A life in the day of a WA State Representative...In the whining, bitching and moaning that followed because my Representative DARED to offer up an opinion on this issue, as we've come to expect, the entire fricking world is supposed to revolve around these scum.
I spent the morning answering emails from constituents. I receive a lot of emails from teachers complaining about their cost of living increases being suspended.
Here's an open letter to public educators!
Congratulations on enjoying your last day of the school year. If I had the opportunity to choose my career all over, I would have opted to get the necessary degree and teaching certificate so that I too could enjoy summertime off with my children, spring break vacations, Christmas break vacations, paid holidays, a generous pension and health insurance benefits.
Instead, I chose to work a career in private sector business so that I could be one of those tax payers who funds your salaries and benefits as a state employee in a local school district.
First, let me be clear, thank you for your service to our schools. I hope you are one of the excellent instructors who is inspiring our children to reach their full intellectual potential and learn the value of true leadership in our community. I hope you are one of the brightest and best in your teaching profession who is willing to raise the bar in our public education system that unfortunately continues to plummet when compared to worldwide education standards. The big difference between the U.S. public education system and others in the world is that we have unions that only care about the adults in the system. Since the rise of teachers' unions in this nation, our public education system has deteriorated.
I always encourage folks to choose a job they love! If you are uninspired because of the lack of a cost of living increase, I encourage you to speak with your neighbors who work in the private sector. Ask them when was the last time they were guaranteed pay increases that were not based on performance standards. Furthermore, teachers who are dissatisfied with their pay and benefits should look for work elsewhere so that someone who is inspired to greatness can take their place in the classroom. Our children deserve an exceptional and inspired teacher in every classroom. Don't you agree?
If you look at all the possible things the state can do for its citizens, you will quickly realize there will never be enough money for all of the programs that some legislators want. Just like you and I do in our own household budgets, so must the legislature. For me, it's all about priorities and spending less money that the state takes in. If we do this, we will have a reserve for emergencies and economic downturns so that we can avoid raising yet more taxes.
I am a State Representative with core values in smaller, more efficient government, more personal responsibility and less reliance on government in our everyday lives. My positions were clearly stated in my year long campaign before I was elected and they should come as no surprise.
To every excellent teacher in Clark County. Thank you for the great work you are doing in our classrooms. Enjoy your summer!
Liz Pike
Washington State House of Representatives
18th Legislative District
"Protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
Yeah. There. I said it.
These arrogant prima donnas who believe the taxpayer exists to serve them have made fallacious comment after comment, re-enforcing their shtick that the people they work for, mainly the taxpayers, exist to provide them with an ever-growing pay check for the all-too-typically abysmal product.
It's not that their pay hasn't gone up. It has. It goes up with step increases regardless of their abysmal performance. They poor mouth themselves although the top end of their pay-scale can exceed $100,000 in salary/benefits and retirement.
There's a reason there's no shortage of teachers or those who can't make it doing anything else signing up to get a teaching degree.
Here's the reason I loathe them as a group:
They, apparently, never heard of their god's concept of "shared sacrifice."
Teachers were apparently absolutely clueless about what the job paid before they decided to become teachers. They seemingly were in drug-induced states when they signed their contracts. Double-digit unemployment, poor economies, real estate foreclosures, closing businesses.... none of that makes any difference to these scum.
They work in this state, 183 7 hour days per year.
The market is flooded with out of work teachers who can't find a job to saver their lives. Many are making then right decision and leaving the teaching profession.
Those of us opposed to their ongoing extortion attempts are ignorant. We, who pay their salaries, don't know what we're talking about. They are somehow special, god-like creatures who are not like us mere mortals.
Of all the comments I've been reading about these stories, I have yet to see any of these teachers express any concern for the people paying their salary. No concern or awareness over our economy. Nothing about taxes.
They bitch, and moan and whine but they don't want to talk about the part they play in our chronic, 30% drop out rate, or the abysmal, barely literate product they produce who do manage to graduate, only to be to ignorant to, say, pass a community college placement test, even if they've managed a 3.0 plus GPA in what is alleged to be one of the best high schools around.
In the real world, we are all judged by our final product.
In the teaching world, teachers uniformly blame everyone else for anything bad in their outcomes, and uniformly take all the credit for anything good.
Their lack of situational awareness, reinforced by the ever increasing enrollments in private schools or Christian schools or even by home schooling of students because parents are sick of their abysmal work in our public schools make no difference to these union hacks.
I'm reminded of the watchword poster at the top of this blog:
George Orwell:
"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more that society will hate those that speak it."The hacks responding to Rep. Pike's missive are reminiscent of this slimeball:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the teachers can shield the people from the political and economic consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the teachers to use all of their powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the teachers.”Rep. Pike's courageous stand against teacher union extortion is to be applauded. These scum who are attempting to beat the hell out of her remain silent when it comes to teacher accountability, for example. They want more and more and more because they foolishly believe they are special, when they're not.
I leave the reader with this simple philosophy that all teachers should follow:
If they don't like the pay/benefits/conditions of their employment?
Then they can quit. They'll be rapidly replaced, they won't be missed, and we'll do fine without them.
"They work in this state, 183 7 hour days per year."
ReplyDeleteWRONG. They are AT SCHOOL 183 7-hour days per year. They also have to go home and grade papers, plan assignments, prepare materials. Your grasp of what a teacher's work entails is tenuous at best.
"...I have yet to see any of these teachers express any concern for the people paying their salary. "
I guess that concern is hidden in plain view for you: Students are not only future taxpayers, they are current taxpayers. I started working at age 14, and by age 16 I was working 30 hours per week. That means the teachers (taxpayers themselves, as you surely know), were not only teaching the future taxpayers of the state/nation, but they were also teaching some of the current ones. Given the level of attention and guidance they gave me and my fellow students, their "concern" for us taxpayers was greater than concern we've received from most anyone.
"Keep it civil, folks."
That's a pretty ironic request since you regularly call those who you disagree with (like teachers) to be "scum."
Perhaps it's not your grasp of a teacher's work that is tenuous; perhaps it's language, too. Based on that, one might be able to chalk your entire blog up to a miscommunication. And what a relief that would be.
Gotta love it.
ReplyDeleteUnless you're a teacher, you're too stupid to understand.
I have spent tens of thousands of dollars supporting education. I have frequently asked how it is that I could have two children graduate with high grades and then fail... repeatedly... the Clark College placement test.
No answer.
Teachers take no responsibility for any of the negative outcomes they achieve while they take full credit for the positive events that all too frequently are rare.
"Scum" by the way IS "civility" compared to what I really think about union hacks, teachers and every other variety, who work for me and then try to extort more and more money out of a smaller and smaller pot to pay them.
I stand by my initial observation.
If you can't get your work done in the classroom that is not my problem. In the end, I offer this alternative to any teacher who believes they're underpaid, over worked and put upon.
Quit.
Do us all a favor and go pump gas for a living or something.
I am monumentally sick of the whining and sniveling, the lack of accountability and the disgrace of a product the teaching establishment provides for those increasingly few students who can put up with a worthless system, that does nothing to serve them.
Pay teachers more?
They should have their pay cut commensurate with the outcomes they provide.