Well, it would appear the debating is over and the deed is done. The United States of America is going to add 2.4 trillion dollars to our already out of control debt, and not really cut spending at all.
If you or I did this with our family's budget, we'd be locked up on insanity charges, or at least headed to a bankruptcy court and told by a judge to basically "knock it off".
But not with our federal legislators. Nope, they can just keep doing the wrong thing time after time and not paying with a loss of their job or even a loss of their own income since they'll receive a bountiful pension even if they quit.
It seems as though no matter how loudly people make their feelings known either at the ballot box or by enthusiastic gatherings they will be ignored by the establishment members of both parties in the house and senate.
The biggest example of "the establishment" in this recent debate was the Speaker of the House John Boehner. I literally cringed when it was announced that this sellout to the political game would be the speaker. The majority was acquired by the republicans because the electorate wanted a change in the way Washington conducted itself, not a continuation of everything Boehner stands for which is the continuation of business as usual.
There will be talk about how this was such a great deal because it didn't raise taxes when in fact, we are all being taxed at an unaffordable rate with the inflation that comes with the continual printing of money.
This boils down to one simple fact whether you like it or not. The price of oil has gone up for one basic reason. In case you did not know the world buys oil in US Dollars. When we "print more money" by increasing the debt ceiling, we "devalue" the dollar. Therefore, it takes more dollars to buy the oil because that dollar is worth less. This has nothing to do with problems in the Middle East or supply and demand or even "speculation". Every time we print more, it's going to cost more … we are bringing at least some of our economic problems on ourselves.
Also, whether you like it or not, the price of oil and eventually fuel for all of America's vehicles affects everything we consume. Since a majority of our goods are trucked to us, we will be paying higher prices for everything. Since every farm relies on gas or diesel powered machinery to eventually produce their product the cost gets added in again. Finally, since most of us travel to the store to get the products, the cost of the product goes up even more because of the fuel we use.
Sounds to me like we just got taxed … but not the "good" kind of tax we would be paying to the government.
But the "spirit" of compromise prevailed and John Boehner sheparded us down the same crooked road we've traveled on for far too long.
You'll hear that there were cuts .. really?? A decrease in the rate of expansion may be a cut in Washington, but in the real world it's still an increase. I had thought that most folks were aware of this DC trickery, if you weren't at least now you know. A cut in DC is not a cut, it's just a little less of an increase.
John Boehner says it's a cut and that he got about 90 percent of what he wanted in these debt ceiling negotiations. You bet he did, maybe one of the more truthful things said during this mess.
It's not just Boehner either. What about McConnell and other republicans that rode down this Amtrak Acela track at 100 mph. How about John McCain? If anyone thinks this country would have been better off with him as President, just refer to the reference by McCain on the floor of the senate to the "tea party hobbits". For as much as we heard that McCain was a "maverick", the bottom line is, he was and is nothing more than another establishment republican.
For you disappointed tea partiers, don't let this bring you down!! The effort needs to be made to continue to rid ourselves of the business as usual establishment politicians and their continual desire for power and money. The founders intended the members of both houses to only be in DC for a brief period of time, it was never meant to be a lifetime position.
Local tea party members need to continue to be involved in the process and it starts from the bottom up. Run for the local office, then for the state offices and eventually for the federal offices. A little common sense these days would go a long way.
In this day of seemingly ever growing social media I think it's fair to take on the issue of social media. Why do I call it an issue? Look at some of the recent screw-ups by prominent people.
E-mail was the beginning of the problem. Congressman Mark Foley of Florida comes to mind. In a combination of e-mails, IMs and other communications, it became evident that Foley was involved in sexual misconduct with pages in his office. Proving that where there's smoke there's fire, the investigation led to a pattern of misconduct dating back into the 1990's. The use of a form of social media, in this case e-mail, led to Foley's downfall. I don't know what he was thinking, maybe that because it was electronic and wasn't printed there was no way it could be traced?
Granted when he started on his electronic sojourn people were just becoming accustomed to computers, e-mails, IM's, chats … but it became evident to many that there is just as easy an electronic trail as there is a paper trail. Actually the electronic trail turns out to be much easier to trace.
