About Nate
I'm ultra conservative and proud of it. I believe in free speech no matter what little feelings you liberals have. I love our country and work hard without feeling the need to cry out and recall our officials.
Most likely you're just one of the sheep that follows your union boss, likes to smoke weed and get welfare. You often protest by yelling your dumb childish chants and pooping all over the place. You're a communist and want all the rich people to give you what they worked hard to achieve.
You will burn in hell one day and I'll be roasting marsh mellows.

All he has to do is leave it up to me. Don't think Obama doesn't love education. He saw Walker's approval rating and had to bash teachers somehow to look credible.

I do not know enough about race to the top to comment, but that is not what he pushed in stimulus, cash for Democrats in Aug 2010, last year in his so called jobs bill, or is hinting at in SOTU. What he he pushing is giving more money to bail out states which is wasteful,useless, and not needed as I point out above. I would suggest eliminating the Department of Education and block granting the money to the states. I would recommend repealing Obamacare to not force more money for health care and less for education, side note if we do not get rid of Obamacare too many will be hooked on Government to ever avoid a fiscal nightmare like Italy only worse since we can not be bailed out.

I also recommend everyone watch "Waiting for Superman" to understand why limiting or eliminating collective bargaining is the first step to improving education, especially in troubled districts like MPS. But still it just creates the tools the leaders will have to start caring more about the kids than the adults like the unions.

I felt the movie correctly showed the obstruction unions are to improving schools. It did not demonize teachers. The point was quite the opposite that a good teacher was important. Now I do think there are some other issues not dealt with but it makes a compelling point that teachers unions have fought reform and clearly hurt education quality. Allowing public sector unions is corruption as they can buy off politicians, as we saw in Wisconsin with every Democrat so sold out they left the state and would not come back. Management in the private sector goes to jail if they accept money from unions to get a better deal. That makes the issue of private sector unions different.

Employer surveys show 30% of employers plan to dump employees into exchanges in the first 5 years which will cost trillions more than planned. The point is with all those people dependent on the government there will be no hope of making needed reforms to Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and SS to avoid the worst fiscal disaster. It is hard to predict when but both sides know it will happen without serious changes. In the end the people you want to help will be hurt along with everyone else at that point. Clearly it was a huge act of irresponsibility to add a new health care program when they have no idea how pay for the ones we have or the new program. Free healthcare sounds good until you deal with the hard part, How to pay for it?

Since Obama's speech just said give resources and he always repeats his mistakes one would assume he meant the same lame ideas in his 2011 "Jobs Plan". That was $35 billion to rehire teachers and $30 billion for school repairs similar to stimulus and cash for Democrats which was used by states as a temporary fix for budgets or a bail out for states that actually required not fixing real problems. Neither is a Federal responsibility and were being done to relieve pressure on unions to accept cuts so the money keep flowing to Democrats. As we have seen when the corruption of collective bargaining is controlled schools can keep the teachers and spend less money. Other states could follow Walker's lead eliminating the need for a $35 billion federal rehiring program.

@Bryant Divelbiss...Anyone who has watched "Waiting for Superman" that hasn't come away disgusted with the public education system, is missing the most important point; we are supporting the wrong kind of system. The current education system is still training students to enter into an economic system that no longer exists. It is not that the teachers are bad, although the movie severely discounts teachers, it is to point out a broken system without any workable solutions. It only calls for reforming the negotiating powers and cost controls. It is not real reform, which means overhauling the entire system, from goals, missions and defining the desired outcome. To structurally change the system is to mirror the education systems found in Northern Europe being the real answer. There is more than enough money to fund such a system.

I wonder if those who will be selecting school board members in the upcoming election really understand how you feel about education. If they end up voting for your wife they will in effect be voting for your opinions and misunderstandings.

The starting point was concerning education and you moved the discussion to healthcare. I agree there are many problems with the Affordability Act as it stands, but we must move to universal healthcare. We spend twice as much for healthcare and have some of the worst outcomes for tier one nations. We have too many citizens who suffer and die needlessly because of a lack of affordable healthcare.
(continued)

(continued) Bryant Divelbiss...Your only answer to anything is to stay the course and cut money to government programs. You have absolutely no new solutions. Your only answer is old and failed ideas and policies.

@DJ Bradley -- paying good teachers extra is a laudable goal, if there were any way of objectively judging who is a 'good' teacher. Average test scores surely don't do it. Imagine a surgeon who has a 70% mortality rate. He may be a terrible surgeon who kills his patients, OR he may be a brilliant surgeon who takes on the hardest cases and saves seven out of ten where a lesser doctor may have lost nine out of ten.

A good teacher takes on the most challenged of students and helps each one to reach their potential, even if that potential is moderately literate. They reach that one student in the class who is capable of marvelous things,and all without killing the love of learning. You simply can't quantify that.

A good principal may recognize a teacher like that and retain them, even reward them. A venal principal, faced with a tight budget may opt for quantity over quality.

That was the one part of President Obama's speech that disappointed me.

Randy put up a fine analogy and explanation. People dismiss a lot of public education as dysfunctional but has anyone analyzed private? A lot of bureaucracy, especially faith based enterprises; example Catholic. Walker has nothing on the Archdioceses.

Lyle, whatever is needed in public education reform the first step would be getting the control to do that. That was the most important take away from the movie, that the union fights hard any reform. Walker has given schools that power that is step one. Now they need people with the right reform and the will to do it. If they still just want to please the adults it will never happen.

Now that's rich. Tiger Woods would choke under all that. Ironically their both half-and half's.

@Nate...Bad form!

Sorry about that, I was bated, not to mention just had to squeeze by to meet my quota for the week.