Maybe in Ct. 80% of the budget is consumed by teacher’s salaries & benefits (whatever that maybe besides health care which TEACHERS have no control over), but not in Maine Jim. From your name and comment Jim I would guess that you are an uneducated man. I say this because even IF the budget was 80% for teacher’s salaries and benefits, who do you think would benefit more from that, the teachers or the students.............................................?
Stumped?
It would be the students and the tax payers. There is a huge discrepancy in Maine for teacher’s salaries, but the districts who pay better also score better on ALL the standardized tests required for No Child Left Behind (another farce, but don’t get me started). Money well spent, in my opinion, for our future.
HOWEVER, there is no way that 80% of the budget is consumed by teacher’s salaries and benefits anyway.
It always amazes me how some uneducated people think that paying teachers a fair wage, and often less then the going market value, is still too much money. I have a Master’s degree (and the student loans to go with them) and 12 years of experience. Yet, I still work every summer 40+ hours per week painting people’s houses that have a far less important job, but make make far more money then me. I am fine with that, I got into education for many different reasons, but it certainly was not to get rich. However, I will always have a sour taste for ignorant people who think that teachers make too much money and ONLY work 35 hours per week (average school week), because that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Well I’m certainly glad you’re teaching in Maine and not CT based on this post.
According to the MSAD57 (which includes Limerick) Superintendent’s report, the FY08 budget was $34M. Of that, 20M (59.02%) was for salaries and another 4.8M (or 14.39%) for benefits for a grand total of 24.8M (or 73.41%) for salaries & benefits. Compare that to 2M for supplies or 280K for equipment and I’m fairly certain salaries & benefits dwarves other expenses in your budget…
But, you are correct that I was wrong in stating that 80% was for salaries & benefits - only 73.41% is the case. Phew, good thing you went to school for this and I’m just an uneducated ruffian otherwise who knows what damage I might have inflicted with this little piece of misinformation
Statistically speaking however, the difference is hardly material when discussing the fundamental premise of your original post which was that a) someone (not you I presume) should be doing something about geothermal, NG buses, etc. and b) by implication, that salaries/benefits were uncontrollable expenses.
While you may have a Master’s degree, it appears you missed the class on the difference between “ignorant” which I would vehemently argue and “misinformed” to which I will plead guilty. Stumped? Perhaps this link will help: http://www.dictionary.com
You might also want to use the remainder of the summer to brush up on how to identify the “educated” from “uneducated” amongst us and whether in fact you might need more than a 16 word posting to make a valid evaluation of another person’s education. I won’t bore you with the details of mine nor delve too deeply in the matter of your school system spending more per pupil than mine does even though my school system ranks amongst the country’s (not just the state’s) highest performing. By the way, a basic statistics course would help educate you on the difference between correlation & causality - while I would agree there is generally a correlation between district spending and student achievement, I’m not willing to presume causality...perhaps they spend more because they have more money because they are a wealthier, more educated and more successful demographic where parents are more involved and children encouraged at home…
...oh and I guess it’s a good thing I’m not teaching anymore (can you spell “inner-city”?) or on the school board anymore either. Nor will I bore you with the reasons that teacher salaries are not de facto “for the children” or debate any of the other NEA Kool-Aid driven rants.
Have a sparkling evening whilst you hit your books,
There are far more people working in a school district then teachers. Not ALL the 20M is for teacher’s salaries. Again, by benefits do you mean health care? I will certainly agree, and said so in the first post, that health care should be controllable. However, that is a state/federal/societal issue. Teachers do not control the insurance rates/costs.
I purposely used “ignorant”, because most people who always blame the schools and teachers do not want to be informed.
I am glad you are educated, however, your statement was still ignorant. Though I guess that point could be argued to if you wanted 30+ students per class and unseasoned teachers in your district.
Can you tell me why teachers do not deserve a fair market value for their pay?
