Juntti: Let’s get back to REAL Education…
Thousands protest at Texas Capitol in opposition to education cuts
As I watch and read about the huge protests (led mostly by UNIONS) in the different states that are dealing with massive budget deficits I have this ‘thought’ that keeps running through my head related to the *education* focus. The ‘thought’ is how many of these teachers teach mathematics? How many of these ‘students’ have studied mathematics and passed the grade? How many of these protesters have ever lived within THEIR means, not using CREDIT to live on? How many of them have ever reached into their wallets and find it EMPTY? Finding it EMPTY, do they go into the stores they want things from and DEMAND that they be GIVEN what they want even though they have no money to pay for it?
Our entire *education* system has been riddled with make believe for so long. Remember the “New Math” and how 2 plus 2 can equal 5 or even 3 if you want it to?? We long back let REAL EDUCATION go by the way side and soon it consumed the minds of all those teaching and being taught – the focus became SOCIAL rather than LOGIC. EMOTION over REALITY. I’m OK, You’re OK – There are no losers – everyone is a winner (Hmmm… maybe that is why Charlie Sheen is WINNING???) Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, Civics, Penmanship, gave way to condom applications and kids have two mommies or two daddy’s – and sports RULES over intelligence.
When the so called education system stopped teaching the basics of education to obtain a job that PRODUCES something of value and not passing those who didn’t learn the lessons of that grade level – going instead to passing everyone so no one would be embarrassed or have hurt feelings – real LEARNING (education) ceased to be for the majority of kids…. taught by the teachers who learned to draw a paycheck for not producing graduates who could get a job beyond janitorial or fry cook. I ask you WHY are there all those classes to bring a high school *graduate* up to speed to get into college? If they had been taught in high school they wouldn’t need those remedial classes to get into college courses.
The elimination of corrective discipline led to the tantrums to get ones way. Parents ceased to be PARENTS and became Buddies with their kids. No one was the GROWN UP – they all turned into KIDS – DEMANDING EVERYTHING and government was the PARENT.
Take a good look at the demands and the actions of those in Wisconsin and in the other protest areas. It is ALL DEMANDS and THREATS. Just who among those protesters is saying they have been overeating – over indulging – producing little of any consequence for decades and NOW, NOW, the pantry is not only EMPTY – it is filled with IOU’s that must be paid before any ‘food’ can be purchased to restock that Budget Pantry.
How many parents are stepping forward and saying they are going to homeschool their children? How many of the TAX FEEDERS are voluntarily saying they need to step back and demand less and produce a better outcome for what they do? The drop out and failure rate is unacceptable for the money that has been spent for those who work in what is called the EDUCATION INDUSTRY.
On the local (Dallas/Ft. Worth) TV news I have seen kids who are collecting pennies and sending them to Austin. PENNIES!!! I have heard of a young boy, 13 yrs old?? not sure, who is speaking out demanding that the legislature give the money to the schools – I see groups of kids telling how much their teachers mean to them… it is ALL EMOTION – FEELINGS – NO REASON.. NO LOGIC….. Absolutely NO understanding that they can’t wave a magic wand and the funding appears. This nation is BANKRUPT!! That is why I mentioned above the teaching and learning of MATH. When you keep SUBTRACTING from the base amount you end up with a NEGATIVE FIGURE. When there is NO way to refill the pot you can’t keep drawing substance from it. Why should teachers, administrators or any other TAX FUNDED employee be above the guy/gal who works in the Private Sector? It is the Private Sector that feeds the Tax funded Money pot. The Private Sector has been off shored to foreign countries and taxed into a state of BANKRUPTCY.
That POT O GOLD at the End of the Rainbow is a fairy tale but these teachers and those they are teaching believe it to be true – that is why they keep demanding as they are. They have little if any connection to REALITY.
If you happen to talk to one of the protesters – ask them WHERE the legislature is supposed to get the money to meet their demands. Ask them if they LIVE WITHIN THEIR MEANS or if they live on Credit and what are they going to do when their credit card is denied? They must be awakened to the fact that the government credit card has had a LOCK placed on it as there is no collateral to cover the overdrafts.
