Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How like the teachers, and their union

Do the right thing?

the teachers and their union seem to do everything for the wrong reasons, and to heck with anyone and everyone else. A pox on them.

Unions are nothing but crap and dirt thrown on the faces of otherwise decent workers.

We had a case around here where the city mistakenly sent $600,000 to some black rabble rousing group, who went out and spent it. When the mistake was discovered, the city demanded it back. the group refused. Several of them ended up in prison.

I wish the same to the union thugs.

What's the big deal?

Dock each of their next ten paychecks 10% of the overpayment--or each of their next five 20%, or jack the next one for the whole thing. What are they going to do: quit?

I don't see an issue here.

Keep the bonus, boys and girls!

The so-called "merit system' is rife with corruption, politics, and favoritism. BAD IDEA! "Tenure" with its obvious warts, protects teachers from arbitrary firings/lay-offs based on conflicts of personalities, politics, educational philosophical conflicts, favoritism, and the look on one's face when dealing with asinine administrators (my wife- one of the best teachers ever - would have been fired a dozen times over on this issue alone - she was once actually threatened with termination for "insubordination" just from her facial expression when a Superintendent was trying to force her to falsify records to secure more "Special Ed" funds - he lost - she took leave and hand carried her records right to the state capital Ed Depart to have them certified. She was NOT one of his favored people... ...). Remember - it commonly takes 3 years to earn tenure - one's ability as a teacher should be pretty plain by that time. In our district, all teachers without tenure are automatically pink slipped each year - those that are wanted/needed back, are hired back, anywhere from a month to a day before school starts again. That can be a little rough!

Teachers (from adequate to excellent, which most of them are) are largely underpaid, unappreciated, and overworked. Never mind the "9 month" thing - good teachers generally do about 14 month's work in that 9 months, then spend the other 3 months upgrading their skills, or at least trying to get sane again, not to mention spending a fair amount of their personal income on classroom supplies and teaching aids that Districts are woefully inadequate in covering. I had a screaming chit-fit the year wifey spent over $4,000 on un-reimbursed classroom supplies! She never spent less than a grand....

My wife spent 3 years, summers and evenings, and about $30,000 in costs (tuition, books, apartment rental, air fare, child care) in earning her Master's - for which she got the magnificent raise of $1,000 per year, in addition toi step raises, which, over the long run, did not keep up with inflation. Me, I got out after several years of teaching, and took a classified position in the school setting. I still get to work with the kids. Make half as much, with a tenth the stress, but my wife's and my salaries were comparable, per hour spent working. I wouldn't walk back into a classroom as a regular teacher for thrice the money, and sometimes I get to briefly sub, teach a short lesson or tutor someone - tho both my Certificates (Secondary and Elementary) lapsed years ago.

Teacher's are nuts, God Bless Them! I'm just not cut out for it.

You Jump-On-The-Bandwagon- Bash-Public-Education types are Pukes! NO WAY should there be vouchers for private-ed /parochial institutes! You want it - pay for it out of your own pocket, in addition to your public education taxes, which are an investment in Society, not just your personal offspring. And yes, I home-schooled my own kids for a couple years because we were unhappy with the public-ed situation - 35 kids in a 3rd grade classroom is outrageous! Particularily with a mediocre teacher in charge.

Public education is an investment in society's future - sometimes it's even a very good one. As such, it must admit EVERYONE, and is mandated to do it's level best to provide to the students "best" ability. Many factors contribute to shortfall, but what is the alternative! (Parental failure and lack of support is an enormous obstacle, overall)

Private/Parochial schools have the luxury of eliminating anyone it doesn't like behaviorally, academically, or socially. OF COURSE they have better performance scores! Home schooling, done right, is head and shoulders above everything else. Done wrong, it puts the anti-social little chits even further behind than if they were in public-ed.

When you read that it costs $6500 (say) average, per year, to educate a student, that's all well and good. But do realize this figure has nothing to do with the actual teachers in the trench. Included in this are the administrative costs (You get $150,000 a year to go to meetings, with NO kid contact?????!!!!), and the "Specials" which eat up large amounts of booty - from Quest (which in many places reflects whose kid you are, and not your ability), to the hopeless droolers, which by law the public education system is mandated to serve to the maximum the kid can be educated. In some cases, this may only mean to learn to use a spoon to feed himself. Literally! And it may take years!

Example: In my school, we have a "special" who is bused (alone) 20 miles from a neighboring community for 3 hours of solo "education" per day. He is a danger to other kids, so besides his own personal bus and driver for the trip, he has his own full-time teacher, a full time aide, and a self contained 20 X 30 portable (we happened to have an available one). Not to mention the damage to school property when he throws a fit..

I estimate this kid to cost the taxpayers (most of this money comes from the Federal government), a minimum of $100,000 per year. And he will never be a useful, productive member of society, IMO. He has multiple disabilities. Professionally, (in private) we refer to him as AFU. So what are you going to do - stuff him thru a hole in the ice? He sure as hell ain't gonna go to any private school on vouchers!

He will probably be instituted or incarcerated for life by the time he turns 20, if he lives that long. But his current expenses are figured into the "average cost of education"!!!!

Do I have an answer, or even a proposal for this kind of thing? Nope. I'm as clueless as to "solution" as any radical right-wing blathering "public-education is evil/ worthless" idiot.....

Unless you want to consider the good old "final solution".... do you?

That would be the "sensible" thing to do. From an economic view point, it would be the "right thing" to do. Likewise from social, safety, and convenient viewpoints. did i miss any?

Damn - I feel GOOD!

What the Houston district and all districts seem to forget is that it is the tax payers money. There should be no argument. Return it. When the Air Force overpaid me back in 1970 they didn't ask for it back they took it.

las says that public education is an investment in society's future. With most investments one may stop investing and reap the benefits. I want to stop investing! Retirees need a break from the ever increasing burden of property taxes. I have paid school taxes 3 times longer than my child was in public school. I have seen too many older folk who have to give up their comfortable home and lower their standard of living because the taxes keep rising. And in my district the benefits from this constant rise has been a huge bueracracy, closed buildings due to poor maintenance, outdated computers and books but new office buildings, etc. etc.
A bond election was held to fund improvements. Defeated. Amazingly, another was held with half the pork removed. Defeated. Another try...defeated. All three times defeated not because no one wanted to support the kids but, because no one wanted more taxes. Yet a fourth time, more pork removed and it passed. Polls say it passed due to voter apathy. The people were worn down. How many times should we have to vote on the same issue? The money spent on all these elections and advertising probably could have built a new building.
I know a number of teachers. Fine people. Tough and often thankless job. But, there should be a point at which our investment stops or is greatly reduced. A senior deduction is nice but hardly noticed. When they increase the home valuations by 10K per year a 5K discount does not help much.
And when I listen to the teachers I know gripe about their long days and parent conferences, etc. it sounds bad. Then schools out and they jump in the motor home, put a few hundred bucks in the tank and head off to adventure. Or they go on a six week cruise or whatever. I would have loved to have a couple of months away from the grind to regroup!
Quit bitchin', cut out the admin. pork, stop raising my dadburn taxes and give us goal to look forward to of "bill paid" somewhere in our old age!
las said "Damn - I feel GOOD!" Wish I could say the same.

I honest to God don't know who is more at fault in the present mess in public education. A mess it is believe me.

Since I "retired" I have been doing substitute teaching in from third grade levle through high school.

There are some good and dedicated teachers who really care and there are some who are just puting in the time. Heck that is anywhere and any public service job I guess.

Now I am just talking about Texas because that is all I know about and each state is different I am sure.

There really ain't no local control anymore. School boards have no real power. About all they can do is say where the money is spent and who they hire. As for anything else the state rules, or federal, have them so bound up they can't wiggle no matter how much they may want to.

Now in the class room it is absolutely pitiful in too many cases. The State says you got to educate what they put in there and there is a lot of them that don't belong in there. They are freaking imbicles. Just a personal for instance there is one class that has a kid, third grade, who claims not to be able to subtract two digit numbers. Third grade!!!

Fifth grade kids who do not know how to multiply and divide. Several examples I have seen.

There is this one kid who, if you put any pressure on him at all he hides under his desk. Just goes into a fetal position and stays there.

They ought to be in the retard class but the State says they ain't crazy enough or dumb enough for that so they are in a regular classroom.

Hell's bells. You got to teach to the lowest levle so the good and smart kids get bored and cause trouble just out of boredom.

You can't tell a stupid kid he is stupid. Can't bruise their little egos don't you know.

Way too many products of crack head mothers and I bet at least a quarter of the kids can't tell you who their daddy is.

I honest don't see how a good teacher can keep from getting ground down.

