We Have So Much To Be Thankful To China For

[PoliTalker]

Hello cawacko,

Funny you never once mentioned what is best for the kids. Why is that? That's a rhetorical question because you addressed it, it's all about politics to you. Who fights reform in our education system? The teachers union. Why? Because they are looking out for their best interest which is what they exist to do except that their best interest isn't always in the kids best interest.

Steve Jobs, an Obama supporter, said it best when he met with Obama and that is our education system is hopelessly antiquated and crippled by teachers unions.

So don't sit here and complain that China educates their kids better than us while fighting for the status quo.

False call. Liberals are not fighting for the status quo in education. Clearly our education system has been cut to the bone and needs to be built back up again. We need small classed and better paid teachers who don't have to dip into their own meager paycheck to buy school supplies for the classroom because budgets don't.

When you talk about education reform, what you're talking about is corporations making money, becoming a middle man taking a cut out of education dollars by paying teachers less and cutting their benefits, which lead to a lower quality of teaching.

I want teachers focused on the student's progress, not standing up there wondering how they are going to pay rent and afford groceries.

 

[cawacko]

I knew it would not be long for someone to step forth & caste to first stone @ the ones doing the work............

I would love to invite you to teach a week or two in the school of my choosing someplace a few stone throws from where you & pelosi live...............

I don't for a min believe you are dumb nor naive, there are problems from the top to the bottom & expecting a jim crow rigged system to reverse course w/out structural change isn't going to happen~no matter how impoverished your kids teachers become........

It's not like I'm saying something new here. And I was repeating what Jobs' said to Obama when the two of them met. It's not anti-teacher. It's not about disliking the teacher in the classroom. In fact I'll copy and paste my response to LeaningRight in his 'Facebook' thread about my experience with teaching:

""Thought you may appreciate this. Years ago I volunteered with an organization called Junior Achievement and they sent people from the business community to volunteer at local schools. I did it for five years. I taught an economics class (really focusing on personal finance) for seniors once a week at a local low income high school. The teacher told me maybe a quarter of his class would go to college and of that group maybe a quarter would go to four year University's and the rest to local JC's. So I felt this could be valuable info for these kids.

I'd spent much of my life as a student so I must admit it was weird now being in front of the class. And I didn't know what the kids thought or if they were even really paying attention. But what moved me the most is after class when kids would come up and ask questions and want to talk. Clearly they had been listening and were interested in learning. Right there I understood the satisfaction teachers have knowing they've made a difference in someone's life. It was pretty cool.""


The issue is the system. And if people aren't willing to change it then the results aren't going to be different.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello Bill,

Not sure exactly what you mean by giving them the finger, or more importantly WHEN but there is zero doubt we have played the greater role in bringing this massive change about..

IMHO it now seems inevitable, the only question I wonder is if trump's efforts are delaying or exacerbating our decline, I am trending towards the latter..

Even if his actions have little relevance to the timing, in the larger scheme of things, one surely hopes they are not emulated~this is how a great world power acts, great world leader treats others.

Most Americans, including myself have never really given a lot of thought to how it will be-not being #1 & will we be treated like we have treated others?

To mix a couple quotes/metaphors:

As the lone superPower American corps~politicians ruled the world as they willed, the rest followed or suffered as they must..

And hopefully we will be remembered for our [benevolent intentions, and treated accordingly rather than our actions as we do others]

We have given the world the finger when our president says we only care about what's good for America first.

I have to laugh about the WHO thing. DT says we cutting off funding. Turns out we have not been paying. LOL! How can we cut off what we have not been paying?

What are we going to do, not pay them on two consecutive days?

BTDT.

 

[cawacko]

Hello cawacko,



False call. Liberals are not fighting for the status quo in education. Clearly our education system has been cut to the bone and needs to be built back up again. We need small classed and better paid teachers who don't have to dip into their own meager paycheck to buy school supplies for the classroom because budgets don't.

When you talk about education reform, what you're talking about is corporations making money, becoming a middle man taking a cut out of education dollars by paying teachers less and cutting their benefits, which lead to a lower quality of teaching.

I want teachers focused on the student's progress, not standing up there wondering how they are going to pay rent and afford groceries.

