Congressional Vote On CPB Budget

[Mark_Giardina]

The House of Representatives voted 284-140 to restore $100 million cut from CPB's budget in a subcommittee.

The House did not undo the $23 million deletion of the Ready to Learn program for children's TV or $89 million in requested aid for digital transition and pubTV's satellite system overhaul.

<P ID="signature">______________
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted and I won't be laid a hand on.
I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them".</P>

 

[Bob1370]

> The House of Representatives voted 284-140 to restore $100
> million cut from CPB's budget in a subcommittee.

This was about dodging a huge political bullet.

The 1995 attempt to defund public broadcasting, and the bitter public opposition it roused, marked the beginning of the end of Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America" and the beginning of Bill Clinton's political resurrection. The GOP on Capitol Hill is in a much worse position than it was 10 years ago in terms of public esteem, and someone reminded them that trying to kill Big Bird this time in such an obvious way would have created negative campaign ads in such volume and vehemence, they'd have made Speaker Nancy Pelosi an absolute certainty. Cooler heads prevailed over ideology. The Republicans may well still lose out in 2006 given economic uncertainty and the deteriorating situation in Iraq, but giving the opposition an easy hot button issue making them look like villains would have made it a cinch. This way, at least they leave themselves a fighitng chance to hold on.

> The House did not undo the $23 million deletion of the Ready
> to Learn program for children's TV or $89 million in
> requested aid for digital transition and pubTV's satellite
> system overhaul.
>
This is going to hurt a lot of small and medium market stations a lot more than the overall CPB cut, and it won't become fully apparent to viewers for a year or two. Loss of digital funding doesn't mean much in Rochester, where they've already completed construction of a full power digital TV transmitter and a total radio and TV studio rebuild without help from any level of government. (That lack of public funding for WXXI meant the whole thing wasn't easy, took over a year longer than expected, and meant a lot of other programming production projects were put on indefinite hold for lack of available money because of the need to pour every spare cent into the conversion, but it's done now, and for all intents and purposes it's paid for.) But you have to wonder what's going to happen in smaller and economically struggling markets where private funding isn't available and the job isn't complete yet...what will they do when the deadline for digitization comes, just go off the air for good? That's the only option they'll have now.

Losing the Ready To Learn funding opens up the door for favored (read politically connected) private contractors to siphon off millions for their own pet projects, which may or may not be good enough to make it to air. Congressional leaders have already said that's what they expect to happen. We all know how well the private sector has done in other aspects of primary education (having wrecked the school systems of Baltimore, Hartford and Philadelphia, and trashed a charter school that the state just ordered shut down in Rochester). And we all know how well commercial media have done in providing educational programming for young children.

We're about to get a fresh reminder that the private, for-profit sector is great at entertaining people, good at providing information for them, but not so hot when it comes to educating them.

 

[StangBuddy]

> And we all know how well commercial media have
> done in providing educational programming for young
> children.
>
> We're about to get a fresh reminder that the private,
> for-profit sector is great at entertaining people, good at
> providing information for them, but not so hot when it comes
> to educating them.
>
In New York it's often true that a third grade elementary school teacher can earn up to 80k teaching kids there multiplication tables. Parents also spend alot of time and effort teaching there kids. And many of those same parents struggle to make ends meet while there kids teachers get the summer off after a tough school year of grading papers and collecting a fat, union supported, paycheck. Why should the taxpayer continue to spend money on "Big Bird" when we all know that Barney, Big Bird and others generate untold millions in revenue as is?

This ain't 1995. The votes then on PBS did not have as much of an impact on the overall political landscape as is often dreamed of. To be honest it just motivated the other public competition, namely Christian broadcasters, to file for licences within an increasingly more favorable climate. And the Bible thumpers don't get special treatment with funding either.

PBS is not a Boob Toob babysitting service whose mission is to sit the kids in front of the screen while mom cooks dinner and dad checks out the scores on cable. You've made a last ditch argument and the GOP majority knows that! Don't make a big deal about how weak and vulnerable PBS is. They'll go for the kill.

 

[Element9]

About Those Salaries

> >
> In New York it's often true that a third grade elementary
> school teacher can earn up to 80k teaching kids there
> multiplication tables.

