Reform Welfare Before Raising Taxes

Below is my full response to the Riverside Press Enterprise newspaper's recent article regarding polls showing California voters are likely to approve tax hikes to help support our public schools.

As someone who has spent the last twenty-eight years teaching in three different school districts in three different parts of our state, I want to urge voters to reject any proposals to increase taxes to improve public education.

Over the last three years, the state has been brutal to public education. Budget cuts have resulted in massive teacher layoffs, the elimination of performing arts programs, and the realization that our public schools are not getting the job done.

This mess is the result of decisions made by our elected leaders who now want to see hard working taxpayers clean it up by increasing their taxes. This is not a solution to a problem as much as it is a punishment for being employed in this state.

If our leaders want to create more money and ear mark it for public education, they can start by ending the incentive to be a life long recipient of welfare. Rather than rewarding welfare recipients for bringing more children into the state who flood our schools with their low skills, lack of desire to improve, and even less parental support, we need to cut their benefits and encourage them to find another state to live off of.

Student enrollment would quickly decrease relieving school districts of the pressure to hire more teachers and implement programs for people who give us little to no return on our tax payer investment.

Test scores would also increase as would graduation rates and our state could marvel at seeing the percentage of college ready students go through the roof. California might even return to the top tier of states on the education front rather than remain at the bottom.

Ridding the state of its massive welfare population will also allow school districts to place a halt on new construction and allow them to better utilize existing campuses. With fewer campuses also comes the need for fewer administrators whose six figure salaries dwarf those of any teacher and save districts even more money.

Our schools can no longer be education centers for children from supportive and motivated families while also serving as glorified day care centers for parents who are unfit to have children in the first place.

If we eliminate the welfare problem that is sucking this state of much needed resources and replace it with a system that is designed to help those in temporary need rather than reward people too lazy or unskilled to work at all, we instantly improve our public schools.

Ten Things To Be Thankful For

1. Freedom: How do you think Occupy Wall Street would fly in China or the Middle East? Freedom of religion, free press, and the right to bare arms is not tolerated in most other nations of the world either.
2. Peace: We are only experiencing because we went looking for it in some other part of the world. It's not knocking at our door like it is in many other nations.
3. Wealth: Yes, unemployment is high but the poor in our nation enjoy a far better way of life than the poor in other countries. You do not see poor Americans lining up at our boarders looking to leave but how many poor people from other parts of the world would love to come to America?
4. Education: It is easy to criticize a system whose test scores pale when compared to many other countries. However, no other nation provides a free education to as many children from as many diverse backgrounds as we do.
5. Celebrity: We worship it, strive for it, and love to bash it all at the same time. Without it and those who achieve it, just think how miserable we would be without all the distractions it provides us.
6. Debate: Sure, our candidates lie, get their facts wrong, and sometimes just draw a blank when called upon. However, we at least get to make our candidates sweat before deciding who we want to run the country.
7. Black Friday: American consumerism at its best and worst depending on your shopping desires. It does give us a great chance to score some great deals even if we have to wait all night in the cold for stores to open but for many, that beats watching another football game.
8. Competition: Americans love it in all forms. Yes, it leads to scandals, questionable decision making, and creates a lot of stress. Still, it is what keeps this country continually moving forward in search of new ways to remain relevant and influential far beyond our borders.
9. Justice: Lawyers may be among the most despised people in our country for the way they twist and manipulate the law but our justice system has a way of getting far more right than it gets wrong. It's just that when it fails, it makes headlines.
10. Information: Today, we have more information at our fingertips than all the libraries in the world held twenty years ago. Our minds should never have to be idle unless we choose to shut them down.

Merit Pay Will Hurt Education

I recently watched a CNN special report on public education in which an hour was spent examining all that is wrong in our nation's public schools and concluded with what they felt were alternatives to the current solutions being used. As a teacher, the solution that struck me the most was the use of merit pay.

Many experts believe merit pay is needed when it comes to determining a teacher's salary and claim it will reward the good teachers while weeding out the bad ones. I do not believe this to be the case.

In a school district like mine, you can have teachers who teach anywhere from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Personally, over the course of my 28 year career, I have spent time teaching all grade levels and can tell you no two are the same. There is no equitable way to determine whether or not a kindergarten teacher of twenty years is doing a better job than a colleague of the same experience who teaches high school history. No two children are alike, no two grade levels are alike, and no two subjects are either.

