Posted on 02/22/2011 12:50:49 PM PST by Military family member
INDIANAPOLIS — The absence of Democratic legislators from the Indiana House extended into the afternoon with several hundred union members at the Statehouse protesting Republican-backed labor bills.
Speakers at a midday rally today told the union members that Republicans had declared a “war on labor” with proposals restricting teacher collective bargaining and so-called right-to-work legislation.
(Excerpt) Read more at tribstar.com ...
I thought teachers were "professionals".
I think this is all going to backfire on the unions and the democrats.
“Union member” now has a pretty negative ring to most American’s ears. The stereotype is the image of an under-educated, overweight, overpaid, selfish, lazy slob who would rather see their plant close and go unemployed than make a reasonable wage/benefit concession.
Which is pretty much what they putting on display in our various state capitols right now.
This is the second shutdown of a state government by Democrats.
This is a War on the Democratic Process.
So paying good teachers more money, and eliminating bad teachers is wrong?
Am I missing something here?
it’s not a war on labor...it’s a war on UNIONS!!!
We are all watching and waiting to see whether mob rule again prevails over the will of the voters, their duly elected representatives, and taxpayers. We have mob rule by communists versus governance by elected officials via principles of democracy. Which will it be in Wisconsin?
Pretty much nailed an accurate description.
There’s a GM plant here in Indy that GM was going to shut down, or sell to another company. The other company would have wanted some wage concessions from the UAW as part of the purchase agreement. Guess how the UAW voted?
Yep, GM is going to shut the plant. Some of the employees will probably get to relocate, but the rest will be out of a job.
The shear stupidity of the unions is a thing to behold.
what war room is Obama in. Unions or Middle East.
Absolutely. The democrats are not allowing the peaceful transfer of power. They are a hair's breadth away from violence and are physically disrupting the workings of the government. That is the definition of anti-democratic behavior.
They are barbarians.
It’s only retaliation for Big Labor’s “War on America”
I believer Caterpillar did the same thing in Decatur, IL, and moved their production down South, to a Right-to-Work State. Unions price themselves out of a job, but keep funneling money to the DNC from the FORCED Union dues.....the BIG issue now is that the SEIU and AFSCME and the NEA/AFT are on the public dole, and the public is FED UP with being raped for these asses who don't want to lose their "Tenure" protections, while TOTALLY OPPOSING MERIT PAY SYSTEMS.....too many are incompetent and ONLY have a job because of Union Rules.
You have accurately described what a union member IS, but I fear that the ignorant-pig-dog American voter (Obama in White House, US Senate in Dem hands) has a soft spot for union filth in their hearts. I remember even G. Gordon Liddy once saying on his radio show, “Now they’ll go on strike and engage in collective bargaining and that’s all fine and good, because it’s part of American history...” (paraphrase). I nearly fainted.
I’m a Hoosier. The Democrats can get out and stay the Hell out. We’re taking names, Dems, and will see you next election.
Well, after 10 year old kids were stopped from working 12 hour days, 6 days a week, the unions pretty much jumped the shark
Jimmy Hoffa et al not withstanding.
Am I missing something here?"
Well, yes and no. Tenure is an archaic and failed beast that needs to be put down, but basing teachers' salaries on merit pay is akin to "epic fail" itself...
If you need details, I will be happy to provide them...;-)
Using the phrase "so-called" makes this "report" an opinion piece and not a straight report, but it is not labeled as opinion. Either the reporter or the editor is playing fast and loose with how things should be reported, but I guess the "media" can get away with this as the article is liberal-spin.
These people are not honoring the will of the people.
We cannot give them their way or we are done.
My gut feeling is absolutely not. They'd be 180 degrees different then they are now. Liberal bias in the "media"? How'd ya' guess?
Why is rewarding good teachers a bad thing?
Hmm, I wonder if the administration is reconsidering their planned shutdown of the federal government. 2011 isn't 1995 and Hussein isn't Der Slickmeister.
“and so-called right-to-work legislation....”
The new spin term. Ever heard any MSM report refer to pro-abortion as “so called” pro choice legislation.
“.... 2011 isn’t 1995 and Hussein isn’t Der Slickmeister.”
___________________________________________________________
Post of the day. You are right that Hussien is not Slick Willie. I will backfire on the dems. They have not seen anything yet.
