Hopefully not over six figures in total compensation, such as the great public school teachers in Milwaukee...I'm all for getting as much as you possibly can, to heck with those snot nose kids is what I'm sure the mentality many of those teachers have...Surely many are there to get paid...but there is a point where taxpayers, especially those in the private sector are getting a shorter, and shorter end of the stick.. .. btw, who exactly are in those youtube videos demonstrating the Obama call for civility........Mmm? . . .
It isn't up to the people at the top (the bosses) to unionize, it is up to the workers. If federal government workers wanted unions badly enough to push for them, I would support it. Since they don't seem to be pushing for it, I doubt it is needed. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.
The problem is the unions contribute huge amounts of money to the elected officials who agreed to these outrageous and fiscally bankrupting perks. Plug that hole with reasonable corrective action as demonstarted by Gov. Walker...To do anything less is unsustainable...and a fail for the children of the state . . .
YEs and other special interests contribute huge amounts of money also. Either have campaign finance reform or quit singling out one special interest. It wasn't the unions special interest that caused Walker to send the state into debt by cutting taxes. IT was other special interests. That hurt the state's budget and the union agreed to sacrifice in order to fix it.
The people voiced that Taxes should be cut with their vote...taxed enough already as stated by the people who elected Walker. . .Now to go forward is to lessen the corrupt union power...We all want teachers to get a good salary, that is why collective bargaining on that was left in place...But to have public teacher unions though quid pro quo creating a disporportionate Milwaukee total compensation of OVER six figures is not balanced. . . I'm sure the rest of the state was a goal for the public teacher unions...Only the fact not all politicians could be corrupted probably prevented that as well. . . A couple dumb knuckleheads mentioned Texas, Texas is a right to work state, where qualifications dictate comparative salary and benefits...Of course a public school in Houston will earn more since a teaching position in the big city is more attractive...But public teacher unions such as in Wisconsin make no distinction on comaparative performance or credentials among teachers...Their stance is to infiltrate politicians and create un-balanced total compensation. . .and taxes preferably high better pay for it...
Awaiting the post where you identify the problem of corporations and wealthy individuals contributing huger amounts of money to elected officials for policies that favor them and bankrupt not only the government, but the country as well.
BUST THEM UP!!!! DOWN WITH THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL MONOPOLY!!! <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7tck77z3x0I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Interesting paper on teacher economics. Some highlights: After pages of math and economics, the author reaches this conclusion: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16606.pdf
Desperation sets in... Reminds me of these guys... Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Tea Party.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise....
Bust them up! Geoffrey Canada warns Michael Gove teaching unions 'kill' innovation Barack Obama's education pioneer says union inflexibility is a barrier to schools reform Geoffrey Canada, the man credited with turning around black under-achievement in Harlem and the star guest at conference, has told Michael Gove that the teaching unions are the biggest threat to the education secretary's reforms. Canada has been hailed as a pioneer in education by Barack Obama. In an interview with the Guardian, Canada said he had told Gove that in the UK the unions constituted an inflexible brake which was "killing" the innovation necessary to transform children's lives, and that they "cover up" for failing teachers. Canada said: "Our charter schools were not unionised. My contract with my teachers is fair, and is two pages. The union contract is 200 pages. You cannot manage your business when you cannot make any decision without going back to 200 pages worth of stuff. "So that is inflexible. It kills innovation; it stops anything from changing. The only thing that we can do is what we did last year, and last year was another failure. So that to me makes no sense." Canada's advice is a challenge to England's main teaching unions, which are opposed to coalition plans to expand academies and free schools, arguing they do not believe these schools raise standards, while costing more money to run and creating social segregation. Asked what advice he had given Gove, Canada said: "I have been very clear that this union issue has to be at the forefront if you're going to bring about reform. "It's uncomfortable and people get anxious about it. But I just think you have to have the conversation; and until we began to have that conversation in the States, there was no sense that you have any movement and momentum building towards reform. "Until the unions come up with a real plan for improving schools that have failed – that doesn't do what they have done [in the past] – I think they don't have a really strong argument why they should be in this conversation in terms of what the future is going to be." Canada grew up in a poor part of the New York Bronx, but went on to study at a prestigious liberal arts college and then specialise in education at Harvard. He set up a not-for-profit organisation in Harlem where all the services a child and parent should get – from antenatal tips to skills training and after school services – are provided. Called the Harlem Children's Zone, it has grown to cover 97 blocks. Obama has called for 20 similar "promise neighbourhoods" to do the same, across the US. Canada is now the subject of a film, Waiting for Superman, made by the director of An Inconvenient Truth. The inability to sack bad teachers was a "real problem", and removing them from the profession should be made a priority, Canada said. "Most teachers are decent, and some are really great. But there are also some who are lousy, and should not be in the profession. And the inability to get rid of these teachers, I think, is a real problem, and should be a priority, because it's pretty indefensible. "Unions that cover up for people who we know should not be in the profession, that's a problem; when it is explicit that you may not get rid of these people." Addressing the conference ahead of Gove's speech, Canada said he had earned unpopularity for calling attention to America's educational decline. "I've been making sure everybody knows we have lost our way. We offer our children a third world education system. We are not in the top ten, and in many cases we are not even in the top 20. The fact is, we have mishandled the education system." Where his project operates in New York, public schools have been failing for 53 years, he said. "Fifty-three years?" he put it to conference. "All those generations. What has been the consequence of that failure? Has anyone changed anything? Even though it hasn't worked for 53 years? "Education is the only billion dollar industry that tolerates abject failure. Any other business that failed so spectacularly for fifty years, it would be out of business." Explaining his methods to conference, Canada said he tracked children from birth to college. "You stop those kids at birth and you stay with those kids. You teach them the soft skills or learning, to shake off a disappointment, learning to concentrate. And you take responsibility. "When we started our school, in Harlem, I said to our mayor … and I said to my board of trustees, I said – if I don't have a better school in five years than all the other private schools, I'm going to fire myself. And then I got my staff in and said 'but you all know I'll be the last one leaving'."
Guys here is a lot of copy pasted text with a bolded headline - comments? BOOK THE FIRST -- RECALLED TO LIFE THE PERIOD IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way -- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy- five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and- twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the ****-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the ****-lane brood. France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrels of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mall was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mall was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty
:grin: yeah , okay Arne Duncan is the Secretary of Ed if I'm not mistaken. Canada is a bloomburg stooge looking for the limelight.
Here's a discussion in which several readers of Andrew Sullivan's blog raising the "Who watches the watchmen" issue: If you give all this power to the principals and administrators, who is to say they are going to make the right decisions or even decisions motivated by a desire to improve the school? Who is to say that the superintendents or school boards will have the best interest of education in mind? Examples were provided of principals who ran schools like their personal fiefdom, are crazy or corrupt. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/03/getting-rid-of-bad-teachers-ctd.html Of course, it is ridiculous unions do to protect some of the truly bad teacher-- those who are consistently ineffective or even abusive. On the other hand, the people you are proposing to put in charge over the teachers can be just as bad. Improving education is more complicated than just getting rid of the unions.
You are right - we need to auction of the government school buildings and move to a complete voucher system.