Merit pay will only place a greater emphasis on test scores which we all know have driven our education system off the tracks. What do you do with a teacher who teaches a subject that is not tested by the state? Do you drop performing arts and other elective classes? Do you get rid of physical education? Do we just teach reading, writing, and arithmetic?

It is not that difficult to evaluate any teacher who is assigned to teach a single subject. They have the opportunity to master their craft and you can evaluate them on student progress, classroom management, and creative lesson plans. However, when that teacher is assigned to teach a period in another subject area because they hold more than one teaching credential, they now have double the prep time compared to their colleagues who merely teach one subject all day long. Performance is bound to suffer.

There have been years when I did not know what my teaching assignment was when the first bell of the year rang. One year, I ended up teaching seven different courses over a six period day. Figure that one out. Just last year, a week before the start of school, I was informed I would be teaching high school Behavior Health full time. A few days later, my principal, who I had yet to meet, called to tell me my schedule was changed to two periods of PE in the morning followed by three periods of Behavior Health. Then, when I reported to work, no one informed me my schedule had been changed again to four classes of Behavior Health followed by an afternoon class of PE. Three weeks into the school year, I was notified less than one hour before class, my schedule was being changed yet again. I was now losing my Behavior Health classes and being given four new classes of Geography.

If the same people assigned to evaluate my performance are unable to come up with a master schedule by the first day of school, how can they be relied upon to provide accurate teacher evaluations?

Some teachers hold a single subject credential and can only teach one thing. This allows them to master a subject and teach it year after year. Many work at their trade and continually shake things up in an effort to provide a quality education for their students. Still, others relish knowing they can go on cruise control and do what they have always done.

Other teachers, like myself, are credentialed in several areas. As a result, we get moved around a lot to fill in where needed, much like a utility baseball player who one day plays first base, the next, he is in the outfield, and then that is followed up by playing third base. Baseball teams need utility ball players but these players do not make as much money or receive as much recognition as their colleagues who master one position.

Schools are no different. They need utility teachers who can do a little bit of everything but are never given the chance to master any one thing. Without them, schools could not function.

In 2007, I was teaching middle school PE where my management skills allowed me to effectively teach classes of more than sixty students. When a new middle school opened up in

2008, I was moved and assigned seventh grade Social Studies, the subject I first started teaching in 1984. In 2009, I volunteered to teach elementary PE because I was looking for a challenge I had never done before. However, my district closed the school I was at when the year ended and I was then moved in 2010 to teach high school Behavior Health and later Geography. When that school year ended, my district dropped the Geography and Behavior Health requirement so I was then assigned to teach PE full time.

Five years and five different teaching assignments. Is it fair that my pay be tied to student progress over that time? Should I be rewarded for the multiple assignments I took on or punished because as a result, I did not have time to take on additional duties beyond the teaching day?

If the person assigned to evaluate me likes me, I may end up among the highest paid teachers in the district. However, if they don't, or if they go by the book and base it on strictly student performance, I may be working a second job to pay for my kids college tuition. Is it really fair to place my financial state in the hands of someone who may not like me or who may be upset because I do not blindly follow No Child Left Behind? While it may be easy to chart the progress of students on a year to year basis, you can not do the same with the teacher whose assignment continually changes. And before you say I am the exception, you may want to check and see how many teachers there are out there like me. You would be surprised.

Too often, our "best" teachers are given the "best" students and the "best" classes to teach. Any principal who dares to change their teaching assignments will have to face the wrath of that teacher, their Union, and scores of parents.

Other teachers are rewarded with choice assignments because they coach or over see other extra curricular programs that are not mandated or required by contract. The rest are left to fend for what we call the table scraps and as a result, some years are good and some not so good.

Merit pay for teachers will never work in making our public schools better. It will only drive away teachers who want to know in advance what they stand to earn so they can financially plan for their family's needs rather than having to sweat out an evaluation from an administrator who may be unable to make a master schedule while earning more money than the teacher affected by it.

Thoughts From A November Bike Ride

1. I am not as concerned about whether or not Herman Cain sexually harassed women in the 1990s as I am the fact he is a cancer survivor. If he is elected president next year, he better have a strong person as his Vice President.
2. Steve Jobs last words were, "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!" In other words, his reaction toward dying was the same as Apple customers reactions are to the release of a new product.
3. While the news has been covering the Occupy Wall Street story, we should be more concerned with how many shoppers occupy Wal Mart and other retailers on Black Friday. If shoppers stay home this year, 2012 will be worse for all of us than 2011.
4. I still do not understand why we observe day light savings time. Each day is still twenty-four hours long so where is all the savings?
5. If I were the Republican party's 2012 presidential candidate, I would select Newt Gingrich as my running mate. He is the only person among the current candidates with both the intellect and Washington experience necessary to get things done but no one will elect a guy who once divorced his wife after she was diagnosed with cancer.
6. Conan O'Brian's shows last week from New York were brilliant. No one on television is as funny as he is. How you you not crack up over his masturbating bear or Triumph the insult comic dog?
7. Why are college football games more exciting to watch than NFL games? One, the enthusiasm of a college crowd can not be duplicated by NFL teams that charge the prices they do to attend their games. And two, there is a lot more ingenuity on display in the college game than in the No Fun League.
8. I will always root for athletes that do the kind of things skier Lindsey Vonn did this week. To take the time out of her busy schedule and accept the invitation from a shy 15 year old boy to his prom is a class act that will provide that boy with a fantastic life time memory.
9. Why is it when Lance Armstrong passes every drug test known to mankind he is still under investigation for cheating long after retiring but when the 2010 Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador, fails a drug test he is still competing a year and a half later while authorities decide his case?
10. I wonder how tolerant the Chinese government would be if their citizens decided to occupy Tienanmen Square...again?
11. As long as the ninety-nine percent focus on the one percent who make up ninety-nine percent of our news and entertainment, we can continue to expect to see one in every fifteen Americans living in extreme poverty.
12. Our government spends far too many resources on other nations problems that should be spent solving our own. Where would we be today if England had taken that approach in 1776?
13. Americans are addicted to the quick fix which is why we have so many long term problems piling up on us today.
14. A four hour bike ride up and over a mountain wearing the season's first snow fall is something I'm glad I experienced.

Occupy This

Now that the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread to cities and towns across the country it is clear there are scores of unhappy citizens, especially twenty and thirty somethings, who are demanding change and are voicing their anger at the wealthy. I suppose if I was just out of college and trying to navigate my way through the current job scene, I would have more than a little frustration. Add to that, a generation that is use to instant gratification and who were drilled with the concept that we are all winners, it's natural for their anger to spill over.

I get that Wall Street represents all of the greed and disregard the wealthy seem to have toward those struggling to make ends meet, pay off college loans, and enjoy the American dream. However, for this movement to be taken seriously by working middle class people like me, we need to see some different occupying.

For starters, occupy Exxon Oil headquarters now that they have announced quarterly profits of 41 billion dollars while I pay $4.00 a gallon for gas to drive on dilapidated roads because they find tax loop holes to keep from paying their taxes. You could also occupy Apple headquarters, and all the other hi tech giants, who have managed to make you addicted to electronic devices so you can constantly listen to music, watch movies, text your friends, or browse your favorite web sites while you occupy Wall Street.

Maybe you could also occupy the central valley of California and demand first shot at jobs picking vegetables or harvesting fruit. You will have to work so hard you won't have the time or energy to text friends but can rest comfortably at night knowing you are helping provide low cost food for the nation.

Rather than occupying financial centers where the wealthy look down on you from their high rise offices and laugh, go occupy the Pentagon and insist they stop occupying foreign soil at the cost of billions of dollars and loss of lives. Insist our government use the military budget to create jobs repairing and improving our country's infrastructure. You could also go occupy the Peace Corps and volunteer your time and talent giving back to third world countries that have taken jobs from us only to make the bulk of their citizens live in filth we could never imagine.

Then again, you could just go occupy the U.S./Mexican border and keep illegals from entering our country to take all of the jobs you blame them for taking. Once they are gone, besides applying for their now vacant migrant field jobs, you can go after their cleaning jobs or take over their yard maintenance businesses. You could also occupy the neighborhood streets and patrol them now that we have fewer people in law enforcement to protect us.

Even though you have a college degree, go back to your college and occupy it. Do what your grand parents did in the 60's and occupy University president's offices and demand more affordable college tuition for future generations so they are not saddled with the debts you face.

