I will sit a home in 2010 and 2012 if Obama/Duncan keep it up.

[Orlandodem]

Race To The Top Grants

Charter Schools

Merit Pay

I could have gotten all this from McCain. I live in a state that absolutely hates public education and public school teachers. Obama and Duncan are nearly as bad as Jeb Bush and George Bush on education. Teachers are the scapegoats. There is never talk about surly, recalcitrant students. I will not beg, plead, and cajole students to do well on a standardized test in order for me to make a decent salary. Arne and Obama can take ther RTTT grant and shove it up their collective asses! Let THEM find a merit pay scam that works and let THEM fund it before I take any of their money and agree to a scheme where the majority of raises are based on a test students take on one day of the year.

[dkf]

1. What happened to inspiring students to achieve?

If we just sit back and curse the students haven't we given up?

[FrenchieCat]

2. I thought this was a tiny portion of the money involved in Fed Educational funds from the stimulus

or something.

Can you elaborate more on this Race to the top Grants, as you provided no link,
and last I heard, this wasn't but a small program in the larger scheme of things.

What exactly do you not like about the program, and what would you prefer they do
with the money?

[Orlandodem]

5. Here you go

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jIHdEIPyFOWGdeLSEgyOP3_8ndGwD9CLAREO0

[Riley18]

6. I would prefer that the government actually fund public schools instead of

creating schemes to help their rich buddies get richer. Nothing good will come of charter schools as there is nothing wrong with public schools that adequate funding would not help. I also want a salary for doing my job and the respect I have earned. Every single day I see teachers working hard to educate children, and Obama's Duncan is saying we need "incentives" to do our job. What are we dogs? I don't need a reward to do the job I am already doing. It is insulting and demeaning. If anything, I would not mind seeing merit pay for politicians. Then when they accomplish absolutely nothing, they don't get paid. Our country's debt problem would be solved. I know that will never happen, but I can dream.

[FrenchieCat]

9. Charter schools are still public schools......

and I still don't understand why they can't be used.
In the innercities, these schools do well for its pupils....
I'm not sure why "incentives" are a negative now; insulting and demeaning?
I know that some of the incentives were to reward teachers who
would go and teach in "risky" areas, i.e., poor neighborhoods...,etc....
cause I know a lot of teachers are fine as long as they can
teach in the surburbs where there is great parent participations.

[tonysam]

10. Nope. They are private schools receiving public money.

They are not held publicly accountable and don't have school boards elected by the voters.

The "public school" nonsense is just that--nonsense.

Obama and Duncan DESPISE public education. They are WORSE than the GOP on this issue.

[FrenchieCat]

12. My kids attended private school, and unfortunately it is because

the public school in our area was indequate.

I believe that this problem has been around for quite some time,
that if one doesn't live in the right area, Public school is hell.
I think that something needs to be done about that,
and it ain't throwing money at the school. The issue seems to run deeper
than that......I have no easy answers; what are yours.

[tonysam]

13. Well, keep your kids in private schools

I don't care to read apologists for the current administration which is downright HOSTILE to public education, the foundation of our democracy, and scapegoat teachers.

I have LOTS of ideas, if you ever read my posts, but they aren't Obama's, which are right out of the right-wing playbook.

[FrenchieCat]

14. My kids are out of school......and in college......

the oldest is the youngest in her Graduate Masters/PHD program.
She graduated this June from Harvard.

I believe that our school system is broken.

I was in the French School system through the 6th grade, and was placed in gifted classes once I came to America only because testing showed that my vocabulary was highly developed. Problem with that was that I didn't really know English grammar, because I had missed that. I ended up having to take remedial English classes in College.

So even 35 years ago, the American Public school system misdiagnosed my learning advantages and disadvantages when it was right there for all to see.

What I will say is that it is hard to have debates and discussion with people who are dogmatic and only want to make pronouncements, and act like they are enraged all of the time.

