Posted on 03/31/2012 4:49:48 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
...The mayors want a raft of changes. They want to replace the uniform pay scale with merit pay. They seek to expand public charter schools, which are largely non-union. Some want to lengthen school days, requiring teachers to work more hours.
And nearly all of these mayors have set their sights on the one workplace protection that teachers have held central for more than 100 years: tenure.
The unions say many of the “fixes” embraced by the mayors are trendy ideas without evidence that they help children learn. Instead, they allow politicians to appear as if they are making improvements without having to confront the profound problems of urban schools, labor leaders say.
“We don’t want to have honest conversations about poverty and segregation and race and class, all those other sorts of ills,” said Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. “Those are really tough issues. So this gives them an excuse to focus on something else.”
Her union fought Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s effort to add 90 minutes to the school day in Chicago, which has the shortest school day of any major city. Emanuel, the former chief of staff to President Obama, got the Illinois legislature to pass a law that will allow him to impose a longer school day starting in September. It also makes it harder for the union to strike, among other things.
On the national level, teachers unions have started to recalibrate, looking for ways to work in partnership with politicians.....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Interesting turn of events in the Chicago public schools.
This is one of the funny things about liberals. They all want to be eaten last.
Thanks for posting that. Often I am to the right of most Republican candidates on education (it’s not a deal-breaker for me), but Newt makes a lot of sense here.
““We don’t want to have honest conversations about poverty and segregation and race and class, all those other sorts of ills,” said Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. “Those are really tough issues. So this gives them an excuse to focus on something else.””
We been having that “conversation” for 50 years where has it gone but to dumb down our schools and embitter entire generations to hate & resent their neighbor rather than to work hard and become like them.
Urban schools are failing because they have been run into the ground by theses democratic policy’s.
Not to mention the popcorn.This should be good.
It’s still a collectivist statist model.
Not acceptable.
I have no desire to be confrontational, but I do want your opinion on this.
For a little background, homeschooling is almost impossible here in the UK. Sure, my wife and I taught our kids after school. We do it for the grandkids now. Both of us still work full time and have all our lives, barring the 7 years when my wife had the kids and stayed home to look after them.
So what are we supposed to do with the kids during the day? Can’t take them to work (Ironically, I was a teacher for many of those years). Can’t leave them on their own. We had to move where the work was, so family were several hundred miles away. We couldn’t drop a job - her staying home was worth it but nearly sank us, and we are VERY careful with money.
It has taken nearly 20 years for us to get back to where we were before the eldest was born.
I am solidly in favor of homeschooling, the kids learn faster and understand more, but when you need both parents working to make sure the children have a meal and a roof over their heads to come home to, schools are a blessing.
So my question is, how do you fix that?
The thing teachers unions have been most effective at is undermining what was once a great education system. Tell us about how badly we have slipped in world-wide student standing.....Take away their pay until they improve US student standing.
It isn't the government employee unions. It is socialism.
In a generation or two they will say the same about Obamacare. At first socialized medicine won't be that bad. Why? Due to the values of those doctors, nurses, and administrators trained under a primarily private system. In a few decades that is when the true horror of socialism will emerge.
So....Can you see? The education system ( that once upon a time) seemed great wasn't. Why? Answer: Modern government schooling is built upon a foundation of single-payer, compulsory attendance, and compulsory-funding **socialism***!!!!
Modern government socialist-entitlement education was doomed to failure from the beginning.
Solution: Begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 education. Begin the process of complete separation of school and state.
> I have no desire to be confrontational,
I must apologize if I seemed confrontational, as you are not at all so.
Please contact the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, http://www.hslda.org/ for the best options for your country and situation.
Apparently, they have enjoyed a homescchool victory in Canada, recently.
http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2012/201203271.asp
Given your situation, however, homeschooling may not be practical. If you are churchgoers, perhaps you can organize a church school with like-minded parents and grandparents in your situation. You would basically be establishing a one-room schoolhouse after the Noah Webster model.
You could hire one or more of your church members to teach the school. That means that the participating parents and relatives would share the costs, and perhaps your church or its overseeing denomination would be able to assist financially.
