Comments on: Defrost ‘Frozen Assets’

By: NDC

NDC — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:53:45 +0000

Um, did you read the whole report? Some of the frozen assets are actually health and retirement benefits for teachers.

Yep, she’s right that they aren’t tied to student improvement, but they are expectations of more full time professional employment.

I think there are some aspects of educational reform that could improve things overall, maybe merit pay versus experience pay, but this frozen assets stuff is largely crap.

When you look at the salary steps for experience, usually they are about what one could expect at any other professional job for doing a decent job. It averages 2.5% a year, I think.

By: gahrie

gahrie — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 05:47:43 +0000

I believe in choice, and competition among schools. I support vouchers.

But turning teaching into a competition, and teachers into competitors is a recipe for disaster.

By: roux

roux — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:53:43 +0000

The problem is not money. We spend plenty. The problem is the breakdown of the family and the community.

By: Miller Smith

Miller Smith — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:40:16 +0000

Ha! We can’t even get art or spanish teachers to interview for the easy jobs in my county. for the first time in history my county did not fill all of its positions at the beginning of the school year. We never did. We had to collapse classes of kids being run by subs into other classes that had real teachers. We now have students who are behind in credits for graduation.

If you reduce benifits for people with other options, you will have more of the same. That’s fine by me. I want vouchers. I’ll get rich on vouchers.

By: allen

allen — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:11:43 +0000

Joanne Jacobs wrote:

What happens when the moneyâ€™s gone?

It has to be replaced by more permanent sources of revenue since not doing so would be taking desperately needed funds from a resource-starved public education system. Or something like that.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 17:23:11 +0000

not harder to implement — done in the other sectors all the time … and even done in the education setting.

just harder to overcome the inertia.