Very sad
 

Modern day kids can't answer basic questions.. And this is what we pay good money for taxes for our "great" teachers?

http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/02/03/...sic-questions/

:devil::devil:Don't Go There:devil::devil:
Hold the parents accountable!!

No, I hold all of us responsible. We have allowed a Teacher Union and a Liberal Agenda to alter the intelligence of our children.
We have allowed an educational system which has altered those things that made America exceptional and the greatest nation in the history of the world to be corrupted by a progressive agenda which views the U.S as an evil empire.
You have an agenda based Educational Hierarchy that hires teachers with an absolutely left wing agenda be hired and any teachers that express a truthful thought in these matters are not allowed to gain tenure therefore controlling thought and critical thinking in our education system.
This entire system is breeding children without the ability to think critically, have no clue as to how great a nation they have been given, what separates us from all the other nations in the world.
This is our fault, we should demand change, we should throw out these $300,000+ a year administrators demand an end to tenure and demand not only changes to the indoctrination that has been going on but also demand performance objectives be enforced in our schools.
The major change we should ensure is removing government and union control of our childrens education and force charter type schools and private education to receive the tax money we are forced by government to give to them.
If you let the American People decide where their money goes the public school system is the last place they will let their money go as it has been an adjunct failure for decades and is failing our children, failing our country and failing in the competitive nature of the entire world.
We are paying the consequences of this huge failure right now, our nation is decline largely because of this failure and our nations future depends on us changing the current system dramatically.

This is not a slight on those conscientious teachers that work hard and do the best for their children.
But the system is without a doubt an adjunct failure and the entire system needs to be changed immediately.

"$300,000+ a year administrators "

must be a northern thing, the only one's making that down here are the football coaches

Sorry, didn't mean to step on someone's toes. Actually, you're right, I mispoke, I should not have blamed just the teachers..... I do hold the parents responsible, but I also hold the teachers, the school board and mostly Government responsible for the absolutely shameful state of our childrens education. The parents because it's their responsibilty to control and guide their children. If they don't take an active role in their childs education then they are failing as a parent. The school board and the teachers because it's their responsibility to raise warning flags if they see a flaw in the cirriculum they are required to teach or how they are required to teach it. I also blame the teachers union, which is way too powerful and blocks any attempt to remove a poorly performing teacher, so all the teachers suffer as well as the students. Lastly, I blame the government, as being mostly responsibe because they set the cirriculum that the teachers are forced to teach. They dumb down the requirements, change the subjects, remove subjects, etc., all at their whim or whatever is politically expedient. A perfect example is the length of time that a teacher is given to teach a subject. It takes a certain amount of time to transfer knowledge they have on a particular subject from the teacher to a student. if the cirriculum is changed every year (and sometimes in the middle of the year) it's almost impossible for the teacher to teach it properly. And that's been going on like that for over 25 years now in New Jersey. And being a past member of the Board of Education I know a little of what I speak. I was also the technology chairman of the PTO in our town and was a member of the PTO every year that my son was in school here. Oh, and my sister-in-law, who is also a past Mayor in my town, retired after 25 years as a teacher here.

So yes, I do blame the teachers. Not entirely, but they are far from innocent. To be certain, there are some very fine, very dedicated teachers, and they are gems that should be treasured and listened to when they say something, but there are also bad ones in the system that just want to collect a paycheck. They don't give a damn about what they teach or how they teach it... and they are protected by a union that drags the good ones down to their level.

No, I am not going to hold the parents alone accountable, any more than I'm going to hold teachers alone accountable, or the school board, or the government. There is more then enough blame to go around for everyone.

Actually, I'm pretty certain that Waynes Superintendent of Schools makes more than that. :(

You cant tell me its a teachers fault that a kid doesnt know how many states there are or that the Revolutionary war gave us our independence.....How come the rest of the population gets out knowing these things? You cant take a video of a handful of retards and paint an ENTIRE system a failure.

