Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Today's Random Thoughts

-I'm assuming this must be political theater, but Bloomberg has submitted a budget that proposes firing 15,000 teachers in NYC. I can't imagine what would happen if 20% of the teachers weren't around next year. At the same time, how will the district justify hiring any new teachers (especially through TFA, NYCTF, and other emergency certification programs) next year if any sort of significant layoffs occur?

-Diane Ravitch asks a really good question in her latest post. I'm not sure why people are so attracted to miracle cures in education, but she writes a post well worth your time while pondering the answer.

-One area where our system fails its students is in teaching economy of language. Students at all levels seem to write nine words when five will do. Chad Alderman provides an excellent example of how to completely destroy months of attacks in two brief paragraphs.

-Andrew Rotherham makes a couple of good points in his op-ed on Teach For America. I think the strongest positive of TFA is what the alums do after finishing their two years.

-The Governor of Indiana says he's heard from a number of teachers who are scared of being sued by their students and, therefore, is supporting legislation to make it more difficult to do so.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"Chad Alderman provides an excellent example of how to completely destroy months of attacks in two brief paragraphs."

Spoken like a true to the party Democrat. His post does not answer any of the concerns of people who are against this obscene waste of money. Go to the CBO's web site and read their thoughts on what's going to happen in a few years regarding the TARP of last year and the present folly.

I believe for Senators to put any pork into this bill is an affront to the American taxpayers. It's insulting. That they can just blow off protocol and try to quickly pass this massive piece of legislation - no discussion, no debate, no time to actually read the thing line by line - is just incomprehensible. Not only that, but you and I both know that pork is put into bills for the benefit of specific senators and their re-election campaigns - not for the benefit of Americans as a whole.

As far as the states go, some states are able to weather the financial crisis, but California holds the greatest debt. In California, there are more public sector employees than private sector employees. Government does not MAKE money. Government spends money.

Corey Bunje Bower said...

Mia, you completely missed the point. It isn't always the case that "pork" is wasteful. In this case, $3 million spent on bear research provided a number of high-quality jobs, will save the country much more in the long run, and will allow for expanded development and logging in the future. It's exactly the outcome the critics desired.