[quote]Headhunter wrote:
So what have we learned in this thread?
From Zeb, we learn that teachers are evil.[/quote]
Of course you know I never said that, you post these things to be provocative. For clarification, I said that they are the most loathsome group of all “professionals”. Taking all that they can get and using “the children” as a shield. When in reality most of what they get is taken from the kids, No you can’t get any lower than that without actually breaking the law.
[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Remember on here Unions = Obama loving liberal leaning thoughtless socialist (oh yeah forgot baby killing).
[/quote]
No, mostly just UAW (autoworkers), NEA (teachers), and SEIU (gov’t employees) as a whole. They are unwaivering and tend to suck the host blood (ie. the public) dry.
Generally FF’ers and LEO unions don’t bother me a bit.
HH, you talk about the ‘teachers union’ protecting from the government monopoly, but you don’t see how your union feeds and perpetuates government growth, intervention into private lives, and creates little incentive for more responsibility from the the employees? I think you can’t see the forest for the trees.
This solves everything:
(1) Make teachers exempt from all income taxes.
(2) A 3% surtax is placed on all other incomes. Said money to be used in the following way:
(a) all teachers begin at $50,000 per year.
(b) each receives a raise of $2500/year, so each earns $100,000 after 20 years.
(3) All teachers receive $1,000,000 after 30 years of service.
(4) All teachers receive a retirement condo in their state of service.
There. We’ll be flooded by brilliant people and America will enter a new Golden Age.
[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Remember on here Unions = Obama loving liberal leaning thoughtless socialist (oh yeah forgot baby killing).
[/quote]
No, mostly just UAW (autoworkers), NEA (teachers), and SEIU (gov’t employees) as a whole. They are unwaivering and tend to suck the host blood (ie. the public) dry.
Generally FF’ers and LEO unions don’t bother me a bit.
HH, you talk about the ‘teachers union’ protecting from the government monopoly, but you don’t see how your union feeds and perpetuates government growth, intervention into private lives, and creates little incentive for more responsibility from the the employees? I think you can’t see the forest for the trees.[/quote]
Monopolies, those mandated by government, are simply wrong. To establish a monopoly on education in a dynamic capitalist system was to remove competition from the equation. Instead of the best school winning, mediocrity and toeing the party line became the formula for survival (as it does in any closed system).
Same is true for Social Security. If they had mandated that everyone fund their own retirement by having a certain percentage deducted and invested, we’d have had unlimited wealth. Now you’ll be lucky to get a $1000 check monthly. That’s what happens with monopolies.
I don’t condone the unions. But what’d you expect? When a monopoly sets the wages, you either leave the field (lots do), accept the low pay, or fight back with a quasi-monopoly of your own.
Until we dispel the notion that government is ‘the answer’, attacking the unions and listening to demagogues will result in nothing.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
This solves everything:
(1) Make teachers exempt from all income taxes.
(2) A 3% surtax is placed on all other incomes. Said money to be used in the following way:
(a) all teachers begin at $50,000 per year.
(b) each receives a raise of $2500/year, so each earns $100,000 after 20 years.
(3) All teachers receive $1,000,000 after 30 years of service.
(4) All teachers receive a retirement condo in their state of service.
There. We’ll be flooded by brilliant people and America will enter a new Golden Age. [/quote]
You’ve thrown money at the problem like a good little liberal. But, as most of us know it’s not about paying teachers more, it’s not about getting smarter teachers. It’s about getting teachers who actually CARE about helping the kids more than they care about their precious salary and benefits package and time off. As I’ve already said 40 years ago teachers made far less on average than they do today and grades were higher.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I don’t belong to any union. But people should be free to join/form unions, for the legal purpose of negotiating better wages, and so forth. Is that what you don’t like?
[/quote]
Yep. Nothing wrong with unions in theory. it’s the protection and favoritism given to unions that most here should be upset with. That being said, it is not surprising that people lash out against entities they see as having an unfair advantage and monopolizing on it. As an example, I won’t be buying any cars built by the UAW after the sweetheart deal they got courtesy of the taxpayer. I have absolutely nothing against any individual UAW worker.
When someone pays off political cronies on my dime, I get pissed off. Multiply that by quite a bit for our education system. Is it really a surprise that many feel the same way about teachers’ unions as you feel about Walmart?
Unions should be held to the same standards and laws as private business. How many large unions would exist without the Wagner act? Can’t recall if the Wagner act exempted unions from anti-trust laws or if it was in the Sherman act itself. What if unions were held to the same arbitrary anti-trust laws as private business?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I don’t belong to any union. But people should be free to join/form unions, for the legal purpose of negotiating better wages, and so forth. Is that what you don’t like?
[/quote]
Yep. Nothing wrong with unions in theory. it’s the protection and favoritism given to unions that most here should be upset with. That being said, it is not surprising that people lash out against entities they see as having an unfair advantage and monopolizing on it. As an example, I won’t be buying any cars built by the UAW after the sweetheart deal they got courtesy of the taxpayer. I have absolutely nothing against any individual UAW worker.
When someone pays off political cronies on my dime, I get pissed off. Multiply that by quite a bit for our education system. Is it really a surprise that many feel the same way about teachers’ unions as you feel about Walmart?
Unions should be held to the same standards and laws as private business. How many large unions would exist without the Wagner act? Can’t recall if the Wagner act exempted unions from anti-trust laws or if it was in the Sherman act itself. What if unions were held to the same arbitrary anti-trust laws as private business?
[/quote]
X 1000.
It becomes a massive problem when unions are raping the system. This is the problem we are having here, where shitty teachers can’t get fired, they get re-assigned, and teachers who like to fiddle the diddle of kids get paid while on investigation. Unions USED to be a good thing, but they have evolved into a monster that no taxpayer has to yield to.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I don’t belong to any union. But people should be free to join/form unions, for the legal purpose of negotiating better wages, and so forth. Is that what you don’t like?
[/quote]
Yep. Nothing wrong with unions in theory. it’s the protection and favoritism given to unions that most here should be upset with. That being said, it is not surprising that people lash out against entities they see as having an unfair advantage and monopolizing on it. As an example, I won’t be buying any cars built by the UAW after the sweetheart deal they got courtesy of the taxpayer. I have absolutely nothing against any individual UAW worker.
When someone pays off political cronies on my dime, I get pissed off. Multiply that by quite a bit for our education system. Is it really a surprise that many feel the same way about teachers’ unions as you feel about Walmart?
Unions should be held to the same standards and laws as private business. How many large unions would exist without the Wagner act? Can’t recall if the Wagner act exempted unions from anti-trust laws or if it was in the Sherman act itself. What if unions were held to the same arbitrary anti-trust laws as private business?
[/quote]
The trouble is that teacher unions are dealing with a MONOPOLY. Do you know, for ex, that teachers used to be forbidden to marry? They were fired if they did. Teachers were even forbidden to keep company (have a girlfriend/boyfriend). It was also the teacher’s job to heat and maintain the building, clean the toilets, you name it.
How do you deal with a monopoly? And all the school systems were in on it, to set pay scales and other insane rules like the above.
I suppose the teachers could just go starve. What the hell, most here couldn’t care less about that. Everyone has the ‘China Syndrome’ – “Fuck it, just give me the cheapest shit ya can!” Well, they got what they paid for.
THE SCHOOL SYSTEM WE HAVE IS WHAT WE PAID FOR! We asked for it, we pleaded for it, we bitched for it (lower those taxes!), we voted on it.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
This solves everything:
(1) Make teachers exempt from all income taxes.
(2) A 3% surtax is placed on all other incomes. Said money to be used in the following way:
(a) all teachers begin at $50,000 per year.
(b) each receives a raise of $2500/year, so each earns $100,000 after 20 years.
(3) All teachers receive $1,000,000 after 30 years of service.
(4) All teachers receive a retirement condo in their state of service.
