Just remember: It’s all about the kids.
Just remember: The children are our future.
In Detroit, where they enroll thousands of children who need a great education, the state-appointed emergency manager has decided to save money by increasing class size to 43. Students will not get individual attention. Students will not get the support they need. Teachers will spend time on crowd control instead of instruction.
Governor Snyder cut corporate taxes.
It’s all about the children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You can’t even fit 43 kids in most classrooms
In LAUSD there are some classrooms built to hold 30 students, that are now stuffed with 52. Imagine being a teacher in an inner city room of teen agers where many sit on the floor, no AC in 100 degree heat, filthy restrooms, vermin in cafeterias, and no janitors…how can teachers teach and kids learn under such conditions?
H-m-m-m. You should be able to get the fire department to declare unsafe conditions. Or does someone own them, too.
At my institution the fire code limit is absolute. Each classroom has a maximum capacity that can not be exceeded.
TE,
You live in such a perfect world.
I am not sure why you would say perfect. I know students are much annoyed by the fire restrictions at my institution when it prevents them from enrolling in a class.
TE teaches in huge college lecture halls that have up to 750 students in a class. Would we all want fire marshals who permit no caps on class size as long as there’s enough space and required seating? Another apples and oranges comparison from him –and why I usually skip over his posts now. You should, too.
The problem usually comes up in the 25 and 30 seat classes. The rules are very strict.
Your school can avoid the matter by building gigantic lecture halls. And it’s still not relevant to K12, because contrary to common sense and required safety precautions in other public accommodations, fire regulations do not usually limit class sizes in public schools.
Cosmic,
About 75% of the classes at my institution have thirty or fewer students. EVERY SEMESTER I have to turn down students for a class that I teach because the classroom I am assigned to use is only allowed to hold 30 students by fire code. The students I turn down certainly think it is a binding constraint.
If so many students are scrambling to get into the courses, then the university should open an additional section. I don’t know if your university defaults to a five year plan in some of your programs because they don’t offer enough sections for students to complete their majors in four years. Many years ago (15-20?), when I was more actively involved in the college shopping program, I remember hearing about state universities that made it impossible to finish certain high demand programs in four years. Between scholarships and the five year plan that became all too typical, private schools became much more attractive to high performing students.
Alas we might increase capacity by hiring more faculty, but that would require higher tuition. We do have a good price advantage over schools like NYU as we charge lower tuition for four years than NYU charges for a single year. It would be a shame to make higher education less affordable.
Would you forgive my institution if it increased tuition in order to increase capacity? These are the trade offs that any institution must face.
Well, if they are using the five year plan, they have already increased tuition.
Would you recommend increasing tuition in order to increase capacity?
Well, if they are using the five year plan, they have already increased tuition.
You mean five years to graduation? It is no closed classes that do that in my department. I get every student into the classes they need to graduate personally.
TE might actually be talking about seminars for lectures. I have worked at schools where seminars are led by TAs in separate classes at different times and at other schools where the seminars are small groups conducted in the same hall as the lectures and are led by TAs. More TAs are needed for the latter, if scheduled at the same time, but TAs are often paid as little as adjunct professors, who usually have more credentials and experience, and are typically paid peanuts. Either way, the notion that it’s low paid TAs and adjuncts, who comprise 70% of the professoriate in this nation, that drive up the cost of tuition is absolutely ridiculous.
Cosmic,
Actually I am not talking about discussion sections. I can speak most authoritatively about my department, which generally has slightly larger classes than most because we are a fairly popular major. All majors must take 10 class, 5 of which are required, 5 are elective. Two of the required classes are taught in large lectures (200-500 students, mostly teaching students who will not be economics majors) and these students have a discussion class (the discussion classes are capped at 25, but ones at unpopular times like Friday afternoon can often have less than 10 students). There are also honors introductory classes which are capped at 30 (the fire marshall limit for the classroom where they are usually taught). The other three required classes (there are multiple sections of these classes every semester) are initially given an enrollment limit of 25, but typically we have to drift them up to 30 students, sometimes a bit higher. The elective classes generally start with an enrollment limit of 30, but often drift up to at least 35.
The classrooms assigned to the economics department have different capacities. In addition to the large lecture halls used for the two introductory classes, we have first pass rights on one classroom with a 25 person capacity (usually used for graduate classes but occasionally pressed into service for undergraduate classes), one classroom with a capacity of 30, two with capacities of 40 each, and one with a capacity of 42.
Some very large departments like psychology will have large classes beyond the introductory level, some smaller departments like philosophy will average 20 students per class outside the introductory level.
You have to be careful with that 70% figure. That includes me, folks who are non-tenure track, full time, full benefit, permanent employees. It also includes every senior lecturer at the University of Chicago, every adjunct faculty member at the Stern School of Business (I would not worry too much about the salary those folks earn.)
Don’t kid yourself. People like you are by far the minority. I have worked at over a half dozen colleges in the past twenty years, as both full time and part time faculty, and many have exactly ONE full time person in the department. Some have NONE; all faculty are low paid adjuncts.
Cosmic,
Perhaps you missed the AAUP survey results. Here is the link: http://www.aaup.org/article/who-are-part-time-faculty#.U8sQRmK9KK0
The highlights are that 44% of faculty were part time and that 35% of the part time people would have preferred to work full time.
My colleagues at different schools and I were not surveyed, which includes literally hundreds of part time faculty, most of whom would much rather be full timers, so I have to question those statistics.
Cosmic,
Do you doubt the 70% figure that you quoted? Were you surveyed as part of the research that established that figure that you quote with such authority?
That data is very dated. It’s from 10 years ago. As it happens, I was full time faculty and a program coordinator then, but I had an army of adjuncts working for me, plus I had previously been an adjunct myself. That was also before colleges started hiring adjuncts as independent contractors, instead of as part time faculty.
Cosmic,
What is the source of your 70% figure?
Independent contractors are not considered to be employees, so it’s very possible that they are not included in the count of part time faculty. I worked at one school where ALL faculty are hired as independent contractors, so that’s probably several thousand people omitted from the count.
Cosmic,
Again, what is the source of the 70% figure? What definition of adjunct was used? I gave you my source, what is yours?
Google it. It’s all over the Internet. Some articles have breakdowns, but I have never seen one that includes information regarding all the independent contractors who are adjuncts. They seem to be off the radar completely, including by the IRS.
Cosmic,
You have no idea how the number was arrived at or who computed it? I would hesitate to quote that figure, but I am an economist.
I have no interest in doing the legwork for students, including you.
Cosmic,
If you don’t know how a statistic has been constructed, it is meaningless.
Oh please, you never read the links that I post, so I’ve stopped bothering.
If you had taken the time to review the AAUP website for more current info, you would have found this, published in April 2014, “The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011. Look it up!
Only 16.6% of faculty were tenured and 6.9% were on the tenure track.
76.5% of faculty were off the tenure track, including 41.5% part timers, 19.3% grad students and 15.3 full time non-tenure track
There is NO mention in that report of faculty who are hired as independent contractors and may not be counted at all, since they are not considered to be employees.