Gov. Mitch Daniels signaled this afternoon that Republicans should to drop the right-to-work bill that has brought the Indiana House to a standstill for two days and imperiled other measures.
Daniels told reporters this afternoon that he expects House Democrats will return to work if the bill dies. It would be unfortunate if other bills are caught up in the turmoil, he said.
I have taken a wait-and-see approach to Mitch Daniels.
I'm starting to think I've seen enough.
I live near Indy and recall the story of the GM stamping plant, which took place last fall. GM had a buyer for the plant but the buyer wasn’t going to pony up unless the UAW contract was amended (downward). The UAW actually recommended that the rank-and-file ACCEPT the contract amendment and allow the buyout to take place.
HINT: Who REALLY is management at GM these days, hmmm??? Can anyone say “Conflict of Interest?”
Despite the union recommendation, the rank-and-file didn’t say “no,” they said “HELL NO!” Sale canceled, GM announced plant closure as soon as the current contract expires.
So it just goes to show that no matter how corrupt the unions are, they couldn’t survive without the collaborative greed and stupidity of their members.
I agree totally on your comments about GM Metal Fab Indy.
However most of the employees there are “GM Gypsies” who aren’t locals anyway. They’ve relo’d in from the dozens of other closed GM facilities over the years.
Having no loyalty to the area, they voted to pursue the top tier wage wherever it took them.
It was a bad outcome, because there was a viable buyer who wanted to run a competitive operation.
I was impressed with what I've seen. But if Daniels doesn't understand the need to defund the left and take back government, he won't have my support for a prez run.
I realize Daniels didn’t push this measure, nor did he campaign on it but I am not pleased. The GOP better not give up on this entirely.
Teachers cannot be held responsible to make sure students are at school every day. Teachers cannot be held responsible for students who refuse to do ANY work in the room, and who get outwardly HOSTILE when the concept is even WHISPERED in their presence. Teachers cannot be held accountable for parents' GROSS lack of interest in their children's educations. Teachers cannot be held responsible for administrators' lack of support in maintaining civil school environments. Teachers can LEAD the horse to water, but cannot FORCE the horse to drink as much of society BELIEVES they can!!!
Also, one of the stipulations by which a teacher's effectiveness is to be judged is the lack of ANY DISRUPTION in the classroom. That's right. If Johnny decides to disrupt and sing out in class, thus disrupting other students, this automatically labels the teacher as "ineffective" since the classroom environment is not maintained in such a manner as to be conducive to learning at all times. I challenge ANYONE in society to run six classes a day with absolutely ZERO disruptions!!! Guaranteed it cannot be done, hence the fact that this standard is RIDICULOUS AND UNATTAINABLE!!!
Putting this debate into such euphemistic terminology and catch phrases is quite convenient for those who are not privy to the goings-on of the education environment (from the TEACHERS' persepctives), but these terms and phrases are ultimately disingenuous...
Good post.
Oops! PERSPECTIVES...lol (Typing too fast)
By your account teachers can’t be held accountable for anything. I don’t believe that is true for one minute. I have had enough encounters with teachers, and administrators to see just how little the teachers and the school administrators are willing to do these days. Here is just one example of what I mean. Parents are becoming more and more frustrated with this type of behavior and we discuss it all the time, and feel like we are hitting our heads up against the wall because teachers’ can’t be required to do things because it isn’t in their contract.
Teachers used to call parents that same day if a child didn’t turn in a home work assignment without being asked to do so. Now teachers refuse to call parents even if they specifically request that they be notified immediately of any missing assignments.
Teachers contracts in our district require that parents be notified immediately if there is any substantial change in a child’s performance in their classrooms, so perhaps you can tell me how a student’s grade can drop from an A to an F the last day of a term due to missing assignments from the beginning of the term. You wouldn’t beleive all the excuses I was given when this happened to my child after they had been ill for almost two weeks toward the beginning of the term.
The teacher had supposedly given my child the all the missing assignments which I had picked up at the school while she was absent and she had turned in all of those assignments. The teacher, however, failed to give her all the assignments that she had missed out on, and then when she finally got around to entering the grades the day before report cards were sent, out my child’s grade dropped from an A to an F because of 5 missing assignments the teacher had never given to her to complete. It took me three months to get to the bottom of what happened and that teacher was not even reprimanded for not following their own rules, not keeping up with her grading, etc.
