I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Just The Facts, Ma'am

A few things to consider in the War on Women Teachers:


Good luck trying to convince yourself that none of these facts has anything to do with the other.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

lol....EPI? Seriously? Look at their "publications"!!

Look at their "mission statement.

"broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers."

These guys would have to move ten steps to the right to be socialists. They start out every project with the commie conclusion already written, then back fill with stat-mo-jumbo.

Mishel is infamous for hiding the fact that he is a teacher -- note he leaves that totally out in the bio of the report. He is a prof at Cornell.

All that said, at least you cop to teachers only working 5/6th of the time. And whatever compensation these guys were figuring, it certainly didn't include NJ's crazy pension/benefit plans.

Anonymous said...

What's wrong with trying to "broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers"? Have you no sense of decency, Mr. McTroll?

Anonymous said...

Fellow Jazzfans, please help drown the troll's comments--with serious ideas. Quick, do it while he's still listening to Mike Savage!

Tim said...

I think Anon, is part of the CERFONIAN truth squad. He uses tax payer money to pay people to scroll blogs and RUSH them with comments.

I thought this was "just" an allegation, but no. Cerf really did employ this as part of the NYC reform strategy! There his target was Diane Ravitch.

You are in good company Jazzman. And, I think you have hit a nerve.

Tim

Duke said...

Tim, and Anon #2 & #3, thanks for the kind words. While we do know Cerf monitored blogs critical of Tweed when he was in NYC, I've yet to see reporting that confirms employees were paid to post criticisms. If it's out there, would you please post a link?

I trust the readers of this blog to judge my arguments against those of any of my critics. Sometimes (not very often, ;-)) they are correct and catch me making a mistake. That's fine. But more often than not, the criticisms are ad hominems. Judge those as you will. I eel no obligation to respond if I don't want to, and you shouldn't either.

Thank you everyone for reading and commenting. The greatest compliment you could give me is leaving a comment here - I really mean that. It means, for good or ill, I've managed to engage you.

Anonymous said...

Nothing is wrong about a mission statement focus to make the discussion about the lower paid. But when every "study" they then do (and the books that pay for the lights) then winds up with some "proof" of social justice, I discount their "research" in toto.

By way of example, last time they went around on this issue, they "snuck in" private school teacher compensation to show a wider compensation gap between teachers and the rest of us professionals. They used this to call for higher teacher pay. They were then called on this and had to change it in their next report, when that huge gap all but disappeared (if you factor in NJ public school benefits, which they don't).

In reality, if y'all are so concerned about teachers in general, declare school choice across the state and competition will make those private school teachers get better compensation.

@All. Tremendously flattered, but I don't work for the DOe. Made my day tho :-)

Anonymous said...

I have to say, I love watching how all the reformy apologists (like Trolly McTroll here and Bob Ingle, among others) always answer rebuttals of their statements with "if you really cared about (something), you would..."

When you can't respond, imply that the other has nothing but self interest. Projecting much?

Teacher Mom said...

The more I thought about this, angrier I became, and I just can't keep quiet. I'm am so tired of the pension, benefit argument when it comes to compensation. ALL professionals have paid benefits. The only difference is how much they are expected to kick in toward them. I know teachers, especially in smaller districts, who were paying 20% on crap packages LONG before Christie told us to kick in more. Now let's talk pension. You mean the pension that contains ONLY MY money. The pension that the state, i. e. every NJ governor since Whittman and by extension the tax-payers, hasn't paid a dime into. OH wait Corzine made a small payment that didn't put a dent into the deficit to at least keep it from going bankrupt. Yeah I don't count that either. Most PROFESSIONALS have employers matching their 401Ks. My pension is MY money NOT COMPENSATION! I know it's beating a dead horse but I'll just repeat it AGAIN, We don't get paid for time off, nor do we expect to be. Hey I'd love an extra 10-15K a year, but when they talk about year-round schooling, they are talking about the Australian model that still includes 12 weeks off spread throughout the year, so no extra time there either. I am so SICK of these arguments! I am a PROFESSIONAL educator. Not a paid day laborer and I EXPECT to be compensated like one!!