Tag: Teachers

So You Hate The Green New Deal

There is lots of push back on the idea of the Green New Deal….from destroying the oil industry to socialism to well you probably have your on opinion….mine is that it is beyond time for this type of legislation.

I could quote you all sorts of facts and stats on why it is needed or all the good it could do….but instead of boring you tom death with stats how about some real life examples of the good…..

An Arkansas school district finds funds to give teachers a pay raise…..

Our hero is Michael Hester, who some years ago became the superintendent of the Batesville School district in Independence County, Arkansas. He faced the problem that his district was underfunded and the teacher pay was in the bottom quarter for the state. Teachers kept resigning because they could not live on the pay. The American custom of supporting local schools mainly with local taxes means that poor communities have poor schools, which is not right.

…

Since 2018, Hester’s project has saved the school $1 million in utilities costs.

What comes next is the kicker. Hester used the savings on his district’s utility bills to give the teachers bonuses, ranging from $3,000 to as much as $15,000 a year.

He says he no longer has the problem of teachers resigning because of poor pay, and applications to teach in his district have risen.

https://www.juancole.com/2021/03/arkansas-district-teachers.html

Just one example of how a Green New Deal can effect education as well as other aspects of American society.

Still think the Green New Deal is an ugly duckling?

Bet the teachers in Batesville, Arkansas would strongly disagree.

But if you would like information on the Green New Deal….then I suggest you read the bill before you condemn it…

Click to access BILLS-116hres109ih.pdf

But not to worry….this may never get past the Senate…..don not blame the GOP totally….if blame needs assigning then I would do so for Manchin a Democrat….

President Joe Biden campaigned on a climate policy plan that included, as its backbone, a clean electricity standard (CES) that would push the US electricity sector to net-zero carbon emissions by 2035. Given how important electricity is in cleaning up other sectors of the economy, the CES is arguably Biden’s single most important climate policy promise.

Figuring out whether he will be able to make good on that promise necessarily involves an inquiry into the beliefs, motivations, and intentions of one man: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.

Manchin is the hinge. He is the Senate Democrats’ 50th vote, the signal that other caucus “moderates” follow. Every Democratic legislative effort will, in the end, rely on his support. There’s no way around it.

https://www.vox.com/22337863/joe-manchin-biden-climate-change-senate-clean-energy-standard

Go figure…..a Senator that has deep ties to coal and he would crap on cleaning up the environment….go figure

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Those Damn Liberal Professors!

The weekend is a time for me to vent about stuff that I have neglected during the week…..and this draft is in response to something that I heard months ago……and I finally found a time and place to post it.

But first Word Press has informed me that today is my 12 year anniversary on WP…..actually I began on Blogger in 2006….but that does not count on the WP thing….so there 12 years and still going strong.

Now onto the meat of this post….

For a few decades people on the Right have been whining and yelling about all those liberal teachers that are destroying society by teaching socialism or at least Left leaning courses.

I get a chuckle at these “experts” on the University system and the teaching techniques….especially when most have never set a foot in a collegiate classroom.

To begin with the first two years of studies is pretty much the same for everyone and the course is taught from an “approved” textbook from the school administration.  If someone is to blame then the Board of Directors would be the one.

After that the student gets into the meat of his/her studies….again from “approved” textbooks…..and anything that would be considered to be taught is also “approved” by school administration….the student has a handful of elective course they can take and some of them maybe a bit “radical”.

I read a report from knowledge hating Right wing site, Campus Reform, about some course that were being taught in “liberal” schools….

In 2018, students at college and universities across the country had thousands of courses from which to choose. A handful of those classes, though, caught the attention of Campus Reform because of their politically biased nature.

In continuation of our 2018 Year In Review roundups, here are the five most politically biased courses of 2018.

https://www.campusreform.org/

Okay those courses do have political bias….but they are electives and the choice of the student…..no one forces them to take these courses….

The war of knowledge is being won…..why?

There is NO grand conspiracy in education…..An educated person would see how moronic these types of attacks truly are….

Then we have those that think that Americans have little shared experiences….

Jill Lepore, of Harvard and The New Yorker, has produced a provocative piece for Foreign Affairs, part of a special section to the magazine on the resurgence of nationalism. Lepore’s contribution enjoins us, as Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose puts it, “not to resist nationalism but to reappropriate it.” Indeed, Lepore calls for nothing less than “a new Americanism and a new American history.”

