DecayableBrick t1_j7pvafc wrote
Reply to comment by 6ixOutOf10 in 23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math, per state test results by bobbyw24
Baltimore city public schools have an enormous amount of funding shoveled into the fire, but it's never enough. The administration and the unions will always demand more no matter how abysmal the results they produce are.
Matt3989 t1_j7q3dgx wrote
Oh yeah, this is definitely the Teachers Union's Fault.
Go back to the GOP meeting with your Union Busting bullshit. God forbid we pay teacher a teacher with a degree, license, and 5 years of experience more than $60k/year.
DecayableBrick t1_j7q4ca6 wrote
Reddit has this blind spot when it comes to unions. They hate the police union and take great umbrage at the overtime fraud and various other games that they play but refuse to believe that other public service unions are doing similar things. This is despite Baltimore city schools failing multiple audits. It's a very strange cognitive bias.
jdl12358 t1_j7q8l66 wrote
In this city, we just experienced a massive overtime fraud scheme that was not possible without the assistance and protection of the police union. Show me the evidence of that happening for teachers in the city. In reality, teachers in the city are having their pay and benefits lag behind the surrounding counties now.
DONNIENARC0 t1_j7qcff2 wrote
I don't think anyone is accusing the teachers of anything, moreso the administration.
The last external audit from 2018 was scathing, found tens of millions in waste, and that the city failed to correct many of these problems from the previous external audit in 2012.
Maybe if North Avenue was actually held accountable and so much money wasn't being wasted annually then maybe these teachers wouldn't have to do shit like paying for classroom supplies out of their own pocket, just for example.
jdl12358 t1_j7qfgeh wrote
The guy above did not make a direct accusation, but implied that the hate Police Unions get from people supportive of organized labor should also target teacher's unions.
I'm a teacher in the city, I'm all too familiar with admin issues. Admin and budget issues happen when teachers aren't a part of the process and North Ave gets staffed by people getting their backs scratched. No better place to look at extremely sketchy budgets and funding than charter schools which exist almost completely to go around the teachers unions and traditional public schools.
DONNIENARC0 t1_j7qfvsb wrote
Ahh gotcha, fair enough. Yeah I honestly don't know which union school admins are a part of, but I'd assume AFSCME?
DecayableBrick t1_j7r6uk7 wrote
Pay raises and new hires were made without proper review.
In 2017, $85,000 of salary adjustments were made by six employees who were permitted to do so without any independent review. One of them “processed approximately 8,500 of these adjustments totaling $14.7 million,” the auditors said, pointing out that “similar conditions were noted in our two preceding audit reports.”
• Poor control of overtime.
In a test of overtime payments for 23 employees, none had been approved in advance as required by policy. During 2016 “these 23 employees individually were paid overtime ranging from $2,821 to $51,849, with total collective overtime payments of $392,813.”
• Overpayments of overtime.
Although identified as a problem in a prior audit, city schools had still not corrected the overtime rate paid to employees in a certain union. The result: excess payments totaling $208,000 in 2015 and 2016.
This is from the link provided. Would you like to update your position given the facts? Keep in mind this was only a test sample where the irregularities were found. The true extent of the problem could be widespread.
TheAlGler t1_j7qxggl wrote
Private Sector Unions = Based.
Public Sector Unions = Meh.
wutuprdrama t1_j7wyqp3 wrote
LMBO 😆 this dude still found a way to blame republicans for this. In frickin baltimore of all places. Wew lad thanks for this I needed a good laugh
Matt3989 t1_j7y7qls wrote
You don't have great reading comprehension do you?
VygotskyCultist t1_j7q4vfc wrote
Here's the current city schools budget. How would you reallocate the money if you're so smart?
Weak_Management_8329 t1_j7qkkqc wrote
I made an account just for this comment. At a quick glance, the budget is 73% salaries. It's pretty easy to pinpoint where you need to reallocate.
I would start with luxury programs such as the Equity Unit and College Readiness. Equity unit, not sure what that's doing in a school system that is primarily comprised of minority students.
I would then move on to the College Readiness initiatives because BCPS students attend college at abysmally low rates and graduate college at even lower rates. It's better to give students a good high school education and no college than a shitty high school education followed by, again, no college. College is for when your students can pass basic proficiency tests, until then it's money down the drain.
I would then start an internal RoI review of highly paid personnel, starting with administrators first and leaving academics for last. Does your work product justify your salary? If not, there is someone out there who will do it for cheaper.
This is one of the highest funded education systems in the country per student. The issue is clearly not a lack of money, it's in how the money is spent.
VygotskyCultist t1_j7rf87a wrote
College Readiness is NOT a luxury. Just because you're seeing the schools with the worst scores doesn't mean there aren't students in the city doing amazingly well. I commend you for actually looking at the budget, but I'm not convinced your approach would fix much.
Also, as a side note, the reason why Baltimore spends so much per pupil is because poor kids are more expensive to teach. Their immediate physical needs (food, clothes, before- and after-care) that can't be provided at home are often provided by the schools. Poor students often need counselors, school nurses, and psychologists at much higher rates than rich kids, also paid for by the school. Do you have any idea how many of my students rely on the school nurse as their source of primary care? Not to mention the fact that many of Baltimore's schools are falling apart and need constant fixes just to be habitable. It's the Sam Vines Boots-Theory at the systemic scale.
Are we paying too much on personnel? Maybe! But there aren't exactly qualified teachers lining up to work in a school system whose main source of media representation is Fox45's smear campaign. Even at the rates we pay now, we can't fill all of our vacancies.
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