Property Ownership Wakup Call

cadee2c said:

Simple. They can pick an choose what students they accept, i.e. only the brightest, no learning disabilities, higher socioeconomic status etc.

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Ohhh boy, this turned out to be long.

That's a mighty broad brush you're painting with there.
I won't speak to charter schools as I have no experience with them.
For the Catholic school I attended through junior high I can most certainly attest that was not true. All levels of students were accepted regardless of ability to pay. We all rubbed elbows with each other in the same crowded classrooms year after year: The doctors' and lawyers' kids, the shopkeepers' kids, the factory workers' kids, the ditch diggers' kids, and the poorest families' kids. We all played together: All races, mostly but by no means all Catholic. And we all grew up as friends. If the parents wanted their children to attend, the pastor found a way to finance it. The only limit was the school's physical capacity, and it was stretched to the limit. For many families it was "Please donate what you can."
That was a few decades ago, and is probably not possible today. The unfunded regulations imposed on non-public schools probably make it impossible.
But I would not assume that just because an institution doesn't trumpet its charity cases that they don't exist, funded by those high advertised tuition bills paid by those who can afford it.

Regarding homeschoolers, I will not paint with a broad brush myself, but I do have significant first-hand knowledge as my grandchildren are homeschooled.
They are homeschooled because the public system can't (or won't, but I'll assume the benign "can't") deliver a product that properly addresses the specialized needs of either gifted kids, twice-exceptional kids or otherwise learning-challenged kids. (Look it up: "Twice Exceptional". There's a whole world of finely-nuanced people out there you probably completely misunderstand.)
The homeschooler parents I've met through my grandchildren's education community most certainly do not "choose" to homeschool. They feel compelled to homeschool because there are no good publicly funded solutions. Most of them have taken significant household income cuts rather than send their kids to any institutional school or off to daycare, because they felt it was their responsibility to place the quality of their children's lives above money. (Funny. That's what I remember my parents doing, too.)
Certainly there are a lot of religiously-centered homeschoolers. After all, they more or less started the practice. But the ranks of secular homeschoolers are large and growing rapidly.

Blaming the state of public education on the flight of high-income families or on the growth of homeschooling makes no sense. First because the public systems still educate the vast majority of students, representing a valid distribution of the population. Blaming the results of an entire system on the absence of a tiny fraction is poor mathematics.
Next, rich parents produce babies with pretty much the same distribution of innate ability as the rest of the population. So even if you remove them from the population you wouldn't generate a major shift in the innate ability of the remaining student population.
Nor does income predetermine how much a parent cares. Removing the families who homeschool and those to use private/parochial schools from the population still leaves a huge population of families far from devoid of caring parents.

So what do I think is wrong with public education?
First, I submit that the question is pre-loaded with bias and is disingenuous. I'm not of the opinion that public education is terrible or anything close to it. I think it does a pretty good job for the vast majority of its students. If it's failing at the edges, well that's not unexpected. Edge cases are by definition those that are hardest for a large institution to serve.
But I do think that public education is fiscally inefficient and wasteful, and I think that the results shown by private, parochial and homeschool education illustrate that.
It's not that public education is useless or bad. It's that it's a bad bargain.
The one place I don't lay that bad bargain is at the feet of the front-line educators. I lay it on the layers upon layers of administrators, regulators and bureaucratic kingdom-builders that inhabit huge, palatially-furnished offices. I lay it on the desks of the legislators who've never seen a law or program not worth imposing on the educators, impinging on the educators' time available for, and freedom to, teach our children to the best of their ability.
If the system is collapsing, it's doing so under its own weight, and not at the fault of anyone utilizing an alternative.

PopPop51 said:

Ohhh boy, this turned out to be long.


The one place I don't lay that bad bargain is at the feet of the front-line educators. I lay it on the layers upon layers of administrators, regulators and bureaucratic kingdom-builders that inhabit huge, palatially-furnished offices. I lay it on the desks of the legislators who've never seen a law or program not worth imposing on the educators, impinging on the educators' time available for, and freedom to, teach our children to the best of their ability.
If the system is collapsing, it's doing so under its own weight, and not at the fault of anyone utilizing an alternative.

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It was long and I started not to read it...But I thought I would give it a chance....AND YOU NAILED IT.

My grandson graduated from a public school.  He had scholarship offers from several school.  He chose the one he liked the most and turned down Stanford.

Granddaughter will graduate from the same school soon and has already accepted one from the collage of her choice.

The system isn?t necessarily the problem.

Parenting fails?
Language barrier?
Unmotivated students?

Here in southern California,  my friend's daughter was doing poorly at her neighborhood public grammar school,  so my friend decided to go with her to class and find out why .....Good parenting right ?

It ends up that much of her classroom instructions were in Spanish.....she does not speak Spanish.

the principal told him ..."sorry,  but that's the language most of these children speak"

she's in a private school now,  and he's paying extra for it. 


Our state ranks 47th in education quality,  and yet 3rd highest in teachers pay.... it ain't a money issue.


