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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

But, I was addressing slaveboy, because it was a Faux News link that he attached to his thread. And see... I even wrote 'antidote', as a charming pun to go with the wizardry story :-) .

Tsk tsk, Firmhand... your political eagerness and enthusiasm are to be commended, but they do betray you at times  .

Not at all.  Perhaps I should have written my last intro sentence like ...

My three links were to:

My primary point was the last sentence:

(Often, when Fox is mentioned in contempt, I simply take it as a self-identification of true-believer-ism.).

Such comments such as yours about FOX News are an indication of a certain belief pattern.  You thought it was just a humorous little aside - which it is, among the "trendy lefty".  Making negative, inconsequential remarks intended to demean a source with no real refutation of what they have reported is reinforcing and spreading a certain meme, so that you (and others) can then "safely" discount anything of substance they might report.

It's not my "political eagerness and enthusiasm" that betray me.  It's yours, kittin.

Firm

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ORIGINAL: Owner59

This is a great example of why teachers should get tenure and why they need unions to protect them from the loons.

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ORIGINAL: DomAviator

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ORIGINAL: Owner59

This is a great example of why teachers should get tenure and why they need unions to protect them from the loons.

This is probably the most absurd socialist drivel I have yet heard. First of all teachers shouldnt have unions AT ALL. They are college graduate PROFESSIONALS and as such should be professional exempt. If a teacher needs a freaking union to protect his or her rights then they are too stupid to be in the classroom teaching others. Unions stem from a day when few could read or write, few knew their rights, and the workers were being exploited by the Andrew Carnegies of the world. If a college graduate cant learn their own employment rights and labor laws hey are beyond hope...

Secondly, tenure is BEYOND STUPID. There should NEVER be a job in which it is almost impossible to fire you regardless of performance just because youve been there. Shit, hes been a surgeon at this hospital for 10 years hes tenured who cares if his patients have an 80% mortality rate!!! Oh no we dont need to sim check that airline captain every six months - he has tenure! Why yeah that engineer has been here since there were vacuum tubes and wouldnt know an IC if one was in his anus but by god hes got tenure. HOW UNBELIEVEABLY ABSURD. Yeah Ok , none of her students can read but by God she has tenure!

Do you have any idea how many IDIOT teachers there are out there? I was married to a teacher, who constantly brought her teacher friends home, and I have dated several and let me tell you a lot of teachers are the best argument for homeschooling I have ever heard!  How about a woman who DOESNT SPEAK SPANISH teaching bilingual kindergarten? How about a teacher who can tell you the plot of every episode of Sex In The City but who doesnt know how to balance her checkbook without using jellybeans? (She calls them "manipulatives" under a math strategy known as The Chicago Method..) Teachers are fucking frightening and they are getting worse and worse... Sure there are some dedicated professionals but there is an increasing number of ditzy idiot chicks who get into it because they get summers off and "need to do something until they get married". One of my ex's friends came right out and admitted "She hates kids, but hey its $42K and she can tan all summer so she can put up with the little fuckers from Sept to May." Lets give her tenure! Hell lets give Debra LaFave tenure, and Lisa Robyn Marinelli and Mary Jo Spack and Stephanie Ragusa too! For Christ's sake everyone else keeps their job on MERIT but lets tenure teachers! LOL

Finally - the person who is the subject of the story was a SUBSTITUTE TEACHER. That is a person who is kind of the urinal cake of teacher world. Subs are nobody, they are nothing but names on a list, they have no union rights or employment contracts, and in most cases dont even have any teaching qualification beyond SOME COLLEGE. (They do NOT have to be graduates!) In my ex-wifes district it was up to HER to find a sub. So if she wasnt going in, she would pull the list from her briefcase and start calling till she found one who wanted to work. She would then tell them what to do and leave the principal a voicemail that she wont be in and (name) is subbing. Subs are either unemployed people, often college dropouts or those with useless liberal arts degrees, ex teachers who have done the stay at home mom thing and who will pick up a day here and there if and when they feel like it for less than $100, or flunkies who didnt pass the teaching exam or otherwise couldnt get a job in an environment so teacher hungry that they have billboards saying "Want to be a teacher? When can you start?" 

At my ex-wifes district this is the requirement to be a sub:

We require:

A minimum of 60 semester hours of college credit (verified by original transcripts)
Excellent People Skills
Proficiency in the English Language
Substitute Orientation Attendance
Criminal History Check
 
Here is the pay scale
 
Certified Subs - $85 (ie licensed teachers)
Degreed Subs - $75  (those with 4 year degrees in whatever but no teaching license.)
Non-Degreed Subs - $70  (those who only have 60 sh or more but no BS or BA degree)
 
Note that subs, including certified ones are paid less than the mexican dayworkers I hired to paint my house. $70 - $85 a day as opposed to the $100 for the dayworker... Yeah, these are the elite they need tenure and unions LOL. Who gives a shit if this guy loses his job, he can make more doing his magic tricks in the park for tips...
 

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ORIGINAL: DomAviator
my ex-wife had one and frankly she was a terrible teacher with OCD so bad that she should have been medicated instead of working. She literally had a multipage lesson plan for walking them to lunch and was utterly incapable of adapting, winging it, or ad libbing when needed.

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ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

She got the house, yeah?

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ORIGINAL: DomAviator

Lucious - note that I said "Sure there are some dedicated professionals but there is an increasing number of ditzy idiot chicks who get into it because they get summers off and "need to do something until they get married".

The discussion specifically was regarding tenure which is a horrible idea and with due respect no teacher is so special that they should be guaranteed their job on the basis of longevity rather than performance. As for masters degrees, yes my ex-wife had one and frankly she was a terrible teacher with OCD so bad that she should have been medicated instead of working. She literally had a multipage lesson plan for walking them to lunch and was utterly incapable of adapting, winging it, or ad libbing when needed.

The newer generation of teachers has clearly deteriorated, just look at the scandals on the news constantly.  Lisa Robyn Marinelli and Mary Jo Spack and Stephanie Ragusa were three Tampa area teachers arrested within a two week period for sex with students. LaFave is already infamous. We recently had one arrested here in Texas who was dealing pot to her students. In Arkansas one was arrested for pimping out her middle school girls.

Sure there are professionals, and they should be able to keep their job on the basis of performance without tenure. If they stop performing, they should be gone as anyone in any other occupation would be. That doesnt alter the fact that I have had four, five, six teachers sitting around my dining room table referring to special ed students as "fucktards" or "window licking bobbleheads". My wife told a colleauge in the next grade that "this kids mother should have swallowed " and I have personally seen teachers grading worksheets without even reading them on the basis of what the students usual grade is without using the rubric. I have also heard a teacher - in this case the team leader for the grade say "Dont worry about it the prison gaurds will teach them everything they need to know in life" They are not ALL the angels you hold them out to be - perhaps you are but many arent and tenure will only make it worse by making it impossible to weed out the slackers.