I don't mean to be so harsh on what some call your movement. However, if all you are doing is complaining and demanding without doing something besides taking to the streets, yours is not a movement as much as it is just a gigantic whine fest. I understand it is jobs that you want. Feeling productive and making a contribution to society is something most of us want to do with our lives. However, this just doesn't fall into our laps and it is not something we are automatically entitled to. I must admit, there is a big part of me that senses you just want to start out at high paying jobs so you can not only pay off your college loans, something I think you really hope the government just does away with, but so you can purchase more toys and distractions.

Go organize new political parties and elect people who will change our laws, tax codes, and priorities to your liking rather than just demand the people currently in power do it for you. They do not care about your interests as much as they do their own political selfishness and you are a fool if you think otherwise.

But if all this sounds like too much of an undertaking for you, then I suggest you go occupy North Dakota. They are in a jobs growth boom where for every job that gets filled, one and a half new jobs go unfilled. Truckers can earn as much as $80,000.00 a year there and they do not have to deal with urban congestion. Oil rig workers are earning up to six figure salaries and the energy industry there will lead to a housing boom, need for more schools, law enforcement, medical personnel, and just about anything else you can think of.

North Dakota can be your gold rush if you really want to work and feel like a productive member of society. It can provide you with a lifetime of satisfaction that comes from knowing you helped create something from the ground up and made a difference in this world.

However, I am willing to bet most of you would use excuses like the harsh winters, lack of city life, and sacrifice involved in such a change as excuses for not going. In that case, I suggest you go occupy a library and read a history book and learn what your ancestors have done.

The Wisdom of Andy Rooney

Although he may have retired from 60 Minutes, the words of Andy Rooney are still worth enjoying.

1. Anyone who watches golf on television would enjoy watching the grass grow on greens.
2. Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make easier do not need to be done.
3. Death is a distant rumor to the young.
4. Don't rule out working with your hands. It does not preclude using your head.
5. Elephants and grandchildren never forget.
6. Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.
7. I didn't get old on purpose, it just happened. If you're lucky, it could happen to you.
8. I don't like food that is too carefully arranged; it makes you think that the chef is spending too much time on arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting.
9. If dogs could talk it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one.
10. Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose.
11. Nothing in fine print is ever good news.
12. People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.
13. The 50-50-90 rule: Any time you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90 percent probability you'll get it wrong.
14. The average dog is nicer than the average person.
15. The only people who say worse things about politicians than reporters do are other politicians.
16. Vegetarian - that's an old Indian word meaning lousy hunter.
17. We're all proud of making little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones.
18. All men are not created equal but should be treated as though they were under the law.
19. I like ice hockey, but it's a frustrating game to watch. It's hard to keep your eyes on both the puck and the players and too much time passes between scoring in hockey. There are usually more fights than there are points.
20. If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it.

Nightmare Act

I voted for Governor Jerry Brown in California's last gubernatorial election. In fact, recently, I have voted for more democratic candidates than republican, including President Obama, because I believe they have shown a desire to do what is best for all Americans more than their opposition. However, this could change if I see more actions like Brown signing off on the Dream Act which now makes a college education available to illegal citizens.

I understand the anger and frustration of the Tea Party who have grown tired of seeing tax payer money being spent on citizens disinterested in improving their lives (lifetime welfare recipients) or who do not live here legally. Our country has enough struggling citizens of its own to deal with that it does not need to require tax payers to flip the bill for the education of an illegal immigrant.

I have three children in college and I do not expect their tuition to be paid for by the citizens of Mexico, Honduras, Nigeria or any other nation. I resent seeing the tuition expenses I pay increase by as much as 20 percent a year while the services my kids receive decrease. There is no argument anyone can make that says we should provide for non citizens before we provide for our own. None! And it is especially irksome to people like my wife and I who hold steady jobs, pay our taxes, and began setting aside money for our children's college before we began having kids.

However, I do not see myself jumping on the Tea Party band wagon. While I understand their anger and frustration, all too often it is aimed at the wrong people. I do not understand the level of hatred they blindly express and their desire to see more of a police state in which law enforcement can blindly ask to check our identification if they suspect we look illegal (think of Nazi Germany and the targeting of Jews).

As long as there are an over abundance of lazy Americans who prefer collecting a welfare check over an honest day's pay and who impart that philosophy in their children's minds then we will have a need to hire illegals who are willing to do the work that our own citizens will not do. Still, that does not mean these illegals, or their children, are entitled to attend our colleges, especially at the expense of honest tax payers who struggle to send their own children to school.