The problem, as Lepore sees it, is that around the 1970s, the country’s historians turned away from writing about the American nation because of an aversion to the evils of nationalism. The writing of history moved into a new era, focused on the experiences and cultures of national sub-groups and the promise of supranational globalization. But that left a big hole in the national consciousness. Lepore quotes historian Thomas Bender: “A history in common is fundamental to sustaining the affiliation that constitutes national subjects. Nations are, among other things, a collective agreement, partly coerced, to affirm a common history as the basis for a shared future.”

The Intellectual Assault On Our National Identity

All the Right’s attacks on the college education is just a way to try and silence those that see then saw the problems of this society.

I would not change a thing about my education…not even those teachers that I did not like…..I learned from them all….and so will anyone else.

Tomorrow will be news from Nevada……

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Arming Teachers?

Let’s see one idea floated by the NRA or was it Trump or who the Hell was it?  Is to arm teachers…in other words put guns in classrooms…..what moron thinks this is a good idea?

President Trump has proposed a pay rise for teachers—armed ones, that is. The president said Thursday that arming teachers would make schools “hardened targets,” and teachers who undergo weapons training and carry guns should get a bonus, CNN reports. “These people are cowards. They’re not going to walk into a school if 20% of the teachers have guns—it may be 10% or may be 40%. And what I’d recommend doing is the people that do carry, we give them a bonus. We give them a little bit of a bonus,” he said. The president slammed gun-free zones, saying they were like “ice cream” to killers. “They see that as such a beautiful target,” he said. “They live for gun-free zones.” More:

  • Teachers’ union responds. American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten said union members aren’t interested in Trump’s proposal. “Teachers don’t want to be armed,” he said. “We want to teach. We don’t want to be, and would never have the expertise needed to be, sharp shooters; no amount of training can prepare an armed teacher to go up against an AR-15.”
  • NRA “reeled Trump back in.” Democrats accused Trump of parroting the ideas of the gun lobby, the New York Times reports. “Not surprised the NRA reeled President Trump back in,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Just amazed at how fast it happened.” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said: “No police officer, no educator of any note is advocating that what we need is more weapons on school campuses rather than fewer.”
  • Shooter drills are “very negative.” The president said school shooting drills were tough on kids and they’re not something he wants to talk to his son about. “Active shooter drills is a very negative thing, I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I think that’s a very negative thing to be talking about.” The Hill reports that White House spokesman Raj Shah later said Trump sees active shooter drills as a “bad brand” and thinks they should have a less frightening name, like “safety drills.”
  • Bucking the NRA. Trump’s critics accuse him of being too cozy with the NRA, though some of his proposed policies put him directly at odds with the group, the AP reports. The president says he supports banning people under 21 from buying semi-automatic weapons, and he believes the NRA will eventually support the plan. “Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue – I hope!” he tweeted Thursday.
  • Listening phase. Aides say Trump, who met with attorneys general Thursday as well as state leaders, is still in the “listening phase” amid calls for action after the Parkland shooting, the Washington Post reports. The White House says, however, says proposals to ban semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 are not being considered.
  • “Fake News.” Trump returned to an old theme Thursday following a Fox report on CNN’s emotional town hall meeting in Florida Wednesday night, where Sen. Marco Rubio and an NRA spokeswoman were jeered by a crowd that included school shooting survivors. “School shooting survivor says he quit @CNN Town Hall after refusing scripted question,” Trump tweeted. “Just like so much of CNN, Fake News. That’s why their ratings are so bad! MSNBC may be worse.”
  • “One of the greatest people I have ever known.” The AP reports that a funeral was held Thursday for Aaron Feis, the football coach killed while shielding students during the Parkland shooting. Joe LaGuardia, who went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with Feis, called him “one of the greatest people I have ever known.”

(Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel says he was “devastated” to discover that the armed resource officer assigned to the school stayed outside instead of trying to stop the shooter.)

I was trying to put this in words that were not filled with expletives…was having a hard time at that attempt….and then I read a good op-ed on this very subject…..

After the most recent school shooting, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a 19-year old gunman was charged with killing 17 people, debate flows freely, yet again, on how to best prevent these tragedies from ever happening. Anyone with a heart can surely agree this is the overall goal. The morning after the shooting, NC State Representative Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus County) stated that he wants to work with police to train and allow teachers to carry guns in attempt to limit the death and destruction caused during a school shooting.

