NC Gov Gives $$$$ to Young Aides, $0 for Teachers

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1. Joanna Best says:

   August 23, 2013 at 11:08 am

   I heard this on NPR yesterday.
   yeah. I don’t think anybody is surprised at all. I’m not.
   But since teachers seem to be getting punished for years of complaining (?? so I am told by some folks), I guess somebody else needs to be the one to fuss about this.
   We have to choose our battles.
   Right now we have the children to be present to and for.

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   • Duane Swacker says:

     August 23, 2013 at 12:13 pm

     Joanna,

     These “battles” are all part of the same war on public education and need to be fought at once and as hard as possible.

     Duane

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     • Joanna Best says:

       August 23, 2013 at 12:38 pm

       Working on it, in my fashion.

       Right now I am interested in learning more about austerity and how it works. I was just getting ready to reach out to John with the sunshine by his name (Awbey maybe?) I will look.

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     • Joanna Best says:

       August 23, 2013 at 12:47 pm

       Moderates I know were relieved by the budget because, as my husband says, it is not nearly as bad as it could have been (according to some of the cuts that were on the table).

       I don’t really know what to think about it as a whole. I just know i have 680 children passing through my room each week beginning Monday and I have to put on a happy face and be a leader who is strong and loving and who protects them and provides them with the best I can offer them. All I am saying is I don’t want to lose my focus on that or be distracted by resentment. Surely there are others who can be doing that while I am working with children.

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     • Ms. Cartwheel Librarian says:

       August 23, 2013 at 1:15 pm

       Joanna,
       Are the 680 students to be taught, graded, and accounted for?

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     • Joanna Best says:

       August 23, 2013 at 2:18 pm

       I teach music. I do a musical with every grade level. I have three morning clubs (choir, AV tech, and a crew that does props and sets).

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     • Duane Swacker says:

       August 23, 2013 at 2:47 pm

       Joanna,

       !Estás loca, no! !Je Je!

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     • Joanna Best says:

       August 23, 2013 at 5:11 pm

       Duane, crazy yes.
       Is there any other way to be?

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     • Duane Swacker says:

       August 24, 2013 at 10:09 am

       NOPE!!

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2. Joseph Mugivan says:

   August 23, 2013 at 11:20 am

   Well at least everything is under control in New York.
   You can’t make this stuff up.
   http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-education-official-promises-test-scores-rise-article-1.1434467

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   • Michael Fiorillo says:

     August 23, 2013 at 1:44 pm

     Yes, and the UFT’s Stockholm Syndrome President was photographed right next to her, since it’s his task to co-manage the teachers on this forced march.

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3. Jon Awbrey says:

   August 23, 2013 at 11:30 am

   Hey, that’s how Austerity works …

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   • Joanna Best says:

     August 23, 2013 at 12:43 pm

     Jon—talk more about that. Are you saying that what is going on with pubilc education is a necessary thing because of our huge financial debt in this country? Austerity as in this has to happen for our long term stability economically? If so, why doesn’t anyone just say that? Why doesn’t anyone just say, “Nation, we’re going to have to try some new things to get revenue moving in our country and debt down. This means we can no longer offer public schools as we have known them. Now hang on, before you get all upset let’s look at this.” I don’t recall any preparatory talks like that. I hear word of the “new normal” from our superintendant—that we had the awful budget cuts but the good news is we got $5 million to spend on technology and technology is the new normal and it’s here to stay and get used to it.
     If we are dismantling pubilc schools to help our economy, don’t we deserve the sit-down talk that you get when you are going through a break-up, or the ones parents give kids when they are splitting up? Are we taking the hit for the good of the country?? If so, why doesn’t anyone just say that?

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     • Jon Awbrey says:

       August 23, 2013 at 12:54 pm

       Austerity • a neo-feudal economic system in which the the serfs are robbed to pay the vassals.

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     • Ms. Cartwheel Librarian says:

       August 23, 2013 at 1:48 pm

       Joanna,
       Perhaps Colbert can help you out. He always begins his discussions with, “Nation…”

       We have brief periods of austerity every other decade or so. This one just seems to be taking a long, long time going. I’m not asking for prosperity, just a sense that we are making gains and they won’t be snatched away.

