No bashing in September...

"Take our kids back, please! We're tired of paying for a daycare that charges per child, per week 100 times what it costs to send our kids to public school! We did not realize that if we paid teachers the same wage we paid untrained, teenaged babysitters, that teachers with 100 students per day per child would receive ten dollars an hour per student: 6 x 10 x 100 x 180...wait a minute...that can't be right... If only we had been more attentive in our public school's math class!"

Yeah, we hear that a lot this time of year. It's okay. We forgive you, and we'll take your kids for a couple pennies per hour for the next ten months, and we'll even apply knowledge from our advanced graduate degrees to teach them something. Forgive us if we have to use those pennies to pay off student loans and support our own families, but don't worry, you're not paying for all of that; my second job helps supplement the income, as does my summer job. Hope you had a nice summer!

Annual Teacher Bashing Article published!

The New York Post published its end-of-the-school year teacher bashing article today! Every year, as a two-month period of unpaid unemployment looms for thousands of educators, this bastion of objective reporting publishes an inflammatory article about teachers, unions, or both. This year, it's about New York City's infamous "rubber rooms" where a teacher who annoys an administrator can be sent for years to await arbitration for some made-up infraction. They are not allowed to work, but they must attend the "reassignment center" until their "case" is resolved. The article explains that it is the union's fault for making it difficult to fire tenured teachers.
It's actually easy to fire a tenured teacher if there is an actual case, but if there is no case, they cannot fire the teacher, so the administrator tries instead to coerce the teacher into quitting by sending the teacher to the rubber room. It's a double victory for the administration. 1) The unions look bad for requiring due process, so the administration clogs up the process with bogus cases, and 2) the administration is free to bully and eliminate an educator who asks too many questions.
Did you ever wonder why it is difficult to recruit educators in New York City?

And the battle rages on...

It's been a while since I've had a chance to blog, but the original complaint still stands. In fact, reporting in general has gotten worse over the past two years. Let's take the problem of North Korea, nukes, and nuclear proliferation...wait, forget about that...take the cat that survived a 26 story plunge from a building in New York City: wasn't that amazing? Almost as amazing as Mike Tyson's wedding two weeks after the death of his daughter. Incredible! The nerve of a has-been boxer for not mourning properly!
Wait just a minute. Why am I thinking about Tyson and resilient cats? Why am I not thinking about North Korea, global warming, a dying ocean? I mean, aren't they important issues? Wait, hold on, something just came in on the TV...Holy moly! Adam from American Idol is gay? But, man, he's got talent. I wonder what his "coming out" will do to his career.
Okay, now what was I saying? Something about cats, right? I guess they do always land on their feet.
I hope the same is true for us.