Utah senator Chris Buttars wants to cut 12th grade & school buses.

Sledge

As described in this_story Utah senator Chris Buttars-R wants to eliminate the 12th grade along with various other ways of saving money such as eliminating school buses along with a couple other things.

To me it seems ridiculous that he wants to cut out an entire year of public education to make spending money more 'efficient.' I have read in other articles that he says 12th grade is a waste because all seniors do is "goof off." While most students do this some of the time and some students do this most of the time, I don't see how you can argue that the students aren't learning anything to prepare them for their future. As a Utah resident myself, I can't see how, if this happens, any good college will take me with only an 11th grade education.

The next thing: cutting school buses. (I know in here it says it will only cut buses for seniors, but I have heard from multiple other sources it will eliminate them completly.) A few things on this A) Many students don't own cars, parents can't/won't drive them, can't get a ride with any other students who have cars. These people will have no way to get to school. B) Pollution. Salt Lake City is incredibly smoggy as it is, and having every student having to take private cars instead of public transportation (aside from city buses/trains/etc. which are often not options at all) will put much more cars on the read, causing more traffic, but also cause even more polutants than are already out.

While I think the school bus thing is a bad idea, the cutting of an entire year of education angers me more. And I can see one much easier and more reasonable solution; raise taxes. Unfortunatley, Utah being one of the reddest states in the nation, I can not ever see this happening. While I acknowlege the arguments of it dettering buisnesses, I honeslty don't think a small tax raise that could eventually pay off the defecit, coul completley stop new buisness form starting up.

Discuss.
 
School buses are an american institution. Fight to save them! You'll regret it if they are gone.

On the other hand this dude sounds like an idiot so you may not have to fight very hard.

Have a nice day.
 
I think that cutting education is not the way to go, that's like trying to run a business and cutting training. Honestly, he sounds like the pointy haired boss from Dilbert.
 
The 12th grade thing is ludicrous, as most people in here have agreed.

The school bus thing... I'm 50/50 on. If you're able to, why not? I can definitely see them (in more urban areas) utilizing the public transportation, for the "older" students, that is already in place and merely adjusting them a bit so they are more accessible to students and they have busses running in accordance to school schedules. It could, inevitably, kill two birds with one stone (save money by getting rid of school buses and improve public transportation).

On the other hand, it could utterly fail if not planned carefully.
 
Wow...this is ridiculous. Cutting the 12th grade is just absurd. The school bus thing is pretty bad too. Hello, not everyone in America owns cars! Especially now, due to thie "recession". I find it completely idiotic; the people in charge would rather ruin the future of the younger generation than lose some money themselves. I would love to say tons of things about the morons doing all this stupid shit, but I'm not one for slander.
 
This is the same guy who supported an intelligent design bill, said that brown vs board of education was wrong, said black babies were ugly, and said that homosexuals were "the greatest threat to America going down." Don't take this too seriously folks.
 
The guy has the right idea. Government spending needs to be substantially cut (on a state and federal level), and obviously some of these cuts are going to be politically unpopular.
 
Surgo said:
You have to take him seriously if you live in Utah because he's a senator.
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The guy might be a senator, but he has virtually no credibility outside his party, and if something like this were to go through the state, the entirety of the democratic party would plow over him like fox news would on an obama scandal, there's no way something as outrageous as this would get passed any more so than a bill banning blacks from restaurant counters again. Maybe I just have too much faith that Utah isn't that retarded though.

McGrue said:
The guy has the right idea. Government spending needs to be substantially cut (on a state and federal level), and obviously some of these cuts are going to be politically unpopular.
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Apparently you don't understand the ramifications this would have on every Utah student trying to get into college. You can't just throw an entire year of credits and prerequisite classes out the window for a budget cut. Any good university demands broad knowledge of every subject from the get go and with this cut there's a large group of people who won't even be able to take pre-calc, trig, or the ever critical 4th english/art/science courses. They'd have to take remedial courses in college to make up for these and end up spending more money on college(not cheap). The amount of AP classes someone could take would be cut by half. And with people having to always drive their kids to school, the roads on the way would be clogged all to hell even in small towns. Making getting kids to school and then getting to work all the more difficult and expensive for the average citizen. Seriously, this isn't just "politically unpopular" it's political suicide that nothing good can come out of.
 
MrIndigo said:
Cutting 12th grade is retarded. If anything, you'd cut kindergarten or first grade.
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The age at which a child is intorduced to learning deeply affects how he's going to do later in school. Children who go to kindergarten do better in school.

Education is a right, not a privilege. This guy needs to get smacked in the face a couple of times.

McGrue said:
The guy has the right idea. Government spending needs to be substantially cut (on a state and federal level), and obviously some of these cuts are going to be politically unpopular.
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You clearly have a very shallow and near sighted view of how the economy works, don't you? In the long run this would hurt the economy more than help it.
 
I hope that the move would be political suicide, but it wouldn't surprise me that much if it made some progress solely because America doesn't care about education.

I'd have to agree that all babies, regardless of ethnic heritage, look ugly. Plus they smell funny and aren't house trained.
 
Ferrouswheel said:
America doesn't care about education.
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Isn't it unfortunate? I'm Chilean, so most people assumed that I essentially had no education when I came to America, but in truth I went back two grade levels on everything except English upon moving here.

The standards here are set so low; it's pretty sad.
 
Champagne said:
Isn't it unfortunate? I'm Chilean, so most people assumed that I essentially had no education when I came to America, but in truth I went forward two grade levels on everything except English upon moving here.

The standards here are set so low; it's pretty sad.
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Fixed.

And yeah, budgets for schools and teachers are pretty pathetic when you compare them to say, our defense budget. But if you put forth the effort you're still able to get a high school/associates/bachelors degree in this country. A lot of idiots just lazy out of school or get involved with the wrong people, so it's not all the government's fault.
 
Melodrama Man said:
Fixed.

And yeah, budgets for schools and teachers are pretty pathetic when you compare them to say, our defense budget. But if you put forth the effort you're still able to get a high school/associates/bachelors degree in this country. A lot of idiots just lazy out of school or get involved with the wrong people, so it's not all the government's fault.
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our per student spending has QUADRUpiled in the past 30 years with ZERO improvement in education.

you want education improvement? allow schools to fire teachers at will that way stupid teachers are removed nearly entirely.
Private school vouchers are another meathod of improving education. Its a pretty costly program though it does mean that people can chose what school thier child goes to with less monetary issues (30k a year for my local private jr high isnt cheap)
 
Maris said:
our per student spending has QUADRUpiled in the past 30 years with ZERO improvement in education.
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Britain seems to have faced the same problem with health. Masses more money, minuscule improvement. It's pretty clear that throwing money at public services doesn't help very much. What's harder is figuring out what will. I'd suggest starting by letting unused budgeted money roll over, allowing those schools and hospitals that are efficient to benefit. Otherwise you get crap like repainting walls that were painted a year ago in order to use up the budget and avoid getting less next year - that did happen in a psychiatric hospital in Britain.

you want education improvement? allow schools to fire teachers at will that way stupid teachers are removed nearly entirely.
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Think about what that will do to teachers' morale. Denying people job security won't help them work better. Also I don't know about the US, but in the UK there's a chronic shortage of teachers as it is - what you're proposing would both reduce the number directly, and discourage people from entering the profession.
 
Maris said:
our per student spending has QUADRUpiled in the past 30 years with ZERO improvement in education.

you want education improvement? allow schools to fire teachers at will that way stupid teachers are removed nearly entirely.
Private school vouchers are another meathod of improving education. Its a pretty costly program though it does mean that people can chose what school thier child goes to with less monetary issues (30k a year for my local private jr high isnt cheap)
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It's not that simple. Budgets aren't just about spending it's about how you spend it. Seriously, art departments are in fucking shambles everywhere, teacher's wages can be topped by a McDonald's manager, and most of the budgets (in most states) are directed at test scores instead of actual learning experiences. Teachers may be crap but new teachers aren't exactly in surplus. And private school vouchers don't solve shit when public school is always going to be the national standard and would only help a minute percent of children get into private school.
 
