How about another stimulus package that hires more qualified

[rateyes]

teachers to reduce class sizes in schools?

[Thothmes]

1. What about money to build the additional

class rooms needed to support reduced class sizes.

[rateyes]

5. I agree.

[Double T]

2. NO, NO, NO ,NO NO!!!!

Add more trillions to the national debt for stuff like this? Eventually their won't be any teachers or students 'cause the taxpayers and government will have gone broke!

[Fovea]

3. Isn't there an Irony Smily?

Cause a serious person would not suggest so.

[rateyes]

6. Yes, a serious person would suggest so. nt

[Double T]

10. I'm serious as a heart attack; and I seriously do suggest so!

[rateyes]

4. We've got to spend our way out of this mess.

And, we need a well-educated public, which current class-size inhibits. And, contrary to popular wishing, we are already broke---which means we need, along with the spending to create jobs (even if we have to borrow the money to pay for them), raise the estate tax...and, yes raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for the jobs.

As badly as we hate to say it, "redistribution of wealth" from the rich to the poor and middle-class is the only way out of this mess.


YES, YES, YES, YES, YES!!

[Double T]

12. "We've got to spend our way out of this mess????????"

YOU must be kidding!!! SPENDING to excess is exactly how we got ourselves into this mess. Want to know how many well educated Americans haven't got a job or have just lost their jobs? We're broke but the school tax man is still expecting his share just like every other year. The rich can't have it all; but either can the middle class. The rich need to be taxed on estates, salary, bonuses and 100% on social security taxes.

[rateyes]

14. No, I'm not kidding. Question: How are jobs created?

[Double T]

16. No businesses, no factories, no manufacturing.........

no jobs. Everything has gone and continues to go outside of the country; tech support, customer support, accounting, manufacturing, research and development, etc. Retail, offices and plants are going dark. So where are the educated people going to work; wal-mart, McDonald's or Burger King? This current economic situation is unlike anything we have experienced and there will be no solution or progress for many years or decades as very few are willing to admit what our problem is and even fewer want to do anything about it.

[Fovea]

19. Ok. Things to consider.

You appear to be completely ignorant of the work of John M. Keynes.
Go to wiki. Learn.

All spending is not equal.
Some has little velocity to contribute, such as high oil prices.
Others, such as the money you spend on a cheeseburger, support a lot of jobs.

There are easy fixes for our current situation. Roosevelt used several of them, and others are waiting to be used.
Spending didn't get us into this mess. GREED got us into this mess.

[rateyes]

20. Business, factories, manufacturing create jobs when there is demand.

There is no demand without, guess what? Spending. Business doesn't create jobs. Demand creates business, which in turn, creates jobs.

We have to spend our way out of this mess. It's the only viable solution.

[TahitiNut]

13. "their won't"?? Reely?

:dunce:

[DemBones DemBones]

7. You know that would cost too much money and besides

those teachers get the summer off. :sarcasm:

[rateyes]

8. That's so the teachers can go to the baseball parks and

watch millionaires play a game. After all, they are much more important than teachers. :sarcasm:

[DemBones DemBones]

9. Exactly. nt

[Pale Blue Dot]

11. I responded to your other thread. I am a teacher.

I teach 6th grade in an inner city middle school.

OF COURSE we should have made education the top priority.

OF COURSE class sizes should be smaller. IT'S TOO LATE NOW.

However, the more money we spend now that we don't have, the more that my 130 students are going to have to pay in the future. THIS IS NOT THEIR FAULT. As I said earlier, we have to be grown-ups: that means pay back what we owe, shift our priorities away from unnecessary possessions and stop passing our problems on to the next generation.

We CANNOT spend our way out of this mess.

[YvonneCa]

15. And besides, they are already doubling the size of the teaching...

...force by pushing veteran teachers out early and hiring two new teachers in their place. And...an additional benefit...they get rid of all those 'defined benefit' obligations sooner. :7 Seriously. I only wish I was kidding.


BTW. 6th grade...inner city, too...24 years.

[quaker bill]

17. Actually

spending is the only way we get out of this mess, and even then it will not be pretty.

What you cannot do is deregulate and tax-cut your way out of this mess.

It is true that we cannot train/educate our way out of this mess. However hiring more teachers would be a good thing, simply for the job growth. More paychecks yeild more tax revenue, more public support for the unemployed doesn't. If you are going to be paying to feed and shelter people anyway, perhaps putting them to work for it is a better choice.

Unfortunately, the kids you mention will be paying for this in the future, regardless of what we do. They might end up paying less if we spend and put people back to work sooner.

[rateyes]

21. We cannot pay back what we owe unless we have the money

to do it. We can't have money without jobs, and we won't create jobs without spending.

[Ilsa]

18. I love it. Also need more classrooms in many schools

so they will have a place to teach. Also need new schools as old buildings are "sick" and making teachers and students ill.

[LWolf]

22. Er....

There is not a pool of unemployed "more qualified" teachers out there to add to those already teaching.

That's the single sound argument against a rapid reduction in class size, as a matter of fact. There aren't enough teachers.

When CA introduced the class-size reduction program back in the 90s, we experienced the downside of instant reduction, as well as the benefits. While we only needed to hire teachers for K-3, not for 4-12, my district was recruiting in every state and Canada, and still having trouble filling openings. Every school had a "last resort" that at least provided a warm body in the classroom, if nothing else. There was an explosion of "emergency" credentials; temporary licenses issued to allow people to teach while finishing a regular license. If they could.

Every teacher who gets a (non-emergency) license is already "qualified," if not experienced. And the number of qualifications we have to satisfy to get, and to keep, that license is always increasing, at least in the two states I've taught in.

How about a stimulus package that reduces class size by every class in the nation by 2 students per year until the optimum 15 is reached; that would take about 8 years, giving time to prepare an army of new teachers.

In addition, how about a national licensing procedure that would grandfather in every licensed teacher in the nation, giving all veterans and new teachers a license that can be used without further hoops and fees in every state in the nation? It would be easier to get teachers to migrate to areas of need.

Then use some of that stimulus package to make wages, benefits, and job conditions such that enough talented people would WANT to become teachers.

I personally know at least 10 teachers who took early retirement, (one wasn't "early," she just had a high-earning spouse, and could do without the second paycheck,) or who were in the first few years of their teaching career and went back to school, got a different degree, and left teaching when the teacher hate-blame game in the form of the "standards and accountability" movement came to town. First, for some of us, at the state level. Then, for all of us, at the federal level under NCLB.

These WERE highly qualified, effective people. They had the luxury of choice, and they chose to leave the profession rather than endure destructive mandates.

There are reasons why half of teachers quit within the first 5 years of beginning their careers: poor working conditions and low salaries.

Use a stimulus package to address THAT, and reduce class sizes slowly. You'll get more bang for the buck in the long term.