Surrounded by Republicans!!

[David Mauldin]

   Last Tuesday night I found myself surrounded by republicans!  Big burly pro-war republicans! They were yelling "Shame on you!!!" Jumping up and down, blowing whistles and beating drums!!  There were firefighters, policemen, prison guards, nurses, teachers and parents. Yet, I was with them yelling also!!!   We were all yelling at the limo driving, $11,000 dollar a plate paying republicans who were attending republican governor Schwarzeneger's fund raising dinner at the Irvine Hyatt. (People at an  L.A. fundraiser paid $89 grand for a private audience with Arno! Hey no special interest going on there!) About a thousand of us suffererd through the worst rush hour traffic and pouring rain to make it known that we don't appreciate the fact that he is taking away our benefits/funding etc... so here I am dancing with the people who stand against most of what I believe! What is the world coming to???

[outdeep]

   Last Tuesday night I found myself surrounded by republicans!  Big burly pro-war republicans! They were yelling "Shame on you!!!" Jumping up and down, blowing whistles and beating drums!!  There were firefighters, policemen, prison guards, nurses, teachers and parents. Yet, I was with them yelling also!!!   We were all yelling at the limo driving, $11,000 dollar a plate paying republicans who were attending republican governor Schwarzeneger's fund raising dinner at the Irvine Hyatt. (People at an  L.A. fundraiser paid $89 grand for a private audience with Arno! Hey no special interest going on there!) About a thousand of us suffererd through the worst rush hour traffic and pouring rain to make it known that we don't appreciate the fact that he is taking away our benefits/funding etc... so here I am dancing with the people who stand against most of what I believe! What is the world coming to???

Welcome to the workings of politics on both sides of the fence.  I don't like how everything works either, but its the system we have.

[matthew r. sciaini]

   Last Tuesday night I found myself surrounded by republicans!  Big burly pro-war republicans! They were yelling "Shame on you!!!" Jumping up and down, blowing whistles and beating drums!!  There were firefighters, policemen, prison guards, nurses, teachers and parents. Yet, I was with them yelling also!!!   We were all yelling at the limo driving, $11,000 dollar a plate paying republicans who were attending republican governor Schwarzeneger's fund raising dinner at the Irvine Hyatt. (People at an  L.A. fundraiser paid $89 grand for a private audience with Arno! Hey no special interest going on there!) About a thousand of us suffererd through the worst rush hour traffic and pouring rain to make it known that we don't appreciate the fact that he is taking away our benefits/funding etc... so here I am dancing with the people who stand against most of what I believe! What is the world coming to???

Dave: 

When you say that you don't appreciate that he (Governor Schwarzenegger) is taking away our benefits/funding......when you say "our", whom do you mean?  And what kind of benefits are we talking about? 

Matt

[editor]

   Last Tuesday night I found myself surrounded by republicans!  Big burly pro-war republicans! They were yelling "Shame on you!!!" Jumping up and down, blowing whistles and beating drums!!  There were firefighters, policemen, prison guards, nurses, teachers and parents. Yet, I was with them yelling also!!!   We were all yelling at the limo driving, $11,000 dollar a plate paying republicans who were attending republican governor Schwarzeneger's fund raising dinner at the Irvine Hyatt. (People at an  L.A. fundraiser paid $89 grand for a private audience with Arno! Hey no special interest going on there!) About a thousand of us suffererd through the worst rush hour traffic and pouring rain to make it known that we don't appreciate the fact that he is taking away our benefits/funding etc... so here I am dancing with the people who stand against most of what I believe! What is the world coming to???

As long as we operate under the premise that we get/deserve/are entitled to benefits from the government, this sort of thing will happen.  You make a good point, illustrating how when push comes to shove, your republican friends don't really believe in less government.  They may believe in less government for some other person, but when it comes to themselves, they scream if less government comes their way.

I am sensitive to the plight of public schools, David.  My five children attend them, and I am a very active booster, both with my time and my wallet.  My wife is on the School Site Council so she actually gets to make decisions about how the money is spent.  I admire you for making the sacrifice to teach children.

However, as long as we insist on sending our local tax dollars to Sacramento and DC, we will continue to get screwed like this, due to the massive waste and mismanagement in the public school system.

Did you know that California spends a little over 8 thousand per child, per year?  Imagine this:

Give the teachers exactly 5 thousand per child in their classrooms.  That means they would get 150K for a class of 30.

Out of that 150k, they need to buy all the supplies, and new computers every year, for every child. (Teachers already spend plenty of their own money on school supplies)  Each teacher also needs to chip in 1500 bucks a year for the janitorial staff.  

All kids who get a referral/detention are required to clean up the school, scrub floors/toilets, etc.

If you do the math, and look at the deals you can get from Dell, or Apple, most of the teachers would pocket a little over 100 grand per year.  They would be free to buy their own insurance, and fund their own SEP's as I do, being self employed.