Most recently, there's the case of Anthony Weiner. There's no excuse for Weiner because nowadays anyone who has decided to use social media to interact realizes how wide and sweeping the electronic trail can be. No matter how good you think you are at covering your tracks, the internet and social media create a trail in a hurry, and even the best hackers won't be able to remove the mistake you made. One thing about Weiner, I don't think he ever felt it was a mistake, his arrogance was able to override any sensibility that he may have had.
Now enter the professional sports athlete. Talk about having a platform to communicate, these people have media relations staffs that can rally the media to hear what they have to say and even create the right kind of words to use once the media arrives. Even with this kind of support available at no charge, some athletes just can't resist the temptation to tweet about their every move, their every feeling, their every desire.
Rashard Mendenhall stepped in it when he just had to tweet after it was announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Mendenhall's comments disappointed and aggravated Steelers fans and didn't score him any points with his bosses either. Mendenhall needed to consider whether anyone really cared about what he though about world events. I know I don't care what he thinks, I'd rather his thoughts were consumed by a desire to not fumble the football, break tackles, make first downs and score touchdowns.
Other athletes cannot resist the temptation to tweet or Facebook about anything. Hines Ward decided to talk to the Steeler Nation by using a facebook post. If he had decided to call a news conference with the media, he could have accomplished the same thing but may have been able to help his cause even further by allowing attorneys, agents and other people that care about him to create a statement that would have covered anything that needed to be said.
While so far, I've mentioned high profile people, the lesson here should not be lost on regular folks as well. We all have spur of the moment reactions to any number of things. Sometimes it's the right reaction, sometimes not. Everyone really needs to think about what they post or tweet. Once you hit the share, tweet or send button, you can't take it back. It's out there and you have no idea where it'll end up next or how it may damage you or your reputation.
Heat of the moment tweets or posts need to be carefully considered. Maybe type it out into notepad or word or some software where you can really examine it. It might not be a bad idea to walk away from the computer, then go back and see if anything you were about to say made sense and would not be hurtful.
While the immediacy of this type of communication is remarkable, it's really only "necessary" if you are reporting for a news organization and therefore you can think before you type.
And speaking of news organizations, in particular sports reporting, it may make sense to weigh what athletes have to say as to whether it really is newsworthy or not before you turn it into main stream front page news. Oh, and please stop glorifying it on your sportscasts by having tweet segments. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing and should not be hindered but whether all speech needs to be glorified or even paid attention to remains to be seen.
What an amazing sports weekend just unfolded before our eyes.
First, a great player accomplished something that only 28 other players had accomplished in major league baseball … 3,000 hits. No matter what your feelings about the Yankees may be, you have to love Derek Jeter. Jeter became the first player to wear a Yankees uniform and get 3,000. Let that sink in a minute as you consider all the great players to have donned the pinstripes and play in the Bronx.
There isn't a gameday that goes by that Derek Jeter doesn't give it everything he has. He's also been with the same team his entire career and will no doubt finish playing with that team. In this era of free agency, greedy owners, greedy agents and, yes, some greedy players Jeter is an anomaly. Many fans hated George Steinbrenner for "buying" World Series titles, but he knew what Derek Jeter meant to his franchise and made sure he kept him no matter what.
How about the way Jeter did it as well? A home run! Only Wade Boggs had done that before. Craig Biggio was the last player to reach the plateau in 2007. In the end Jeter went 5 for 5 on the day and drove in the winning run for his team. While I'm sure he'll always remember 3,000, I imagine that after all was said and done, he was also thrilled to drive in the winning run for his team. That's just the kind of guy he is. Congrats Jetes.
Second, for the first time since 1992, Pirates fans can say "How 'bout them Buccos?" and not even be perceived as the least bit sarcastic. The Pirates under Clint Hurdle have their best record going into the all-star break since that last of three-in-a-row division wins. How significant is all of this? A couple of friends of mine said 2 things that were really remarkable to hear. One of them was shocked when he went on an errand the other evening and realized he was searching for the Pirates game on radio … because he wanted to. Another one said his daughter asked him to put the Pirate game on TV … WOW!
The Pirates success is no small feat considering the amount of injuries to the more "marquis" players on the team. The pitching staff held them in it for a long stretch, but now the bats have come out to play as well. Andrew McCutcheon has suddenly picked things up at the plate in a big way and is almost at .300 again (.291), Matt Diaz (who I thought might make good trade bait, but now I'm thinking of taking that back) is hitting .283, Neil Walker (an all-star of the future in my opinion) is up to .264.
At the beginning of the week, only Joel Hanrahan was the Pirates representative. By the end of the week Andrew McCutcheon and Kevin Correia were added to the national league squad. Chalk up another one for Clint Hurdle. No one from the front office or ownership made it happen, the skipper did. He called out Bruce Boche for not taking McCutcheon earlier in the week saying Boche "whiffed". After several exchanges between the 2 via the media, a personal phone call happened and the next thing you know, 2 more Pirates were headed to Arizona. Wouldn't you have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation. Pirates fans can hope the second half of the season is equally as entertaining.
Third, the US Women's Soccer team moved on to the semifinals of the Women's World Cup by scoring the tieing goal as late in the game as you can and moving on to win in the penalty kicks by a 5-3 score over one of the better teams in the tournament, Brazil.
ESPN is already making comparisons to the US win of the Women's World Cup in 1999, but until they actually get the cup, maybe ESPN should at least wait until Wednesday's game against France for those types of comparisons. By the way, that's a game that I'll probably be tuned in for.
If you were at home and able to watch any of the aforementioned I'm sure you enjoyed it all. If you weren't, (outside of anyone getting 3,000 hits again), you'll probably get to enjoy some more weekends like this as the year goes on.
"dogg" in chat corrected me today. Wade Boggs was the only other MLB player to hit a home run for his 3,000 th. Craig Biggio was the last player to hit 3,000.
There's no excuse for the mistake. Since I try to do my best, I wanted to figure out how I screwed up. Maybe I got caught up in the moment and misinterpreted what the announcers were saying, but the bottom line is I made a mistake. My apologies to followers of the blog and to Boggs and Biggio.
I'm not here to promote a particular TV personality or program, but I had more than a passing interest in John Stossel's program on the Fox Business Network last Thursday. So much for the promo. The topic that he discussed last week was entitled "The College Scam".
An interesting topic to be sure, but especially in light of the recent budget battle in Pennsylvania and all the ensuing whining because a budget cut was dared to be advanced and this time not just political speak for a budget cut (a decrease in the amount of increase) an actual CUT! The latest sacred cow, education, was one of the areas that was cut.
Many were concerned that a lack of state aid to universities would result in a major increase in tuition. A major increase in tuition?? Here's one that'll make you scratch your head. From Inflation Data.com here are the facts about the cost of tuition. Since 1986, the cost of everything has gone up a little over 107 percent or slightly more than doubled. What has the cost of tuition done? It is up over 466 percent or almost 5 times more.
Guess what, the cost of college went up five times despite all the money that's been given to colleges either by their state governments or in contributions by alums or businesses. Does this make any sense to you?
Yeah, the cost of everything has doubled but I really don't think that today's students are getting 5 times or even 4 times the attention by professors, 4 times the material to acquire the knowledge, 4 times the quality of courses available. If college education were a hamburger, this restaurant would have closed about ten years ago.
The bottom line is, it is a business but the business model here is about to collapse. It is even being referred to as the education "bubble". Not unlike the dot com or the real estate bubble, education could be headed for the same kind of collapse.
Blue collar working families are at the brink with finances in this economy, and education may be the next thing to go especially when some schools continue on as though there is a bottomless pit of money available to everyone to attend their school.
Another thing that may happen is that technical schools may gain in popularity if the education bubble bursts. What is wrong with that? There has been a stigma attached to technical schools but what is wrong with spending fewer years of your life at a lot less cost to achieve a well paying career? Nothing, and more young people may consider this as a route to success.
PayPal co founder Peter Thiel is trying to prove a point by recently offering 24 students 100,000 each to leave college for 2 years and start a business. His Thiel fellowhip will help these 24 to develop successful technology companies. Thiel also knows that after these 2 years, these students will never go back to college because they will already be on the road to success. By the way these students are under 20 years old as well.