Some colleges have failed to report the number of their adjuncts to US News and World Report, in order to raise their rankings:
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/16/the_wal_mart_ization_of_higher_education_how_young_professors_are_getting_screwed/
Cosmic,
Good to see that it is 41% part time, a lower percentage than my figure of 44%. Any more recent figures on how many of the part time faculty would prefer full time positions? At schools like the Stern School for Business I imagine few would be willing to take the pay cut.
It will probably take a fair amount of work to find out if these figures include or exclude independent contractors.
More importantly, it’s 76.6% who are non-tenure track faculty, not 70%, and people like you are only 15.3%.
Considering schools don’t like to advertise the percentage of their faculty who are part time and they don’t have to count faculty who are not considered to be employees, I highly doubt that faculty hired as independent contractors have been counted.
I think the figure for grad students is suspect. In my doctoral program, a lot of us were hired to teach our own courses and I’m pretty sure the school probably would have listed us a grad student employees, not as adjuncts, even though many of us were older adults with extensive experience teaching college courses as adjuncts at other schools.
I would think that a university could only count you as a graduate student if you were enrolled in a graduate program.
As I said, these were candidates in my doctoral program, so the school could have counted us as grad students, but we were given our own courses, designed our own syllabi and we were on our own. We were not the TAs.
Senior graduate students do teach their own independent classes. My spouse and I both did that in graduate school in the mid 80s and graduate students at my institution do it today.
Also, we were invited to Adjunct Orientation, which was for regular part time faculty and the TAs were not there either.
When grad students are treated as adjuncts, paid as adjuncts and supervised as adjuncts (i,e., minimally), then I think they should be counted as adjuncts.
There was an organized effort by grad students teaching at my college (not in my department) who were upset about this lack of recognition and they wanted to be officially considered part time faculty and get benefits, such as health care. Adjuncts at the university didn’t get benefits though and the initiative got nowhere, at least while I was there.
When grad students are treated as adjuncts, paid as adjuncts and supervised as adjuncts (i.e., minimally), then I think they should be counted as adjuncts.
There was an organized effort by grad students teaching at my college (not in my department) who were upset about this lack of recognition and they wanted to be officially considered part time faculty and get benefits, such as health care. Adjuncts at the university didn’t get benefits though and the initiative got nowhere, at least while I was there.
Cosmic,
In my program at least, graduate students are not treated as adjunct faculty members. Perhaps the most important difference is that graduate students employment is not dependent on department teaching needs. Most graduate students are guaranteed five years of support (some have outside support) and the department will employ them either as a teaching assistant for a large class, teaching independently, or as a research assistant, without regard to the number of students enrolled in the departments classes. Perhaps this goes without saying, but a second difference is that GTAs do not have their terminal degrees, while, with a single exception, the non-tenure track faculty the department has hired over the last couple of decades have all had earned doctorates in economics . Finally, graduate students teaching their own classes are assigned to teach a single class a semester while none-tenure stream faculty generally teach at least two classes a semester (this does differ between different faculty members. I teach a 3-3 load, for example).
It probably differs at various schools. I taught two courses each semester and I was treated as an adjunct in every conceivable way, not as a student.
Cosmic,
Did you get tuition remission as part of your compensation?
Nope. I paid the same tuition as other traditional students. And I was not considered a “GTA”.
Cosmic,
It sounds like you were more like an employee taking classes. In my program ALL graduate students teaching classes get a full tuition remission along with a cash stipend and subsidized health insurance.
Exactly, and I was one amongst many. In my program, there were a lot more like me and there were only two TAs –who did receive the kinds of perks you mentioned, but the rest of us got anything at all.
It was like this across our large multi-campus university, too, which is why students in other departments organized to try to gain some recognition, rights and benefits. I didn’t complain because the adjunct pay was a lot higher than what I was getting at other colleges.
Cosmic,
There are none like you were in the departments I am familiar with at my university.
Sorry, “anything” should have been “nothing”.
I think every college probably does it differently. This is one way of keeping the cost of TAs down. But, I suspect that my university ultimately counted us as students and not as employees, because they often spoke AS IF there were a lot of TAs when there were not really very many.
Where is Bill Gates with his billions?
Bill’s looking for another way to monetize the product;excuse me(cough, cough) the children.
It’s containment and warehousing.
Once again proves, it’s not about the kids. Maybe if corporations and the 1% paid their fair share, there would be no need to “save money”.
Maybe if voters don’t promise and public workers don’t demand more pension benefits than what taxpayers are able and willing to pay… It’s not only Detroit, it’s a national problem. They are not cutting pensions enough (NO CUT to police and firefighters and cutting current services instead).
Sigh. Really, pension benefits?
Michigan has routinely underfunded its pension contributions even during the more flush times of the 1990s. Then Governor, John Engler, borrowed from the teacher pension fund more than once.
Also, Detroit Public Schools has been under three emergency managers in the last decade. And they have not managed to do anything about the debt. Except sell off schools to the state (EAA) and charter authorizers (2nd highest % of students in charters only trailing New Orleans.)
The plan, all along, has been to diminish DPS. And the rest of the state will follow. Because the governor has no interest in funding schools appropriately.
And for the record, Michigan teachers were pretty much forced to pay an additional 7% into their pensions three years ago. Also, the public school pension crisis is largely caused by the [proliferation of charters which do NOT contribute into the fund. Thereby, sinking the number of contributors in a pay-as-you-go system.
There several reasons for DPS’ untenable position. Pensions and benefits may be among them. But it’s really low on the list. And no one’s been clamoring for more. In fact, the opposite has been happening the last few years.
The pension shortfalls were mostly caused by leaders who want to end pensions. They created a crisis and then screamed about it. David Sirota wrote numerous articles about the inner workings of this. Matt Taibbi did as well including a great article in Rolling Stone less than a year ago.
The choice is not between funding education or impoverishing those who have worked to educate children. It is hard to believe that anyone would allow political opportunists like Christie frame the issue in that way.
Julia — what’s wrong with having the corporations and the top 1% pay their fair share instead of trying to squeeze money out of retired public servants ? Isn’t it enough that we work for less during our working years ? Public school teachers are not allowed to draw social security but only get the pension through their state plans. Why would you want to push public servants further into poverty while pushing the top 1% and corporations further into obscene wealth ?
These are not rhetorical questions — do you have an answer ? Why can’t the top 1% and corporations pay for schooling enough to have a reasonable class size ? Why would you even think of asking public servants to donate even more first ?
Teacher Julie,
The majority of the 1% live outside Michigan. Do you think that we should go to a federally funded education system supervised by the federal government?
How about if the FEDS at least pay for the things they mandate?
You’d have a point if pension funds and school district funds were one and the same,but they are separate and distinct. In most cases, pension funds have been left “unfunded.” Therefore, not only are the pensions you blame suffering, but so are the day-to-day operations of many of our nation’s schools. Neither schools nor pensions are receiving support. Go back to the drawing board and find someone else to blame. You failed at this attempt.
TE, the 1%ers don’t “live” anywhere. It is a world of multiple homes and private jets. One multi-billionaire visited us peasants at our company. He was flying his jet in to golf at a super-private club (limited to 10 or so members), was then going to drop off a celebrity along for the ride at a west coast home, then maybe drop in on his European villa later. So, yes, the 1%ers can handle pocket change to keep retirees out of poverty.