[shopgreen]

24. I believe you are right on all points.

[AdHocSolver]

16. Spend a semester as a teacher or a teacher's aide in an inner city school and all will become clear.

The problem is not "bad" teachers and not "bad" students.

The educational system in this country is designed, not to educate, in the sense of producing graduates who can think and function independently, but rather to produce docile, obedient, narrowly trained minions to work in the factories and offices of the corporations.

This system was devised in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in response to the waves of immigrants and the rapid expansion in industrialization during those periods.

Nowadays, with the large scale offshoring of jobs, and the automation of practically everything (with the intent to eliminate people as much as possible from the economic and social equation), the ruling class in this country has to deflect criticism about the way they are running (ruining) this country away from themselves, and aim it at the masses.

This is what scams like NCLB, standardized testing, and so-called merit pay are all about. This country has an education system that, by design, does not educate the masses. There aren't enough jobs to go around, and what better way to prevent a rebellion than to indoctrinate the masses that they are jobless and being preyed upon because they lack an education which is their own fault, and, moreover, blame "bad" teachers for it.

Telling people to retrain themselves for the new, "green" technology is likewise a fraud. By the time people are trained, or retrained, in the new technologies, those jobs will be offshored as well.

The arguments about which schools are better, public schools, charter schools or private schools, is all a fraud. There is no significant difference between them as far as providing, or not providing, a good education is concerned. The real problems with education in this country aren't even being discussed.

[Hannah Bell]

17. There's nothing charters do regular public schools couldn't do. Charters are a trojan horse to

privatize ed, & if you don't get it, it's because you're not paying attention or you're willfully blind.

Charters do NOT improve performance in inner cities.

The "incentives" offerend in RTTT are NOT to get people to teach in the ghetto, they're incentives to destroy collegiality & initiate "the war of all against all" in public ed.

[tonysam]

18. RTTT is a clever way by a DEMOCRATIC administration

to subvert teacher protections, i.e., "tenure," which really doesn't do much anyway but discourage the worst impulses of unethical administrators, so that teachers will be nothing more than "at-will" employees who will ultimately make no more than daycare teachers.

[inna]

11. +1.

[tonysam]

8. Google is your friend. There is a TON of information about RTTT.

It's a scam to destroy public education by putting in charter schools, a pet project of Obama and Duncan, and gutting teacher protections in order to get the blackmail money.

[Riley18]

3. I'm with you on that and so is every other teacher I know.

All the stuff we put up with here in Florida and it just keeps getting worse. Obama and Duncan are just finishing what Jeb started. This is not the change I expected. We were sold a lie. At least with the Bush boys we knew what they were planning.

[nightrain]

4. knr. maybe we should have merit pay for elected officials such as Congress and

higher ups??

[Riley18]

7. Hey, great minds think alike:)

[nightrain]

15. oh, didn't see your comment above. yes... :) (listened to phillies

games as a kid for years in the 60s)

[LWolf]

19. I hope all teachers do.

Sit at home, or vote independent or 3rd party.

Obama does not deserve the endorsement of any teacher's union, and does not deserve the votes of educators.

[tonysam]

20. Quite honestly, I almost sat out the 2008 presidential election

because I educated myself about Obama and his attitude about various issues, especially education, where he is far worse on it than the garden variety GOPer. In the end, I did vote for Obama/Biden, but I had big misgivings.

[LWolf]

21. I didn't sit out.

But I voted out. There wasn't a candidate on the two major tickets I could, in good conscience, give my vote to.

[alp227]

23. Did you mean voting for 3 rd party?

Because I would NEVER, EVER, EVER sit out any election. I betcha that 3rd party/independent candidates get so little vote because people who disagree with both major parties sit out elections most of the time. If you did, you did the right thing! ;-)

As the old saying goes, if you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain about the government either.

[Dinger]

22. Same here tony

Same here.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. If you don't vote at all, you are literally invisible.

If you vote third party or write in or at least support a primary challenger, your discontent IS counted.

If all the unhappy voters supported primary challengers instead of staying home, we'd have much better elections.