Friday, February 12, 2010

Bill White campaigner plants sign at Perry rally

Bill White, campaigning for Texas governor, posted this on his Facebook page overnight.
"Homescholers for Perry". Isn't that clever? Of course, the teacher unions are lapping it up, leveling insults at parents who home school their kids.

It doesn't seem very wise to me. White already has the teacher union vote locked up and he risks pissing off the thousands of parents who home school their kids. They could provide a crucial margin in the November election.


Paul said...

I always hear teachers, union officials, when questioned on the poor performance and high costs of educating students say something to the effect of, "Well, it's really up to the parents. Or, the home environment".

So, it's heads the teachers unions win, tails the parents/students lose.

If the pilots union had the same failure rate, or doctors, or engineers, they'd all lose their license.

Odd, a plane crashes, federal investigation. A walk way crashes in a hotel, investigations.

Half or more of young people, forced to attend urban schools and can not write or read their name after 12 years? No investigation Nada. Nothing. Zip.

One in a million break pedals jam up. Total recall.

A young person, who not only is not educated, doesn't have skills, and in fact is dis-educated in that the crummy, lousy, low quality intellectual horror show they went though is now their idea of what education is. No investigation. Even though this person is, in this information age society/economy, a dead man walking.

Hey, but what do I know? I bang nails and pour beers for a living.

Anonymous said...

Having a teacher in the family, all I can say Paul is that they are doing the best they can with what they are given to work with.

They go in early, stay up late coming up with lesson plans, work every weekend grading papers, get miserable pay, oversized classes that are a mish-mash of the best and brightest and kids that would formerly have been in ESL or special-ed classes. They spend half the school year preparing for standardized testing and the individual time available to help out students with problems shrinks every year.

The teachers aren't the root of the problem.

That being said, every home-schooled adult I have run into in the working world have been fundamentally broken socially. Maybe it is an anomaly.

Funny Circus Bears said...

I have 3 teachers in my immediate family, plus at least 8 to 10 in my close circle of friends. My best friend and his wife are both teachers.

In my district the starting pay for first year K-12 teachers is $40k per year, or $5k per month for this 9 month per year job. During that nine months of work they receive paid vacation for three weeks at Christmas, one week spring break, and various and sundry 3 and 4 day weekends. Add in another two weeks for sickies. That brings the harrowing work year down to, what, about 7 brutal months, or $5,700 per month – starting pay. The average teacher salary in my area is $65k, or $9,300 per month of work. The highest possible salary after tenure is 80k, or $11,400 per month of work. Add in additional pay for those brave, hearty souls willing to teach summer school.

The fact that you essentially can never be fired is well known.

Every teacher I know will tell you privately how easy the job is once you establish a system and routine. In fact the worst part about the job is mind numbing boredom and dealing with idiotic administrators. None get to work before 7:30 nor stay after 3:30. None bring work home nor work weekends. It’s strictly a 40 hr gig. All understand the critical importance of publicly playing up their role as Underpaid Saints, and do so very well. All know that role is a false joke.

At the end of this terrible mistreatment is a nice fat life long pension. So that’s ok then.

Paul said...


I have never, ever, not in fifty years, ever heard of a teacher revolt, strike, sit down or walk out for higher standards and or more discipline.

Not once. Ever.

What is the quit rate for tenured teachers? 1%? Oh, the horror.

If teachers are so good, and the 'system' so bad. Then we should end it, as it is a double crime against the teachers and the students. Ending government education will free you.

This Blog Is Not Here said...

I am a teacher. FCB is very very wrong about teachers not being able to be fired. Just this week I saw a teacher removed from the classroom in the middle of the week and watch his kids get dispersed amongst other teachers in his dept. He was a member of a teacher union. It does happen. Maybe not other states but it does happen in Texas. There is no tenure here. Oh, we have had campus wide mini-revolts over discipline and not receiving support from administration.

