Jackson Jambalaya

Am I the only one that can pick apart every bit of his opinion with facts?

First up, how can the number of good teachers outweigh the number of bad teachers in a failing school district?

Second point, how can a teacher be a good teacher if their product is substandard?

I'll quit now, my comment would wind up being 42,000 words...

The point of public education is not provide a "fair game" for teachers.

The point is to achieve the best outcome for students. If that means some teachers get a raw deal, I'm sorry, but that's the price we pay in every other field of human endeavor.

Sometimes good people lose and sometimes bad people win, but the alternative is not rewarding achievement at all, which leads to ... well, JPS.

how can the number of good teachers outweigh the number of bad teachers in a failing school district?

The fact that you wrote something this dumb raises serious questions about the quality of your own education.

In a school district with a large majority of students from families that are uneducated, poor, and not interested in (or perhaps even aware of) the opportunities for their children that education can provide, you can staff the entire school with top-notch teachers, and a majority of the students will still do poorly. Teachers are not magicians, even if Hollywood sometimes tries to make us think otherwise.

Anderson, please stop. These things always end poorly for you.

You see, the very way that you judge quality of job performance is OUTCOME, not intentions like morons on the left believe.

Failing students means one thing, shitty teachers and administrators.

Seems to me that there were a bunch of TRUE movies made that disprove your asinine suggestion. The Jaime Escalante and Joe Clark ones come to mind. Oooooo, what about Waiting for Superman? That was a documentary made by a Guggenheim, too.

Now, please shut up and go play with some string or something, your stupidity is showing yet again. As always.

I am a teacher who now teaches in an affluent district. I have taught in JPS. I totally understand where this guy is coming from. Merit pay is not the answer in getting good teachers.

Paul Mitchell:

How can a house constructed of balsa wood break apart in a high wind? After all, it's got the requisite number of 2x4s and 2x6s, so it can't possibly be unsound.

All these teachers who volunteer to work a year or so in a poor Mississippi district, where failure is historical,in exchange for their student loan be forgiven....what would become of those teachers under this nutty Phil Bryant suggestion? I'll tell you what would become of them. They'd leave the state or go elsewhere and suck up their loan like everybody else.

Paul Mitchell: A failing school district (using the state's formula) really has no correlation with 'good' teachers and 'bad' teachers. There are teachers all over this state who weep in disgust and sadness when they do their best night and day only to see poor results at the end of the term.

I do a little sideline mechanic and body work. If you bring me a '66 Dodge, rusted out, on bent rims, with a shot engine, missing doors and no windows and tell me you want it in good running shape in two months, I can polish it up and Bondo some of the holes, but I ain't gonna be able to meet your unreasonable expectations. And you're still gonna pay me for the work I did on your piece of crap car.

Merit pay for teachers? Sounds good to me. But in fairness, there must be a way to account for the dunces that teachers will have. There are some students who are going to be little disruptive bada$$es, and/or dunderheads, no matter how good the teacher. Sometimes there are more of the idiots than there are normal kids. Figure out how to account for the dunce factor, and merit pay might work.

Also, again in fairness, put the paddle back in the teachers' hands. If the teachers' pay is tied to student performance, the teachers should have the means to quickly and decisively create an atmosphere that is conducive to learning.

Merit pay would be instituted based on the achievement of the student, I would think.

So, if you take a failing student and improve that students performance, would you not be meritorious in your work? So, you get merit increase.

Regardless of the student, a baseline would be established that says, "you are here". If you work hard and RAISE the bar from that point, you would be meritorious in your achievement - regardless of their personal issues. Being paid to do a job requires measurement of achievement.

The author should not play the victim of "students inability". Under that argument, we should just give up and pay for baby sitters.

Kapt, well said. Raise the barre, raise your pay. Hey, that was simple, you should get a raise for figuring out what the teachers couldn't.

If someone does like teaching, then change jobs. You will find out in a hurry what you are worth is the real world..

Someone please correct me if I misunderstood this teacher's argument .

Is this JPS teacher saying that because of their students' cultural predicament
they can't learn... but we need to continue throw more money toward teachers ? ... but (at the same time) it will not help anyway ????


I love it.

This teacher has unconsciously justified merit pay.

I was afraid my Hollywood crack was a cheap shot, but Mr. Mitchell's attempt at a retort makes my point for me.

Now, as to the particular teacher in question and the issue of pay raises, I am suspicious of pay raises in isolation. Teachers should be paid more; they should also be better teachers, more accountable and more professional. The whole system requires reform, of a sort that will satisfy neither Fox-believing wingnuts nor teachers' unions.

That said, I think this blog's readers are mostly of the capitalist persuasion, and should be well aware that you get what you pay for - on a good day.

Anderson, I addressed your movie point because you made it and I had a couple of backhands to spare. Of course, you know why you actually tried to discount those Hollywood examples. The people that these movies heralded went right back to good, ol' Conservative principles of teachers demanding performance from students no matter the students' socioeconomic background. Oddly, it works.

Kids deliver exactly what is expected of them. Even if they are black and poor. The racists on the left refuse to see that and again try to throw even more money down the "Progressive" education wormhole to give us even MORE of what they have developed.

Gov. Flip-Flop is playing politics-merit raises from the state? How has that worked out for state workers? Since 1985 1 time only. It's all a political game. Bad thing about it no one really cares but the teachers, but who cares about them?

I give up - I can't satirize Mr. Mitchell any better than he's doing himself.

Let's hire the guy who wrote the "Stand and Deliver" movie & make him the Mississippi school czar!

Or better yet, let's make a movie where Paul Mitchell tries his "exactly what you expect of them" method in some one-star MS district. I'm seeing this as a comedy.

Anderson, have you ever been right about anything in your entire life?

http://reason.com/archives/2002/07/01/stand-and-deliver-revisited

I am a retired JPS teacher. I had an excellent principal who could not get any back-up from "downtown" on discipline. He also retired.

I will be for merit pay if it starts at the top. JPS is top heavy in administration and the top people have no idea how to improve schools. The first commenter was right in his assesment of many students. It is impossible to teach without order, and order is impossible without effective administration.

Start at the top and poor teachers will not be hired or shifted from school to school. Students whose main goal is disruption will be removed from the classroom.

I, too, could go on and on, but I won't. I do want the community to realize that your schools will only be as good as the administrators.

That was my parting shot, continue to think what you will, Anderson, despite logic and facts proving you wrong over and over again.

Give me the US Olympic basketball team and give Coach K the Nigerian team and let's play ten games. I'll win them all, but does that mean that I'm a better coach? A mediocre teacher in a classroom full of motivated students is going to have better test results than a great teacher in a classroom full of unmotivated students. There has to be a way to pay teachers for a job well done under difficult conditions, and I think that's all this teacher is trying to say.

Why is Phil Bryant bringing up this issue now? I haven't heard a politician seriously discuss the merit pay issue in years. It used to be a hot topic, but fell out of fashion.

It seems to me that Phil Bryant is forever stuck in that period of the 80s when he first realized he wanted to be a republican. It was back when my beloved party was selling out and recruiting America's dumbest common denominator.

So far, all we've gotten from Phil is God hates fags, pro-choice people like murderin' babies, Satan winning, and now hassling teachers. After 8 years of the highly disciplined and driven economic development-focused Haley Barbour, this is what we get? I swear I feel dumber just driving by the Governor's mansion these days.

Is there any substance to Phil Bryant?

Haley was a decent Governor, but he is far from our "best". Many of his people try to perpetuate this myth.

He did a great job with Katrina,but what else did he do other than to get his name on the Toyota cornerstone ?

To his credit, he successfully managed to f**k-up the few remaining "productive" State Agencies by appointing his inexperienced friends
to executive directorships.

I'm not a Phil Bryant fan at all. Phil appears to be a confused individual that is more comfortable eating gummy bears in Davenport's magnificent "green room" while waiting for Gallo, JT, and Ramsey
to introduce him as the ultimate guest on Supertalk.

