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Post by greyhair on Oct 29, 2014 22:00:41 GMT -5
Well, Metamorahunter, I am on your side. This is an absolute travesty - but you are wasting your time trying to get some folks to see that it is a big issue. They just have blinders on. The folks running this State the last few years have been hell-bent on privatizing just for the sake of privatizing. Look at the outcomes - the toll road mess, the IBM mess, the private prison mess at New Castle and so on. Now they are working to privatize education and just absolutely lose it when their pet privatized schools don't cut the mustard.
The charter school operators donate heavily to the Republicans. The more tax money that goes to charter school operators, the more money flows back to the Republicans that steered the tax money to the charter schools.
The public employees unions donate heavily to the Democrats. The more tax money that goes to public employees, the more money flows back to the Democrats that steered the tax money to the public employees.
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Post by ridgerunner on Oct 30, 2014 4:44:28 GMT -5
The whole thing is flawed. But they don't go changing other schools' grades. They created the mold to showcase the schools try want to succeed. When that doesn't work to suit them, they fudge the numbers. Other schools find problems and beg the state to reevaluate their data and get turned down flat. Want to know how I know??? I won't claim to be an expert on much, but I am on this. How do you know they don't fudge numbers for other schools...lol..That's impossible to say....or are you just repeating Democrat talking points?
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Post by ridgerunner on Oct 30, 2014 4:50:50 GMT -5
Sorry not you metamorahunter. I was talking to ridgerunner If i didn't have so much time invested and was 15 years younger I would get out of Education. I have too much invested now. The liberal politics and indoctrination of young minds is beyond words. We need to get the Unions out of Public Education.
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Post by greyhair on Oct 30, 2014 17:34:20 GMT -5
If we are going to get the unions out and get rid of their liberal indoctrination, then we have to get the profiteers out and get rid of their conservative indoctrination - but as I pointed out earlier, this isn't about education or beliefs, it is a tug-of-war over money.
Public employee unions = democrat money
Privatized functions = republican money
That is really all there is to it.
That said, know that I worked for four State administrations of both parties before retiring, and I know that there many public workers of both parties in the trenches that are simply trying to do their best every day, politics aside.
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Post by nodog on Nov 13, 2014 17:56:01 GMT -5
Common Core, as written, does have some issues. The idea of common core makes ultimate sense, though. If we are going to rank states against each other based on standardized tests, how can you do that when each state has different standards? Answer? You cant...but we do. Indiana's standards are consistently ranked among the most difficult of any state...in fact, our Social Studies standards are #1. Yet we are ranked along side states that have much less stringent standards. (The same holds true when ranking nations of the world, by the way...not to mention the fact that most of the countries "ranked ahead of us" only test their best and brightest students while we test almost 100% of our students...real fair, ?) Bill Gates selected the idiots who wrote the common core. Very few actual teachers were allowed in on the process. That's completely backwards. Its also politics and big money. There's your problem! Your ideology is flawed from the get go. In your mind government is good, and it is but only in the sense that rat poison is good. Rat poison is good at killing rats and anything that ingests it, but if the reason for the rats was taken care of there would never be a need for the poison. Government is, always has been, always will be highly inefficient and grossly abusive of power. It is that way deliberately so the people keep their mess cleaned up. Unfortunately people like you just don't get it and sing the praises of rat poison while it slowly kills us all. Teachers are bottom feeders who rise to the top of their profession with the poster boy of public employees being Obama. Show me one school teacher that votes who didn't vote for every school levy even though there are obviously some that were not needed. Teachers with their vote have empowered the system that is what government is.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2014 19:29:13 GMT -5
Woody, how does one go about changing screen names? I think I might switch mine to "Bottom Feeder".
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Post by MuzzleLoader on Nov 13, 2014 19:51:35 GMT -5
Wow, didn't know teachers were bottom feeders. Learn something new everyday. Teachers are under paid and deal with a lot crap on a daily bases from all directions. Would not even acknowledge this guy. Sure you are an outstanding teacher Met!
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Post by greyhair on Nov 13, 2014 21:32:53 GMT -5
Amen to that. Some things, like education, should be strictly public-interest issues and not profit driven like the charter schools. Anyone who thinks that the for-profit charter school operators have the kids best interest at heart is smoking something.
Metamorahunter, I don't know you, but I know a lot of public school teachers and bottom-feeder is an insult such as would come from someone that is listening to too much talk radio, and probably lives in their mom's basement, surrounded by empty diet coke cans and pretzel bags.
Yours is a noble and underpaid profession - carry on sir...
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Post by Russ Koon on Nov 14, 2014 11:25:22 GMT -5
There is often such a disconnect between our opinion of the individuals who apply their efforts daily in the direct interface with the public, and our opinion of the organized conglomerations that set the rules and regulations with which those "retail" providers are saddled, whether or not they are personally in agreement.