In discussing the matter with other parents who have children at the school every one of them had similar encounters with various teachers in the school district. I had to threaten to get a lawyer before they finally agreed to not dock my child’s grade for the assignments since she was never given in the first place by the teacher and we had done everything we should have to insure she had the work she needed to complete. This changed her grade back to an A.
While there are still some good teachers out there, many good teachers get chastized because they do things that are above and beyond what is required by their union contract. I know of several teachers, that actually were disciplined because they did call every time students didn’t turn in assignments.
When I went to school, teachers were held responsible for what went on in their classrooms, and how well the student’s learned the material they were taught. Private schools for the most part still operate this way. In my opinion, if teachers can’t produce results, then they have no business teaching and it should be up to the teacher to call a parent if the. If there is any problem with a child turning in work, distrupting the classroom, etc. the teacher should notify the parents that day! If teachers don’t communicate with the parents, then parent’s can’t do much of anything to correct the situation.
I am clearly not alone in my views, at least not at the schools here and we have better test scores here in Oregon than in many other states, although they clearly could be a lot better if the communication directly between teachers and parent’s was improved.
While I agree that many teachers ARE culpable for failures such as the ones you mention, it has been MY experience that, when I call parents, almost no one ever answers. If there is an answering machine and I leave a message for the parents to get back to me, SELDOM do I get a response. When I e-mail parents with student behavior issues or lack of effort issues, same thing.
While I sympathize with your situation, MANY teachers make the ATTEMPTS to contact parents, but the parents do not respond more often than not. What are teachers who make these attemtpts to do if parents do not take active interests in corresponding with the teachers?
Sorry for the typing mistake in the second to last paragraph of my post. I realized one of my sentences was a bit long when I proofed it and then didn’t make the change correctly. It should read:
In my opinion, if teachers can’t produce results, then they have no business teaching! If there is any problem with a child turning in work, distrupting the classroom, etc. the teacher should notify the parents that day!
I will give you the benefit of a doubt when you say that you call and parents don’t always answer the phone or call you back. I always call back, however, most of the time teachers get our answering machine too because they call when we are out.
I would suggest the following if you don’t get a call back: Request a conference with the parents, discuss the situation with school councellors, the school principal, etc. Perhaps the child gets home from school and checks the answering machine and erases your messages before the parents even hear it. There is usually a reason a call doesn’t get returned by a parent. Most parent’s care about their children and I believe they will respond if repeated attempts are made to contact them.
There may be some children that can’t be helped or that have parents that just don’t care, but I think there are more that would welcome the communication.
Which was an improvement from working 16-20 hour days 7 days a week on a farm.
As a general rule i would not conflate a love of government with our own base nor those who would be inclined to side with our base.
Simply put Government shut down is of limited concern. The insulting issue here is our government is forced to “negotiate” with labor unions on how much of OUR money they must spend.
Teachers like to pretend they are above such things as techniques that businesses have used to improve every other industry. Well, they work in education as well. Here are some ideas.
The teacher volunteers to stay after school every night to tutor students for free deserves merit pay. The teacher who makes a home call to check on a student gets merit pay. The teacher who earns a masters or a doctorate in his or her field (not an education degree) deserves merit pay. The teacher who writes a textbook, or a scholarly article, or who makes a professional presentation at a conference deserves merit pay.
These are just some possibilities. I'm sure you'll find the teacher that does any of these actions probably also has pretty good students in the classroom, and I'll bet those students excel.
Take four students--One gets straight A's is on honor roll every semester, great kid; Two gets straight C's, struggles a bit, but is hanging in there; Three gets D's and F's but hasn't really given up yet; Four is a Straight F student, a juvenile delinquent, and a bully. At the end of the semester, will each student receive the same grade? No, of course not.
If those four students were teachers, then not only would they get the same reward, the unions would file lawsuits in heartbeat to defend No. 4's right to really suck as a teacher. Certainly none will receive a dismissal letter.
There is the problem. Putting in place a system that rewards those outstanding educators and punished those who basically occupy space inside the building.
How much better would our schools be if we could rid the schools of those No. 4, the ones who not only fail, but refuse to try, and hinder those who are trying. Let's leave behind a few here and there, instead of trying to bring the entire system down to the lowest level.
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