Free Republic

Which of the following factors should most protect teachers from layoffs? Seniority, Competency, Undecided.

Union blocks teacher bonuses By Edward Mason  |   Wednesday, November 18, 2009  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage Photo by Matthew West Grinchlike union bosses are blocking at least 200 of Boston’s best teachers from pocketing bonuses for their classroom heroics in a puzzling move that gets a failing grade from education experts.The Boston Teachers Union staunchly opposes a performance bonus plan for top teachers - launched at the John D. O’Bryant School in 2008 and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Exxon Mobil foundations - insisting the dough be divvied up among all of a school’s teachers, good and bad.“It’s insanity,” said Jim...

My friend is a certified elementary teacher. Teachers are getting paid $125-150/session (which is an hour) to teach classes at the library on weekends like arts&crafts. They move around to different libraries. In return, you know the teachers help the library out when the vote to cut their budget comes... This job could be filled by a library worker, a college student as an intern, or by offering a lot less $25-50/hr. Additionally the library renting dvds helped take care of blockbuster. At what point do we cut the budget of the sacred library?

Note: The following text is a quote: Philippines: Jihad against school principals This just in from our "This Is Why You're Poor" Department. Allah promised paradise to those who "slay and are slain" in the cause of jihad (Qur'an 9:111), but shooting your own society in the foot is also quite popular as a consequence. "Islamic rebels behead Philippine teacher: police," from Agence France-Presse, November 8: ZAMBOANGA, Philippines -- The severed head of a school principal who was abducted by Islamic militants in the troubled southern Philippines was dumped in a petrol station on Monday, authorities said. The head of...

a couple disturbing videos of young school children singing/speaking praises to President Obama, but when eleven more .

Schools Are Where Stimulus Saved Jobs, New Data Show By MICHAEL COOPER October 30, 2009 The best symbol of the $787 billion federal stimulus program turns out not to be of a construction worker in a hard hat, but rather of a classroom teacher saved from a layoff. On Friday, the Obama administration released the most detailed information yet on the jobs created by the stimulus. Preliminary data showed that of the 640,239 jobs created or saved, 325,000, or more than half, were jobs in education that school districts claimed were saved when stimulus money averted the need for layoffs....

It starts with a little extra attention and affection, a personalized note on a term paper and chummy after-school banter. Before long it escalates to hugging and explicit text messages. It's called "grooming," small indiscretions that child abuse experts say should alert principals and parents to a developing sexual relationship between a teacher and student. But too often, these subtle cues go unnoticed until a relationship becomes inappropriate, or even criminal. Roy Junior High teacher Kenneth Taylor, who was charged 10 days ago with having sex with a former female student, is the latest addition to a growing list of...

A former music teacher for Mentor Schools has admitted sexually assaulting a high school girl during a 16-month period. Barry Valentine, 35, of Mentor, pleaded guilty Thursday to 16 counts of sexual battery — one for each month the assaults occurred — in Lake County Common Pleas Court. He now faces up to 80 years in prison and/or a $160,000 fine when he is sentenced Dec. 7 by Judge Vincent A. Culotta. Valentine repeatedly sexually assaulted the victim from July 2007 through February 2008, Assistant Lake County Prosecutor Mark Bartolotta said. “At the time, she was 15 and then 16...

So my son was slouching at his desk in his reading class. The teacher comes up and says " If Obama walked in this class right no, what do you think he'd think about you?". My son answered..."That I'm slouching?" Teacher.."But what do you think he'd think ABOUT you?" Son.." That I'm being lazy?" Teacher.." and don't you want to make Pres. Obama proud? Don't you want to please him?" I was stunned..I bust out laughing because it sounds so silly! I told my son I'm glad he didn't smart off about Obama because she is grading him, but that...

In an interesting take on what is or isn't legal, a union is threatening a critical blog for using the union's name in its blog title. The American Federation of Teachers had its lawyers send a cease and desist letter to the operators of a blog called AFTexposed.com. Now right off the top, this is an idiotic attempt to use legal threats on a blog. Imagine if this proscription became a legal precedent! Imagine a movie reviewer not being able to use a movie title in an article critical of the movie. Imagine a TV news station not being able...

SALT LAKE CITY -- A recent statewide screening of education workers' backgrounds turned up close to 7,000 arrests, criminal charges or convictions. It also shows 30 to 50 teachers had been arrested or convicted of serious enough offenses in the past that they could be fired or reprimanded. Nine education workers are out of jobs following the check. According to the Salt Lake Tribune: •The Granite School District has terminated three workers due to the screening •The Alpine district fired one •An aide for the Canyons district was let go for an open container violation and contributing to the delinquency...

(HELPER)—Two teachers at a small-town school are facing charges, accused of illegal sexual conduct with students. Both women had been working at Helper Junior High, until the Carbon School District learned of the cases at the end of July. Investigators say Melissa Andrini developed a sexual relationship this summer with a boy who may have been one of her students the previous year. Andrini has since resigned. Another teacher is accused of unlawful touching during the 2007-08 school year. Carbon School District Special Programs Director Robert Cox said she is currently on paid administrative leave, pending the investigation. Carbon County...

Sarah Palin wants to sell some books. She is giving an interview to Oprah Winfrey that will air Monday, Nov. 16. Winfrey has the golden touch when it comes to pushing books. The Winfrey folks called the interview a "world exclusive." It will be Palin's first interview to promote her book, "Going Rogue: An American Life." And people said this meeting would never happen! What do you think about this? The interview will air during the important November ratings period, so Palin should help Winfrey, too. That's how the book business works, folks. The interview will be Palin's first appearance...

This is a busy time of year in the Obama household. Like so many parents all across this country, I watch with a mixture of pride and anxiety as my daughters stuff their backpacks, kiss me goodbye, and move ahead in another school year without so much as a backwards glance. My girls are now making new friends, tackling challenging new subjects, and moving closer to becoming the strong, confident women I know they can be. But when I see them come home, bursting with excitement about something they have learned or someone they have met, I can't help but...

The Democratic Party has battled for universal health care this year, and over the decades it has admirably led the fight against poverty — except in the one way that would have the greatest impact. Good schools constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. Yet, cowed by teachers’ unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform and stood by as generations of disadvantaged children have been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools. President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, are trying to change that — and one test for the Democrats...

The total lack of respect among some of the young punks roaming the streets of America is absolutely appalling. They have no respect for their teachers, parents, law enforcement, neighbors, America, the rule of law, any authority or themselves. Some punks have no respect for your life or their own pathetic lives, and that makes them extremely dangerous. Rarely does a week go by that I don't read an article or hear of a teacher being attacked by one of these vicious punks in our schools. As I write this from moose camp in the Yukon Territory, this past week...

Warning , this will make you really mad! The two swdish guys in the beginning are only on for a few seconds. The teacher is right after that.

  From Pennsylvania Right-to-Work:Most readers are already aware of a growing scandal involving the pro-forced unionism Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in New York, Baltimore, Washington, and now, California. For those who missed it, ACORN representatives were caught on camera giving advice to undercover journalists on how to open an illegal brothel, launder its profits, and commit a host of other illegal activities.According to The Washington Examiner, teacher union officials have contributed over 1.3 million dollars (in mostly forced union dues) to ACORN since 2005.We decided to do a little digging into union financial disclosure forms on...

The National Education Association (NEA), which usually passes a dozen or more pro-homosexual resolutions every year at its annual national convention, this year in San Diego went all-out in support of same-sex marriage. This emphasis on advocacy for homosexuals was spelled out in a five-point New Business Item E. Point #1 tells its union affiliates to support state legislation that registers same-sex couples in a way that mimics marriage. This registration would cover taxes, inheritance, adoptions, medical decisions, and even immigration. Point #2 says that states can call this same-sex registration marriage or civil union or domestic partnership so long...

over the last six years, Buffalo taxpayers have paid millions of dollars to teachers not to teach. Twelve different teachers have collected $2.25 million in salary while under suspension and waiting for disciplinary hearings during that time. And that amount doesn't include the costs for substitutes and the hearings themselves. The average wait for those hearings: three years. The school district doesn't release the names of the teachers, or what they've been charged with, but we've learned that right now there's a Physical Education teacher awaiting a hearing who was suspended four years ago this month and has been paid...

Retired Capistrano Unified School District Superintendent James A. Fleming could face jail if convicted on a felony indictment charging him with using school resources to track his political enemies. But that won't stop his public pensions from rolling in. Fleming collects $141,331 a year in California state teacher retirement funds, on top of the $64,068 pension he collects from working 27 years in Florida. Even if convicted on the 2007 charges, both his pensions will remain untouched. Fleming is one of 3,090 educators in the California State Teachers' Retirement System who make at least $100,000 a year in taxpayer-guaranteed public...

Matthew Tessier fixes broken schools. Chula Vista's Harborside Elementary was in pieces when he arrived as its principal two years ago. The school next to a mobile-home park in an impoverished neighborhood had failed to reach federal benchmarks for so long that the menu of remedies included shutting it down. But Tessier, 35, is a turnaround specialist. Before he arrived at Harborside, Tessier had done what only a few dozen principals in the county had ever done: He led a school — Loma Verde Elementary — safely out of federal sanctions with two consecutive years of dramatically improved test scores....

WOLFEBORO, N.H. -- An English teacher is being closely monitored at Kingswood Regional High School after administrators said she assigned an inappropriate essay topic to her students. Jack Robertson, superintendent of the Governor Wentworth Regional School District, said the teacher asked students to respond to the question: "If you knocked your brother down, would you urinate in his mouth?"

September 16, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Grading TeachersWe must distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers. By Marcus A. Winters In 2007, only 57 percent of fourth graders in New York City and 44 percent of fourth graders in Chicago could claim even basic literacy according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Yet, in the same year, less than 2 percent of New York’s teachers and less than 1 percent of Chicago’s teachers were deemed “unsatisfactory” in their official evaluations. Clearly, something is missing here. Current public-school evaluation systems do not distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers. We can dramatically...

Dropouts Seek a Boost From Equivalency Exams Numbers Seeking a Degree Swell -- But Gains May Be Limited A growing number of Americans are taking high school equivalency tests in their hunt for any leg up in a bleak labor market. Adult-education centers across the country report backlogs and waiting lists for prep courses cramming dozens of topics and years of lessons into weeks or months. But the potential for a better job and pay that drives many to seek a General Educational Development diploma comes with a caveat: The certificate generally is of limited value unless students use it...

ACORN came to public prominence during the 2008 election when the group ran what is arguably the largest voter fraud in American History, they were convicted of, or being investigated for voter fraud in 14 states. Back in March the Democrat's favorite voter fraud group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) got a new opportunity to destroy the constitutional right of "one man-one vote." They were contracted by the Census department to hire local census workers. That's right, the same group that registered Mickey Mouse to vote in Florida, was hired to to count him in the...

(CNSNews.com) - The “corrected” lesson plans the U.S. Department of Education is suggesting that schools around the country use to turn President Obama’s speech to students today into a “teachable moment” still call for teachers to read books about Obama and to post quotations from Obama in large print on classroom walls. The Department of Education created two “menus of classroom activities” for use with the president’s speech. One is designed to guide Pre-K through 6th grade teachers, and the other is designed to guide 7th through 12th grade teachers.

Teachers Spot Trouble In A Name Can teachers really predict behaviour from a name? Teachers think they can tell which pupils are likely to play up by looking at their names, a survey suggests. The poll of 3,000 teachers found more than one in three expected pupils with certain names to be more disruptive. Pupils called Callum, Connor, Jack, Chelsea, Courtney and Chardonnay were among some of the ones to watch. The online survey by parenting club Bounty.com found 49% of UK teachers made assumptions about a child when they first looked down the register. But it is not all...

Teachers are demanding the right to get drunk at weekends as they protest against a tough new code of conduct. More than 10,000 have signed a petition calling for the scrapping of rules which require them to uphold 'public trust' in their profession outside school. The code, drawn up by the General Teaching Council [GTC] and coming into force next month, aims to reinforce the traditional role of teachers as pillars of society. It urges teachers to act as role models for pupils inside and outside the classroom by maintaining 'reasonable standards in their own behaviour'. One teacher, who asked...

Why Don't Students Like School:A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom by Daniel T. Willingham This is a heads up for those interested in education/homeschooling. My take is that this book, which is slanted toward teachers and contains allusions to political figures which mark the author as a "liberal," is one which conservatives can generally endorse, and argue from. What follows is mostly the author's own words in his concluding chapter with, in some instances, my own paraphrase of the author. People are naturally curious, but they are not...

Our Organizer-in-Chief will address students across America come September 8. In preparation for that teaching moment, Teaching Ambassador Fellows at the Department of Education have prepared a Menu of Classroom Activities to prepare the kiddies. Here are a few of the leading questions: Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials ...? Why is what they say important? What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do?

Well. Not content with an unprecedented four primetime news conferences to date in his young administration, President Obama now needs to address the entire public school system. And not just for a Hey-Kids-Howya-Doin-I’m-Your-New-President-So-Be-Good-In-School-This-Year-Mmmkay? speech. You know, like back when I was a kid and Jimmy Carter would come around and hand out balloon animals at parties. Or maybe those were clowns. I get confused. Anyway. Nope, Obama can’t just say hey to the kiddies and encourage them to do their homework. He has to make this a — what does the Left call it? — a teachable moment. A speech-in,...

