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Everyone should be familiar with FreeRepublic.com. It is a conservative web-based community that instructs people on how to manage online, newspaper, and radio sentiment. He is attempting to introduce what is termed a "meme" into our thinking. He doesn't want to discuss it. He wants to keep hitting the same note. He and FanofAvatar either belong to FreeRepublic.com (and are thus termed "Freepers") or to some variant of it out of the tea party patriots.
I counter them not necessarily because I disagree with what they say. I counter them because their discourse doesn't exist to foster reasoned public discussion. They are campaigning. They are trying to affect a movement.
Don't throw stones.
You spout a meme too.
Your meme is to support the current status quo of unreasonable and constantly rising real estate taxes and say and do anything to discredit the movement towards property tax reform because you are desperately against the obvious first step towards that, which is cutting the highest costs centers in property taxes by modernizing the compensation, benefits and pension structures of school district employees. And that is probably because you are personally benefitting from the bloated status quo, as most of the most die-hard supporters of the status quo are. Never mind the MAJORITY on this Island are being eaten alive by property taxes for the 1950s style expensive perks of a few.
Your meme is to support the current status quo of unreasonable and constantly rising real estate taxes and say and do anything to discredit the movement towards property tax reform because you don't like the obvious first step towards that, which is cutting the highest costs centers in property taxes by modernizing the compensation, benefits and pension structures of school district employees. And that is probably because you are personally benefitting from the bloated status quo.
All I'm saying is that we should move on from the blunt force of campaigning against what you term "unreasonable" salaries and taxes. You don't explain the brink of reasonable salary and/or taxes. You all but ignored the effect of the school quality on home value. You pretend no one has said a thing about graduated property taxes. Most everything countering your opinion is rejoined with an anomalous salary from someone else's district.
You aren't even discussing your own district. 95% of school districts approved their tax rates. Yet, you, CRV, and FanofAvatar are campaigning against increases everywhere. Do you think the people of Glen Cove want their schools degraded by reduced revenues? And if you will accept that richer districts don't care for this, why just assume that relatively poorer districts want it that way?
In the face of votes that supported the tax increases, you and your friends have become the arbiters of "real" public sentiment. And if you will admit that you aren't somehow divining the "real" opinions of citizens across the many districts of Long Island, then you must admit that you are just campaigning against it.
We've heard the argument. The mods keep shutting down redundant threads. Vulgar language keeps being removed from these threads. I just reported FanofAvatar AGAIN, this time for calling me a "fool" and the forum's readers, "stupid."
Make your point, then respond to the rejoinder. Don't attack.
I just reported FanofAvatar AGAIN, this time for calling me a "fool" and the forum's readers, "stupid."
Don't attack.
I quoted Mr T... I'm sorry that affected your emotions to the point of which you needed to report me.
As for your statement about how I called the "forum's readers, "stupid"... I said the general public is stupid, not the forum's readers. Do you really need to twist the facts and lie to make your point? Ever consider THAT to be the reason why your arguments are ignored without consideration?
Finally, just a clarification: I do not believe all teachers are overpaid. I do believe teachers and administration could hold off on raises for a year and the school system wouldn't degrade at all. Really what good teacher would quit over not getting a 5-6% raise for one year?
I quoted Mr T... I'm sorry that affected your emotions to the point of which you needed to report me.
As for your statement about how I called the "forum's readers, "stupid"... I said the general public is stupid, not the forum's readers. Do you really need to twist the facts and lie to make your point? Ever consider THAT to be the reason why your arguments are ignored without consideration?
Finally, just a clarification: I do not believe all teachers are overpaid. I do believe teachers and administration could hold off on raises for a year and the school system wouldn't degrade at all. Really what good teacher would quit over not getting a 5-6% raise for one year?
You "believe" it won't affect the quality of the teaching? On what is that based?
The readers of this forum are quite certainly part of the larger "stupid" public.
You "believe" it won't affect the quality of the teaching? On what is that based?
Common sense. Do you think the quality of education in the Roslyn school district will diminish because the teachers aren't getting a raise this year? Please elighten me, because I can't possibly see how that would happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeadPool1998
The readers of this forum are quite certainly part of the larger "stupid" public.
Please, beyond ridiculous. You can't make statements like that and except to be taken seriously.
Common sense. Do you think the quality of education in the Roslyn school district will diminish because the teachers aren't getting a raise this year? Please elighten me, because I can't possibly see how that would happen.
