The Moonlight Café

[clan ghost bear]

... Is this a wrong time?

[necrocat219]

I think we have an OK system. But I think for something that is so important it's far from perfect.

[shivasisters]

nothing is ever perfect is it?

[Xtermy]

nothing is ever perfect is it?

Nope...

[Xtermy]

my country will never be american but it is nice and powerful here

Yeah, sorry, I forgot you were from the UK.

[Xtermy]

Romney would have been way better for t he economy.

if you don't mind not having financial aid to help you through college good luck with romney
with romney we would have to pay with our own money

And what's wrong about paying with your own hard-eraned money?

Sure, I agree many people don't have enough of it to get through college, but relying too much on governmental financial aid can also put too much stress on the taxpayers (and, particularly, on the same middle-class who should benefit from it in the first place).

[Xtermy]

I'm a magic wolf.

Random comment amidst a constructive political discussion.

[Xtermy]

Romney would have been way better for t he economy.

Romney is against teacher's unions, supports inane measures of performance-based pay in public schools (sounds good in theory, really just means suckups (who are generally worse teachers) get paid more), thinks seniority should not be involved in teacher layoff decisions, and is against efforts to lower classroom size. Not only would that kill the future, that would directly impact me; in that my parents, both teachers, would have their income and job security drastically lowered. So why would I want to support someone who would destroy my family, let alone the country?

Hmm, Ratburntro44, I thought you were from France. I guess you have French roots but live in the US, correct?

Anyway, he are some points to consider:

1) In my opinion, performance-based pay in public schools doesn't just sound good in theory. I don't think that just the suckups will advance, quite the opposite - it will prevent the lazy, burned-out teachers who no longer care about their students from staying too long in the system and "poisoning" it. They can be given compensation and go into early retirement. During my student years (not too long ago) too many a time I witnessed older, burned-out teachers who were rude an unsympathetic, and who could directly impact students scores but their deminiour.
Of course, I do understand that after being in the system for as long as they have been, and to top it all off having to deal with troublesome students (or those who simply don't want to study at all), the blame can't be fully thrown into those senior teacher's doorstep.

We had a similar program started in Israel not too long ago, and obviously the local teacher's unions were all against it as well, but now we have teachers who actually get rewarded by staying longer after regular school hours, helping needy students and answering questions. Our program also motivates and rewards teacher who actually get an academic degree (not a formal prerequisite even today) and awards them as they continue to get their M.As.


2) I definitely think seniority should have it's place when dealing with teacher lay-off decisions and am fully against any policy that opposes lowering classroom sizes.

[necrocat219]

Autumnwolf is American I thought? I've never heard of a hurricane sandy here in the UK xD

[Xtermy]

Autumnwolf is American I thought? I've never heard of a hurricane sandy here in the UK xD

Well, he mentioned he isn't American, so now I'm totally confused...