SENATE BILL: The Gaining Excellent Teachers (GET) Act (Law'd)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Did education not dominate the last Senate Special election for heaven's sake? I mean why is this a two way conversation between my and Nix? I can't even remember who the last Senator not named Nix or Yankee who posted in this thread (it is beyond my mountains of text so it isn't visible. If it was Franzl or Oakvale, I can't say just what fate might befall you.

[Napoleon]

I mean why is this a two way conversation between my and Nix?

Because its a lot of talking and not a lot of doing. I don't think this legislation will have a meaningful impact if it passes. I'm listening but I don't have much to say here. And if we go in a different direction, it'd be better to start over with a new bill.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

I've just seen this... I will read through it and add my thoughts- I have family at my home this weekend so excuse me if I'm not as prompt

[CLARENCE 2015!]

I'm conflicted...

1- How are these organizations such as Teach for Atlasia doing now? Are they not sufficiently attracting young folks to teach in low performing schools? Moreover- is pay the motivation for these applicants? If it isnt... would the pay increases here be enough to make this competitive with other job offers these young people may have?

2- This does detract from my overall philosophy of school choice... however,that is secondary because I doubt we will ever pass legislation to that effect- so anything which strengthens the public school system will have my support- I am simply not sure if this does

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm conflicted...

1- How are these organizations such as Teach for Atlasia doing now? Are they not sufficiently attracting young folks to teach in low performing schools? Moreover- is pay the motivation for these applicants? If it isnt... would the pay increases here be enough to make this competitive with other job offers these young people may have?

2- This does detract from my overall philosophy of school choice... however,that is secondary because I doubt we will ever pass legislation to that effect- so anything which strengthens the public school system will have my support- I am simply not sure if this does

These organizations are new (relatively speaking) created only just late last year for instance. The purpose behind the higher pay is to ease the concentration of teachers, whose academic backgrounds are on the lower end of performance scale, in those areas where teacher quality is likely to be of the most importance and presently get the bottom of the barrel in nearly every aspect of education.

Yes, I support school choice too, and in fact it is an integral part of my overal plan, but the problem is that the overall plan can't be accomplished in one stroke by that very nature. I even gave up on articulating my specifics (the current post of part four hasn't been refined and some points are contradictory at this point) for lack of time and the realization that spelling it all out wasn't having the desired impact in terms of liberating other people's opinions on this bill. To sum it all up though it basically amounts to providing the competition and the resources to react to it, as well as the flexibility and creativity to apply those resources to improve the schools they run/work at. Ensuring that we have quality teachers and that they aren't all concentrated in the high performing schools, but also in the ones that are facing the biggest challenges is a critical part of that that is what has become the primary focus of this bill.

I mean why is this a two way conversation between my and Nix?

Because its a lot of talking and not a lot of doing. I don't think this legislation will have a meaningful impact if it passes. I'm listening but I don't have much to say here. And if we go in a different direction, it'd be better to start over with a new bill.

The reason for that is because prior to my long posts, we were in the same situation for the most part and my fear was that going micro had discourage people from engaging because most of their ideas are more broad in implementation and impact. My hope was thati f people saw this was part of a greater strategy, they could thus feel more comfortable doing likewise and thus more effective on this component level. We could also rebroaded the focus of the bill if necessary.

The problem with approaching this with a new bill is two fold, 1) this bill is already been significantly divorced from Simfan's original bill, thus any concern abotu violating the original purpose is out the window. I think it was Nix's amendment actually that crossed that Rubicon for us. 2) Also, it would be months before it got to the floor and it seemed like the energy behind this was percolating right now, at least two weeks ago it was.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

Yankee, thanks very much for your answer...
I will be supporting this legislation

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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[CLARENCE 2015!]

I am sorry to be a pain in the ass....

I object to the amendment. 33% higher pay is simply too much.... considering that principals' salaries are far higher then teachers'- this could eat up a good chunk of the cash you're allocating to make this happen

If I could offer a counter amendment- I would replace 33% with 10%

Again- I am sorry to be a pain here

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Finally some mentions money. Now that I think about it, I think we should bring Adam in on this to get some more solid numbers since the previous sections was drawn up while it was a vacant office.

[Adam Griffin]

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Are those cost breakdowns by region or for the entire nation?

If the latter, then could we drop the $10 billion and replace with a more appropriate appropriation, could we not? One that wouldn't blow a gaping whole in the budget.

[Adam Griffin]

Are those cost breakdowns by region or for the entire nation?

If the latter, then could we drop the $10 billion and replace with a more appropriate appropriation, could we not? One that wouldn't blow a gaping whole in the budget.

Those costs are for the entire nation. Realistically speaking, the number of teachers who will a) qualify for the program, b) the number of available spots in schools that qualify at-risk and c) the number of up and coming graduates who can be "staggered into the fold" make it far less costly than was perhaps assumed initially.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Can you explain what you mean by "staggered into fold"?

[Adam Griffin]

Can you explain what you mean by "staggered into fold"?

Perhaps that wasn't the best verb. Turnover rate, basically. Even though there are approximately 200k teachers retiring every year, the number of new teachers each year that will meet the criteria (combined with the limited number of slots) and thus can be accommodated into the program will be fairly minimal - around 10% of all new teachers in any given year. I'm basing this off of the legislation seemingly accommodating existing teachers and not just new ones; I imagine existing teachers will fill the vast majority of the program's slots at first.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So as I see it, we have a $50 billion dollar appropriation then for a $2.81 billion dollar program.

How is this then?

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[CLARENCE 2015!]

The way I see it... it is either this or the tax cut bill- since our surplus is so narrow, passing both would give us a deficit

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It seems that way to me, too, at least if we work under the assumptions that 1) whatever rate changes we settle on reduce our revenue and 2) we're committed to balancing the budget.

Personally, I think that passing the GET Act is far more important than lowering our tax rates, for reasons that we've been through in this thread.

We have a ~$50 billion dollar surplus right now, no? This bill, if amended, is about ~$3.8 billion dollar dollars?

I think long term, this act is a better bet, especially if it improves our worst schools. That will unlock far more wealth long term then the tax cut would.

Short term, the tax cut is a better bet.

Last Crusade reference ftw!

[Napoleon]

Passing this shouldn't have anything to do with a tax cut.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yes, only if say Ben's idea was adopted, it would likely be an issue. The others leave more than enough to cover this.

[Napoleon]

Passing this shouldn't have anything to do with a tax cut.

The amount of revenue that we collect should have everything to do with the expenditures that we mandate - even if running a surplus suits us at some times while a deficit is more appropriate at others.

That said, I would support Yankee's amendment, which should allow us to implement this program without significantly affecting the overall federal budget.

As Yankee pointed out, if we pass the amended version of this and the unamended tax cut, we still have a surplus.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Having a GM litterally saved us $46.5 billion dollars on this bill. Think about it, I think people can see why I prioritized having one over other concerns.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

Passing this shouldn't have anything to do with a tax cut.

The amount of revenue that we collect should have everything to do with the expenditures that we mandate - even if running a surplus suits us at some times while a deficit is more appropriate at others.

That said, I would support Yankee's amendment, which should allow us to implement this program without significantly affecting the overall federal budget.

As Yankee pointed out, if we pass the amended version of this and the unamended tax cut, we still have a surplus.

I will support that combination

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The amendment is adopted.

I am ready for a final vote if everyone else is.


Note there is far more that needs to be done if we are going to pursue this type of strategy, in order for it to be successful. The benefits of getting many people who are currently falling through the cracks and bringing them into society and the economy as productive members, are of great magnitude.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

I agree

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This bill is now at final vote, Senators, please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.