Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman is getting $65,000 on top of her ever-rising $325,000 salary, Commonwealth Foundation is reporting .
Why? Is 325G and a desire to serve children not enough to inspire her to do her best? Or maybe the state-appointed School Reform Commission had some extra money — hey, there’s a budget crisis ? — and thought spreading it around would bring some good karma. It’s easy to be nice guys with other people’s money.
2009 was certainly not a year about which Ms. Ackerman could brag. Her most noted action was her strange non-response to violence and harassment of minority students that plague the district.
But then, why work if someone is going to give your $65,000 for sitting on your tail?
The
Pennsylvania House Education Committee, April 28, voted 14-11 with one absence to send to the
full House a bill that would mandate teaching sex education in public
schools.
H.B. 1163 would require that “not engaging in sexual intercourse is the only certain way to prevent pregnancy and to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV” and “provide students with accurate information that includes the following: Side effects, health benefits, effectiveness, safety and proper use of all FDA-approved contraceptive methods in preventing pregnancy.”
It will allow parents to opt their children out.
The state now requires districts to teach students about HIV and AIDS and
how to avoid contracting them, but any other instruction on sexuality is
at the district’s discretion.
State Rep. Chelsa Wagner
(D-22), the bill’s sponsor, says the mandate is needed to help lower pregnancy rates and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
One wonders, however, if the problem places are really the school districts that now don’t teach how to use condoms.
Lower Merion Surveilled Students — Not a rare handful but 56,000 photos of Lower Merion students were taken by the school district’s laptop spy system over the last two years including those of the kids in various states of undress and in their beds.
Also, the websites they visited and online chats they made were also perused by district officials and appear to be the subject of faculty lounge gossip.
As the scandal runs its course probably one or two heads are going to roll at the Pennsylvania district in the Philadelphia suburbs but a whole lot of those tasked with educating the young and who think it quite appropriate to peek into their pupils privacy — for their own good, of course — will remain.
Meanwhile, at Maude Wilkins Elementary School in Maple Shade, N.J., a plan was cooked up to celebrate Women’s History Month by requiring third-grade boys to wear woman’s clothes to school for a day. Cheerleader outfits and poodle skirts were suggested.
The idea was killed by outraged parents but those who conceived and approved it remain.
In every state, children are indoctrinated not educated. They are given information that is often false and against their parents wishes. The propaganda is often not even subtle as this particular item handed out in a Texas classroom illustrates.
So what to do?
It’s time to start recognizing that education is too important to leave to those who are not interested in it, namely those who run our public schools. It’s time to start understanding that those who put roadblocks in the path of removing bad teachers are not interested in education.
And it’s time to start realizing that those who put roadblocks in the path of teachers who want to go beyond the work allowed by their contract are not interested in education.
The solution is to give parents the power to fire their teachers. This is the genius behind school choice. If teacher isn’t competent or fails to teach what had been contracted, the parent takes the voucher money and gives it to someone who does what is expected.
BTW, this gives the teacher the power to fire the student too, if you will. If the student is a bully who makes life miserable for the other customers, the teacher can and will tell the parent to take the voucher money and give it to someone else, perhaps a specialist in bullies.
America spends $972 billion on education. It’s time to stop wasting it and fire our public schools.
Lower Merion School District watches over student Blake Robbins
The Rendell Administration — a.k.a. sock puppet for the teachers union — cuts funding for the Pennsylvania Educational Improve Tax Credit Program (EITC) by $10 million in its proposed budget despite increasing education spending by $354 million, and the REACH Alliance has launched Operation Restore, in an attempt to bring spending to the program back to $75 million.
The EITC, which may have quietly become the most successful school choice program in the country, was developed by State Rep. Sam Rohrer (R-128) who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor.
The EITC budget was cut by $15 million last year despite education spending increasing by $300 million, according to Nathan Benefield of the Commonwealth Foundation.
Benefield said that before the cuts scholarships were provided to 44,000 low- to moderate-incomestudents, albeit Rohrer recently said the program serves over 50,000 students.
The average EITC scholarship is around $1,100, compared withper-pupil spending of $13,000 in school districts – thus saving taxpayersover $400 million per year, noted Benefield.
Operation Restore features news about the EITC,a page to contactyour lawmakers, and townhall forums across Pennsylvania.
The Rose Tree Media School District announced March 23 that it has settled its contract dispute with the Rose Tree Media Education Association, the union that represents the districts teachers, guidance counselors, librarians and nurses.
An email being circulated to residents of the High Meadow neighborhood in Middletown Township, Delaware County, Pa., is pointing out that members of the Rose Tree Media Education Association, which is the union that represents teachers and others in the Rose Tree Media School District, is “demanding increases of between 4 and 5 percent each year for the next four years.”
The email notes that the School Board has consistently agreed to offer 2.5 percent annual increases for each of the next four years.
“Yes the school board tried to be reasonable from the outset of the negotiations. They should have started at Zero percent in light of the economy,” the email says.
The RTMEA voted to strike last month. To see what your teacher makes visit here.
Why does the federal Department of Education need 27 Remington Model 870 12-gauge shotguns with 14-inch barrels?
Now, someone might make a comment like “ho ho ho, maybe they might have to enter South Philadelphia High” and think they are being smart, but someone making such a comment would only show themselves to be rather stupid.
The Department of Education has absolutely no defense or law enforcement purpose. Buying guns indicates a perverse mission creep and that those running the department are not really people we want in government.
The oppressed masses in the Rose Tree Media Education Association — the union the covers teachers, school nurses and guidance counselors in the Rose Tree Media School District — voted to strike Wednesday.
Obviously, the working conditions in the district must be horrible for these caring professionals to take the drastic step of harming a child’s education.
And they are! Consider the plight of Springton Lake Middle School physical education teacher Stephen Adams. His salary was $87,329 in 2009. And that was for 195 days grueling days of teaching gym class. Granted, he also gets benefits but can’t you understand why he might have to vote to hurt a child with working conditions such as that?
Lower Merion Spied On Students Via Laptop — A federal class action lawsuit was filed Feb. 16Â alleging that Lower Merion School District used the webcams in the laptops distributed to students to spy on them in their homes.
The suit was filed by Michael E. and Holly S. Robbins on behalf of their son Blake, a student at Harriton High School, and the 1,800 or so other students at Harriton and Lower Merion, the district’s other high school.
The suit seeks damages caused by school district’s alleged invasion of privacy, theft of private information, and unlawful interception of electronic communications, and alleges the district broke numerous state and federal laws including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, along with the defendants’ Fourth Amendment Rights.
Lower Merion distributed the laptops to each high school student. Unbeknown to the students and the parents, the school district had the ability to remotely, and at anytime, activate the embedded webcam capturing the images in front of the camera.
The Robbins learned about this ability Nov. 9Â when Harriton Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko told them that Blake was engaged in improper behavior in his home and presented as evidence a photograph taken via the webcam from the laptop the school gave Blake.
The suit doesn’t say what exactly Blake was doing but whatever it was it was not as bad as public officials stomping over duly passed laws.
The case is being handled by the law firm of Lamm Rubenstone LLC of Trevose, Pa. They can be reached at 1-215-638-9330. They were contacted and confirmed the filing of the suit.