Then stand back for when they fall down on the ground and begin their temper tantrum – because that has always worked in the past and they still think it will work. They have never been taught to REASON – to THINK – to add or subtract with absolutes. They only know how to DEMAND and to throw tantrums to get their way.
March 13, 2011
Link to article, which inspired the author’s comments, above: Thousands protest at Texas Capitol in opposition to education cuts.
~ The Author ~
Jackie Juntti (Granny) is a daily reader and frequent contributor to the Federal Observer. She can be reached for comment at idzrus@earthlink.net.
Let’s be frank: “Public employee” unions (and the DemocRATS who enable them) are THE ENEMY of We The People.
Private-sector unionization is onerous, but acceptable, for one simple reason: The owner of the business has the right – if he does not wish to live with the consequences of having his business unionized – to shut it down, sell of its assets and close up shop.
We *CANNOT* do this with our .Gov.
Further, the corruption involved in the whole mess is patently obvious! Look at the big picture! Notice how all the big union-states are “blue states”!
Unions pay to elect DemocRATS. DemocRATS then use their position to pay back the unions! Even if the quid-pro-quo wasn’t so direct, we’d still have a HUGE ethical issue, as those who are elected by unions are also the ones in charge of “negotiations” with them!
HOWEVER, the quid-pro-quo is shameless and direct – which may explain why most of us don’t really recognize it for what it is — it’s just too mind-boggling that they’d be so blatant about it!
Look at the so-called “stimulus” bill. We were TOLD this was about “stimulating the economy” — $860 BILLION DOLLARS, and yet here we are, worse-off than before. Well, those of us not in a union, anyway…
Look at where the so-called-”stimulus” money went! To build roads, schools .gov buildings and the like.
Stop and THINK: Who does the actual WORK on such projects?
Have you EVER seen a .gov construction job that wasn’t done by union-labor?
In short, the entire “stimulus” package went to the unions — but that’s just the beginning! Then we have the “bailout” of GM and Chrysler. In DIRECT OPPOSITION to literal CENTURIES of law and precedent, the bond-holders were screwed, and the companies given to the very unions that had run the companies into the ground in the first place! Trust me – I worked in a GM plant and saw first-hand how the UAW folk operate — waste, fraud and abuse, even deliberate sabotage so outrageous you wouldn’t believe me if I told you!
I also worked in a Fed.gov agency for a couple of years — and if anything the behavior THERE was just as bad! In most cases, the career-bureaucrat employees spent their days doing nothing, browsing porn or “dating” sites, sleeping, or even running personal businesses for profit (via .gov computers, networks and phones!). The “Contractor” employees – like me – did all the work while our alleged “servants” did nothing but waste our money!
Best of all, in even the most egregious cases, it was IMPOSSIBLE to fire these people because of their union protections! I saw UAW folks caught stealing high-dollar merchandise – and when caught they’ve been trained to holler “I HAVE AN ALCOHOL PROBLEM! I NEED REHAB!”
With that magic incantation they turn what would be a career-ending event for the rest of us into a 30-day paid vacation!
All this corruption has gone far enough. To me, it’s very cut-and-dry: those who support the public-sector unions, or the democRATS, are officially The Enemy – and I will not trade, treat or associate with The Enemy.
It is they who have bankrupted our Republic, it is they who have forced our industry to relocate overseas to escape crippling “environmental” restrictions and outrageous wage demands. They blame the corporations as if they were driven by greed when they were in fact driven by desperation and a desire to stay in business!
The unskilled factory worker whose job is to plug the same tab “A” into slot “B”, once a minute, 30-hours a week for an entire career, makes in the neighborhood of $30-50 per hour?! Indeed! He has a bigger house than you, a couple of new cars, a boat, and a pension you’d likely die for!
The “teacher” who can barely read on a 10th-grade level gets nearly 4 months of paid vacation and holidays yearly, and despite cries of poverty makes more money than most of us.
Many of us remember a time when “public service” meant trading lower pay for job-security, benefits, pension and more holidays/vacation. That day is LONG GONE – “public-sector” workers now make an average of 150% of the salary earned by those of us in the private sector.
