WHY should I trust YOU on this? For real? Do you have actual PROOF? No. USA killed plenty of people in dozens of military conflicts, it doesn't like to call wars since the WWII ended.
USA has funded militants all over the world to fight wars by proxy, a simple example is Bin Laden, who was fighting USSR for the US as a proxy on US dime.
Why would I ever trust US at all? It is NOT a trustworthy country in terms of its politics.
It's the only country to explode a nuclear weapon (even 2) over other nation territory targeting civilians.
It is using its wars to make money. Right now Iraq military invasion is over, but the civilian invasion is only beginning, with private contractors taking everything they can from that place.
They keep threatening to wipe an entire country off the map
- while they are only threatening, the US HAS DONE SO.
US has wiped a country off a map, it was called Iraq. You can argue all you want about Saddam being a terrible person, but during Saddam, Iraq HAD ELECTRICAL POWER. Which is insanely important if you live in that EXTREMELY HOT part of the world.
You don't understand HOW HOT, it's not Texas or Alabama or Arizona, or Mexico, it is FUCKING hot. Iraq had people EMPLOYED. Nobody was EXPLODING BOMBS in markets during the day.
Now people are out of job, bombs are exploding almost daily, people are dying ALL THE TIME. There IS no electrical power, no matter what the US tells you right now, that Iraq has more MW output than it had during Saddam, this output is NOT making it to any actual apartments. The infrastructure is destroyed, no WIRES, OK?
AFAIC USA HAS DESTROYED IRAQ.
So you know what? USA should SHUT THE FUCK UP about Iran 'threatening' anybody, USA has done much much much worse, it ACTUALLY DESTROYED a country.
Anybody without nuclear weapons that has any resources USA is interested in is in danger and should acquire all the military power they can and should unite against the actual aggressor, which United States has shown to be over and over and over and over. It's just a fact.
They signed the treaty under pressure, same thing as when someone gets arrested and a "confession" is then beat out of them.
There are no rules in love and war, and in place of Iran I wouldn't TRUST ANYTHING that is signed by USA and I would still pursue every possible way of getting as many weapons as possible, it's in their best interest to do so if they want to SURVIVE, because US will not stop at Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have a suggestion to the US of A: do not start another war in the Middle East.
AFAIC Iran has every right to possess nuclear weapons, it is a much better deterrent against an invasion than harsh language that Saddam used. If US attacks Iran, it deserves its troops to be nuked, of-course Iran would also be turned into ashes, with ICBMs by US, but maybe Iran having nukes would actually PREVENT a new war by US, not invite it.
Anybody with any resources today that US is interested in, that does not have nuclear capability is a sitting target for the US.
You are mistaken as to what is freedom of speech in USA, nobody is allowed to make direct threats of murder for example, but one can have an opinion that abortion doctors must be killed, it's an opinion.
Of-course one person's opinion may lead to another person's action, but the correct thing to do is to hold the one who takes action as the responsible party, not the one who says he has an opinion.
I am not American, in fact at this very moment I am in Germany, though I am Canadian, born in the former USSR.
I hold every single thing that government says or does as suspicious, I don't trust government at all, in any single one thing ever, and I am not an American.
you'd think history would have taught them to maximize personal liberties, not to diminish them in any way? Oh well, there is still zeit fur packen zee bagen.
Similar to Canada and such, so this means that there are ghetto schools and there are rich schools depending on your location. Marvelous way to create an education system, excellent.
What? Teachers' union will not stop employing anybody just because they don't work well, in fact they won't fire bad teachers, they won't fire teachers who miss classes, they won't fire teachers even when there are cases of abuse. I think you have to murder somebody and even then, after you go to jail, I am not certain you'll be fired as a unionized teacher. You are saying my point is flawed, I don't even know what you are trying to convey. Oh, and by the way, as a non-union person, when I hunt my contracts, I absolutely have a minimum, below which I will not take the gig, in fact you can't shake my minimum even by 50 cents, I refused work based on that.
Honestly, I don't see why you NEED the functionality of wave to do the things you are talking about there.
Really, your argument is that wave combined all protocols together into one platform and this fact in itself made it into a killer app of the future?
But is that truly so radically different from an entire suit of applications that do similar stuff, even Skype can do most of what Wave was doing (if not everything, it wouldn't be a problem of the protocol, it would be a problem of GUI for Skype.)
Really, Wave is not MUCH better than Skype or I don't know, ICQ.
Do you know what Wave REALLY lacked? An interface that could actually COMPETE with SKYPE!
Yeah, if they made a useful interface that could compete with skype, then they could have an actual product.
As I said, this Union does not want to allow teachers who are better than others to succeed in a more meaningful way than seniority.
So the 2 teachers at hand in this story, if both have the same seniority, they are both paid the same even though one is useful and the other is USELESS.
And you should go and kick YOUR teacher in the nuts, or whatever there is there, because you are lacking any comprehension of what you are reading.
Oh, and by the way, as a foreign student the payment was much different than that of citizens, I can't tell you the exact percentages but much higher than what citizens pay there.
- as public and as private as it gets in Canada, what are you going to do? Go ahead, open your own university there that can compete with that, maybe I would have attended it.
