Apple's Jobs blasts teachers unions - Page 7

Yes a career's worth of time unless you're brilliant or a good kisser. On the other hand didn't AAUP say that the large majority of folks got to full professorship? Don't remember what it was but it was like 70%+?


Promotion in most fields take 5 years from junior to working grade. Yes, the salary is far less in comparison to engineering fields.


Yes, other fields do top out earlier.


There are lots of folks that make $45K a year working for 12 months a year without the option of doing whatever for 2-3 months. That's why its a non-issue. The point of comparison is that $45k/year number. Or $70K/year or wherever you are in between.

My wife and her co-workers used to work in the summers as temps so there is the opportunity for supplemental income if you desire.


No I mean its seems to be a lot more work. Getting or not getting grants seems to also determine how well you do on your tenure track.


I guess what I'm saying is that when someone hands you a check for $25K-$250K for a research grant they expect more than from a $2500 grant. I don't know what you publish but it would seem less rigorous than publishing for a journal involving human subjects. Something we do for HCI research papers.


Nice. Our health benefits suck.


Done. I simply took a wild guess...you may wish to remove any location info you put on this site. The url you provide pretty much took me right there...

Vinea

I don't know that we're really arguing about much except for these two points, which strike me as little more than discipline bias, which happens all the time and is in many ways perfectly understandable. Folks tend to think about some of the disciplines in the humanities as lacking rigor or not as research fields, which is to be expected when the undergraduate education in those subjects often has so little to do with the actual work the faculty do. And debating it is as pointless as debating whether Geddy Lee is a better bassist than Faulkner was a writer. We'd also get bogged down trying to define "rigor," which is really what your position hinges on. But again, that's for another discussion.

As for the relative value of grants. Perhaps. It could just be that some disciplines aren't as expensive as others and we confuse expense with merit.


Fair enough. It never was an issue before now. But yeah. I need to change that.

I don't think we are arguing about anything other than perspectives. Grass is always greener and all that. Perhaps the only thing we disagree on is whether a $45K for 9 months work is good or bad.

It's what a GS-9 makes in 12 months...not that a GS-9 typically has a PhD. Working grade for PhD is a GS-12 and that's in the mid 60's (56K-73K). Pro-rated for the 3 months and you're about par.

So for K-12 teachers if you're making in the mid-40's you're doing almost as well as a PhD scientist in the USG (USDA, FDA, NASA, etc).

Vinea

[QUOTE=vinea;1047469]How can someone ruin a good teacher (in general) by providing more choices for the students or empowering a principal to remove bad teachers?

****************** BULL CRAP :

Definition of "bad teacher" : a teacher with tenure who can afford to
speak plainly and isn't intimidated into sacrificing her personal after-school and weekend time to put on endless dog & pony shows and implement countless, bullshit , psycho-babble reform programs that Principals love to use for bullshit public relations that hide real management problems. A "bad teacher" is also one who is paid more and can help get rid of a moronic , arrogant Principal who pressures the faculty into inflating grades so as to evade publicity. This is why state-scored , standardized testing was invented : to learn the truth about grades that we all know damn well but do not dare to expose when you go about "empowering a principal to remove bad teachers " . A "bad teacher" is VERY often indistinguishable from a "great teacher" when she is given a reasonably cooperative class.

I guess you just don't read posts Vinny, you just unload your FOX NEWS - style talking points in cheap snipes. Clearly you evolved from a sample of intestinal flora left on Bill O'Reilly's chair after Olbermann was done with him. This fantasy you have about "good" and "bad" is the same load of crap that our whitehouse chimp excretes when he refers to the "evil-doers".

Here's a news flash for you Vinny, your "bad teacher" jargon has no referent.

And you can't dismiss me with "just like bad bossess in all careers ". In other careers, the employee has control over her work. A drill instructor has means of kicking a punk private's ass by, say, P.T. 'ing him until he pukes his guts out. A doctor can either restrain ( straps ) a convulsive or derranged patient, or she can refuse to treat him. A Steve Jobs can fire a punk employee ; a private school can expell - permanently - a punk student ------ PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS CAN NOT !!!!! Can you get that through your thick layer of ignorance and neo-con-man brain pan residue ?????

If I could have that kind of control over Princess and Jr's little sociopathic tendencies, then much more learning could take place.

And when the punk behavior is mostly absent ( in "honors" classes ), learning DOES take place and scores are good.

The problem with public schools are SYSTEMIC , DEEP-ROOTED, CAUSED and DEFENDED by people like you.

You ruin a teacher by removing the hard-won protections that unions have gotten for us and the students . EVERY DAY, while you sit in your spaceship of the imagination doling out simplistic crap to screw the public schools, I suspend, out of my classroom, as many as three or four punks who simply will not stop heckling and harassing me long enough for me to get a word in edgewise. These are "O.T." ( "Opportunity Transfer" ) punks who have been kicked out of one school after another but must be rotated to the next school. In fact, for every punk we OT out of our school, after he or she has ruined countless lessons, our school must RECEIVE another OT punk from a neighboring school. This insures a constant and overwhelming supply of young idiots to unload their attack on the teacher's patience, ability to teach, furniture, walls, floors, computers, fire alarms, and even attacks on the teacher's person. This right to suspend punks out of my classroom is my only tool. It is a UNION protection, a LAW that even the Principal seldom challenges. But, the punk comes back the next day ( or the next hour in a "block-schedule" school ) to pick up where he left off. For the short respite while they are gone, you can actually see learning taking place in my regular classroom. But it can not last long enough to affect overall grade scores.

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You neo-con-men know where to strike: you do NOTHING to remedy or even alleviate the problems we have amply documented in what used to be television news and newspapers and other investigative reporting. Instead you pick the best of the public schools -- THE TEACHERS -- and attack them. Your methods are dishonest. They appeal to the infantile resentment harbored by you and many parents toward those teachers, in your youth, who stood you on your ear -- who didn't have to take your crap in the classroom. You love to inflate self-agrandizing anecdotes of how you made fools out of your teachers. You do this within earshot of your kids, you idiots. Then Jr. and Princess show up in my classroom with a heart that is full of your hitlerian venom against teachers , you biggot.

You could be pushing for more teacher empowerment over the classroom behavior of these punks who will surely revert to their natural " nice kid " nature if they are no longer fed hog-tied teacher meat on a daily basis.

You could be pushing for less million-dollar-per-person-killed warfare and robber baron fascism in our government.

You could be pushing for better, decent wages for these parents so that they can have the time or life style to raise Punk and Punkette into children instead of smirking rats.

You could spare a few million of the BILLIONS stolen by your fascist corporations, so we could have enough schools and a traditional calendar instead of a four-track spinning circus.

You could try something other than broad-brushed threats against the teachers , directed by the very corrupt administrations who have swept these problems under the rug to ferment and explode; corrupt administrations headed by your own politico puppeteers.

But nnnnooooooo !!!

What you do is pick out the only people left in the lives of these students ( punks included ) who actually spend more time with them than any of you neo-con-men, pundits, hypocrites, or even parents. You strike at the most well-intentioned people in the schools; the ones who actually get their feet wet. And you find their most vulnerable places; their most inflamed antagonists; their most threatening situations, and you pump it for all it's worth.

No, most folks will NOT find "better places to land". They will simply be screwed the way you want them to be. Since the problem is systemic and nation-wide, they will probably "land" in another toilet.
And your "bad teachers" will begin to revolve from school to school just like the OT punks and the criminally liable Principals are rotated.

