Interesting writings regarding the stand-off in Wisconsin and many missing Democrat Senators & House members....Here's a lesson that is both ironic and sad at the same time. According to the U.S. Department of Education, two-thirds of the eighth graders in Wisconsin cannot read proficiently. But assuming the kids are skilled enough to watch TV, they can now see their teachers demonstrating to keep their generous union benefits. So while things do not seem to be going well in the classroom, any thought of holding teachers somewhat responsible is cause for a protest march.
In 10 years, starting in 1998, Wisconsin doubled the amount of money spent on each public-school student to more than $10,000 per pupil per year. And test scores went down! Doing the math, the equation seems to be that money is not the key to knowledge.
In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt. In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largesse in the next election. It's the perfect cozy setup.
Obama's Democrats have become the party of no. Real cuts to the federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell no.
We have heard everyone — from Obama's own debt commission to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — call the looming debt a mortal threat to the nation. We have watched Greece self-immolate. We can see the future. The only question has been: When will the country finally rouse itself?
Meanwhile, 14 Democratic state senators who don't belong to organized labor but who with one exception are owned by unions have run off to Illinois so the state Senate can't vote on a bill they don't like.
As those Democrats ignored their constitutional duties a state away, that bill was passed early Friday in the Assembly where a mob of adults wearing orange T-shirts and acting like spoiled children chanted "shame, shame, shame" from the floor and gallery.
If anyone should be ashamed of their behavior, it's the public-sector workers and their supporters who think they have a moral title to jobs with bloated pay and benefits provided by others. They believe it's acceptable to bully those with whom they disagree and behave like riotous rabble. They've conducted themselves in an infantile, cowardly and undignified manner
If the AWOL Democrats don't start acting like adults and return to Madison by Monday to debate and vote on the bill passed in the Assembly, they should be recalled. Should government workers, including the teachers, continue to skip work without using their legitimate time off to join the protests, they need to be fired.
enough...
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4 comments:
Just to keep think fair an balanced:
NAEP Assessments
Basic Proficient Advanced
Va Reading 4 2009 74(1.4) 38(1.5) 9(1.0)
Va Reading 8 2009 78(1.2) 32(1.6) 2(0.4)
Wi Reading 4 2009 67(1.4) 33(1.2) 7(0.7)
Wi Reading 8 2009 78(1.2) 34(1.4) 2(0.5)
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/
So - Va - a right to work State ends up with only 32% proficient compared to Wisconsin's 34%
and Virginia spends 11,316 per student - WITHOUT public sector unions.
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/statistics_reports/supts_annual_report/2008_09/table15.pdf
Why is this important?
Because, telling the truth about the numbers is important.
And here's the truth - there is little difference between achievement and spending between a public sector union state - Wisconsin and a right-to-work state - Virginia.
We can't begin to get to solutions if we won't deal with the facts and realities and instead just construct our own little world of what we want to believe.
"So - Va - a right to work State ends up with only 32% proficient compared to Wisconsin's 34%"
Thanks for the info and link...
But are you, or we, happy with these results? 34% proficient rate?
Now that $11,316 per each student and a lower rate of 32% proficient, will the rate increase if we allow the VA teachers to get unions and sweetheart packages such as the example of Wisconsin?
The truth here is that the taxpayer is done with shelling out so much money to programs that do not produce. The money is running, has run out, and we can not sustain the benefits and spending that we have...
What do we do?
Throw more money that we do not have at it?
Those are "facts and realities" that we are facing and "the world we live in"....
Well.. as we said, the FIRST thing to do is the RECOGNIZE that the problems in the schools are more or less independent on whether or not teachers are members of public sector unions or not.
In fact, the top State in the country on the NAEP achievement scale is Massachusetts.
Mass Basic Proficient Advanced
Reading 4 80 47 13
8 83 43 5
Mass State Average $11,188 and is NOT a right-to-work state.
When we make the education issue about whether or not the teachers are unionized or not, we are not looking at the real issues.... and by doing that.. we are not identifying what the real issues that need to be dealt with are.
And as long as we choose to believe the problems are something they are not - then we do not fix what is broke.
And that's the problem with partisan sound-bite concepts about issues that cry out for real solutions but instead we build false realities around what we want to believe.
New Jersey elected Christie to do exactly what he is doing. NJ is\was a very RED state....
What will happen when the Senate is up next? The taxpayer is starting to understand the money is not there and things have to change...
"Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704150604576166011983939364.html
Also saw this in the USATODAY....
"No person paid by the taxpayers - city, state, or federal,- should have the "right" to bargin collectively. The politician who negotiates with the union does so with other peoples money.Along the way,he BUYS the voters of the union members and, if he is lucky, when the bill comes due, he will be somewhere else, higher up the public trough"
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