what issues are you torn on?
if any
being the political reporter at the paper, i have to be completely subjective but obviously i have an opinion when it comes to certain issues.
what issues are you torn on? issues that you can argue for or against and still not have a decision on at the end of the day. i’m not talking about you seeing it someone’s way. like i see how people think gay marriage is wrong but those people are idiots and i KNOW it should be legal everywhere.
is there anything you just think about and say, “you know, i just don’t know…?”
mine is dredging.
Comments
Gun control. They’re tools for killing and killing alone and I hate them. Buuuuuut there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to be told what I can’t own simply because of its potential to hurt others.
Teacher tenure.
Tenure serves to protect time-invested teachers from being cut simply because they “cost too much” to pay as a result of their time teaching, but at the same time it protects fucking asshole idiots who did their requisite three years and one day.
I’ve seen teachers that I believe aren’t smart enough to teach (many in my district), and I wish to the gods in whom I don’t believe to find some way to fucking fire their lame asses, but we can’t do to tenure. It’s a fucking crime.
I remember one school secretary telling me and another teacher that our district needed more people like us, and when I asked her what she meant by that she said teachers that continued to teach after receiving tenure. Apparently the fuckwads in our district get tenure and then simply cash checks for the rest of their lives. She lives in town, so it’s something she feels passionately about.
So yeah, tenure is a flawed system that protects many weaker individuals while granting those that deserve it a sense of permanence and security. I thought about buying a house this year because I had that “security” of tenure, but when the chips were down and I thought about cutting my losses and finding a new district, that meant working another three (minimum) years before having that aforementioned security again. Knowing how much I disdain chance and change, you could imagine how reticent I’d be to change jobs had I actually bought something, and even now I consider it a more remote option as I’m not sure I want to work in my district forever… so basically I’m putting that aspect of my life on hold until I’m more sure of my desires professionally, which is obviously less than ideal.
But, without unions and tenure, it’d be easy for my district to cut someone with 40+ years of experience because for their salary they could get two fresh-from-college teachers.
Special education. I know we need it and I know it’s a huge improvement from the past, but it frustrates me that it looks like so much money goes to special ed and non-special ed kids lose out. I think SOME special ed programs are geared towards making the parents feel better, not for educating kids.
I interviewed for a job once as a special ed assistant. It wasn’t for actual special ed, but the disciplinary problems who were staying in school until they were 21 and automatically graduated. It sounded like glorified, potentially dangerous baby-sitting. I have no idea what the answer is for those kids, but I think that money could be spent elsewhere.
Check out this. article. She explains what I mean.
Fuck. Thanks BOTH OF YOU. Now I’m depressed.
I’m with John on guns. Not only because of the “don’t tell me what to own” thing, but more because I realize it’s different in different parts of the country and someone in the middle of nowhere, where it could take police too long to get there, might actually need the protection. And other reasons I guess too. But I’m still torn because I think the hardcore NRA absolutists are nuts on a lot of this stuff. So….yeah, I’m torn.
Sammy’s point is a good one too, but one I haven’t thought about as much. I’m pro public school teacher and I’m pro union, but the tenure issue does present a conundrum for the reasons he laid out.
I’m not as conflicted on the special ed thing(although I can see the point). I just in general think we need to take care of the least capable among us and they require the extra work and help to be mainstreamed. As for that article, why would we throw more money at a kid who is by all accounts smart enough and is going to already even without trying probably going to a very successful member of society. In short I’d rather spend money to help a kid know and realize that they’re not as useless or “stupid” as society is going to spend the rest of their lives telling them they are, than I would making sure some kid knows how great they are when I’m sure they’ll be hearing that for the rest of their lives. If the argument was special ed versus just regular education in general I might be more sympathetic. But I don’t think we should be spending less on special ed and more on gifted kids. But we also shouldn’t be spending it on kids who are just disciplinary problems. So on second thought…maybe I am torn on this as well.
I think all of these point to the whole “perfect being the enemy of good” thing. Yeah there are always going to be reasons and people who make a system or program not worthwhile. It’s humanity. But only when it does more bad than good does it really become a problem.
I agree about the gun control issue. Gun control is such a state thing. New Jersey has some really strict gun laws whereas here in Kentucky, nothing. There are at least four guns on this farm and because we are in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by pillheads with guns and some pretty wild, chicken loving dogs, it is kind of comforting to have firearms. Now when I move back to Philadelphia and am surrounded by pillheads and other dangerous things, I won’t want a gun, mostly because I don’t trust myself with one. But at the first sign of the Apocalypse or governmental breakdown, I am getting a big gun.
