NEA-death to America

[Gonz]

The National Education Association. Teachers Union. The sole destroyer of the American education system.

My wife volunteered as needed (almost daily) at his "Magnet School" when he was in K-3rd grade. She got to know the teachers & faculty. She liked most of them. She was VP of the PTA, turning down an offer for Presidency. We now homeschool our son.

We suggest all parents to do the same. It is the single easiest & most profound statement that you can send your state officials. Take back our education system. The union has agendized & promoted lies for so long people think they are truth & it's hard to disprove what they say. Little things like "We need smaller class sizes". Then why does Japan constantly outscore us on standardized tests when they average something like 40 students per class. The union wants more bodies to pay dues.

This wasn't so much started as a homeschool chant as a kill the union rant.

The other day I was meandering th ebyways & highways of the mid-west. Bopping along, listening to the radio when a story about Jaime Escalante came on.

In 1976 he began teaching at Garfield High School, in east Los Angeles, California, where drugs, gangs and violence were facts of daily life. Despite these obstacles, Escalante was able to motivate a small group of students to take, and pass the AP calculus exam in 1982. The Educational Testing Service, which administers the test, invalidated the scores, believing that the students had cheated. Most of the 18 pupils retook the test and passed, making Escalante a national hero almost overnight.

By 1991, the number of Garfield students taking advanced placement examinations in math and other subjects had increased to 570.

The movie about him was called Stand and Deliver Very inspiring movie. I learned a little more about the man & realized he is a living inspiration to us all. He is what we all should aspire to be.

Well, galavanting around in my big-truck, this story came on. It was about how the NEA is destroying our education system & they used Mr Escalante as an example.

His union complained that he accepted too many students into his calculus classes, engineered his ouster as department chair, and frustrated him to the point that he resigned in 1991 and went to another school district.

Source

What is not widely available is "the rest of the story". Not only did the union file grivances against one of their own members for doing too good of a job, once Mr Escalante finally bowed to the intense pressure & resigned his position (a massive loss to the poor neighborhood surrounding Garfield High & the Los Angeles school district) one of the top officials had the audacity to email the members of the NEA with an "He's gone!" letter.

An educational system, once the envy of the world, produced the men & women that sent us to the moon & safely back, wasn't destroyed by our enemies. It was destroyed by a union looking to enhance its own wealth. A union that once defended a woman mathematics teacher who couldn't answer the examiners question (“What percent of 80 is 8?”). The only way to take back our sytem is to remove your children from public education & homeschool or send them to private or parochial schools which are not overrun by NEA members.

If you doubt here are some course listings in the education department at the University of Massachusetts: Embracing Diversity, Diversity and Change, Oppression and Education, Introduction to Multicultural Education, Black Identity, Classism, Racism, Sexism, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Oppression, Jewish Oppression, Oppression of the Disabled, Erroneous Beliefs.

 

[Winky]

Aw C'Mon Ya Angry White Dood
pubic school ain't so bad

 

[chcr]

The sole destroyer

Hardly. Certainly a major contributor though.

 

[Winky]

You've heard of Moveon.org
How about GetTheKidsOut.org

as an atheist parent that invested six figures in one Kids
Christian education I'll tell ya it's well worth it.
He has free ride college offers all over the place lol


"Mission: Assist Christians to work within their own denominations to alert parents of the staggering loss of faith and morals in children who attend the officially neutral “public schools,”

 

[Winky]

Oh and everything you've heard about those millionaire daughters
the one's in the Catholic school gurl outfits
Oh My Son will tell ya “it's true” lol

 

[Gonz]

Hardly. Certainly a major contributor though.

190 years without a hitch. The NEA grabbed power during the sociaist upheavel (commonly called the 60's) and it's all been downhill since.

 

[Professur]

I, personally, am highly disturbed at our schools. And that my 7 year old daughter is going around knowing more about Martin Luther King than about the city, country, and/or planet she's calling home.

