There is a charter school in NY that is proposing to pay its teachers $125,000 (and its principal only $90,000). People are saying it can't be done, but honestly, there is so much waste in education. [link]

I have a metric assload of red envelopes. Which is meaningless, but a rare opportunity to say that I have a metric assload of red envelopes.

I think it would be awesome to require all guests to bring a card with their favorite memory of Noah and Grace in six words each, like that six word biography thing. Then we (okay, me) can put them in an album for each. AWESOME. Except it would be stuff like, "Noah, you pooped a lot, kiddo." And, for Grace, "We freaked when you didn't poop."

Maybe not so awesome. Too much about poop.

There is a charter school in NY that is proposing to pay its teachers $125,000 (and its principal only $90,000). People are saying it can't be done, but honestly, there is so much waste in education.

I'd happily settle for "only $90,000"!

But seriously, it seems like such a no brainer. The reason really bright people are willing to go through crazy tests and years of school and ridiculously high standards to become lawyers and doctors is largely because of the financial reward on the other side. Would some people go into medicine because they really believed in it and wanted to help other people if they got paid a teacher salary? Sure. But would we always have the best and brightest doing so? Hell no.

On the other hand, I would rather see salaries stay they same but 100% more teachers get hired to alleviate issues with class sizes in most public schools than just get more cash.

Yeah, the one skeevy thing bout the $125K teachers is the projected class size is 30 kids. Which...ew. Even if they're awesome teachers, I feel like that's not that great for the kids.

From Kat's link:

In place of a menu of electives to round out the core curriculum, all students will take music and Latin. Period.

Love this. Although this is probably my favorite quote from that article:

Ernest A. Logan, president of the city principals’ union, called the notion of paying the principal less than the teachers “the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I LOVE that idea, Allyson. I think I will have paper so people can just write them on the fly here.

Maybe a poem... this is cribbed from somewhere else:

Noah and Grace have stuff galore

In our house we can barely fit some more

They'll be grateful when they turn 18

If you'd like to donate some college "green"

I think my blonde, pale-assed self would have difficulty blending in.

Dios mio!

One of these days, I swear I will fucking learn to eat before my blood sugar goes crashing through the floor.

You know what's fun, in a totally NOT kind of way? A full-on, got-the-shakes, sweating-and-pale blood sugar crash *during sex.*

Ayup. Last night, as a matter of fact, if I may overshare.

Worst. Timing. Ever.

Yeah, the one skeevy thing bout the $125K teachers is the projected class size is 30 kids. Which...ew. Even if they're awesome teachers, I feel like that's not that great for the kids.

I was just going to say that 30 kids, at least for 6th and 7th where there isn't class reduction in CA, is a totally manageable small class. 35 is the norm. 38 isn't unheard of. And in PE, 60-80 kids is usual.

...yeah, and that's too many!! I had a lot of classes in even high school that were so much better with 20, or 25. (And the best were the random advanced level classes with like, 12 people in them, but i realize that's not frequent or likely...) And that was high school!