And keep in mind that Superintendents in NJ used to be a tenured position. When they got rid of tenure is what led to high turnover and skyrocketing salaries because school districts were competing for the good ones.

My wife is a teacher, she teaches 3rd grade.

She tells me all the time how she feels like she is failing the kids because she has to teach them the answers to the end of grade tests instead of actually teaching them life skills.

"No child left behind" is leaving us all behind.

Actually, I disagree with the handful of retard statement above. Lest them be some big hands. Leno goes walkabout asking grown-ups similar questions and the results are equally as stunning.
The admin. assistant to the Superintendant of Schools in Polk County, FL. starts off at a mere $125,000+ benefits. Supers make $140-150K/yr Teachers start at $36,000 + benefits. School Board members make $35,000. Why does a admin assistant make a six figure salary? Who is most important to the education of the children? Let me go at it from another angle, Mrs. $125,000 fails to show up Monday morning because she stayed up too late watching the Superbowl. Who does her job while she is away and does that interfere with the development of the children? A. Nobody needs do anything and the children have their regular lesson plan. Now, let the $36,000 teacher miss Monday morning and see what happens?

I know why the education system is in a constant state of chaos in Florida. Aside from using tax payer dollars to bus children all over the county to have the proper ratio of black,yellow,brown, and white. The teachers must base their lesson plan on the least advanced in the class while trying to focus on teaching the entire class enough book smarts to pass the FCAT. So we hamstring them with English as a Second Language students (Students of Migrant Workers and Illegal Immigrants) and then hold the teachers feet to the fire on test scores. At least one Charter School around here, weeds out the weak children to make their ranking look better. If it was up to me I would not allow any tax money to go to any school that:
1. I never had the opportunity to attend.
2. My child does not have the opportunity to attend.
3. Gives underperforming students the boot to maintain their ranking.

I can tell you that I absolutely love it when my daughters Title I school comes back with a higher ranking than the magnet schools and even some of the Charter Schools. It warms my heart and you can thank the parents and the teachers because it is obvious they care. Administrators? They may care but how would we know? How can anyone judge the performance of a glorified paper pusher.

Nailed it with so few words. And I voted for it, who woulda thunk it to be such a bad idea. Last year to have the proper class size my daughters class was half first grade and half second grade. What??

Rob this is the best explanation on this thread ... Both my daughters and son were in the top 20 to 25 percent of there graduating class ...out of an average of 700 kids per graduating class and I know theres a lot of kids shinning in SOUTHERN REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL and a hand full that brought stupidity upon themselves.....I know some probably cant answer some common history questions but could blow your mind on on others.

gotta agree with ridge on the charter schools. public has to take anyone who crosses the doorstep and adjust learning to their level or language, charters can pick and choose and still take monies from the public section. if you want to start a charter school and teach what you think is important, that is fine, just don't expect the taxpayers to pay for it. the thing that is sad to me is the high performers and the special needs students are the ones getting all the attention, the average kids are the ones getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

Well my wife is also a teacher, so I see both sides of this arguement. No child left behind has turned into a monkey F$$KING A FOOTBALL as far as eductaion goes. The administration could care less about kids learning life skills so long as they can pass teh FCAT and get that gubment money. Schools now get there budget dictated by how well they do on the statewide standardized test(FCAT down here). If they do poorly they get less money, but if they do better than average, they get bonus's. It's all come down to test scores now down here. My wifes school she is at noww gives her timelines on when everything has to be done so that every student in the whole district is at the same place every day now. It pretty much comes down to the district as to how the teachers can teach, and the kids now have the control in the classroom. Parents are mostly to blame, and my own mother is no exception to this(In hidsight I'm lucky my father was the one that brought the hammer down, but at the time I hated it).

