Political ranties
As some know and remember... I work for a school district in MI...
Its really sad the state the State is going. I have to beg and plead to replace a 6 yr old server that died.
We have ~400 computers going on 7 years old. They need to be replaced, we have a plan but....
The plan to replace the share of 7 yr old computers was well even though it had been approved, shot down -_-
we were going to replace half now and the other half in july... Noope... now we are replacing about 1/4 and probly not going to replace the rest this summer. Why...
MONEY... that all important word.
The state is expecting a short fall this next year, so what does that mean... oh the state is going to cut the budget from education even more...
Huh lets look at this, now to even be considered for basic jobs, many expect a college education. Why, you might ask, well because how many college grads are out there under-employed I know 3 people working on PhD's that are waiting tables. 1 that's a cashier at local grocery store. The jobs just aren't there.
Even more the state is paying out all this money in welfare, and aid. Now don't get me wrong I'm not one of the nut jobs that thinks welfare should be abolished but I do think it needs some serious reform... Not to mention, its been proven tha the more education someone has the less likely they will be a burden on the state.
But anyway back to the States budget deficit... Why?????
I would really like to see some accounting that makes sense.
Here in MI there is a tax on gas, it is at least $0.37/gallon now this is the tax by the state not the fed. Which means that everyday the state receives however many MILLIONS of dollars revenue from that alone. This tax is supposed to be for road maintance... MI has the most cars per capita of any other state in the country, mainly due to being a union/auto workers state. So it makes sense that we should have a goodly budget for road repair.... shit many places have atrocious roads. Why is this... Well miss management of funds and privatization... It's easy to tell where the roads are maintained by the local government and where they are maintained by some tom,dick and rip-off company.
So why should education be any different. Where does the money go??? Salaries. Yep alot of school budgets go to pay teachers, and staff, this makes sense. Its the people that do the work... well unfortunately... Some clown in government thinks that they can keep cutting funds to schools and everything will be OK. Nope... not going to happen. Schools like anything have expenses beyond the salaries; you have normal costs just your home. Electricity for the lights, Gas for the heat, Water, phone. These are normal costs, schools have to pay them just like everyone else. But people forget about operating expenses, which go up as inflation goes up. So whats that mean As the day to day expenses increase the schools have less money to spend on everything else... so class sizes increase, due to cutting the number of teachers. Class size increase, quality of education decreases...
But wait... The state puts limits on how big a class can grow... so you wind up with fixed growing costs... and smaller budgets.
Now this is where it gets fun... The state further throw in other requirements, to receive that funding, such as standardized tests. Now these are just lovely... schools are coerced into giving them, I say coerced because schools don't have to but if they don't they don't get funds... Kind of a catch 22... since the GOV doesn't pay the schools anything extra for giving the tests. Now the tests cost money, then there is extra money in buying the results and the software to track the results so the school can work on the areas that the scores on the tests are weak, to meet the minimums specified by the GOV for the tests...
Which goes right back to growing costs... In addition to the declining budget....
So education becomes an issue... Where's the money going???
I know it isn't coming the school district I work at...
Since I've been working here my depts budget has been cut by over $100K every year. We are currently at the point where our annual software costs is not going to be able to be met. Not to mention just being able to repair the equipment we have.
I have a theory on why education is not really supported by the politico's very much... Money, most of them have money and are from moneyed families, I know not all. But alot of them went to private school, and their kids goto private schools. so their kids are getting a good education. So if everyone else wants their kids to get a good education they should pay for it too.... Uh yea... How many people do you know that can take 8-25K out of their household income to send their kid to a private school???? Hmmmmm me I know 1-- 7k x 3 kids so $21,000 a year... but huh he's making good money, his wife makes good money, and both their families are well off, so they don't have all those extra bills, like car payment, student loans, and that. Everyone else I know.... Oh wait I know someone else... they goto private school, on scholar-ship because they live in the ghettho, and the highschool they should goto has oh at least 1 murder a month... Yea I think I'd just get my GED and forget school.
I'm sure it doesn't help when we have all sorts of nut jobs that even though they went to public school, they bash the education, because the schools teach such things as.... wait for it...*gasp* evolution... or *gasp* reproduction...
But that is an entire diffent set of rants..@.@
Ok Back to work...LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL....
Peace out peeps... enjoy your day and be sure and kick your polotician..^_^