Your "bad teacher" approach is a larval form of your WH chimp's "war on terror" : you will unjustly ruin the lives of countless blameless persons and accomplish NOTHING that you promise. It is simplistic

s-t-u-p-i-d-i-t-y

and you do not fool anyone with it.

The "choice" of school you pretend to support is actually nothing more than a ploy to empty the Black and Latino schools of teachers .

Your kids' private school will run like hell, to the nearest court, when those vouchers are attached to FEDERAL PROVISIONS that punks can no longer be flushed away. .... MAKE MY DAY ... I DARE YOU , VOUCHER MAN

And if you intend to let the private schools continue to flush their punks out, THEN WHY NOT GIVE THE SAME RIGHT TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO BEGIN WITH ??????

I'll give you a hint, voucher man : BECAUSE YOU KNOW DAMN WELL THAT THERE MUST BE A PLACE TO PUT THE CHILDREN OF YOUR FASCIST CORPORATION'S WORKERS --- ASK THE COPS WHAT THEY THINK OF MILLIONS OF PUNKS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS AND IN THE STREETS ALL DAY LONG, ALL YEAR 'ROUND .

Once you destroy the public schools, you will conveniently establish corporate, fascist, work camps and indoctrination centers to train those whom you consider beasts of burden to better serve you.

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"I think that most "good" professionals of any field prefers accountability."

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Yeah, O'Reilly --- "accountability" when it screws the Black and Latino schools. But you call it "playing the blame game" when your criminal WH chimp screws up in historic proportions.

--- go screw yourself Vinny, and take your manipulative language with you.

I hope this has clarified any confusion you might have had.

Did I answer your question , young man ?

I'm sorry I don't have time to read throught this whole thread. But, I'm going to make a few observations. I taught HS for 25 years. SOme of the things I saw.

A principal drove 2 teachers out of a high school for living together while not married.
A year later his wife committed suicide. 2 years later he was living but not married to one of the secretaries.

What is a "bad teacher" is very subjective. I used to ask the kids about other teachers. I found over the years that almost every teacher including myself had kids who thought we were the worst teacher in the world and should be fired immediatley. As soon as I publicly said "so and so is a bad teacher" some kid would stand up and defend that teacher, and tell me of something that teacher had done that changed their lives. This bad teacher crap totally ignores all the information on learning styles. No teacher is good for every student, but in my experience, every teacher is good for some students. What you often see when you see charges of bad teachers is a bad match. A teacher who is very skilled with gifted students, teaching a special ed type class.

Now Steve Jobs is not a teacher. Steve Jobs has not worked in the Educational system, in fact if memory serves me well, he's not even a college grad. He isn't qualified to teach in a school, nor is there any evidence to support the idea that he would be a good teacher, or even a competenet one.

Yet he feels the need to tell us what's wrong with the education system.

I hate to say it, but parrents like Steve Jobs are egocnetric nightmares for the education system. Because they want the best education for their kid, but the school has to educate every kid not just theirs. I went throught the frustration of having one struggle with the system myself. But think about it. There are over 40 identified learning styles and teaching styles. Your child has a one in 40 chance of having a teacher he's really in sinc with. That has nothing to do with good or bad teaching. That is a teachers reality.

Claiming you can change the system by firing bad teachers is just crap. No one can do the job. Where I am the average teacher, after 5 years of University works for less than 5 years. They burn out. You assholes out there talking about how easy thois job is, I can tell you right now, you are not good enough. You can't be a teacher, you haven't go what it takes, and your pathetic opinions count for nothing.

Now you can try and improve the education system by punishing teachers, but I'll tell you right now, it won't improve your education system. There are only so many people, who have the education, the ability to communicate, the patience, the calmness under fire, the ability to withstand the misguided attacks from administration and parents, and even students, that it takes to be a teacher. As a former trademen, I can say without a question fo a doubt, I could have made more money working in my trade. And with a lot less stress.

I worked my 25 years in the education system and got out, I won't work another day as a teacher. There is nothing in the education system, that would make up for the lack of repsect, the constant harrassment, the endless deadlines, the hours of class preperation. There is no amount of money tha can make up for that. There is no amount of time off in the summer that can make up for that.

What America wants is not teachers but babysitters. What America wants is not teachers but robots that deliever curriculum. Get your Apple computers to do that. With all of this talk of not being able to get rid of bad teachers, I got rid of two, as a department head. If a teacher is really bad, no union can save him. When a union can save him is when he is being targeted by a principal who just doesn't appreciate his or her style. All Steve Jobs has done here, has been to allow people who hate educatiion and educators to vent. His contribution to any meaningful discussion of the education system is negative. He should stick to being a drop out who sells computers.

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Good to hear a sane voice in the din of neo-con , public education saboteurs.

Steve Jobs would not last a week at my school site.

Re-read my comments on the experience of Barney Oliver with the Palo Alto School Board whence he resigned in anger, disgust, and frustration. And this from a recipient of the Presidential Science Medal.

Very complex set of reasons you set forth with a lot of justifications for why things are as they are. The point is simple, you either are able to teach (know the barriers to study) or you aren't. You need not be a teacher to observe an outpoint in the educational system. The problem with the current educational system can be narrowed down to one main point, and this point is: lack of study technology. I believe this is what Steve Jobs was getting at.

That there are "40 identified learning styles" as you state just proves how clueless the educational system is about it. Human minds differ from one to another only in content, the "mechanics" of the mind work the same from one to the other. I'll give you an example, if you try to teach someone who has a misunderstood word on a subject he will never get it. How many words do you think your students have misunderstood? You can't teach someone over a misunderstood word. Has the educational system figured this out yet? No.

That's right. You know, there's a private -- er, charter -- school in South Central LA, which recently was planning student events for Black History Month. The older children wrote a presentation about the tragic case of Emmet Till, a young black man who was killed at the beginning of the civil rights movement for whistling at a white woman. The principals didn't like it, and refused to put it on at the assembly. True, there were going to be younger children there. But the authorities just didn't want this to happen. The children wrote a letter, and two teachers signed their names too. They were promptly fired. Now, I don't know about the fine details of this case, and that's what's usually dispositive, but my instinct is that the passion of the class that wrote the presentation, and the teachers who guided them and stood by them, is really what's precious in education. And there was no protection for them.

What country are you talking about - Norway? Or maybe you think this article is about University professors?

The average public school teacher in america has a starting wage of around 34,000 dollars, and the top end, after about 30 years experience can get up to 55-60,000. That's not that great, if you think of how much training they have. It's not a high school diploma and then a couple year college course, or anything, so they should be starting with a higher wage than a pipe-fitter or car salesman...

University professors with PhDs maybe start in the 40,000 range and get up to 100-120,000 depending on workload and if they're publishing/researching at a high level.

Also, most grade schools run until early to mid-June, then the teachers keep working at end of year reports and administrative meetings for at least a week. The teachers go back to work one or two weeks before the school starts up again, so that puts them at 10 months work per year. They're usually working outside of school hours grading, have to frequently take courses in the evenings mandated by the school board ("professional development"), and most of all - they're dealing with 30 or more 6-14 year-olds every day! A lot of the time these kids come from bad family situations, and you're somehow implying that teachers don't deserve what they get?

As far as Jobs' comments go, they're to be expected given Apple's outsourcing to non-unionized Chinese and Koreans and Indians, that he can pay next to nothing to make our precious iPods. I'm sure there are also performance standards that Apple sets in China so they fire the old ladies that can't churn out 100 iPods a day any more... Do we want this "business model" in our classrooms? You can bet it wouldn't be the "bad teachers" being canned, it would be the longest-tenured teachers who make more money that they would fire so they could save some cash. Jobs seems to be known for being a real cut-throat asshole when it comes to business, which is great for shareholders, and his comments seem to support this.

