:::searches for his little metal jackass and the packing tape:::
I hope those words are not meant to be placed into my mouth, as I never said anything like that, just as you blowero never said “evil does not exist”. I said I would never be in a union. And yes, I said, “fuck the teachers’ union”. I have different ideas on how to arrive at salaries/job security/etc.
Oh come on, I expect better from an educator. A union is a thing, an idea, not a race of people. I can say for instance that diesel automobiles suck and i would never drive one. I can also disagree with unions as the way to provide job security and I can have alternate thoughts on how best to achieve that.
You equate my idea that the market (in part, I will not go into everything here) should determine salaries with RACISM???. Please, you are generally better than that.
I want to apologize to Jimmy Chitwood for tarring all P.E. teachers with the same brush. I never meant to say that all coaches are psychotic, child-abusing bullies who should never be allowed to be anywhere near children, I just meant to say that all of the coaches I ever met were like that. It’s too bad that the 99% of coaches who are like that have to ruin things for the rest of them.
My, but you are a clever boy. :wally
Well, you’re entitled to your opinion. It isn’t in my nature to trust an absolute statement, particularly from someone who seems to think that all unions (or advocacy groups, for that matter) are alike. I can think of a great many unions I don’t think are much good, but to flatly deny members of a profession the right to function and bargain in a collective manner strikes me as a worse thing than anything a union might pull.
Anytime you get tired of being a plumber, you can tell your boss to go to hell and take a hike. As a teacher, I do not have that option, unless I wanna go to court for breach of contract… no matter WHAT kind of insane nonsense MY boss wants to pull. Our two professions are very different, sir. Comparing them – or unions serving them – is, I would think, very much a matter of apples and oranges.
No, I intended to say that absolute statements are highly suspect. As to the market determining salaries, well, that might work for plumbers. You don’t have a local citizens’ board jerking you around, or a State Board Of Plumbing that needs to justify its existence by thinking up stupid things that will soon become mandatory for you, and I can’t remember the last time a politician rode the plumbers into office by complaining that Our Children’s Toilets Aren’t Getting Fixed, and that we should institute mandatory state-imposed standardized testing for everyone’s pipes that YOU get to pay for.
Gee, bud, I think you’re a plumber, and that I am a teacher, and that any union that might cater to your needs would be totally inappropriate for mine, and vice versa. If you are, in fact, familiar with teachers’ unions and the multiple functions they serve, do cite your knowledge, as opposed to randomly condemning the entire concept. For one thing, teachers’ unions generally don’t do much for our salaries, other than lobby in state congresses for pay raises. Strikes would be illegal, due to our contractual obligations. They generally act more as advocacy organizations, helping to enforce state laws and regulations that local administrators would like to ignore for convenience’s sake, and help pay legal expenses when the midden hits the windmill.
An example would be this coachy chap. In the article I linked to, above, it would seem the school board wants to fire the guy. The superintendent didn’t want him fired, only disciplined, and the guy has gone howling to his union to save his worthless butt. It will provide him with a competent attorney, as well as pay some of his legal fees while he fights to prevent his firing. It may not work, but it’s better (for him, anyway) than simply being scraped out of the district like dogshit off your shoe. I’ve known administrators who would gladly can employees whose existence had suddenly become inconvenient, for any reason or no reason.
Should you, sir, have any better alternatives, perhaps a new thread would be in order. I’d hate to hijack this one any more than I already have.
No comment (tonight, anyway) on the union issue, but involuntary servitude is unconstitutional, contract or not. Any time you want to tell your boss to take a hike, give up teaching, and become a plumber, you can do so. You’re not going to be dragged back in chains. Sure, you could be sued for damages, but (a) I don’t see that happening; and (b) the district would have to prove actual damages. I can actually foresee more situations where a plumber walking off a job in violation of a contract could lead to legally compensible damages.
What does mandatory testing have to do with salaries? And if one local school board jerks you around, go and get a job with another. Again, you’re not an indentured servant to the board you work for now.
Huh? You’ve never heard of a teachers’ strike? Or a teachers’ union negotiating for higher salaries at contract renewal time? You are in the U.S., right?
