"Want a burger to go with Walker's Special Sauce?"
He's hitting up technical colleges in southeast Wisconsin to explain why it's necessary they all get a 30% budget cut. In closed meetings. More or less unannounced. Can't have those ornery students asking questions. The guy actually has a really pleasant personality, just like Scott Walker, it's easy to see how they dupe people
FPA20111, your posts in this thread have displayed a massive misunderstanding of how the education system in the US works, or the history of said system.
The way standarized testing is done is vastly different from..hell, last year. It changes massively all the time. Comparing a score 10 years ago to now would be equivalent to comparing the iPhone to a Nokia from 10 years ago. They're totally different things.
Not to mention state standard requirements, individual school requirements, administrators forcing teachers to implement ineffecient methods, the state forcing teachers to implement ineffecient methods, parents repeatedly engaging in "precious snowflake syndrome" hampering the education of all involved, etc etc.
What you need for schools are effective teachers willing and able to teach relevant material in a safe enviornment. The material they are required to teach needs to be rigid enough and flexible enough to incorporate all of the major points yet still include enough information to give students a well rounded idea of the content.
Creating government programs that give incentives for teachers to do nothing but "teach to the test" or to pass kids that failed regardless of the fact that they can't read is a terrible idea. An even more terrible idea is taking away all of the resources that those teachers have because they can't manage the awful system they have been shoehorned into.
Giving a bunch of money to large buisnesses and taking a shit ton away from education is not good for ANYONE.
No, you see, it's actually painfully obvious we're getting the same results. Almost perfectly, the same results, from 40 years ago. To within one point. The Federal government itself extensively reports such, in very plain terms.
You can throw out whatever reason you want for it being bad. Blame Bush, or Reagan, or other Bush, or Milton Friedman, or who the fuck ever you want. But the real simple fact is that by every meaningful definition, our results are stagnant and comparatively bad to other developed countries. Meanwhile, we're paying double the amount for this shitty result. That sucks. There's no way around the fact that that sucks.
I eagerly await your next one-line non-contribution. To be explicit, no I'm not accusing you of the T word, but your posts are awful.
See, here's the thing - for us to be getting "the same results as 40 years ago", we'd have to be producing the same sorts of graduates as we were 40 years ago. And as people have pointed out to you - repeatedly - that just is not the fucking case. For example, Title IX - the law that mandates equal opportunities for all students in schools regardless of gender - as we know it today did not exist in 1971 (the Mink Act would not be passed until 1972.) The effects of Title IX have greatly expanded opportunities for women. and it has contributed heavily to women entering tertiary education in greater numbers (and all of the ramifications thereof.) And that's just one of the many vast changes that has taken place in those 40 years in American education, where we've seen a large expansion of opportunity for people who had been, for so very long, cast aside.
You've tried to seize on a single number because if you squint and cock your head at it, it sort of aligns with your worldview. But the fact is that when you look at the entirety of the matter - not just this one small data point - it becomes clear what has been going on in American education - it's become a fuckload more egalitarian and representative of America as a whole. Furthermore, there are questions about what the international tests are actually testing. Malcolm Gladwell points out in his recent book Outliers that researchers were able to determine performance on these international math tests before a single question was answered - by looking at who filled out the test information by the instructions. One has to wonder about what such a test is testing.
So please, keep clinging onto your datapoint like a piece of driftwood while the ocean of reality swirls around you. You may not believe in the world, but it surely believes in you.
"Want a burger to go with Walker's Special Sauce?"
He's hitting up technical colleges in southeast Wisconsin to explain why it's necessary they all get a 30% budget cut. In closed meetings. More or less unannounced. Can't have those ornery students asking questions. The guy actually has a really pleasant personality, just like Scott Walker, it's easy to see how they dupe people
It's also summer as well, so very few (if any) students are gonna be hanging out at MATC or care that Ryan's there. Good timing on their part to rape our education system and tell the people running it it's for the best.
No, you see, it's actually painfully obvious we're getting the same results. Almost perfectly, the same results, from 40 years ago. To within one point. The Federal government itself extensively reports such, in very plain terms.
You can throw out whatever reason you want for it being bad. Blame Bush, or Reagan, or other Bush, or Milton Friedman, or who the fuck ever you want. But the real simple fact is that by every meaningful definition, our results are stagnant and comparatively bad to other developed countries. Meanwhile, we're paying double the amount for this shitty result. That sucks. There's no way around the fact that that sucks.
I eagerly await your next one-line non-contribution. To be explicit, no I'm not accusing you of the T word, but your posts are awful.