At one time Hillary Clinton said that college graduates will earn twice as much as high school graduates, an estimated 1,000,000 dollars more. Some dispute the 1 million dollar figure because it was derived from census figures that didn't include the intangible of motivation that may produce the additional income and it is assumed that those who choose college are motivated individuals anyway.
The bottom line is, people can become extremely successful individuals and at a minimum, be a contributing member of society without a college education. For parents out there, your child will not be poor, destitute and living under a bridge in a cardboard box if they don't go to college.
Make decisions that are right for you, not just because of a myth that scares you about you or your child's future. College is right for some. Some careers need the type of education that college can provide, but not all.
The education bubble may be about to burst. If it does, it may be a good thing and maybe that hamburger will be at a reasonable price so that those that need it can afford it.
As we approach the mid point of the Major League Baseball season, it's time to take a look at the success of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2011.
While the start of the season was a little on the rocky side, things calmed down. The beginning season saw the Pirates winning games because they were hitting the ball well. The offense left Florida ready to rock. The offense performed well through about a week and a half of May and then fell off the face of the earth.
Hitting can be a tricky thing. It's not hard to scout teams anymore, heck you and I have access to every MLB game if we want to through MLB's internet service or cable and satellite's MLB Extra Innings package. The bottom line is, you can follow a team's progress and scout every hitter and discover his weakness.
The curious thing with the Pirates is the fact that they weren't exactly an empty book. Everybody on the team had played plenty enough for any team to know what their weak points were at the plate. The other curious thing was that the entire team seemed to lose their focus at once. Maybe 2 or 3 hitters in a lineup, but the entire team?
Not to fear though. Enter the pitching staff. While the batting averages plummeted, they were still producing 2 and on a good day 3 runs in a game. When your pitching staff is holding teams below those numbers, you will win games and lo and behold, they continued to play at a near .500 pace.
Does all of this happen by chance? Of course not. While I am certainly not sold on Pirates ownership's commitment to a competitive baseball team, I was impressed that they made a selection for manager that had championship experience. While Clint Hurdle was not my first choice (I would have opted for Ken Macha on a number of levels or Art Howe or even 'ole scrap iron Phil Garner) I have been impressed with what Hurdle has been able to accomplish.
A manager would be quick to pass off success to his hitting coaches or pitching coaches or even the additional work of the players, but make no mistake the manager steers the ship and sets the tone for his players and assistants.
Hurdle is a humble guy when it comes to this as well, but I believe he has made a remarkable difference and is the one responsible for getting the most out of these guys. I was in disbelief that the Bucs were able to win a series from the Boston Red Sox over the weekend despite their shortcomings.
The Buccos find themselves in third place in the NL Central, just 4 games back of the evil Milwaukee Brewers and a game over .500 despite their shortcomings at the plate. I chuckled the other night when one of the announcers referred to "the lumber company" in reference to this team. Their current best batting average, 285 for Andrew McCutcheon, would have been good for about 6th or 7th best on the old lumber company teams.
The Pitching staff hardly contains a Cy Young candidate, but they have some reasonably impressive stats in certain areas. While I intend on singing the praises of Clint Hurdle, I must say that Ray Searage has been instrumental on that end.
The bottom line is, Clint does seem to be able to pull the strings of his players. Consider his recent benching of Lyle Overbay an impressive defensive first baseman, but somewhat of an enigma at the plate. After the benching, Overbay responded in the Red Sox series with a big home run Saturday night.
The team is in need of maybe one or two players in order to finish the season they way they should after a decent start. The question is, will ownership do that? The answer is sadly no.
Wouldn't it be nice to have someone, say Mark Cuban, buy this team and give Clint Hurdle the tools he needs to finish the job? Problem is, after a weekend series that set individual and series attendance records, chances are the price tag current owners would want would probably pay the national debt.
Well, just know this Mr. Hurdle, many of us appreciate your work so far and our hats are off to you for making this much out of the talent you have. While current ownership hired you and I'm sure you appreciate that, it's a shame the same group won't give you a little bit more talent to work with.
