Tucson Citizen.com

ReTired Tucson Teacher

After hanging up my classroom teaching spurs, so to speak, I want to spend some time discussing important educational issues and I want to know what you think.

Teacher Unions, who really belongs to these moneyed, subversive organizations?

by on Sep. 29, 2012, under Education

We simply can’t have a setting where the teachers unions are able to contribute tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of politicians, and then those politicians – when elected – stand across from them at the bargaining table supposedly to represent the interests of the kids. I think it’s a mistake.” Willard “Mitt” Romney

If the students had a union?

So Mitt, you think that because teacher unions are the number one contributors to democratic candidates, those candidates will unfairly look upon the union requests favorably thus causing a “glaring case of conflict of interest.” Wow, that’s interesting.

You know what? I agree totally, Mitt. Those Democrats are going to favorably look at teachers because they were supported by those teachers. What? You say you were referring to teacher unions, not teachers? You actually think that teachers are pretty great, it’s teacher unions you don’t like. Umm, who do you think belong to teacher unions, Mitt? I have some bad news for you, almost all the members of teacher unions are educational professionals — they’re teachers, Mitt, yeah, the ones you like, the teacher unions are just crawling with them!

I’m sorry, do you need a moment? Here sit down in this empty chair. You got lucky, we have a lot of empty chairs for adults at schools these days. That’s because in response to the current financial crisis, Republican legislatures everywhere are cutting school’s budgets.

What was that? Oh, they have had to cut school budgets because schools are failing. We have to come up with different models? Is that like school choice? Yes, I know, I read about that. A lot of parents were questioned about this problem of America’s failing schools, Mitt. They were asked what was wrong with their schools? Do you know what they said? They said nothing is wrong with their school — it’s all the other schools that are no good. The study found that on the whole, most parents like their own school. 2)

Amazing the things you can find out when you ask the right questions.

There is an interesting fact that has come out of all this studying we’ve done, Mitt. What? A fact is something that is true. Yes. So as I was saying, what has recently been found is that despite the fact that our schools are so horrible, children’s imaginations have actually gotten better. 3) Our students think more broadly, have more new ideas now than in the past and are more creative — yeah, American kids. With our schools being so horrible you’d think that the opposite would be true, huh?

There’s that idea of yours, you know, to push for parental access to Charter schools. You’re going to increase the availability of school choice with vouchers. I see. You do know that in general the charter schools performance is somewhat less than that of public schools, right? 4) It’s not a big thing, just 5-10% below but the studies show that by percentage, there are as many good public schools as there are good charter schools and more of the charters perform below the average than do our public schools. I know, yes, it was a poll and you hate polls.

Now you remember what we really need: better teachers. That is what we need, you are right, good teachers can really make a huge difference, Mitt. I’m glad you noticed that when you looked at schools. Yes, even without funding we really need to stock up on those good teachers. Of course, job satisfaction is at an all-time low for teachers and more are leaving the profession than are joining it. 5) Yes, I’m sorry it is another one of those fact-things. How do we fix that?

Really, money? We pay them for performance? Is that like how we pay Wall Street for performance or how we pay legislators for performance? Now, don’t get defensive. Like you, I’m just trying to get at the answers. OK, say we improve pay for teachers. How do we structure that increase seeing as compensation is set by individual school districts? What we need is an advocate, one that goes state by state and lobbies for teacher salaries and benefits? You know, like a union.

Oh, wait, yes I remember, we talked about those before, yeah, those unions they’re the ones that  contribute to Democrats and get unfair consideration in return for their millions of dollars.

Uh, Mitt, one last question, would that be like the corporations and billionaires who contribute to Republicans? Do they get any special consideration, Mitt? Mitt?

I was just asking.

1) http://www.mediaite.com/tv/romney-shuts-down-questioner-who-claimed-teachers-unions-are-popular-i-don’t-believe-it-for-a-second/

2) http://www.azschoolsmakeadifference.org/A_survey.pdf Page 3

3) http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/06/26/36imagination.h31.html

4) Charter_School_Performance_Study.svg

5) http://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/contributions/foundation/american-teacher/2011-Teacher-Survey-Findings.pdf

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2012 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Education. Tags for this post: , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • http://besolar.info/index.html Bob’sCamp

    What a sick joke, using “Right To Work State”! Its pathetic purpose: to deceive with a turn-of-the-word and to obfuscate its Intent so as to deceive the ordinary Citizen! A Right is the Domain Of Being Human – TO BARGAIN! Period.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000059363546 Theresa Brooks

    This is great Marc!

