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Bring Fenty Back
July 11, 2012 | 63 comments
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Mitt W. Bush
May 7, 2012 | 29 comments
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Education’s Medicaid Problem
January 11, 2012 | 39 comments
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The NEA’s Progressive Turn
December 9, 2011 | 13 comments
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Taking Over Lousy Schools
December 2, 2011 | 29 comments
The Nation's Pulse
The NEA Strikes Back
Adopting confrontational tactics out of sheer desperation, and not only in Wisconsin.
Last week’s Wisconsin supreme court election still remains too close to call. Depending on the results of the recount — and whether current justice David Prosser maintains his slim lead over assistant attorney general JoAnne Kloppenburg — Gov. Scott Walker’s successful ban on collective bargaining could either pass muster with the high court or be ruled unconstitutional.
Either way, it is a preview of the National Education Association’s rhetorical and political strategy for battling with both the nation’s school reform movement and fiscal conservatives inside the nation’s statehouses — especially those in the Midwest, where the majority of the country’s largest teachers union’s rank-and-file members reside — over the future of America’s woeful public schools. Declared the union’s recently installed executive director, John Stocks, in February: “We are at war.”
With the NEA having lost battles in Wisconsin, Ohio and Idaho to defend its ability to force school districts to the bargaining table, it is pushing to oust politicians who either opposed their wishes or may sustain efforts to abolish collective bargaining. The union’s Wisconsin affiliate — which captured the nation’s attention in February and March with protests over Walker’s anti-collective bargaining effort — has since joined with other public sector unions in efforts to oust Prosser and push for the recall of three of the Republican state senators who helped pass the law.
The NEA is also looking to bolster its hefty political war chest. In February, the NEA announced plans to enact a two-fold increase in the member dues dedicated to political campaigning. The $10 a member increase will add another $40 million to the union’s war chest, easily boosting its position as the biggest donors in American politics. Its state affiliates — some of which are mounting referendums against bans on collective bargaining — will likely do the same: In Ohio, for instance, the NEA state affiliate is looking to charge members an additional $50 in one-time dues to help finance its effort to pass a referendum to overturn the state’s recently passed collective bargaining ban.
Meanwhile the NEA and its affiliates are also adapting the kind of militant unionizing tactics that made the rival AFT legendary — and helped make teaching the most-lucrative profession in the public sector. In Michigan, the NEA affiliate is asking rank-and-file members to join in what it calls “crisis activities” — essentially strikes and work stoppages — in order to protest budget cuts and a new state law that allows school districts taken over by the state (including Detroit’s abysmal public schools) to void their teacher contracts. This comes after months of protests by teachers unions filled state capitals throughout the Midwest.
The NEA is helping out protesters — and encouraging even more strikes and rallies — with the help of its $40 million (assets) foundation arm. Through the philanthropy, the union is forming something called the 51 Fund, which ostensibly aims to “help feed volunteers, organize rallies, and get the message out to people everywhere that the right to collective bargaining ensures a strong middle-class.” It is also using the World Wide Web — including its Education Votes site — to bypass traditional media and mobilize rank-and-file members along with those few left-leaners still hostile to vouchers, charter schools, standardized testing, and the other formulas touted by school reformers.
Given that the NEA has spent more than $248 million in the past decade on political campaigns and referendums, this activism isn’t exactly surprising. But the militancy most certainly is.
Unlike the rival AFT — whose hardball tactics and crippling labor strikes during the 1960s helped foster the oft-servile relationship between teachers unions and school districts (as well as transformed public sector unionism) — the NEA has never been at the forefront of labor activism.
For most of its 154-year-history, the union (which also considers itself a professional association) using its ties to university schools of education and other education establishment players to influence education policy. For example, the NEA ladled out $1.9 million to the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (which certifies ed schools) between the 2005-2006 and 2009-2010 fiscal years.
Even as the NEA became a bigger player in state and federal elections — and, along with the AFT, the leading players in Democratic Party politics — it eschewed the kind of militancy embraced by fellow public sector unions. It didn’t have to. The NEA’s vast war chests, armies of rank-and-file workers lobbying on its behalf, and working relationships with suburban school districts helped the union strike deals with state legislatures that ensured that teaching would be the best-compensated public-sector profession and restricted the advance of reforms.
