Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A bunch of teachers got fired today!

One part that really struck me was how they said only 2 tenured union teachers were fired out of 50,000 because it's nearly impossible to fire union teachers. The case of the child molesting teacher who was still working was especially troubling.


I'm not anti-union by any means but when someone's getting paid on my nickel, I'm going to pay attention. And from what I've seen of the teacher's union, I'm not very impressed.

That would be an extremely tough grader by some standards.

That Cole didn't understand the implications of the correlation is indicative of the problem.

But the quality of students going into the teaching profession is just one of many problems. If you look for a single issue that will fix education's general decline, you will not find it. You will find, instead, a whole pot full of issues. There is plenty of blame to pass around.

Brent

Just for the record, my original post was not intended to disrespect the teaching profession and the many dedicated folks in it. I also appreciate the value of continuing education.

It was in response to Pat's post about people who are overly impressed with the status of the degree itself.

The teaching profession is somewhat unique in that, at least in some cases, you get paid according to the credits or degrees you hold, along with seniority. In most jobs you don't get paid for your credentials, but for the value of your work.

Of course pay for performance for teachers is another huge can of worms.

Paul

Once again, it is illegal for the teachers to strike in Kansas. Do they not have a contract in Pennsylvania? In most places, if you have a contract you are held to it. I'm aware of few contracts that one can quit in the middle of and strike. Grievances such as low salary can be addressed during negotiations. In Kansas, there is a Continuing Contract Law which provides for employment via an old contract while negotiations are ongoing.

57% is the majority, but not a huge majority indicating what you are not saying is that a big portion of funding comes from sources other than YOUR property taxes. Do you feel teachers are overpaid or do you not agree with the whole system of education?

If you don't want to foot the bill for your neighbor's kids, that is fine. As an anarchist, you probably believe in what you think is totally unbridled capitalism. "Why should I pay some guy $7 an hour to dig a ditch?" Etc. Okay, let's say we pay $4 an hour to some Messican to dig it in the totally free market. The Messican lives in a Colonista 1/4 mile from your house with some bootlegged electric from non-code cords spliced into your line. His kids are diseased because there is no healthcare nor money to pay for it. He is ignorant of our culture because there is no school to expose his kids to your own or to teach his kids about the USA. Not to mention the fact that his kids remain unskilled and can't even do simple math to work in your restaurant (I have no idea what your real business is.) Therefore your labor pool consists of five kids in town that went to private school and can do math but who are on to Harvard due to the fact that the bulk of kids are educated. Plus, your kid catches a Plague-related disease from the raw sewage emanating from the Colonia. You end up with $50000 in medical expenses due to this. This actually happened to a friend of mine who lived in a very, very nice house in Weslaco, Texas. After ten years down there, six months after his kids got sick he was living in Kansas with his kids attending public schools here.

So universal education is up to the voter, but it isn't as simple as some here who have it seem.

I didn't find your post offensive Paul, but wanted to provide an alternative viewpoint. I'll disagree with your last sentence and say that IMO in most jobs you get paid for who you are rather than what you do and the who usually involves an inordinate amount of butt-licking skills.

Actually Brent, your own intellectual dishonesty is more indicative of the problem than my admission that I didn't know what you were implying.

Now with a bit more info on the subject I have to ask you. When the average IQ in the country is 100, how do you propose to raise the quality of the student higher education is receiving when so many are needed? To answer my own question, it's an impossibility.

Where are the stats on education's "decline"?

Cole, just like you can't figure out how trees grow, you can't read this thread. All the stats you need are there. And of course, lots and lots and lots of other places - all pointing to the same conclusion.

So, now let's be specific about my intellectual dishonesty eh?

At least you are a good example of the problem we are faced with.

Cole, I can't disagree about the brown nosing factor, although I'm not as cynical as your use of the term "most" would suggest. Really comes down to one's personal experiences and opinion.

It is a fact that teachers more than most professionals fight like heck any suggestion that pay should be based on performance. So the fall-back is paying for seniority and credentials, without regard for job performance. That seems to be the position of the teachers' unions.

