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Thread: Your money or your kids

  1. #1

    Default Your money or your kids

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  2. #2
    Welcome to the Commonwealth of PA.

    Luzerne County is an old coal mining town, part of the rust belt, with many challenges over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzern...,_Pennsylvania

    Good luck figuring out the county's cities, boros, townships, 'census-designated places', and 'other places', their governing bodies....let alone the school district and how it's operated or funded.

    What's disturbing is this:
    Wyoming Valley West’s lawyer, Charles Coslett, said he did not consider the letters to be threatening. “Hopefully, that gets their attention and it certainly did, didn’t it? I mean, if you think about it, you’re here this morning because some parents cried foul because he or she doesn’t want to pay a debt attributed to feeding their kids. How shameful,” Coslett told WYOU-TV.

  3. #3
    More info on this issue: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/17/us/un...rnd/index.html

    Hey, if 75% of US school districts report school meal debt, something is wrong.

  4. #4

  5. #5
    The schools should just fund this out of the general budget so that it comes from taxes, instead of fees -- otherwise when they try to collect, we get stories like this.

    Plus people are more comfortable with the idea that public schooling is fully publicly funded.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    More info on this issue: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/17/us/un...rnd/index.html

    Hey, if 75% of US school districts report school meal debt, something is wrong.
    Yeah, too many poor people are being irresponsible and having kids they can't afford.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    The schools should just fund this out of the general budget so that it comes from taxes, instead of fees -- otherwise when they try to collect, we get stories like this.

    Plus people are more comfortable with the idea that public schooling is fully publicly funded.
    Schools around here can barely pay for AC upgrades and had to ask for a tax specifically to fix them. You think people are going to be ok with paying for random kids lunches? What the fuck you smoking?
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    The schools should just fund this out of the general budget so that it comes from taxes, instead of fees -- otherwise when they try to collect, we get stories like this.

    Plus people are more comfortable with the idea that public schooling is fully publicly funded.
    But that's how we got here --- people didn't want their Taxes funding on-sight Cafeterias, let alone the "lunch-ladies" who would work 30 yrs making/serving food to kids and retired with a State pension. That's when public schools starting contracting with 3rd party vendors, and places like Pizza Hut or Subway began serving the 'hot meal' for students.

    You make it sound easy to feed and nourish children simply because they're attending public schools, but it's not.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    Yeah, too many poor people are being irresponsible and having kids they can't afford.
    Says the guy who doesn't think abortion is legitimate birth control. Especially not for poor people.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Says the guy who doesn't think abortion is legitimate birth control. Especially not for poor people.
    Wow abortion as birth control is pretty fucked up.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    Schools around here can barely pay for AC upgrades and had to ask for a tax specifically to fix them. You think people are going to be ok with paying for random kids lunches? What the fuck you smoking?
    If people think their money is being well-spent, resistance to spending goes down. My understanding is this year's state budget contains some hefty increases. Maybe these are overdue; I don't pretend to be an expert. But — without speaking specifically to your state — education is one of those hot items where spending and frustration seems to increase at the same elevated rates.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    Maybe these are overdue; I don't pretend to be an expert
    You don't have to be an expert to see that teachers have literally been striking to get paid anything close to appropriate compensation for their work. If the parents, and their representation, can't appropriately pay the teachers directly responsible for molding the next generation how are you going to convince people to pay for the lunches for families that the government has already determined financially fit enough to pay for their own food?
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    If people think their money is being well-spent, resistance to spending goes down. My understanding is this year's state budget contains some hefty increases. Maybe these are overdue; I don't pretend to be an expert. But — without speaking specifically to your state — education is one of those hot items where spending and frustration seems to increase at the same elevated rates.
    But state budgets and how they collect and allocate state taxes varies massively! Add to that whether a state is a net-contributor or a net-user of federal tax dollars, and how much federal funding they get for education -- it's a recipe for failure.

    In PA the majority of school funding comes from local property taxes. (In my district it's ~ 80%.) The ratio between local and state is always a hot topic in the state legislature, but it's gotten even hotter as the economy has changed. We're the Rust Belt of the past, but also the Med/Tech University Ave. of the future.

    The truth is that we have an educational system based on ZIP code...and that's a bad model that leads to systemic failures.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    You don't have to be an expert to see that teachers have literally been striking to get paid anything close to appropriate compensation for their work. If the parents, and their representation, can't appropriately pay the teachers directly responsible for molding the next generation how are you going to convince people to pay for the lunches for families that the government has already determined financially fit enough to pay for their own food?
    Just because teachers say they are being underpaid doesn't mean all teachers are. It's religion for teachers to say they are being underpaid. Government educational spending is enormous and has been growing faster than inflation for a long time.

    None of this should be misread to believe that teachers don't merit fair compensation.

  15. #15
    In reality, teachers' salaries haven't kept up with inflation in many states, have been outpaced by CoL changes as a whole, and have yet to be restored to pre-recession levels. Nor has funding kept up with increased healthcare costs, which have also outpaced inflation. Even before the recession, teachers put in more hours of unpaid overtime than do most other Americans.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    It's religion for teachers to say they are being underpaid.
    What an absolutely ignorant statement to make. To belittle the decisions and sacrifices that the teachers have made, to paint them as some sort of ancient entity that's forever put their quest for money over their students. To not even consider the internal conflict they worked through when striking because conditions have gotten that bad. It's like you're purposely pulling shit out of your ass in some sort of weakass lewk imitation just to justify your earlier comment of not being an expert. Or maybe that was just you prepping the convo so you could spew all this bullshit?

    Go back to your hole.
    Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 08-01-2019 at 02:13 PM.
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  17. #17
    Come on man you know that Dread has entered that stage of soulless emotional decrepitude where comments like that just makes him feel
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    ....None of this should be misread to believe that teachers don't merit fair compensation.
    If you want to discuss fair compensation, then don't say "It's religion for teachers to say they are being underpaid."

    Public education spending has ballooned over the years due to legacy costs (retirement pensions) and administrative costs.

    The private business model has been adopted in order to reduce public costs: pay lower wages (forcing teachers to take extra jobs), reduce benefits like employer-based health insurance, and end defined-pension plans. But that's the Walmart approach -- exploit tax initiatives, even if it means their employees need subsidies (aka "welfare") -- the average person won't know the difference, they just like the sound of "lower costs" and "lower taxes".

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    Wow abortion as birth control is pretty fucked up.
    If you support exceptions for rape or incest, doesn't that mean abortion is a form of birth control?

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    What an absolutely ignorant statement to make. To belittle the decisions and sacrifices that the teachers have made, to paint them as some sort of ancient entity that's forever put their quest for money over their students. To not even consider the internal conflict they worked through when striking because conditions have gotten that bad. It's like you're purposely pulling shit out of your ass in some sort of weakass lewk imitation just to justify your earlier comment of not being an expert. Or maybe that was just you prepping the convo so you could spew all this bullshit?

    Go back to your hole.
    Like I said, religion.



    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pro...st-11564927200

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    In reality, teachers' salaries haven't kept up with inflation in many states, have been outpaced by CoL changes as a whole, and have yet to be restored to pre-recession levels. Nor has funding kept up with increased healthcare costs, which have also outpaced inflation. Even before the recession, teachers put in more hours of unpaid overtime than do most other Americans.
    So shoo.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  22. #22
    Education costs have outpaced inflation, hence parental resistance to just throw more money at it.

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    You realize you just quoted a stat that includes college tuition and fees, private tuition and fees, technical and business school tuition and fees, school housing, and college textbooks... in an attempt to justify your bullshit claims on k-12 teacher pay.

    you are a fucking moron.
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

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