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Teacher Union Tries To Block Online Courses
itwbennett writes "Facing budget problems, University of California officials and state analysts say that expanding online courses could help them 'innovate out of the current crisis.' But the lecturers whose jobs are at stake see it differently. Now the UC chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is fighting to block online courses."
Unions fighting to keep featherbedding in place and prices high. Just another reason that unions have far outlived their usefulness.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
just think of the children!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
its not a left issue. its a right issue - its capitalism : in this case the corporation is lecturers' union. in the case of music, it is the music corporations. in case of movies, its hollywood corporations.
its capitalism - if something may prevent your easy profits, prevent it even if it costs a major innovation for civilization.
Read radical news here
I will never understand the need for college educated knowledge workers to need union protections. This isn't a coal mine or dangerous factory job. I also don't see the need for unions for any government employee even dangerous jobs like Fire & Police. When you combine the two, high-education government employees it is insane.
Disclaimer my wife is a Ph.D. working part-time lecturing community college Chemistry courses and fully supports online courses when she sees a whole class of students whose combined course fees don't cover half of her own salary, much less all the other expenses involved in running a college. This just isn't sustainable.
Next time some union thug says that teachers teach "because they love children" or "love teaching", show them this article. They don't care about the kids or their education, they only care about their job security.
These are the same selfish luddites who would've smashed printing presses hundreds of years ago to save the jobs of scribes. It's pathetic.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
In spite of all the efforts of our saint-like Wall Street speculators, bankers, and corporate executives; teachers are out to destroy everything! I don't know why people have so much trouble recognizing the scourge of people that actually want to engage the youth!
And college professors are people who could have easily gotten MBA's but instead choose a life of intellectual exploration. These people are clearly insane!
And everyone knows that everyone in a labor union is a lazy freeloader! At least unemployed people have the decency to not sabotage our economy by involving themselves in the affairs of the wealthy!
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
TAFE NSW tried this to cut back their high school equivalent course. Once it became clear that the much touted "on line course" consisted of a website that had no more than the contents of the textbook it was dumped, but only after the students protested. Ever tried to learn calculus from a textbook?
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
I think the 'Chuch' regretted when Gutenberg enabled reproducing so many Bibles that any clod (with enough money to buy one) could read id and come up with their own interpretations.
History is like a supper of radishes, it repeats.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The recording industry tried to sue everyone out of existence when they were too high. pushing out crap after crap, and online retailers with better access and better pricing threatened their models. Here we go again...
Have gnu, will travel.
Here is some actual coverage.
Anyway. There's no doubt that a lot of courses can be taught effectively online. There's also no doubt, for anyone who's ever done any real teaching, that once the subject matter gets the least bit advanced, there's a sharp limit to how much you can learn in an online course. Introductory "101" courses, which are mostly taught in giant lecture halls anyway, can probably go online with no ill effect on the students. Once you get beyond that level, most people need face-to-face interaction to really understand the subject.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The union is trying to protect its monopoly. Delivering a less expensive product to people that want it is capitalism.
If that is what they cared about, why don't they just get MBA's or even law degrees? If you not only have a Ph.D. but actually become a professor, then apparently school comes to you easily. And if you are a professor, you probably get to go to school for free.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
nt
Once you get beyond that level, most people need face-to-face interaction to really understand the subject.
Standford's AI course, currently ongoing, says otherwise.
So does the Standford iPhone programming course which a LOT of people have used to learn iPhone development.
None of this is 101 stuff (well perhaps the first few iPhone courses but not beyond that).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Professors with tenure at universities are pretty much the last bastion of job security in North America. They've remained silent while everyone else's job was automated and offshored, only now that their own jobs are threatened are they speaking up.
Unfortunately, half of my professors in University were not good educators. They'd slap up overheads for you to copy down while they read from the overheads, which could be done by any machine.
The profs who actually discussed their topics with the class and explained things when people had questions were another story, but such professors only constituted maybe half of the ones I had.
I'm all for well-paid educators, but I have no use for the dead weight whose focus is their research and paper-writing. If you want to do pure research, find a lab some where, don't drain the university and college systems. With the many thousands of dollars students pay for their education, they deserve better.
If the colleges and universities switch to online courses, what's the benefit of paying them so many thousands of dollars for an education that you can get for free from something like the Khan Academy videos? People need and want an education, not a video lecture series.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I imagine when textbooks came out, the same argument was had. Most teachers rely VERY heavily on technology whether they want to admit it or not. Most teachers, without a textbook, would be up the creek without a paddle. I'm looking forwards to teaching my kids all the stuff schools fail miserably at (things like conflict avoidance and resolution, management skills, time and task management, cooking, information theory, etc.).
There is no substitute for hands on learning when it comes to science and engineering. Will we see a whole new generation of so called scientists who've never seen the inside of a lab?
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Rather than embrace technology, professors are fighting it. Could you imagine if we could create a more efficient educational system that assists professors to focus on the students that need assistance, and the ones with talent rather than the ones just going right through.
If we changed the system to be interactive with a central database and professors working on making it better, we could essentially create the online database that tracks students and lines them up with the professors and classes that fit their talent, personality, and disability rather than doing a one size fits all approach with assistance that you have to seek on the outside. We've got the government data centers to support such an initiative, so the cost of doing so would be low. Just need to find a way to teach for every personality profile and make it interactive.
The article is comparing the university to Khan Academy and the online TED talks.
There's something different between university education and Khan Academy. What is it again? Oh yeah! One is free and the other costs more than a new automobile!
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
I think I heard that one before...
If these teachers are stupid/ignorant enough to believe leaving repetitive tasks to machines is harmful, then there's no doubt they should be replaced.
As a student, I have only ever had two types of online courses.
The automatic A or the abusive teacher. Either the class is ridiculously easy, or the teacher uses the fact they don't have to talk to me in person to be an asshole.
Gotta love the massive web of the Libertarian propaganda machine that has managed to infect slashdot with not only garbage propaganda but a flood of dunderhead commentators.
If you manage to dig your way through a google search and make it past all the Libertarian alarms warning of the teachers union led commie pinko take over of the world you might stumble upon the actual UC-AFT web site where they specifically state "we will use our collective bargaining power to make sure that this move to distance education is done in a fair and just way for our members".
Thats right, the union is not blocking online courses, but they do intend to do their job as a group representing the employees and try to retain jobs, pay and benefits as the online transition occurs.
Or you might stumble upon the OP ED in the LA Times where an instructor who will be affected by the changes gives a balanced and skeptical view on the subject at hand. The instructor admits that "I have lectured by live videoconference when an unavoidable business trip left me the choice between teaching by videoconference or not at all. Each time I do this I am struck by the near miracle of reaching across time zones and miles to see and hear my students in a sunlit classroom in California. I speak and write on the board; they take notes and ask questions. Business as usual."
Oh well, let the Libertarian dunderheads flail their arms and scream their factually incorrect headlines from the roofs.
So a guy like me who is a veteran and goes overseas repeatedly won't be able to go to school. Thanks.
I'm all for well-paid educators, but I have no use for the dead weight whose focus is their research and paper-writing. If you want to do pure research, find a lab some where, don't drain the university and college systems. With the many thousands of dollars students pay for their education, they deserve better.
The faculty involved in research are not even close to being the "dead weight" you claim. They bring money in to the university, as well as prestige.
However you are also missing the value of being taught by a researcher. Sure you could take some of your courses from someone who hasn't acquired any new knowledge on the topic in the past decade, but you'll finish those courses with that level of knowledge yourself. It is important to have educators who are well versed in the topic and aware of where that topic is going. That is a big part of why faculty who teach also do research.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Community colleges are subsidized by property taxes, which is why the course fees don't add up. The idea of community colleges is that the bulk of the education is subsidized with only a nominal fee/tuition attached so as to encourage people to gain job skills.
On the undergraduate level, college is around 40 opportunities to increase skills at every level. This includes reading, critical thinking, social interactive skills including active listening, and exposure to individuals with different backgrounds, cultures, and differing points-of-view.
If you are looking for narrowly defined technical training or need to satisfy your employer's requirement for credits or a diploma, then online options abound.
