Did The Teachers Union Cause this?

No.


--
nimue

"If I had created reality television I would have had a much greater
influence, but then I would have had to KILL MYSELF." Joss Whedon

"There are two types of women -- those who like chocolate and complete
bitches." Dawn French

"Tommy" wrote in message
news:3363171.JNhNdJCTnl@FreeBSD...

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and
delusion.

Yes, to answer the title, most certainly. Ever since the
national touring Teacher's Union Gun and Knife Show became
the #1 convention event in America, weapon sales have
skyrocketed. Damn teachers!


P. Tierney

In article 8BvWd.36224$Ze3.33533@attbi_s51, P. Tierney says...


"Tommy" wrote in message
news:3363171.JNhNdJCTnl@FreeBSD...

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and
delusion.

Yes, to answer the title, most certainly. Ever since the
national touring Teacher's Union Gun and Knife Show became
the #1 convention event in America, weapon sales have
skyrocketed. Damn teachers!

So it's the teachers union that has been sending me all those 'pre-approved'
credit card offers? Damn - what an insidious threat has been exposed here!

P. Tierney wrote:
"Tommy" wrote in message
news:3363171.JNhNdJCTnl@FreeBSD...

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt,
and delusion.

Yes, to answer the title, most certainly. Ever since the
national touring Teacher's Union Gun and Knife Show became
the #1 convention event in America, weapon sales have
skyrocketed. Damn teachers!

Hey -- I am a teacher and I love to bring my Brooklyn school kids to those
Teacher's Union Gun and Knife Shows! We take off class for the ENTIRE WEEK
when the convention is in town (of course!) and let the kids frolic at the
gun booths. Sadly, our kids are poor, but we teachers are always willing to
spend our own money to buy them the guns and knives they need. Oh, sure, we
used to spend our own money on books and art supplies for them, but now we
know what is REALLY important. ;-)


P. Tierney

--
nimue

"If I had created reality television I would have had a much greater
influence, but then I would have had to KILL MYSELF." Joss Whedon

"There are two types of women -- those who like chocolate and complete
bitches." Dawn French

"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article 8BvWd.36224$Ze3.33533@attbi_s51, P. Tierney says...


"Tommy" wrote in message
news:3363171.JNhNdJCTnl@FreeBSD...

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt,
and
delusion.

Yes, to answer the title, most certainly. Ever since the
national touring Teacher's Union Gun and Knife Show became
the #1 convention event in America, weapon sales have
skyrocketed. Damn teachers!

So it's the teachers union that has been sending me all those
'pre-approved'
credit card offers? Damn - what an insidious threat has been exposed
here!
Gee...never realized I had so much power!! To think, teachers can bring down
the whole of American society, all while working part time with extremely
long vacations and putting in no effort whatsoever, except to abuse
children, while recieving a vastly inflated salary. (Sarcasm off)

No, the teacher's union did NOT cause "this".

Tommy wrote:
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec.
12, 2004).

This appears in an op-ed piece in the NYT, and thus doesn't cite the
REAL source of the data, which was sometime before Sept 1998, since I
found two cites of that claim that old.

The obscurity of the real source masks the data flaw, which is:
Most literacy statistics from the UN are based on self-reporting by
the member nations. Several nations (mostly in Europe) self-report
100% literacy, which is nonsense, since every country has mentally
retarded people who can't read, immigrants who entered the country
unable to read and haven't mastered the new language, etc. If the US
had 99.9% literacy, we would probably be in 30th place in UN
statistics. (The data shows a drop in the US rank among UN nations
since 1950, too, but that ignores the fact that the number of nations
in the UN has probably trebled since 1950.)

Literacy is worse in states that do not allow teachers to unionize, or
which give no collective bargaining power to such unions.

The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy
(NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

This was from the same op-ed. It reports on ONE international test
for one particular grade of school, and one particular variety of
mathematical literacy. In some other tests, the US does better; in
others we do worse.

Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen
percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week,
Jan. 7, 2005).

Probably confusion of terminology more than anything else. It is sad,
but on the other hand relatively few Americans have any cause to use
the verbs "orbit" and "revolve" once they leave school.

