This is just too perfect,

[Scorpio]

Let's you know exactly what govts' role and allegiance is,

Sacramento ‘Teacher of the Year’ laid off
By Jason Sickles | The Lookout – Fri, Jun 15, 2012


Sixth-grade teacher Michelle Apperson passed down a simple message to her students.

"My favorite teachers growing up were the ones who challenged me to go out of my comfort level a little bit, strive for the stars, and work hard," the veteran California educator wrote on her school's bio page.

But her own hard work wasn't enough to keep her employed.

Despite just being named Sacramento's "Teacher of the Year," Apperson was laid off as part of a massive budget cut.

"It hurts on a personal level because I really love what I do," Apperson, who taught all subjects, told KXTV-News 10. "But professionally and politically or economically, I get why it happens."

Her pink slip comes just days after President Barack Obama prodded Washington lawmakers to help cash-strapped states with education funding.

The Sacramento City Unified School District has suffered approximately $143 million in budget cuts in recent years. School spokesperson Gabe Ross told News 10 that who gets laid off is mandated by state law and is based on seniority, not performance.

"It's an awful situation," Ross said. "It's another sign of how education's funding really needs an overhaul."

According to her bio, Apperson's goal was to teach her students "how to solve problems with peers, other adults, and the world around them."

Now they know firsthand how difficult that can sometimes be.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...144651918.html

[Scorpio]

oatsamas response,

throw more of someone elses money at it,

as is his answer for everything that comes up

[Tecumseh]

Exact same thing just happened to my kids kindergarten teacher. He is a great teacher and this is the second time he was cut because of being low man on the totem pole. He replaced a female teacher who started the year but left in the begining of December for maternity leave. I think she was a good teacher too but don't understand how she can take nine months off and still have a job but the guy who took her place is out of luck.

Obama's answer is the same that many here say - throw more money at it. I would love to see what market forces could do to our education system.

[HaroldS]

How many in administration were cut? That is the real problem today with top heavy administration slurping up education funds before it gets to the students and teachers. Recently our local paper was writing about a new school opening. No students. No teachers. But by golly 3 administrators were already on board.

When I went to high school in the 50's we had a superintendent - who was also over the 4 township grammar schools, a principal who also taught mathematics, and one secretary - girls from the office clases were sent to help when she needed help. It seemed to work.

[Malus]

"But professionally and politically or economically, I get why it happens."

No, I don't think you do get it. The only thing your getting is the shaft.............

[andial]

Pension obligations come first.

[Mujahideen]

that who gets laid off is mandated by state law and is based on seniority, not performance.

Who came up with this bright idea?

This is the dumbest thing I have read all day.

[southfork]

Cash strapped States are that way due to their overweight government employees, cut the dam government, is it that hard to realize they just can't keep taking other peoples money????????? It's worse now than what caused the american revolution and the tea party.

[Rollie Free]

I'll bet she was targeted. Now see what happens when you awful people won't pay more taxes.

In Washington they would call 'turning off the lights at the Washington Monument'. It was either laying off good teachers or not teaching 5 of the 26 letters. High school football is always a good target.

[andial]

I'll bet she was targeted. Now see what happens when you awful people won't pay more taxes.

Nailed it.

[gliddenralston]

Who came up with this bright idea?

This is the dumbest thing I have read all day.

Factories are the same way, knowledge, skills, ambition always lose to longevity no matter how worthless, you can thank the unions.

[EO 11110]

TOY = suck-ss of the year (often a rat to admin on her coworkers)

the real TOY is the teacher of the class that wins the field day tug-o-war (always the dregs)



andial, i sure miss ole jim

beam him back!

[latemetal]

Sad to say, muscle(labor) gets cut first, fat(management) gets cut second if at all. I've seen the working stiffs get the short end of the stick so many damn times.