Most parents now believe it is up to the teachers to motivate and educate to make the kids want to put down there phones and Playstations and learn. If the teacher doesn't motivate them properly, then why is it there responsibility to do anything(or at least this is how they see it). Our educational system has dropped off to but a glimmer of what it used to be even 15 years ago when I went. Now kids graduating high school barely know how to ad, and there are some who don't even know how to read and comprehend the English language. Why should a high school teacher need to be educated and certified in reading comprehension?

Wasn't elemenetary school around to teach kids the basics? Wasn't Middle school for teaching life skills? And wasn't high school to teach a person the basic skills to get through life and survive? Now elementary school is a large state funded day care where some kids learn letters. Middle school is where they get a basic understanding of letters and numbers, and High school is where you teach them how to comprehend the english language and pass the state mandated tests so that the school system acan get that gubment check. And yet many parents(at least down here) are screaming saying they are putting to much pressure on kids, and that the standards should be changed even more.

So it is a sad state of affairs all around that boils down to we the people, who most of anymore just don't seem to care. Theer are many good teachers out there, but for every good one there are 10 who just don't care and are working the system.

The first 3 to 4 weeks of a school year is spent determining how many new enrollments there were and adjusting the class size. FCAT don't get me started.

There's a lot of truth in what a lot of people said, so I'm going to pick and choose a few lines from some of the remarks. Ferm said " My wifes school she is at now gives her timelines on when everything has to be done so that every student in the whole district is at the same place every day now. It pretty much comes down to the district as to how the teachers can teach." That reflects back exactly to what I was saying earlier about Teachers needing a certain amount of time to transfer knowledge to a student. Not every student learns at the same pace. Government's role in running our kids education is ruining it. They are the ones that now make the rules that everyone else has to follow. RW said "You cant tell me its a teachers fault that a kid doesnt know how many states there are or that the Revolutionary war gave us our independence.....How come the rest of the population gets out knowing these things? You cant take a video of a handful of retards and paint an ENTIRE system a failure". And for the most part he's right, but I would draw your attention to the fact that the subject called "History", that teachers are supposed to be teaching, tells us that the Revolotionary War gave us our independance, and the subject called "Geography" teaches that there are 50 states (not 57 like our esteemed president said). So yes, it is the teachers responsibility to teach those things, and if they see a student that is having a problem learning them it's also thier responsibility to throw up flags and see that the student gets the additional help they need. I'd also point out that my son was considered a "retard" by the public school system. (He's 22, is ADHD and has Aspergers Syndrome) Yet I asked him all the questions on the video and he answered all of them correctly. So it's not "retards" ( a name that I hate btw) that are painting the entire system as a failure. So what can it be? Well, to be sure, part of it is what Lumber pointed out "hold the parents responsible" And to a point, he's correct. As I said before, "it's their responsibilty to control and guide their children" But just blaming the parents is the easy way out. It's the same thing as just blaming the teachers, or blaming just the government, or, in fact, blaming just any one group, which is also wrong. The fact is that as I said earlier, "There is more then enough blame to go around for everyone". So, if everyone is to blame, what can we, as parents, as citizens, do to help correct the situation?

Hmmm...lets see.....

How many of you joined the PTO (or PTA) when your child was or is in school?
How many of you called and scheduled regular meetings with your kids school principal or their teachers?
How many of you have attended even one Parent-Teachers night?
How many of you took an active participation in your childs homework assignments, EVERY day?
How many of you even tried to infulence your kids education by running for the school board or the board of ed or whatever it's called where you live?
How many of you took an active participation in your towns government by attending town meetings, or better still, by running for councilmen or mayor or whatever your town uses as a form of government?
How many of you looked at or contacted your state Congressman or Senator or even looked at their records on how they voted on matters of education?
How many of you tried to vote out those people whose views you thought to be wrong, instead of just voting the party line?

Don't tell me that you don't have time, or that your wife did it, or any other excuse, because that dog won't hunt. It's YOUR responsibility!

Until you can say that you've done at least some of these things, and you want to see who's to blame for our kids getting a sh!tty education, just look in the mirror.