I got a loan for the first year, but I didn't have to, I saved the money from my previous jobs and I was working all through the university years.
But since I responded with more than 1 sentence, I obviously believed that I had a handle on the question at hand. How would have I been able to stop based on not knowing something if I didn't know I hadn't known it? Capice?
Education is a business model by the virtue of the fact that people teach for money and other people pay money for education, so it's a market situation. Now SOME people could do it for love of teaching, but then they'd still have to go and make money some other way. SOME people wouldn't go to school at all if they had to pay for it, that's just the reality of it. No matter what you do, there is always 10-15% people without health insurance (it was true before during and after Nixon and now). Same here, there are some people who don't care, they don't learn anything anyway and they would gladly not go if they had an opportunity not to go. Why are we forcing everybody to go when probably 10% don't want to? They'll grow up, maybe then they'll rethink their position and go back to school.
The GP's point is valid, but he doesn't see it all the way to the logical conclusion.
Yes, it is the parent's who must care about their children. If they don't care about their own offspring, there is no reason anybody else should be COMPELLED by force to care either. If you are going to compel people by force, compel their parents!
As to children paying for their own education, obviously it happens now, I paid for my own university degree by working before and during and after the university, so no problem there, you just have to want to spend your time on it.
As to 'increased productivity', I question the entire premise: USA Government is very clear on what it wants from its citizens - to be CONSUMERS who BORROW to SPEND, that's all. Don't you have a so called 'jobless recovery'? (obviously an oxymoron)
AFAIC US government doesn't WANT an educated population, otherwise how would they be able to recruit all this cannon fodder to run the wars to create government military and then later civilian contracts, as it is happening with Iraq and Afghanistan and all other wars after WWII?
The truth is that the abysmal education system in the USA needs to be scrapped IF USA decided that it wanted to become a Net Exporter of Goods once again and to restart the economy that is failing quickly and miserably right now. The education system needs to be scrapped, the income taxes need to be scrapped 99% of all government spending must stop, the US government needs to declare bankruptcy.
The middle class must be freed from the burden of paying income taxes so that it can save its money to start small businesses and start producing shit again, and then YOU KNOW WHAT? There would be PLENTY of need for low skilled labor and a healthy small demand for high skilled labor as well. The prices for labor and goods must go down, not up, gov't must be prevented from entering and distorting the economy again, it must not be allowed to print money/set interest rates/do much more than bare minimum military for border patrol, a sane justice department and federal prisons. All other issues are local issues, this includes cops and fire and roads, the Fed must be stopped from destroying the economy and the country.
I know very well, you see, for I have gone through a collapse of an entire country and have seen not only young men 12-18 on the streets, but pretty much 90% of population on the street, it's very dangerous.
Public school system is like a prison system, it's not a way to occupy all people, some will be in private schools, many need technical education that also needs to be taught through private schools/apprenticeships.
There is a lot that can be done by thinking outside of this particular box.
Judges can provide profit, but more importantly, they provide a way for people to resolve conflicts without killing each other, money is in fact involved.
Politicians, well these creatures of the night make a LOT of money for some people, why does anybody become a politician but to scam the system and to make money left right and center by catering to special interest groups? Being politician is magical, it gives you enormous authority and power and access and money. Some of the best investments are investments into politicians, didn't you know? They return handsomely.
Policemen and military are there not for your pleasure, they are there to protect special interests and to create a LOT of money for those special interests. USA has ended its military invasion of Iraq, now the financial invasion started. There are twice as many private contractors in Iraq right now as there were US military personnel. Don't tell me you don't see how it's making money.
Fireman are there so that politicians can get reelected, they need a couple of talking points to throw around once anybody asks about the actual VALUE of any government services, these are invaluable in this sense.
IT departments are shipped to India now, didn't you get the memo?
However I never said teachers produce nothing of value, where did you get that? In fact that is closer to this union's position because union doesn't give two shits whether a teacher is good or not, all union cares is HOW MANY teachers are hired, because the larger numbers give unions more power. Didn't you know that?
I believe many people understand value of teachers and that is why when they can, they send their offspring to private institutions.
I blame the entire government system, which taxes people and subsidizes useless public schools.
Money would be better of spent in private schools AND private schools would be much cheaper due to more competition and due to the fact that there would be a huge supply of students, so much more money for the private sector to evolve.
Your 100% blind devotion to "making money is the only reason to do anything" is myopic
- sorry, dude, you are full of shit, you know why? Because that's NOT what I said.
I did NOT say: making money is the only reason to do ANYTHING.
I said: making money is the ONLY REASON TO GET PAID ANYTHING.
OK? There is a difference. You do plenty things without getting paid, but you are not going to get paid if you are not making somebody some money in the process. Being talented is good, but all the talent in the world is USELESS in a situation like this one we are talking about here, where Union is saying: do not dare to say who is a good teacher and who is a bad one.
Talented people almost always lead to profit, and thus you DO pay them because they are talented. Likewise, you should employ teachers who are talented.
- Also bullshit in this particular case. Union doesn't care if you have a talent to turn students into freaking Einstein Grade Geniuses.
They don't pay you more based on that.
They pay based on your seniority, that's what unions do, OK? My point exactly was that if you want something better, you have to get the fuck out of a union.
If you want better-educated kids, pay educators a commensurate salary with what their skillset would bring in the corporate world. It's pretty much that simple and it's sad you won't acknowledge that.
- well, you are obviously not smart enough to follow my point, where I say precisely this: I want to KNOW who is a good teacher and I am willing to pay MORE by going to that school, whatever it is, public or private. In public schools there is a mix and a gamble, in private you can actually compare teachers on merit, so obviously my money is better spent with private institutions.
Which part of that implies that I am NOT willing to pay educators what they are worth?
There are (comparatively) very few teaching places at private schools, because only the upper income brackets can afford to send their children there. And this is where your entire argument breaks down
- I cannot argue that TODAY my arguments breaks down based on this fact alone.
But how can YOU argue against the following point: any government subsidized business will raise prices above what the market can bear to what GOVERNMENT can bear?
Can you follow that argument?
Medicare has caused the prices in health care to skyrocket. Government student loans have caused higher education prices to skyrocket. Government contracts have caused military equipment/training/maintenance/weapons prices to skyrocket. FDIC has caused an enormous moral hazard and now people don't care where they bank, they don't spend time learning about the bank and the bank spends no time earning customers' trust, and thus the banks don't care and they gamble with people's money. Sure government can create legislation to make it illegal, but then government can also remove that legislation and then the banking system collapses because again, it doesn't have to earn people's trust, so it gambles, and THEN prices skyrocket, because government guarantees that these businesses will not fail. Are they too big to fail? No, they are too big to succeed.
Etc. etc. etc.
When a government enters a business, it creates moral hazard and it provides enormous opportunity to push prices up. Have you ever seen a government causing a price FALL?
So my argument falls where there is no Free Market to speak of. I am against government collecting income taxes to pay for schools, or collecting income taxes at all. I would rather see people KEEP their earnings and create more small businesses and spend money on services they CHOOSE.
Sure, some say that sales taxes are bad for the poor, but the poor could then still file their income statements at the end of the year, or a month and get the taxes they paid right back, in fact this even provides an opportunity for a special credit card business to provide credit cards to the poor, with a balance that would be approximately enough to cover their sales tax expenses and the balance would be paid by the government by returning the person's sales taxes.
The increased return from a good teacher is increased productivity
- except that this is what the STORY here is all about, that Unions don't want you to know WHO are good teachers and who are not so good, just another government union BS. I would totally rather have a free market approach, with teachers being evaluated and then with students making INFORMED decisions on where to go to learn rather than GAMBLING and HOPING that you just may get a good teacher at some point. Ridiculous.
This is the main reason why we have taxpayer-funded education in the first place.
- NO. The reason why you have this, is because government must get its paws into everything you do, they want you to be their slave, because that's how they get the authority over everybody and everybody's business and money. And this is the truth, because in this case it is an exact TAX and SUBSIDIZE situation. They tax you and they subsidize the schools with your taxes. It's insane, it creates exactly what you have now, a monstrosity of a system that everybody hates.
The tax revenue increase from a well-educated workforce is greater than the cost of providing the education.
- not anymore. Not in a society that produces very very little, didn't you get the notice from your government - you are a CONSUMPTION based society, not a production based one. Good luck with that, it'll crash and burn, nothing can only consume and not produce forever.
Another poster linked to a study showing that a good kindergarten teacher makes a difference of $1,000 per year to the income of his or her chil
Plus, private schools don't actually pay that well, and their retirement benefits are often shit compared to state benefits.
- not a surprise given that they have to compete for students against subsidized public school system, which is completely centrally planned and on the dole of everybody's money, whether they like it or not.
If we had a voucher system that allowed students to go to better schools, chances are that it would just siphon off the smart kids who could pass the admission tests and the state public schools would be 100% filled with retarded losers instead of just 75% filled with retarded losers.
- well, I am against income taxes completely (is that what the US schools are paid from?), people should keep their income money and spend it on building small businesses and on making their life choices for themselves, rather than giving the authority to make their life choices to any government, especially federal. But also WHO CARES if public schools only have retarded losers, Sarah Palin also needs a school, though she is rich now, that she quit being a governor and made appearance, book and Fox money.
The problem with arguing about this on Slashdot in particular, is that most people here think that the majority of the population, including teachers, are morons and that they are smart in spite of a failed education system.
- I don't see what is that 'problem with arguing on Slashdot' is, problem of what kind? Problem with making coherent logical arguments, or what?
They learn "in spite of" and not "because of" teachers and so think that teachers aren't worth anything.
- most teachers are useless, SOME teachers make a difference in lives even of most hardcore slashdotters. It's the system that's retarded, the system is absurdly counterproductive to making the society a better place, the system makes no sense. It does not provide visibility of good teachers vs bad ones and does not allow students to make decisions, it averages everything out, it lowers the standards to the lowest common denominator etc. What is good about a failing system?
Well, the best teachers are the ones that inspire you to learn on your own and to have an appreciation for the subject, so the truth is really somewhere in between.
- yes, and that's why we go and work and pay through our own education at universities (at least some of us do) where there is more competition and you have more choices of what and how you do.
The free market doesn't solve most things, least of all issues of public importance.
- you didn't provide any argument to support your conclusion, you are begging the question here, I mean you have the mindset that schools must be public and that means that free market can't provide a better schooling system and based on your premise you come up with this conclusion.
AFAIC the public schooling system is failing, and that's the only conclusion that can be derived for now.
I was responding to your (strongly implied) argument that teachers are paid relatively little because they don't make much money
- but again, clearly from the study it is obvious that the unions do not care if a teacher is good or not, so you are saying that teachers are making money for society so society should pay them more, did I get your argument right? But if the unions don't care to remove bad teachers, how does it follow that society should pay to the teachers more, since there is no way to pay for BETTER teachers more with unions?
I mean in a private school you can at least get a teacher out if he/she does not teach well if it can be shown, what do you have to do in a public school to get the bad teachers out and HOW MANY bad teachers exactly are there, on the public dole, not doing a great job for society at all and why should all teachers in unions be paid more if that's the case?
I agree there are some ways for talented teachers to get more pay elsewhere, but that just furthers the market failure by depriving the public schools of good teachers through their poor value of talent.
- well that just does NOT make sense at all! What does it mean, it would be a market failure if more talented teachers got better pay somewhere else?
That would be the exact opposite, it would be a SUCCESS of the market, if the better teachers were able to get more money than bad teachers! How is that a failure and actually, what does this have to do with the market, those are public schools, they are NOT market driven, they are centrally planned!
If anything, this shows the failure of central planing, not of market, that in the central planing and with unions there is no way to retain really good talent if that good talent had options to get better pay somewhere else.
But you have just contradicted the study from the story.
Apparently the truth is that it does not matter if you are a good teacher, who does provide some value vs being a bad teacher, the union views you the same and you will be paid by seniority and it has nothing to do with your actual performance, which apparently IS measurable at least in some ways.
Besides, I went to UofT (worked a number of years before the university and all the time through university and took a loan for one year, paid all by myself, paid the loan out once was out of school, so I wanted to learn and I was paying for it) so many people want to go to universities and they PAY for this, they know what they are doing this for.
Same with schools, there are private schools and I would never give my kid to a public one, so I'd be paying for private education obviously, and good teachers who feel that they are unappreciated can work in private schools and/or open their own schools. People DO PAY for education, even for middle/high school education. People HIRE tutors through their years at school, it's not like it's impossible to make a better living if you are a better professional.
Then explain firefighters, police, armed forces - even road crews are more for the benefit of the public at large - and not once person / company who is invested in the project.
- what do you mean, 'explain'?
If you are an exceptional police officer who wants to make more money than your average union employee, you'd want to move out of the police and become a private security/investigator. If you are an exceptional military guy, you'd make MUCH more money working privately, become a merc. If you are an exceptional firefighter, I don't know what I can tell you, nobody cares.
However I do have a better answer to your question, I'll use Switzerland as an example: no federal income taxes, separate cantons are responsible for their own finances, most of which come from sales taxes and from so called 'wealth' taxes, some cantons do have income taxes. In an environment such as this, locations (cantons, think of them as different states) offer competition to each other based on services/taxes paid/quality of life, all of that stuff.
So I am against any federal involvement into most areas of economy/services.
Federal government that I can stand behind will collect some sales taxes, not income taxes, and will do only three items and will do them right: 1. Just enough military to protect the nation, no empire building. 2. Justice system, this must be used to resolve conflicts between citizens, to define what punishment criminals get, to start Class Action Lawsuits against companies/people who hurt people/resources (so in case of BP there would be a class action lawsuit to cover damages to the people/natural resources, to punish the corporation, but also there would be criminal charges because don't forget, 11 people got killed). 3. Intelligence/Federal Police/Prisons.
So in a system like that the separate cantons/states/provinces and in fact municipalities would have their own police departments, their own fire departments, their own schools IF they chose, and then there could be OTHER provinces/cantons/states that would have less of public money going to it, where you'd have to pay your own fees to various services/insurances to have these services.
The competition would exist and if you are an exceptional police officer/fire fighter you could actually COMPETE for better pay/conditions because you'd have separate places that are not all 'united' under the same government to 'protect' your ability to make a living, when in fact what happens to people in such environments is that they are AVERAGED DOWN.
As a software developer I HAD a chance when I COULD join a union (Ontario Hydro), but I CHOSE NOT TO, even though they were normally making about 120K in salary, and probably another 40K in benefits. As a private contractor I still made more money while COMPETING with other contractors and I was able to get more actual net money because as a contractor you can deduct expenses from your gross and that makes a big difference.
So I DO NOT accept the difference between the public and private for MOST applications. In fact I PREFER to live in a place that runs itself as a corporation, makes sense. Made sense for a condominium, makes sense for a canton.
And again, there are private schools even in USA, and a teacher can move there and even can start his/her own private school, and excuse me, but I do not accept that a good teacher who can do this MUST accept mediocre conditions, averaged with any other teacher, good or bad, because his/her union dictates so.
Slashdot Mirror
WHY should I trust YOU on this? For real? Do you have actual PROOF? No. USA killed plenty of people in dozens of military conflicts, it doesn't like to call wars since the WWII ended.
USA has funded militants all over the world to fight wars by proxy, a simple example is Bin Laden, who was fighting USSR for the US as a proxy on US dime.
Why would I ever trust US at all? It is NOT a trustworthy country in terms of its politics.
It's the only country to explode a nuclear weapon (even 2) over other nation territory targeting civilians.
It is using its wars to make money. Right now Iraq military invasion is over, but the civilian invasion is only beginning, with private contractors taking everything they can from that place.
No, I do NOT trust YOU.
They keep threatening to wipe an entire country off the map
- while they are only threatening, the US HAS DONE SO.
US has wiped a country off a map, it was called Iraq. You can argue all you want about Saddam being a terrible person, but during Saddam, Iraq HAD ELECTRICAL POWER. Which is insanely important if you live in that EXTREMELY HOT part of the world.
You don't understand HOW HOT, it's not Texas or Alabama or Arizona, or Mexico, it is FUCKING hot. Iraq had people EMPLOYED. Nobody was EXPLODING BOMBS in markets during the day.
Now people are out of job, bombs are exploding almost daily, people are dying ALL THE TIME. There IS no electrical power, no matter what the US tells you right now, that Iraq has more MW output than it had during Saddam, this output is NOT making it to any actual apartments. The infrastructure is destroyed, no WIRES, OK?
AFAIC USA HAS DESTROYED IRAQ.
So you know what? USA should SHUT THE FUCK UP about Iran 'threatening' anybody, USA has done much much much worse, it ACTUALLY DESTROYED a country.
Anybody without nuclear weapons that has any resources USA is interested in is in danger and should acquire all the military power they can and should unite against the actual aggressor, which United States has shown to be over and over and over and over. It's just a fact.
They signed the treaty under pressure, same thing as when someone gets arrested and a "confession" is then beat out of them.
There are no rules in love and war, and in place of Iran I wouldn't TRUST ANYTHING that is signed by USA and I would still pursue every possible way of getting as many weapons as possible, it's in their best interest to do so if they want to SURVIVE, because US will not stop at Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have a suggestion to the US of A: do not start another war in the Middle East.
AFAIC Iran has every right to possess nuclear weapons, it is a much better deterrent against an invasion than harsh language that Saddam used. If US attacks Iran, it deserves its troops to be nuked, of-course Iran would also be turned into ashes, with ICBMs by US, but maybe Iran having nukes would actually PREVENT a new war by US, not invite it.
Anybody with any resources today that US is interested in, that does not have nuclear capability is a sitting target for the US.
You are mistaken as to what is freedom of speech in USA, nobody is allowed to make direct threats of murder for example, but one can have an opinion that abortion doctors must be killed, it's an opinion.
Of-course one person's opinion may lead to another person's action, but the correct thing to do is to hold the one who takes action as the responsible party, not the one who says he has an opinion.
I am not American, in fact at this very moment I am in Germany, though I am Canadian, born in the former USSR.
I hold every single thing that government says or does as suspicious, I don't trust government at all, in any single one thing ever, and I am not an American.
you'd think history would have taught them to maximize personal liberties, not to diminish them in any way? Oh well, there is still zeit fur packen zee bagen.
Similar to Canada and such, so this means that there are ghetto schools and there are rich schools depending on your location. Marvelous way to create an education system, excellent.
What? Teachers' union will not stop employing anybody just because they don't work well, in fact they won't fire bad teachers, they won't fire teachers who miss classes, they won't fire teachers even when there are cases of abuse. I think you have to murder somebody and even then, after you go to jail, I am not certain you'll be fired as a unionized teacher. You are saying my point is flawed, I don't even know what you are trying to convey. Oh, and by the way, as a non-union person, when I hunt my contracts, I absolutely have a minimum, below which I will not take the gig, in fact you can't shake my minimum even by 50 cents, I refused work based on that.
Honestly, I don't see why you NEED the functionality of wave to do the things you are talking about there.
Really, your argument is that wave combined all protocols together into one platform and this fact in itself made it into a killer app of the future?
But is that truly so radically different from an entire suit of applications that do similar stuff, even Skype can do most of what Wave was doing (if not everything, it wouldn't be a problem of the protocol, it would be a problem of GUI for Skype.)
Really, Wave is not MUCH better than Skype or I don't know, ICQ.
Do you know what Wave REALLY lacked? An interface that could actually COMPETE with SKYPE!
Yeah, if they made a useful interface that could compete with skype, then they could have an actual product.
You are the idiot.
As I said, this Union does not want to allow teachers who are better than others to succeed in a more meaningful way than seniority.
So the 2 teachers at hand in this story, if both have the same seniority, they are both paid the same even though one is useful and the other is USELESS.
And you should go and kick YOUR teacher in the nuts, or whatever there is there, because you are lacking any comprehension of what you are reading.
Oh, and by the way, as a foreign student the payment was much different than that of citizens, I can't tell you the exact percentages but much higher than what citizens pay there.
UofT is a public institution
- as public and as private as it gets in Canada, what are you going to do? Go ahead, open your own university there that can compete with that, maybe I would have attended it.
I got a loan for the first year, but I didn't have to, I saved the money from my previous jobs and I was working all through the university years.
But since I responded with more than 1 sentence, I obviously believed that I had a handle on the question at hand. How would have I been able to stop based on not knowing something if I didn't know I hadn't known it? Capice?
USSR in the early nineties.
Education is a business model by the virtue of the fact that people teach for money and other people pay money for education, so it's a market situation. Now SOME people could do it for love of teaching, but then they'd still have to go and make money some other way. SOME people wouldn't go to school at all if they had to pay for it, that's just the reality of it. No matter what you do, there is always 10-15% people without health insurance (it was true before during and after Nixon and now). Same here, there are some people who don't care, they don't learn anything anyway and they would gladly not go if they had an opportunity not to go. Why are we forcing everybody to go when probably 10% don't want to? They'll grow up, maybe then they'll rethink their position and go back to school.
The GP's point is valid, but he doesn't see it all the way to the logical conclusion.
Yes, it is the parent's who must care about their children. If they don't care about their own offspring, there is no reason anybody else should be COMPELLED by force to care either. If you are going to compel people by force, compel their parents!
As to children paying for their own education, obviously it happens now, I paid for my own university degree by working before and during and after the university, so no problem there, you just have to want to spend your time on it.
As to 'increased productivity', I question the entire premise: USA Government is very clear on what it wants from its citizens - to be CONSUMERS who BORROW to SPEND, that's all. Don't you have a so called 'jobless recovery'? (obviously an oxymoron)
AFAIC US government doesn't WANT an educated population, otherwise how would they be able to recruit all this cannon fodder to run the wars to create government military and then later civilian contracts, as it is happening with Iraq and Afghanistan and all other wars after WWII?
The truth is that the abysmal education system in the USA needs to be scrapped IF USA decided that it wanted to become a Net Exporter of Goods once again and to restart the economy that is failing quickly and miserably right now. The education system needs to be scrapped, the income taxes need to be scrapped 99% of all government spending must stop, the US government needs to declare bankruptcy.
The middle class must be freed from the burden of paying income taxes so that it can save its money to start small businesses and start producing shit again, and then YOU KNOW WHAT? There would be PLENTY of need for low skilled labor and a healthy small demand for high skilled labor as well. The prices for labor and goods must go down, not up, gov't must be prevented from entering and distorting the economy again, it must not be allowed to print money/set interest rates/do much more than bare minimum military for border patrol, a sane justice department and federal prisons. All other issues are local issues, this includes cops and fire and roads, the Fed must be stopped from destroying the economy and the country.
I know very well, you see, for I have gone through a collapse of an entire country and have seen not only young men 12-18 on the streets, but pretty much 90% of population on the street, it's very dangerous.
Public school system is like a prison system, it's not a way to occupy all people, some will be in private schools, many need technical education that also needs to be taught through private schools/apprenticeships.
There is a lot that can be done by thinking outside of this particular box.
Judges can provide profit, but more importantly, they provide a way for people to resolve conflicts without killing each other, money is in fact involved.
Politicians, well these creatures of the night make a LOT of money for some people, why does anybody become a politician but to scam the system and to make money left right and center by catering to special interest groups? Being politician is magical, it gives you enormous authority and power and access and money. Some of the best investments are investments into politicians, didn't you know? They return handsomely.
Policemen and military are there not for your pleasure, they are there to protect special interests and to create a LOT of money for those special interests. USA has ended its military invasion of Iraq, now the financial invasion started. There are twice as many private contractors in Iraq right now as there were US military personnel. Don't tell me you don't see how it's making money.
Fireman are there so that politicians can get reelected, they need a couple of talking points to throw around once anybody asks about the actual VALUE of any government services, these are invaluable in this sense.
IT departments are shipped to India now, didn't you get the memo?
However I never said teachers produce nothing of value, where did you get that? In fact that is closer to this union's position because union doesn't give two shits whether a teacher is good or not, all union cares is HOW MANY teachers are hired, because the larger numbers give unions more power. Didn't you know that?
I believe many people understand value of teachers and that is why when they can, they send their offspring to private institutions.
Is anybody entitled to anything though? NO.
I have a phone. Imagine that, not anything smart, just simple small mobile phone.
It must be obsolete, after all, it's 6 months old.
You are right, I am not blaming only unions.
I blame the entire government system, which taxes people and subsidizes useless public schools.
Money would be better of spent in private schools AND private schools would be much cheaper due to more competition and due to the fact that there would be a huge supply of students, so much more money for the private sector to evolve.
Your 100% blind devotion to "making money is the only reason to do anything" is myopic
- sorry, dude, you are full of shit, you know why? Because that's NOT what I said.
I did NOT say: making money is the only reason to do ANYTHING.
I said: making money is the ONLY REASON TO GET PAID ANYTHING.
OK? There is a difference. You do plenty things without getting paid, but you are not going to get paid if you are not making somebody some money in the process. Being talented is good, but all the talent in the world is USELESS in a situation like this one we are talking about here, where Union is saying: do not dare to say who is a good teacher and who is a bad one.
Talented people almost always lead to profit, and thus you DO pay them because they are talented. Likewise, you should employ teachers who are talented.
- Also bullshit in this particular case. Union doesn't care if you have a talent to turn students into freaking Einstein Grade Geniuses.
They don't pay you more based on that.
They pay based on your seniority, that's what unions do, OK? My point exactly was that if you want something better, you have to get the fuck out of a union.
If you want better-educated kids, pay educators a commensurate salary with what their skillset would bring in the corporate world. It's pretty much that simple and it's sad you won't acknowledge that.
- well, you are obviously not smart enough to follow my point, where I say precisely this: I want to KNOW who is a good teacher and I am willing to pay MORE by going to that school, whatever it is, public or private. In public schools there is a mix and a gamble, in private you can actually compare teachers on merit, so obviously my money is better spent with private institutions.
Which part of that implies that I am NOT willing to pay educators what they are worth?
Brilliant point making skillz you have there.
There are (comparatively) very few teaching places at private schools, because only the upper income brackets can afford to send their children there. And this is where your entire argument breaks down
- I cannot argue that TODAY my arguments breaks down based on this fact alone.
But how can YOU argue against the following point: any government subsidized business will raise prices above what the market can bear to what GOVERNMENT can bear?
Can you follow that argument?
Medicare has caused the prices in health care to skyrocket.
Government student loans have caused higher education prices to skyrocket.
Government contracts have caused military equipment/training/maintenance/weapons prices to skyrocket.
FDIC has caused an enormous moral hazard and now people don't care where they bank, they don't spend time learning about the bank and the bank spends no time earning customers' trust, and thus the banks don't care and they gamble with people's money. Sure government can create legislation to make it illegal, but then government can also remove that legislation and then the banking system collapses because again, it doesn't have to earn people's trust, so it gambles, and THEN prices skyrocket, because government guarantees that these businesses will not fail. Are they too big to fail? No, they are too big to succeed.
Etc. etc. etc.
When a government enters a business, it creates moral hazard and it provides enormous opportunity to push prices up. Have you ever seen a government causing a price FALL?
So my argument falls where there is no Free Market to speak of. I am against government collecting income taxes to pay for schools, or collecting income taxes at all. I would rather see people KEEP their earnings and create more small businesses and spend money on services they CHOOSE.
Sure, some say that sales taxes are bad for the poor, but the poor could then still file their income statements at the end of the year, or a month and get the taxes they paid right back, in fact this even provides an opportunity for a special credit card business to provide credit cards to the poor, with a balance that would be approximately enough to cover their sales tax expenses and the balance would be paid by the government by returning the person's sales taxes.
The increased return from a good teacher is increased productivity
- except that this is what the STORY here is all about, that Unions don't want you to know WHO are good teachers and who are not so good, just another government union BS. I would totally rather have a free market approach, with teachers being evaluated and then with students making INFORMED decisions on where to go to learn rather than GAMBLING and HOPING that you just may get a good teacher at some point. Ridiculous.
This is the main reason why we have taxpayer-funded education in the first place.
- NO. The reason why you have this, is because government must get its paws into everything you do, they want you to be their slave, because that's how they get the authority over everybody and everybody's business and money. And this is the truth, because in this case it is an exact TAX and SUBSIDIZE situation. They tax you and they subsidize the schools with your taxes. It's insane, it creates exactly what you have now, a monstrosity of a system that everybody hates.
The tax revenue increase from a well-educated workforce is greater than the cost of providing the education.
- not anymore. Not in a society that produces very very little, didn't you get the notice from your government - you are a CONSUMPTION based society, not a production based one. Good luck with that, it'll crash and burn, nothing can only consume and not produce forever.
Another poster linked to a study showing that a good kindergarten teacher makes a difference of $1,000 per year to the income of his or her chil
Plus, private schools don't actually pay that well, and their retirement benefits are often shit compared to state benefits.
- not a surprise given that they have to compete for students against subsidized public school system, which is completely centrally planned and on the dole of everybody's money, whether they like it or not.
If we had a voucher system that allowed students to go to better schools, chances are that it would just siphon off the smart kids who could pass the admission tests and the state public schools would be 100% filled with retarded losers instead of just 75% filled with retarded losers.
- well, I am against income taxes completely (is that what the US schools are paid from?), people should keep their income money and spend it on building small businesses and on making their life choices for themselves, rather than giving the authority to make their life choices to any government, especially federal. But also WHO CARES if public schools only have retarded losers, Sarah Palin also needs a school, though she is rich now, that she quit being a governor and made appearance, book and Fox money.
The problem with arguing about this on Slashdot in particular, is that most people here think that the majority of the population, including teachers, are morons and that they are smart in spite of a failed education system.
- I don't see what is that 'problem with arguing on Slashdot' is, problem of what kind? Problem with making coherent logical arguments, or what?
They learn "in spite of" and not "because of" teachers and so think that teachers aren't worth anything.
- most teachers are useless, SOME teachers make a difference in lives even of most hardcore slashdotters. It's the system that's retarded, the system is absurdly counterproductive to making the society a better place, the system makes no sense. It does not provide visibility of good teachers vs bad ones and does not allow students to make decisions, it averages everything out, it lowers the standards to the lowest common denominator etc. What is good about a failing system?
Well, the best teachers are the ones that inspire you to learn on your own and to have an appreciation for the subject, so the truth is really somewhere in between.
- yes, and that's why we go and work and pay through our own education at universities (at least some of us do) where there is more competition and you have more choices of what and how you do.
The free market doesn't solve most things, least of all issues of public importance.
- you didn't provide any argument to support your conclusion, you are begging the question here, I mean you have the mindset that schools must be public and that means that free market can't provide a better schooling system and based on your premise you come up with this conclusion.
AFAIC the public schooling system is failing, and that's the only conclusion that can be derived for now.
I was responding to your (strongly implied) argument that teachers are paid relatively little because they don't make much money
- but again, clearly from the study it is obvious that the unions do not care if a teacher is good or not, so you are saying that teachers are making money for society so society should pay them more, did I get your argument right? But if the unions don't care to remove bad teachers, how does it follow that society should pay to the teachers more, since there is no way to pay for BETTER teachers more with unions?
I mean in a private school you can at least get a teacher out if he/she does not teach well if it can be shown, what do you have to do in a public school to get the bad teachers out and HOW MANY bad teachers exactly are there, on the public dole, not doing a great job for society at all and why should all teachers in unions be paid more if that's the case?
I agree there are some ways for talented teachers to get more pay elsewhere, but that just furthers the market failure by depriving the public schools of good teachers through their poor value of talent.
- well that just does NOT make sense at all! What does it mean, it would be a market failure if more talented teachers got better pay somewhere else?
That would be the exact opposite, it would be a SUCCESS of the market, if the better teachers were able to get more money than bad teachers! How is that a failure and actually, what does this have to do with the market, those are public schools, they are NOT market driven, they are centrally planned!
If anything, this shows the failure of central planing, not of market, that in the central planing and with unions there is no way to retain really good talent if that good talent had options to get better pay somewhere else.
But you have just contradicted the study from the story.
Apparently the truth is that it does not matter if you are a good teacher, who does provide some value vs being a bad teacher, the union views you the same and you will be paid by seniority and it has nothing to do with your actual performance, which apparently IS measurable at least in some ways.
Besides, I went to UofT (worked a number of years before the university and all the time through university and took a loan for one year, paid all by myself, paid the loan out once was out of school, so I wanted to learn and I was paying for it) so many people want to go to universities and they PAY for this, they know what they are doing this for.
Same with schools, there are private schools and I would never give my kid to a public one, so I'd be paying for private education obviously, and good teachers who feel that they are unappreciated can work in private schools and/or open their own schools. People DO PAY for education, even for middle/high school education. People HIRE tutors through their years at school, it's not like it's impossible to make a better living if you are a better professional.
Then explain firefighters, police, armed forces - even road crews are more for the benefit of the public at large - and not once person / company who is invested in the project.
- what do you mean, 'explain'?
If you are an exceptional police officer who wants to make more money than your average union employee, you'd want to move out of the police and become a private security/investigator. If you are an exceptional military guy, you'd make MUCH more money working privately, become a merc. If you are an exceptional firefighter, I don't know what I can tell you, nobody cares.
However I do have a better answer to your question, I'll use Switzerland as an example: no federal income taxes, separate cantons are responsible for their own finances, most of which come from sales taxes and from so called 'wealth' taxes, some cantons do have income taxes. In an environment such as this, locations (cantons, think of them as different states) offer competition to each other based on services/taxes paid/quality of life, all of that stuff.
So I am against any federal involvement into most areas of economy/services.
Federal government that I can stand behind will collect some sales taxes, not income taxes, and will do only three items and will do them right:
1. Just enough military to protect the nation, no empire building.
2. Justice system, this must be used to resolve conflicts between citizens, to define what punishment criminals get, to start Class Action Lawsuits against companies/people who hurt people/resources (so in case of BP there would be a class action lawsuit to cover damages to the people/natural resources, to punish the corporation, but also there would be criminal charges because don't forget, 11 people got killed).
3. Intelligence/Federal Police/Prisons.
So in a system like that the separate cantons/states/provinces and in fact municipalities would have their own police departments, their own fire departments, their own schools IF they chose, and then there could be OTHER provinces/cantons/states that would have less of public money going to it, where you'd have to pay your own fees to various services/insurances to have these services.
The competition would exist and if you are an exceptional police officer/fire fighter you could actually COMPETE for better pay/conditions because you'd have separate places that are not all 'united' under the same government to 'protect' your ability to make a living, when in fact what happens to people in such environments is that they are AVERAGED DOWN.
As a software developer I HAD a chance when I COULD join a union (Ontario Hydro), but I CHOSE NOT TO, even though they were normally making about 120K in salary, and probably another 40K in benefits. As a private contractor I still made more money while COMPETING with other contractors and I was able to get more actual net money because as a contractor you can deduct expenses from your gross and that makes a big difference.
So I DO NOT accept the difference between the public and private for MOST applications. In fact I PREFER to live in a place that runs itself as a corporation, makes sense. Made sense for a condominium, makes sense for a canton.
And again, there are private schools even in USA, and a teacher can move there and even can start his/her own private school, and excuse me, but I do not accept that a good teacher who can do this MUST accept mediocre conditions, averaged with any other teacher, good or bad, because his/her union dictates so.