EVT1
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Post by EVT1 on Mar 28, 2011 9:26:19 GMT -5
Someone please explain to me why with all of the problems we have in this country, the teachers were the first people the GOP went after? Would this be the war on public employees or the war on education? I don't really know what they are after this time- maybe they are just punishing groups that don't vote their way. Well, bend over Johnny, not only are you in massive debt at 8 years old, you are going to be dumb too- another mindless low wage consumer zombie- just what they want- heck, you'll probably be carrying a protest sign by the time you are thirty arguing against the estate tax or that the minimum wage you make is too onerous on businesses.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 9:53:44 GMT -5
"War on teachers" talk is just union propaganda. The GOP knows there's a huge problem with the government run school monopoly and they are responding to demands by the taxpayers, and by parents to fix it.
Does this threaten failing schools, and lousy teachers? You bet. And unions are threatened by that. Government schools are threatened by competition. And they should face a threat. They should be worried. Period. End of story.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 9:57:07 GMT -5
In both cases I can think if pushing retirment... it was 'behavioral' issues on behalf of the teacher... one smacked a kid... big no no... the other playfully threatened to staple ?, a kids hand to the desk?, something like that ... Both were older... I had one of them, he was a good teacher... maybe at the end of their game, should have left earlier... ? ... Teaching generally has a continuum of support early on... you student teach before you leave school, then you are part of a new teacher program for 1-3 years... have a mentor the first year... and then groups you can meet in... its just so hard to imagine any situation which might come up in schools to try to prep for any contingency in college... and given that 1 in 3 teachers will leave the profession in the first 3 years, this kind of support program has helped with attrition, and also helped to make better teachers... I loved my mentor my second year (that school mentored ALL new teachers, even if they had experience, just to acclimate to the district) ... and then a few years later, i got to be a mentor... it was a good program... Principals, good ones, are a part of the system, and can also help with discipline, material acquisition, etc... Open it up to competition. You wouldn't keep going back to a restaurant that served you a bad meal- and that's not even critical to your kid's success in life. We have other restaurants, but we don't have other schools. Oh, we have other schools- but you have to keep giving the restaurant that serves the lousy meals money. No. It's time to end the bullsh**.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 10:00:16 GMT -5
And the bottom line- if you're a parent: get ready for choices and a better education for your kids. If you're a teacher- get ready to have a job just like everyone else. No more tenure in Florida. No more flat pay scales that pay lousy teachers the same as good teachers.
Now, to make progress on simply firing bad teachers (no word on that from the governor), reform benefits and retirement plans to more down to earth, realistic, affordable, private solutions-- still awaiting word on that from the governor.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2011 10:02:32 GMT -5
All schools are failing according to NCLB, or eventually will be... 100% of the population at proficiency level is not realistic... which is why ultimately NCLB was intended to bring about school failure and prompt a move towards privatization...
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 10:15:02 GMT -5
All schools are failing according to NCLB, or eventually will be... 100% of the population at proficiency level is not realistic... which is why ultimately NCLB was intended to bring about school failure and prompt a move towards privatization... Let us pray it will be so. I know it's a 41 minute video- and you may not have time to watch it today-- but make time sometime. It blows up all the government run school excuses you can possibly dream up. The one guy in SC said, "Give me the poorest, you can have the richest- and we'll run circles around you". And then he did.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2011 10:17:35 GMT -5
I'll bookmark it... I have to get to teaching something today... I'm just playing on here while i'm waiting for dell to actually figure out that all they need to do is send me a new power cord...
