The Ladder Climber

When you start out in the business world if you are lucky you are taken aside by a mentor and told who you should watch out for. Most people, including yours truly, do not get this benefit and have been thrown to the wolves a couple of times in their career by people looking out only for themselves. I had several run ins with people that would be nice to you one minute and throw you under the bus the next. I even worked for a vice president of a company that got his position because of just that. These people are ladder climbers. They do whatever they can to reach the next level without regard for the people that they step on. Hollywood has done a great job showing them off as villains, and you can bet that there were some of these on the Titanic pushing people aside as they boarded the life boats. I thought that education would be different. Because a teacher is dedicated to the student, and to education, I felt that this profession would be devoid of those that are blinded by their own ambition. This sadly was not the case.

 I decided to write this due to a good friend of mine that learned this the hard way. She is in her second year of teaching, much like me, but without the benefit of working in the corporate sector. She has been sheltered for a while from the unpleasantness of people like that. The administration has been asking questions this whole about why teachers in my section were negative. They were citing things that had been said to a group of people, supposedly in confidence. It seemed to the group like there was a mole turning innocent venting into a anti-administration stance. This was brought several times and at several people's evaluations as well. The result of this cast suspicions on everyone and really caused people to feel as if they had been sold out.  The result of this has been an even lower morale at school, and the feeling that the group of people that sit in the lounge are being sold out for gain. What really compounds the issue, and where my friend comes into the story is recently. She has been a voice of positivity for the group, and has gone out of her way to make things better. Another person in the group has taken several of us aside, and told us not to associate with others as they are "sketchy individuals." This person then goes on to tell my friend that she has been the reason for the negativity and for the clique nature of the group. She has been in several meetings and told others personal things about close friends of hers. This person has helped to fracture a group and used it to her own gain. The thing that kills me is that she gets mad, or get upset when she is not included in activities that the group does. She is by definition a ladder climber. She has thrown people under the bus, and has even gone so far as to tell others in the building little lies about activities to try and gain for herself a better position as a teacher. It is stuff like this that infuriates me. I really try to make sure that I further myself in my career, but not at the expense of others. This is a lesson that I feel teachers should exemplify, and in some ways we have fallen short of. As we close this year out, I see that the corporate world and that of the teaching profession are closer than I thought.

  Sorry to be on the soap box today, but it is important that we really look at how the corporate world and the teaching profession is different. This one example of where they are the same, but tomorrow we will take a look back at the year, and then Thursday for my final article of the school year we will look at some news that effects education and how people will be educated in the year to come. As a side not after Thursday the Blog is going to change formats just a little. I am going to write once a week instead of every day. These first few weeks of summer will be really busy for me.  Look for the blog to be updated every Monday with my take on enws and I will post links throughout the week on interesting stuff happening in education.

Until Tomorrow,
Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?  ~Erich Fromm

Prelude to the end.....

  The end for me looms in the distance, calling my name. On Monday, I spoke of exemptions, but today we started finals. Soon we will mark the end of another year, which I will do a little look back next week. Today, I spent telling kids whether they were on track to pass or not and gave two finals. We are gearing up for graduation, and for next year. They have already sent out the schedule for the next year's back to school activities. The fatigue radiates from everyone down the halls. Kids are tired, teachers are tired, and anticipation is so thick you can cut it with a knife. For me it has been hit or miss this week, as I suffered from a massive migraine on Tuesday, and a headache yesterday. This stress catches up to you in the most peculiar ways. One of the main goals of starting this blog was to show what it was like to be a teacher. This last bit of school is probably the hardest part. I first thought that it would be easy, that giving finals was the easiest part of the year. The reality is really much different. You are so tired by this point, and they give you too much time with classes, that by the end even the most seasoned and well respected teacher is showing movies. It is tough to deal with the smallest annoyances due to the fatigue, and you feel and the burden of grades that rests on your shoulders. This experience is unlike any time that I can recall in the corporate world. Mostly, the corporate environment is a repetitive place. Occasionally there is a deadline that you have to put some long hours into, but overall the day to day stuff is the same. That makes most jobs fairly manageable. It separates the teaching environment from the rest because at this end while there is an end in site, this deadline is the ultimate one. It has been a long ride, and while it is almost over for us the beginning of the next cycle is really not that far away.

Tomorrow I am going to look at a personality type that exists in all jobs, and why the teaching profession caters to the ladder climber.

Until Tomorrow,

Part of the American myth is that people who are handed the skin of a dead sheep at graduating time think that it will keep their minds alive forever.

John Mason Brown (1900–1969) American drama critic and author.

To Exempt or not to Exempt

  So today my goal is to pull back the veil a little, discuss something that most high school teacher grapple with at some point. The exams that go on at the end of the semester and whether we should push for more kids to exempt or less to. Each school takes these exams a little different. Some view them as a way to get information on what is actually learned during the course of a year, while others view them as a way to close out a semester. In my district they are on the fence. We give them as a way to get data, but allow multiple reasons to get out of them including perfect attendance and passing the TAKS test. Teachers also really have conflicting views. I have a friend that exempts as many people as he can, while another friend exempts almost no one. It is one of those things that is truly a teacher preference. I am then left with a conundrum. What is the right way to go? The data that we could gain from a true end of the year assessment is invaluable. We can really gauge what our kids have learned. The data we do get is skewed. It shows only what those kids that have either missed too many days or have a low grade in the class. These kids are important to gauge their learning and really reflect on the way we are presenting difficult topics, but it does not capture the full amount of information that a true final would give. This is tough for teachers that are data driven. Some would argue that they need to give a comprehensive test anyway. I would love to do this, but do not know if I have the time. It is actually easier to adopt the priorities of your district and school. I will have to take data on the lower level kids from now and learn from it. The problem that these exemptions give is that when a kid enters college there is never an exemption granted. No matter what, at the end of the semester you have to show that you know the material. I think the better thing for districts to ask themselves is whether we are doing college bound kids any good by giving them an out from a test? We should also look at why we give these tests in the first place. Is the real point to ready them for college, or is it to gauge their understanding? How do exemptions fit into that new found purpose?

Until Tomorrow,
"Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding."
-- Ambrose Bierce 

Field Day

  Incentives are big in education. We are always looking for that magic incentive to get kids to pass our class, a state test, or care about their education. The incentives for TAKS are quite large. Today was one of those days that we give them to reward them for getting good marks on TAKS. Granted, we do not have the scores back yet, but those are just pesky details. I spent this day giving kids hot dogs and sodas. I basically got to be a carnival worker for the day. This day was spent by our administration stopping fights and catching kids that were smoking pot. I am all for incentives, but my 6th period class today complained about the day not being fun. Other teachers said there kids complained, and every one of my students I asked during the day said they would rather be in class. I think that it is a bad idea to tell them academics are important, and then give them a day where we can slack off on academics. Kids are very concrete, and sending messages that conflict with earlier statements are not good in general life much less with students. The students this year complained about the lack of fun they had, so why should we spend the money? I think that the day would have been better served as a bonus early release day for TAKS scores without the cost to the school. What other incentives are there out there they would be better serving of the student population?

On a side note, I would like to say that I am going to return with a new post on Monday. My mom is graduating from UT, and I need to be there to be supportive of her effort over the past few years. She has worked her butt off, and the family could not be prouder of her. So kudos to all of the graduates that are ending one phase of their life this weekend, and may your next chapter be as fulfilling as the this one. Enjoy your weekend.

Until Monday,
' I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could tolerated anything so primitive.' John W Gardner

An Ode to the fallen....

I write this knowing that the person that I write it to will probably not see it. Today one of our own got the call that she is "excess staff" at our school. This does not mean that she is fired just yet, but it does mean that she does not have a teaching position next year at our school. She could land at another school or be forced to be a long term substitute. This could very well spell the end of her career. The worst part about it was that she was a good teacher. Her ideas were good, she refused to lower the bar despite pressure to do so, and she cared. What we are left with is a large hole in the school. Anytime you loose a good teacher on the campus, you loose a good part of your school. It is unlikely that the department will be the same again. A voice is lost that spoke of reason, and that I am sad for. What angers me is the fact that the true last hire at our school was a coach. This coach has gotten in trouble multiple times for not showing up on time and received a luke warm review. Why was she not on the list? The simple answer is because she was a coach. That extra little bit offered more than a good teacher that focused on her discipline and had a good review. This is the problem that I feared as soon as layoffs and excess teacher lines started to be formed. In General, teachers that are on the table are not the ones that deserve to be there. Instead they are the teachers that have put their life into it. I would say that when we take a teacher like this off of our campus that we lessen the overall standard of learning. I think that we are kidding ourselves when we say that academics are important. I would also say that we are kidding ourselves when we are told that coaches receive no special treatment. See without state oversight these are the casualties of the war on education. Teachers that are good at what they do are falling fast, while those that are found wanting get to stay around. Which one do you want for your kids? For me, I would want the best teacher. I do not care if they coach or not. I want the best, as would most parents. The answer that we are getting out of the state is to get rid of teachers, districts are indiscriminately "firing" teachers regardless of ability. Where can we go if we remove the talent? What can we do if the good teachers are picked off, and those that deserve to be gone are welcomed with open arms?

Until Tomorrow,
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.  ~Ezra Pound

The Future!

   With all of the talk about Education and funding, I felt it would be good to talk about a plan that could help to solve some of the budgetary issues. In Baytown,Texas the school district set up a brand new school that might be the future of college preparation for the standard student. This school is called the Early College high school. The goal of this high school is to help kids that would probably not graduate from a college, graduate with a 2 year associates degree. The student spends the first two years in the high school setting. After this first two years is up the students take classes at the local college. This second two years the kids take college classes right next to college kids. This gives them a level up and allows them to transfer after there two years are up to somewhere else to finish their bachelor's degree. The staffing of this high school is actually very low. The only high school teachers that work there are 9 teachers that teach the lower levels (sophomore and freshman classes.) This reduces the number of teachers that the high school has to hire. Even if you have a school that offers this program to 400 or 600 people you still have to have less staff cover the kids. This represents a cost to the community college, but the beauty of this is that the community college has paying students to offset some of the costs of the high school students. For college prep this is actually what I think the future looks like.
  In a regular high school you have to pay teachers for AP classes and Dual credit. These classes require a lot of man power and really a lot of time too plan out not to mention training costs. I am an AP teacher, and know that this is putting me out of a job eventually, but we have to look at what is better for the kids. Integration of our high school program with that of a community college makes sense to prepare kids for a university setting. While this program would be great for most kids, to me this really only solves half the problem. What do we do for the lower performing kids that are not going to make it in a rigorous program like this? The answer comes in vocational programs.
  Vocational programs are really things that prepare kids for a job outside in the real world. In the medical field pharmacy technicians and nurses aides are just a few that can be obtained through programs in high school. There are also other programs like welding, auto repair, and ATV repair. These are offered in the high school now, the problem is that the other classes are not aligned for vocational classes. Kids that take these actually still have to take classes like physics and pre-cal.
  The End of Course exams that are replacing the TAKS test are not easier, in fact they are harder. I spoke of a vocational program in one of my earlier posts about buy-in and the importance of it. These EOC's for Chemistry and Physics require a higher level of math, and an increase in the level of science knowledge that the kid has when they come in. The problem with this is the rift that has occurred between the Pre-AP and the regular classes. It has been up to this pint that the regular classes were not capable of doing more advanced math. This creates a huge problem for kids on the vocational path. The problem with the state is that they refuse to look at things like this. We could provide a much better plan for kids if we were allowed to think outside the box. The state sees the fact that kids need to be more ready for college, so they decide to make a harder test that everyone has to take and then have the schools fill in the details. What the state needs to do is to create a panel of teachers that look into ideas and come up with a progressive plan, or release districts from some of their obligations and let them fix their own problems. We have two many hands in the pot. I look at the future of education, and the only thing that can save us is to think outside the box.
  My plan is one of many that is floating out there. I just think for a plan to be successful it needs to incorporate programs that are in place now. If money or time was no object then I would remake the system. As the Nation at Risk report stated we have to utilize some of what we have, but we can use those programs in different ways and be innovative. Teachers are professionals, and if you give them the chance they can come up with something that solves the problem.

Until Tomorrow,

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American author, editor and printer.

The Return!

I am back now after blogger.com experienced some down time last Thursday and Friday. This past week has been a news filled but undecicive week for education.. So let's get started with some of the news and the legislature bills that are on the table for this week.

In encouraging news, it looks like over the state bond referendums were passed showing that voters do care about education overall. A texasisd.com article written by Joe Smith states that the passage rates for referendums are at 70% passed over the state compared to 60% last year. This is encouraging news for teachers in that it shows that people are willing to spend higher taxes on their children's education.

The bad news lies in the fact that the legislature has still not had a successful budget. This is forcing some districts hands. The district that I work in has said there is currently not a plan to lay people off, but has started to assess staff needs, and is using terms like "staff excess" now in meetings. Without a budget districts have a hard time focusing on what the future will bring. It is really important that they know where at least 25% of their money comes from and for some districts up to half of their money comes from state funds. Relief is coming in part from federal money that is helping districts ease the pain, as federal money is now trickling into schools and districts around the state.

   A bit of good news is that House bill 400 is dead, but so is the good part of 400. House bill 400 allowed districts to reduce money to teachers down to $27,795, allowed for furlough days, and most notably increased class sizes. There were actually some good parts to house bill 400 that did not get the attention that they really should have. One of the most important things was to help get kids ready for college it would require districts to have an even closer relationship with their community colleges and universities. They would have to create a plan to get kids into community colleges and stay there. House bill 400 may have not been popular, but it did introduce something that districts need, a choice.

  Fox News and others are making a large deal out of the teacher's unions. Here in Texas the Unions do no have near as much power, but what limits the districts options is contractual obligations including tenure. I have said many times that teachers that are let go should be let go for not making the grade. I think most would agree that this is the time to thin out the heard and get rid of those teachers that are ineffective, or have grown complaisant in their duties. If a district is forced to lay off employees they should be able to choose to keep the effective teachers. This differs from corporations who sometimes get rid of the outliers first before they have to cut jobs of people who are effective in their roles.

  If you were to walk onto a campus right now you would feel the stress in the air. There is twice as much stress in places where people know they do not have jobs the next year. We are quickly approaching finals, and then the summer. As our class ends there are a lot of people not wanting the halls to go dark. For them that darkness ushers in the end of a career. For them the uncertainty of the legislature has force districts to lay people off. What can we do to help the situation? Well voters are showing up to help raise taxes to help support education, something that most of us thought would not happen. We can also support our teachers and our local schools by donating items like supplies to help soften some of that finacial burden. Most of all, we can take a stand and ask our legislatures to find themselves some common ground. Let's get the good and the bad news to districts so that we can plan for the future.

Until Tomorrow,
"Education is not the answer to the question. Education is the means to the answer to all questions."
-- William Allin

Senior Skip Day

  It is late tonight for me. I look over at the clock and it ticks away. The hours today are flying by so quickly. I spent the last two days talking about prom. Alcohol and kids attitudes outside in the real world made great topics to cover and to explore. On Monday was the day that most senior level teachers hate, the infamous senior skip day. This is the day that the seniors think they can skip with little to no consequence to them. This does not appear on any calendar that I know of, it is not on the calendar for my district, and is one of those things that the Monday after prom results in classes that are half empty or worse. Monday was a ghost town. It sort of reminded me what the news said that school would look like if one of those epidemics took hold. Class after class was devoid of people, and lesson plans for the week had to be scrapped or drastically modified. It is one of these days that a campus that is academically focused versus one that is not shines through.
  In my experience senior skip day is not something that people really participated in. School districts loath it, and most including the one that I graduated from, made it one of those days that you did not want to miss. They would schedule some important test or review on the day we were all suppose to skip. This day was not really any more than something that kids dreamed of doing when I was in school. Today, it has become an artificial holiday. Kids planned to return from prom festivities on Monday because they were ok with missing only one day. Perhaps I am wrong, maybe it is a big deal even in academically focused campuses, but this one glaring example shows all the work we have left to do. Some of the kids that came needed to be there, while some planned for it at the beginning of the year carefully budgeting their time off. How can we focus academics when a school does not make this day a joke? I had kids legitimately tell me that this was a school sanctioned holiday. This sort of misinformation needs to be handled. The only way to eliminate this as being a problem is to change the culture of the school. To emphasize academics and school functions as a higher level than the social lives of the students. The problem with this is that society gets in the way of this thinking. We push kids going to college but loose ourselves in the details. These lost details like work ethic add up to create a monster that stands in the way of our education, not helps it along. We take kids out of school for any excuse that we can and we start to tarnish the importance of education. This problem may not seem like a large one, it is just one day after all, but it represents so much that is wrong with our society. It represents the lack of importance that our kids and our society places on education.

Until Tomorrow,

Education is...

One of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get.

William Lowe Bryan (1860–1955) 10th president of Indiana University (1902 to 1937).

Alcohol

This last weekend was prom, as I stated in my last post. This last Monday there was a lot of talk of the previous weekend's festivities. One of the topics was drinking. Kid's talk a lot about getting drunk. Of course they say this in groups before class or quietly where they think that I can not hear, but none the less I hear it. The question that I have when I overhear this is how do they get the alcohol? The answer may surprise you. I head from a parent that spends a lot of time at school that this alcohol is obtained from parents that plan these prom beach party weekends. The parents are getting booze for their kids. I asked my wife and others the question about whether they would allow their kids to drink in a weekend of booze filled partying. This of course does not take into account the legal implications of it. My argument is that you give teenagers who think they are invincible anyway do stupid crap without the aid of alcohol. Now take alcohol that does remove all the inhibitions and notions of good sense and give it to those same kids and you spell trouble. Even with supervision, this seems like a bad idea. While it can be argued that drinking is allowed by teenagers in other countries like Mexico, and countries in Europe, I think it is important to keep in mind that it is not illegal here. The other thing that this sends a message is that some laws are flexible, and that we can disregard some of them to suit our purposes. I am not trying to tell parents what they should do as parents, but we should be trying to send a positive message.

Until Tomorrow,
Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.  ~Roger Lewin

Prom

  This last Friday I got the honor of being a chaperon at my school's prom. This is an interesting place to sit around and look at what your kids are like outside of the room. One other insight that this grants you is how well they like you as a teacher. Kids that you may have had trouble with all year come up and are legitimately glad that you are there, while others barely look you in the eye. This can be a rewarding experience, but it can also get to you if you are as tough on yourself as I am. I have had both successes and failures this year like every other year, but it really gets to me when a kid that I think is a good one shows obvious dislike for you. I think that this really makes you reflect on what you have done right and what you have done wrong. For me, what I have done right is show these kids what a challenging class looks like, this is also in some of their opinion what I have done wrong.  Kids can be hard on teachers that do not hand out A's if they are use to receiving those throughout their school life. Also, I have put in another classroom management plan that has not been as successful as I wanted it to be. This plan has resulted in a better overall relationship with the students, but a more lacks atmosphere in the classroom.
   All of these things are irrelevant, as much as you may or may not want to be liked, it is not important. People may not like you in the world and they may not like you in the classroom. What I want them to take away is that working hard even on a tough subject will result in a rewarding experience. I may not hand out a lot of A's in my class, but those that get it deserve it. Those that do not, get a free lesson in what college is like.  Prom is a unique experience for the kids. In a lot of ways it is playing adult for the first time. It works great for kids, and it is a good experience for the teacher to see what kids are like outside the classroom. Overall my first year experience was a good one. This week, I am going to concentrate on several issues that surround the prom season. Tomorrow is the issue of drinking, Wednesday is the imfamous Senior Skip day.

Until Tomorrow,
The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.  ~George Santayana

Redemption

The question always comes up with what do you do when you have a senior that is failing. With the movement of a junior to a senior status two things happen. The first is the all important senioritis. This condition affects a lot of our kids on a daily basis. I am thinking about making a PSA, and starting a group to help fund research in this horrible disease. The second is a sense of entitlement. That is the worse one because at lease senioritis eventually goes away on its own. Entitlement likes to stick around. These two conditions are running rampant through the halls of our school. They are moving faster than herpes at a beer pong convention. Despite our pleas to stay with us and our assurances of a failing grade if they do not, kids are moving closer to the line every day. It was this reason that my school set out for a new program. This program allowed kids to earn credit back if they failed a six weeks. The predominant subject that pioneered this program was the English department. They spent long hours and helped kids right and left to prepare.
  The results of this recovery project, or redemption as I call it, were OK. It seemed that this program helped some of the kids to really embrace the chance. Some of them put the same effort into it that they had put into the last semester. The result was a few kids that even with a make up still did not make it. In this project the kids had to write a paper that was roughly two pages, and present their information in a PowerPoint. The presentation was given to a panel of teachers. Their English teacher did not sit on the panel, so their would be no argument for bias. I sat on a panel and listened to three presentations. The good thing was that we had a really good presentation. The bad news is that we had two really bad presentations. The two kids did not put anything effort into the project. They really fell flat in the presentation. This is disappointing because it really shows that even when we put a lot of work into a program to help them, that sometimes we cannot do anything but let them make their own way. That is the point, sometimes we have to let them fail on their own for them to learn. This is unfortunate because those two other kids actual needed the help did not take advantage of their opportunity. My hope for them is that they actually learn something from it at some point in the future. In the end all a teacher can do is give them every opportunity to succeed and hope that some take advantage of that before they fall off the edge.

Until Tomorrow,

Part of the American myth is that people who are handed the skin of a dead sheep at graduating time think that it will keep their minds alive forever.

John Mason Brown (1900–1969) American drama critic and author.

