Comments on: With all due respect to Dr. Krugman, I think he’s missing the local angle.

By: Konfusing Kancer

Konfusing Kancer — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:18:05 +0000

Donna said: “A plethora of national conservative groups have been stacking state legislatures and local offices across the country, and particularly in the South and West, with rabid ideologues who simply do not believe in government. At all.”

So what you are saying is that there are politicians working diligently on working themselves out of a job?

By: Cheryle Janasiak

Cheryle Janasiak — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:29:27 +0000

Somehow, the infinite wisdom of destroying public education has taken a new and particularly savage turn for the worse. Our governor has very recently enacted laws that have essentially stripped teachers of any hint of job security. Districts are now prevented from using a system that gives preference to seniority when it comes to laying off, as well as calling people back to work. They are also now allowed to lower salaries of any employees, at any time, for any reason what-so-ever. They previously needed to apply a salary decrease evenly and equitably to all teachers, as well as by a certain date. Not anymore!Districts also are free to withold contracts from their employees for as long as they like. This means teachers could essentially not know if they have a job until the day before the school year starts. Really? REALLY? I am an award winning educator who absolutely LOVES teaching. I am the kind of teacher you want teaching your kids because you would feel secure in the fact that I would go out of my way for your child, and every child in my classroom. I am also the teacher you want in your district because I am the teacher who teaches the kids you want out of your childrens building–the drug dealers, gang bangers, bullies, thieves, disrupters…yep! I make your childs classroom a whole lot easier to learn in. But, I LOVE this population! So, what would ever become such an issue that I would leave it? Answer: being treated with an intolerable level apathy and disrespect. Teachers have been scapegoats for as long as I can remember; I knew that coming in to the field. Compromising the safety and security of knowing whether I’ll be able to pay my mortgage and car note, have electricity, and buy food crosses a line. I came to Arizona from a union state, took a $7,000 cut in salary and the equivalent to another 7,000 in benefits for my family. Loving my job and my students diverted my focus from what I lost. Unfortunately, I can’t love a job that has made it abundantly clear that I will be a liability at a certain point in the pay scale; therefore expendable. Unfortunately, your kids lose once again. Teachers at the bottom of the pay scale are teachers new to the profession. Very few new teachers have any classroom management skills. If your child’s building has a predominence of first and second year teachers, your child’s education is compromised. Not only that, if all the experienced teachers have been let go because the district simply doesn’t want to pay the salary of a veteran when they could get two new teachers for the same amount of money, novice teachers will have no one to guide them in acquiring the skills it takes to run a classroom safely and effectively. Good Luck, Arizona! I’m going back to Wisconsin where we are only moderately discriminated against.

By: Zelph

Zelph — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:15:05 +0000

Don’t discount the possibility of sheer idiocy.

By: Donna

Donna — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:40:53 +0000

Unfortunately, people like Get Real suffer from a form of Stockholm Syndrome. They identify so strongly with the ruling class that they support economic policies completely contrary to their own best interest. I find it bizarre that someone would be more worried about a billionaire, or his corporation, paying slightly more in taxes (and a few million a year is nothing to a company like Intel) than he is about the quality of schools in his state but that’s just me.

It’s either Stockholm Syndrome or sociopathy.

By: todd

todd — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:57:34 +0000

Get Real – In fact yes, their revenue is in fact not all ‘theirs.’ They rely on publicly funded activities from roads to education to telecommunications infrastructure in order to operate. Asking them to pay for what they use is hardly a ‘bizarre ideology.’

By: Get Real

Get Real — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:23:46 +0000

You and Krugman are two peas in a pod: you’re both hacks whose arbitrary worldview has clouded your vision. “Extortive 95% corporate tax cut.” That’s rich: it’s like they thought the revenue that they earned was theirs. They had the gall to think that they should keep $100 million that was–in your bizarre ideology–by right the state’s. And their CEO, he has a mansion! That’s damning enough right there.

(Did you know that Barack Obama, besides his present digs, owns a mansion? Or that Al Gore does? Oh, the horrors!)