I live in FL and I've been hearing about this for awhile. lol @ our education budget.

That's gonna go over real big with two wage-earner families with upside down mortgages, a recession, and re-setting ARM's.
"You stay home with the kid!"
"No, you stay home!"

and the kids would probably get into mischief, and onto peoples lawns, on the day off. Foolish idea.

Its almost as bad as them having the older kids start school at 7 and get out way early, and then they wonder why the gang activity increases.

The only solution to school budget problems is to have school year-round.

..of course the teachers want their 3 month vacations, so the unions would never allow it...

/ducks

It should do wonders for the crime statistics at least.

Haven't those people heard that idle hands are the devil's playthings? What do they expect the children to do on the day off. Stay at home alone unsupervised and not get into trouble?

There will be increase in everything ranging from shoplifting and vandalism to assault and murder on the day off and the money the state will have to spend to cope with that will more than make up for anything they might save.

Volusia county (where Evelyn Lynn has her offices) is also considering completely cutting the arts budget from the district's schools (music programs {orchestra, band, piano, chorus, musical theatre), drama, graphic arts, etc) and some sports.

Probably should've thought of this before they just spent hundreds of millions of dollars rebuilding every school in the county. Please god, if you help me sell my house this quarter I might just start believing in you.

Lt_Aurum: is also considering completely cutting the arts budget from the district's schools (music programs {orchestra, band, piano, chorus, musical theatre), drama, graphic arts, etc) and some sports.

should be the other way around. Cut sports completely and then some arts.

There is no learning going on in sports.

And how much did you learn after, say 2pm? Making the school day longer is going to feel like punishment to a teenager.

IronTom: should be the other way around. Cut sports completely and then some arts.

Every other state where I have lived cuts sports FIRST.

This happened regularly as I was growing up -- schools would cut funding for sports (making it Pay-To-Play) until the community came up with the money.

Here in Florida, sports get cut LAST. And even mentioning that they might get cut sends people into a rage.

This is a piece of shiat state and the reason is that the people living in it are, by and large, pieces of shiat. So their elected officials are pieces of shiat (Charlie Crist somehow manages to be somewhat less than a piece of shiat).

How about that. A state with a lot of seniors and retirees looking to reduce the budget by gutting the education system.

Loki-L Quote
It should do wonders for the crime statistics

Yeah, they probably haven't thought it all the way through.

Now, if people living in Florida were smart, everyone of voting age 55 and under would...

Oh wait. exists for a reason...

FatherDale: Making the school day longer is going to feel like punishment to a teenager.

yeah, there would be no time to smoke pot and join gangs before mom and dad get home.

bubbaprog: IronTom: should be the other way around. Cut sports completely and then some arts.

Every other state where I have lived cuts sports FIRST.

This happened regularly as I was growing up -- schools would cut funding for sports (making it Pay-To-Play) until the community came up with the money.

Here in Florida, sports get cut LAST. And even mentioning that they might get cut sends people into a rage.

This is a piece of shiat state and the reason is that the people living in it are, by and large, pieces of shiat. So their elected officials are pieces of shiat (Charlie Crist somehow manages to be somewhat less than a piece of shiat).

Damn good point. Floridians seem to have an unhealthy fascination with high school sports. It's like the midwest except all the teams suck.

I'd be real sad to see the arts/music programs die out here. Music is one thing FL does real well. Band directors & their kids from all over flock here for the yearly festivals and whatnot.


FatherDale: And how much did you learn after, say 2pm? Making the school day longer is going to feel like punishment to a teenager.

Maybe mommy and daddy can sit them down and show them the gas bills and their taxes and how farked everyone seems to be, then tell them to stfu and take their extra 2 hours a day or whatever it works out to be.

wilde_at_heart: How about that. A state with a lot of seniors and retirees looking to reduce the budget by gutting the education system.

Yeah, they're the ones putting the burden on the schools, with all of their 50 year old children clogging the high schools. They should pay more.

Juxtaposition FTW!

Oh, this will go well. In Orlando, they're frothing at the mouth at the notion that schools might cut sports. I can't even imagine...

OTOH, this may be a cunning plan. Giving the school districts the power to make really, really dumb decisions in the face of budget cuts might set the stage for other legislators saying "Wellllll, we wouldn't HAVE to do all this if we could raise tax rates here and there..." Florida has a dumb tax structure anyway. There's any number of exemptions which could be plugged.

Meh. Go to a four day work week while you're at it. I'd totally take a 4 day work week and the corresponding pay cut. The extra day'd be more valuable to me.

ne2d: The only solution to school budget problems is to have school year-round.

..of course the teachers want their 3 month vacations, so the unions would never allow it...

I bet a lot of teachers would be happy to work year-round... if they were paid competitively.

What I don't understand is why anyone would want to try to raise a family in Florida; the bulk of the population is over 60 and the entire state is so unpleasant in the middle of the summer that I'd honestly rather vacation on the surface of the Sun than go to Florida in July.

Some Massachusetts schools may need to have Saturday classes this spring to make up for the ice storm. The teachers union is protesting. A union victory might ensure more union jobs as all the kids have to repeat a grade.

Obama's idea is that long school hours cut crime and improve apptitude

Sort of sounds like a business opportunity in cheap kid-care. Rent out any of the hundreds of abandoned Walmarts or Circuit City's out there. Minimum wage guys at the doors and breaking up fights. Random semi-educational (Discovery channel) stuff being played.

Lord of the Flies hell-on-earth. But, it might be profitable.

t3knomanser: Meh. Go to a four day work week while you're at it. I'd totally take a 4 day work week and the corresponding pay cut. The extra day'd be more valuable to me.

Lots of people would choose 6-hour-days or 4-day-weeks (I'm lucky and ultra-cheap-ass enough to work part-time... it's awesome). It's just not efficient for the business model. So, we set up systems like the USs insane health-care-via-employer model to push people toward 40-hour (or much more) weeks.

bubbaprog: the people living in it are, by and large, pieces of shiat


You realize that includes you, don't you?

Sarasota County is mulling over the feasability of a four day/ten hour a day work week. Stagger the days off and it makes some sense.

The funny part us when they put the 'tax relief' on the ballot, it was sold to the public by saying it wouldn't affect police, fire, and education. I wish they had made it a county by county law instead of statewide. The county I live in voted it down, but the rest of the state passed it.

I used to work 10 hours 4 days a week to cut down commute time. Another job let us work from home one day a week.

Are they gonna be in longer on those four days? My cousin is in 9th grade and he is done with school at 1. It is pathetic. Florida wonders why the kids here are stupid as fark, but it is because they are never in school. Screw it, I am going to home school my niece.

bubbaprog: (Charlie Crist somehow manages to be somewhat less than a piece of shiat).

You mean Charlie Crist who campaigned heavily for the property tax cut that got the state in this mess to begin with? That Charlie Crist? Charlie Crist who pushed for the tax cut and is now in the front of the line with his hand out begging for stimulus money to make the rest of the country pay for the mess that he helped create?

Anybody who knew anything knew that the property tax cut would do exactly what it is doing now, but the politicians all campaigned for it because heaven forbid that a politician actually tell the voters that the state will go broke if they pass the change.

/My sister works for a city agency, they've been on a 10 hour/4 day work week for months

Lawnchair: hundreds of abandoned Walmarts

?

TFA headline: Sponsor: 'Another tool'

hehe

They always do the cool shiat as I'm leaving or left.

My senior year they changed the times that high schoolers had to be there from 7:15 to 9:05. Talk about a great year. Now they're switching from 5 to 4 days? Jesus. I got ripped off.

/Only had 3 classes my senior year, the others were just elective courses I didn't need to graduate so I took OJT / Work Release, whatever you call it.

jaylectricity: Lawnchair: hundreds of abandoned Walmarts

?

There are many hundreds of them in the US. I can point you to plenty in my area alone. When they build a new Supercenter a mile further out of town than the old non-Supercenter, they just abandon the old place. A, it's hard to find a new tenant. And, B, Walmart doesn't want to rent to someone who would be competition (and that's pretty much every retailer out there).

Even worse is when they come into a mid-sized town and then, after all the local merchants are gone, pull out, knowing that most people will drive twenty miles to another Walmart, if they have to, and local competition won't re-establish itself. I can point out several instances of that.

ne2d: The only solution to school budget problems is to have school year-round.

..of course the teachers want their 3 month vacations, so the unions would never allow it...

/ducks

Give me a building that isn't 105 degrees the in the summer and I'll gladly be for the 210 days of school plan.

Take away one vaca (april or february) extend the year a couple of weeks both ways and extend my paycheck by one sixth and we'll talk.

Lawnchair: Even worse is when they come into a mid-sized town and then, after all the local merchants are gone, pull out, knowing that most people will drive twenty miles to another Walmart, if they have to, and local competition won't re-establish itself. I can point out several instances of that.

When I was in Tennessee; all driving directions revolved around the walmart. It got confusing when they started saying things like the old walmart... no point to my post really, just daydreaming what it would be like to own a walmart

(the constant beeping is profit)

Florida is a fiscal conservative's dream. Endless tax cuts followed by budget cuts. Florida's state government will be small enough to drown in the bathtub any day now.

Bucky Katt: Florida is a fiscal conservative's dream. Endless tax cuts followed by budget cuts. Florida's state government will be small enough to drown in the bathtub any day now.

If State Farm is successful in their pull out program and everyone has to go to the state-run POS Citizens Property Insurance program, the shiat will really hit the fan. Another hurricane and the poorly run and funded program goes belly up and the state becomes chaotic.

/lives here
//hates it
///has requested a transfer
////hasn't been approved yet