Posted on 08/23/2007 10:49:01 AM PDT by neverdem
Where I live the opposite is true. The state chapter of the NEA is nothing more than a trade/professional association that teachers can choose to join, or not.
My local schoolboard is not elected, they are appointed by the county board of supervisors (county council) but ultimately SOMEONE is held accountable to the voters.
I would make it a felony for any public employee to belong to a union.
I am not a fan of union management, who have absolutely bastardized the original premise of unions, but there is no way I could ever go along with your idea.
I really like your idea.
I did not choose ANY quote from the article ... again, you have me confused with someone else.
Again? I don't think so.
I included you in my post out of courtesy because I was quoting and replying to someone who had responded to you.
I was agreeing with your point.
Last year I put in 2,600 BILLABLE hours total. That is my work year and many of my co-workers have similar hours. 66% is a little over 1,700 hours. My sister when she was an English teacher did not put in that many hours. So while the 66% might be a personal number, teachers are still only seasonal workers.
Except by the fact that they choose to teach, most teachers don't choose to take each summer off - they have absolutely no control on how the school calendar is set up.
And I have been a teacher at the college and graduate level.
Yet you aren't anymore - are you now better paid?
I would submit that comparing college teaching to elementary and secondary level teaching isn't comparable at all. First, teachers at the college and graduate levels work much fewer hours (and generally more flexible schedules) than teachers at the elementary and secondary levels. Secondly, students at the college and graduate levels presumably choose to be there, rather than being forced to be there by compulsory education laws and/or judges.
It's not true in the South, and probably not true in most of the midwest.
Some of the research showing how "well paid" teachers are has been contested, and not always by those supporting unions. You might try reading this, for example.
Right on the mark.
For a vast majority of the schools in this country, you are soooo right.
I’m a parent, not a teacher, and I have no problem with the majority of complaints from teachers about parents.
During parent/teacher conference times, both my husband and I have had far too many teachers tell us “You are not the parents I need to see” for me to believe that lack of parental involvement is not a major problem. With a class of less than 20, and the parent/s of 3 students show up? That’s pretty pathetic.
My daughter and her friend did not ride the bus last year, I drove them both to school every morning and the other girl’s mother picked them up every afternoon. One or the other of us saw one of the girls’ teachers EVERY day. When my friend had to go back to work because her husband had a heart attack and couldn’t work, either he or I picked them up every afternoon, and on his days off, my husband did the drop off or pick up.
I’ve seen first hand, on a daily basis that parents, or lack thereof, and parental involvement are a major problem.
That is just your local school. I would think that is a bit of a broad brush you are using there. Teachers, the bureaucratic system of the NEA, and the intrusion of the Federal government all have no business in a so-called “school” that is not much more than fancy day care.
The law is actually only about “compulsory attendance.” That is why schools districts haven’t and can’t be sued. There is NO guarantee of an education, there never was anything in the law about that.
I do believe you are the broadbrush user here, the NEA has little or no impact on schools here. The local “chapter” of the NEA is not a union it is a trade/professional association.
“Compulsory attendance” also includes private schools, and it did even 40 years ago when I first started attending school, and only attended private school until I went to college.
The NEA does impact a majority of schools. Period.
And that sound your hearing is your own broad brush flapping in the breeze.
I didn't say otherwise, just that the impact is not much where I am.
And that sound your hearing is your own broad brush flapping in the breeze.
No, it was what YOU heard about YOUR broadbrush.
In the south, and in other mostly rural or agricultural states, the NEA has very little influence. I don’t doubt that it is influential in the northeast, the highly unionized areas of the upper midwest, and in California.
Perhaps. But were I not very close to the situation and politically active, I wouldn't know that the teacher's union runs the show. They do a good job of presenting a happy face to the public. I would wager that most folks here in Colorado have no idea how powerful the teacher's union's stranglehold on the State is.
Are you implying that I am not "very close to the situation and politically active"?
Not everywhere is in Colorado, and many of us don’t live there, but are close to the situation and politically active.
VDH ping
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