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 cuda1179 wrote:

Unions also demand money under the guise of "teachers deserve better". Many of the larger unions for larger cities see a very large percentage of that raise go to "administrative costs" of the union itself. I would be significantly less skeptical of any increase in teachers' pay if there was a caveat that it was only for wages, and that there would be no increase in union dues.

I would be careful with this generalization.

In New York for example, the teacher's union is kind of a walking disaster. It showcases all the terrible stereotypes we hold and hate about unions.

On the other hand, the teachers union in Loudon Country (when I was there) staged walkouts over the school board voting to raise their own salaries and refurbish all the football fields in the district (while telling teachers they would be under a pay freeze for another 3 years). If teacher pay goes up, of course dues will go up. How much money goes into a union is a terrible measure of how effective that union is, or how well it is managed.

One of the obstacles to good union reform is the attitude that we should shut them down, or limit their dues. It makes unions and union members feel threatened, and they become less willing to reform as a result. We desperately need to start dealing with unions practically in the US, and that means acknowledging their flaws as well as ceasing the hostility directed at their very existence.

 LordofHats wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

Unions also demand money under the guise of "teachers deserve better". Many of the larger unions for larger cities see a very large percentage of that raise go to "administrative costs" of the union itself. I would be significantly less skeptical of any increase in teachers' pay if there was a caveat that it was only for wages, and that there would be no increase in union dues.

I would be careful with this generalization.

In New York for example, the teacher's union is kind of a walking disaster. It showcases all the terrible stereotypes we hold and hate about unions.

On the other hand, the teachers union in Loudon Country (when I was there) staged walkouts over the school board voting to raise their own salaries and refurbish all the football fields in the district (while telling teachers they would be under a pay freeze for another 3 years). If teacher pay goes up, of course dues will go up. How much money goes into a union is a terrible measure of how effective that union is, or how well it is managed.

One of the obstacles to good union reform is the attitude that we should shut them down, or limit their dues. It makes unions and union members feel threatened, and they become less willing to reform as a result. We desperately need to start dealing with unions practically in the US, and that means acknowledging their flaws as well as ceasing the hostility directed at their very existence.

Wow, I give a major thumbs up to the teachers in your area that had the backbone to stand up to that kind of thing Also, a major To the school board.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
[spoiler][ I think you'd have a rude awakening if you were a teacher- you'd hate your job. With the degree my wife has, she could go into the medical/drug profession and make about 15k more a year, easy. She chooses to make less to impact kids lives, and hey, somehow get's called a demonic robber baron for it. She has a Master's Degree and makes less than 40k a year.

Your wife rocks for doing that. However, to point out one fault in your post: It looks like your wife is massively over qualified to be a teacher, possibly in both education and experience. Of course she'd earn more if she went into a field that optimized what she has to offer. On the other hand there are teachers that have done the minimum of what it takes to teach (in some areas that's a 2-year college degree). I'd wager that if they got a job anywhere else they'd be taking a huge pay cut.

Kudos to the pro-teacher posters in this thread, you have said everything I feel to a much better degree than I could.

I would like to add that the anti-teacher viewpoint in this country sickens me. These people will heap praise upon military and emergency service personnel (and rightly so), commending their service to our communities and country, and in the next breath gak all over those who are bringing up and educating their children.

Respect educators please. They contribute more of themselves to our communities than they get credit or compensation for and their job is increasingly gakky enough without ignorant people bringing them down.

Whoa...the politics thread has turned into a forum on teachers. OK...

 jasper76 wrote:
Whoa...the politics thread has turned into a forum on teachers. OK...

Teachers are one of, if not the most, important assets in this country (or any country for that matter).

My ex is a teacher, so I know all about the sacrifices teachers are asked to commit (not to mention what the teacher's family has to sacrifice as well).

I will say that public sector unions, all too often, create a perverse situation politically.

I'd rather start a CULTURAL movement whereby teachers are respected even more and are paid more than twice what they make today....

I too would like to see teachers get more respect for when they do right. I'd also like to see some kind of system for wage increases that doesn't simply rely on seniority nor on just standardized test scores.

On the other hand, I'd like it to be easier to fire bad teachers, and to stop a lot of the pity-party many teachers have when they are more well-off than me.