Give the other 3 thousand to the district and let them generate faxes and memos to eachother as often as they wish, but don't give them any power other than to hire bus drivers, etc.  They would have to buy their own hard candies and Christmas decorations, as well as pencils and chalk.....like teachers do now.

I submit that the average public school teacher is more than capable of buying books, etc.  Shoot, you could even use the same mathbook for a couple years, instead of getting new ones all the time.  

This is what would happen if schools were locally funded and controlled.  If this were the case, you wouldn't find yourself in the uncomfortable situation of standing side by side with republicans.  When it comes to one's own slice of the government pie, there really isn't any difference between Dems and Republicans.

Brent

[David Mauldin]

Matt, I have some good info I would like to pass on to you and will later but I can't get it out right now. From what I can remember the nurses are upset about being understaffed. I use to work as a nurses aid in a convalecent home. I had nine patients to get up out of bed, peri care, bath, dress, oral care, groom and trouble shoot everything in between, "Excuse me I just &^%$ my diaper!"
O.K. 9 patients if no one called in sick that day!!! Sometimes I had 18!!! Yet these nurses are "Intensive Care"  I think, I am not sure.  They had an agreement that they would not have more than 5 patients per shift but the Governor wants to renig on the deal.  The firefighters if I understand it right are loseing their death benefits. I think this is a sum of $ paid to families if a spouse is killed during a fire. I believe this involves funeral expenses?  The teachers may lose tenure. This means due process. A teacher without tenure can be fired for no given reason.  John Fitspatrick did not have tenure when Anahiem let him go!  He spent two years kissing butt, volunteering to coach track, helping out for afterschool functions and the last day before getting tenure they dumped him. No reason given!  Great thing to go and tell the wife and kids about!  Teachers are also loosing $ that was already voter approved for the classroom. Everyone is upset about their retirement. This I am not sure what or why. I believe it has something to do with the fact that CEO's are pay 89 grand for a personal audience with him. I will try and get this information after I get back from my vacation.

[David Mauldin]

Brent, Thanks for the kind comments.  Yes it is all a bunch of garbage!  If I win the lottery I will go to work for a private school. Something you might find advertised in Green Teacher. But you left out how much money is spent on special education.  From what I am told special ed gets more of the pie than any other program!!!!  Yet just as you pointed out I don't see it being used properly. We have one special ed teacher who has one aid and 55 kids!!!!! She is supose to have a 24 limit!!!  But it has never worked out that way

[matthew r. sciaini]

Matt, I have some good info I would like to pass on to you and will later but I can't get it out right now. From what I can remember the nurses are upset about being understaffed. I use to work as a nurses aid in a convalecent home. I had nine patients to get up out of bed, peri care, bath, dress, oral care, groom and trouble shoot everything in between, "Excuse me I just &^%$ my diaper!"
O.K. 9 patients if no one called in sick that day!!! Sometimes I had 18!!! Yet these nurses are "Intensive Care"  I think, I am not sure.  They had an agreement that they would not have more than 5 patients per shift but the Governor wants to renig on the deal.  The firefighters if I understand it right are loseing their death benefits. I think this is a sum of $ paid to families if a spouse is killed during a fire. I believe this involves funeral expenses?  The teachers may lose tenure. This means due process. A teacher without tenure can be fired for no given reason.  John Fitspatrick did not have tenure when Anahiem let him go!  He spent two years kissing butt, volunteering to coach track, helping out for afterschool functions and the last day before getting tenure they dumped him. No reason given!  Great thing to go and tell the wife and kids about!  Teachers are also loosing $ that was already voter approved for the classroom. Everyone is upset about their retirement. This I am not sure what or why. I believe it has something to do with the fact that CEO's are pay 89 grand for a personal audience with him. I will try and get this information after I get back from my vacation.

Dave:

Why is the state government is involved with funding hospitals and making sure that there is a patient/nurse ratio observed?  I guess it must have to do with Medical and stuff like that. 

As far as retirement is concerned,  WHY should schoolteachers/government employees be more shielded from the economic realities of providing for one's own retirement than others?  I am not too well versed on all things "government" but I think I know whining when I see and hear it. 