There. We’ll be flooded by brilliant people and America will enter a new Golden Age. [/quote]
You’ve thrown money at the problem like a good little liberal. But, as most of us know it’s not about paying teachers more, it’s not about getting smarter teachers. It’s about getting teachers who actually CARE about helping the kids more than they care about their precious salary and benefits package and time off. As I’ve already said 40 years ago teachers made far less on average than they do today and grades were higher.
[/quote]
So you want higher quality teachers, but don’t think that salary plays a factor into who goes into education? Let me guess, you don’t know too much about economics.
If you want greater quality people going into education, you need to make the profession more attractive. Unquestionably, money will be a huge motivating factor. Giving them some respect and not blaming them for all the problems in education might help as well. There is a reason that the best and brightest don’t go into education.
[quote] As I’ve already said 40 years ago teachers made far less on average than they do today and grades were higher.
[/quote]
BS. They just didn’t count everyone. Thank god Bush and Kennedy got together on this one.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
This solves everything:
(1) Make teachers exempt from all income taxes.
(2) A 3% surtax is placed on all other incomes. Said money to be used in the following way:
(a) all teachers begin at $50,000 per year.
(b) each receives a raise of $2500/year, so each earns $100,000 after 20 years.
(3) All teachers receive $1,000,000 after 30 years of service.
(4) All teachers receive a retirement condo in their state of service.
There. We’ll be flooded by brilliant people and America will enter a new Golden Age. [/quote]
You’ve thrown money at the problem like a good little liberal. But, as most of us know it’s not about paying teachers more, it’s not about getting smarter teachers. It’s about getting teachers who actually CARE about helping the kids more than they care about their precious salary and benefits package and time off. As I’ve already said 40 years ago teachers made far less on average than they do today and grades were higher.
[/quote]
Wow, there’s so much wrong with this…
The number of administrators has doubled since 1992. The number of teachers is flat. Ask an ADMINISTRATOR where your money went. Not to the teachers.
You want teachers who care? Care about them! You don’t expect the pediatrician who cares for your child’s body to be happy with $40,000 or $50,000 per year (especially after many years of service). But you expect the person who cares for your child’s mind to wonder where they’re going to get the money to send their own kid to college, get a new roof on the house, or replace the car with 400,000 miles on it.
Since you didn’t believe in free markets (because you got education for ‘free’), you got lousy teaching. Okay. You got just exactly what you deserved.
Some of you bitch about the fact that you didn’t get quality. No!!! You mean you can’t get Cadillac educations for Cavalier pay??? How shocking!!!
You mean teachers might not WANT to live in trailer parks, for all their hard work? That they might (gasp!!) form unions to make a monopoly system pay more??? Stunning!!
[/quote]
My kids go to a private school with non-unionized teachers who get paid less than the ‘cadillac’ teachers in the local public schools. The school scores as one of the highest quality educations in the state. They stopped comparing themselves to the local public schools years ago because the comparison meant very little because the public schools were so… ‘cavalier-ish’.[/quote]
How much do you think parental involvement (for example) plays into it? Should we pay teachers who work with “at risk” children more or less? What kind of results should we expect?
To put it another way, no shit kids whose parents value education enough to put down their hard earned money for it end up with better results.
You’re a good father, right? If you kid failed a class, you’d be all over that, right? Can that be said of 50% of the public school parents? 70%? 90%?
I once watched an “advanced placement” ninth grade English class in an urban, public school that was known to have a lot of problems. There was a “public speaking” aspect to the curriculum. One of the girls stood up and told the class about how she was removed from her father for child abuse. Her step parents then beat her with a sock filled with pennies. So she was then removed from that home because of abuse and given back to… yep, the father. She told this story with a level of stoicism I couldn’t imagine. No one in the class (save for myself) reacted. To me, it was shocking and heartbreaking. To them, it was everyday.
I wonder if that girl got the same grades/results growing up as your kids? I wonder if the rest of the class did…
The trouble is that teacher unions are dealing with a MONOPOLY.
[/quote]
Agree. More monopoly is not the problem.
Do you really think this is relevant to today or this discussion? You sound like any other apologist for union favoritism.
We would need to deal with it. Fixing the game for unions is not the answer.