I wish to God I could write as well or as eloquently as Willy. His answer was by far the best of all, even mine. He nailed it in his first few sentences when he said "I hold all of us responsible. We have allowed a Teacher's Union and a Liberal Agenda to alter the intelligence of our children. We have allowed an educational system which has altered those things that made America exceptional and the greatest nation in the history of the world to be corrupted by a progressive agenda which views the U.S as an evil empire. You have an agenda based Educational Hierarchy that hires teachers with an absolutely left wing agenda to be hired and any teachers that express a truthful thought in these matters are not allowed to gain tenure therefore controlling thought and critical thinking in our education system. This entire system is breeding children without the ability to think critically, have no clue as to how great a nation they have been given, or what separates us from all the other nations in the world. This is our fault".

I underlined the last 4 words, because really that is the answer as to who is at fault.

Think about it.

The world needs ditch diggers too!!

The educational system as a whole has become a HUGE failure. Years back kids with learning disabilties went to a seperate class or school to learn what life skills many of them could comprehend. Now these same kids are mainstreamed so that every kid in teh class has to learn at the slowest ones rate. I'm not trying to be mean here, but many kids NEED to be taught differrently, and no child left behind has stopped this. There ARE some good teachers left out there, but most of them are fired or let go since they don't toe the gubment line. There is just so much wrong in education today it is hard to say where to start. I think we should start by going back to teaching life skills and holding teh kids responsible for there actions. Today if a kid acts out it is the teachers fault for not controlling there classroom better. To many today don't give the kids credit for there abilities, and I believe is a large problem with education today.

Years ago the majority of teachers were male ..... when I went through school now its mostly a females and with older grades in the inner cities where the problems exist the females have no control over these animals.
And even most males cant control them either.

huh????

My wife has been a teacher for 30+ years....and the answer is obvious...get big government the hell out of education...these people don't know anything about education, yet they sit up in an office somewhere and hand down stupid-@$$ policies like No Student Left Behind and dump meaningless tests on the schools that do nothing more develop a bunch of statistics and kill time for everybody....then they point at all the money they spend on education...$$ per student...which includes the money they pay themselves anf like Ridge says, all the top-heavy administrators...

When my girls were in school, ALL their teachers and principals knew me personally...I was on the school advisory council in every school they attended and instrumental in all their sports endeavors...too many parents see school as just a place to send their kids for the day....parents gotta be INVOLVED, and they just aren't doin' it...parents IN...govt OUT of education and it'll turn around quickly...but of course that ain't gonna happen...

100% agreement. As I said before, I was a member of the PTO (Parent-Teachers Org.) for all the years my son was in school. I might add that most of the parents in my town are involved and we do take an active role in our kids ed. Maybe that's one of the reasons we are ranked as one of the top 10 school systems in the state and one of the top 100 in the nation. But it comes at a price...a large one. Our property taxes are some of the highest in the nation. We recruit the best and we pay our teachers a lot of money. But even with all of that working for us, it's almost impossible for the teachers to actually teach. They are required to fill out form after form for each child and do endless paperwork to satisfy the requirements of some lame politician that has to justify his or her job by makeing the schools and the teschers jump thru needless hoops. Admittly this is just one of the needed solutions to the overall problem, but I think it's one of the major ones. There are others for sure, like getting rid of tenure so you can dismiss sup standard teachers. Paying the teachers you do have a decent rate of pay. Requireing parents to play an active role in their childs ed. Allow parents to send their child to whatever school they want...and that includes private schools. Giving parents that do send their children to private schools tax breaks since they do not use the public school system. Lots of other things that I'm sure others here can come up with.

also have a wife in education, classroom teacher 17 years, assistant principal 5 years, principal 6 years and now county level administrator for 3 years.
what is it about V-20's that attracts education majors?

there cute!!!!

They are cute I will give you that!

