Teacher's Strikes.

[Cheerful Charlie]

So we have teacher's strikes now in West Virginia, Oklahoma, demonstrations in Kentucky. Teachers look like they are getting ready to strike in Arizona.

It is hard to keep up with them all. I wonder, will this impact the 2018 off year elections?
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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kentucky-teacher-protests_us_5ac29c76e4b04646b6454b03

The rally began before 9 a.m. outside the Kentucky Education Association building just blocks from the Capitol complex. Teachers, most of them clad in red (as part of the grassroots Wear Red for Ed campaign), later marched to the Capitol itself, filling up the rotunda outside legislative chambers and spilling out the front doors and down the steps.


“Enough is enough,” they chanted, many of them carrying signs telling lawmakers to fully fund their pensions and their schools and threatening that if the legislators failed to do so, the teachers would do everything in their power to remove them from office in elections this November.

 

[ZiprHead]

Good for them. I say, GO TEACHERS!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

They only work 9 months in the year, and just 7 hours a day. They are even told how to teach via the testing requirements. How much easier of a job can it get. #signmeup

 

[Elixir]

They only work 9 months in the year, and just 7 hours a day. They are even told how to teach via the testing requirements. How much easier of a job can it get. #signmeup

Yeah, right.... 7 hours a day 5 days/week in a room full of kids, many of whom require special attention for one reason or another, plus:
* 1-3 hours a day after class preparing curricula for the next day
* Write and submit reports of myriad types and kinds
* Try to budget for their families on $36k/yr while having to buy classroom supplies out-of-pocket
...and much much more
Sign you up? Gladly - I think you're brilliant, and could help a lot of kids learn how to think analytically. Go for it, PLEASE! (If you can afford to)

 

[rousseau]

I read a good article on the situation in Oklahoma that I can no longer find. But the gist was that the situation for education there is really, very bad.

Another failing American state.

 

[ZiprHead]

I saw a video of an OK school. Crumbling textbooks, leaking ceilings, broken desks and chairs still in use, and totally disgusting bathrooms.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Oklahoma ain't the only problem state by any means. And sometimes it is local. In Minneapolis, the school system is $33 million in debt. The politicians just can't find any money. But they found $500 million for a new football stadium. Meanwhile at the bottom of education achievements are Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Also among the states with lowest resources given to their school systems.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

They only work 9 months in the year, and just 7 hours a day. They are even told how to teach via the testing requirements. How much easier of a job can it get. #signmeup

Yeah, right.... 7 hours a day 5 days/week in a room full of kids, many of whom require special attention for one reason or another, plus:
* 1-3 hours a day after class preparing curricula for the next day
* Write and submit reports of myriad types and kinds
* Try to budget for their families on $36k/yr while having to buy classroom supplies out-of-pocket
...and much much more
Sign you up? Gladly - I think you're brilliant, and could help a lot of kids learn how to think analytically. Go for it, PLEASE! (If you can afford to)

Don't work the summers... get a free pension... I've seen the parking lots at schools full of cars, so clearly they are swimming in it.

 

[Bronzeage]

They only work 9 months in the year, and just 7 hours a day. They are even told how to teach via the testing requirements. How much easier of a job can it get. #signmeup

Yeah, right.... 7 hours a day 5 days/week in a room full of kids, many of whom require special attention for one reason or another, plus:
* 1-3 hours a day after class preparing curricula for the next day
* Write and submit reports of myriad types and kinds
* Try to budget for their families on $36k/yr while having to buy classroom supplies out-of-pocket
...and much much more
Sign you up? Gladly - I think you're brilliant, and could help a lot of kids learn how to think analytically. Go for it, PLEASE! (If you can afford to)

Don't work the summers... get a free pension... I've seen the parking lots at schools full of cars, so clearly they are swimming in it.

I'm invoking Poe's Law.

Small point. There is no such thing as a "free pension." A pension is earned and is a form of deferred compensation. Any attempt to recalculate or reduce a pension, after the fact, is an act of theft.

 

[Politesse]

Yup. My faculty union is looking at a possible strike next year; given my place in the tenure application process I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing.

 

[untermensche]

A wise and sane society would make the job of teaching the next generation the most coveted job available.

It would be a job so rewarded and esteemed that many people would want it and the competition to get it would be fierce.

Instead we have ignorant Republicans all over the place trying to pay teachers as little as possible?

What is their game this party that wins only because so many are so uneducated?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

A wise and sane society would make the job of teaching the next generation the most coveted job available.

It would be a job so rewarded and esteemed that many people would want it and the competition to get it would be fierce.

Instead we have ignorant Republicans all over the place trying to pay teachers as little as possible?

What is their game this party that wins only because so many are so uneducated?

We have Republicans trying to get them paid as little as possible, and we have Democrats trying to get them paid the same regardless of merit.

 

[Bronzeage]

A wise and sane society would make the job of teaching the next generation the most coveted job available.

It would be a job so rewarded and esteemed that many people would want it and the competition to get it would be fierce.

Instead we have ignorant Republicans all over the place trying to pay teachers as little as possible?

What is their game this party that wins only because so many are so uneducated?

We have Republicans trying to get them paid as little as possible, and we have Democrats trying to get them paid the same regardless of merit.

At some point, we'll be paying as little as possible to anyone who will take the job.

For modern conservatives, teachers have a double strike against them. First, they are public employees, and thus seen as parasites on society. Second, and this is the real issue, public schools are seen as vehicles of social progress, through desegregation. Social progress is anathema to our conservatives.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A wise and sane society would make the job of teaching the next generation the most coveted job available.

It would be a job so rewarded and esteemed that many people would want it and the competition to get it would be fierce.

Instead we have ignorant Republicans all over the place trying to pay teachers as little as possible?

What is their game this party that wins only because so many are so uneducated?

We have Republicans trying to get them paid as little as possible, and we have Democrats trying to get them paid the same regardless of merit.

Oh for fuck sakes.

Here is an idea, develop an algorithm to pay teachers based on merit. Then we’ll talk.

 

[BH]

I taught school for a little while. It is a tough job and you have to put up with a lot of crap.

 

[untermensche]

A wise and sane society would make the job of teaching the next generation the most coveted job available.

It would be a job so rewarded and esteemed that many people would want it and the competition to get it would be fierce.

Instead we have ignorant Republicans all over the place trying to pay teachers as little as possible?

What is their game this party that wins only because so many are so uneducated?

We have Republicans trying to get them paid as little as possible, and we have Democrats trying to get them paid the same regardless of merit.

Republicans call having to have legitimate grounds to fire somebody letting them keep their job regardless of merit.

 

[Politesse]

A wise and sane society would make the job of teaching the next generation the most coveted job available.

It would be a job so rewarded and esteemed that many people would want it and the competition to get it would be fierce.

Instead we have ignorant Republicans all over the place trying to pay teachers as little as possible?

What is their game this party that wins only because so many are so uneducated?

We have Republicans trying to get them paid as little as possible, and we have Democrats trying to get them paid the same regardless of merit.

Oh for fuck sakes.

Here is an idea, develop an algorithm to pay teachers based on merit. Then we’ll talk.

Merit?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Oh for fuck sakes.

Here is an idea, develop an algorithm to pay teachers based on merit. Then we’ll talk.

Merit?

Yeah, ‘merit’. So many people think teaching is like making widgets and it is easy to tel who makes the most widgets. Hence why I asked him for some equations to determine which teachers have better performance.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Oh for fuck sakes.

Here is an idea, develop an algorithm to pay teachers based on merit. Then we’ll talk.

Merit?

Yeah, ‘merit’. So many people think teaching is like making widgets and it is easy to tel who makes the most widgets. Hence why I asked him for some equations to determine which teachers have better performance.

That's easy: the ones with the best students.

 

[Politesse]

So the best way to tell whether person A is deserving of praise, is to see whether person B, who happens to be under their management this year (though not last year or the year before) does well on a standardized test.

Meaning of course that teachers who help struggling students succeed would see their pay reduced, because helping an 30 F students improve to a C level still leaves you with dismal marks relative to a teacher who, happening to teach at an affluent school, started with all A and B students at the beginning of the year and didn't have to directly do anything at all.