Contrary to popular "American" belief, money is not a solution for all
problems. And concerning the issues of public edu., I have no doubt in my
mind, that first of all the education programs must be changed to include
teaching of the basic-to-advanced thinking skills, starting at grade one,
and all the way through grade 12, with no interruptions.

It is incomprehensible that schools teach methodology of reading, writing
and counting, but ignore completely the methodology of thinking. In order to
develop an analytical population with strong thinking abilities, it is
imperative that disciplines, such as philosophy and psychology, adapted to
age, are taught as early as possible.

This conflicts, however, with the goals of each and every government on
Earth. It's been known to all the rulers since time immemorial, that wise,
analytical population would be much more difficult to control and rule, and
that such population would inevitably raise the bar for any government. And
this is not what any government wants to have.

This reflects all the problems with all the "education reforms" ever
"attempted". Trust me, there are no "neocoms", "neocons" or any other bums
which would feel motivated to deal with a society, comprised of wise and
intellectually capable individuals. Because it would make life of any lazy,
greedy bureaucrat a nightmare.

"joe clarke" <joeclarke@joeclarke.net> wrote in message
news:79183f57.0406181123.1552d600@posting.google.com...

$100 million deficit threatens Cleveland schools.
The education news group pretty much explains why Cleveland and Akron
are experiencing "academic emergency" and going broke. It does not
look likely that tax payers in many states are going to contiune to
support your hobby.

The Neocom (neocommie) educrats have not noticed that while they have
been dreaming up endless experiments to improve the public schools, we
voters have noticed that even after giving the schools over $10,000
per child they still failmiserably. Individual teachers should not be
blamed as much as the stinking thinktankers who have eliminated
discipline, raised teachers' salaries way past everyone else's, kicked
God out of the classroom, prejudiced children's minds, eliminated
phonics, selfishly used children to plead for levy increases,
discarded math, phonics, handwriting, spelling, and George Washington
in History classes, vaunted 'self-esteem' to the point that children
cannot be judged academically, . . . I could go on, but I am preaching
to the devil's choir in this newsgroup. Bolsheviks had their day, and
so have you educators.

NO MORE TAXES for your public schools - Kindergarten through Grade
Sixteen.
Yes, people are catching on that even a college grad today is
equivalent, at best, to a high school senior - thirty years ago.
Thanks, "intellectuals."

What you have failed to recognize is that these "experiments" are liberal,
not conservative. It is not the neocons that have caused this mess.

On 18 Jun 2004 12:23:31 -0700,

The Neocom (neocommie) educrats have not noticed that while they have
been dreaming up endless experiments to improve the public schools, we
voters have noticed that even after giving the schools over $10,000
per child they still failmiserably. Individual teachers should not be
blamed as much as the stinking thinktankers who have eliminated
discipline, raised teachers' salaries way past everyone else's,

Okay, now that let's look at this claim. Obviously, even Joe cannot
possibly mean *everyone* else's as your typical sports stars, business
CEOs etc, make far more than do teachers.

So how much are teachers paid? According to the AFT
(http://www.aft.org/research/survey02/SalarySurvey02.pdf) teachers
averaged $44,367. According to salary.com calculations for 2003
placed bachelor's degree holders at an average salary of $43,000 and
masters' at $53,000.
(http://www.salary.com/learning/layouthtmls/leal_display_nocat_Ser285_Par409.html)
Considering that all teachers have at least a bachelors and nearly
half have a masters, teachers are actually underpaid relative to their
education level.

Now, I can hear the critics saying yes, but teachers only teach 180
days, when you calculate the extra vacation time, it's a lot more.
But that assumes a teacher only works when he or she is in front of
the classroom and doesn't count the time grading papers, planning
lessons, and developing content which is vital to the job. That's
like saying that the calculations for actors' pay should only count
the time in front of the camera, not the time learning the lines and
rehersing or that firemen are only working while fighting the fire
etc. No one would say a baseball player's real salary should be
calculated by dividing his real wage by the number of hours he spends
on the field and then multiplying it to find out what he would earn if
he got that salary for the typical 40 hour workweek. So why do it for
teachers?