And Kevin, I agree that I would be more willing to take away special ed dollars for an average student than an advanced one. In a better world, we would have enough money for all kids in public schools, regardless of attitude or aptitude.
I think free trade needs to be rethought. I don’t purport to have the answers, or even to be an economics expert, but I hear this discussion all the time at work, almost universally from a pro business angle. The argument is usually that businesses with less financial burdens and restrictions on competitiveness come out on top, which makes sense, and there’s always lots of cheerleading that the American worker can be competitive in the global market, but I don’t think so. If every American worker was a rocket scientist and Superman, he would still lose if it was cheaper to pay 10 East Asian peasants to do just as much work.
I wish someone would come up with some sort of feasible way to restrict bulk purchases of handguns, or the other ways that large quantities of concealable weapons can be legally purchased for no reasonable purpose other than (likely illegal) resale. Other than that, I don’t see any point to the vast majority of gun control laws. I think it’s a silly idea to say that restricting ownership will have any positive effect. If a criminal is willing to use a firearm, that is, commit the capital felonies of aggravated assault, attempted murder, or murder, punishable by, I’m guessing 10? to life, they probably aren’t worried about the max 3 year penalty for illegal possession of a firearm.
Though with crime rates on a steady downtrend, I’m not too concerned either way.
I don’t know an awful lot about special ed, and my personal, I think practical (and yes, callous and over generalized) take is that it’s something we need despite the fact that it may never yield any positive results. Therefore it depends solely on how voters at any given moment feel generous towards it, which doesn’t bode well when the state’s broke.
I dislike the tenure thing too, but I also don’t really know how to fix it. And the sides of it are so built up I don’t really know who to listen to. I like the idea that Christy wants to go after them, but it’s maybe not worth it that the only way to do so to is cut education funding.
There is almost nothing positive coming out of the Christy administration with regard to education. Again, I see tenure as an absolutely necessary evil; teachers with 25+ years experience, nevermind advanced degrees and/or college credits toward doctorates (which both bump you into higher pay tracks), making 75k a year. Without tenure, these people would be free to go on the chopping block because you could likely get two fresh-from-college teachers at about 40k a piece. Under Christy, were that possible, you bet your sweet ass a lot of good, seasoned teachers would be ousted for being too expensive.
Rus doesn’t really post here anymore, but he always said that the worst thing that ever happened for public education was its being funded largely by property taxes. That’s why you and the rest of the public hate us: you think it’s the teachers that are costing you money. As you age you start to think, “Well, shit, my kids are long out of school, what the fuck am I paying for now?” and vote down meager board of ed budgets because you want to see a little more in your pocket at the end of the year. Then teachers and programs get cut because we can’t fund them, then the public education system loses more of its luster, it’s harder to get kids engaged and keep them interested, and the quality declines. Then you bitch about how kids are fucking retarded now and they can’t do anything, so fuck the schools because they’re not helping, so they don’t need to pass their stinking budget. Downvote again. Cycle repeats. Education crisis in America, teachers are the scapegoats, apply industrial standards to the production of children as thinking human beings, blame teachers when they fail against a stacked deck. Rinse. Repeat. Run for re-election.
God bless America.
I hate teachers because I got hit by a car riding my bike home from voting for the school budget. You will all pay indefinitely for that.
I don’t know about the good teachers being fired just because they’re expensive, because to state it as a fact of what will happen implies that it is a standard practice in every industry without a tenure safeguard, which it is not.
If there is a goal that needs to be met (graduation rates, test scores, etc.) the best teachers will be kept because they deliver towards the bottom line, same as in the business world.
sammy, tenure is a good one. and unions too!
Evan said:
I don’t know about the good teachers being fired just because they’re expensive, because to state it as a fact of what will happen implies that it is a standard practice in every industry without a tenure safeguard, which it is not.
If there is a goal that needs to be met (graduation rates, test scores, etc.) the best teachers will be kept because they deliver towards the bottom line, same as in the business world.
I think that’s a pretty big assumption; while businesses are also ultimately motivated by their bottom line, I feel schools may be more so. I mean, schools have in recent history cut due to budgetary constraints entire programs that are proven to improve student achievement. I’ve read a few studies on the impact of music and art education on the developing brain, and how students who play instruments tend to do better than students that don’t (while I know this sounds more correlational than causal, it’s a solid theory backed by a lot of cognitive scientists).