It appears,  here in the sanctuary state of California the  'American Dream' of home ownership  ...  has turned into a nightmare.  :'(

I doubt if teachers even teach the pride of home or land ownership and being a part of the system in that way.  But sadly many of them make learning a chore instead of being adventuress and fun.  I know when i was in highschool in the early 80's we were learning about greek gods and it was so boring and so mind numbing i decided to get my GED instead and go into the service.  I am not a teacher and so i dont presume to know the challenges or enviroment behind the scene, but i do know that reading, math, and other  required courses were taught as "DO YOUR WORK" and of course a young mind does not repond to WORK or CHORE.    I wish they had used a different style of teaching to make reading fun as i would be a much better person for it, but every word i read was a chore and so i did what i could to not do it.

Since teachers jobs are to prepare young minds for the real world, then why dont they have real world classes.  Such as land or property ownership 101, taxes 101, work environment 101,  apartment living 101, voting 101, jury duty 101, military service 101, renting a car 101, RV living 101,  ect...  Just to touch base on some of these topics so that young minds know enough about them so they are not so green when they get on their own. 

Seems they teach math, science, history, social studies, reading  but dont teach enough about real world applications of those skills.

Have we set a new record for off-topic posts yet???

NY_Dutch said:

Have we set a new record for off-topic posts yet???

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I believe we have lol

How much more can we bash our teachers and public school system? You couldn?t pay me enough to be a teacher. I love our grandchildren to death but there?s no way I would try to teach a roomful of them anything. I would rather try to to herd cats. Despite that someone mentioned their daughter made $75k a year in California as a teacher, the majority of teachers are underpaid (I would posit $75k in CA isn?t enough). As for homeschooling, private schools and charter schools, you every right to send your children wherever you want for schooling. But not every family can dot that. Many families consist of dual working parents or single parents that must work so homeschooling is out. Despite what one here has said private and charter schools can pick and choose the brightest and the most elite to attend their institutions. Private and charter schools can also expel at will. And these schools can be quite costly. We must fund our public schools and fund them well.

Its been pretty well established over a broad selection of states that increased funding alone doesn't gain much. Students are still being "processed" with out being able to function well in the real world. Most social classes today are not much more than back slapping,, cigar smoking, with dingle dipping on the side.>>>Dan

Teaching is a rewarding profession; unfortunately many teachers are poorly suited for their profession. I do believe a majority of public school teachers are well educated and dedicated to the job. It's too bad they have no authority in how they manage their class or how they teach, unlike most private schools.

I've taught two years on the Hawk Missle System theory and maintenance (Fifty two week class) as well as being a flight instructor for a similar time. It was my favorite job because I had the authority to maintain class dicipline and teach effectively. I can't imagine putting up with the disadvantages faced by public school teachers daily.

We need to reform the public school system by:

  * Giving managers the authority to dicipline INDIVIDUAL teachers (likely eliminate the union).

  * Eliminate many of the administrators and give teachers real authority to maintain dicipline of students

  * Hold parents responsible for their children's actions in school (dicipline with teeth).

  * It would'nt hurt to eliminate foo foo classes in favor of real subjects.

Of course none of the above will happen so I expect people will still select private schools, charter schools and home schooling if they care about the heir children.

Ernie

As long as folks are not willing to invest in our children?s education the U.S. will fall further and further behind the rest of the world. I would posit most of us are products of the public school system. I didn?t do well in school but it wasn?t the schools fault. I didn?t try. But I turned out okay. I think even Gizmo100 likes me (probably cause he hasn?t met me in person). Many of our brightest folks, doctors, nurses, engineers, military, scientists, etc are products of the public school systems.

Kevin Means said:

That's a darn good question Lou, and when we asked our solar installer why Riverside County's electrical rates (the county just north of us) are only half that of ours, he said, "...because you get to live in San Diego." He said he actually has to work to sell the company's solar products when he's working in Riverside, but when he's talking to perspective customers in San Diego, they just ask where they're supposed to sign.

Politicians call it, "The sunshine tax." They allow taxes and utility rates to be raised higher and higher, and they seem to think that there's no end to what people are willing to pay to live here. Well, coincidentally, Cyndi and I are heading out tomorrow in the RV to look at property in another state. The business we recently started is becoming more and more successful, and we need to expand, but there's no way we're going to continue to pay California's corporate tax rates and associated fees.

Kev

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And lets try to drift this topic back on track.....

Wow Kev, that's staggering. Makes me happier I sold the Fallbrook  place 2 years ago. California is such a wonderful state for a lot of reasons.  But politics and taxes are eroding that away quickly. Let me know where you decide to land. We closed escrow on the place in Lake Havasu a few days ago, and now start the process of the remodel to make it "ours".  Oh, and solar is in our future in AZ as well.

