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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.
You said performance was linked to pay. What, only in the downward direction? Sounds convenient to me.
Are you kidding or just trying to feed pablum to what you think are the uneducated masses of C-D?
I mean, seriously! Do open your eyes and take a look at the typical tenure of Long Island school board members and these people stick around for years, even decades. In my district, we have people who have been on it ranging from 10 to 24 years straight. Plus, this year, as in previous ones, unopposed incumbents. They could die and win the election. Seriously.
"Newbies" would be more apt to buck the status quo and that is exactly what the proponents of the status quo don't want: a newbie bent on tax reform upsetting the "delicate balance" in favor of the unions.
It's time for change.
School board members get 3 years. If you have an active district, there will be challengers every year. If a board member has been considered "good" for the district, then yes, they will get re-elected, as it should be.
Your expected assumption that all in the "status quo" are bad, since they've been there awhile, is rubbish. Are there bad board members? Of course, and it's the taxpayer's responsibility to vote them out. Not all "newbies" are bent on tax reform either. Some just have new ideas or a willingness to serve. But a board member with time served is also experienced in negotiations and policy formation and budget nuances, and those are good things to have under your belt.
Are you kidding or just trying to feed pablum to what you think are the uneducated masses of C-D?
I mean, seriously! Do open your eyes and take a look at the typical tenure of Long Island school board members and these people stick around for years, even decades. In my district, we have people who have been on it ranging from 10 to 24 years straight. Plus, this year, as in previous ones, unopposed incumbents. They could die and win the election. Seriously.
"Newbies" would be more apt to buck the status quo and that is exactly what the proponents of the status quo don't want: a newbie bent on tax reform upsetting the "delicate balance" in favor of the unions.
It's time for change.
Maybe you've been asked this before & I missed the answer. If so, I apologize.
But since you are railing so strongly against LI school board members, and convinced that "newbies" will bring about the change you seek, upset that no one even challenges them and that "It's time for change," why don't YOU run for school board? Make your positions known outside of this C-D community. Put your views to a vote in your district.
You have set forth your views very clearly - I give you credit for that.
Make them your campaign platform.
You're a citizen, I presume. You have the right to run, and with views as strong as you are expressing here, and with no one else running representing those views, which you believe are the views of the Majority, maybe you have an Obligation to run.
School board members get 3 years. If you have an active district, there will be challengers every year. If a board member has been considered "good" for the district, then yes, they will get re-elected, as it should be.
Your expected assumption that all in the "status quo" are bad, since they've been there awhile, is rubbish. Are there bad board members? Of course, and it's the taxpayer's responsibility to vote them out. Not all "newbies" are bent on tax reform either. Some just have new ideas or a willingness to serve. But a board member with time served is also experienced in negotiations and policy formation and budget nuances, and those are good things to have under your belt.
I was challenging your assumption that all or most of the school board members who rubberstamped things in the past for unions are out of office as incorrect and also challenging your assertion that "newbies" are automatically a disaster on school boards.
I never said the current board members of my school board are bad. I actually think they've done a lot more to save us money than what is going on in many districts. However, they are still drinking that union koolaid.
Also, how can I have nothing but a majority bad view of the way these things are run in general when many school boards made "faux employees" out of their privately employed labor attorneys so that these attorneys could illegally and fraudulently get pensions and benefits from NYS for life after retirement? There has been too much outrageous playing of fast and loose with the taxpayers' money for decades. If you expect that nobody should dare be angry about that and the way the taxpayers are treated in general, then I don't know what to tell you.
Man! You totally nailed me! The education of a child is a closed system with three variables: kids' scores, teachers, and their pay.
Is that the model you are working from?
There is such a thing in a correlation as an intervening variable.
But funny when it comes to good performing schools, the advocates of the status quo are quick to assert:
"The reason the schools perform so well is because of the performance of the teachers and the supervision of their administration! If we did not compensate teachers and administrators at such a high level, we would only be able to attract terrible ones!"
Maybe you've been asked this before & I missed the answer. If so, I apologize.
But since you are railing so strongly against LI school board members, and convinced that "newbies" will bring about the change you seek, upset that no one even challenges them and that "It's time for change," why don't YOU run for school board? Make your positions known outside of this C-D community. Put your views to a vote in your district.
You have set forth your views very clearly - I give you credit for that.
Make them your campaign platform.
You're a citizen, I presume. You have the right to run, and with views as strong as you are expressing here, and with no one else running representing those views, which you believe are the views of the Majority, maybe you have an Obligation to run.
Good Luck.
No, I am not able to run.
However, I will be looking to promote candidates that are in line with my point of view.
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.
Hmmm. How do you know so much about the inside lingo of teachers?
Would you happen to be closely associated with one?
I'm as liberal as they come, and I have a wife who is a public school teacher. Still, I think that teacher salaries should be linked to the median salary in the district, or some other calculus that doesn't presuppose that incomes are increasing at 6% annually.
I'm also a bleeding heart union advocate, but I think that the teacher's union is making a mistake by pushing for their typical increases when the economy is in the crapper.
The height of hubris was, in my opinion, the effort to rebuild all of the athletic facilities in Northport/East Northport with a $9 million bond issue when people were losing their jobs all over the island.
Still, I support the numerous districts. I want my district responsive to me and not to 7 million others. I don't want my voice to disappear in the crowd. Good schools are expensive. Right now we have expense and good schools. Make larger districts and you will have expense and crappier schools. Look at the Florida county-wide district model.
You seem a lot different back then and more able to see the other side of the story (as in the taxpayer's side). What made you change?
Hmmm. How do you know so much about the inside lingo of teachers?
Would you happen to be closely associated with one?
Growing up in a city, it was well known that the city was offering "war pay" to teachers who agreed to teach in the inner city "bad" schools.
No one had to be "connected" to a teacher to know this term - it's common knowledge.
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No, just feeding facts