The fact that most of the NEA’s membership is based in Rust Belt and smaller Southern states — largely away from the big-city districts whose dropout factories have made them hotbeds for reform — also insulated the union from the kind of hostile battles that have forced the AFT into bitter compromises and concessions. So its leaders ignored warnings from media consultants such as the Kamber Group, which in a 1997 report declared: “There is a war going on over public education and NEA is still in a business-as-usual mode.”
But with states facing $1.4 trillion in pension deficits and unfunded retired teacher healthcare costs — just as they wrangle with $175 billion in budget shortfalls over the next three fiscal years — the NEA can count even less on unquestioned support from state legislatures. This is especially true in Rust Belt bellwethers Wisconsin and Ohio, where newly elected Republican governors and legislatures must reckon with the combination of the recently-ended recession, decades of feckless spending, and teacher pension and healthcare deficits of at least $47 billion (depending on how much the Badger State’s actuarial assumptions understate its liabilities). The fact that these and other NEA-dominated states also struggle with low graduation rates and woeful schools — also helps to put expensive teacher compensation under the microscope.
At the same time, President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top effort — which coaxed longstanding bastions for teachers unions such as California to expand school choice and end bans on the use of student test score data in evaluating teacher performance — has also emboldened school reformers to push for further gains. In Tennessee, the NEA affiliate couldn’t stop the state legislature from passing a law that effectively ends near-lifetime employment for teachers and subjects them to stricter performance management. School voucher measures are under serious consideration in NEA strongholds such as Pennsylvania and Indiana. The fact that some of the NEA’s key locals are either in insolvency or, as even in the case of the Wisconsin affiliate, battling over whether they should embrace some school reform measures and break up school districts, also saps the union of strength.
But with the threat of a weakened grasp on influence at the state level (and having lost significant influence over education policy at the federal level), the NEA is calling upon old-school unionism — and even the legacy of the civil rights movement — to rally support. On April 1, just before the NEA teamed up with other public unions for a mass demonstration on the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel dared to invoke the civil rights leader’s fight for equal pay for black city workers. Wrote Van Roekel in the Memphis Commercial Appeal: “[King] knew that unions — including public unions like the Memphis sanitation workers — were a critical part of that struggle.”
But considering that school reformers now call education the greatest civil rights issue of this era — and that taxpayers realize they are funding lavish retirements for teachers and other public sector workers at the expense of their own retirements and that of their kids — Van Roekel and the NEA may need to realize they are on the wrong side of history. The very seniority-based privileges and collective bargaining rules the NEA and AFT have embraced have helped foster low-quality education for school children (especially those from poor white, black, and Latino households), a state of affairs no one but the unions’ most diehard allies can still defend.
There is also the fact that younger teachers within the rank-and-file (who now make up the majority of all teachers in both the NEA and AFT) are embracing school reform. Seventy-five percent of Generation Y teachers said that they wanted performance-based pay as part of their compensation packages, according to a survey for the AFT released last week by the American Institutes for Research.
The NEA’s empire has already struck out. If it isn’t careful, it will soon not even exist.
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (45) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.11.11 @ 6:36AM
This is the end game of "It's for the children." It's never for the children. It's always for the greedy ones hiding in the background making that claim.
Bulgaricus| 4.11.11 @ 6:38AM
As both a former teacher & NEA rep, I can say that this union is totally useless as far as helping educate kids. Radical reforms are it's specialty as well as keeping the status quo. I never ever saw one proposal to support any conservative or republican candidate in all of the meetings. Yet, I heard a lot about "defending rights of educators." This means going to useless conferences such as Self Esteem & how to teach in a rainbow classroom. Total krap. The best thing we could do for our chldren would be to break the back of the NEA & have school choice.
Mr ED| 4.11.11 @ 7:49AM
The Leftists Education cartel, which uses the typical Leftist bait-and-switch tactic that claims pubically that they are "for the children" but then in private meetings (carefully ignored by their allies in the Leftist MSM naturally) admit that they only in it for the money and power, will have to be utterlydestroyed before any reasonable and effective changes can be implemented to education in this country.
Any parent who is sufficiently tired of their children being held hostage by the professional Left and used to continually extract more money for the union bosses and their Lib political hack allies need to become aware and involved at the local level.
saleboter| 4.11.11 @ 8:04AM
The tired phrase 'it's for the children' doesn't work anymore, because it was never true.
blackknights1802| 4.11.11 @ 8:06AM
Everyone knows that the clinched-fist is and has always been the trademark of the Marxists, socialists, revolutionaries and anarchists. Now the country’s union members parade around carrying this symbol. Some union leaders are even organizing and calling for the collapse of the US stock market. What do these union leaders think will happen to the pensions of their rank & file with a collapse of the market? It’s obvious they don’t care. The union membership is being turned into the “useful idiots”.
C. S. P. Schofield| 4.11.11 @ 8:11AM
For years school reform proposals have been met with cries of "But that would destroy public education as we know it!". Now the hypocrits who hid behind that cry are finding out what happens when a typical parent's reaction to it is "Good!".
martin j smith| 4.11.11 @ 8:16AM
THERE WILL BE A NEED TO BLUNT THE GOON TACTICS AND THAT MEANS SOME FORM(S ) OF SECURITY --No the police Department that joins the Union rioters. Let me say this about that. I used ( and I underline that word sadly ) have more faith and admiration for the police and fire departments general terms. Now, after seeing them in action in Wisconsin--I do not trust them so much. the reality of these UNIONS is that they are COMMUNIST THUGS.
Becky| 4.11.11 @ 8:16AM
I believe that the NEA (MEA) is merely upping its game from local politics to state and national. They are merely following the money; local municipalities are pretty much broke, and here in MI property values have been declining and the economy has been in a recession basically most of the former gov's 8 years. The teacher's unions have always been active in local politics.
The "for the children" and "children are our future" have run past their expiration date. I wonder what was said of youth in the 20's , 30's and 40's when the children of that time grew up to create a pretty darn good world, one we benefit from today. They appear to have been a generation who's education mainly consisted of what we would call primary education without the benefit of "early childhood education" which is another chunk of bologna at the other end of the education spectrum.
Education is about the system and adults. Children and parents are secondary concerns.
WRTolkas| 4.11.11 @ 8:17AM
"We are at WAR!"
Yes, I've known that for years when it came to overthrow this administration (peacefully at the voting booth) and with the NEA (?). "It's for the children" my a$$.
R Martin| 4.11.11 @ 8:37AM
Conservative politicians who want to address the education problem should focus on and work to abolish the entrenched teacher certification system. That system is at the very heart of mediocre public school education. Consider the sorts of private schools such as the one the Obama children attend. Those schools charge hefty tuitions, provide superior education and they could not care less whether or not a teacher is "certified". Instead, they employ mathematicians to teach math, scientists to teach science and, often, native speakers to teach foreign languages.
State certification is not simply one tool fortifying union power, it is the strongest tool.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 4.11.11 @ 8:45AM
Is the NEA being run by those Teachers in New York, who have been sentenced to the infamous Rubber-Rooms? It's starting to look that way to me, they're looking more and more like dangerous predators, than they are the Folks that we should be cheering for. The more these Unions scream and protest about their so-called unfair treatment, the low pay we all wish we were condemned too receive, having to actually contribute a small percentage of that pay to their own healthcare and retirements (which is small potatoes in comparison to what the Private Sector has been doing for years), the more they're exposed for what they have become to the American Taxpayers, Teacher-Leaches!! Selfish power hungry, never satisfied Teacher-Leaches!! Teachers used to be respected, as were Firefighters, and Cops, but in the last few months, the more you learn about their Union deals, and tactics, and how they're destroying the budgets of their respective States (and then seeing their members in uniform, protesting at the State Capitals, to steal more of their neighbors money), the more they're turning from Heroes to Zeroes. They better change their ways soon, before they find themselves without a friend left in America.
Hey Nancy, where is my Reply To This Button?
tsd| 4.11.11 @ 8:59AM
The education system in our country is little more than a cover for the corrupt unions and some of it's members. It is time to make sure we have a work place where people are not forced to be union members, strong armed out of money for union dues. The system that runs education in our country does us all a disservice... a huge part of the money we spend is not helping our kids. Our kids are being used by this corrupt system that does a poor job of providing education and it is time "we the people" say enough! Now we have a president who is talking of more money he is wanting to throw into this system on a federal level.... guess what his end game is?
ENOUGH ROPE| 4.11.11 @ 9:21AM
After the recent thuggery by its teachers' unions, Wisconsin should be motivated to end completely its public school system and replace it with private secular and private religious schools.
Ideally, school taxes should not be remitted to the government at any level to avoid bureaucratic costs and political trickery. Instead, parents should keep the money and disburse it to the private schools of their choice. How will parents who do not pay property taxes, which is the source of school taxes, have the money to pay for private school tuition? I have ideas, but this commentary would become longer than it is to discuss them. Minds in favor of private schools will find creative and non-governmental solutions.