I would really like to see an "Idol" type competition
between Phil Bryant and Dale Danks involving Men's 1970's Hair Spray.

Simple solution and they used it at Baton Rouge High when I went to school there. Give a student a diagnostic test at beginning of school year. Then give it to him at the end. More accurate way to measure how much he has learned. Kid might be a failing student but he actually might have learned a bit too. Obviously you should factor out students who don't show up, etc.

Problem with your and your kind, Anderson, is you never offer any suggestions on how to evaluate teachers or measure their performance. Sham-masters like you think of every excuse possible for them to avoid rating their performance. In the private sector you have standards to meet. In your mind there are no standards because you have not suggested any. I'd love a job where I got paid and as long as I showed up for work I didn't have to worry about what my boss thought of my job performance as this teacher does.

Bill, I think you're right on the money.

I think what the teacher is trying to say is that a merit pay system based on student achievement will result in the best teachers teaching only the best students. Disadvantaged schools will be stuck with the teachers who can't find a job anywhere else, and as a result will decline even further.

Setting equal goals for unequal districts will cause good teachers to only go to the good districts. Schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods will never perform as well on average as those from more affluent neighborhoods. In some classes the best teacher in the world would have a very difficult time getting 25% of the class proficient.

I really don't have a solution, but I can tell you a merit pay system that punishes teachers simply because their student base is made up of disadvantaged or uncaring kids is going to do more harm than good.

Obviously, Kingfish, your comment must be invisible to everyone but me, because your solution seems to make perfect sense. Oddly, it doesn't punish teachers for having poor, black students, either.

Politicians saying things they think voters want to hear.
This is a scam.
The problems in most public schools can be attributed primarily to lack of parents.
Teachers can't do anything about the failure of parents to help and encourage their children.
My wife taught in inner city JPS for 20 years.
She spent 90 to 100 hours a week preparing for class.
In a typical class of 22 kids, no more than three (usually 2) had both a father and a mother.
In more cases than you want to know, there were no fathers OR mothers...only grandmothers.
Fortunately, in my wife's case, she was teaching first grade.
The serious issues didn't show up until 3rd grade when most of these youngsters were lost to the culture with zero chance of getting a fundamental education.
Under this scam, some principals will simply assign impossible students to teachers they want to get rid of.
It happens.
Clearly the public school system has teachers who are worthless.
I'm not arguing that.
But the solution to that problem is to put intense hear on principals who will be forced to weed out poor performing teachers or lose their jobs.
Gov. Bryant's attempt to compare teaching to private business practices is scarily childish.

Simply amazing. While we have wondered for decades how to dismantle or improve the State Department of Education, right here on the KingDoodle's blog we have two or three geniuses who could replace the whole lot of them and make Mississippi a national flagship.

vouchers would solve many of these problems. Let the good student go where he/she can and will learn and leave the others in their present cesspool until they can join the "entitlement rolls". Good teachers would then follow the good students with the rest to babysit the others.

Teaching is really easy, actually. All you have to do is get rid of the twaddle that passes for education these days. Even in the good school districts, there are idiotic groups formed to bow down to the "Progressive" ideology. When normal people start getting involved again, like those in the Tea Party, you will see things improve at an exponential rate. Jackson will probably be the last bastion of stupidity in Mississippi though.

"Sham-masters like you think of every excuse possible for them to avoid rating their performance. In the private sector you have standards to meet. In your mind there are no standards because you have not suggested any."

If anyone can find any connection between the above quote and anything I've written, ever, kindly point it out to me.

And the Mennonites are the best educated and informed folks in Noxubee county, Mississippi, while attending classes in "converted mobile homes" and ending formal education after the seventh grade.

Btw, KF, did you know Barri Seales at Baton Rouge?

A little bit young for his acquaintance although he was, or rather his death was in the news quite a bit. Then when I was reading about Mena, I saw his name mentioned alot.