There's a lot of talk about Tea Partiers and what they may mean to the upcoming Presidential election and that does present an interesting thought to ponder. One thing that those of you who are not a member of the movement and have only heard what the "mainstream media" has to say about it, may want to know is that the members are open to hearing differing points of view and from people with different opinions.
A BIG hats off to the Blair County Republican Women who last week invited the Auditor General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Democrat Jack Wagner, to come and speak to a gathering of concerned citizens wanting to learn more about their government and the importance of the office that Jack Wagner holds.
In case you haven't heard, the current Auditor General has conducted some very interesting audits of Pennsylvania government agencies. One that he pointed out was an audit of PHEAA which exposed some dramatic waste, expensive galavanting trips, and misuse of funds. Not an easy audit to perform since so many members of the board of PHEAA are legislators.
Some well intentioned programs to help citizens who are down on their luck and struggling turned up some interesting audit results as well. Citizens who were abusing the special allowances provisions that were set aside. LIHEAP which is a lifeboat for those who need help with their heating bills, was being abused by citizens who were falsifying information about their identity and the bills they were allegedly paying. Medical Assistance was being abused by identity thieves with falsified documents as well.
One thing the Auditor General did point out is that not all programs are being abused with money being stolen from all the taxpayers of Pennsylvania. Most agencies are doing an exemplary job within the defined parameters that they are supposed to operate. However, the audits must be done on a regular basis to make sure that abuses like I mentioned before are not allowed to happen again.
You may also be interested in knowing that the Auditor General is concerned about the number of people incarcerated in Pennsylvania Prisons. He pointed out that 40% of the prisoners (about 20,000) are jailed for non-violent offenses. If these people were handled in a different way the savings would be amazing for the Commonwealth. But laws and sentences are what they are and that will take time to change and the legislature will need to lead the way on that.
Another interesting topic was that of cyber charter schools. The idea of the cyber charter school is a good one, but there is an error in the system. Jack Wagner told us that the local school district will have to reimburse the cyber charter school as though the student were attending a brick and mortar building. Hardly a fair thing. Yes, there are expenses incurred, but not at the same rate as a regular school with a building, a staff of teachers and administrative personnel and transportation expenses.
How long did it take to find out all of this and even more information. Just a little over an hour. A small amount of time to be more aware of our Commonwealth's financial problems and get some ideas about solutions.
The Auditor General was very patient and courteous in answering all the questions asked of him. He is a Democrat and was welcomed by the Blair County Republican Women. I am still puzzled as to why he wasn't the gubernatorial candidate last year, but then again he wasn't necessarily a buddy of then Governor Rendell and that means a lot when it comes to the financial where with all needed to successfully run.
It was a very informative and cordial evening and thanks to both the BCRW and the Auditor General. BTW, besides a few big government ideals, the only problem I had with the Auditor General was his opposition to right to work.
Before I get started , let me first congratulate both the Dallas Mavericks and the Boston Bruins, champions of the NBA and NHL respectively. In the case of both championship series, the teams involved provided entertaining games and an exciting conclusion to both of these winter sports.
Now, let's consider the resumption of the Pitt-Penn State football series. Much to my surprise, this has been greeted with what appears to be a collective yawn by some in the media but also by many in the fan base as well.
OK, it's been quite a few years (11 whopping years to be exact) since the 2 teams played last. COME ON 11 years and the fan base has forgotten the excitement that the contest between these two almost always generated? Have we become so fast food mentality driven that we can't remember stuff that happened just over a decade ago?? Apparently even Pirate fans were able to remember the rivalry between the Pirates and Phillies when both were in the NL East and we all loved to hate Steve Carlton, based on the attendance at PNC Park that weekend.
How could the PSU Pitt rivalry have escaped everyone's mind?? It certainly isn't because of the wonderful game after Thanksgiving that replaced it … the Land Grant Trophy masterpiece between PSU and Michigan State. If it is, come on, get serious!! There will never be a geographic matchup that Penn State will find that would be better than Pitt.
What else could it be?? How about arrogance by some Penn State fans? That's right arrogance created by some PSU success versus some Pitt failures of late in football. Miami was to be the opponent but that didn't work out and Athletic Director Tim Curley made the call to Pitt to re-establish this rivalry. I say good for Mr. Curley.
