1,500+ OC Teachers Might Lose Jobs

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<p>This is a repost of my comment from <a href="http://forums.irvinehousingblog.com/discussion/1749/orange-county-loses-19400-jobs-over-the-month-13000-jobs-over-the-year/#Item_33">this thread</a>:</p>



<p><em>To all who have posted about the school budgets,</em></p>

<p><em>The way the public K-12 schools are funded breeds the most horrid sub-culture I have ever witnessed. I've dated 3 teachers over the years, my wife and mother have both worked on the administration side, and from the information I have read and seen I consider our current education system to be mafia-like in size, scope, and nature. I would have been harsher in my reply to Winex, but I didn't want to start down that path. Since you've already gone there...</em></p>

<p><em>The system is so thoroughly corrupted by money and power-struggles it boggles the mind. There is no shortage of money spent on education, but it is horribly wasted. Bad teachers are rarely fired, but rather moved into administrative roles at the same or higher salary. It isn't just California. It's the same in Nevada, Washington, Oregon, and any other state you care to mention. The NEA and teacher's unions and school districts are fighting for control over the dollars fleeced from the taxpayers and use kids as hostages. There is no accountability because "standardized tests are unfair", there is no authority in the classroom because we can't hurt children's feelings or bruise their self-esteem, and there is no parental involvement because both parents are working (or one is working two jobs) in part to pay for the taxes that support this system.</em></p>

<p><em>Teaching is a noble profession and more than half of the teachers are very good as what they do. But more than a few are complicit in using public funds to expand their world view and their power base. Even the good ones are too often silent for fear of retribution, reassignment, or reduction in their wages. It is a sick, diseased system that isn't just robbing kids of a better education, it's robbing our country of it's future.</em></p>

<p>California is going to get new tax hikes because the Democrats are coming to the defense of a broken system. The will position themselves as fighting for the children, but what they are really fighting for is the teacher's unions, the politcal power at the district level, and continuation of the status quo. They are using the children as hostages to take your money from you, because you would have to be a heartless bastard to say no to educating kids, whatever the cost.</p>

<p>Cue <em>California Uber Alles</em></p>
 
Nude,



I'm with you bro. Although I don't deny that there are many good teachers out there trying very hard in a horrible system, the unions and the civil service systems are destroying the integrity of our public institutions.



When I was at Harbor-General, my boss' secretary quit but we couldn't hire a replacement because of the 'hiring freeze' so we managed to transfer a warm body who already had a job because of civil service seniority rules. This person couldn't type and was unqualified. I remember her job for nearly 2 weeks was retyping my boss's resume.



Look at MLK hospital, it closed because the employee's were unmanageable because no one could ever be fired. I agree that teaches may need some job protections but like all other civil service employee's unions, it's been taken to such an extreme that management is no longer capable of rooting out the bad apples. Just like the federal judge said of the CA prisons, the guards contract has usurped the warden's (management's role)
 
I went through the entire K-12 system in Orange County and let me say this, there are a lot of rotten apples in the system. I've ranted about the educational system in this county ever since 7th grade; middle school is where the real problems begin. The core problem lies with the Teacher's Union and the fundamental entitlement bestowed upon teachers: tenure.





Countless teachers with tenure become lazy, dissociative, and molded into sub-par lifeforms. They take up drugs, show up to class late, take cell phone calls during lecture, fail to supervise students, fail to enforce the curriculum, cut the last 3-10 chapters from the text book because they fall behind schedule, and do not to perform up to the level required to have a positive learning environment.





As a result, most of one's high school education isn't an education at all, its what I like to call adolescentsitting. Since tenure keeps teachers in their job position for life, they have no incentive other than good will to work. Some teachers have it because they are exceptional human beings, but most don't, or get it kicked out of them by the system.
 
Lastly, if you want your child to have a descent education, the best thing to do is to be involved. Rigorously interview each of your student's teachers, overrule anything the counselors say and demand your child to be transfered into another class when necessary, and make sure your kid doesn't go to community college (Saddleback and Irvine Valley College = high school for adults) after they graduate.
 
<p>Just for those not in the know.... 5150 = Mental Case. joy.</p>

<p>I'm quite glad i'm hearing this now so that I can at least push to have our children in a private school. Just not one that is cpt. insaneo expensive.</p>

<p>-bix</p>
 
<p>I am going stand up for the teachers. </p>

<p>Most teachers I know are extremely hard working and do a great job. They have to be educators, social workers, counselors, pyschologists, and at times babysitters. Society in general have made children grow up faster and more cynical thus created more problems for authority figures like teachers. There is more awareness to learning and development disability which means that more money has to be spent on special programs to help those students. English learners also place additional burden on the system. Testing has made teaching problematic since teachers have teach to the "test" now. Testing is an awful way to learn.</p>

<p>I disagree that "education" in the past has been better. They have marginalized challenged students and focused on the "good" ones. For example, there was no programs to help students with reading disability until 10-20 years ago. </p>

