The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[Adam Griffin]

Just to have it in here for reference:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

We're already paying the taxes, so we might as well take the investment. I nominate Columbus, Mississippi as the regional location - due to its relative centrality to all points of the region and also having a median personal income approximately 40% less than the statewide average.

[Donerail]

I suggest using the money to establish "completely unrelated" colleges where colleges go bankrupt for not accepting student loans (for ideological or fiscal loans (ie: not for-profit universities)).

[Associate Justice PiT]

I suggest using the money to establish "completely unrelated" colleges where colleges go bankrupt for not accepting student loans (for ideological or fiscal loans (ie: not for-profit universities)).

     I notice you suggested diverting it to community colleges in the DoIA office. I doubt it will work, but I approve of this effort to put the region in control.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Any more input here?

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Set a $50,000 base salary. Give them a $5,000/year bonus for obtaining their masters and a $15,000/year bonus for obtaining their doctorate. All of these are subject to whether we can afford it, of course.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     $70,000/year is kind of a lot for a teacher. Besides, I don't really see a Ph.D as being that much of a boon for teaching, vis-a-vis on-the-job experience. I don't want us to be giving a Kindergarten teacher an extra $20,000/year for holding a Ph.D.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Obviously, I wouldn't want to see someone with a PhD teaching kindergarden.

But it would be $65,000 max, not $70,000. Maybe just do increments of $5,000 then? Or $2,500? Is a base of $50,000 too much in the IDS?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Obviously, I wouldn't want to see someone with a PhD teaching kindergarden.

But it would be $65,000 max, not $70,000. Maybe just do increments of $5,000 then? Or $2,500? Is a base of $50,000 too much in the IDS?

     Average is around $50,000. Maybe have a base of $40,000 with numerous opportunities for raises through continuing education and taking on challenging classes?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Obviously, I wouldn't want to see someone with a PhD teaching kindergarden.

Why not?  Being a kindergarten teacher is hard work and ideally we should be encouraging our best and brightest teachers to be teaching our younger students who can benefit the most from them.

[Adam Griffin]

So which piece of legislation are we now considering? We were on SJoyce's bill, then seemed to move to the National University and General Education Reform Bill, but now appear to be back on the initial education bill.

In regards to teachers' pay in the educational bill, I would support a base salary of $50,000 - with $7,500 increments for attaining Master's and Doctorate's degrees. I am of the persuasion that when you consider pensions, health benefits and the like, teachers do in fact earn a very decent amount under these proposed numbers. I also break with what would be considered traditional for someone like me to believe in saying that we need some form of a merit-pay system that would either increase or decrease pay by 10% based on a teacher's ranking in the upper, middle or lower-third of national teacher metrics when dealing with students' performance.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     The issue that I see is "what sort of Ph.D"? If you're teaching a high school physics class, holding a Bachelor's in Physics pretty much makes you grossly overqualified for the position. When I think about the stuff I learned in my high school Physics class, it looks like grade school Math to me. Holding a Master's or a Ph.D in Physics instead just won't make a significant difference for teaching juveniles. I think we would do better to specifically demand degrees in the field of education, where there would be more direct applicability to the field.

     I support merit pay in general, but making it actually work in a practical scenario is the difficulty. One of the big criticisms of NCLB is that it tends to emphasize arcane subject matter that is of little use to the students. As I suggested earlier, we could try to make a standardized test that is intensely relevant to the core subject matter of the courses, or get some more experts to advise us on an existing standardized test that they believe to be good enough for the task.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I went to private school so I don't know how public schools handle it, but I remember my physics teacher in 11th grade telling us he had gone back for his masters in order to take advantage of the pay increase. I don't know how it works at all levels. Maybe we should rework it to specify how the pay increases would work so kindergarden teachers wouldn't be making $70,000, since that seems to be a concern?

I know our kids need the best, but I think someone with a doctorate would be better served teaching older kids

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I know our kids need the best, but I think someone with a doctorate would be better served teaching older kids

Depends on what the doctorate is in, and how it is used.

[Donerail]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Current form of the bill, with my changes. If nobody has much more, I'll act on my authority as Speaker Pro Tem and bring it to a vote in 24 hours.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

So we are rolling with the tax credit to fund these additional programs? I suppose we can see how it works out...

[Associate Justice PiT]

So we are rolling with the tax credit to fund these additional programs? I suppose we can see how it works out...

     The feds passed a bill that will give us some money to fund them. That will help with the issue, but I suspect it might be a one-time-only deal.

     BTW, since they appear to be ignoring SJoyce's question, are there any more suggestions for a place to build the university? If not, I'll try to present Adam's suggestion and a plan for the high speed rail network some time later in the day.

[Donerail]

I nominate San Juan, having a lower per capita income than any other MSA in the region.

[Zanas]

I'm willing to vote the bill as it is, but isn't 35,000 $ a bit low ? We saw that the mean income was somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000, so shouldn't we at least place the minimum at around 45,000 and then let it be settled at a local level ?

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Well, mean is average, so it means people are making below $40k and some above. I agree though that $35,000 may be a bit low - if we are looking to increase teacher pay, maybe make it $37,500 and everything else will work itself out per district.

[Donerail]

I accept Duke's amendment as friendly.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Since we now have rival suggestions, we will need some way of settling this.

[CatoMinor]

Hmm, this bill is taking quite a while. Do you guys think we can finish this by the week;s end? if not it may be a good idea to put this in a separate thread just this one time.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Hmm, this bill is taking quite a while. Do you guys think we can finish this by the week;s end? if not it may be a good idea to put this in a separate thread just this one time.

     I think we're almost done. Realizing that we can leave the specifics up to the school districts greatly streamlines the discussion of section one, which is the only controversial part left.

[Adam Griffin]

     Since we now have rival suggestions, we will need some way of settling this.

Hmm, this bill is taking quite a while. Do you guys think we can finish this by the week;s end? if not it may be a good idea to put this in a separate thread just this one time.

     I think we're almost done. Realizing that we can leave the specifics up to the school districts greatly streamlines the discussion of section one, which is the only controversial part left.

Due to this, I'd prefer if we could move through with any final discussion, debate and/or vote on SJoyce's bill prior to moving on to the federal education bill. At that point, I'll be happy to lobby for my location suggestion and I would assume SJoyce would feel the same. I feel this can be ultimately settled by brief outlines behind our respective choices and a simple vote among Legislators; the losing suggestion could then be retracted.

[Zanas]

Just realised that after all you're right Duke. We could place the floor at 37,500 $, and let the seniority, type of class, and maybe other factors raise that amount at a school district level.

I'm quite willing to vote the bill like this now.

What are the rival suggestions we're left with now ? I kind of lost track of these.