We didn’t have a lot of time to post this weekend. Feeding the bulldog again.
Caught this story on line about a devil dog and his canine companion and it produced some smiles over at TRS today. Hope it does the same for you.
15 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I see there is a woman running for Congress in the 2nd district. We have a very credible woman, an eye Dr, running for an office that no woman in Iowa has ever run for or been elected.
Hey Roxanne Conlin - Are you prepared to finally vote for a woman and help lead Iowa out of the wilderness in this area, as is often complained about.
Hey Democrats - Do you agree with Hillary that Iowa women are better than women from Mississippi and ought to have a female in Congress?
Are you serious, or were libs a.k.a. progressives, always lying about that?
This union debate is just awful. I can't help but notice the "anti-bullying" crusaders in the D party are using outrageous bullying tactics - even against Culver.
The D's betray their "love and concern" for poor people. They have and are set to pass some of the most regressive taxes of all time. The poor will just get poorer as their gas bills go up, their juice bills go up, their sales tax goes up, their utilities go up, their property taxes go up.
I look to Michigan - the only state having a recession. I see that Unions have ruled for decades. I see that democrats have run the schools - for decades. I see that democrats have ruled all levels of government - for decades.
Michigan is the crystal clear example of what happens to a state when democrats control all levels of government.
If you want to see Iowa in 10 years, look to Michigan.
So, the democrats in Iowa are tonedeaf to the housing crisis. Hillary thinks its soooo hard for democratfolks to keep their houses that she is proposing a 6 year moratorium on foreclosures.
So, in this economic environment, the democrats in Iowa wish to INCREASE democratfolks house payment, thus making it more likely they will lose their homes.
So, just exactly who is the base of the democrat party - the needs of the unions seem to outweigh the needs of the lower middle class homeowner struggling to pay the mortgage with ever increasing property taxes.
Democrats seem to want regular ole Iowans to become tax property poor to benefit already overpaid and over represented public workers.
Class size is not an issue. Never has been. Class size is low. What is the problem? We know the code speak. It's really less work for more pay. Fewer kids - less to do.
Fewer kids - more time to spend on each kid and get them reading at grade level. If you think it's such an easy job - get your ass into a classroom and see what it's like. You probably wouldn't last a week.
To start with, teachers should never lead with "how tough" is their job. Tell me about it in July-I still work 80 hour weeks while you're on the back 9.
However, of course teaching is both vitally important and very challenging. Somehow, however, all of the generations before us, particualrly the one that educated us, the Baby Boomers, some how found a way to do it far better, for far more people, than the education system of today.
Are there many new challenges. Yes. Could many of those be solved with the application of common sense and a more narrow focus to American education. Much less social engineering and much more of the three "r's" - a lot of reading about real history (the absence of which is evident in the many liberal comments we receive).
The first step has to be to restore professionalism to teaching. Professionals, bankers, doctors, lawyers, etc... don't join collective bargaining units. Socialists are never professional -the system inherently rewards sloth by punishing excellence.
You dump collective bargaining and I'll bet the teachers find a very effective and fair way to measure their students progress through the grades. There compensation will be based on their performance. You restore a lot more local control and you'll immediately improve curriculum.
Those ideas make sense because they rely on what has historically worked, both in education and, more importantly, in most aspects of our human experience.
Yes, that is a more challenging environment, one in which the better educators will thrive and the others will lose all that time off. The better educators will make better money-that is how it works.
I scream because I have a good friend that is a very good teacher, puts in huge hours for a teacher, and just doesn't understand how much more money he would make if the ISEA became a professional association instead of a labor unioin.
A good place to start would be for our educational establishment to understand that some things worked for a reason. I assure that I would last a week if I got to run the class room. You tell a teacher to "fuck off" a routine occurence these days, and believe me, in TRS world someone's ass gets beaten and then they do toilet duty with a small wire brush. That would pretty quickly restore order I would guess. It worked back in Washington Jr. High, and that was a tough school.
Unless you've spent time in a classroom, you have no idea "how tough" the job is. I'm not going to make some dumb ass comment about how easy an airline pilot has it unless I've had a chance to actually see what the job entails. Spend a day with your good friend and see what it's really like out there. A starting teacher making $23,000 on a 190 day contract working from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm (not counting all the time spent evenings and weekends - they don't get to charge "billable hours") makes a whopping $15.13 an hour. How much are you getting paid per hour for your 80 hour week?
Collective bargaining came into existence in education because before that it was a good old boys system that was in many cases blatantly unfair. Women were routinely paid less than men because "your husband has a job that can support you". I'd like to see the current system modified to pay the shortage areas more - and that might be happening sooner than later. I seriously doubt teachers would be paid anything near what they currently are without collective bargaining.