I apologise in advance for derailing this thread.

Melodrama Man said:
Apparently you don't understand the ramifications this would have on every Utah student trying to get into college. etc etc etc
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Apparently you don't understand economics. Moreover, what is stopping the students taking a year out for private tuition?

Champagne said:
You clearly have a very shallow and near sighted view of how the economy works, don't you? In the long run this would hurt the economy more than help it.
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The irony of your comment will be lost upon you, but let me explain. The federal government is broke. The state governments are broke. This has profound implications for the "long run" that you speak of. Governments have no money and the only way for them to get money is to tax the private sector. However, the burden on the private sector is not how much the government taxes, it is how much it spends, because the difference between the two represents debt (with interest) that must be paid by taxation at a later date.

The more that the public sector spends, the greater the burden it becomes on the private sector, and it is the private sector that creates wealth (the government simply redistributes it). It does this by creating efficient (profitable) jobs. Take an entrepreneur and give him capital. He starts a business and makes a profit, so he expands that business and creates efficient jobs in the process. This is Capitalism, and the only way that America can emerge from its current economic crisis is to allow Capitalism to work. However, if the state is taxing his profit, he is less inclined to grow the business. Therefore, the burden of the state must be cut, and cut severely, and this must begin with a purge in public spending.
 
Simple macroeconomics: increasing education raises productivity in the long run. The inverse is also true.

Cutting twelfth grade doesn't make anything "more efficient". It annoys me how lawmakers (especially those of the "fiscally conservative" brand) insist that cutting government programs, especially education, is "efficient". This guy has an econ degree, but it's from Utah State, so this doesn't surprise me.

Ick. Wiki this guy; he's a nut.
 
ChristovaOnIce said:
Cutting twelfth grade doesn't make anything "more efficient".
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Like I already pointed out, what is stopping the students seeking a 12th year with private tuition?

Public education is by definition inefficient (the "public" part is the clue), so privatising even one year of it sounds good to me.
 
American students spend the most years in education, but end up scoring in the low ranks of industrialized nations.

If teachers did their damned jobs we, like most of the world, could have decently educated students in ten years or even eight. This however requires there to be actual consequences for both teachers and administrators who screw up, rather than incentives for them to do so. Federal money for schools should be entirely abolished. The further out you go to fund your schools the poorer they become. This is, among other reasons, why private schools kick the tar out of public schools: they don't have to pray for mana from federal heaven.

What is actually required is a complete revamp of the pathetic public school system, and the teachers unions are too entrenched for that. Schools have become focused on keeping teacher's pensions and jobs untouched (regardless of performance), union bosses fat and happy, and a prime source of money laundering and political base for the Democratic Party afloat instead of the education of children.

Removing one more year of rock-bottom quality (for the money) "education" is a blessing. Chris Buttars is a national hero if this goes through.

Universities are equally as laughable these days. Your first year of college is basically the remedial stuff your 12 years of previous education should have taught you, but didn't because the system is so pathetic. The quantity of years and the size of the budget do not in and of themselves determine the quality of the education.

The 12th grade is easily the most superfluous of grades. Most industrialized nations don't even have an 11th grade.
 
Stylish Interval said:
Can you even eliminate 12th grade in one state without eliminating it in all states?
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Well, I don't know how it works in America, but in Canada, we had grade 13 (OAC) only in Ontario, but not in any other province. While grade 13 has been taken away for a few years now, it does show that different provinces can have different education systems. I think that would work for states in America, but I'm not completely sure.

About the job security of teachers issue in America, what does it actually take for a teacher to get fired in an American school? Normally I would think that after a certain amount of offenses the accused teacher would be fired or severely disciplined at least, but it sounds more like it takes one big offense than several small ones.
 
McGrue said:
Like I already pointed out, what is stopping the students seeking a 12th year with private tuition?
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It costs money? You're giving students from poorer backgrounds an inherent disadvantage.

Public education is by definition inefficient (the "public" part is the clue), so privatising even one year of it sounds good to me.
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Clearly not true. There are multiple cases where public institutions have been better than private ones - British transport, for example. The train system went to hell after the government part-privatised it.
 
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