Michele, that is what is happening in so many places, except, of course, the wealthy districts who demand libraries and librarians. The rest of us get what the Republican legislators say we're worth, and poorer districts in their view are worth little or nothing. Ugh!
Michele, that is what is happening in so many places, except, of course, the wealthy districts who demand libraries and librarians. The rest of us get what the Republican legislators say we're worth, and poorer districts in their view are worth little or nothing. Ugh!
Yes, I know. I am often amazed at what people say in terms of public schools. And they are convinced the poor are all criminals. One of the things that I loathe about death star is that he gives carte blanche for people to be their ugliest selves.
Michele & Ruth, I read through your exchange and as myself, тАЬWhy havenтАЩt parents and Democrats fought much harder over the years to defend and fund public education?тАЭ It just seems to me that Republicans and private sector advocates have found it way too easy to push their private schools agenda while public schools were underfunded and often cast aside in lower income communities.
Now is a time to stand up for public education and offer solutions to help young people and their families see the immense value in a good education including technical and general/liberal studies.
What are your thoughts in response to my unsolicited and unscientific observations?
John, wow! the whole issue is far too complicated than just Democrats sitting back and letting Republicans do their damage to our public schools. In so many states over the years, Republicans have ruled because they have been able to gerrymander to the point that Dems have no say. Only when Democratic governors happen to win could schools be saved with a veto. Republicans did not just start lying, cheating, and sneakily cutting away at our rights; it has been going on in places since the days of the New Deal. In my state, if community governments didn't go Republican, they got no funding from the county and often from the state either. I hope enough Democrats are waking up to what is being done to all of us that we can turn this insanity into something that can help everyone, even the crazy public school-hating, child dismissing Republicans.
I can speak for only Oregon. For years the property tax funded most of the school budget. So every year we had to go to voters and ask for money. One years we could not start school on time and kids were frantic. I know that some of our teachers voted no on budgets because they were safe. When a property tax measure passed a la California, the state took over most of the school funding. School measures here generally are bonds for repair or new buildings. There are so many false ideas about teachers. They are often paid monthly, so that they get a paycheck in the summer months. So that translates somehow to getting paid for no work. Here in Oregon we have PERS pensions. I happen to be tier one which is the highest tier. Now there are lower tiers for newer retirees. This causes a lot of resentment and it would take too long to explain this. We were at a neighborhood dinner (the last one, btw) and one of our neighbors (who has plenty of money) went on a tirade about PERS. My husband worked for the state. And so did the host, but she was looking at me, a teacher. The district where I worked was in a very Catholic community and our kids thought the kids who went to the Catholic school were somehow better. This, of course, is BS and I could write a book. Up the canyon where logging prevailed, most people were originally from the upper south and they could also make more money in the mill than we made. So not much interest in education from many of those kids. The difference there was usually the parents' education. As for the legislature and the governor....usually D, but Rs have taken to walking out when they are against something....usually climate issues, etc. Oregon also has the kicker which is based on what the state economists forecast as what taxes would equal. If that number is over what they predict, then all taxpayers get a kicker. I think if the tax is fair, it is fair, but this will not change as far as I can tell. We often use our kicker as a donation somewhere. In the south after desecration, private schools grew and now there are also plenty of religious schools because dear me, students will be corrupted in public schools. In our English classes if someone objected to a book, I had the student in the library with alternative books. I know of one family who home schooled their children at a great cost to the kids. They finally admitted it wasn't a good idea, but they belonged to a cult up the canyon. Also there has always been a large anti-intellectual strain in this country. If you have further ideas or questions, we can continue this and thanks for your post.
Michele, you are so right about this. Teachers are an easy target because somehow rich white men just happen to have stories of the horrible teachers they had, forgetting that their horrible behavior probably along with their belief in their superiority, made their teachers' attempts to teach the class seem negative. Wealth even lets kids act like bullies to everyone they and their parents think are not good enough. If people actually valued all children, even their children, the schools would improve dramatically.
I taught government class for a few years. It was a required class as I told them. They had to pass it for graduation and I was required to teach it. So, I told them to make the most of that situation and I said i really didn't care about their grade as long as they passed. What they earned was up to them. I had exactly one student who failed....he failed twice. But he was from a family that did not value education and happened to typical of some who lived up the canyon.
Please remember, though, that it's not only teachers who got hit, and hit hard. All of U.S. schools got targeted by the far-right foundations of the 1971 Powell memo.
The new Heritage Foundation and the older, but enlarged Hoover Institute sought to shame and silence all public-spirited teachers, K-12 and "higher." The new ALEC organized first, for years, to have state legislatures reduce funding for all levels of public education.
All Americans who graduated from schools from1980 on have one thing in common. All learned permanently to avoid reference to any humanities. All learned to avoid reference to any "others" in any groups. And, for the benefit of the standardized testing billionaires, only groups, categories, and abstractions existed anymore. Easily labeled. Machine gradable.
No individuals anywhere. Except in the arts, which had no place in schools anymore.
An excellent reply, Phil, on what has gone on at the national level. I despise standardized tests as does every teacher that I know who really cares about education. No Child Left Behind....my rear.
Well, death star thinks the same about himself. He is an excellent example of what happens to children born to wealth who got away with everything. I knew several kids of wealth when i was growing up and they all went to a private school in the east to be finished or some place like Cranbrook in Michigan for the boys. If they were troublesome, they went to military school. I have to say that wealth did not save them from having problems including one who committed suicide. And one who I grew up with all of my school life, was murdered several years ago. One of the things that happened to me was that I learned to be very polite to my elders, one of those things they probably learned at prep school when they weren't doing things they shouldn't. I also owe a lot to a wealthy family who were friends of my father. So, while so many act horribly, there are some exceptions.
Michele, that is what is happening in so many places, except, of course, the wealthy districts who demand libraries and librarians. The rest of us get what the Republican legislators say we're worth, and poorer districts in their view are worth little or nothing. Ugh!
Yes, I know. I am often amazed at what people say in terms of public schools. And they are convinced the poor are all criminals. One of the things that I loathe about death star is that he gives carte blanche for people to be their ugliest selves.
Michele & Ruth, I read through your exchange and as myself, тАЬWhy havenтАЩt parents and Democrats fought much harder over the years to defend and fund public education?тАЭ It just seems to me that Republicans and private sector advocates have found it way too easy to push their private schools agenda while public schools were underfunded and often cast aside in lower income communities.
Now is a time to stand up for public education and offer solutions to help young people and their families see the immense value in a good education including technical and general/liberal studies.
What are your thoughts in response to my unsolicited and unscientific observations?
John, wow! the whole issue is far too complicated than just Democrats sitting back and letting Republicans do their damage to our public schools. In so many states over the years, Republicans have ruled because they have been able to gerrymander to the point that Dems have no say. Only when Democratic governors happen to win could schools be saved with a veto. Republicans did not just start lying, cheating, and sneakily cutting away at our rights; it has been going on in places since the days of the New Deal. In my state, if community governments didn't go Republican, they got no funding from the county and often from the state either. I hope enough Democrats are waking up to what is being done to all of us that we can turn this insanity into something that can help everyone, even the crazy public school-hating, child dismissing Republicans.
I can speak for only Oregon. For years the property tax funded most of the school budget. So every year we had to go to voters and ask for money. One years we could not start school on time and kids were frantic. I know that some of our teachers voted no on budgets because they were safe. When a property tax measure passed a la California, the state took over most of the school funding. School measures here generally are bonds for repair or new buildings. There are so many false ideas about teachers. They are often paid monthly, so that they get a paycheck in the summer months. So that translates somehow to getting paid for no work. Here in Oregon we have PERS pensions. I happen to be tier one which is the highest tier. Now there are lower tiers for newer retirees. This causes a lot of resentment and it would take too long to explain this. We were at a neighborhood dinner (the last one, btw) and one of our neighbors (who has plenty of money) went on a tirade about PERS. My husband worked for the state. And so did the host, but she was looking at me, a teacher. The district where I worked was in a very Catholic community and our kids thought the kids who went to the Catholic school were somehow better. This, of course, is BS and I could write a book. Up the canyon where logging prevailed, most people were originally from the upper south and they could also make more money in the mill than we made. So not much interest in education from many of those kids. The difference there was usually the parents' education. As for the legislature and the governor....usually D, but Rs have taken to walking out when they are against something....usually climate issues, etc. Oregon also has the kicker which is based on what the state economists forecast as what taxes would equal. If that number is over what they predict, then all taxpayers get a kicker. I think if the tax is fair, it is fair, but this will not change as far as I can tell. We often use our kicker as a donation somewhere. In the south after desecration, private schools grew and now there are also plenty of religious schools because dear me, students will be corrupted in public schools. In our English classes if someone objected to a book, I had the student in the library with alternative books. I know of one family who home schooled their children at a great cost to the kids. They finally admitted it wasn't a good idea, but they belonged to a cult up the canyon. Also there has always been a large anti-intellectual strain in this country. If you have further ideas or questions, we can continue this and thanks for your post.
Michele, you are so right about this. Teachers are an easy target because somehow rich white men just happen to have stories of the horrible teachers they had, forgetting that their horrible behavior probably along with their belief in their superiority, made their teachers' attempts to teach the class seem negative. Wealth even lets kids act like bullies to everyone they and their parents think are not good enough. If people actually valued all children, even their children, the schools would improve dramatically.
I taught government class for a few years. It was a required class as I told them. They had to pass it for graduation and I was required to teach it. So, I told them to make the most of that situation and I said i really didn't care about their grade as long as they passed. What they earned was up to them. I had exactly one student who failed....he failed twice. But he was from a family that did not value education and happened to typical of some who lived up the canyon.
Wealth even lets kids act like bulliesтАж hmm, where have we all seen that?
Why haven't they fought harder, John?
That's the Q.
Please remember, though, that it's not only teachers who got hit, and hit hard. All of U.S. schools got targeted by the far-right foundations of the 1971 Powell memo.
The new Heritage Foundation and the older, but enlarged Hoover Institute sought to shame and silence all public-spirited teachers, K-12 and "higher." The new ALEC organized first, for years, to have state legislatures reduce funding for all levels of public education.
All Americans who graduated from schools from1980 on have one thing in common. All learned permanently to avoid reference to any humanities. All learned to avoid reference to any "others" in any groups. And, for the benefit of the standardized testing billionaires, only groups, categories, and abstractions existed anymore. Easily labeled. Machine gradable.
No individuals anywhere. Except in the arts, which had no place in schools anymore.
An excellent reply, Phil, on what has gone on at the national level. I despise standardized tests as does every teacher that I know who really cares about education. No Child Left Behind....my rear.
Michele, and Trump lets people believe their ugly selves are "beautiful, just beautiful."
Well, death star thinks the same about himself. He is an excellent example of what happens to children born to wealth who got away with everything. I knew several kids of wealth when i was growing up and they all went to a private school in the east to be finished or some place like Cranbrook in Michigan for the boys. If they were troublesome, they went to military school. I have to say that wealth did not save them from having problems including one who committed suicide. And one who I grew up with all of my school life, was murdered several years ago. One of the things that happened to me was that I learned to be very polite to my elders, one of those things they probably learned at prep school when they weren't doing things they shouldn't. I also owe a lot to a wealthy family who were friends of my father. So, while so many act horribly, there are some exceptions.