Education thread

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rstrong
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Re: Education thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:28 pm
Summary: Privileged whites across the country are throwing a temper tantrum because one elementary school PTA dared to send info. on white privilege to parents.
The story may even be true this time.

Back around 1990 a story appeared in the Winnipeg papers and around the world about how an American school ordered students to write an essay "Why I'm Ashamed to be White."

I only found out years later that it came off Rush Limbaugh's propaganda assembly line. Far right publications would write stories like that as "satire." Limbaugh would then repeat them as true, and legitimate news services would pick them up.

News services eventually caught on who and what Limbaugh was. Fox News excepted, of course.

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Re: Education thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:28 pm
My county:
Armed guards will be added at every school in this NC county

Leaders in a western North Carolina county plan to hire and assign armed security guards, as opposed to armed volunteers, in every public school.

Henderson County leaders announced Thursday their plan to hire people with law enforcement or military backgrounds to serve as "highly trained" armed personnel at all 23 schools. Officials said they wanted to reassure the community about school safety following the Feb. 14 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that left 17 people dead.

“Henderson County has always been a sleepy little town," school board chairwoman Amy Lynn Holt said at a news conference. "We’ve not felt like we’re threatened here. Well, we have to start acting like we’re threatened.” ...
No mention of where exactly the money is coming from.


Rush Limbaugh, other conservatives attack NC school over white privilege handout

Summary: Privileged whites across the country are throwing a temper tantrum because one elementary school PTA dared to send info. on white privilege to parents.
Why would limbo attack the school for something a
volunteer organization did, he asks facetiously.
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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Vrede too
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Re: Education thread

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billy.pilgrim wrote:
Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:20 pm
Why would limbo attack the school for something a volunteer organization did, he asks facetiously.
Because he's a big fat racist perpetual victim crybaby, he replies sincerely.
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Re: Education thread

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Re: Education thread

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"I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them,” he said. “I guarantee you somewhere today a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them.”

Bevin said, that in some “communities,” his fellow Kentuckians knew children would be home alone and “took advantage of it.” He added: “As surely as we’re having this conversation, children were harmed, some physically, some sexually. Some were introduced to drugs for the first time because they were vulnerable and left alone. It’s offensive. It really is.”
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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Re: Education thread

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I don't know about y'all, but I was introduced to, got and sometimes took my drugs IN school.

On the bright side, some kids were NOT sexually assaulted or harassed by staff or other students, no students were harmed in fights IN or AT school, no latchkey kids died in auto or ped wrecks . . . and none had their egos crushed by failing a test in a subject that they would never use for the rest of their lives.
billy.pilgrim wrote:
Sun Apr 15, 2018 8:21 am
"I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them,” he said. “I guarantee you somewhere today a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them.”

Bevin said, that in some “communities,” his fellow Kentuckians knew children would be home alone and “took advantage of it.” He added: “As surely as we’re having this conversation, children were harmed, some physically, some sexually. Some were introduced to drugs for the first time because they were vulnerable and left alone. It’s offensive. It really is.”
Update: Bevin has issued a proclamation banning Christmas, all Monday holidays, teacher work days, Spring Break, Summer and snow.
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Re: Education thread

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Why Teacher Uprisings May Hit Blue States Too

Surprising results from a new survey of teachers reveal the depth of “financial strain” classroom professionals face. These include high levels of college debt, stagnation of already subpar pay, increasing housing and childcare costs, rising health insurance premiums and prescription costs, and escalating out-of-pocket expenses for their own classroom supplies.

More than half of the respondents resorted to second jobs to try to close the gap between what their teaching jobs paid versus their actual cost of living.

The revelation teachers are financially struggling wasn’t what was surprising about the survey. Recent news of teacher “red-state rebellions” in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona have brought great depths of attention to the economic plight of teachers who are walking off the job in Republican dominated states because of years of education funding cuts. No, what was surprising about this survey was the teachers weren’t in a red state at all; they were in true-blue Vermont.

The sad truth is financial austerity that has driven governments at all levels to skimp on education has had plenty of compliance, if not downright support, from centrist Democrats who’ve spent most of their political capital on pressing an agenda of “school reform” and “choice” rather than pressing for increased funding and support that schools and teachers need....

“Democrats for Education Reform, founded more than a decade ago, was at the center of a split within the Democratic Party over school reform that began to play out with the 2008 election of President Barack Obama,” explains Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post. The organization’s embrace of traditionally Republican education policies – including charter schools, vouchers, standardized testing, and enforced closure of neighborhood schools – instead of funding schools and supporting teachers, had the effect of wiping away “the traditional partisan divide over education policy,” she argues.

Now there are growing signs Democrats want to bring those traditional partisan distinctions back.

Where Next?

