Replies to post #614349 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[lee kramer]

Ym's -22. I'll be out most of today. Trade well.

[*~1Best~*]

ES -1, Good morning, we need to educate our young angels grow to be adult angels :-) -- not monsters and criminals who ever strive to serve self and to attack others to get high. We need to educate young kids to learn with good motivations -- valuing ethics and noble goals to better our world, not looking for getting-rich-quick scheme. I think that educating morality and ethics is very important in young age during schooling.

[tantal]

When's the last time you sat in on a school committee meeting? Spoke to a teacher or to a principal?

Let me tell you something, the single biggest problem with American schools is shitty parents. Many parents expect the school to teach their children manners. There are so many spoiled little shits around it is not even funny. These same parents ignore the school, get pissed when one program they are interested in changes or gets cut, and ignore every other program or initiative. They ignore the performance of the school. Ignore requests for feedback, make no effort to objectively evaluate their local schools performance.

Instead they just complain about bad teachers and bad administrators, kind of like you. They refuse to get involved. Are you involved?

How do you eliminate a bad superintendant? Any ideas? Well unless you can make a criminal case against him or the school there's only one way - get the school board to fire him. How does one do that? Well your local bylaws will tell you that.

I'm not affiliated with any school system. I am, however, involved in three areas with my local schools. I'm' not on the school board, I'm pissed about the performance of certain people, and I have meet a good number of good teachers in my 2 years in this town. I can tell you that the teachers mostly are concientious people, and I find it reprehensible that you generally lambaste teachers. By and large teachers are people - average people. Some are smart, some are not. Most love kids. Some are old. The good ones are frustrated by low pay, a few asshole kids and lots of asshole parents. If they stick with teaching they get tired of fighting the good fight and just do their job.

It's because people bitch and don't offer to help. And it's because most people suck as parents, don't teach their kids manners, don't teach them patience, and don't teach their boys to respect the girls. They don't pay attention to their kids, leaving their kids affection starved.

I see this every time I'm on a field coaching a kids team and every time I'm in the school donating my time.

I have a problem with our superintendant, but he has done good things for the schools. Really good things. Our Middle School principal is a saint, really trying to make a difference.

PLEASE DO NOT GENERALIZE. GET YOUR ASS INTO THE LOCAL SCHOOLS AND HELP THEM. STOP BITCHING!!!!!!!

[aussiekevin]

The reason for this is that the turnover rate for teachers is phenomenally high. Teaching is an extremely difficult and emotionally draining job (especially at schools in underserved districts.) Teachers need a strong incentive for sticking with it, especially when they can get a higher paying private sector job in which they really are done at 5, and really do get the weekend off. So some sort of incentive for longevity is absolutely necessary.


>1. Teacher's wages are negotiated based on education and longevity. Want a $8000 a year raise? Go to school for a couple of summers and get a master's degree. It doesn't even have to be related to what you are teaching. And after you've been there for 30 years getting longevity raises, your pay is 2-3x that of a fresh college grad for the same job. The idiots running the schools think the answer is to give the 30 year teacher a huge bonus and put him on full pension at 52 years of age to replace him with the cheap 22 year old.

[Newly2b]

Well, that post got some interesting replies!

The fact is, however, that all the proposed solutions to this country's problems merely address the symptoms, not the cause. We as a people have lost our moral/ethical rudder; we do not adhere to personal higher principles, we do what is expeditious; we have turned away from the higher ideals of a society that has grown so large we no longer understand it and feel dwarfed by it, alienated from the common cause that once united us.

How do you fix that?

Simple answer? Realistically speaking, you don't. Every great society/cultural has experienced this same journey. It is a natural progression based upon human nature, the rise and fall of civilizations over time.

Newly