Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 11671
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2004/1/6 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:11671 Activity:high
1/5     A Poll for the majority of you out there who do not support
        School vouchers:
             Do you think that the advent of FedEx and UPS made the USPS
        better or worse in the long run?
             And, while i know it is ridiculous to expect any sort of
        restraint or accuracy from a motd poll, i am JUST asking anti-
        voucher folks.  Feel free to comment/flame though. -phuqm

        Better: ...
        Worse:
        No effect:
        \_ There's a much better argument for vouchers based on an analogy.
           America has competition in it's university system, which is
           widely regarded as the best in the world, and no competition
           in it's k-12 system, which is close to the worse in the
           industrialized world. Also, we already have school choice for
           those whose parents care enough about education and have enough
           money to move to a town with a better school system.  The
           current form of school choice benefits only those lucky few whose
           parents fall into this category, and already has destroyed inner
           city schools in exactly the way voucher opponents claim "will"
           happen.  The irony is that the people who excersise school choice
           now, by moving to an expensive town to get a good education for
           their kids are the very middle class liberals who most vocally
           oppose school choice.  I also think it's worth pointing out that
           presently the k-12 education system in the US is so bad that
           the burden of proof is actually on those who *don't* want
           change, not the other way around.
            \_ but there are no vouchers for going to a private university
               so that argument makes no sense.
           \_ It's not just the Evil Middle-Class Liberals:
              http://csua.org/u/5fx
            \_ This is a very good short argument. tnx.  And I plan to steal
                it, and since you didn't sign you name, claim it as my own.
                :).  I have also said the same thing re: burden of proof
                many times, but the college analogy is not perfect since
                1.) it has always been there.  (i.e. no sudden change is
                involved) and 2.) even at the cheapest of public Us the
                student still pays some. -phuqm
            \_ I would say the same thing about the burden of proof re:
                health care.  Would you?
                \_ yes, actually.  perhaps you've mistaken me for a
                   conservative?  I happen to agree with the conservatives
                   on school choice, but that does not mean i support their
                   love of the insurance industry.  For the record, I'm
            \_ K-12 education is simply not that bad nationwide. What makes
               you think that it is? If you compare us to other industrialized
               nations, we do fine. Our worst schools are far worse, but that
               is true for everything in America, due to the income disparity.
                   also not a libertarian, and am ashamed to agree with
                   "phuqm" on any issue.
        \- I am not sure what you are suggesting by mentioning school
           vouchers. Are you going to suggest "since the existence of
           FedEx improved USPS, we should have subsidized FedEx"?
           maybe that would have "benefitted the taxpayers" but that would
           have benefitted the fedex stockholders much more. i think the
           better question has nothing to do with school vouchers. the usps
           is obligated to deliver mail to everybody for the same price.
           i assume there is no reason fedex cant charge more to send a
           package to a cabin in the montana woods [or just refuse to
           deliver there ... surely they arent obligated to have an office
           near by or poll the denizen of said cabin 6 times a week to see
           if he has anything to mail]. so if fedex gets to cherrypick
           routes and packages, do what extent does that adverse selection
           put the usps in a bigger and bigger hole. you should lay your
           cards on the table. --psb
            \_ Are you against vouchers?  If so, please vote.  I will
               happily "lay [my] cards on the table" soon, but i'd like to
               get some votes first. (you seem to be suggesting "worse")
               \- i think the vouchers will be underfunded and will be a
                  total boondoggle. the way they might cause some improvement
                  is by causing the teachers unions to keel over or maybe
                  the unions will panic enough to be more reasonable. but
                  it would seem to make more sense to just take on the unions
                  directly. i think if money is given to decent private
                  school and they are continually allowed to pick their
                  students you will have the quality of the schools improve
                  but the students getting shafted now will continue to be
                  shafted. it's hard to be "for or against vouchers" since
                  it isnt self-evident what you mean by them. --psb
            \_ Subsidising is beside the point.  The USPS pays
               for itself.  Taxpayers already do more than "subsidise"
               EDU, they pay for it outright.  My suggestion is that, imho
               the USPS has gotten markedly better since FedEx and UPS have
               arrived on the scene.  Since the only reasonable objection
               to vouchers is that it will make the existing public schools
               much worse, I would suggest that this is an indication that
               it might not.  Your point about CherryPicking is highly
               pertinent though, and I think that it is obvious that any
               legislation re: vouchers should attempt to address the
               problem of voucher schools rejecting hard cases.  ( Which
               has been a major problem in the "corporate" schools in SF
               and other places ).  Self-selection is an insolvable problem
               but I believe that advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
               \_ The point here is that private schools already exist, so
                  there is already a FedEx equivalent. I don't relate FedEx
                  to vouchers in any way. --dim
                  \_ But parents are forced to double pay.  I can choose not
                     to ever pay the USPS but even if I pay full rate to put
                     my kids in private school, I am also paying full rate
                     for them in the public schools which I'm not using.  If
                     vouchers meant that money was no longer a double payment
                     you bet your ass the public schools would improve... right
                     after breaking the spine of the very evil teacher's union.