You seem to only be interested in one side of this argument. It seems you believe we should protect good teachers at any expense. Instead, you should be using basic economic principals. You should be weighing the good against the bad. Are the advantages given to teachers’ unions providing more good than harm? You claim teachers are still underpaid. Others on this thread claim teachers are overpaid. Neither is true. Bad teachers are overpaid and good teachers are unpaid, and our students are falling further behind. The teachers’ union plays a huge role in this.
We pay a shit load of money for an ever worsening education. More than those that are passing us by.
Enjoy…
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
This solves everything:
(1) Make teachers exempt from all income taxes.
(2) A 3% surtax is placed on all other incomes. Said money to be used in the following way:
(a) all teachers begin at $50,000 per year.
(b) each receives a raise of $2500/year, so each earns $100,000 after 20 years.
(3) All teachers receive $1,000,000 after 30 years of service.
(4) All teachers receive a retirement condo in their state of service.
There. We’ll be flooded by brilliant people and America will enter a new Golden Age. [/quote]
You’ve thrown money at the problem like a good little liberal. But, as most of us know it’s not about paying teachers more, it’s not about getting smarter teachers. It’s about getting teachers who actually CARE about helping the kids more than they care about their precious salary and benefits package and time off. As I’ve already said 40 years ago teachers made far less on average than they do today and grades were higher.
Wow, there’s so much wrong with this…[/quote]
Yes, and you can begin with you being a teacher and abandoning your core beliefs in favor of the teachers union.
As in the case of a man who holds up a bank and then runs out to the car and the get a way driver makes a clean get a way. You’re both guilty.
Our local taxes are through the roof! As I’ve stated previously, some elementary school teachers are making 85-K per year. They get raises whether they’re good or bad. I think we’ve shown that we care. How come the teachers don’t care about the kids? Half of the bastards are too busy talking on their cell phones, or emailing and texting friends DURING SCHOOL HOURS to care.
Pay attention closely, like you tell your students on occasion.
Doctors are being paid by their patients (or their patients insurance) NOT THE TAXPAYERS!
understand?
I’m thinking that somewhere between making 85-K per year and getting HALF THE YEAR off they might be able to save money for things like that. Let’s see 85-k for half a years work and then let’s say they work the other half in a real job and make even another 30-K. 115-K per year plus better benefits than the Pope, I’d say that teachers are taken care of quite well. In fact the’re almost up to the level of the “evil rich”, no wonder you don’t like Obama.
[quote]You got just exactly what you deserved.
[/quote]
The taxpayers DO NOT deserve to be repeatedly raped by the teachers union. By the way, I’ll remind you how important unions are when you start railing against others on this board who only appear more liberal than you.
Some of you bitch about the fact that you didn’t get quality. No!!! You mean you can’t get Cadillac educations for Cavalier pay??? How shocking!!!
You mean teachers might not WANT to live in trailer parks, for all their hard work? That they might (gasp!!) form unions to make a monopoly system pay more??? Stunning!!
[/quote]
My kids go to a private school with non-unionized teachers who get paid less than the ‘cadillac’ teachers in the local public schools. The school scores as one of the highest quality educations in the state. They stopped comparing themselves to the local public schools years ago because the comparison meant very little because the public schools were so… ‘cavalier-ish’.[/quote]
How much do you think parental involvement (for example) plays into it? Should we pay teachers who work with “at risk” children more or less? What kind of results should we expect?
[/quote]
Let me reiterate that my wife was (is still licensed to be) a public school teacher (as well as almost half of our family. I’m not “anti-teacher”, nor do I think they should be paid minimum wage. They are professionals, and important ones. However, I do NOT think they should be exempt from market forces and performance review (and receive bonuses or demotions based on performance).
Gambit: Parental involvement determines, as much as ANY other factor, the chance of success of a student. Even in our private school it’s easy to spot which parents don’t involve themselves too much. I know that some public schools (teachers) welcome parental involvement even in the classroom (although younger kids can be distracted with visitors, but you get my drift).
“At risk” students: Define ‘at risk’ please. I don’t know what you mean. At risk of failing or at risk like special education.
