This is what happens........Follow

Detroit should have no problem funding its own schools. There's plenty of money there to fritter away on other social programs. Special Ed (IDEA, 1990) (national politics), over taxing productive people (state/national politics) certainly add to the problem, but in 2005 the average Detroit metro teacher was earned over $47.00 an hour. Gotta love those union contracts.

Liberals run a school board, a school board signs contracts, contracts set teacher pay, teachers fail to teach students, students can't read.

Liberals fail at education.

In Detroit.

Dunno, you tell me, Epic.

Undeniably fair. Personally, I would love to see an example of its success, though I would not discount the possibility off hand.

Considering the more liberal states have better education, I'd say you're not looking very hard.

Depending on the program and your aims, it's 4-6 years of additional education after high school.

I pay about $23k a year at Rutgers, all things considered, and will be doing so for a total of 6 years to graduate with a teaching certification, a masters in education, and an undergrad degree. So my personal investment is $138k.

[EDIT]
And Rutgers is a public school, and I pay in-state tuition. Out of state students pay $10k more. Private school students will see even higher costs.

Edited, May 9th 2011 9:46pm by idiggory

First off, why does this matter? Did the degrees earned by the other 99% of people who graduated college magically cost them less or something?

Secondly, the very concept of trying to figure out "what a fair wage for <anyone> is" shows just how warped your understanding of labor value is. There's no such thing as a third party figuring out a fair wage is. The fair wage is what the employer is wiling to pay, which the employee is willing to accept. Unfortunately, when the government (and some larger unions) get involved, the first thing they do is eliminate competition so that the normal market forces you'd use to make that process work aren't present. Then they sell the masses on the idea that we should just make up pay numbers by fiat based on what we think the value of something is.

It's ridiculous.



Well, if we're to take the assumption that K-12 public school teachers make more than K-12 private school teachers as truth, then this would seem to be the case. Of course, we all know it's not really about the pay though. It's about whether the system operates in a competitive environment or not. Private schools manage to produce better educated students with less money spent per student very very consistently.

Your question is somewhat of a red herring, isn't it?



The city of Detroit was an experiment in planned civic development, which failed spectacularly. The problems and how they are connected to those running the city go farther than just the auto industry. You're assuming that the city affected the car industry which affected the prosperity. It's more like the city affected prosperity, which chased away anyone who wanted a better life and was able to leave, which left the city (and the car industry) with those who stayed. It wasn't quite the chain you're talking about, but the whole mess is interconnected.



And I'm pretty sure they were also union employers who were overpaid. I'm not sure what your point is. If you think that the pay of those workers is the doing of the evil free market, you really don't understand what's going on.

The problem with Detroit is that they ran all the actual free market players out of the city. Which left only those that could be subsidized or contractually forced to stay. The result was predictable. The city fell into decline. You just can't maintain a system like that for very long. Detroit is a lesson for us about what happens when liberal economic policies are actually adopted across the board. It's what happens when you attempt to have "really smart people" decide what the outcomes should be and empower them to make those things happen instead of just letting the natural forces out there determine the result. No matter how smart you think you are, or how well funded your committees are, you're just never going to determine how much a loaf of bread (or a persons salary) should be better than a market in which people get to choose what to spend their own money on.


That's why liberal policies fail. The unfortunate fact is that not enough people realize this.

Good thing the GOP made sure to bust up the WI teacher's unions. Those lazy assholes were only at #8 in the nation. Maybe now they'll shoot past the Republican bastion of Vermont for the #1 spot.

Republicans, apparently.

People freak out whenever they hear that public employees make decent salaries--it doesn't matter who they are. Some positions have become a taboo topic to talk about (like police), but the others are huge.

NJ has one of the highest median teacher salaries in the nation. But in terms with the NJ economy, the most teachers make lower-mid middle class wages. Then administrators are upper middle class.

IDK, that doesn't strike me as an issue. I fail to see why public employees doing important jobs (especially when they require degrees that will cost them $80k+ in investment) shouldn't be able to earn middle class salaries.

(why edit when I can +1?)

Edited, May 9th 2011 11:12pm by idiggory

Assuming this wiki page is correct, Detroit has been spread pretty evenly as far as mayoral parties go. Looks like they generally cycle through periods of one, then the other.

Hardly seems fair to blame the city's failures on liberals alone, considering they've only consistently been in power since '68.

Also, if you are going to blame libs for the reason people left the city, you should maybe take a minute to actually, y'know, consider history. The liberal policies that drove the white middle-class from Detroit were those defending the auto plants' color-blind promotion policies. That's right, they were pissed that the city wasn't trying to actively keep blacks down.

So are you telling me you think it's a mistake that the gov't didn't put forth legislation to stop color-blind, merit-based promotions?

Edited, May 9th 2011 11:11pm by idiggory

They've held it since '62. As blaming parties for failures occuring during their term goes, this is pretty much as fair as it gets. That may not be very fair at all, but it's ridiculous to say this is because the period of time is too short. It is utterly butterly absurd.



Of course, Guenny's doing more than comparing the merits of the two jobs (and thus how much you might expect them to be paid, respectively).



She's drawing an equivalence between someone's trustowrthiness/moral fibre and how much they are paid. The way it is worded, 'leave your child', is evocative of this, rather than the quality of teaching.

Then the cocktail waitress is brought in. This is a high-earning job, or so we are being led to believe, that is surrounded by prejudice - that they are bad influences on children. This prejudice is weaponised and transferred with vengeance on to teachers; if they earn less than coctail waitresses then, according to the equivalence, they must be even worse. Therefore, if our kids are to be raised in a wholesome environment, we have to pay teacehrs mroe to attract the right sort.

I'm sure you understood that, but I think Guenny's duplicity needs to be made explicit.



I'm a republican!

How can you blame racism when your fun fact clearly demonstrates it to be not true?

Considering Detroit only has 3 white families any more, that means there have to be some minorities graduating.

That so? Double the median eh? In Iowa (9th in the nation in education), which is where both Guenny and I reside, the starting salary is $27,284.00 which isn't enough to cover a 1 bedroom apartment and their student loans. After ten years, it's $41,083. The average median income from 2008 in this county? $52,029 A far @#%^ing cry from double the salary you claim.

Senior Engineer: $73,741

Brigadier General: $97,476

The median salary of waitresses in 2009? $20,380, without tips. So roughly around 25-27.

So, what other bullsh*t are you trying to perpetuate?

Edited, May 10th 2011 10:44am by Kaelesh

Where'd you come up with that figure?