As to my original post on this subject, Yeah, I do support the removal of a mandate that arbitrators consider a state's ability to raise taxes for raises when it comes to public sector employees.

 whembly wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Whoa...the politics thread has turned into a forum on teachers. OK...

Teachers are one of, if not the most, important assets in this country (or any country for that matter).

My ex is a teacher, so I know all about the sacrifices teachers are asked to commit (not to mention what the teacher's family has to sacrifice as well).

I will say that public sector unions, all too often, create a perverse situation politically.

I'd rather start a CULTURAL movement whereby teachers are respected even more and are paid more than twice what they make today....

Without a doubt, teachers are important, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I've had good ones, and I've had bad ones, but most have been good ones. I think there is a great deal of respect for the profession, except among those who do not value education in general.

Honestly, I think most of the problems in our education system come down to poor parenting.

 whembly wrote:
But isn't it interesting that all the IC leaks are cheered when it happens to Trumpo/GOP, but jeer'ed when it's Hillary Clinton/Democrats?

Because the merit of a leak must weight the breach of security against the public's need to know the information.

A leak showing Clinton discussed the film Lincoln when talking about pursuing policy objectives is not actually on the same level of 'need to know' as Trump's team having ongoing, secret conversations with Russian government agents.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
NATO was put in place to stop the USSR. The USSR no longer exists. However Russia does and if you push NATO up to its border the likelihood of war is near certainty.

The USSR er Russia was leaving those nations alone as long as they had favorable regimes to Russia. Russia is insistent upon favorable border states wherever possible as it has a history of being invaded.

The USSR, er Russia also has a history of invading those countries when they don't do everything the USSR er Russia wants from them.

When faced with a neighbour who threatens and often does invade you if you don't do their bidding, its pretty natural for countries to go looking for larger defensive pacts to join. And similarly, nations that understand the importance of global stability and the importance of internationally recognised borders will naturally look to include those countries in their pre-existing defensive treaties.

If the USSR er Russia doesn't want countries on its border joining defensive pacts, it probably shouldn't have spent the last 50 years invading those countries.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But isn't it interesting that all the IC leaks are cheered when it happens to Trumpo/GOP, but jeer'ed when it's Hillary Clinton/Democrats?

Because the merit of a leak must weight the breach of security against the public's need to know the information.

A leak showing Clinton discussed the film Lincoln when talking about pursuing policy objectives is not actually on the same level of 'need to know' as Trump's team having ongoing, secret conversations with Russian government agents.

As for the DNC email hacks, yeah not on the same 'need to know' level...

But don't forget that there were numerous Top Secret (some with SAP!) information on a ridiculously amateurish private email server that was obviously compromised.

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But isn't it interesting that all the IC leaks are cheered when it happens to Trumpo/GOP, but jeer'ed when it's Hillary Clinton/Democrats?

Because the merit of a leak must weight the breach of security against the public's need to know the information.

A leak showing Clinton discussed the film Lincoln when talking about pursuing policy objectives is not actually on the same level of 'need to know' as Trump's team having ongoing, secret conversations with Russian government agents.

As for the DNC email hacks, yeah not on the same 'need to know' level...

But don't forget that there were numerous Top Secret (some with SAP!) information on a ridiculously amateurish private email server that was obviously compromised.

Yeah because those 9 or 10 emails that could of been a problem are on the same level as what the sock puppet president is doing

 Ustrello wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But isn't it interesting that all the IC leaks are cheered when it happens to Trumpo/GOP, but jeer'ed when it's Hillary Clinton/Democrats?

Because the merit of a leak must weight the breach of security against the public's need to know the information.

A leak showing Clinton discussed the film Lincoln when talking about pursuing policy objectives is not actually on the same level of 'need to know' as Trump's team having ongoing, secret conversations with Russian government agents.

As for the DNC email hacks, yeah not on the same 'need to know' level...

But don't forget that there were numerous Top Secret (some with SAP!) information on a ridiculously amateurish private email server that was obviously compromised.

Yeah because those 9 or 10 emails that could of been a problem are on the same level as what the sock puppet president is doing

Not on same level... worst. That's what's the big dealio regarding TS-SAP.

 whembly wrote:
...Fraz... it's in response to my question: Knowing that Russian Intelligence, via Wikileaks, wanted to cause chaos in our elections... what's the appropriate response? Something that signifies 'don't do that again or we'll escalate even more'.

Maybe it isn't inviting Ukraine into NATO... maybe it's restarting the missile defense shield in Poland? Or, simply increase our activities with existing Nato countries? Or parking an aircraft carrier in the Black Sea?

The response is greater and greater economic sanctions. While Putin has desires for a reborn Russian empire, at the end of the day he and the oligarchs that keep him in power are basically gangsters who rose to wealth by taking former government assets for themselves at dishonest prices. When those assets collapse in value because of international sanctions that freeze offshore funds and restrict Russian exports, those guys really feel the burn.

This is why Putin wanted Trump in power, by the way. Because they got hurt bad by Obama's lead on international sanctions, and they knew Clinton wasn't going to ease the sanctions back, only increase them. Whereas Trump, for reasons we are still determining, had made a public show of a close relationship with Putin and talked about a new, positive relationship between the two countries, ie removal of sanctions. It worked pretty well for Putin as well, between the FBI and a media that weirdly fixated on email security, and Putin's hacks and fake news, Trump won. The hitch in the plan is that Trump was then being relied on to bring about Putin's agenda, and as it turns out Trump is an incompetent idiot.

Who could have seen that coming?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord of Deeds wrote:
My take;

The majority of Europe/Canada basically have to acknowledge that there is a need for the defense spending by virtue of increasing it, or basically declare the defense spending, and by insinuation NATO, is not needed allowing the US either to reposition or reduce its military/defense spending accordingly.

It seems to be a, "put up or shut up" challenge to Europe and Canada. I am not sure how their respective leadership are going to be able to reconcile the demands of increasing defense spending vs. current outlays and revenues. i.e. raise taxes or cut spending in other areas such as welfare, enviroment, etc.

Personally, I am supportive of this position and would love to see Europe and Canada concede that they are not willing to increase their defense spending to the required level, thus giving the US the pretense to pull out as I am personally skeptical of the continued need for NATO, much less the need for a sizeable US military presence in Europe and would love to see the US reduce military spending accordingly, or at worse reposition towards the Pacific.

Yeah, this comes up a bit and there's a lot of merit in the underlying argument. The countries of Europe can't leave defense spending to the US.

However, there's a problem that the 2% number is just nonsense. It means nothing. What matters is actual capacity. A country can spend 2% and do nothing but employ all its unemployed as infantrymen to march around the barracks all day. Nice program to make work, utterly useless in terms of a contribution to potential NATO issues. Or spending huge amounts on building local, small scale weapons development, rather than buying cheap from NATO partners with economies of scale in place.

What is needed is an agreement on levels of capability. Commitments from each country that they will have certain capabilities in place at any time. So many aircraft they can deliver to x places around the world, and so many more that they can deliver with aid from other countries. So many divisions of troops they are capable of deploying to x places, and so many more that they can deploy with aid from other countries. If that commitment costs a nation 1.5% or 2% or 2.5% or 3% of GDP then so be it, but it is capability that is the thing that really matters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
NATO serves lots of other purposes besides just curbing Soviet aggression. It provides a framework for highly economically and culturally integrated nations to coordinate general military and political policies and react to common threats of any kind, standardize on common practices and specifications, share resources, etc. Also, it helps provide some backbone and stability (along with the UN, EU, and some other things) to a peaceful europe among nations that otherwise slaughtered each other by the tens of millions at various points in the last hundred years, and has worked well at curbing Russian..."shennanigans" into certain areas (e.g. does anyone think the Baltic nations would not be experiencing the type of unrest Ukraine and Georgia have suffered if they were not in NATO?). It also gives the US a bigger say in many actions and policies than it might otherwise have.

NATO serves many useful roles. There is room for the Europeans to step up and do more of their part, but NATO is just as much in the interests of the US as it is for the nations of Europe.

A lot of Americans seem unaware that NATO has only been in to action one time. In 2001, to aid the US after it was attacked on 9/11. Afghanistan was a NATO operation.

 whembly wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But isn't it interesting that all the IC leaks are cheered when it happens to Trumpo/GOP, but jeer'ed when it's Hillary Clinton/Democrats?

