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In article ,
says...

On Sun, 3 Oct 2010 23:46:17 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

No but I think a real manager would help.
Someone who has actually been successful running a business

Well, who are you going to call? Ghostbusters? FYI, education isn't a
business. It doesn't need to show a financial profit. It's a societal
imperative.

"Profit" is a red herring. How about just running your operation
within it's budget?

It was MBAs who ran the economy into the ground.

So, it's people who are trained to run a business who are at fault for
running the economy into the ground. I guess that would include Bush.

Absolutely GW Bush is a prime example of your typical MBA
They learn a lot about creative ways of raising capital and how to
game the system but they don't learn much about the day to day of
running a business.

"Real educators" are not the people I want running the largest food
outlet in my county or running the largest bus system. I don't want
them running a $100,000,000 maintenance department and I don't want
them making real estate decisions about the two billion dollars worth
of property they own.

Real educators don't "run" any of those things directly. They administer a
system, and most have years of experience doing it. But, you'd rather have
who do it exactly. So far, you've said "real managers." Who would they be?
How are they trained?

The school board executives are always going to be teachers who have
come up through the system.

Unfortunately the vertical integration caused by the fact that you
can't go very far in the education department without being a teacher
assures we have people running it with absolutely zero management
experience.

? So, how would you structure a $multi-billion system? You have to use
someone?

To start with they should divest everything that is not actually
teaching in the classroom. Get a bus company to run the busses, get a
real estate maintenance company to take care of the physical plant and
get a food service company to run the food. Even our boated military
does that.

Personally I prefer vouchers and private or charter schools but i'm
sure that just makes your head explode.

Who do you think she be doing the teaching if not the teachers? Then,
you
claim they should be administrators!

This argument makes no sense. The expression is pretty hollow.

The failed teachers should just be sent on their way, not made
"managers". The reality is you can't fire a bad teacher so you have to
promote them.

Huh? Who's the manager now?? The principal? You're saying failed teachers
are promoted to ??

You can't do much of anything in the education establishment if you
are not a former teacher.

And, your point?

It is very easy in my school district, you can just look at the bio of
all of the salaried administration. What county are you in, I am sure
it is online. These folks like any opportunity to show off their
diplomas and "classroom
cred"

The reality is there are no managers in most school systems.School
boards have billion dollar budgets and nobody there seems capable of
efficiently managing that $1.428 billion budget (what my county
spends). We are the #40 school system. 39 spend more than we do.
If I was the king, the first thing I would do to cut education
spending would be to privatize the food, the busses and maintaining
the property. That alone is over a half a billion in our system and
all of them are horribly managed.

Depends on if there enough safeguards in place. That means regulation and
oversight. Who, pray tell, will be doing that?

Busses are regulated by the department of transportation and the
public services administration. Food is regulated by the health
department. EXCEPT IN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM.

Busses are beholden to the same regulations that any other vehicle on the
road follows. Food is regulated (not all that well) by the FDA. Not sure
what you're getting at. Are you trying to claim that a school administrator
can feed children uninspected (regulation-wise) chicken????

I can't speak for California but in Florida the school system has
their own inspectors. (Building, health, bus etc)
It is not an issue about the quality of the operations as much as the
cost.

The maintenance department is simply a government boondoggle and a
private company could do a better job for half the money, still
returning money to stock holders. That is simple to evaluate. Either
the roof leaks or it doesn't, the light bulbs get replaced or they
don't. Tracking trouble calls, response times, cycle times, cost and
customer satisfaction are very easy to document.
That is a very well developed business model in the private sector
that just seems to baffle government maintenance operations.

So, schools that are underfunded are out of luck I suppose. You're going to
take the budget responsibilities away from the local officials and give it
to who?

If they can't afford to hire out these services to someone who can do
it cheaper, how can they possibly afford to be operating the
department themselves at a higher cost?

This very much sounds like a rant. Who exactly are you angry with and why?
What did they do to you? Do you have any solutions or is it just privatize
everything?

I am angry with a 1.42 billion school budget and being at the bottom
of the pile in student achievement. Then you find out that only about
40% of that money actually goes to teaching kids. The rest gets
gobbled up in the administration. They are doing a lot of things that
would be better in private hands.
In the case of the government doing mundane things, that is usually
the best solution.

Someday go to your local grade school and find out how many porters the
Unions make they keep in school all day long, just in case somebody
needs a cleanup in isle 5... The rest of the day, they sit in a office
or boiler room, earning a salary for doing nothing..

--
OH, I could do the 105 footer, but I would hate to waste the last few
seconds of my life with my eyes closed, screaming like a little
girl...

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