I believe that the difference in success and failure is not just how hard you work, but when do you work that hard.

Successful people work hard in the most important times, whereas failures work hard at times when it is not important. My buddy has an older brother who slacked off, got drunk every day, partied every night, went to class high, dropped out of high school. Now he is working his ass off trying to support himself by working two minimum wage jobs.

This other guy I know, he worked hard in school, got into a top university on a scholarship, got into the top program there, and now in his late twenties, he is in a great job at a big bank, makes 100 thousand a year, and he can slack off.

The timing of your hard work is extremely important, timing is probably more important than how hard you work.

May I ask what do you teach? I remember you teach something music related.

I did get my grade 10 in piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music. I feel bad for my harmony teachers, painful course to learn, probably a painful course to teach to.

My point is there are teachers that survive by tenure. My daughter's entire Algebra 1 class failed miserably on the MSA. Who do we hold accountable? Mom and dad? All the kids? The autistic kid in the back?

In some instances yes. But it requires hard work at one point none-the-less.

I'm beginning to believe the ant and grasshopper story is overrated.

no really, I work 35 hours a week + school full time...and make butt. I'm not lazy, I work on my feet all day. I would say, as a whole the unnamed company i work for (sometimes I think it's more like a Victorian mill), the employees I mean, are working harder than ever....because we just had the Best. First Half. Ever.Period. Yet, as workers we have seen little to no benefits to our situation. We haven't seen anything to help us; hell they won't even buy a stall door for our bathroom! There's cardboard taped over the door! and if anything, they just changed it so the top you will EVER make after raises is just over $10.00/hr (and they wonder why they have a high turnover rate).

I feel like a lot of other Americans feel the same way, These places pay them very little for their effort, rake in the cash and tell their workers they need work harder for less because they company needs them to. and frankly, that frustrates them quite a bit when they need to make a decision over what to eat or paying rent.

Understand completely gimp. I worked 2 jobs while in school. Student from 0800-1200. Auto mechanic from 1300-1800. Security/watchman 2300-0400. I did this for years. I made butt. But it did keep me in beer, grub and place to share with other like students in the same situation. It paid off in the end. I had a good time doing it. I would do it again. My day to day responsibilities were nowhere remotely close to what I have today.

Does it have to be one person?

Yes. Our local school system created what are called MSA tests. Maryland State Assessment. The entire school is assessed on this test. They also created tests for individual studies. These test assess a single teacher.

It was noted that kids were slipping through and not getting the proper instruction. Teachers were not held accountable. They are held accountable now.

The only problem I have found is they now teach to test and not teach.

Time has a person of the year what they should also have each is year is
person to blame for the year(PTBY) and that person gets the blame for all problems of that year.Your girlfriend dumps you thanks PTBY kid falls and scraps his knee damn you PTBY. Your party did not win the election screw you PTBY. Your car broke down curse you PTBY. Your football team lost PTBY rigged the game.Mid life crisis why PTBY?

Many conservatives believe in pure capitalism, the employer makes all the rules, gets rich and to heck with employees. American workers fought back against this during the industrial age, unions, etc., and won. The bigger problem now is corporations no longer compete for American workers, they can easily move it all overseas.. The small town I live in is one of the most depressed in our state. It was a large mill town, that paid well with great benefits, now large empty mills abound. Another business closed yesterday, losing 290 jobs....moving overseas. Here, about 50% of kids get free lunch and one in four go hungry. All the nice once small mill towns are slums, filled with illegals and people on welfare.

Many see min wage as a wage for teens living at home or in school, when in fact more adults are making it than kids living at home. Some say if you don't like your job, go find another...good luck with that.

The GOP should be honest, they simply don't care if a large majority of Americans suffer and die without a living wage, medical insurance, etc..
Many would even cut the min. wage rate and have said so.

We had the strongest economy is the world by building a strong middle class, now we're in class warfare because of the GOP is creating an elite corporate class, why our middle class vanishes before our eyes.

The cost of everything is increasing so much that a person can hardly live off $20 an hour, much less min wage. When hard working people can't pay rent, buy food, have insurance, then we pay for it anyway through government programs. The GOP doesn't want to do anything to improve workers rights and would rather people be homeless, starve or die of illness than the government pay for it. The only result will be people taking to the streets, voting in unions, etc.

The GOP is responsible for all of this? Do tell how you arrived at this assessment?

Time Magazine's Person Of The Year award does not go to the nicest or the best person. It goes to the person who had the biggest influence on the news that year, for good or bad. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was Time's Person Of The Year. So was Adolph Hitler.

I'm not saying that bad teachers don't exist, but that's utterly short sighted for the reason you yourself state later:

Not only is assessing teachers by grades short sighted for such reason, it also encourages teachers to be more lax on their grading, which is dishonest for the students.


So fixing the symptom instead of the illness? Who didn't hold the teachers accountable? And by what basis was such decision made? I'd start from there.

Again, bad teachers exist. And at least in here they are noticed by their colleagues far sooner than their students or parents.



I like this idea. :up:

Getting noticed and getting removed are two different things. Tenure allows teachers to stay in the classroom no matter how poorly they teach and students performed when tested. This issue needed to be addressed. Standardized testing was the one best answer.

Does this count as doing a Godwin on the topic?

If your gripe is about teacher tenure, then I agree with you. If you are stating that standardized testing is the best method to evaluate teacher performance, I would disagree.