Truth be told , many american teachers could not last in Asian schools from places like Japan , Singapore , Philippines , India and Malaysia. It has nothing to do with educational theories , it has nothing to do with culture and it definitely has nothing to do with funding . Everything boils down to this , are the teachers knowledgeable about their subjects and are they able to impart their knowledge to their students . Asian parents as well as students dislike teachers who cannot teach and while parents are hard on their children in regards to their study habits , they also have very high expectations in regards to their children's teachers especially in the top level schools in a lot of Asian countries . If they found out that you spend more time indoctrinating instead of teaching , the school principal will hand the teacher to them personally so he or she can explain his/herself to them before the principal fires him or her personally. Private ( a common sight ) and Science Public Schools in the Philippines tend to advertise the schools' academic reputation to attract parents and their children as well as teachers to teach those children. If the school has a poor academic reputation , the government will either "encourage them to improve" or close them down themselves, that is the reason why many private schools and their alumni tend to be very strict in hiring teachers and have a reasonably high standards .

Superbass

You just answered your question on why SJ had the iPods and computers made in Asian countries,unions. In case you have not notice , the american car industry is dying thanks to the unions ( coupled with bad management) and the airline industry , well, you can see the results. Big labor is a hindrance and that is the reason why companies tend outsource their manufacturing there than have them made over here.

*********** Great!, *****************

Let's race the corpo-fascist, cigar-sucking, fat, white-collar criminals' slaves abroad for the bottom of that pay scale.
Maybe we can make do with 50 cents an hour here too !!! What do you say fellas ????
We are being encouraged to become a third-world banana republic right here at home. You won't have to travel to see abject corporate-feeding poverty ! Why we could have it here at home too if we would only be patriotic enough to refrain from strangling the arrogant bastards with their own intestines Just go quietly into the lower-pay race to the bottom.

Money ? Sorry we are out . Good news is, it wasn't worth a penny anyway

What ? We are spending a million dollars or more for each Iraqi soldier or innocent we snuff? Why mention this ? Why do you hate America ? What Halliburton thieves? Who's absconding to Saudi Arabia ? Which billions ?
Does a billion dollar stack really reach 112 miles up ? Does one trillion dollars really stack half-way up to the moon ?

Well, remember : don't indoctrinate the children. We have corporations for that.

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You are evidently not holding up your end of the social contract.

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Why do you say that ? If you read the post, it is clear that all of my students who want to learn are doing well in their standardized tests, treat me with affection and respect, and may well work at Apple Inc. someday.

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Arguably without a PhD you aren't a researcher anyway.

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Lots of NASA people ( my best friend included ) have masters degrees, publish papers, read them at conferences, etc. Many have been responsible for the great stuff you see from "out there" -- as Kirk says.
We graduated from the same department. My degree and GPR is higher than his. But I like teaching ( college and Middle School ) --- he doesn't ( money sucks, too much demeaning treatment, not enough prestiege ) . After 20 years of going separate ways professionally, I could never walk right into his shoes. They do have a good number of incompetents whom I could easily better -- but not with a teacher's background. I think what you mean is that to get a grant you need a Ph.D. as head signer : this is true. My research was world-class multi-variate statistics as it related to signal processing in a high-noise environment. I did theory, programing, floor sweeping, WEIBEL wine guzzling, group conferencing between Ames Research Center and JPL here in LA County, all-nighters with the main-frames Earth, Mars, etc. ; I defended our trailer from a vicious rock attack from the pre-school terrorist station next door, .... I did it all and was called back twice by my superiors and given a great recommendation letter by Barney. ARGUABLY NOT A RESEARCHER ? Don't argue, you will lose. Maybe no longer a researcher --- which was my point : get into a public school teaching career, and lose all of your other hobbies.


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Not particularly MY argument given that I don't have a PhD but honestly most Masters programs are not what I would consider rigorous or challenging anyway.

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Maybe yours wasn't.
But my degree is very close to a Ph.D. because an M.S. requires a lot more than an M.A. and our University was very demanding of it's M.A. and M.S. degrees. In fact, we had to go to the Mathematics department to find profs who could understand my oral examination and ask good questions. Also, I have done research and I have co-authored papers ( just not as much as if I had not gone into teaching ).

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Age discrimination and over-specialization is not specific to teachers anyway.

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No, no, ..... it keeps teachers from being hired in industry... where incoming age does matter ... get it ?

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No one has denigrated you. Your "protection" is not to allow bad teachers to continue to draw salary regardless of performance but to provide the ability to teach unpopular topics without undue interference.

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That is not my only protection and if you give it a second of thought you will see that it can not be. Else, anytime a principal disliked a teacher's politics, the teacher would be accused of some other infraction and summarily dismissed. So, there must be DUE PROCESS for any dismissal and that , for better or for worse, means CONTRACT, UNION, COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, STRIKES, etc.

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In any case, teacher tenure only started appearing in the 1920s and only became widespread by WWII its hard to insist that it's a fundamental requirement of the profession.

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And why ? Because teachers were not allowed to date, were required to tithe 10 % or more of their salaries to the church, were almost all single women abused by the male rooster in the main office, etc. What is new about any of this Vinny ? What are you -- an anti-labor fascist ?

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Obviously your skills as a researcher has deteriorated or you could do better than undocumented assertion...

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Jeeezzz, I've told you tons about what I base my statements on .... you call it "name dropping".

---skills have --- not skills has.

Which assertion is that ? Maybe it was just a suspicion or an opinion ---- could've been true -- never know.

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I live in arguably the best school district in Maryland. And yet we still have to worry about which school our kids will end up in.

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OOooohhhh !!! Not Maryland !!! You must be a bundle of nerves !!!

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In comparison to a system like Belgium its a no brainer...their system is superior to ours with their general, technical, professional, artistic and vocational tracks. That they couple that with financial accountability in the form of "vouchers" makes it more difficult to determine which factor is more important but who cares? Adopt both.

Your assumption is that with vouchers no new schools would appear. This appears to be incorrect. Also, wouldn't it be nice if private school teachers could be paid as much as their public school counterparts?

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What on Earth ? Why would new schools not simply deteriorate academically with the same lack of support now given to the schools we have ? Do you think all the old, bad teachers and bad students and bad parents are going to go to the moon ? When those kids I have who behave like punks go to your nice voucher school, they will crap all over your school - you will need to triple the custodial staff; you will have false fire alarm claxons splitting your ears several times per day; you will get cussed out on the phone by the parent; your administrators will be overwhelmed and will begin playing politics and placing beaurocratic blocks in front of you as you try to deal with the misbehavior; your good students' grades will plummet; ....... AAAhhhhh wait ... I think I know what you want :

How about if those parents who are the poorest or are undocumented CAN'T take the vouchers because of distance, not a large enough voucher, or fear of detection & deportation ????? AAhhh, Then you could skim the cream of the crop out of my classes; leave me with a totally failing score -- you will make your accusation true --- I won't be able to respond that I DO carry my weight in the social contract: simply because you now have my only cooperative students and have created a cesspool for me to work in --- right ? A separate but equal system -- no ?

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Oddly, you seem to share the same feelings about kids that some cops have on non-cops. They are perps...or in your case ill-mannered, indolent, violent, repugnant little thugs.

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Cops, yes-they work here too. Do you ?

I feel that way advisedly : some of them are. It is more than just a feeling. It is a fact of life. You need to come visit : we take substitutes year-round.

The kids who have not yet put on the punk are quite lovable, generous, honest, smart, and cute.

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Oddly, none of the teachers in my family has described kids quite like that.

