The highest paid teachers in the US are on strike?

In reply to Snowdoggie:

Im not even sure how to respond to such a generalized statement.

I will say that not all schools are in OMFG teh ghett0. Those that are, should have a different set of criteria on which to grade the quality of its educating than the elementary school at the end of Wisteria lane. And I pose this question in response: how is throwing cash at the teachers who arent getting differential pay based on their effectiveness, but on their seniority, going to help make the problem of urban blight and human garbage raising human garbage a prettier picture? How is the unions involvement in that scenario going to get little johnny out of the gutter, and into Harvard?

4cylndrfury wrote: In reply to Snowdoggie: Im not even sure how to respond to such a generalized statement.

Wierd, I thought the EXACT same thing about your reply to me. Pot, meet kettle.

Your stance is rooted in ideology, and does not take into account ANY factors besides performance/cost.

I pray to the baby jesus you aren't anyones boss...

And finally, no one is agreeing with giving them raises. Ther are saying that they are woefully underpaid for what their job entails in general across the country.

4cylndrfury wrote: In reply to Snowdoggie: Im not even sure how to respond to such a generalized statement. I will say that not all schools are in OMFG teh ghett0. Those that are, should have a different set of criteria on which to grade the quality of its educating than the elementary school at the end of Wisteria lane. And I pose this question in response: how is throwing cash at the teachers who arent getting differential pay based on their effectiveness, but on their seniority, going to help make the problem of urban blight and human garbage raising human garbage a prettier picture? How is the unions involvement in that scenario going to get little johnny out of the gutter, and into Harvard?

I'm not sure throwing money at the problem is an answer either. But is the answer really to tell the teachers to either make the kids pass the test or we will fire you? If you took everybody in the Chicago Teachers Union out tomorrow and shot them, you still would not have fixed the problem. Yeah. You could save money by taking away health insurance from teachers and you might be able to cut their salaries or replace them with temps imported here from India for minimum wage, but this would hardly motivate these children to do their homework and pass the tests.

How about somebody hiring you, giving you an old formula ford chassis, a 60's vintage small block Chevy engine and a cardboard box full of Harbor Freight Tools and telling you that you must build a car that will qualify for the 2013 Formula One Championship out of all this mess and if you don't do it, you are fired and we will bring somebody in to take your place. And while you are working on this project, you boss will evaluate you, call you lazy, call you a mindless liberal, accuse you of making generalized statements, threaten you, jump up and down and threaten to hold his breath until his face turns blue, etc.

Is this a good way to build a racing team?

Maybe we need a different solution to this problem that may not even involve teacher's unions(which everybody here seems to hate). Drill sergeants from the military? Take them away from their families and put them in boarding schools? Bringing in engineers and scientists on hiatus from their jobs for a year to teach the kids? Somehow hiring teachers, firing them when the kids can't pass the test and then replacing them with other teachers and making no other changes to the institution just doesn't sound like a solution to me.

Both my mother and my grandmother were teachers. My grandmother taught in a one room schoolhouse in Rural Arkansas. My mother went back after retirement to teach a remedial reading class at a local junior college to adults in their late teens and early 20s, most from underprivileged backgrounds. One of the young ladies in the class who actually was from "OMFG teh ghett0" got out of control and my mother actually had to call the campus police to pull her handcuffed out of the classroom. This was a junior college, NOT a high school. The students didn't even have to be there. Before her retirement, my mother was first runner up to California Teacher of the Year and had 60 years of classroom experience and she really didn't think much of teacher's unions either. That incident convinced her to retire for the last time at the end of that semester...and she really didn't need the money. She was a dedicated teacher.

Umm, guys- that's the nature of compulsory education. They don't call it compulsory attendance.

The point is that "we the people" value education. Education in what is, of course, up to a bit of interpretation. But whatever that is (standards??), students who do not learn it have not been educated in whatever the heck it is we think as a society is important enough to require. Teachers who do not teach it have not accomplished the goal, and yeah, they should be fired.

It ain't a baby sitting service, and it ain't a welfare program. It's work.

It is a teacher's job to educate to a standard. It is a school board's (and other official's) job to establish the standard. And it is an administration's job to determine the best path and plan to reach the standard, and to hold everyone accountable. Those who don't do their job, deserve the consequences up to, and including termination of employment.

That's why it is not OK when kids can't read. Reading is a standard.