If they don’t live anywhere they might be difficult to tax.
Yup. In 2012, Reuters investigated and reported an estimated $31 TRILLION of 1%er wealth is hidden in shelters. Reread that – trillion with a “T”. Imagine what it is now given the market. That is the equivalent of an economic black hole.
Sorry, I was off a bit – $32 trillion.
THE COST OF NOT CUTTING PENSIONS ENOUGH!!! With current demographics, there’s no way to pay public pensions without huge haircuts. When are people going to face it!?
Are you blaming the crisis in Detroit on public pensions? Are you really Chris Christie? In NJ, Chris Christie has given billions away in tax breaks, tax abatements and sweet heart deals to the big corporations and then turns around and blames teacher pensions for NJ’s economic woes. Quite the scam.
Joe, are you financially illiterate? Detroit can’t pay the pensions it promised. It’s happening all over the country. The pension crisis becomes visible just realize as boomers retire, but it was very visible for those who were aware of pension funding shortages for decades.
So why not blame the lying, cowardly politicians who purposely underfunded pensions for years contra federal law?
You seem very comfortable with taking away a promised benefit that will cause hundreds of thousands of people to live their final years in penury and needless suffering after a lifetime of public service.
What alternative are you offering? The federal government is obligated to make good on pensions. The trillions of wasted dollars burned in Iraq and Afghanistan would have made all pensions whole for generations and left billions more for upgrading schools, roads, and bridges.
Stop spreading the lie that there is no money. There is more money than can be counted for banksters, the military industrial complex, and greedy CEO’s.
There is no money for dark children and teachers, however, because of lying, racist, greedy fools.
Right, because if we pay for public pensions, how in the world are we going to pay for important things like sports stadiums?
Like
Sports stadiums that are unnecessary, too, since the United Center had offered to let DePaul use their stadium for FREE. Gotta spend those TIFF funds earmarked for blighted communities in other areas for well-off white people!
Julia,
Here in Pennsylvania, the reason we have a “pension crisis” is because 10 or 15 years ago, the government borrowed from the pension fund, hoping to see an upturn in the economy. Teachers kept paying, the government did not, now they still can’t. So you’re saying it’s still the fault of teachers? What about corporations who make millions in tax refunds? That money could help if corporate tax loopholes were closed once and for all.
Trusting the banks, corporations & privatizers to look out for the people who are doing the actual WORK! I fear that Julie is a schill,not a real person, or possibly someone who watched foxnews until it seems like what they’re saying is true.
I have almost $600 a month taken out of my check for my pension. Where are you getting your information? I am a teacher who is paying into her pension. The district kicks in just like a 401K in the private sector. You are misinformed.
Get real Laureen, if you haven’t heard about pensions being unfunded by now… Who’s the misinformed one?
They’re unfunded because the politicians have spent that money on goodies for their cronies – why should teachers and other public employees suffer for that when they’ve paid into the system like they’re supposed to?
If you go you your bank and try to withdraw your money, and your bank says, “oh, sorry, we spent that money on our more favored customers”, are you okay with that?
Julia, the city of Detroit’s pensions and DPS’ pensions are from two entirely different entities. These are not connected in any way. Teachers’ pensions are managed by the state. Not the city.
Sure there is — see replies of others — it is delusional to think that letting the income and wealth gap continue to grow is good for society. In fact, we need to increase pensions as a way of supporting the middle class. There are plenty of ways to do it — corporations and the top 1% have obscene amounts of money already. Let them give some of it back. We should have done that a long time ago.
julia – you could cut all pensions to zero and make the elderly eat dog food and still not solve the problems facing our inner cities. Cutting pensions is a red herring to distract people from the real issues of income inequality, eroding safety nets, declining or stagnant middle class buying power, and lack of a representative government. Nice trolling, though,
What MathVale said!
Yes…Mathvale speaks for me too.
MathVale: what you said.
The owner of this blog reminded us a while ago of this venerable adage: “a promise made is a debt unpaid.”
What? This only applies to bankers and owners/heads of giant corporations that are “too big to fail”?
I don’t think so…
😎
Krazy,
The folks that lent Detroit money are being asked to accept $.20 per dollar they were promised. Should the pension holders have to accept the same terms? That way the pension holders would be be treated exactly like the cities other creditors.
TE, what remains to be seen is what the bondholders, particularly institutional debt holders, get in return for the haircut – you can bet something is planned for the future. I would suspect options on future projects, development rights, political positions, tax abatements or incentices. All the typical $19,000/year civilian pensioner taking a 4.5% cut never sees.
Also, a 4.5% cut to a bank is a tax writeoff or maybe a footnote in an earnings report. A 5% cut to the above pensioner may be the difference between a heating bill, pain meds, or a decent meal. Perspective and context are wonderful things.
MathVale,
I know that the only way to keep the narrative in place is if the bondholders get more than $.20 for every dollar they were promised, but do you have any actual evidence that bondholders will be given political positions in exchange for agreeing to lose 80% of their promised repayment?
BTW, They’ve turned off the water. Just drink the Kool-Aid.
I just had a petition in my e-mail regarding the lack of water for over 100,000 households due to a large increase in rates in Detroit. i can only imagine teaching 43 students, many of whom are very thirsty…
It’s ridiculous. This is not about pumping in fresh water from Podunk to the Sahara. They have Lake Erie for God’s sake. It’s about penalizing people for payments in arrears on water bills –whether the fees were incurred by current residents or former residents!
That’s a health hazard. Please sign this petition:
http://turnthewateron.dailykos.com/
Excuse Mr, but Holy Crap!!!!: 43 students in a class? Those poor kids. Those poor teachers. A great class size is 20 kids. So this increases the work load over 100℅ and decreases the personal attention to less than half. How is this good for anyone? Of, I know, it is good for the bank accounts of those who are payng less taxes.
Excuse me, but Holy Crap!!!!: 43 students in a class? Those poor kids. Those poor teachers. A great class size is 20 kids. So this increases the work load over 100℅ and decreases the personal attention to less than half. How is this good for anyone? Of, I know, it is good for the bank accounts of those who are payng less taxes.
It shifts the burden from those who have to assume it: older voters and pensioners who got the city into this mess, to the kids who are its future. #ViciousCycle due to not taking responsibility. Great Example Detroit! (not)
OMG. Words fail. Please educate yourself.
Obvious troll is obvious. 0/10
Julia, why don’t you just come clean and tell us who you are trolling for?
Snyder?
DeVos?
K-12?
Bloody hell!
Who are you, Julia? You sound like the anti Christ…how much do you tithe to the community? What is your take home pay?
Sorry, off-topic, but did you see the risible list of questions DFER expects Karen Lewis to answer if she plans to run for mayor? http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2014/07/10-questions-for-karen-lewis.html
Did Rahm take any pay cuts?
Good question – that was one of my comments on the article.
I am guessing he did not.
OK, Dienne. I read all the comments on the article. Is Lewis doing any fund raising yet? Let us know.