Because the merit of a leak must weight the breach of security against the public's need to know the information.

A leak showing Clinton discussed the film Lincoln when talking about pursuing policy objectives is not actually on the same level of 'need to know' as Trump's team having ongoing, secret conversations with Russian government agents.

As for the DNC email hacks, yeah not on the same 'need to know' level...

But don't forget that there were numerous Top Secret (some with SAP!) information on a ridiculously amateurish private email server that was obviously compromised.

Yeah because those 9 or 10 emails that could of been a problem are on the same level as what the sock puppet president is doing

Not on same level... worst. That's what's the big dealio regarding TS-SAP.

So you think everything the president is doing and hiding about russia is not as bad as some emails, and the GOPs refusal to investigate is a okay?

 d-usa wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/top-senate-republicans-urge-white-house-to-withdraw-puzder-nomination/index.html

Tough first month for Trump.

It's kind of harsh on Puzder. Sure, he's accused of beating his wife... but Trump and Bannon are also accused of that and it didn't stop them taking their jobs in the administration.

 sebster wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/top-senate-republicans-urge-white-house-to-withdraw-puzder-nomination/index.html

Tough first month for Trump.

It's kind of harsh on Puzder. Sure, he's accused of beating his wife... but Trump and Bannon are also accused of that and it didn't stop them taking their jobs in the administration.

Its the new age where sexually assaulting women and being openly racist is okay, get with the times Seb

 Frazzled wrote:
None of what you said was its original purpose. Its mission creep that forces US deficit spending.

You seem to have formed an idea in your head that the reason for US defence spending is to keep up NATO commitments. That's utterly wrong. The US spends what it does because it wants total force projection capability to any part of the globe by itself, without relying on any partners. And because defence spending is still the best kind of pork barreling congress can think of. And because the US is very supportive of its military, and that makes any talk of scaling back budgets very, very difficult politically.

 Ustrello wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But isn't it interesting that all the IC leaks are cheered when it happens to Trumpo/GOP, but jeer'ed when it's Hillary Clinton/Democrats?

Because the merit of a leak must weight the breach of security against the public's need to know the information.

A leak showing Clinton discussed the film Lincoln when talking about pursuing policy objectives is not actually on the same level of 'need to know' as Trump's team having ongoing, secret conversations with Russian government agents.

As for the DNC email hacks, yeah not on the same 'need to know' level...

But don't forget that there were numerous Top Secret (some with SAP!) information on a ridiculously amateurish private email server that was obviously compromised.

Yeah because those 9 or 10 emails that could of been a problem are on the same level as what the sock puppet president is doing

Not on same level... worst. That's what's the big dealio regarding TS-SAP.

So you think everything the president is doing and hiding about russia is not as bad as some emails,

...and here's your problem... it's not "some emails". These are the kinds of information that can cause incalculable damage to American interests.

and the GOPs refusal to investigate is a okay?

Erm... they are going to investigate it at the Senate Intelligence Committee. However, I do have a bit a problem with that as these kinds of things *die* at this committee. An IG is needed imo... but, that'd be extremely unusal.

 whembly wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But isn't it interesting that all the IC leaks are cheered when it happens to Trumpo/GOP, but jeer'ed when it's Hillary Clinton/Democrats?

Because the merit of a leak must weight the breach of security against the public's need to know the information.

A leak showing Clinton discussed the film Lincoln when talking about pursuing policy objectives is not actually on the same level of 'need to know' as Trump's team having ongoing, secret conversations with Russian government agents.

As for the DNC email hacks, yeah not on the same 'need to know' level...

But don't forget that there were numerous Top Secret (some with SAP!) information on a ridiculously amateurish private email server that was obviously compromised.

Yeah because those 9 or 10 emails that could of been a problem are on the same level as what the sock puppet president is doing

Not on same level... worst. That's what's the big dealio regarding TS-SAP.

So you think everything the president is doing and hiding about russia is not as bad as some emails,

...and here's your problem... it's not "some emails". These are the kinds of information that can cause incalculable damage to American interests.

and the GOPs refusal to investigate is a okay?

Erm... they are going to investigate it at the Senate Intelligence Committee. However, I do have a bit a problem with that as these kinds of things *die* at this committee. An IG is needed imo... but, that'd be extremely unusal.

Like bending over backwards to quell information that the current administration is deeply in bed with Putin, all the while they are moving cruise missiles to kaliningrad and sending spy ships just off our submarine bases? Yeah that is no problem at all her emails are a million times worse . And no the House committee of ethics is not investigating trump

 Ustrello wrote:


Like bending over backwards to quell information that the current administration is deeply in bed with Putin,

The 80's called and want their foreign policy back.

all the while they are moving cruise missiles to kaliningrad and sending spy ships just off our submarine bases?

Yup... standard fare for every new President... adversary 'testing' the Whitehouse reactions. Seems assed backwards though as these kinds of things will devolve into a new arms race.

Yeah that is no problem at all her emails are a million times worse .

DO you not understand the magnitude of TS-SAP information?

And no the House committee of ethics is not investigating trump

Well shoot... I thought I saw somewhere online that they would be...

 whembly wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:


Like bending over backwards to quell information that the current administration is deeply in bed with Putin,

The 80's called and want their foreign policy back.

all the while they are moving cruise missiles to kaliningrad and sending spy ships just off our submarine bases?

Yup... standard fare for every new President... adversary 'testing' the Whitehouse reactions. Seems assed backwards though as these kinds of things will devolve into a new arms race.

Yeah that is no problem at all her emails are a million times worse .

DO you not understand the magnitude of TS-SAP information?

And no the House committee of ethics is not investigating trump

Well shoot... I thought I saw somewhere online that they would be...

You mean the policy that was putting Putin on the ropes so bad that he was actively rooting for and interfering for someone that would stop said policy? And yes I understand the magnitude of it but after the millions of dollars that the GOP wasted on the witch hunt what came of it? What was actually left open that was so terrible? Hmm?

 whembly wrote:
As for the DNC email hacks, yeah not on the same 'need to know' level...

But don't forget that there were numerous Top Secret (some with SAP!) information on a ridiculously amateurish private email server that was obviously compromised.

A presidential candidate having poor email security is nothing like the same level of severity as a president and/or his staffers having secret communications with a foreign power. That is a sentence that didn't need to be typed.

And for what its worth, I never had a problem with the leaks about the details of Clinton's emails. My issue was with how overblown the issue was, but I never thought individuals were wrong for leaking any of the details. The only leak that bothered me in the whole email thing was the final leak that the FBI was going to re-open now it has access to the Weiner emails, and my issue there was with how talk about a criminal investigation appears, when the defendant has no real right of reply.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
The 80's called and want their foreign policy back.

Yeah, no, this is just... feth.

There's this fething bonkers idea that because Russia is no longer nominally communist, it is no longer an enemy or something. There was hope for normalised relations with Russia after their liberalisation, but those hopes are long gone. The Russia we have today, Putin's Russia, they invade other countries simply to expand their own power base. That is not something the international community can accept if it wants to continue to have things like international borders and independent, sovereign states. Normalising Russian behaviour means the world will very quickly move back to allied, armed camps all attaching themselves to major powers in order to gain any kind of security.

Because we all know that's a very terrible idea, instead the greater international community looks to punish countries that ignore national borders and invade without due cause. Which means Russia needs to be punished and isolated until it stops invading other countries.

 LordofHats wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

Unions also demand money under the guise of "teachers deserve better". Many of the larger unions for larger cities see a very large percentage of that raise go to "administrative costs" of the union itself. I would be significantly less skeptical of any increase in teachers' pay if there was a caveat that it was only for wages, and that there would be no increase in union dues.

I would be careful with this generalization.

In New York for example, the teacher's union is kind of a walking disaster. It showcases all the terrible stereotypes we hold and hate about unions.

On the other hand, the teachers union in Loudon Country (when I was there) staged walkouts over the school board voting to raise their own salaries and refurbish all the football fields in the district (while telling teachers they would be under a pay freeze for another 3 years). If teacher pay goes up, of course dues will go up. How much money goes into a union is a terrible measure of how effective that union is, or how well it is managed.