Btw, I never said teacher’s salaries and benefits (whatever your definition) were uncontrollable. They are, per a negotiated contract ~ i.e. the control mechanism.
we are getting away from oil prices in school districts
But nevertheless in no defense to school districts a lot of ^%$%^& is dictated from the state and federal level in what the school has to do.
We in NY have the privilege to vote on school budgets. But guess what? If the school budget gets defeated everything keeps on going like nothing happen. The School district can only change a small portion in its allocations. Everything else is already a decided.
So we really should start from the top down if one wants to change things. And at the state level a lot of things get decided behind closed doors. One could go on for ever.
But getting back to oil prices for your school district.
As typical in American life, probably nobody pays really attention to it until the &^%$ hits the fan.
I think you would find that the majority of the teacher in your district LIVE in your district and they do care about saving money AND the planet. As far as using up the money/budget from one year to get money for the next............ THAT is something that YOU have contributed to by the school board that YOU have elected.
...
I know teachers will always get raked across the coals, and some maybe rightly so. People always need something or someone to blame. However, please try to stop generalizing about teachers because it is not factual.
Have a beer or a glass of wine or smoke a joint, or meditate, or whatever you do to relax…
Relaxed now?
Good.
I said “district offices.” Administrators and office staff, not teachers.
Given the number of my neighbors and family members who are teachers, I’m well aware of the demographics of teachers. Administration is the big problem. They are the “overhead,” they are the once who set policy, etc. That’s where at least 90% of the problem lies.
Oh, and I didn’t elect the school board here. I voted against them. Just for the record. We subcontract our high school students to a private school, and that keeps the costs down, since they have a vested interest in efficiency, in order to make a profit.
The best way to cut down on the school budget is to close the schools. Yes, close them. Why pay for buildings, bussing, gasoline, bus drivers, guidance counselors, electricity, school nurses, water, athletics, gymnasiums, school coaches, cops to patrol them, janitors, furniture, computers . . . and the list goes on. I say let’s pay the best teachers, put them on line, keep the kids at home, give them computers and internet access, and a certain amount per child for extracurricular community-based programs—the ones they want to be involved in, a certain amount for each child. The best teachers will always have jobs. The others can be tutors for those that need it. Children would not be exposed to all the drugs and influences their parents’ have no say in. We would not send our check book and credit cards on a school bus with a stranger, have them passed around all day with people we don’t know, so why do it with our five-year children?
We have Little League and pee wee football and music and drama programs in our community. If each family were given vouchers to use for these things—and only these things—we’d be so much better off. Then the money could be spent on education.
I know, I know, what about the social benefits they’d be missing. Yeah, right! The kids who will fail will fail, and the kids who won’t won’t. The ones who aren’t learning could get the attention they need they same way they do now.
No more school bullies. No more keepin’ up with the Joneses’ kids clothes and cars and cell phones. Let’s save some money and let the kids learn—the same way they learn how to walk and talk. They don’t need to go to an expensive building to learn. In many cases, what they learn is not to want to learn.
Let’s let the teachers make a good salary—those who deserve it.
I know it sounds radical, but these aren’t the days any longer when people dont’ have access to computers, libraries, the internet, and community-based programs. If your kid wants to play hockey, let them spend their allotment on that. If your kid wants to play the violin, let the best music teachers teach them. The not-so-good teachers will find something else to do because people won’t send their kids to them. The good coaches—the ones who want to teach kids how to play ball will get the students. The lousy ones won’t.
Who will be the winners? The kids, the parents, the good teachers and coaches, and the taxpayers.
Before you say, oh, no, it won’t work . . . why not? It’s not working now, that’s for sure. And it’s costing billions of dollars. Just imagine, the parents would get to decide who their child associates with. The disruptive kids can be disruptive at home with the people who probably deserve to deal with what they have created.
Oh, yeah, moms and dads have to work—why? To pay their freakin’ taxes to support an expensive, broken educational system.
