Who'd win...

Joe Six Pack or Joe the Plumber?

Obama = Lenny Wilkens

McCain = Scott Skiles

(Has nothing to do with skin color, by the way.)

Posted by tkf:

Posted by Redcru:

Amen brother...Parents do have a role in a kid's education....too bad so many of them don't realize that

I do think having a choice of HS is important. I grew up In NY, going to HS was like going to college. as a senior In JHS I visited different HS's to see which one would be best for me. I had great choices and got a great education. I think more states need to look into that. In most states you go to where you are zoned, and if you are in the hood, or poor areas you have limited choices of a good education. It sucks..

as a teacher, i am going to tell you that will not work in the long run. imagine this scenario: an inner city school does not make the score and have problems so the students that are supposedly "smarter" are eligible for vouchers ( the "problems" children have parents that can't read and write usually and can't fill out the paperwork properly) and leave to another school making the first school weaker. it is making that school worse instead of better. imagine that happening in thousands of schools throughout the nation. what they need to do is to balance the budget to put more money in schools that need it. not using test score ONLY to assess like the NCLB act did. my school is a classic example. we did bad with the test scores in the beginning of the act. then we started teaching for the test pretty much instead of teaching what they should know. we received some money for tutoring and other programs and naturally it increased the scores. however, after that happened, the money stopped coming in and guess what happen to the scores this year? went down. a cycle instead of keeping the programs to keep up the scores. however, it is smarter to assess in other ways instead of tests. i DO like the fact that we have to develop proffessional hours to improve our teaching style. we are held accountable which we should be. however, without the resources and the support we are sinking in quicksand and NCLB with the testing and vouchers are just a short rope that hasn't reached us.

Posted by tkf:

Posted by jazz74:

Posted by tkf:

Posted by Redcru:

Amen brother...Parents do have a role in a kid's education....too bad so many of them don't realize that

I do think having a choice of HS is important. I grew up In NY, going to HS was like going to college. as a senior In JHS I visited different HS's to see which one would be best for me. I had great choices and got a great education. I think more states need to look into that. In most states you go to where you are zoned, and if you are in the hood, or poor areas you have limited choices of a good education. It sucks..

as a teacher, i am going to tell you that will not work in the long run. imagine this scenario: an inner city school does not make the score and have problems so the students that are supposedly "smarter" are eligible for vouchers ( the "problems" children have parents that can't read and write usually and can't fill out the paperwork properly) and leave to another school making the first school weaker. it is making that school worse instead of better. imagine that happening in thousands of schools throughout the nation. what they need to do is to balance the budget to put more money in schools that need it. not using test score ONLY to assess like the NCLB act did. my school is a classic example. we did bad with the test scores in the beginning of the act. then we started teaching for the test pretty much instead of teaching what they should know. we received some money for tutoring and other programs and naturally it increased the scores. however, after that happened, the money stopped coming in and guess what happen to the scores this year? went down. a cycle instead of keeping the programs to keep up the scores. however, it is smarter to assess in other ways instead of tests. i DO like the fact that we have to develop proffessional hours to improve our teaching style. we are held accountable which we should be. however, without the resources and the support we are sinking in quicksand and NCLB with the testing and vouchers are just a short rope that hasn't reached us.

good points, my wife used to teach here in GA, and I can tell you that the lack of training for a lot of these teachers are hurting the schools, especially here in georgia where they have some of the lowest test scores in the nation. In NY, I had choices of schools, Bronx HS of science, Stuyvesant, Bergtraum(which I attended, I should have chosen stuyvesant, but that is another story.. LOL)the point is, we had choices, now with schools like stuyvesant and BX science I had to pass the test, which I did, but those options were there, otherwise, if I didn't have the choice of those schools, my zone school were not that good. I understand your point, and maybe more money is needed, but the kids who can excel need to have choices and schools need to be held to higher standards and that should be strictly enforced. Accountablitliy is definately the key. I still like choices, but the reality is, there are going to be a lot of bright and motivated kids that won't get into the better schools, simply because there are only so many openings each year, but if we improve the choices, give more quality choices, we can certainly improve the education our kids get overall, and maybe kids will look more into their zoned schools, regardless of where you are, you will get a great education, that should be the goal. This country has the money and resources, there should be no excuse.

you have a point with choices and in an ideal society it could work. you can have kids go to different schools and reduce the class size tremendously for the shcools that have problems and those shools would have the kids that are struggling. the test scores will show that those schools need some funding and will get it with the class ratio very manageable. that is the ideal way for the vouchers/NCLB would work, right? wrong. the schools get the same amount of funding as other borderline district. my school is outside atlantic city and it is a borderline district with kids teetering. you need little resources to help them with their grades. meanwhile atlantic city is a very low academic district. you need a LOT of resources and money to make it work. however, the same amount of money and resources are given to both districts. does that make sense? they need to re-evaluate the program if they will continue it ( which if mccain is elected he will no doubt keep it intact) or distribute the resource carefully and get more teachers in the field by making the job attractive. i don't mean to get on a soapbox but it is a shame that a teacher is getting payed the way they do but yet we are scrutinized just as much as the politicians. i have to be careful about the company i keep and the decisions i make more than any other person. yet our starting salary in nj just became $40,000 a year for a profession that is SO demanding each year. i have been teaching for almost 10 years now and i just make about $45,000. what the heck is that? i have another job also to make ends meet. coincidentally, at my other job at a store in the casino, a college student that is assistant manager in my store that just started is making $38,000 a year from that job, very close to the starting teacher's salary. what does it tell you about what our society values? is it worth the hassle for young workers? things need to get done.

Posted by nyk4ever:

Jazz, I can't believe you've been teaching for 10 years and aren't even at 45k yet. My girlfriend is a teacher here in North Jersey and her STARTING salary is 45k.

yeah, i can't believe it either. north jersey is different because of the demographics and population so i expect them to get paid more. however, it is frustrating that i put that amount of work in and this is the best i can come up with. it is all about the steps and every four years they negotiate and i am unfortunately in the middle pay scale with little movement whatsoever. we are up in two years and hopefully the economy will be better so we can negotiate a better pay scale. that is the BIG reason i am behind obama's campaign especially when he said better pay for teachers.

Teacher should be one of the highest paid professions in the world, IMO. They should make no less than $80K to start.

[Edited by - K22 on 2008-10-16 12:34 PM]

Posted by K22:

Teacher should be one of the highest paid professions in the world, IMO. They should make no less than $80K to start.

[Edited by - K22 on 2008-10-16 12:34 PM]

well, that's a little bit obtuse. I do think on average teachers should make more but they also shouldn't have all of the protection of tenure at the same time. Maybe tenure windows or something like that. Part of the problem with teachers' pay is also the teachers unions themselves (and their inability to move and change with the times), so it does work both ways.

Obama won on style and substance once again. McCain starting out strong but once he stupidly went into the Ayers issue, Obama smacked him down and gained the momentum. McCain should lose for no other reason that making us (1) have to listen to Palin's "fargo" accent; (2) hearing about Joe six pack and hockey moms 20 times a day; and (3) now introducing us to Joe the Plumber. Who he needs to introduce us to is "Joe the Economist" and actually come up with a plan to fix our economy.