Paul

They make WHAT $70,000 to $78,000 a year!! And they want more!!! Let them come to Florida where I teach and have taught for 8 years!!! They are making almost twice what we do!!! Starting teacher salary in my district.....$32,000!!! Ha ha ha ha what a bunch of pansies!! I am glad they fired all of their lazy asses!! Put a bunch of young teachers in there that want to change the way that they teach to adapt to the students.

While I can identify with your desire to make more, do you really think the school board and administration that is more than likely doing this to mask their own culpability is going to change things for the better of the students or taxpayers? This will end up making things worse both educationally and monetarily, IMO.

Then again, I don't know the teachers involved. Perhaps every last one of them was lazy and undeserving of their compensation. Maybe you should move to RI and show them how to do it.

There are many reasons for that, some good and some bad.

One semester I was saddled with an algebra class that met once a week in the evening for three hours. Do you have any guesses as to why I wouldn't want my pay based on an assessment of these students' performance on a standardized exam compared to the 9:00 three days a week section?

I must be as slow as you say because for the life of me I have no idea how diseased Mexicans and $4 hr labor has anything to do with the teachers union.

The "Rubber Room" was also pretty enlightening. In theory, a union could be a good thing. I like the idea of promoting professional standards of skill, etc. Trouble is, in practice, they tend to be corrupt. You know, it's the sheisters that tend to seek positions of authority in these groups, just like politicians. Then the entitlement mentality is fomented and fostered until it rears it's ugly head. After that, all credibility is lost.

Yep, that's why I modified my post to note that pay for for performance for teachers is a huge can of worms.

Paul

How do you propose I be more specific? You yourself are a tenured Professor are you not? If the majority of folks on here are correct in what they say about education, that would make you Public Enemy Number One. In general and not specific to you yourself, an example of intellectual dishonesty to me would be a tenured prof sitting on PhD boards and passing candidates on who either gave the best bj or had political views that aligned with his own effete, elitist, psuedo-intellectual worldview. Of course that is just a basic definition and not what I was talking about where you are concerned as I don't know you personally nor how you operate. What I was saying about you was that you were being disingenuous in your assertion that I didn't understand what you were talking about when I was pretty clear that I understood the correlations, just not for sure which one you were using. Also it was clear that you only recognized one possible correlation to the ignorance of others. Unlike you, I recognize your intelligence and don't think it is the lack thereof that inhibits your recognition of more than one possible correlation.

If the stats are there, trot them out.

My father (died on Christmas Day 2009) lived in RI and often said that RI schools are only slightly better than those in Mississippi. Maybe the change will be positive, after the dust settles.

Yeah, That is what I will do, leave Florida for Rhode Island!! I will keep coaching sports, working cows and building fence during the summer, guiding turkey hunts, and growing citrus to supplement my income here, Thank you!!! I work 12 - 16 hour days most of the school year. A couple of football season ago, I kept track of my hours for two weeks, and then divided that into my net pay..... $3.89 per hour!!! And I loved every minute of it!!! We lost our prep period this year, so now I have to get here at 6:15am yet my contract does not start paying me until 7:40am!! I was at a professional development in Tampa last night until 8pm and had a two hour drive home. All with out getting paid for it. That school district was going to pay them for taking the CE credits!! I just think people forget that if they got into teaching for the money, they got in the wrong business!!!

As somebody said, a skilled and educated workforce not only benefits everybody, but is crucial to not having to watch your back every second of the day lest somebody steal your chit so their children don't die of malnourishment or disease.

Exactly. I certainly don't want to live in Rhode Island or work with those kids, otherwise I would do so. The wife and I live on much less income just because we enjoy our country lifestyle in the place where we are at and also because it is much safer here than there. I wouldn't want the job for $78000 nor for $100000, nor would you. Hence my reason for not worrying too much about what the teachers make up there.

Maybe. And maybe a monkey will fly out of Brent's asss later today and become King of Atlantis.