Matt

[David Mauldin]

  Matt, When I worked at St. Judes, as an Occupational Therapy Assistant, I was paid $9 an hr. At the time I really didn't care about the money and didn't think I was being taken advantage of. As a  Christian in the Assembly I was taught to "be content in all things."  Later on I found out other staff members were being paid more simply because they took the time to find out their worth and demand it from the administration. Like a fool, I simply stated in my interview, "What is your offer?" As time went on I discovered my work load to be very exhausting.  I had way to many things to do (Lift dead wieght people all day long.) that I don't have the time to explain right now.  What I will tell you is that I averaged 11 hours billed-time for every 8 hour day that I worked. The hospital charged insurance companies $75-$135 for every hr. treatment I performed. After working for St. Judes 5 years I received minimal wage increases. During that time we in the rehab dept. were constantly lectured about "Productivity" and "Increased Billings"  We were constantly pushed to make them more money at the expense of our own backs!  Do the math!!! I was an idiot!!! Today St. Judes has grown into the most prosperous medical institution in North Orange County.  What did I get out of it?  During the 15 years I was "In fellowship" I believed that I was just suppose to be a nice good person who didn't stand on his own rights. Jesus was suppose to look out for me!  Yet as time went on I realized that even people in the assembly spent their energy and intelligence looking out for their own good. While I was doing all I could to help the growth of the assembly others were getting degrees, buying houses etc... This is to be commended!  Only a fool would just sit back and let other people walk all over him.  So now I am doing the same! I am standing up for my rights and I am not going to give an inch without a fight!   BTW what do you do for a living?

[Oscar]

Matt,

You wrote:

As far as retirement is concerned,  WHY should schoolteachers/government employees be more shielded from the economic realities of providing for one's own retirement than others?  I am not too well versed on all things "government" but I think I know whining when I see and hear it. 

Matt

No one has a "right" to collect other people's money.  But in California the public employee and teacher retirement systems are excellent. They have been doing some of the things that Bush is recommending for Social Security for years.

Very early on, they set up a their own retirement systems.  Teachers paid 8% of their gross income monthly.  The school district also made a contribution, just as in the SS system.  The money is held in your personal account, and you earn interest on it since all your money is invested in the system's portfolio of stocks and bonds.  Very diversified, very "safe", as much as anything is safe in this world.

If you quit your job, you get your contributions and the interest they have earned back.  It is your money.

Retired teachers and public employees are paid out of the current contributions of working teachers plus interest earned on the district's contributions.  It has worked very well, and the benefits are FAR superior to SS.

The longer you work, the greater your retirement benefit is.  This acts as an incentive to keep experienced teachers working.

Naturally, there is a LOT of money in their portfolios.   Billions.   The state government has a very difficult time keeping its hands off of this, and frequently attempts to "raid" the funds for "emergencies" (which, of course, are caused by the free spending habits of the kind of politicians the teacher's unions support!  )

The Gobernator is signing on to the currently popular idea of a combination of guaranteed benefits plus individual retirement accounts.  Teacher's don't want this because they tend to be very cautious people, and the devil you know is never as frightening as the devil you don't know. 

Teacher's, working through their unions and the AARP, an organization founded and mostly run by retired teachers, are fighting Ahnold and Bush both.

However, at the same time they very much favor the policies of "free" government health care for everyone in the USA and ever increasing spending on education.   Go figure.


BTW, California teachers hired after 1988 or so have to pay a combination of SS and teacher's retirement.  I never looked into exactly how that works, since I started in 1970.

Thomas Maddux

[matthew r. sciaini]

  Matt, When I worked at St. Judes, as an Occupational Therapy Assistant, I was paid $9 an hr. At the time I really didn't care about the money and didn't think I was being taken advantage of. As a  Christian in the Assembly I was taught to "be content in all things."  Later on I found out other staff members were being paid more simply because they took the time to find out their worth and demand it from the administration. Like a fool, I simply stated in my interview, "What is your offer?" As time went on I discovered my work load to be very exhausting.  I had way to many things to do (Lift dead wieght people all day long.) that I don't have the time to explain right now.  What I will tell you is that I averaged 11 hours billed-time for every 8 hour day that I worked. The hospital charged insurance companies $75-$135 for every hr. treatment I performed. After working for St. Judes 5 years I received minimal wage increases. During that time we in the rehab dept. were constantly lectured about "Productivity" and "Increased Billings"  We were constantly pushed to make them more money at the expense of our own backs!  Do the math!!! I was an idiot!!! Today St. Judes has grown into the most prosperous medical institution in North Orange County.  What did I get out of it?  During the 15 years I was "In fellowship" I believed that I was just suppose to be a nice good person who didn't stand on his own rights. Jesus was suppose to look out for me!  Yet as time went on I realized that even people in the assembly spent their energy and intelligence looking out for their own good. While I was doing all I could to help the growth of the assembly others were getting degrees, buying houses etc... This is to be commended!  Only a fool would just sit back and let other people walk all over him.  So now I am doing the same! I am standing up for my rights and I am not going to give an inch without a fight!   BTW what do you do for a living?

Dave:

I work for a company that does contract manufacturing (our customers are companies like Boeing, Lockheed, Teledyne and others, military or commercial, that need circuit board or cable/harness assemblies put together).
I create spreadsheets from our customer requirements for quoting new jobs (parts lists), so that our people can get competitive material pricing and thus we get contracts.  I am the guy most involved with the bills of material (along with my boss the purchasing manager) and quote packages.  My official title is "Data Entry/Spreadsheets", but I do quite a bit more than that, and am thinking about what else I could do in the days to come. 

