School District Administrators Trying to Stiff Teachers
As if we needed more reasons not to trust our local school districts. Reports are pouring in from all over that some school districts might try to hijack the money intended for teacher raises by either not giving them as much as the legislature intended or treating the money as a one-time bonus to be rescinded at the pleasure of the district. Needless to say, this leaves a lot of legislators hopping mad and demanding that the districts account for such discrepancies as underreporting the number of teachers while the legislature was in session. When heaped onto the poor accounting for classroom size reduction funds and stagnant teacher pay despite massive increases in education spending, we see even more evidence of school administrators running amok and spending our money in irresponsible ways.
Even after blatant abuse of our trust and pocketbooks, they still have the audacity to continue to demand more and more money from the state to spend on who knows what. When are we going to stop mindlessly defending this institutionalized corruption and start firing, prosecuting and jailing these miscreants for enriching themselves instead of the education of our children? When are teachers going to rise up and take their principals and superintendents to task for spending more and more money on things other than hiring and retaining quality teachers? When will organizations like the UEA and PTA stop encouraging these abuses of power and start actually, you know, standing up for the people they're supposed to represent? You know, the teachers and parents mentioned in your organizations' mission statements?
It's ironic that the Utah legislators that they have attacked for the voucher program are the main ones making noise over teacher raises being misdirected and the non-results from over a decade of classroom size reduction spending.
Jesse
Shauna
When I was discussing these same concerns, a Republican legislator that overheard joined the discussion and insinuated that school districts are so strapped that there is nowhere that their budgets can be tightened up. He suggested that people who voiced criticisms similar to mine (the ones you have discussed in your post) must think that there is no place in Utah for public education. He also (not so succinctly) suggested that I would fit better in the Constitution Party.
You got that? If you disagree with chucking money into public education with no real accountability you are a heretic. Not only is there no place for you in the Democratic Party, you’re a heretic to the GOP cause as well. So just get out.
With Republicans like that, who needs Democrats?
The more I watch this state, the more obvious it is that we have a lot of RINOs that joined the GOP just to be a part of the party machine. It feels like solid small-government principles and demands of accountability take a back seat to party control and unity.
The Constitution Party has its own brand of heretic-purging. Anyone who doesn’t carry the party line on abortion (no exceptions no matter the reason) are subject to receiving no party support and being expelled from the party. They just about purged the Nevada party over the issue and came close to losing California in the process. (Instead, several states withdrew membership from the national party. Most of them were vehemently anti-Mormon and wanted to use the abortion issue as a backhanded way to purge LDS from the party.)
These are the reasons I prefer the solitude of being non-partisan.