MrsVox wrote:Guys, where can I see the NJ voting results by county? My google isn't working...

http://elections.nytimes.com/2009/results/new-jersey.html?hp

I really like this cause it has the 2005-2009 results side by side.

Locally I'm not sure if there's a site that has all the downballot races. You would probably have to search by county.

There is also this:

http://elections.nj.com/dynamic/files/elections/2009/by_state/NJ_Page_1103.html?SITE=NJNEWELN&SECTION=POLITICS

jerseyhoya wrote:

MrsVox wrote:Guys, where can I see the NJ voting results by county? My google isn't working...

http://elections.nytimes.com/2009/results/new-jersey.html?hp

I really like this cause it has the 2005-2009 results side by side.

Locally I'm not sure if there's a site that has all the downballot races. You would probably have to search by county.

Wow. I like that site. As you mentioned, the side by side is really nice.

CalvinBall wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:if you really think that i feel sorry for you.

Was this for me? If so we might need a breakout thread.

yea, good teachers arent lazy. that is really a terrible stereotype that is not true.

Yes, good teachers work very hard and are extremely valuable. Unfortunately, they are part of a system in which they are paid the same as (actually typically less than the older burn outs) than the bad teachers, who are indeed if not lazy, so burned out that they can't rise up to make an effort anymore. The public perception of bad, lazy teachers comes from those teachers who actually fit that description. A bad, lazy teacher who doesn't do something grossly immoral is impossible to fire. They also tend not to make a secret about how little work they do or how little they care.

The public shares a lot of the blame. Burnout comes largely from parents' lack of support for good teachers who try to civilize their kids and from general lack of public support for teachers. It also comes from the public support for HS athletics over learning. A good percentage of the bad teachers I have known were hired as coaches, put far more effort and passion into coaching than teaching, and really never were good teachers at any point in their career. I have seen social studies teachers hired to fill a coaching vacancy, with little regard for their ability as teachers. The others are largely burnouts or those with serious personal problems, like alcoholism.

Burnout is a very serious problem. I have seen many good teachers turn into bad teachers as they approached the final decade before retirement. Some no longer could relate to the kids -- a ninth grader in 1965, just wasn't the same as a ninth grader in 1995. For others, I think the groove of knowing exactly what and how you were going to teach each year became a boring rut. Others were worn down by an administraion that is not big on creativity, reinforcing the rut.

CalvinBall wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:if you really think that i feel sorry for you.

Was this for me? If so we might need a breakout thread.

yea, good teachers arent lazy. that is really a terrible stereotype that is not true.

You're right. Good teachers aren't lazy. I commented on the overwhelming proportion of teachers to good teachers.

lazy people exist in every profession. you dont really have a point.

Yes, he does. Teaching is the only profession in which you really can't be fired, your compensation is totally unlinked to performance, and no matter how bad you are, you are guaranteed customers.

jerseyhoya wrote:

MrsVox wrote:Guys, where can I see the NJ voting results by county? My google isn't working...

http://elections.nytimes.com/2009/results/new-jersey.html?hp

I really like this cause it has the 2005-2009 results side by side.

Locally I'm not sure if there's a site that has all the downballot races. You would probably have to search by county.

This is what I was looking for... really interesting. (I was a poli sci major back in the day -- now my brain has been overrun was childrearing).

Jersey -- what's the deal with the Assembly results that haven't picked a winner -- no clear majority? What will decide it?

I forget to mention that last night around 5.30, two kids (prolly Rowan students) came around door-to-door to see if people had voted. With Corzine stickers all over their shirts. I was closing the door when they asked me, "Corzine, right?" I gave them a milder version of "no effin' way".

MrsVox wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

MrsVox wrote:Guys, where can I see the NJ voting results by county? My google isn't working...

http://elections.nytimes.com/2009/results/new-jersey.html?hp

I really like this cause it has the 2005-2009 results side by side.

Locally I'm not sure if there's a site that has all the downballot races. You would probably have to search by county.

This is what I was looking for... really interesting. (I was a poli sci major back in the day -- now my brain has been overrun was childrearing).

Jersey -- what's the deal with the Assembly results that haven't picked a winner -- no clear majority? What will decide it?

I just think they stopped updating the down ballot races once it was clear Christie won. Republicans picked up one of the two assembly seats in district 4 in Gloucester. The other 79 seats stayed the same.

jerseyhoya wrote:http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/10/grand_ol_pagan.php

This guy won

What a country

Cool. I was hoping he would.

allentown wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:if you really think that i feel sorry for you.

Was this for me? If so we might need a breakout thread.

yea, good teachers arent lazy. that is really a terrible stereotype that is not true.

You're right. Good teachers aren't lazy. I commented on the overwhelming proportion of teachers to good teachers.

lazy people exist in every profession. you dont really have a point.

Yes, he does. Teaching is the only profession in which you really can't be fired, your compensation is totally unlinked to performance, and no matter how bad you are, you are guaranteed customers.

Teachers' unions have screwed themselves, and done a lot of harm to this country, by fighting to the figurative death to protect mediocrity rather than reward excellence. If we could restructure that profession to make it more like, well, a profession--in which the best practitioners become wealthy and celebrated, and the worst quickly become ex-teachers--the country would vastly benefit.

I keep waiting for Republicans to figure this out and start running on it, but perhaps their general distrust/dismissal of book-learnin' ("BURN THE WITCH!!!!1") gets in the way.

