Wolf Howling: schools

Showing posts with label schools. Show all posts

Monday, December 17, 2012

Let The National Dialogue Begin - St. Louis Police Chief Calls For Arming Civilian School Personnel (Updated)

The police chief of St. Louis, Missouri has started the national dialogue - with a call for having some school teachers and staff to have weapons. This from the local CBS affiliate:

St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it is time to talk about arming civilian school personnel following Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, comparing it to arming airline pilots after September 11, 2001.

“I see it no differently,” he said. “Pilots have been armed now for many many years, we’ve not had another hijacking and the issue is, for the bad guy, he doesn’t know which airplane he’s getting on, if the pilot is armed or not.”

Fitch said the killing will not be stopped by legislation or laws. “If there’s somebody that’s really hellbent on doing something like this, they’re not going to care what the law is.” . . .

Update: At PJM, former police officer and detective Mike McDaniel writes similarly:

Only armed and capable school staff, ready to respond to an armed attack when and where it occurs, can possibly save lives – perhaps, even stop an attack before it begins. Even an armed teacher in another hallway when the first shot rings out will be able to stop an attacker far sooner than any police officer still minutes from even receiving a radio call.

Of course, this goes completely contrary to what the left and their conjoined twin, the nanny statists, of whom NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg is perhaps the best example, would find acceptable. Bloomberg, who spends his life with armed guards in proximity, nonetheless fails to see why guns should be of any use to anyone else. He is also a man with apparently little imagination. This from Hot Air:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who politicized the Sandy Hook tragedy within hours last Friday, just wrapped up a press conference announcing new plans to fight gun violence and to counter the National Rifle Association with his own Super PAC. Bloomberg was asked by a reporter to respond to Rep. Louie Gohmert’s comments over the weekend that he wished the principal of the school, who died trying to take down shooter Adam Lanza, had a gun. Bloomberg responded by saying, “There are dumb statements and then there are stupid statements…..I don’t know what the gun would have done.”

Monday, September 10, 2012

Chicago Teachers Strike, But Its Not For Better Schools

The sign carried by the Chicago public school teacher says "On Strike For Better Schools." The teachers strike in Mayor Rham Emanuel's Chicago kicks off today. But are Chicago's unionized teachers really striking for "better schools" for students?

Chicago's teachers are striking because they want more money (a 30% raise over four years), and they do not want any reduction in their benefits, despite the fact the Chicago Public School system is operating over $700 million in debt, threatening the city's solvency. Moreover:

Chicago teachers have the highest average salary of any city at $76,000 a year before benefits. The average family in the city only earns $47,000 a year. Yet the teachers rejected a 16 percent salary increase over four years at a time when most families are not getting any raises or are looking for work.

The city is being bled dry by the exorbitant benefits packages negotiated by previous elected officials. Teachers pay only 3 percent of their health-care costs and out of every new dollar set aside for public education in Illinois in the last five years, a full 71 cents has gone to teacher retirement costs.

But that's not the whole justification for the strike. In addition, the teachers don't want to have to work longer hours, despite the fact that Chicago teachers work one of the shortest work schedules of any school system in the nation.

And lastly, the union doesn't want the "standardized test scores" of Chicago's students considered as part of their respective teacher's performance evaluation. The Union claims that doing so would be "unfair to teachers," assessing that it "could result in 6,000 teachers losing their jobs within two years."

That reasoning is shameless beyond measure - but it might well be accurate as the Chicago schools are not exactly over performing. Only "15 percent of fourth graders are proficient in reading and only 56 percent of students who enter their freshman year of high school wind up graduating."

So you tell me, do any of the unionized teachers' complaints have a single thing to do with creating "better schools" for students? It would seem that Chicago public school teachers are underperforming, underworked and overpaid. It's a public sector union trifecta. The Chicago teachers union is the poster child for why our education system is failing our nation, and why public sector unions should be outlawed.

My hat is off to Mayor Emmanuel for taking on the union, especially since such public sector unions are the Democrat Party's core source of funding. We'll soon see if Emmanuel blinks.

Update: Paul Ryan weighs in, both supporting Emmanuel and twisting the knife on the silent Obama.