You are missing the forest for the trees and it's a perfect example of why the education status quo doesn't change.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello cawacko,

It's not like I'm saying something new here. And I was repeating what Jobs' said to Obama when the two of them met. It's not anti-teacher. It's not about disliking the teacher in the classroom. In fact I'll copy and paste my response to LeaningRight in his 'Facebook' thread about my experience with teaching:

""Thought you may appreciate this. Years ago I volunteered with an organization called Junior Achievement and they sent people from the business community to volunteer at local schools. I did it for five years. I taught an economics class (really focusing on personal finance) for seniors once a week at a local low income high school. The teacher told me maybe a quarter of his class would go to college and of that group maybe a quarter would go to four year University's and the rest to local JC's. So I felt this could be valuable info for these kids.

I'd spent much of my life as a student so I must admit it was weird now being in front of the class. And I didn't know what the kids thought or if they were even really paying attention. But what moved me the most is after class when kids would come up and ask questions and want to talk. Clearly they had been listening and were interested in learning. Right there I understood the satisfaction teachers have knowing they've made a difference in someone's life. It was pretty cool.""


The issue is the system. And if people aren't willing to change it then the results aren't going to be different.

First of all, thanks for your public service. But your view raises a concern.

So you experienced how a public school can be effective at teaching and reaching receptive minds, but still you want to kill public education. Makes no sense.

 

[Tacomaman]

Our unionized teachers were providing the most admired public education in the world for generations. Unions did not enter the problem later. They were instrumental in maintaining an elevated educational system. The Repubs saw a profit in privatizing education, so they started demonizing teachers and slamming a great educational system. Propaganda works. Note of course that the same thing his happening to civil workers and the post office. The fact is they all have unions. The wealthy are still in the business of eradicating unions and making a profit off everything in the country.

The people that criticize unions the most are often the same folks that greatly benefit from past union efforts and are either to brainwashed or too ignorant to recognize it.

 

[Tacomaman]

Hello cawacko,



False call. Liberals are not fighting for the status quo in education. Clearly our education system has been cut to the bone and needs to be built back up again. We need small classed and better paid teachers who don't have to dip into their own meager paycheck to buy school supplies for the classroom because budgets don't.

When you talk about education reform, what you're talking about is corporations making money, becoming a middle man taking a cut out of education dollars by paying teachers less and cutting their benefits, which lead to a lower quality of teaching.

I want teachers focused on the student's progress, not standing up there wondering how they are going to pay rent and afford groceries.

Once again "Cwacko" displays his blatant hipocrisy by claiming others are purely bipartisan, while he fully supports unqualified Conservative judge appointments.
It would be some much easier if he were to simply admit his partisan hipocrisy instead of his frequent and unintended self admissions.

 

[cawacko]

Hello cawacko,



First of all, thanks for your public service. But your view raises a concern.

So you experienced how a public school can be effective at teaching and reaching receptive minds, but still you want to kill public education. Makes no sense.

Like I said man, you need to take a very large step back and view this from 30K feet. It's not about killing public education. It's about making our education system the best in the world. The question is what does that entail? And we all know change is hard and big change is really hard. There is too much of an entrenched mindset as well as economic and political interests in the existing system to allow for necessary change.

 

[cawacko]

Once again "Cwacko" displays his blatant hipocrisy by claiming others are purely bipartisan, while he fully supports unqualified Conservative judge appointments.
It would be some much easier if he were to simply admit his partisan hipocrisy instead of his frequent and unintended self admissions.

What's up troll boy! Nice to have a new fan club member. Welcome sir.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello cawacko,

Like I said man, you need to take a very large step back and view this from 30K feet. It's not about killing public education. It's about making our education system the best in the world. The question is what does that entail? And we all know change is hard and big change is really hard. There is too much of an entrenched mindset as well as economic and political interests in the existing system to allow for necessary change.

Teachers are pretty much in agreement that they are underpaid as it is, and certainly will not agree with allowing them to fall further behind so somebody can get rich off of delivering education. And they also would like smaller class sizes, you know, like it used to be when our education systems was more effective, like, back when America 'was great?'

Good question there.

How did we have such comparatively good results when our education system had a far higher percentage of public schools?

The macroscopic view there would notice that over the decades that more for-profit education has been introduced, the less effective education as a whole has become.

Correlation?

China has a far more effective education system. I don't think they have the behavioral problems that ours does. Students are made to understand from the beginning they are there to learn, not cut up.

We have a lot of attitudes found in our students. They don't think there is any point in learning. They disrupt the class, take away valuable teacher time which could be used more effectively with more motivated students.

Maybe we should separate out students early on, as soon as they can be identified as problem students. Shunt them all into a dummies program for slow learners. That way, the motivated students can progress at a better pace and not be held back.