A recent analysis by Brookings spotlights North Carolina and Mississippi as the most likely states for the next teacher uprising. Other candidates include Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, New Mexico, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah....
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Re: Education thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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1312. ETTD.

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Re: Education thread

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"He (Trump) wants to give teachers guns, and I support that because then they can sell them for things they need like supplies."
-- Michelle Wolf, the White House Correspondents' Association dinner

:D :(
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Re: Education thread

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billy.pilgrim wrote:
Sun Apr 15, 2018 8:21 am
"I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them,” he said. “I guarantee you somewhere today a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them.”

Bevin said, that in some “communities,” his fellow Kentuckians knew children would be home alone and “took advantage of it.” He added: “As surely as we’re having this conversation, children were harmed, some physically, some sexually. Some were introduced to drugs for the first time because they were vulnerable and left alone. It’s offensive. It really is.”
There was one in Oklahoma . . .

Oklahoma teacher had sex with student before and after statewide school walkout

but:
... She allegedly admitted to having sex with the boy multiple times beginning March 30. The illegal encounters allegedly took place inside the teacher’s car and her father’s detached garage....
. . . the school walkout had nothing to do with it. In fact, she maintained some continuity of "education" for that boy.
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Re: Education thread

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Image

Image

NC is 3rd worst, FL is worse than average, SC is middle of the pack.
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O Really
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Re: Education thread

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Teaching has never been far from the bottom range in cash compensation - for a variety of reasons including valid ones and discriminatory ones.
On the other hand, before a couple of decades ago when Republicans started trying to gut the system, there were other valuable benefits including 9-month work-year, reliable job security, state insurance and pension, ease of getting a job anywhere, and a reasonable level of societal respect.

Discriminatory reason for lower than average pay was primarily that teaching, particularly in elementary/middle school was "womens' work" and most occupations held mostly by women have historically been similarly affected. However, non-discriminatory reasons include choice of education/major/schools for teachers; (i.e. a history major will almost always earn less than an engineering major) availability of labor (more teachers than there are jobs); local economic environment (ability of cities/counties to pay).

Problem now, though, is that most of the non-cash benefits are either gone or under direct attack by state legislatures. Job security-gone. Pensions-cut-or dropped. Class sizes-bigger. Staff help-cut. Job satisfaction-gone. So what's left but cash?

Ante up, asshole Republicans. You've created your own unnecessary mess.

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Re: Education thread

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Being someone that would rather teach than do many other corporate jobs, I would not necessarily argue for strict pay equity based solely on having a B.A. or M.A. However, I do think the state-to-state comparisons are useful, and in NC's case shameful.
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Re: Education thread

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Well, it's certainly shameful the way the Republicans have treated teachers and the school system overall in terms of pay, funding, and support. But still, the broadbrush numbers don't tell the whole story. As you know, in NC, teacher pay is comprised of the state schedule, plus local "supplement." So if you're a teacher, your pay for the same level education/experience is going to vary substantially depending on where you work. Those working in Raleigh/Cary, for example, get paid a lot more than those working in, say, Swain County or the vast wastelands between Raleigh and Wilmington.

Nevertheless, the state portion of pay and overall school funding should be considered criminal negligence, IMNVHO.

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/fbs/finance/salary/

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Re: Education thread

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I would hope and guess that EPI averaged total teacher compensation across the state, but don't know that for sure. The graphic was in an email rather than attached to a longer article that discussed methodology.
O Really wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 8:46 am
... Problem now, though, is that most of the non-cash benefits are either gone or under direct attack by state legislatures. Job security-gone. Pensions-cut-or dropped. Class sizes-bigger. Staff help-cut. Job satisfaction-gone. So what's left but cash?

Ante up, asshole Republicans. You've created your own unnecessary mess.
Teachers say 'frustration' over decade of cuts to education is fueling nationwide revolt

... Teachers across the nation say the chronic cuts to education spending over the past decade lies at the root of a growing revolt by educators who have reached the tipping point.

Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kentucky and Colorado have all seen teacher uprisings this year. All of the states, with the exception of Colorado, are dominated by Republicans in the governors' offices and legislatures. Three of the states -- West Virginia, Oklahoma and now Arizona -- have seen wildcat strikes by educators....

"It's happening in our reddest states. It's happening where for the last 10 to a dozen years there has been an ideology of cutting taxes on mostly big businesses and the expense, of course, comes at public services like a public school," Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, told ABC News today....
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Re: Education thread

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Which brings up an interesting question: why is it that Republicans don't (or maybe no longer) support and are willing to pay for quality education in public schools? It's an easy answer to say something like, "they send all their kids to private schools so they don't care about the public" and that might apply to some, or you could say "they want to divert funds to religious charters" and that would apply to some, or you could say "they hate teachers because they tend to be Dems" and that would apply to some, but really none of that seems likely to apply to a majority of Republicans either in office or as voters. Seems getting a good education would fit very well in the "conservative" tool box - get off welfare and all that? Self-sufficiency, bootstrap boosting, yada. Used to be politicians of both parties ran on "better education" platforms. But intentionally doing stuff to make the general population less educated is really stupid and ought to be criminal.

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Re: Education thread

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O Really wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 12:49 pm
Which brings up an interesting question: why is it that Republicans don't (or maybe no longer) support and are willing to pay for quality education in public schools? It's an easy answer to say something like, "they send all their kids to private schools so they don't care about the public" and that might apply to some, or you could say "they want to divert funds to religious charters" and that would apply to some, or you could say "they hate teachers because they tend to be Dems" and that would apply to some, but really none of that seems likely to apply to a majority of Republicans either in office or as voters. Seems getting a good education would fit very well in the "conservative" tool box - get off welfare and all that? Self-sufficiency, bootstrap boosting, yada. Used to be politicians of both parties ran on "better education" platforms. But intentionally doing stuff to make the general population less educated is really stupid and ought to be criminal.

a few years back the fox curvy BFFs went on a prolonged anti teacher theme rant.

Mostly teachers only work a few hours a day and get almost half the year off according to steve doocey. For comparison to other professions, they only use trades that don't require any college when explaining how teachers make way goobs too much money.

Sometimes I wonder how much better I would have done had I started working at 18, if I hadn't stopped to:
spend 6 years working my way to a 4 year degree and
spend part of my post-graduate income for 5 years paying back my student loan


during my 4th year teaching I took a class one night/week for 6 weeks hoping to bring in a little summer income to supplement my $8,888/per year teacher's salary.
I made more money that summer with this 6 week class requiring a high school diploma than I had for a full year as a teacher. I quit teaching.


oh, here in florida we use everybody's taxes to pay for the religious schools to educate future repugs.
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Re: Education thread

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O Really wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 12:49 pm
Which brings up an interesting question: why is it that Republicans don't (or maybe no longer) support and are willing to pay for quality education in public schools? It's an easy answer to say something like, "they send all their kids to private schools so they don't care about the public" and that might apply to some, or you could say "they want to divert funds to religious charters" and that would apply to some, or you could say "they hate teachers because they tend to be Dems" and that would apply to some, but really none of that seems likely to apply to a majority of Republicans either in office or as voters. Seems getting a good education would fit very well in the "conservative" tool box - get off welfare and all that? Self-sufficiency, bootstrap boosting, yada. Used to be politicians of both parties ran on "better education" platforms. But intentionally doing stuff to make the general population less educated is really stupid and ought to be criminal.
I'm sure there are books written on the topic, but I think at the heart of it is the philosophy epitomized by DeVos - a dogma that government is fundamentally bad and the private sector is fundamentally good.

There's also the more nebulous but not invalid reason - a highly educated, involved, idealistic populace challenges the establishment and demands broad-based change for the better, while a poorly educated populace believes Faux Noise and elects POSPOTUS.
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Re: Education thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 2:15 pm
O Really wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 12:49 pm
Which brings up an interesting question: why is it that Republicans don't (or maybe no longer) support and are willing to pay for quality education in public schools? It's an easy answer to say something like, "they send all their kids to private schools so they don't care about the public" and that might apply to some, or you could say "they want to divert funds to religious charters" and that would apply to some, or you could say "they hate teachers because they tend to be Dems" and that would apply to some, but really none of that seems likely to apply to a majority of Republicans either in office or as voters. Seems getting a good education would fit very well in the "conservative" tool box - get off welfare and all that? Self-sufficiency, bootstrap boosting, yada. Used to be politicians of both parties ran on "better education" platforms. But intentionally doing stuff to make the general population less educated is really stupid and ought to be criminal.
I'm sure there are books written on the topic, but I think at the heart of it is the philosophy epitomized by DeVos - a dogma that government is fundamentally bad and the private sector is fundamentally good.

There's also the more nebulous but not invalid reason - a highly educated, involved, idealistic populace challenges the establishment and demands broad-based change for the better, while a poorly educated populace believes Faux Noise and elects POSPOTUS.
#2 is why it gets done, #1 is what the idiots are spoon fed by the people who understand #2
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Re: Education thread

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But not all that long ago, Republican was the party of many upper class educated people. A lot of people who are now Trumpers used to be union members demanding better wages, working conditions, etc. Dems may have lost the southern blue-collars over civil rights, but the Republicans have hardly done anything to deserve to keep them. In any rate, why would blue-collar or middle class people support tax cuts for the wealthy as a primary goal? And why would Republicans think that even if they're poorly educated they are necessarily stupid? Ummm, nevermind.

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