I like our mail delivery person, for instance, and she does her job reliably and goes above the call in bringing some stuff to the door, but I am not generally a fan of the government mail delivery as opposed to the private delivery services.
I like my doctor, but am not nuts about the required exams that must be scheduled twice a year (one during deer season and one during mushroom/turkey, conveniently!) in order to renew my prescriptions and keep receiving the pills that are probably helpful in keeping me plodding along. And I'm opposed to the further regulation and intrusion of Obamacare into medicine, even though it will have little effect on me personally.
I liked most of my teachers, and most of my son's teachers that I met, and have a generally favorable impression of the several teachers in my extended family, and a genuine respect for their efforts.....but I'm not a fan of the over-regulation and micro-management by the government, especially at the federal level.
It appears to me to ONLY make sense if the ultimate goal is to create a completely uniform, one size fits all educational system that treats the educational needs and priorities of the North Dakota rancher's kids exactly the same as those of the Connecticut account executive and the Maine logger. Is that a realistic goal? Is it a desirable one, for anyone not completely obsessed with uniformity?
We then are faced with a common problem concerning governmental intrusion. In order to "treat everyone the same", we need to accept a level of uniformity and being pounded into a round hole even if we are square pegs, that we find at least uncomfortable and at times very disturbing.
The question seldom seems to come up, "at what point is the price of standardization too high?".
If I have any point of disagreement with you, Met, on the matter, it would be in that area. Are you accepting the "need" for uniformity, then rebelling against the uneven application of the government in assessing the qualifications and adherence to their prescribed mold?
In our polarized world, it seems that every disagreement immediately gets elevated to a name-calling tirade against the "other side", when quite often the ultimate goals of both sides of the argument are similar. The disagreement over some details of the practical applications should be handled more locally, and could be if the government at some higher level could manage to keep its nose out of the matter.
I've been around almost seventy years, and have been paying attention part of that time, and I really am having trouble recalling anything that was truly improved by federal government intrusion. Even in areas such as civil rights legislation and enforcement, where it might appear that federal intrusion helped, a closer look reveals that it was only AFTER the public sentiment had shifted enough on the issues that it became politically viable, that elected officials got out in front of the parade to act as drum majors.
I think the more important lesson is that federal intrusion into anything should be closely inspected for a real need, and for any likely later unsavory growths and additions, and any available alternatives should be given at least an even chance to compete.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2014 12:02:34 GMT -5
Russ, In answer to your question... I am NOT in favor of one-size-fits-all standardized testing. I believe the No Child Left Behind legislation, though well-intentioned, has been a terrible detriment to education. My earlier comments about the common core were to say that comparing and ranking the achievements of students from different states and countries on their standardized tests is pointless when we all have different standards and give different tests. I think the only fair way to hold me accountable as a teacher is to test my kids at the beginning of the year on the standards I teach and then again at the end. If they show good growth, I've done my job. If they don't, I haven't. I'd welcome that kind of accountability, as would every other teacher I know. That's the way I see it. But then again, it's pretty hard to see when you spend your life feeding down here on the bottom.
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Post by chubwub on Nov 14, 2014 14:26:29 GMT -5
Woody, how does one go about changing screen names? I think I might switch mine to "Bottom Feeder". That's Professor Bottom Feeder, right?
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Post by nodog on Nov 15, 2014 13:18:10 GMT -5
Amen to that. Some things, like education, should be strictly public-interest issues and not profit driven like the charter schools. Anyone who thinks that the for-profit charter school operators have the kids best interest at heart is smoking something. Metamorahunter, I don't know you, but I know a lot of public school teachers and bottom-feeder is an insult such as would come from someone that is listening to too much talk radio, and probably lives in their mom's basement, surrounded by empty diet coke cans and pretzel bags. Yours is a noble and underpaid profession - carry on sir... on a scale of top of the food chain (president) on the government dole and the bottom, where are public employees known as school teachers? for some reason teachers are good but the higher ups are bad with the truth being the teachers supporting the higher ups in order to benefit. save the higher tone for people who fight the good fight NOT on the government teat.
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Post by nodog on Nov 18, 2014 20:48:27 GMT -5
nothing to say? Let me ask this again, show me a public employee known as school teacher that hasn't voted for every levy they were eligible to vote on. Been asking this for years, haven't found one yet and the problem with it is it's the educator that's being asked this, not some uneducated welfare recipient.
The system is crooked from the top down and supported from the bottom up, but that's as it should be because government is highly inefficient an grossly abusive of power. This undeniable fact has always been known, as has how that entity is empowered, by the people when the people abuse each other for personal gain. It's how government became the educator of children. The punishment for abuse of freedom has always been government and government being what it is, now in charge of educating the people, never teaches that. Teachers never teach that, at least public teachers never do.