See, here's the thing - for us to be getting "the same results as 40 years ago", we'd have to be producing the same sorts of graduates as we were 40 years ago. And as people have pointed out to you - repeatedly - that just is not the fucking case. For example, Title IX - the law that mandates equal opportunities for all students in schools regardless of gender - as we know it today did not exist in 1971 (the Mink Act would not be passed until 1972.) The effects of Title IX have greatly expanded opportunities for women. and it has contributed heavily to women entering tertiary education in greater numbers (and all of the ramifications thereof.) And that's just one of the many vast changes that has taken place in those 40 years in American education, where we've seen a large expansion of opportunity for people who had been, for so very long, cast aside.
You've tried to seize on a single number because if you squint and cock your head at it, it sort of aligns with your worldview. But the fact is that when you look at the entirety of the matter - not just this one small data point - it becomes clear what has been going on in American education - it's become a fuckload more egalitarian and representative of America as a whole. Furthermore, there are questions about what the international tests are actually testing. Malcolm Gladwell points out in his recent book Outliers that researchers were able to determine performance on these international math tests before a single question was answered - by looking at who filled out the test information by the instructions. One has to wonder about what such a test is testing.
So please, keep clinging onto your datapoint like a piece of driftwood while the ocean of reality swirls around you. You may not believe in the world, but it surely believes in you.
Now we're getting somewhere. You even have multiple lines, you're such a sick baller.
It's not "a" datapoint. Surely you realize that 40 years worth of results in two subjects at intervals, with precise sampling, is not "a" datapoint. You wouldn't say something so embarrassingly wrong, now would you. Your prose is beautiful though.
it's become a fuckload more egalitarian and representative of America as a whole
Ah now we're really getting to the heart of the issue. It doesn't matter that our educational system is expensibad, because everyone gets some. Can't read, or critically think, or write, or add, or decipher a chart, but god damn it it's "public", and we're all equally retarded, and that's what counts. Harrison Bergeron in this bitch.
Furthermore, there are questions about what the international tests are actually testing. Malcolm Gladwell points out in his recent book Outliers that researchers were able to determine performance on these international math tests before a single question was answered - by looking at who filled out the test information by the instructions. One has to wonder about what such a test is testing.
I'd love to see some citations regarding this information, instead of vague aspersion cast on the evaluation process.
FPA20111 on
The paranoid man believes that everyone is out to get him. The intelligent man knows that everyone is out to get him.
If the non-union represented 90%+ of the private sector is doing so well- why is it that middle class salaries/wages have basically stagnated during the last 30 years? At the same time that corporate profits and upper-upper class paychecks have been setting records year after year?
Probably worthy of its own thread honestly. Short answer because the American business has no real motivation to pay them more. Since American businesses exist to maximize profit as long as the workers are willing to work for the wages then they are unlikely to rise. There are plenty of people willing to work the jobs so we have plenty of supply to again keep wages down. With upper management they generally have a lot more responsibility and control over a corporations profitability, you pay high wages to attract better workers. In addition most of these people have a higher education that allows them to demand more in wages.
The problem we run into is that corporations do not owe someone a job, or a particular wage. It sucks that wages have not kept pace with inflation but there was no guarantee that they would. It would be nice if we could progressively pay people more every year, however people are not necessarily worth more every year.
But even if they DID owe me some back pay or whatever, my legal course is limited by how much I have, as big corporates have legal resources the avrage joe have not. They also have lobbiests and unless I'm in a union, I don't. (See? I managed to tie it with Wisconsin )
Free Market is only Free if all parties play by the same rules, we don't.
I don't think anyone has said our education system isn't too expensive or is too good, they're just saying the situation is more nuanced than you are indicating.
Most notably that simply yanking funds will not help things, the system is going to have the same problems but now with less funding - so we're going to see all the bad aspects of education continue along unabated but things like art, music, and science are going to continue to get the axe.
And again, you haven't said why Wisconsin's secondary education needs a cut - Wisconsin colleges are pretty damned good last I heard.
But even if they DID owe me some back pay or whatever, my legal course is limited by how much I have, as big corporates have legal resources the avrage joe have not. They also have lobbiests and unless I'm in a union, I don't. (See? I managed to tie it with Wisconsin )
Free Market is only Free if all parties play by the same rules, we don't.
The problem you started with is "do they owe me more pay" which is no. Sure our wages are falling, and that is a very complex problem but really at the core of it is the fact that there is no guarantee for wages to rise, and any such guarantee is likely to eventually kill the corporation providing said guarantee. Unless you are working for the public sector in which case you can keep asking for MOAR, dumping money on the democratic officials you will bargain against, and in the end just demand taxes that don't affect you get raised somewhere to pay for you.
In this ball game we are playing by the same rules. Democrats fuck corporations to pay for unions/lower Republican funding, and toss more money at unions to get more money in campaign contributions. Republicans fuck Unions to help corporations/lower democrat funding, and toss more money at corporations to get more money in campaign contributions.
Had unions stayed apolitical , and focused on workers rights they might have a pot to piss in. Right now however they are practically an arm of the democratic party that exists to continually shovel them money. Workers rights are pretty much secondary to collecting dues. When you are the second highest political donator for the last 20 years it leaves me without a lot of sympathy.
