Education

Post #396,938 by dmcarls 12/8/14 1:15:03 PM Reply	Education Read a decent book over Thanksgiving holidays: http://www.amazon.com/Got-Schooled-Unlikely-Moonlighting-Education/dp/1476716455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418062218&sr=8-1&keywords=i+got+schooled Where he gives some suggestions for improving the quality of education here. Then I see these: http://jonathanturley.org/2014/12/03/new-jersey-school-district-produces-just-19-students-with-college-ready-sat-scores/ and http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2014/10/14/one-day-sub-nearly-1-million-in-teacher-pension/ With this stuff going on, I don't think his suggestions are going to be enacted very soon, why would they? It was still a very interesing book, though.
Post #396,941 by a6l6e6x 12/8/14 2:57:48 PM Reply	Incredible! Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #396,953 by Another Scott 12/8/14 8:18:03 PM Reply	Meh. The Forbes piece looks like a hatchet job. My reading of the e-mail is that they were transferring previous teaching credit, not getting a "$1M pension" after working a day. Why shouldn't a union rep be able to join the same pension system as the teachers he represents? He was 59 in 2011. I don't think he's going to be collecting a pension for ~ 30 years... Tribune: His paycheck fluctuates as a union lobbyist, but pension records show his earnings in the last school year were at least $245,000. Based on his salary history so far, he could earn a pension of about $108,000 a year, more than double what the average teacher receives. The Forbes piece says he would get $37k in 2014. Someone needs to get their numbers straight. Maybe I'm misreading it, maybe there is a huge scandal here, but I don't have time to dig more. I'm suspicious though. Education is vitally important and needs to work better. But riling up the lizard brain (as the Forbes and Tribune pieces seem to be doing) isn't the way to do it. FWIW. Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,959 by scoenye 12/8/14 11:02:29 PM Reply	The Tribune could have been on to something The two lobbyists in their article are not transferring credits. They have to buy the credits + interest and that is where things appear to go awry as no one knows if that actually fully happened. In this case, it seems they made standard contributions for the 5 years since they joined, but nothing for the years before. But Forbes and the Washington Times are indeed riling things up as they are including former real teachers in the numbers.

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