You have no guarantee that teachers will succeed. But I guarantee you that if I fail so will our Republic. This country will not survive without an educated electorate. As Benjamin Franklin pointed out, we were given a democratic republic, the question is whether we can keep it.
If you are fool enough to value your trash collectors over your teachers then you don't deserve this country or your freedom, and you are guaranteed to lose both. You should hang your head in shame for what you have written. And so should others posting here.
You gripe about Liberal teachers corrupting your children and then you insult the rest of us as well. There are fewer and fewer Conservatives in education and fools like you wonder why.
I teach because I enjoy it, and because I'm good at it, and because what I do matters. I will be one of the last Conservative professors that many of our students see... ever. I would think that people on Free Republic would support the few like-minded people that are left in the universities. Instead you and others like you post garbage that any respectable person would be ashamed of.
As Jesus said, it is not what goes in a person's mouth that defiles them... it is what comes out of a person's mouth. I have skills that would pay me several times what I make as a teacher. If I did this job strictly for the pay I would be as big a damned fool as you and many other posters are.
It's not the worst pay I've ever made. When I was eighteen I picked up a rifle and went to the other side of the world for a whopping $99 a month. Ironically, when I returned home I got treated exactly the same way that I get treated as a teacher in some of these Free Republic threads. I have to deal with know nothing liberals at work every day. I have to make sure that my students know that there is a real world out there and not just the fantasy world created by liberals, slackers, and arrogant Hollywood elites.
Whether you like it or not, whether you have guts and intelligence to admit it or not, I'm standing between you and the whirlwind the same way I did when I was an eighteen year old soldier a long time ago.
Tomorrow, when the trash man comes, you should be sitting out on the curb with all the other garbage. I guarantee you'll end up where you belong.
The country was not born with a public school system in place; lack of one will not cause it's demise. Teachers have less to do with creating an educated electorate every year.
If you are fool enough to value your trash collectors over your teachers then you don't deserve this country or your freedom, and you are guaranteed to lose both. You should hang your head in shame for what you have written. And so should others posting here.
You gripe about Liberal teachers corrupting your children and then you insult the rest of us as well. There are fewer and fewer Conservatives in education and fools like you wonder why.
I'm sure you're a great guy, but I would never trust you with my children. I wouldn't trust anyone I barely know with my children or their future. It's a personal choice, and I don't judge people who choose to put their kids in public school, but facts, as they say, is facts. The schools are failing.
I teach because I enjoy it, and because I'm good at it, and because what I do matters. I will be one of the last Conservative professors that many of our students see... ever. I would think that people on Free Republic would support the few like-minded people that are left in the universities. Instead you and others like you post garbage that any respectable person would be ashamed of.
So you acknowledge that you're one of the few good teachers left, but you're upset with me for pointing out the vast horde of incompetents around you?
As Jesus said, it is not what goes in a person's mouth that defiles them... it is what comes out of a person's mouth. I have skills that would pay me several times what I make as a teacher. If I did this job strictly for the pay I would be as big a damned fool as you and many other posters are.
If you choose to make less than you can, that's none of my business. Just don't expect me or the rest of the public to make up the difference.
It's not the worst pay I've ever made. When I was eighteen I picked up a rifle and went to the other side of the world for a whopping $99 a month. Ironically, when I returned home I got treated exactly the same way that I get treated as a teacher in some of these Free Republic threads. I have to deal with know nothing liberals at work every day. I have to make sure that my students know that there is a real world out there and not just the fantasy world created by liberals, slackers, and arrogant Hollywood elites.
Whether you like it or not, whether you have guts and intelligence to admit it or not, I'm standing between you and the whirlwind the same way I did when I was an eighteen year old soldier a long time ago.
Thank you for your service.
Tomorrow, when the trash man comes, you should be sitting out on the curb with all the other garbage. I guarantee you'll end up where you belong.
I'm good, thanks. I have to educate the next generation, so I'll probably be inside with the kids.
“You don’t seem to like the system much, but I bet you haven’t got one clear idea about how you would change the system.”
I do not believe that the question is so much whether I like the system or not as it is one of whether we can afford to sustain and grow the current system. I found and perused my local school district budget and was shocked by what I learned. My community of around 150,000 people has a school district with budgeted expenditures of $291,000,000 for the 2007/08 school year. 75% of that figure is salaries. The cost works out to around $2,000 a year for every man, woman and child in my community. $291,000,000 to educate 30,536 K-12 kids for a year does not seem like a reasonable rate to me.
I am a manager and I can honestly tell you, based on my personal experience, we are not getting what we pay for as far as an educated at even a rudimentary level work force goes. Every one of the employees here has a high school diploma and most cannot read or write well or do simple tasks such as fill out a time sheet unless I spend my time showing them. I cannot simply hand them the instructions and be done with it because most cannot comprehend written English well enough to follow the instructions correctly and most write even worse than they read. I spend a lot of my time fixing basic errors on reports and other correspondence prepared by high school graduates.
One clear idea I have would be to introduce competition by instituting a voucher program to allow for choice. A voucher program would probably not save any money but at least the kids would get a basic education. I think that privatization of the system should be considered. The current system is probably too damaged to be meaningfully repaired and we should consider trying something else. I also think that we must at some point cut the largest part of the education budget which is salary. I would start with administrative staff and special education programs. I do not believe that the current rate of expenditure is sustainable or even remotely justifiable based on the finished product delivered by the existing public education system. Keep in mind that the numbers I am quoting are from the budget for a relatively small district; the total amount spent on public education in the United States must be truly staggering.
PS: Calling me garbage because I do not think teachers are underpaid is not an effective method of getting your point across.