Ed Schultz just had on a great caller.

[AX10]

This caller said the following:
-Gas prices will keep on dropping towards $2.00 until election day. Should the GOP keep control of both houses, the price of gas will go back up to $3.00.
-We will be hearing about these so-called airplane "incidients" until election day
-About the Gary Indiana teachers strike: the problem is that the school system is top heavy with overpaid administrators. I must concur, that is a problem. We have that problem here in the suburbs of Connecticut.

[flpoljunkie]

1. Really? CNN just said that gas may be down to $2/gal by Thankgiving.

I did not hear the complete segment regarding who was saying this--just the end of it.

[ramapo]

2. Top Heavy School Districts

Same problem here in NJ. Everybody bitches about what teachers make.

The Superintendent of our two-school regional district makes $209K plus many perks!
Then each school has a principal and vice principals. His salary is one of the highest in Nj and more than that of the supt. for the City of Paterson.

Then there are directors and assistants and on and on....just like most corporations.

[AX10]

4. In Connecticut, our suburbs have "Dean of Students" too.

Many Superindentents get a car too.

[MisoWeaver]

3. In Dallas there is one administrator for every teacher

Is it any wonder why classrooms go begging!

[Odin2005]

6. WTF, what's with all the administrators?

[AnneD]

7. We have done a bit of trimming

here in Houston. Of course, there can be a bit more. What I hate is when they start cutting ancillary staff (librarian, art teacher, pe teacher). They always like to cut Nurses. It is a tough choice, another teacher or a Nurse. My contention is that choice is not a valid choice. Funding should be sufficent to provide school staffing. The number of kids without health care is growing. Sometimes a School Nurse is the only medical person this kid will see outside of an ER. I could make much more money in a hospital setting, but my gifts are working with the elementary kids and their parents. School Nurses are hard to find.

I have noticed a lot of ads in Texas lately about how the lottery provides money for schools. The only way many Texans allowed the lotter in was FOR education. What happened is that it goes into the general fund (shades of the lock box) and every few years education is STILL coming up short on funding. AssWipe Perry tried to pull the same shenanigans with the Federal money ear marked for the education for the Katrina kids. He must have gotten a bunch of angry calls because he dropped that idea quicker than an unfaithful at a snake handler's revival. Houston ISD would have gone bankrupt. We have/are spending a fortune in counseling, screening and testing some of these kids. I won't even get into the hours of turoring to bring these kids up to their grade level.

[woodsprite]

5. Ditto the school admin. issue for Delaware too!

It takes alot of upper school administration to make sure no child is left a dime.