You might want to check out Wayne Madsen's book, Genocide and Covert Operations In Africa, 1993 -1999...much detail on Mena(AR) and the Clinton mining connections. Madsen is a NROTC graduate of Ole Miss and was in Rwanda during the Tutsi-Hutu genocide.

The Downfall parodies are being taken down on YouTube. This one remains.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABxuHgMVft8

Pug - Why do you think (assuming it's true) the 'Mennonites are the best educated and informed folks in Noxubee county, Mississippi', while going to school in trailers? Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that they're raised with a cane on their asses, learn respect by the age of two, never question their parents' rules or decisions and learn the word 'expectations' before they're three.

That's the part of the equation that's been left out of this whole 'Paul Mitchell Discussion'. You could bus a bunch of the worst Hinds County teachers over to Noxubee and the result would be the same. Let's call it "The ignored 75% of the equation".

if "mo muny" is the answer why not charge ALL who use the system? As I drive by public schools every day (Spann & Casey)it never ceases to amaze me as to the LONG line of luxury cars waiting to collect their chirens...free tuition, free books, free food, free after school care, free day care for those chirens not ready for the free education quest that starts at 6, free transportation, just plain FREE... ok, replace the word free with fee..less escalades maybe but "mo muny"....it's a win-win!

Everybody has the right to a luxury car and the freebies make it possible.

Great headline King.

But teachers are hardly alone in thinking the taxpaying public should have no say about their pay.

State after state in this country face financial calamity because public sector\ employees feel that way.

My wife is a public school teacher. She loves it and has a passion for it. But she is frustrated because she is one of the few that believe in the merit pay formula.

A few years ago, MDE asked all of the teachers in her discipline to go through some training and gain extra certification. Most teachers in her district failed to show up for the training, and only her and a couple of others passed the certification tests.

The common sense thing to do would be to reward those who passed the tests, but MDE decided since most teachers could not do it, they'd just drop the requirement.

Fast forward to this year, same deal. And its probably going to happen again. Someone had a big idea to spend millions to get all of these teachers certified in something, but the masses aren't going to be able to do it, so they will drop it. Its such a joke that a lot of teachers "aren't wasting their time going through pointless training."

So this mentality is widespread. I know a teacher at JPS that had a 100 percent pass rate on a state test. She got in trouble one year from her principal because her door was not decorated as nice as the others. She took her test results and stapled them to the door. The next year she took her talents to Madison.

well you could start with dropping some of these HIGH salaries for those in the Superintendents offices... no reason they should take home 6 figures when the teachers do A LOT more and get way less... lets start there before this merit pay idea

There are ways to test students which address the concerns of the teacher concerned about measuring teacher performance. Of course we must first recognize that all students are not of equal ability.

First, determine the IQ of each student. Then test the students as they enter a grade and when the leave it. Each teacher will either outperform or underperform his or her peers in educating kids at each IQ and achievement level.

I agree that it's not fair to hold teachers in an urban or Delta school district to the same standards as we would teachers in an affluent school district. The students are different, with differing abilities and differing starting points. But if we measure the amount they learn, whether they are at grade level or not we can measure teacher performance.

So ...teachers who do great with a class whose highest IQ is 80 should be penalized because they aren't teaching a class of middle class students with IQs of 100+? Teachers in poor areas , however effective , should be excluded from merit raises?

This teacher isn't saying "mo money". She is saying tie merit raises to a realistic teacher evaluation measurement formula.

Surely, there are some alternatives formulas out there.

Testing alone is awful. That is WHY No Child Left Behind has been such a miserable failure.

10:41 I don't think 10:35 said that at all - quite the opposite.

If you can take a bunch of kids with IQs around 80s and get C pluses/B minuses out of them you should get just as large a bonus as someone who kept a bunch of kids with IQs of 140 getting A pluses in AP courses.

Over the last twenty or so years we have thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars at education. Everything form teachers raises to classroom money. And you know the one thing that has stayed the same?
Our schools are schools still terriable.

Raises and money is not the answer.
It was stated earlier parents need to be more involved. Lets hold them accountable.

11:30am, a student with a low IQ CAN'T perform well on standardized tests. A student with serious behavior disorders isn't likely to perform well. The tests are geared to AVERAGE and their ability is BELOW AVERAGE. But, we expect teachers to mainstream and be therapists as well.
If the measure under consideration accounted for the difference, for the reality, we'd agree.
We do agree that money isn't the answer but a realistic understanding of the school system would be helpful.
I would also suggest to you that just because a MS school is testing well is not a good measure of the student's preparation. You might ought to look at the weight US colleges give the schools.
A kid with an IQ of 60 that makes a C is performing amazingly well but we aren't even discussing GRADES as those can be inflated. We are measuring by standardized tests. And, most of THOSE have ZERO to do with comprehension but rather how well a child can memorize.
Our BIGGEST problem in education is that politicians and parents want to run the schools . God forbid we should let those who have studied education and child development and worked with our children for decades have authority or input.
I'll just say the truth. There are some poorly educated teachers out there. Once upon a time, teaching was one of the few professions available for women so many SMART women were teachers. Now , that smart woman will be paid more in the private sector. THAT is the truth. This is NOT a profession that attracts the ambitious anymore.
You want to make schools better immediately? Here's " quick fix", give women with a master's or PhD the ability to teach THEIR subject without having to take a bunch of basic education courses to get certified. THEN , you might pull women who are mothers back into the system. MS could have had a woman whose work is recognized by the Smithsonian teaching biology and a women with a PhD in foreign language teaching French. But, they didn't want to spend the time or money and be bored taking the required hours of education courses.
But,no...just go with knee jerk politics on this one. And, for the racists, just go with the lowering of standards to achieve some equity in the hiring or continue to get pissy because ,rather than set a good example and help blacks be prepared for authority , it's more fun to watch them fail.

Here is the typical response for public school advocates, "Drop the pay of the store manager and give the fry cooks more money. Problem solved."

This passive minded approach discounts the fact that the administrators perform ten times the work of teachers. Hey, that cafeteria must run itself. Those buses? They run on pixie dust and are repaired by the Bus Fairy. The management of Sixteenth Section land must perform itself. Those bathrooms? Yeppers, self-cleaning.

Teachers need to teach. They are not doing a good job. They are grossly overpaid to fail at the one task that they perform poorly. Sorry, the truth hurts sometimes.

I agree Paul Mitchell. Many teachers are not teaching, and are failing at their one task. But I also think parents need to be parents.

My analogy: I know a lot of dad's that have pulled their kids out of recreational baseball leagues because there is a population of players that truly suck. They show up at practice with a new glove, bat and shoes, but have never played the game before. The parents expect a volunteer coach to make their child an all star. Those kids are not very good.

We have parents that don't/can't participate in a child's education. Maybe they are uneducated themselves, or maybe they work too much, or maybe they don't care. They expect a teacher to magically educate their child.

My mother, a public school teacher for 35 years, told me that she taught the same to every child. The truly exceptional had reinforcement at home.

I'm not placing blame on parents instead of teachers. Both share fault. I'm trying to point out that we have a problem in this state - the breakdown of the family - and it affects (effect? - terrible English teacher) education.

If you think Madison public schools are more effective simply because there is more money - wrong. Those schools have more money because their parents are more affluent and more likely to take an interest in their child's education.

Sure, Paul Mitchell, in our quest to find the guilty party(ies) we can always penalize and rebuke the only strong links in the chain, the teachers. After all, we, as a society, don't have any control whatever over the parents who give birth to these unmotivated miscreants.

And while it's tough to admit we have no control over the 'clubbers' who give birth to these unmotivated and derelict miscreants, we do find a measure of societal salvation in being at least able to place blame SOMEwhere, at the teachers' feet.

While Mitchell and others cling to the outdated (and illegal) notion of grouping children by IQ level and teaching them to at least add a column of two digit numbers, reality (and the Justice Department) keep reminding us that a classroom is a mix of various IQ levels and the teacher has no choice but to teach to the lowest of them. The rest of the class is collateral damage. If she teaches to the median or God forbid, the top ten percent, the bottom 50% are circling the toilet bowl from the first week of school. And how often do you need to be reminded that it is illegal to 'take a group of those with 80 IQs' and segregate (group) them for purposes of social experiments (public schools).