[quote]
To put it another way, no shit kids whose parents value education enough to put down their hard earned money for it end up with better results. [/quote]
I agree. That doesn’t exclude parental involvement in public schools. I think it’s pretty well established that parental involvement in any educational setting is beneficial (pvt, public, home school, etc.)
I do my best – The other questions, I don’t know, but this thread really isn’t about parental involvement determining the success of students. It’s about an administrator (ie a manager) laying out a plan as to what they thought was best for the school’s performance and the union stepping in and saying ‘our teachers will absolutely not do any more work than what is minimally required by contract’. It’s not clear whether some teachers stepped up to the task, but as a whole, the union stance is that these teachers in a poor performing school will not do any more work.
Unfortunately, the superintendent cannot punish the problem children. In our school, x hours of parental ‘volunteering’ (yes, I understand the irony of forced volunteer hours) is required. Actually most of the parents go above and beyond the required hours. For some it’s like pulling teeth, but the result is that if they don’t meet the requirements, their kids can be not reinstated the next year.
I mean, what can you do with parents in the public school system. THAT is a tough question.
Sad story. That scenario doesn’t remotely apply to me, my children, or frankly, this thread, so I couldn’t even speculate.
Point #1:
It just occurred to me: states average about $9000 in spending per student. Okay, let’s say then a school has 1000 students with roughly 50 faculty, 25 staff and admin, just to keep it simple.
We’ll be VERY generous and say that each teacher get $60,000 (LOL!) salary and $20,000 in benes. Fifty teachers times $80,000. That’s $4 million.
Okay, teachers get 4/9 of the pie. Where’s the bitching about who gets most of the money?
Point # 2: How many of you pay $9000 in state taxes per year? If not, you’re getting the difference FOR FREE! How do you like the price now?
Not to sound arrogant but I probably give out more in tips than most any one of you pay in taxes.
You’re bitching, and it’s MOSTLY FREE!! ROFLMAO!!!
Let me reiterate that my wife was (is still licensed to be) a public school teacher (as well as almost half of our family. I’m not “anti-teacher”, nor do I think they should be paid minimum wage. They are professionals, and important ones. However, I do NOT think they should be exempt from market forces and performance review (and receive bonuses or demotions based on performance).
[/quote]
‘Market forces’? What ‘market forces’? The government runs a monopoly and even taxes those who send their kids elsewhere.
I shouldn’t have to keep explaining over and over again how THIS IS NOT A FREE MARKET SYSTEM. It is a monopoly wherein wages were (are) set below market. Why do you think the government set it up as a monopoly in the first place?
I also shouldn’t have to explain over and over that teachers formed unions as THE ONLY WAY to battle a monopoly which was (is) underpaying them.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I don’t belong to any union. But people should be free to join/form unions, for the legal purpose of negotiating better wages, and so forth. Is that what you don’t like?
[/quote]
Yep. Nothing wrong with unions in theory. it’s the protection and favoritism given to unions that most here should be upset with. That being said, it is not surprising that people lash out against entities they see as having an unfair advantage and monopolizing on it. As an example, I won’t be buying any cars built by the UAW after the sweetheart deal they got courtesy of the taxpayer. I have absolutely nothing against any individual UAW worker.
When someone pays off political cronies on my dime, I get pissed off. Multiply that by quite a bit for our education system. Is it really a surprise that many feel the same way about teachers’ unions as you feel about Walmart?
Unions should be held to the same standards and laws as private business. How many large unions would exist without the Wagner act? Can’t recall if the Wagner act exempted unions from anti-trust laws or if it was in the Sherman act itself. What if unions were held to the same arbitrary anti-trust laws as private business?
[/quote]
X 1000.
It becomes a massive problem when unions are raping the system. This is the problem we are having here, where shitty teachers can’t get fired, they get re-assigned, and teachers who like to fiddle the diddle of kids get paid while on investigation. Unions USED to be a good thing, but they have evolved into a monster that no taxpayer has to yield to.
[/quote]
As HH was repeteadly trying to point out:
You build the system, what did you think you were going to get?