       In my school system:

       2011-2012 TAs were cut and the remaining TAs had a salary reduced to 88%

       2012-2013 TAs salaries were restored to 100%

       2013-2-14 TAs cut and reamining TAs have a salary reduction to 82% of their former pay.

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     • Harlan Underhill says:

       August 23, 2013 at 6:23 pm

       That the national economy is WAY over borrowed, and that the federal government is a bloated bureaucracy, and that the federal interference in the business markets for at least ten years, originally creating the housing bubble under Clinton and now slowing down the normal recovery, is true, but the decreases in tax revenue locally as a result of the slow economy and the waste of stimulus funds on education, aren’t going to actually improve public education, just make it harder for it to do its job.

       The fundamental impulse in the current administration seems to me to gain administrative and legal control over everything in the society—medical care, banking, transportation, energy, commerce etc., and by the depredations of CCSS testing the public schools (traditionally local), and if you’ve been paying attention, also by the President’s current proposal to rank higher education institutions so it can decide which ones will be authorized to receive student loan money.

       Public education represents a still somewhat independent power center. To the extent it can be weakened by charters and vouchers, makes it susceptible to government regulation and control by NCLB and CCSS of the public schools that are left.

       Meanwhile, over on the right, there are parents who don’t like the liberal orientation of most teachers (socialism, statism, communitarianism) and the obvious paradigm that a good and necessary thing, education, always comes from the government. Thus they embrace, charters, vouchers, homeschooling—anything to get big state government and especially big federal government out of their educational lives.

       In addition, there are those happy to see the public school system funding diminished on the excuse that through downsizing the schools will be able to get rid of the “deadwood,” i.e. the older, more expensive, just waiting out their pensions teachers. Thus the elimination of ‘tenure’ by state legislatures and the introduction of evaluations based up to 50% on the performance of these teachers’ students on high stakes (for teachers and schools) testing. You get two young, compliant TFA’s for one older, grumpier, intransigent union member who can’t cut it with 36 to 45 in a classroom.

       The public schools are not being asked to take a hit to save the country, but are under attack from the left because the system isn’t TOTALLY controlled from Washington, and are under attack from the right because they are TOO MUCH under Washington’s control (via CCSS) and have proven utterly incapable of reform from within.

       My own city’s education system has an 18 million shortfall. Where did the money go? Why is it needed? No one knows. The new Superintendent has signed on at $200,000 a year, and claims expertise in meeting ‘budget challenges.’ Bussing for high school students has been eliminated totally. Earlier in the summer the Board of Education approved a $100 fee for students to enroll in “seventh hour” classes, some of which include Jazz Band. Just recently the Board voted to reverse that policy after the ACLU threatened to sue.

       That’s how it is here in Paradise (wealthy suburb) where the BoBos rule.

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     • ellen lubic says:

       August 24, 2013 at 1:37 am

       Joanna…austerity as practiced by our Republican party feels that all things must be cut with the exception of war implements and defense contracts, and of course their governmental salaries and perks. The Dems are not too much better letting us slip into the damaging sequestration of 10% across the board cuts, hitting hard the poorest among us.

       The Keynesians and those rational economists following the policy of stimulus in times of deep recession say that with creating jobs the money comes back into the economy immediately, since workers who do not have savings and need to pay for food, shelter, etc. spend their wages immediately, unlike the ultra rich who can sit on the their millions and billions indefinitely and not miss a meal.

       These economists such as Krugman, Stiglitz, Black, etc., some Nobel Prize winners in Economics here, are not invited to the White House to help solve our deadly slow recovery. However, the deficit has gone down and we have an upward climb of about 2.7% GDP.

       Blame the major cost of our budget slide on all the Bush and Obama wars and over 1000 US bases worldwide, and being kept in a constant state of fear of terrorists…and the fact that the Bush wars were not even evaluated as part of the national budget. Obama does have all the military expenses in his budget. But with thugs like Boehner, Ryan, McConnell, et al, they would rather see the country fail, go down the toilet, than work with the Dems to create legitimate solutions.

       Add to this, that Obama is a true corporatist, as witness his dancing partners, Summers, Rubin, Geithner, Immelt, etc. and you can see how far We the People have fallen into the Rabbit Hole.

       Read Stiglitz books Freefall, and the new one on Inequality to learn about economics.

