On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:17:26 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:00:42 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:28:38 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:34:07 -0400, I_am_Tosk
wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:03:24 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:49:47 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:


It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.

Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.

School teachers.

Nonsense. They believe performance does matter, and they're sick of
teaching to tests that don't teach kids anything useful except maybe
how to take tests.

Taking tests is a very important skill but these teachers do not want
their salary tied to any measure of performance. They want to be paid
by credentials and time in grade.
Make that sound reasonable to me..
A totally out of touch teacher with 20 years on the job and a PhD, who
gets horrible results, makes 3 times as much as a new teacher who
connects with the kids and really gets something done in the
classroom. That is ridiculous.

It's just the way of the unions. When I got laid off from Finast I was
number two from the bottom of siniority, so I went second. At the same
time, I was consistently in the top ten percent of production, day after
day. At the same time the union worked very hard to keep guys caught
sleeping in the bathroom or stealing, earning a steady paycheck.

There is something inherently wrong with Unions taking millions from
their employees, handing it to politicians, and then going to those very
same Politicians for negotiations... Period.


We just had an article in the paper about suspended employees who were
still being paid. Their top example was a teacher who was suspended
for sexual assault on a faculty member, off on "suspension" for over a
year and still getting the $61,000 salary. Not bad money for staying
home and watching soaps all day. This person was reinstated, back to
teaching. What do you learn in that class?

So, because there's occasionally abuse of the system, that means the
system is bankrupt and should be discarded? Nonsense.

We are just talking about fixing the system so that doesn't happen and
so you can give those younger teachers who do have a good success
record, more money.

Fixing it how? So far the only "proposal" is to strip teachers of
their rights to bargain collectively.

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:15:12 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 10:57:46 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:28:11 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:03:24 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:49:47 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:


It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.

Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.

School teachers.

Nonsense. They believe performance does matter, and they're sick of
teaching to tests that don't teach kids anything useful except maybe
how to take tests.

Taking tests is a very important skill but these teachers do not want
their salary tied to any measure of performance. They want to be paid
by credentials and time in grade.
Make that sound reasonable to me..
A totally out of touch teacher with 20 years on the job and a PhD, who
gets horrible results, makes 3 times as much as a new teacher who
connects with the kids and really gets something done in the
classroom. That is ridiculous.

It's an important skill but it is not the kind of learning that's
important in the long run.

Teachers want what's best for students. Feel free to disagree.

There are very, very few teachers who are as you describe. Most are
dedicated to the students they're teaching and get by on very modest
salaries.

I agree most teachers do try to do their best. The problem is when the
system is choked by the ones who are not working out and there is
nothing you can do about it.

The system is "choked" by the small minority who don't care and don't
perform. Nobody on the right has made one single suggestion that
really addresses the problem of poor education.

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:20:14 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:02:00 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:29:51 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:35:42 -0400, Harryk
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 06:12:34 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:12:26 -0400, wrote:

I enjoy bantering with Plume. The naivete of youth is always
refreshing.
Gee I didn't realize senility was considered an advantage! LOL
I am not the one who has trouble remembering what we were talking
about ;-)
What were we talking about? Oh wait...
Don't ask me, I am senile, now where did I leave my teeth? ;-)


It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.
Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.
School teachers.
Be sure to let us know when a system is devised that actually is capable
of judging teachers on merit. It sure as hell isn't the standardized
testing bull****.

They don't want to see any merit based pay. This "testing" thing is
just a red herring.

The unions are not opposed to merit pay that is determined by fair
testing on the basis of merit.

We will see. Scott just signed the bill yesterday that will do that.
So far the school union seems pretty much opposed.

You tend to end up with a comment like that... "we'll see." Basically,
that means you don't know and just guessing.

The only thing we "will see" is whether paying younger teachers who
perform better actually raises achievement overall.
The adverse reaction of the union is a fact.

Why the discrimination against older teachers? Are you claiming that
only the young ones are capable of teaching well?

