Multiplier rule did what it was suppose to do!

[OnlineLC]

My apologies for being out of the loop a little on this for the last couple of days, but I did have a ton of things to get done to start school tomorrow.

 

I admit that me calling the NEA a terrorist organization was a little over the top, but I do find their attitude totally different to the approach of the organization for Professional Engineers of which I am still a member. First of all it is not a union, it is an organization that upholds the integrity of the profession and is constantly ensuring their members are suitably qualified to do what they are practising. If they are not, they are thrown out and stripped of their license. This is what I hoped the NEA would be. If teaching is ever going to be considered a proper profession (which I believe it is), their has to be a structure in place that actively weeds out people who have no right being in the classroom. Salary has nothing to do with it, I gladly took a huge paycut, as I felt it was something that I needed to be doing.

 

I do teach at a small Private School, but I need to stress, it was just the way it turned out and I do hope to get opportunity to teach public before I hang up the dry erase markers. I have many friends who are Public School Teachers, and they were very influential in me making a career change. From my discussions with them, I do here of teachers who obviously use tenure to keep a position but have no desire, drive or even competence in teaching. They really are in the minority, nevertheless they are messing up the lives of kids and need to have the protection they currently have removed.

 

One of my biggest beefs is the resistance I hear from some so called veterans who cry murder when they are asked to sit the PRAXIS tests to prove competence. I support NCLB because this is now brought to the surface to be eligible to be called a highly qualified teacher. If I was a principal and had a teacher who could not pass a PRAXIS test in his or her subject area, I would like the opportunity to be able to get them out of the classroom immediately and hire someone who is competent. It comes down to the self regulation issue again, which the NEA is totally reluctant to do to make it a truly respected profession.

[coachh17]

The TEA, an NEA affiliate, offers the best Praxis Preparation workshops in the state with a high success rate. The Instruction and Professional Development Division at TEA offers over 32 workshops and tirelessly travels the state from Memphis to Mountain City helping teachers improve their skills. They are also experts in licensure, highly qualified, and alternative teaching licenses. No other organization offers anything close.

 

It is a stated goal of the TEA to have a highly qualified teacher in every classroom and they do more than any other entity to help teachers obtain highly qualified status.

 

The union doesn't want bad teachers either. Even with tenure, processes are in place to remove incompetent teachers. Granted, the process involves evaluation, observation, improvement plans, and takes some time. Any administrator worth his salt, would be using this process to cull the duds. The union will ensure due process is followed, but will not fight the dismissal of a bad apple. And remember, the union doesn't hire the duds, the administration does. Also, a principal must recommend a teacher for tenure after their third year and the school board must vote to grant it. If they were doing their jobs, the bad ones wouldn't ever gain tenure in the first place.

 

Do some research and see what TEA does for Tennessee's teachers. You might be surprised at what you really find.

[cbg]

I see both sides of this argument...but one thing is for sure...tenure is here to stay. There's no way it will be abolished.

 

 

You are probably correct about tenure but if one school system made a phone call to Mr. Bob Ballow (noted international union buster) of Nashville they could get it done. He told MLB how to dismantle the union but the owners didn't want the negative pub.

[coachh17]

OnlineLC, Baldcoach, Volunteer General,

 

The TSBA(Tennessee School Boards Association) is the parent organization for the states' 136 school systems. They advise the school boards and Directors of schools on how to deal with the teacher's union. I believe they just moved up a notch on the "terrorist organization" list. Check out the following audit report released today by the State Comptroller John Morgan and tell me how good you feel about our school boards.

 

http://170.142.183.29/repository/MA/tsba.pdf

[Rock Crusher Mountain]

Here is my 2cents...and that is about all it is worth.

 

Tenure does not protect good teachers. Good teachers do not need protection. Poor and/or controversial teachers need protection, good teachers are in demand everywhere. Thus, tenure simply assures that if a mediocre, bad, or just plain insane teacher can fool everyone for a couple of years they are assured of a taxpayer funded job and pension for the rest of their lives.

