Know anything about this group?

[CornField]

There's this site I was led to by an email -- http://www.iowalive.net -- but I don't know anything about it. Anyone?

[rurallib]

1. Don't know anything about the group, but based on some of the

stuff on their site, it almost looks like Jan Michaelson(WHO radio) and his group that is out to destroy public education in Iowa is behind this. 'Educrats' is a word he uses all the time. I notice that Vilsack is called a 'reckless spender' and 'reduced spending forces efficiency'.
Sounds like another right winger site bent on privatizing schools by fucking up what we have so badly that it can't be rescued.
I tried doing a 'whois.net' search for iowalive.net and all it said was that the registrar is Tucaws Inc. I am a novice at using 'whois'. MAybe someone else can figure out who owns the website?

[rurallib]

2. Tried again and got a name

Duane Weltha of Marion.
Also another site mentioned on there was crlive.com. It is registered to a Floyd Davie of CR.
Googled both. Saw nothing on Davie. See that Weltha writes Marion city council complaining about taxes and something about a tree.
Got a feeling these gentlemen must have an ax to grind and much time on hands.

[pstans]

3. That site if full of Cr*p

It looks like the people who put that site together think that they should not pay any taxes and that educating students is hard, we should not pay anymore money for it. In reality, the best way to increase student achievement is to get families out of poverty and support early childhood education.

So all teachers are cheaters and they probably think that teachers make waaaay too much money for just babysitting their kids. That site is poorly put together and doesn't give any explanation, just a bunch of numbers that the people doing site probably aren't educated enough to even understand.

[9119495]

4. I teach and wish I was paid like a babysitter...

I'm stealing this but here it goes.

Just give me two dollars an hour for my babysitting. I'll throw in the instruction for free. That would be 30 kids an hour. I see them for 7 hours a day. That is $420 dollars a day. I have 180 student contact days so my yearly pay (not including my other duties) would be just over $75,000. Oh, I know it's not Canada but I do want health benefits.

[Debi]

5. Stop being so freakin logical - it messes up their thinking.

families out of poverty? early childhood education? paying taxes? What next - representative government? :crazy: whacko!

[CornField]

6. I really want to post the email...

It's one of those ethical situations: I have the email because of my affiliation with one of my government clients; however, the discussion within the email has nothing to do with that particular client. It discusses another local government entity with which I do not presently consult, but have worked with in the past -- and may possibly work with again. *sigh*

The email is borderline nasty, if not outright so, and contains roughly five responses back and forth. An interesting item of note: one of the government employees who is a part of the email, address the original writer by the name "Dick"-- although I cannot find an email where he/she has addressed him/herself as such. All the notes sent by this person (and I do believe it is the same person) are signed simply, "Iowalive". As rurallib pointed out, that name is not connected -- at least as I can tell -- with the registration of the site.

As you might have guessed by looking over their site, the email is all about number-crunching, budgets and efficiencies. Unfortunately, numbers are not one of my strong suits.

When the nurse was inserting my IV yesterday at the hospital, she warned me not to try to make any weighty decisions for the next 48 hours or so after being drugged up. I can now understand why -- although this isn't really a big decision, it is frying my brain as I try to debate the ethical standards and public desirability.