Vendors selling what? Schools probably have to buy it because of a state mandate or to try and deal with state mandated testing.
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Fifty two percent of Texas state tax rev goes to education funding. That is too high. Medicaid is increasing quickly and will begin crowding everything else out soon enough. In my opinion, individuals don't do enough on their own to contribute to his/her own education. How did America do so well a century ago with much less than we have now? I have my own opinions but schools are not underfunded. I hear the waste is astronomical. This comes from vendors who sell to schools.
So I did a little more digging on Mr. Patrick's 52%. That is every dime spent on public education from EC-3 through PhD from federal, state and local dollars including university athletic departments. Should we really be including the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on college sports when discussing k-12 funding?
You don’t pay for teachers retirement. They have an automatic deduction from their paycheck every month that goes into the teacher retirement fund. So they pay for their own retirement just like you do.I see. One of the reasons that I don't discuss this with my teacher friends and family is because they lose their effing minds when it comes to their employment and pensions. I made the mistake talking about the viability of long term pensions for government employees with a Harris County employee relative once. I won't do that again.
My thoughts are if I have to pay for my own retirement out of my pocket, I shouldn't have to pay for yours out of mine also. I don't care what your profession is.
You don’t pay for teachers retirement. They have an automatic deduction from their paycheck every month that goes into the teacher retirement fund. So they pay for their own retirement just like you do.
If there is an employer match, I certainly AM paying for their retirement. And Nueces has it nailed on defined benefit. That's the thing that is un-sustainable.....whether it be schools, counties, police, fire, etc...You don’t pay for teachers retirement. They have an automatic deduction from their paycheck every month that goes into the teacher retirement fund. So they pay for their own retirement just like you do.
Since the collapse and bailout of 2008, a lot has changed in the private sector. Those sectors that are cozy with government and have access to low cost loans have not felt the effect of the actual sting that has taken place. If you look at agriculture, service industries, and many more, the pie has become smaller by a large factor. Everyone, including the school systems are going to have to adjust to the newer normal of stagnating growth with higher inflation. This is the cost of bailing out the financial system in 2008 and will continue for some time. Meaning if you print money to cover bad loans, at some point that money is going to make it into the economy and once the rate of circulation for the currency increases then inflation will kick in... If you have high debt loads at the same time with increasing interest rates, then more will be taken out of the econ to service this debt while money is chasing scarce items like food, oil, gas, etc.... It's called stagflation and it is coming to a town near us all.
First off TRS is like teachers social securityff is solvent. It will not require a stayint
Inflation has been at record lows for the past 15 years. The new normal is rapid growing economies with low inflation and low wage growth. That is the new normal and that has nothing to do with school finance here in Texas. You see republicans are in a bit of a pickle. We are a low tax, low service state with a balanced budget, a healthy rainy day fund a booming economy without the state pension issues facing other states. Republicans run on cutting taxes and they have to follow through if they want to stay if office. So while the economy has recovered and tax revenues have increased they still need to find ways to cut. There just isn't a lot of bloat in the Texas budget so in order to cut taxes they had to pass the buck on to local entities. Now they are getting push back because of high property taxes. In January Gov Abbot even said that in order to do property tax reform that the state would have to chip in more for education and stop passing unfunded mandates down to the counties and cities. It would be very easy for the state to adjust funding to shift the burden away from local property taxes. However they can't pass a tax cut if they do that.
This brings us to TRS. Its like our social security. The state is a technically the employer and instead of contributing to social security they contribute to TRS. It is solvent. It will be solvent for a very long time. When they went from the rule of 70 to the rule of 80 all of the solvency issues were solved. The state can keep things the same and TRS will be fine as long as there isn't a mass exodus of people out of the state. So why are republicans going after TRS. Well they need a tax cut and we have a balanced budget amendment. So you make it seem like teachers are doing a bad job and they are over paid and have a really cushy retirement so you can have enough political support to gut the system so they can further cut taxes.
