The Glade 4.0

http://www.suntimes.com/7558652-417/teachers-union-president-says-mayor-emanuel-exploded-at-her.html

"U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan... took the opportunity to tell a crowd of mostly officials and reporters that “teachers have been beaten down too long” and “I think we need to double the salaries for teachers... Great teachers should make $130,000, $140,000, $150,000. They shouldn’t have to wait to age 55 to make a good living. They shouldn’t have to take a vow of poverty.”

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

There's nothing wrong with that particular paragraph. Sure, a great teacher probably should make a six figure salary. The flip side is that a shitty teacher needs to be canned.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

And new teachers should have to pass a test that is stricter than the bar exam for lawyers.

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Sounds good but most states can't afford to pay teachers what they pay them now.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I'm all for it if we do away with the unions. That is a professional salary! And professionals aren't unionized.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

You mean pay people what they are worth and by how well they perform?? What a novel idea!

Truly great teachers should make that much... now if only there was a way to identify them and not have class sizes that are too large (from laying off other teachers). Of course they could always get rid of the football team.

This

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"None is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people safe as they are the
ultimate guardians of their own liberty."- Thomas Jefferson

"Yeah, I'm rehearsing my poker face. I don't handle stupid well. *sigh*" - Farsky

I don't know how anyone could say something like that (and probably say it's for the good of the children too) with a straight face.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Really? Pilot's union immediately comes to mind.

Are pilots professionals? I think becoming a pilot is all about experience.

ballplayers are 'professionals' and have unions.

Government mandated unions as part of the monopoly protection agreements ...

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Oonagh, I have to applaud you. I think it's rare to see a teacher who would agree with doing away with teacher's unions, being able to fire incompetent teachers, and seriously boosting salaries for effective ones.

You, no doubt, are an effective teacher, or else you wouldn't be so confident.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

and an odd union structure at that. Why are individuals allowed to negotiate their own contracts? Are the ballplayers employed by the union and then contracted out to the individual teams for a salary? What % of the players salary is retained by the employer (union) if thats the case? To call what professional baseball uses a union without showing the extreme differences between actual unions and theirs is misleading.


As long as I've belonged to a union their mission statement was to provide well trained, professional employees to companies. It's been my experience that statement is utter BS in general.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Sure they are professionals just like bus drivers, cabies, and the guys who pull rickshaws.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Yeah, I guess we'd need a definition to continue down that road. I always thought of professionals as salaried, typically higher education, and blue collar as hourly, and experienced in a trade.

Paid to do a job vs paid to be at work.

They can also go **** themselves. "I need eleventy gabillion more dollars t sleep on and more cocaine! Let's strike!" Forget that their playing brings in business for poorer folks in the city, they need an extra million.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Thanks, you know when they interviewed me six years ago for my job in this district the principals asked me "what do I think of teacher unions?" I actually put my getting a job at risk because I declined to answer the question. After I was hired then my principal asked me, "Ok now what do you really think?" I told him my views stem from the merit or performance of the teacher and how well they do their job not from the protection of people who have outdated ideas that follow the same dead program over and over that doesn't work. I am kind of the blacksheep when it comes to politics in my school. That is why I really don't talk about them too much with my coworkers. However, the funny thing is I teach 6th grade Social Studies and the only other teachers that have somewhat of the same views as i do are the 7th and 8th grade Social Studies teachers as well.
I know the overall sentiment for someone to get into to teaching is because they all love the children, and that is fine but I know that doesn't prove any good results from the kids. My real reason for teaching is not because "I love the children" I could do that at home with my own, my approach boils down I guess I just can't tolerate ignorance. However, it is strange, for some reason my straight forward approach intially wields a caring atmosphere that my type of children understand. In other words "Intelligent Tough Love." My kids accept that and do well. I can't explain how i get them to do well, they just do. I know there are a lot of people on the glade that say being a teacher today is easy. I get that too. Passing the tests to be a teacher, if you have half a brain is easy, the hard part is making children want to be in your presence to learn. It is completely different and some people just don't have that natural skill. I see it in this building all the time and the kids don't learn a thing, plus their teaching style is mundane. I at least make it fun and interesting and at least i teach the correct facts. That makes me so angry when i get kids with the wrong information about some part of history. It is like I have to teach it all over and I fall behind on my curriculum.
Anyway, many people don't realize teaching a class and running a class are different things, so thanks for, in the words of my kids, the "Props."

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"None is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people safe as they are the
ultimate guardians of their own liberty."- Thomas Jefferson

"Yeah, I'm rehearsing my poker face. I don't handle stupid well. *sigh*" - Farsky

FWIW, Oonagh, I've never believed a teacher's job was easy; I know I couldn't do it well. The schedule, however...

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko