What's wrong with our Nation's Educational system

Would you like to be a teacher? Do you think we get the best people in the teaching profession? Why aren't you willing to consider being a teacher? Does it have anything to do with the Salary teachers make? What would it take to get you to consider becoming a teacher? If you have answered these questions for yourself, here's some interesting data. How much would it cost us to really make a change in the teaching profession and once again be the best-educated citizens on the planet?

There are 2,997,748 teachers in Public schools. Their average base salary is $39,857 although some can make double that after many years in the job but it is rare.

Total Funding for Public Schools is broken down as follows:
The Federal Government pays about 7.3% of all the costs.
Your State pays 49.7% and your Local government pays about 43.1% through Property taxes.

Now here's how to change the system. If the Federal government picked up the costs to double the base salary for teachers from $40,000/year to $80,000/year as a base salary, the costs would be an additional $240 Billion dollars. If at the same time teaching became a year round job, with generous vacations but still not as much as they get now, we would attract a very capable and motivated work force where the standards for the teaching profession could garner the best possible people teaching. To put these costs into perspective, the cost of the Iraq war is $415 Billion dollars so far, not including related costs due 25,000 Iraq Veterans because of sustained serious injuries and understandable mental illnesses, as a direct result of the Iraq war. Where are our priorities? What do you think?

For more data on teaching and the source of the data above click here.

Fatalities by State from Iraq War and why Vermonters called for impeachment

A few days ago I wrote a piece titled, "Calls for impeachment from small towns across Vermont". At that time I had no idea as to why 29 towns have called for the impeachment of President Bush. I had first attributed it to the fact that Vermont had the only Progressive candidate in the Senate, Bernie Sanders and therefore it was understandable that many might vote for impeachment given the history of the blunders and failed policy of this President and his Administration.

But upon closer examination I had my eyes opened wide to the real reason that Vermont was leading the way in calls for Bush's impeachment, to end this Iraq war and to bring the troops home. Vermonters on a per person basis, have sacrificed more of its blood treasure, its soldiers, than any other State in the country, a fact not known nor cited by the main stream media. These families know first hand what this war is costing. By contrast the District of Columbia, the seat of politics and of all branches of government, had the least % casualties by a margin of 1 DC fatality for every 5 Vermonters. I am not trying to minimalize even one death here, but rather to give one good reason why Vermonters may have called for the impeachment of President Bush. They are living the consequences of going into this war of choice first hand.

Click on the image above to enlarge it and see where your State stands on the list. They are sorted by Fatalities from greatest to least percentage based upon the State population. Fatalities included in the data are those listed as of 3-11-07 on icasualties.org.