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I think that "merit based pay" must be used carefully.  Imagine, for a moment, a teacher in a largely ESL (English as a second language) district that has poor standardised test scores, not because they are a bad teacher or have poor students, but because many of the students have trouble with basic skills like reading.

How should this teacher be compensated?  Their job is likely harder than it would be for teachers in an English speaking district, and learning tools and smaller classes would help tremendously.  In a merit based system, this teacher would lose pay and possibly even resources - the opposite of what would work!

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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What about satellite internet?

My parents live in a rural community in Colorado and my dad manages to run a pipeline engineering company via high-speed satellite internet.

I know that satellite can't support services like VoIP, but things like participating in e-commerce, and education are completely possible using this connection.

This mode of connection certainly costs more, but I believe that they pay about $70/month, a premium of about $30/month. For the nominal amount of $360/year these people could have access...that would pay for about 6 feet of fiber-optic cable.

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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Student dept is a conscious decision by our federal and local governments - AND yourself! I am a graduate of University of Wyoming and as an in-state student I paid about $2000/term for a degree in engineering. When looking at graduate schools I ended up moving to Canada where my masters degree in mechanical engineering cost me $7500/year. This is NOT free money. It takes TAXES and a real commitment from the country's population to make university affordable. You have to chose your school with money as a big factor and you have to VOTE for affordable education.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
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