Lisa Benson for February 08, 2017

Dems fear strong women.

How many Senators who voted against her actually have their own kids committed to public school?

Dad doesn’t earn nearly enough, even on a union job, to come up with $30,000 for each kid, for private kindergarten when she closes down the public schools to fund religious charters from tax dollars.

There is the possibility that an unqualified person can head up a federal agency, isn’t there?

She will have the kids learn that if they have money they can buy a government position.

Yes kids, it’s bad news for you too.

Lisa, take them rose colored glasses off your stupid face:https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=855405044557&set=a.502773845307.2005913.28600211&type=3

Lisa: you might also try: https://www.facebook.com/TheOther98/photos/a.115969958413991.17486.114517875225866/1691418400869131/?type=3

Benson is moving from arguing for the correct things to just plain hatchet women.

Competition will help schools. The public school system doesn’t do kids any favors with their low standards, grade inflation, lack of discipline, and passing kids just so their feelings don’t get hurt.

I am afraid that Trump’s choice of Education Secretary demonstrates a hostile attitude toward public education. Teaching is a really really hard job. Any damage to the public education system has to make it a harder job. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to let parents have a choice of schools,as long as the money for the charter schools doesn’t come out of the public school budget, or damage them in any other way. Most of them are doing the best they can, need a lot more money than they are getting, and don’t get to devise sneaky ways to reject any kid who is going to present a problem. I taught in a charter school for a year after retiring from a public school. The teachers are paid about 2/3 of what they could make in a public school, never get tenure, and the salary tops out in five years, versus 15-20 years in a public school. Naturally, they get very few experienced teachers. The only other teacher at the charter school where I taught had failed to make tenure at her public school, and the reasons why were obvious. The new graduates that made up most of the staff were the leftovers after the public schools got the cream of the crop, and they were uniformly demoralized and disinterested in their jobs. After two years, only one out of about 20 was still teaching. In other words, you had a very inferior teaching staff compared to a public school. Charter schools can and do get to choose their kids, even though there are rules that they ignore to prevent it. And, they still don’t have any better results than the home schools the kids come from. The magnet schools in Saint Louis city schools do have better results, and they do it without damaging anyone else.

The primary function of charter schools is to obtain government money.

Without any accountability.

Working class people like teachers will suffer under this administration. But the kids of the rich will be able to buy an education. The poor will be sold into indentured servitude, but that is what Republicans always wanted.

Excellent! These lazy parents need to come out their pockets for private education! Since the taxpayer only pays $8,000 of a child’s public education that the private schools charge $12,000-$20,000, a year for, that $4,000-$12,000 a year will begin to circulate into the economy!Oh, you think you can do the same quality of education at home for $8,000 a year? Oh, and your child has “special needs,” too?You voted for the Republican Administration?…and you support “school choice?”Sounds good, sounds good…Make sure you make the check out to Booga, that’s one B two ohs, a Gee and an a…

Winner, Winner, chicken dinner!

Children become commodities for profit under a for-profit school system. Privatization of guarding consulates, parts of military operations, and prisons have not been cheaper or produced better results. The opposite is true and taxpayers pay.

Many of the ideas expressed here are either oversimplified or naive or simply wrong.

There are many factors in a good education, starting with the home. The home has to be a place where learning in general is valued. Parents have to do their job of raising kids who are responsible, who are respectful of others, and who have a good work ethic. Why aren’t we talking about holding parents and kids accountable? Are not families the key to childhood learning? A person can go to the doctor but if he or she doesn’t take the doctor’s advice, do we say the doctor needs to be held accountable for that? Of course not. In my district, some kids miss a LOT of days of school and are often not held accountable. My state recently passed a law, under a Democrat governor, that excuses a child from school for up to ten school days for a vacation, if that child turns it into an “educational experience” by completing a project. We had a family who went to Disney World last year and missed almost two weeks of school. Their project? They made a DVD of their fun experiences there, while other kids were working hard to learn their math processes, bettering their reading skills, and working on science concepts and projects. We have parents who keep kids home from school for no other reason than the kids say they don’t “feel like going to school today.” But they sure feel up to playing video games or watching TV and going to a get-together with friends later that day.

The public school system was designed to be for everyone, regardless of financial standing. Charter schools and school vouchers create competition alright: Competition between families for spots in the better schools, which leaves the less-well-off back at square one. Every supposed “answer” to the public school “problem” comes with its own set of problems, and it will be years before we figure that out from practice.

Benson, you have crossed the line. For you to try and imply that teachers unions are the cause of problems for students in our schools is shameful. Teachers unions only care about one thing, and that is our students doing well. We fight hard to improve school conditions, we push to maintain high standards and we care very much for each child individually. Yes, we also fight to maintain a secure and fair job conditions for teachers. This brings in quality people for the next generation of teachers. But never, ever have we done this at the expense of our students. You really, truly owe teachers unions an apology. Come to Kentucky. I’ll be in Frankfort, at the state capital, on Valentines Day, meeting with our state representatives to represent all the teachers I work with, not just the KEA ones, and our one, single desire, to keep quality schools for our students. I’d love to show you how KEA works and then bring you back to my classroom. I’m serious. You draw your cute little pictures, come to the real world. See you next Tuesday. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.

Imagine that. A right-wing crazy cartoonist bashing teachers’ unions, as if they were responsible for the problems in our educational system. Next thing you know, fish will swim, and birds will fly. Still, Benson will be telling us that the sun rises in the west. There’s a reason why right-wingers are opposed to education.

I’m assuming those kids go to private schools.