One other thing, where will all the teachers, administrators, school employees that are going to be laid off go to work or who will pay their unemployment? Didn't Govenor Perry run his campaign on building a good economy and creating jobs? Where will these college educated folks go get a job? I'm furious!!!
pam - 13 years ago
Amen Bornfreeamerican, I agree with you 100 %.
Sue Carroll - 13 years ago
Deborah Sullivan, you make more sense than anyone I have heard yet! I agree with Lonestar about getting the govenor out of the mansion. And when we make these changes in government regulations, it should be a requirement that all elected officials send their children to public school. These things take time to change and we do not have time now. When the budget is passed at the end of this legislative session, we are locked in for 2 years (at least that is the way I understand it) and our children are stuck with an underfunded education. Parents, teachers, administrators, students should flood Austin with emails, letters, protests, sit-ins, any and all means to stop education budget cuts. We need to let them know it is UNACCEPTABLE under any circumstances! We can stop it if we join together and say we will not stand for it!! Then we must think of a way to hit the politicians in their wallet. That is the language they speak. I am willing to march on Austin! Anyone else?
Deborah Sullivan - 13 years ago
Schools are already operating on fumes with growing populations, previous budget cuts, and unfunded mandates. I am a retired educator with 31 years of service. 20 as a teacher and 11 as a campus and central officer administrator, so I believe I have a perspective from all sides. I also raised four daughters who graduated from TX public schools. I do not know of any coach who makes twice as much as teachers with the possible exception of a head coach or athletic director of a large school district, so they are few and far between. They do receive an extra stipend for the extra time that they spend coaching, which most of us would expect for any extra work we would do. I know of no research that indicates that the more administrators a school has, the worse education the students receive. I know of no school that has one administrator per teacher. Quite frankly, that is a outlandish statement. Every administrator I know works 60-80 hours per week. They are tied up much of the time with requirements, such as ARDs for special education students, a typical unfunded mandate. Since the legislature passed laws to reduce paperwork on teachers, who do you think has to do that paperwork? The state and federal government require more and more of it to fulfill their bureaucratic requirements. Additionally,cutting these budgets so drastically is going to mean that teachers' aides positions will be cut, so the teachers will not have the time to give individual attention to students when they need it. How will our students be able to compete? They won't. Will schools be able to keep up with technology? No, but the Chinese and Japanese will. Bake sales don't buy computers or pay salaries. Let's end the waste in government, e.g. political junkets, employees who cannot be fired even when they do not do their jobs, inefficiency in government agencies like DPS. Let's talk about cutting money to road construction when 3 workers are just standing around because the road construction lobby is the strongest in TX. Then, we can talk about slashing school budgets to the core.
Lonestar - 13 years ago
What has happened to all of the Oil revenues that used to help fund our education system?
Our State Congress Critters need to Cut their Personal Spending and maybe Eliminate their
Perks and Salaries. Perry needs to move his butt out of that Mansion that he is living in while the Guv's Mansion is being remodeled.
Cindy Lou - 13 years ago
Cuts should be made for the high-paid administrators. There is no need to have one administrator for each teacher. The administrators typically much more than the teachers. It is time citizens get involved in their local ISD and demand the number of administrators be reduced with the budget cuts. Historically, the more administrators, the lower the quality of education. It's time to reverse the trend.
BornFreeAmerican - 13 years ago
What about some of those administrators? Everyone needs to sacrafice including you guys? How about maybe taking a paycut so some of those can stay? How about a paycut for the coaches that get paid twice what a teacher gets paid? Maybe some of the programs can be paid for by corporate sponsers? How about put on a play and charge attendence? Bake sales? Aluminum can recycle? 5k Race? You guys just need to be creative, just like everyone else is having to.
oldman68 - 13 years ago
Good luck comman sense-we can't get any body to replace the crooks we have in office now because the business community supports the incumbants with more and more gifts-bribes-etc-the general public couldn't care less about our future-they are so short sighted and of the me-me-me-me- generation that the only way anything will change in this country will be with a similar event that started this country some 230 yrs ago.But with the mind set of our citizens no one will risk anything to change because let alone their lives-so we will go down the path of every other civilization that has existed on earth-greed will take care of us too.
Common Sense - 13 years ago
Politicians and parents should be held esponsile for the education of our future. Politicians now days are irresponsible, corrupted, and incompetent. Parents, on the other hand, are irresposible as many of them do not get involved and/or take seriosly their children's education. Many parents do not model education, never read to and with their children, neither make sure their children behave well at school. Education starts at home ad ends at home.
Let's fire all politicians and elect competent and honest ones. Let's tax parents who do no attend school meetings and/or send the requested notifications from teachers and schools.
Let's not forget to fire the incompetent and bad-mannered teachers in schools.
John Kudra - 13 years ago
If we do not educate our children, what kind of future are we leaving them, and what can we expect for/from them? The good of the future generation out weigh what we must endure. Our parents did it for us, have we forgotten that, or are we just too comfortable to make the hard decisions so that our children will benefit?
I care about mine, do you care about yours?
