This is becoming an increasingly large problem.

"Panther Brown Tdi Volvo Shooting Brake Manual Miata RWD Wagon Stole HondaBro's Accord." (ningaboss)
09/06/2016 at 18:15 • Filed to: None

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Get your shit together Oklahoma. Education funding continues to get cut :(.

DISCUSSION (20)

WRXforScience > Panther Brown Tdi Volvo Shooting Brake Manual Miata RWD Wagon Stole HondaBro's Accord.
09/06/2016 at 18:28

I left Oklahoma to teach in Texas. I got a $10k dollar a year raise, didn’t have to pay state income tax anymore, and got to teach better kids (think about how bad “adults” in OK are, then realize that they were way shittier when they were teenagers).

Oklahoma doesn’t require Physics because they don’t have enough people to teach it. Fewer than 90 people take the Physics certification exam in OK each year.

TheHondaBro > WRXforScience
09/06/2016 at 18:35

And they wonder why everyone makes fun of Oklahoma.

Brickman > WRXforScience
09/06/2016 at 18:36

Less physics = more earthquakes :)

WRXforScience > TheHondaBro
09/06/2016 at 18:37

I think their plan is to make the place so terrible that everyone stops making fun of them because of just how sad it is. The good old, won’t pick a fight with a guy in a wheelchair defense.

unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins) > TheHondaBro
09/06/2016 at 18:39

Hank Hill makes fun of Oklahomans too.

wiffleballtony > Panther Brown Tdi Volvo Shooting Brake Manual Miata RWD Wagon Stole HondaBro's Accord.
09/06/2016 at 18:46

I will probably get flamed for this but. In my experience, while schools don’t get good funding, the funding they do get they squander on stupid crap. Like iPads for teachers, and students which break within a year.

SVTyler > Panther Brown Tdi Volvo Shooting Brake Manual Miata RWD Wagon Stole HondaBro's Accord.
09/06/2016 at 18:51

Same thing’s going on all over the country man, education’s a terrible field to get into in a lot of states thanks to the cutting of funding across the board. My mom’s a first-grade teacher in Indiana and has worked 100 hours a week about ten months out of the year for the past four years in order to meet the state’s byzantine requirements for documentation and test scores, all the while making the same amount of money she did five years ago because the state cut back on education and imposed completely impossible test score requirements (seriously, fuck Mike Pence) that no school beyond the ones in wealthy areas (where the kids are genetically predisposed to being intelligent to begin with) can possibly achieve.

It’s actually really sad, the only reason my mom and her co-workers got into teaching was because they genuinely wanted to help kids and dedicated their whole being to it, only to have their dream ruined by the fucking assholes in power who only cut funding just so they can brag about how much taxes they’re saving their constituents (fuck the future of this country, at least big bad tyrannical gubment isn’t stealing your money!). That’s all it really is, political grandstanding and the teachers are the ones paying the price. And people wonder why no one’s getting into teaching.

WRXforScience > Brickman
09/06/2016 at 18:51

It’s funny to watch people who calmly walk outside to take cellphone videos of tornadoes destroying entire neighborhoods completely lose their shit when an earthquake topples over a single picture frame.

I was in a fracking presentation at college in 2004, where a Shell representative guaranteed that fracking was completely safe and that I should go work for them in the ever-expanding fracking field.

I asked about possible groundwater contamination, since their own graphics showed ground cracks extending to almost the water table (they said it wasn’t to scale and that the gas would only bubble up the well, because the ground wasn’t porous, lol). I asked what they’d do with the ludicrous amounts of water they were going to use, and if it would be a health or safety concern. I was assured that the water wouldn’t be harmful and that it’d just replace the oil and gas that had already been removed during previous drilling, essentially remediating any previous harm...

I was unimpressed with his responses and could smell the bullshit, I’d taken enough fluid dynamics courses to tell that he was selling one shitty monorail. I would have called him out more directly, but I hadn’t taken any geology classes and really didn’t have enough to straight up call him a huckster.