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Nothing odd there, you are clearly not one to soil your shoes in a school like the ones with the lowest scores and, not by coincidence, the greatest need for help. You prefer to dole out patrician attitude and ignorance while I defend good behavior and stomp on bad behavior. But truly Vinny, no one can ever disabuse you of your vaporous notions about kids, teachers, etc. on a forum. Why don't you come on down to South Central with us and help us out. I would love to emulate whatever it is that you have on the shelf if it will make everything alright. Are you coming soon ? I'll fix you a plate .... tic...toc....tic...toc...tic...toc .... Vinny ? Are you there ? ... Happy Meal coupon ? ........ where are you ? OK, I'll tell you how to get into the teachers' rest room... now come on ! that's valuable info !! ....... I'll tell you how to turn off the fire claxon ... and the space heater ....

We need you here.

There are just too many facts you need to feed into your head.

Come on ...........

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At least he doesn't try to name drop in an internet forum or make fun of your internet handle with childish variations like "chuckman", "chucky" and "chuckster".

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There are worse sins : screwing teachers out of their bread and butter by way of misrepresentations, platitudes, affectations of professionalism, and the like, in reality, when you do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help. I spend all of my working days , most of my vacation time, and most of my evenings trying everything I can to get the PUNKS to turn back into KIDS like those in my honors classes.

Name dropping my ass. You want particulars don't you ?
I thought you just accused me of poor research -- not enough substance. I think you just feel a little flattened by the fact that I have had excellent experiences from which to form my opinions. You can't answer the Barney Oliver passage nor any of the other supporting facts I bothered to give you, so you try to reduce all of it to "name dropping". Do you not agree that the experience of a superbly competitive , world renown researcher like Dr. Oliver is VERY relevant here ? While he could easily get away with your patrician attitude and SJ's coarse attack on the teachers who have supported his business for so long, Dr. Oliver had the rectitude to be fair and recognize that if he, as a member of the Board of Palo Alto's School District, could not get past the wall of BS that keeps the status quo intact, then how could a teacher possibly do so? And besides, Aristotle, Gandhi, Jesus, Gertrude Stein, Emmy Noether, Lise Meitner, Amelia Earhart, and God Herself all think you are full of crap and I am wonderful.
So just give it up , Vinny. I win, you lose. Sign here,

________________________________ ____ / ____ / _____
signature of patrician loser date



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What are you? 12?

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Why do you ask ? Would that be a put down ? I thought you liked kids ? I'd love to be 12

Vinny, don't come to a war of wits unarmed.

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Yes, do you really think that diatribe convinced anyone that you are either a) a good teacher or b) that tenure is a good idea if opposing views are met with such childish vehemence by self-proclaimed "good" teachers?

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Yes.

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Yes, you are exactly like that teacher screaming into the camera...

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Didn't see it.

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Gooddog, are you actually saying something worthwhile, or is this all randomly-generated gibberish?

Is anyone else spending the time to actually read Gooddog's posts, or are they just taking up (lots of) space?

Moderators? Why isn't he banned?

I actually think I agree with him. Or at least, I think I might agree with what I think he might be saying.

No, no, no ...it is all hand crafted just for you Greg.

Now, you must be one of those neo-con-man cowards who always seek to shut people up. Interesting how much they praise competition until they can't handle it. Then it's "Oh, Daddy, make him go away , boo-hoo". " Don't let him talk , Daddy, I can't handle it ..."

You don't need me banned son. You need to strap on a pair and answer my arguments.

How about we ban cowards who resort to censorship so easily ?
How about , if you don't like my posts, you skip over them and
exchange idiot fantasies with your fellow neo-con-men only?
It's so much easier when you all agree with eachother isn't it ?
Sorry to be so disgusted with your responses, but maybe I'm a little older than you and I miss the kind of people who walked on their hind legs and had some sense of civic duty and justice.

BTW, did you have anything AT ALL by way of a response , or do you only jump in to do your pissant number ?

Moderators, please don't ban this Gregthing idiot from the forum --- we must set an example for immoral little wimps --- I can handle anything he can try by way of manipulative language, cheap little snipes, feigned ignorance etc. I want to take on these fascist little rats who infest the internet with their neo-con-man talking points against anything that makes life better for those whom they consider inferior.

Here, Geregthing , you can use some of my space to say something :
Right here boy :_____________________________________
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It is now blatantly obvious why our schools are in trouble.

Now you're thinking, Midwinter!

I am pretty tired after work. I am struggling to pile on as much real-life information, both cognitive and affective, as I can to flesh out the vision that so many people have about various kinds of teachers. You must be horrified at the result of my writing efforts. You have my apology. However, I doubt that so many users here are half as dense as they pretend to be. I suspect they have read my posts and know damn well what they say. But they can't quite deal with a reality that suggests injustice exists. They then pretend to be confused and shocked. I suspect infestation by tapeworms , brain weavels, or neo-con-man larvae. But it could be that they dissemble only because they are nervous. Were I a Steinbeck, I might convey it all in a one-page chapter. But, I'm just tired and busy. BTW Barney Oliver's vanity license plate was "ENGLISH". He kept a huge dictionary, on wheels, in his dining room, and loved the language more than anything else. I think you might appreciate this about a tech super star.

I have taught college and loved it as you love uni. I have experienced the respect I got then and what little I get in the public schools now. They are both called "teaching" but the difference is huge. I was making only $25K in 1987. But I didn't mind one bit. I had been very agressively recruited as an affirmative action hire -- without my knowledge. By going against the usual buddy hiring at the department, the admin angered the dept. and then threw me to those lions. It was a four and one half year law suit. My teaching was investigated by PI's to the extreme. I bested the dept. at every turn. My students were up in arms. Long-time friendships were ended over the injustice : by people who barely knew me ( some people still have values ). Bottom line: six figures -- they didn't go to trial. But I would have prefered the 30 years of happy labor and respect to the crap I hear in the AM TALK NAZI bands and elsewhere -- especially since I work three times as hard with this age group and have sacrificed so much to earn job security that is well deserved.

My favorite part? "Last edited by gooddog : Today at 02:22 AM."

Yeah, I think it must be the brain rot that results after years of inarticulate, single-shot exchanges in the blogs. It reduces the human mind to an idiotic, binary reflex. The ganglion says "You're so right" or the ganglion says "Shut up!" . Then it goes dormant until the next talking point is detected. Maybe this forum should be replaced with a simpler poll with a little thumbs-up icon and a little severed tongue icon.

Grading papers.... you know ... work.

Sure it's your favorite part?

My desires to shut you up stem less from wanting to force nonsensical ideals on Middle Eastern countries and everything to do with the fact that you're completely obnoxious, unreadable, and you violate several posting guidelines.

Less well than their Belgian counterparts evidently. In any case, it would be difficult to show that you are on the cutting edge of your profession given your attitude toward change.


Mkay...sure. And the last time someone without a PhD was a principle investigator of a significant experiment at NASA was?

The fact remains that in many disciplines a PhD is entry grade.


Then you should have just gotten a PhD or an EdD then eh? But you didn't so...


The NY contract and the flow chart fails the "reasonable person" test. It appears impossible to let an incompetent teacher go. To the point they have buildings to house teachers they don't want in the classroom but pay anyway.


Nope. Just stating that you cannot argue that tenue is a fundamental requirement for teaching in as much as teaching occured before tenure was in place.


This is completely out of context. The assertion you made was:


This completely ignores the possibility of moving these kids to either vocational school or placing them in a more appropriate setting. And as an assertion it is completely unsupported except with ancedotal commentary from you.