We've home schooled for about 20 years and for those 20 years I've had to pay for the public system along with the cost of home schooling. I've paid for the right to call it like it is.
The waste in public education never ends. In years past the brain trust known as public education pushed hard and were supported by enough to build new school buildings. The pitch to the publicly educated was that if they went along with it the State would put up half the cost, the minions cheered never seeing they were paying the states half as well living in the state which some how escaped them.
One woman complained of the building she sent her little dears to everyday, "it's a dungeon" she claimed. I asked her what kind of mother sends her children to a dungeon?
By the by the people had paid for years for the up keep of the buildings, apparently the money wasn't used to keep them up and shazam the same people who were in charge of the buildings they didn't take care of were put in charge of the new buildings that aren't built half as well as the old ones. One has already been torn down by a tornado with the old building right next to it, once claimed to be a dungeon now good enough for use, still standing strong.
In keeping with the higher education theme the school sold of the the bulk of the properties for pennies, the buyer tore them down collecting big on the scrape and then sold them back to the town at a huge increase, one for 450,000 dollars. The school refused to tear them down claiming if they did they'd have to pay the prevailing wage, can't have the people making the same living they do now can we.
The properties are still in government hands meaning the new properties that once contributed to the tax base no longer contribute as well as the old properties, now green spaces in a town where everyone has their own green space along with several parks surround by miles and miles of farm ground.
It's the higher educated who are educators themselves that push this insanity all supported by the supposed good guys who are so abused, public school teachers.
It can't last, you can't have this many people collecting the amount they do in pensions for as long as they do in a system that forcibly takes advantage of everyone in the form of tax's and not expect those that have no problem doing that to dishonor a contract. The bottom will be the first to go and I'm sure thanked for their years of support same as everyone else, with a tax bill. You've hitched your future up with a highly inefficient and grossly abusive of power entity. Id say heaven help you, but no mention of any other god than government is allowed.
Chime in anytime.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2014 5:59:10 GMT -5
Question for those who are reading this that are still in touch with reality... I'm just wanting to double check that I am not delusional... Did I not make it clear in my very first post that this thread was all about pointing out GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION in education? Just checking...
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Post by Russ Koon on Nov 20, 2014 12:33:36 GMT -5
Is this a trick question?
As I read the original post again, the only thing I see expressed in your own words is your inability to express your reaction in your own words.
As a substitute for your personal expression, you offer the link, which takes us to an article that provides some background info. Good so far, but the article does NOT specifically say anything about "corruption" in the process of the decision-making regarding the changing of the grades for the Christel House. It points out a difference of opinion on whether the grading system created was adequate to the job for which it was intended, and indicates the level to which politics has intruded into what should be a decision made by the parents of the children involved. Both those factors could, I suppose, be interpreted as "corruption" if the term were used loosely enough....and by either side of the debate.
The larger lesson to be learned, it seems to me, is that government involvement above the level of the local school boards should be avoided. The only area where it seems to have been of any real benefit is in helping to assure the equality of educational opportunity across the larger community, and that has been only after the justice department has provided the guidelines and the standards for enforcement.
Of course, I'm one of the neanderthals who believes in more local control, smaller governments doing less micromanaging, and the benefits of having "fifty labs" out there testing methods for improving education, rather than one huge lab trying the favored experiments of one hierarchy of educational "experts" in determining the standards for the entire nation. And to the greatest extent practicable, I would favor extending that localization to the state level and allowing the local school boards more autonomy, with the state doing as little micromanaging as they can.
Regarding the standards for judging the performance of the educators and systems, the article also mentions briefly the results achieved by the students of the CH system in the last few years, and their performance on that basis appears to be better than most. Should those results be ignored because the government created a mold that didn't fit the system well? Or because they were inept in refining that mold in their first attempt?
So, is the problem one of the students receiving a substandard education in that system, or one of the grading procedures producing results that fail to accurately reflect the education received? And if the latter, what IS the best way to fix that situation....adjust the grading system, or ditch the whole idea of the state grading schools and allow the parents to determine the future of any new systems by opting in or out of them?
The parents of my generation when I was a kid in South Bend seemed to find that duty a normal part of parenting, and either made things too warm for some school board members or opted for the parochial schools that were plentiful in the area if that failed, or moved to a better school district. I suspect that many still do the same.
What price standardization and compliance? Especially to some arbitrary norm established by bunch of politicians?
