Darn service industries and there high wage to expense ratios. Maybe if a video game could teach your kids all that they need to know we could just get rid of schools all together. Better yet, if we can reduce work ages we can put them to work and get them out of this drain on our society we call education. I mean, what good could come from schools for our children??

"Recall Waste": Because you know that my husband signed a recall petition does not mean that you know what my particular political opinion is. Regardless, as non-partisan officials, we must put our own politics aside and work with what we have in front of us to the best of our abilities to best serve our district's children. That is our job. It is unfortunate that anyone made it their job to annouce publicly on the Patch that these people chose to voice their concerns through a petition.

It's my job to bring sunshine (although I missed sunshine week by a couple days on this!). I hope the irony of one politician complaining that a citizen reported on other politicians' public calls for the recall of yet another politician is not lost on Patch readers.

It's a public record. What is your position on Act 10?

Although I haven't had the theological training that your pastor has, I'm not sure that I have ever seen any story in the New Testament in which Jesus got involved in politics. Correct me if I am wrong, but his interest seemed to be in a different kingdom than Ceasar's.

Rik,
If you think Jesus was outside of politics, than I have a horse to sell to you.

Say What?, I seem to remember the phrase "Give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's and give to God what is God's." Help me out and point me to anywhere in the New Testament where Jesus signed a recall petition - or at a minimum, spoke one disgruntled word against the political system of his contemporary Israel.

I'll take the horse.

http://www.crivoice.org/jesus2.html

Say What?, that was long and interesting article by a professor at Southern Nazarene University. You seem to think that such thought MUST be mainstream, and must, therefore, be a settled conclusion.

The article was also devoid of any direct scriptural statements by Jesus about politics. The premise of the article (and the author clearly states so) is that you have to read between the lines to see anything political in the New Testament. So now you're into interpretation, and speculative interpretation at that. Which, following a similar logical path we could use to say that Jesus endorsed limited slavery. Such interpretation is merely a path to an end result that the interpreter wants to achieve.

Aside from lacking anything BUT interpretation to make the author's point, the Biblical interpretation flies in the face of Christian history, in which the words of Jesus (the very words Tashijan quotes) were the basis for passive protest - recognition that suffering in this world at the hands of politics meant nothing if eternal glory in the next followed.

Again, I'm pretty sure that Jesus wasn't concerned about public worker unions, and I expect he would have better things to attend to than a recall election against a governor who tried to put the taxpayers on a level playing field with those unions. Just sayin'.

So, even at one point where Jesus says that the rules on this earth have been put here by his father and to abide by them, and also tells rulers that they must abide by his fathers rule, has no political impact. Ask Rick Santorum.

These are good questions. Tom and others would rather be concerned with, and have no substantial proof of, McCutcheon and Olson making decisions related to the beliefs that they hold so that they can get two twits elected who, without any doubt whatsoever, are completely focused on ideological changes to the school system without concern of the students. Step one, republican playbook, step two, republican playbook, etc etc. I bet C.A.B. would have a hard time showing how the handbook and the contract are virtually one and the same. Good luck with the witch hunt.

So... the comparison here is that someone reports information on a news site blog, which information is not only public, but voluntarily given by the individuals listed, which information is heavily political in nature, and which information is about local politicians - and you think that the messenger should give up his own personal contact information?

Is it an invasion of privacy to post the public information, voluntarily given by public officials, in the realm of politics in which the public officials are also involved? Because if it is, I'm not sure you understand what privacy is.

WEA Trust has been utterly ripping off the state since its inception... Either the Union that set it up used it to rip off the state,( which they deny up and down that they are working together) or they have been colluding together to set up these ridiculous price fixing quotes... Funny how not that school boards have the option to change from WEA Trust the potential savings are in the hundreds of thousands or in P/S school district it is over a million dollars... Magic how WEA Trust said they could also save the district money after other providers offered quotes of up to 7% or more less than what WEA was offering... If you are telling me all these teachers are going UTTERLY insane because they are losing they bargaining rights, which they claimed they were going to give up on their own.., you are naive or missing the point entirely... How many of you can retire from your position, collect a pension and then make a deal with your boss to come back at the same pay and collect the pay and wage still? How many of you had to foot only 8% or so of your health care? or almost nothing of your pension if you even have one??
The teachers do great things teaching our kids but the fact that they have had sweetheart deals for years and now many of them are pushing their political agenda on the children is quite frankly disgusting...
And as for Jesus, he never intended half of the population to live like leeches of the government... give a man a fish, or teach a man to fish....