But even if they DID owe me some back pay or whatever, my legal course is limited by how much I have, as big corporates have legal resources the avrage joe have not. They also have lobbiests and unless I'm in a union, I don't. (See? I managed to tie it with Wisconsin )
Free Market is only Free if all parties play by the same rules, we don't.
The problem you started with is "do they owe me more pay" which is no. Sure our wages are falling, and that is a very complex problem but really at the core of it is the fact that there is no guarantee for wages to rise, and any such guarantee is likely to eventually kill the corporation providing said guarantee. Unless you are working for the public sector in which case you can keep asking for MOAR, dumping money on the democratic officials you will bargain against, and in the end just demand taxes that don't affect you get raised somewhere to pay for you.
In this ball game we are playing by the same rules. Democrats fuck corporations to pay for unions/lower Republican funding, and toss more money at unions to get more money in campaign contributions. Republicans fuck Unions to help corporations/lower democrat funding, and toss more money at corporations to get more money in campaign contributions.
Had unions stayed apolitical , and focused on workers rights they might have a pot to piss in. Right now however they are practically an arm of the democratic party that exists to continually shovel them money. Workers rights are pretty much secondary to collecting dues. When you are the second highest political donator for the last 20 years it leaves me without a lot of sympathy.
Well, if all things are equal, and you have to lessen the quality of life of a single class, shouldn't you pick the class that has it better already? If I have to choose between corporations and middle to lower class, I'd choose to fuck over corporations.
I like how "Maybe make corporations not make record profits year after year while they continue practices which screw workers over" has become "fuck over corporations".
Yeah, it's been noted. It's fairly clear that Prosser could've murdered her in cold blood, and some people would argue that the bitch deserved it.
THREAD NOTE: We're going to get locked shortly. Maybe you should spin the whole "Edumacation ain't what it used-ta was, when they made do wif five bucks and some chewin' gum" discussion to its own topic and let this continue as the Wisconsin thread.
When this gets locked I'll be opening a new thread about the recall primaries and elections.
Dracomicron on
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
FPA, like I said (and later a graph proved me right) you cannot focus on a single metric like "test scores."
There are a fuckton more graduates now than there were 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago. Each year there is more graduates, and a greater percentage of the class sticks through.
I think, of the 20 some odd people in my parent's high school class, 2 of them graduated. That's a 10% graduation rate. When I graduated? It was about 800 of the original 1000. 80%. That's huge. This alone is pretty much the metric you should be measuring by if you ask "are we throwing money away?"
The answer is no. And for all the fuck you know, the tests have actually gotten more difficult in the past 40 some odd years. So a 70% (Average -- gee ain't that something, an average is average) on today's tests is 80-90% on tests of yesteryear.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Well, if all things are equal, and you have to lessen the quality of life of a single class, shouldn't you pick the class that has it better already? If I have to choose between corporations and middle to lower class, I'd choose to fuck over corporations.
Well personally I am more of the fuck everyone type. At this point I am not quite sure how we handle democracy is capable of handling the problems we have. We have a huge shit sandwich and no one is going to vote for taking a bite.
However the reality is that I would much rather see people acknowledging that we are in fact openly trying to fuck corporations/ the upper class/anyone with money in favor of the middle to lower classes. It may not be the best plan. Hell it may not even be a good plan. However it is an honest plan. Frankly what sickens me the most is the people that pretend their side is awesome, not corrupt, and is all that is good and pure in the world while the other side is a bunch of corrupt kitten eating assholes.
Give me an honest man screaming "My side sucks, but by supporting my side I get a bit more money even though I know most of it is going to go to corrupt jerks. Yeah those other guys side sucks, but they get more out of supporting their side then they would mine."
Can't have that though, we need to paint one side as the plucky underdog victims, the other side as the towering faceless assholes, and make a fucking operetta out of it. Doth what light through yonder window breaks, tis some corporate asshattery, and Obama is the sun. No really what we have is two multi million dollar organizations fighting it out over a bone and fucking everyone else in the process.
Why can't we reform how teaching is done? Because the teachers Unions will never cede enough power to let it happened because it will cost them money. The teachers want things better but they cannot get it, because the only organization they have working in their interests is only interested in how much money it can bring in.
Teacher's unions are more than willing to cede power (but not all of it) and money to get things done. Like in some place I know. It's really familiar. I think they're known for their cheese and a secondary color body of water named football team. Jeez what is that state called?
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
No they were willing to offer up everything they could find because the other party had them by the short and curlies and was going to yank. Pretending the Unions in Wisconsin were offering anything for any reason aside from fear of being completely gutted is just goosery.
Anything they offered was a ploy in the hopes the republicans would be unwilling to spend the political capitol to really squash them. Their entire plan was to stay in existence until they a more favorable political climate would emerge (with the help of their donations) and any and all damage could be reversed under their new masters. It was not a bargaining session, they had nothing to bargain with, so they offered up everything they could in the court of public opinion knowing that at the end of the day they had no say in what the deal was going to be. I am sorry but plea's consisting of "Please please take everything we cant stop you from taking just don't prevent us from funneling money into the democrats so that one day we can get it all back and more." do not sway me.
No they were willing to offer up everything they could find because the other party had them by the short and curlies and was going to yank. Pretending the Unions in Wisconsin were offering anything for any reason aside from fear of being completely gutted is just goosery.
Anything they offered was a ploy in the hopes the republicans would be unwilling to spend the political capitol to really squash them. Their entire plan was to stay in existence until they a more favorable political climate would emerge (with the help of their donations) and any and all damage could be reversed under their new masters. It was not a bargaining session, they had nothing to bargain with, so they offered up everything they could in the court of public opinion knowing that at the end of the day they had no say in what the deal was going to be. I am sorry but plea's consisting of "Please please take everything we cant stop you from taking just don't prevent us from funneling money into the democrats so that one day we can get it all back and more." do not sway me.
Thankfully the court of public opinion may just save them at this point.
I'd say I'm arguing with a wall, but that does such a disservice to walls. I don't even know how you can get to that line of thinking.
If it was about anything other than appeasing their corporate masters, why the fuck did they leave policemen out of it? It was never about anything, budget cuts, whatever. It was about making a statement. That statement was "Fuck you, that's what."
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
The court of public opinion is pretty stupid when you get right down to it. Sad to say that relying on idiots who seem absolutely amazed at revelations like "Hey they lied when they said it was a budget issue!*" should not be a valid strategy, but does seem to work out rather well. Support the Unions because you are in one, fine. Or because it benefits you in some way, sure. Just don't stick your head in the sand, pretend they are all that is awesome, go on some rant about private sector unions that has nothing to do with anything being discussed, and then wander off like you just escaped indentured servitude in a coal mine. Give me an honest to god "I support those corrupt assholes for my own selfish interests." At least that is respectable.
Oh well since I can neither fix stupid, nor stab people through the internet preying on the lazy and foolish will have to continue unabated.
*It was a budget issue, cutting the budget of future democrat candidates.
I'd say I'm arguing with a wall, but that does such a disservice to walls. I don't even know how you can get to that line of thinking.
If it was about anything other than appeasing their corporate masters, why the fuck did they leave policemen out of it? It was never about anything, budget cuts, whatever. It was about making a statement. That statement was "Fuck you, that's what."
Because the police union supported him in the election. They left policemen out of it because they supported him. Seems pretty obvious when your plan is "Fuck you, you guys that support my opponents."
You get to my line of thinking by looking past the bullshit and looking where the money is going. Do you really think any of this is about anything other than money? Do you think the public sector unions which do not compete with corporations are jumping into bed with the Democrats because they are awesome, or because the Republicans favor small government and fiscal conservancy?
I'd say I'm arguing with a wall, but that does such a disservice to walls. I don't even know how you can get to that line of thinking.
If it was about anything other than appeasing their corporate masters, why the fuck did they leave policemen out of it? It was never about anything, budget cuts, whatever. It was about making a statement. That statement was "Fuck you, that's what."
Because the police union supported him in the election. They left policemen out of it because they supported him. Seems pretty obvious when your plan is "Fuck you, you guys that support my opponents."
You get to my line of thinking by looking past the bullshit and looking where the money is going. Do you really think any of this is about anything other than money? Do you think the public sector unions which do not compete with corporations are jumping into bed with the Democrats because they are awesome, or because the Republicans favor small government and fiscal conservancy?
So you admit that this is all a dishonest and unethical sop to republican voters? That's good.
Really, all I'm seeing is that Republicans are sociopaths who judge everything purely be immediate self-interest.
So you admit that this is all a dishonest and unethical sop to voters? That's good.
Really, all I'm seeing is that voters are sociopaths who judge everything purely be immediate self-interest.
Would you say that Walker is a small government politician.
I would say Walker is a politician who was willing to shoot his future career in exchange for the betterment of the Republican party. He will probably land on his feet with a nice high 6ish figures job as soon as he is no longer able to maintain some form of office.
detharin, would you say that Walker is a small government politician
Or, why are you so vehemently against any ideals just because "democrats." If I told you Walker wanted to increase medicare spending because old people voted for him, would you agree? What if teacher's unions voted for him? What if he wanted to increase school spending now?
I get it's a huge circle jerk, but when the one guy didn't want to touch your dick you don't chop his off. Eventually no one will have dicks.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
So you admit that this is all a dishonest and unethical sop to voters? That's good.
Really, all I'm seeing is that voters are sociopaths who judge everything purely be immediate self-interest.
I would agree with these two fixed statements.