I don't think the for-profit schools are helping because they do exactly as I suggest, but in a selfish way. They will not accept 'problem students.' Those students are relegated to public schools, which holds back the others and the scores of public schools. Nobody needs to be making profits off of teaching. That is a public service. For-profits should be fazed out. It has got to be more efficient to have all the same expenses except no big profits for investors or capitalists. Money which would have gone to profiteers could be better used actually teaching.

 

[RB 60]

What's up troll boy! Nice to have a new fan club member. Welcome sir.

 

[cawacko]

Hello cawacko,



Teachers are pretty much in agreement that they are underpaid as it is, and certainly will not agree with allowing them to fall further behind so somebody can get rich off of delivering education. And they also would like smaller class sizes, you know, like it used to be when our education systems was more effective, like, back when America 'was great?'

Good question there.

How did we have such comparatively good results when our education system had a far higher percentage of public schools?

The macroscopic view there would notice that over the decades that more for-profit education has been introduced, the less effective education as a whole has become.

Correlation?

Let me ask you this. How much have actually read or researched on people who support education reform? (even if you disagree with it) I don't mean reading things from politicians running for office but people like Jobs and others who discuss how our system could be reformed. And it's not that you necessarily have to agree with them but it makes you more informed when you understand where they are coming from.

And if we want to go back to the old days many of the best and brightest women went into teaching because they couldn't work elsewhere. When the times changed they left teaching for the private sector and different careers. Back in the day we had far less immigrants in our schools whose first language wasn't English. And our schools were segregated so not apples to oranges. The world was a different place 70 years ago. But our education system is stuck as if we're in 1950.

 

[Bill]

It's not like I'm saying something new here. And I was repeating what Jobs' said to Obama when the two of them met. It's not anti-teacher. It's not about disliking the teacher in the classroom. In fact I'll copy and paste my response to LeaningRight in his 'Facebook' thread about my experience with teaching:

""Thought you may appreciate this. Years ago I volunteered with an organization called Junior Achievement and they sent people from the business community to volunteer at local schools. I did it for five years. I taught an economics class (really focusing on personal finance) for seniors once a week at a local low income high school. The teacher told me maybe a quarter of his class would go to college and of that group maybe a quarter would go to four year University's and the rest to local JC's. So I felt this could be valuable info for these kids.

I'd spent much of my life as a student so I must admit it was weird now being in front of the class. And I didn't know what the kids thought or if they were even really paying attention. But what moved me the most is after class when kids would come up and ask questions and want to talk. Clearly they had been listening and were interested in learning. Right there I understood the satisfaction teachers have knowing they've made a difference in someone's life. It was pretty cool.""


The issue is the system. And if people aren't willing to change it then the results aren't going to be different.

Thank you for your work in those school....

It is the system, from the top down & the entrenched interests are as strong as any in DC.......

IMHO it is fundamentally flawed & unequal by design.. It does not need to be tweaked it needs to be fundamentally changed starting w/ the jim crow districting straight out of hell..........

 

[serenity]

The people that criticize unions the most are often the same folks that greatly benefit from past union efforts and are either to brainwashed or too ignorant to recognize it.

I became aware of how corrupted unions became in 1982 and I resigned because of it. 1983 I crossed the picketline during a nationally called strike because I resigned in 1982 and legally could in the state I lived.

I paid the cost for 19 years after that being considered subhuman ever since. 15 years ago society decided to make a national example of my sister getting ready to blow the whistle on DCF and the government agencies set her up to become a martyr of her beliefs I didn't and still don't share. anyway, the methods they employed locally against my sister are the exact same playbook moves done against Trump since he won the nomination in 2016.

Again validating just how corrupt humanity has become regardless franchise of national identities playing the game intellectual living is larger than reproductive displacements timed apart so far.

I criticize every statistically averaged fact used to legalize self deception as a social greater good in any society using any language creating theaters of doubt life is naturally limited to reproductions eternally centered to timed apart now conception to decomposed. Never before to never again as life so far.

so, humans rights activists demand what individuals do as "we say or else". Well reprodeuctions supply the persons able to demand and be commanded to follow the law of the land or else in plain sight. What is self evident about life to you being one of a kind replacements occupying space so far?

 

[Bill]

Hello Bill,



We have given the world the finger when our president says we only care about what's good for America first.

I have to laugh about the WHO thing. DT says we cutting off funding. Turns out we have not been paying. LOL! How can we cut off what we have not been paying?

What are we going to do, not pay them on two consecutive days?

BTDT.

Wow, thnx. Had no idea we weren't contributing..