Well, ya saved 1.5 million this year. So, yes you could, and yes you did. And it all matched or beat the act10 guidelines. For this year, there is bidding out on the health. Much of the reductions in health benefit cost in this session has been afforded through the proposal of reductions in the coverage. But, we can wait to see how that is going to change. As for why they didn't tell the teachers all to pack sand, I guess they were trying to work with changes over a number of years to provide a semi stable and predictable set of changes to work guidelines, pay, and benefits. I suppose, they could have just told them pack it tight, but I know many more than the 19 that left the district that would have left, sans retirement and all. This year stands to have a rather large departure again, and it appears that this will continue until all we are filled with is "bright shining stars" of teachers, you know, the ones who 50% of quit teaching for good in their first 5 years because they find out it is too difficult, doesn't pay enough to pay down school, and lacks even a remote amount of respect from people in the community.

So... if this article is accurate, should we be more or less willing to trim public employee benefits? And I quote your link:

"As for productivity, at least two dozen studies over the last three decades have conclusively shown that people who expect to receive a reward for completing a task or for doing that task successfully simply do not perform as well as those who expect no reward at all."

Does that mean our teachers would be better if they were strictly volunteer? That would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars...

Sure it does Rik, so lets stop paying them and see how well it goes.

research shows that typically an idividual is motivated by one of five categories. 1. Monetary 2. Recognition/Praise. 3. Accomplisment 4. Pride/ownership 5. Belonging. With different motivating factors, no one program will get the most out of everyone collectively. Monetary is the greatest producer of results, but often short lived. The most consistent producer is the one of pride/ownership. .

what about this?
http://cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/documents/EMPLOYER%20COSTS%20FOR%20EMPLOYEE%20COMPENSATION-12-07-11.pdf

So, the average combined is $40/hr. Your point is what? When I was in the sheet metal trade the shop I worked at was a combined $29/hr, and that was 13 years ago. 2yrs education that is paid for vs 6 years that I paid for. Now, I don't make the average, I am below it. My pay and benefits are roughly $35/hr. 3 times the schooling, none of which is paid for, and 6/hr in extra pay and benefits. Yep, just ruining society as we know it.

Grace, I hope you picked up the sarcasm. In no way do I make the point that our teachers should be volunteers. But I do make the point that your article really works against your argument.

You expect to attract the best teachers? So, they should have good benefits, right? Except that you now say that the benefits don't, in fact, give the incentive that we think they should. Because the higher the incentive, the less productive they are. Is that not what your article says?

Rik, it is the incentive to go into the field, once there doing more or less provides no incentive. Therefor, people tend to do more. The problem comes in when you have someone who is not making enough money and you want them to do more. There choice might be between family time, another job, and there current job which isn't cutting it. They choose to go home, be happy, or make money. But, given that you have little or no clue on the matter, what time does the last teacher leave your local high school, middle school, and elementary school on a regular basis? What time does the first one leave? What do they take home with them for the weekend? Is there an incentive? Do they get a cookie?

taking away collective bargaining is the greatest and highest example of automony. When you belong with a union, you volunteer to remove your personal voice and elect a single speaker on behalf of a group. All votes are for the collective, removing the individuals ability to make decison on their own. If one would like to go in another direction, they are not permitted due to contractual agreements.

CAB,
Why don't you try and establish criteria for how and when good teachers are going to make more. right now it just sounds like empty promises, and for those in the profession we know that we can go from hero to zero without doing anything wrong. so, I will take the union and ditch those chances out there on my own.

grace
a collective is not autonomous use your dictionary-why are teachers afraid to be evaluated on their individual performance-because most of them are not great teachers-some are most are not-i have sent 5 children thru pwssd schools i know this from personal experience and some should have left the profession long before they did, or need to

Rik,
I think that if you were completely open, and open minded, you might say that she went against some of the public's opinion. In fact, lets get down to some facts. One of the folks from you side stood up and said that he had to take a day off of work because his kids were abandoned by his teachers. Funny thing is, they weren't, and he didn't take a day off of work for that at all. He lied, and admittedly so, merely to try and "make his point" so that he could try to influence the decision of the board. He is not afraid to lie again, and neither are many of the folks feeding this frenzy against public sector workers. The reduction in costs are reductions in coverage. It is plain and simple. And, Carey has every right to not hold a political opinion in her position, as she insists, and I would wager to say her decisions show it, that she is working for what is best for the district. If the measure of that is merely the dollars left in your pocket, than shut the whole damn thing down. Problem fixed.

It's a truly sad day when speaking disparagingly of people's spouses or one's employer becomes fair game in all of this, our (I'll say it again) non-partisan school board elections. Can we try to keep it clean people?

correction. My comment that a new comer's husband signing the recall is incorrect. my apologies.