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     • ellen lubic says:

       August 24, 2013 at 1:44 am

       addendum…Christine Lagarde of the IMF, and even Merkel of Germany, feel that the US is ahead of Europe in coming to terms with austerity and understanding that stimulus is needed to escape recessions.

       But still we have few banking regulations, no Glass Steagall, and the banksters prosper now on our dime since they know they can take major risks with impunity since the FDIC will bail them out, and no one gets indicted. Isn’t it lovely to live in this democracy where both George Zimmerman and Jamie Dimon and their ilk go free for major crimes?

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     • Harlan Underhill says:

       August 25, 2013 at 1:44 am

       Merkel is in favor of austerity. It means paying your bills out of income and not borrowing to pay bloated bureaucracies. Stimulus doesn’t work. It’s a Keynsian delusion.

       As for Zimmerman, haven’t you heard that the jury believed his account, that Treyvon was cross punching him while sitting on his chest and trying to cut off his breathing? That Zimmerman was not convicted is a plus for this country. Political prosecutions such as his, show why trial by jury is so precious. To be sardonic about the case suggests you do not get criminal law.

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     • Joanna Best says:

       August 24, 2013 at 9:33 am

       Harlan, Ellen, Jon thank u for the info.

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     • ellen Lubic says:

       August 25, 2013 at 3:57 am

       Well, Harlan, set aside that I did get an A in Criminal Law many years ago when I went to law school, Zimmerman’s trial was indeed a political trial, a bastardized version of a fair trial since both the prosecutor and the defense sided with this bigot. The choice of the women jurors shows the bias not only of the lawyers, but of the judge and the community. It was a sham trial and shames the American juris prudence system as much as the OJ trial did.

       (Stand Your Ground law was conveniently kept out of the way…even though these laws are financed mainly by heroes of yours I assume, the Walton Family Foundation. Great folks who also are funding parent trigger laws and TFA nationwide.)

       As to your views on austerity, the best I can say for you is that you are consistent, even if you are consistently wrong. FDR understood the principle of stimulus and created jobs (with the help of a unique cabinet) during the depression with CCC and WPA etc. Though it took a world war and resurrection of the ‘defense’ industry (which is permanent now and is the biggest of cash cow in our budget) to bring us to prosperity in the late 40s and 50s. That was a period when unions flourished and middle class (‘vocational ed’) jobs paid a living wage. People could work and buy the products their industry provided. Before the pigs, starting in 1980, gobbled it all up and caused the disaster of credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations, bundled derivatives, and unidicted lies and cheats for the sake of greed.

       Another time we can discuss Bretton Woods, gold standard, fiat money, regulation v. deregulation, all of which helped give us the 2007 – 8 collapse of the worldwide economy, of course, oiled by the multitude of crooks on Wall Street.

       I just taught History of Economics last term and we focused on not only Keynes, but the classical economists to Marx, and the Austrians, and the Chicago School….up to Uncle Miltie. You of course are welcome to your opinion, but I will stick with Stiglitz who teaches at Diane’s old college and has made endless good sense for decades.

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     • Harlan Underhill says:

       August 25, 2013 at 6:14 am

       It is a matter of infinite amazement to me how one so educated can be so wrong, and especially about the fields of your expertise, too. And you fill your students’ heads with your error too. You are a part of the problem, from my point of view.

       You seem to forget that the government totally distorted the mortgage market by pushing banks to make sub-prime loans, before Wall Street ever got their grubby hands on them, repackaged them as securities and solid the all over the globe.

       Lay blame correctly.

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   • Joanna Best says:

     August 23, 2013 at 2:24 pm

     some days I wish I had majored in economics and not music.

     OK, but aside from that definition it is presented in articles about economics as something, policy, used to bring a nation’s debt down. Would anyone call the attack on public education a necessary austerity time for the nation’s well-being? Has it been characterized that way?

     Cartwheel: I used to love watching both John Stewart and Colbert each evening when I wasn’t working full time. My husband watches it. I can’t stay up that late anymore. 🙂

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     • Ms. Cartwheel Librarian says:

       August 23, 2013 at 3:32 pm

       I watch them on Comedy Central (Time Warner) here in NC. They play a rerun of the night before’s show around the 7-8pm hour on weeknights. I am amazed at what they come up with and how dead on they are with their takes on the daily news.