Those that think this is a boring potential matchup, think about this. These games will be played in 2016 and 2017, first at Heinz Field and then at Beaver Stadium. What will these 2 squads look like in that amount of time? Chances are that Joe will have decided to begin a well deserved retirement and who knows, Pitt may be a top 10 team looking down at a lowly Big Ten cellar dweller. It may be the other way around too. It may even be a really competitive contest between 2 college football teams.
One of the complaints about Penn State's pre-conference schedule has always been that they play the Little Sisters of the Poor so they can build up their win total before they meet their Big Ten foes. Come on now, I think the University of Pittsburgh is a better non conference choice than some of the games on the schedule.
I hope this game will restore the rivalry between the two schools and maybe make it a little easier to recruit some of the better Pennsylvania High School Football talent rather than watching them go to other Big Ten or Big East schools.
Ultimately, some Penn State football fans need to check their attitude at the gate (maybe Homeland Security can give them a pat down because that kind of attitude is dangerous) and embrace what has been done.
The only way Tim Curley could have made this any better would have been if he could have also arranged a home and home hoops series between the 2 schools (or would the Pitt basketball fans have yawned over the prospect of playing PSU 2 years and whether it should have been both games at Pitt?)
I guess for some, Penn State can do nothing right and I'll be the first to admit that I thought they needed to hire a more high profile coach for a boost for basketball, but even I have to admit that Coach Chambers deserves a chance to prove himself. I just thought a high profile coach would pack more into the Jordan Center at least at the beginning.
Penn State and Tim Curley seem to have done reasonably well of late, and I think he made a good decision, unless you'd like to see them start playing IUP as an in-state rival in the pre-conference schedule.
I've been talking about this for several days now both on my radio show and with my friends so after tonight's game I thought it might be time to take this on in this venue. What am I rambling on about, the NBA championships.
Do not think that I am a big fan of the NBA during their regular season. I think the game of basketball is more than 5 guys from each team on the floor who are very athletic moving very quickly up and down the court and shooting like there's no tomorrow.
There's more to the game of basketball than just that. You get to see these skilled athletes apply all their skill and knowledge of the game in all facets during the playoffs and the championship series in particular.
Let's face it, there's not a lot to like about the NBA. The average player's salary is 5.84 million dollars. Comparatively, the NFL is around 1.8, The NHL is 1.5, and MLB is over 3 million.
How much does a courtside ticket cost? In Cleveland, a regular season game costs 750.00. A Cleveland Browns front row ticket is 315.00, The Penguins run around 300 dollars, the Cleveland Indians 128 dollars.
When it comes to committing crime, the NFL exceeds the NBA but the New York Post says that 40 percent of NBA players have a criminal record.
The bottom line is there's a lot of reasons to not take a liking to the NBA, but the 2 teams in the championship series this year (and certainly some participants from previous years) are proving that Naismith's game is enjoyable to watch when the game is played the way it is meant to be played.
What I mean by that is that all aspects of the game are utilized. Defense, Offense, Assists, Foul Shooting, Good Coaching, Execution, Preparation, Training, Practice. It is a demanding game especially considering the length of the NBA season.
Hats off to the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks for really putting on a show that any basketball fan can really get into and enjoy watching.
Athletes like Wade, James, Bosch, Nowitsky, Kidd, Terry make it easy to root during these games, three of which have come down to the final possession. Now it's down to one or two games to determine the champion of this league for the 2010-2011 season.
If you haven't seen one of these championship games, and you consider yourself a fan of the game of basketball, set aside some time to watch, you'll thank me. If you have kids that love basketball they'll be able to pick up some things from watching a game between these two teams. You'll probably even pick one of the 2 teams to root for because it's easy to have that happen with these two teams.
I never thought I would be writing or commenting at any time during my career extolling the virtues of the NBA, but here it is, and I am happy to do so because to this point I have seen 5 great games and hope that we all get to see 2 more, but that would probably mean the team I'm rooting for won't win the championship, but it will be a good thing to watch.
Take my advice and catch a game before it's all over.
