Hugh is encouraging his listeners to see the film Waiting for Superman.
For a nation that proudly declared it would leave no child behind, America continues to do so at alarming rates. Despite increased spending and politicians’ promises, our buckling public-education system, once the best in the world, routinely forsakes the education of millions of children. Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim reminds us that education “statistics” have names: Anthony, Francisco, Bianca, Daisy, and Emily, whose stories make up the engrossing foundation of WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. As he follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth, Guggenheim undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying “drop-out factories” and “academic sinkholes,” methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems. However, embracing the belief that good teachers make good schools, and ultimately questioning the role of unions in maintaining the status quo, Guggenheim offers hope by exploring innovative approaches taken by education reformers and charter schools that have—in reshaping the culture—refused to leave their students behind. [Synopsis courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
Hugh Hewitt: Interests of younger, older teachers clash in November
By: Hugh Hewitt
Examiner Columnist
September 7, 2010
More than two-and-a-half million teachers are back at work this week in the nation’s public schools.
Not all of them belong to the National Education Association, but the NEA nevertheless has a membership of 3.2 million. And therein is the political problem facing teachers this November.
Divides exist and are growing between the interests of retired teachers and working teachers, between older teachers and young teachers, and between classroom teachers and everyone else in the NEA’s 3.2 million number.
The NEA, like all public employee unions, approaches every problem as one of insufficient funding, and traditionally the demand for a larger slice of the public pie has been enough to keep various factions together in whatever political battle looms.
That may end in November.
If, for example, you are a young teacher in California, you know the state is in a fiscal crisis the likes of which it has never seen before, that taxpayers are unwilling to shoulder any larger burden, and that every proposal to hike this or that revenue source sends even more employers scurrying to Texas.
The classroom career you have dreamed about and now begun is threatened not by voters who routinely support efforts to direct resources to classroom teachers, but by other embedded Sacramento special interests and increasingly by the demands of retired teachers who, having put their three decades into the classroom, insist on every penny promised them and on health packages agreed to long ago.
Legislators don’t know what to do, but the public does. It wants to slash the size of government in almost every way except public safety and education. Democrats and union bosses want to just demand higher taxes regardless of the consequences, and Jerry Brown is their man.
But the young teacher knows this inverted pyramid of tax-takers versus tax-makers cannot be sustained. Unless radical restructuring is undertaken soon, the collapse of the Golden State’s public sector will be epic, and the promise of a long and productive professional life followed by a comfortable if not extravagant retirement will disappear, replaced by the harsh reality that the retired teachers and non-classroom personnel will have gotten theirs and that the present is very much being sacrificed to the excess of the past.
Which is why younger voters generally, and younger teachers specifically, have got to be looking long and hard at a vote for Meg Whitman in November, and at other Republicans up and down the ballot in California and across the country.
Pure self-interest is telegraphing urgent warnings to the common sense part of their brains, warnings that underscore the sky-high deficits run up by Democratic majorities in D.C., Sacramento, and wherever Democratic majorities gather.
President Obama carried the youth vote decisively in 2008, and Democrats have always had a strong hold on public school teachers. But rarely has the folly of Democratic excess been on display as it has been in the past 18 months.
The Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democrats and their state counterparts have been dining on the seed corn, running up bills that can only be paid by the taxes of people under 40 working until they are 80 and then retiring on 50 percent of what their older colleagues receive now, if that.
Grim reality is knocking on the door of the NEA and every state and local teachers’ union. Young teachers should answer the knock, no matter what the retirees say. If new leadership for state houses in blue states like Whitman in California, John Kasich in Ohio, Bill Brady in Illinois, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania doesn’t arrive soon, the cliff ahead cannot be avoided.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Interests-of-younger_-older-teachers-clash-in-November-752897-102298454.html#ixzz0yuXwYZ00
Heather said,
September 8, 2010 at 9:26 pm
The NEA, like all public employee unions, approaches every problem as one of insufficient funding,
Hm. Where have I heard this before…?
In the two counties of our state in which I’ve lived, there seems to have been a lot of special interest manipulation over the years in order to get more tax money.
This is interesting:
The Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democrats and their state counterparts have been dining on the seed corn, running up bills that can only be paid by the taxes of people under 40 working until they are 80 and then retiring on 50 percent of what their older colleagues receive now, if that.
I’ve had similar thoughts in general about the Social Security system and what we know as “retirement”. But that’s a totally different topic, I guess.
Thanks for sharing the article. Looks like the film would be interesting, for sure.
Brooke said,
September 9, 2010 at 12:29 am
Throwing money at a problem never solves it. The $ spent per year/per students right now is INSANE, more than some poverty stricken people make, yet we have higher rates of illiteracy and lower graduation numbers.
Getting rid of teacher’s unions and making the schools truly local again would do a world of good.
Elmers Brother said,
September 9, 2010 at 10:00 pm
I was encouraged to hear that there are teachers who also see the need for reform. We have to do things differently.