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 10:20:02 GMT -5
Good luck with that. I finally just bought a power cord online by reading the model # and punching it into Google-- unless you're talking warranty? If you have to buy one, I suggest the first one you can find.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2011 10:24:28 GMT -5
Yes, its under warrenty... I told him 24 minutes ago that it is broken, and while it powers the computer, the computer has no battery charge because it doesn't recognize the cord... and 3 minutes ago he asked me what happens when i use only batteries... so i restated and and i am again waiting 2-3 more minutes whil he researches this issue.... lol I don't think education in India is all that great either
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 10:24:49 GMT -5
Teachers do get reviews and evaluations just like everyone else. It would be nice if people actually knew what they were talking about when it comes to education. I'm sorry, but this is just complete crap. I'm probably the best informed person you know on education, and teachers do NOT get reviews "like everyone else". In NYC, just for example, they fired just 2 teachers in 10 years out of 84,000 teachers. They spend $62 million a year on teachers in "rubber rooms" - unresolved discipline issues where instead of firing a teacher, they send them to a detention like existence and continue to pay them to do nothing. That's not "reviews like everyone esle". They handle parental concerns with all the care and concern of the average Post Office. I'm informed. You're propagandized. And you're here I guess just to try and get that nonsense by people-- you posted to the wrong guy.
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floridayankee
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Post by floridayankee on Mar 28, 2011 12:04:23 GMT -5
The parents complained, and complained, and complained again. It didn't matter if their kids were black or white, at-risk or honor roll. Year after year, they said similar things about Maria Raysses-Whipple and what she was doing in her classroom: botching grades. Putting down students. Making them hate school.
They told one principal after another: Move my kid.
.....
In 33 years as a Pinellas County teacher, her performance has been repeatedly scrutinized and admonished. School officials terminated Whipple from her first teaching contract in 1978; nudged her out of an elementary school in 1984; pushed her out of a high school in 1997. In October, they began investigating her for undisclosed reasons.
Yet until she went on medical leave on Jan. 24, she was still teaching (at $60,798 a year) and, at least through last fall, still drawing a barrage of complaints. Pinellas teacher's 33-year career: fired, rehired, transferred, investigated
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floridayankee
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Post by floridayankee on Mar 28, 2011 12:36:08 GMT -5
And, there are no other professions where they attempt to remediate the professionals? You have never seen this happen anywhere else? Of course I have...they didn't write an article about it in today's paper though.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2011 12:43:08 GMT -5
Remediation is one thing... 33 years? ... seems it should have been obvious long before then that remediation was not working...
On the other hand... Paul... that is one of the rare exceptions you were warning about.... truth is, most teachers are not bad... its only a small minority that need the boot...
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safeharbor37
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Post by safeharbor37 on Mar 28, 2011 13:03:16 GMT -5
Sorry Paul, but teachers do get reviews and on site observation as well as occasional random surveillance through the intercom ~ and I suppose nowadays by video. [buses do and I suppose some classrooms]. I've been out a while so I sure things have changed, but although few teachers are terminated, they are evaluated. It's a little more complex than you'd think and it isn't all about tenure [although that does discourage disciplinary action ~ as does membership in a union]. First: Teachers are not the problem, the system is. Parents are a problem. but you really have no choice there. Likewise the children ~ what are you going to do? Classroom rules and discipline is pretty much the problem. The rules are set to appease the crankiest parent and mollify the most disruptive student. Most teachers are pretty good and virtually all enter the profession with the best of intentions ~ of course a few nut cases slip through, particularly in "less desirable" schools and among "minority" teachers who will yell "Racism" at the drop of a hat, but generally, teachers are a notch above the typical parent/student combination. Administrators, on the other hand, manage by sucking up to the most demanding parents, community leaders, and "boosters" so that they can keep their cushy jobs and not have to go back in the classroom. It's a cultural thing and not the fault of any particular group. The system sucks and it sucks because it's designed to keep the most ignorant, hateful and selfish from rocking the boat ~ as demonstrated by the thugs roaming the streets disrupting others to satisfy their own selfish motives.