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:05:55 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:32:51 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:03:24 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:49:47 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:

It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.
Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.
School teachers.
Nonsense. They believe performance does matter, and they're sick of
teaching to tests that don't teach kids anything useful except maybe
how to take tests.
Taking tests is a very important skill but these teachers do not want
their salary tied to any measure of performance. They want to be paid
by credentials and time in grade.
Make that sound reasonable to me..
A totally out of touch teacher with 20 years on the job and a PhD, who
gets horrible results, makes 3 times as much as a new teacher who
connects with the kids and really gets something done in the
classroom. That is ridiculous.
Too many variables in your argument. You're making assumptions the kids
in each class are pretty much the same kids, with the same home life.
When I was in public school, the older, more experienced teachers were
by far the better teachers.
Maybe but I had a terrible crush on Mr. Hansen in 8th grade. He was
one of the younger ones. Of course, I can't remember a single thing he
said.

Most of my public school teachers made really strong, positive
impressions on me. In all those years, though, there was only one young
woman I considered cute.

In those days, just after Franklin "discovered" electricity, the
teachers did not have to take the amount of b.s. dished up to them today.

Ah yeah, the 50s when teachers could smoke in class and slap the
students. Those were the days. We did seem to learn more and classroom
discipline was a whole lot better. They still measured our progress on
how we did on those evil tests. In fact there was one every Friday.

Hmmm. I don't recall teachers smoking in class or on school grounds, nor
do I recall students being slapped. Of course we had tests, and lots of
them.

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:02:00 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:29:51 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:35:42 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 06:12:34 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:12:26 -0400, wrote:

I enjoy bantering with Plume. The naivete of youth is always
refreshing.
Gee I didn't realize senility was considered an advantage! LOL
I am not the one who has trouble remembering what we were talking
about ;-)
What were we talking about? Oh wait...
Don't ask me, I am senile, now where did I leave my teeth? ;-)


It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.
Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.
School teachers.
Be sure to let us know when a system is devised that actually is capable
of judging teachers on merit. It sure as hell isn't the standardized
testing bull****.
They don't want to see any merit based pay. This "testing" thing is
just a red herring.
The unions are not opposed to merit pay that is determined by fair
testing on the basis of merit.
We will see. Scott just signed the bill yesterday that will do that.
So far the school union seems pretty much opposed.
You tend to end up with a comment like that... "we'll see." Basically,
that means you don't know and just guessing.

The only thing we "will see" is whether paying younger teachers who
perform better actually raises achievement overall.
The adverse reaction of the union is a fact.

A fact based upon your opinion, or the opinions of those who are
anti-union?

In article , payer3389
@mypacks.net says...

I_am_Tosk wrote:
In article0aWdnRwvVv5Wfg3QnZ2dnUVZ_oSdnZ2d@earthlink .com, payer3389
@mypacks.net says...
I_am_Tosk wrote:

And the way it should be.. If there was a union in the service those
"underperformers" would be handed a broom and a raise and be allowed to
work until retirement making more pay than the guys really doing the
work..
This from a little man whose only real job in life was working as an
unskilled laborer in a food warehouse.

And he couldn't hang onto that job.

You make this **** up as you go along. You are one creepy old man for
sure..


Well, little man, to the best of my recollection, in all your years
here, you mentioned very little in the way of employment:

1. You said you worked in a food warehouse for, I believe, First
National stores. You lost that job.

2. You said you built small boats, but I suspect that was more of an
avocation than a vocation.

3. You swept out a barn.

4. You claim to be an executive of some sort of a shady sounding company
that allegedly resells some internet services, but your site extolling
same is chock-full of deceptive descriptions of facilities and gear.
Further, your site does not list any actual clients or samples of web
pages you allegedly have designed. This is interesting, because I have
two of my clients hosting their web sites on a legitimate hosting site,
and the host has long lists of clients and examples of its work product.

