It’s incredible to me that people, even the grass-roots take-back-the-country-for-the-working-man old school conservatives, still don’t see that quashing the unions is 100% about the rich bastards fucking the poor working stiff right in the ass, with no apologies, explanations, or lubrication. Balanced budget, my ass.
Congrats on electing the Tea Party, you bozos. This is what you wanted. Enjoy your unemployment.
I can relate similar stories about my past experiences as well, public and private sector. Doesn’t change a thing. Was there a budget crises in TX at the time?
People’s little personal stories don’t make national news.
Sounds like it’s about time you got yours in the sphincter, silver spoon-boy. :rolleyes:
A new low! Even more aptly yclept than I had at first suspected.
The union busting measures in Walker’s bill don’t have anything to do with Wisconsin’s budget crisis (a crisis which Walker himself excacerbated by giving away hundreds of millions of dollars away to rich people, by the way). Any talk about the budget is a red herring. This is about busting the unions.
What if this whole tussle is just a diversion? Is there anything else on Walker’s agenda that might greatly benefit the Koch’s?
Yep.
What, systematically removing the influence of workers from any business decision-making, and allowing rich people to run roughshod over any protests or objections they might raise isn’t diabolical enough of an endgame for you?
But they haven’t done that yet - they’ve been working towards that, yes, but haven’t actually accomplished it. Maybe they are able to and still end up giving the Koch’s some no-bid contracts; or they concede the collective bargaining after a long drawn out fight on the condition that the bit that Whack-a-Mole cited gets passed without any opposition.
Actually, Nadir, what this is really about is the Reublicans trying to detroy the only organized, monied organizations that supports the Dems to counteract the corporate intersts that dump shitloads of money into the Republican coffers.
If you think this is about fiscal responsibility or anything else than you are being fooled.
Well I have to admit, I did not think this would devolve into a paranoid conspiracy theory about the “rich people.” 
Run with it dudes and dudettes! This should get pretty entertaining after the rich people get home from work…
The term “useful idiot” was coined with you personally in mind.
..
I don’t doubt it for a second.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/rachel-maddow-walker-unions
Walker was involved in union busting before. He fired all the prison guards and replaced them with Wackenhut private guards. He overstated budget problems, lied about the cost and acted unilaterally. Then once his actions were determined to be illegal, they had to reinstate the guards and give back pay. All he accomplished was to show super rich that he would do what they wanted. That is why they dumped so much money into his campaign.
It’s incredibly obvious this is a opportunity to destroy the liberal leaning unions and weaken the Democratic party. As Michael Feldman says anyone who says otherwise is itchin’ for a fight.
Unless I am very much mistaken, the term was coined by Lenin to describe liberals and mensheviks who might be conned into supporting bolshevik programs without realizing the despotism that was their actual goal. Nadir is supporting political monsters of the opposite stripe. If that matters.
I’m questioning his utility. 
You’re very much mistake. Lenin just emailed me from 1917. He says he coined the phrase “regarding that Nadir fellow, the chump”, while going on to point out that he admired the way the Republicans have apparently gulled the nation into thinking the conflict has anything to do with Right vs. Left, or financial solvency for the state of Wisconsin. They don’t, you see, realize that despotism (in the form of Croesus-like wealth and unimpeded influence) is the actual goal.
Ah. And yes that sounds OK. If the person with an A.A. can do as good a job as me, I think he should get pretty much the same pay.
Well, obviously I don’t have the book in front to me, but looking at reviews, it seems he emphasizes the importance of learned teaching skills as opposed to acquired credentials. I have no idea what he counts as “professional development;” but that could just as easily include things like teaching workshops and the like.
The point isn’t that teachers won’t benefit from development and training; of course they will. It’s that simply possessing a given slip of paper is no guarantee of actual learning or skill. Most employers might give you a modest bump in salary for getting another degree; they don’t typically give you a 20% boost unless you demonstrate a real improvement in skill/value.
To the extent teachers unions are beginning to accept merit pay, it’s because they’re bowing to immense political pressure that has been building for years, and they resisted for years. I have never heard of evaluations or merit pay based on raw scores – AFAIK, it’s always done on value-added basis.
And yes, there are lots of different ways to do evaluation. Newer and better metrics are coming out; standardized testing is improving dramatically, and is moving well beyond fill-in-the-circle multiple-choice questions.