Can't Pay for Tenure; but a FUNHOUSE for disciplined teachers???!!!!

AP – This May 2006 photo provided by art teacher Judith Cohen shows her sitting in front of cardboard boxes …

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer Karen Matthews, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jun 22, 5:20 pm ET

NEW YORK – Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do.

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.

Okay ...this is disgusting. Talk about a waste of resources. Where in the world do you get paid more to do nothing than the banking industry and education! Mediocrity seems to be rewarded in many ways these days. So, our new American Dream is to do as little as nothing; and get paid for it.

'Adjunctivitis' Part 3 or is it 4?

Wow... California is in deep trouble. Summer classes started today at the California Community Colleges. Apparently, a lot of classes are being cut and thus, adjuncts will too. I hear that this is only the beginning and that times will worsen come fall. YOU WOULD THINK that people would place a higher priority on education when our nations ability too compete in the world economy is at its lowest rate ever and perhaps in complete demise?
Community college classes are filled to the rim with people who have recently, or in the past year, been laid off from their jobs. But, unlike in past years when we just added classes to fill the need, students will be turned away. Which, I don't get. If there are enough students to fill the classroom, than isn't the money to pay the instructor going to be there. I am told that it takes 20 students enrolled to employ the adjunct for the semester. If there are 45 students or more, in many of the "required to transfer to a four year" classes, it would seem to me that this is not the viable answer to the problem. Why on earth are we turning away people who want to be educated! Tell me that?
Some good news to share, though. Since we last met...or I last wrote, I have been communicating with a number of part time faculty who are sympathetic to my concerns and want to do something about it! I am hoping others join. I was just told by one such person, that they will be cutting the pay we receive to hold 'office hours.' Go figure. Well, not cutting, getting rid of it. Demise of the office hour pay. Would you work an hour for free each week? I didn't think so. I already work upwards of 20 hours a week at times....that I get the one hour of it paid....is the saving grace. What an idiot I have become. Oh, but not really. This predicament we adjuncts are experiencing has only placed more fuel on the fire. I am hopeful that it will help us add to our numbers and than come fall, we will have a huge contingent ready to sit down and talk about how teachers should be paid. I for one, hope that we can create enough interest that the lawmakers listen. I would hope that a strike would not be necessary; but if it gets bad enough...pandemic in scope, this adjunctivitis may just spread up and down the state. Take you vitamins! We need to keep fighting this thing!

Oops...I did it again...can't keep my mouth shut...

Well, I did it again. I decided to face the facts. I contacted our Union rep. I actually sent a nice chart to the rep regarding part time health care benefits at a number of community colleges in california. i didn't include ours on the list, because well the rep. should know that already AND, they are pretty close to non existent anyway; 1000.00 a year. I pay 560 a month right now, so that isn't really helping us much. And, in November, when my husband turns 55, we will start paying $670 a month for my coverage. I am 42.

The chart of benefits showed some very generous benefit offerings at the school district to the North of us and the South of us. In some cases, the Districts pay for full coverage of part time employess. In others, they pay 50%. This is a heck of a lot more than we get.

My union rep tells me that more part time employees need to be involved. I wonder though, will it matter. I asked this rep, "will it matter?" My concern, is that the full time tenured faculty, who pay most of the union dues, will not want to lose any of their benefits and thus, they won't want part time faculty to compete in this terrible budgetary- black- hole called california.

But, whatever. I am going to wait until I hear back from our rep. He is a nice man and I don't mean to piss him off with my cynicism. I am just jaded. As are many people these days. But, I really love what I am doing so, this is worth it; RIGHT?

There is NO benefit to being a better teacher: 'Adjunctivitis: Part 2'

A person who excels in most professions, receives aclaim, job security and rewards. Most teachers who excel, receive no paid time off, no health care benefits and no promise of employment from semester to semester. Take a look at this amazing video. I personally agree with these teachers. Are teachers Unions protective of both Full and Part-time Faculty? I think I think not. But, there may be something in between?

Although only 30-40% of teachers are tenured these days, the unions don't represent all teachers equally. Without supporting their full time teachers, the Union would not make any money. So, why should they support part time instructors. Part time instructors are made to believe that they are being supported by the union officials and tenured teachers. This is a farce. It is something like a Joe Plumber, fighting for the hard right libertarian or republicans, because he believes that he will be a multi millionaire with money to invest in offshore accounts someday. Part time teachers are made to believe that they will someday achieve the illusive tenure status. When in fact, they rarely do.

The person who was most recently hired in my department at the community college where I teach, came from 3 hours away. Instead of hiring one of the 10 or so part time adjuncts at the school already, the school opened up the hiring to a national search. There is no loyalty. This hire by the way, was the only new hire in the department in over 20 years.

I pay dues, they are deducted from my paycheck. Why? They don't help me. They don't get me health care. They don't get me any paid vacation days. This is ridiculous. My schedule is down to 3 hours a week this summer; and I am forced to support these people? I can't afford to do this!

http://www.takepart.com/videos/the-truth-about-teachers-unions/5026

GMs Apology Falls on Deaf Ears

I am saddened for many of the employees and their families. But the GM Executives in the United States, brought the inevitable demise of their greedy, stagnant, ticky-tacky, automobile company, upon themselves. I know that GM has been successful outside of the US; that is why I say that. But, I think that too is only because the buyers in China for example, are not as concerned about electric or hybrid cars, as we are in the US. Michael Moore, who has tried to bring the truth about US automakers and their employee victims, to the public time and time again, said it best this morning in his Huffington Post Blog:

"It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/goodbye-gm_b_209603.html)"