Using children to promote your agenda is reprehensible and when are we going to realize that WE are the adults and THEY are the children?
Today I saw a commercial made by the Nevada State Education Association (NSEA) elevating its agenda to demean Governor Sandoval and inflate taxes on big business. I was stunned, offended and livid recognizing that my hard earned money was being utilized to manipulate five year old children to express a viewpoint they are not capable of or mature enough to even discuss.
The commercial commences with a small boy pitifully saying, “Governor Sandoval, why are you destroying our schools?” This is a child that may or may not be competent to tie his shoes accusing the chief of Nevada of obliterating our schools. Truth be told, it is the Teachers Associations that have executed more destruction than any other entity with their social curriculums taking precedence over academics.
Two ensuing children then expressed their poignant, knowledgeable view of, “Why are you more concerned with firing my teacher… than making sure we have textbooks.” Now this made absolutely NO sense, considering the governors desires to dismiss teachers is designed for schools to be capable of purchasing textbooks. I totally believe the Governor’s plea to remove teacher tenure is the surest mode to devastate education, for this will generate teacher evaluations to nothing further than a personality contest. With that said, I do not require a five year old to address the governor for me anymore than I desire for that same five year old to manipulate my income or my significance as a teacher. When are we going to realize that WE are the adults and THEY are the children; adults guide our youth not the other way around.
Next, a little girl emerges and declares, “We could save education if big businesses paid just a little more.” A child that perhaps even now needs help in getting dressed comprehends how to save education and the amount of money big businesses needs to disburse in taxes to revive education. I think not! I CAN tell you this, money will not save education – respecting teachers, student discipline and concentrating on academics will. And if we achieve this, in reality we will require MUCH less money.
Indisputably the most disconcerting feature in this ad was this adorable, sweet, loveable three year old following each of the other children’s inquiries with a pathetically sad, “Yeah why?” And then he inquired in an even more heartbreaking…why did you shoot my mom way, “Did we do sumping wrong?”
This might not be described as child abuse, but it is definitely close. The little girl in the ad also inquired “Is it politics?” She asked it as though the governor had a particular political agenda to damage education while the reality is this complete ad was nothing other than politics, all the while misusing little children to accomplish the NSEA’s political scheme.
Look, we do not require additional money from big business and we do not necessitate the elimination of teacher tenure to repair education. However, we certainly do not want to misuse our children in this way and getting the message across not a justification. If the NSEA actually had high regard for children, they should not have asked themselves whether or not they COULD do this; they should have asked themselves whether or not they SHOULD do this.
Jim Blockey
Teacher/Author “Teachers… It Ain’t Your Fault.”
The money is allocated to Clark County School District and they distribute accordingly. Brian Sandoval only makes the budget.
The argument should be:
Why do elementary schools have 2+ deans, 4 counselors, 4 secretaries to the principal, 3 vice principals?
Same with middle school?
High School has 5 counselors, 4 vice principals, 2 secretaries to the principal, 3 secretaries to the deans, 3 secretaries to the counselors, and 4 vice Principals, high school coaches with no credentials to support them cross-teaching math and science classes.
Teachers are being LAID OFF with master’s degrees’ in their specialty field (i.e. mathematics, science, English) and administrators with no background on the school subject are being put in their place to teach a high school class (wonder why Nevada is lowest on the proficiency exams)
Why are there 1000′s of computers in the high school science proficiency classes to teach a class to pass the science proficiency when the teacher is a football coach, has no science educational background, and they don’t work on the computers for the science proficiency — THE KIDS ARE ON FACEBOOK! This is a real fact!
I think we need to start looking at the budget of the salaries for the administrators at the elementary, middle, and high schools, trustees, and board of directors for their salaries FIRST. I think it is time we parents and taxpayers DEMAND the administrators first take a cut before the teachers.
The problem is the UNION. I think that the person who would be a great advocate for this would be Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak and investigate the WASTED money being spent by our Clark County School District.
The people, the tax payers, the parents NEED to go visit a school for a day — maybe two or three days and see what is really going on in our schools..
The kids have in the elementary and middle school level have a text book in the class room and a book they keep at home for the same subject (yeah, this is true — Lorna J. Kesterson Elementary School, Thurman White Middle School, Greenspun Middle School)
These are just a FEW issues on the top of my head, if I was to really sit down and investigate, I could name more, I am very passionate about the kids education with 3 kids in the system all at once for 12 years. I have seen it all! Just wait until Faith goes to school, you will start to see the waste, the frivolous spending, and attitude of complaining instead of producing results for our children’s future.
The problem is the people in the position of Trustee are elected positions. Look at their resumes on the district website, especially District A Trustee Deanna Wright – no credentials whatsoever to lead our schools or our children. She can’t even control her own diet, look at her picture.
The people running the School district are not business people who know how to manage money. The Superintendent is someone for outside our state who is getting paid over $250,000 a year — to do what? Why are we taxpayers, parents and elected officials turning our heads on this abuse in salary.
Start looking at the reduction of the ADMINISTRATORS, THE PRINCIPALS, THE TRUSTEES, THE 3RD AND 4TH VICE PRINCIPALS, THE 4 AND 5 SECRETARIES…. When we were in high school, there was one or two secretaries and a staff of student aides in the office each class period to avoid such exuberant salaries, there were no 2nd, 3rd and 4 Vice Principals, Counselors and secretaries….
Bring this to the attention to EACH AND EVERY ELECTED OFFICIAL IN EVERY CAPACITY.
Here is a press release from Veteran’s in Politics today: For Immediate Release:
Steve Sanson President of Veterans In Politics 702 283 8088
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval rejected a bill funding education; should we put a price on Nevada’s children?
Veterans In Politics International wonders why teachers are being used as a whipping post to balance the budget!
Las Vegas Nevada is the fifth largest school district in the nation with a budget (FY 2011) 1,460,600,741.84, a student population of 303,448, over 37,000 employees, including teachers, support staff, administrators, and school police.
After looking at the Clark County School System District Employees Salary Database; Christine Forsberg a school nurse earns $94,634.64 while the national average salary of an Emergency Room Nurse is $64,680.00. School Police Officer James Harris earns $83,893.50 while the national average for a school police is $46,000.00. The base pay for a Clark County School teacher is $35,083.00 with an average of over $40,000.00 worth of student loans before they received their first pay check as a teacher.
The national average pay for a school teacher is as follows:
High School Teacher
$43,648
Middle School Teacher
$42,353
Elementary School Teacher
$40,410
Special Education, Preschool, and Kindergarten Teachers
$40,877
After looking at the Salary Database for the Clark County School District we are paying Administrators Coordinators, Academic Managers, and Directors over six figures in annual salary. We understand all of these job descriptions contribute to educating our children, but what about the teachers that is directly in the classroom?
We talk about a strong Nevada, but with an uneducated work force business will shy away from our state in droves. What business owner would want to bring their children to an education system that ranks 49th out of 50th? What business would want to employee an uneducated work force? If we want to attract business to our state and improve our economy we need to have an attractive education program for our children. We have a decrease in dropout rates amongst high school students according to reports, but an increase in home schooling.
Teachers are always the first to be cut from the budget almost everyone is scared to take on the police and fire fighters union fearing their re-election ticket might be in jeopardy.
We are not saying that these two professions are not a necessity what we are saying is that teachers are used as whipping post to balance the budget. If we have to cut the education budget we should start with the six figure salary holders, not the teachers that are struggling to support themselves and their families.
Teachers should not have to worry about paying their bills; they should be focused on educating our children. If we did this we would not have to worry about seniority vs. quality teachers. The idea of restructuring the education system by taking away tenure can lead to many problems. This now puts the power to fire teachers in the hands of those outside our education system, giving little protection to a self sacrificing professional.
How about having other teaches be in charge of other teachers. The teaching profession is the only professional entity that is not run by its own. Doctors are taught and guided by other doctors, lawyers are taught and guided by other lawyers, and even the police and firemen/woman are taught and guided by their own. How about a different system by changing the infrastructure of who is in charge. What is not talked about is how teaching is a unique job in which they are paid by the government, are the most over educated and under paid professional population, self sacrificing, not to mention they have the responsibility to teach our children.
One more area that needs be looked in regards to this uneducated idea of getting rid of tenure and that is how other factors absolutely come into play like the following: parent involvement, the socioeconomic issues at each school, drugs and behavior problems within our school, the ridiculous testing standards in the face of all the above when testing and scores are not even correlated to how successful a young adult does in college. So our education system and how it is run is not working, how can we allow such uneducated decisions be made to make changes that would make things worse. Why not ask the teacher on how restructuring should happen!
How about different ideas like motivating, supporting and refreshing our teaching system by allowing other teacher to exchange ideas with new modes and techniques in the class room instead of penalizing our teachers.
Teachers are leaving our state in record numbers and quality teachers are changing career fields. We do not need these types of actions to happen within our state. With overcrowding classrooms and in a technological world we need all the help that we can get, not just have a strong Nevada, but a strong America.
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For more information contact:
http://www.veteransinpolitics.us.com/joomla/
http://www.vegasallnetradio.com/Shows/VeteransInPolitics.html
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Posted by Terri Dunn | May 17, 2011, 1:23 pmI agree with you with the exception that teachers are trained by teachers and THEIR argument would be that Administrators are former teachers and they are in charge. I believe that most administrators get out of the classroom because they cannot handle it.
Teachers do not leave here and go elsewhere, they just leave teaching… 50% of all teachers quit within their first five years nd that is nation wide not just Vegas.
I also do not believe that businesses do not come here (at least not the major reason) because of our schools. You see America’s school system is all screwed up, the only reason we rank so low is because of the transient population we have here.
You are absolutely right about those who make decisions on what takes place in the classroom have never been in a classroom or haven’t been there in a million years… I have been talking about that for 15 years.
One of the problems America has in education is we focus way too much on the drop out rate and spend little time on the drop in rate. We need to focus on the ones that want to be there and let the parents change the attitudes of those that don’t.
Posted by Jim Blockey | May 18, 2011, 8:25 amThat is a super-peachy-keen post. Thanks for really blathering on like that! Seriously, I don’t think I could have spent more effort wishing for something heavy to fall on me to erase that nonsense from my mind!
Posted by A Blithering Idiot | May 30, 2011, 7:26 amThank you for your input and I sincerely hope you do not spend any more time or effort than necessary to wish for something heavy to fall on you.
Time wasted is time wasted.
Posted by Jim Blockey | May 31, 2011, 12:55 pm