The private schools should be initiated by secular and religious groups to offer choices between private or religious schools. There would need to be some kind of transition period and plan for the COMPLETE termination of public schools and the start up phase for private schools.
Yes, some parents will spend the tax savings on other things instead of budgeting for their child’s school. What to do about indigent students and students of imprudent parents? In the 1940s I was educated in Catholic elementary schools which were financed by the general collections at Masses and by the teaching services of many nuns. The nuns are gone mostly. Perhaps a portion of collections by ANY religious denomination could supplement the funding for whatever private school that denomination chooses to sponsor partially or fully. With the increased funding from no school taxes, MAYBE private secular and religious schools would have a sufficient excess of revenues over expenses to accept some needy students. At some point, the schools would need to do a means test for needy students to prevent exploitation of the schools’ generosity.
I do not know the exact provisions needed to do a 100% switch to private schools, but I hope the revenue stream that funds the private schools is sufficient to attract teachers who MAJORED in the subject they teach at a college that is NOT a school of education. The revenues must be sufficient to provide for benefits and retirements that are normal for other sectors of private for profit organizations. Obstructive requirements to become a teacher should be repealed; they are just union gatekeepers.
House Republicans should pass a resolution that urges states, especially states with Republican governors, to end the public school system and replace it with private school vouchers funded by current school taxes. Collection of school taxes to fund vouchers for private schools should be an INTERIM measure until public schools are replaced by private schools that are comprised of secular and religious schools. States should limit cities to governmental departments that are essential, such as police, fire, water, streets, and a very few other essential services; public schools should not be one of them.
Government control of the monopolistic public schools systems enables the government to brainwash students with the government party line which opposes Judeo-Christian values, U.S. political, economic and cultural history, the U.S. Constitution, and the idea that our individual rights come from God–not from the state.
I am persuaded that the leftists who control the schools of education and public schools work to make our students, and thus our citizenry, ignorant and incompetent. Why? Ignorant and incompetent citizens can be duped easily.
It will take generations for the permanent underclass created by Liberals and Progressives to be educated about the truth that there is no free lunch. All students should be taught that socialism works until there is no one left with money to confiscate for redistribution.
The victims in the underclass need to learn that they have been duped by the Liberals and Progressives. The public school system monopoly must be replaced by private schools that teach truth, goodness, beauty, virtue, wisdom, love of God, and love of neighbor. Starve the public schools of school taxes that should fund the private schools.
When the current thugs who rule the Senate and the Executive Branch are replaced by Conservatives and Republicans, then a law should be passed that grants the states the CHOICE to do all of the above. I say choice, because we must limit the Federal Government to the powers stated in the U.S. Constitution.
Do the above, and America will become once again a nation under God.
Gordon W.| 4.11.11 @ 9:34AM
The article is more of the same, state some premise and bolster with false information.
One contention is that the rust belt is has the highest drop out rates and its due to the unions. The internet provides easy access to information: http://www.higheredinfo.org/db.....measure=23
So the unions cannot cause high dropout rates, because those states have some of the highest graduation rates
Then there is the bit about those from poor white, black, and Latino households. But school districts are funded through taxes, so if it is a low income area there will be little funding for schools. Usually the quality of education is linked to that in some fashion. Why else would all the rich whites in the south send their kids to private schools? It isn't because of the blacks is it?
Citizen Jerry| 4.11.11 @ 10:08AM
The NEA considers itself a professional association? A man can call himself a short-term relationship consultant, but he's still a pimp.
justasimplepatriot| 4.11.11 @ 10:10AM
Either ban public employee unions completely or:
1. Force all pay and benefits to be voted upon by the public.
2. Forbid political contributions and/or activism under penalty of immediate decertification.
3. Insist that the union must collect it's own union dues rather than having taxpayers subsidize that process.
Kelly Florida| 4.11.11 @ 10:39AM
So what happened to elections and letting the people speak? Oh I guess that is only when the Dems win...and when did 10K votes make a slim lead?
Richard Baker| 4.11.11 @ 10:41AM
NEA is not a professional teacher's organization anymore than the government is a penny pinching body.
Kelly Florida| 4.11.11 @ 10:43AM
@Gordon W...look anywhere the dems have been in control for the past 5-10 years and you will see poverty. If the Dems take them all out of poverty who would vote for them? Once you are in the real world and doing for yourself you know the GOP is the only party that cares about the US. The Dems are just looking to live of the taxpayers and never really work...