I’ve known Rahm Emanuel for years. He’s a former colleague of mine. Rahm and I have not agreed on every issue or on a lot of issues, but Mayor Emanuel is right today in saying that this teacher’s union strike is unnecessary and wrong. We know that Rahm is not going to support our campaign, but on this issue and this day we stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

“We stand with the children and we stand with the families and the parents of Chicago because education reform, that’s a bipartisan issue. This does not have to divide the two parties. And so, we were going to ask, where does President Obama stand? Does he stand with his former Chief of Staff Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with the children and the parents, or does he stand with the union?

That sound you hear from the White House is a cricket chirping. It bears remembering that one of Obama's first acts in office was to support the teachers unions and end the D.C. Voucher Program - a program that gave poor children in our nation's worst school district the opportunity to attend the same private school in which Obama's children were enrolled.

Updates: Michelle Malkin has a great column on Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teachers' Union president. Lewis is a thug, a communist and a travesty.

The Heritage Foundation also has a good article looking a bit more closely at teacher compensation in Chicago.

Welcome Larwyn's Linx readers.

Welcome Maggie's Farm readers.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Can You Sing "God Save The Queen" In English?

Britain has no control over its borders because of EU law and is being flooded with immigrants at record levels - as emigration of UK natives has also reached record levels. Today's news from the Telegraph puts these facts in shocking perspective. Today, in the UK, native English speakers are the minority in more than 1 of every 20 schools:

Children with English as their first language are now in the minority in more than 1,300 schools, according to official figures.

. . . The figures show that in a total of 1,338 primary and secondary schools - more than one in 20 of all schools in England - children with English as their first language are in the minority.

In 600 of these schools, fewer than a third of pupils speak English as their first language.

The disclosure led to warnings that the rising number of foreign pupils without a decent grasp of English was putting intense pressure on teachers and undermining education standards.

The figures have fuelled demands from teachers' leaders for more money to help meet the costs of teaching foreign-born children.

Teachers' unions said educating a single non-English-speaking pupil could cost as much as £30,000 a year.

Coping with large numbers of foreign children risked undermining the quality of teaching given to all pupils, they said.

Philip Parkin, the general secretary of the Professional Association of Teachers, said rising levels of immigration and a lack of multi-lingual teaching staff were "providing serious challenges" for schools trying to maintain standards.

Dealing with non-English- speaking children "makes it much harder to deliver the curriculum", Mr Parkin said.

"Schools that are in that position need considerable support in order to give those children help with English and help with our curriculum.

. . . Data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families show that in 574 of the 17,361 primary schools in England, children without English as a first language make up between 51 and 70 per cent of all pupils.

Another 569 primaries have more than 70 per cent who count English as a second language.

In 112 of the 3,343 secondary schools, children without English as a first language make up 51 to 70 per cent of all pupils. In another 83 secondary schools, the proportion is above 70 per cent.

The total number of schools where pupils with a first language other than English make up at least 51 per cent of the population is 1,338.

Following patterns of immigration, children who do not speak English as a first language are heavily concentrated in certain areas of the country, especially London.

The 20 councils with the highest concentration of non-English speaking children are in London.

In the borough of Newham, nine out of 10 schools have a non-English first language majority. The same is true of a third of schools in Leicester and in Blackburn, and a quarter of schools in Birmingham.

Gordon Brown last week repeated calls for immigrants to learn English, but critics say he is not doing enough to fund proper language teaching for immigrant children.

David Davis, the Conservative shadow home secretary, accused the Government of failing to meet the costs of its immigration policy.

"We have been warning the Government for years now of the consequences for schools of the very high rate of immigration," he said. "This shows how many schools will face real difficulties." . . .

Read the entire story here. The truly amazing thing in reading the constant litany of stories about the U.K.'s immigration problem is that you hear next to nothing about the long term effect this will have on all aspects of British life and culture. It is suicide by open borders. I am unsure whether it is multiculturalism taken to its logical suicidal conclusion but, reading the news across the pond, it would seem raising the ramifications of Britain's open borders has been tantamount to heresy ever since Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech in 1968, It generates not reasoned and thoughtful debate but only opprobrium. I have yet to see one reasoned discussion by a politician that addresses the causes and ramifications of this immigration castrophe. Its Harry Potter brought to life . . . with the "policy that shall not be named." Can someone across the pond enlighten me on this?