Two points:

1. I was being flip, pacino, but obviously, you as a union guy have no place in my tent. Also, no one actually gets what they want. You as a Dem have had to swallow a major bailout of wall street (which I can't imagine is high up on your priorities) and 2 foreign wars. Jerseyhoya deals with the right wing nuts. I deal with unions and abortion. We all have our crosses to bare. But what if you got to be with a party who hated getting involved with other people's stuff AND hated wall street AND loved unions? Wouldn't that be great? The only problem would be the tiny part where they want to burn you atheist at the stake. But again, crosses to bare.

2. Moz somehow read my mind, I'm almost amazed. Don't we all know a few to a bunch of union guys who seem to only be Democrats because that's the party of unions? There are plenty of dudes who would fit right in on the right. I'm merely proposing we put them together. Moz also has noticed The Economist and its brand of politics which is pro-biz while retaining a notion of both political reality AND social conscience. I mean this pro-business mag takes it as a basic pre-condition that everyone have health care and that a carbon tax is solid stuff.

This will never happen. It arguably shouldn't happen because frankly, there's a lot more of the New Right than there would be of the New Left. But it just captures two observations I've had about recent society. There is no particular reason that unions should remain on the right or that rich-ies should remain on the left.

The American Federation of Teachers spent heavily to unseat Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and to put the breaks on his aggressive efforts to shake up the city's schools system.

The national union spent roughly $1 million in contributions to a labor-backed independent expenditure campaign -- also supported by the public workers union AFSCME -- and on its own extensive political operation, a Democratic political consultant familiar with the details of the spending told POLITICO. The spending suggests that the vote -- while not a referendum on Fenty's attempt to shake up the school system -- was deeply shaped by that policy. And while the teachers union has been careful not to claim the scalps of Fenty and his schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, the election may serve as a political shot across the bows of other urban officials considering similar policies.

The union's president, Randi Weingarten, sought to downplay its role in the election, and denied that the union had targeted Rhee.

"For our members in Washington, it was what it was for other Washingtonians – about jobs, about the economy, about the city," said Weingarten. "This was not a proxy vote on Michelle Rhee."

...

"Collaboration is the right way to do reform," Weingarten said. "That’s who Vincent Gray is, that’s why our members supported him."

Teachers union helped unseat Fenty

A million dollars in a mayoral race. Think they were a little afraid the reforms from Rhee/Fenty might work? Can't have that. I hate them so fucking much.

jh, you know I'm with you 100 percent on Rhee, education reform and the worthlessness of the teachers unions. And I've been in small meetings with Randi Weingarten and found her about as much of an a-hole as she comes across in public.

But I wouldn't put much predictive value in the AFT giving to Gray as far as scaring off other would-be reformers. It sounds like Fenty was politically tone-deaf, and the economy sucked there--at least among that electorate. Absent the AFT giving, Gray still probably wins.

I wasn't looking at it from the scaring off other reformers angle, but the stopping the efforts of reform in its tracks so it can't be held up as an example in other cities/states as a way to turn struggling districts around. So even more cynical on my part.

jerseyhoya wrote:A million dollars in a mayoral race.

Tell it to Roberts, Scalia, et. al.

Anyway, I work for the AFT, and I know Randi Weingarten, and I can tell everyone here that what the AFT is opposed to aren't longer school days or or longer school years or even targeted reforms, but instead to lengthening working hours without ALSO extending pay - why should ANYONE agree to work more for the same money? What's wrong with America today is that corporate practice and "EXEMPT" positions have trained us all to think that none of us should have the slightest problem with work responsibilities encroaching into our personal time more and more every year WITHOUT significant increases in pay to compensate for that time. If there is anything in the UNIVERSE, the whole fuck-ing UNIVERSE, I hate more than that, I don't know what it is. It's why I'll live and die with my union, and with unions in general - they aren't always right, but if you let employers do it, they will demand an ever-increasing amount of your time, and expect you to give it to them - FOR FREE. Unions are the best stand average folks have against unpaid work time.

As to school reform, again, I think what the non-teaching public doesn't understand, and honestly what the AFT and NEA need to do a better job of communicating, is that it simply isn't fair to use something - namely, the standardized test scores of dozens of individual students, all with their own separate agendas and free wills - to assess whether teacher X is doing a good job or not. To do so is the definition of letting the inmates run the asylum, particularly so in high schools. Let's say I am a consicentious teacher who assigns a lot of homework and grades tough, and let's further suppose that I teach in a tough school with a bunch of smart-ass kids. If those kids get the idea that by tanking a government-issue, standardized test, that doesn't affect their own actual class grade one iota (which the no-child-left-behind tests and similar national evaluation tests don't, like the California Achievement Tests, etc.), they can get me, their tough mean old teacher who gives too much homework and too many hard tests fired, or even just prevent me from getting a pay raise, you don't think they'd do it?

