Gov. Scott Walker - Un-American?

[Andrew D]

Maybe we should privatize the public education system. After all, private colleges have been doing a whiz-bang job of educating their students.

Oh, wait ...

If you have been following your dispatches from the alternative universe of the conservative movement, you have recently learned that the Obama administration has singled out a new industry to crush beneath its jackboot. The victim in question is the for-profit college industry -- Strayer University, ITT Tehc, Kaplan University, and so on -- singled out apparently at random and threatened with onerous new regulation.

* * *

And yet, a closer examination of the facts suggeswts that the existence of profit may not be the decisive factor in the persecution of the latest martyrs of capitalism. A series of exposes in The New York Times last year revealed that the for-profit industry soaks up a vast and growing share of federal college subsidies with little to show for it. The for-profits account for 11 percent of all college students, but 43 percent of federal student loan defaults.

... Since the government guarantees almost every loan regardless of whether the students can pay it back, the institutions have an incentive to sweep in as many students as possible. The General Accounting Office had investigators pose as prospective students applying to 15 major for-profit colleges. All 15 institutions made misleading sales pitches. Legions of disgusted former employees have revealed the industry's deceptive tactics. The largest for-profit, the University of Phoenix, graduates less than 10 percent of its students within ten years.

Worse, most of those students who do graduate acquire little to no added value in the job market. Chefs told the Times [that] they considered graduates of some for-profit culinary schools no better than other entry-level workers. ... Graduates of criminal justice programs, sold on careers in the FBI, wound up getting the same entry-level security guard jobs as applicants with high school diplomas. Graduates and dropouts alike described the crushing tuition debts they had no prospect of repaying.

Responding to the outcry ... the Obama administration proposed to subject the industry to some standards. To be eligible for federal college tuition subsidies, a certain number of an institution's students must repay their loans and a certain number must find employment within their field of study.

[Oh, the horror!!! To receive federal subsidies, an institution must actually do something worth subsidizing!?! Socialism!!! Evil Godless Socialism!!! Where's the birth certificate!?!]

* * *

Obviously, some students who go through for-profit colleges proceed to have successful careers. The trouble is the current business model, in which the schools can profit regardless of whether they help their students. The industry could be made to work if given a regulatory incentive [Anti-Americanism!!! Sacrilege!!! Treason!!!] to improve its students' career prospects, rather than just shanghai as many warm bodies as possible.

The question at hand is whether the federal government should apply some performance metric to its college loans or simply hand out cash willy-nilly. Amazingly, handing out cash willy-nilly has become the conservative position in this debate.

(Jonathan Chait, "The Diploma Factories," in The New Republic (24 March 2011) at p. 2 (emphases added).)

[oldr_n_wsr]

It has materialized. Classes get bigger and bigger each year as the number of teachers grows more slowly than the number of students.

Here on Long Island exactly the opposite is true. Up until a few years ago the school districts were on a hiring craze and a building craze (spurred on by the state and feds as they were more than willing to give/lend money to expand schools and reduce class sizes). Now the opposite is true. Fewer students coming into the schools and more graduating the schools. Districts are now closing elementry and middle schools as the younger populations are diminishing. In a few years all those fancy new buildings that were built for the Jr and Sr high population will have fewer and fewer students. It's doubtful the teacher population will go down similarly. They (school districts) will advertise how low their teacher to student ratio is. After all, it's all for the children.

And since we are talking about school districts, how about superintendent salaries. Here on Long Island we have over 14 who make over $300,000 a year (excluding benefits) and most making over $150,000 (again excluding benefits). Some of those have less than 2000 students in their districts. Yet their defenders say that in order to attract the best you have to pay the best. I am willing to reduce those salaries by half and see what that brings in as where else are they going to make 1/4 of a million dollars a year.

[Gob]

So, if judge says so, a law can't be passed? Isn't that arse backwards?

A US judge in Wisconsin has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the state's new collective bargaining law from taking effect.

Public-sector unions' bargaining rights would be affected by the law, if it is published later this month.

Judge Maryann Sumi issued the order, which is being seen as a setback to Republican Governor Scott Walker.

Tens of thousands of people rallied at the state capitol in recent weeks in protest against the anti-union measure.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne filed a lawsuit contending that a legislative committee which broke a stalemate that had kept the bill in limbo for weeks met without the 24-hour notice required by Wisconsin's open meetings law.

Last month, US state's 14 Democratic senators had sought to prevent the bill moving forward by fleeing the state, leaving the chamber short of the number needed for a vote.

But Republicans used a procedural move last week to allow them to pass the measure in committee instead. Mr Walker signed it into law shortly afterwards.