By some standards of achievement King Barry earned the Nobel Prize for something, and the Vega was the Motor Trend Car of the Year. History is probably a more accurate judge, if we can wait a few years for the judgment. Of course we will still need to find an accurate way to assess the results. I suspect the parents will be the better judges of the success of the systems over time.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2014 12:46:23 GMT -5
Russ, perhaps I assumed too much prior knowledge. Thats a mistake I should avoid as a teacher.
This is the point.
The state began "taking over" some schools a few years ago and privatizing them into charter schools. This was all part of the plan under Daniels and former Supt. of Education, Tony Bennett.
Some of these were "pet projects" funded by big money from Donor supporters of Daniels and Bennett. Crystal House was one of these pet schools. A couple years ago, it was uncovered that This school (as well as some others) did not perform as well as Mr. Bennett wanted. He told his people (in emails later made public) that it was unacceptable and they got the school's grade raised.
Just complete abuse of power and corrupt.
After Bennett was ousted from office by a mandate from the voters and Glenda Ritz replaced him, the new governor, Pence, immediately put the wheels in motion to circumvent the will of the people and undermine her power. He created a brand new government agency for education and took much of the power from Ritz. Wow, isn't he supposed to stand for LESS government?
Now, to the original post...
This year, it was brought to light that the SAME school that was artificially given an inflated grade 2 years prior got the SAME SPECIAL TREATMENT again this year!
This kind of corruption blows my mind but seems to bother so few who are further to the right.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2014 20:29:27 GMT -5
Now they plan to try to make the State Supt. of Education an appointed position so they can hand-pick puppets to march in lock-step with them and their agenda!!! I'm telling you, this is what happens in communist dictatorships, people! Yet, it seems not to bother people since the people doing it have an "R" in front of their name. Read please. thestatehousefile.com/commentary-destroying-schools-order-save-schools/18392/
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Post by chubwub on Nov 20, 2014 21:21:49 GMT -5
Sounds like a bunch of shady stuff going on to me. The initial article posted seemed pretty straightforward for my understanding but what would I know being a product of both fancy private and those dirty liberal socialist public schools.
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Post by Russ Koon on Nov 21, 2014 11:46:46 GMT -5
Krull's Statehouse Files column appears in our Sunday paper. I usually read it, just to be fair. I don't count on the "facts" reported there, however, without checking them for accuracy.
I see, for instance, that he reports that Ritz "trounced" Bennett in the election. But I recalled it being somewhat closer, so I looked up the results, and the "trouncing" was by less than six percent total difference. A swing of 70,000 votes would have reversed the outcome. In a statewide contest, that's more of a squeaker than a trouncing.
The same site (ballotpedia.com) showed the top five contributors to Ritz' campaign. More than half her total campaign funds came from one source, the Indiana State Teachers Association. With more than half the entire state budget devoted to spending for education, I'm surprised she won at all. Many voters are reluctant to put unions in charge of spending their tax money....especially a union that has such a dismal performance history in financial management. Chalkbeat ran an article on the subject that illustrated more of the background issues. I suspect Bennett's personality was more of a factor. He did seem pretty hard to warm up to.
Bottom line, as I see it, and as you point out, is that the state is promoting privatization of some schools. The state hasn't had a stellar record of running businesses, either, but competition is usually healthy in maintaining better management among all competitors, as long as the competition is fair. One needs only to look at California's public employee unions to see the level of incompetence and greed that can exist when the unions have all the political power and the state is hamstrung in any effort to restrain them.
And I'm not terribly fond of the politicians with the "R" before their name....my favorites all have "L"'s before theirs....but I do have a preference for the "R"'s over the "D"'s.
In another generation or two, we'll likely see the bulk of education done online, in any case. I have a niece who received the bulk of hers that way from about grade five through ten, and it worked very well.
I know we all want our situation to be immune to change, but change is the most reliable constant. When I began my apprenticeship in toolmaking, in 1968, the company I worked for had several times the number of toolmakers on the rolls as they did when I neared retirement thirty years later, though they still made most of the same products. So many machines had been replaced by computer controlled machining centers that could do multiple operations with a part located on one fixture, and could check and record the dimensions automatically and even etch the serial numbers on the part and wash it before placing it its position on a cart, that the only jobs that appeared to be increasing were the machine oilers and the guys pushing the carts down the aisles.
As far as the similarities to communist dictatorships, I see more to worry about in King Barry's approach to running the federal government by fiat than in the Indiana school control tussle.
It's easy to see that you are a very interested teacher devoted to doing your best in your profession. I would expect you to do well under whatever circumstances the future holds. The cream generally rises to the top with more certainty in businesses in a competitive atmosphere than in those where there is no need to retain the best employees.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2014 13:33:38 GMT -5
Ritz received more votes in her election than Gov. Pence received in his. That was ASTOUNDING. He apparently did not like that.
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