SVreX wrote: Umm, guys- that's the nature of compulsory education. They don't call it compulsory attendance. The point is that "we the people" value education. Education in what is, of course, up to a bit of interpretation. But whatever that is (standards??), students who do not learn it have not been educated in whatever the heck it is we think as a society is important enough to require. Teachers who do not teach it have not accomplished the goal, and yeah, they should be fired. It ain't a baby sitting service, and it ain't a welfare program. It's work. It is a teacher's job to educate to a standard. It is a school board's (and other official's) job to establish the standard. And it is an administration's job to determine the best path and plan to reach the standard, and to hold everyone accountable. Those who don't do their job, deserve the consequences up to, and including termination of employment. That's why it is not OK when kids can't read. Reading is a standard.

So what happens when you fire everybody and the people you replace them with don't get the job done either, then you fire those people and replace them and on and on and on? Eventually you are going to run out of people to put through your revolving door, especially in the case of math and science teachers who can go to higher paying corporate jobs and not have to put up with this crap.

Threatening to fire is a good motivator if your employees are picking cotton or digging ditches, but for more complex tasks not so much. In the long run, people who spend time and money educating themselves for a profession will move into professions other than teaching where the pay is higher and the bs level is lower.

To put it bluntly, smart people don't want to teach these kids under your terms and don't have to, and not so smart people are not able to teach them no matter how much you cajole and threaten them. Break their unions. Fire them. Threaten to line them up in front of a firing squad. Whatever.

That's crap. There has never been a school district that had to fire every teacher for non-performance.

If the goals are unattainable, they are poor goals. The school board and administration both need to do a better job.

So, as I am understanding it, you appear to be suggesting that teachers should never be held accountable, and that goals and standards are bad.

BS.

Datsun1500 wrote:

mguar wrote: Friend of mine is a new teacher this fall. She leaves the house at 5:30 in the AM and gets back at home at 7:00.

Must be a hell of a commute. A quick Google shows MN School hours are 8:25 to 3:05 for Elementary and 7:45 -2:15 for middle/high school She should move closer to the school. Maybe you can build her a house near the school.

My kid's school takes in at 8:15. Transportation opens at 5:30. Attendance opens at 7:15. Teachers are normally in the classroom by 7:30-7:45, many of them (particularly math teachers) have early tutoring to help kids who are having trouble. I know that one for a fact; when my daughter was having some math troubles her early tutoring started 3 days a week at 7:15 AM and I had to drive her there. The last bell is at 3:30, then it's time to do the day's paperwork and meet with parents etc.

So yeah those hours do not surprise me at all.

I don't doubt there are a lot of dedicated teachers; I have met a few (one of whom is Stephen Colbert's older brother). I don't like the way the unions protect the non-dedicated ones.

http://www.onlineeducation.net/the-state-of-education

SVreX wrote: That's crap. There has never been a school district that had to fire every teacher for non-performance. If the goals are unattainable, they are poor goals. The school board and administration both need to do a better job. So, as I am understanding it, you appear to be suggesting that teachers should never be held accountable, and that goals and standards are bad. BS.

OK. What I say is crap. "Im (sic) not even sure how to respond to such a generalized statement." etc. etc.

If you guys are more interested in personal insults than any kind of discussion, then I will be on my way and somebody will be here soon enough to lock this thread. Oh....and you're ugly and your mother dresses you funny.

You are putting words in my mouth here. I am not saying that teachers shouldn't be held accountable. What I am saying is that firing teachers and getting rid of teachers unions may not be the way to solve this problem. Of course there is a certain political movement that wants to get rid of public employee unions for ideological reasons but that is a different argument.

Here in Dallas they fire and replace School Superintendents about every two years. One actually went to jail for stealing stuff and another got hired just before he got fired by his previous district. The latest guy brought his public relations director with him and pays her 200K a year to tell us that he is doing a good job. They hire and fire, hire and fire and nothing seems to really change. We threw out a bunch of school board members with ties to the education community and replaced them with business guys who have ties to contractors who want to get contracts to build new school buildings. The faces change but the song remains the same. Hire and fire. Hire and fire.

The bottom line is that the student has a personal responsibility to educate him or herself and the student's parents have a personal responsibility to educate their children so they can get by in this world. A teacher can't force a student to pay attention in class. A teacher can't make a student do his or her homework when he or she walks out of the classroom. You can make education available to everybody who wants it but you can't force students to educate themselves, even at the point of a gun. Firing a teacher and hiring another one as a replacement isn't going to make a kid give a damn about the standardized test they are forced to take if that kid flat out doesn't care.

Maybe what we ought to do is make schools available but not compulsory. Students who don't want to be in school can leave and go hang out on a street corner if they want, go take an apprenticeship for a blue collar job, work at McDonalds or go pick tomatoes for a living. Let them go back to an adult education school in a few years if and when they change their mind about formal education. Let them get their education online if they want. They won't be disruptive to the students who actually want to be there and we wouldn't have to waste money hiring teachers who are trying to teach students who don't want to learn. Just a thought.