Please show just what gear and facilities that he has lied about, and be
specific about HOW you know that he lied.

Now, did I miss an actual job of yours?

Yes.

I'm not trying to put you down for the kind of work you've done. All
work is worthwhile, after all. I simply believe you are totally,
completely unqualified by way of education or work experience to offer
up judgments on the work or jobs of others.

And you are nothing but a low-life blow hard child abuser.

In article ,
says...

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:02:00 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:29:51 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:35:42 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 06:12:34 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:12:26 -0400, wrote:

I enjoy bantering with Plume. The naivete of youth is always
refreshing.
Gee I didn't realize senility was considered an advantage! LOL
I am not the one who has trouble remembering what we were talking
about ;-)
What were we talking about? Oh wait...
Don't ask me, I am senile, now where did I leave my teeth? ;-)


It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.
Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.
School teachers.
Be sure to let us know when a system is devised that actually is capable
of judging teachers on merit. It sure as hell isn't the standardized
testing bull****.
They don't want to see any merit based pay. This "testing" thing is
just a red herring.
The unions are not opposed to merit pay that is determined by fair
testing on the basis of merit.
We will see. Scott just signed the bill yesterday that will do that.
So far the school union seems pretty much opposed.
You tend to end up with a comment like that... "we'll see." Basically,
that means you don't know and just guessing.

The only thing we "will see" is whether paying younger teachers who
perform better actually raises achievement overall.
The adverse reaction of the union is a fact.

A fact based upon your opinion, or the opinions of those who are
anti-union?

A fact is a fact, idiot.

On 3/29/2011 10:14 AM, HarryisPaul wrote:
In ,
says...

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:02:00 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:29:51 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:35:42 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 06:12:34 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:12:26 -0400, wrote:

I enjoy bantering with Plume. The naivete of youth is always
refreshing.
Gee I didn't realize senility was considered an advantage! LOL
I am not the one who has trouble remembering what we were talking
about ;-)
What were we talking about? Oh wait...
Don't ask me, I am senile, now where did I leave my teeth? ;-)


It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.
Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.
School teachers.
Be sure to let us know when a system is devised that actually is capable
of judging teachers on merit. It sure as hell isn't the standardized
testing bull****.
They don't want to see any merit based pay. This "testing" thing is
just a red herring.
The unions are not opposed to merit pay that is determined by fair
testing on the basis of merit.
We will see. Scott just signed the bill yesterday that will do that.
So far the school union seems pretty much opposed.
You tend to end up with a comment like that... "we'll see." Basically,
that means you don't know and just guessing.

The only thing we "will see" is whether paying younger teachers who
perform better actually raises achievement overall.
The adverse reaction of the union is a fact.

A fact based upon your opinion, or the opinions of those who are
anti-union?

A fact is a fact, idiot.

Absolutely. If you want to discover some interesting facts about unions
you can visit this site. www.unionfacts.com

In article ,
says...

On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:10:48 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:17:26 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:00:42 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:28:38 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:34:07 -0400, I_am_Tosk
wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:03:24 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:49:47 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:


It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.

Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.

School teachers.

Nonsense. They believe performance does matter, and they're sick of
teaching to tests that don't teach kids anything useful except maybe
how to take tests.

Taking tests is a very important skill but these teachers do not want
their salary tied to any measure of performance. They want to be paid
by credentials and time in grade.
Make that sound reasonable to me..
A totally out of touch teacher with 20 years on the job and a PhD, who
gets horrible results, makes 3 times as much as a new teacher who
connects with the kids and really gets something done in the
classroom. That is ridiculous.

It's just the way of the unions. When I got laid off from Finast I was
number two from the bottom of siniority, so I went second. At the same
time, I was consistently in the top ten percent of production, day after
day. At the same time the union worked very hard to keep guys caught
sleeping in the bathroom or stealing, earning a steady paycheck.

There is something inherently wrong with Unions taking millions from
their employees, handing it to politicians, and then going to those very
same Politicians for negotiations... Period.


We just had an article in the paper about suspended employees who were
still being paid. Their top example was a teacher who was suspended
for sexual assault on a faculty member, off on "suspension" for over a
year and still getting the $61,000 salary. Not bad money for staying
home and watching soaps all day. This person was reinstated, back to
teaching. What do you learn in that class?

So, because there's occasionally abuse of the system, that means the
system is bankrupt and should be discarded? Nonsense.

We are just talking about fixing the system so that doesn't happen and
so you can give those younger teachers who do have a good success
record, more money.

Fixing it how? So far the only "proposal" is to strip teachers of
their rights to bargain collectively.

That is what the union wants you to think.

It is not the case here.

The issue is unions buying politicians with millions of dollars of dues
money, then going to those same politicians to negotiate their own
benefits. If they don't get what they want, they can buy someone else
and he pols know that. It's called racketeering, or "business as usual"
for Unions...

wrote:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:09:33 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:05:55 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:32:51 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:03:24 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:49:47 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:

It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.
Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.
School teachers.
Nonsense. They believe performance does matter, and they're sick of
teaching to tests that don't teach kids anything useful except maybe
how to take tests.
Taking tests is a very important skill but these teachers do not want
their salary tied to any measure of performance. They want to be paid
by credentials and time in grade.
Make that sound reasonable to me..
A totally out of touch teacher with 20 years on the job and a PhD, who
gets horrible results, makes 3 times as much as a new teacher who
connects with the kids and really gets something done in the
classroom. That is ridiculous.
Too many variables in your argument. You're making assumptions the kids
in each class are pretty much the same kids, with the same home life.
When I was in public school, the older, more experienced teachers were
by far the better teachers.
Maybe but I had a terrible crush on Mr. Hansen in 8th grade. He was
one of the younger ones. Of course, I can't remember a single thing he
said.
Most of my public school teachers made really strong, positive
impressions on me. In all those years, though, there was only one young
woman I considered cute.

In those days, just after Franklin "discovered" electricity, the
teachers did not have to take the amount of b.s. dished up to them today.
Ah yeah, the 50s when teachers could smoke in class and slap the
students. Those were the days. We did seem to learn more and classroom
discipline was a whole lot better. They still measured our progress on
how we did on those evil tests. In fact there was one every Friday.
Hmmm. I don't recall teachers smoking in class or on school grounds, nor
do I recall students being slapped. Of course we had tests, and lots of
them.

The teachers all could smoke in the teacher's lounge and a few
extended that to the classroom. Nobody ever said a word.
My 8th grade social studies (AKA Core) used to bum a smoke off of our
"Jethro" student, a kid from West Virginia who was about 18. They
would both spark up right there in class. The teacher was only about
23-24.

Actually that may have been the best class I had as far as learning
anything. The algebra teacher was some old crone who just droned on
and on with virtually zero interaction with the class. I think about a
third of the class was really not getting the material. I know it
baffled me and in summer school it seemed easy. The teacher (in the
private school) actually made some effort to help us understand
instead of just making it a lecture.

That was my last year in Public school.


I was in public school all the way, K-12. There were plenty of "prep"
and parochial schools in New Haven and in Connecticut, of course. Some
of the "snooty" kids went to the fancier prep high schools.

I only recall one bad teacher, and that was in junior high school. A
match teacher, a young one, and too much the smart aleck.

I built a cloud chamber for my seventh grade science project. Damned
thing worked, too. Consisted of a metal cooking tray, painted flat
black, on which sat a one gallon cider jug with the top and bottom cut
off to make a cylinder. There was a copper band (maybe two) around the
inside of the jug. A spark coil from a Model A Ford was connected to the
copper, and the spark coil was connected to a battery. Put a radium
clock hand on the cooking tray (which sat on a slab of dry ice), turn
off the lights, shine a projector into the glass, and you could clearly
see the trails given off by the radium on the clock hand.