 

Teachers should have to compete for their jobs like everyone else...the cream will always rise to the top. With tenure the dregs are artificially held at the top with the cream instead of settling to the bottom where they belong...after all, aren't our kids more important than a bridge?

great post!!!!!!!!!! good teacher will succeed. I do not want an average doctor doing my heart transplant or an average teacher teaching my children. How many teachers from your system can you name that show up each year for a pay check?

[Dogstar]

I am a teacher and this tenure debate is very interesting. However, how does this apply to the topic of this thread?

[coachh17]

Flashgordon started it on the bottom of page 9. We tend to go off topic on these threads a lot anyway.

[Baldcoach]

My apologies for being out of the loop a little on this for the last couple of days, but I did have a ton of things to get done to start school tomorrow.

 

I admit that me calling the NEA a terrorist organization was a little over the top, but I do find their attitude totally different to the approach of the organization for Professional Engineers of which I am still a member. First of all it is not a union, it is an organization that upholds the integrity of the profession and is constantly ensuring their members are suitably qualified to do what they are practising. If they are not, they are thrown out and stripped of their license. This is what I hoped the NEA would be. If teaching is ever going to be considered a proper profession (which I believe it is), their has to be a structure in place that actively weeds out people who have no right being in the classroom. Salary has nothing to do with it, I gladly took a huge paycut, as I felt it was something that I needed to be doing.

 

I do teach at a small Private School, but I need to stress, it was just the way it turned out and I do hope to get opportunity to teach public before I hang up the dry erase markers. I have many friends who are Public School Teachers, and they were very influential in me making a career change. From my discussions with them, I do here of teachers who obviously use tenure to keep a position but have no desire, drive or even competence in teaching. They really are in the minority, nevertheless they are messing up the lives of kids and need to have the protection they currently have removed.

 

One of my biggest beefs is the resistance I hear from some so called veterans who cry murder when they are asked to sit the PRAXIS tests to prove competence. I support NCLB because this is now brought to the surface to be eligible to be called a highly qualified teacher. If I was a principal and had a teacher who could not pass a PRAXIS test in his or her subject area, I would like the opportunity to be able to get them out of the classroom immediately and hire someone who is competent. It comes down to the self regulation issue again, which the NEA is totally reluctant to do to make it a truly respected profession.

 

 

Online,

 

The NEA may not be terrorist, but it is radical leftist. Here is a copy of a Wall Street Journal article on the expenditures of the NEA. It seems that the new transparency laws have outed them...

 

Teachers' Pets

 

The NEA gave $65 million in its members' dues to left-liberal groups last year.

 

If we told you that an organization gave away more than $65 million last year to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups, you'd probably assume we were describing a liberal philanthropy. In fact, those expenditures have all turned up on the financial disclosure report of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union.

 

Under new federal rules pushed through by Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, large unions must now disclose in much more detail how they spend members' dues money. Big Labor fought hard (if unsuccessfully) against the new accountability standards, and even a cursory glance at the NEA's recent filings--the first under the new rules--helps explain why. They expose the union as a honey pot for left-wing political causes that have nothing to do with teachers, much less students.

 

We already knew that the NEA's top brass lives large. Reg Weaver, the union's president, makes $439,000 a year. The NEA has a $58 million payroll for just over 600 employees, more than half of whom draw six-figure salaries. Last year the average teacher made only $48,000, so it seems you're better off working as a union rep than in the classroom.

Many of the organization's disbursements--$30,000 to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, $122,000 to the Center for Teaching Quality--at least target groups that ostensibly have a direct educational mission. But many others are a stretch, to say the least. The NEA gave $15,000 to the Human Rights Campaign, which lobbies for "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights." The National Women's Law Center, whose Web site currently features a "pocket guide" to opposing Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito, received $5,000. And something called the Fund to Protect Social Security got $400,000, presumably to defeat personal investment accounts.

 

The new disclosure rules mark the first revisions since 1959 and took effect this year. "What wasn't clear before is how much of a part the teachers unions play in the wider liberal movement and the Democratic Party," says Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency, a California-based watchdog group. "They're like some philanthropic organization that passes out grant money to interest groups."