IMHO that is merely another bit on top a mountain of the other stupid things he has said..


There is no country that says I am putting country X before my citizens, it is a-goes w/out saying given ppl are going to look out for their needs first by necessity.. That isn't to say they won't sacrifice etc for others or even implied..

 

[Bill]

The people that criticize unions the most are often the same folks that greatly benefit from past union efforts and are either to brainwashed or too ignorant to recognize it.

Most excellent point..

I have seen it far to often..

I have a very good friend & mentor that was doing just that.. His dad was a union guy w/ the RR as well..

He was criticizing unions in general (& perhaps some is warranted) & more specifically teachers & state workers-the two state workers in the room bit their tongues but I, respectfully could not.. I had to point out not only his dad but that was a union worker & had now been retired more years than he worked for the Sheriffs dept in Sacramento..

 

[cawacko]

Thank you for your work in those school....View attachment 15224

It is the system, from the top down & the entrenched interests are as strong as any in DC.......

IMHO it is fundamentally flawed & unequal by design.. It does not need to be tweaked it needs to be fundamentally changed starting w/ the jim crow districting straight out of hell..........

Education isn't different than any other government industry where you entrenched power and interests and what's best for them isn't necessarily what's best for students. And the Steve Jobs-Obama discussion was so interesting because it involved two (powerful) people one in government and one who wasn't and you could totally tell that in their responses. And when Jobs said the education system was crippled by the teachers union he wasn't saying all unions are bad as people ITT are trying to claim. He's talking specifically about education reform and improving the system and what the roadblock was.

I'll throw out an example. If someone says the police union is the roadblock to reforming the police department would you take statement as 1) the person hates police officers and/or 2) the person hates all unions and doesn't believe they should exist? While I guess its possible, I wouldn't.

 

[Bill]

when Jobs said the education system was crippled by the teachers union he wasn't saying all unions are bad as people ITT are trying to claim. He's talking specifically about education reform and improving the system and what the roadblock was.

I'll throw out an example. If someone says the police union is the roadblock to reforming the police department would you take statement as 1) the person hates police officers and/or 2) the person hates all unions and doesn't believe they should exist? While I guess its possible, I wouldn't.

One Union is crippling, the other a roadblock~are you asking me to consider those both apples??

Crippling sounds pretty dramatic, yea think???

Anyway I don't care what Job's thought or Obama........

They were both experts perhaps in their fields, neither was an educator..............

They ask the experts, the Jobs & Gates~ maybe one day they'll ask the folks on the frontlines, in the classrooms & send the experts & superintends out to pasture & use that money for the students new labs, tablets etc...

 

[cawacko]

One Union is crippling, the other a roadblock~are you asking me to consider those both apples??

Crippling sounds pretty dramatic, yea think???

Anyway I don't care what Job's thought or Obama........

They were both experts perhaps in their fields, neither was an educator..............

They ask the experts, the Jobs & Gates~ maybe one day they'll ask the folks on the frontlines, in the classrooms & send the experts & superintends out to pasture & use that money for the students new labs, tablets etc...

Here's where I see things differently. It's not that the people on the ground aren't important, they are very important. But it's often visionaries that see change and that's what we need in education. An educator can explain how more money might be allocated yet still not reach the classroom, and that's important. But that isn't bringing about fundamental change which is what I'm talking about.

We can get into a whole discussion about how even with more funding it is poorly allocated and we spend too much on administrators and thus it doesn't reach the classroom etc. But how we educated our kids compared to other countries is about much more than that.

 

[Bill]

Here's where I see things differently. It's not that the people on the ground aren't important, they are very important. But it's often visionaries that see change and that's what we need in education. An educator can explain how more money might be allocated yet still not reach the classroom, and that's important. But that isn't bringing about fundamental change which is what I'm talking about.

We can get into a whole discussion about how even with more funding it is poorly allocated and we spend too much on administrators and thus it doesn't reach the classroom etc. But how we educated our kids compared to other countries is about much more than that.

Ok, what is your radical foreign solution or help?? You know what they are going to tell you & why that won't work here..

When my middle daughter was in fourth grade her class (she is still very tight w/ many of them to this day) had a teacher-Ms Love (& yes, she was as pretty as her name implied)... SHe had taught 12 years in Taipei.......... This is a upper middle income area school-always in the top ten in the county..

We parents had to take turns sitting in the classroom every day as the sweet lady had zero idea how to control these good kids..

She quite after that year & no one was surprised when she announced it in the park @ the end of school party..