Wish I knew. All she’s said is that she’s formed an “exploratory committee”. My check is ready the minute she announces anything.
Payback for the Detroit Free Press expose of charter schools?
The Detroit manager who made this decision was probably given this recommendation by an adviser at McKinsey & Company who: (a) thinks that a little technology will be enough for any “great” teacher to handle a class size of 120 to 150 and (b) has a list of suppliers eager to “help the children and teachers of Detroit.”
43 students in one classroom.
This is NOT in Japan, South Korea, or China.
This is what you see in the US!
Welcome to Financial Wood Chopper’s Workshop sponsored by the Evil Snyder Inc.!!!
?? Japan and South Korea have much better education systems than USA, same thing with the key cities of China. It’d take USA a tremendous effort to reach their levels in math.
The test scores don’t tell the whole story. Asian countries only test the highest students, because many are dropped from secondary education when they are young. We test EVERYONE–English Language Learners, kids with special needs–EVERYONE. We also have much higher levels of children in poverty than Japan, South Korea, and “key cities in China.” The cities in China will not accept children from the countryside in their schools, so those children aren’t tested.
Then why is China trying to revamp its educational system to be more like the US?
Have you been to either of those countries? You don’t know what you are talking about but just throwing stuff against the wall to try and cause chaos. The Japanese K-6 system is superior, but not due to any of the things that the powers that be want to try here in the US. It’s not free market schooling, standardized testing, or technology, in most classrooms they just use a chalkboard and nothing else. Japan is better because of the depth and quality of the teaching force and the autonomy to make unscripted decisions unlike in the US.
Julia,
Please consider moving to some “key city in China”.
I am sure you would love the education.
Adding to the words of California Math Teacher, and parents in Japan honor the culture of education and support the teachers and the schools…and they do not have the huge poverty rates that we have in the US.
They are considered better than American education system because they have never allowed private corporations and billionaires to take over public education. And they have ensured equal access to educational resources to all students acorss the nation. Also, stable mid-income class and social demographics play out for better educational outcome in international periodic tables. But make no mistake about it. Neither Japan nor South Korea are immune to the problems surrouding each school system. Both countries are dealing with chronic school bullying, violence, corporal punishment, teachers overwork, and test-craziness. And Japan is also dealing with a widening income inequality and child poverty(16.3 percent as of 2012, according to the OECD). How these figures affect students is yet to be known.
Allowing 43 kids in a classroom is a crime. How do you even fit 43 3rd grade kids in the regular classroom?! Fire drills will be a nightmare and taking the kids to the lavatory will be a major logistical operation. Julia seems determined to blame pensioners and older voters for all of Detroit’s economic woes. I will be kind and say that her biased and skewed notions are plainly insane. How do you not blame giving tax breaks to very rich corporations and the wealthy. That pension fund belongs to the teachers who put their money into it with every paycheck. How do you not blame the outsourcing of jobs to countries that pay slave wages?
…and the “Emergency Manager” will have more emergencies.
Gates’ innovative recommendation for 43 students in a class, since class size does not matter – per his research, hire subway ‘crammers’ from the Tokyo subway system to cram the last 2 kids into a classroom & quickly shut the door.
Each room is tornado proof because the sardine effect will keep all four walls upright.
Arne was seen visiting students in Haiti, where they field tested this concept where they had close to a 100 kids per classroom…and you could hear a pin drop.
The ‘Pin-Drop Program’ is also in our future.
Sick beyond belief! Anything goes.
And Arne even took a few minutes from his busy day to shoot hoops with the poor children in Haiti for a photo op. Hundreds stood around and watched the tall white man.
Go USA!
Hey Joe, Julia makes some valid points. Try to consider some of them. And PS. I was educated in rooms of five rows of ten desks that’s fifty in any math system. Did just fine. Discipline was fine and I always got to the bathroom.
Send your grandkids to Detroit schools. As if times are the same as they were for you 50 years ago.
Let’s sign up Sasha, Malia and the Gates children, too.
Don’t worry all. TFA will save the day.
There will be photo-ops with TFAkidlets handing out millions of cold bottles of designer electrolyte spring water for any child ready to cram 43 deep into classrooms and take Pearson ToxicTests for hours. They longer the test, the more H2O they get to take home for their family. Problems solved!
Gee, the Rich have all the solutions!
The president’s kids? Signing them up?
GREAT!!!!!!!!!!
Uh, what valid points?
Class sizes probably don’t matter in a culture that is already disciplined, such as Japan or Korea. Take a poor subgroup in the U.S. and it probably won’t work as it would there.
Also, pensions are a problem. In a normal system, when everyone loses money, pensions decrease but for government employees, it is guaranteed and therefore taxpayers are on the hook for it. Paying out pension dollars only goes to those who don’t work anymore and wall street, whom collect fees. No additional service is added to the public sector. As for pensions attracting employees….I highly doubt it. Everyone is just happy for a job.
I am not advocating for increased class sizes or removal of pensions. I’m just calling out some facts.
Pensions are not the problem, the problem is that the pensions were not funded by a succession of governors in NJ. In effect, the politicians borrowed from the pension fund to give tax breaks to the rich and the big corporations. They borrowed from the pension fund to balance the budget. In 1994 in NJ, the pension fund was solid, no problems, then Christine Todd Whitman said there was no need to contribute to the pension trust because it was earning such great interest on its investments. She used the money that should have gone to the pension fund to hand out tax breaks to the wealthy. Christie is doing the same. This is a scam and a set up to renege on the pension promise, a contract, a legal document, Try reneging on your mortgage or any financial agreement and see what happens. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, the script is that pensions are killing the states and unions are driving industries to China, Mexico and Vietnam. If only we could get rid of unions and public pensions, the world would be a better place. And 50 kids in a classroom, such an innovative idea. OY, sarcasm alert off.
Joe,
There is a pension problem everywhere, even in California. And it will only get worse. I can’t speak for NJ but for California, I guess more people are retiring, less money coming in and less money returned.
I’d prefer to keep my own money and invest it somewhere else. I’d like to keep Social Security though.
Tb,
“There is a pension problem everywhere. . . ”
NO! Not in the Show Me State, where the teachers retirement fund was set up so the legislature can’t touch the money. And it is in real good shape.
“I’d prefer to keep my own money and invest it somewhere else. I’d like to keep Social Security though.”
Spoken like a true. . . . neoliberal??
But I still can’t collect any SS even though I paid into from the time I was 16 till I started teaching at 38. Not a penny of it-that’d be double dipping-bullshit, just give me back my money that I put in then.
Duane, how is the Missouri fund set up differently than funds in other states?
FLERP!,
I don’t know the specifics. But perhaps this article might help:
http://www.newstribune.com/news/2013/mar/03/missouris-teacher-pension-fund-gets-high-marks/
Part of it is that it is independent of the legislative process, part is having to pre-fund something around 80% of liabilities (in contrast Illinois only pre-funds around 30% and part is run by an independent board which the “users” vote on.
One difference is here:
They (Missouri teachers) do contribute a portion of their monthly pay — 14.5 percent — to the PSRS, whose board sets the contribution rate. (It used to be 10.5 percent.) That money is matched by money provided by their school districts. (Other workers pay about 6 percent into Social Security, by way of comparison.)