You'll never know because you failed to "research" how the quote function works.


Yes, this is EXACTLY what happened in Belgium. It was a total failure. Not.


Complete strawman.


Gee really? So every teacher that doesn't believe that kids are punks have avoided all the tough kids and have never worked in schools with low scores? Riiight.

Or perhaps the truth is you're jaded and a clear example of the kind of teacher we should weed out of the system? Because I sure don't want a teacher that thinks that kids are terrorist punks even in a discussion forum.


And you sure can't convince anyone in this forum you aren't a punk yourself since you seem incapable of an adult conversation.




For someone who returns after a month to a dead thread to be impatient is pretty funny.

In any case, your offer is false in as much as teacher unions have steadfastly resisted any alternatives like vouchers.




Priceless. A 12 year old having this conversation would be interesting...for a teacher to be this incoherent in a thread discussing why teacher unions have to go is absurdly funny in a very sad way.

Vinea

In other words, he enjoys the status quo that his union is giving him and he resents anything or anybody that will take it away from him.

Home again !

Let's see .... ah, yes ! the neo-con-men who snipe at decent people. Well, here we go ...

So, you can't handle a little push-back on a PC screen and you want to solve the schools problems by firing teachers as the principal sees fit ?

This is why you would not last a week in a school with difficult kids : SHUT UP and YOU ARE FIRED are your only
tools because you are stuffed with O'Reilly feathers and Trump sauce.

I just had my largest class score and average of 97 % in their practice CST quiz. Guess who taught them , in spite of all difficulties and punks ..... ( HINT : sure as hell not you , champ ).

Way to call the gay liberal art kid a neo-con. You've certainly nailed me to a tee.

I'm so proud that you're such a good teacher, since you don't seem to be able to read or write. I haven't even said anything about your viewpoints, other than that there were too many asterisks in it for me to pay you any heed.

Oh, and before this gets out of hand,

Whoa. You're an art guy?

Sorta I majored in interactive media, but lately all I've done is programming.

Still no substance to your whining , huh .....
I'm not surprised. This is how you rack up your number of posts ----- little, vacuous snipes...

Tell us what you will do to fill all of those vacated positions for teachers in punk infested schools, Vinny .

You seem to leave out in the cold all of those kids and could-be kids now punkin' the classroom.

Say something that isn't impossibly snooty and fantastical.
Say anything that might be taken seriously by a real teacher, in the real world we are given.

So far, you sound truly ignorant, vicious, heartless, evasive, snarky, elitist, and soooooo neo-con-man that I wouldn't be surprised if you turned out to be just one of those paid liars on whom the WH occupant spends billions of dollars. It would not surprise me if half the posts that sound like you ARE you in various larval stages.

Are you a fascist Vinny ?

Do you like to screw teachers, nurses, dissidents, librarians, and the like out of house and home ?

Sure sounds like it to me.

We notice that your posts are all about threatening people's peace of mind and that you actually offer NOTHING , NADA , toward a credible solution.

The need for teachers ( not snipes ) is huge and growing.

What did you do today to help anyone ?

I taught 86 students to do mathematics. I made them smile and laugh. I told them about college life and how to get financial help. I practiced them in fractions, percents, scientific notation, translating English to algebraic expressions and Spanish to same. I volunteered for the detention hall supervision. I called a parent on my cell time to tell her her kid was screwing off and I might drop an F the size of a horse on him. This mother answered the phone immediatelly, said "Got you", "I see, yes", and "Thank you so much for the call - I will definitely take care of this." Kid came back next hour and scored 90% from 18% prior to my intervention: I risked a reprimand in doing this --- we are not allowed to call parents during class time, ostensibly to not interrupt instruction. The fact that Jr. IS INTERRUPTING INSTRUCTION ALREADY escapes the brilliant administrators whom you want to empower with the Donald ray gun.

I gave the quiz, graded them, had them anotate their errors and good moves, posted them on the bulletin board, refered a girl with head lice to the nurse without embarrassing her, stopped three inter-gang fist fights before they started --- without touching either kid ( forbidden too ) and thereby prevented a three-day suspension for both. I donated money to charities and helped my homeroom do the same. I helped two new teachers to work their MacBooks , I signed up for another bullshit staff development that is required. I cleaned up my classroom. I explained to a student where American Easter egg and bunny symbolism come from and what it doesn't have to do with christianity. I googled and projected pictures of Fabergé Eggs . I did same for the Aljambra and Moorish influence in mathematics. I lent my last three dollars to three kids who had their lunch tickets stolen -- I won't get those back and more I can't remember.
Then I came home and answered your stupid posts.

What did you do to help education today, Vinny ?

OK, you won that one, gregmightdothat.

Don't buy into that , midwinter !

I sued five Instructors for discrimination and 13 other causes of action --- very successfully. I won hands down.
Three of them called themselves Liberals and affected all the trappings of sensitivity -- down to the natural cotton apparel and Birky sandals ( all of which are great stuff, mind you ). But their veneers peeled off when they found themselves across the table from my attorneys and under oath. Even the president of the college testified that they were discriminating against my ethnicity - and we were suing him too ! Little things give them away : like calling me a "professional Cuban" instead of a Cuban professional. And saying " Who ever heard of a Cuban physicist ?! " and " You belong in East LA among people of your own cultural background -- if you remain here, we will give you a very hard time ."

How about that, eh ? Even I was shocked. And the last came from a guy who looks like Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Years earlier, I had my life saved by a stereotypical Southern Pig Cop with paunch, mirrored glasses and impenetrable drawl ---- almost beaten to death by a pick-up truck load of "good old boys" . Cop just wasn't a racist creep.
The California Lib dude was. And helped to ruin my career , against the wishes of virtually all of my students and the rest of the Math/Science Department faculty.

Real life is very deceptive. I lived in Miami and Tampa for 33 years without discrimination. I was recruited to northern California and was suing 16 biggots within one year.

Wow, people are still talking about this? I just wanted to say that I think the major problem is lack of funding, mainly federal funding, we need lots of that. Taxes need to be raised, we need to get out of a couple wars, the whole government needs to be reorganized financially-and I think retirement age for teachers needs to be lowered.

I was making a joke, the punchline of which was that the thing that elicited the "whoa" not your being gay.

Ah, yeah, that one went over my head

I was wondering why that was surprising...

OK, I think it's safe to say this guy is a troll...

Hopefully he won't sue anyone here.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going go play Grand Theft Auto.

What is it with you and the Belgians ? Are you nuts ? We live in the USA , planet Earth.

Not "change" Vinny, "your crap".

You overuse the macho, hyper-competitive , bravado jargon. You are not on the cutting edge of anything, kid.

I am happy to be a teacher. What are you ?




Every day. There you go with your elitist crap again. Do you recognize any distinction between "Principal Investigator" and "folks with Master degrees doing most of the real work" ? This happens every day , all over the world. When Lise Meitner discovered fission and first "split the atom", her "Principal Investigator" , Otto Hahn insisted that it was merely a chemical reaction. It was she who carried out the experiments and interpreted them correctly !!! His behavior, her love for him not withstanding, was disgraceful - especially after the hitler threat was removed from German academia. I know this is long ago, but I site it because it is typical. Many Principal Investigators spend most of their time scrounging for Congressional support, grants, publicity, writing specs, and in political wrangling. All University research , by graduate students, is siphoned off by the grad's committee chair who gets top billing in the thesis even if he did nothing of substance. You must be as ignorant of scientific research as you are of public school teaching.
I can't name names here because it would hurt their careers, but I have very close friends who were robbed of their work by superiors who simply erased my friend's name and replaced it with theirs. Attempts to rectify this injustice through established channels lead to a round-robbin tongue lashing of my friend at a disciplinary meeting and he almost lost his job ! And , yes he has a Masters degree and ,yes, you see his work on the Discovery Channel and could read it in the top professional journals of his field. This crap is very common.