Every other option robs you of one or more learning aspects noted above. You may still have good reasons to pursue online schooling. Your budget may be limited; your work schedule hellish; you may be disabled and without transportation or heck, maybe you hate sitting in a room with other people. But don't be fooled.
I've pursued both routes and learned a lot in both online and classroom environments. (I have multiple of the above excuses.). But don't be fooled into thinking that your learning experience without a classroom is as good (at least on the undergraduate level) as the traditional method.
And don't be fooled into thinking that I won't k ow that when I interview you for your first job out of college.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
"This isn't a coal mine or dangerous factory job. "
You should really get informed.
http://www.ivorytowerblues.com/
Right now corporations are trying to privatize education to limit political views so they can turn the world into a right wing aristocracy. Universities in Canada and around the world have become more and more dependent on corporate donors and this means freedom of inquiry will be stifled big time. Do you really think rich conservative right wingers want any criticism of capitalism or protection for the poor? There was a big thing at U of T about naming something after Tommy douglas (tommy was father of 'socialist healthcare' in canada which pisses off the corps and right wingers and they still hate him for it) and the administration said 'no' because they were worried about offending the ideals of their donors and the donors denying them future funds. This means universities will become hotbeds of corporatist and unchecked capitalist propaganda and damn the scientific evidence. No thanks.
...it's not about the children after all.
First: That's not an article... that's a re-posting of comments.
Second: It's not just "educator unions". It's everyone who actually has experience in education. I'm in no union of any sort and I think it's a stupid idea. Opponents are not simply trying to block it for blocking sake. They're preventing the massive investment required to build a UC-wide online class-delivery system when we already have a shortage of funds to hire lecturers. They're preventing a shift in education from content and quality to ease and profitability.
Classes are overcrowded and fees are going higher-- this is no time for a financial gamble.
And while the typical subsection of Slashdot may proclaim "I was too smart for school, my teachers held me back!" -- understand that people like you are such a small percentage of the human population that you're not worth directly catering to. Really. We're working to educate THE MASSES here. And the masses need human interaction to reinforce their education... or else they won't bother learning.
History is like a supper of radishes, it repeats.
I think you need to actually read a history book. And not an on-line one.
Yeah, I'm reading a history book right now, and I don't see even one radish anywhere!
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Follow the links to a more balanced story.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
This is troubling. One of the most important aspects of being a teacher is being able to tailor instruction based on the unique perspective of the student.
As an example, two students present two WILDLY different interpretations of the same material. It takes a more personalized approach to be able to correctly rationalize the origin of either the miscalculation or the brilliant, new solution. Without taking the time to understand, to really understand, how that persons mind works, you won't be giving them the education they deserve.
Online courses can be a godsend for some, but for most ends up being a frustrating and lacking experience.
I guess it boils down to is, do you want to pay for an education or a piece of paper.
Remember, many online "universities" will gladly sell you a doctorate for the right price. And you need never attend a single class.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
Red alert! Roll out the lawyers! Give'r all she's got! This is AMERICA! We will never stand for someone taking our business model away from us!
Why is it that whenever an incumbent institution is threatened by advancements in technology, the people involved get on the horn to the litigators? GROW UP! Learn how to adapt like big boys and girls.
I think that learning via the Internet is ok; however, obtaining a diploma/degree etc by that method is not.
This just isn't sustainable.
I don't think community colleges are supposed to be self-supporting - they are subsidized by design. They only charge about as much as you can get federal tax credits for; effectively, a community college education is free.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The government wants to replace humans with video tapes, and when the teachers protest, this is somehow viewed as self-interested whining? Why aren't parents up in arms about their kids being supervised by a DVD?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
It's not an American political discussion if conspiracy isn't brought up as a causative factor at least once.
Do you really think rich conservative right wingers want any criticism of capitalism or protection for the poor?
No more than rich "liberal" left wingers want people to learn to think for themselves and no longer accept the word of the "authorities".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
"This isn't a coal mine or dangerous factory job. "
You should really get informed.
http://www.ivorytowerblues.com/
Right now corporations are trying to privatize education to limit political views so they can turn the world into a right wing aristocracy. Universities in Canada and around the world have become more and more dependent on corporate donors and this means freedom of inquiry will be stifled big time. Do you really think rich conservative right wingers want any criticism of capitalism or protection for the poor? There was a big thing at U of T about naming something after Tommy douglas (tommy was father of 'socialist healthcare' in canada which pisses off the corps and right wingers and they still hate him for it) and the administration said 'no' because they were worried about offending the ideals of their donors and the donors denying them future funds. This means universities will become hotbeds of corporatist and unchecked capitalist propaganda and damn the scientific evidence. No thanks.
Are you freaking kidding me?? Academia as a right wing institution. Dude! I really want some of what you're smoking, only not as much as it seems if you smoke too much, you turn stupid!
First, of all, there have been private schools for longer than there have been public ones. They often do a much better job of educating students for less money spent per student. Unfortunately, because they don't receive government funding, it costs the parents more to enroll their kids, meaning only the wealthy can afford it. Of course, those evil right wingers tried to set up a system where poor parents could send their kids to the schools only previously accessible to the rich, but your lefty Democratic brethren shot it down. Why? It would give parents a choice as to where to send their kids, provide competition in the education system and provide a more educated student population. They shot it down because the unions went into a frenzy because they thought it might cost teachers that couldn't compete their jobs. That's right! They shot it down to protect crappy teachers.
So don't give me that crap about "Do you really think rich conservative right wingers want any criticism of capitalism or protection for the poor?". You are lying your ass off when you say that. Let me give you some free advice; If you have to lie to make your point, your point is wrong!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Starving minds in Africa and India aren't going to give two whits about an educators union in California. Services such as MITs Open Courseware and Khan Academy will evolve and dominate the realm of higher education solely because it is not possible for a few thousand people to teach a marketplace that now measures in billions.
They need a union because they're being hired by the government. Policy affects their salary, not profits. If teachers don't stand together, they'll soon find their salaries dependent on which way the political wind blows. You'll find people looking to slash your wages because big government is the enemy. You'll find yourself being told what to teach in your class, because somebody wants to be seen as a culture warrior. If schools were controlled completely locally, it would be one thing. But as it is now, we have state wide, even nation wide decision making, and you need a powerful organization to stand up to it.
as an abused tech sector employee, I can EASILY see the value of unions. in software, we have none. none. and we suffer for it. no, we are not physically wipped and the doors are not locked to keep us in; but there are ways of being a slave beyond the obvious.
at this point, we are slaves and going down, down, down, like the former middle class. we're all going on a race to the bottom and the corp masters laugh all the way. the 1%. you know; the ones that suppress the bad press about them, etc .
we need unions more now than ever. the separation of classes is one reason and the laughter of that 1% is the other obvious one.
woody guthrie's ghost is ashamed of the de-evolution we've had in the last 50 or so years. the corps have had laws built for themselves and the consumer/worker based laws are ignored or over-ridden.
anyone against unions is basically a corp THUG, these days.
or an spoiled child.
or a republican.
(but then, I repeat myself)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I work at a community college in which the union blocked online courses for adjunct professors. It was a total nightmare for the students. Teachers would arbitrarily stop teaching online classes because they felt like it, content was/is pathetic. The really passionate tech-literate professors were hamstrung by the union, not able to teach online classes. It changed at last year's contract negotiation and adjunct are now allowed to teach online. We are in the transition period, but the program now suffers from a severe lack of leadership. So we will see how it goes.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
This adds continued weight to the drive to bring a natural order to higher ed. that they are nothing more than a service provider. Choice rules!
This smells like anti-union astroturf.
The fine post is 131 words long and includes absolutely no links to articles about exactly what's happening. It's just an inflammatory headline and three paragraphs that are extremely short on citations.
And exactly HOW are you enslaved? By being allowed to go to work in leans and being given health plans and 401(k)s? If your job is so bad that you think you're actually a "slave," then find a different job. Even in this economy, there's good work for geeks who've kept themselves up-to-date. Heck, MOVE if you have to.
In California, community colleges are funded primarily from 2 sources. 1 the states general fund and 2 a portion of the states lottery. Outside of that it is up to the school to try and get grants and community outreach programs in order to get additional funds.