“We put a greater burden on our members. It’s the highest in the nation. It’s a big chunk of their salary,” Yoakum said.
If I am reading this right, 29% of the cost of employing a teacher (half paid directly by the school district, half coming out of the gross pay to the teacher) in Missouri goes to the retirement fund.
Yep, the teacher forgoes/delays receiving present salary to pay for and secure a retirement benefit.
Is that good/bad, right/wrong, neither/not any????
Another interesting aspect is that a teacher’s retirement is not considered “joint marital property” so that in a divorce the spouse has no legal right to the retirement fund.
Julia’s points are patently false and come from propaganda campaigns funded by right-wing billionaires:
http://pando.com/2014/02/12/the-wolf-of-sesame-street-revealing-the-secret-corruption-inside-pbss-news-division/
I was educated in classrooms with huge numbers of kids, too, and I did NOT do fine. Teachers were unable to get to know each student and when those of us who were struggling needed help, we couldn’t get it because their hands were full.
When I went to a new school mid-year in 4th grade, with huge class sizes, the teacher repeatedly chastised me publicly for my work and when I tried to explain that I was being physically and emotionally abused by my new step-father, I was blown off, as in “You are lucky to have a big new house!”
Yeah, right, my step-father made it very clear to this 9 year old kid that it was HIS house, not mine. I continued to struggle in school and my step-father tutored me, but that only resulted in a lot of insults and name calling from him about how “dumb” I was. (I had never struggled in school before then.) I did not confide in another teacher again after that, until college, when I also proved my step-father’s characterization of my intelligence to be totally wrong.
When L.A. ( briefly) dropped class size in K-3 down to 25, my mother commented that she used to teach 36 kids, in 3 different grades, and she did fine. Then she went and volunteered in a 2nd grade class and she changed her tune. ” things have changed,” she said. When I sent a note home with a student about behavior, the parents supported me and punished the child. Now they blame the teacher.”
When you had 50 students in class, did the teacher get written up for yelling at a student? I don’t think so.
Forty-three kids in a classroom…. THE most expedient thing one might do to guarantee hardly anyone learns anything worth knowing, and that staff attrition will be staggering.
My reaction to this….It is not very like Diane to throw a sketchy paragraph out there, not well explained about who is doing what, by what authority. In Missouri, I have been warning that our state commissioner wants to do what Michigan is doing with a large district of underperforming schools, which has had bad results…….something like this does not provide enough information to tell me anything……..I want better explanation, so I can continue my mostly futile warnings to Missouri to not be like Michigan.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx the linked article has a lot of detail.
Is it 43 kids per classroom in the charter schools too?
Of course not. They will be flush with newly minted TFA teachers, 20 to a class. And where does the money go? Into some private pockets.
I’m not pro-charter, but for the taxpayers there’s a huge upside of charters: they don’t bring unaffordable pension promises that will burden the next generation of taxpayers.
Good grief, woman, what is your problem with pensions? Do you just expect teachers to teach until they drop dead? I am in Utah, where “pension reform” is in full swing. We are basically only allowed 401-Ks. Mine makes next to no money. I will have to teach until I am 70 or 75. I contribute to Social Security, state retirement, and my own personal retirement fund. I’m hoping that ONE of those funds will have money by the time I can retire in 30 or more years (I’m 41).
What kind of work do you do Julia?
Get a clue, Julia. You are serving as a spokesperson for lying billionaires.
As a teacher who has taught for 45 years in non-union schools, I have no pension and I am retirement age. Because of decades of low pay, I qualify for only $900 per month on Social Security, which would not even cover rent in my city. I invite you to join me when I become homeless this fall and have to live on the street due to this. There are bound to be millions more like me as well, since no one can live on $11K per year virtually anywhere in this country.
May people like you, who think that teachers who devoted decades serving America’s children deserve to live their golden years in the gutter, experience the very same plight themselves and get to learn personally how it feels when no one cares or will help you when you are struggling against being a homeless senior.
This is Excellent Schools Detroit response to the Free Press series on unregulated charter schools:
“But the Detroit Free Press has launched a long overdue conversation about the shortcomings of Michigan’s charter school law, and what has quickly devolved into an underperforming and broken education system. As an early pioneer in establishing a charter sector, Michigan created an authorizing climate driven by ideology and focused on growth, not quality, dispersing and diluting the regulatory function across multiple statewide institutions. Authorizers are expected to regulate schools, serving as gatekeepers, but predictably they’ve become competitors with each other and local districts for kids and the money that comes with them. Today, Detroit has 12 of these gatekeepers opening and closing schools wherever, whenever, and for whatever reason they’d like. You walk through those gates and you find a flea market of schools.
Thankfully, other states learned from our mistakes. Massachusetts and Boston, recently named the top charter ecosystem by the pro-charter Fordham Institute, has one authorizer. New Orleans, where every child attends a charter school, allows only the local district and the state government to authorize charters. Washington D.C. has a single authorizer. These are charter-friendly places where school choice is flourishing, but have put quality first. ”
I would just like to add some reality to this debate. The fact is, it isn’t just Michigan. IN FACT, Boston is the outlier, not Michigan. The fact is, ed reform in the following states is a deregulated, for-profit mess:
Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania. A mess.
That’s an entire swath of the country and a huge population of students. Further, The Fordham people have had more influence in Ohio’s charter policy than any elected lawmaker in this state. THEY WROTE the lousy Ohio charter laws we are now stuck with at Fordham. I have no idea why no one in the national press brings up this inconvenient fact.
Saying that this is a “Michigan problem” and then pointing to Boston is delusional. It’s a PA, MI, FL and OH problem, and these states are NEVER going to be like Massachusetts. We don’t fund public schools like Massachusetts does and we don’t regulate like Massachusetts. Pretending all of these states are the same is delusional.
http://www.excellentschoolsdetroit.org/en/blog/excellent-schools-detroit-vp-k12-systems-responds-free-press-series-charters
And the Massachusetts Senate voted tonight 26-13 to maintain the cap on charter schools.
Michigan is never going to re-write their charter school law because the current leadership in Michigan seeks to privatize public schools. In addition, the current leadership in Michigan is entirely captured by ed reform lobbyists.
Ohio hasn’t rewritten their charter regs, and either has PA or FL, yet the abuses continue, for more than a decade now. Our lawmakers are captured.
When do ed reformers take responsibility for the chaos they have created in these states? They are now actively harming existing public schools. When do they take ownership of that? It isn’t just Michigan. It’s an entire stretch of the US. At least 5 states, and that’s just the east and midwest.
“Julia” is either a troll for right-wing anti-pension forces like John Arnold or she has been duped by the propaganda they fund, including a two year campaign on PBS, and she needs to get educated:
The Wolf of Sesame Street:
“There’s simply no evidence that state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim.”
http://pando.com/2014/02/12/the-wolf-of-sesame-street-revealing-the-secret-corruption-inside-pbss-news-division/
I don’t know if you-all are following the Kansas governor race, but it’s about public education and ed reformer Sam Brownback is in a little trouble 🙂
http://ksn.com/2014/07/14/santorum-joins-brownback-for-kansas-rallies/
Yay Kansas teachers! I’m pulling for you.
