(01-17-2014 02:25 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Michelle Rhee and the cheating scandal. Erasing your way to the top. She should be in jail.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mi...dal-041213

Now without the spin...

USA Today report published in 2011, more than 50% of D.C.'s public schools—a total of 103—had surpassed the average rate of erasures at least once since 2008. Such erasures may be indicative of cheating - with wrong answers changed to right - or may have innocent causes, such as student inadvertently skipping a question and erasing all subsequent answers to correct for that or being encouraged to review his or her work.

Seven of the public schools were cleared, although at one school process was not followed when a teacher erased stray pencil marks and one teacher was, for unknown reasons, forbidden to administer future tests at a school that cleared

Finally

A D.C. Inspector General investigation in 2011 on one of the suspect schools for part of the problem period found no evidence of test altering, although it did find room for improved testing security. In 2011, a former principal at Noyes Elementary brought suit against the district, alleging that the district had used tampered test results to apply for federal funding, but the U.S. Department of Education—although it did find one instance of cheating in the schools it examined—did not substantiate false claims being submitted for funding.

(01-17-2014 02:34 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 02:30 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 02:19 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  I think unions can be a good part of the capitalist system. Now, they are too big, too powerful and too stubborn.

We need a fundamental change in the way business and unions operate. I see some of the newer businesses changing, but not the unions.

Part of the problem is that Unions have far too much power in organizing and people who own businesses have too little chance to contest them...

Bust unions just like trusts.

Hell just let the owners openly state to workers what will happen withtout fear of prosecution at the hands of the labor relations board..

(01-17-2014 02:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 02:19 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  I think unions can be a good part of the capitalist system. Now, they are too big, too powerful and too stubborn.

We need a fundamental change in the way business and unions operate. I see some of the newer businesses changing, but not the unions.

Something Europe does that I think would help is that workers get seats on the board of directors. That at least exposes them to what the problems look like from management's POV. When it was proposed here in the 1970s, unions opposed it. Why? Because union leaders didn't want director liability.

I would want to keep it at union members, not union employees.

(01-17-2014 12:58 PM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 12:02 PM)Crebman Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 11:57 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 11:32 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Unions go down we all go down.

BOOKMARK IT!! SAVE IT!!!

Doubtful, but what you have failed to answer is why Unions were better even though they were historically racist and would blackball people and utilize strong arm tactics to get what it wanted. That contributed to the erosion of Unions. Combined with international competition which had lower overhead and thus could sell their wares for less.

And arguing the Teachers Unions are good will not win you any points when one considers the general failure of inner city schools. And this is the one field where Unions are directly responsible for the product they put out.

While I agree with you, I take exception to the bolded above. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If dumb ass kids whose parents could care less about education walk into a school, they're not going to come out magically educated. A teacher CAN'T MAKE THEM LEARN - there has to be some want to.

And you absolutely correct and whole-heatedly regarding the bolded. But I'm not the person arguing that 'if only there was more money we could educate those precious little snowflakes.' Nor am I advocating eliminating alternative educational options for kids and the parents who care. Those are two positions the NEA actively support.

Oh I fully agree, the NEA wants forced participation by all under their umbrella. Unfortunately, in inner city schools, you could spend $50K per student and it wouldn't materially change the outcomes.

Mach,

I'm sure you are familiar with the cheating scandal in Atlanta Public Schools. It wasn't the parents or students who forced those teachers to cheat, that pressure came from within the educational hierarchy. Pressure that was related to a 'pay for performance' scheme via AYP. And again, in a instances where the Unions should have been helpful, none of the teachers who changed answers felt that they could go to the Union to resolve the issue.

You seem to be championing the idea of unions as a justification for keeping around an institution that in no way is close to that state of perfection. And while capitalism gets beat up for its failures 9and rightly so), no one ever seems to want to talk about the reforms and changes that Unions should undertake.

(01-17-2014 02:21 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  rhee still around????? What happened to her? Did her ideas stick?


She went to bed with the Koch brothers of the world. It's all about privitization. Saving 5% at the expense of the 95%.

lol she's s lifelong democrat.

(01-17-2014 04:17 PM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 02:21 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  rhee still around????? What happened to her? Did her ideas stick?


She went to bed with the Koch brothers of the world. It's all about privitization. Saving 5% at the expense of the 95%.

lol she's s lifelong democrat.

I know. And mach doesn't have a clue as to what she was proposing.

Keep in mind that if employers treated their employees with respect in the first place, there would be no need for unions.

(01-17-2014 04:30 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Keep in mind that if employers treated their employees with respect in the first place, there would be no need for unions.

A quote from 1887.

(01-17-2014 04:30 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Keep in mind that if employers treated their employees with respect in the first place, there would be no need for unions.

Then why are libs and unions in Minnesota trying to force business owners with no employees to join a union?

(01-17-2014 04:33 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 04:30 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Keep in mind that if employers treated their employees with respect in the first place, there would be no need for unions.

A quote from 1887.

Exactly. Unions these days are just about lining union bosses pockets while back in the day they actually stood for looking out for the workers.

(01-17-2014 04:30 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Keep in mind that if employers treated their employees with respect in the first place, there would be no need for unions.

What part of unionization improves an employers respect? I'd say it actually does the reverse. It creates an adversarial atmosphere in the workplace between management and labor. Evidently you have never worked in a union shop. It also quelches creativity and innovation on the shop floor. Every damn procedure becomes written in stone even if it is inefficient. You can't change a damn light bulb without calling for a union electrician.

[quote='Machiavelli' pid='10306100' dateline='1389969294']
I'll never understand someone who complains about unions. Look at the quality of life where they are at and then look at the quality of life where they are not.

My TOMBSTONE:

Born into a Union household.
Lived his whole life in a Union Household.
Died a damn proud member of a Union and
unemployed because my union over-bargained my job to Mexico.

(01-17-2014 11:22 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  You guys need to study history. Specifically the struggles of Organized Labor and what it did for the middle class in this great nation of ours. Not only is there a concerted effort to tear away at that fabric but the very backbone of this great country of ours.

Many have said that Unions served a purpose before their were labor law and health and safety laws. No one has denied the need for unions in the past. But their day is just that...passed.

Unions have outlived their usefulness and are now just greedy pseudo-corps themselves, in it to enrich their leaders.

(01-17-2014 04:30 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Keep in mind that if employers treated their employees with respect in the first place, there would be no need for unions.

Got to keep fightin the MAN! Good grief.

My brother in law is in a union. His fat public sector union pension benefits allowed him to retire at 48. He gets 70% of his last 3 years pay. He has no health issues and will likely draw a pension longer than he ever paid in.

When that pension fund goes belly up, it will be the union's fault (and the public sector negotiators although their hands were tied) for demanding benefits that are fiscally unsupportable.