Sure, no quarrel with that. But what does it really mean ?




Why ? I had enough for teaching community college physics ( actually would not want University because you can't teach for all the grant writing, research trickling, political fighting, etc. --- if you love to teach, community college is the filet mignon of careers ).






But the way to fix that is to first find a way to keep the teachers protected from all the petty politics that passes for "teacher review" and only then think of procedures for dismissal.

BTW, in LA, teachers can be dismissed and have been.

If anyone thinks that principals or superintendents are fit ethically or pedagogically to do this, then they are insane. The political demands on principals, as the face of the school to the community, are overwhelming and I don't blame them for not throwing their lifetime's work into the can and get canned anytime an incident happens or a persistent socio-economic problem dumps her school's scores. Principals are, by training and profession, cover-up experts. This is why standardized testing is used. From making failure notice forms impossible to obtain, to using thinly veiled threats ( i.e., " Well, if you have that many Fails, we will have to visit your classroom to see what you are doing wrong.") that really threaten administrative reprisal, there are a million ways to pressure the teachers to pass kids who don't perform. How about : Any student with a D cannot go up on stage to receive the diploma. You know how that one works ?
Well, many parents who will not answer a phone call or Fail warning notice ALL YEAR LONG, will show up ten minutes before the end of the semester ( I am not kidding you here -- TEN ) demanding to know why his angel will miss the photo opportunity ( more valued than the learning Jr. spat on ) and who will return his money for the film, camera, cap and gown, gas, baby sitter etc. A policy like this pits the teacher against hundreds of angry parents. You think justice will prevail ? And if that administrator is the same one who STULL's you ( evaluates you ) --- you wanna get an UNSATISFACTORY EVALUATION ? It's only a few steps from there to dismissal. And you neglect COMPLETELY the salient FACT that most of these schools are overloaded with teachers on Emergency Credentials and on Probationary status for as much as eight years as they burn the candle at both ends to get the "Clear" credential. This ruined my health.
It scuttles a large number of potentially excellent teachers. These newbies are totally intimidated by being subject to dismissal without cause , at any time.
I have seen three go this route -- albeit there was good reason to dismiss them. I did not defend them.



Good lord !!! What is that ? Logic ? Monty Python could hardly top that one

Here's a news flash : surgery occured before washed hands were required of the surgeons.




After that last gem you want context ???!!!




More appropriate setting ? Details please ---

Oh, say, while you are at it, could you tell my admin to not
"mainstream" 23 special ed kids into my 26 - student classroom. It seems that the 3 kids who can meet standard don't get enough of my atention while the others yell F__ Y____ at each other for 108 minutes non-stop.
See, I am not a special ed teacher( SAINTS ALL OF THEM).
And it's not fair to demand CST standards of kids who can't read numbers, say the times tables, nor control their emotions. I am not refering to punks here. These kids are truly incapable of controlling themselves enough to meet the same standards as the others. They need "Individual Academic Plans" suited to each kids capacity and three adults to ten students in a true special ed environment.




I told you, I only have an MS degree.




Here we go again. Do you want a waffle ? Is that it ?




How can you say that ? Look Vinny, kids are given the 800 number to turn their parents in with any accusation they want. This HAS to result in a house visit by CPS officers and police. If you are undocumented, your whole world is turned upside down. A mother visited me, afraid to be seen there by her daughter who had threatened to report het to CPS if she kept her from partying or made her improve her grades. Another girl was absent for weeks. I investigated and she, along with her mom, had been assured by the brutal, unwanted father that he would use his hunting knife to skin both of their faces and heads so no man will ever want them. They were terrified, stayed at home, lost her job, COULD NOT GO TO THE POLICE FOR FEAR OF DEPORTATION -- you ass -- and I had to report the "man" myself at the same risk.
Vinny, you insensitive neo-con-man-can't-believe-you-are-gay-and-so-blind-to-injustice-piece-of-Belgian-waffle !!!!




Yes, every teacher who doesn't believe that punks can make a good teacher totally ineffectual in the classroom has avoided all the tough kids and has never worked in a school with punk-induced low scores. Right.


Ah, the cowardly, unmanly censor calls on daddy again. It is really developing into a major personality disorder with you neo-con-men isn't it ?

Why do you hate America, Vinny ?
Never mind, I accept your apology.

All you have to do is ask Junior if he is a terrorist punk.
He will say, "Yes, I am a terrorist punk".

Then, tell him you don't believe him and he will slice your
tamales off for you, hand them to you and say, "See ?"

And when you ask them what they think of phoney-baloney "child advocates" like you, they spit and say, "Man, that dude is weak ! He deserves what he got. He's not like you Mr. J, he's all ... messed up, he's a liar. He doesn't make us do our work, he doesn't respect himself, ... he's a pen___o."

That, dear Vinny, is the punk as he is given to you.

So far, all you offer is Belgian waffles.




Of course I am capable.... with adults.

Waazzamatter Vinny, can't take the heat ? How you gonna make it in da classroom baby ? No fear , brother. The crap I've been handing back to you is just day 1 of a new teacher's day.

Got waffle ?

How else can some one rouse you out of your bullshit neo-con-man reverie without physically rubbing your snout in the dirt ?

I have to perforate your bubble, don't I ?
I must let some air out of your head to make room for
the facts I deal with at work.

Nothin' personal bro .... izzz just bizzzznezzz, that's all.






So have private schools when they smell FEDERAL REGULATIONS, PROVISIONS, etc. on that voucher money.

It's a neo-con-man hot button, a vote getter, a boogy-man ... they would BLANCHE Vinny !!!, BLANCHE !!!! Do you hear me ? BLANCHE !!!





Incoherent eh, I think you understand all too well.
You are busted, biggot. That's all I am saying.

Well, I have a strange sense of humor.

Maybe because it was the Belgian system that was compared against the US system and the US system found lacking?

No, that would be too logical.


Because everything you disagree with is "crap"? The US system has flaws. There are other systems that seem to do better. Trying to introduce those systems have run into the brick wall of teacher's unions. So the comment that teacher's unions stand in the way of change and improvement has merit.

That you are steadfastly unable to consider that point of view without name calling indicates that you aren't a big favor of change in any form.


I find it amusing to defend the value of PhDs given I'm usually on the opposite side of the argument...however...


Meitner attained her PhD in 1906 from the University of Vienna. I brought up PIs simply because while there are folks with masters supporting research at NASA usually the folks designing and running the actual experiment have more formal training in research (meaning a PhD).

There's nothing special about a PhD other than a) the ability to grind through the work to attain one and b) that the individual with one has shown ONCE that they can do independent research of some kind.

But you're diverting the issue: a master's degree is nothing special. Neither is your experience at NASA. In any case, on the internet such claims are unverifiable and rather pointless.


It's well known that if a very busy Professor is listed first on a paper that typically it's the second name that wrote it if it was a grad student. In any case, you still get to list that publication (i.e. you get credit).


Less common than you make it out to be. Theft of research, once widely known, destroys the only thing of real value to a researcher: their reputation. Horror stories exist but are the rare exception rather than the rule in academia.

In any case, they can't steal your brain unless you let them (by getting bitter about it). The truth emerges eventually because your own work will show what you can do.


The point is you've been carrying on about your purported credentials as if they were meaningful to the discussion or all that noteworthy. They aren't.