Brownback’s opponent is running on supporting public education and he may beat Mr. Brownback.
Thanks to the volunteer teachers for showing up. If only our lawmakers were such passionate advocates for public schools. You know, the people we’re paying.
Actually my one of my high school teacher friends had 50 in more than one class this last year. Forty has been the norm for years and years, ever since Robert Bobb and Jennifer Granholm. The Detroit kids so want an education, they are very patient… too patient if you ask me.
Have they no shame?!? I hope the Detroit teachers walk. This is an inhumane situation for all involved. Parents need to join with teachers and march. We need to value our children and ultimately they are the ones who have no choice and who will lose.
This is America? Sad, sad, sad.
This is NOT America.
This is America only when it comes to other people’s children and then they are low income and disadvantaged . . . .
Robert,
I am of an age that I remember a time when the people would be in the streets over this type of injustice. Have the Detroit parents and community leaders become so complacent that they will watch their children be led into the ovens? That is where the children will eventually end up with the educational malfeasance they are expected to accept.
Shame on our leaders for ignoring the needs of our children. Wonder if they send their own kids to public schools?
How should the Detroit Emergency Manager find the teachers to keep the class sizes small? It must be some combination of increased revenue (anyone know what authority the Detroit Emergency Manager has to increase revenue?) and lower teacher salaries (again does the Detroit Emergency Manager have the authority to lower teacher salaries in order to be able to hire more teachers?)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Read the linked article. Since the EM took over, admin costs per pupil have gone from $75 to $145 per pupil, and debt service has ballooned from $212 to $1109 per pupil. Cataclysmic decline in enrollment [& thus loss of revenue] is partially due to a drop in scores since EM took over academics (which was sold as a way to improve academics & thus reverse declining enrollment).
Bottom line: sufficient $ is there to maintain class size [at a bloated ave 37/classroom] but is being used instead for increased admin personnel/costs– tho maybe only for a short time, & as there are losses due to gross mismanagement of debt by EM; some add’l $ have been squandered in lost revenues due to lowering the qual of ed via EM takeover of academics.
S and F,
The Linked article is one of the more frustrating bits of “extensive research” that I have read. The article is filled with statements about changes in fractions but says little to nothing about changes in numerators and changes in denominators. Administrative spending as a percentage of general fund expenditure (is general fund expenditure all expenditure? The article does not make that clear) from about .67% to about 1%, around a one third of one percent increase in the proportion. I suppose aggressive school consolidation would have prevented this, but in my experience neighborhoods resist closing schools.
The debt service increase is not surprising in the least. That is a fixed cost, so as the number of students declined in the system (along with a decline in variable costs of teaching) debt service costs have to become a higher proportion of overall costs. If there were no students in the district at all, the district would still have to keep its promise to pay back the bond holders and debt service would approach 100% of total payments by the district even if the diaspora amount of the debt payments had decreased.
Reblogged this on LAnthony and commented:
Something is very wrong. Detroit is the city of my parent’s birth. What can be done, now, before another generation is sacrificed? Don’t we know?
Imagery always makes for more comprehensible input. Steven Krashen taught that to me.
Overcrowd conditions are reprehensible. This is what we want our children to learn in?
Let Arne and Obama send there kids to be educated in the same conditions:
As there are regulations regarding room capacity for venues (restaurants, arenas, convention centers, hospital rooms, theaters, etc.) set by the fire marshall, there are none for classrooms. Doesn’t make sense that a classroom usually has only one door to exit in case of emergency as oppose to an airplane with a higher ratio of exits to people. How do they justify that when schools have become a place of violence?
jon,
They don’t justify, they feign oblivion. The emperor is naked.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This is a darned good question. When my kids were in our NJ m.s. a dozen yrs ago, there were 27/classroom in a ’30’s bldg. clearly designed for 18 or fewer, & the halls were frighteningly crowded between bells. As far as I know there were no codes broken by those #’s, as long as bldgs. could be emptied fast enough in timed fire drills. However this is a wealthy community w/vocal parents. They limped along another few yrs w/partial measures (like, leave yr text at home- no backpacks in the halls) until they could work out redistricting to space available in the other m.s.
One wonders why school fire codes don’t simply establish max capacity per classroom for each bldg.
There are maximum capacities in classrooms at my institution and they change with the size of the seats. They are rigidly enforced.
But not in K-12, at least not in Utah. I watched an assistant principal nearly trampled once because the hallway was so crowded and she bent down to pick something up. I had to physically block the hallway to keep her from being severely injured. The fire marshal was often in the building and saw all of this.
Typically, states have higher health and safety standards for young children in private child care centers than they have for children in public schools (and way more city and state inspectors doing spot checks to ensure centers are complying with regulations.)
For example, in my state, 3 and 4 years old in a private child care center must be in a classroom where there is 35 square feet per child. Even if the private child care center has more space than that, there’s still a maximum group size of 20 and teacher/student ratio of 10 – 1 allowed in one class. None of that is mandated for 3 and 4 year olds who are in public schools here.
There are fire marshal regulations for classrooms at my institution and they are enforced without exception.
Why not K-12 public education?
Considering it’s politicians who write those laws, when no laws exist, I’m guessing that’s so public schools can cram in as many kids in a class as politicians want. No doubt, this is just another example of how politicians prescribe the worst for other people’s children, since so many of their own kids are in private schools with small class sizes.
Why were states not required to fund their pension funds like private corporations were a long time ago? Had they been, perhaps they would not have been leveraged in the ways they are. They were utilized to patronize unions politically to the favor of whichever politicians were in power, meanwhile, politicians (I’m looking at you Whitman) borrowed against the amounts they promised and collected amounts from workers towards those amounts.
Pensions were not supposed to be politicians piggy banks as well as banked political devotion from unions. Being forced to fund them properly would have averted many of these problems. If they’re a time bomb at all, it’s because people who wouldn’t have to pay the tab were able to use them to their advantage and pass off the debt to someone else who wouldn’t be them in office. This is why debts like this shouldn’t be allowed to be formed without voter consent – that’s who will ultimately pay the bill along with the teachers who get stiffed when it becomes due.
Now, they are a waning reason to want to be a teacher as people are seeing just how unstable they are (which is destroying retirement security for the middle class – something corporations benefit from in their employment costs) – and because of that, they contribute to declining union membership, which destroys unions (another corporate money saver), and that’s if they’re not judicially killed first as somehow corporations and their workers can have singular voices but those represented by unions shouldn’t be compelled to speak on behalf of those who benefit from them.
On top of that, politicians are now pointing to unions and saying how evil they are – when the politicians are the ones who committed evil albeit may have been decades ago. But people who are long gone and possibly dead don’t make as good of a bad guy as a union…
This seems like so much madness to me – that the truth is there for people who wish to see it. 43 kids per class? That’s insane. Every piece of RESEARCH says that teachers value working conditions and that kids benefit from the attention they can be given. There will be no better way to reduce the number of teachers by choice than by increasing class sizes in this way. Even 34 kids in NY is a challenge….
These people have college degrees? Assuming they value education at all since a large percentage of them have an education, how could they not see how severely degraded an education would become in these conditions….unless it’s because they just value their own kids education and not everyone’s….that might be more likely actually.
Who would require that state pension plans be funded? Presumably that would have to be the Federal Government. I don’t know enough about Constitutional Law to have an opinion as to whether the Federal Government could require state pensions to meet any funding standards. Of course Federal entitlement programs such as Social Security are unfunded.
By the way the Detroit pensions are the responsibility of Detroit not the State of Michigan.
M: Corporations funding pensions ? You mean like United Airlines who robbed their employees of these funds. Unions lost on this deal.
The Republican House in DC now requires the US Post Office to fully fund its pension way off into the future; their way of financially breaking the Post Office so it can be privatized ( & say the reason is because it overspends its budget!!!) Hello !
Actually if you send email rather than letters, pay your bills on line and ask your utilities to email you bills rather than male them (all practices I endorse because they use so many less resources and are so much better for the environment), it is you that is killing the post office.
Who here would start a company that actually carries information on paper from one location to another? There is no future in it.
Right, 2old2teach. Too many legislators seem to think that since they are the lawmakers, they are above the law and can do whatever they please. But, of course, they rigidly demand that others are accountable, transparent and in compliance with THEIR laws and regulations. It’s the old, “Do as I say, not as I do” dictum.
Such politicians are like authoritarian parents who think they answer to no one and threaten their children with, “I brought you into the world and I can take you out of it.”
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
I think that’s a fallacy, based on my experiences in ecommerce. There may be fewer letters going through USPS, but due to so many purchases that are made online, USPS mail carriers in my city have to cart around double bags to carry all the mail now, because they have so many more packages to deliver on a daily basis –and packages generate way more revenue than letters. While traditional businesses may use private companies like UPS and FedEx, many mom and pop stores, such as on ebay, find it much more economical and practical to use USPS. Also, services from UPS etc. are not preferable to many consumers, because too often someone has to be home to accept deliveries and Saturday is not a standard delivery day for them.
The problem with packages is that the USPS does not have a monopoly on package delivery, only on first class mail. How many high cost first class letters do you receive a week?
I’ve seen some mail carriers with three and four filled bags on their carts in my area!
UPS and FedEx both now have services that actually use USPS for the final leg of mail delivery. Like UPS Mail Solutions and FedEx SmartPost. I can’t stand it when companies use them though, because every time I’ve tracked my package, it landed in my city and was then sent to another STATE, then sent back to my state and city again. This is standard practice, since it has happened about a dozen times. It’s supposed to be a more economical service, but how that is cheaper is way beyond me, plus it adds at least another couple days to the delivery time. I much prefer USPS straight up.
It is always good to have choices.
I should clarify that the rerouting to another state is done BEFORE the mail ever gets in the hands of USPS.
And, as usual, TE missed the point. Monopolies are NOT the only way for businesses to prosper. USPS has better prices than private delivery companies (which tend to give breaks just to large companies that ship in bulk), as well as way more accommodating delivery services.
Who thinks monopolies are the only way to prosper? I certainly don’t.
Yeah, right, that choice of having mail regularly sent to the wrong state after it was already in the right city “is always better.” It was someone else’s choice, too, not mine.
You choose the service that sends mail to the wrong state? I suppose there are are sorts of reasons to make choices.
What a waste of time. Bye.
Have a good night. Be carefully not to make any choices. That seems to upset you.
Sellers usually choose the shipper, not buyers, and while sellers may disclose that they ship by UPS or FedEx, they often fail to mention that they have selected the cheapest circuitous route, regardless of what they charge for shipping. So long, know-it-all.
And the sellers that choose poor delivery services have clearly offended customers like you. Perhaps sellers will choose delivery services that make their customers happy rather than upset. That would be my suggestion if they asked.
But no, pensions WERE supposed to become a big, fat piggy bank, to be carted away by every available pirate and so the manufactured crisis unfolded. Now, we won’t hang separately. Instead, we will hang 43 at time, crammed into an undersized room, accompanied by a disenfranchised adult and a federally-enforced set of marching orders and testing tortures. RIP USA Democracy.
Here’s some history. Fire marshals have been called, but it didn’t do any good. “Meetings were held.” They have been very good with disruptive tactics here. Other cities, learn and beware. And while it’s bad, the war is not over.
http://localwiki.net/detroit/Detroit_Public_Schools
Fifty six kindergarten students in one room? Oh the insanity! The poor children will learn nothing but how to survive by climbing over everyone else or how to survive by sitting in the corner and drooling.
Little people are so full of expectation, I cannot imagine how they reacted. Unfortunately the links in this article were not available because the Detroit paper wanted financial compensation which may be understandable but makes for an expensive research process.
Detroiter,
Thanks for posting the research.
Regarding Governor Snydor’s tax cuts –
If Michigan tax payers in general are suppossed to pay for the promises of Detroit politicans then all Michigan residents should be allowed to cast votes for elected Detroit officials. It makes no more sense to tax Michigan tax payers in general to pay for promises made by Detroit politicans than it would be to tax US residents to pay for promises made by Canadian politicians.
No doubt Detroit politicians are notable for dishonesty and corruption. But it was Detroit voters who voted them in and failed to hold them accountable for their malfeasance. The responsibility for the disaster that is Detroit rests with the citizens of Detroit and the politicians they voted for, not with the Michigan State Government or residents of Michigan outside Detroit..
Jim,
Last I heard, Detroit was part of Michigan.
Detroit has it’s own city government which is elected by residents of Detroit. Residents of Michigan outside Detroit do not get any vote in Detroit city elections. Canada is part of North American but does that mean that US taxpayers should be required to pay for decisions made by Canadian politicians that US taxpayers have no role in selecting?
On the other hand should Canadian taxpayers be required to fund the US government budget because we are both part of North America?
Your comment makes no sense.
Diane, since I am a citizen of the US as you are, I’m sure that if I run up too much in credit card debt you will feel obligated to bail me out.
We can always count on nonsense from racist Jim. Pension robbing is not a city issue. It has become common practice for states to not pay their contributions for the pensions of civil servants:
“Chris Christie isn’t the only governor to rob worker pensions to balance a budget”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/15/1306222/-Chris-Christie-isn-t-the-only-governor-to-rob-worker-pensions-to-balance-a-budget
If legislators and governors are going to do this, then their own pensions should always be included with all the others they rob.
The failure of the State of New Jersey to fund it’s pensions does not excuse the City of Detroit in not funding it’s pension, any more than my neighbor’s failure to make their mortgage payment excuses me from making my mortgage payment.
Promises are always easier to make if you depend on someone else keeping them.
Have you heard of revenue sharing? States have been deliberating starving cities and schools, and then saying, oh, look, they’re failing! Really!?!
Get a clue, Bub. Politicians have been routinely underfunding pensions across America, in both cities and states. If you don’t want the politicians in your state to have anything to do with its cities, vote for other politicians, or move to a place where there are no cities that bring in revenues for the state.