 

There's been a lot in the news recently about published opinion that parallels donor politics. Well, last year the NEA gave $45,000 to the Economic Policy Institute, which regularly issues reports that claim education is underfunded and teachers are underpaid. The partisans at People for the American Way got a $51,000 NEA contribution; PFAW happens to be vehemently anti-voucher.

 

The extent to which the NEA sends money to states for political agitation is also revealing. For example, Protect Our Public Schools, an anti-charter-school group backed by the NEA's Washington state affiliate, received $500,000 toward its efforts to block school choice for underprivileged children. (Never mind that charter schools are public schools.) And the Floridians for All Committee, which focuses on "the construction of a permanent progressive infrastructure that will help redirect Florida politics in a more progressive, Democratic direction," received a $249,000 donation from NEA headquarters.

 

When George Soros does this sort of thing, at least he's spending his own money. The NEA is spending the mandatory dues paid by members who are told their money will be used to gain better wages, benefits and working conditions. According to the latest filing, member dues accounted for $295 million of the NEA's $341 million in total receipts last year. But the union spent $25 million of that on "political activities and lobbying" and another $65.5 million on "contributions, gifts and grants" that seemed designed to further those hyper-liberal political goals.

The good news is that for the first time members can find out how their union chieftains did their political thinking for them, by going to www.union-reports.dol.gov, where the Labor Department has posted the details.

 

Union officials claim that they favored such transparency all along, but the truth is they fought the new rules hard in both Congress and the courts. Originally, the AFL-CIO said detailed disclosures were too expensive, citing compliance costs in excess of $1 billion. The final bill turned out to be $54,000, or half of what the unions spent on litigation fighting the new requirements. When Secretary Chao refused to back down, the unions took her to court, and lost.

 

It's well understood that the NEA is an arm of the Democratic National Committee. (Or is it the other way around?) But we wonder if the union's rank-and-file stand in unity behind this laundry list of left-to-liberal recipients of money that comes out of their pockets.

Edited January 7, 2006 by Baldcoach

[coachh17]

Baldcoach,

I'll grant you the fact that the NEA involves itself in some areas that I and the rank and file probably don't support. However, we do have the opportunity to change their policy through a democratic governance structure. I do know that the local and state affiliates are the only current avenue for teachers to improve public education, salaries and benefits, and working conditions. I noticed you failed to comment on the horrific actions of TSBA leadership in stealing millions from the taxpayers of Tennessee. I guess you think that was ok?

The NEA is funded by voluntary dues of its members. As usual, the Wall Street Journal and Bill O'Reilly put an untrue right wing spin on their information. Of the 65 million, 64.2 million was given directly to the state and local affiliates for education programs and member services. The remaining $800,000 was given to some of the organizations you cited. The Rainbow Coalition and Gay and Lesbian Alliance received $5,000 each. Personally, I don't agree with all the contributions, but at least they are made legally and are a matter of public record. Clearly our School Board Association doesn't concern itself with following the law. Unfortunately, for our students and teachers, that lawless attitude has filtered down to the local level in several of our counties.

As has been stated, this thread has moved beyond the public-private debate. So I'll attempt to move it back. Split, split, split!

[girlpower]

Separate them .....NOW!!!!!

 

Let the public schools play each other and the tuition schools play each other and the financial aid schools play each other.

 

Why talk about sending this to a private/public thread when you have them playing each other in regional play.....that would seem a little hypocritical.

 

It will be interesting with Ronnie Carter's son coaching at a private school....to see where this goes. The votes are there now to separate.

 

I totally agree. There should be a total split. The privates will always have advantages over public because they draw from all over and their parents provide $$$ for the teams.

[Bighurt]

I totally agree. There should be a total split. The privates will always have advantages over public because they draw from all over and their parents provide $$$ for the teams.

". . . and their parents provide $$$ for the teams."? I don't follow your logic there. Where do public schools get their funding?

[Old Timer]

". . . and their parents provide $$$ for the teams."? I don't follow your logic there. Where do public schools get their funding?

 

That would be from those private school parents AND from those public school parents. They have the best of both worlds....