 

[Winky]

Well unless you get her out of there you’d better stop right now concerning yourself with the curricula they are cramming down her throat.

Just check back after she's graduated from High School
and find that she's not even able to get into a State College.

Or follow Winky’s simple educational advice:
Spend your money in the grades 1 thur 12 and let
em’ get free rides to college.

 

[Professur]

Um, no. I simply test her at home on the stuff I feel she needs. Since she's already able to handle fractions, and recite the first ten elements on the PTE, I'll stick to my method.

 

[Winky]

OK your Kid didn't have a future anyway
why waste the money...

 

[Inkara1]

With bullshit like that, I hope you don't wonder why most of the board ignores you. Seriously, you need to quit talking out of your fucking ass. Oh wait, I guess I'm just a little peon who will never amount to anything, EVER, just because I didn't spend every learning moment in an exorbitantly expensive private school that my parents were in no position to pay for until I was just about ready to graduate high school.

 

[Winky]

Tru

 

[Professur]

OK your Kid didn't have a future anyway
why waste the money...

Sorry, but are you talking to me?

Let's start with, all three of my kids have education funds already set up. They'll be able to afford to go to any school they wish, without looking for scholarships or student loans. They'll be in public school to learn what every other child learns. Including how to deal with other people. Their abilities in the retardedly-named three R's will be tested by me, throughout their education. That early education is heavily supplemented by me at home. Including obscure knowledge like reading maps, fishing, cooking, and logic. Small engine repair, animal husbandry, welding, etc.

My children's future is right where it belongs. It their own hands, supported by their entire family. As it should be.

 

[valkyrie]

Gonz, you are completely wrong about the NEA destroying education. There are many reasons for the downturn in education, but teachers protecting their rights is not one of them.

If you'd like to make a comparison between Japanese students and American students, we can.

First, there is a huge difference between the respect for teachers in Japan and the US. For a Japanese parent(s) to be called by a teacher, for something such as misbehavior in class, is embarrassing... and this is severely delt with at home... and rarely happens again.

In the US, however, the parent(s) will ask the teacher to defend her/his side of the 'story'. If you had any inkly as to the amount of work a teacher actually does during the school year, you'd know that teachers really don't have the time or energy to call parents (sometimes from their own homes, on their own time, when they should be relaxing with their own families) out of a whim, or just because they've taken a dislike to a student. But parents in the US are more likely to believe their kids who shrug and tell their parent(s) that they didn't do anything wrong, and that the teacher just doesn't like them.

There's far more pressure in Japan from the parents for their student to do well on the standardized tests, than there is in the US. In Japan, students prepare at home for the standardized tests, not just in the classroom.

In schools where the #1 priority of the student is to get a free meal and be safe, not necessarily to learn anything... you have lower scores on standardized tests. These kids have more on their minds than learning the ecosystem of the desert. Most of them do not live with their own parents, but with a relative, because Mom or Dad or both are either in prison, high on drugs, or irresponsible. Many of them come from young mothers who dropped out of school. Many are crack babies and have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Many have learning disabilities because of poor prenatal health or poor diets as they grow up. Some of them do not know where they will get dinner tonight, or where they will sleep. They aren't worried about scoring high on some test that was made up by someone who lives in a world so far removed from theirs that it might as well be on Mars.

Standardized tests came into being for many reasons, mostly for political reasons... not out of any consern for the kids. Now, many school districts have their own standardized tests, on top of the state and national tests. This is separate from the lesson tests that students normally take in class after each section on a subject.

So, lets see... students take tests...
1) weekly in each subject
2) approximately 4 times a semester (for 3 to 4 days each time) through district standardized tests
3) 4 to 5 days for state standardized tests
4) 3 to 5 days for national standardized test

There is a strong influence by districts and states to push teachers to only teach to the tests, and forgo any higher level lessons that take time and energy. Because, after all, it is really only important for students to score higher on these tests than Japanese students.