County, you worthless fucking bully who never grew up. IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE KID IS A CRYBABY OR NOT, or if he is entitled to the award. That kind of behavior is best addressed as it happens, not as a pre-meditated humiliation in front of friends, family, faculty, in a sports banquet, by people who are way old enough to know better. I have read past posts of yours justifying humiliating and bullying behavior. I can not figure out if you are that old a fart to go back in time when that was encouraged, or you are just one that seeks out those weaker than you to harass until they kick you in the nuts.
Huge Erection, I find it hard to believe you are old enough to have experienced so much of life only to take on a handle of one the age and stupidity of Beavis and Butthead. Generally, a handle is a reflection of your personality. I choose “Road Rash” because I skate and occasionally crash. I’ve got a good one on my leg right now. You and Wang Ka’s argument has gotten silly. The recipient of the crybaby award has not yet gone postal.
I hated 8th grade. I got bullied. I finally built up the courage to slam some heads against walls. Things finally got better. I still hate bullies.
Ideally, the kid will eventually be able to find the courage to go back to school, deal with the ribbing with dignity, and stick the middle finger to the coaching staff without caring about any punishment. If this occured, that kid would be more courageous than I was at 13. Summer is almost here, and 9th grade is typically the start of high school, so the kid may be able to get a fresh start.
C’mon, get some common sense here. I’m more friendly to unions than most, but the Teacher’s Union is being fucking stupid here. Flush this turd before he screws up more kids, Gullen clearly doesn’t have what it takes to teach. Or is the ONLY purpose of a union to “protect your own”?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/04/national/main615529.shtml
An update:
" A basketball coach will be ordered to make a public apology, banned from coaching and sent to sensitivity training for giving a 13-year-old player a “Crybaby Award” at a season-ending banquet, officials said Wednesday.
Whether he loses his job remains to be seen."
I think the kid should be able to kick him in the balls as well.
Devil’s advocate here: Or not.
Kids are very very tense on their first day of high school. Think they were insecure as middle-schoolers? Even the “popular” ones are unsure of their position. Everyone’s on edge, aware that one wrong move or word could torpedo their social status for the next four years.
So, to elevate themselves, they seek someone to put down. “Hey, check that guy out! He got the crybaby award last year! Yeah, that’s Terrence: the crybaby! Hey Crybaby! You gonna cry?” This does not bode well for him at all.
county, aren’t you the guy who said that a picked-on kid should “get some friends”? The scenario I just described is why they can’t.
It’s not involuntary servitude; the teacher willingly signed a contract with the district and if he/she breaks that contract to become that plumber, the district has every right to choose to sue–especially if it puts them at a disadvantage in having to hire extra personnel to cover the teacherless classes. In addition to that, if a teacher breaks contract here in Missouri, the district can petition the state to either revoke or suspend the teacher’s license. The latter happens much more often than the former, but districts do sometimes sue.
Depending on the state, district funding can be juggled between both attendance and standardized test results. (That’s just state funds; federal funds are now tied in with NCLB.) When the district records poor attendance or shows poor test results, the funding lessens and the teacher salaries are either frozen or reduced (depending on contract talks with the union), or, worse yet, teacher positons are eliminated.
In addition, should a teacher decide to leave his/her district (and assuming that he/she does so without breaking contract, thus leaving his/her license in good standing), positions in other districts may not be open. A teacher generally has to find a position based on his/her licensed area. An elementary SPED teacher in Missouri, for example, would not be able to find a job as a middle school math teacher unless he/she is licensed for that grade level. (There are cases where the state may allow such a transfer as long as the teacher is working to get his/her licensure within a certain amount of time. But, again, this depends on the state.)
Finding a job in another district, thusly, may not be as easy as your post seems to make it–especially in times of reduced budgets which almost all states seem to be now going through.
As for ** Master Wang-Ka**'s contract/strike issue, I’ll leave that for him to answer because I am not aware of his particular contractual obligations.
True, I will not be dragged back in chains. Instead, I will be sued, my income terminated, my livelihood threatened by accusations of unprofessional conduct, malfeasance, and whatever else the district in question should choose to throw at me. Perhaps you are not aware of the concept of “breach of contract?” Teachers are invariably contract employees.