Before you dismiss this as nothing but union bashing please hear me out.
I stumbled across this story this weekend and it really opened my eyes as to how successful a usually unionized situation can be when a union isn't involved at all. This is the story of the Highland Park and Deerfield High School from the Township High School District 113 in the Chicagoland area.
There is NO teachers union in the district and the AVERAGE teacher's salary is 104,737 dollars. Not only that, but more than half, 55% to be exact, make at least six figures in total compensation including benefits.
Now, here's the kicker, the non-union teachers produce average ACT scores of 25.7.
From the employment point of view, in Illinois, this is the exception rather than the rule. Only 11.25 percent of High School teachers and 2.26 percent of elementary school teachers make the six figure mark. The average of High School teachers is 69,366 dollars and elementary is 61,140 dollars. How do you feel about how the union is supporting you now??
While most of the top paying school districts are affluent with few students that come from low income households there are exceptions to that rule as well.
One district that served a large number of students from low income home and foster homes decided it needed to attract highly skilled teachers for the highly challenged students. Well, since the district made their choice when only 42 percent passed state tests, the good news is the passing rate went up to 65 percent.
As you might expect the higher average salary comes with some strings both for the teachers and the taxpayers. Most teachers have higher academic requirements placed on them and the taxpayers in the district see 70 percent of their property taxes going to the schools.
The district has been without a teachers union for 100 years and teachers elect peers to represent them in pay negotiations. The Board President even said the lack of a union is a non-factor saying the employees see no purpose or reason to join a union because the board is fair and open with employees.
The Chicago Sun Times was responsible for the research on this story, but it raises and important question. Do Unions get in the way of the education product that we as taxpayers purchase each and every year?
This story would indicate that the unions, unfortunately, do get in the way not only in the case of teachers salaries, but also in the results in achievement by the students.
This really comes as no surprise to me as I have been forced to join unions several times over the course of time in order to have a job. Most of the unions I had to join were very weak and provided not much above minimum wage, little in the way of benefits and stood in the way of advancing with a company because of my abilities rather than because I worked there for a certain period of time.
The latter is one of the biggest obstructions to any company being successful. If someone who starts to work at a company is better able to do a job rather than someone who has merely showed up for an extended period of time, shouldn't the one who can do it better get the job?
While unions have helped create better working conditions for employees over the years, I think their time has come and gone. The leaders of unions at the national level are only concerned about their personal power and pay, and could give a rat's about the rank and file that he or she represents.
The other bottom line, so to speak, is the results in the Chicagoland School Districts noted here. The teachers are better off and so are the students that they teach.
For union members that are ordered to board buses and attend rallies, just keep this lesson in mind and tell your union representative that there is always a different and sometimes better way to do things and that the all-knowing national office doesn't know what's best for you and your family … you do. Be sure to let them know that you don't want your dues wasted on bus trips and big salaries for the national leaders, you want those dues to help you do a better job and that you should be rewarded for that job, not someone who doesn't know you or even cares about you.
Maxine Waters to Oil Company Exec: This liberal will socialize your companies!
See the video that Obama and the liberals whacks hope you do not watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BtuSioq-pU&feature=related
Mercersburg nurse Karen Ramsburg has announced she is a candidate for the 9th Congressional District, a seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster. She will be a guest on Dave Barger’s TWO Way Radio today.
Ramsburg describes herself as a...
Monday February 20th
John Kasun & Rex Johnsonbaugh
30th Annual Jaffa Sports Show
Fri Feb 24 Noon - 9
Sat Feb 25 10-9
Sun Feb 26 10-5
Tuesday February 21st
The 84th Annual Academy Awards
Critic Willie Waffle of
Wednesday February...
9.9 Johnson Outboard Motor,
long shaft, new water pump and
propeller, manual start - $500
Lou, Altoona 937-2676
Atlanta Stove Co. Wood/Coal Burner,
with blower and thermostat, approx
20 years old but hardly used, like new - $350
Tony, Cresson...
While people across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have suffered through a recession that started in 2008 the state legislature has continued to enjoy pay increases, more benefits and a pension that most people can only dream about.
Local state...