Much as I loathe him, it would be a superb issue for The Mittster if he had even a smidgeon of political courage. Of course, his total lack of that is part of why I loathe him. More likely he'll propose massive subsidies for home-schooling.

Even Bloomberg, who's done more to reform the schools here than any mayor in our history, has somewhat undercut his Chancellor, Joel Klein, in Klein's efforts to make the teachers accountable. (Not that Bloomberg's really a Republican, just saying.)

merit pay would be alright, but how would it work? students need to take ownership too, if they dont the teacher should be punished for that? also, how do you determine what makes a good teacher? through testing? a lot standardized tests are horrible.

By evaluating them and guiding them in ways they can improve. It's difficult of course because every student has a different learning style, so it's hard to pin down one definition of what a good teacher looks and acts like. But taking the politics out of it, I' m sure most principals and administrators know who the crappy teachers are.

What makes a good lawyer, doctor or engineer? It's a mix of objective and subjective factors. Similarly, determining teacher quality is difficult but not impossible. Obviously no one standard gives the answer, so you use a bunch--academic performance, improvement over the course of a school year, the opinions of students, parents, peers and supervisors--and weight them accordingly.

Woody wrote:By evaluating them and guiding them in ways they can improve. It's difficult of course because every student has a different learning style, so it's hard to pin down one definition of what a good teacher looks and acts like. But taking the politics out of it, I' m sure most principals and administrators know who the crappy teachers are.

absolutely, but there are also crappy administrators that probably shouldnt be making the decisions on who gets what pay, well because they also suck at their job.

and sure you can guide a kid but some of them just refuse to learn or do work. they should really just drop out and deliver pizza or something or better go to a technical high school and learn a trade.

dajafi wrote:What makes a good lawyer, doctor or engineer? It's a mix of objective and subjective factors. Similarly, determining teacher quality is difficult but not impossible. Obviously no one standard gives the answer, so you use a bunch--academic performance, improvement over the course of a school year, the opinions of students, parents, peers and supervisors--and weight them accordingly.

there are so many things that could go wrong in that though.

academic performance= student chooses not to do work, student speaks spanish and struggles, student has learning disability

improvement of the course of the year= a student's mom dies and their performance drops off

student/parent opinion= student gets lazy and gets a D on a paper and that is the teachers fault so they hate the teacher

CalvinBall wrote:

dajafi wrote:What makes a good lawyer, doctor or engineer? It's a mix of objective and subjective factors. Similarly, determining teacher quality is difficult but not impossible. Obviously no one standard gives the answer, so you use a bunch--academic performance, improvement over the course of a school year, the opinions of students, parents, peers and supervisors--and weight them accordingly.

there are so many things that could go wrong in that though.

academic performance= student chooses not to do work, student speaks spanish and struggles, student has learning disability

improvement of the course of the year= a student's mom dies and their performance drops off

student/parent opinion= student gets lazy and gets a D on a paper and that is the teachers fault so they hate the teacher

That's why you use a bunch of factors and measure it over 2-3 years, rather than one.

Have to say I'm not shocked to find you making excuses for mediocrity.

CalvinBall wrote:

Woody wrote:By evaluating them and guiding them in ways they can improve. It's difficult of course because every student has a different learning style, so it's hard to pin down one definition of what a good teacher looks and acts like. But taking the politics out of it, I' m sure most principals and administrators know who the crappy teachers are.

absolutely, but there are also crappy administrators that probably shouldnt be making the decisions on who gets what pay, well because they also suck at their job.

and sure you can guide a kid but some of them just refuse to learn or do work. they should really just drop out and deliver pizza or something or better go to a technical high school and learn a trade.

This is another endless debate, calballz. This seems to be your theme today. You could say the same thing about virtually anything. Incompetent and lazy people are a fact of life.

And I know plenty of people hat were lazy and refused to learn in high school. Now they're principals and lawyers and police officers, and they're not lazy anymore.

jerseyhoya wrote:No it's very appropriate

Man, Christie carried Middlesex County. I guess that's what happens when your party boss goes to jail. Christ, Corzine won 59% of the two party vote there last time. Obama won 61%.

Middlesex is an excellent bellwether for the whole state, because it has urban, suburban, and rural areas.

It has gotten bluer in the last 10 years just like most of the rest of the state, and it was just as fed up with Corzine and his sleazebag cronies as everyone else.

CalvinBall wrote:merit pay would be alright, but how would it work? students need to take ownership too, if they dont the teacher should be punished for that? also, how do you determine what makes a good teacher? through testing? a lot standardized tests are horrible.

I don't buy this at all. When I was in school, everyone knew who were the good teachers and who was deadwood. Mrs. Chapman was awesome, and Mr. Koharski was dead weight. Some teachers had a reputation for dealing well with trouble makers, others were known to inspire and challenge smart kids.

On the other hand, I don't know if "unions" are the only or main villain of the piece. We have weak to nonexistent teachers unions throughout the South, and plenty of crappy teachers.

Though I will say we've been very lucky--we've had one truly great teacher for Lil' Vulture, two very good ones, and another who was pretty good. And teachers in our district face some huge challenges--the socio-economic diversity in this district is enormous.

What about the fact that the kind of people that aspire to teach generally overlap with the kinds of people that are kind of lazy and love summers off and 50 holidays a year and being done work by 4. If we make the school year longer, maybe we'll attract more folks that are a little more serious about making a difference