Texas - Cut 25% off school budgets but spend $69M on stadium

[Kitsune]

All I can say to this is


http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ ... y-69m-high

TX Voters To Decide Today on $69M High School Sports Stadium
By Susie Madrak

Now, just let that sink in. A state that's cut spending on public education by 25% wants to build a $69 million high school sports stadium. This is wrong on so many levels:

Those famous Friday Night Lights do not come cheap. On Tuesday, voters in the Houston suburb of Katy will decide whether to build the most expensive high school football stadium in the country.

It would open in August, 2015, seat 14,000 people and cost $69.5 million. And it would be placed right next to the 10,000-seat arena they already have.

Even in this football-besotted state the plan has attracted criticism, with a local Tea Party group and others claiming the price tag is excessive, exposes the school district to unnecessary debt and that money would be better spent on academic facilities.

Proponents argue that the opening of a new high school means that seven schools will be sharing the 1970s-built Rhodes Stadium from next year and another venue is needed to ease schedules, stage soccer matches and hold marching band contests.They are asking voters to back a $99m bond issue that would cover the new stadium, an agriculture centre expansion ($25m) and a science, technology, engineering and mathematics centre ($4.5m). The choice is all or nothing and the language on the ballot does not specifically mention the stadium, referring generally to "the construction, acquisition and equipment of school buildings in the district".

A modern, fast-growing suburban sprawl 40 minutes west of downtown Houston, Katy is some 500 miles from Odessa, the setting for Buzz Bissinger's celebrated 1990 book examining small-town Texas' all-consuming passion for high school football.

But here, the lights also shine on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

The best team, the Katy Tigers, are seven-time and reigning state champions and their head coach, Gary Joseph, earns $123,000 per year, according to the Texas Tribune - only $5,000 less than the school's principal. This season they have won all nine of their fixtures.

In real terms, state lawmakers have reduced funding for public schools by 25% over the past decade.

Despite the climate of cutbacks, school districts and electorates are happy to spend big on sports stadiums. The costliest to date, Eagle Stadium in Allen, near Dallas, came in at $59.6m. Built for one team, it opened last year with an inaugural crowd in excess of 21,000 and more than 8,000 season ticket holders. It boasts a weight room, a giant high-definition video board and a three-tier press box.

Another Houston-area student sports complex, the 10,000-capacity Woodforest Bank Stadium, opened in 2008 and cost $49 million. Alamo Stadium in San Antonio, which holds 23,000, is undergoing a $35m renovation. Last year, Carthage (population 7,000) spent $750,000 on a 1,200-square foot video screen for its beloved Bulldogs that is probably the largest high school football scoreboard in the nation.

[Borgholio]

What the FUCK do you need in a high school stadium that costs $69 million dollars? My old high school just recently redid the the whole goddamn athletic field, and the UPGRADED stadium is still a set of aluminum bleachers with wooden benches. That $69 million could buy a shitload of computers, or textbooks, or...you know...teachers?

[Guardsman Bass]

To be fair, it's different levels of government making two different decisions. The city government of Katy, Texas is the one offering a bond issue to pay for their new football stadium, while it's the state government of Texas that is slashing state-wide education funding.

[Forgothrax]

You can better believe that the voters who voted in the idiots who cut school funding to that extent will happily vote for the bond issue, though.

[TheFeniX]

What the FUCK do you need in a high school stadium that costs $69 million dollars? My old high school just recently redid the the whole goddamn athletic field, and the UPGRADED stadium is still a set of aluminum bleachers with wooden benches. That $69 million could buy a shitload of computers, or textbooks, or...you know...teachers?

You know nothing about the Texas fascination with Handegg. By reading this article, you've maybe seen .01% of the insanity. It's cuh-razy. Go watch "Varsity Blues." It's a documentary on small-town Texas football insanity. And it doesn't go away when you get to the city.

To be fair, it's different levels of government making two different decisions. The city government of Katy, Texas is the one offering a bond issue to pay for their new football stadium, while it's the state government of Texas that is slashing state-wide education funding.

Pretty much. Katy is also a very affluent area and the ISD is highly ranked in the country. State-wide education may be suffering, but parents who know what's going on try and get their kids into Katy ISD. This isn't some podunk backwoods town building a stadium bigger than Downtown. This is Katy ISD swinging their big dick around and all the parents with their stupid Tiger's bumper stickers are yelling "Swing harder!"

EDIT:

You can better believe that the voters who voted in the idiots who cut school funding to that extent will happily vote for the bond issue, though.

Katy ISD is a prime backer in fighting "Robin Hood" financing for school districts in Texas, so you can make your own inferences from there.

[salm]

How much is the Texan school budget?

[Ahriman238]

How much is the Texan school budget?

They usually discuss it in percentages rather than absolute numbers, but I believe the last I heard about the Texas school budget they were $8 billion short.

[AniThyng]

Well look on the bright side...

Even in this football-besotted state the plan has attracted criticism, with a local Tea Party group and others claiming the price tag is excessive, exposes the school district to unnecessary debt and that money would be better spent on academic facilities.

[madd0ct0r]

yah. I noted that as well. Good on them.

[Thanas]

How the heck does a principal earn close to 130.000 $ a year? That is over a third more than the principals in Germany make - and I am talking about the few highest paying principal jobs in the final stage of the salary progression. I suspect that on average 130k is twice what a principal would get in Germany.