I stay out of the internal politics so can't comment on any of that but I know it is there.

However, in my case, when you get your mind right, like the hell with this bs. Just go in, shovel out the pap they tell you to throw out there, give them the eight hours they pay me for, chuck it when you walk out the door, go home and forget it.

Doing it that way it ain't a bad job. I have worked a lot harder for a lot less money many's the day.

BCR

The money should be given back. Give the teachers and their union representatives two choices: give the money back as incremental deductions from their next several paychecks, or find another job.

las,great post.The puke reference was spot on.My ex wifes' son with a near genius IQ and the ability to get As with his eyes closed refused to participate in any school activity scholastic or sports until he finally managed to get himself expelled.No way in hell I would want to spend my working hours with some of the kids today.Some parents have the nerve to blame it on the schools and teachers.The schools are there for the 3 Rs and the rest begins at home.

It's government schools that are rife with corruption, politics, and favoritism...and they are that way simply because they don't have to show a profit. Coercively-extorted tax money goes in, and what comes out is...well, we all see what comes out. If we don't like what comes out, well, tough: it's a government "service." If education was privatized, I'm not sure exactly what method of hiring, firing, and computing raises would be adopted, but whatever it was it would be designed to produce satisfied customers and attract more business.



But the school's probably still in business, right? The superintendent may even still have a job. Stuff that wouldn't even begin to fly in a private setting because it would cause a loss of business is shrugged at in the government schools because hey, after all, it's free money. There's no competition for it; people can't avoid paying it, so what's to worry about?


Another potential benefit of privatizing education. Teachers would be like everyone else: the schools would be forced to pay the good ones what they were worth, or lose them to competitors; the bad ones wouldn't be able to get a job (because bad teachers would hurt a school's reputation and impact its bottom line) and would have to find a line of work in which they were worth something to somebody.


I happen to agree with you, but I suspect my reasoning is much different from yours.


Investment? No, it's not an investment. It's extortion: protection money. An investment is something you have a choice about.


People who think it's a good investment should be free to give as much of their money to it as they want. But it's a pretty obvious injustice to force people who don't think it's a good investment to finance it.


That mandate, of course, is one of the biggest sources of failure for government schools. And parents are failing, of course, because the system enables and subsidizes their failure. They don't have to parent their kids because if they don't the system will. Take the system away and you'll see a lot more parenting going on.


You say that as if it were a bad thing. I think it's an outrage that all schools don't have that choice.


Really? I don't think so.


I seem to have lost track: which side are you on again?


Good thing there are people like me around then. The solution is privatization, just as it is in every other area of endeavor that government subsidy has screwed up. When a service is privatized, all of a sudden all the incentives wind up in the right place: excellence is rewarded, incompetence is kicked to the curb, prices go down, quality goes up, efficiency skyrockets.


Of course you do: your salary is paid with extortion money that the people are forced to provide regardless of how well you do your job. You're under no obligation to earn your keep. Some of us have to do a good enough job that people decide they want, of their own free will, to give us money in exchange for our product.

In your scheme of things Barak, who would determine the curriculum studies for these kids?

I'll answer your question with another.

Government regulations aside, who determines the ingredients in a box of corn flakes?

HUH???

Sorry.

The answer is this: directly, it's the companies that make the corn flakes that decide the ingredients. Indirectly, however, it's the person who foots the bill. A particular set of ingredients will only remain available if there are people willing to pay enough for it to keep it viable. Corn flakes that nobody likes will soon disappear from the market. Corn flakes that everybody likes will be readily available at low prices. Corn flakes with exotic ingredients that a few people like will be available, but generally at higher prices because of the ingredient prices and the overhead of lower volume.

I'm guessing a completely privatized school system would determine curriculum in much the same way.

I love people that know all about the education system and have never taught a day in their lives, never worked in a school, never dealt with kids on any real level and never worked with the handicapped( physically, emotionally, mentally). Or enjoyed all the psychotic parents that just know their wonderful Johnny would never have threatened to rape or kill the teacher, or kicked another much younger kid in the face and backed their kids as they lie through their teeth about homework, substance abuse, cheating, theft, bullying etc.

It's easy to bitch and whine...but never on any thread yet have I seen a real solution offered. And overthrowing the government and killing every bureauocrat is not a real solution!

You're technically replying to my post, but since very little if any of what you say applies to me, I'll assume you meant to direct it to someone else.

Hey Barak--Sorry late to respond but I had to put 4 hours on the road.

I kind of knew what you meant but didn't want to go off on a tangent if I was mistaken. I need to research this a bit more before I respond. I'm focused on the belief that even with privatization, the schools are still required to adhere to certain state regulations(attendance, hours, certification etc) as well as, I believe, establishing a curriculum satisfactorily sufficient for students to meet certain national testing standards for advancement and matriculation. All meaning that they really aren't purely private.

But, Let me get a little more solid on my facts before I take you on, OK?

No problem. Hope you enjoyed your drive.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that the government has all kinds of regulations for private schools. That's a bad thing: there's nothing positive a government regulation on a private school can accomplish that the free market can't do better, cheaper, and more efficiently. I suspect most of the regulations the government places on private schools are specifically designed to cripple them and reduce the embarrassing difference between private schools and government schools...but maybe that's just me.

But when I say "privatize the school system," I don't mean "put the government in charge of it." I mean get rid of all the regulations, licensing, inspections, requirements, government tests, and everything else, and let the free market go to work without hassling it. The only reason all that stuff is necessary in the first place is that government schools are monopolist, coercive, publicly funded, and non-competitive. Make the livelihood of teachers and administrators dependent on people choosing of their own free will to do business with them instead of their competitors, and the landscape will look completely different.

Then how do you get the less than "well to do's" kids into a State University that requires that certain educational standards have been sufficiently satisfied prior to acceptance?

In Barakistan, of course, there wouldn't be any state universities.

But that aside for a moment, if parents are expecting that their kid is going to go to college, they're not going to send him to a primary or secondary school that isn't college prep: and college prep implies that graduates will at least be able to pass college entrance exams.

As to funding, I don't see that as a terribly big issue, as long as the funding stays private--meaning that it comes voluntarily from direct stakeholders.

Right now we have two big problems on the bottom end. One is that kids who have no business in school, and who don't want to be there, are compelled to attend anyway. The other is that many parents have no respect for or interest in their kids' schooling, because it's free and compulsory, and there's no percentage in them spending any effort on it.

The first problem would be taken care of instantly. Don't want to go to school? Fine: don't, and we won't give you another thought. Future parents would forever after have a smattering of bad examples to point to and tell stories about; but most parents, or their kids, if the parents abdicate to that extent, would understand that at least some education is vital to adult success.

The second problem would turn into a special case of the first. If you don't pay any attention to your kids' schooling, then your kids don't get schooled. Period. You're the last line of defense: there are no taxpayers standing behind you waiting to be forced to subsidize the kids you don't want to raise.

As for where the actual money would come from...well, first, without property taxes and all the other extortion whose proceeds get fed into the public schools, there's be a lot more money floating around out there. And because the private sector always works better than the government, you could either get your kids a better education for the same money you're spending now, or you could get the same education you're getting now for less money.

The children of parents who simply couldn't afford tuition, if they seemed academically promising, could attract tuition loans.

It might work like this: you're destitute, and have a kid you'd like to put through school. I have money I'm interested in investing. So I go around testing poor kids for academic promise, and your kid passes my test. I offer you a contract: I'll pay the kid's way through school (perhaps a school, or at least class of school, of my choice), provided that A) he gets grades I find acceptable, and B) once he graduates and gets a real job, I give him five years to get established in the industry and then take ten percent of his gross salary for some number of years to repay my investment and cover my risk, with interest.

There might be groups who would be willing to pay tuition for selected kids to attend certain schools simply in exchange for the chance to indoctrinate them with those groups' chosen curriculum.

But what about the non-selected kids, you ask? The ones who are not academically promising and show no reason to expect that they'll do well in school?

They simply don't go to school. Why should they?

I'm not a teacher but if there was a pay error, they should correct it. I work as a police officer in a public school. Right now the Iowa legislature is debating raising the minimum drop out age to 18 from the current 17. In my opinion it should be 14. After 14 we use a tremendous amout of energy and money to keep less than 5% of the students in school where they do not want to be.

That same 5% are our problem children who make life miserable for the rest of the student body. With all of the efforts we put out, we might be able to keep 1% of the 5% in the building and graduate. This takes away a lot of time and energy from the students who want to stay in school and graduate. We end up teaching to the lowest and slowest student in the room. We really need to keep the state federal interference to a minimum and put the cirriculum back in the hands of the local school board. Most of all we need to let the teachers teach and make sure we keep those who can't teach out. kwg