Please, beyond ridiculous. You can't make statements like that and except to be taken seriously.
So, you agree that your assumption is not evidence-based.
Whereas I believe that performance is linked to incentive, I see no reason to believe that providing no or less incentive will have no impact on performance.
All I'm saying is that we should move on from the blunt force of campaigning against what you term "unreasonable" salaries and taxes. You don't explain the brink of reasonable salary and/or taxes. You all but ignored the effect of the school quality on home value. You pretend no one has said a thing about graduated property taxes. Most everything countering your opinion is rejoined with an anomalous salary from someone else's district.
I have explained over and over again what I believe would greatly help keep the property taxes from rising as steeply as they have done in the past. Let me do it again:
1. salaries of teachers and administrators: not a proponent of decreases; but also not a proponent of automatic raises twice a year, no matter what is going on in the general economy.
2. pensions: not a proponent of attempting to take anything away from currently retired people; am a proponent of changing the system for future retirees from pensions to 403(b)s with employer contributions.
3. benefits: not a person who considers what most district employees contribute to be way too little; am a proponent of stopping any private health insurance benefits after retirement for employees and dependents.
4. school quality on home values: many schools are terrible and the property taxes are still high. one thing you usually ignore when I address it is that there WILL be a tipping point where the property taxes on a middle class home on LI will affect salability of such home because they will be too outrageous ... no matter how "well regarded" the school district is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeadPool1998
You aren't even discussing your own district. 95% of school districts approved their tax rates. Yet, you, CRV, and FanofAvatar are campaigning against increases everywhere. Do you think the people of Glen Cove want their schools degraded by reduced revenues? And if you will accept that richer districts don't care for this, why just assume that relatively poorer districts want it that way?
In the face of votes that supported the tax increases, you and your friends have become the arbiters of "real" public sentiment. And if you will admit that you aren't somehow divining the "real" opinions of citizens across the many districts of Long Island, then you must admit that you are just campaigning against it.
The voters did not vote yes to school budgets because they "approve of" their tax increases. They voted to support the portion of their school budgets they are allowed to vote on, which included tax increases in most, if not all, districts. The voters once again were afraid that things will be taken away from the children in the 3 card monte game of school budget negotiations. Of course the voters wanted to protect the children from further cuts because they cannot affect the iron-clad guarantees of more and more and more for the teachers and administrators. There will come a point when the voters will not be able to do this indefinitely and that is what I think we should be preparing for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeadPool1998
We've heard the argument. The mods keep shutting down redundant threads. Vulgar language keeps being removed from these threads. I just reported FanofAvatar AGAIN, this time for calling me a "fool" and the forum's readers, "stupid."
This has nothing to do with ME. Instead of giving me your meme, you bring up unrelated people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeadPool1998
Make your point, then respond to the rejoinder. Don't attack.
Who is doing the attacking around here? You have inspired me to write my meme. Write yours too.
So, you agree that your assumption is not evidence-based.
Whereas I believe that performance is linked to incentive, I see no reason to believe that providing no or less incentive will have no impact on performance.
Tell me how well the following school districts have performed, since they too, are unionized plus have high paid administrators piggybacking off the teachers' contracts, and therefore, should have great incentive to perform:
So, you agree that your assumption is not evidence-based.
I guess we will find out in Roslyn this year. Chances are nothing happens, but we'll see. I wonder if there have been other years in which 0% raises happened and if performance dropped.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeadPool1998
Whereas I believe that performance is linked to incentive, I see no reason to believe that providing no or less incentive will have no impact on performance.
Obviously performance is linked to incentive, just look at the performance of the wyandanch and hempstead school districts, which have some of the highest paid teachers around.
I guess we will find out in Roslyn this year. Chances are nothing happens, but we'll see. I wonder if there have been other years in which 0% raises happened and if performance dropped.
Obviously performance is linked to incentive, just look at the performance of the wyandanch and hempstead school districts, which have some of the highest paid teachers around.
First, if you want good teachers in Hempstead, you have to pay quite a bit. It isn't a desirable place to teach. There is a well-known phenomenon in teaching called "war-pay." You pay a premium to get someone worth his or her salt to leave their cute little town to venture into or even remain in the Hempstead school district.
You need far more than a quality teacher to help a student learn. The efforts of the school must be reinforced in the home.
You know that - you just choose to simplify it.
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Hardly
