It doesnt matter how much money a school system gets if the administration pays $500,000 for a new school district logo, while laying off teachers, and locking up schools that have been condemned as unsafe for habitation by the fire marshal. What should such a school district do when they receive a new bond measure and new funding from the city county and state?
Fuck the schools! Lets build posh new offices downtown for the school district administrators for only 8.5 million!!
Welcome to Oakland.
Oakland is just the craziest school district in California. Several school districts have gone bankrupt (one of them did it twice since i was in school!) California's spending "per pupil" (read gross receipts per person between the ages of 5 and 18 regardless of their status as illegal aliens, dropouts, homeschooled, retarded, or dead) is in the top 5 in the nation, yet classroom funding per ass in the seats is in the bottom third of all states. Meanwhile, California still pays teachers only slightly (2%) above the national average for teachers, while administrators get paid 30% more than the average for their job nation wide.
California has more administrators per enrolled student than any state except New Jersey and Texas.
Net result, high taxes and a lottery "For the Schools!" that does nothing but hire lots of paper pushers and bureaucrats, who buy tons of shit a school doesnt need.
Teachers get boned by the administrators while the union watches them squirm. Administrators are teachers too, dont you know, and are also part of the same union. "Administrative Teachers" are the largest group of administrators in California, and despite their name they never EVER teach. The union doesnt care which kind of "teacher " their members are, as long as the dues get paid the union is happy.
The unions, school administrators and politicians all screw with the real numbers to give the impression that the schools need more money.
By eliminating highly paid "administrative teachers" from salary statistics, they can honestly claim that the real teachers get paid next to nothing.
"Administrative Teachers" are also excluded (and rightly so) from teacher/student ratio stats, so we MUST hire more teachers
By re-including "administrative teachers" to the total teacher numbers, or teacher per pupil stats, they can show how good they are doing hiring new teachers
Many school districts have clauses in their bargaining agreement that require the school district to send out layoff notices to EVERY employee in a particular employment group if the district intends to lay off ONE person this is done solely for headlines and shock value to increase district funding.
The unions and their bosses enjoy the protection of public sentiment because they "represent the classroom teacher" when in fact they represent the continuing increase in schools spending because they get a cut off the top when school funding goes up.
The administrators and "administrative teachers" can also increase their already sumptuous compensation packages, then claim that "average" teacher salaries have gone up.
TLDR; If you get your stats from anyplace other than a real audit of the school district, or state budget office, you're being creatively deceived.