English teachers make a pretty good buck too, for teaching kids to distinguish between "their," "there" and "they're," as well as the other finer points of writing, reading and interpreting the English language. Imagine the teachers who try to impart knowledge in Spanish, German, Italian, French and Russian. God bless 'em all.

> Parents also spend alot of time and
> effort teaching there kids. And many of those same parents
> struggle to make ends meet while there kids teachers get the
> summer off after a tough school year of grading papers and
> collecting a fat, union supported, paycheck.

Truth be told, it takes a Bachelors and Masters degree, additional academic credits and about twenty five years on the job, to even approach 80k in most school districts in New York State. Would any of us want to teach kids biology, chemistry or physics? Clearly, there may some who post on this board who are quite knowledgeable, but teaching and imparting that knowledge takes a lot of time, talent, expertise and hard work.

Cops, firemen, prison guards and state troopers make a pretty decent buck too, deservedly so, for running into burning buildings and standing in harm's way.

More and more lately, school systems' contracts require teachers to be in the classroom and on the job from late August to late June. While we're all prone to criticize the cushy gigs that teachers seem to have, I wouldn't want to have to stand in front of a classroom full of twenty five 16 years olds and teach them the finer points of algebra, trig or calculus. Remember when we were that age? One of the many reasons we migrated to radio, TV and media could be our inabilitities to grasp algebra, trig and calculus.

I don't know about you, but it wasn't my teacher's fault

 

[SirRoxalot]

How much would YOU pay?

> > >
> > In New York it's often true that a third grade elementary
> > school teacher can earn up to 80k teaching kids there
> > multiplication tables.
>
> English teachers make a pretty good buck too, for teaching
> kids to distinguish between "their," "there" and "they're,"
> as well as the other finer points of writing, reading and
> interpreting the English language. Imagine the teachers who
> try to impart knowledge in Spanish, German, Italian, French
> and Russian. God bless 'em all.

I vote that we put StangBuddy in a room of 30 3rd-graders from the Buffalo Public Schools for 6 hours. You can't use weapons or restraints, touch the "little darlings", or hurt their feelings by saying nasty things. At the end of the day, there will be a test to see if all of them learned that day's lessons in multiplication, division, reading, spelling, social studies, and health. Since we're "mainstreaming", the class will consist of very bright (and bored) students, borderline "special" students, ritilin-addled crack-babies, and a handful of kids who should be ritalin-addled. Of course, you'll have "input" from parents who want to know why their "little darling" isn't getting the "personal attention" that they "deserve".

If you get out alive, we'll ask you again how much that job is worth - especially after 25 years of dealing with it.

 

[dhett]

Another opinion on teaching

> In New York it's often true that a third grade elementary
> school teacher can earn up to 80k teaching kids there
> multiplication tables. Parents also spend alot of time and
> effort teaching there kids. And many of those same parents
> struggle to make ends meet while there kids teachers get the
> summer off after a tough school year of grading papers and
> collecting a fat, union supported, paycheck.

Whoa! You don't know what goes into teaching, then.

Teaching means you're often working late at night and on weekends grading those papers, or reading essays that you'd rather not read because they're so much dreck. It means doing lesson plans and putting together a curriculum during the summer when everybody thinks you have the time off, or being required to attend workshops and professional development seminars that are a complete waste of your time.

It means when you want to hold a student accountable and fail them for subpar work, you can't because your school has a no-fail policy. Failing little Johnny will hurt his self-esteem, but apparently having him grow up lazy and stupid won't. Besides, failing a student would just hurt your school's test scores, and we can't have that. "No Child Left Behind" means "push everybody through".

Sometimes it means having to spend your own money on school supplies for your students (that really happens) because their parents either can't afford to (not likely) or don't care enough to. It means teaching kids who are largely unmotivated, knowing that while some parents do spend a lot of time and effort teaching their kids, most prefer to use the boob tube as a babysitter.

Sometimes, it means being threatened or actually suffering violence, and there's not much you can do about it. You'd love to grab a disruptive student by the short hairs and march them to the principal's office like your teachers used to do, but you know you'd come out the worse for it.