One of the obstacles to good union reform is the attitude that we should shut them down, or limit their dues. It makes unions and union members feel threatened, and they become less willing to reform as a result. We desperately need to start dealing with unions practically in the US, and that means acknowledging their flaws as well as ceasing the hostility directed at their very existence.

Another great example is the Seattle teachers' strike a couple years ago. They struck over a breach in contract (they hadn't received contracted raises in around 5 years)... but they also contacted PTOs to say, "hey, while we're striking, know that we'd rather be in the classrooms with your kids, but since we're negotiating, what are some thing you as parent want us to bring up?"

So, Seattle public schools got their contracted raises, they limited the amount of testing done on kids, AND they guaranteed recess everyday, and for an equitable period of time across the entire district (The trend was for predominately white schools in affluent neighborhoods to get 45 minutes of recess, while schools populated by poor, and POC students got 15... and the ridiculous part was, most schools got 1 or 2 days of recess per week).

I find one of the things most respect worthy about teachers and their unions in the US is that they really do care about schools and the quality of educations students receive. Even terrible ones that do rotten thinks like the union up in New York that makes firing horrible people hard really does seem to care about students.

Even in higher education. The Pennsylvania State system teacher's union recently striked this past fall over a number of issues involving teacher pay, but one of the big issues was the way the State system treats adjunct professors. These professors are paid part time salaries, but often have identical workloads to full time and tenured professors. There are a number of great history professors at my school who don't have full time work simply because the system prefers to milk their desperation to get into academia rather than pay them for their efforts.

 LordofHats wrote:
I find one of the things most respect worthy about teachers and their unions in the US is that they really do care about schools and the quality of educations students receive. Even terrible ones that do rotten thinks like the union up in New York that makes firing horrible people hard really does seem to care about students.

Even in higher education. The Pennsylvania State system teacher's union recently striked this past fall over a number of issues involving teacher pay, but one of the big issues was the way the State system treats adjunct professors. These professors are paid part time salaries, but often have identical workloads to full time and tenured professors. There are a number of great history professors at my school who don't have full time work simply because the system prefers to milk their desperation to get into academia rather than pay them for their efforts.

That system is one reason I may not go for my PhD, so anything that will help professors is good by my book. They work super hard and are usually a joy to learn from

 Ustrello wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I find one of the things most respect worthy about teachers and their unions in the US is that they really do care about schools and the quality of educations students receive. Even terrible ones that do rotten thinks like the union up in New York that makes firing horrible people hard really does seem to care about students.

Even in higher education. The Pennsylvania State system teacher's union recently striked this past fall over a number of issues involving teacher pay, but one of the big issues was the way the State system treats adjunct professors. These professors are paid part time salaries, but often have identical workloads to full time and tenured professors. There are a number of great history professors at my school who don't have full time work simply because the system prefers to milk their desperation to get into academia rather than pay them for their efforts.

That system is one reason I may not go for my PhD, so anything that will help professors is good by my book. They work super hard and are usually a joy to learn from

I wouldn't worry about that too much. PASSHE has a different system than most university systems private or public when it comes to managing professors. In PASSHE professors tend to teach more classes, but their tenure/pay raises are directly tied to teaching performance rather than to their scholarship as is the norm. So there's some give and take on it. The issue is that if you get hired as an adjunct you could literally end up sitting there for years because the system will jerk you around with promises of a promotion to a full time position that never materializes.

That said the use of adjuncts in higher education is on the rise in general and this negatively impacts the quality of professors. It will potentially become the same problem that now plagues K-12 education, where universities become more concerned with filling classrooms rather than with providing quality education (something that has already happened in a few state systems sadly, namely Florida). And of course part of the problem is the concerted effort by a certain political apparatus to sabotage education in the US, and that apparatus also functions under the delusional conception that education is just like any other business.

 LordofHats wrote:
I wouldn't worry about that too much. PASSHE has a different system than most university systems private or public when it comes to managing professors. In PASSHE professors tend to teach more classes, but their tenure/pay raises are directly tied to teaching performance rather than to their scholarship as is the norm. So there's some give and take on it. The issue is that if you get hired as an adjunct you could literally end up sitting there for years because the system will jerk you around with promises of a promotion to a full time position that never materializes.