My recollection of high school is that kids are very, very aware of this sort of thing, and are all too happy to screw with the system if they can figure out how.

Which of you, when it comes down to it, would like your job performance evaluated by a test someone else takes? Someone who has no direct reason to care about the outcome of said test? And someone who, if they don't like you, can perhaps even intentionally perform poorly, just to make your life miserable, since the test affects your job status and your pay, but doesn't affect them at all?

Thank you, the very point I have been trying to form since yesterday.

Not just some nefarious plot by kids to get rid of their teachers. There are kids out there who just don't give a crap. A teacher can't physically take a kid who doesn't care about the test and force them to circle the correct answers on a test. Education reform has been a series of fads and this testing fetish is just the latest in a long line of fads.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

mozartpc27 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:A million dollars in a mayoral race.

Tell it to Roberts, Scalia, et. al.



Which of you, when it comes down to it, would like your job performance evaluated by a test someone else takes? Someone who has no direct reason to care about the outcome of said test? And someone who, if they don't like you, can perhaps even intentionally perform poorly, just to make your life miserable, since the test affects your job status and your pay, but doesn't affect them at all?

Please. Just freaking please. EVERYBODY in the corporate sector has metrics that they are judged on that are not fully in their control. EVERYONE.

If a student has decided to screw himself on a standardized test just to get over on you the teacher then you're probably not a very good teacher OR those types of people exist in every classroom and will even themselves out across teachers.

Freaking school unions... ugh.

Teachers unions are free to participate in electoral politics and can be as self interested as they want to be, but in doing so they should lose their mantle of doing things for the good of the children, as they always like to pretend, if they're really just out for themselves.

jerseyhoya wrote:Teachers unions are free to participate in electoral politics and can be as self interested as they want to be, but in doing so they should lose their mantle of doing things for the good of the children, as they always like to pretend, if they're really just out for themselves.

Has it ever occurred to you that some kids just don't do well on standardized tests? Or that there are multiple intelligences that can't measured through a test? It's really insulting that you paint teacher's unions(which virtually all public school teachers belong to) as selfish when the vast majority of teachers really do care about their students and put in many, many hours in and out of school to ensure that their kids do well.

Mozart makes good points. But then again im in another 'freaking' union that everyone hates despite doing a lot of good for people and who represents lots of good, hard working citizens.

jeff2sf wrote:If a student has decided to screw himself on a standardized test just to get over on you the teacher then you're probably not a very good teacher OR those types of people exist in every classroom and will even themselves out across teachers.

Freaking school unions... ugh.

jeff, that's just the point: the student can tank the test with absolutely NO CONSEQUENCE to himself. He has no stake in it, only the teacher does. Using a produced item, like a standardized test score, in which the student himself has no stake, as an evaluation of someone else, who has a lot of stake in it, is patently unfair.

If you used student grades, that would be one thing. Obviously, there would then have to be checks to make sure that grade inflation wasn't clouding actual performance, but the point is evaluation of this kind is only fair if the student taking the end exam also has some reason to care about his performance on that exam. That's not the way it currently works - those tests DON'T AFFECT THE STUDENTS AT ALL.

not sure what you mean koppo. My sister wants to teach for the glory, the big bucks, and the sexy women that come with teaching special education students.

pacino wrote::arrow: not sure what you mean koppo. My sister wants to teach for the glory, the big bucks, and the sexy women that come with teaching special education students.

Oh you know it. I got my teaching certificate to make all that paper. I really don't care about kids at all.

In short, the well-intentioned attempts at education reform have been largely co-opted by people and forces that just hate the idea of unions in general, and don't really like the idea of public education either. The better the keep the workers under the thumb of their employers and to keep the general public stupid and malleable.

No worries, jeff wants me to quit then eliminate my job all so we csn get a few more votes.

yeah we put ourselves into debt up to our ears and will make the same amount of scratch per year as my wife did before her career change, so she's a money grubber as well

jerseyhoya wrote:
Castle and O'Donnell both favored making the Bush tax cuts permanent. I have no idea what you're talking about.

what I'm talking about is that O'Donnell did not win thanks to the votes of a citizenry straight out of some Platonic mold - contrary to your assertion.

kopphanatic wrote:In short, the well-intentioned attempts at education reform have been largely co-opted by people and forces that just hate the idea of unions in general, and don't really like the idea of public education either. The better the keep the workers under the thumb of their employers and to keep the general public stupid and malleable.

Yes, that's exactly it. I don't really care how evaluations are done, but stop getting in the freaking way.

And Mozart, again, if a kid wants to tank to spite you, you suck as a teacher OR there are plenty of those spread across teachers so you're no more likely to have one than anyone else and that's life.

pacino wrote:No worries, jeff wants me to quit then eliminate my job all so we csn get a few more votes.

I'm actually ok with gov't unions. But let's not make it sound like you have a bunch of hardships.