As a well-respected friend and teacher told me many years ago, "Just give me an all black classroom instead of a classroom with one or two whites". The same is true of the teacher who has a classroom populated primarily by those with IQs in the range of 'educable mentally retarded' coupled with a don't give a shit attitude.

But, Mitchell, and a few other blog-education-experts, would have us buy into his notion of lining up and shooting the only links in the chain who give a damn.

Shadow, if you teach to the bottom, the top is bored out of their skulls and start being disruptive.
We once did teach based a child's readiness to learn. It may be illegal now but it wasn't always.
Not all average or above average children brains develop the same way at the same time. Teachers, who could best gauge a child's readiness, used to be able to teach as that child was ready to learn.
But, politicians , then and now, saw education as an opportunity to play to the public's " beliefs" and " gripes" and here we are.
Teachers no longer have the authority to suspend or expel disruptive children in their class. Schools don't have the authority to require parents to meet conditions for their child being re-enrolled anymore. Those authorities existed when I was in school and schools and test scores were much higher.
And, by the way, the blue collar kids in my very large high school class have out performed and out succeeded the affluent kids.
It is a myth that we are all created equal. We should have equal opportunities. We should have access to the same learning tools.
Here's how middle and upper school children are being taught today, even in private schools. Day 1, read the chapter, Day 2 Chapter is outlined by the teacher and every child is supposed to copy the outline. Day 3 child is given a multiple choice question from the outline. If your child isn't getting straight A's, they aren't doing the minimal about of work and aren't paying attention or are way below average.
That's what you get when to teach to testing. That's what " no child left behind" got you.
For God's sake, ask for your child's homework assignments,ask to see the notes they took in class, look at the tests. Offer to substitute one day and see what's going on.
We have produced two generations that can memorize and regurgitate but who can't comprehend or critically analyze and who can't WRITE. Because objective tests don't require explaining in writing. Term papers are rare as they are too time consuming and take away from test preparation.

And, if this weren't all bad enough, parents have taken over every facet of play. Children can't organize their own games and learn the skills of making decisions that affect outcomes. They don't learn the importance of rules and know why rules are helpful. We aren't fostering creativity and imagination.

My children and grandchildren are getting a FAR inferior education and growing experience. Their parents, like you, have the silly notion that you have to start creating Tiger Woods at 3. Forget that he's screwed up. Forget that Micheal Jordan's parents didn't do that to him, he found what he loved and they supported him.

And, we are continuing to foster and reward mediocrity and have since Spiro Agnew figured out that bashing intellectuals would make the majority feel better about themselves.

Now , every below average adult with a poor education out there thinks they are just as smart as everybody else and know just as much about everything even if they didn't spend ONE second studying the subject.

We're in total agreement on every point. And YOU are the teacher Paul Mitchell wants to penalize for failing to ignore all the rules you just outlined and bypass all the impositions you're faced with each day. So, you see, it's "your fault" that your product reflects mediocrity or worse.

I'm not sure, though, where you get the notion that I 'think we should start creating Tiger Woods at three'. Or who you suggest believes that everybody is created equal. Nobody on this entire thread has suggested either of those.

You've done a fair job of outlining what today's teachers are faced with and the confining system into which they are tightly strapped. A teacher does not have the authority or perogative to leave the corral, escape the herd and run free.

Right...but Tiger's Dad did start pushing him early and I'm seeing other parents start little Johnny and Jane early.

There is a notion in this country, not in this thread, that every child can graduate from high school and most should be college bound. We aren't looking at all at ability.

I'm all for helping children with crappy parents or born into poverty have a chance to be the best they can be. Frankly, I've seen some real dunces born with silver spoons. When we care more for looks than brains, that happens.

I think ALL schools should be equally excellent. I think we have to encourage our best to go into teaching instead of selling widgets.