Here's more food for thought... check the salaries of teachers in the US (especially in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas) and compare them to teachers in other industrialized nations. You need to also factor in benefits, such as the cost of insurance for a family of 4.

There is a huge drop in quality teachers entering the teaching field and a huge rise in quality teachers leaving the teaching field. Legislators have failed to make significant changes that will keep the teachers that are already there, and recruit others into the field of education. As an example, to make a temporary patch to the growing number of teacher vacancies in Texas, state legislators passed a bill that allow anyone with a 4 year degree (doesn't matter what kind of degree) to become a teacher. None of these people have qualifications to deal with the number of students they get or how to teach a subject they may have little or no knowledge of, and most of them leave when a better paying job comes up.

Gonz, I think it is fantastic that your wife got involved in your son's school. Not many parents care enough to take that time. Perhaps you helped also, though I didn't get that impression from your post.

 

[Gonz]

but teachers protecting their rights

9 months a year jobs & salaries into the $60's, for a government job??? I have no sympathy. Especially when I've seen great teachers told to throttle back & amazing teachers like Jaime Escalante actually driven out of the field.

Teaching is not a job to get rich. Never has been. Never should be.

Nope, I didn't help. I just worked a full time job that earned enough to pay our bills & allow us a few minor extra's. Nothing to be the bread winner & allow a mother to do her duty and stay home & raise our child. I never read to him or talked with him or anything grand like that. I never participate in his life. Never even knew he went to school until I got the book bill. Amazing that, huh?

The NEA is evil. Teachers don't remember what teaching is because of stupid rules imposed by moronic judges & simpletons looking out for their jobs instead of managing the front office of every school district in the United States. Put down the gold star for everyone manual & pick up See Spot Run. It's not much but it's a start.

valkerie, are you a teacher?

 

[valkyrie]

9 months a year jobs & salaries into the $60's, for a government job??? I have no sympathy. Especially when I've seen great teachers told to throttle back & amazing teachers like Jaime Escalante actually driven out of the field.

Teaching is not a job to get rich. Never has been. Never should be.

in the $60's? Don't you think that's a little LOW!!?? Or do you mean $60K's? I couldn't open your link, so I went to the AFT site and looked at average salaries a few years ago (2001). The average salary for teachers was $43K... I don't think it went all the way up to 60K in just 3 years. Here's the quote...

Inflation remained in check in 2001, rising only 1.6 percent. Teacher salaries improved faster than inflation for the fourth time in five years. In the 30 years since 1972, however, teachers gained only $2,900 in inflation-adjusted wages (about 7 percent), which averages out to less than $100 per year. The average teacher salary continues to fall well below the average wages of other white-collar occupations. While mid-level accountants earned an average $52,664, computer system analysts an average $71,155 and engineers an average $74,920, teachers averaged only $43,250 in 2001. Even in the schoolhouse, teacher salaries increased at a slower rate in 2000-01 than the salaries of superintendents, principals, school secretaries, teacher aides, custodians, cafeteria workers and bus drivers.

I, personally, don't think that teachers should have to work retail during the summers to make ends meet. I also think that after working 30 years as a teacher, that the teacher shouldn't have to go work another job someplace else just to be able to pay their bills. Teaching is a relatively thankless job, and, as we've all seen by your posts, Gonz, a job in which thoughtless people blame teachers for all the ills of what's wrong with youth today. When I was growing up, it was the job of the parents to raise the kid and teach them how to behave. It was the job of the teachers to teach the kids reading, writing, math, science, history... etc.

If you ask former teachers what drove them out of teaching, it will not be that the union or organization they belonged to gave them a hard time about what they were teaching in the classroom. They'll tell you that they had a wakeup call to the profession. At some point, they looked at how much money they would be retiring on and realized that they couldn't sacrifice their lives for society anylonger. Or they had too many run ins with administration. Or they were tired of following the rules set by administration, only to have the same administration feed them to the dogs when things got rough over these same rules.