“We have to get over this useless hysteria about guns and allow school personnel to have a chance to defend their lives and those of their students,” Pittman said during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee, as reported by the News & Observer.

https://www.charlottefive.com/arming-teachers/

Well said…..you would be asking teachers to do more than teach….we would be asking our teachers to become armed body guards….they do not teach that course at university and how much more in their paychecks to do so?

In short a lame ass idea.

US Whitewashed History

It’s happening everywhere…..revisionists are trying to re-write American history to fit their distorted knowledge of history.

If they succeed then American history will be used to indoctrinate students unto a wrong interpretation……………Kinda like all those accusations against the Obama admin or the camps in so-called communist countries…..too many states are trying to revise history to fit in some paradigm of political BS………….

There is only ONE interpretation of history….THE TRUTH!

 

US Whitewashed History.

Teacher Oh Teacher

Whatcha say that we move on for a couple of days……..

Last week before the world went batshit crazy over the Syria story I read an article abgout a teacher that has sex with a student….I know this is nothing new….there seems to be a teacher a month that cannot keep his/her hands off the students….but this one is just crazy…..

(Newser) – A Montana teacher found guilty of raping a troubled 14-year-old girl who later committed suicide will spend just 30 days in jail because the judge decided the girl was “older than her chronological age” and “was as much in control of the situation” as her teacher. After the girl’s suicide just before her 17th birthday made the case hard to prosecute, teacher Stacey Dean Rambold, 54, entered a deferred prosecution agreement—which he violated by missing sex offender treatment meetings and having unsupervised visits with minors, the Billings Gazette reports.

Rambold—who had previously been warned to avoid touching female students—targeted the troubled girl and violated his position of trust by beginning a sexual relationship with her, said prosecutors, who asked for a sentence of at least 20 years, with 10 suspended. His defense argued that he had already been punished enough by the loss of his career and his marriage. The girl’s mother, who testified that the relationship with Rambold was a “major factor” in her daughter’s suicide, screamed “You people suck!” after the sentence was announced.

Crazy right?  Oh but wait…there is so much more…….

(Newser) – And the honors for most provocative op-ed go to former lawyer Betsy Karasik, who argues in the Washington Post that the nation must curb its “utter hysteria” over cases involving teachers having sex with underage students: “I don’t believe that all sexual conduct between underage students and teachers should necessarily be classified as rape,” she writes, “and I believe that absent extenuating circumstances, consensual sexual activity between teachers and students should not be criminalized.” She writes that she’s not trying to defend the Montana judge under fire for his comments about a 14-year-old victim being “older than her chronological years,” but that “tarring and feathering him for attempting to articulate the context that informed his sentence will not advance this much-needed dialogue.”

Karasik does think teachers who have sex with students should be removed from their jobs at least until rehab is complete, but she also says there is “a vast and extremely nuanced continuum of sexual interactions involving teachers and students, ranging from flirtation to mutual lust to harassment to predatory behavior.” Automatic criminal proceedings that traumatize the students involved may be doing more harm than good. Click for her full column, which makes reference to a related observation from Louis CK.

Bet you thought that it was over, right?  Tee hee!

(Newser) – Looks like Montana’s Judge Todd Baugh might be better suited to a career that doesn’t involve sentencing people. After apologizing and calling himself a “blithering idiot” for remarks he made when sentencing a teacher to just 30 days for raping a 14-year-old student, Baugh has ordered a new hearing after admitting that he believes he misread state law and the teacher should have been sentenced to a minimum of two years, the Missoulian reports.

Baugh—whose remarks sparked protests and demands that he step down—says his error means the 30 days he gave 54-year-old Stacey Rambold “would be an illegal sentence,” reports NBC. The county attorney says Baugh’s order is an “unusual occurrence” and he has been working to determine whether the case can be appealed to the state’s Supreme Court. The mother of Rambold’s victim, who committed suicide before the case could go to trial, has refused to accept the judge’s apology.

Just wanted to pass this on to me peeps…it is the week end and I will take a break from crazy….well political crazy…..

Education Nation–2013 Edition

Every year for the last4 or 5 I have posted on the whole crap that the media is pushing….the Education Nation……it is a myth perpetrated to confuse and misinform…..the simplest explanation I can give…….the media will hold up a couple of successes but fail to mention the numerous failures of the carter school program….charter schools…..your children are at the mercy of a lottery…..do you know the odds of winning a lottery?  Let us say that the odds are better that you will be struck by lightening twice while standing in a parking lot on a clear day…..