And again, this notion of teachers making too much/more money is compounded by this awful era of standardized test scores and Value Added Measurements as being indicative of teacher success. Both of which themselves are hotly contested issues that education scholars argue against as a basis for comparison and rating. So yeah, expensive teachers that may show up as false-positives for mediocrity after a lifetime of good service would be likely to find themselves offered up in the name of cost reduction.
Thought-provoking topic, Christina.
Unions for me is an issue I am on both sides. My Dad was a member of IBEW for most of my life until he retired. I remember him attending meetings, so I guess he was active in it. But there were plenty of issues that he was angry about, particularly union bosses benefitting while others got screwed.
My husband’s entire family got screwed out of their pensions at a battery factory in the Lehigh Valley because of the union boss.
But yet my Dad seems to still be pro-union. I feel like I should be because of him and because I somewhat benefitted from unions because my Dad always had a job. Then again, I watch strikes (or am effected by two transit ones directly), and picketing of non-union construction sites as I am walking to my job for which I negotiated my own salary and benefits, and I have much less compassion. I don’t have a stand on either side and usually just play the devil’s advocate in conversations about them.
Here’s the thing about Unions. I think they’re needed, but are like every group subject to corruption at the leadership level. But ultimately that’s not any different than most companies themselves who can be just as corrupt and act in their own best interest rather than the good of the company.
I think there was a period in the 90’s where unions became somewhat less necessary because there were a lot more workplace laws and regulations put into effect and enforced and that protected workers enough, so that collective bargaining as protection wasn’t maybe quite as needed.
But during the Bush era and even continuing into now, those laws are either expiring or just not being enforced or companies are finding ways to skirt around them. So I think we’re back to needing unions, even with all of their imperfections.
these are all reasons i’m totally torn about unions. the teachers’ union totally turned me off as i was extensively covering the whole teachers against gov. christie nonsense.
i had the NJEA president literally in my face saying christie and other officials were stealing from the teachers. sorry toots, tell that to the taxpayers who pay your salaries and health insurance.
then again, job security is a wonderful thing.
Suzanne, I agree about feeling no sympathy for the union workers protesting non-union work sites. Seeing those guys almost always makes me go into whatever place they are protesting and then arguing with them when I come out. I got into a whopper of a fight outside of the Capogiro downtown, involving oatmeal raisin cookies and propaganda fliers.
I know unions are needed but sometimes, especially in Philadelphia, it feels like we need unions for the unions. I also think you should always have the option to join or not. When I worked at a supermarket in Wisconsin and a hotel in California, I was automatically enrolled in the union, which I meant I automatically had to pay the very high union dues.
I love Unions and I hate them. On paper they are the best thing ever, but just like democracy ‘human nature’ will never let them work fully.
My issue is Healthcare,yep I am pissed at what it has cost me for my eye surgery, (Kev, I could not even imagine what costs are like for you, but, I got the job done in weeks, professionally and with a great follow up system.
In the UK I would have waited, at least, 3 years. It would have been done in a shabby, falling down hospital and the follow up would have been here’s some drops, bye.
Sammy said:
I think that’s a pretty big assumption; while businesses are also ultimately motivated by their bottom line, I feel schools may be more so. I mean, schools have in recent history cut due to budgetary constraints entire programs that are proven to improve student achievement. I’ve read a few studies on the impact of music and art education on the developing brain, and how students who play instruments tend to do better than students that don’t (while I know this sounds more correlational than causal, it’s a solid theory backed by a lot of cognitive scientists).
I agree fully, budgets need to be cut, so when you can’t trim the fat in your staff because they have an indestructible barrier to any cuts whatsoever, you have to go elsewhere. If you can fire a few lifers who don’t deserve what they’re making, you can hire a few newcomers and keep the art class.
And I broke it.
christina said:these are all reasons i’m totally torn about unions. the teachers’ union totally turned me off as i was extensively covering the whole teachers against gov. christie nonsense.
i had the NJEA president literally in my face saying christie and other officials were stealing from the teachers. sorry toots, tell that to the taxpayers who pay your salaries and health insurance.
then again, job security is a wonderful thing.
Why is it the teachers’ fault that taxpayers pay our salaries? That wasn’t our decision. And I’ll tell any motherfucker in the room that if you’re going to bitch about your taxes being high, don’t fucking complain that your house burned down, or was burglarized, or that America is a fucking shithole nation that lags behind other first world (and developing) nations in maths and sciences.
Aside from that, teachers have an absolute grievance with the state and Governor Christie (and past governors).
