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by JAWVMM
Thanks for the statehouse news link, Clem. This caught my eye:
While $2.14 million is a drop in the bucket for a department with a $1.9 billion operating budget, couldn't that money be better spent in the classroom?
Meanwhile, I talked to Logan County school board member Moss Burgess, who concurs that the department is wasting money sending teachers and administrators to hotels for professional training.
He said he was at the Charleston Marriott last month attending one of the department's in-service sessions, when it occurred to him that every meeting he attended could have just as easily been streamed on the Internet.
This is the kind of thinking that often gets us into trouble in government. Business more often stops and thinks about the bottom line and the bang for the buck; government tends to think that not spending money saves money. But it doesn't, always. Not changing your oil, for example, doesn't save a thing - it just shifts it into repair bills later on.
I think it is a truism that a good bit of what is learned at workshops, trainings, and conferences is from sharing with other attendees in the hallway, at meals and after hours. It was certainly true for me in my career(s) in several different fields. Once computer-based training, webinars, etc., were available, we used them. But in my experience, on-line doesn't compare to a face-to-face training for anything the least bit more than basic.
There are about 19,000 public school teachers in West Virginia. Divide that into $2.14 million, and it's about $112 a year each. If you include administrators and school board members, even less. Maybe we could cycle that money back to the state by using the state park meeting rooms and other facilities instead of Marriott, but I think getting teachers out once in a while to talk with people they might not otherwise meet is worth it.
And if you put that money into the teacher, you are putting it into the classroom. (Not so much school board members - but they need to get out too ;-) |