<p>I went through the public school system and ended up in the best public university in the nation and a top-20 law school. The teachers were great but more importantly was that I had an expectation to succeed. My family believed that A and Bs were the norm, not the exception. Both of my parents worked and were immigrants but instilled me a need to succeed. That is the most important thing.</p>

<p>There is a lot of fat that needs to be taken out of the system but the teachers are not to blame.</p>
 
<p>I mostly agree, IC. Unions, administration, politicians, and the NEA are to blame. The unions enforce a seniority system that rewards mediocrity rather than effectiveness, then fight for wage increases based on that senority system. The administration takes a healthy chunk of funding to provide and promote it's own political power, world view, and the status quo. Politicians champion educational spending in a blatant attempt to buy votes and political support from anyone involved in public education (teachers, parents, administrators, union heads) and use children as the ultimate ace in the hole in budget fights. The National Education Association is more of a lobbying group than a union, but those union dues sure come in handy when they want to support a particular candidate or legislation. The end result is a system that wastes a lot of money supporting positions and policies that are not conducive to insulating teachers and kids from budget problems.</p>

<p>IMO, education was better in the past. Compare a current high school curriculum with one from pre-WW2 and tell me we are teaching children better today, or that they are learning more. Have there been advances in teaching the kids that were marginalized 50 years ago? Yes. Are average kids getting a better education today than they were 40, 50, 60+ years ago? Not by a long shot.</p>

<p>The focus pre-WW2 was on prepping kids for college. After the 8-Year Study, high schools began prepping kids for non-college life. In effect, they traded standards that benefitted fewer people (those actually going on to college) for standards that benefitted those going on to blue-collar jobs. As the national high school curricula trasitioned away from college prep, the lower grades preparing children for high-school classes followed suit. Colleges' requirements were forced to adjust over the decades to account for the less educated students they were getting in order to remain financially viable. The end result, lower standards across the board. The effects are obvious in the professions that require math, science, language, etc. We've completely lost any international advantage education provides, instead providing student better suited to working in a service society. </p>

<p>I would argue that a high school that focused on college-prep classes would produce better educated students, whether they went on to college or not. My beef isn't with teachers, it's with the system that creates them.</p>
 
<p>Let's talk money. Special Education enrollment is now 10% of all OC students - roughly 50,000 students are enrolled in Special Ed out of a total of 500,000.</p>

<p>And typically, spending per student is twice as much for a Special Ed student. I know this sounds mean, but it's comparable to welfare and Medicare.</p>

<p>People tend to abuse a service when it is free. I strongly believe in helping the needy, but I can't stand parents asking for Special Services just because it's available.</p>

<p>The additional expenditures on Special Ed programs result in reduction in services for the general student population.</p>

<p>I am very well aware of scarcity of resources; and what we are doing is helping the few at the expense of the mass.</p>

<p>I think the cost of bureaucracy, special training, program implementation, and review/monitoring of these programs is ridiculous.</p>

<p>If we don't focus on the ALL our students, we are in the midst of an educational disaster.</p>

<p>Now, if we didn't have a budget crisis, I would be very suportive of spending more on Special Ed.</p>

<p>But in times of financial hardship, we need to get back to the basics.</p>
 
<p>One thing I never realized with regards to Special Ed is that if parents fight hard enough and complain enough, they very possibly can get private school paid for on the district's (or maybe county's, I am not sure) nickel. Why should that be allowed to occur?</p>

<p>What would happen if this was the case for every kid in school? I can just see it now, Little Johnny's parents waltz in to complain that LJ's general ed curriculum isn't challenging enough so the district needs to cough up for a private school so LJ can get to Harvard. Imagine what our budget problems would look like in that case!</p>

<p>You are 100% on the expenditures being seriously skewed hs_teach. Once upon a time, my wife had six aides in her classroom with a total of 15 students. Of course, a number of these were seriously challenged kids with assigned one-on-one aides. That class was costing probably $1000/day in wage and benefit expenses alone.</p>
 
Even if there was a consensus to cut special ed, it would never happen. The special ed community is supported by State and Federal law mandating an "appropriate" education. There are a bevy of lawyers ready to sue any school district that does not provide their interpretation of "appropriate." In the real world, it is less costly to cave in than to fight these cases as the school districts almost always lose.





When you think about it, special education is going to be more expensive because these children have special needs. If they didn't, they wouldn't be in special ed. If you want to argue we should not meet these needs, the law disagrees with you. You would need to get the law changed to win that argument.
 
