Its not funny at all. As a taxpayer in the suburbs I have to worry about Milwaukee becoming Detroit. I have to live with the pitiable kids in the innercity being given crap for an education. Thank God some of them can use vouchers to get to a sane, safe school. I am proud that Milwaukee pioneered reform and Scott Walker expanded it even further. His budget reform has already led to some school districts choosing to introduce merit pay and quietly under-performing teachers will be encouraged to find a more suitable career field.
I educated two of my three children outside of the public school system. One had mild disabilities and it was staggering how much the school systems didn’t give a crap about meeting his needs. We had to fight every school “system” we entered with him and we always selected communities with the ‘best schools’.
‘Teachers can’t do anything’ ....You are again making excuses for — not teachers but— an institution built to fail. Reform schools and expulsions should be part of the equation to address violent students.
Maybe if ‘da union’ had been addressing workplace safety and discipline instead of always looking for the next creamy benefit our schools wouldn’t be as violent as they are. Oh, but then the dues wouldn’t have been as high....
Consider that there might be less violence if the children sensed commitment to their needs from the teachers from their early days. It is now clear that union zombies cannot convey this commitment and the kids know they are written off.
I care nothing for your puerile entreaty that I become a teacher to know what they face. If I or any successful engineer, scientist, businessperson were to try to become a teacher we would have to expend significant time in “education certification” instruction. Its just another scheme to maintain the institution which is clearly failing us.
Oddly, my mother got would now be an associates degree and taught in a one room school house. The literacy in the state was statospherically higher then.
We won’t survive as a country if we don’t fix our educational system.