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handyman2
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Post by handyman2 on Mar 28, 2011 22:01:16 GMT -5
I can only add this. My wife taught for over thirty years, some of the time in Pinellas county and then in Hillsborough county when we moved across the bay. Even with tenure the story about the Mrs. Whipple is not about tenure. She could have been removed from the class room at any time and been refused a teaching job. If this story is accurate in all detail this is a break down of the administration and not the fault of tenure. A principal has the option of adding or removing a teacher. If they have an annual contract for that year they can be removed from the classroom and placed in a non classroom position and not offered a contract for the following year. I have seen this done more than once. By the way the administration of a school is supposed to do a written evaluation of all teachers each year.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 23:13:11 GMT -5
Um, yes they do. Teachers get observed, evaluated and reviewed. But not like the rest of us.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 23:19:38 GMT -5
So, are we going to evaluate industries based on the firing rates? We're going to use common sense and we're going to use our brains. We're going to ask ourselves if it is realistic that in a decade in a city with 84,000 teachers, only two underperformed, or otherwise committed a fireable offense? Anyone with two brain cells sparking knows this isn't true, it isn't even likely true. We're going to observe the NYC through the lense of the $62 million (a non-trivial sum) taxpayers spend putting teachers in "rubber rooms" and paying them to do nothing while charges are being investigated and disciplinary action is pending-- some of them for that very same decade in which only two teachers were fired. It's impossible to find, it is difficult to even imagine the private sector equivalent (unless they have unionized workers) of a company paying out $62 million a year for employees who do NOTHING because they've been accused of something by a customer and it takes a decade to investigate the charges and take appropritate disciplinary action (or no action, and put them back to work).
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 23:21:38 GMT -5
And you're here I guess just to try and get that nonsense by people-- you posted to the wrong guy. OK. Tell me what i posted that was wrong. You said teachers have normal jobs like anyone else in the private sector- and specifically that their performance reviews were identical to any normal private sector worker. That's wrong.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 23:28:43 GMT -5
I can only add this. My wife taught for over thirty years, some of the time in Pinellas county and then in Hillsborough county when we moved across the bay. Even with tenure the story about the Mrs. Whipple is not about tenure. She could have been removed from the class room at any time and been refused a teaching job. If this story is accurate in all detail this is a break down of the administration and not the fault of tenure. A principal has the option of adding or removing a teacher. If they have an annual contract for that year they can be removed from the classroom and placed in a non classroom position and not offered a contract for the following year. I have seen this done more than once. By the way the administration of a school is supposed to do a written evaluation of all teachers each year. What about terminated? What about a teacher works there on Thursday, and doesn't work there on Friday? What about F I R E D? Ever seen that? Three of my good friends are government run school indoctrinators not including one who is a specialist working with the profoundly disabled, and one who is a school principal (hs). It's interesting but they all agree with me on just about everything I've posted here. They think the teachers in Wisconsin who protested and obtained fraudulent medical excuses are a disgrace. They think merit pay is the way to go. They've NEVER seen a teacher flat out fired- including some who committed VERY serious offenses ranging from theft to the sexual assault of a student (that was three years ago, and the person in question is still working for the district, although not permitted to have contact with students- gee, thanks. Where are the cops, and why does this person still have a job?) They're tired of the unions, they're tired of the excuses, and the most interesting thing one of them said to me this very evening... Reforming education, introducing competition, eliminating pay scales and tenure, and making us [teachers] actually work for our jobs-- will do nothing but help us [teachers]. We're the good ones, and we're only as strong as the weakest link. It's time to cull the herd. This is what this person said to me. Classroom indoctrinator for the government.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 28, 2011 23:42:21 GMT -5
Remediation is one thing... 33 years? ... seems it should have been obvious long before then that remediation was not working... On the other hand... Paul... that is one of the rare exceptions you were warning about.... truth is, most teachers are not bad... its only a small minority that need the boot... All teachers aren't "bad". I don't look at people as "good" or "bad". They're employees. In every company you have people that perform, and people that don't and managers have to have the freedom to manage. Jack Welch, super awesome populist guy that liberals loved because of his "man of the people" worked his way up from the mail room (or wherever) persona used to routinely fire the bottom 10%-- just for being in the bottom 10%. If you were evaluated at GE under Jack Welch and you were in the bottom 10%- buh bye, you were gone. Go do something else. Now, I'm not saying that's reasonable- I don't think it is. I think there are situation where management is the problem and employees can't perform optimally because they aren't being given the tools they need to succeed, they don't receive clear direction, expectations are vague or imprecise, management is too "hands off", management is micro-managing, and so on. But, we do have to say-- "good", "bad", indifferent-- if you're not performing, you've got to go. Period. And again, I refer to the NYC situation. 84,000 teachers, and they only found 2 worth firing, or more likely- they couldn't fire them. And I don't find this to be the exception, it's more the rule. Have you ever had a good teacher? The one that really had a positive impact on your life? THOSE teachers were the exception. The rule is boring, don't really give a sh**, and it shows. At least that describes my entire K-12 except for 2 teachers-- one in second grade, and one my sophomore year of high school. The teacher's lounge was a gloomy place where cigarette smoke hung in the air, and the faint smell of Jameson's could be detected emanating from any given coffee cup in the room. I know, I was errand boy for the teachers in lieu of study hall for a year, and teachers bitched and moaned about how rotten everything was. These were not passionate people who cared. These were people who had been there too long to quit, and who had to ride it out until their pension. They couldn't leave and go to another state- or they'd lose it all. It isn't just a prison for students, it's a prison for teachers, too. It's all-around no good for anyone.