<p>Ah, the lawyers... Indeed it is so much cheaper on the districts to provide services vs. go to court. Like I said, if parents threaten hard, often, and well enough, the schools have to cave as it will ultimately save them dollars anyway. Those with disabilities are protected classes in the US and IDEA and FAPE pretty much guarantee that kids with disabilities are going to get as much education as possible.</p>

<p>Good luck to anyone trying to get IDEA reversed. They'll seriously need it...</p>
 
<p>IR, again, I am not arguing that we should not meet the special needs. I am arguing, much list HS-teacher is seeing, that it is insane to conclude 10% of the student body needs special ed.</p>

<p> </p>

<p> </p>
 
<p>I graduated from a Catholic high school in 64. I would estimate it was the equivalent of 2 years of an average college today.</p>

<p>The hub's father was born in 1900. He still had some of his McGuffey's readers, which were I guess, for 5 or 6th grade. They were so much more advanced that was was expected even in the hub's day. . .</p>

<p>Of course, he and I were reading 'way, 'way beyond expectations. I regularly brought a more interesting book to stick inside the text book and follow them both. I thought at the time I was getting away with something, but now I'm sure the teachers knew. Neither of us are slouches, but I wonder what would have happened if we had been actually challenged? Not just to memorize more stuff, but with creative demands? On the other hand, maybe we are better off, because we could think about what we wanted to think about while giving 10-20% of our attention to the grade school classes.</p>

<p>Teachers weren't fireable because they were almost all NUNS. Some of them were not so good, must were ok, some were fabulous.</p>
 
<p>HS Teacher, etc. - </p>

<p>What is exactly encompassed by "special ed?" I'll tell you one thing, I've seen more "IEP's" dealing with "Auditory Processing Disorders" which is merley bureaucratic-ease for "child cannot speak, read, or write in English" and thus needs "special education." I'm wondering whether there is a correlation between the state-wide English only instruction/immersion initiatives from several years ago, to the "special education" issues we see today. Not being a teacher, I can only wonder what the truth is... I just don't think that we are facing a spike in the numbers of children with organic brain defects, chemical imbalances, etc.</p>
 
Help me out here.





The average IQ is 100 with a standard deviation of about 15 points.





Assuming a normal distribution -


68.2% of the population will have an IQ between 85 and 115


13.6% of the population will have an IQ between 69 and 84 (and another 13.6% will fall between 116 and 131)


2.1% of the population will have an IQ between 53 and 68 ( and another 2.1% will fall between 132 and 147 )


.1% of the population will have IQs below 53 (and another .1% will have IQs above 147)





OK, I think it is safe to say that people in the 3rd standard deviation below the mean and beyond probably aren't educable and aren't likely to see the public school system. But what about the 13.6% of the population with IQs between 69 and 84? I can easily see how 10% of a population would be "well enough" off to require special education without being so far gone that any attempt at education is a waste of resources. And I simply can't imagine that parents lobbying for normal (or above normal) children to be put in special ed classes is a large scale problem.





If you look at the data, it appears that a good portion of the 13.6% of the population having IQs between 69 and 84 should be somewhat capable of learning things in public school that will make them productive members of society. While you aren't going to produce any rocket scientists or engineers from these people, the world does have places for cooks, janitors, maids and realtors.





The following chart is pulled fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_retardation





The following ranges, based on the <a title="Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Adult_Intelligence_Scale">Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale</a> (WAIS), are in standard use today:







<th>Class</th>

<th>IQ</th>





Profound mental retardation

Below 20





Severe mental retardation

20–34





Moderate mental retardation

35–49





Mild mental retardation

50–69





Borderline mental retardation

70–79




 
<p>This is based on the stupid bell curve.</p>

<p>An iq 80 might be a fabulous dancer or musician.</p>

<p>Or might be off the charts in empathy and mothering and fathering ability.</p>

<p>Some percentage probably was feeling ill the day they got tested.</p>

<p>I've known some people who were smart who got so nervous when taking tests that they just did horribly.</p>

<p>you might be testing a bell curve of nervousness superimposed on a bell curve of whatever the heck the iq tests were supposed to score.</p>

<p>My daugher and hub test out in the upper 2%. I bet she tests out it the upper .5% for spacial ability, being an architect. If you could test for empathy, she'd be below 100.</p>

<p>And in the eternal loving war between men and women. . .well, let's just say I hold my own, and I can confuse him rather easily, because I can do 2 or 3 things at once and he. . . can't. My verbal abilities equal his. He says he's not good in math. . . and he's not for a scientist PhD from Hopkins. Compared to others? Well, he would sit and read books filled with equations while studying for his orals.</p>

<p>The son and I are one below this (I'm the dumb one in the family). He's off the charts in empathy and is working at a substance abuse clinic at a job that should probably require a masters. All of us are better than my daughter in reading comprehension. He plans to go for a Phd in Psych.</p>

<p>Bottom line is nearly everybody is good at something, and telling them they are no good at something else is demeaning and discouraging.</p>

<p>Also, the brain can produce new connections into old age. If you make reasonable demands, people will try to live up to them.</p>

<p>All the kids in Catholic school learned to read and write and add and subtract, even the dumb ones. And those dumb ones--maybe they succeeded wonderfully in life, who knows? Of course, back then, nobody triede to mainstream kids who were less than mildly retarded.</p>
 
Ummm, Liz, I'm saying that it's not unreasonable to think that 10% of the public school population would benefit from special education...
 
Liz,





Is your daughter an architect, does she have her Master's ? Does your husband have a PhD from Hopkins, work at Nasa and did he formerly work for Janet Reno ? I can't remember. ;)
 
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