  • Ado Egbdf

    Being married to a teacher, I cannot disagree with most of your points. However, I think that parental involvement is one of those things that’s necessary for a student to be successful, and when a teacher is dealt a a classroom that is full of single parent, low income students, that group as a whole will not be performing at the same level as a similar classroom populated with kids that come from homes with two parents and whose parents provide motivation through their involvement with their kids studies and school activities. All too often, single parents are just too busy providing food and shelter to be able to devote much time to their kids school, their schoolwork, PTA meetings or parent teacher conferences. Without parental involvement, the best and most highly motivated teacher is not going to have a class that performs well or scores well on any measurement test.

    IMO, what we are seeing in the school is a societal problem that has been evolving for quite a few years now. It’s pretty obvious to those of us who went through a school system in the 1950′s and 1960′s that discipline and respect is sorely lacking in today’s public schools. A person would have to be pretty blind not to be aware of that. Today’s discipline vacuum is a direct result of liberal laws compelling schools to back off on their discipline methods, and their educational standards as well. My wife has witnessed many times enraged parents(single moms for the most), screaming at the school principal, at her, and at the security guard who was called, that the school had no right to discipline their son or daughter. There have been assaults on teachers, threats made to teachers, and a general disrespect of teachers by much of the student body. Forty years ago, none of this would have been tolerated. Were it not for liberals(the very same liberals who are supported by teacher’s union dues), not wanting their minority(mostly) constituent’s kids to feel they were failures or have their fragile little egos bruised, the educational performance bar would never have been lowered to the point it now is. IMO, school unions contributing to liberal candidate’s campaigns and causes has been quite counterproductive when you take an objective look at the results. I have to take issue with the notion that US public school kids are performing that well at all . I would have to assume that the comparison being made obviously did not include measurements of students from other countries. The US is not the educational leader of the world that it once was. It will never regain that position as long as liberal school boards implement rules that tell teachers no student is allowed to fail. That nonsense results in teachers retesting kids on the same material until they pass the test. Sometimes it takes four or five retests for it to happen. The problem as I see it is not the fault of the teachers. It’s both a societal problem(way too many single parent households) and a liberal slant that has been happening in education for the last forty years or more resulting in a dumbed down educational system to accommodate those on the bottom of the scale. The simple facts are that there will always be some kids who are smarter and there will always be some kids who for whatever reason, cannot be motivated to learn. Unfortunately, we are seeing more of the latter these days. The individual teacher has no control over these social factors and should not be held accountable for the potential failures that our liberal society has been putting in her classroom. That old saw still holds true: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/bryan.bechtol Bryan Bechtol

    This is perfect timing for the Radius Ruler! We are trying to get all school systems as close as possible in the way we teach and what they learn through out our country. Now a mathematic learning tool has been invented, the first learning tool in almost two hundred years, will help them understand the concept of radii a lot easier. I am asking all 4th grade teachers and up, go to the facebook page “Radius Ruler“ and print out, laminate and make your own Radius Ruler. Instructions are with the picture “Build Your Own”. Teachers can make it a grate project or even build a whole coarse around it. It’s FREE to all teachers and students. There is even a how to video on the page.

    All grade schools teach students how to measure length and angles, but they do not even start on circles or curves until much later I have been talking with 7th grade teachers, and they all said they wish they had the Radius Ruler to pass out to their class, for student to have something physical in their hands. They would pass out cans and bottles for student to measure, and it would help them understand measuring the radius of a curve and the area of a circle. If we introduce symbols and letters to students in math at an earlier age, we can build their confidents to go further in math and science. Building their own Radius Ruler would help them with their critical thinking and they will learn about radii while they play with what they built their selves.

    Please check it out on facebook, give it a like and some feedback would be appreciated. After you print out, laminate with boxing tape (because it’s cheaper and works well) and start using it yourself.

    • http://www.facebook.com/marcaeoloG Marc Severson

      Bryan, while I do not mind you advertising something of value to educators on my site, I take great umbrage if you do not carefully edit your post. The word is ‘great’ not ‘grate’. It is ‘course’ not ‘coarse’ and ‘confidence’ not ‘confidents’. I could go on but you get my point. If you are looking to market something to fourth grade teachers please at least use spell-check.

  • Fraser007

    All the money in the world would not fix the problem of poor performing schools if the kids and parents dont care. There is a reason why the charter and private schools are increasing in numbers. They dont want to go to school with those kids and the values of their parents.

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