- The funding deficit in New Jersey’s pension system climbed by more than a third to $46 billion last year because of investment declines and a failure to make full contributions, according to annual financial reports.
- U.S. states set aside a total of $1 trillion less than the amount they promised in retirement benefits as of June 30, 2008, the Pew Center on the States said in a report this month
- The fund gaps are the result of investment losses as well as decisions by governors and lawmakers to reduce or eliminate pension contributions in the face of budget deficits brought on by declining tax revenue.
- New Jersey and Illinois are among the 16 lowest-ranked states in terms of funding pension and retiree health care, according to Pew.
- Former Governor Jon Corzine, a one-term Democrat who was ousted in the November election by Republican Chris Christie, enacted legislation that allowed New Jersey’s 566 local governments to skip $226 million of the $1.3 billion in payments they owed the pension system last year, to be repaid over 15 years with interest.
- New Jersey’s Democratic-controlled Senate last week passed a package of bills aimed at closing the pension hole by excluding part-time workers, reducing benefits and forcing teachers to pay more for health care. (This passed.)
- More than two weeks after the first states submitted their applications for federal aid intended to put school employees back to work this fall, Governor Christie continues to dig in his heels, refusing to submit New Jersey’s application for $268 million in already-approved funds. Incredibly, the administration continues to insist that it needs more time and “technical advice” in order to complete a “thorough and complete application,” which consists of a single question.
- With just a few days left before classes start this fall, Gov. Christie is inexplicably dragging his feet on completing a slam-dunk application for $268 million. The federal money, already approved by Congress, would put 3,900 laid off school employees back to work. More than two weeks after publicly questioning whether he would apply for the money at all, he continues to stall. His indefensible delay threatens to leave 3,900 New Jersey school employees on the unemployment rolls rather than working in our schools in September.
- Former governor Christie Whitman borrowed against the NJ pension fund twice ($2.75 Billion for short-term budget-balancing) without ever repaying what they took.
So yeah, we’re feeling pretty attacked right now.
Sammy, I support you guys. I get into way more heated arguments defending NJ public school teachers than someone who is not a teacher or not married to a teacher ever should.
Raised fist in the air
Kevin said:Raised fist in the air
Unemployment. People need it when they first lose a job, but I question some of these people who have been on it for 2 years now. Yes, the economy is bad, but it’s not gonna get any better if people don’t at least try to work. But… I understand them not wanting a lower paying job.
I think more needs to be done to prevent abuse. Unemployment, on the whole, is a great concept but it is way too easy to just stay on. I was shocked to hear that I could go BACK on it if, for whatever reason, after having started my freelance business I didn’t get any new contracts for a few months. I can just… collect. Then leave it when I get a new contract.
Seriously?
Isn’t unemployment an insurance though? Don’t we and/or employers pay into that? I could be wrong about that but I don’t think it’s just like free government money or something like that.
The problem I think with people taking lower paying jobs is that it just drives the overall market for salaries down. Which is why republicans and big companies love it. Let people go, and it increases the bottom line. Then let them be hungry and desperate so they can be hired back at lower wages and increase the bottom line even more long term. Which would be one thing I think if these same corporations were lowering prices on their goods and services to correspond to a reduction in people’s wages. But unless the cost of living goes down correspondingly, too many people taking lower paying jobs also adversely affects the economy. Underemployment has probably longer term impact than unemployment.
Uh oh. John’s a small business owner now. He’s becoming more conservative. LOOKIT!!!!
UNTRUE! LIES! DECEIT!
Also has anyone else noticed that this list is less things that we’re conflicted on and more a list of “things we like when they help people we like, but not when people abuse them”? I mean tenure is good, except when people take advantage of it. Guns are o.k. except for the wackos and violent killers. Unions are good except when there are bad people in charge of them. Unemployment is good, except when there is abuse of it.
This thread probably would have been a lot shorter and accomplished the same thing if it had just been “Yes or No: Do you think some people are nice and honest and other people suck and are dishonest.”
I dunno if that applies to my gun control thing. It’s not so much a “maniacs and violent killers want them” issue as a “should we really all own tools that exist to do nothing more than kill?” issue.
Yeah, but if people could just use them to hunt for food or for target shooting, or protection then presumably you’d have less of an issue with them and it wouldn’t be something you were conflicted on. But because people DO use them to kill that’s where your conflict comes into play.
Yes, truth.
The moral of the story is: A lot of people are jerks and ruin it for the rest of us.