Now you're just projecting. Do you think that all the people supporting gay rights are gay? Do you think that all the people protesting for the right to unionize are public workers?
Which ideals am I so vehemently against. You seem to be misplacing other arguments onto mine. As I said in my first post I neither live in Wisconsin nor have a horse in this race.
The problem with your analogy is that in this jerk off contest and one guy wont stop fondling someone else's dick, so you cut off his hands. After all, if he is not going to play with your dick he doesn't need hands does he?
Which ideals am I so vehemently against. You seem to be misplacing other arguments onto mine. As I said in my first post I neither live in Wisconsin nor have a horse in this race.
The problem with your analogy is that in this jerk off contest and one guy wont stop fondling someone else's dick, so you cut off his hands. After all, if he is not going to play with your dick he doesn't need hands does he?
:v: Caesar says no to your logic.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Now you're just projecting. Do you think that all the people supporting gay rights are gay? Do you think that all the people protesting for the right to unionize are public workers?
Oh hey lets smear in some civil rights issue. Drop the Silly Goosery. To answer your second question I do believe quite a few of them are intellectually dishonest, ignorant of exactly what they are protesting for, have no idea what the actual issues are, confused into trying to make a fiscal issue a moral issue, or just dirty hippies who like to protest things.
To the few who understand the Unions are a corrupt puppet arm of the democrats, and support them because it benefits them, or because they would rather fuck the other guy I salute you.
Now you're just projecting. Do you think that all the people supporting gay rights are gay? Do you think that all the people protesting for the right to unionize are public workers?
Oh hey lets smear in some civil rights issue. Drop the Silly Goosery. To answer your second question I do believe quite a few of them are intellectually dishonest, ignorant of exactly what they are protesting for, have no idea what the actual issues are, confused into trying to make a fiscal issue a moral issue, or just dirty hippies who like to protest things.
To the few who understand the Unions are a corrupt puppet arm of the democrats, and support them because it benefits them, or because they would rather fuck the other guy I salute you.
Show me one case of corruption in Wisconsin public unions. The idea of unions being corrupt is just as much a myth as Chicago being the most corrupt city in the US.
Show me one case of corruption in Wisconsin public unions. The idea of unions being corrupt is just as much a myth as Chicago being the most corrupt city in the US.
Do you not find it at all problematic that a public sector union would donate millions of dollars in order to directly impact whom they will negotiate with? Does having the person representing taxpayers at the bargaining table in debt to the people on the other side not strike you as the least bit dishonest? Do you believe this to be the ideal system?
Does it matter? Do you disagree that this is all about money?
Yes, stating the obvious is much like trolling. In other news water is wet.
Have you ever worked in a union Detharin? I can say for a fact that most unions are not corrupt.
Basically, all you're doing is buying into the bullshit that one side is more guilty than the other
Protip, you can change "Union" to "Corporation" and "Democrat" to "Republican" and have the exact same statement. Kind of, except the union isn't a sock puppet of anyone, it's just a bunch of people wanting to be treated like a human being.
It's very clear you've never worked in a job where you risk losing limbs because "bottom line" or "efficiency" (which is business code word for cutting costs on things like safety.)
When I worked at UPS I could've died when a 30 lb box dropped from the belt moving overhead. It was caught by grating and other safety features. Those features? Unions. Everything you have today? Unions. Vacations? Unions. Sick days? Motherfucking unions. Something tells me you study history just as well as you study... politics, or anything as far as I can tell.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Show me one case of corruption in Wisconsin public unions. The idea of unions being corrupt is just as much a myth as Chicago being the most corrupt city in the US.
Do you not find it at all problematic that a public sector union would donate millions of dollars in order to directly impact whom they will negotiate with? Does having the person representing taxpayers at the bargaining table in debt to the people on the other side not strike you as the least bit dishonest? Do you believe this to be the ideal system?
Does it matter? Do you disagree that this is all about money?
Yes, stating the obvious is much like trolling. In other news water is wet.
AARP donates money even though its members get social security. Poor people vote despite receiving welfare benefits. To call supporting someone who supports your rights is not corruption, and you have yet to show that Democrats are softer when negotiating.
But even if they DID owe me some back pay or whatever, my legal course is limited by how much I have, as big corporates have legal resources the avrage joe have not. They also have lobbiests and unless I'm in a union, I don't. (See? I managed to tie it with Wisconsin )
Free Market is only Free if all parties play by the same rules, we don't.
The problem you started with is "do they owe me more pay" which is no. Sure our wages are falling, and that is a very complex problem but really at the core of it is the fact that there is no guarantee for wages to rise, and any such guarantee is likely to eventually kill the corporation providing said guarantee. Unless you are working for the public sector in which case you can keep asking for MOAR, dumping money on the democratic officials you will bargain against, and in the end just demand taxes that don't affect you get raised somewhere to pay for you.