Evaluation Day

So today was my evaluation conference. This is the time when you go into a room with your appraiser and have a talk with them about what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. Overall this process has gone great for me over the past few years. I would like to share with you how I am evaluated and how that compares to my corporate evaluations that I received.

  Educational evaluations all come down to classroom time. The more time that an evaluator is in the classroom with you the better idea that they have of how well you do. The minimum time that they can be in your room is 45 minutes, and mostly this is what you get. Every evaluators goal that is serious about the process promises quite a few walk throughs. Your evaluator is an administrator. This is the only thing that I find weird as I would like an experienced teacher to come evaluate me and tell me what I can do to improve myself. In as evaluation, you are rated as unacceptable, below expectations, proficient, and exceeds expectations in many categories. The main point is how well do your kids respond to you, and do you enable them to learn or are you a talker that moves right past them. I scored well in every different category, and was told that a criticisms was that I was to intellectual and sometimes went over the kids head with what I knew. This I took as a compliment. The process is completed on paper and then we have a meeting where things can be addressed before everyone signs on the dotted line. This entire process is very similar to my last job. The difference is that instead of a complete jerk evaluating me that had no idea about what I did, or did not do. I have an administrator that has actually sat in with me on my job. This works great if your administrator is good with the process. However, it falls apart if the person just does not take it seriously.

I can think of several different administrators at my school alone that look at it as a menace. This is something that they have to do to get their paycheck. Some teachers also view it this way, so a lot of imaginary evaluating goes on. As a professional I am really irritated by that, and work really hard to make sure that I have done my job, so I ask for people to do theirs and help me to be better. Perhaps that is a new teacher that is naive in the ways of the world, but for me as a professional it is nice to have an evaluator that actually cares. I think part of what is going to help save education is a focus on professionalism. A focus on trying to make ourselves better at our jobs. Whether that is in content knowledge, or classroom strategies we all can benefit in a little criticism. I say this as a person that does not take criticism well. I understand the need for it, and really think that if we are going to be successful as educators we have to look at this process as a way to better ourselves. Administrators have a part in this as well. If they are not serious we run the risk of having serious problems in the classroom, while on paper our teachers look great.

Until Tomorrow,

Education does not mean teaching people to know what they do not know; it means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) English critic

An Idiots Guide to School Finance.

Across Texas new stadiums are getting built, and the obvious question is why are they building new stadiums when they are laying off teachers? Why are they building new schools and academies when there are teachers that are in the unemployment lines? These questions were asked this weekend when I had a heated conversation with my father in law.

  The answer to both questions is actually quite complicated. It starts with the school taxes that you pay on your property. Local property taxes account for 54% of the funding of Texas Schools. I have included a pretty good website that discusses how funding breaks down. So the other funding comes from several different sources. The first is state funding. This accounts for quite a chunk of the funding, but depends on the district and whether it can meet the minimum per student requirement. The second source is federal funds, which typically is for special programs only like disadvantages schools or special education. The final place is an ominous category called other. This money comes from private companies and individuals who donate money.

  While this may seem simple, the real problem comes down to the rules set aside for who can spend the money and how the district can spend it. The district is only allowed by the state of Texas a certain amount of money for each student. This amount is capped and has not been changed in several years. Also, local districts are not allowed to control their property taxes to increase revenue. This is only allowed at the state level. The last regulation that has been placed is the bond issue. Bonds are one of the many ways that a district can use the money it has in property taxes. Basically, bonds are money that is borrowed  against the property taxes for a certain number of years. The local government pays itself back after 30 years just like a morgage, and it allows itself to build buildings. The problem is that this is for capital improvement, and does not include teachers jobs. Districts often need a new facility but then run into the problem of not having enough people to man it.

The school finance game is tricky. It really equates to to many hands in the cookie jar. This does not even take into account that most districts are administration heavy and do not put enough money into the classroom due to high overhead. To fix a problem like this it is imperative that the government fix the complexity of this system first. What good does it do to throw money at a situation that cannot support itself. We really need to look at how districts raise and utilize the money that they get and then look at how we can better utilize it. One way to help ease the burden is to allow bonds to be used for district personnel for start up costs on new projects. What good does a building do if there is no one to use it.

Check the following links out for a breakdown on school finance:
http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/school-districts/where-the-money-comes-from/
http://www.putourkidsfirst.com/kidsfirst/nat_science.asp

Until Tomorrow,
Education is the transmission of civilization.  ~Ariel and Will Durant