War against the teachers union has commenced

~ Forewards ~

Since the inception of *unions* for any tax funded employee began – the QUALITY of performance of that group as deteriorated by leaps and bounds. As with all *union* agenda’s it is to support the upper echelon and not the people they are supposed to serve. I have watched how the Machinists union in Seattle destroyed the Boeing Co. and drove it out of the state. Now all those members are on the unemployed list.  They got their DEMANDS alright and they also got the results of those demands…. NO JOB. There should be NO unions for teachers or any other tax funded position. There should be no NEA or Nat’l Dept of Education either as that is just another one of the feet in the door to dumbing down the kids it gets in contact with. Take a good hard look at what passes as *education* in America today compared to what it was 50 years ago. Notes home from teachers are hard to decipher. Discipline is long gone as sports and other curriculum has replaced readin’, ritin’ & rithmatic. No standards other than PASS EM ON to the next level so I don’t have to deal with them again.

This is really sad for the kids and for those teachers who still try to do the job they believe should be done. In the long term it is sad for America because we are allowing ignorance to be called education. Soon no one will be able to talk without a teleprompter and ear phones to tell them what the words on the teleprompter say. Granny

TALLAHASSEE – With a results-oriented new governor and a Repuublican Legislature that dislikes teacher unions, the political climate is ripe for sweeping education reform in Florida.

This time around, the Florida Education Association wants to be involved in shaping it instead of leading the charge to block it. Gov.-elect Rick Scott, whose daughter teaches special-needs children, welcomes the participation but says “there is going to be a bill” this year.

Ending teacher tenure, implementing a form of merit pay and allowing school choice have been core GOP tenets since ex-Gov. Jeb Bush first ran 16 years ago. The hottest bill of 2010 was enacted in a marathon House session that ran into the wee hours only to be vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist.

The bill called for half of a teacher’s evaluation, and subsequent pay raise, to be determined by the learning gains their students made. It also said new teachers would be hired on annual contracts.

Crist said his veto was driven by a tide of public opinion that overwhelmingly opposed the bill. The opposition campaign was run by the education association.

“We never doubted there would be a recurrence of Senate Bill 6,” Kathy Breakall, president of the Escambia Education Association, said. “We have known this was a possibility.”

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, a former Okaloosa County school superintendent, said the public wants merit pay for teachers and an end of tenure. He said the teacher unions’ “core principle” is that “the way to get a raise is to get a year older” in the profession.

“There are people who teach now, who are good teachers, who resent the fact that they come early, stay late, work hard and get better results than the slug who teaches next door ? who gets bad resultss but gets more money because the only thing that they do is have another year,” Gaetz said.

“We can’t expect them to renounce their baptism, to throw off their article of faith,” he added, “but they can work with us.”

Scott said teachers are seeking fair guidelines.

“During the campaign, I’d sit down with teachers and say, ‘You don’t have a problem with measurement,’ and they’d agree. They just want to make sure it’s fair measurement,” Scott said at a meeting with Panhandle lawmakers.

Teachers should be at the table making decisions, Breakall said.

“The thing that frightens me in particular is teachers will not be listened to,” she said. “We want fair guidelines for accountability. Let us be a part of the answer and help you solve the problem.”

Like Scott, Breakall believes in accountability.

“I don’t want a teacher in front of a classroom I could not want teaching my grandchild,” she said. “I also believe when you are setting up standards and guidelines, they have to be fair and rational and just.”

Source: PNJ.com

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