And what do you mean by previous generations teaching more kids better? Back then they didn't mainstream special needs kids - how many of those teachers could have handled kids with severe learning/mental disabilities in their classrooms with the same results? Most of my teachers did a "one size fits all" teaching method - but that worked when everyone was pretty much at the same level.
Discipline isn't the issue (if you know how to handle it and have an admin that will back you up - and it was the lawyers who fucked that up with the "you can't touch me or I'll sue your ass" lawsuits that neutered any TRS style discipline). The issue is you've got 25 or more 1st graders who are at 25 different levels in their abilities. Some of them are reading at a 4th grade level and some of them don't know all of their letters yet. Some of them come from homes where they are read to every night, others come from homes that don't have a single children's book for them to read. Circumstances that you have absolutely no control over. And you're going to pay that teacher based on how well the kids score on a test at the end of the year? Do you only get paid when you win a case?
The kids are different. It used to be that if you did something wrong at school, you didn't fear the teacher and principal - you feared what would happen when you got home. Now when something goes wrong at school, the kid says "you can't do anything to me" and if you do, mom is there with a lawyer in tow ready to file a lawsuit and blame the school.
Sp how about we quit mainstreaming mentally handicapped children. Ya know...the ones with less than 100 IQ? How about we do something that makes sense? The mainstreaming was done by the feel good union folks who thought they could change reality by sitting a profoundly mentally challenged child next to a genius and through improved self esteem, they magically learn how to read.
How about we quit allowing swearing in class under the excuse that it achieves a diversity goal be "appreciating a different culture". I don't appreciate the Culture of Vulger promoted by the School System.
The kids haven't changed, the system changed. How about we go back to the system that worked? The one before the time the ISEA/NEA destroyed education in Iowa.
How about teachers take back the schools for education and professionalism. How about we return them to their former glory when they cared about kids and were revered by the community rather than reviled.
Who changed the system - the teachers or the parents who abdicated their responsibility as the first (and most important) teacher in their child's life?
15 comments:
I see there is a woman running for Congress in the 2nd district. We have a very credible woman, an eye Dr, running for an office that no woman in Iowa has ever run for or been elected.
Hey Roxanne Conlin - Are you prepared to finally vote for a woman and help lead Iowa out of the wilderness in this area, as is often complained about.
Hey Democrats - Do you agree with Hillary that Iowa women are better than women from Mississippi and ought to have a female in Congress?
Are you serious, or were libs a.k.a. progressives, always lying about that?
This union debate is just awful. I can't help but notice the "anti-bullying" crusaders in the D party are using outrageous bullying tactics - even against Culver.
The D's betray their "love and concern" for poor people. They have and are set to pass some of the most regressive taxes of all time. The poor will just get poorer as their gas bills go up, their juice bills go up, their sales tax goes up, their utilities go up, their property taxes go up.
I look to Michigan - the only state having a recession. I see that Unions have ruled for decades. I see that democrats have run the schools - for decades. I see that democrats have ruled all levels of government - for decades.
Michigan is the crystal clear example of what happens to a state when democrats control all levels of government.
If you want to see Iowa in 10 years, look to Michigan.
Unions have controlled Chicago Schools for decades. Want to send your kids to public school in Chicago?
New York City - the best example of public school failure at the hands of the union.
Lost Angeles, San Francisco/Oakland, ANY large city public school that is controlled by the unions. It's failure failure failure.
This is a very aad day for our kids. But, then again...it's really never been about the kids. It was always about the unions.
Chet is a former teacher for gods sake.
Chet - R you for Kids and parents, or are you for union greed?
So when the teachers ask to negotiate a reasonable class size they are only looking out for themselves?
So, the democrats in Iowa are tonedeaf to the housing crisis. Hillary thinks its soooo hard for democratfolks to keep their houses that she is proposing a 6 year moratorium on foreclosures.
So, in this economic environment, the democrats in Iowa wish to INCREASE democratfolks house payment, thus making it more likely they will lose their homes.
So, just exactly who is the base of the democrat party - the needs of the unions seem to outweigh the needs of the lower middle class homeowner struggling to pay the mortgage with ever increasing property taxes.
Democrats seem to want regular ole Iowans to become tax property poor to benefit already overpaid and over represented public workers.
Class size is not an issue. Never has been. Class size is low. What is the problem? We know the code speak. It's really less work for more pay. Fewer kids - less to do.
Fewer kids - more time to spend on each kid and get them reading at grade level. If you think it's such an easy job - get your ass into a classroom and see what it's like. You probably wouldn't last a week.
I will respond for the Anon above.