What you are talking about is getting a bond measure passed by the communities in the schools district. This requires the school to use its funds to campaign for it and hope it get enough voters in your community to vote yes in order to get it passed. This is RARE. I have worked at a community college in California for 10 years, in that time we have tried twice to get a bond measure passed, neither times was successful. Less the 10% of the colleges here have been able to get one passed.
Try getting a good job by using Khan....No degree No Job.
Don't get me wrong I LOVE Khan Academy. Personally I think its a great idea whos time has come, but until they start handing out degree's, it wont be a replacement for regular schools.
So go start your own company instead of whining how you need a union to protect you. While you are at it, learn capitalization and grammar (this may also have something to due with your "being abused").
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Runaway inflation? What planet are you on? Inflation has been quite low for YEARS now. The only significant price increases have been in fuel and food, both of which are commodities with little labor input. And the size of the unionized workforce in the US is at historic lows.
"A L33T bunch of buttheads demanding regular increases in pay"... I don't think raises in line with increases in labor productivity per dollar of labor input are exactly unreasonable. Certainly their CEO bosses have no problem giving themselves raises for the same thing.
"deserving no more than nice people like you or I." What, are you mad because increased bargaining power enables them to make more money? In exactly the same way that companies negotiate the prices of anything else they buy (or sell) in quantity? And I like regular raises too...
"the cost of their highjacking [sic] industry gets passed on to you or I." I'm not sure how collective bargaining qualifies as "hijacking." Just like employers threaten to close plants if labor costs are too high, why can a union not do the same?
"we pay for the extra poor workmanship of UNION BABIES to get wealthy while we languish under inflation." Yeah, tell that to, say NYC-based ironworkers... unionized, and famous the world over for an incredible work ethic and craftsmanship, all under conditions that would make most people crap in their pants. They earn a lot of money, and deserve every dollar. Tell that to US coal miners, the most productive and safest in the world.
Yes, unions are not perfect. Some of them are unreasonable and produce an environment that drives their employers into bankruptcy, a situation in which nobody wins. Some unions are corrupt, just any collection of entities have some that are not as good as others. But to say that the very idea of workers banding together to put themselves on an equal negotiating plane with their bosses is the root of all evil is going a bit far.
If a tape of someone's performance is available on the Internet, I fail to see why they shouldn't be able to negotiate residual payments with the distributor. Actors get paid every time someone views their performance. Why shouldn't anyone (especially under California's performance-art-oriented laws) negotiate a similar type of contract? Yes, it would mean that professors' lectures wouldn't be viewable for free (unless university wants to broadcast them for free but pay the residuals to the professors anyway). But it's taped performance which is in every sense the same as any other taped performance.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
"They often do a much better job of educating students for less money spent per student."
Only if you think corporations and their think tanks would have NO grounds to fudge their 'studies' to have them say what they want to clueless people who lack critical thinking to believe. They wouldn't do things like oh I don't know, fudge science for political gain or screw up the economy and then socialize losses on the backs of the taxpayer right?
Grayson grilling the fed about secret (at the time) trillion dollar bailouts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ
More info here about corporate corruption:
http://www.dailybail.com/
Excuse me. In my socialistic frenzy, I have made a typo in the above rant. In the third paragraph, the salary of the hedgefund manager is NOT "eight figures to the right of the decimal point" and should read "eight figures to the LEFT of the decimal point".
See, I only took online classes in math and I never had to suffer a professor handing me back a paper covered in red marks because of my inability and unwillingness to proof-read.
"Proofread"? Why the fuck would I have to "proofread" if I go to the University of YouTube to get my associate's degree in being underemployed?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Unions are what is wrong with this country.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
As of the need for union protection - our district is very political and we were not unionized for the first 16 years. The problem became one of politics. If you offended the politicians voted onto the school board you could be fired. (If you think that this makes the instructor "responsive" to local needs, think of the implications of passing some arbitrary litmus test. Board members have 6 year terms, so they once they are in, they don't have to worry for several years.)
Other reasons that became significant were the fact that great gobs of money at the time (state seed funds) would have some instructors "displaced" to make way for patronage/connected "instructors". The students are the ones to suffer by bad instruction, with people like those frequenting this site bashing all organized education because they think they didn't learn a thing. Before you blame the instructor, think of who hired the instructor. What are their motivations? Sad but true.
I am in favor of on-line course-ware. Anytime you can replace a person with a DVD you should do it. They are obviously not bringing much to the classroom. The problem in our department is that the material (computer science topics) change so quickly that we can barely keep up. And if you have priced how much publishers charge for "fresh" course-ware it becomes uneconomical to deliver. We look for and hire the best part time instructors we can find. They are up-to-date and know what they are talking about. I know because I eavesdrop on student conversations. Good instructors fill in the gaps of what, how, and why, making the learning experience worthwhile. The learning experience needs to be targeted to the needs and capabilities of the student, and current on-line systems just don't do it.
We have been pushing for a hybrid of video/on-line course ware along with well mentored labs, but we need to find qualified tutors willing to work for almost nothing (no $$). Good luck with that one.
Disclaimer: I am a community college instructor and a union member.
----------
Any problem can be made unsolvable if there are enough meetings made to discuss it.
Fats not a disclaimer, fats a disclosure. Loin the difference.
as an abused tech sector employee, I can EASILY see the value of unions. in software, we have none. none. and we suffer for it. no, we are not physically wipped and the doors are not locked to keep us in; but there are ways of being a slave beyond the obvious.
Easy solution. Keep your skills sharp, and find another job, or better yet, start your own company. Then you're the boss. I honestly don't know anyone who has the problems the way you describe. Generally their pay justifies their 'slavery'.
It's still a choice for an educated person like you.
Right.. because unions are so very handy.
I mean airlines that can't cut costs because they can't cut positions or pay. Auto companies that deliver poorly built cars, which would be fine if you paid for them as if they were poorly built but that wasn't the case. Look where that went. Couriers that pay pretty ridiculous money to menial workers and not surprisingly never get around to modernizing facilities that really need it. And.. teachers unions that don't want you to take lectures online, like it'll make students better to be one of 200 in a giant lecture hall instead of one of 500 online.
There are plenty of problems with corporations. Union organization solves about ....... none of those problems. Or at least create as many problems as they solve. Net gain: if unions cost nothing, then they'd break even. But they don't cost nothing. Thanks unions.
We liberals can always count on Californians to make us look bad. Whining about inclusiveness, trying to ban dodgeball, prioritizing animals over people . . . James Carville needs to set these hippies straight - it's the economy, stupid!
At least the New Yorkers are doing something right.
The funny thing is it doesn't matter whether their lectures are online or not. Khan Academy will eventually cover their material. Furthermore, people don't pay to go to college to be educated, they pay for credentialing. Anyone with the drive to learn and a fraction of the resources required to go to college can learn just about anything these days. It just doesn't do any good because no certificate comes from it. So the unions have nothing to whine about - they'd be much better off trying to put an end to diploma mills because those are a real threat to their business. They hand out credentials without requiring half the effort or cost of a traditional university.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
"Are you freaking kidding me?? Academia as a right wing institution. Dude! I really want some of what you're smoking, only not as much as it seems if you smoke too much, you turn stupid!"
This is proof you are a child of american media, you're spouting corporate talking points that have been drilled into your head since you were born. The university is the last bastion of a very weak left and right wingers know it they want to silence the left and put it down for the count while it is weak by controlling funding. Social spending has been declining while corporate welfare has been increasing over time (if you don't believe this just look at tax policy). If you look at ACTUAL POLICY you can only see "right wing" all the way through over the last 30 years, to say there is a strong left especially in america is to live in propaganda never never land.
All policies over the last 30 years in Canada for instance are totally right wing policies. To say academia is a "hotbed of hardcore leftism" is nonsensical corporate bullshit. The left lost a lot of confidence after the fall of russia and many young kids don't believe in 'left/right' pseudo garbage most older americans and canadians have been raised on because they know it's fake BS and there is only the right corporate parties governing and the elections are just there for theater to give the public the illusion that they are making meaningful choices.