Literally 80% of a teachers performance review isn't the actual teaching part, it's the classroom management and discipline thing. That's the difference in homeschool education: shut up and do your work. We aren't allowed to do that in public schools. Plus, homeschool kids have parents that care. I can't tell you how few of my kids parents will bother to ever call me back. Usually the only parents that are actively involved are the GT/pre-AP kids parents. Not a coincidence....

I bring stuff home to grade at least 2 nights a week and usually spend my Sunday's doing planning. I don't get there before 7:30 but I rarely if ever leave before 5:00. Plus, the state is dramatically changing the standards this year so all those pre-canned lessons pretty much can go away.

Yes, some teachers pre-can their lessons etc but frankly as a stockbroker for 15 years I could literally call it in, not bust my butt and still make a ridiculous amount of money. When the day was over, it was over. It's far from being just a teacher thing. I can honest to God say that I work insanely harder as a teacher than as a broker. And I got featured in an article in the Business Journal about how much I grew my company. So I was pretty good at it.

I've had the chance to teach or tutor current/former homeschoolers. Yes, its very true that they are usually higher on the academic achievement scales but their social and interpersonal skills blow. Mind you, they aren't the problems like the kids who yell at me in class to go f)))) my mother after I ask them to sit down, they usually are extremely quiet.

I will never ever say I am underpaid. Quite the contrary. Given the time off, it was worth the 60% pay cut I took to start teaching. Still, I put up with a ton more regulatory crap as a teacher than as an investment manager. I wasn't just a cold call moron, I was a Series 4/7/8/24 manager for 12 or 13 of those years.

But then my experience may be different from other people since I don't teach in a waspy middle class district but a real Stand And Deliver scenario at times.

Steve-O said...

Our Econ teacher never assigned homework, had us read from the textbook in class & frequently lost all of our (multiple choice) tests & gave us all B's. So long as she never touched anyone, I couldn't see her being fired.

She was paid the same as the AP English teacher who taught 2 other subjects, trained the forensics team after school, set up a vending machine to raise funds for field trips, hosted parties for the marching band, sat with her paraplegic husband while he announced football games & took tickets at drama events. Remarkable woman, she was like a part of the family.

Some teachers are paid too much. Some aren't paid enough.

Having lived through this:

made me very skeptical about teachers. They nearly forced me to repeat the 5th grade

Blame the politicians, fine. We already know they're jerks. But I will never forget that collectively, public teachers cared more about their annual salary increase than kids.

Paul said...

What do wealthy people have that others don't for their kids?

Choice. A marketplace. If they don't like the school,or if it isn't hard enough, or if it is too hard for their silver spoon dolt, then can choose.

In any town I can choose what car to buy, what computer to own.

This makes them compete, innovate.

I don't really care about the internal problems of GM. If they build a lousy car because of 'administration' or 'the system' or any reasons, I can go get a Toytota.

Most people can not do that with the intelectual development of their kids. The government shcools have 'crowded out' the private schools.

Here's the deal teachers. We don't care. You don't know, or care about the hassles of the guy/gal that built your Toyota, or did your lab tests, or is working the night shift in a cruiser. You, me, we only care, truely, about what we get.

So, quit crying. You are a teacher because you weighd the pro's and cons and have made a choice. All of us have parts of our work that sucks, and is even crippling or killing.

So, for us as consumers, the pity part is out.

Most of us have problems with our management/boss. And if one of them, then with our employees, or the customers. So, too bad about that.

I want vouchers, and that's it. Free students with free choice. And, not for choice amongst government schools, either.

This Blog Is Not Here said...

I was an investor in and am still a fan of Edison Schools. They basically privatize totally broken public schools and turn them around. I don't see why we can't do that. Still, vouchers would be a really good first step as long as they are able to be used in private schools.

It would take a while for the public schools to die off and private schools to fill the void but it would/should happen.

Noodles said...

What a bunch of morans

Anonymous said...

Paul, is it "break pedals" or "brake pedals"? Were you home schooled??