John
senior - 13 years ago
Whatever happened to that promise about the lottery sales funds being used to support education?
Has all that been frivously wasted by politicians along with tax dollars???
One other thing, where will all the teachers, administrators, school employees that are going to be laid off go to work or who will pay their unemployment? Didn't Govenor Perry run his campaign on building a good economy and creating jobs? Where will these college educated folks go get a job? I'm furious!!!
Amen Bornfreeamerican, I agree with you 100 %.
Deborah Sullivan, you make more sense than anyone I have heard yet! I agree with Lonestar about getting the govenor out of the mansion. And when we make these changes in government regulations, it should be a requirement that all elected officials send their children to public school. These things take time to change and we do not have time now. When the budget is passed at the end of this legislative session, we are locked in for 2 years (at least that is the way I understand it) and our children are stuck with an underfunded education. Parents, teachers, administrators, students should flood Austin with emails, letters, protests, sit-ins, any and all means to stop education budget cuts. We need to let them know it is UNACCEPTABLE under any circumstances! We can stop it if we join together and say we will not stand for it!! Then we must think of a way to hit the politicians in their wallet. That is the language they speak. I am willing to march on Austin! Anyone else?
Schools are already operating on fumes with growing populations, previous budget cuts, and unfunded mandates. I am a retired educator with 31 years of service. 20 as a teacher and 11 as a campus and central officer administrator, so I believe I have a perspective from all sides. I also raised four daughters who graduated from TX public schools. I do not know of any coach who makes twice as much as teachers with the possible exception of a head coach or athletic director of a large school district, so they are few and far between. They do receive an extra stipend for the extra time that they spend coaching, which most of us would expect for any extra work we would do. I know of no research that indicates that the more administrators a school has, the worse education the students receive. I know of no school that has one administrator per teacher. Quite frankly, that is a outlandish statement. Every administrator I know works 60-80 hours per week. They are tied up much of the time with requirements, such as ARDs for special education students, a typical unfunded mandate. Since the legislature passed laws to reduce paperwork on teachers, who do you think has to do that paperwork? The state and federal government require more and more of it to fulfill their bureaucratic requirements. Additionally,cutting these budgets so drastically is going to mean that teachers' aides positions will be cut, so the teachers will not have the time to give individual attention to students when they need it. How will our students be able to compete? They won't. Will schools be able to keep up with technology? No, but the Chinese and Japanese will. Bake sales don't buy computers or pay salaries. Let's end the waste in government, e.g. political junkets, employees who cannot be fired even when they do not do their jobs, inefficiency in government agencies like DPS. Let's talk about cutting money to road construction when 3 workers are just standing around because the road construction lobby is the strongest in TX. Then, we can talk about slashing school budgets to the core.
What has happened to all of the Oil revenues that used to help fund our education system?
Our State Congress Critters need to Cut their Personal Spending and maybe Eliminate their
Perks and Salaries. Perry needs to move his butt out of that Mansion that he is living in while the Guv's Mansion is being remodeled.
Cuts should be made for the high-paid administrators. There is no need to have one administrator for each teacher. The administrators typically much more than the teachers. It is time citizens get involved in their local ISD and demand the number of administrators be reduced with the budget cuts. Historically, the more administrators, the lower the quality of education. It's time to reverse the trend.
What about some of those administrators? Everyone needs to sacrafice including you guys? How about maybe taking a paycut so some of those can stay? How about a paycut for the coaches that get paid twice what a teacher gets paid? Maybe some of the programs can be paid for by corporate sponsers? How about put on a play and charge attendence? Bake sales? Aluminum can recycle? 5k Race? You guys just need to be creative, just like everyone else is having to.
Good luck comman sense-we can't get any body to replace the crooks we have in office now because the business community supports the incumbants with more and more gifts-bribes-etc-the general public couldn't care less about our future-they are so short sighted and of the me-me-me-me- generation that the only way anything will change in this country will be with a similar event that started this country some 230 yrs ago.But with the mind set of our citizens no one will risk anything to change because let alone their lives-so we will go down the path of every other civilization that has existed on earth-greed will take care of us too.
Politicians and parents should be held esponsile for the education of our future. Politicians now days are irresponsible, corrupted, and incompetent. Parents, on the other hand, are irresposible as many of them do not get involved and/or take seriosly their children's education. Many parents do not model education, never read to and with their children, neither make sure their children behave well at school. Education starts at home ad ends at home.
Let's fire all politicians and elect competent and honest ones. Let's tax parents who do no attend school meetings and/or send the requested notifications from teachers and schools.
Let's not forget to fire the incompetent and bad-mannered teachers in schools.
If we do not educate our children, what kind of future are we leaving them, and what can we expect for/from them? The good of the future generation out weigh what we must endure. Our parents did it for us, have we forgotten that, or are we just too comfortable to make the hard decisions so that our children will benefit?
I care about mine, do you care about yours?
John
Whatever happened to that promise about the lottery sales funds being used to support education?
Has all that been frivously wasted by politicians along with tax dollars???