If I lose, the remainder of my year’s income is gone, my job lost, my reputation destroyed. I will be responsible for damages, quite likely, and there is the possibility that the state will revoke my teaching certificate, depending on circumstances.
And if I win the lawsuit, I will have my job back, on my own terms, in a district full of political enemies with every intention of screwing me sideways and doing their damndest to interfere with my ability to find another job. I can forget about contract renewal, most likely.
The fact that you “don’t see that happening” reassures me not in the least. In fact, it implies you do not know what you are talking about. I can think of at least three cases I personally am familiar with, one of which involved my own father.
You keep talking about indentured servitude. No one mentioned this until you brought it up. The analogy is inaccurate, inappropriate, and irrelevant. If you do not understand how school boards, school administrations, and school employee contracts work, kindly start your own thread, and I will educate you to the best of my ability, if only so you don’t keep sounding off about a topic about which you apparently know very little.
If you like, I will also provide lots of jolly information about exactly what mandatory testing has to do with teacher salaries, school funding, and lots of other financial issues.
Yes, I am, and I have heard of the situations you mention. I never claimed that I had not. Apparently, you did not read what I wrote. For your convenience, I will repeat myself.
Occasionally, a teachers’ union will become involved in renegotiation of teachers’ salaries at contract renewal time, particularly with extremely large school districts – New York, for example. More often, it is a much more local thing, with minimal union involvement (or NO union involvement). Strikes are quite rare, and a work stoppage anytime EXCEPT during the summer would be an invitation to lawsuit city, for the reasons I have already mentioned.
I should correct myself, though. Strikes do happen, although they tend to be more like “a refusal to sign new contracts until terms are met.” On occasion, you’ll even see a picket line, although this is quite rare; local people tend to be wildly unsympathetic to teachers holding out for more pay, since the teachers’ pay is tax-based, and many people seem to feel that their children’s right to an education outweighs the teachers’ children’s right to a hot meal and a roof. At any rate, a teachers’ strike is in many ways wildly different from what you’d expect, and in my state – Texas – they are, for the most part, entirely illegal, due to “Open Shop Laws.”
Hence my remarks about how “advocacy groups” generally lobby Congress for our pay raises. Strikes wouldn’t get us anything except fired.
Now, back to the actual subject of the thread.
Yes, Coach Shithead has gone crying to his union, apparently, to save his job. This is a natural thing to do. Whether or not the union CAN save his job is another matter; bucking the school board on a very ugly, very public matter like this is not easily done. The union might well tell him he’s better off signing a resignation and chalking it all up to experience. Time’ll tell.
Ooh, Fallacy of the Extended Analogy. My favorite.
Yeah, I had to laugh at the idea of the trophy, too. Not at the humiliation of the kid, but the trophy itself.
Boy oh boy, I would have loved to have given these to some former co-workers on my last day of work. 
Or apply his humiliation toward the stealing of a car! 
Hmmm…I had the same questions when I read what you wrote. I don’t think Random’s reading ability is the issue.
I guess thing are much, much different in Texas, then. Around here, the teacher’s union is instrumental in negotiating issues such as salary, benefits, and class sizes. Teachers would have zero leverage without a union. I can’t even imagine how it would work without a union. Would your salary be whatever you could negotiate for yourself? Would class sizes vary wildly depending on what kind of deal each teacher was able to leverage? Or would all the good teachers just flock to whatever school was offering the best pay, leaving the poorer districts with the bottom of the barrel?
I have never heard of teachers being fired for going on strike. I don’t even think it’s legal to fire people for striking. The whole point of a union is to have the leverage of collective bargaining and protection against arbitrary dismissal and unfair working conditions. If they’re not helping you with that, then what’s the point?
I have to admit, I love the idea of a Crybaby Award, and Lord knows I knew some high schoolers who should’ve gotten one, but this coach was a jerk.
Certainly it matters. Did he deserve the award? Sounds like the little pussy should’ve gotten the award though. And you, well, lemme check an see if they got a runner-up award.
Based on what? Your own imagination? Why don’t we look at a fact or two from World Eater’s link, shall we?
Yeah, that kid and family sure seem like crybabies to me.