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459 Comments
- Mummo, on 06/23/2009, -15/+472There are plenty in the classroom that do nothing as well
- JAVandiver, on 06/23/2009, -35/+361This is why we need some good old fashion union busting.
- gtluke, on 06/23/2009, -41/+211I can't wait for my hospital to be run with this staggering efficiency.
- kingofthisnight, on 06/23/2009, -6/+162I don't know how my fellow diggers will respond to this but... I dislike unions. I worked for a short time at UPS when I started college and every union worker sat around and didn't do anything. Unloading a trailer with a union worker was annoying because all they did was talk to me while I did all the work.
And I am sorry but if you are a ***** employee you shouldn't be protected from being fired. No teacher who fails at their job should get paid to hang out all day. They should be fired and that is that. Learn to be a competent employee. - vammirato, on 06/23/2009, -4/+143and here I am digging about it while at work.
- SpykerSpeed, on 06/23/2009, -32/+166We need more money!
And government can run the health industry best! - inactive, on 06/23/2009, -9/+139So do you still support unions?
One of my friend's father works in an office building in NY, where some renovations were taking place in the lobby. Every day he noticed that most of the workers were just sitting around. One day, he came in to work and all of the workers were sitting, reading the paper. Nine hours later, as he left the building, he noticed all of the workers sitting in the same positions, reading the paper. So he asked them, "I'm just curious... you guys have been sitting there all day. Why?" One worker replied, "well we can't do any more construction work until someone moves those cinderblocks over there. And we aren't authorized to move them ourselves, because of the union terms. So we have to wait until tomorrow for the mason workers to get here and move the cinderblocks."
Gotta love unions. - Renuvian, on 06/23/2009, -0/+87This American Life has a very good episode about this issue:
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1 ...
It is based on the documentary mentioned above. - ladysherwood, on 06/23/2009, -2/+77"I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be."
- Chirp08, on 06/23/2009, -2/+77So you are saying I can get paid for sexual misconduct?
BRB switching majors. - okayokayokay, on 06/23/2009, -0/+73Documentary about the Rubber Room:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7O7C25U73w - Smokeydabear, on 06/23/2009, -2/+72There was something about this on "This American Life" nearly a year or more ago.
- Manther, on 06/23/2009, -11/+67Two words. Dream. Job.
- amr05h, on 06/23/2009, -4/+59FTA: "Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month,"
Maybe this is the problem... - ifruit, on 06/23/2009, -12/+65FTA "Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms"
Sounds like a Union Issue to me.
Getting paid to play scrabble is not "earning a living" - kufu91, on 06/23/2009, -1/+47FTA "But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month"
no, this is why we need arbitrators who work more than once a week. - inactive, on 06/23/2009, -17/+62I love how liberals hate private monopolies but love monopolies when the government runs them.
- dball48, on 06/23/2009, -4/+46Only if you work for the government.
- sereth, on 06/23/2009, -3/+44The flaw is the case review system. 23 members who work 5 days a month. The easy fix for this is make the review boards work full time and reduce the case load. Not that I'm pro-union but not sure they are at fault here. Remember it is possible for someone to report something on a teacher true or not and they get assigned to this, there needs to be some protection against false accusations. Speed up the review process and this is fixed.
- brakes4turtles, on 06/23/2009, -4/+44$70,000? These teachers get paid a lot more than I'll ever make teaching.
But in reality, this is the flaw in tenuring. It's a reward-based system that after a decade or so runs out of rewards to give. So it's like any other job in America, except the ceiling is a lot easier to reach. - stubear, on 06/23/2009, -1/+40Look, I'm all for busting the teachers union and establishing a fair system where good teachers are rewarded for their efforts. I'm also very much in favor of this bubbling up through the system to the administrations within the schools as well as the school boards themselves. However, if you even bothered to read the summary, much less the article itself, you;d notice that these teachers ALLEGEDLY did the things they were accused of. It's amazing how quickly people will strip the rights of others and complain the loudest when they themselves, or causes they believe in, are threatened in the same manner. Rights are equal for everyone and as long as these teachers are ALLEGEDLY accused of the things they are accused of they are presumed innocent, period.
- FallenTurtles, on 06/23/2009, -1/+37Ooo, gonna be a politician??
- juankovo, on 06/23/2009, -2/+35Definitely worth a watch:
Stupid in America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw
A report on the dismal performance of our education system. - trer, on 06/23/2009, -12/+44This happens in many major cities with large bureaucratic school districts: Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago..etc. Sometimes I think the Union and School Districts are working together to fleece the public. Does this sound farfetched?
- vbullinger, on 06/23/2009, -7/+39Are you serious right now? Employers don't leech off of unions: unions are set up this way. They encourage this type of behavior and this kind of thing is inevitable. Don't blame the individual teachers. They're not the problem.