How much more can we bash our teachers and public school system? You couldn?t pay me enough to be a teacher. I love our grandchildren to death but there?s no way I would try to teach a roomful of them anything. I would rather try to to herd cats. Despite that someone mentioned their daughter made $75k a year in California as a teacher, the majority of teachers are underpaid (I would posit $75k in CA isn?t enough). As for homeschooling, private schools and charter schools, you every right to send your children wherever you want for schooling. But not every family can dot that. Many families consist of dual working parents or single parents that must work so homeschooling is out. Despite what one here has said private and charter schools can pick and choose the brightest and the most elite to attend their institutions. Private and charter schools can also expel at will. And these schools can be quite costly. We must fund our public schools and fund them well.

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Oh now Im started on this. Im very interested in education and have worked with, in, and around school districts for years. Totally agree with this.

I had a big long post all made up to send, then decided it was just too long. I lose all objectivity when it comes to public education. Suffice it to say I think we tend to put way too much responsibilities on the schools, but then end up vilifying them and being stingy with funding. I also believe too many school districts are top heavy with overpaid administrators and supervisors. I also know we need to put more into hiring back nurses and counselors, art and music teachers, among other things.

*putting away my soapbox.

I contacted my water company asking them what i was getting for paying 3x the rate of any other community around here for water and sewer.  Here is their reply:

The base rate assessed on your monthly bill is designed to recover a portion of the fixed costs incurred to provide water service to your home.  The fixed costs include maintaining the water supply, water treatment, distribution and service. Fixed costs are incurred and assessed whether or not water is used. The base rate will not vary with consumption, but is related to the size of your meter and its flow capacity. The usage rates are set forth in the [community name removed for privacy] tariff and are charged in per 1,000 gallon basis. 

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Then they gave me a link to the tarrif docs which is 22 pages of legal mumbo jumbo.


On the subject of bringing back discipline to schools i agree to a point.  I have hard feelings about a teacher using a paddle on any child.  When i was a freshman in highschool i set off a smoke bomb in class, you know those little round things that are harmless.  It was totally stupid to do and i thought it would be funny but nobody laughed and i realized i was being a total numbskull doing so (i never did anything like that again).  However the teacher wanted me give me 5 swats with his big wooden board, i told him if you hit me with that board im gonna hit you back.  Of course i was expelled for a week and my folks where not very happy.  I do think there needs to be disclipine but also no abuse and i think physical violence is abuse. 

Anyway i am glad we are back on track here with the topic.  Maybe someone needs to make a new topic regarding school teachers and move some of the posts here over there..  

We have a lifetime lease here at our RV co-op. M&O's run about $1800 per year and we pay about $110/month for electric. Basic cost to buy in is 12,000 to $40,000 per lot (depending on lot improvements), which we get back when we give up our lease. Water and sewer are part of the M&O's. We have to pay county tax on the lot improvements which are $300 per year for us.

  I guess I made out pretty good with our water company. They wanted a 15' easement to put in an underground 40" pipe 450' long....no problem $30K plus no connect fee, install an additional 235' of 6" for my neighbors connection.
  While they were surveying I contacted the project manager again and asked them to move the remainder of the water main off of one gentlemans property and ( yes he was pissed ) over to the other side of the road. Cheaper and a lot easier since there were very few trees to pay for and remove......each one of my neighbors for $7K for my work.  Some even said thank you....My bill is $11.00/mo

Utclmjmpr said:

dingle dipping.>>>Dan

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Don't know what that is, but it sounds like fun. 

Chet18013 said:

We have a lifetime lease here at our RV co-op. M&O's run about $1800 per year and we pay about $110/month for electric. Basic cost to buy in is 12,000 to $40,000 per lot (depending on lot improvements), which we get back when we give up our lease. Water and sewer are part of the M&O's. We have to pay county tax on the lot improvements which are $300 per year for us.

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Chet, is is that in Saguaro?  Spent a week there a few years back.  Nice park.  Don't recall their position on casita's.  I know Dan and Jeannine have one but don't recall if they're limited in size.  I'm so ready to leave So Cal and the high cost of everything.  I have only one requirement, good weather.  Don't like extremes. 

Oldgator73 said:

As long as folks are not willing to invest in our children?s education the U.S. will fall further and further behind the rest of the world. I would posit most of us are products of the public school system. I didn?t do well in school but it wasn?t the schools fault. I didn?t try. But I turned out okay. I think even Gizmo100 likes me (probably cause he hasn?t met me in person). Many of our brightest folks, doctors, nurses, engineers, military, scientists, etc are products of the public school systems.

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Just for the record...To suggest that I may even like you....It's just part of my 1000 hours of community service ;D ;D...I crack myself up.. ;D ;D

Let's face it folks some schools are great and some...well not so much. The list of reasons why some student excel and others fall behind is endless. All I know is a lot of tax dollars are being thrown at the schools but very little of seems to make it to the classrooms.

garyb1st said:

Chet, is is that in Saguaro? 

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Yes it is SKP Saguaro RV Co-Op. Casitas are limited to 288 sqft, and each one is custom designed. We presently have 308 on our hot list. It takes 2-3 years to get a site here. We love it here.

Yes Dan & Jeanine are here also. Presently they are gone for 3 weeks to New Zealand.