Posted on 02/25/2011 12:40:51 PM PST by Sub-Driver
NJEA president at rally accuses Gov. Christie of trying to start a 'middle-class civil war' Published: Friday, February 25, 2011, 2:30 PM Updated: Friday, February 25, 2011, 3:25 PM Matt Friedman/Statehouse Bureau
TRENTON — In front of a crowd of thousands of protestors, the president of the state’s largest teachers union accused Gov. Chris Christie of trying to foment a civil war within the middle-class.
“All of New Jersey’s middle-class is hurting, but this governor and his right-wing supporters are trying to start a middle-class civil war,” said New Jersey Education Association President Barbara Keshishian.
As she spoke, thousands of public workers filled the street in front of the Statehouse, wearing ponchos and holding umbrellas to keep as dry as possible in the pouring rain. State Police estimated the crowd at 3,100.
The rally, organized by the state AFL-CIO, was both aimed at pushing back against benefit concessions demanded by Christie, and in support of Wisconsin public unions, who are fighting Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to roll back their collective bargaining rights.
In his budget address earlier this week, Christie said private sector workers “support the rich benefits of public employees.” He’s pushing for major givebacks from the workforce, including paying more towards their health premiums and downgrading future pension benefits.
Local union officials spoke one after another at today’s rally, each handing over checks to Wisconsin AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Stephanie Bloomingdale, who told the crowd “our fight is your fight, and our fight is for the middle-class.”
The featured speaker, national AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, compared Christie to Walker and other Republican governors, saying “they were not elected to dictate.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Middle Class people, by and large, have CLASS. The thugs do not.
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Exactly!
Look at the class act of the Tea Party rallies. Look at Glen Beck’s rally.
And...Compare the condition of the grounds after the events.
Someone is bound to post, “My sister is a teacher and she is very smart!”
Well...On **average** teachers have the lowest SAT and GRE scores on campus.
If someone has a smart sister, daughter, or brother-in-law who is one of the “smart” teacher, that means that somewhere there is a very DUMB teacher who is lowering the average!
I live in New Jersey, and have three children in school. The real story behind education and the teacher’s union in this state is unbelievable.
Teachers in our district make on average $85,000. Many are over $100,000. This is for 180 days of work per year - versus 243 days at about $55,000 for the average private citizen worker. They get free high-end health care, and generous free pension plans.
My children go to school until the end of June (the year starts the day after Labor Day). This is because - in working their 180 days per year - they take off time during the school year for unimaginable reasons. This is due to what the school calls “In-Service Days.”
Now In-Service Days are advertised as “working” days for the teacher, but in reality, they mysteriously surround three-day holidays. For example, my children just had off 5 days in a row for President’s Day. This included Thursday and Friday for In-Service Days, Saturday and Sunday, and the Monday holiday. This is normal, having multiple days off in a row around such days as Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, and so on. Add to that a newly minted mysterious holiday week in November called “Fall Break.” No, this is not Thanksgiving week, but two weeks prior to Thanksgiving, where the school is shut down for the entire week. The kids then return for a week, then get off for the normal Thanksgiving holiday period.
In-Service Days are an outright scam. It is difficult to convince us that the teachers are truly working. If this was so, In-Service Days would be mid-week, as opposed to centered around three-day weekends. The parking lots of the schools are empty during In-Service Days, and from time to time, videos surface of teachers gambling in Atlantic City during these tough out-of-school paid days.
We have to laugh when we hear the teachers complaining about Christie, but our laughter is tempered by our taxes, and the reality of the stranglehold this union has on our pocketbooks.
Even my dentist and his five employees depend on the very generous school dental insurance that comes into his office.
So...What the teachers unions want in our county, they get. They have enormous power to mobilize their voters and to get their message out. Our school board consists of their people. And...To make matters even worse, being elected to the school board is the major stepping stone to higher office in our state.
We have NO private schools in our county. Why would there be? There are so many people sitting in the pews who are sucking a living from the governmen schools, no minister would dare offend them by starting a church school. Who is going to bite the hand putting money in the collection plate?
Our county recently built a $70 million dollar high school. It's for the chiiiildren, of course!. In the meantime the cub scouts that I work with literally can NOT read, add, or subtract, and forget about multiplication and division.
Personally...I feel like a slave to the greedy voting mob.
My husband and I have countered in two ways:
** We retired early. Like “Atlas” we have “Shrugged”.
** We have structured our lives so that the most minimal taxes possible go to the government school cartel.
There is some glimmer of hope. Homeschooling is spreading like a wildfire.