It means seeing your students at Wal-Mart with their parent at midnight (I've seen it) and then they can't stay awake during class the next day. Or hosting parent/teacher conferences where it seems like the only parents that bother to attend are the ones who are ticked off at you for something you allegedly did or for something their child isn't doing, which naturally is your fault.

In the case of music teachers, you'll have times when you neglect your own family because you have to do last minute preparation for concerts, which are held during the evening, and often on multiple evenings or on weekends, and it's all considered part of your job. You feel fortunate to have that job because when it's time to cut budgets, you're the first place they start because you're an "elective".

Sometimes, it's the kind of job where you don't have your own office because there aren't enough to go around, so you have to figure out where to put your stuff so that it'll be safe. And all the while, people are telling you what a cushy job you have.

And then to add insult to injury, that fat, union-supported paycheck has fat union dues taken out of it, so that they can support their fat cat bosses, and lavish your money on groups and causes that are completely contrary to what you believe. And there's nothing you can do about it because New York is a union shop state.

No sir. I have family who teach school in NYS, and I wouldn't trade places with them any day of the week. It's as much a calling as it is a career.

 

[StangBuddy]

Re: Another opinion on teaching

My high school class left upstate. Most went to places like Florida, California, Boston, Connecticutt, Chicago, Virginia etc. They moved on after receiving a decent education in the New York schools, from some of the best educators in the world.

New York has over seventy government subsidized centers of higher learning within the SUNY system. It should be cut in half. Unfortunatly many of those who matriculated, within the system, can't wait to leave the state.

Please take a tour of some blighted areas in places like Erie County, which is bankrupt and bleeding beyond beleif. Visit Utica, a town that never really prospered in the post-war era. Check out some of the depressed areas statewide such as Gloversville, Watertown, Newark and large chunks of municipalities such as Albany, Rochester, Rome and Elmira. And some taxpayers of New York gripe about whether someone can spell "their" or "there".

Buffalo has been losing population regionwide since the late 60's. So has Utica-Rome. Others like Syracuse and Albany have made gains simply because of birthrates. Only Rochester has shown any semblance of growth even though Kodak has cut over half the workforce in the last twenty years.

Anyone who works at a cluster of stations in most every market in this state, outside Manhatten of course, is working a sixty hour week. They work six to seven days, year round, for alot less money than some union backed hack who hands out a B plus to students, like myself, who can't wait to leave.

New York is by far the most corrupt state in the country when it comes to governing. Citizens who rant about the abuse of public dollars, be it PBS or the state schools, should'nt be so easily dismissed. It's insulting! And lets not even mention the union, who whenever public dollars are threatened, blast the Capital airwaves with all of those panicky "What about the children" ads. Spend a few weeks in Albany and witness how your dollars are spent folks.

Any PBS GM who makes over 100k is overpaid. Period.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Quick Question...

> Anyone who works at a cluster of stations in most every
> market in this state, outside Manhatten of course, is
> working a sixty hour week. They work six to seven days, year
> round, for alot less money than some union backed hack who
> hands out a B plus to students, like myself, who can't wait
> to leave.

How much would you be willing to work for if your job was to get students like you through the Regents Diploma curriculum?

I'm betting you wouldn't put up with yourself for 30-K a year to start - and that's higher than a lot of local school districts.

I do agree that top brass at public broadcasting stations are dipping deeper than is reasonable - and that's without the perks.

 

[dhett]

Re: Another opinion on teaching

I agree with at least some of what you're saying - I think. You start off criticizing top-heavy administration (I agree), corrupt government (I agree), abuse of public dollars (I agree), "what about the children" manipulation from the unions (I agree), but then you lump all of the teachers in as "union backed hacks", and that's where you lose me. To be sure, there are those who stopped caring a long time ago and are just in it for whatever reason they're in it, but there are also a lot of teachers who genuinely care about what they're doing, and the examples I cited in my last post rip their hearts out. I'm not dismissing your rant, but I find it insulting when people stereotype all teachers as lazy and uncaring. It's just not true.

Address your "what about the children" angle: that's exactly the tactic the public broadcasting supporters took when there was a chance that federal government funding might be cut. "You want to kill Big Bird!" was the cry. Funny how corrupt people use "for the children" to cover up their real intentions. Big Bird was never in any danger - if Sesame Street isn't making money hand over fist through royalties, then somebody should be fired.