"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less
than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other
countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream:
How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream,
p.78).

Therefore kids shouldn't drop out of school in 8th grade.

Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American
businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12,
2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!

Same op-ed piece. $30 billion is such an infinitesimal portion of our
GNP that if that is ALL we are spending on corporate training, it is
the lack of training that is hurting the country.

Businesses relocate elsewhere because in the 3rd world, people will
work for wages well below our minimum wage, and can be trained for
less than that $30 billion because the primary cost of training is
wages.

"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and
engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures;
and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

The teachers union is supposed to have control over public R&D
expenditures and new capital raised, or even science and engineering
graduates (that's college, and the teacher's union doesn't control who
goes to college, what they major in, and whether they graduate)?
(Note that "public" R&D means government-sponsored R&D, i.e. taxes -
the comparison of private R&D spending might be different)

"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer
of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The
agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21,
2004).

Again, what does this have to do with the teachers union? The Bush
administration helps determines NSF funding.

Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year.
Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three
decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese
grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent,
South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be
anymore.

Because of post 9/11 restrictions.

The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of
overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of
health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more
per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The
European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.

Again, what does this have to do with the teachers union?

Mostly it comes from lack of public health care spending. We may
spend more, but it is largely private insured people paying for
expensive largely elective treatments and high tech diagnostic
protocols.

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world
that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European
Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed"
country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths
a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan.
12, 2005.)

So we need a universal health care program. More taxes.

"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the
developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81).
Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only
"developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.

Only 23 developed nations? Sounds like someone skewed the definition
of "developed" to include Mexico among the 23, and not all 48 nations
of Europe. Well, maybe we shouldn't count Vatican City.

[More selective statistics, many from European promotional literature,
almost all having nothing to do with education]

Again, what does this have to do with the teachers union?

The answer is "nothing".

lojbab
--
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org

"Tommy" wrote in message
news:3363171.JNhNdJCTnl@FreeBSD...
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times,
Dec.
12, 2004).

No.

I would think that fact that we have a President who is a clueless twit
about science and fails to provide adequate funds for NSF initiatives to
help teach science has a lot more to do with it.

Not to mention all the kids who live in crummy living conditions or live in
a freezing home because Bush cut the heating assistance or are more worried
about whether or not there will be supper than learning to read.

I think Bush is a far bigger problem that the teacher's unions.

Besides, how can teacher unions cause this?

jeff

Tommy wrote:

Subject: Did The Teachers Union Cause this?
-----------------
Answer, no, they are trying to PREVENT that,
but the Republican RICH of America DON'T WANT THEM TO SUCCEED!!!
Steve

R. Steve Walz is Rex Dark, Eskimo spy:

Answer, no, they are trying to PREVENT that,
but the Republican RICH of America DON'T WANT
THEM TO SUCCEED!!!

You have that backwards. Productive and employed
people results in more votes for the Republicans.
Democrats have an interest in keeping people
relatively poor and ignorant.

The primary job of the Teacher's Unions is to get maximum
pay and benefits for teachers while minimizing the amount
of work and responsibility. This is the goal of all
unions.

-Tom Enright

"The stability junkies in the EU, UN and elsewhere have,
as usual, missed the point. The Middle East is too stable.
So, if you had to pick only one regime to topple, why not
Iraq? Once you've got rid of the ruling gang, it's the
West's best shot at incubating a reasonably non-insane
polity. That's why the unravelling of the Middle East has
to start not in the West Bank but in Baghdad."
-Mark Styen, April 6, 2002


Steve

In article . com,
says...


R. Steve Walz is Rex Dark, Eskimo spy:

Answer, no, they are trying to PREVENT that,
but the Republican RICH of America DON'T WANT
THEM TO SUCCEED!!!

You have that backwards. Productive and employed
people results in more votes for the Republicans.
Democrats have an interest in keeping people
relatively poor and ignorant.

So if you're rich and ignorant, are you a Democrat or Republican?

Cheers,
Banty (answer: B)