Detroiter – Revenue sharing with Detroit is not an obligation of the State of Michigan to Detroit. It’s charity. Detroit should not polan it’s finances on the basis of charity.
Excellent article on revenue sharing and our state constitution, and how much the State of Michigan has “diverted” from all cities, not just Detroit.
http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/03/michigan_revenue_sharing_strug.html
Detroiter, Great Article! Thanks for sharing it!
As predicted, reality is quite the opposite of racist Jim’s skewed view. In his narrow perspective, allowing cities to keep more of the revenues they generate is seen as “charity,” while handing government bailouts over to (mostly white) corporate leaders, whose risky cut-throat business practices crashed the economy is, no doubt, erroneously perceived as earned, deserving and equitable.
There is a structural problem with defined contribution pensions. The people making the promise are not responsible for actually carrying the promise out, so they are likely to over promise. The people relying on the promise know that others will be called on to keep the promise, so they will agree to promises that they know are unlikely to be kept based on the resources of the person making the promise.
They are not “promises,” they are obligations. I have never belonged to a union, but I support them and I would stand behind any union or union member who sues for breach of contract when the government fails to meet the obligations it signed off on in collective bargaining agreements.
If you don’t think a promise is not an obligation you must have difficulty in having people believe in your promises.
Apparently Jim doesn’t.
If you think a promise from a politician is an obligation, you must be oblivious to how often they bait and switch.
If politicians can’t be trusted to keep their promises and I weren’t oblivious to that fact, I would either demand my compensation up front rather than deferred for 25 to 30 years or demand that my pensions were adequately pre-funded.
That would seem reasonable to me.
I thought collective bargaining agreements were written, binding contracts, unlike oral promises that politicians make in election campaigns, order to win votes, and then renig on after being elected BECAUSE their promises were only verbal.
These are binding contracts that must be paid by whoever happens to live in the boundary of the tax district twenty or thirty years in the future. It is always easier to make binding contracts that other people are responsible for carrying out.
States are supposed to be making regular payments into pension plans, just like workers are required to do, not ignoring their payment obligations or raiding those funds for other uses. Workers are not to blame for the actions of irresponsible politicians.
Not a Public,
Indeed governments are supposed to make payments consistent with an assumed rate of return of 7.7% (just as a benchmark, the return on a ten year treasury bond, a safe bet, is 2.6%). No one actually believes that the invested funds will average a return 7.7% , but the shortfall will be made up by people who live in the taxing authority in 30 years. This allows current residents to get services today but have people who have not even been born yet pay for those services. It is always easier to buy things with other peoples money.
Our pension fund has actually met the predicted rate of return. Apparently, it is our fault to expect the government to meet its obligations. Stupid constituents! How silly of you to expect your elected officials to follow state law.
Over what time period did it meet the planned rate of return? If it averages it over the long term, it sounds like they have done an unusually good job.
Yup.
Unusually competent.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2014/06/public-pensions
Interesting how they never discuss the reasons for underfunding. Pension holidays, anyone? I said my pension fund has met its targeted returns. It would be fine if the state had met their contractual obligations, but it seems now we have to add another factor to the equation. We have to assume that government will not meet their obligations!
One of the big myths about public pension funding is that pension holidays are dastardly acts done unilaterally by politicians when nobody’s looking. They may be dastardly, but they’re done openly with legislative approval. The usual justification is that the pension funds are so well-funded that the government doesn’t need to contribute anything that year, based on the same actual assumptions and projections that are used by the funds, whose board of trustees are dominated by union appointees. I don’t remember ever reading about a public employee union objecting to a pension holiday at the time it was being passed. That’s probably because there is an understanding that some of the money that would otherwise have been contributed to “overfunded” pension funds will flow to active and/or retired union members, at a minimum through wages, and often also through retroactive enhancements to retirement benefits. It’s interesting to look at the legislative history of the statutes that govern employer contributions and retirement benefits: very often, retroactive enhancements either accompany pension holidays or follow with a one year lag.
This is a much messier story than any of the dominant “pro-pension” or “anti-pension” narratives express.
Hah! Since union contracts are negotiated by thousands of locals, how likely do you think that they had a voice in pension holiday decisions. NONE! There is no one monolithic contract to which all adhere; it is district by district. My state is one of the worst in the nation when it comes to school funding, and you would be hard pressed to find any perks rewarded instead. It was just poor management on the part of the state. Instead of saving for the bad times, they spent every last dime they could hoping the goods time would last forever. Stupidity. I’m sure union leadership could have done more; members bear responsibility for thinking the union would take care of calls to action, but they had no way of controlling the legislators actions. We dutifully paid our share. Twenty, twenty hindsight.
I don’t know what your state is, but in mine, and in most others I’m familiar with, the big unions have a very big voice in state legislatures. They also have a very big voice in how pension funds are managed. But yes, of course, it does depend on the state. Tell me your state and I’ll tell you what retroactive pension benefit enhancements have been passed in the last 15 years. Speaking of spending every last dime when times are flush, 1998-2000 were very popular years for pension holidays coupled with retro benefit enhancements. That’s the double-whammy of pension underfunding. These aren’t small details. The unions are among the key players in this story.
I live in Illinois.
Sorry, 2old2teach, I replied to you above, under the wrong thread.
I don’t think it’s that complicated. My father made a lot of money in his business from suing people who broke contracts with him, since contracts are binding, so he won virtually every time. When one party meets their responsibilities stipulated in the contract and the other party doesn’t, regardless of why, the latter is culpable. And when the reason why is because that party has the ability to pass laws in their own favor, I think that’s an abuse of power.
Having the success of a pension scheme dependent on the financial condition of a taxing authority 30 years in the future is guaranteed to produce disasters.
Unfortunately the planning horizon of pension plans is so far off that few governments are likely to manage them in a sound way.
New Jersey holds the financial bag for Newark as does Essex County. I am guessing the set up is the same in other states.
Detroit’s biggest problem was back in 1980, 20+ auto plants closed! All the other causes pale when held up to that.
That was 43 years ago. To the extent that closing of auto plants reduced Detroit’s tax basis they should have taken that into account in making their pension promises. If I lose my job or otherwise suffer a reduction in income it behooves me to reduce my expenditures. Detroit had plenty of time to adjust it’s finances so as to live within it’s means.
Sorry – I can’t count. That was 33 years ago.
It’s the state that should have adjusted their belt buckle and stopped taking such huge chunks of the revenue generated in cities like Detroit, which really needed it. Taking from struggling Peter to pay Paul is not equity, it’s larceny.
Having co-taught in a classroom (really, a trailer in Charlotte, NC) filled to the brim with 36 at-need 6th grade students, this suggestion to increase class size to 46 seems cruel and unnecessary. I challenge whomever the political beings are that promote these inoperable demographics to come on in and try to teach the class themselves – I guarantee that they will run away screaming in frustration.
Great article just published in Metro Times by Tom Pedroni, statistician and researcher, on Detroit Public Schools http://metrotimes.com/news/news-features/detroit-public-schools-em-shifts-funds-from-classroom-1.1719685
Duane,
Me too! I also am one of many who paid into SS before entering the teaching profession, and unfortunately, won’t see a dime of it when I retire.