To start with, teachers should never lead with "how tough" is their job. Tell me about it in July-I still work 80 hour weeks while you're on the back 9.
However, of course teaching is both vitally important and very challenging. Somehow, however, all of the generations before us, particualrly the one that educated us, the Baby Boomers, some how found a way to do it far better, for far more people, than the education system of today.
Are there many new challenges. Yes. Could many of those be solved with the application of common sense and a more narrow focus to American education. Much less social engineering and much more of the three "r's" - a lot of reading about real history (the absence of which is evident in the many liberal comments we receive).
The first step has to be to restore professionalism to teaching. Professionals, bankers, doctors, lawyers, etc... don't join collective bargaining units. Socialists are never professional -the system inherently rewards sloth by punishing excellence.
You dump collective bargaining and I'll bet the teachers find a very effective and fair way to measure their students progress through the grades. There compensation will be based on their performance. You restore a lot more local control and you'll immediately improve curriculum.
Those ideas make sense because they rely on what has historically worked, both in education and, more importantly, in most aspects of our human experience.
Yes, that is a more challenging environment, one in which the better educators will thrive and the others will lose all that time off. The better educators will make better money-that is how it works.
I scream because I have a good friend that is a very good teacher, puts in huge hours for a teacher, and just doesn't understand how much more money he would make if the ISEA became a professional association instead of a labor unioin.
A good place to start would be for our educational establishment to understand that some things worked for a reason. I assure that I would last a week if I got to run the class room. You tell a teacher to "fuck off" a routine occurence these days, and believe me, in TRS world someone's ass gets beaten and then they do toilet duty with a small wire brush. That would pretty quickly restore order I would guess. It worked back in Washington Jr. High, and that was a tough school.
Unless you've spent time in a classroom, you have no idea "how tough" the job is. I'm not going to make some dumb ass comment about how easy an airline pilot has it unless I've had a chance to actually see what the job entails. Spend a day with your good friend and see what it's really like out there. A starting teacher making $23,000 on a 190 day contract working from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm (not counting all the time spent evenings and weekends - they don't get to charge "billable hours") makes a whopping $15.13 an hour. How much are you getting paid per hour for your 80 hour week?
Collective bargaining came into existence in education because before that it was a good old boys system that was in many cases blatantly unfair. Women were routinely paid less than men because "your husband has a job that can support you". I'd like to see the current system modified to pay the shortage areas more - and that might be happening sooner than later. I seriously doubt teachers would be paid anything near what they currently are without collective bargaining.
And what do you mean by previous generations teaching more kids better? Back then they didn't mainstream special needs kids - how many of those teachers could have handled kids with severe learning/mental disabilities in their classrooms with the same results? Most of my teachers did a "one size fits all" teaching method - but that worked when everyone was pretty much at the same level.
Discipline isn't the issue (if you know how to handle it and have an admin that will back you up - and it was the lawyers who fucked that up with the "you can't touch me or I'll sue your ass" lawsuits that neutered any TRS style discipline). The issue is you've got 25 or more 1st graders who are at 25 different levels in their abilities. Some of them are reading at a 4th grade level and some of them don't know all of their letters yet. Some of them come from homes where they are read to every night, others come from homes that don't have a single children's book for them to read. Circumstances that you have absolutely no control over. And you're going to pay that teacher based on how well the kids score on a test at the end of the year? Do you only get paid when you win a case?
So, children are made up of different material than they used to be.
We used to learn how to read. Now, teachers can't teach. Children can't learn. Everything so SOOOOOOO much more complicated.
The kids are different. It used to be that if you did something wrong at school, you didn't fear the teacher and principal - you feared what would happen when you got home. Now when something goes wrong at school, the kid says "you can't do anything to me" and if you do, mom is there with a lawyer in tow ready to file a lawsuit and blame the school.
Sp how about we quit mainstreaming mentally handicapped children. Ya know...the ones with less than 100 IQ? How about we do something that makes sense? The mainstreaming was done by the feel good union folks who thought they could change reality by sitting a profoundly mentally challenged child next to a genius and through improved self esteem, they magically learn how to read.
How about we quit allowing swearing in class under the excuse that it achieves a diversity goal be "appreciating a different culture". I don't appreciate the Culture of Vulger promoted by the School System.
The kids haven't changed, the system changed. How about we go back to the system that worked? The one before the time the ISEA/NEA destroyed education in Iowa.
How about teachers take back the schools for education and professionalism. How about we return them to their former glory when they cared about kids and were revered by the community rather than reviled.
How about that?
Who changed the system - the teachers or the parents who abdicated their responsibility as the first (and most important) teacher in their child's life?
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