Posted on 10/04/2004 10:53:11 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
COCOA, Fla. -- The National Education Association, the nation's largest teacher's union, is hitting the roads in the name of public schools.
The NEA is conducting a national bus tour to talk to more than 120,000 educators and students about the importance of education in this election, WESH NewsChannel 2 reported.
The first stop on their Vote for Great Public Schools tour was Endeavour Elementary in Cocoa.
NEA President Reg Weaver is leading the tour. He believes state-mandated testing, like the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, unfairly characterizes a school. Endeavour is a former F-rated school.
"What kind of an impact does that have, No. 1 on the community, No. 2 on the staff, and No. 3 on the kids?" he said.
Mecheall Giombetti, Endeavour's principal, has a different take on the FCAT.
"It's a lot of pressure but you take the good with the bad, and it helps us identify what our areas of improvement are," she said.
The NEA billed this as a trip where they went to talk to educators and students to find out what's on their minds. By law, the NEA cannot show support for a candidate while on public school grounds, although is has recommended that its members vote for John Kerry.
The NEA says the FCAT is wrong because it allows some students to pass or fail a grade based on one test. The Republicans counter that for once, there is a system that will put American schoolchildren on an even keel with the rest of the world especially, Asian countries. Lew Oliver, a spokesman for the Orange County Republican Party, called the test a reality check.
"That's called life. That's what we do the rest of our lives, all of the results that we have to produce on a purely objective basis every day, it's called a job," Oliver said.
He also said job interviews are usually based on one test, not the whole spectrum of an applicant's experiences.
"It's not we sort of got the job or we sort of didn't get the job. We either get fired or we don't. It's a very binary system. That's how our world is," he said.
Republicans also say President George W. Bush should be commended for giving parents the chance to switch their students from schools with a failing grade to schools with a passing grade.
The NEA's position is the Kerry-Edwards team will use tests as one measure of success, but not the only measure of a student's progress.
The bus tour lasts the entire month and will travel to several states.
Quick, follow the money, how much in member retirement funds will this union being spending to buy the vote...
NEA sucks bump
The marxists that run the NEA have no interest in education, although you wouldn't know it from the cheerleading PR campaigns that they run. Instead of funnelling the union's energy and finances into promoting the socialist cause, rank and file members should redouble their efforts to taking back their unions from the thugs running it. They are exploiting the teachers and by extension, the students, for their own utopian visions of government, which have little to do with education itself. The people running the NEA have been ruthless in practice. Ruthlessness in ousting them will be the only way to topple their monopoly.
How many teachers are going on this trip? Just curious as it is all of us who pay for this nonsense.
Maybe the Republican Party can go to the schools as well and give some talks about tax increases, etc.
By Penny Villegas | My Word
Posted October 1, 2004
Here are the important differences between Democrats and Republicans:
Democrats stand for social conscience. The first great Democrat was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose terms in office brought the New Deal, a series of programs based on social conscience. He put reins on the big businesses, whose power and wealth came from the abuse of workers. He used federal funds to employ workers and artists to create infrastructure and provide jobs for those millions who stood in soup lines and were homeless. Yes, Democrats spend; they spend on the needs of ordinary people.
Lyndon B. Johnson, with his civil-rights programs and War on Poverty, also demonstrated social conscience. We have LBJ and the thousands of black Americans who marched beside Dr. Martin Luther King to thank for the degree of opportunity that exists today. Democrats spend on schools and work-training programs to bring hope to all Americans.
Republican theory and programs emphasize small government, with small programs for the poor and help for big businesses in the forms of tax breaks and little restriction on their activities.
Ronald Reagan's trickle-down theory was the first big move away from the social programs of the Democrats. The metaphor is obvious: Pour wealth down a mountain and some of it will reach the people at the bottom. It's unlikely, though, that President Reagan could have anticipated how successful corporations would become at stopping the runoff.
The 2003 Census Bureau reports 1.3 million more Americans in poverty in the past four years while GeoHive Global statistics shows that, during the same four years, the profits of our biggest corporations grew 20 percent. In fact, corporations' profits are so great and CEOs' actions so inordinately greedy that Lou Dobbs, financial guru on CNN, called them to shame in his book Exporting America.
Another economic theory of the Republicans started with the first President Bush. He called it "points of light," a pretty metaphor for those charitable givers who would chip in to support the poor. This is also an attempt to relieve government of its duty to the people. Individual voluntary charity cannot replace the government's duty to take care of the basic needs of the people.
