dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:first they came for detroit, and i said nothing. then they came for camden, and i said nothing.

They=Democrats who governed them into ruins after decades of shoddy management?

This is a fair point, as is the obvious counter about Republicans who've achieved the same result in economically dying rural communities.

In both cases, it's likely that the causes have much more to do with structural forces and macroeconomic trends than yay-team partisan shit flinging.

dajafi wrote:If you're looking for someone who's going to defend teacher's unions, you've really got the wrong guy. I was ambivalent-to-negative about them before I took a job with the country's largest school district. Now... um, less ambivalent.

That said, I think they're probably responsible for about 5-10 percent of the problem here. Imagine a world with no teacher unions. When you're done smiling, think about how much of a difference that would likely make in terms of educational outcomes.

TenuredVulture wrote:There are a lot of shitty schools and teachers in places with very weak or non-existent unions.

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:so the people of these cities should have no say in their elected officials? democracy doesnt work!

of course, large systemic changes and macroeconomic changes have been the larger reasons for cities become impoverished, but we must take away democracy in order to save it.

The state pays for 6/7ths of Camden's school budget. Camden spends $23,709 per student per year. Camden graduates 49% of its students from high school.

The state's picking up almost all of the tab and the :results: are awful. The state taking over Camden's Board of Ed probably isn't going to fix anything either, but they're not gonna make things worse.

sort of beside my point. Put it up to a vote, then.

Put what up to a vote with who? Camden Board of Ed gets to vote to continue wasting other people's money on their #$!&@ schools without repercussion? Camden residents get to vote to continue wasting other people's money on their #$!&@ schools without state oversight? GTFOOHWTBS

We voted to make Christie governor. Elected officials get to make decisions.

You've spent most of the last few pages bemoaning the results of a referendum, wanting 9 unelected people to impose their will on the entire country. Now you're bemoaning the lack of a referendum, not wanting an elected official to utilize his powers for his own constituents.

Werthless wrote:

dajafi wrote:If you're looking for someone who's going to defend teacher's unions, you've really got the wrong guy. I was ambivalent-to-negative about them before I took a job with the country's largest school district. Now... um, less ambivalent.

That said, I think they're probably responsible for about 5-10 percent of the problem here. Imagine a world with no teacher unions. When you're done smiling, think about how much of a difference that would likely make in terms of educational outcomes.

In the words of Mitt Romney, it's nice to be able to fire someone.

I'm not saying that Democrats care more or less about education than Republicans; I am saying that their political contributers ARE more interested in preserving the status quo, and it gets reflected in school policies. The teachers unions prevent schools from trying new ways to improve school performance, such as longer school days. We're only now starting to embrace the philosophy that testing different strategies is essential for understanding what works best.

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:so the people of these cities should have no say in their elected officials? democracy doesnt work!

of course, large systemic changes and macroeconomic changes have been the larger reasons for cities become impoverished, but we must take away democracy in order to save it.

The state pays for 6/7ths of Camden's school budget. Camden spends $23,709 per student per year. Camden graduates 49% of its students from high school.

The state's picking up almost all of the tab and the :results: are awful. The state taking over Camden's Board of Ed probably isn't going to fix anything either, but they're not gonna make things worse.

sort of beside my point. Put it up to a vote, then.

Put what up to a vote with who? Camden Board of Ed gets to vote to continue wasting other people's money on their #$!&@ schools without repercussion? Camden residents get to vote to continue wasting other people's money on their #$!&@ schools without state oversight? GTFOOHWTBS

We voted to make Christie governor. Elected officials get to make decisions.

You've spent most of the last few pages bemoaning the results of a referendum, wanting 9 unelected people to impose their will on the entire country. Now you're bemoaning the lack of a referendum, not wanting an elected official to utilize his powers for his own constituents.

you are somehow equating a rights issue with a funding issue, and also forgetting that school boards are directly elected.

where is the small government with this takeover?

Werthless wrote:Dajafi covered it. I hated the results of the Bush admin, and refused to vote for McCain in 2008 as protest of the spending and foreign policy. That doesn't change the reality of the Obama admin and the different approaches to recessions that the current republican house and the Obama admin have taken.

What am I ignoring? I may be misinterpreting your post.

Werthless wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:There are a lot of shitty schools and teachers in places with very weak or non-existent unions.

Are you pointing this out as an argument, or just a helpful anecdote that I wasn't aware of?



Me: The Twins pitchers are awful and will lose a ton of games this year because they do not strike people out.
You: The Astros have pitchers that are also awful, and they have decent or even good strikeout rates!
Me: I'd still rather have strikeout pitchers.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Werthless wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:There are a lot of shitty schools and teachers in places with very weak or non-existent unions.

Are you pointing this out as an argument, or just a helpful anecdote that I wasn't aware of?



Me: The Twins pitchers are awful and will lose a ton of games this year because they do not strike people out.
You: The Astros have pitchers that are also awful, and they have decent or even good strikeout rates!
Me: I'd still rather have strikeout pitchers.

The point is that unions aren't the cause of crummy schools. If they were, places like Mississippi would be world beaters in education. Unions may not be doing much good, but there are lots of other more critical factors holding schools back.

pacino wrote:a 'heartbeat' law and a TRAP law were passed and signed in North Dakota, effectively outlawing abortion and effectively eventually shutting down the only abortion clinic in North Dakota. The governor indicated that funds should be put aside to defend it...because THEY ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

amazing.

swishnicholson wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

Werthless wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:There are a lot of shitty schools and teachers in places with very weak or non-existent unions.

Are you pointing this out as an argument, or just a helpful anecdote that I wasn't aware of?



Me: The Twins pitchers are awful and will lose a ton of games this year because they do not strike people out.
You: The Astros have pitchers that are also awful, and they have decent or even good strikeout rates!
Me: I'd still rather have strikeout pitchers.

The point is that unions aren't the cause of crummy schools. If they were, places like Mississippi would be world beaters in education. Unions may not be doing much good, but there are lots of other more critical factors holding schools back.

This really should be self evident, speaking as someone who has worked in the Jersey City schools before their state takeover (which really had little effect on education but did change which palms got greased). You could turn Camden schools into the greatest educational laboratory of all time and it would at best improve the prospects of the top tenth of students. Not that that's not worthwhile, but it's a whole slew of social and economic factors that are holding most of the students back. Teachers unions are about the the least of the problem. In fact I'm sure there are many cases where it's only the pay and benefits accorded union teachers that are keeping some good teachers in the system.

In the 2003 decision, Scalia harshly criticized the court’s decision that struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law that had been used to convict a gay man of having sex with another man in his own apartment. The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy overturned a 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick that had upheld state sodomy laws.

Scalia wrote in his dissent:

“The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are ‘immoral and unacceptable,’ . . . the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, ‘furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual,’ …The Court embraces instead Justice [John Paul] Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that 'the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice,' . . . This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. “

He also questioned whether the laws against same-sex marriage can survive if “moral disapproval” is not a reasonable basis for upholding them, in effect predicting the cases the court agreed to hear Friday.

“Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is ‘no legitimate state interest’ for purposes of proscribing that conduct . . . and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), ‘[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring,’ what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising ‘[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution.’”