[EO 11110]

Sad to say, muscle(labor) gets cut first, fat(management) gets cut second if at all. I've seen the working stiffs get the short end of the stick so many damn times.

not in my biz. the guy with his hands on the tools watches his 'boss' go packing

thusly, the bosses are all mental midgets chasing a title

[Treasure Searcher]

I hope a charter or paraochial school hires her. If she was a great teacher, the public school system is the wrong place to be.

Go teach in a private school. She and the students can really excel there.

[Fiat Metaler]

sounds like she will get her wish - she will be out of her comfort zone now.

[Scorpio]

speaks to the complete elimination of the DOE,

return all authority to the states,

remove the myriad of levels of admin, and the farming of the govt by each school, as they all seek to 'get theirs'.

remove the unions from govt positions of any type,

etc.

There are a great number of outstanding teachers out there, who are being limited or the life sucked out of them by the system.

A friend of mine was a teacher in a big city school,

Used to tell me, he had to count heads on Monday mornings to see how many of his kids were shot, stabbed, or other over the weekend.

pretty sad

S

[Scorpio]

another one for you,

brought on a guy recently, graduate of a trade school,

spent over $8000 in fees to that school,

and we are finding out that his capabilities are no better than a high school shop class level,

in other words, his education from that trade school wasn't worth 80 cents let alone 8 grand.

we are either going to have to find a trainee position for him, or let him go for lack of any pertinent knowledge.

S

[Silver Art]

Obama's answer is the same that many here say - throw more money at it. I would love to see what market forces could do to our education system.

This is just a wild guess on my part by I would think that the market forces would kill off the failing schools and reward the successful schools if parents had the freedom to take their students out of the failing schools and put them into successful ones.

Currently, you have zoning restrictions that prevent a parent from moving a student to a better school system (K-12) unless they move to another area of a city. Private schools is the closest thing that a parent has to freedom of moving their kids from failing schools to successful schools but that is a huge tuition cost would shut out a lot of people (especially low income parents) and there would not be enough private schools in a local area to provide competition to lower prices.

The local gov't people who want to throw money at the problem and expecting it to get better fails in that nothing much changes and they come back the next year asking for me money to fix the problems that the first round of "money throwing" should have fixed. The only thing that throwing money at the problem seemed to accomplished was to grow the salaries of the administrative people.

[Silverstone]

Factories are the same way, knowledge, skills, ambition always lose to longevity no matter how worthless, you can thank the unions.

I'd like to see union contracts tweaked to link pay w/performance, i.e. John Doe makes 100 widgets, quality is there, John Doe gets up the ladder FASTER regardless of seniority. Also, I'd like to see the tiers REMOVED. Either you're in training and an apprentice or you are NOT.

IMO, in most fields, it flipping doesn't take 10 years to become Master level if you're paying attention, and if you are not, well the pay linked to performance will weed you out. So, some employees get up and running FAST, doing 2x the work as the long-termers, have same knowledge and abilities, they get hosed, and by default, so does the company employing them. They have to tolerate slugs and can't reward the stars.

So you lose good employees because of this crap, not to mention the disruption it causes with complaints on a daily basis. And, then when it comes to discipline, heaven help you if you have any employees in the protected class that are also union employees, double whammy.

Yeah, union contracts really need to be tweaked big time, but I'm not totally anti-union, they have benefits to workers, but nowadays, it's lopsided. Some union employees act like they own the joint. I can't tell you how much dysfunction I see caused by union contracts, on the flip side, I've seen the same amount of dysfunction come from management. So, I'm just not convinced it's and either/or, but more towards, tweak both methods of management/union employee engagement to get the best of both worlds (well, as best as you can get dealing in human endeavors).

I know, "ain't gonna happen."

[curmudgeonista]

I'll bet she was targeted. Now see what happens when you awful people won't pay more taxes.

It's California. I bet they were all targeted. Now see what happens when those awful people in less progressive States prevent Congress from supporting Obama's initiatives. All it would take is a little more of their money and our California teachers would be thriving. Heck, we'd hire more and give 'em all raises if we didn't have to pay for it ourselves.