Rose42

Just count up from the price to the amount given. Thats old school.

Bassman65

Bassman65

Rose42

I agree that public schools can be good and some indeed are but its less about funding than the quality of teachers. I went to a school that had very little money but good teachers. We didn’t have any of the extras so many have today

Children today may have more worldly knowledge but they are not wiser and often lack fundamental slills

Smedley_buzkill

Smedley_buzkill

What's the other 16 cents? A tip?

bggamers Loc: georgia

YEA seeing how many cant read or barely do simple math

Smedley_buzkill

Before the 2020 e******n, I spoke with a young woman who was a rising sophomore at a local college. She had no idea who we fought in the Revolutionary War, No idea who we fought in WWII. She did not know who either of our Senators were, what party they were or who our Congressman was. She was a Democrat. She insisted she had a good education. I gave her a very simple sentence and asked her to tell me the direct object. Blank stare. This is stuff we learned in the fifth grade, for God's sake. I asked if she could at least tell me which part of the sentence was the subject and which was the predicate. Another blank stare. I wrote down .75 on a little notepad I carry and asked her to convert it to a fraction using pen and paper. Another blank stare. How do these people feed themselves and go to the bathroom unsupervised?

Smedley_buzkill

See my reply to Rose 42.

RandyBrian Loc: Texas

Kids are basically no different today than when I was a kid, or earlier. The smart ones will learn in most environments. The motivated will also. The lazy ones will not, unless they are forced to do so. Like I was. Like most of my friends were, like my parents were when they were kids. My kids were somewhat challenged....I had to make up the difference at home, and spent a lot of time providing corrections to what they were taught. Kids in public school today can learn or not learn. It makes little practical difference as far as grades or rewards or punishments go. The vast majority of kids, like has always been true, are lazy. Today's smart and motivated kids continue to learn and excel. But today's lazy kids spend their efforts watching Disney channel reruns and learning about Mariocart, Roblox, and how to bypass the parental limitations on their smart phones.

RandyBrian Loc: Texas

Robert, PLEASE explain to me HOW schools are underfunded !!!!!!!!!!!
I have been hearing this for decades. I live in a town of less than 10,000, and in a county with less than 15,000 people. I am life long friends with many teachers, and I worked for three years as a substitute teacher. Now let me tell you a little about our schools. There are seven empty campuses slowing deteriorating throughout our county. The ISD spends a fortune each year keeping them mowed and structurally sound enough that they won't get sued by kids hurt through breaking and entering. We have a recently upgraded stadium. We have a recently expanded and upgraded middle school. Every active campus has tasteful, designed in art deco to enhance the beauty of the buildings. We have off campus facilities to teach kids biology in the field. We have marching bands, jazz bands, concert orchestras. We have a HUGE theatre for plays and concerts. We have every sport, including some I never heard of. EVERY school has a huge full color computerized display sign, supported and enhanced by brick framework, at a huge expense, that are primarily use to notify us when a student is having a birthday. Every campus has large cafeterias where kids get a wide se******n of lunch choices. The higher the grade level, the more choices they have. Every kid has ISD food benefits so that NO ONE has to pay much, if any, for their meals. This includes breakfast and an after school snack. EVERY class room is equipped with computers, computer linked wireless projectors, and internet service. The teachers get good pay, or so they tell me. The good ones work EASILY 55 to 60 hours a week, but they also get two months off during the summer and two weeks off at Christmas, plus a spring break and a fall break. Most of the ones I know see that as being fair.
So please, PLEASE tell me exactly HOW these schools are underfunded?

RandyBrian Loc: Texas

When I was substitute teaching I wound up, one day, in an eleventh grade algebra II class. A young lady needed help with a pretty simple equation. I helped her, and quickly learned that she did not understand that one side of the equation had to equal the other. I spent fifteen minutes helping her to understand the basics and the six simple steps needed to solve the problem. The final step was 5x=15. She reached for her (school supplied) calculator to divide 15 by 5. When I asked her leave the calculator and to do it in her head, she did so......by counting on her fingers. She was pulling a mid B average in an algebra II class.
The only explanations that fit the facts of what I saw still make me sick to my stomach. How many YEARS had this 17 year old CHILD been denied a real education, and simply passed forward year by year, and for what reason?

Rose42

Its sad.

robertv3

I have to agree that she should have known a lot more at that stage of her education (having already passed Algebra I). So, yes, the situation of that student at that school was, in large part, I guess, deplorable.

But I prefer to see something positive in it: that she was able to decompose multiplication or division into something simpler. I frequently have done this when multiplying 8 times 7 -- not going all the way back to finger-counting, but converting a multiplication problem into an addition problem in my head. A similar technique is handy for constructing a table of squares in one's head. I think everyone should be able to deconstruct complex mathematical things into simpler mathematical things: to reduce addition to counting, at will, or to reduce multiplication to addition, at will, and so on.

She didn't understand equations (deplorable), but at least she understood something simpler underlying a division problem (not so bad, and perhaps useful). It gives her a way to check results rather than always having to rely on mindless memorization.

robertv3

Funding and quality of teachers are linked. More funding corresponds (maybe not always, but probably usually) to better teachers. That's because good pay attracts good teachers. I'll say a little more about funding or underfunding, when replying to another item in this thread this evening.

Yes, as in your example, even a school that has very little money _can_ have good teachers, but I say it would be wrong to expect it to usually work that way. It's more reasonable to expect that well-paying teaching jobs will tend to attract more people to the teaching profession and will tend to retain better teachers on salaries they can live on in the communities where they teach.