Teachers find time to write

We don't know exactly how much North Hills School District teachers will earn under the contract they preliminarily agreed to Wednesday, just hours before a threatened strike. The district and the union declined to release details until the pact is ratified.

But no matter how much they will earn under the new agreement, they are worth every penny. For evidence, look no further than their ability to multitask.

Not only do these unappreciated educators labor strenuously during the school day to impart knowledge upon their students, but they also somehow find time to send critiques of newspaper columns from their school district e-mail accounts.

Not the teachers that suck all the school districts dry, tho. They actually have interaction with kids. It is the overpaid administrators, grantwriting school bureaucrats and teacher's union leaders whose corruption needs to be unmasked.

BTW, they cherrypick the best teachers from the districts and train them to be just as corrupt as they are in cushy administration jobs. It's a complete payola scam with our kids sacrificed on the altar of their greed and ego.

I'd LOVE to see the teachers pay scales and union and administrative pay scales published here in California. In fact, I'd love to see an accurate budget for the school districts made public. That would usher in some hasty changes in the political climate. The teachers have the least power, I do have to say, except in that they have direct power to propagandize or actually educate our children. Lord bless the children.

I am a retired Naval aviator who thought that teaching might be better than flying for awhile. I thought I was competent enough to handle the job,and could teach students mathematics. I also thought that my leadership and intellect would set a good role model for the students and perhaps get me recognized as a competent, trustworthy individual who could be promoted.

I was wrong. After four years of pure chaos, I left the profession and returned to engineering. I look back now and just shake my head. It was the worst experience of my life.

What is going on at the public high schools throughout California is indescribable. The disciplinary chaos and intellectual confusion is astounding: Imagine Alice in Wonderland in an insane asylum.

There is no way to distill the blame: There is plenty to go around. Administrators are soft-headed and feckless in their duties; teachers are acrimonious and argumentative; parents are aggressive advocates for their failing, lazy, over-indulged children; The teacher's union is a bunch of idiots with lots of money to throw around.

It is the perfect storm of complete disorganization and intellectual confusion. But make no mistake, the end game nver changes: wringing every last available penny out of the taxpayer in the name of their children.

The only real solution is to act faster in dissolving some of the under-performing schools. Hand those parents vouchers and let them find a place to educate their children tomorrow.

Why would this work? It would break up the horrible chemistry that some of those low schools have, and pretty much put parents in the driver's seat. Parents need more accountability for their students and more resources.

Secondly, it would also end the monopoly that local public schools have over teacher resources. I met a handful of good teachers at my school who would succeed at any job. But they were absolutely hamstrung in the organization. In addition, the collective inertia was too great for one person to overcome.

Good schools can be made with many available public school teachers, but the present organization must be destroyed.

And the sooner taxpayers start,the better. But remember, it is not the teachers who are to blame. In this whole mess, they are indeed the least powerful. Never under-estimate the power of school and district personnel to line their pockets, and of the teacher's union to rob the cash box of any shiny object.

I look back at my four years and I can shake my head and say, "Thank God it's over."

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