In this ball game we are playing by the same rules. Democrats fuck corporations to pay for unions/lower Republican funding, and toss more money at unions to get more money in campaign contributions. Republicans fuck Unions to help corporations/lower democrat funding, and toss more money at corporations to get more money in campaign contributions.
Had unions stayed apolitical , and focused on workers rights they might have a pot to piss in. Right now however they are practically an arm of the democratic party that exists to continually shovel them money. Workers rights are pretty much secondary to collecting dues. When you are the second highest political donator for the last 20 years it leaves me without a lot of sympathy.
I'm guessing if the Republicans didn't shit down their mouths everytime they opened them, the Unions wouldn't be only supporting dems.
I'm in favor of unions because without them, we wouldn't have weekends or child labor laws or overtime pay or paid time off.
I'm in favor of unions because a one party corporatist dystopia would be a shitty thing for my children and children's children to deal with.
I would be in favor of corporations over unions if unions had almost driven corporations into the sea. I would say, "guys, we need corporations to make our stuff and pay our wages. Communism generally doesn't work out very well." But that's not about to happen.
I don't need to be in a union or even have union members in my family to know that what Walker is doing will ruin a very successful way of life in a state with a strong middle class. Detharin, I know you're trying to be the cynical realist here, but just stop for a second and think about what our society would be like if we had never allowed employee unions. Their success list is so long, and includes so many things we now take for granted, that I can't imagine that you don't benefit from any of it. If you do benefit from it, then can you really say that you don't have a horse in this race?
Posts
I did in fact mean potentially all levels in terms of ending very very badly. Minimum wage laws have their own problems, but that is another topic.
He's hitting up technical colleges in southeast Wisconsin to explain why it's necessary they all get a 30% budget cut. In closed meetings. More or less unannounced. Can't have those ornery students asking questions. The guy actually has a really pleasant personality, just like Scott Walker, it's easy to see how they dupe people
The way standarized testing is done is vastly different from..hell, last year. It changes massively all the time. Comparing a score 10 years ago to now would be equivalent to comparing the iPhone to a Nokia from 10 years ago. They're totally different things.
Not to mention state standard requirements, individual school requirements, administrators forcing teachers to implement ineffecient methods, the state forcing teachers to implement ineffecient methods, parents repeatedly engaging in "precious snowflake syndrome" hampering the education of all involved, etc etc.
What you need for schools are effective teachers willing and able to teach relevant material in a safe enviornment. The material they are required to teach needs to be rigid enough and flexible enough to incorporate all of the major points yet still include enough information to give students a well rounded idea of the content.
Creating government programs that give incentives for teachers to do nothing but "teach to the test" or to pass kids that failed regardless of the fact that they can't read is a terrible idea. An even more terrible idea is taking away all of the resources that those teachers have because they can't manage the awful system they have been shoehorned into.
Giving a bunch of money to large buisnesses and taking a shit ton away from education is not good for ANYONE.
See, here's the thing - for us to be getting "the same results as 40 years ago", we'd have to be producing the same sorts of graduates as we were 40 years ago. And as people have pointed out to you - repeatedly - that just is not the fucking case. For example, Title IX - the law that mandates equal opportunities for all students in schools regardless of gender - as we know it today did not exist in 1971 (the Mink Act would not be passed until 1972.) The effects of Title IX have greatly expanded opportunities for women. and it has contributed heavily to women entering tertiary education in greater numbers (and all of the ramifications thereof.) And that's just one of the many vast changes that has taken place in those 40 years in American education, where we've seen a large expansion of opportunity for people who had been, for so very long, cast aside.
You've tried to seize on a single number because if you squint and cock your head at it, it sort of aligns with your worldview. But the fact is that when you look at the entirety of the matter - not just this one small data point - it becomes clear what has been going on in American education - it's become a fuckload more egalitarian and representative of America as a whole. Furthermore, there are questions about what the international tests are actually testing. Malcolm Gladwell points out in his recent book Outliers that researchers were able to determine performance on these international math tests before a single question was answered - by looking at who filled out the test information by the instructions. One has to wonder about what such a test is testing.
So please, keep clinging onto your datapoint like a piece of driftwood while the ocean of reality swirls around you. You may not believe in the world, but it surely believes in you.
It's also summer as well, so very few (if any) students are gonna be hanging out at MATC or care that Ryan's there. Good timing on their part to rape our education system and tell the people running it it's for the best.
Now we're getting somewhere. You even have multiple lines, you're such a sick baller.
It's not "a" datapoint. Surely you realize that 40 years worth of results in two subjects at intervals, with precise sampling, is not "a" datapoint. You wouldn't say something so embarrassingly wrong, now would you. Your prose is beautiful though.
Ah now we're really getting to the heart of the issue. It doesn't matter that our educational system is expensibad, because everyone gets some. Can't read, or critically think, or write, or add, or decipher a chart, but god damn it it's "public", and we're all equally retarded, and that's what counts. Harrison Bergeron in this bitch.
