Where Your Children Are california

Teachers strike in Los Angeles, citing low pay

 

Los Angeles students are still coming to school today, but they’re being met with unfamiliar faces as substitute teachers step in to fill the gap left by 28,000 striking teachers, who are of course “doing it for the students.”

The dispute is over (what else?) a demanded 6.5% pay raise – teachers insist the district has the money to burn, and want the raise immediately (Friday they rejected an offer from the school district giving them a 6% raise over 2 years). They’re also wanting smaller class sizes and “fully staffed” schools, which include more nurses, librarians, and counselors. The district said meeting every demand would put them more than half a billion dollars in the red.

So in essence, teachers (or, rather, their union bosses, who of course “only have the interests of them and their children at heart) are wanting greater compensation (which means greater union dues) for less work.

Never mind that teaching degrees constitute some of the easiest-earned degrees in the nation, and education students collectively have the lowest SAT scores among matriculating freshmen. GPAs for education majors are nearly a full point higher than those studying math or science. Countless undergraduates joke that if they can’t cut in their challenging classes, they “could always just major in education.”

Don’t tell me teachers weren’t aware they may not receive astronomical salaries, when they were back in college. Don’t tell me they “did it for the children;” how many of us had teachers that “just didn’t care” and were literally counting the minutes until school let out for the day, or the year (or until retirement)? If they really had children’s interests in mind, would they be refusing to come into work, forcing their charges to spend the days on the streets, in front of the television, or in a classroom with a clueless substitute?

The average teacher salary in Los Angeles Unified School District is $75,000. This doesn’t take into account the 3 months’ vacation they get every year, or the excellent benefits package, including retirement benefits that put most other jobs to shame.

The school district serves approximately 640,000 students.

LA Teachers Go On Strike For First Time In 30 Years

CITY RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO FAMILIES DURING THE EVENT OF A STRIKE

Here’s The Nation’s Easiest College Major

Photos: Thousands of L.A. Teachers March on Strike

Where Your Children Are minnesota

Minnesota teacher tweets about killing Brett Kavanaugh

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No matter where you stand on the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court debate, I’d hope you wouldn’t be calling for anyone’s death (although death threats have unfortunately been reported from both sides). Still worse, of course, would be to think that your own child’s teacher would advocate for the murder of someone else.

An unnamed special education teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave following a now-deleted (but still immortal, because this *is* the internet, after all) tweet alluding to the killing of now-Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh, Saturday evening after his swearing in. Said female teacher was listed as an instructor at Intermediate School District 917’s Alliance Education Center, in Rosemount, Minnesota.

District superintendent Mark Zuzek issued this statement via the district website:

October 8, 2018,

Over the weekend, the district has received a complaint regarding an employee.  The employee has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. 

Pursuant with the data practices act, we are limited to providing additional information regarding this matter. 

Mark A. Zuzek

Superintendent

As no criminal charges have been filed, the instructor’s name has not been released, though some news sources report it as Samantha Ness.

The tweet in question read: “So whose [sic] gonna take one for the team and kill Kavanaugh?”

She then followed up the tweet with, ““Brett kavanaugh will be dealing with death threats for the rest of his life being on the Supreme Court. I doubt my mid-west ass is a real threat.” Classy.

The district website also defines itself as follows: “District 917 serves students needing low incidence special education services from our member school districts in the southeastern Twin Cities metropolitan area.” Mark Zuzek confirmed they have had to deal with many parent complaints since the incident was reported.

The district’s Facebook page has since received countless comments calling for the immediate firing of Ness, but this is pretty much impossible, because of those oh-so-necessary teacher’s unions that protect even the most despicable of humanity.

Alliance Education Center provides services through the SUN program (Students with Unique Needs) for those between the ages of 5 and 21, serving those with: “Autism Spectrum Disorders, Developmental Cognitive Disabilities, Emotional Behavioral Disorders, and other disabilities as appropriate.”

What’s that about your children’s teachers being great examples and espousing only the highest morals and values? Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the death threats.

Rosemont educator on leave after tweeting ‘kill Kavanaugh’

Samantha Ness: Teacher Accused of Threatening to Kill Kavanaugh

Students with Unique Needs (SUN) – Intermediate School District #917

Where Your Children Are Miscellaneous

Teachers’ Unions Play Politics

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We’re coming upon the time of year when parents and children alike obsess over which teacher(s) they will receive for the upcoming school term. There is no real implied choice in the matter; similar to your “zoned school,” most families don’t search beyond what’s handed to them, so if a student doesn’t mesh well with their instructor, it’s “too bad, Jimmy, better luck next year.”

But, on the rare chance your child’s teacher isn’t a pedophile or serial public pooper, and doesn’t have anger management issues, perhaps you’ll gloat about what a wonderful person they are. “He shares my values,” you may say, or “She attends my church.” “We’re both supporting _____ in the Senate race.” This, you tell yourself, is the perfect person to replace you during the average of 8 hours a day your impressionable youngster is in school.

You would be wrong.

Regardless of a teacher’s political, religious, or otherwise ideological views, they are subject to the all-powerful organization known as the teacher’s union, which has overwhelmingly only one agenda.

Whether you agree or not with a union supporting certain political parties, the fact that teacher’s unions have in recent years given 94% of political contributions to liberal candidates and organizations. This money is not solely from donations, but from dues paid by those illustrious, upstanding teachers at a school near you.

Besides your standard Senate candidates and, of course, Hillary Clinton, NEA (National Education Association) and AFT (American Federation of Teachers), the two largest teachers’ unions in the United States, have contributed to many decidedly one-sided organizations, including but not limited to: the Human Rights Campaign (national group working for “working for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights”); the Center for American Progress (progressive think tank led by former Clinton and Obama aides); and Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow Push Coalition” and Al Sharpton’s “National Action Network.”

Millions upon millions of dollars are spent by these unions every year to support candidates, policies, and organizations on just one side of the aisle. And what’s more, from 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million. What’s more, Democratic bigshots like Hillary Clinton are welcome faces at union events; Clinton received the AFT’s “Women’s Rights Award” on Friday, and the response to her presence at the Pittsburgh event was akin to teenyboppers at a Justin Bieber concert.

“But that’s just the union,” you protest, still trying to remain in denial. “They don’t represent the values of OUR teachers!” Oh, really? Then who DO they represent? And why are they taking their money? The truth is, teachers listen to their union leaders, and believe they will fight for them to have less time with your kids and more money for what is essentially glorified babysitting, for much of the school day. If union leaders tell them to vote one way, chances are, they will. Because just like they are teaching your kids, day in and day out, to be mindless automatons dependent on someone else to tell them what’s in their best interest, teachers will often blindly follow their leaders. In fact, they are more likely to revere their local union leaders over their school principal.

So before you recommend your child’s teacher for canonization, perhaps you’d best examine where their loyalties really lie.

Hillary begins speech: ‘I’m so tired, I can barely stand’

Big Political Spending By Unions–Paid With Dues

OpenSecrets.org – Teachers Unions

How Liberal Politics and Teachers’ Unions Got So Entangled