But at least it’s better than burning coal (even with the earthquakes).

Under_Score > wiffleballtony
09/06/2016 at 19:02

Why would you get flamed for this? It’s the sad truth. Kind of like how the reason ghetto schools fail is because the kids have no interest in learning.

just-a-scratch > wiffleballtony
09/06/2016 at 19:11

providing technology to students isn’t always a bad deal. A fair number of schools that do so are using tablet computers instead of books. Books actually cost quite a lot per student. Of course, books don’t break as easily.

Technology in the hands of students also serves to educate the students on the technology.

Phyrxes once again has a wagon! > Panther Brown Tdi Volvo Shooting Brake Manual Miata RWD Wagon Stole HondaBro's Accord.
09/06/2016 at 19:16

Wow, makes sense though. I left public education to go to an independent school for no salary change and a completely different environment. Class of 31 to classes of often less than 12, yes the 12 sets of parents are more demanding but if I was paying that tuition bill I would be demanding too.

wiffleballtony > just-a-scratch
09/06/2016 at 19:34

Technology in the hands of students also serves to educate the students on pornography.

FTFY, at least according to my teacher father in law

In all honesty, teaching technology is important. But, I’m not sure iPads are the way to do that, since you’re not really learning about the underlying technology that makes it work since they are locked down.

just-a-scratch > wiffleballtony
09/06/2016 at 20:14

That’s fair enough. There are limits to what can be taught with iPads. And yes, the kids middle school age and older will figure out how to get past any content blocking software you put on there. Most of them were going to get to those sites anyway.

For some students, there might not be any other access to a piece of technology like that. This is where a tablet computer can make the biggest impact. Sadly, the schools with needy kids without regular internet and technology access are not the ones most often issuing such things. As long as school funding is significantly tied to property taxes (like it is here) poor folks in poor neighborhoods will have less well funded schools.

Before we go off on the ‘per capita funding is not a good predictor of educational quality’ debate, let’s just acknowledge that a basic funding level is necessary to have a good school.

wiffleballtony > just-a-scratch
09/06/2016 at 20:26

You’re absolutely right on all points.

Conan > Panther Brown Tdi Volvo Shooting Brake Manual Miata RWD Wagon Stole HondaBro's Accord.
09/06/2016 at 21:11

It’s everywhere. We’ll probably lose 3/5 of our department next year. Last year the school system hired a guy with two different mental conditions. I’d gleefully take tougher certification tests and get more degrees if it got us respect.

Conan > wiffleballtony
09/06/2016 at 21:13

We wish we could spend it on different stuff. I actually got forced to order textbooks from one retailer for 1500 when I could get them for 150 from Amazon this year. I proceeded to order the books myself from Amazon. The books they paid 1500 for still aren’t here so my students are using the ones I paid for.

Conan > wiffleballtony
09/06/2016 at 21:13

What makes it more frustrating is that my school’s iPad initiative is only for teacher sets. It’d only make sense to me if my students could use them.

Conan > Phyrxes once again has a wagon!
09/06/2016 at 21:15

I’d go in a heartbeat if I could keep the same salary.

Phyrxes once again has a wagon! > WRXforScience
09/06/2016 at 21:38

As a Physics/Comp Sci teacher this makes me sad. But Physics and upper level math instruction is often tied to the community. If the area is one that does not value those subjects (generally due to the majority of jobs not needing them) then there is no parental demand they be offered so they generally don’t exist.

This is true even in Virginia, the majority of your Physics/Comp Sci/Calculus is either in suburban school districts or at the regional governors schools throughout the rest of the state. The rural counties can’t justify the position for what may well be one section of a course. I saw that when I was student teaching and taught the only section of Physics in the building.

SpecedOut > WRXforScience
09/07/2016 at 10:05

“We’re coming for you, Mississippi.” - Oklahoma