The state's justice department argued that it had given enough notice of the committee meeting when it posted a memo on a bulletin board two hours beforehand.

The law was to be published on 25 March, but the new restraining order will now prevent that from happening.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12791155

[Big RR]

Gob-not if that law was illegally passed, which is what needs to be decided.

[Gob]

A law "illegally" passed?

[Grim Reaper]

Just because a law gets signed off by the governor, or even the president, doesn't mean that's the end of things. If the law is deemed unconstitutional, it can still be struck down.

[dgs49]

(a) There is no connection between "private colleges" and "for-profit colleges." Rube's posting is apropos of nothing at all. Nobody has suggested "privatizing" either K-12 education or higher education.

(b) Grim Reaper, you are so far out of touch I have to wonder what planet you live on. I know dozens of teachers, and after the first few years they do exactly nothing (professionally) during the summer - and they BRAG about it! Some of their lesson plans date back to the Hoover administration. NOBODY begrudges public school teachers a good wage. The "grudge" is about payment for seniority RATHER THAN for performance. Every school district has slugs who haven't produced anything in years - maybe decades - yet there is no way of getting rid of a teacher for incompetence. Or failure to perform. We, the taxpayers, are ENTITLED to have our children taught by competent, motivated teachers, and there is an ARMY of competent, qualified people who would be more than happy to fill those positions on a MERIT basis, rather than on the same basis as DITCH-DIGGERS, which is the system that you and people like you blindly support.

Specifically, the "French Club" moderator who runs that little program is making over $100k, and would still be earning over $100k without the $1,500 or so she gets from that program. If she is "desperate" it is because she is an idiot, and not because her pay is insufficient.

(c) If it is not too much to ask, ponder the difference between "normalizing" teacher compensation around a state and "equalizing" teacher compensation. OF COURSE teachers in Philadelphia require higher compensation than teachers in Elk County, but a rational, state-wide pay scale can include factors for that. And can also include incentives for "Master" teachers who are willing to teach at "at-risk" schools, eh?

But with a labor union dictating the terms, this will never happen. All the goodies will go to the teachers who have managed to stick around the longest - regardless of competence or performance.

Bring on the public debate. The Libs can't win this one.

[Grim Reaper]

Grim Reaper, you are so far out of touch I have to wonder what planet you live on. I know dozens of teachers, and after the first few years they do exactly nothing (professionally) during the summer - and they BRAG about it!

I doubt the veracity of your anecdotal evidence. Also? Dozens? Out of how many total in the US? Come back when you have something substantial instead of a few people you've talked to on occasion.

NOBODY begrudges public school teachers a good wage.

Yet you are doing precisely that. You are supporting a proposal that would reduce their wages. You can't have it both ways.

We, the taxpayers, are ENTITLED to have our children taught by competent, motivated teachers, and there is an ARMY of competent, qualified people who would be more than happy to fill those positions on a MERIT basis, rather than on the same basis as DITCH-DIGGERS, which is the system that you and people like you blindly support.

Why would competent people want to have a job that pays less than nearly anything else they could get?

But with a labor union dictating the terms, this will never happen.

Other countries can handle their teachers being in unions, why can't we? Oh, right. Because that would mean that you would have to admit that the unions aren't the real problem and that would go against your talking points.

[Andrew D]

A law "illegally" passed?

Sure. A so-called "law" not lawfully enacted. There are procedural requirements which govern the enactment of laws. If those requirements are not fulfilled, then the so-called "law" is not a law at all. And if a so-called "law" is not a law at all, then a judicial order preventing its enforcement is entirely appropriate.

In this case, the judge has issued a temporary restraining order -- an order barring the enforcement of the so-called "law" until the question of whether it actually is a law can be sorted out. Again, entirely appropriate. In general, it is far better that a so-called "law" not be enforced until its standing as an actual law can be established than it is for a so-called "law" to be enforced, and for us to find out only later that it never was a law in the first place.

[Gob]

As I've said before, your political system is amazingly over complex and virtually non-understandable to the lay person.

Most experts agree that the relative complexity of the U.S. political system makes it hard for Americans to keep up. In many European countries, parliaments have proportional representation, and the majority party rules without having to “share power with a lot of subnational governments,” notes Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker, coauthor of Winner-Take-All Politics. In contrast, we’re saddled with a nonproportional Senate; a tangle of state, local, and federal bureaucracies; and near-constant elections for every imaginable office (judge, sheriff, school-board member, and so on). “Nobody is competent to understand it all, which you realize every time you vote,” says Michael Schudson, author of The Good Citizen. “You know you’re going to come up short, and that discourages you from learning more.”


viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2213

[dgs49]

Reaper, on what planet do people with humanities degrees make $100k (or even $60k) for nine months work?

