Ok, I have time now.
Like Rick and Al, my wife is a former teacher. I know first hand how much work she put in and how much extra she had to spend of her own money on school supplies. She was one of the Arizona teachers that said screw this and went on to a career that is far more lucrative and far less stressful.
As far as my opinion on this issue goes, I think the teachers are doing the right thing. I was following a video on a facebook feed and watching the comments where people were talking all kinds of crap about the teachers and they're usual lines were something along the lines of:
"Fire them, replace them with better teachers".
Really? Arizona is almost dead last in public school funding in the country and the teachers are leaving in droves. There's such a huge teacher shortage in this state, that they started ad campaigns with actors and actresses trying to recruit teachers to come here and work.
I was like, you f***ing idiots, there is nobody to replace them. Every teacher that wants to be a teacher here is already a teacher here.
Anyway, I'm all for a smaller government and all, but I do think the government has certain responsibilities to the population. I believe that the core infrastructure should the primary purpose of the government.
Roads, police and other emergency services, military and last but not least... public education. If we're not providing the best education possible for our children, then WTF is going to make sure our country runs smoothly in the future?
When it comes to education, we're one of the worst there is of developed nations, and that should embarrass people. Education is important, it should be well funded.
We passed a bill here to increase sales tax by 1% which was sold as a tax to fund education. What do they do when it passes? They just rape the education funding from other sources so they could grab the 1%... and who knows wtf they did with it, but it sure as hell didn't go to education.
They keep systematically raping the education budget, then start blaming the teachers for students performing poorly. With a shoestring budget, it increases class sizes, decreases the quality of teachers and leaves deprecated tools (or no tools) for the children to learn and study with.
I'm happy AF that the teachers are doing what they are doing. I think what they are doing is brave as hell, because their time spent doing this is not paid, and the legislators here know it so they are stringing them out and trying to win by atrophy.
I rarely vote for dems, but come election time, I might do my part to vote against these a$$holes out of spite... because what they are doing is just flat out wrong. Kids in America deserve a good education, and if it means paying a little more to the state to make it happen, I'm ok with it as long as it actually goes to education and not get pillaged for who knows what sh1tty programs they're diverting it to.
bgz wrote:
