FRANKSMITHSAYSNB
EDITORIAL:
Mayor Erin
Stewart wrote to all department heads to reduce their annual budgets in order
to reduce the need to raise taxes next year.
She is blaming former Mayor Tim O’Brien claiming his
administration Improperly allocated $4.4 Million dollars as a contribution to
education which forces the city to allocate 4.4 million dollars every year thereafter because state law doesn’t
allow municipalities’ to reduce school budgets in any budgets of subsequent
years thereafter, therefore. city taxpayers are being forced to continue this allocation
year after year because of the error committed by the O’Brien Administration.
Frank, What makes you think the $4 million for the schools given by O'Brien was an error? It was not. Please read the press accounts at the time. The intent was to provide more for the schools. O'Brien, as many democrats do, believe in investing in schools. It was deliberate not an error but rather a decision to reverse a trend of flat funding. Disagree with the decision all you want but calling it an error...is well, an error.
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ReplyDeleteYOU MAY CALL IT INTENTIONAAL FOR THE BOE BUT IT FORCES US TAXPAYERS TO CONTINUALLY PAY YEAR AFTER YEAR. THE FORMAER MAYOR WAS WRONG FOR WHAT HE DID.
ReplyDeleteDecember 3, 2014 at 3:03 PM
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It wasn't error. They knew $ would have to be paid every year and was not a one time contribution. Why are people saying otherwise?
ReplyDeleteI am happy to pay. For America to stay strong we need to keep up with other countries and some are heavily prioritizing schools to get ahead.
ReplyDeleteMoney does not make schools better. It makes unions richer and the Democrat politicians that they bribe fatter. Right Don ?
ReplyDeleteIt is a total fantasy to think that throwing more money into a failed school system will do any good whatsoever. In fact, some of the best performing schools in the entire nation are also some of the poorest while some of the most horrific performing schools are also some of the richest.
ReplyDeleteThe success or failure of the school has more to do with the attitude of the teachers more than anything else. So long as teachers are guaranteed their jobs for life and can never be fired no matter what they do--even refusing to lift a finger to teach--nothing is going to change. All you have done by throwing $4 million more into the school system is to line the pockets of a bunch of lazy good for nothing teachers that are already among the highest paid and most under worked in the country. I'm sure the unions are thankful for all the extra forced union dues they are getting out this extra money so they can donate even more money to the campaigns of even more Democrats.
Mayor O'Brien caused the continuing BOE payment of 4.2 million dollars every year thereafter. That administration was wrong for creating this problem for the city.
ReplyDeleteI had to take my kid out of public school because his 1st grade teacher was literally insane. She had weighted beenie toys she used to put on the kids shoulders, laps, arms and legs to keep them still. I send a tape recorder to school with my son and the principle called me in to the office, he ignored my complaints, but called me the minute he suspected union rules might be infringed on. They refused to listen or change his class. A year later they retired her for being mentally unstable.
ReplyDeleteYou're lucky you didn't get arrested for instructing your child to illegally record his teacher without her consent. Moron.
ReplyDeleteHi #10, are you Phil Sherwussy ? And it is 100% legal if the the teacher was recorded. You are, and always were so low class for your name calling.
ReplyDeleteThe Union Contract: Wrapping Schools in Red Tape
ReplyDeleteModeled after labor arrangements in factories, the typical teachers union contract is loaded with provisions that do not promote education. These provisions drive away good teachers, protect bad teachers, raise costs, and tie principals’ hands.
Diane Ravitch says next to nothing about the teachers' unions. But one who has studied them is Terry M. Moe of Stanford's political science department. I had a chance to talk to him recently at an education conference at the Hoover Institution. He has convinced me that the teachers' unions are the key to understanding the modern failure of public education. We are talking about two unions here -- the National Education Association (2.5 million members, 2 million of them practicing teachers) and the American Federation of Teachers (about one million members, half of them teachers).
ReplyDeleteThe problem to be explained is why public education failed, having been reasonably successful for about a hundred years. The great decline took place at just the time when union power was rising. Their membership was inconspicuous in the 1950's, but in the following two decades both unions grew rapidly. In effect, they learned that they could "game" the system. They could exploit the nation's willingness to spend ever-larger sums on public education, and make it work to their own advantage; not just in wages and fringe benefits, but in controlling almost every aspect of their own employment. It is not easy to get the relevant information from the unions themselves. Even the simplest questions "must often be answered through sketchy information" assembled from other sources, Moe stresses. Journalists, meanwhile, have exempted teachers' unions from the usual media scrutiny.
Two things work greatly to the unions' advantage. The first is that parents often don't know what is going on in the schools. Many are too busy, too harried, too misinformed. This is especially true of single and inner-city parents, where a close watch is most needed. Parents who do pay attention, or who learn the bad news from others, often remove their children from government schools entirely. That is why there is now a large home-schooling movement in this country. The second point, stressed by Moe, is that the local school boards, nominally in control of schools, are in fact strongly shaped by the teachers' unions.