I just want to say something that has been an observation of mine for several decades now.
Anytime, I repeat, anytime, the government (especially at the federal) gets involved in something it gets topsy turvy in the most absurd ways.
We have great teachers, no doubt.
How many are forced by a hierarchy to teach an agenda based curriculum?
How many could do better than the curriculum demands they teach?
How many are teaching to qualify for some federal mandate? Or to some government mandate test?
How many would segregate those students that need remedial work and those who are exceptional and should be brought along on a higher level?
Said differently, how many are forced to teach to the level of the lowest achiever in their class?
How many teachers have their hands tied with discipline problems that should be dealt with immediately and hard or removed entirely from the classroom?
How many teachers would work differently if tenure did not exist and the union did not control the board of education? (truth here shows character!).
How many teachers would love to set up your own school plan to teach math and the sciences so their kids would excel in life? In the world they will compete.
All these things and many more are what I have heard complained about from some very good teachers.
There is a common thread.
An over powerful centralized government controlling thought, critical thinking, and decisions by those people closest to the issues.
We need to return education control to the states.
If you do not like how you school system is run you can move to the next county or next state.
You vote with your feet or you get involved locally and change it.
There should not be one directive coming from an over powerful federal government, period. It destroys everything it is involved with. It is why our Founding Fathers left these things to the States.
And I am sorry but I will offend some here. The unions are in bed with the Federal government. Have been for decades and their hierarchy is as responsible for the decline in our education as the Progressives in government. The unions in effect have sold their souls for better pensions and higher salaries, they support the Big Fed agendas and their money goes to support big Progressives in government. No matter what anyone says to the contrary that has been the marraige with Satan for decades now.
Our children have suffered, our Nation has faltered, and we as Citizens have watched it creep up like the way you cook a frog.
We need big changes, many in the education system will fight it.
If the children, the American Citizen wins we will all eventually win.
If the teacher union bosses and their *****masters in Washington win, well, we all will lose. Starting with the children.

florida is trying to make some changes along those lines. our schools are county based and teachers are county employee's with different pay rates, benefits, etc. according to the county they teach in. my daughter has just graduated with a bs in history & a masters in education. if she gets a job, it starts @ $32,000. not great, but it's the field she chose and we knew the pay going in. current hires will not get continuing contract and will be hired on a yearly contract, which can be on renewed or not every year. a lot of older teachers are upset, but if you do your job, you should be fine. hell, most of the people i know have a one week contract. all administrators have yearly contracts that are renewed or not annually. we also have superintendents that are elected, so top administrators are subject to non renewal if they back the wrong horse. union representation in our district is about %25, florida is a right to work state.

Sounds like you're on the right track. The town I live in has all new teachers on a three year probabation. They still get tenure after that time if they are kept, but at least it gives us a better chance to not renew the sub-standard ones. It's a start.

Yup...gotta admit there are some really fine teachers...<sigh>

The part you missed though is teachers that had a contract BEFORE the hiring process for the 11-12 school year KEPT tenure. ONLY new hires lost tenure. ANother key note is that the state has the option to come in at any time they choose if your test scores are not high enough and take over the counties educational program. My wife is also a history teacher, but opted not to get a masters as having a masters right now makes you less desireable as that means you get $2K more per year for that(she got her last teaching over somebody with a masters because teh county didn't want to pay the extra money out for the teacher with a masters). It's all screwed up down here. I feel there should be tenure, but they should also have a testing system to evaluate the teachers. they have one now, but from what my wife said it is school employees doing teh evals, and it just doesn't sound right to me from what she told me of her first eval. If they are going to do evals, I feel it should be done by a NON affiliated evaluator who has nothing to gain or lose by there evaluation. With the current system this is just not the case.