Yet they are now rioting over being asked to pay a small fraction of the costs of their medical-care! Funny — everyone else I know pays 100%!
This has been allowed to go much too far – but it must end, and NOW!
They are The Enemy – and it’s long past time we started treating them like it!
Outstanding article and terrific comment from Skip. Not too much to add. I do believe it might be best to start at the top when looking at the gov. rip off of the taxpayer. Start with Emporer Ricky’s 50,000 $/month rented palace for his private living quarters while the “fire” damage is repaired in the gov.’s mansion in Ausin…how many years ago was that little fire? So long ago I can’t remember. Seems like Emporer Ricky is always off on some boondoggle in some other country when something happens here in Texas…like some economic seminars, etc. all paid for by the taxpayers, and yet Ricky was was again elected to the office…..without going into even more detail, I think you catch my drift here..the unionized government workers are simply “trickle down economics” from the powers that be above them in the food chain, and like the SOP’s, the Sold Out Politicians, they now believe they are the masters and the taxpayers are their slaves. They also vote for the hand that feeds them…they don’t much care if those oats are stolen or earned.
When we end the ability of government employees to unionize against the citizens who hire them, return education decisions to local levels, totally eliminate the Depts of Education in WDC, and award merit pay to teachers who merit it and severance pay to teachers who don’t, then maybe, just maybe, we’ll get back to educating our children once more rather than indoctrinating them as is now done. Our children need to be taught how to think, not WHAT to think. In fact, that would be good advice in training most teachers too. Notice too, that many of the government and union hierarchy who support keeping our public schools in the shambles they have become almost always send their children to private schools where they will receive a quality education. It is a cinch they won’t get it in a public school today.
Also on topic here…
Where are the funds coming from to organize these protests, and fund the signs, stickers, and whatnot..??
Whose busses are being used and who is funding the busses used to transport people to these protests..??
Are these protesters misappropriating public funds and property by using school buses and fuel purchased with TAX $$..??
Are any TAX $$ or public funds being used to fund any portion of these protests..?? If yes, then why..??
Were any public school hours illegally used by teachers, administrators, or students in organizing or preparing for these protests..??
Are we to believe that these young middle-school students weren’t coached and propagandized by public school staff members and teachers, on school time, so as to be used as pawns in the unions’ effort to maintain public school funds and the union power base..??
If, in the face of all these proposed cuts in education, public funds were used in any fashion to assist in this effort, it is evident these bodies already have too many public $$ and should be cut even further.
It’s high time citizens and tax payers started tackling the obscene regressive influence public sector unions, including teachers’ unions, have our on life and potential improvements in educating our children. Big, greedy unions were responsible for many of the large manufacturing companies going out of business or overseas. Now, public sector unions have resulted in contributing to the dumbing down of our children’s education system and driving the idea that everyone is deserving to be fed at the public trough by having a meaningless job for which they can’t be fired, even for poor performance.
For generations before education involved unionized teachers having an entourage of paid, 2-digit-IQ assistants and several over-degreed, supervising administrators who are clueless at managing their own families, nonunion Catholic nuns with little assistance or supervision managed to provide an excellent, versatile, and high-quality education to classes in excess of 50 students while accepting fair pay for their efforts.. Some teachers today can barely speak English are teaching the subject. Others, who wear slip-on shoes probably because they can’t tie a proper knot in laced shoes, can’t even demonstrate how to put a condom on a banana without having help.. Yet, people like this are retained as teachers for only one reason, they have teacher-union backing, and union contracts to prevent them from being fired. This situation needs to end now and we forcing the fat to be cut out of government jobs is a good place to start. End teachers’ unions, initiate an excellent merit pay system, allow intelligent educated people to teach students in their areas of expertise without having 1st to spend years kissing the butt of teaching certificate schools to bless them as teachers, start a school voucher system that will force schools to compete with each other by showing they can educate students and teach them how to think, not what they should think. Do this and our education system will improve. Do it not and our nation will continue down the path of failure. The choice is ours, as citizens and owners of our government, and not the public sector unions who believe they own the government.
– Skip