I'm sure many people don't realize that administrators in education did not become administrators because they were fantastic teachers. They became administrators because they sucked up to the right people.

Nope, I didn't help. I just worked a full time job that earned enough to pay our bills & allow us a few minor extra's. Nothing to be the bread winner & allow a mother to do her duty and stay home & raise our child. I never read to him or talked with him or anything grand like that. I never participate in his life. Never even knew he went to school until I got the book bill. Amazing that, huh?

That's too damn sad to even comment on. I don't have the heart to say anymore.

The NEA is evil. Teachers don't remember what teaching is because of stupid rules imposed by moronic judges & simpletons looking out for their jobs instead of managing the front office of every school district in the United States. Put down the gold star for everyone manual & pick up See Spot Run. It's not much but it's a start.

Odd statements... how the NEA is evil, and how teachers don't remember what teaching is... very blanketed statements on a subject that you clearly know nothing about. Makes me think that you are only looking for a little attention. Dude, go hug your kid or something... you'll get far more satisfaction out of it than randomly bashing nameless and faceless people... or a subject that you have no hope of understanding.

 

[Gonz]

I've a long history of where I stand right here in these forums. You have virtually none. Do not predispose yourself to assuming you have any clue as to where I stand or how I handle my son without reading more than one thread.

As for the topic, I stand firm. You have produced conjecture.

 

[valkyrie]

I've a long history of where I stand right here in these forums. You have virtually none. Do not predispose yourself to assuming you have any clue as to where I stand or how I handle my son without reading more than one thread.

As for the topic, I stand firm. You have produced conjecture.

The comment about your son only came in response to what you said about yourself. It wasn't meant as an attack. I truely was saddened to read what you wrote about the lack of involvement in his life. I truely was.

What you produced is an outsider's view of propoganda, set to bash teachers and blame them for the ills of society. You are completely wrong on this subject, but because you are ignorant AND stubborn (a lethal combination) you refuse to accept the evidence before you... choosing instead to cling to your beliefs, trying in vain to push your views, rather than to see and accept the truth.

It is unfortunate that you do not know the definition of conjecture... which is: "inference or judgment based on inconclusive or incomplete evidence; guesswork". What you posted was actually "conjecture". What I posted was actually factual and backed by evidence, I even quoted my source.

I personally know many truely outstanding teachers who are leaving the field of education for better paying jobs with less negativity and better benefits. One of these teachers makes $39K per year and pays over $650 a month for health care for her family of 4. The health care program she chose wasn't even the best available... but rather the lower end, to save on cost. The more expensive, but better covering health care program available to her and her family was well over $750 a month. She is not able to put much away for her retirement because of the amount she pays in health care for her family. She has been a teacher for 7 years, and loves the students. Leaving them is the hardest thing for her, but she must do for her and her family first, because no one else will.

When I corrected your statement about the salaries of teachers, you came back with an attack on me personally. Pretty damn sad for an administrator of a message board. Yeesh... with this sort of response ("I've a long history of where I stand right here in these forums. You have virtually none.") ... I'm not sure this is the board for me. Especially since the response came from an administrator.

Not sure if I'll ever return here again. Later.

 

[Gonz]

Another example of the public education sytem. I never laid sole blame on the teachers. Hell, I hardly blamed tham at all. You've proven that liberals can't read & the few who can don't comprehend. Too bad.

PS-sarcasm 2 a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual

The National Education Association. Teachers Union. The sole destroyer of the American education system.

 

[valkyrie]

Another example of the public education sytem. I never laid sole blame on the teachers. Hell, I hardly blamed tham at all. You've proven that liberals can't read & the few who can don't comprehend. Too bad.

PS-sarcasm 2 a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual

Just so you understand why so many people at this site can't stand your sorry ass... sarcasm, or whatever you were attempting with your original post, does not come through text very well without some sort of obvious cue.

example...
[sarcasm]Gonz, you are brilliant and an ASSet to this board.[/sarcasm]