Some here say they don't want to pay bad teachers. Neither do I but I know I'm not going to get many great teachers if we don't pay them better than we are now.

Why don't we pay starting teachers according to how well they have performed in college? If they are Dean's List and score well on the teacher's exam, pay them more to start.

Don't make salaries about " time served". Make it about achieving levels of excellence.

Ah, Paul. Go ahead and run me down. I'll keep teaching. Destroy the public schools (the only thing left that is standing between sanity in the world and TOTAL insanity), I'll keep teaching. Cut my pay, I'll keep teaching (I took my salary and, through shrewd and highly intelligent investing, turned it into a small fortune -- that's the REAL WORLD). Run your ignorant mouth, I'll polish my Coach of the Year awards and Teacher of the Year awards. And the same to Phil. Back to work for me. I have some papers to grade. Oh, and I have to call my broker in the morning. And decide what car to drive to school. What do you think, Paul, should I take the Infiniti, or my new convertible?

Anon 1:00am, drive the car that facilitates your child molestation. You know, since only 4.5 million children are subjected to that while attending public school during K-12.

Paul, you've confused molestion with all kinds of child abuse for starters.
That's the only way I can see that you came up with a million more children than are abused nationally each year and with more than 3.5 million more than are reported to be molested.
And , to do that, you used a poorly regarded study AND overlooked that even in that study most of the abuse would be by a parent or someone in the home.
Your math and reading comprehension test scores must have been awful. No wonder you hated school and your teachers and became a bully.

Anon 8:16, I used the numbers that I found when doing my research to debunk the screeching about Catholic priests. But, believe what you want.

I'm a bully? Teachers must not be good at understanding definitions of words.

But, as far as grossly overpaid, teachers in MS average 42,701. Per capita income in the state is 19,977. You do that math.

Poor Paul. I drove the convertible. Maybe I'll drive the Infiniti tomorrow. What's wrong, dude? I thought you only want the best teachers for the kids. Yet, when I explain that I not only succeed in the classroom, but also in the so-called REAL WORLD, you get all huffy and call me names and make very false accusations. Guess you actually have another agenda, eh? Face it, Paul, you don't give a fig about kids and education. You're merely jealous. Oh, and Paul, I REALLY ENJOY my two months off every summer.

Anon 11:52, I did not call you a name, I just stated a fact about teachers molesting students at an alarming rate. Being a teacher, you probably do not understand what facts and statistics are. Furthermore, I think that most of y'all should have even more months off, without pay of course, because the longer kids stay out of public schools, the smarter they become.

By the way, I am positive that the brand new Blackburn Middle School is going to produce smarter students.

If there is anyone that doesn't care about kids and education, it is the typical public school teacher, they are only there for the golden parachute they receive because they are not smart enough to make it in the private sector.

There is not one thing about public education of which to be jealous. That was kinda the point of Kingfish's post, that school teachers do not care about success at their job, they simply want to be paid better for their failing work.

Oh, my. Did you read my post? I don't need the money. I've been knee-deep in the market for years. Made money when nobody else is making money. I'm not stupid. And I'll keep teaching. As for the "golden parachute," that was part of the deal when I signed on. I'm smart enough to do anything, and have made it in the private sector, and can again if I want to. But I don't want to. I want to teach. What is it with this thinly-veiled hatred of teachers that you have?

Thinly veiled? I abhor teachers, they've earned everyone's disdain.

I didn't see anything in any of your comments that intimated that you had any money at all. Do you consider owning an Infinity as some kind of display of wealth? Yeah, you're really smart. Kudos, Smarty McSmarterson.

To the teacher bragging about nothing. You are convincing those in "good" schools that there is a very real problem with the entrenched teachers who are in it to supplement their husbands income and drive a mid-grade auto and a pension.

I speak regularly with a faculty member out of Madison and frankly I am wholeheartedly disappointed as the teachers/admin collaboration to maintain the status quo is dead on with many of the stories posted here.

You simply represent what is wrong from a motivation standpoint with teachers today. And like Paul, I agree, would love for you to have the whole year off.