Detroit offers 50% off home discount to city workers

[FlyOnTheWall]

Now as to the Public School situation; Step one, the teachers unions. It is just too long of a process to write out here but do as Governor Walker of Wisconsin has done and break the power of the unions.

So your first step towards better education is to go after educators?

Nowhere did I go after the educators. Their unions, yes. Would you go back and reread my post?

[FlyOnTheWall]

Yes, the end game for Detroit should be to have safe neighborhoods and good schools that will attract families to live there. However, for many parts of this city, that goal is a LONG time away and will require resources the city currently just doesn't have.

No, not in the end game. It has to be the beginning game. Somehow the crime is diminished in Corktown, Downtown and Midtown. People are coming. In the 'hoods people are fleeing. That should tell you that crime is the most important.

In the meantime, the city can take steps towards that. You can't attract families now, but you can attract young, single people who, in exchange for cheap housing, are willing take a chance. In exchange, you get a property off the city dime and contributing to the tax base with an owner who [[in theory) will maintain the place. The first step towards crime reduction is having a neighborhood that maintains its properties. Criminals don't like to operate as much in areas where the regular folks actually care about their community.

Not many young single single people buy homes. Families buy homes and they don't buy in high crime ares. The first step again is reduce crime and improve schools.

From there, property values rise and you start getting young professionals. Eventually they marry and start having kids. Inevitably, some will leave for the suburbs, but over time, some will stay. Eventually, the neighborhood achieves stability.

When crime decreases and schools improve then and only then the property values rise and you start getting young professionals raising families. I believe that your theory is a backwards.

Look what happened on Belle Isle. The laws are being enforced and it is now again a good place for families to go.

[FlyOnTheWall]

Good response!

[FlyOnTheWall]

We need to give educators the resources they need, AND hold them accountable. As to pay, I'm not sure what they get now, but I know several teachers that recently retired. The last few years they worked making 70K - 75K [[master's + 30) and they're going to get a sweet pension. It's not a bad deal for 30 years of working with summers off. I'm not saying they don't work hard, but I don't buy into that teacher's aren't compensated well.

I went through and worked at school districts that had teachers that needed accountability. Sub-par teachers are protected by unions with all available tools they have. Unions are required to do this.

There's also a lot of teachers that work really hard, really care, and get much more results than other teachers, and the sad part is the only reward for their efforts is an intrinsic one. There's no monetary motivation to work harder than the bare minimum. Your pay is defined by how long you've worked there, and whether you have your masters, masters +30, etc... Results don't matter.

Results don't matter to the teacher unions. Results do matter to most teachers but they are handicapped by their unions.

[EL Jimbo]

Sure. In year 30 you finally work your way up to that, but it is a long slow, slog. My wife is in year five of being a teacher [[not at DPS) and her salary won't crack $40k until next year. Teachers spend the majority of their careers being vastly underpaid for their education and training.

Also, the whole "summers off" argument is the biggest load of bull. A standard 52 week 40 hour per week schedule is 2080 hours a year. We figure my wife works somewhere between 2200-2500 hours during the 9 month school year. Plus, during her "summer off" she's usually taking at least one professional development course [[on our dime) required to maintain her certification.

the problem with the argument of supposed lack of mentally motivation to work harder is that finding a way to assess results. Socioeconomics of a community and homelife has a far more impactful effect on student success than teachers. You can have a bad teacher with students who do well on tests in a well to do district but you can have a great teacher in a district like DPS whose students test low because he/she lacks resources in school and the students are coming to school with issues at home that hold them back.

I'm not saying merit pay is a bad, I'm just saying until there is a good way of assessing merit for teachers that it is a non-starter.

Lastly, the union's job is to represent teachers and there certainly are bad teachers...just like there are people in any profession who aren't good at what they do. However, I highly doubt that busting the union would lead to a sweeping discard of "bad" teachers because there simply aren't that many of them.

We need to give educators the resources they need, AND hold them accountable. As to pay, I'm not sure what they get now, but I know several teachers that recently retired. The last few years they worked making 70K - 75K [[master's + 30) and they're going to get a sweet pension. It's not a bad deal for 30 years of working with summers off. I'm not saying they don't work hard, but I don't buy into that teacher's aren't compensated well.

I went through and worked at school districts that had teachers that needed accountability. Sub-par teachers are protected by unions with all available tools they have. Unions are required to do this.

There's also a lot of teachers that work really hard, really care, and get much more results than other teachers, and the sad part is the only reward for their efforts is an intrinsic one. There's no monetary motivation to work harder than the bare minimum. Your pay is defined by how long you've worked there, and whether you have your masters, masters +30, etc... Results don't matter.

[EL Jimbo]

Nowhere did I go after the educators. Their unions, yes. Would you go back and reread my post?

So how is going after their representation NOT going after teachers? Besides, what is the goal and net positive of going after the union?

[EL Jimbo]

How does the union handicap teachers exactly? Also, if we are to rank the things that hold back teachers, the union would be a very distant last behind dated in classroom technology, lack of administrative leadership, disinterested parents, and constant standardized testing. Any negative impact the union has pales in comparison to these.

Results don't matter to the teacher unions. Results do matter to most teachers but they are handicapped by their unions.

[EL Jimbo]

No, not in the end game. It has to be the beginning game. Somehow the crime is diminished in Corktown, Downtown and Midtown. People are coming. In the 'hoods people are fleeing. That should tell you that crime is the most important.



Not many young single single people buy homes. Families buy homes and they don't buy in high crime ares. The first step again is reduce crime and improve schools.



When crime decreases and schools improve then and only then the property values rise and you start getting young professionals raising families. I believe that your theory is a backwards.

Look what happened on Belle Isle. The laws are being enforced and it is now again a good place for families to go.

OK. Fine. It's step one. I'll indulge you. So. How do we lower crime and fix schools in "the hood"? What resources are available and where are you taking those resources away from? Unless you have a magic wand I don't know where those resources are coming from.

also, your timeline for Downtown, Corktown, and Midtown are off. People have been coming to those neighborhoods for the better part of a decade. Because there have been people there living, investing, and maintaining their property, crime has dropped. It isn't a difficult solution to come to.

young, single people took chances on those neighborhoods because they were low cost areas at the time. They stabilized and began cleaning those areas up. Eventually they became what they are today. But it didn't start with reduced crime. Reduced crime was a positive result of people taking a chance.

[Scottathew]

So how is going after their representation NOT going after teachers? Besides, what is the goal and net positive of going after the union?

Possible positives:

- More accountability
- Better results for kids due to some teachers working harder due to accountability
- More easily get rid of bad teachers

I've known teachers that are frustrated that some of their colleagues are employed and protected by the union.

Another thing you mentioned was the slow climb up to the top. Guess why that slow-climb is there? It's there because the unions wants it there. It's there because the teachers who have been there the longest have the most union influence.

If I were dictator I would do some flattening of the teacher pay scale. Some of the most enthusiastic, effective teachers are the ones that are coming fresh out of college and get paid the least. Some of the most jaded teachers that are riding it out and putting in there years are getting paid top-dollar.

In the private world, not getting fired for 25 years doesn't entitle you to double the pay. Flattening the pay scale would help the younger teachers. For example, let's say the pay scale was 35K to 75K, it could be flattened out to 45K to 65K.

My wife is a teacher, and I see the extra time she puts in. She's one of the young enthusiastic teachers that doesn't get paid as much as the old, jaded ones that don't know how to use technology.

My wife also sees the extra time I put in for my job [[I work in IT), I don't get summers off, I don't get time off around the holidays. I work hard too, I don't get a pension, etc... Teaching is a pretty good gig if you stick with it, top out on that pay-scale, and collect your pension.

[FlyOnTheWall]

Possible positives:

- More accountability
- Better results for kids due to some teachers working harder due to accountability
- More easily get rid of bad teachers

I've known teachers that are frustrated that some of their colleagues are employed and protected by the union.

Another thing you mentioned was the slow climb up to the top. Guess why that slow-climb is there? It's there because the unions wants it there. It's there because the teachers who have been there the longest have the most union influence.

If I were dictator I would do some flattening of the teacher pay scale. Some of the most enthusiastic, effective teachers are the ones that are coming fresh out of college and get paid the least. Some of the most jaded teachers that are riding it out and putting in there years are getting paid top-dollar.

In the private world, not getting fired for 25 years doesn't entitle you to double the pay. Flattening the pay scale would help the younger teachers. For example, let's say the pay scale was 35K to 75K, it could be flattened out to 45K to 65K.

My wife is a teacher, and I see the extra time she puts in. She's one of the young enthusiastic teachers that doesn't get paid as much as the old, jaded ones that don't know how to use technology.

My wife also sees the extra time I put in for my job [[I work in IT), I don't get summers off, I don't get time off around the holidays. I work hard too, I don't get a pension, etc... Teaching is a pretty good gig if you stick with it, top out on that pay-scale, and collect your pension.

You answered EL Jimbo better than I could have, Thank You!

[FlyOnTheWall]

How does the union handicap teachers exactly? Also, if we are to rank the things that hold back teachers, the union would be a very distant last behind dated in classroom technology, lack of administrative leadership, disinterested parents, and constant standardized testing. Any negative impact the union has pales in comparison to these.

<snip>. . . the results of this study well document that the most important factor affecting student learning is the teacher. In addition, the results show wide variation in effectiveness among teachers. The immediate and clear implication of this finding is that seemingly more can be done to improve education by improving the effectiveness of teachers than by any other single factor. Effective teachers appear to be effective with students of all achievement levels, regardless of the level of heterogeneity in their classrooms.⁶ <snip>
http://www.ascd.org/publications/boo...Assess-It.aspx

I hope you will read the article that I linked. It talks of things that would help our schools improve. From what I've seen, the unions fight these things. Think about this as you read.