Today’s episode is all about education.
After nearly two years of having the San Diego Unified School District trustees on the podcast, Shana Hazan and Cody Petterson joined Scott Lewis and Jakob McWhinney, to discuss the progress they made on the promises they talked about during their last appearance.
They also discussed the challenges of school enrollment, the district’s big effort to build housing and labor negotiations.
We’re on YouTube now! Watch the podcast at youtube.com/voiceofsandiego.
Of course they’re not worried. Being worried would require a concern over improving the education of kids. All they really care about is being able to give their special interests more money without being held accountable by parents.
Which has been proven true over and over again. They have NO discussion in meetings that go “if we give tens of millions to adults, what are we going to be able to spend on the education of kids?” That doesn’t happen.
Sure, they care about kids. No doubt. They just don’t care enough to say “no” to their special interests and instead put the money into things that actually improve education.
Similar to a household that needs to make deposits into their kids college education fund but Mom and Dad value new cars, Padres box seats, or nail salons more than that. They care about their kids, they just don’t care enough to make sacrifices to benefit them.
Ditto here. Anyone who actually looks at numbers – not listens to words being said – can see that.
And anyone who looks at the voting patterns of the public, electing board members cycle after cycle who clearly do not value the education of kids higher than pay and benefits for adults, can see that.
There will be no repercussions to this. The public will still vote for the same board members that are taking tens of millions from their kids. Because they don’t really pay attention. That’s just how it is.
…. and, will our media ever point out that the median total compensation of an SDUSD teacher in 2024 was $156,482, and maybe we could agree that is now “fair pay” and it’s time to spend on actual improvements in education?
Will our media ever acknowledge that per student funding has risen at three times the rate of inflation in the last decade, and teacher pay during that time has also risen at a rate of about 1.5x inflation, yet academic performance is not benefitting? This is clear, from actual data. We’ve done the “the way to improve education is to pay adults more” experiment and PROVEN it’s not true, but you won’t see that in the media, will we?
And when the Union and district – both of whom stand to make more money in their own personal bank accounts by convincing you “more money for them” is the solution – tell you they have a crises in attraction and retention, will the media ask them “can you show us some data on that?” first?
Nope, because apparently asking for just a little bit of data to justify taking tens of millions from kids rather than “just believing” people with a personal interest is unacceptable.
I would think journalistic integrity would demand all of the above, and it’s not unheard-of, but it’s very rare. Far more the exception than the rule, where media stories just unquestioningly accept pronouncements by people with a personal self interest as if it’s established fact…
No one would do this if it was the Trump administration, but this is teachers so we “just believe them”, right? No “they say without providing any evidence” appended to the end of quotes on teacher strikes….