                     \_ Union bad! Neocon Hulk smash!
                     \_ Ah, but "parents" aren't the only ones who pay for
                        public school. Childless taxpayers put into the system
                        too. Do they get their money back too? You are for
                        private school for extra performance, by your choice.
                        Why pay for an airplane ticket when your tax money
                        already pays for the interstate road system?
                        \_ If you don't pay into the system for education,
                           you end up paying down the road with crime and
                           prison costs.  Even if you libertarian gun nuts
                           take over, and all justice is meted out by
                           vigilantes, uneducated masses of criminals will
                           cost you time in gunning them down when you could
                           be doing something profitable.  Remember,
                           time is money.
                        \_ I think the university argument is a good one. There
                           are no vouchers for university students and those
                           who go to private colleges still end up paying to
                           support public colleges. If there are no vouchers
                           for universities and it works so well then maybe
                           vouchers aren't the answer. --dim
                           \_ BZZZT!  University isn't a requirement.  I'm not
                              required by law to send my children to a U. but
                              I am required by law to send them to k-12 (or
                              until 18 or whatever age).  If U. attendance was
                              required then the same voucher concept would
                              apply.
                           for universities and it works so well then maybe
                           vouchers aren't the answer. --dim
                              \_ You are required to *PAY* for a U, though,
                                 whether you send your kids or not. --dim
        \_ Delivery service is like utility companies. There isn't enough
           of them to compete for free market, and instead, each and every
           one has a monopoly in it's small niche. UPS delivers big packages,
           Fedex delivers next day reliably, and USPS delivers mail. All
           three domains end up not really competing with each other, and
           all three end up overcharging the consumers. Like utility companies
           I think delivery service should be highly regulated.
           \- i dont mean to insult you but this is too confused to be easily
              corrected. you may wish to read a book like "optimal regulation"
              by K. Train, although you will probably need to read some
              prerequisits ... not sure how far you will have to recurse.--psb
           \_ you know that by law fedex and ups are not allowed to deliver
                 \_ so there's no real freedom in this market, as I said.
              regular mail or touch your mailbox, right?  the market is not
              even remotely free.
              \_ Yeah and FedEx and UPS aren't required by Congress to deliver
                 mail to BFE at the same price as the house next door.
                 \_ so there's no real freedom in this market, as I said.
        \_ The teacher's unions are the largest unions in America.  They
           have a monopoly on public education monies and are not
           constrained by the Hatch Act like federal employees.  Guess
           who they donate almost to exclusively, and why the Dems
           are so anti voucher.
           \_ The teachers' union comprises under-paid and largely
              idealistic people who see kids for 8 hours a day (i.e.,
              more time than the kids' parents). They are well-educated
              and know they could earn more money elsewhere (the ones
              who couldn't earn more elsewhere can't teach and leave
              the profession). I have no problem with the teachers' union.
              I have a problem with the administrators who never taught
              and never intend to teach and who get paid ridiculous
              amounts of money only to squander the meager budgets of
              their districts.
                   \_ I know lots of teachers like that. And I know teachers
                      who have left the profession and made more money
                      elsewhere.
              amounts of money only to squander the meager budgets of
              their districts.
                \_ HOLY SHIT IN A CUP!  I don't think you've actually *met*
                   any teachers!  Under paid?  Idealistic?  8 hours?  Well
                   edjumikated?  Earn more elsewhere?  Leave the profession
                   because they can't teach?  *None* of these things are
                   generally true.  I think I've been trolled.
                \_ Well there is no incentive to get rid of the
                   whose incentive is to increase their budget and number
                   administrators.  The ratio in the 1950s was 5:1 teacher
                   to administrator, today it is 2:1.  The private schools
                   whos incentive is to increase their budget and number
                   cost is ~ 3000$ per student, the public > 7500$ per
                   student.  The public cost per student is something
                   like 30% higher than in the 1980s but test results
                   have declined.  The inner city schools are nothing
                   but affirmative action self-perpetuating bureaucracies
                   whose incentive is to increase their budget and number
                   of employees, not educate children.
                   How I Joined Teach for America -- and Got Sued for
                   \_ private schools get to pick and choose students.  The
                      ones that would cost too much to educate (the disabled,
                      the retarded, the violent, etc) get the boot while the
                      cheap ones get welcomed.  It is the 90% for 10% of
                      the cost type situation that exists everywhere.
                   $20 Million
                   http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5528
                   As for pay, if you prorate it over 12 months they are not
                   underpaid in a majority of communities.
                   \_ Are you referring to that article as a source for your
                      argument?
                        \_ No, but here's more:
                        The Union That Killed Education
                        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/846177/posts
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Well, when push came to shove, I didnt want to devote my life to helping the rich get richer or crunching numbers to see what views were most popular for the vice president to adopt. My doctor parents had drummed into me that education was the key to every door, the one thing they couldnt take away from my ancestors during pogroms and persecutions. I couldnt help feeling guilty dismay when I thought of the millions of kids whod never even tasted the great teachingnot to mention the supportive familyId enjoyed for my entire life. Weird as he might have thought it, I had decided to teach in an inner-city school. Five weeks later, I found myself steering my parents old Volvo off R Street and into a one-block cul-de-sac. There it was: Emery Elementary School, a 1950s-ugly building tucked behind a dead-end streetan apt metaphor, I thought, for the lives of many of the children in this almost all-black neighborhood a mile north of the United States Capitol in Washington. 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I tried to take away their recess, but depriving them of their one sanctioned time to blow off steam just increased their penchant to use my classroom as a playground. When I called parents, they were often mistrustful and tended to question or even disbelieve outright what I told them about their children. One parent who was also a teachers aide threatened to kick my white ass in front of my class and received no punishment from the principal, beyond being told to stay out of my classroom. The failure of the principal, parents, and teachers to react more decisively to racist disrespect emboldened students to behave worse. Such poisonous bigotry directed at a black teacher at a mostly white school would of course have created a federal case. Still, other colleagues, friendly and supportive, helped me with my discipline problems. They let me send unruly students to their classrooms for brief periods of time to cool off, allowing me to teach the rest of my class effectively. But when I turned to my school administration for similar help, I was much less fortunate. I had read that successful schools have chief executives who immerse themselves in the everyday operations of the institution, set clear expectations for the student body, recognize and support energetic and creative teachers, and foster constructive relationships with parents. Successful principals usually are mavericks, too, who skirt stupid bureaucracy to do what is best for the children. To start with, from all that I could see, she seemed mostly to stay in her office, instead of mi...
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They are not run by people you can hold accountable, such as teachers, superintendents and school boards. The NEA opposes merit pay, charter schools and any decision by any school administrator that has not been determined in advance by collective bargaining. In Connecticut, the teachers union filed a grievance demanding pay for an extra two minutes a week that the union claimed teachers worked. In Pennsylvania, a grievance was filed because coffee and doughnuts were not provided during a teacher training day. Jaime Escalante, a teacher whose extraordinary success in teaching calculus to inner-city Hispanics resulted in a Hollywood movie, was run out of his California school district by the teachers union. Escalante, it seems, violated union rules by complaining about teachers who used the teachers lounge as a real estate office and called in sick to extend their weekends. A high school principal who requested that teachers write daily objectives on the classroom board was denounced by the union as a draconian zealot. The vocabulary of the average American 14-year-old has dropped from 25,000 words to 10,000. San Francisco Examiner reporter Emily Gurnon asked teen-agers to identify the country from which America won its independence. Sara Boyd, a recipient of many awards and accolades during her teaching career, experienced difficulty passing a mathematics competency test. She sued the state of California, claiming the test was racially discriminatory. But at her deposition she was unable to answer the question What percent of 80 is 8? Schools of education have turned teachers into agents of the therapeutic state, a new form of government analyzed by Paul Gottfried in his recent book, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt. Indoctrination and social reconstruction have replaced the traditional emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic. Brimelow has a chapter describing how the NEA bribes the media for favorable stories by handing out media awards. The Dallas Morning News won three awards for promoting a trip by area teachers to the state capital to lobby for money for teachers raises. In 2000, when NEA delegates voted to strengthen their policy against merit pay for teachers, The Associated Press reported the opposite. Newspapers across the country then editorialized on the basis of the erroneous AP report. The problem, says Brimelow, is that the NEA is the backbone of the Democratic Party and public education is a government monopoly. Teachers themselves are dropping out, demoralized by lack of professionalism, chaos and crumbling educational standards. As readers recently pointed out to me, teachers are being imported from India and other Third World countries under the H-1B visa program to take the jobs that American teachers are abandoning. Brimelow uses the wrong tense when he writes that the teacher unions are destroying American education. Roberts latest book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, has been published by Prima Publishers. NEA 1 posted on 02/18/2003 12:14:52 PM PST by paltz Post Reply Private Reply View Replies To: paltz NEA Not Educating Anyone 2 posted on 02/18/2003 12:16:19 PM PST by Sgt Hulka 123 Post Reply Private Reply To 1 View Replies To: paltz If my tech job goes by the wayside Im thinking of becoming a teacher. Anybody know if one can be a teacher without being forced to join the NEA? Note that the teachers criticism isnt that the new textbooks arent effective: its that they force the teachers to actually teach. Whats more, in K-8 schools, the district has to choose from textbooks approved by the state Board of Education. If they dont, they have to apply for a waiver from the state board or find a way to pay for the books themselves. Districts have only two choices for language arts in kindergarten to sixth grade, and some teachers prefer the old textbooks. One curriculum, Open Court, is so methodical and scripted that some teachers say it leaves little room for creativity. They are put off by being told exactly what to say and how to teach. The new textbook choices reflect the states new instructional standards, guidelines for what students should learn at each grade level. Politicians ceaselessly pledge their support for education, but public-school performance continues to decline. Why has educational quality deteriorated in recent decades while funding has increased and the quality of other goods and services has improved dramatically? And what reform strategies have the best chance of giving school children the high-quality education they will need to thrive in a dynamic, information-based economy? Please join us as journalist PETER BRIMELOW and economist JOHN MERRIFIELD discuss the causes of and cures for Americas faltering public schools. SPEAKERS: - PETER BRIMELOW is columnist for CBS MarketWatch and former senior editor of FORBES magazine. Even families that send their children to private/parochial schools or homeschool still have to pay taxes to support the disintegrating public ones. Thats the crux of why the education system wont reform: they still get a paycheck even as enrollment drops. Maybe when we are confronted with the spectacle of a functionally illiterate educationist presiding over a classroom of empty desks and still getting her full salary and bennies, America will wake up. But by then the country will be too dumbed down to think of a solution. Help Defund the National Education Association Union 28 posted on 02/19/2003 7:01:31 AM PST by EdReform Post Reply Private Reply To 27 View Replies To: paltz; Education News Fortunately, the National Education Association Union and their state affiliates are beginning to experience financial problems: Education Intelligence Agency COMMUNIQUE - February 3, 2003 2 Lean Years Begin as Troubles Plague NEA. In January 1997, the Kamber Group informed NEA that the union was an institution at risk. Many NEA officials took the warning seriously, most notably new President Bob Chase. But whether through inertia or the abstract nature of the threat, NEA did not change as dramatically as Kamber suggested it should. On May 13, 2002, EIA asked Are the Fat Years Over for NEA and AFT? NEA membership growth in 2001-02 was half that of the previous year, even as the number of potential members grew. Today EIA feels confident in proclaiming that the lean years have arrived: NEA had its worst recruiting year in 20 years, showing growth nationally of only 14,000 members, many of whom are paying discounted dues. Nearly 40 percent of this growth came from one state - California - whose own growth rate was half the previous year and expected to decrease even further in 2003-04. Perennially strong affiliates, like New Jersey, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, lost members. Perennially weak affiliates are getting weaker despite extensive assistance from NEA HQ. The Texas State Teachers Association, already in desperate financial straits, declined to 39,000 members this year. Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina and Mississippi also registered significant losses. The Nevada State Education Association lost 1,000 members - mostly education support personnel to Teamsters Local 14. And NSEA stands to lose another 5,000 members if the Teamsters are successful in gaining and winning a representation election in Clark County this year. Membership loss by the Michigan Education Association is the least of its problems. The union faces a $107 million deficit this year, a deficit it blames on the rising costs of staff retirement plans and staff retiree health care plans - the same problems that hit the Ohio Education Association two years ago, resulting in a large dues increase there. MEA officials are threatening to lay off of as many as 48 staffers, in a state where the staff union has often had an acrimonious relationship with management. The Maine Education Association also suffered a deficit this year, noting that while its revenues have grown an average of 25 percent annually for the past 10 years, its spending has grown 35 percent annually. Union officials say they have only 80 more full-time equivalent members than they did in 1992. Missouri NEA, which locked out its s...