How many employees does it take to teach a kid?? Schools & Kids, posted by unclehomerr.., a resident of the Downtown neighborhood, on Jun 14, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Things one learns by listening to the radio...
The United States Department of Agriculture has more employees than there are farmers in the US.
Makes me think of the California Department of Education, the Alameda County Department of Education and the Pleasanton School Board and District.
Do you think they're all necessary and contribute to the quality of education?? Why??
What's the breakdown of Administrative expense vs. classroom expense. Cost accountants want to know!!
Posted by unclehomerr.., a resident of the Downtown neighborhood, on Jun 14, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I don't want to know.. I want others to reflect on the situation.
Every penny [need I say tax pennies??] spent on the bureaucracy, is a penny which will never get to the classroom. My point is too many pennies are wasted - at every level!
All I ask is the elimination of waste and more concentration on results.
Posted by Wilma Long, a resident of the Canyon Meadows neighborhood, on Jun 15, 2009 at 10:21 am
My husband owns a business. He doesn't have the luxury of hiring "more managers" than he has workers or clients. Many government jobs are indeed wasteful and we are finally realizing the price we have to pay for waste, like for example, the impact on education. Let's begin treating our government tax dollars like we would our own household and business and there will be more than enough money to go around.
Posted by John McCullough, a resident of the Jensen Tract neighborhood, on Jun 15, 2009 at 8:24 pm
A couple of points (while you're listening to talk radio and not doing your own research):
1) There are approx 2.5 million farmworkers in the U.S. and another 1.5 million non-pay family farmers. I am not including the farm "owners" who are increasingly large Agribusiness entities. At any rate, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 - 5 million. THESE ARE THE ONES THAT CAN BE COUNTED.
2) If your point is something along the lines of, "That crummy USDA; they don't do anything!" ...well, a third (approx. 30,000 out of 100,000-ish) of the USDA is the US Forest Service. And much of the USDA concerns itself with making sure that we don't have rampant malaria in our waterways by their widely successful mosquito-abatement programs and that we don't have nearly the amount of air carrier bird strikes because of their airport bird abatement programs.
3) I realize your main point is that our damn schools waste SO much money on staff (non-teachers). OK. Now, define waste. Is it librarians? That's staff. Is is school nurses? That's staff. Is it custodians, gardeners, computer IT? That's staff. I could go on and on, but I need to practice math facts with my daughter...
Posted by unclehomerr.., a resident of the Downtown neighborhood, on Jun 15, 2009 at 9:18 pm
When I say the USDA has more employees than there are farmers.. I don't mean 'farmworkers' or mosquito abatement people. Classrooms, also, ought to be pretty easy to understand. Money spent on things other than classrooms don't educate anyone.
You are correct that I'm just trying to make a point. I have no interest in doing scholarly research to come up with numbers.. the fact that the Pleasanton School Board is coming to us for more money shows that they can't come up with numbers either!
The redundancy of US, CA, AlCo, and Pls Administrators is unbelievable. I'm saying put the money in the classrooms.
I wonder how many car allowances and cellphones are involved at all the levels.. and, the classroom teachers don't have a way to call for help in case of emergency.
I'm only saying stop the waste at all levels. If it doesn't educate a child.. it needs to be looked at or cut.
Posted by Yo unclehomerr, a resident of another community, on Jun 15, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Schools get money from property taxes. US government gets money mainly from income taxes. It won't help the schools to cut USDA funding.
38% and growing of the federal budget goes to medicare and social security. Until we fix that, no amount of cost cutting in any other programs has a prayer of balancing the budget.
Posted by John McCullough, a resident of the Jensen Tract neighborhood, on Jun 16, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Uncle,
I appreciate your intelligent response. I do believe also that there is too much redundancy in our kids education. I may be the rare Dem that does not see much use in the Dept of Ed at the national level.
I would like you to think though about words like "waste," or "staff," or "overhead," or "bureaucracy ," because even though these seem on the surface to be bad, often staff = librarians and IT professionals and custodians. The actual number of people just pushing useless paper is very low at the local level. Thanks for listening.
Posted by John McCullough, a resident of the Jensen Tract neighborhood, on Jun 16, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Oh, BTW, even though I'm sure you understood that saying that there are "less farmers than USDA agents," does not mean that for every farmer picking lettuce there is a USDA person watching over their shoulder, it is a pretty inflammatory comparison. The average person upon hearing that would, IMHO, reach the wrong conclusion and have even more reason to hate the govt at every level.
Posted by Farmer Tom, a resident of another community, on Jun 19, 2009 at 12:33 am
For the record i'm a farmer and laughed when it said there is zero agriculture in Pleasanton (in the paper or something about a year ago. I admit I farm more land outside of Pleasanton but I'm a resident here and pay my taxes here.
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