Comment by aasarava | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aasarava | Hacker News Reader

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The election is in Nov, right? Even though I agree with your premise that public schools need to change the rules that have allowed so many ineffective teachers to stay in the system, I have to say that if I were in Jersey City, I would not vote for you, at least not based on your post. Here's why:

First, you come off as highly dismissive of teachers in general. Grammar, body language, word choice, and even the way someone conjugates "to be" is often linked to a person's ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or cultural group. To compare that to the language found in "a prison yard" is insulting and makes me think you're more focused on judging how these teachers speak than on addressing the actual concerns they raised.

Likewise, your calculation on how many hours teachers work is a best-case estimate. I'm not a teacher but I know many, and I went to public school. So I know just how often teachers get to school 30mins to an hour early to prep, work through their lunches, and stay hours after to help students, grade tests, write letters of recommendation, meet with parents, and host clubs or coach sports. And then there are the multiple days at the end of each quarter when teachers work through nights and weekends putting together progress reports. Do you want to factor that into your estimate?

Also, I'm not sure how it is in Jersey City, but most teachers I know spend hundreds of dollars out of their own money on supplies each year because school districts don't have the cash to pay for pencils and paper and other basic supplies.

What school boards need is not someone who is antagonistic to teachers, but someone who is willing to work with them.

My "estimation" is not an estimation. It's the contract. I didn't make assumptions about the work week, I stated facts. We all know teachers do after hours work, however, it isn't required by the contract. Why not make the contract reflect reality? As far as being "dismissive," once again I state facts. You show up at the board meetings and you tell me if these teachers I mentioned were qualified to teach? A teacher should lead by example and the ones I mention set a horrible example.

As far as "not having the cash" it's interesting how the Jersey City Teacher's Union president earns his FULL teaching salary paid by the taxpayers yet is the full-time union president ALSO making a salary from the Union. He has his own office, paid for by the school district and has zero educational responsibilities.

Blame the union. If you just took his $100K+ salary (and benefits) that could fund 1000 teachers' supplies for a year.

Let's not forget the Jersey City Schools has a 630 MILLION dollar yearly budget and a central office filled with people with no-show jobs. You spend some time going through the line items of the budget and perhaps you'd see the light.

No, it is absolutely a reflection of the person. If you cannot purport yourself in a manner reflective of your education, maybe you should not be educating anyone.

What the teaching system needs is someone to upend the current system, which is essentially held for ransom by the education labor mafia. The reason teachers spend out of pocket is not because there is no money, it is because money that should be benefitting students goes to support poor institutional practices such as keeping poor performing teachers in the system, supporting generous benefits, and frivolous spending on administrative costs. And the parents that send their children to these institutions are powerless to change this or have any impact. All of this is the cost of succumbing to the teacher unions.

We should be glad you do not live in Jersey City. We need voters willing to elect people in place to buck the current system. While you might mistakenly believe the commenter is dismissive of teachers, what I see is someone willing to stand up for quality teachers who still care about their craft and care about the children they teach.

"God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board"

-Mark Twain

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