My father in-law is a superintendent in a fairly small district. He has nearly 40 years in education. He is going to get nearly 100% of his current pay at retirement, he had a prinicipal buddy retire a few years ago that will get over 100% of his final pay annually until he dies. His buddy had a ton of years in, but still a great deal.
I would get around $2,600 a month if I retired at 65 from social security. Whereas my father-in law will get over $10K per month. Our income is in the same ballpark, before you pull out the $18K a year I have to pull out to fund my own 401K.
So comparing teachers retirement to social security is apples to oranges.
And we have stopped speaking about public education, as it gets pretty heated. He is a great guy and I am glad he is taken care of, but damn.
As a whole mostly a flat to downward trend. Its not the 14% from the 70's and 80's. Since the crash there have only been 10 months where inflation was above 3% and 12 months with deflation. The average has been less than 2% a year.
Check out the historical data. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/
Why TRS isn't like CPS (Chicago Public Schools)
CPS pension. Teachers contribute 2%, District contributes 7.4%
TRS - Teachers contribute 7.7% State contributes 6.8%
CPS Calculator - % of final years salary = Years of Service x 2.2
TRS Calculator - % of average of final five years = years of service x 2.3
Average CPS Salary 71,000
Average Texas Teacher Salary 45,000
Right but the average rate of inflation has still been greater than the average growth rate so the real rate is compounding at a rate greater than the growth of the economy which is inflationary. I can understand the elected officials hesitancy to not fund anything at the pre 2008 levels considering the immediate deflationary period following 2008. We are about to enter some significant inflation in the next decade. I am in favor of inviting competition into the school system as competition makes everyone better. I suspect this is becoming a greater issue as the rate of inflation increases as cited on your chart.
You are not correct. Growth in terms of GDP is corrected for with inflation. So if GDP was 5% and inflation was 2% then GDP would be reported as 3%. Since we have had about 8 years of straight growth even though rather anemic at some point you can't say that inflation has been greater than growth rate. That means we would have been in a recession at some point.
We also have privatization of public schools in Texas in the form of charter schools. The students at charter schools perform about as well as their public school counterparts but their teachers get paid a lot less than those at traditional public schools. I can't speak for other parts of the state but in San Antonio charters are killing Catholic schools and some of the other smaller private christian schools in the poorer parts of town. They aren't really doing much to the public schools
Charters are funded by the same formula that public schools are. Private schools that pay teachers the same or better than public schools are expensive. Places like St Stephen's or St Andrew's that run around 25k a year.
This is my opinion. If you decouple the funding by student and allow each student to carry a voucher for his/her specified tax dollars, then schools will focus on the client rather than the bureaucracy that has developed around school funding. The school systems have become jobs programs for adults... In the private sector, the paper pushers and middle men get cut and minimized in importance at an ongoing rate. It's the people that interact with the client that get the best pay, aside from the risk taker which is ownership. However, if ownership has to compete then profit margins get thinned and competition for top talent takes center stage. Enter the top teacher, who would be the stars the the clients (parents/students) would pay for. They don't care to pay for superintendents that walk around, push papers, and make administrative decisions.....
That already happens. The school funding is based on student attendence per day. If a student goes from a public school to a charter schools then the tax dollars follow. You didn't know that?
Reduce state funding for public education.
Privatize TRS
Private school vouchers with no strings attached meaning private schools can refuse to enroll students and they wouldn't be subject to the same accountability measurements as public schools.(no STARR testing)
It's not the same. The state handles the money instead of the customer in the current format so there is no accountability from purchasers. Once schools have to fight for customers, the bloat is cut and the resources go to pleasing the customer. As it is, the parents who care get no say in the day to day decisions in a school district. It's all run by the administration who is accountable to the bureaucracies and unions that have grown up around the funding source. I'm no fool, the graft withing the school systems is not hard to see. You have even admitted that it exists. Anyway, money trading hands from bureaucrat to bureaucrat is not the same as customer to service provider. You need to get out in the real world and make a payroll. It will open your eyes, lol.