Yes, I know it’s a very complex issue, of course. I have the utmost respect for good teachers.

But I also think that tenure is a bad idea because it makes it practically impossible to fire the crummy ones, or even worse, the nut jobs.

BTW, I’m still a liberal and a Democrat, but I’ve opened my mind to the possibility that school reforms like eliminating tenure and school choice may not be such bad ideas.

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Crawl back under your rock.

(will repost in most recent thread)

I’m no stock advisor – but I see folks in my field eyeing some scary investments – I guess I’m too contrarian.

Thanks again though,

sl

Finally, the question must be asked: if the first 7 percent downleg in home prices could manage to trigger …
1. Almost $100 billion in write-downs in the banking sector;
2. A 65 percent year-over-year surge in foreclosures;
3. The highest residential real estate loan delinquency rate in 20 years; and,
4. A 20 percent plunge in S&P financials …
… then what, pray tell, will the next 20-30 percent have in store?

“Believe me, it’s been hard for me to get to this place, it goes against every liberal bone in my body.”

Good for you, Ann. Liberalism is a self-loathing, parasitic illness.

In the functional world, people who do nothing and contribute nothing are routinely cashiered and dismissed. In education, people like this are coddled, promoted and celebrated.

Exactly. The good teachers get rewarded with tenure, but so do the crummy lame teachers. Not exactly fair and doesn’t make the profession very appealing to the many of our brightest.

There’s no supply and demand in teaching after tenure. If a certain type of teacher is harder to hire, they should get paid more, not get locked into some pay scale. A teacher who performs at a higher level should get paid more.

Seriously, when I think about some of the bozos who taught in my high school, I get sick.

We had this guy, he was a gym teacher, and then he was so belligerent and demented that they just made him the Driver’s Ed teacher and let him ride it out til they could get rid of him. He used to stand at the Stop sign at the end of the road and if the high school kids only did a rolling stop he would jump out in front of your car and make a citizen’s arrest. Apparently, this behavior wasn’t quite enough to get him fired, with his union protecting him of course.

Then we had this other creepy health teacher who used to teach us how to use, uh, protection, but couldn’t even say the name of the parts and used to substitute fruit names in.

And these people got paid the same amount as the fabulous, wonderful teachers, teaching real subjects like science and history, who challenged us to think for ourselves and were role models and everything else.

I only stick up for the good teachers and all the people who don’t become teachers because of the system. Believe me, it’s been hard for me to get to this place, it goes against every liberal bone in my body.