Bus to nowhere


John de Rosier

38 Responses

  1. edgar says:

    Wow, Mitch! It is difficult to believe that a left wing organization, like the New Jersey Teachers Union, would engage in such hateful behavior, as the prayer (a left wing organization prays to the Lord?) contained in your link, and quoited below:


  2. jcs says:

    Edgar you simply never tire of getting it all wrong, do you? I do not think you misrepresent the issue because that sort of implies that you understand the issue and you are willfully presenting incorrectly, but in your case, while I always get the sense that you really feel as though you have a firm grasp of the issue you’re talking about, no such understanding is demonstrated to the rest of us in anything that we read from you -ever.

    As is often the case in responding to your posts it is hard to pick which aspect to critique. First with regard to your screed about teacher salaries. No one argues that you should throw money at teachers and hope they suddenly become better teachers. No one argues that if you give a substantial pay increase to an average teacher or a poor teacher that suddenly they will become good teachers. This is not an argument that anybody makes, but in your threads you intimate again and again that this is what people think. The idea, edgar is that if we increase teachers salaries then the profession might be more likely to attract the best and the brightest. Perhaps teaching as a profession could compete with doctors, lawyers, and engineers, and attract a greater percentage of that caliber of student to consider education as a potential career. Now whether or not this is true, I do not know, but that is the argument. Teacher salaries may have gone up in the last 20 years, but those other professions have also seen substantial increases in salaries and so continue to attract a high percentage of very bright, very motivated, highly creative individuals who can make a lot more money in these other career choices. Add to this the increase in technology and the job market opened up by computers for example in the last 20 years and it is hard for education to compete with these other professions that could easily lead to 6 figures a year in a relatively short amount of time. These are the subleties that you completely pass over. If you do it on purpose it is disingenuous, if you are simply unaware of them, well then learn a little something about what you are commenting on.

    There is a whole tangle of issues surrounding education. The state of education is grim. BUT it would be ignorant to lay that at the feet of teachers, though they obviously play a significant role.

    Many charter schools (and this is after all the topic of this cartoon) do not have unions. Those that do are recently unionized.
    I am not sure if New Covenant was unionized or not. I did a quick search, but found nothing. Anybody know? In any case I am not sure that the union comments are relevant.

    The most powerful unions in NYS are against spending state money on charter school. They are anti-charter school. NYSUT must love the fact that New Covenant is closing.

    Charter schools have incredible autonomy. Teachers do not receive tenure and work on one year contracts. In other words it can be very easy to terminate a teacher at a charter school, so again, I am not sure the anti-union rant is relevant here.

    Teachers unions do have too much power and that is not good. It is hard to agree with those who want to do away with them, but the petty politics of local school boards (something you cannot appreciate until you’ve lived it) make certain protections necessary or trust me Mr/Ms Smith would be fired because little Bobby, a board members son did not do well on a test. It sounds silly, but that level of pettiness is out there in full force. I do think Arne Duncan is taking steps in the right direction and his proposals for overhauling NCLB are sensible and are NOT what the unions want to here. So maybe the unions power will be curbed just a bit. Will that result in a better education for our nation’s students? I guess we may find out.

    Anyway, edgar, continue to post, but know that once again you are woefully ill-informed.

  3. edgar says:

    Just couldn’t honor your word, and had to direct a post to me, eh, jcs? Thanks!

  4. edgar says:

    Imagine the outpouring of indignation from the left, had a conservative group cited Barrack Obama as a favorite President, rather than Chris Christie as a favorite governor, in a “prayer?” The old liberal double standard rears it’s ugly head agan.

  5. jcs says:

    Your welcome, edgar. you just make it so easy in so many ways and so difficult in so many others. But thank you, your terse response that has nothing to do with the points I addressed is something I will take as validation that once again, you have no idea what your talking about. If only that reality would give you pause before you post a comment.

  6. edgar says:

    As you have obviously gone back on your word, your word now lacks any credibility, jcs. I am happy to have assisted you in making this clear to readers of this forum. You are most welcome!

  7. jcs says:

    edgar, I doubt my word ever had any credibility with you in the first place, so I’m cool with it. But in any case I encourage you to keep up your posts such as 34 and 36 because with each one you just reaffirm again and again your inability to respond substantively to the points I made in my original comment (#32). I’ll tell you what you write as many posts like 34 and 36 as you’d like. I will not waste my time (or jdr’s) responding to those posts. But if you write something that is substantive (well, substantive to your mind) I will respond to that if I have something to say that is productive to moving the conversation forward. Does this sound reasonable to you, edgar? And for my part, as I attempt to refute what you write I will try not to do so with my typical arrogant and rude condescending tone. Now, if you agree, try and respond to the substance of my comment. Take your time to think about and digest all of this it could be a big step forward in our relationship. Tomorrow I leave town until Saturday and I will not have much time to be on the computer so that gives you some time to think of something quasi rational to write (ok, that will be my last arrogant condescending tone -I think).

  8. edgar says:

    Whatever, jcs! Lol