Thank you for letting me vent. Oh, yeah, about that oil bill for the schools? Gone. The internet doesn’t require oil.
Back in the early 1980’s I remember my elementary school getting up dated. New windows, lowered ceiling, new lighting the brick wall got a exterior insulating foam covering. The oil fired boiler got upgraded to coal. The set up for the shoot/bunker, dumpster and conveyor for the ash is still there to day, maybe they will use it again. However switching to coal any where else would create an environmental coup among Town’s foke today. Schools today don’t have much a choice, burn oil or gas. Wood if possible, but transporting it and the conversions cost money. Solar, again big bucks, and would only cover 1/3 to 1/2 of a building needs during the winters short sunny days. Heck my old high school was built on the promise of cheep nuclear energy, it’s heating system is electric you gripe about paying for oil for your schools? Hah!!
Now I am going to let both barrels rip at people making grips about paying for public education. Your an Idiot........with that kind of thought why not let your self be exploited for unskilled labor, low wages, low quality of life. I mean manufacturing is no longer unskilled, that’s gone over seas, this country runs on skilled manufacturing, you need higher education skills on any job to make money today. How about your social security checks? How about Medicare, Medicaid? Disability? other social services from the state or fed? Skilled labor pays more taxes!! Did you notice that there are more adults in the service industry like Starbucks, lowes, Home Depot, than kids? You are investing in a generation who is going to pay for those things YOU receive unless you want a pay cut from these benefits.......well you all ready have actuality. Now some body may say I don’t know nothing about the education system..........Wrong!! My Grandmother was a teacher, my Dad, my Mother, and both of my GF parents. Why should teachers and their children endure a lower quality of life to teach your kids?I tell you, we are paying a price for such ignorance, I have paid that price, but that’s another story.
I mean manufacturing is no longer unskilled, that’s gone over seas, this country runs on skilled manufacturing, you need higher education skills on any job to make money today.
Sounds like manufacturers would be happy to donate money to schools, eh?
Hoverfly - 16 August 2008 11:43 PM
How about your social security checks? How about Medicare, Medicaid? Disability? other social services from the state or fed?
I don’t want ‘em. They can keep their “services,” and I’ll keep my money, except when I actually want to spend it. Deal?
Hoverfly - 16 August 2008 11:43 PM
You are investing in a generation who is going to pay for those things YOU receive unless you want a pay cut from these benefits.......
Actually, to be accurate, you’re passing off the cost for your “services” onto your children. Why not pay for the services you want, and let your children pay for what they want, instead of expecting them to pay for your retirement, for example? If you want a retirement check each month, please invest your money, instead of demanding that my children pay you.
I mean manufacturing is no longer unskilled, that’s gone over seas, this country runs on skilled manufacturing, you need higher education skills on any job to make money today.
Sounds like manufacturers would be happy to donate money to schools, eh?
Hoverfly - 16 August 2008 11:43 PM
How about your social security checks? How about Medicare, Medicaid? Disability? other social services from the state or fed?
I don’t want ‘em. They can keep their “services,” and I’ll keep my money, except when I actually want to spend it. Deal?
Hoverfly - 16 August 2008 11:43 PM
You are investing in a generation who is going to pay for those things YOU receive unless you want a pay cut from these benefits.......
Actually, to be accurate, you’re passing off the cost for your “services” onto your children. Why not pay for the services you want, and let your children pay for what they want, instead of expecting them to pay for your retirement, for example? If you want a retirement check each month, please invest your money, instead of demanding that my children pay you.
Thanks.
Joe
No offence you live off of a philosophy not reality, Tell the IRS to make companies stop using off shore account to avoiding paying taxes, how can one invest if one can only live day to day?, I am willing to bet some day you will stuff your pride and sign up for those service, the will to live is very strong even at an old decrepit age, you would be glad that some one younger is paying for it. Sorry extreme right Republican is just as bad as extreme left Democrat they live in their own little world and don’t live in the real world of diversity.