I'd love to see some citations regarding this information, instead of vague aspersion cast on the evaluation process.
But even if they DID owe me some back pay or whatever, my legal course is limited by how much I have, as big corporates have legal resources the avrage joe have not. They also have lobbiests and unless I'm in a union, I don't. (See? I managed to tie it with Wisconsin
Free Market is only Free if all parties play by the same rules, we don't.
Most notably that simply yanking funds will not help things, the system is going to have the same problems but now with less funding - so we're going to see all the bad aspects of education continue along unabated but things like art, music, and science are going to continue to get the axe.
And again, you haven't said why Wisconsin's secondary education needs a cut - Wisconsin colleges are pretty damned good last I heard.
The problem you started with is "do they owe me more pay" which is no. Sure our wages are falling, and that is a very complex problem but really at the core of it is the fact that there is no guarantee for wages to rise, and any such guarantee is likely to eventually kill the corporation providing said guarantee. Unless you are working for the public sector in which case you can keep asking for MOAR, dumping money on the democratic officials you will bargain against, and in the end just demand taxes that don't affect you get raised somewhere to pay for you.
In this ball game we are playing by the same rules. Democrats fuck corporations to pay for unions/lower Republican funding, and toss more money at unions to get more money in campaign contributions. Republicans fuck Unions to help corporations/lower democrat funding, and toss more money at corporations to get more money in campaign contributions.
Had unions stayed apolitical , and focused on workers rights they might have a pot to piss in. Right now however they are practically an arm of the democratic party that exists to continually shovel them money. Workers rights are pretty much secondary to collecting dues. When you are the second highest political donator for the last 20 years it leaves me without a lot of sympathy.
Well, if all things are equal, and you have to lessen the quality of life of a single class, shouldn't you pick the class that has it better already? If I have to choose between corporations and middle to lower class, I'd choose to fuck over corporations.
Yeah, it's been noted. It's fairly clear that Prosser could've murdered her in cold blood, and some people would argue that the bitch deserved it.
THREAD NOTE: We're going to get locked shortly. Maybe you should spin the whole "Edumacation ain't what it used-ta was, when they made do wif five bucks and some chewin' gum" discussion to its own topic and let this continue as the Wisconsin thread.
When this gets locked I'll be opening a new thread about the recall primaries and elections.
To be fair, this is why eyewitness testimony is actually completely unreliable.
There are a fuckton more graduates now than there were 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago. Each year there is more graduates, and a greater percentage of the class sticks through.
I think, of the 20 some odd people in my parent's high school class, 2 of them graduated. That's a 10% graduation rate. When I graduated? It was about 800 of the original 1000. 80%. That's huge. This alone is pretty much the metric you should be measuring by if you ask "are we throwing money away?"
The answer is no. And for all the fuck you know, the tests have actually gotten more difficult in the past 40 some odd years. So a 70% (Average -- gee ain't that something, an average is average) on today's tests is 80-90% on tests of yesteryear.
Well personally I am more of the fuck everyone type. At this point I am not quite sure how we handle democracy is capable of handling the problems we have. We have a huge shit sandwich and no one is going to vote for taking a bite.
However the reality is that I would much rather see people acknowledging that we are in fact openly trying to fuck corporations/ the upper class/anyone with money in favor of the middle to lower classes. It may not be the best plan. Hell it may not even be a good plan. However it is an honest plan. Frankly what sickens me the most is the people that pretend their side is awesome, not corrupt, and is all that is good and pure in the world while the other side is a bunch of corrupt kitten eating assholes.
Give me an honest man screaming "My side sucks, but by supporting my side I get a bit more money even though I know most of it is going to go to corrupt jerks. Yeah those other guys side sucks, but they get more out of supporting their side then they would mine."
Can't have that though, we need to paint one side as the plucky underdog victims, the other side as the towering faceless assholes, and make a fucking operetta out of it. Doth what light through yonder window breaks, tis some corporate asshattery, and Obama is the sun. No really what we have is two multi million dollar organizations fighting it out over a bone and fucking everyone else in the process.
Why can't we reform how teaching is done? Because the teachers Unions will never cede enough power to let it happened because it will cost them money. The teachers want things better but they cannot get it, because the only organization they have working in their interests is only interested in how much money it can bring in.
Anything they offered was a ploy in the hopes the republicans would be unwilling to spend the political capitol to really squash them. Their entire plan was to stay in existence until they a more favorable political climate would emerge (with the help of their donations) and any and all damage could be reversed under their new masters. It was not a bargaining session, they had nothing to bargain with, so they offered up everything they could in the court of public opinion knowing that at the end of the day they had no say in what the deal was going to be. I am sorry but plea's consisting of "Please please take everything we cant stop you from taking just don't prevent us from funneling money into the democrats so that one day we can get it all back and more." do not sway me.