All governments in US and Canada are right wing conservative (liberals in canada are conservative, a corporate party that is has been propagandized as a fake left), in the US there IS NO LEFT AT ALL in politics. Democrats and repubs are just subsidiaries of wallstreet and you have election theater. The fact that americans can think anything the democrats can do to help the poor or the needy is socialism is proof of how far gone americans really are down the shit-hole of propaganda.
The fact that you believe you even have a left in america is just proof of how successful corporate propaganda campaigns have been to get you to believe that nonsense.
See this interview with Nader here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdAtGV6hVCk
I take it you don't have a degree from a quality institution of higher learning. I got a degree from one of the top public colleges in the US, and I definitely wouldn't care to trade that education for the Khan Academy education, even if you threw in a new automobile.
A college degree is more than just the book learning, it's the connections and the insights that come from going to class and interacting with the students. It gives one access to ideas that aren't necessarily going to come via the internet. A 3 second thought that you probably wouldn't log into the website for can easily lead to things of great significance later on. Or not, but you have to be in it to win it.
I am for this if it's free. I'm just against them charging money for this crap.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
"Of course, those evil right wingers tried to set up a system where poor parents could send their kids to the schools only previously accessible to the rich, but your lefty Democratic brethren shot it down."
Not true. There was a school voucher system, remember? Only as it turned out, the reality was that the vouchers were not enough for middle-and-low income people to send their children to private school. So the only people who actually got any advantage out of the voucher system were the parents who could (or could almost) afford to send their children to private school anyway.
I agree that the other poster is way off base about "right-wing" takeover of academia. But the reality of the voucher system was as I described. It might have been well-intended, but it ended up being nothing but a giveaway to the already well-to-do.
I don't like unions for 2 basic reasons:
I don't like being told I need to pay some organization to have a job.
And I don't like the idea that my dues money would go to fund politicians that I may not support.
Unions are no better than corporations at this point. What's a union head's salary? 6 figures easy I'm betting.
If YOU can't get and keep a job because you don't have the talent, that's YOUR problem.
This is simply the wrong way to think about it. We, the human race, with online courses, will now be able to be more efficient with our use of manpower. I don't mean to diminish the role of those who enjoy lecturing, but instead of lecturing, those people can now spend even more time diving into their field of study accomplishing good things.
I mean airlines that can't cut costs because they can't cut positions or pay.
So, basically you are saying that unions are bad for keeping pay and benefits for employees, while all the other dumb-asses who aren't unionized are getting the shaft from their employers, in the form of increased hours, reduced pay, and reduced benefits, making it increasingly difficult to get by since the price of air travel, automobiles, etc. are increasing. I believe that's called ... sour grapes.
Furthermore, one is left to conclude, from the absence in your post of any mention of the wealthy paying so much as an infinitesimal increase in taxes or raising wages, that the solution to our financial woes is to deprive the small fraction of workers who are unionized of whatever benefits they gain from unionization. You sir, are an ass.
Means I get to read elsewhere and find a *real* story that isn't Koch brothers propaganda.
Adults take care of themselves. Children need someone else to take care of them. We are becoming a society of sniveling children.
Come to think of it, that obligation to educate applies to all teachers, whether the student's tuition is paid by them or by the public school system.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Tech schools is the middle ground to build off but cut it down to 2-3 years with a mix of the OJT and trades for parts of tech work. Lot's 4 year CS people end up not knowing much about big parts of the tech field.
In California, community colleges are funded primarily from 2 sources. 1 the states general fund and 2 a portion of the states lottery. Outside of that it is up to the school to try and get grants and community outreach programs in order to get additional funds.
The saddest thing about this truth is that when the lottery was first proposed in California many years ago, it was sold as a way to give schools MORE money than they were already getting. Then of course, slowly over the years, politicians kept stealing the original funds the schools had because the lottery income would cover the difference. Eventually much of the original funding was redirected to other things and now we couldn't get rid of the lottery without decimating school budgets. So much for the "extra" benefit to our schools.
You need a new job then. Or a different attitude. If you think you need to kill yourself for the 1% then you probably care way too much about money. The reason jobs that require intelligence don't need unions is because companies can not just pick another monkey from the zoo to replace you. You have to set the limits for how much you are willing to work and adjust your salary expectations accordingly. I have a mortgage and can pay all of my bills working about 20 hours a week and that's about as much as I work for pay. I'm also student teaching full time. Once that's over in about 8 weeks I'll be able to work full time for actual pay and have twice as much money as I need every month.
I worked in a small company once with basically me and one other developer. I "unionized" and said "no new bugs for one month" The boss went along with it (didn't have much of a choice, but we sold him on the idea anyway). We spent the entire month cleaning up code and fixing existing bugs. A month later the boss set up a bunch of requirements with a nice bonus if we made the deadline. We made the deadline. We got our way, he got his way. Everyone wins. Having a clean codebase allowed us to do much more work in less time. He just had to leave us alone for one month.
The first step to having a nice work environment is to talk with employees to figure out what "reasonable" is. You can then talk to the boss. As soon as you start threatening "unionization" you're just assuming he's a jerk when that may not be the case.
Work Safe Porn
A professor as a proponent of online teaching
Introduction to Databases: Screenside Chat #1
And then you can use that power to selfishly hold on to your job despite the fact that technology has passed you by and made you irrelevant, and the world is a better place without you and your subsidized jobs.
Sounds great! Sign me up!
And they are immune due to their education and position? BS on that. I've had classes that could better be taught by a talking donkey. Sorry, you folks get the same bums rush we all do when technology hits us over the head. How much sympathy do teacher's unions typically have for auto workers or airline pilots when they strike? What goes around comes around.
Organization? You must be joking..
So go start your own company
Promise that my former employer won't go running and whining to mommy government about anti-capitalist pap like "patents" and "trade secrets" when I walk out the door and start competing against them? No? Well.
On weekends, I "work" (stage tech is also my hobby, so I don't like calling it actual work) as a lighting technician in a local theater. I'm not actually allowed to hang my own lights, because that's a union carpenter's job. I can't plug them in, because that's a union electrician's job. I can't touch any set pieces, because that's a union stage hand's job.
This would be just fine, if the union carpenters were there more than once a week (on Thursdays, when I'm not there), or if the electricians were there after the carpenters (on Tuesdays, before the lights are hung), or if the stage hands were there for anything other than performances (which is really a bad time to be changing the lighting, anyway).
Instead, the technicians put in change requests on weekends, and wait two weeks for the lights to be hung and plugged in. The carpenters have to do their work on lifts and ladders, because the stage hands won't move set pieces out of the way for lights to be lowered to the stage. I pointed out to the unions how horribly inefficient this is, and I was promptly told that I really shouldn't be stirring up trouble and I should accept that the unions are doing what's best for everybody.
As someone who doesn't blindly accept the union doctrine, I can easily see how useless unions are in practice.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Right now governments are trying to standardize education to limit political views so they can turn the world into a left wing demagogy. Universities in USA and around the world have become more and more dependent on public funds and this means freedom of inquiry will be stifled big time. Do you really think rich populists left wingers want any criticism of communism or protection for the poor? ... This means universities will become hotbeds of communist demagogs and unchecked socialism propaganda and damn the scientific evidence. No thanks.
unfinished: (adj.)
I've got a better idea for him. Become a business owner. Then he'll be making money hand over fist. It's easy...at least he probably assumes it is.
Government employees need unions because some politicians are slimeballs. My father worked as a firefighter for 25 years, and typically they had to sue the city nearly every year over some slimeball thing that the mayor was trying to do to the fire dept. The best was the year that the city tried to not pay them for 2 weeks work because the city finance manager had "forgotten" there were 27 pay periods that year instead of the usual 26... happens about every 12 years.
When corporations can go to the fed and get trillions in bailout money you've shown yourself politically and historically ignorant, whens the last time a union has been able to make a trillion dollar request from the fed? Oh that's right NEVER. You americans really are politically and historically ignorant.
Watch as Grayson grills the inspector general of the federal reserve:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ
More on private sector corruption and incompetence here
http://www.dailybail.com/
The truth is unregulated markets failed big time and with the government under the thumb of the bankers and the incompetence and political and historical illiteracy of the american public there isn't much hope of ousting corruption in high places and you're just more evidence of the success of the corporate propaganda machine.