My wife is a teacher too. :party:

It isn't all bad. The teachers we have experienced have a sincere desire to teach my student. As a parent, the time spent every evening with my third grader and her homework is "together time" and I love it. Nothing better than working with my little one and seeing the lights come on.
Everyone on here is right on the money IMHO. Yes the teacher has to teach to the least advanced student in her class. At least there isn't 45 students to deal with. Our educators also use a couple of assistants and mentor/volunteers to help the students that need additional help. Overall, they seem to be ahead of where I was when I was in the third grade...

Destroyer...my sincerest apologies for my poor use of vocabulary. Know that I would never use that term to describe somebody that actually had a disability. Strangely that word has transformed in our pop culture to mean somebody that's just a knucklehead and or doesn't use the common sense that god gave them which was how I was using it. But still that is not the origin of the word and I should have been more responsible putting it out there to a large audience knowing that it could hit home with somebody.

ridge, i had to quit giving homework help when mine got to the 6th grade, after that i had to send them to their mother. i am the ditch digger in the family.

This is one of those topics (Talking about class size) where I personally have very mixed feelings.. On the one hand I can see the wisdom of smaller classes. In theory, it lets the teachers give more time to each student. And that's certainly a good thing. But on the other hand, I recall when I went to school that our average class size was 34-39 kids per classroom, and truthfully, we learned more back then than kids are learning now. So the arguement that smaller classes = better learning for our children really doesn't hold water in the harsh light of reality. (And I would also like to point out that the average class size in Japan is 50 children per classroom). So why are we constantly being told that smaller classes = better teaching?

As much as I hate to go in this direction, the only thing that I can think of is the teachers union. Think about it.. if you have 500 students, and each class size is 35, then you need 14 teachers (union members paying dues) to teach those students. But if each class size is 20 students then you need 25 teachers to teach those same 500 students. A net gain of 11 union paying members making the teachers union that much richer. I'm not saying this is the only reason that teachers unions want smaller class sizes, but it certainly smells a little fishy to me that the single biggest voice in wanting smaller classes is also the one that stands to gain the most money from it. Just one more thing to think about.

Rob, you're a good friend. I owe my very existance on these forums to you. I know that politically we don't see eye to eye on every subject, but then again, who does? I'm sure that you didn't mean any ill will or harm, and that, to me at least, is far more important than the words themselves. Since no harm was meant, your apology is not necessary.
Also, I acknowledge that it takes a real man to step up to the plate and offer one, so thank you for it. :beer:

Eh, Rob's all right, as long as you don't have to ride 14 hours straight with him, twice.:beer:

Rob I knew what you were trying to put forth ....I think this tread need to be put to bed..

I concur.. I also knew what he was trying to say, which is why I took no offense to it. When I made my comment about hating that word it was not directed at Rob, but rather at the word itself. As to putting this thread to bed... well, ....it's true that we've hashed it out for several pages, but personally I think that it was a good discussion, and I don't really like closing off discussions... I'd rather see them die off naturally, rather than be closed. but that's just me. :head:

well,i don't see the situation as that of a "union" issue or for that matter even an issue of a union simply trying to garner more members to make their local "that much richer".that is what has been portrayed as the problem across the country by some.
some of the facts are that teachers today do not have the authority in the classroom that they had in past years.couple that with so many states dictating that teachers have to spend so very much of their time getting students ready for proficiency tests and it's little wonder that SOME kids are behind.but remember this,what we OLD people consider common sense skills,the younger generation has little use for.we may be able to use tools and our hands to fix things but those aren't the skills required in THEIR world today.things have changed somewhat.
can a system be tweaked to insure that financial responsibility is maintained? sure,and it should be because it is tax money that we are talking about in the public sector and safegaurds should be in place and monitored.here in Ohio though,one of the big points that was being made was that public sector pension systems weren't maintaining solvency as they are suppose to by the stipulations of the laws governing them.In the case of our police & fire pension system,some politicians were wiping their feet on the truth though.because of the economic downswing,our pension system was not maintaining solvency because of failed investments.BUT,the powers that be in the financial end of our pension system had submitted proposals to the state that would have brought the system back into compliance(added member contributions,more years of service,etc).the problem occurred when these politicians refused to act on the proposals because it would not have allowed them to use the solvency as an argument to further their bill proposal.since the bill has failed,the proposals are now being heard.
btw,i have witnessed 1st hand,and have participated in the fight against the assault on public sector unions here in Ohio that happened over the last year.I received a hell of a lesson about politics and to be truthful,i hope that i never have to get involved with it to that degree again.i'd rather just finish out my career then fish whenever i want to!!
Here in Ohio though,the lies that were told about public sector workers and the unions that represent us were numerous and in the end,the truth came out as it usually does when lies are told. we were told that it was "all about financial responsibility".well,then we found out that contained in this bill proposal were articles that would not have saved our state ONE RED CENT but were included for one purpose,to weaken public sector unions. these articles were meant to initially lessen the number of public sector union members,make it very difficult for locals to collect dues,and to reduce the percentage of votes needed to de-certify a union local down to 30%. the voters here saw right through the bill proposal and voted it down with 63% of the voters saying NO to it.
If this post ruffles some feathers then so be it but that isn't my intent.I'd much rather leave this forum than to sit back and not state my opinion since i have been very involved in the issue here from the introduction of the bill to it's defeat and have witnessed those in my profession be villified for no other reason than politics,and it stinks.

Jeff...this is a discussion. No lies, no ill will, no right or wrong position. It is only by people talking and listening and observing that anyone learns anything. You are entitled to your opinion and you are just as entitled to to state it as much as anyone else. As long as you are not publically slandering anyone or lying you never have to worry about leaving the forums. Personally, I may not agree with everything you or other people state, but that doesn't mean you don't have the right and the obligation to state your opinions. Just as I'm sure that not everyone will agree with everything that I have an opinon about.

As to the subject at hand, if you look again at what I said, I said that it was a road that I really didn't want to go down but it was also the only reason that I could think of for the unions championing smaller class sizes. I'll stand by that comment until someone else can give me a reasonable explaination for wanting to reduce class sizes to 20-22 students per class, and also having one or two teachers aides in the same classroom as the teacher. I mean, wtf? 3 adults in one class to teach 20-22 kids? :head:

BTW, don't, for a minute, think that I'm anti-union. Although I don't choose to be a part of one at this stage in my life, I used to work for the power and light company and was a member of the IBEW for 10+ years, and was a member of other unions before that. My own personal take on unions is that they can be a great source of protection for their members. Indeed, I think that at one time they were absolutely necessary in our culture. I also think that there are a lot of them that have abused their power over the years, and because of that they have hurt their standing in a lot of peoples eyes. Like everything else in this world, there are good and bad unions.

But this really isn't a discussion on the good or the bad of unions... it's a discussion about the children in our schools getting sub-standard educations and what we, as parents, think are possible solutions to that problem. Lets stick to that discussion in this thread and leave the union discussion to a different thread.

I am management and therefore unions are bad.. and that is another thread entirely.

As for the class size. You cannot use Japanese education at 60 plus per class as a benchmark as to what works in American children. The culture is very different. Americans are independent minded and the children act that way, discipline problems and lack of focus. Not so in Japan. The Japanese children are taught to tow the line and the family unit is a strong part of their heritage.

My point was that if the ratio of special needs children to regular needs children is somewhere near 1 in 20 or even 1 in 10. The burden of the teacher to handle 1 or 2 special needs children out of 20 is manageable compared to 3 or 4 children in a class of 45. To be clear there are 2 Teaching Assistants for the entire elementary school K thru 5 that float about the school and help the slower students on an ad hoc basis. Not sure how many mentors this year. It appears that any gain the teacher had with a smaller class size (ie. more 1 on 1 with students) seems to be lost due to mainstreaming the special needs children in with the rest of the class. IMHO.

Jeffmo, please comment all you like. It is just a blog amongst Snaggers.