Wash Post Endorses… Liberty Girl! (on her birthday too)

In today’s Washington Post, the editorial team endorses several candidates for DC’s school board. Since the mayoral takeover, the board now focuses on state-level functions such as student and teacher standards. Check out some of the reasons given for the various endorsements:

She also would provide a much-needed voice for Latino students and parents…. knows the importance of school choice…. dedication…. passion…. institutional knowledge…. work[s] to better involve parents in their children’s schooling…. works with a nonprofit organization that helps at-risk students….

FIVE of the nine positions have candidates running unopposed. Perhaps next election cycle — should she be in DC — our very own Liberty Girl could win some key endorsements and get elected to the DC school board! How great would that be? 🙂

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DC Proposal to Remove Bad Teachers, Reward Good Ones

Sounds simple enough, huh? The DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is asking that good teachers be eligible to receive up to $100,000 a year and bad teachers, “regardless of tenure,” be subject to removal.

Common sense stuff in most sectors of the economy. Sadly, a novel concept in our public schools. Cheers to the Chancellor for proposing this policy; hopefully it will be approved and implemented.

More here.

Flashback 2006: Reason magazine prints this graph depicting the incredible steps that must be taken to fire a public school teacher in New York.

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Imprisoned 90 years ago this month

In September 1918 philosopher and future Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell was hauled off to prison for six months. His crime was speaking out against World War I.

Living through September 11 and the nationalism that swept over our country immediately afterward, pushing us into an unnecessary and disconnected war in Iraq, I remember how anti-war sentiments were denounced as unpatriotic.

I was uncomfortable speaking out and usually kept my views — undeveloped as they were — quiet. I can only imagine how much harder it would be, and how much more courage it would take, to be living in Europe during the outbreak of the first World War and to publically speak out against it.

Before being imprisoned, Russell was despised by countless people and even lost his job. Yet he continued to speak out against war for his entire 98 years of life, living long enough to criticize the debacle in Vietnam.

His controversial anti-war lectures that cost him so much were compiled in a book called Why Men Fight. I tried getting it at the library but had no luck. So I picked up a copy on Abebooks. Yesterday it arrived. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself holding a hardcover first edition copy (1917) in very good condition.

Russell was not simply an anti-war activist, but a true scholar on all matters ranging from advocating free trade, free thinking, anti-imperialism, anti-statism, the rights of women, logic, nuclear disarmament and philosophy. Here’s a great video clip that illustrates his famous notion of the Celestial Teapot:

I encourage you to print up two of his classic lectures to read at your convenience: Why I am Not a Christian and his 1950 Nobel Prize acceptance speech (video clip here). Both are beautifully written, highly thought-provoking and well worth your time.

The introduction to his classic book The Problems of Philosophy says, “Russell is an important and fascinating figure, no doubt the most read, most honored, and most reviled English-speaking philosopher of the twentieth century.”

I leave you with a collection of my favorite Bertrand Russell quotes:

Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

War does not determine who is right only who is left.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

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Teacher unions strike before school starts

Across the country, schools started this week and some start after Labor Day.  You would think it would be smooth sailing for parents and kids. However, leave it to unions to screw up the beginning of the school year.

Both in the District of Columbia and Scranton, PA union members screamed a storm over compensation packages and announced a strike. In DC, teachers are opposed to Chancellor Rhee’s plan to end tenure –  seniority – and Scranton teachers are upset that contract will expire on August 31st and they haven’t figured out next years. Oh boo hoo, they will start school without a contract – get over it!

But the story gets humorous, a DC union member had this to say about Rhee’s plan:

“It is degrading and insulting for teachers to have to interview with a principal before accepting a position in that school,” Brocks says.

Hahaha! Shut the eff up. Insulting and degrading? Come on.

Millions of Americans undergo interviews to acquire employment. Why should teachers be exempt?

What’s scary is that there are only a few of us that know and are willing to stand up to status quo bullies.

According to a National Institute for Labor Relations Research, 2.0 million teachers across the country are willing to buy into union nonsense.

Yikes!

However, our friends at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Association of American Educators’ have launched a campaign to empower teachers and help them escape evils of collective bargaining.

Amen!

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Florida Supreme Court to Rule on School Vouchers

It’s been almost three years since the Florida Supreme Court used tortured logic to destroy the state’s successful school voucher program. Now it appears the high court will be ruling on vouchers again.

Two ballot proposals that would correct the disastrous opinion have been challenged in court. The AP is reporting that this challenge is heading back up to the top.

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AZ: School vouchers live but their is no money in the bank

From the AP:

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that two voucher programs for foster and disabled children attending private schools can continue through the 2008-2009 school year.

The court issued its ruling Friday – the same day state lawmakers approved legislation cutting the $3.2 million set aside to fund the program.

This is sabotage!

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Miami Dade teachers protest with United Way

Currently, there is a salary dispute between the United Teachers of Dade and the school board. Today, teachers were supposed to receive salary raises but the money hasn’t come from the State due to budget restrictions.

So, today union members protested and brought in the United Way to help send a message to school board members.

The best quote from the story:

They are choosing to cut salaries, they can choose to cut programs, they can choose to cut other things that don’t directly affect people,” said Ingram a teacher union member.

Ha!

This is the quote that I live for, see teacher unions don’t care about kids or education, only about their salaries. They want higher salaries at taxpayers expense; meanwhile average taxpayers, who are making less income than they are, are supporting their high end jobs.

Did I mention that kids still can’t read very well?

I tell ya, teacher unions are the devil.

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SC: Court rules, school board website can put bias informaiton against school vouchers

South Carolinians for Responsible Government sued the Lexington school district for using taxpayer money to provide bias information on the school district website against school vouchers.

Two things:

While, I love what South Carolinians for Responsible Government did, attacking the establishment. The taxpayer money spent in the lawsuit could have been used for something else. There are far greater battles to be won than the language on a school district website.

The courts decision:

The court ruled that school officials should be allowed to support laws that could have an impact on the school system. The court said it is “appropriate for the school district to defend public education in the face of pending legislation that it views as potentially threatening of public education.”

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School board pays superintendent $740,000 in special payments

What you are about to read, will make you want to barf:

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. – School boards in some New Jersey towns still give perks to their superintendents that would make almost any employee envious and any taxpayer mad.

…

Since word got out in May that Barbara Trzeszkowski, the school superintendent in tiny Keansburg, was retiring with more than $740,000 in special payments on top of her $115,000 per year pension, state education officials and lawmakers have been scrutinizing the contracts of school administrators and proposing curbs on benefits. The state Attorney General’s Office has asked a judge to void one part of the contract.

Read more..

And every teacher superintendents across America cry for more money, more money my ass.

This is a major problem to public education, budgets are inflated and tax dollars are misspent.

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Bloomberg doesn’t understand school vouchers

The mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg, attended former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s education summit.

While Bloomberg supports charter schools and more public choice he opposes vouchers.

Why?

I’ve never been a big believer in vouchers,” Bloomberg added. He said that’s because “what invariably will happen with vouchers is those who are sending their kids to private schools already will take up most of the vouchers.

Bloomberg’s statement is simply false and wrong!

School voucher programs are designed for low-income families, families with disabled kids or kids attending failing public schools.

School voucher laws have nothing to do with kids already enrolled in private schools. Actually, kids who are enrolled in private schools couldn’t even be eligible for vouchers because students have to be enrolled in public schools.

Finally, I hate how the AP never does any homework on their stories and place quotes that mislead readers.

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