Blue Eyed Blog
Posts tagged education
Home-made Edumacation
Mar 17th
On an email alias I belong to the following exchange just took place regarding Home Schooling:
In a message dated 3/17/2011 9:49:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [redacted]@yahoo.com writes:
The DPI site is very intimidating. Do officials from DPI come to your house every year to inspect your records of your hours of instruction? How does the DPI track your homeschool activity each year (if at all)?
Which was then answered with this (emphasis mine):
ha! I have been homeschooling for years and no one has ever showed up. This is by FAR the easiest of states I have been doing it in. No one tracks anything. YOU keep records of attendance, testing…there are MANY unschoolers in this state and they seem to have no issues. Seriously if you spoke to them on the phone you will hear the nicest bunch of folks ever. You send them an online form, fax in your credentials (that would be your high school or GED information) and they send you an email opening your school. That email is the only proof of your school you will get anymore, unless you mail in the form it is all electronic now. You can take that email and take your child out of school. That’s it.
So all you need in order to home-school your child is a High School Diploma or a GED? Really? No other training or knowledge is required? I wonder if we lowered the requirements for being an actual teacher to just a High School Diploma or a GED if people would think that was adequate? And no one tracks anything? Is this ok?
No? Not good enough? Then why is it good enough to home school?! How is it ok to be completely un-trained and be a teacher, as long as you are only mis-eduating your own kids? Again, I wonder if we let anyone with a GED be a teacher, and didn’t ask them to keep track of anything in the classroom, where we would be? Given what the Republicans want to do to the Department of Education, I think we may find out sooner rather than later.
I find this entirely unacceptable. There really should be minimum standards for being allowed to home-school. I find it instructive that this person refers to it as ‘unshool’ing. As in not schooling. Right. Just so you can put this in perspective? Glenn Beck would be qualified to be a teacher under these conditions, and all he knows is that chalkboards are for learnin’ and, apparently, that there is a ‘Democracy Tram’ that goes “ding! ding!”
In Glenn’s case, it should go “Ding dong!”
A Teacher’s Voice
Mar 5th
You really should read the whole article, but I’ll quote just this little bit for you:
Observed McDaniel, “I don’t understand the rationale for this proposal.”
She said she doesn’t buy the idea that the tax cuts, putting significantly more money back into the pockets (or portfolios) of Maine’s wealthy, will stimulate the economy.
Citing reports from the Congressional Budget Office, McDaniel said “the best way to stimulate the economy is to give modest increases to the poor. Wealthy people tend to hold on to their money, while poor people tend to spend it as they get it.”
Then McDaniel, as those experts might say, “re-framed the issue.”
“I don’t think it’s a moral decision, because taking money from people who don’t have much money and giving it to people who have more money than the people you took it from seems, well, greedy,” she said. “Greed is frowned upon in every major world religion — and I don’t think agnostics and atheists look too kindly upon it, either.”
She wondered aloud, “Is this about a quid pro quo? A gift from elected officials to wealthy people who have donated, or will donate, to election and re-election campaigns?”
This is, to me, the central issue of all of these budget debates. Going back to those ludicrous Bush Tax Cuts for the rich. Heck, going all the way back to the ridiculous Reagan tac cuts for the rich. The economics are well understood by anyone who cares to understand them. As Ms. McDaniel pointed out so clearly the rich hold on to their money. Those in the middle-class and below spend theirs. Not because they want to, but because they have to. They have to pay their mortgage. They have to buy food. They have to make their car payment, and pay their utilities, and all the hundreds of other things that regular working people have to do every day to survive.
It’s why every $1.00 of unemployment insurance payment generates over $1.60 in economic use. Because those people absolutely must spend every last nickel of it to make it through the week. Most of those making over $500,000 a year are going to make it through the week anyway.
I don’t buy any of the Republican budget arguments. If everyone paid their fair share, we’d be fine. But the republicans seem hell-bent on making us regular working folk pay our share and the rich folks’ share. Apparently the richer you are, the smaller share you’re required to pay.
Does that seem right to you?
Cutting Education Leads to Stupid
Mar 4th
If you’re not a supporter of MomsRising, you should be. There, that’s out of the way.
I do realize that there are budget problems everywhere. There just sin’t enough money to go around. But firing teachers and weakening education is the single stupidest thing that we could do in the face of these problems. Considering the tax breaks we give to corporations, I think there are other alternatives.
Corporations need tax breaks in order to operate efficiently? Ok, maybe. But here’s an undeniable fact: Corporations need educated workers in order to operate AT ALL. Without an educated population, we don’t have a competitive workforce. Hell, we don’t have a workforce. All we have are “Tea Party Patriots” without the sense to come in out of the rain.
So let’s look at ending Corporate Welfare and overfunding education. Corporate profits are up to record levels. the quality of American education is down to record levels. So let’s take some of that record corporate profit (in the form of the taxes they actually owe but do not pay) and fully fund education.
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Public education is on the chopping block at our N.C. Legislature. Let NC lawmakers know why small class sizes and teachers’ assistants in the classrooms matter to your family. Write a note about why education matters to your family and we’ll deliver it personally! |
Dear David,
I’ve often wondered how teachers do it. As a mom, I struggle enough to get my own kids to listen- let alone a classroom full of 25 kids!
That’s why class size and whether there was a teacher assistant in the classroom were important to me as I looked at school options for my son.
It’s also why I’m so scared when I think about the potential damage that budget cuts can do to the of North Carolina’s children. The majority of state legislators have said they support taking a cuts-only approach to addressing North Carolina’s budget shortfall. With education making up the largest portion of the state budget, there’s a real threat for damaging cuts.
A 10% cut to public education funding would result in the firing of 5,000 teachers and 13,000 teachers’ assistants. This would mean an increase in class sizes statewide by three students per classroom.
Take one minute right now to send a quick note to NC’s legislators. MomsRising members will deliver your note personally to your legislators’ offices.
Our NC legislators need to hear that firing teachers and teachers’ assistants and increasing class sizes is not acceptable!
http://action.momsrising.org/go/770?akid=2586.1823111.34VcpP&t=4
We know that a solid education is key to a successful future for our kids. We rely on our schools to ensure that our children learn the essential life skills of reading and math in addition to the many other things we expect our teachers to accomplish every day.
Yet, North Carolina has consistently underinvested in public education. We rank 42nd nationally in per pupil expenditures in public schools according to the US Census Bureau. Now, our legislators are talking about cutting public education even further!
Last year education experienced cuts of just over ten percent. But the demand for education continues to grow. During the Great Recession, North Carolina’s K-12 student population grew by 33,000 students.
We’re already asking our schools to do more with less. We can’t keep cutting the investments that will determine whether our children and our state will be able to compete in the future.
We’re headed back to the General Assembly next week to take state legislators a train car to go with the NC Little Engine that Could for Kids we delivered last week. This car will be marked “Keep Teachers in the Classroom”, and we’ll deliver it along with your stories about why it’s important to you that we keep teachers and teacher assistants in our schools. Send in your note now!
http://action.momsrising.org/go/770?akid=2586.1823111.34VcpP&t=6
We’ll be letting our legislators know that we support a balanced approach to the budget that protects the public investments we’ve already made in education and doesn’t pass the buck to local school districts to make hard firing decisions.
Help stop these cuts. Send a note to your state legislators!
http://action.momsrising.org/go/770?akid=2586.1823111.34VcpP&t=8
And please pass this link along to your friends and family.
Together we are a powerful voice for women and families,
– Beth, Felicia, Sarah, and the whole NC MomsRising.org Team
P.S. Can you join us and help deliver the education train cars? We’ll be delivering them next Wednesday, March 9, starting at 9:45 AM at the General Assembly in Raleigh. Send us a note at NorthCarolina@momsrising.org to let us know if you can make it!
Like what we’re doing? Donate: We’re a bootstrap, low overhead, mom run organization. Your donations make the work of MomsRising.org possible–and we deeply appreciate your support. Every little bit counts.
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What should MomsRising tackle next? Tell us what’s on your mind.
Teachers are Destroying our Economy
Feb 25th
According to the GOP, Public Employees –teachers, garbage men, all the other folks that make your local and state ‘stuff’ actually work — are over-paid and are the cause of the current deficit problems in local and state government. Gov. Scott ‘Hosni’ Walker in Wisconsin is currently trying to strip public workers of their union collective bargaining rights based on this lie.
Why is it a lie? Well, several reasons. But let’s first take a quick look at average income levels. First, let’s look at those teachers. Think teachers have an easy job? GO spend a day trying to do their job. They are underpaid, undervalued, and underfunded — and the underfunded part is only going to get worse as the Republican-controlled House tries to slash the budget for Education. Apparently our population is too smart — or not stupid enough — so they want to make sure no one gets a decent education.
But I digress, if only a little. So here’s some data on teacher’s salaries. Not a single one of them makes $50,000 a year. Do you know any rich teachers? (Other than the ones that got rich elsewhere and then decided to get into teaching, I mean.)
Median Salary by Job – All K-12 Teachers (United States)
CAREER TOOLS: Salary Calculator, Career Path Tool, Cost of Living Calculator, Meeting Miser
Teachers teach because they have dedication and passion for education and for kids. They sure don’t do it for the money.
Now let’s take a quick peek at a Wall Street worker.
(Reuters) – Wall Street paid out $20.8 billion in cash bonuses in 2010, the fifth-highest amount on record, though the average payout fell 9 percent from a year earlier as financial reform drove banks to offer higher base salaries and defer more compensation.
(Via Average 2010 Wall St cash bonus fell to $128,530 | Reuters.)
But how was that divied up? well, let’s see:
Among those banks, Goldman Sachs Group Inc paid the most, on average, at $431,000. Citigroup Inc paid the least, at $94,000.
(Via Average 2010 Wall St cash bonus fell to $128,530 | Reuters.)
Wow. Working for Goldman-Sachs is pretty lucrative. A lot more lucrative than being a teacher, it would appear. To be fair though, it’s not as lucrative as it was just a few short years ago (2006 numbers):
After making record profits, Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reported that it will pay its workers an average of $622,000 this year.
That’s more than three times the average salary of a Massachusetts surgeon; four times that of a Massachusetts chief executive; and nearly 12 times that of a Massachusetts high school teacher, according to the state’s Department of Workforce Development.
(Via Good deal: Average Goldman Sachs employee makes $622,000 – The Boston Globe.)
Awww … they really are having a rough time! Down from $622,000 a year to a mere $431,000. I wonder how they will ever manage.
Meanwhile the Republican party is giving these guys tax cuts because, obviously, they are hurting, and going after the teachers because, as anyone can see, they are the real problem here. Clearly.
And yet there is a wide swath of America, most of whom don’t make much more than the teachers, who believe this line of ‘reasoning’ and fully support the Republican’s demonization of public employees, budget cuts to the Department of Education, and a whole range of other destructive acts. And they will continue to support them. Right up until the moment when they realize they are the ones who have, ultimately, been had. Then they will, of course, blame the Democrats.
Is there another planet, one with intelligent life, to which I can move?