The reason why I wrote what I wrote is that your tone was pretty shrill.  Frankly, I find it difficult to take people seriously when they speak with a shrill tone.  I thank Tom for the explanation of retirement accounts, though I do understand the concept (sometimes I come across as being ignorant, especially when I don't take the time to think things through before I type them down). 

Matt Sciaini

[David Mauldin]

Sorry about the shrill tone, since you mentioned it I didn't appreciate the "Whining" coment. Have you ever studyed the labor movement?  You can get a good idea of working conditions during the industrial revolution by reading Dickens, Michael Gold, Sinclair. The unions in this country have lost a tremendous amount of power over the past twenty years. For the middle class the standard of living has gone way down. 40 years ago my stepdad supported our family on his job alone. We lived in a three bedroom house and had two cars. (He had a year of trade tech college.) There are many reasons for this (not all the falt of Roger Smith) Yet I believe if the common laborer doesn't stand up for his rights the capitalistic tendancy is to return to a system where the working man makes just enough to survive on while the rich become extrememly wealthy. A large portion of the working class in the U.S. are republicans. They see themselves as the backbone of America. Many of these people are the moral fiber of our country. (O.K. someone start playing theNational Anthem) They are honest, pay their taxes and many are the military loseing their lives in Iraq. They are the figherfighters that died in 911. The police, teachers nurses, and prison gaurds etc..Don't you think the politicans better remember these people?

[vernecarty]

. Have you ever studyed the labor movement?  You can get a good idea of working conditions during the industrial revolution by reading Dickens, Michael Gold, Sinclair. The unions in this country have lost a tremendous amount of power over the past twenty years.

Most people who think about the labor movement in this country conjure up images of mob union bosses and corrupt politicking. While some of these images are sadly true, people who think of the movement in only these terms are by and large ignorant of the movement's history
That is certainly the impression you would get from listening only to people like Rush Lmbaugh
For those of you who do not appreciate it, the labor movement brought you the weekend folks!
What has happened, as is the case with so many other important and legitimate movements in this country (including the civil rights movement), is that the cause has been severely compromised by corrupt and self-serving leaders, and the need to form alliances to excercise political leverage.
You can imagine the kind of heat I  took for standing up as a delegate at an AFSCME national convention and stating my oppoisition as a Christian, and a dues-paying union member, to our union being an advocate of homosexuality and same-sex marriages.
Verne.

[David Mauldin]

  At the last CTA meeting I attended I noticed a slick looking "soprano" type walking around. How you doin???

[editor]

  At the last CTA meeting I attended I noticed a slick looking "soprano" type walking around. Hows it goin???

My opinion is based on observation and communication with those who are teachers, I am not a public school teacher.

I think that the teachers' union is perhaps the most glaring example of how collective bargaining and unions have utterly failed their stated mission.  The idea behind a teachers' union is that the teachers will be able to stand up for themselves and get better pay, better benefits, and better classroom conditions in order for them to do their jobs.

The union has "negotiated" the following:

Really bad pay, less than a babysitter makes.
Decreasing benefits
Less freedom and leeway for teachers to teach
Great difficulty in getting disruptive children removed
Restrictions on problem solving and good judgement, due to demands to follow a curriculum designed to increase test scores.

The pay scale, to me, is criminal.  Teachers should make at least twice what they currently get paid, which would put them on par with prison guards.

The benefits are pretty good, compared to most, but they too are eroding.  All in all, I think the union exists for the sole purpose of keeping itself needed.  IE, make sure conditions are bad enough to where the teachers feel they would die without the union.

I believe that they even take the members' dues and fund political campaigns with them?  (Perhaps they did and were made to stop, but found a loophole....?  Tom can you shed light on this?)

Anyhow, when I look at the dedication and sacrifice teachers make, I feel like they are WAY underpaid.

District administrators, on the other hand, and grossly overpaid.

Brent

[vernecarty]

Anyhow, when I look at the dedication and sacrifice teachers make, I feel like they are WAY underpaid.

District administrators, on the other hand, and grossly overpaid.

Brent

This very much depends on the particular district. Your comments would not be true about the North suburbs of Chicago where the pay is in fact remarkable. The way education is funded in the U.S will continue to ensure that inequities exist in many places.
Having said that, the evidence is not at all conclusive that money alone determines the quality of the product.
The recently published list of the top fifty shcools in Illiinois had several near the top who spent among the least (the top scoring school was indeed the biggest spender).
The futile hand-wringing about the effectiveness of teachers, to the exclusion of consideration of the fact that in so many places they are dealing with children in no way teachable is quite sad.
I place more responsibility on parents...
Verne