[Kitsune]

How the heck does a principal earn close to 130.000 $ a year? That is over a third more than the principals in Germany make - and I am talking about the few highest paying principal jobs in the final stage of the salary progression. I suspect that on average 130k is twice what a principal would get in Germany.

http://www.nassp.org/jobs/2010-principal-salary-survey
Does appear a bit on the high side for the US.

[Thanas]

Damn. For all the bitching about how bad they are treated at least the principals sure get paid well.

[Simon_Jester]

I suspect the teacher salaries are less impressive.

[Silver Jedi]

Damn. For all the bitching about how bad they are treated at least the principals sure get paid well.

This is mostly a result of Katy being a rich suburb of a very large city. High property values =>lots of money for the school district.

[Thanas]

I suspect the teacher salaries are less impressive.

Even if they are a third less that still is way more than the average teacher in Germany gets.

[spaceviking]

If I recall correctly from the movie "American Teacher", A teacher in texas in the latter end of his career was making a less than forty thousand with a coach stipend.

If you ignore Luxembourg, Germany seems to pay pretty well. http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo ... untry-pisa

[Thanas]

Then why the heck do principals get that much more?

[madd0ct0r]

in related news, another texan school has turned their football pitch into an organic farm:

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootbal ... oys-103113

It took a couple years to turn a profit, but soon the football field was producing enough produce that Paul Quinn struck a deal with the Dallas Cowboys. George Wasai, the director of food and beverage at Legends Hospitality at Cowboys Stadium, is an alumnus of Paul Quinn and even played football for the school. With his assistance, the Paul Quinn farm will sell 17,500 pounds of food to be used for concessions at Cowboys games this year alone.

The $600,000 per year Paul Quinn once dedicated to football is now applied to academic scholarships, and a school that once had a month’s worth of cash on hand now has run a budget surplus of six or seven figures in four of the last five years.

"We turned our football field into an organic farm," Sorrell said. "It's made us a national leader on this issue. There are no regrets. We didn't have the resources necessary to change and really build a football program in the way we wanted to do it. This is what was right for us."

[spaceviking]

Then why the heck do principals get that much more?

No idea. What is worse is that many American principles were never teachers, they go to principal academies. Maybe the U.S sees them more like school CEO's than educators.

[RogueIce]

Katy ISD Salaries

ELEM TEACHER: $70,475 - $48,952
JH TEACHER: $73,618 - $48,200
HS TEACHER: $73,618 - $49,552

There's also apparently different levels, I saw ELEM TEACHER 4 and JH TEACHER 2 with different ranges, whatever those titles mean.

[Lonestar]

How the heck does a principal earn close to 130.000 $ a year? That is over a third more than the principals in Germany make - and I am talking about the few highest paying principal jobs in the final stage of the salary progression. I suspect that on average 130k is twice what a principal would get in Germany.

Masters degree, probably.

Teachers start at $70k in Montgomery County in Maryland. Which isn't unreasonable for someone with a Masters. It follows that the chief administrator will earn substantially more than even very senior teachers.

[Zaune]

Damn. For all the bitching about how bad they are treated at least the principals sure get paid well.

And how the hell is that a good thing? Principals aren't teachers, they're middle management.

[Simon_Jester]

Then why the heck do principals get that much more?

No idea. What is worse is that many American principles were never teachers, they go to principal academies. Maybe the U.S sees them more like school CEO's than educators.

Mine was a teacher, but then my school system is relatively civilized in its basic approach- it has problems, but it's not "marketeers gone berserk."

Katy ISD Salaries

ELEM TEACHER: $70,475 - $48,952
JH TEACHER: $73,618 - $48,200
HS TEACHER: $73,618 - $49,552

There's also apparently different levels, I saw ELEM TEACHER 4 and JH TEACHER 2 with different ranges, whatever those titles mean.

Probably higher or lower payscales for people teaching in specific areas, or with special certifications (like a master's degree, or special-ed training).

Damn. For all the bitching about how bad they are treated at least the principals sure get paid well.

And how the hell is that a good thing? Principals aren't teachers, they're middle management.

No matter how much you personally despise middle management:

1) I will tell you from experience that a school of any real size needs administrators to function, because it has a staff of 30-100 people and a student body on the close order of 1000 kids.
2) It is, as a practical matter, necessary to pay administrators better than the people who work under them, because they are harder to replace and because there are otherwise very few incentives to seek out the job.
3) Paying a principal 1.5 times what an individual teacher with several years' experience makes does not strike me as even slightly disproportionate, given the greater responsibility and complexity of the job. Paying a principal twice as much might be pushing it, three times as much sounds very excessive.

Now, mind you, all this is based on the assumption of schools with upwards of 500 kids, where the challenge of running the place is greater. A principal at a proportionately smaller school might well merit a salary more in line with that of their teachers... on the other hand, they also won't have as many (if any) vice-principals or administrators to help carry the disciplinary load.

[Korto]

To be fair to the voters,

They are asking voters to back a $99m bond issue that would cover the new stadium, an agriculture centre expansion ($25m) and a science, technology, engineering and mathematics centre ($4.5m). The choice is all or nothing and the language on the ballot does not specifically mention the stadium, referring generally to "the construction, acquisition and equipment of school buildings in the district".

if I was to see a proposal saying it was for more school buildings, and I didn't know the actual facts, I'd vote for it.

[Kitsune]

Isn't it hateful that you have to vote against a new science wing and agriculture center if you don't want this stadium.