I like cars

Did this thread watergate yet?

Snowdoggie wrote: You are putting words in my mouth here. I am not saying that teachers shouldn't be held accountable. What I am saying is that firing teachers and getting rid of teachers unions may not be the way to solve this problem.

Then offer a couple of suggestions.

I was not making a personal insult. Your suggestion that people in disagreement with you wanted to fire all the teachers, hire more, fire, them, etc. was crap. As I said, there has never been a school system (even in those horrible conservative districts) that had to fire all the teachers for non-performance.

Snowdoggie wrote: The bottom line is that the student has a personal responsibility to educate him or herself and the student's parents have a personal responsibility to educate their children so they can get by in this world. A teacher can't force a student to pay attention in class. A teacher can't make a student do his or her homework when he or she walks out of the classroom. You can make education available to everybody who wants it but you can't force students to educate themselves, even at the point of a gun. Firing a teacher and hiring another one as a replacement isn't going to make a kid give a damn about the standardized test they are forced to take if that kid flat out doesn't care.

That's really not true. Yeah, it's a moral high idea, but in practice it holds no reality.

Some people are driven to learn. All are required to get an education, at least up to a certain age. Education costs are paid for by communities, therefore the standard that defines success or failure is defined by the community.

For example... if you worked for me, I would have hired you to do a job. It's my job to define that job (and I may or may not be any good at that). It is then my job to determine if you are adequately doing the job you were hired to do. If you are not, it is my job to redirect you, or fire you if you are not adding value to the company or doing the job you were hired to do. Failure to follow through and fire you when necessary is a failure to lead on my part, and will lead to the deterioration of the company.

So, your job is to do your job. My job is to decide if you are doing it, and fire you if necessary.

Similarly, any teacher who can't meet the standard has no reason to expect they have the right to suck on the teat of the taxpayers while they continue to undermine the solvency of the community. They should be fired.

yamaha wrote: Did this thread watergate yet?

Yes.

Same names, all the time.

Margie

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/09/10/breaking-teachers-strike-expected-to-enter-2nd-day/

“This is my job, my career, my life, and obviously I’m worried about being able to pay my rent, but I believe in this strongly enough that I just can’t not be here,” she said.

"Can't not"????

Nothing to see here, move along.

Jefferson, Watergate, Bork

Marjorie Suddard wrote: Same names, all the time. Margie

Hey. Maybe if you ban me I will quit arguing with these guys, go out to the garage and finish some of my project cars. This could be a good thing.

Seriously. This is my last post in a political thread. This last exchange made me realize how stupid this pigfighting is.

I tell you what, I'm really tired of seeing this on every newscast that is on TV.

I'm done.

The other thing that is annoying for me, is that on of my good friend's wife is a teacher at a CPS school and she just started this school year. She's out there picketing and he's posting on FB twice a day about it.

Oh and close this thread already.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Oh and close this thread already.

Let me help with that...

This is all Obama's fault because he didn't do something or other. Or the jews. Possibly OWS. Or god punishing us for one man's love of Dolphins.

gay slur.

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

That is Sig worthy material right there......

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Oh and close this thread already.

No, I'm going to let it endure as a testament to how stupid these threads really are.

Margie

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Oh and close this thread already.

Let me help with that... This is all Obama's fault because he didn't do something or other. Or the jews. Possibly OWS. Or god punishing us for one man's love of Dolphins. gay slur.

IF I had a beverage, I would have spit it out.

I stumbled across this article on the Teacher's Strike. Most of this may have been covered early on, but I haven't been following the thread.

Bloomberg article

It begins like this:

"The stakes in Chicago’s school strike go well beyond the nation’s third-largest public school system. For U.S. education reform, it may be a watershed. For teachers unions, it may be a Waterloo.

It was poor timing for Chicago teachers to walk out on 350,000 children Monday, the second week of the school year. (Despite union claims to the contrary, “walk out” is exactly what the teachers did, unilaterally shutting off negotiations with city.) "

It goes on to defend the teachers and give you some idea of the issues they are up against, but still says they are wrong to do it this way at this time.

I'm keeping this one. It's like watching a dogfight, but without the guilt because I like dogs. We need more picadores!

(Oh, and if you're still in here fighting with all you're worth, you're... funny. Here's a sharp lance.)

Margie

Like mguar, I had some teachers who weren't worth shooting. For the most part, those were the ones who were marking time till retirement. There was one art teacher who was a party animal and a smartass, she really had no place in teaching. I didn't realize until later how they kept their jobs when they obviously could not have cared less.