No offence you live off of a philosophy not reality
Actually, no, I’m the one living in reality, thanks.
In reality, you cannot put off payment indefinitely. Eventually, it all comes crashing down. We’re in a recession, the dollar is collapsing… not too many years ago, an average family of four could survive on one income - now it takes two incomes to support that family.
“Spend now, pay later” is not a sustainable system, any more than “oil will always be there” is. Eventually the oil will run out. Eventually, the economy will simply crash.
Hoverfly - 17 August 2008 08:35 AM
...how can one invest if one can only live day to day?
Why do we need taxes? To support those who can’t afford to invest. Why can’t they afford to invest? Because of taxes. It’s a vicious circle.
Hoverfly - 17 August 2008 08:35 AM
I am willing to bet some day you will stuff your pride and sign up for those service, the will to live is very strong even at an old decrepit age, you would be glad that some one younger is paying for it.
There is no chance that I would ever do so. Some things are more important than mere survival. I’ve been young and unemployed, in the past. Never even considered asking for a handout.
Hoverfly - 17 August 2008 08:35 AM
Sorry extreme right Republican is just as bad as extreme left Democrat they live in their own little world and don’t live in the real world of diversity.
Democrats and Republicans are all the same, and all support the programs you’re talking about.
In the real world, 99% of the political spectrum is outside the “Democrat/Republican” zone.
theres not a lot going to change in maine when fully one third of the population works for some form of govornment.be it state, federal, county, or municipal, these 1/3 control 2/3 of the vote and in my highly uneducated brain, thats a majority. look at the recent votes on tax reform and you will see a mirror of this. nothing will change until the state is in bankruptcy which will force layoffs that will change these numbers.IMHFO
Biggest problem is centralized control systems that program heat for the entire school. Teachers can not control their own room temp. So if they are in a sunny room the heat continues to pump and they have to open a window and heat the outside. Makes me furious to drive by a school and see windows wide open in the middle of the winter! Who would do this in thier home when burning oil???
I asked about it and they said another reason for opening windows is to get fresh air due to all the little bodies in the classrooms. Apparently the air handling systems are sub par or non existant also.
The best way to cut down on the school budget is to close the schools. Yes, close them. Why pay for buildings, bussing, gasoline, bus drivers, guidance counselors, electricity, school nurses, water, athletics, gymnasiums, school coaches, cops to patrol them, janitors, furniture, computers . . . and the list goes on. I say let’s pay the best teachers, put them on line, keep the kids at home, give them computers and internet access, and a certain amount per child for extracurricular community-based programs—the ones they want to be involved in, a certain amount for each child. The best teachers will always have jobs. The others can be tutors for those that need it. Children would not be exposed to all the drugs and influences their parents’ have no say in. We would not send our check book and credit cards on a school bus with a stranger, have them passed around all day with people we don’t know, so why do it with our five-year children?
We have Little League and pee wee football and music and drama programs in our community. If each family were given vouchers to use for these things—and only these things—we’d be so much better off. Then the money could be spent on education.
I know, I know, what about the social benefits they’d be missing. Yeah, right! The kids who will fail will fail, and the kids who won’t won’t. The ones who aren’t learning could get the attention they need they same way they do now.
No more school bullies. No more keepin’ up with the Joneses’ kids clothes and cars and cell phones. Let’s save some money and let the kids learn—the same way they learn how to walk and talk. They don’t need to go to an expensive building to learn. In many cases, what they learn is not to want to learn.
Let’s let the teachers make a good salary—those who deserve it.
I know it sounds radical, but these aren’t the days any longer when people dont’ have access to computers, libraries, the internet, and community-based programs. If your kid wants to play hockey, let them spend their allotment on that. If your kid wants to play the violin, let the best music teachers teach them. The not-so-good teachers will find something else to do because people won’t send their kids to them. The good coaches—the ones who want to teach kids how to play ball will get the students. The lousy ones won’t.
Who will be the winners? The kids, the parents, the good teachers and coaches, and the taxpayers.
Before you say, oh, no, it won’t work . . . why not? It’s not working now, that’s for sure. And it’s costing billions of dollars. Just imagine, the parents would get to decide who their child associates with. The disruptive kids can be disruptive at home with the people who probably deserve to deal with what they have created.
Oh, yeah, moms and dads have to work—why? To pay their freakin’ taxes to support an expensive, broken educational system.
Thank you for letting me vent. Oh, yeah, about that oil bill for the schools? Gone. The internet doesn’t require oil.
Wow Moe, You are da man!!! What a great post. I have been saying those same things since I went to school and learned that school only makes kids into mind numbed robots.My kids learn more about who is pregnant, who just got busted for drugs in their locker and the latest swear words than I can believe. But ask them who is running for congress, why the constitution is important or even what it is and they look at me like I just spoke a foreign language(which they also dont have a clue about) I have always wondered why back in the day of one room school houses around here(heated with a central wood stove not oil by the way) there were large numbers of children in a single class, all different ages, and only one or two teachers and they seemed to learn things alright… And they wrote at college level, did complex mathematics, had outstanding penmanship,and treated school as a privilege and not a chore...oh and did all this without the need to complain about class size, or how the room is too hot or cold, having to walk to get there, and take turns bringing lunch for the rest of the class and not have a gym, swimming pool, huge bloated government agency, board of directors and on and on…
Why on earth did we in our township just build a multi million dollar middle school and now have a perfectly usable building sitting empty? Because “its all for the children”. Well I think we need to start over, get back to basics and dump this whole school bureaucracy. My kids would do just fine learning in a small unattractive building with no view out the window if the teachers were inspiring and my kids were challenged. I am all for teachers getting a well deserved salaries. And the ones that inspire their students should be getting top pay. But lets also be able to throw the bums out on their ears if they just sit behind their desk and read the paper, teach the same ole boring lessons they did from years ago when they got tenure, and are just putting their time in till summer vacation and looking forward to retiring. Our kids test scores should be the barometer not how much money we are spending on fancy buildings with all the latest and greatest. Just like in the military, there are no bad soldiers just bad leaders.
My Town’s elementary school is heated with woodchips, and was one of the first in VT to put in a woodchip boiler, back in the late 80s if I remember right.
The regional High School that serves my town also has been using woodchips for nearly 10 years.
Biggest problem is centralized control systems that program heat for the entire school. Teachers can not control their own room temp. So if they are in a sunny room the heat continues to pump and they have to open a window and heat the outside. Makes me furious to drive by a school and see windows wide open in the middle of the winter! Who would do this in thier home when burning oil???
I asked about it and they said another reason for opening windows is to get fresh air due to all the little bodies in the classrooms. Apparently the air handling systems are sub par or non existant also.
More tax money out the window.
And, more than likely, they paid premium prices for that horribly-sub-par system.
Teachers shouldn’t be controlling room temperature, but each room should be its own zone, with its own temperature sensor. The temperature sensors and zone control lines can all be networked at locations around the building using digital I/O systems and connected to a central computer that can manage the whole systems (we have software available that can literally manage hundreds of zones at once, and use weather reports to give itself some adaptability). The same system can operate HRV’s to keep the air fresh, and can even have sensors on the windows to set an alert if someone is leaving a window open for extended amounts of time on a cold or hot day.
Modern technology is pretty impressive. Realistically, even older buildings can be retrofit with this sort of system, as well as biomass boilers for the actual energy production. Add geothermal for cooling and supplemental heating (at least, in this climate, where the cooling load is much smaller than the heating load in most cases)(particularly for a school, which isn’t used much in the winter).
No offence you live off of a philosophy not reality
Actually, no, I’m the one living in reality, thanks.
In reality, you cannot put off payment indefinitely. Eventually, it all comes crashing down. We’re in a recession, the dollar is collapsing… not too many years ago, an average family of four could survive on one income - now it takes two incomes to support that family.
“Spend now, pay later” is not a sustainable system, any more than “oil will always be there” is. Eventually the oil will run out. Eventually, the economy will simply crash.
Hoverfly - 17 August 2008 08:35 AM
...how can one invest if one can only live day to day?
Why do we need taxes? To support those who can’t afford to invest. Why can’t they afford to invest? Because of taxes. It’s a vicious circle.
Hoverfly - 17 August 2008 08:35 AM
I am willing to bet some day you will stuff your pride and sign up for those service, the will to live is very strong even at an old decrepit age, you would be glad that some one younger is paying for it.
There is no chance that I would ever do so. Some things are more important than mere survival. I’ve been young and unemployed, in the past. Never even considered asking for a handout.
Hoverfly - 17 August 2008 08:35 AM
Sorry extreme right Republican is just as bad as extreme left Democrat they live in their own little world and don’t live in the real world of diversity.
Democrats and Republicans are all the same, and all support the programs you’re talking about.
In the real world, 99% of the political spectrum is outside the “Democrat/Republican” zone.
Joe
Self sufficiency, I use to believe that but in reality it won’t happen to every one. It’s “unethical” to let those who can not survive to just simply to die. If you ran for NH Governor I will vote for you. But I won’t put my money on you winning, to many think with there harts, not their minds.
Self sufficiency, I use to believe that but in reality it won’t happen to every one. It’s “unethical” to let those who can not survive to just simply to die. If you ran for NH Governor I will vote for you. But I won’t put my money on you winning, to many think with there harts, not their minds.
Those who can’t survive are a minuscule fraction of a percent. You could hod a few bake sales and raise enough money to help them survive.
The problem is those who choose to demand that others support them, just because they’d rather not actually have to work.
Pulling the net out from under them all at once would be a jerky thing to do. Weaning them off would be much better. Cut benefits 10% per year, and see how many find out that working for a living isn’t so bad, after all.
On the school subject, requiring them to cut things like fuel costs would go a long way towards fixing the system. I think there are few districts where a 10% reduction in fuel costs would not be extremely practical, and I think there are very many where a 50-75% reduction in their heating costs would be feasible.
My Town’s elementary school is heated with woodchips, and was one of the first in VT to put in a woodchip boiler, back in the late 80s if I remember right.
The regional High School that serves my town also has been using woodchips for nearly 10 years.
Probably a Chiptec; they have a great gasification setup for large buildings.
I remember our school installing a fancy new zone system on the steam radiators for the high school. The cold rooms weren’t any warmer and the hot rooms still had to open windows, but at least we had windows. Building automation only works when there is a good system in the building to begin with.
Most of our schools have converted to gas where available, but the oil fired schools are still out there. I suspect more of my tax dollars will be going to “the Zone” than I care to. Everyone seems to be standing around helpless in the meantime.
Heat recovery works if applied correctly, but I know schools that have to run refrigeration above 40F because of design problems. The internal gains from all those bodies adds up quickly. Most buildings with this kind of occupancy don’t need heat above freezing. The school district’s engineers seem to be a few years behind the rest of the industry, IMHO. Modulating outdoor air dampers for free cooling is a foreign concept to some people.
We’re still waiting on air conditioning. Our local middle school was just refurbished with new windows, roofs, ceilings, lights and fan coils that will support A/C, but we have yet to see a chiller on anyone’s prints. Ironically, we have been replacing a lot of A/C equipment on schools that already had A/C, but the really old buildings go without. A/C can be a big deal around here as school is sometimes called early if the temps are too high in the spring and fall. If it is over 90 at noon, plan on picking up the kids early! What’s ironic is that they have to close the schools WITH A/C at the same time because the buses would get all out of whack.
I remember our school installing a fancy new zone system on the steam radiators for the high school. The cold rooms weren’t any warmer and the hot rooms still had to open windows, but at least we ha