A “Prussian-style” system worked well for providing a basic foundation, on which other learning could build; what we have today doesn’t seem very “Prussian” to me, though I confess I don’t know the particulars of it. I’d imagine Prussian children were much more attentive in class, and there was more done to ensure that lessons “sank in” (even if learning by rote, which has its benefits in some subjects). The amount of homework my children bring home is quite a bit; “No Child Left Behind” has really turned up the pressure on the education industry. I’ve even had things sent home from teachers asking parents to sign a contract that we’ll provide a good homework environment, etc.; the gall of my employees to dictate the terms by which I involuntarily spend several thousand dollars annually on them is stunning (those “contracts” are never returned to school).
On top of the dysfunctional non-learning environment in the classroom is a problem where children outside of school spend less time doing anything other than watch TV or play video games. The number of times I’ve taken my children to a park or playground, and they are among the only American children there, it too high to count; other children (mostly Latino or Asian) are there with one or both parents playing very actively. I understand the work schedules of parents make this difficult, but when I think of how we played outside when we were younger, as compared to how kids are today, it is very sad. Games like man-hunt, and trips along the lines of the movie “Stand By Me”, were routine (I grew up in the edge of the NJ Meadowlands - lots to explore); now when I take my children hiking or camping they don’t get the same out of it that I did.
Well....Without controlled studies we can't know for certain if existing institutional schools are effective.
I have asked many times, here on Free Republic, for professional educators to provide the studies that would show exactly **where** children learn ( at home or in the class), and **who** is doing the hard work of teaching. ( Is it the parent, child, tutors, friends of the family, study groups, or classroom teacher?)
Certainly, many people have anecdotal opinions and experiences to share, but without careful studies no one can say for certain that the typical institutional government school teaches anything. It could be that nearly all the results are due to the work done in the home.
The amount of homework my children bring home is quite a bit
When I ask parents of academically successful children about their home study habits, I have found that academically successful homeschoolers and institutionalized children both spend about the same amount of time doing schoolwork in the HOME! That is what made me think that, maybe, institutional schools don't teach anything! Maybe it is the free curriculum that the schools send home. Maybe the real work of teaching and learning is happening in the HOME. Maybe the academically successful institutionalized child is **afterschooling**.
; “No Child Left Behind” has really turned up the pressure on the education industry. I’ve even had things sent home from teachers asking parents to sign a contract that we’ll provide a good homework environment, etc.; the gall of my employees to dictate the terms by which I involuntarily spend several thousand dollars annually on them is stunning (those “contracts” are never returned to school).
Intuitively these teachers must know that their success depends on the efforts of others ( the parent and the child). At some level they must know that little of what they do in the class makes any difference in what a child learns.
On top of the dysfunctional non-learning environment in the classroom is a problem where children outside of school spend less time doing anything other than watch TV or play video games. The number of times I’ve taken my children to a park or playground, and they are among the only American children there, it too high to count; other children (mostly Latino or Asian) are there with one or both parents playing very actively. I understand the work schedules of parents make this difficult, but when I think of how we played outside when we were younger, as compared to how kids are today, it is very sad. Games like man-hunt, and trips along the lines of the movie “Stand By Me”, were routine (I grew up in the edge of the NJ Meadowlands - lots to explore); now when I take my children hiking or camping they don’t get the same out of it that I did.
One of the blessings of homeschooling is that formal homeschooling is rather quickly finished. For my kids it was rarely more than 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, but we worked all year, except major holidays. The rest of the time they **played**. ( We had no TV.)
It was a fascinating process to watch. Their play was extremely intense and even as preschoolers the same task would occupy hours, and even days and weeks. Gradually, this intense concentration that was devoted to play evolved into highly focused adult work and perfection of adult hobbies such as dance, art, and music.
If children are robbed of the opportunity for sustained and uninterrupted play, how will they learn to concentrate and work hard? If children are interrupted constantly by a school or day care's bells and whistles every half hour or so, where is the opportunity to learn sustained concentration? Is it surprising that we have so much ADD or ADHD when children have so little chance to play and explore?
Which ones? Certainly not teachers.
Which ones? Certainly not teachers.
We had no TV either as kids; made a big difference. I actually had a teacher (conservative, anti-union) explain ADD to me; her students had attention spans that were the length of a television commercial.
Very disturbing.
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