See this interview with Nader here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdAtGV6hVCk
How is it that whenever an organization chooses to "innovate out of a crisis" it never results in creation of more jobs? The phrase seems to be the new feel-good expression for "restructuring" or layoffs. Why can't they just call it what it is and say they are looking to release some employees to reduce costs?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"They often do a much better job of educating students for less money spent per student."
Only if you think corporations and their think tanks would have NO grounds to fudge their 'studies' to have them say what they want to clueless people who lack critical thinking to believe. They wouldn't do things like oh I don't know, fudge science for political gain or screw up the economy and then socialize losses on the backs of the taxpayer right?
Grayson grilling the fed about secret (at the time) trillion dollar bailouts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ
More info here about corporate corruption:
http://www.dailybail.com/
We're talking about schools you unemployed loser! "Corporate" Schools can't fudge college acceptance, entrance exams and college graduation rates.
I understand you hate people who have jobs and make money and all, but please, try to stay on topic. I wouldn't call a small Catholic private school with a maximum of 200 students total a corporate entity with their very own think tank.
So, as for you entire post... it's Off Topic so there is no point in responding to any points.
I do have to ask one thing though, Mr. Antiestablishmentarian. I assume you posted your opinion using a computer with hundreds of parts. Can you name a single one of those parts that was NOT made by a corporation? Also, you do realize the website you are enjoying here is owned by a corporation, right? Maybe you should spend a few days living without stuff made by corporations before you hate on this so much. Maybe then you'll realize how much of a jackass you have just made of yourself.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
...do; those who can't, teach. No wonder worthless teachers unions are agitating against this.
And how much do you make? If you are not making over $80k, move! And if you are making over $80k, the WTH are you complaining about?
If you need a union to negotiate for you when most of the people in your field are making over $100k, you probably are not exactly a star programmer, and you don't deserve any more than you are paid.
If you ask me, you sound more like a spoiled child than folks who can negotiate for themselves based on the value of their work.
This is proof you are a child of american media, you're spouting corporate talking points that have been drilled into your head since you were born.
No, I have a fucking job and I pay bills so I can have nice stuff. You do know your computer was made a whole bunch of corporations, right? Why are you using one? Why did you feed the corporate machines buy buying one? Hypocrite?
All governments in US and Canada are right wing conservative (liberals in canada are conservative, a corporate party that is has been propagandized as a fake left), in the US there IS NO LEFT AT ALL in politics.
Wait... did you just call Canada "right wing"? I'm curious, which countries in the world are NOT right wing? I want to know what you call "middle of the road".
Oh, and Ralph Nader is left of Mao, so using him as an source is moronic. Yeah, if Nader is your starting point, then sure, everyone is a right winger. But think about something for me here. If someone is middle of the road, then there will be people far to the right of him and far to the left of him. That's what being in the middle means. Can you name someone who is far to the left of Nader? I really want to know who that person is.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I think our education system is about as outdated as our health care system. They are just asking to be upset & revolutionized by technology. Where are the startup online upper education facilities? Costs of education are rising every day, why not capture some of that revenue? What is the internet better @ than distributing information? Frankly - why aren't the textbooks etc open source & only the tutoring requiring a cost (if you happen to be someone that needs it)? Fair warning - I'm a drop out with a six figure salary. I've had lots of people work for me & a degree doesn't even begin to represent a good employee. In other words, I don't put much value in a degree anyway, so maybe it's time to create something more representative of someone's talent/potential.
Nebraska has a gult of tech jobs.
Not true. There was a school voucher system, remember? Only as it turned out, the reality was that the vouchers were not enough for middle-and-low income people to send their children to private school. So the only people who actually got any advantage out of the voucher system were the parents who could (or could almost) afford to send their children to private school anyway.
Actually, there have been several school voucher systems, but never one at a national level. From the Wiki Page:
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pushed for vouchers, as did the George W. Bush administration in the initial education-reform proposals leading up to the No Child Left Behind Act. This year, it is estimated that nearly 171,000 students will participate in 18 existing school choice programs in 10 states and the District of Columbia. Most of these programs are offered to students in low-income families, low performing schools, or special-education programs.
And, as I understood it, the national program was only to be available to students who were already attending a "failing" school. Rich kids don't go to failing schools.
However, you are correct that most of the time, a voucher will not pay the entire tuition for a student to attend a private school. Then again, many times, it does. Even with a voucher system, the poor and even the middle class will not be able to send their kids to the best prep-schools in the nation. They will have to find one within the voucher's budget.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
They are only acting in self interest - against the interests of the public and children, as they always have. This is just a little more obvious.
This is the same organization that turtles up and protects a teacher when there's evidence of abuse. I guess there's a need for advocacy, but the lines are drawn a little too clearly for me.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Unions belong in the 19th and 20th centuries. Everything they fought for simply doesn't exist anymore. They are absolutely a horrible idea in government, are in conflict of interest to the general public and have unsustainable pensions as well. Private sector unions are fine, if they can stay afloat but government unions a completely horrible.
Unions are all about redistribution of wealth...stealing from non-umion workers.
I'm so happy that private sector unions are going extinct; they prove the very concept of unionism is not fiscally sustainable. They only thing keeping government unions alive is the fact they did deeper and deeper into tax payer's pockets, steal from them, steal from their children and their children's children as well.
Union people are for themselves, are totally selfish and don't care who they steal money from.
Unions have their place. It is to ensure a fair working environment and fair compensation. Their place is not to preserve obsolete modes of operation, which is a question that can be resolved at the level of the individual. If the individual teacher doesn't want his job to become obsolete, then prove that automated online instruction is not a replacement for his skill. The fact is that an online education from a good teacher is often a lot better than the education a student would get from a weak teacher.
Are you freaking kidding me?? Academia as a right wing institution. Dude! I really want some of what you're smoking, only not as much as it seems if you smoke too much, you turn stupid!
Liberty University, Grove City College..The list goes on. The most conservative colleges in America are thoroughly right-wing and already state colleges like University of Florida have right-wing funded professors who have a job because of a corporate fund.
First, of all, there have been private schools for longer than there have been public ones.
So has slaves, ships, people, the sun....The list goes on and on. What kind of point are you trying to make?
They often do a much better job of educating students for less money spent per student. Unfortunately, because they don't receive government funding, it costs the parents more to enroll their kids, meaning only the wealthy can afford it.
I nearly choked on that one. The average cost of attendance for a public university is still around 6-8K a year for tuition. Private is now over 20K. I've seen the funding reports for public universities. If we factor in what the state gives it comes to about 13-14K a year. You're nearly $6,000 shy of the mark. I suggest you rewrite what you're talking about since you clearly don't know. Also in most cases barring the ivy leagues state universities are better in most areas of Science and liberal arts. So your argument is without merit.
Of course, those evil right wingers tried to set up a system where poor parents could send their kids to the schools only previously accessible to the rich, but your lefty Democratic brethren shot it down. Why? It would give parents a choice as to where to send their kids, provide competition in the education system and provide a more educated student population. They shot it down because the unions went into a frenzy because they thought it might cost teachers that couldn't compete their jobs. That's right! They shot it down to protect crappy teachers.
So don't give me that crap about "Do you really think rich conservative right wingers want any criticism of capitalism or protection for the poor?". You are lying your ass off when you say that. Let me give you some free advice; If you have to lie to make your point, your point is wrong!
Are you seriously talking about the voucher programs for public schooling in K-12? What they found was this was an idea dreamed up by wealthy suburban families that already paid for private school and still paid house taxes or some form of school tax. Essentially they wanted to be able to get their money out of the system without making it seem greedy. If anything with the voucher system we would see private schools raise their rates to keep poor students out and only allow in the moderately less wealthy who could afford the tuition anyways. Most states would be handing out 3-5K checks and barring again the small focused private charters who tend to get students who's parents are more involved this system would peter out in less than a decade and most of the poorest students would be back in public schools that were even less funded. The reality is teachers take a hit to work in academia whether it is K-12 or Post-graduate. They make less with more education and capability than their private sector counterpart and the only reward is a pension which is once measured actually smaller than the reward for private sector pay bonus. So who is really cheating who in this equation?
anyone against unions is basically a corp THUG, these days.
I disagree. I was working in a unionised environment when the price of housing virtually tripled. When the largest expense most people have became that much more expensive and wages didn't increase even close to proportionally I realised that unions are just not going to protect us. I hear most unions are much weaker in the US, but here in Australia unions are just another layer of management, run as a separate business. That's not to say there's no benefits but not worth it for me.
I've taken the path of (i) learning to be as good a negotiator as I can (ii) working for a small business so if the boss rips me off he has to look me in the eye and (iii) purchase of my own equipment and tools so I can charge a higher rate. Right now this is working significantly better for me than unionisation was. If my workplace became unionised I would leave.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Not necessarily property taxes; in California the community college funding is determined by a formula that doles out a portion of the yearly state government budget to schools, plus some property taxes, plus some lottery profits, plus whatever other funding sources there are.
The important question, though, is whether the subsidized education with a nominal fee actually does result in people gaining job skills. Apparently, there's evidence that job training programs don't work: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904332804576538361788872004.html
I stand corrected. My memory apparently failed me on that one.
Being a teacher means that you have to teach all the kids, not just the 5-10% that will learn even if you suspend them over an alligator pit and hand them a textbook. It also means that you have to teach the kids that didnt have breakfast today, the kids that are distracted by family situations, the kids that have some kind of learning disability and the kids that think that the best part of school is when it ends. Online courses are fine, but theyre not for everyone and for everything. Another thing to consider is that just digitizing a textbook and adding a few video lectures doesnt mean that its a GOOD online course. Khan Academy is great stuff, short snippets with limited scope, but its not a panacea.
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
I graduated with my BS in Electrical Engineering in 2009. I had to take a couple of online classes, and they were absolute garbage. For all the educational value you get from taking an online class, you may as well just buy the textbook and learn it on your own.
Union exist to protect and advance the interests of their members. Why shouldn't university lecturers or public servents organise to get more or better of this or that? You can be damn sure that employers (and that includes the government) are constantly looking to find ways to get more out of workers for less money. Just as skilled workers can demand more money and better conditions because they have educated themselves and therefore have rarer skills and more bargianing power, unionised workers can demand more because they have organised themselves and therefore have more bargaining power.
Adults look after the weak, that's one of the things that makes us human.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Right now corporations are trying to privatize education to limit political views so they can turn the world into a right wing aristocracy.
It's pretty cunning how you provided no evidence for your assertion above whatsoever. Our corporate masters can't shut you down without revealing their hand!
I sympathize with teachers, but there isn't a post-o-facto negotiation available in their union contracts. Hopefully going forward they will make allowances for teachers to be paid based on views of their course or for them to receive a share of the ad revenues.
But fuck the union, seriously. This is why we suck at teaching kids how to read up to the 6th grade level in high school.
The fucking union slogan should be: "If you don't want to do things the right way, don't do them at all..." No I don't care about the disparity in pay, or any of the other fucked up scenarios. This right here needs to get fixed, then we can start talking about pay. If you (teachers union members) must maintain this stupidity, I refuse to sympathize with your legitimate concerns.
I watched you get trained every year on decades old teaching techniques that would have helped improve student involvement, then I watched those in your ranks fail to adopt them en masse, and fall right back into old habits two months into the school year. Complaining the whole time, and only putting half your heart into the measures because "Nobody knows how to teach *my* kids better than me." Then when *your* kids fail, it's because of *their* parents not giving a damn.
Their parents blame you, and the kid who's too busy spending 12 hours a day in front of facebook and smoking copious amounts of various substances to cope with the fact that nobody believes in them (not even enough to blame them for fucking off with their schoolwork) never learns a damn thing. They get put in remedial reading so they can learn to read at the 4th grade level in their senior year of highschool.
And the teachers are so disaffected by this cycle they don't even fucking try, and they claim that the 40 kids in a class are too many, well fuck it would be if they had to teach something other than "A,B,C,or D" We don't try, we don't make the teachers try, and we don't make the kids try. It's a big fucking circle jerk and we're fucking our future by perpetuating this nonsense.
The real problem here as I see it is that there is not enough money in the budget so a method was deliberately chosen that requires less staff. Any educational considerations are secondary. That's a very simple situation but for some reason a lot of posters here are using it as an excuse to rabidly foam at the mouth about unions.
It's really got very little to do with unions despite the complaint coming from a union. Since so many people here do not appear to be able to get away from the concept of unions being an evil "other" that has no connection with themselves it looks like I'll have to forceably make them see themselves in the situation: how would you feel if you were replaced with a buggy shell script that doesn't quite do the job? You'd be pissed off wouldn't you? Well an online version of "don't bother me, go read the textbook" is the same sort of thing.
I've never been to California but I've still heard a lot about how they can't balance a budget, it makes international news. When they were seriously blaming problems in a budget of billions on a couple of hundred prison officers demanding a wage rise it made me think the legislators could pay that pittance by cutting back on their drug habits.
Progressivism: it's not about progress.
What the fuck are you on about? Are you just making shit up out of your ass for to be annoying?
The fact that you are AC'ing and complaining about stuff that maybe 2 people a year have to worry about tells me that you don't have enough skills to worry about this.
And people say tea baggers are bad? Well, they are, too. Both sides are idiots.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Liberty University, Grove City College..The list goes on. The most conservative colleges in America are thoroughly right-wing and already state colleges like University of Florida have right-wing funded professors who have a job because of a corporate fund.
Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Chicago, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor!
Give me a break!
I nearly choked on that one. The average cost of attendance for a public university is still around 6-8K a year for tuition. Private is now over 20K. I've seen the funding reports for public universities. If we factor in what the state gives it comes to about 13-14K a year. You're nearly $6,000 shy of the mark. I suggest you rewrite what you're talking about since you clearly don't know. Also in most cases barring the ivy leagues state universities are better in most areas of Science and liberal arts. So your argument is without merit.
I'm talking about public schools, not public universities.
Are you seriously talking about the voucher programs for public schooling in K-12? What they found was this was an idea dreamed up by wealthy suburban families that already paid for private school and still paid house taxes or some form of school tax.
Yes I am. Do you seriously believe all the bullshit the unions fed you to protect their jobs? Here, from the Wiki page:
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pushed for vouchers, as did the George W. Bush administration in the initial education-reform proposals leading up to the No Child Left Behind Act. This year, it is estimated that nearly 171,000 students will participate in 18 existing school choice programs in 10 states and the District of Columbia. Most of these programs are offered to students in low-income families, low performing schools, or special-education programs.
So, you feel it's more important that a teacher, who is NOT teaching kids, to protect his/her job than it is to give a lower income child a chance at making it out of the lower income bracket? Or do you just want YOUR people poor, ignorant, gullible and dependent.
They make less with more education and capability than their private sector counterpart and the only reward is a pension which is once measured actually smaller than the reward for private sector pay bonus. So who is really cheating who in this equation?
I know the truth. See, I was a teacher. My wife is still a teacher. Sure, she doesn't make as much as others with Masters Degrees, but most people don't make what she makes for working 6 hrs a day, three days a week either. Teachers complain about making $40,000 for their masters degree job, and then take a really nice, three month vacation every year. They get every holiday and every weekend off. They get a nice benefit package that includes health insurance and a retirement package. If teachers were treated so badly, no one would become teachers, yet new, hopefuls graduate with education degrees every single day.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
There are multiple holes in your logic, but if your response to a calm, rational post with which you disagree is a pile of ad hominem insults and unsupported assertions, I'm done, because you clearly won't read it or bother trying to understand what I'm saying.
Have a nice day.
I mean airlines that can't cut costs because they can't cut positions or pay.
So, basically you are saying that unions are bad for keeping pay and benefits for employees, while all the other dumb-asses who aren't unionized are getting the shaft from their employers, in the form of increased hours, reduced pay, and reduced benefits, making it increasingly difficult to get by since the price of air travel, automobiles, etc. are increasing. I believe that's called ... sour grapes.
When someone is hired, they are not guaranteed a job for life nor are they guaranteed the benefits to remain the same for their lives. At the same time, jobs aren't guaranteed to be able to keep an employee for life. Lots of jobs help pay for college or training only to see the employee leave once they have that degree or training.
The idea that if a job is created, the company has to keep it forever (or is considered greedy) is amazing to me. No wonder employers would rather pay overtime than hire another employee.
The Federal Board of Education would demand trillions of dollars in one lump sum...
...if that strategy wasn't wholly inferior to the annual installment plan that they currently have, which reached a high of $138 billion/year in 2009...
"His name was James Damore."
I did not full appreciate this aspect of the academic credential (it also applies, all though less so, to the bachelors degree) until I was probably 45 years old.(having been a get things done person in other ways). Some coworkers and I were discussing various "certification" and "credential" aspects of the typical HR resume screening process, and it first came up in the context of why do Eagle Scouts get held in high regard. It's not like in most jobs you'll need to utilize any of the skills demonstrated in your merit badge campaign. Nope.. it's a "he got things done" ticket.
Face-to-face teaching methods are obsolete. Being taught by a barely proficient person face to face builds self-worth but...
Give me Ms Expert's good web based seminar over 1 to 1 with Ms average any day.
We're humans, not ants.
China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam, USSR + satellites, Cambodia, etc. All were economic basket cases, except where capitalism existed underneath the communist system in order to prop up an economy. China is a perfect example, and Vietnam was a basket case until they started allowing private enterprise. Even the USSR was propped-up by a quasi-capitalist system of trading between factories.
Given history, the next person who says "We'll get communism right THIS TIME" and actually tries will have a minimum body count of ten million.
Wow. I personally consider our school system to be little more than prisons for the little monsters, but when was the last time you watched a video tape?
Supervised by a DVD? The guards, oh I mean educators do a much better job.
Picture a world where you don't have to listen to your guard (err, teacher...) drone on and on about a subject you can google...
With respect to shorter working hours as the sweet reward for automation and improved productivity, didn't it used to be that loafing was supposed to be one of the rewards of being on top? The stereotype of the doctor taking a day off mid-week to go golfing, of the CEO with a putting practice setup in an expansive office with no visible signs of any work being done on any desktop? The peons had to put in long, long hours, but as you rose in the chain, you delegated all the work and kind of sat back with your feet up on the desk?
It seems this started with Reagan, not with Mr. Reagan himself who was reputed to practice low-impact work practices and delegate all the work to his minions, but with Successful People. The standard seemed to change to "if the underlings are working 12 hours, the boss would work 16 hours to show he was Braveheart of the Business World."
Instead of loafing being the status symbol, the folks on top seemed to go to great lengths to boast of how hard they worked and how many hours they put in. Again, to use the Braveheart metaphor, instead of staying back at the castle, the head dude was supposed to be at the front of the column of soldiers.
What changed?
Unions fighting to keep featherbedding in place and prices high. Just another reason that unions have far outlived their usefulness.
Spoken like a true conservative, with such a simple mind that every issue is clearly black and white. What about the good things unions do? I suppose you'd like your job conditions to more closely resemble those in a sweatshop from the early 20th century? I'd be the first to agree that teachers' unions are the biggest problem facing our educational system, but claiming the only possible reform is to eliminate them is simply anti-worker, tea party skulduggery.
College, especially online courses, has its value determined almost exclusively by the effort that the student puts into it.
We've see living proof that you can go to an ivy league school and leave a moron, and I'm sure we've all met folks who had limited community college experience and we brilliant.
I had some online classes in my BS, and I'm likely going to go for my masters entirely online (looking at Western Goveners University at the moment). And in my experience, you could put in virtually no effort, and pass. But you would finish the class a couple grand in debt and no smarter than you started. Alternatively, you could throw yourself into the class and really challenge yourself (because the teachers/profs sure as hell aren't going to) and you'll come out with knowledge of far more value than the debt.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
"Oh, and Ralph Nader is left of Mao"
If you believe that nonsense you really are ignorant. Ralph has been inside the system he knows how it works, to say he's left of Mao is a bunch of nonsensical crap the man most certainly believes in free-markets what he doesn't believe in is the abuse of power and the concentration of wealth and privilege.
Like I said you are absolute proof of how well the corporate media has gotten you. They've framed the whole thing your entire life as anyone who criticizes the system as "left", a "communist", a dirty "socialist". These are all corporate talking points. Corporations know that your mind doesn't work like a rational machine. I can tell you the facts and the figures and you still wouldn't believe me. It is science.
In the past 40 years we're learning things about the brain that go against what we've assumed about human reasoning and how it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
I always prefer science and analysis to ideology but even I can see with the bailouts the abuse of power is excessive.
How do you square what you believe with trillion dollars in bailouts to corporations and CEO's?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ
http://www.dailybail.com/
I don't in general support unions, but to say white collar workers would never need them is incorrect. What I have seen go on for the past few years is lots of layoffs, and then others picking up the slack. More work, and the same pay. This is especially pronounced when you used to have 6 guys available to be on-call, and now you have two, so instead of getting waken up once a week, you are now almost never unplugged. Working 50-60 hours a week, and being on-call for another 50, its not necessarily enough to spur unionization, but its a good way to get something like that started.
From my experience online courses produce somewhat mixed results. Some courses are well written while I've seen others that looked like someone with a text book and a few google searches threw it together. Another bigger issue with online courses is that each student is unique so some students may learn a lot very quickly through the course because the way it's written suits them while others will be completely lost. The online course cannot dynamically change to suit each student nor can clarification of information and questions be done quickly. In a class with a good teacher the teaching will be adjusted to best suit the students and clarification can be had almost immediatly. Also when a teacher clarifies something for a student it doesn't only help that student, but also others who had the same question or misinterpreted the information.
As a forty-something, allow me to say, you exhibit a profound lack of understanding of economics. And you appear to be unstable as well.
Who says unions are only needed when 'physical' health is on the line? There is also mental health, fiscal health, fair wages, fair treatment, fair hours... etc.
By taking a job / career, you are usually of the understanding that what you're being paid when you get there likely won't change much, or will increase over time. Without unions, what is to stop the government from dropping pay for these positions? Sure, sometimes it's necessary to drop pay. However, just for argument's sake, let's say it isn't necessary. The budget is balanced, but the current governor decides that these Cops/firefighters are making too much. Should the cops and firefighters have no protections? Fact is, unions protect workers and get the workers what they feel they deserve. Especially when the rules obtaining to the employees affects a large group of people.
If machines do all our work for us, then how to we earn money?
The standard "more useful application of your talents" answer doesn't work due to the smartest cow problem (it only takes one cow to figure out how to open the gate, in order for all the cows to walk through it). There isn't much demand for engineering or research type work when it only takes one engineer to invent\discover something that everyone else can then use. There are only so many openings for such positiions, and having a high supply of applicants doesn't automatically create more openings.
The rest of the work...the kind of stuff that isn't so much creativity based and is more mechanical in nature...that stuff can all be automated by the machines created by the handful of engineers who actually found jobs.
A labor-free society isn't altogether compatible with capitalistic values.
You need to add a few more things to your list.
The number one reason someone might be against unions: they're a member of a union.
The number two reason someone might be against unions: they know someone who is a member of a union, and that person tells them anecdotes about unions' complete ineffectiveness in doing what it supposedly exists for (yet the dues and inflexibility remain), and the office is filled by loads of people who don't give a shit about their jobs and just make things harder for the people who do, so the person goes through stress and heartbreak until they finally solve the problem with the magic words "I don't care anymore," and then become part of the systematic problem for the next newbie.
Some others (not sure exactly where they fit in the list, maybe some of them come after the reasons you gave): they don't want to take a pay cut. They don't want to become unemployed. They're too proud. They think that if unions were a good idea, then people would voluntarily join them instead of being required to join by The Man as a condition for getting a certain job. They don't want to provide negotiating power to organized crime. They don't see a strong relationship between the services provided by the unions and all the dues collected. There's a strange lack of competition among unions to see which one can do the best job of providing what workers need.
I am not a republican. I am not a thug. I may be a spoiled child, but if I am one, then I'd like to remain one.
For all your talk about thugs, get out there and talk to some actual white-collar union members and you will learn one simple thing: nobody, I mean nobody (not even employers), even comes even close to hating unions as much as union members.
You were indoctrinated in government run schools and look what happened. They brainwashed your dumb ass
Who are the top benefactors of "wall street"?