Allan| 4.11.11 @ 10:47AM
What happened to "this is for the children"? What I see is a bunch of people who don't preform their jobs demanding I pay them more and more so they can do their jobs even more poorly. To those who truly love their job and are making a difference please take back your profession from these losers.
Thomas| 4.11.11 @ 10:56AM
The NEA and other unions exist to protect and advance the welfare of their members. That is what they do. And, unions are not some evil force standing in the shadows, they are the people that they represent. What has happened, is that the Republicans have taken a page from the Democrat play book and have set the public sector unions and their members up as being the boogieman. They have lied about public employee pension funds. They have lied about payment of union dues. They have lied about the necessity of denying public employees the ability to collectively bargain in order to balance the budget. And they did it selectively in Wisconsin, where only those public unions that backed the Democrat candidate for governor were penalized.
Why? The unions and their members did not pass the compensation packages they enjoy, the elected representatives of the people did. In time of economic hardship, the governmental entity does not have to retain the workers, they can be laid off [though in many instances the workers will take cuts or allow the suspension of their benefits for the duration of the emergency in order to retain jobs].
So, what did you all expect? These unions and their members are not going to wipe their noses and say "I yield". They have too much at stake. In the first place, they have no where to go. Unlike the private sector, where plumbers, electricians, IT technicians and salesmen; many public sector people [police, firemen, teachers] have nowhere else to go. Law enforcement is a public sector job. Fire protection is a public sector job. And teaching is also, largely, a public sector job. And, because of that, no matter the qualifications or the ability of the rank and file worker, they are forced to enter employment with the agency at the bottom. They can not negotiate their benefit packages in any way.
The Republicans wanted to butt heads with unions in general and public sector unions in particular. Well, this is the result. Ifyou decide to pick a fight with someone, then don't whine if they fight back.
Kelly Florida| 4.11.11 @ 11:13AM
The unions have a lot at stake...what about the Dem party? the SLUSH FUND WILL END.
cicero| 4.11.11 @ 11:30AM
Be very careful before asking for "performance based" pay for teachers. It is just like requiring a "Masters" degree for tenure, and a huge increase in pay. All teachers end up with a Masters in Education, qualifying them for the tenure and pay raise, when everyone is aware that the Masters in Education is nothing more than a "popcorn" degree.
If you are going to go to performance based evaluation, you have to ratchet the pay scale back to where is reflects reality, and go from there. Not just stack more money onto the current inflated wage scales. In addition, there has to be some objective basis for the evaluation of the performance. Otherwise, you have the foxes back in charge of the henhouse.
WEB| 4.11.11 @ 11:51AM
The NEA is a worthless organization and shouldn't exist.
Wayne | 4.11.11 @ 12:01PM
I thought Prosser was up over 7000 votes. Did I miss something?
Dean| 4.11.11 @ 12:14PM
To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, " 'It's for the children' is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
Richard| 4.11.11 @ 12:20PM
The problem is the existence of government worker unions. They should not exist. There are civil service commissions and state and local elected officials who are quite capable of defending their interests. A union of police officers, for example, is absolutely a conflict of interest--even the APPEARANCE of partiality in certain situations such as the Wisconsin "riots" is enough to negate police efficacy as a whole.
Oldefarte| 4.11.11 @ 1:34PM
The problem isn't the dedicated teachers, but theses unions that are now controlling them [just as all unions do]. In order to improve public education, the first/vital step will be to divorce the teachers from their unions, whihc are manipulating them sadly. We all know teachers who have transformed/insired our lives, and many of them work damned hard and are entirely dedicated to educating our/their children; BUT they need to get rid of these damned union thugs that are using them for political purposes. Good teachers will always have jobs and are always needed/demanded for their intelligence/professionalism. Without good teachers, this country and its civilation would cease to exist. So, teachers and all of us need to simply ban together and delete these destructive labor unions from our existence!!!!!!!!
Rob| 4.11.11 @ 1:43PM
The NEA's Web site says that it advocates all forms of family planning and community-operated family planning clinics in the public schools. Sounds like it's so strongly pro-abortion that it wants Planned Parenthood to have direct access to public school children so as to maximize the number of minors who obtain abortions, among other forms of so-called "family planning." Giving even one penny to the NEA or any of its state affiliates should be recognized as a contribution to the sin of abortion advocacy, no less bloodstained than abortion itself, and as direct material cooperation with evil.