Please advise, I want to go there.

Also, please advise what professional activities a H.S. history teacher with 20 years in does during the 10 week vacation in the Summer. It would be interesting to know. My teacher friends do a lot of fishing in Lake Erie. Does that qualify?

[Long Run]

In this case, the judge has issued a temporary restraining order -- an order barring the enforcement of the so-called "law" until the question of whether it actually is a law can be sorted out.

Didn't the D's come out of hiding. Why can't they just reenact the same law, unless the notice requirement would allow the D's to scramble out of town again?

[Grim Reaper]

Reaper, on what planet do people with humanities degrees make $100k (or even $60k) for nine months work?

Why would competent people want these degrees if other degrees pay more?

Do try and keep up.

Also, stop spewing that $100k nonsense. You're using the extreme high end and then ignoring the other 99% of the scale. Not everybody gets paid that much. And certainly not the second they start working.

Also, please advise what professional activities a H.S. history teacher with 20 years in does during the 10 week vacation in the Summer. It would be interesting to know. My teacher friends do a lot of fishing in Lake Erie. Does that qualify?

All that tells me is that they do a lot of fishing. It doesn't tell me that they don't do anything in preparation for school going back in session.

Not every teacher drops everything and anything related to school the second summer vacation begins.

[Andrew D]

In this case, the judge has issued a temporary restraining order -- an order barring the enforcement of the so-called "law" until the question of whether it actually is a law can be sorted out.

Didn't the D's come out of hiding. Why can't they just reenact the same law, unless the notice requirement would allow the D's to scramble out of town again?

Or they could do what the people of Wisconsin have repeatedly said they want them to do: Scrap this crap.

[rubato]

Teachers don't make $100k, they make $44k on average. Why lie about the amount?

Countries with good schools all share one trait, they respect teachers. Teaching people to hate and despise teachers, as dgs does, is a sure method for making schools even worse than they are now.

If you really want better schools then teach people to respect teachers, not hate them.



yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Some look at the world and ask how can we make it better? Those who look at schools this way will be interested in the following:

http://www.csun.edu/pubrels/clips/Aug07/08-15-07F.pdf

"...
“What have all the great school systems of the world got in common?” he said, ticking off four systems that
he said deserved to be called great, in Finland, Singapore, South Korea and Alberta, Canada. “Four systems,
three continents — what do they have in common?

“They all select their teachers from the top third of their college graduates, whereas the U.S. selects its
teachers from the bottom third of graduates. This is one of the big challenges for the U.S. education system:
What are you going to do over the next 15 to 20 years to recruit ever better people into teaching?”
South Korea pays its teachers much more than England and America, and has accepted larger class sizes as a
trade-off, he said.

Finland, by contrast, draws top-tier college graduates to the profession not with huge paychecks, but by
fostering exceptionally high public respect for teachers, he said. ..."


Some look at the world and say "how can I express my self-loathing by fostering hatred for others and making the world even worse" those will follow dgs . Those who want to make the world better will follow me, Those who prefer to find someone to blame and turn their brains off can follow the typical republican/dgs strategy.


yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

My biggest concern with that is that while the best graduates may make excellent researchers and even professors, they do not necessarily make the best, or even good, teachers. We need to get a way to find the best "teachers", ones who can appreciate that a subject might be difficult to grasp, and find innovative ways to make it more comprehensible. sometimes this may be among the bottom third, sometimes among the top, and others in the middle. But it is clear we will not recruit many of the best teachers by denigrating the profession as a whole.

Reaper, on what planet do people with humanities degrees make $100k (or even $60k) for nine months work?

Nine months, many CEOs make that in a week with the same humanities degrees, and thousands of upper managers in american business make far more than that in two or three months. indeed, they make far more than the scientists and engineers having the degrees you prize so highly.

[rubato]

My biggest concern with that is that while the best graduates may make excellent researchers and even professors, they do not necessarily make the best, or even good, teachers. We need to get a way to find the best "teachers", ones who can appreciate that a subject might be difficult to grasp, and find innovative ways to make it more comprehensible. sometimes this may be among the bottom third, sometimes among the top, and others in the middle. But it is clear we will not recruit many of the best teachers by denigrating the profession as a whole.
... "

http://www.csun.edu/pubrels/clips/Aug07/08-15-07F.pdf

And Gosh, if you even read the posts you might find an answer.

yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

Gee thanks for the heads up; what would I do without you?

[rubato]

Just go on living, I guess.

yrs,
rubato