Barack Obama - record shattering donations
Chuck Schumer
Harry Reid
Barny Frank
Nancy Pelosi
Chris Dodd
^ all Democrats you stupid fuck
Isn't this called homeschooling? Learning from lectures on tape has been going on for some 20 years now. Started in the early nineties on VHS. My sister did her entire high school education on VHS. Worked for a lot of people I know.
However, I am ADHD and it did not work for me. I find lectures complete worthless and find I can read the book in a 1/4 of the time. The majority of time I find the PHD who wrote the book explains it better than a mediocre teacher giving a lecture.
Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Chicago, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor!
Give me a break!
Are those meant to represent extremely liberal campuses? I could guarantee you every one of those campuses has conservative teachers and students on them. The problem you would face is that in the face of a vastly educated force, probably the smartest on the planet, why are you conservative then? Most of the hires in the economics department aren't Austrians, they don't support the bigotry involved in gay marriage or abortion. I'm trying to figure out where your bias lies in the face of a clear cut education and intellectual gap between your ideas and their ideas.
I'm talking about public schools, not public universities.
If you're talking about charter schools versus private schools versus public schools we could argue. Private schools charge more per student than public schools get in public tuition, private schools are averaging about 10K a yeah and public schools average about 3-6K. Charter schools very depending on if they get public money or are essentially private. In either case they charge about even with public schools but can't maintain long-term teachers because their pay is less than public which is a similar problem for private schools. Most teachers bide their time teaching for them and then head for public school for the pension and benefits like anybody who loves their job but realizes that there is a better option out there. The vast majority of public teaching jobs are in suburban school districts not in inner-city ones so once you correct for economic disproportions public schools even out or excel past private schools. Last time I looked public schools were ahead of most every private school in national rankings except for elite prep academies when we go economic group to economic group.
Are you seriously talking about the voucher programs for public schooling in K-12? What they found was this was an idea dreamed up by wealthy suburban families that already paid for private school and still paid house taxes or some form of school tax.
Yes I am. Do you seriously believe all the bullshit the unions fed you to protect their jobs? Here, from the Wiki page:
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pushed for vouchers, as did the George W. Bush administration in the initial education-reform proposals leading up to the No Child Left Behind Act. This year, it is estimated that nearly 171,000 students will participate in 18 existing school choice programs in 10 states and the District of Columbia. Most of these programs are offered to students in low-income families, low performing schools, or special-education programs.
So, you feel it's more important that a teacher, who is NOT teaching kids, to protect his/her job than it is to give a lower income child a chance at making it out of the lower income bracket? Or do you just want YOUR people poor, ignorant, gullible and dependent.
Hey Herman Cain, hypocrites want their goofy double-talk back. Why don't you yell at black people for being lazy again? Perhaps you should retract trying to strawman my supposed hate for children, I'm a professor and I did do some time in a public high school. I love educating children. The wiki page is always telling a very rose-tinted story because it doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of reality. Of the charter schools opened since 2000 a substantial number have already closed. The numbers we're talking about here aren't insignificant, t
I need a union so I don't have to work 60 hours a week when I'm paid for 40 and told "Just get the work done or we'll find someone else to do the work."
And this is why I need to post anonymously.
Ever tried to learn calculus from a textbook?
Yes, and readily did so when the lectures were incomprehensible. (Not that some text books aren't also incomprehensible...) You just gotta find a source that speaks to you. E.g., when, having no background in programming whatsoever, several popular books on learning C made no sense to me I found K&R, and C made sense (i[A] being the same as A[i] became obvious). You educated yourself, learning is not something to be poured into your head.
Hint: The originators of anything are usually better at exposing their insights/logical paradigm then are the come-later expositions who too often offer only Here-are-the-rules. Why? Just-because.
On line vs. in-person is irrelevant except that on-line should offer lower replication costs. Both methods have generated a few good instances, but many crap ones.
In NJ (i'm sure it's similar other places), it's 1/3 tuition, 1/3 from the state and 1/3 from the county.
They need union protections for the same reason any employee does -- unfair treatment by bosses, etc. You also have in a higher-ed setting angry students who were failed for not doing the work and then complain to the school as if it were the educator's problem. This doesn't work if the educator has a decent boss, but if not...? Why don't you see the need for unions in the public sector? Why, because the benevolent public will of course be fair to the employees? I don't think so.
You're ignorant however:
1) You pay the organization because they are the ones that fought for the conditions of that job. It also would not work if people took a free ride but still received the benefits.
2) Union dues do NOT go to fund candidates. Voluntary donations are used to cover those -- by law, in my state.
Why then in general do you not support unions. These are the principles that all basically swear to uphold (whether or not they all actually do so is another matter).
Is it just me, or does the summary have nothing to do with the article? All the article says is that UC officials agreed to get union approval before creating online courses. Nowhere does it say the unions are refusing to give that approval. In fact, it doesn't say much of anything at all. It's impossible to tell from the linked article what's actually going on. But the poster somehow turned this into "unions are trying to block online courses", even though they provided zero support that it's actually true.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
They don't have to shut down anything, they just have to control funding and hiring and firing. They can hire and fire based on political views and then just come up with excuses like they do in the corporate world. Shows how clueless you are about the world IMHO. It's trivially easy to change an institution when you steer and control the hiring, firing and funding.
I will never understand the need for college educated knowledge workers to need union protections.
I guess you haven't been in a situation where unpaid overtime was expected of you? Video game programmer? Or gone through a corporate takeover or downsizing?
A for-profit business will always seek to pay the least amount possible to its workers while maximizing productivity. That is just common business sense. The single only thing pushing back against that is unions. Even the unions you don't belong to are helping set what is considered standard pay and benefits. Weekends, paid over time, sick days, those are all still standards because unions exist.
Without some unionization, say good bye to the benefits I listed above. Sure, it won't happen over night, but recession by recession, it surely will. Every time it becomes and employers market, they can get away with giving employees less and less.
A copy of a good lecture is worth much more than the live presentation of a bad one.
True, but a live presentation of a good lecture is worth much more than a copy of a good lecture. In addition you gain a lot of benefit from interacting with fellow students. It is amazing how much better your understanding can become when confronted by trying to explain a concept to a peer. In fact it is called peer instruction and does have scientific data (in as much as you can get good data) to support it.
Right now corporations are trying to privatize education to limit political views so they can turn the world into a right wing aristocracy.
More like college is already controlled by the left...
at least capitalism did not get immediate armed retaliation like communism did back in 1917. 'leader of the free world' great britain landed with other 18 'free nations' in order to suppress the revolution and reinstall aristocracy. when failed, they funded civil war. when failed, they started to blockade and build up arms. the revolution did not have any chance to breathe, and due to these, it was usurped by sociopath and schizophrenic factions right at the start. natural, considering what happened.
Read radical news here
Your whole premises hinges on the fact that private means for-profit. This is not the case. Harvard is private, but not for-profit, and does a great job, whereas DeVry is for-profit and is nothing but a degree mill.
The real problem is that the teaching process is integrated with the examination process. Take the MCSE as a contrary example. How you learn the material is your problem. You may go out and buy a load of textbooks for $50 and then, when you are ready, apply (pay $100 or whatever) to do an exam, or you can pay $5000 attend a course and do the same ($100) exam. So I should be able to attend MIT and get a BE, or go online and just present at the exam, pay an "examination fee" and get my BE. (of course there is a lab component, but there should be an alternative stream like in medicine, where the graduate has a MB BS = bachelor medicine + bachelor surgery). Unions do not like this option, because it means less paying members. The elite (liberals) do not like it, because poor people will get high qualifications. The poor but clever students would love it, but they have no political power.
Waitaminit... a union opposing innovation? There must be a mistake in the article somewhere.
Get with it folks, there are NO safe jobs. Safety lies in continually reinventing yourself to meet the constantly changing world. No amount of protests, stupid laws, or even outright attacks can hold back the future for more than a brief time.
Maybe these 'educators' can get retrained to make buggy whips and weave clothing on looms! I'm sure there's a demand there somewhere.
[Two of the previous paragraphs were sarcastic... guess which two!]
/// Not a super-genius . . . yet. ///