Schools out in Chicago

[1480]

16% for 4 years. A modest increase in their medical contribution and I believe they are being asked to kick in an extra .05% for their pension. The beef as the teachers union is calling for is evaluations and hiring, firing. They do not want to be evaluated.... boo f#ckin hoo. City ordinance states all municipal employees to be evaluated by their immediate supervisors....not the teachers. I have spent up to 15 working hours in a month doing that. Do I want to do it, along with my daily work responsibilities, admin investigations, immediate corrective punishments, responding to citizens who have no idea what the Constitution says.....court, I could go on. I am not complaining, but do you know how many family holidays I missed? School functions? Kids being asleep when I got home from work....missing a part of their childhood.... and the teachers are being disrespected.... my ass.

[August]

This is all the result of federal government meddling in education. You can't apply one standard to every region and every type of education.

At my school we have academics from the DoE mandating that we assign our students hours of homework because that is the standard for what they think an adult ed course should include. They totally ignore the fact that most of our students have jobs and families to deal with after class is dismissed.

Some of my students hold full time jobs as well as go to class all day. Some are single parents. Some juggle all three and God bless them for their effort. Giving them homework just to satisfy some ones idea of propriety is stupid and wrong.

These are the same academics that don't see the need for hands on training. We're constantly being told that our teaching time would be better spent in the classroom than in the shop and we're forced to detail hours we spend in each for every unit.

Anyone who has ever worked in the trades knows that is a recipe for failure. Our students tend to hate boring classroom lectures. They learn by doing and our school has always been successful because we provide that environment for them. I just hate the idea that educational quality must be sacrificed because unique things are difficult to manage from afar.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by 1480

City ordinance states all municipal employees to be evaluated by their immediate supervisors....not the teachers.

I am not familiar with the requirements of the Illinois Department of Education, so I will ask you: Are you saying that teachers within the Chicago Public Schools are not being evaluated? I would find that hard to believe. In Pa, I was formally evaluated by a building administrator about once every two weeks. The evaluations were followed by a meeting where long term development goals and classroom techniques were reviewed, upon which I would sign the evaluation form that would be added to my permanent record. In addition, I would be evaluated once per marking period by my department supervisor, who would then follow suit as with the building administrator. This was standard for every level I taught at. And yes, that was a lot of paperwork.

So, is it test-based evaluation, or any evaluation at all? I would find objection to having any type of evaluation to be completely unreasonable.

[1480]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

I am not familiar with the requirements of the Illinois Department of Education, so I will ask you: Are you saying that teachers within the Chicago Public Schools are not being evaluated? I would find that hard to believe. In Pa, I was formally evaluated by a building administrator about once every two weeks. The evaluations were followed by a meeting where long term development goals and classroom techniques were reviewed, upon which I would sign the evaluation form that would be added to my permanent record. In addition, I would be evaluated once per marking period by my department supervisor, who would then follow suit as with the building administrator. This was standard for every level I taught at. And yes, that was a lot of paperwork.

So, is it test-based evaluation, or any evaluation at all? I would find objection to having any type of evaluation to be completely unreasonable.

They are rejecting being evaluated. Its a formula that involves test scores, quality of work, direct observations and a couple of other variables. Karen Lewis is the devil. As I said on page one, its not the teachers.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by 1480

They are rejecting being evaluated. Its a formula that involves test scores, quality of work, direct observations and a couple of other variables. Karen Lewis is the devil. As I said on page one, its not the teachers.

Okay, I see. Then that is unreasonable to expect not to have evaulation. Done correctly, evaluation is the tool that keeps the teacher honest and keeps the classroom student-focused. If am not familiar with Karen Lewis, but I would defriend her if I had a Facebook page.

EDIT: Here's some Karen Lewis stuff:

http://nation.time.com/2012/09/11/me...achers-strike/

And here's a quote from her in the article. Hopefully the quotation marks don't go all wonky.

"Let me tell you, I spent those [college] years, smoking lots of weed, self-medicating."
"I***8217;m sorry, there are kids here," she added as some audience members chuckled, "I wasn***8217;t supposed to say that, right? Too late."

Not the sort of person I want speaking for me.

[nikimcbee]

Education needs real reform. The teacher's union isn't going to allow that to happen, because it cuts into their money and power pool.

I don't know how to reform it. Here are the issues that I can think of (atm).

1. Teachers need to be held accountable for their output. If they are bad teachers (for whatever reason), they need to be fired so a good teacher takes their spot.

- Get rid of tenure, make it merit based, I say.

So the million dollar question is, how do you evaluate the teacher?

2. Not, sure how this will happen, but the money needs to go straight to the school, so they can manage their needs directly and not to the state to be redestributed back as needed.

3. Too many mid level beauracrats that siphon off the money to their pet projects or programs.


One thing I have learned from being in the system is that more money does not fix the problem. That is why I reject any calls for more money.

Case in point, Utah spends the least on education in the nation (they are near the bottom anyway), but they have some of the highest ACT schools (on average) in the nation. Go figure. So compare it to the Minneapolis School district. They spend on average ~$10,000 dollars per student and have a horrible graduation rate.

Now, a big part of that is parental involvement, but these urban schools are a train wreck and they spend A LOT per student. Who controls the urban schools?

I'd rather spend the money on everystudent that cares, buy them a laptop and their internet connection and let them choose their own school. Atleast they could choose a better school to participate in. It doesn't work for everyone, but it's thinking outside of the box. If a child is able to escape a horrible school and go to a better one, then I'm all for that.

I wonder if online school is the future and brick and mortar schools are going to go the way off the dodo.

[1480]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Okay, I see. Then that is unreasonable to expect not to have evaulation. Done correctly, evaluation is the tool that keeps the teacher honest and keeps the classroom student-focused. If am not familiar with Karen Lewis, but I would defriend her if I had a Facebook page.

I have had words with you and ccip before and that was just difference of opinions. If everyone agreed we would all be fubared.

I want my daughters teachers to be the best and to care about what they do. I have a vested interest, somewhat selfish. So I want those teachers to be happy. Karen Lewis has started to bring up the 1%ers. WTF. Those 1%ers do not have their children in public school so the argument is there to incite the class divide. Now BREAKING NEWS....would you believe SEIU is going to recognize the picket line on Friday and it will be "up to the individual member" whether they want to cross the picket line. I bring this up for a reason. 144 schools have been opened from 0700-1230hrs to provide a "safe haven" (their words not mine) most in certain "urban areas that are economically challenged and have more than average violent crime rates" GHETTO that is where the building engineers WHO agreed to a contract. Please I beg of you all to google Leo Gerard. Karen Lewis is evil but Leo is the Devil.

[1480]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Okay, I see. Then that is unreasonable to expect not to have evaulation. Done correctly, evaluation is the tool that keeps the teacher honest and keeps the classroom student-focused. If am not familiar with Karen Lewis, but I would defriend her if I had a Facebook page.

EDIT: Here's some Karen Lewis stuff:

http://nation.time.com/2012/09/11/me...achers-strike/

And here's a quote from her in the article. Hopefully the quotation marks don't go all wonky.



Not the sort of person I want speaking for me.

Yes I am a conservative, but occasionally I know what I speak of . Thanks Tak for verifying and then going a step further to show I am speaking the truth.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by 1480

They are rejecting being evaluated. Its a formula that involves test scores, quality of work, direct observations and a couple of other variables. Karen Lewis is the devil. As I said on page one, its not the teachers.

I think you are spot on. The teachers (most of them) aren't the problem, it's their leadership.

The thing that upsets me the most is this: Every year the local school districts have a tax levy for "more money" and it passes most of the time. Two years later, here they come again, wanting more money. Where did all of the previous money go? Go to the district office and you'll see where it goes, to the fatcat admins. They have their admin "training sessions" in Hawaii or Vegas and then have the nerve to cry "Yo quero mas denero." The big school district here had a BIG tax levy back around 2000. They cried how they would strike and everything would close, blah, blah, blah. [you know the song and dance] So the voters passed it and guess what happened? It was revealed that they had a huge slush fund they were sitting on and didn't want to spend it. (they had money, they just wanted more)

[1480]

Even better, do you know that cps budget next year has a billion dollar deficit. 3/4's of that is pensions......


OH I FORGOT THE BEST PART!!!!!!

The teachers worked the first week of school..... because their insurance would be valid for the month of Sept.



Karen Lewis, devil with any dress on....

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by 1480

Even better, do you know that cps budget next year has a billion dollar deficit. 3/4's of that is pensions......
...

We have a winner!!! You sir, get a cigar! IL is in the same boat that OR is, most of the money gets sucked up by PERS. The old PERS package (they did reform this), you could retire at a young age and you would be earning MORE that when you worked. That's just flat out BS. A lot of the old guard were double dipping too (retire, but stay on as a paid consultant) example: a teacher retires after their time (say 15 years) so they start collecting a FULL pension, then the principal hires them on (full time) as a consultant.

So what happens when everybody is doing this? See California. They just don't have the tax revenue to support this anymore.



**AFAIK, PERS gets the first run and the tax trough before anybody else does, so there's no money for schools, po-lice, roads.

Side note part II, OR used to fund it's schools with timber revenue. What has happen to the timber industry in Ore-gone? The greenies have all but wiped it out. 3 cheers for the greenies! So now Ore-gone is the largest consumer of timber welfare money in the US. So, money that could go another state, gets sucked up by ore-gone.

[1480]

At least they have the trail.

[AVGWarhawk]

I can't make this up:

The Chicago teachers' strike has become a family feud for the Democratic party that is politically dangerous for President Obama's re-election campaign, Democratic strategists say.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/Ken...olitical-spot-

[1480]

The most ironic part of this: they are wearing red tee-shirts

[1480]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I can't make this up:



http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/Ken...olitical-spot-

Well Paul Ryan came out in support for Rahm, got the famiies, bipartisanship and education reform. The best part, the fact checkers cannot go there, they will stick it in the Dems and the empty chair's rectal ducts....lmfao.