By now many have heard about the scandal in Atlanta…..leaders of a school district are being indicted for changing grades of students to get more money from the government…….

Teachers in Atlanta were so used to changing students’ answers on standardized tests that they gathered for “erasure” parties and prepared answer keys on plastic transparencies to make the cheating easier. One teacher told investigators that she feared retaliation if she didn’t participate, saying the district was “run like the mob.” At least 178 teachers and principals — including ex-schools chief Beverly L. Hall — have been implicated in the scandal, which was first brought to light by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Hall was indicted March 29, 2013, on conspiracy and related charges.

Remember a couple of years ago the media was all a twitter (no pun intended) about the job some woman was doing in Washington, DC………she was held above all others because she was doing a fine job (which was a charter school)……

There’s still no conclusive evidence of cheating at a Washington, D.C., school that gained federal accolades—and monetary bonuses—for its high performance on tests. But a USA Today investigation found that student test sheets had unusually high numbers of wrong answers that had been erased and replaced with right ones. Testing experts said the odds that these erasures occurred purely by chance were smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball grand prize in the lottery. (District officials say teachers trained students in testing techniques that may have led to more erasures.) The school’s former “poster boy” principal recently resigned from his position as a superintendent. Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of D.C. schools who touted the school’s success, has resisted answering questions.

And there is Texas….it is always Texas…….

When the Dallas Morning News analyzed test results across Texas, it found hundreds of schools with test scores that had jumped and dropped in suspicious ways. The newspaper identified low-income schools with students at one grade level who struggled with basic skills—and students in the next grade who received nearly perfect scores or outperformed the state’s most elite districts.

One elementary school’s students scored so well that Oprah Winfrey featured it on a special about schools that “defy the odds.” But a teacher said her high-scoring students could barely write their own names, and when the same students went on to middle school, their scores plummeted. The state ultimately decided to investigate at least 700 schools. But for more than 600, the “investigation” consisted of simply asking schools to fill out a survey about their testing procedures. Taking many schools at their word, the state declared that the vast majority were innocent despite further evidence that some schools cleared of wrongdoing had actually cheated.

Can we stop this crap?  The charter school is education by bingo machine.  we hear the politicians tell the nation just how important education is to the country and then when the smell dissipates they cut funding and some even want to eliminate the education oversight……

Be honest!  Education means NOTHING!  It is a campaign slogan that gets votes from morons with the IQ of their hat size…….no amount of crap reporting will change the fact the the education in this country is in the toilet and our leaders have control of the flush lever…….

You Call This Education?

Daily Agitator

I have written a couple times about just how poor our education system is and that it is NOT educating the children…..

Let me reiterate….

The US is lagging behind Kazakhstan in math and science…and in my state the test scores for the US are the bottom…number 50……there is more……recently a study was done in Oklahoma and the high schoolers were asked who was the first president of the US…only 18% (I believe) knew the answer was Washington…

In a recent show Jay Leno went out on the street to ask some geography questions…he aired a couple of the answers…..he asked a woman in her mid twenties what country was our northern neighbor…her answer was Mexico…..Then he asked a male about the same age where Lap Land was?……his answer was is that where Santa lives?……oh, there is more…..finally he asked another same age woman what was the official language of Canada…he let her know there were two……her answer was Canadianese…….

I now asked the question that I have asked before….what the Hell are they teaching these kids in school?

In the South where I live they spend time teach the kids about abstinence in sex….and that has worked so well that my state leads the nation in teen pregnancies…..

I recently gave a lecture at the local community college on foreign policy and I began the class with passing out blank map of the world and ask them to identify Iraq and Afghanistan…..out of 22 students I got 3 accurate answers…..and this was in 2003 when Americans were fighting and dying in the two countries…..

This whole thing scares me…Americans are learning,  if they are learning,  then they are not being taught subjects that need to be taught….they are being taught the superficial stuff that makes them ignorant and hollow…..

We want them to be “good” citizens but we do not teach them the stuff they need to be that “good” citizen….we want them to vote but we do not teach them anything about the system that they are suppose to be in control of when they get to voting age……

Please do not misunderstand…there are a wealth of excellent teachers out there…but unfortunately they can only teach what they are allowed to teach…..the state is failing future generations and we only have ourselves to thank….why?……we find other things that are made a priority and in doing so education suffers badly….

