Also: Billable hours… Hah! Do you have any idea how crazy it would be if we swapped to that kind of model for teachers?
Okay, let’s say that each parent is a client. Pay the teacher some piddling hourly rate per child… Oh, I dunno, $5.00? I think that’s about what I used to make babysitting as a young kid. It’s certainly well below minimum wage for Wisconsin, and a teacher is doing much more than a babysitter. Then, let’s only pay the teachers for the hours that school is in session; call it seven hours a day, 180 days a year. And let’s assume a fairly small class size of 25 students.
$5.00/hour per student * 25 students * 7 hours/day * 180 days = $157,500 per year
And you’re basing this belief on what? Conjecture? Have you been a teacher?
I was a high school teacher for about 5 or 6 months; my mother was a teacher for 35 years. It is more difficult than most people can imagine.
I would get to school by 7:15, not leave until about 4, then usually had 2 or 3 hours of homework and lesson planning (more if there were essays to read through).
But don’t you just throw some shit together at 7:59 when you finally stumble into the building, hoping that nobody noticed you’re hungover from blowing all the taxpayers’ dollars on shots at the strip club last night?
I never said that. You really have to learn to stop putting words in people’s mouths. I said that at least when the government is paying for something of value, there are ways in which we can measure corruption and control it. Competitive bidding, open tender processes, etc. We can also measure the value of the work received and determine if the government is playing favorites. For example, when the DoD tried to hand Boeing a tanker contract, Congress actually stepped in and stopped it because Boeing did not offer the best bid, and so it seemed that political favors were involved.
But when the government gives out Ag subsidies or puts a tariff in place on steel, there’s no objective measurement, no value returned, nothing we can use to inspect the decision from the outside and tell if it was the result of corruption or an honest belief that it’s the right thing to do.
But more insidiously, big business gets the ear of government, but small businesses and individuals really don’t. And government has to rely on them for expert opinion or risk making choices that will destroy or damage industry. Thus the entire process becomes biased in favor of the lobbyists.
So while there is plenty of corruption in government contracting, it’s at least controllable. Direct handouts and subsidies are much harder to manage.
WILL YOU STOP IT? Get your act together and stop putting words in people’s mouths. It’s obnoxious behavior. I very specifically said “Handouts to BUSINESS”, not handouts to public employees.
I know nothing about that, and have no opinion on it. But hey, didn’t you just call me a liar for changing the subject to federal unions? And now you’re prattling on about Wisconsin utility regulations?
Yeah. And the requests add up to 3.6 billion dollars more than revenue. Hence some requests will not be met. Those requests include the wage and benefit demands of the public employees, which is exactly what we’re talking about.
But you’re still being disingenuous, because the cite I posted in my last message was talking about the actual budget that has been submitted by Governor Walker.
A lot of states have been in denial about their budget problems, and one of the reasons Republicans were elected to state legislatures and governorships in large numbers in the last election is because the people want the states to get serious about this stuff. That’s why this is happening. I understand you don’t like it, but like most of the liberals on this board said after Obama was elected, “Hey, elections have consequences. Deal with it.”
He did not strip them of their right to collective bargaining, he only stripped them of the right to use collective bargaining for benefits. they can still bargain collectively for all sorts of job issues. And the reason he doesn’t think unions should be able to collectively bargain for future benefits is because it is too easy for politicians to cave in on extraordinary demands that don’t have to be paid for until the politician is long out of office. He doesn’t think that kind of bargaining is appropriate, so he’s taking a stand on it. And he’ll pay a political price if the public doesn’t agree with him.
Again with the words-putting-in-mouth thing. You apparently can’t argue what I actually say, so you just make shit up and argue against your own strawman. Or possibly you don’t actually read very carefully, but just skim posts looking for words and phrases you can drag out of context and attack. I’m not sure what the exact nature of your malfunction is, but you really need to start being more careful when you accuse people of things.
If I tried to get away with half the crap you spout in your messages, the usual suspects on this board would be all over me. You get slack cut for you because most of the people here are on your side. But if you try to take your debating style someplace other than an echo chamber like this, you’re going to get shredded. Clean up your act.
No, that’s not exactly what happens. It’s not even remotely the same, and you’ve now moved the goalposts far away from your original claim - even though your new goal is also wrong.
I’ve explained the difference to you repeatedly, and I’ve ALSO repeatedly said that business has way too much influence in government. So once again, you’re setting up an argument I didn’t make. You also completely sidestepped the original refutation of this argument, which is that the difference is that the public employees are directly employed by the government, and the government does not have the kind of incentives that prevent it from being captured by the unions.
You’re the one that tried to turn it into an argument about political speech and who tried to equate businesses spending money on candidates with public union power, even though you never made the case that they are equivalent at all.
Based on discussions with my sister-in-law, a teacher. When pressed for details, the oh poor me attitude was replaced by fluff and bluster.
So I am wrong to expand my personal experience to paint with a wide brush. My appologies to the teachers I offended.
I would be interested in hearing about the difficulty.