Sure. Given that each school system has its own rules one should be able to find examples of anything. But NY has a very powerful union and was the example in the documentary (or simply show if you prefer not to call it a documentary).

LA's teachers union has opposed more charter schools and amazingly the three board of ed members that voted against more charter schools got $1M in campaing contributions from the UTLA.

Gee.


I would think that the impact of vouchers would be felt up the entire food chain to do better. The least impact would hopefully be on teachers since they would still be needed and would have more opportunities to move to a school run by a competent administrator.


Very true so you have a point. So sanitary operating procedures have improved the survival rates of the patients. What can we say of the tenure system in US public schools?


Mainstreaming is typically implemented poorly. Arguably mainstreaming is bad for everyone except a portion of the mainstreamed kids.

However, I can see the point of view of parents that insist on mainstreaming for their kids. The problem lies in that there are not enough resources to provide 100% coverage on a 1-1 basis for mainstreamed kids.

Now, my wife had mainstreamed kids in her class with 1-3 ratio of helpers (she had 3 with an aide) but it was still a disruption in the class.


No disagreement. Each district implements this differently...some still maintain special ed schools but some have completely (or almost completely) closed them.


You seemed to have figured it out. Its easier to maintain context this way no?


Its a strawman because for every one of these stories you provide there's another equally disadvantaged family that would benefit from vouchers. These are the same ones who camp out for days hoping to get their kids into a charter school.

The story you provide is simply argumentum ad misericrodiam. The end result of vouchers will not be a system where poor parents can't find better schools for their kids if they are motivated to. Rich parents already do that.

Undocumented parents are a seperate but related social issue. One that vouchers shouldn't impact because if its already legal for you to treat undocumented parents as the legal guardians without reporting them, then sending them a voucher in the mail to apply to their kids education is more of the same.

Will there be kids that are poorly served under a system that has vouchers? Sure. Will there be problems? Sure. Will there be disasters? Sure.

But the system already sucks. Keeping the status quo is already a mess. Tell me this: why are class sizes still so large even though we are pouring more money than ever into the system?

Because maybe we spend $84 per pupil on textbooks but $107 per student on supervisor salaries (not counting principles and other school staff) in the LA Unified School District (2004ish numbers)?

So what if vouchers resulted in a PUBLIC school system that isn't top heavy and wasteful which allows you to have a lower punk/class ratio?


The primary difference appears that you think that the majority (if not all) kids are punks or proto-punks. Given that my wife taught in the worst school in her district I'd say that she had experience with "punks" but didn't speak as you do regarding kids.

Yes there are punks. But more teachers I know complain about class size as a root cause of many problems. Unless you feel nearly every kid is a punk smaller classes would allow you to teach more and perform "classroom management" less.

Thus far your comments make you seem jaded and feel that almost all kids are punks. So reducing class size wouldn't help you much there would it?


No one is censoring you...you plead victimhood far too easily. That you come across as a bitter and jaded teacher on this forum is no ones fault but your own.


Its not crap...it's just stupid. If you want to act the part...be my guest but it certainly doesn't advance the idea that some teachers need to be removed but cannot because the unions prevent that.


And other schools do accept regulations, provisions, etc. If no private schools will accept vouchers then there should be no problems correct?


Bigot? Dude, if you hadn't said you were a minority of some kind who on earth would know? You have no clue my background or ethnicity so claiming some wierd bigotry accusation is just another appeal of victimhood. Get over yourself. I wrote you were incoherent because your posts were frothing and poorly written.

That you think it's because of your skin color is just sad. The internet is one place that can be colorblind unless you inject it in yourself.

Vinea

You know, I've never really understood why the secondary schools now have a tenure system. What, precisely, is it there for?

And lord have mercy, this thread makes me want to go through the archives, dig up some 6 month old dead thread, and revive it as if it had never stopped.

Home again, home again ..... let's see what new crap
came in ......




It's a lousy comparison.


That wouldn't be logical at all.




No. Your crap is crap.



The crony system you would replace it with has always been far worse. Again, principals and superintendents have shown themselves to be ethically, professionally, and pedagogically incompetent to wield such power. Today my class was chosen , by my supervisor, to host visiting observers from the District ( I wonder why he would chose a jaded, incompetent like me to make a good impression on these powerful suits. )

One of them, a breathtakingly beautiful lady and a very nice person, I'm sure, and a couple of friendly and polite principals from other schools were amazed at my WACOM graphics tablet and asked me what it was, how it worked, and the same re. my digital camera that I have mounted on a home-made copy stand , all connected to my 12" G4 Powerbook and media projector that I use with AppleWorks as a super chalk board . Now it was a pleasant enough exchange , but are you the least bit amazed at their lack of familiarity with such a simple set-up ? And yet they were there to check up on our use of technology. I didn't dislike any of them personally. But can you see why I don't want them to have the power to fire me without due process and a real trial? As you know, if you read my post above, I have already tasted the arrogance and injustice of "tenure denial" without due process. I know, in my heart, exactly what dirty bastards people with such power can be. You really expect me to take seriously any suggestion that disarms me and empowers them ? BTW, by everyone's accounting, especially his students and colleagues, the most incompetent, indolent, and irresponsible of the people I sued, at that college, had a Ph.D. from Stanford. We had to sue him for his student reviews after he claimed that my excellent reviews were not up to par. After a year of fighting him, we got the reviews --- they were awful compared to mine. And he had decades of time to improve at that school.

In Cuba, we call such a parasite a "yam with a necktie".




Don't fool yourself. I have not only considered it : unlike you, I have lived it. And I have rejected it. All bulwarks against injustice, cronyism, and nepotism have obstructed efficiency in some ways , throughout history. Our Constitution is just such a bulwark. In a dictatorship , like Castro's Cuba, I experienced the efficiency you dream of when illiteracy was taken from about 85 % to under 3 % in about a year. In fact, my older brother taught me to read Spanish at the age of three ( Spanish is very easy to read ) on a chalk board our uncle made for us so we could play school . Later , the drive for literacy began. An adult friend of the family sat me on his lap and I helped him to sound out the words on his text. That was my first teaching experience. Cuba now has a far greater literacy rate than we do here. And they read Marx and Cervantes --- not My Pet Goat.

You know who was cut out of that true miracle ? Not the teachers. Nobody screwed the teachers like you are itching to do. It was the administrators, rectors, directors, superintendents, and other yams with neckties who were canned. And, of course, as for the truly dangerous punks who had bred in the squalor of USA's Batista's police state, ... well, from my living room, we could hear the firing squads going all night long for a few weeks. Even I would not condone that.



I value them too. They have been my mentors at university and supporters in my law suit. But we all know a Ph.D. has little to do with the holder's ethics.




Hahn behaved like a worm. He was almost as good a researcher as Meitner, but a lousy guardian of academic excellence and civic duty; especially after the war -- get it?


Don't try manipulative language with me V. Not "supporting" --- I said DOING --- that means designing, testing, running, inventing, perfecting, ALL OF IT.



I don't deny the Ph.D.'s their due. But, you minimize the role of the Masters far too much. This is due to the fact that you are ignorant and evil. You must reform. You ought to give all the little people what they are due.


As a junior at university, I invented a laser trapping cell. The Ph.D. in charge of me had won every prize imaginable in his studies. He told me that the ray-tracing model I was embarking on was extremely difficult and, for my system, impossible. I did it in two days. He had no imput in it. That was research. I did it without a B.A. and I am not, in the least, persuaded by your points a) and b) above.