In general, if a trade is easy and doesn't involve a lot of skills, unions make sense, even though I would always discourage them. Teachers are intelligent and highly skilled: they don't need unions. I'm a computer programmer. We certainly don't need unions and I would never join one. - mille716, on 06/23/2009, -2/+33I'll agree that it has become too difficult to fire ***** teachers in NYC but I don't blame the teachers or even their unions for this.
"Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six."
If the largest school system in America decides to pull out every teacher who has a minor complaint against them then only has arbitrators meet to decide their cases five days a month, that's a ***** up on NYC school system, not the teachers. - MikeFromAmerica, on 06/23/2009, -3/+34Try telling that to the arbitrators union.
- morepowerr, on 06/23/2009, -0/+302. sell in Japanese Vending Machines.
- JFitzpatrick, on 06/23/2009, -0/+30"Many teachers say they are being punished because they ran afoul of a vindictive boss or because they blew the whistle when somebody fudged test scores.
"The principal wants you out, you're gone," said Michael Thomas, a high school math teacher who has been in a reassignment center for 14 months after accusing an assistant principal of tinkering with test results."
So...
1. Get tenured in a New York City Public School
2. Accuse someone in power of something trivial
3. No ??? here!
4. Profit!
Maybe I'm a bit too jaded, but I could stand to spend a year just hanging out with laptop, summers off, getting paid $70,000+ per year. I'd happily report to some run down (but child free!) school every day for that kind of pay. - mankyd, on 06/23/2009, -6/+34Puh-lease! Playing Scrabble hardly counts as nothing!
- CressCrowbits, on 06/23/2009, -10/+36BREAKING NEWS!
Staff placed on paid leave whilst under investigation non-shocker!
Seriously, isn't this the same in most forms of employment? - workaround4u, on 06/23/2009, -44/+69Ah yes, Unions--barry's BFF. But really, don't we just need more money to improve education? What a bunch of horses**t.
- trer, on 06/23/2009, -0/+24Sounds like the English department needs work as well.
- clclark33, on 06/23/2009, -2/+25That's the exact problems with modern unions. Union workers lack the incentive of being fired for being lazy. It's usually not worth the trouble for the employer to deal with the process to terminate a union employee unless it's something major. What you end up with is a load of people who are much less productive and are taking up jobs that pay higher than they should. This helps keep unemployment a lot higher than it needs to be.
- Nightfall, on 06/23/2009, -3/+26For the few that are guilty of doing something wrong, there are a vast majority that are innocent. The students have and will go to the authorities and claim that a certain teacher "touched" him inappropriately, sending that teacher to the rubber room for a period of time until an investigation is launched. Thats just wrong.
- ifruit, on 06/23/2009, -12/+35Or we could just obliterate them, that will work fine.
- alpha94, on 06/23/2009, -1/+24There's a difference. If you're still getting your job done then it doesn't matter. Plus, I'm guessing you're not beind paid with public money.
- trevor98, on 06/23/2009, -0/+19How about taking some of the money spent paying teacher to sit around and doing nothing to improve the case review process. The 23 arbitrators only work 5 days a month at reviewing the cases is the real problem here. Make that more efficient and fair and the length of time these teachers sit unproductive will diminish. How is the fact that these teachers are in limbo for years not the lead? Great journalism.
- alanic, on 06/23/2009, -3/+211. Steal the underwear of an underage girl
2. ??
3. Profit
Probably the only time the underpants gnomes plan actually worked. - itsmikey, on 06/23/2009, -1/+19***** that. What a pathetic waste of time. Some of these teachers must have absolutely zero ambition.
- hobbler, on 06/23/2009, -0/+18This. My mom, a teacher with 27 years of experience at the time, almost got fired because the janitor couldn't understand what "manure" meant, so she said, "You know, *****." in the teacher's lounge. Some bitch aide heard and reported her for it.
- demicritter, on 06/23/2009, -8/+25It's like the GODDAMN UAW. Do nothing and still get paid.....who do they think they are? Politicians!
- pwner, on 06/23/2009, -3/+19You should see the arbitrators' rubber room
- arpad, on 06/23/2009, -30/+46Just imagine how terrific socialized medicine is going to work given the state of socialized education.
- pak314, on 06/23/2009, -10/+26You don't need to imagine how great privatized medicine is working right?
- inactive, on 06/23/2009, -6/+22Sounds like Saturday school detention, except its M-F.
- drmangrum, on 06/23/2009, -0/+16I don't know what you're smoking, but that sounds like hell to me. Doing NOTHING for weeks or years at a time? ***** that. Give me something to do.
- KimmyGibbler, on 06/23/2009, -3/+18Sorry, private school isn't a right, it's a privilege. Taxpayers should not have to pay for vouchers when they also have to pay for the crappy schools the voucher-using kids leave behind. It should be one or the other (subsidizing private school tuition or maintaining public schools), but not both
- ultrasparc, on 06/23/2009, -0/+15This American Life did a special on it, very interesting in all respects.
- DemDude, on 06/23/2009, -2/+16Do they _have_ to play scrabble? Because that might be pretty tough.
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