books for our elementary schools. And while the rest of the country struggles to get affordable health insurance, teachers complain that they might have to have a copay.
But Princess, don’t you remember that we voted in the State Lottery to keep our schools flush with money! There was going to be millions and millions for schools! Funny thing is, most schools say they have seen any lottery money? But, never mind that…we just voted in Prop 30 to fund schools! Prior to that we passed Prop 98 to establish mandatory funding of schools! Proposition 98, a 1988 initiative that set a minimum state spending level for K–12 school and community colleges roughly 40 percent of the state’s general fund. Where’s the money going? Is this why the average teacher in Ca earns $70,358 a year, plus full benefits and a great retirement? Hmmmm? Currently we spend almost $10,000 per student and we turn out a product that ranks among the lowest in the US. Oddly private schools spend half what public school do and get much better results. The system has a lot of fixing and reforming to do before they go to the taxpayers looking for more money.
Jack I’ve got enough stones to cover all of them and I’d bet you do too! Princess is right about one thing, the students are not realizing the bulk of the money we are supposedly spending to educate them. The system is rigged so that the bulk of the money goes to the administrators and the generous pensions for all.
But the taxpayer mismanagement is much the same in our prison system. It’s ridiculous that prisoners enjoy some of the best healthcare in the country while our students are deprived of things like band and even basic classroom materials. The prison system tried rehab; recidivism hasn’t budged. Its a waste of money! Prisoners have more perks than our troops…that’s nuts! The guards should be well paid but once again healthcare and pension deals are gobbling up most of the taxpayer money.
Public sector unions should be abolished because they bargain with politicians and against the taxpayer who doesn’t have a place at the bargaining table.
Every American should be personally responsible for paying for his own healthcare and pension (And every child should be educated from the start that it will be their obligation as a contributing adult).
The arrangement these unions have with politicians is ruining our state and depriving our kids of a top drawer education that should be a slam dunk for a state that was once the sixth economic powerhouse in the world. There’s just no excuse for the collusion, greed and mismanagement of taxpayer funds.
Sad but true. The greed among some administrators borders on criminal. Our whole school system needs an audit.
Schools or prisons? never shall that be a choice.
If an audit is done let us audit the prison system as well. I say any and all abuse be corrected.
“More than 1,400 state employees were paid in excess of $200,000 last year, according to compensation data made public for the first time Tuesday on Controller John Chiang’s website.
Of those, 790 were prison doctors, dentists or nurses. More than 300 others were psychiatrists and other medical professionals working for the Department of Mental Health.”
articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/06/local/la-me-state-pay-20110706