Larry| 4.11.11 @ 2:10PM
Can you say socialist scum? That's all that the NEA is. Too many of their teachers turn out inferior products. Too many of their teachers ARE inferior products of inferior schooling. How can we expect them to teach children? And yet, the NEA will fight to the end to keep such unqualified people in their jobs.
jstwndring| 4.11.11 @ 3:52PM
"Declared the union's recently installed executive director, John Stocks, in February: "We are at war.""
--------------------------
You jackasses on the political left have always been at war with this country. What's new? I'll tell you what: Those of us on the political right are finally engaging you in that war. Now, you're in trouble. One election, and you pricks on the left are in trouble! Keeping the American public ignorant about what you DemocRats have been up to all these decades is the only thing that has allowed you to keep the upper hand. Unfortunately, for you, we're on to you, and we're informing the rest of America.
We ARE at war! No mercy to our collectivist enemies in the Democrat party. Knock 'em down! Then, kick 'em some more!
Seapuss| 4.11.11 @ 5:09PM
Wayne | 4.11.11 @ 12:01PM
I thought Prosser was up over 7000 votes. Did I miss something?
Wayne, you have it right. The first paragraph of this article is misleading. Prosser is up by about 7,000 votes, which is virtually impossible for Kloppenburg to overcome with the typical liberal election fraud.
marvin| 4.11.11 @ 5:11PM
Longing for the day when the NEA is simply irrelevant.
Marc Jeric| 4.11.11 @ 6:00PM
By definition all government employees unions are criminal conspiracies against the people, and should therefore be routinely prosecuted under RICO laws.
emo| 4.11.11 @ 6:08PM
""Last week's Wisconsin supreme court election still remains too close to call.""
No, 7,000 votes out of 1.4 million is actually NOT too close to call. Prosser won, period
Occam's Tool| 4.11.11 @ 6:40PM
My daughter, age 7, just took her California Achievement Test. She's homeschooled by my wife, not an education grad---summa cum laude in accounting from The Capstone. She's also adopted---bio mom was a domestic in Guatemala and had malaria during the pregnancy.
There were 300 questions. She Who Must Be Obeyed, Jr. scored 294 correct, for an overall grade equivalent of 10.6 and a scaled score of 770. In short, she rolled over the test like the Israeli Air Force.
We took her out of public school because Jr. was not happy with her teacher, who she felt wasn't giving her enough support and attention. Obviously, with proper attention, she does alright.
Screw the NEA.
Negro X| 4.11.11 @ 6:48PM
What happened to the reply button? AS hire NEA employees?
Dee See| 4.11.11 @ 10:42PM
BTW
The NEA leadership, like that of our fractional
reserve, wholly illegal, private banking set-up
----is FREEMASON (i.e. Social Darwinism,
'controlled opposition paradigms' and EUGENICS).
Are we begining to get the BIG picture?
GOOD
VERY GOOD
Nite| 4.11.11 @ 11:44PM
These socialist members of the NEA are teaching our children? It is more like indoctrination of things that certainly are not considered family values.
Richard Baker| 4.12.11 @ 9:23AM
Dee See:
What's your address so that I can kill the Masonic Devil goat on your doorstep? Must have missed the conspiracy class when I was training to be a Master Mason.
CharlieEcho| 4.12.11 @ 9:52AM
I live in the State of Illannoy. Our state is having financial difficulties as I'm sure you know if you have not lived under a rock in Kenya. Therefore our schools are in financial difficulties. Declining to make serious cuts in spending and seeking a referendum tax increase our school board saw a change with tow write-ins newly elected. We are trying to make changes. It's long past time. The unions are now only for the unions.
CharlieEcho| 4.12.11 @ 9:53AM
I live in the State of Illannoy. Our state is having financial difficulties as I'm sure you know if you have not lived under a rock in Kenya. Therefore our schools are in financial difficulties. Declining to make serious cuts in spending and seeking a referendum tax increase our school board saw a change with tow write-ins newly elected. We are trying to make changes. It's long past time. The unions are now only for the unions.
Jack in Wi.| 4.13.11 @ 5:22PM
We in Wi. are in the heart of the battle to take our country back. We have a great governor but he is being attacked in the most vicious ways. Pray for him.
Brian| 4.14.11 @ 12:23AM
Until teachers and administrators face hefty fines and jail time for failing to do their jobs things won't change. If Dr.'s , lawyers, nurses, etc don't do the job expected they go to jail and teachers should be no exception! Throw the book at em.
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:30PM
is good