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hello fromWarsaw
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Post by hello fromWarsaw on Mar 28, 2011 23:47:54 GMT -5
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hello fromWarsaw
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Post by hello fromWarsaw on Mar 28, 2011 23:53:03 GMT -5
Seriously, they need smaller class size, and a better society.
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handyman2
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Post by handyman2 on Mar 29, 2011 9:25:14 GMT -5
reply 135: PBP: I do not know about other states but if you are refering to the Fl. school system the only way I know how to discribe it is that your post is BS. Might want to get better informed info.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 29, 2011 11:34:22 GMT -5
What about terminated? What about a teacher works there on Thursday, and doesn't work there on Friday? What about F I R E D? Ever seen that? Yes. I have. In fact, there were teacher firings over the past couple of years here. Document it. It's public. Find it. Otherwise, I will not believe. Everyone I've challenged to find a teacher who is FIRED- gone, out, not being paid who worked there one day, and the next was gone-- has failed to come up with anything, and I can't find anything.
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handyman2
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Post by handyman2 on Mar 29, 2011 13:13:43 GMT -5
In most cases a firing offence has a review procedure. The teacher is removed from the classroom and depending on the issue is put on administrative leave or moved to a non student position till the review is complete. The reason for this is there are charges placed against teachers by students and parents that are fabricated or have an axe to grind and until it is firmly established the charges are valid or invalid the status of the teacher is usually just administrative leave. I personally know a case involving a teacher that was a good friend of my wife and the charges were rediculous by a parent. And she was reinstated to the classroom after a review.
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safeharbor37
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Post by safeharbor37 on Mar 29, 2011 13:38:49 GMT -5
What is being discussed here as a teacher issue is really true of all government employees covered by "civil service." It is so cumbersome that it's frequently easier and sometimes cheaper to put a non-performer in a position where he/she can do least harm than to try to terminate him/her. Administrators on the other hand frequently "serve at the pleasure" and can be fired or reassigned at will. Therefore Administrators kiss a lot of ass and suck up to the powers that be. That's another part of the problem. What it all boils down to is that the government isn't very efficient and almost always corrupt ~ thus the more the private sector does and the less the government does, the better off we are.
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Shirina
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Post by Shirina on Mar 29, 2011 20:24:40 GMT -5
Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch was awarded a $165 million golden parachute despite the company posting $8 billion in losses under his leadership.
LOL! And this was one person.
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Post by ed1066 on Mar 29, 2011 20:26:01 GMT -5
Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch was awarded a $165 million golden parachute despite the company posting $8 billion in losses under his leadership. LOL! And this was one person. That's almost as ridiculous as giving a Nobel Peace Prize to a man fighting three wars...LOL!
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safeharbor37
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Post by safeharbor37 on Mar 29, 2011 22:00:50 GMT -5
The difference is that mismanaged companies go into bankruptcy while mismanaged governments just raise taxes.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 30, 2011 19:55:37 GMT -5
The difference is that mismanaged companies go into bankruptcy while mismanaged governments just raise taxes. DING!
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