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Public School Teachers Selling Lesson Plans Online
theodp writes "Thousands of teachers are using websites like Teachers Pay Teachers and We Are Teachers to cash in on a commodity they used to give away, selling lesson plans online for exercises as simple as M&M sorting and as sophisticated as Shakespeare. While some of this extra money is going to buy books and classroom supplies, the new teacher-entrepreneurs are also spending it on dinners out, mortgage payments, credit card bills, vacation travel and even home renovation, raising questions over who owns material developed for public school classrooms."
You are mixing issues that don't really fit together. Everybody understands that children are our society's future. Finding the money to pay for their education is a social and political issue the U.S. handles poorly compared to some other nations that aren't that different from us socially or economically.
Second, the issue of childbirth. Well, a lot of people feel that because the bible says be fruitful and multiply, it isn't up to them to have enough sense to know to stop before there's nothing left to eat. The fact is that causing another person to be born is the one decision that you make in your life that will use as many resources, and create as much pollution, as every other decision you will make for your entire life put together. Having just one or two kids is all you need to do if you are concerned with the plight of the earth, and everybody is for educating them.
Bruce Perens.
No education tax for those that have no children? People are in favor of that? Would you cheerfully pay a road tax if you didn't own a car? What about if you were a vociferous proponent of bikes? You don't have any kids, own a home, and pay a ton of school taxes - what about the jerk down the road who has 5 children and lives in an apartment? You may be totally unaware of this phenomenon, but be aware it does exist, especially among people who have no problem getting heard by millions. Just consider the term "childless" - you won't see this anywhere in the media today. It has been replaced (in the style guide, even!) by "childfree", as if children were some sort of nasty skin rash you get by sitting on the stools at a truck stop diner.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
If teachers were paid on performance, they'd be earning zero per year. But hey, if you think they should be earning $100k/year for 9 months of work while your kid learns nothing, then you pay for it. I certainly won't.
Camping on quad since 1996.
As a former president of an Abstinence organization, I can tell you that most abstinence organizations teach all about birth control methods. Why does it put kids in additional danger to have them delay sexuality until they are old enough to be responsible for the consequences it brings? Certainly teen pregnancy is far more dangerous for the baby as well as the quality of life of the mother.
And creationists raise several important challenges to evolution that have not been addressed. How does science continue to be science if challenges to the prevailing theory are censored instead of discussed? At that point, it is propaganda, not science.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Way to troll, I had several PHDs teaching me through my education. Three in High School and one in middle school.
I'd bet your experience is the exception to the rule. I had football coaches teaching classes in "health" and geography. I knew more about geography and foreign cultures than my teacher did. I worked with a retired teacher whose background was in music, and was assigned to teach computing classes. He admitted to me that he knew nothing about computers, and basically just took roll and let the kids do whatever they wanted with the PC's. Most schools are not filled with overqualified teachers bursting with knowledge and experience. Most schools are filled with education majors that were among the lowest achievers in college, protected by a teacher's union that views public education as one massive full employment program for their members.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel