In the city of Buffalo in the 1970's, the school board balanced the budget on the back of City of Buffalo teachers. In New York, we have something called the Taylor Law that provides, among other things, that government employees like teachers will not only not be paid but be fined a day's pay in addition for every day they go out on strike. In the '70's, the local school board took advantage of this by bargaining in bad faith and using the law, when the teachers responded with a strike, to cash in. Don't just take *my* word for it, though. The school board was convicted of doing this in court. Somehow, though, they were never ordered to make restitution for their crime--a "punishment" that's right up there with the Microsoft Travesty. In fact, so "oracular" and "professional" was the school board that they even took the *special step* of delaying the fines so that they were taken out of the teachers' Christmass paychecks.
The school board tried to do the same thing again in the early '90's, but, this time, the teachers took the battle to court instead of striking. In their arrogance, the school board let the case proceed even though they could have, by making certain legal compromises, have settled it. They lost the case. It did nothing to bring their swelled egos down to reasonable size. Not long afterward, there was an apology in the Buffalo News from the President of the school board--NOT for breaking the law and NOT for the all-too-commonplace-but-still-idiotic practice of trying to balance their budget on the backs of their workers, *but for letting the case continue when they could have stopped it.*
In the late '70's, Buffalo elected a man named James Earl Griffin to the mayor's office. He ran as an independant, and destroyed the Democratic Party in the city when he did. It has not yet recovered, though the controvertial Mr. Griffin, who rejoined the Democratic party but was referred to in the local papers as "a Democrat in name only" was eventually replaced. One of Mr. Griffin's favorite tactics was to take any increase in state aid for education and transfer a corresponding amount out of the city school budget for that year. Needless to say, the folks in Albany were not amused. Nor is the school system in such great shape after what amounted to a 12-year budget freeze. When I wrote "schools crumble," I was quoting The Buffalo News.
Of course, Mr. Youseff says that the teachers are arrogant. Yet, he can't come up with one true fact to support his claims--it's all based on a pack of lies.
BTW, is it arrogant of IT workers to ask the rates that they get paid (I charge about half the going rate as a freelance web designer), or is it arrogant of Mr. Youseff to claim that they're not worth it? Is Mr. Youseff the Lord God Final Arbitrator who sets all wage standards?
My father *did* "find his niche" as a teacher. He held that job for over 20 years and then retired. I would like to see Mr. Youseff stand up to my father in a test of wits or wisdom--my father has the intelligence to keep his mouth shut when he doesn't know what he's talking about.
City of Buffalo teachers don't average $40K/year (if Mr. Youseff is trying to tell me that going several weeks without pay is the same as continuing to work, then he needs to have his head examined), and they don't go out on strike--at least, they haven't in over 25 years. They don't push methodologies on their students, either--these are imposed by outside agencies. The teachers just try to roll with the punches--including a few sucker punches from people who have no clue about what they're throwing punches about--as best they can.
I don't really care if Mr. Youseff doesn't feel sorry for my father and the honest, hard-working people who shared his profession. I will **not,** however, allow my father's name to be liabled based on ignorance, half-truths and out-and-out lies, as Mr. Youseff is attempting to do in his response to my post. It would be a matter of debate if Mr. Youseff could come up with some facts that had ANY RESEMBLANCE TO THE TRUTH, but that seems to be too much for him.
The most useful course I ever took was an english course in my freshman year of college. It taught me to recognize and name the basic logical fallacies that have been used to disinform people since Ancient Greek times. Boy, has *that* stuff ever gotten a lot of use! In fact, I used it earlier today when someone sent me some right-wing propaganda. He, unfortunately, was taken in, but I like the guy and I'm trying to bring him along slowly.
Logic and thinking skills are *vitally important,* especially in today's world! I cannot stress this enough!
Though I've gone through calculus and have passed the courses up through planer integrals, I didn't do it just to jump through hoops for some stuck up interviewer. I did it because I thought that there was *indeed* some chance that I might actually *use the skills* someday.
That was over fifteen years ago, and all I've got to show for it was a lot of interviewers with egos as big as Laura's telling people how they have to jump through hoops.
God, I hate stuck up dorks who can't distinguish between integral calculus and programming skills!!
1) My father was a teacher in the City of Buffalo, where schools crumble while politicians smile and blame it on the teachers. I got to see firsthand what passes for education in this country, and I got to watch a bunch of arrogant people, for decades, do and say anything they could not to take responsibility for what they were doing. They're still blaming the teachers. Now, they've started calling the schools "state schools" and blaming them because they can't get the means to operate. It's a crock.
2) I'm a moron with a Mensa card. In my freshman year of college, I was tutoring Calculus while I was taking it. I also happened to get the top grade on the final exam in the physics course that year, beating out a few upperclassmen in the process.
3) I went to a co-op college. That way, I got OJT--and, when I graduated, I had skills and experience. In fact, I chose my assignments carefully. While classmates were sitting in offices in California reading disk manuals, I was rewriting a Un*x Manual; I was writing a compiler.
4) I'm versatile by nature. My parents brought me up a Democrat, and we believe that you'd better have a variety of skills in case someone tries to shut the door on you. Since college, I've got work experience as a programmer, hardware technician, office support tech, network admin and web designer. I've also edited novels for fun and profit, and am, in fact, editing one now. The author tells me that it just missed finaling in a writing contest with a score of 206 out of a possible 210. She's extatic. She's never done that well before.
None of it was any good--in fact, being a Democrat has harmed me in a field that is overflowing with Republicans.
* I was never asked about my math or science background in any job interview. I've never used any of my math or physics training in any job I've worked.
* In job interview after job interview, I was told, and I quote "co-op doesn't count." That compiler I wrote was never written, nor were any of those changes to the Un*x manual ever made.
* After college, I ended up working for minimum wage in a hot dog stand. After about a year of that, I found a job programming in some guy's basement. Some weeks they made payroll and some weeks they didn't.
Is there any recognition of the efforts that I put in? HELL NO!
* His name is Andrew Caldwell, and he works for a THOROUGHLY REPUBLICAN headhunting agency called "Technical Solutions Group." During a recent phone conversation, he told me that they're, and again I quote, "firm believers" that a programmer's income level is the BEST indicator of his SKILL LEVEL!! Can you say "Old Boys' Club?" Can you say "deny opportunity to those who have been denied opportunity just because they have been denied opportunity?"
Well, Mr. San Jose Mercury! Well, Mr. Wired News!
I say you've got it all wrong! I say that the REAL problem is arrogant, self-absorbed so-called employers and an Old Boy Republican Scumbag Industry! And I've got over fifteen years of scratchin' and crawlin' to back me up. And I say that, until something is done to take these people (and I use the term loosely) down a notch, to pry their heads out of their collective rear ends, things are only going to get worse instead of better!
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. Youseff needs to get his facts straight.
In the city of Buffalo in the 1970's, the school board balanced the budget on the back of City of Buffalo teachers. In New York, we have something called the Taylor Law that provides, among other things, that government employees like teachers will not only not be paid but be fined a day's pay in addition for every day they go out on strike. In the '70's, the local school board took advantage of this by bargaining in bad faith and using the law, when the teachers responded with a strike, to cash in. Don't just take *my* word for it, though. The school board was convicted of doing this in court. Somehow, though, they were never ordered to make restitution for their crime--a "punishment" that's right up there with the Microsoft Travesty. In fact, so "oracular" and "professional" was the school board that they even took the *special step* of delaying the fines so that they were taken out of the teachers' Christmass paychecks.
The school board tried to do the same thing again in the early '90's, but, this time, the teachers took the battle to court instead of striking. In their arrogance, the school board let the case proceed even though they could have, by making certain legal compromises, have settled it. They lost the case. It did nothing to bring their swelled egos down to reasonable size. Not long afterward, there was an apology in the Buffalo News from the President of the school board--NOT for breaking the law and NOT for the all-too-commonplace-but-still-idiotic practice of trying to balance their budget on the backs of their workers, *but for letting the case continue when they could have stopped it.*
In the late '70's, Buffalo elected a man named James Earl Griffin to the mayor's office. He ran as an independant, and destroyed the Democratic Party in the city when he did. It has not yet recovered, though the controvertial Mr. Griffin, who rejoined the Democratic party but was referred to in the local papers as "a Democrat in name only" was eventually replaced. One of Mr. Griffin's favorite tactics was to take any increase in state aid for education and transfer a corresponding amount out of the city school budget for that year. Needless to say, the folks in Albany were not amused. Nor is the school system in such great shape after what amounted to a 12-year budget freeze. When I wrote "schools crumble," I was quoting The Buffalo News.
Of course, Mr. Youseff says that the teachers are arrogant. Yet, he can't come up with one true fact to support his claims--it's all based on a pack of lies.
BTW, is it arrogant of IT workers to ask the rates that they get paid (I charge about half the going rate as a freelance web designer), or is it arrogant of Mr. Youseff to claim that they're not worth it? Is Mr. Youseff the Lord God Final Arbitrator who sets all wage standards?
My father *did* "find his niche" as a teacher. He held that job for over 20 years and then retired. I would like to see Mr. Youseff stand up to my father in a test of wits or wisdom--my father has the intelligence to keep his mouth shut when he doesn't know what he's talking about.
City of Buffalo teachers don't average $40K/year (if Mr. Youseff is trying to tell me that going several weeks without pay is the same as continuing to work, then he needs to have his head examined), and they don't go out on strike--at least, they haven't in over 25 years. They don't push methodologies on their students, either--these are imposed by outside agencies. The teachers just try to roll with the punches--including a few sucker punches from people who have no clue about what they're throwing punches about--as best they can.
I don't really care if Mr. Youseff doesn't feel sorry for my father and the honest, hard-working people who shared his profession. I will **not,** however, allow my father's name to be liabled based on ignorance, half-truths and out-and-out lies, as Mr. Youseff is attempting to do in his response to my post. It would be a matter of debate if Mr. Youseff could come up with some facts that had ANY RESEMBLANCE TO THE TRUTH, but that seems to be too much for him.
Gotta say that you've hit it on the head.
The most useful course I ever took was an english course in my freshman year of college. It taught me to recognize and name the basic logical fallacies that have been used to disinform people since Ancient Greek times. Boy, has *that* stuff ever gotten a lot of use! In fact, I used it earlier today when someone sent me some right-wing propaganda. He, unfortunately, was taken in, but I like the guy and I'm trying to bring him along slowly.
Logic and thinking skills are *vitally important,* especially in today's world! I cannot stress this enough!
Though I've gone through calculus and have passed the courses up through planer integrals, I didn't do it just to jump through hoops for some stuck up interviewer. I did it because I thought that there was *indeed* some chance that I might actually *use the skills* someday.
That was over fifteen years ago, and all I've got to show for it was a lot of interviewers with egos as big as Laura's telling people how they have to jump through hoops.
God, I hate stuck up dorks who can't distinguish between integral calculus and programming skills!!
1) My father was a teacher in the City of Buffalo, where schools crumble while politicians smile and blame it on the teachers. I got to see firsthand what passes for education in this country, and I got to watch a bunch of arrogant people, for decades, do and say anything they could not to take responsibility for what they were doing. They're still blaming the teachers. Now, they've started calling the schools "state schools" and blaming them because they can't get the means to operate. It's a crock. 2) I'm a moron with a Mensa card. In my freshman year of college, I was tutoring Calculus while I was taking it. I also happened to get the top grade on the final exam in the physics course that year, beating out a few upperclassmen in the process. 3) I went to a co-op college. That way, I got OJT--and, when I graduated, I had skills and experience. In fact, I chose my assignments carefully. While classmates were sitting in offices in California reading disk manuals, I was rewriting a Un*x Manual; I was writing a compiler. 4) I'm versatile by nature. My parents brought me up a Democrat, and we believe that you'd better have a variety of skills in case someone tries to shut the door on you. Since college, I've got work experience as a programmer, hardware technician, office support tech, network admin and web designer. I've also edited novels for fun and profit, and am, in fact, editing one now. The author tells me that it just missed finaling in a writing contest with a score of 206 out of a possible 210. She's extatic. She's never done that well before. None of it was any good--in fact, being a Democrat has harmed me in a field that is overflowing with Republicans. * I was never asked about my math or science background in any job interview. I've never used any of my math or physics training in any job I've worked. * In job interview after job interview, I was told, and I quote "co-op doesn't count." That compiler I wrote was never written, nor were any of those changes to the Un*x manual ever made. * After college, I ended up working for minimum wage in a hot dog stand. After about a year of that, I found a job programming in some guy's basement. Some weeks they made payroll and some weeks they didn't. Is there any recognition of the efforts that I put in? HELL NO! * His name is Andrew Caldwell, and he works for a THOROUGHLY REPUBLICAN headhunting agency called "Technical Solutions Group." During a recent phone conversation, he told me that they're, and again I quote, "firm believers" that a programmer's income level is the BEST indicator of his SKILL LEVEL!! Can you say "Old Boys' Club?" Can you say "deny opportunity to those who have been denied opportunity just because they have been denied opportunity?" Well, Mr. San Jose Mercury! Well, Mr. Wired News! I say you've got it all wrong! I say that the REAL problem is arrogant, self-absorbed so-called employers and an Old Boy Republican Scumbag Industry! And I've got over fifteen years of scratchin' and crawlin' to back me up. And I say that, until something is done to take these people (and I use the term loosely) down a notch, to pry their heads out of their collective rear ends, things are only going to get worse instead of better!