Speedy G said,
September 12, 2010 at 1:46 am
This Future for Our Educational Institutions was forseen long ago by FN. If it’s any consolation, “that which does not kill us will make us stronger.”
And as Plato would likely say, youth is a time to learn “gymnastics,” music and poetry anyway.
Z said,
September 13, 2010 at 2:38 am
The great news is that , at least here in LA, the teachers are tiring of the unions.
Today at church I happened to speak to a fellow I rarely see…his wife’s a teacher and I asked about her only to hear how underpaid she is. This, after another friend and he’d been talking about benefits when I approached them …the guy with the teacher-wife said he’s starting his own company and will ‘stay on my wife’s benefits with the LA School System, they pay for everything! Even the company I left didn’t have benefits as good as the State so I’ve always been on her plan’..ya. great.:-(
He complained that she has some autistic kids in her class, she has about 15 % who speak no English, she has some smart kids and some are impossible to discipline…….’so she needs more money for having to put up with all of that’. The fact that our smarter kids have to deal with that environment made me sick. Also, they use the same criteria in inner city schools as they do in upper class schools…the same testing, which SHOULD be happening but, when the inner city school kids get ZERO help from their parents and the teachers get no support, you have to wonder.
We’re failing our kids badly…and, therefore, we’re failing the future of America.
Steve Harkonnen said,
October 28, 2010 at 1:54 am
My wife happens to be a teacher. One who has not had any kind of raise in the two years she’s been teaching. Come next year she’ll be tenure; that is, if she continues to teach. If they’d dump these stupid initiatives like “Student Development” where 9th graders sit in what’s nothing more than an organized study hall and do word search puzzles, then maybe they’d be on the right track, but for this crap called no child left behind, that’s part of the problem right there.
Speedy G said,
October 31, 2010 at 3:36 am
Don’t forget to VOTE to RESTORE SANITY in Washington DC this Tuesday!
http://speedyggggs.blogspot.com/2010/10/come-to-polls.html
Elmer's Momma said,
November 16, 2010 at 3:40 am
You’re gayer than ever. See you’re using one eye all seeing eye of lucifer symbolism as well – probably too stupid to realize it.
Elmers Brother said,
November 16, 2010 at 4:06 am
Whats up Doug? Got a job yet? Still trying to shill for Loose Change? You go girl.
I also recall it was your taste in music and your comic strips that were satanic. You need more therapy.
Elmers Brother said,
November 16, 2010 at 4:07 am
You’re gayer than ever.
I also remember that video on youtube that proved you were gay. So you can stop making passes at me.
Speedy G said,
December 25, 2010 at 9:09 am
Feliz Navidad!
Heather said,
December 29, 2010 at 8:33 am
I just noticed today that Z posted earlier this month to wish you a happy birthday. Hopefully, it was!
Mos said,
February 2, 2011 at 10:12 pm
I see your blog flopped here, too. lol You Are Gay.
Elmers Brother said,
February 2, 2011 at 11:35 pm
what’s up MOs. Well priorities have changed MOS. My mother who lives with me had surgery and I’m caring for her, my sister has breast cancer and I’m going to school full time.
Course someone like you, a drug addicted couch potato would not understand.
Thanks for stopping by though.
Elmers Brother said,
February 2, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Remind duggy that the Loose Change producer just got picked up for selling hard drugs. LOL!
Jen said,
February 15, 2011 at 2:03 am
Hey ElBro. I hope all is well with you and yours.
Take care!
-FJ said,
May 1, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Kawanio che keekeru!
“Song for St. Tamminy s Day.” – The Old Song.
Of Andrew, of Patrick, of David, & George,
What mighty achievements we hear!
While no one relates great Tammany’s feats,
Although more heroic by far, my brave boys,
Although more heroic by far.
These heroes fought only as fancy inspired,
As by their own stories we find;
Whilst Tammany, he fought only to free,
From cruel oppression mankind, my brave boys,
From cruel oppression mankind.
“When our country was young and our numbers were few
To our fathers his friendship was shown,
(For he e’er would oppose whom he took for his foes),
And made our misfortunes his own, my brave boys,
And he made our misfortunes his own.
“At length growing old and quite worn out with years,
As history doth truly proclaim,
His wigwam was fired, he nobly expired,
And flew to the skies in a flame, my brave boys,
And flew to the skies in a flame.
Gay......& Retarded said,
May 20, 2011 at 10:49 am
Wrong till the bitter end. It’s people just like you who killed the USA. Thanks a lot, Elmer.
-FJ said,
May 31, 2011 at 1:02 am
Thank you for your service elbro.
G_d Bless America!
Blue Heeler said,
January 25, 2012 at 5:36 pm
Elmer, I’m on a borrowed computer. New home, no email or net, no tv, no radio. Me, millions of birds and 100′s of kangaroos. I know…..sounds like paradise, huh?
You know the code….. add 02 4841-0923
I called your old number twice and got a delightful but mystified lady.