" Teachers Unions to Taxpayers: "Where's the Cash? ""

[megimoo]

One of the most disturbing results of an adult-focused public education system is the constant focus on money. There is an insatiable thirst on the part of Big Labor to constantly increase spending on public education, because the teachers’ unions are mostly concerned with their pensions, paychecks and the union coffers.

Unlike workers in the private sector who have had to accept wage and benefit concessions just to stay employed, the teacher unions use the collective bargaining process to demand lavish health and pension benefits, annual automatic pay raises (regardless of classroom performance), sick day buyouts and many other costly benefits that send school budgets reeling into red ink.

Watch "Kids Aren't Cars" Episode 2: 'Give Up the Bucks!'
http://www.kidsarentcars.com/blog/

For teachers’ unions, it is all about the money. A protester we encountered at a pro-tax increase rally last year in Springfield, Illinois underscored the point. "Where is the money?" she asked as she rubbed her fingers together. "Save our children! Give up the bucks! Where's the cash? We need it fast," she said. Of course she does, or she may need to take a pay freeze or start contributing to her pension plan. She was saavy enough to work children into her demand.

http://townhall.com/columnists/KyleO...sh_/page/full/

[NJCardFan]

Billions and billions and billions of dollars are thrown down the education rat hole. At what point do we say enough and demand a return on our investment?

[Starbuck]

I have a Brother In Law who is a high school teacher. No amount of money would make that anti-American know-it-all a good teacher. He sucks. And he's been talking about doing something else for 30 years. He's 61. Can't retire because he dropped out for a few years. Came back because he couldn't get another job.
My daughter is a teacher also. She's a good one. Just got her masters after teaching 20 years. Stays until 8PM every night tutoring kids who want it.
We don't have a teachers union. She doesn't want one. My Brother In Law does.
Money ain't gonna fix nuthin'.:mad:

[PoliCon]

Billions and billions and billions of dollars are thrown down the education rat hole. At what point do we say enough and demand a return on our investment?

and school districts - especially large ones - hide a lot of the educational costs per student from us. :( I've said it before - the most waste is at the top. Take my local area for example. there are 42 school districts in Allegheny county in addition to the city of Pittsburgh schools. Now each of these school districts has a least ONE superintendent - each of them is staffed by armies of bureaucrats working in their 43 district offices - etc. Same is true for just about every county in the state. Now if there was a merger of these school districts into the county wide school district system used by most other states - PA could save BILLIONS annually - but there would be out of work union bureaucrats so this will never be done.

[noonwitch]

If teachers were banned from striking, like every other public employee, they wouldn't be able to get away with half the crap that they do.

[PoliCon]

If teachers were banned from striking, like every other public employee, they wouldn't be able to get away with half the crap that they do.

If they were banned from unionizing - they'd get away with a LOT less.

[Starbuck]

If they were banned from unionizing - they'd get away with a LOT less.

They were until JFK signed off on a bill that allowed public employees to unionize. Seemed like a fairly innocuous idea at the time...................but look at the result. Most union members nowadays are public employees.

[Chuck58]

Someone mentioned throwing money down a rat hole. That's an excellent description.

I went to a parochial school, admittedly a long, long time ago. All my teachers were Nuns. When I moved into public high school in 10th grade, I was a full year ahead of the public school kids in applicable subjects. I don't know if that's still the case today.

We keep hearing that today's kids are scoring well on SAT tests and others. My reply, grade them on the same curve as kids from, say, the 1950s and early '60s and see where they score. My neice graduated high school several years ago with a 'B' average. She knew nothing about America, about history in general, how to write legibly, form a sentence grammatically, and couldn't find Washington DC on a world map. She needed help filling out an employment application. And a 'B' student according to the schools.

We're in serious trouble, and more money isn't the answer. Nice new schools, smaller classes, or higher paid teachers, computers, all that nonsense isn't the answer. You can teach kids the 3 R's in a barn with a slate and chalk.

They need the basics, to be able to read and comprehend what they've read. They need to know how to write sentences using proper grammar and so forth. They need to know basic arithmetic. Without these, everything else is moot.

[noonwitch]

Someone mentioned throwing money down a rat hole. That's an excellent description.

I went to a parochial school, admittedly a long, long time ago. All my teachers were Nuns. When I moved into public high school in 10th grade, I was a full year ahead of the public school kids in applicable subjects. I don't know if that's still the case today.

We keep hearing that today's kids are scoring well on SAT tests and others. My reply, grade them on the same curve as kids from, say, the 1950s and early '60s and see where they score. My neice graduated high school several years ago with a 'B' average. She knew nothing about America, about history in general, how to write legibly, form a sentence grammatically, and couldn't find Washington DC on a world map. She needed help filling out an employment application. And a 'B' student according to the schools.

We're in serious trouble, and more money isn't the answer. Nice new schools, smaller classes, or higher paid teachers, computers, all that nonsense isn't the answer. You can teach kids the 3 R's in a barn with a slate and chalk.

They need the basics, to be able to read and comprehend what they've read. They need to know how to write sentences using proper grammar and so forth. They need to know basic arithmetic. Without these, everything else is moot.

It depends on the district-my sister's kids are getting good educations in their public school district in West Michigan. A lot of my coworkers' kids get good educations at some of the suburban public schools, and even in the Detroit public schools, there are some good programs like Cass Tech and Renaissance High Schools.

My fifth grade niece can read at a 12th grade level, and is encouraged to do so by her teachers. I buy her adult books on archeology (her career goal) and she can read and comprehend them. I gave her one of my old anthropology textbooks from college and she was able to understand most of it, with little adult assistance.

Some of the Catholic schools around here are excellent, some are okay, but none are terrible.

[PoliCon]

They were until JFK signed off on a bill that allowed public employees to unionize. Seemed like a fairly innocuous idea at the time...................but look at the result. Most union members nowadays are public employees.

even FDR would not allow them to unionize. FDR signed off on it for the sake of his mob connections who are of course very active in the unions.