Yes that would work.
But you know about quality control and non-conforming product? So if any of the kids did not graduate with honors, the parents could ask for and get a returned goods authorization and a full refund?
I like this model.
Not that I find you untrustworthy, but that’s the first I’ve heard from any source that we’re only talking about pension bargaining. Cite?
I guess my opinion is, god forbid we get some people in who can say “no” or make long-term decisions.
The other thing is this: given the talking points I’ve been reading on conservative blogs and in conservative posts (even here), it’s not at all clear to me that Walker’s doing this for any reason other than to pander to the base–no one but you has made any comments about limited removal of collective bargaining rights. Seemingly everyone else is defending removing “collective bargaining”, full stop, even when it’s clear that those of us defending it are talking about ALL collective bargaining.
Rather than limiting bargaining (because I can see situations where trading salary for a great pension would be a position one would want to take) are there other solutions that would work here? Perhaps some kind of neutral arbitration board appointed like judges?
Heh, only if retained lawyers have to refund their wages when they lose court cases. This ain’t manufacturing. (If you even suggest using six sigma for students, I’m’a reach through the internet and slap you. :D)
Regarding teacher salaries vs. hours worked: I know how much I get to talk to my brother during the school year, and it’s not a lot. Then again, he teaches 10th grade English, so he’s got a relatively high essay/paper load. Then again, it’s not like he makes any more for that than a 2nd-grade teacher of similar education and seniority–probably because asking teachers to measure at-home hours spent on classwork instead of just assuming they spend a reasonable number of hours is asking for the system to be gamed.
I also note that they are reacting to contract negotiations by going on what my brother terms a “contract strike”–that is, working the hours and tasks specified in their contracts and no more, to demonstrate how much they’re doing that’s NOT in their job descriptions. It’s caused the school board to have to scramble for quite a few temps to do admin and supervision work formerly picked up by teachers, so there’s SOMETHING to that.
Thanks for the response, Rusty (hope that I wasn’t too defensive).
For me, the difficulty was in the lesson planning, filling up the class time effectively, having the ability to keep the kids interested, yet at the same time enabling them to soak up some knowledge; maintaining order without being too heavy handed; being sensitive to certain difficulties many of the kids had (lots of broken homes, many near the poverty line). As I had only a limited experience, I’m not really qualified to answer this question in greater detail. Hopefully someone here with more teaching experience can elaborate.
Zeriel
I need a good slapping anyway.
The Milwaukee teachers union have dropped their lawsuit to force their health care plan to include Viagra.
I guess they thought the time was not right for them to demand stiff pricks from the taxpayer pricks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html
Ray Anderson proves you do not have to be a regulation beater prick to run a company. He says he just complies with the law. He cares about the environment and the safety of his workers. he must be a bad corporatist.
This is incorrect. Under Walker’s bill the only collective bargaining will be on salary with a cap imposed on that specified by Walker with no bargaining involved.
Are you calling him a liar for bringing your attention to another point in Walker’s budget that you want to conveniently ignore? Do you agree that the Gov. of Wi. can sell or contract out the admin of the state’s public utilities with no bids? No oversight? No review of the oversight committee? And who would be the people who might be interested/benefit from this business…was their name Kock, Cock, Coch, Coke?
On that point: I have seen a couple of reliable leftish sources (Talking Points Memo, for instance…) suggesting that this is really not as big a deal as it sounds, standing on its own. TL:DR, the power plants in question are old and in need of extensive investment and upkeep, esp. as regards air quality standards. There is considerable question whether or not they are even a fair investment, much less a gift.
Still, it sets a precendent for obscured transactions which I’d rather not, absent some compelling reason for an exemption.
Into which of those categories would you put teachers and other public employees; are they being compensated for providing something of value to the government, or just receiving a subsidy?
If it’s the former, that would seem to be at odds with your stance in this thread. You’ve been trying to draw a distinction between public sector employees (and the organizations that represent them) and government contractors, and in how those two groups may fairly try to influence the political process. In this instance, though, it seems they are more alike than different; receiving compensation for goods or services provided to the government.
The de facto “difference” being drawn appears to boil down to: the former needs to be cracked down upon hard while the latter may be allowed to run business-as-usual as long the the proper tsk-tsk Words Of Deplorement are uttered.
You mean like how one contract is to educate our youth so they can grow up to be happy, productive, knowledgable members of a democracy & the other contract is to make stuff to kill people?
I don’t think thats how fees for services works. You don’t a get a refund on your legal bill because you lose a case unless you are working on contingency. If I could teach kids based on contingency, I’d give up the law and start teaching kids based on a percentage of what they would have earned without my teaching versus what they actually end up earning. I think lawyers get up to 40%, I’d be happy with 10%, Heck I’d take 5%.
Its not just pension benefits. There are procedural ploys to destroy unions generally. For example I believe that unions would have to obtain the vote of 50% of ELIGIBLE voters EVERY YEAR. Thats union busting, there’s really no other way to look at it is there?