Many WWII Ph.D.'s had to "grind" through about as much work as a middling B.A. does today. The M.A. at my Alma Matter was far more challenging than many Ph.D.'s at other schools. One Ph.D. from U of Illinois at Urbana ( the crony who had been chosen, originally, by the dept. I sued ) taught his students that "thoughts travel faster than light", that "quantum mechanics is identical to classical statistical mechanics", and that "Poisson brackets are identical to Dirac bra-kets". As for the Ph.D. from Stanford
in the office adjacent to mine; I heard him tell a student that the 4pi factor in the "h-bar" constant ( sorry no character in my fonts here ) of QM is "a great source of controversy" , "the jury is still out as to it's use and meaning" and other BS. I was amazed. Now, Vinny, I know you are an ignoramus in this. But I post it so that maybe some Ph.D. will post and tell you ( with the snooty authority you require ) that the factor is simply the result of a closed angular integration ( whence 4pi steradians ) in the normalization of the probability density function of the system. And the other three barbarities are equally appalling. Not that I wouldn't give my right arm for a Ph.D. from such schools as UI and Stanford. It's just that in real life ( not your bubble world ) most Ph.D.'s are honest enough to tell you themselves that the degree guarantees little of what you imagine. Most of them will get a real chuckle out of your pretended naiveté.


Oh, don't be hurt Vinny. Your neo-con-man intentions are quite transparent in the internet. All of our experiences are quite special. For example, mine made me a real expert in this area. Yours made you really stupid in yours.
It is obvious that you are begining to feel the weight of my arguments : you have reduced yourself to denying my veracity rather than countering with something resembling reason. That was a real give-away, Vinny.



Well, it's good to see that you know it. Apply this fact to your occiput and rub it in. Rinse and repeat.




Less...more.... Bah, don't waste our time. Cronyistic systems that you prefer to unionized ones REWARD thieves.
Don't you keep up with current affairs ? None of the thieves in my friend's case lost a damn thing. Plagiarism is rampant in research -- not rare. Jeeezzz !!!


More fantasy bull crap from neo-con-man planet.
Don't worry so much about flavors and try to show a little morality once in a while.




Don't try your ludicrous pronouncements of grand edicts re. what my facts are worth. If they were worthless you would not snipe at their authenticity : you would counter the argument. Again, a real give-away, Vinny .

For all we know, you are an 18 year old loser with not a single clue about the real world , failing in artsy-fartsy land, collecting 50¢ per post from the neo-con-man internet propaganda army, and posting under a dozen names to seem bigger than a louse.




And UTLA never said why they opposed it ? Why isn't that just awful ? !

I contributed to those millions. I am a UTLA member. What of it ? It balances the neo-con-man funding of biggots. You don't like the turnabout ?

The times, they are-a-changing , republican. Eat it.


Yes.


Yes, I guess you would think that. Your schools and "competent administrators" seem to materialize, deus ex machina, at your beck and call. Whence these saviors, Vinny ? Any idea ?




It has made it safe for teachers to teach science instead of fundamentalist stupidity. It has made it possible for teachers to expose fraudulent programs foisted by admin politicos at the expense of tax payers and kids. It has attracted the majority of teachers ( read --- good teachers ) to risk a commitment to teaching that is seldom reversible in fields like science, engineering, mathematics, and such. It has made it possible for history teachers to include the contributions of women and minorities in their lessons as well as exposing the revisionist, neo-con-man bull crap that passed for history and current events previously. It keeps countless women from having to lay the fat principal unless she wants to. Oh, and don't forget the aqueducts !



Thank you. You get a cookie, vinea.


No fair !!! If you get on my side we can't argue.
I am certainly not going to trade sides with you!

BTW, why must you always manipulate ? Did I say "1-1" ?


Ughhh ! This is terrible ! Get back to your side this minute!

Anyway, it takes fewer than five disruptive kids ( SE or punk , doesn't matter ) to kill a class.




I don't "seemed" to have figured it out. I had to call a Ph.D. from a very prestigious university without tenure or funding or teachers or even buildings to do it for me. They are protected, from yams-with-neckties, by their sheer trust in the fictitious, competitive market of neo-con-men with huge phalluses and really great morals.




OK, so you only screw half of the families.


More bull crap pronouncements from Nostradamus.




Tell it to the parents. Private schools do as they will. A report to the MIGRA can be made for other "reasons" just as a lousy principal might ( under your crony system ) fire you for "reasons" other than, say, your being gay. Never heard of that trick ? The college I sued changed their "reason" for denying tenure as often as their private investigators came back to them with news that all witnesses had laughed in their faces and the latest "reason" had back-fired on them in a big way. I would say about twenty times. Once, they accused me of teaching voodoo in the physics class ( literally --- as per the college president's testimony ) .


Hey !!! Hey !!! Who let Rumsfeld in here ?

Be gone, foul demon of darkness!!!. It is the power of christ that compells you! It is he who hurls you back to the pit of perdition. The blood of the saints compells you ! The tears of the angels compell you! The torments of the martyrs compell you !!! .... \ .... is he gone ?


Because nobody wants to be pissed on by you ?
Because corporate-fascist worms squander trillions on murder abroad so we can't afford enough schools and teachers ?
Because without tenure, you have to live in fear of being canned by an idiot admin regardless of your skills ?
Because it's really hard for a man to get laid if he is identified as a school teacher ( unlike college profs -- need I relate anecdotes ? -- got the scoop on both sides, you know ) ?
Because most of you barbarians don't like kids nearly as much as you advertise ?
Because whorehouses are funded better than schools and visited more frequently as well ? Wanna hear about my years in the bordello ?


We buy them books and we buy them books, and all they do is eat the covers. How long do you think it takes a punk to trash a $50 book or a $700 computer ? About 3 seconds in both cases. So, fire the teachers ?


No, no --- it will result in a concentration of punks in schools where parents can't pay the balance of the private school, or parents are crackheads, or parents don't dare risk deportation, or parents can't travel the distance, etc.



Again, it only takes three punks or so to ruin the education of thirty kids. The kids will tell you this themselves. Are you from Earth ? And the punk virus is transmitted by air.

Your wife must be much kinder than I.
I hope you remained good friends.
I like to call things by their proper names.
Punks are proud to be called punks.
They practice in front of the mirror.
It is "school boy" that will separate you from your tamales.


Are you planning to exterminate them or is it that you can't count ?

Where is the parachute drop of new schools going to be ?

Or do you plan to use them for sausage ?



Oh, I know ! You expect the crops to fail and a plague to sweep the little darlings away !!! Or will they be taken up on the mother ship ? ... Oh, I need to re-jade before I go back to teach tomorrow.

And whom did you teach today ?

You know, all this time you spend lying on the web could be spent volunteering to tutor kids, read to them, make parent contacts, .... you know ... helping ???




Sorry, I imagined a call for me to be banned.... must be all that jade.



Oh, how precious ! Just like a teenee republican. You must disapprove of your own life style right ?



What ? You again ? !!! Get back on your side. This is my side. What kind of coherence is that ? I'm the one who can't write, not you ! Get your own disability !!!!


Again, MAKE MY DAY




Quite the Hemmingway aren't you

Anyway, neo-con-men who screw teachers, minority kids and parents, and other decent working-class people, with phoney benevolence, are biggots.
Nothing to do with my ethnicity.

It's your biggotry.

I know you O'Reilly types love to wheel out the hackneyed "victim syndrome" crap when you run out of talking points. And you like to make brave demands for terribly competitive excellence from everyone but yourselves : maybe you hope to be falsely associated with excellence by sheer volume and repetition of that word. Give it up.
The times they-are-a-changing


That you think I am Black is a real give-away, Vinny.

Did you pilfer my injector ? Shame on you!