That said the use of adjuncts in higher education is on the rise in general and this negatively impacts the quality of professors. It will potentially become the same problem that now plagues K-12 education, where universities become more concerned with filling classrooms rather than with providing quality education (something that has already happened in a few state systems sadly, namely Florida).

Interesting... So do PA professors conduct research, and actually participate in academia? Granted, I'm at a small private college, but pretty much all professors are expected to continue working in their field in some fashion (my advisor just recently got his article approved for the 16th Century European Journal, and while he wouldn't be expected to begin working on the next thing already... he loves research and has begun some other crazy project before this current one has even officially been printed)

 LordofHats wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I find one of the things most respect worthy about teachers and their unions in the US is that they really do care about schools and the quality of educations students receive. Even terrible ones that do rotten thinks like the union up in New York that makes firing horrible people hard really does seem to care about students.

Even in higher education. The Pennsylvania State system teacher's union recently striked this past fall over a number of issues involving teacher pay, but one of the big issues was the way the State system treats adjunct professors. These professors are paid part time salaries, but often have identical workloads to full time and tenured professors. There are a number of great history professors at my school who don't have full time work simply because the system prefers to milk their desperation to get into academia rather than pay them for their efforts.

That system is one reason I may not go for my PhD, so anything that will help professors is good by my book. They work super hard and are usually a joy to learn from

I wouldn't worry about that too much. PASSHE has a different system than most university systems private or public when it comes to managing professors. In PASSHE professors tend to teach more classes, but their tenure/pay raises are directly tied to teaching performance rather than to their scholarship as is the norm. So there's some give and take on it. The issue is that if you get hired as an adjunct you could literally end up sitting there for years because the system will jerk you around with promises of a promotion to a full time position that never materializes.

That said the use of adjuncts in higher education is on the rise in general and this negatively impacts the quality of professors. It will potentially become the same problem that now plagues K-12 education, where universities become more concerned with filling classrooms rather than with providing quality education (something that has already happened in a few state systems sadly, namely Florida). And of course part of the problem is the concerted effort by a certain political apparatus to sabotage education in the US, and that apparatus also functions under the delusional conception that education is just like any other business.

Talking to my history professors it isn't much better here in Illinois, then again by the time I get mine it could change

Yes. There's a number of professors here who've published in the last few years on things like women in the Roman Empire, American race history, and the Civil War. The thing about tenure is that to secure it you have to produce something big, usually a book or major study, and if you don't do that within X years you don't get tenure and you are let go. Something that happens to a lot of early academics is they rush to publish something, usually a big book, because their tenure often depends on it. In the PA system a professor is somewhat freed from that burden.

Because PASSHE has a more "free form" (that's what I'm calling it anyway) tenure track system in place professors here get freed of what normally happens if you don't get tenure within X number of years (which is again, is fired). Our department has an Environmental Historian who spent nine years writing an environmental history of Pittsburg. His first major publication. He was happy that he wasn't under pressure to finish the book to secure tenure, and thus his job, because he thought it gave him the time to make his book good rather than rush it to publication. So his tenure didn't come to him as easily as it might elsewhere, but it also meant he got to pursue his own standards of quality without having to worry about how not having anything published would impact his job.

EDIT: Of course, PASSHE professors also have heavier work loads than most universities. 2-3 classes is the norm for most professors but at my school for example the norm is 5. This is not reflected at all in pay, but it is considered to be part of the trade off of having a more comfortable tenure track system.

Guys?

I have a question.

What are Trump's environmental policies like?

He'll be the US President for the next 4-8 years.

That's a significant chunk of time that we'll never get back.

 sebster wrote:

There's this fething bonkers idea that because Russia is no longer nominally communist, it is no longer an enemy or something.

The actual bonkers thing is wanting a nuclear power to escalate into war with another nuclear power. Russia isn't going to simply roll over because all the US liberals have decided that the smartest thing to do when faced with surging fascism is to hoot and holler about an insidious and infiltrating eternal enemy. All this talk about containing and weakening Russia is precisely why they do stuff like claim Crimea to keep their base there. Any strategy of action will be responded to in some way. If you don't respect this then you can never understand why your carefully laid plans don't do what they say on paper.

I don't want Trump guiding millions of people through current events but I sure don't want the people claiming Russia as their god damned enemy to do so either.