What Are They Teaching Our Children?

I have heard a few horror stories about the schools and the students….but first what is “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB)

Thanks to wiki for the following definition:

NCLB is the latest federal legislation that enacts the theories of standards-based education reform, which is based on the belief that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education. The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, if those states are to receive federal funding for schools. The Act does not assert a national achievement standard; standards are set by each individual state. The Act requires that the schools distribute personal information of every student enrolled to military recruiters and institutions of higher education, unless the student opts out.

Okay, now we know what the Bush admin had in mind for the future of our educational institutions….how has that worked out?

IMO, it has been a absolute bust….why?  Recently high school students in the state of Oklahoma were asked to name the first president of the United States of America…not a particularly difficult question, huh?  Only 23%, almost one in four, did not know that George Washington was the first president.  How scary is that?  These kids are the future leaders of the country.

What are they teaching our children?  Apparently it is not Civics or American History………. just what then?  I would almost bet that they are having to say the pledge of allegiance and are having their daily religious indoctrination….but they are not taught anything about this country’s beginning other than we broke with England….oh, there is so much more to it than that (a later post).

But our new president is not that much more education friendly.  Some of his plans sound a lot like those of Pres. Bush (see previous education post).  You know where all the problems are those of the teachers and moist reforms would effect teachers and the pay would not go with the added responsibility.

The AP is reporting another proposal the the Obama admin is considering:

Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

Does Obama want every kid to do these things? School until dinnertime? Summer school? And what about the idea that kids today are overscheduled and need more time to play?

For one thing, the current school yeat is based on when the country was an agarian society and the kids were needed in the late speing and summer to work on the farm…those days are gone….I agree that it is time to update the schools to help our undereducated children compete in a every growinmg global society.

To answer one of the questions…..overscheduled children?  Yeah, they are so overscheduled that they have time to do this.

Investigators say a Philadelphia teenager wrapped a cat in duct tape, put it in a shopping bag and left it in a neighbor’s backyard.The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says 19-year-old James Davis was arrested Saturday on animal cruelty charges.

Official George Bengal says Davis admitted to taping up the cat from neck to tail after he spotted it in his yard Sept. 21.

The gray tabby was nicknamed Sticky by animal welfare workers. It was dehydrated and had to be sedated while the tape was cut off its fur.

Yep that is right, we do not want to overschedule the little shits so they have plenty of time to do stuff like that.

We are talking about kids that spend most of their time watching TV, playing games or playing on Facebook….where is the over scheduling?  Mom and Dad spend less than 6 hours a day with the kids….where is that over scheduled?

If there is going to be sweeping changes in education then someone needs to see that the teachers are compensated for the extra work….a teacher is the most important person your child will ever encounter, short of Mom and Dad, and sometimes that can be argued, but the pros that teach the children should be treated and paid for their efforts.

Budget Crisis And Social Impact

In these tough economic times states are struggling with their budgets and how to find the revenue to pay for the propgrams they already have in the works.

This observation is made by Joe Kishore for wsws.org:

The crisis extends across the country. Seven states still have not passed budgets: California (budget deficit—$24 billion), Illinois ($9.2 billion), Pennsylvania ($4.8 billion), North Carolina ($4.6 billion), Connecticut ($4.1 billion), Ohio ($3.3 billion) and Mississippi ($480 million).

Of the states that still remain without a budget, several have threatened to shut down government services altogether if agreements are not reached soon. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (a Democrat) vetoed a budget passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature that includes major attacks on social programs. Quinn favors somewhat fewer cuts, combined with an increase in the state’s regressive flat income tax. Providers of services for the mentally ill and disabled have already laid off staff in response to the budget crisis.

The crisis in the states is having a particularly dramatic impact on education, as the vast bulk of funding for public education comes from the states and from local property taxes. States across the country are already cutting or eliminating summer school programs. These programs are critical for students and for parents who have nowhere else to send their children during work hours. Summer school programs in Florida and California, among other states, have been virtually wiped out.

Of all the programs that are needed most…education is at the top of my list…our rankings in math and science are already sliding down the list…we do not need to imperil our children any further.

Once again, I see that banks and massive corporations are more important than our children….money can be found to bail out the wealthy but little to none is available to the future of our people.  Sad…no matter how you look at it.