"Points of light" has been expanded by the second President Bush as "compassionate conservatism." Here again, the government encourages private and faith-based initiatives to provide necessities for the poor. Compassionate conservatism sometimes morphs into neo-conservatism, which desires above all things to rid the world of the poor and shiftless. These conservatives try to eliminate welfare, requiring all to work, while refusing to pay a living wage.
John Kerry and John Edwards are not FDR and LBJ, but they are Democrats; they will work for the middle class and the poor, for people of color, for education and for the environment.
Penny Villegas teaches English at Valencia Community College's East Campus.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edpmyword01100104oct01,1,5566100.story?coll=orl-opinion-headlines
Teachers do this in the classrooms on a daily basis.
Why is it when I hear "Get out the vote" I think "Vote Kerry-Edwards vote"?
Bump!
Well, it means your school has incompetent teachers Mr. NEA. And the community and the kids ought to be told about it. The staff already knows it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/862758/posts
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida's teachers union is getting a taste of political payback.
After bankrolling the unsuccessful gubernatorial bid of Democrat Bill McBride last year, the Florida Education Association is coming under attack by some Republican legislators because dues paid by its members help run political campaigns.
"I do not oppose the choice of people belonging to unions," said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey. "But teachers came to me with complaints of their money being spent to support candidates they didn't support."
The GOP-dominated Senate Governmental Oversight and Productivity Committee on Tuesday approved Fasano's proposal (SB 1652) to limit payroll deductions only for the cost of collective bargaining and grievance adjustment. The committee split along party lines, with six Republicans supporting the measure and three Democrats opposing it.
"This bill is telling me to shut my mouth," said Maureen Dinnen, president of the teachers union, who was visibly shaking with anger after the vote. "We voted to support candidates who were chosen based on their educational positions. "....
Strange that these minions are out speaking for Kerry.
In Oregon a lot of teachers are out pounding the pavement or making telephone bank calls for Bush. (including yours truly)
Hmmmmmmm
and I've reported them anomynously when they do so.
NEA challenged on political outlays - Teacher's union fields "army of campaign workers"
As much as one-third of the tax-exempt National Education Association's yearly $271 million income goes toward politically related activities, according to union documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
The documents show that the 2.7 million-member teacher's union spends millions annually to field what one critic calls an "army of campaign workers," while maintaining that it spends nothing on politics.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/886975/posts
Reforming education against all odds
WASHINGTON -- Some critics of President Bush's policy regarding elementary and secondary education have an alternative. It is: Let's leave lots of children behind.
The No Child Left Behind Act was passed overwhelmingly by the House (381-41) and Senate (87-10), but now liberals see that NCLB expresses essentials of Bush's conservatism. Democratic presidential candidates have denounced it as a ``federal intrusion'' in state and local affairs -- everyone knows how much liberals dislike such intrusions. Howard Dean, that perfect indicator of liberal passions, seemed to think that if tests reveal that many schools are failing their children, then drastic changes must be made to the ... tests.
Yes, the tests can be improved, and schools should have somewhat more latitude regarding disabled students and those whose first language is not English. But many complaints about NCLB are not about marginal or easily adjustable matters.
Teachers unions recoil from accountability and resent evidence that all is not well, or that whatever is wrong cannot be cured by increased funding of current practices. But per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, is three times what it was 40 years ago, and the pupil-teacher ratio is 40 percent lower, yet reading scores are essentially unchanged.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1095326/posts
"follow the money"
Follow the money, indeed. The only way to reclaim the union is for intelligent teachers, who aren't in league with the socialist agenda, to get involved in the NEA structure itself and seize control of where they outlay their money. Anyone trying to change the system will be ostracized, but so be it. Some things are worth fighting for and ousting the corrupt NEA officials would be a benefit to rank and file teachers and future generations of students.
"I do not oppose the choice of people belonging to unions," said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey. "But teachers came to me with complaints of their money being spent to support candidates they didn't support."
I am unfamiliar with this Mike Fasano, but he should be given all the support that people can give. Make no mistake that the Marxist NEA officials will target him in his next campaign. It is this kind of selfless courage that will change their corrupt practices. I hope Port Richey voters give Fasano their full support in his next election.
So, the NEA violates the law. They are campaigning for Kerry, on our dime.
They say they don't like the TESTS because they make the school/community/children look bad.
Truth is that is shows the teachers are bad (too busy painting Kerry campaign signs), and that is what they want to stifle.
"We voted to support candidates who were chosen based on their educational positions. "....
What a lie from this person.
And if this were really true, the NEA would have voted for Bush and the "No child left Behind" initiative.
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