Since I'm now on ignore he probably won't see this but I'm still puzzled over why.....WHY ON EARTH it matters in any way what the average SAT score of educators is? An O-4, ie Major, in the military gets around $80,000 a year. Would we see a quick condemnation of that if suddenly stats were produced that showed they tended to have low SAT scores?
Look, an honest, inquiring response. Why are comments like yours so very rare here?
Why is it that most remarks are as snarky, as ignorant, as biased as they can be? Can you answer me that please?
And why are decent people, like you, afraid to challenge the snarky, asinine comments of chimpanzees?
I've actually seen precious few insults thrown at you. But maybe you make the mistake of thinking that people who are not in lock step with your ideas are insulting you.
I repeat, a very good friend, and distinguished teacher, told me the MOST IMPORTANT thing that should be done to improve public education is to eliminate tenure.
Which is probably a very bad idea and the fact that your friend is a distinguished teacher does not change that.
This will strike a note of fear down the backs of all incompetent teachers. The rest should not worry.
There you are wrong. Very, very wrong. You see educational funding is normally divorced from mandates for hiring and firing of teachers. People will vote for tax decreases to fund education while simultaneously demanding that schools keep educating larger and larger groups of kids. So what do they do? Well I've seen what they do and one of the first things they do is try to find reasons to fire any teachers that they deem to be too expensive.
Note that this is completely detached from any evaluation of their skills as a teacher. They did nothing wrong except be too old and therefore have a larger salary than fresh from college newbies. They then go to great lengths to get rid of those teachers even if parents and students protest due to their classroom effectiveness. I remember one incident where, in order to remove one high salaried teacher, they actually planted a tape recorder in a classroom to make sure he wasn't using any salty language. That's the kind of depths school districts will sink to in order to try and get newer cheaper teachers into the mix. What stops this kind of behavior? UNIONS! They stand up for these teachers.
But...no, keep living in your dream world where good teachers are always going to be protected by some sort of principled agenda in the absence of unions to protect them.
Milton Friedman worked tirelessly to promote school choice - something teachers' unions are completely opposed to, and for the most selfish, most obvious of reasons. Unions don't care about the kids, only about getting more dues. Albert Shanker said as much decades ago.
Actually they oppose school choice because they know, as all rational people do, that it would solve no problems and create numerous others. Letting parents skip their kids from one school to another
willy-nilly is a recipe for disaster. Currently the private school system works only because a small percentage of people are interested in it and they can be selective in who they enroll. When
everyone can choose to dump their kids into those schools how would that improve the situation in any way?
Get rid of unions, get rid of incompetent teachers, and stop conducting classrooms in such an extremist, left-wing fashion.
Promoting homosexuality and multicultural nonsense have displaced too much reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I challenge you to find one public school that has an actual "homosexual promotion" agenda.
Parents should be teaching their kids the values they wish.
They're going to do that anyways. Of course if the parents are teaching their kids to violently attack anyone that isn't a heterosexual Caucasian that could cause problems in the school environment. But I guess the school can't intervene there because that would be usurping the role of parent as sole arbiter of "values educator."
"Most cherished principals"? What would those be?
Freedom of expression and religion would be at the top of the list.
Freedom - anathema to Leftists, who favor socialism
Huh, please explain this.
"One nation, under God" - also anathema to Leftists, who spin and lie relentlessly
And it should be anathema to anyone who wants to preserve that cherished principal of "freedom of religion."
Every single state in the United States has a preamble which acknowledges God.
Every single state preamble could mention flying pink unicorns that fart out solid gold watches and it wouldn't mean anything.
Every penny, every dime, every nickel, every quarter, every dollar and five and ten and twenty you have ever spent reads "IN GOD WE TRUST".
A travesty thrust upon the Republic in the wake of the Civil War. Are you seriously going to defend such an inherently terrible action?
I find the dishonesty of the Left absolutely incredible.
Which was?
Moreover, the reason I support vouchers is the same reason Professor Friedman supported them. It's called "school choice"!
And you have failed to substantiate why that would improve things in any way. Remember you have to educate every single child not just the kids of doctors and engineers. You have to educate the thousands of kids in any city whose parents are nothing more than crack addicted miscreants. You have to educate kids who don't even want to be in school. You have to educate kids with special needs and learning disabilities.
How is school choice going to remedy things while keeping education freely available to all?
Bill and Hillary Clinton exercised it.
The Gores did likewise.
So do the Obamas.
So do a large percentage of public school teachers.
I know of no public school teachers that send their kids to private schools. And I know quite a few teachers.
You still haven't explained how vouchers are less socialist.
Or how they would even "fix" things.