If you conduct your school on church property, you may have to get some kind of permission from the town council to allow it. The Mohammedans do this with their madrassas throughout the world, including Commonwealth nations and the Dominion of Canada. Why should Christians be excluded?
2) Are you admitting that government socialist-entitlement schooling is a baby sitting service? It costs up to a quarter of a million dollars per child for government K-12 schooling in the U.S.. That's expensive babysitting!
3) Often when the second parent goes out to work, it doesn't bring in that much money. Once the costs of babysitting, travel, taxes, and other expenses associated with working are considered, the second parent is literally working for pennies an hour.
4) Homeschooling gives the family much more flexibility in where they live. Their home purchases are not driven by finding so called “good” schools. This can be a tremendous savings for them.
5) Finally, I think that once parents have children they should give up the idea of financially getting back to where they were before.
““We don’t want to have honest conversations about poverty and segregation and race and class, all those other sorts of ills,” said Karen Lewis,
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Indeed, it is the socialists who don’t want the conversation ...**because** ...we know what prevents poverty.
** Staying out of prison
** Having babies only when married
** Staying married and not getting divorced
** Going to school, on time, every day and graduating from high school
** Choosing to be illiterate and innumerate
** Getting a job, any job, and going to that job, on time, every day
Suburban schools are failing, too! They just don't seem to be that bad because the parents are doing **tons** of afterschooling.
Seriously, I mean it. I have had enough experience as a cub scout leader and helping with the tutoring program in my church to know. My conclusion:
If any child in my county can read and do arithmetic it is because the **parents** have taught that child to read and do the basic arithmetic. If a child has parents who aren't doing that, they **can not read** and they **can not to simple arithmetic!
We live in one of the reddest counties in one of the reddest states in the U.S. Or county is overwhelmingly middle class and vanilla ice cream **white**.
Thank you, friend. You were not confrontational at all, I wished not to insult you in the slightest, hence the disclaimer before asking for information. Pushing for homeschooling is a difficult task!
We MIGHT be able to do something with this. A lot of us older ones are not terribly happy with state education, but the time thing is the killer since nearly all of us still work. If we can share it out, it is doable. Difficult, yes, but anything really worthwhile is!
I will have a read of the links, contact them and bring it up at our next informal meeting to see what people say.
Most will say yes.
Once more, my thanks for you taking the time to help us out!
, but Newt makes a lot of sense here.
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He’s moving in the right direction. He has influence within the Republican Party and among conservative intellectuals. Newt may really prefer complete separation of school and state, but realizes that we can get there only if we start moving in that direction by increments.
It is not and never has been about ‘the children’.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That’s the truth!
That prevents poverty?
I think you left out a word like “..NOT ** Choosing to be illiterate and innumerate...”.
Thank you for catching that.
1) Afterschooling, ( AKA: “helping kids after school”), is **more** work than homeschooling. Why? Because some school homework is redundant and/or stupid, and more time is spent undoing the indoctrination than if it was taught correctly the first time.
It is what it is. Keeping kids out of school is horrendously difficult here. The absolute best you can do is correct the errors and help them advance.
2) Are you admitting that government socialist-entitlement schooling is a baby sitting service? It costs up to a quarter of a million dollars per child for government K-12 schooling in the U.S.. That’s expensive babysitting!
Just saying what we had. 7 years of my wife not earning one thin dime and we nearly drowned. We didn’t but it was close, and we have never owed money in our lives, so no loans to pay off.
3) Often when the second parent goes out to work, it doesn’t bring in that much money. Once the costs of babysitting, travel, taxes, and other expenses associated with working are considered, the second parent is literally working for pennies an hour.
Yes, that is a huge and ongoing problem. The main reason my wife stayed home for seven years is we could not afford her to work. We really couldn’t afford her not to work either, but her not working let us go broke more slowly.
4) Homeschooling gives the family much more flexibility in where they live. Their home purchases are not driven by finding so called “good” schools. This can be a tremendous savings for them.
Again, a good point. We were lucky - good schools in an area we could afford without me doing a 4 hour commute, so I could spend time with the kids of an evening.
5) Finally, I think that once parents have children they should give up the idea of financially getting back to where they were before.
Agree with that totally. Kids come first.
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