The Rubber Room The battle over New York City’s worst teachers. by Steven Brill August 31, 2009 Print E-Mail One school principal has said that Randi Weingarten, of the teachers’ union,“would protect a dead body in the classroom.” Keywords Education; Schools; New York City; Temporary Reassignment Centers (Rubber Rooms); United Federation of Teachers (U.F.T.); Joel Klein; Randi Weingarten In a windowless room in a shabby office building at Seventh Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street, in Manhattan, a poster is taped to a wall, whose message could easily be the mission statement for a day-care center: “Children are fragile. Handle with care.”...

Brill is clearly shocked and appalled at what he sees in the Rubber Rooms in New York. His accounts of the maladjusted and utterly incompetent teachers he finds there are vivid and terrific reporting; his accounts of the rationalization of teacher union officials for this appalling system make clear, despite his clear and graceful prose, that he is enraged by what this system costs taxpayers and, even more, by what it denies children who are most in need of help

The US Department of Justice has launched an inquiry into Boston’s failure to provide necessary language instruction to thousands of students who speak limited English, a violation of federal law that has the district scrambling to hire teachers and expand programs for this fall.

August 17, 2009 Dear xxxxx: The Caps Hurt Kids rally is at the Bell Tower in Richmond's Capitol Square (9th and Franklin Street) at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. Certain rules do apply to events at the Capitol: No parades are allowed on Capitol Square (We'll be playing music, but resist the temptation to form a Conga Line). No stick-holding placards will be permitted (bring a sign, but no stake). No food may be served. No parking will be available on Capitol Square. No signs or other items are permitted to be placed on the Capitol Square fence. Please remember these...

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, August 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After the National Education Association (NEA) last month confirmed its support for abortion and same-sex "marriage," one teacher's association is reporting an influx of new members seeking an ethical alternative source of liability insurance and other benefits.The American Association of Educators (AAE) says that more teachers are discovering their legal options, after the NEA in its July convention voted down an attempt to end the group's abortion advocacy, and strengthened their support for same-sex "marriage."  In addition, they say, teachers coming to the AAE have expressed outrage with retiring NEA general counsel...

Where to Cut? by: Bethany Stotts, August 07, 2009 One University of Washington professor is proposing a politically-incorrect solution to school district’s budget shortfalls this year. Research associate professor Marguerite Roza suggested in a July 30 briefing that districts might want to consider combining salary rollbacks with layoffs in order to retain more teachers and to keep class sizes low. Using data from the American Federation of Teachers, Prof. Roza teachers received, on average, salary schedule increases around 2.87 percent per year between 1997 and 2007 and step changes, on average, of 3.16 percent annually. “These across-the-board changes to the...

The National Education Association, which usually passes a dozen or more pro-homosexual resolutions every year at its annual national convention, this year in San Diego went all-out in support of same-sex marriage. This emphasis on advocacy for homosexuals was spelled out in a five-point New Business Item E. Point No.1 tells its union affiliates to support state legislation that registers same-sex couples in a way that mimics marriage. This registration would cover taxes, inheritance, adoptions, medical decisions, and even immigration. Point No. 2 says that states can call this same-sex registration marriage or civil union or domestic partnership so long...

The National Education Association, which usually passes a dozen or more pro-homosexual resolutions every year at its annual national convention, this year in San Diego went all-out in support of same-sex marriage. This emphasis on advocacy for homosexuals was spelled out in a five-point New Business Item E. Point No.1 tells its union affiliates to support state legislation that registers same-sex couples in a way that mimics marriage. This registration would cover taxes, inheritance, adoptions, medical decisions, and even immigration. Point No. 2 says that states can call this same-sex registration marriage or civil union or domestic partnership so long...

Genevieve O'Meara was my fifth-grade teacher, in the Sandhills of Nebraska. We had just moved to town, from a peaceful, serene, mellow, laid-back town of similar size alongside the Platte River, further south in Nebraska, and so I was new to her; a phenomenon. I never cared for school, and I cared even less for this elementary school, one of those nouveau hip trendy with-it cool new buildings, all on one level, air-conditioned, and with fish aquariums in the classrooms. I much more preferred the school in our former town, an ancient four-story building with stairways and closets and dead-ends...