Thankfully the court of public opinion may just save them at this point.
If it was about anything other than appeasing their corporate masters, why the fuck did they leave policemen out of it? It was never about anything, budget cuts, whatever. It was about making a statement. That statement was "Fuck you, that's what."
Oh well since I can neither fix stupid, nor stab people through the internet preying on the lazy and foolish will have to continue unabated.
*It was a budget issue, cutting the budget of future democrat candidates.
Because the police union supported him in the election. They left policemen out of it because they supported him. Seems pretty obvious when your plan is "Fuck you, you guys that support my opponents."
You get to my line of thinking by looking past the bullshit and looking where the money is going. Do you really think any of this is about anything other than money? Do you think the public sector unions which do not compete with corporations are jumping into bed with the Democrats because they are awesome, or because the Republicans favor small government and fiscal conservancy?
They're worse on debt and budgets than just about any Democrat.
"Fuck everyone who's not rich" isn't fiscally conservative.
So you admit that this is all a dishonest and unethical sop to republican voters? That's good.
Really, all I'm seeing is that Republicans are sociopaths who judge everything purely be immediate self-interest.
I would agree with these two fixed statements.
I would say Walker is a politician who was willing to shoot his future career in exchange for the betterment of the Republican party. He will probably land on his feet with a nice high 6ish figures job as soon as he is no longer able to maintain some form of office.
Or, why are you so vehemently against any ideals just because "democrats." If I told you Walker wanted to increase medicare spending because old people voted for him, would you agree? What if teacher's unions voted for him? What if he wanted to increase school spending now?
I get it's a huge circle jerk, but when the one guy didn't want to touch your dick you don't chop his off. Eventually no one will have dicks.
Now you're just projecting. Do you think that all the people supporting gay rights are gay? Do you think that all the people protesting for the right to unionize are public workers?
The problem with your analogy is that in this jerk off contest and one guy wont stop fondling someone else's dick, so you cut off his hands. After all, if he is not going to play with your dick he doesn't need hands does he?
:v: Caesar says no to your logic.
Oh hey lets smear in some civil rights issue. Drop the Silly Goosery. To answer your second question I do believe quite a few of them are intellectually dishonest, ignorant of exactly what they are protesting for, have no idea what the actual issues are, confused into trying to make a fiscal issue a moral issue, or just dirty hippies who like to protest things.
To the few who understand the Unions are a corrupt puppet arm of the democrats, and support them because it benefits them, or because they would rather fuck the other guy I salute you.
Show me one case of corruption in Wisconsin public unions. The idea of unions being corrupt is just as much a myth as Chicago being the most corrupt city in the US.
:^: Butt Caesar says yes to gladiatorial butt sex. Remember kids, fuck the other guy is the honest position.
Do you not find it at all problematic that a public sector union would donate millions of dollars in order to directly impact whom they will negotiate with? Does having the person representing taxpayers at the bargaining table in debt to the people on the other side not strike you as the least bit dishonest? Do you believe this to be the ideal system?
Does it matter? Do you disagree that this is all about money?
Yes, stating the obvious is much like trolling. In other news water is wet.
Basically, all you're doing is buying into the bullshit that one side is more guilty than the other
Protip, you can change "Union" to "Corporation" and "Democrat" to "Republican" and have the exact same statement. Kind of, except the union isn't a sock puppet of anyone, it's just a bunch of people wanting to be treated like a human being.
It's very clear you've never worked in a job where you risk losing limbs because "bottom line" or "efficiency" (which is business code word for cutting costs on things like safety.)
When I worked at UPS I could've died when a 30 lb box dropped from the belt moving overhead. It was caught by grating and other safety features. Those features? Unions. Everything you have today? Unions. Vacations? Unions. Sick days? Motherfucking unions. Something tells me you study history just as well as you study... politics, or anything as far as I can tell.
AARP donates money even though its members get social security. Poor people vote despite receiving welfare benefits. To call supporting someone who supports your rights is not corruption, and you have yet to show that Democrats are softer when negotiating.
I'm guessing if the Republicans didn't shit down their mouths everytime they opened them, the Unions wouldn't be only supporting dems.
I'm in favor of unions because a one party corporatist dystopia would be a shitty thing for my children and children's children to deal with.
I would be in favor of corporations over unions if unions had almost driven corporations into the sea. I would say, "guys, we need corporations to make our stuff and pay our wages. Communism generally doesn't work out very well." But that's not about to happen.
I don't need to be in a union or even have union members in my family to know that what Walker is doing will ruin a very successful way of life in a state with a strong middle class. Detharin, I know you're trying to be the cynical realist here, but just stop for a second and think about what our society would be like if we had never allowed employee unions. Their success list is so long, and includes so many things we now take for granted, that I can't imagine that you don't benefit from any of it. If you do benefit from it, then can you really say that you don't have a horse in this race?