       It is better to laugh than to cry so I try to do just that;^)

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     • ME says:

       August 23, 2013 at 4:28 pm

       I don’t have a problem with paying down debt. Geez, I’ve will have paid almost 100K in school loans in my lifetime.

       I think the government, at all levels, should be smart about expenditures vs. revenues.

       The problem is, and has been since Reagan, that the wealthy and corporations (which may be one in the same) will not pony up and pay their fair share.

       For heaven’s sake, the rich are richer the past 30 years because they’ve made their money on our backs paying low wages and not investing back into our communities through schools, libraries, etc… The rich have paid historic low taxes thanks to Reagan, and all those that followed, and have been allowed to bust unions (only 7% of the private sector is unionized – an all time low). They have all the money – the 1% has 40% and the top 5% has something like 89% (if I remember that last one right). These figures have risen greatly since the 70’s.

       You wanna cut welfare programs to help pay off our debt (4 trillion of which came from the Iraq war alone)? Then fine. I want the rich back paying 60 – 70% effective federal taxes on income as they did in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.

       I am more than willing to give my fair share as long as the wealthy and corporations give theirs.

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     • Joanna Best says:

       August 23, 2013 at 5:12 pm

       Cartwheel: I am in NC too. :).

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     • Ms. Cartwheel Librarian says:

       August 23, 2013 at 9:24 pm

       ME,
       I totally agree.

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4. AlwaysLearning says:

   August 23, 2013 at 11:36 am

   The Governor wasn’t listening. When they asked for money to help the kids, they meant for kids under 20 and not on the payroll.

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5. Chiara says:

   August 23, 2013 at 11:37 am

   http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/23/a-ysetting-schoolsuptofaila.html

   Good piece on how Rahm Emmanuel is setting up public schools to fail under “reform”.

   The reporter actually interviewed parents about public schools, rather than calling celebrities!

   This is groundbreaking journalism 🙂

   The piece addresses how ed reform budget cuts are now affecting public schools that are considered successful, hence the “set up to fail?” headline.

   The bottom line is reformers have abandoned public schools, at the city, state and federal level. North Carolina is no outlier.

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6. Chiara says:

   August 23, 2013 at 11:42 am

   This is Chicago, but I think it applies in NC and nation-wide. As “reform” blankets the whole country, I think we’re going to read how more and more parents are now aware that it isn’t “just about our children” anymore.

   “Kate Bolduc, who sits on Blaine’s school council, said schools in poorer neighborhoods on the city’s South and West sides have faced underfunding for years. Now that white, middle-class North Siders “are learning about what’s been happening among these communities, we’ve realized it’s unacceptable,” she said.

   “This isn’t just about our own children anymore,” said Bolduc. “We can’t solve the funding problem for Blaine unless the problem is solved for the entire district.”
   Irene Robinson agrees. Walking back home along the Safe Passage route, she said, “Right now, it feels like they’re setting all the schools up to fail.”

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7. M.Schneider says:

   August 23, 2013 at 11:50 am

   McCrory is paying for what he values.

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   • ME says:

     August 23, 2013 at 4:29 pm

     And our kids suffer.

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8. TC says:

   August 23, 2013 at 12:10 pm

   “money talks, says strange things” -JJ Cale

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9. Kathy Irwin says:

   August 23, 2013 at 1:43 pm

   Meanwhile, the NC teachers have courageous hearts and we can send notes of love and support to their Facebook. Wear Red 4 Public Ed
   https://www.facebook.com/WearRed4PublicEd‎
   So let’s do that. It means so much and they will feel us backing them up on Monday.

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10. Jon Awbrey says:

    August 23, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    Joanna,

    Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it can lead folks to miss the irony thereof.

    Here’s a screed of my meaning from a day when I used to rant less succinctly:

    • When It Reigns It Poors

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    • Joanna Best says:

      August 23, 2013 at 3:28 pm

      I heard your irony, but I want to really know if anyone has said that Austerity is the reason we are seeing the changes we are; rather than some sort of odd coincidence or conspiracy. 🙂

      I have another question along these lines that pokes holes in the human capital idea. So what of the teachers gotten rid of? Are they not human capital? What about what has been invested in them? Does human capital only apply to a certain age range, or do they suggest teachers let go of just plug in somewhere else? It seems inconsistent to me to on the one hand be arguing about human capital and on the other not valuing certain human capital. ?

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      • ME says:

        August 23, 2013 at 4:32 pm

        The wealthy and corporations don’t see people. They see profits.

        I teach because I love people, not profit. I have invested in multiple degrees, and I have worked ridiculous amounts of hours because I want to improve the condition of human beings.

        Politicians, the wealthy, and corporations put profit first and people somewhere down the list.

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      • Jon Awbrey says:

        August 23, 2013 at 11:23 pm

        We had a system of human capital once before. It took a Civil War to push it back a while. But the slave-owning mentality never dies, never gives up. There is no consistency — of course the capitalist must devalue the very resources on which he depends for his profits.

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      • Jon Awbrey says:

        August 23, 2013 at 11:25 pm

        (typo) … There is no inconsistency …

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      • ellen Lubic says:

        August 24, 2013 at 4:28 am

        Again…Joanna…I do not think the whole privatization mess is due to the economy since 2007 since it goes further back…and that austerity is the crux of the issue re education.

        Eli Broad started the Broad Foundation Academy in 1999, at the end of the Clinton era, when Clinton colluded with Summers, Rubin, and Phil Gramm to kill the FDR Glass Steagall Act keeping investment and commercial banks separate…and instead implement the Gramm, Bliley, Leach law which set us on the course of using investments such as derivatives and collaterized debt obligations as casino-like gambling with virtually no government oversight.

        Eli spelled out his plan to take over American public education and run it with a business model including getting rid of teachers and installing TFA students in their place for half the salary and no perks like healthcare nor retirement. As to unions…the aim is to drown them in the bathtub forever a la Grover Norquist.

        Coupled with our vast military debt and China, Japan, Korea buying up our treasury bonds, and with the endless wars, we reached a perfect storm in 2003 and for the first time in our history we became a debtor nation..

        And remember the law lets the super rich only pay 15% tax on their investment income, and a bit more for earned income if it is not all sheltered offshore in the Caymens….while we were paying 27 – 45 % on earned income depending on your bracket.

        Meanwhile the infrastructure is collapsing with bridges failing, sink holes abound, fracking, global warming, and all sorts of detriments to our country beat is down.

        Yes, the human capital of teachers and students seems to have diminished in the onslaught of the greed mysters. And of course in the midst of it all we got a black president elected and many including me of cheered wildly in the streets in joy…little knowing he would only pamper Wall Street, shut down Occupy, develop heat weapons to disperse crowds of complaining citizens, and beyond it all, he gave us his basketball pal Arne Duncan and Race to the Top.

        Few trained and moral grown ups seem to be in play at the White House. Between the pharma lobbyists and the keeping single payer reps from the table, we lost any chance for universal health care. Now we have TPP on the verge of sending what is left of American jobs to So. America. Sorry I am so lugubrious…going to bed now.

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      • Joanna Best says:

        August 24, 2013 at 9:27 am

        Ellen. Thank you for taking the time to type and explain. 🙂

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      • Harlan Underhill says:

        August 25, 2013 at 1:56 am

        Not all human capital is equally productive or cost effective. Austerity assumes two young ignorant teachers can do twice the work of one old ignorant teacher, or one young non-career teacher can do the work of one old career teacher for half the cost to the state.

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11. jean sanders says:

    August 24, 2013 at 4:13 pm

    Checkers Finn is calling us “marriage wreckers”…
    quote: “Despite the tireless marriage-wrecking efforts of Common Core opponents and their acolytes and funders, few states that initially pledged their troth to these rigorous new standards for English and math are in divorce mode.”

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    • Harlan Underhill says:

      August 25, 2013 at 1:58 am

      Such is the case in the best public elementary school in my town

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12. Jon Awbrey says:

    August 25, 2013 at 10:50 am

    Ellen,

    You’ll have to excuse Harlan — he’s like a man who can smell the elephant pies in the living room but cannot see, or refuses to see, the elephant that produced them.

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13. sysingletary says:

    August 26, 2013 at 10:55 am

    It’s truly unfortunate that the value of veteran teachers is overlooked. Do these aids have $80K worth of experience and expertise that translates into excellent education received by our children? Most likely not.

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