July 22, 2009 Dear xxxxxx, Some of you will remember that the permanent cuts proposed by Governor Kaine and supported by the House to the Standards of Quality (SOQ) had a 2009-2010 price tag of $340 million, and state funding for 13,000 support positions was eliminated. We said then that the cost of the cuts would grow as enrollment increased. We'll they did. According to the Virginia Department of Education the permanent cuts, the imposition of the support cap ratio, will cut $754,301,683 from educating funding in the next biennial budget if adopted. I estimate that this will eliminate funding...

LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J. — When word got out that Mr. McBeth, a popular substitute teacher at two southern New Jersey school districts was about to come back to class as Miss McBeth, it caused an uproar. The former William McBeth had undergone sex reassignment surgery and was now Lily McBeth. The schools' 2006 decisions to keep her on as a substitute were hailed around the nation as a model of tolerance and acceptance of transgender Americans. But the storybook ending never happened: She got only a handful of assignments since then and is resigning in frustration.

The good news is that the downward momentum of the Great Recession is subsiding. The financial panic that seized the global capital markets has eased. CEOs are no longer acting as if depression looms. That said, the consensus forecast is for the economy to emerge slowly out of the downturn. The recovery won't feel much like one, and that's bad news for a labor market where 6.5 million jobs have been lost since the recession began. With the unemployment rate climbing toward double digits, it isn't only Republican lawmakers who are wondering "where are the jobs?" "It's always the case...

Three educators give their views on exams Susan Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford, and director of the Royal Institution "Back when I went to Oxford, the entrance exams for women were different. The one for Oxford I found most challenging was the general classics paper. It was a 3.5 hour paper – you had half an hour to think ,then one hour for each question. I still remember one of the questions – 'compare the ideas of empire in Greece and Rome'. That was a real high jump intellectually. Exams are good things. They prepare you...

Tenure Deconstructed by: Brittany Fortier, July 10, 2009 A system can truly be considered broken when evaluators of hiring decisions are the ones that need to be evaluated. A panel hosted by the Center for American Progress on June 25, 2009, discussed why the American educational system has struggled in keeping itself accountable to students and parents, while at the same time creating a tenure system that critics claim gives teachers jobs for life. Many critics say that evaluation systems for teachers have been a huge reason for this discrepancy. Morgaen Donaldson, Assistant Professor at the Neag School of Education...

The general counsel for the National Education Association (NEA), America's largest teacher's union, complained last week of the "conservative and right-wing bastards" that are "after" the NEA. At the same meeting, the NEA rejected a proposal that would have ceased their abortion advocacy, and went on record in support of same-sex "marriage." "We are not paranoid, someone really is after us," said General Counsel Bob Chanin in an address to NEA affiliates on the occasion of his retirement. "Why are these conservative and right-wing bastards picking on NEA and its affiliates? I will tell you why: it is the price...

Victoria Cobb, President Thursday, July 9, 2009 Information Alert: VEA-NEA says ‘I Do’ to Same Sex Unions Read Our Latest Blog Posts @ www.familyfoundationblog.com Sign Up for Our Twitter Updates @ www.twitter.com/TFFVA Join Fans of The Family Foundation On Facebook @ www.facebook.com Visit Our YouTube Channel @ www.youtube.com/user/TheFamilyFoundation According to its website, the Virginia Education Association (VEA) delegation to the National Education Association’s national convention earlier this month tackled issues like “reducing the dropout rates, properly managing charter schools, controlling infectious diseases in schools, providing resources for boosting teacher quality, protecting substitute teachers, and expanding opportunities for preschool education.” What...

The National Education Association, the nation's largest labor union, voted July 5 to reject a proposal officially to remain neutral on the issues of abortion and family planning. Also during its annual meeting in San Diego July 1-6, the NEA went on record as supporting laws legalizing civil unions and "gay marriage" -- it said either are acceptable -- and it backed efforts to repeal federal legislation that "discriminates" against same-sex couples, which presumably could target the Defense of Marriage Amendment. The proposed bylaw amendment regarding abortion would have invalidated NEA Resolution I-16 on family planning, which says NEA "supports...

The co-founder of the National Education Association (NEA) Conservative Educators Caucus says the NEA will consider adoption of a resolution supporting homosexual "marriage." The NEA is currently holding its annual convention in San Diego, California. Educator and conservative activist Jeralee Smith called OneNewsNow from the convention to report that the executive council has approved language that will throw the full support of the NEA behind same-gender marriage, homosexual adoption, and other issues surrounding the homosexual agenda. "They will help to overturn legislation that is discriminatory against same-sex couples," she notes. "And then there is one little bullet about [how] they...