I work in a middle school in the south Bronx and understand and see firsthand the problems and issues that exist in the community. But instead of taking on an attitude of demonizing and feeling like this is something that needs to be defeated, we do our darnedest to help out as much as we can to raise the sinking ship and plug up the holes as much as possible. It seems like you just want to state how there is a sinking ship with lots of gaping holes and your solution is to just shoot more holes into it to make the ship sink faster in order to "defeat evil." The idea of actually trying to do anything to help out and to serve these communities is morally repugnant and self-hating to you. I'm sorry, but I don't identify and think that way. It's true that there are a lot of problems in these areas. But it's not a simple issue of concluding that these people are evil. There are many other issues and factors that these communities need to face. They don't have the healthcare that the rest of us take for granted. This, in turn, causes a lot more students that need to depend on related healthcare services from the schools, and then the school system many times don't comply with the state mandates. There are many people in the community that are working their hardest just to survive. I can't even begin to understand what it must be like to live in a community like this with these types of issues and problems. So I think that someone who doesn't even work in these communities or these settings can even come close to understanding the issues and what needs to be done. All I know is that taking on a demonizing mentality does absolutely nothing to resolve anything! The only way to make any type of positive differences is to recognize that yes, there are major problems, but that it's important to help out the best we can by coming up with the best solutions possible and to provide the best possible services we can. But who am I? Just some self-hating liberal Jew who is doing a great disservice by working in the public school system in the neediest communities.
Boy you are barking up the wrong tree with this line of thinking. Are you looking for a medal for working with the under privileged you will get it in about 6 or 7 years when you get tenure in the school system and make about 100 g's a year. You speak of how the people in the South Bronx don't have health care when in in fact the might have better health care through social services then many people who work and have to pay for their insurance. I always envy the City School teachers who get full medical coverage at no cost. What do they care that everyone else's premiums go up each year to absorb all the dead wood in the health care system that has to be treated. Its people like you always looking for excuses and expecting others to pay the freight for all this trash and dead wood waiting for programs and handouts that are the problem. If minorities were expected to sink or swim you would be surprised how many would become very industrious. The way you crying liberals made them all they do is look for the next meal ticket.
I'm not looking for any medals and this isn't about me. This is about the way all of you are demonizing blacks and deeming them to be evil. I'm just pointing out that I see firsthand that they are not evil. Why are you so envious of the health care coverage public school teachers get? We don't get our health care coverage for no cost. We get that by working in the system! You make this out like it's some free prize or handout being given away to us! I suppose anybody else who gets healthcare coverage through their job should also be envied for getting free healthcare coverage. If we teachers are so darned spoiled, then why is there still such a massive shortage of teachers? If we have it so good, why aren't so many more people flocking toward the field? In fact, the opposite is happening. There is such a large turnover of teachers. It's very easy to criticize from the outside when you have absolutely no idea what it's like to work in the field. I'm not looking for any medals. But now it seems like you're not just criticizing blacks, but public school teachers as well. And all of this is somehow supposed to help us fulfill our Zionist objectives!
I have a better idea of whats going on then you might think. I am not envious of the health care N.Y.C teachers get I just feel that teachers as well as many other City Workers are out of touch with the rest of working class America when it comes to health care costs. I also had that no cost insurance at one time but because the system has to absorb more and more dead wood (the uninsured) of all verities I now have to pay each week to maintain the same level of coverage I once had at no additional cost. You see Daniel I don't work for a municipality, its taxpayers who get stuck paying for outrageous salaries and plush benefits packages that municipal workers unions cut out of the taxpayers hide each year. I am a union worker and organizer and love to see people making a fair wage however at times and with certain groups this can be taken to far.
The first few years as a teacher in the city school system may not be pleasent however let me tell you your counterparts out here in the suburbs are on easy street. That is one of the main reasons that the city has a shortage of starting teachers. Young NYC teachers soon see that the money tree is growing out in Nassau and Suffolk counties and not in Brooklyn. Why put the time in in rough schools and have the potential of being assaulted by the animals that you are trying to civilize when you could get more money in a shorter time just across the city line. So in a matter of speaking you may be right when you say a shortage of teachers exist in the city schools but the reason is better deals are available to them elsewhere. Why put in the time to get up to top pay when you can get it sooner and easer elsewhere. Most teachers out here in the suburbs retire at 55 and have thriving business going by that time. Lets face it it not everyone that gets 3 plus months off a year to do as they like. I always laugh when teachers say well we don't get paid for them months. Well at 90 to over a 100 gs a year salaries in some cases for tenured teachers they should learn how to budget their money for the lean months and entry level salaries disappear fast.
My school tax for this year was $7000 60 % of that goes right to the teachers salaries not buildings or other staff just teachers. Each year that $7000 goes up 4 to 8% so you start to see why my opinions are the way they are.
Our objectives are best served when people open up their eyes and mouth to the real situation around them and not sugar coat the evil around them. When evil people and situations are ignored the problems only get worse.
So are you saying that teachers are evil people and that the salaries and benefits they get are evil?
You're absolutely right that in the suburbs like Long Island and Westchester, the salaries are significantly higher and the working conditions are much better. That's why the situations are in reverse there where the demand for those jobs are much higher than the supply. But on the other hand, a common practice in these areas is to make up some BS excuse not to give teachers at the last minute tenure in order to save money and then go through the same cycle again by hiring new inexpensive teachers. These teachers are then fired and have no other choice than to work for the city.
You make it seem like we teachers are a bunch of corporate fat cats, what, with "outrageous salaries and plush benefits"
I don't think anything could be further from the truth. Teachers need a great deal of education and are forced to get masters degrees, professional development hours, and then some while many people in the corporate and financial world only need to get a bachelors degree and end up making MUCH more money than any teacher could ever hope to make! Don't think for a second that we're on easy street in any way cuz we're not! It's a lot more challenging and exhausting to work with children all day than it is to sit in a nice air-conditioned office at a computer and a phone. I can't tell you how many times in the middle of a work day, I wish I could trade that in to work in an office at a computer even with longer hours. As far as tax payers paying for everything we get. Hey! We ARE the taxpayers that are paying just as much! We don't get any tax breaks! We're all part of the middle class that get squeezed since all of the enormous Bush tax cuts go to the gigantic corporations. But what the media hardly ever covers is the fact that with all of these tax cuts, there are NO payroll tax cuts. So teachers and the rest of the working class aren't receiving any benefits from the Bush tax cuts.
We teachers also have to pay hundreds, sometimes even a few thousand dollars per year out of our own pockets for supplies. We have to buy all of our own paper every time we want to make copies of worksheets for our students. Are there any businesses out there were the employees need to purchase their own copy paper? The businesses have loads of this stuff and the employees never have to worry about buying this or any other office supplies. It's all supplied for them. Teachers need to buy all their own office supplies, and all we get for it is $150 in teachers choice which doesn't even come close to the amount of money we need to spend out of pocket every year.
Also, keep in mind that with the last couple of pay raises we received in the last two contracts, they were really not raises since we needed to put in extra time to get the extra money. A true pay raise is when you just get a raise with no extra time. In fact, in the last contract, the high school teachers received a 15% pay raise for putting in 16% more time. So yes, they did get more money. But when you add it all up, they actually ended up getting a 1% pay cut!
I can definitely understand how other union workers like firemen, police, and transit workers feel very shortchanged because they definitely are. We all hope that they get more pay and get fairer contracts. But that doesn't mean that teachers are going to apologize in any way for anything we get. We just work together to see to it that we all get paid and treated fairly.
Topic: The Ongoing Debates with Imerica (Read 66016 times)