Liberals don't seem to get it - hope you read this.

I am not a liberal.

I am not a conservative or a moderate or a fundamentalist or a tea partier.

I am probably closest to a libertarian but they irritate me too.

I want the Federal government out of my life. By that I mean I want much more limited government that we see these days. I want the Federal government out of schools. I want a lot of the bureaucracy disbanded. I want control for much of this returned to the states.

Will that solve all of the problems? No. We have as many corrupt politicians under the Gold Dome in Atlanta as you see in Chicago. But if we had local control it would be easier to reach them.

And, this being the South, we probably know their mama or some other kin that we could reach.

Please do not assume I am a 100% behind the person I vote for. I haven't been 100% behind anyone my entire life. I look for the one who agrees with me on the big picture (or the biggest piece of the big picture) and hope and pray for the best.

I find it odd that it is my liberal friends - who I dearly love except when they want to talk about politics - who seem most unwilling to let me have my own opinions which do not agree with theirs so they get insulting and call names.

I would stoop to their level except 1) we will not change each others' minds and 2) I would lose a friend.

I don't assume you like 100% of your candidate. Please grant me the same.

Evil Bush Tax Cuts

From Neal Boortz.

Now, the tax cuts. Brian Riedl, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, points out that if you take Kerry’s imaginary $5.6 trillion surplus and work your way to the predicted $6.1 trillion deficit for 2011, you have a 10-year swing of $11.7 trillion. Riedl crunches the CBO numbers from January 2001 until the present and finds that the Bush tax cuts for the evil rich amount to just 4 percent of that swing. So much for Becerra’s “blame the Bush tax cuts” angle. Sorry, Xavier.

Here’s something else you might not remember about the Bush tax cuts. Congress thought it would be a good idea to phase these tax cuts in over several years. Didn’t work. The economy continued to shed jobs, so the Congress decided to let the tax cuts take effect immediately, and threw in a cut in capital gains and dividends to boot. It worked. Eight million jobs were created and tax revenues increased.

Did you catch that? Tax revenues increased after a tax cut. Democrats just hate this, but increased revenues are the norm after tax cuts. Why? Because tax cuts spur economic growth. The CBO said that the Bush tax cuts would lower 2006 revenues by $75 billion. Oops! Wrong again! Revenues actually increased by $47 billion. What about jobs? In the 18 months before the Bush tax cuts our economy lost 267,000 jobs. In the 18 months following the cuts it added over 300,000 jobs. In the next 19 months another 5 million jobs were added.

This doesn’t just work for Republicans. Kennedy cut taxes with similar results, as did Bill Clinton. (Of course Clinton had a Republican congress pushing for the tax cuts.)

Politics, bah humbug.

What to write about (as anything beats real work)? I intended to write about the latest trend to force you into the theater (4D - which is better but still needs work and is it really worth it) but instead will write about the idiocy of Georgia politics.

I feel like these are my choices for Governor:
1) vote for a man who worked to destroy education when he was Governor before but, hey guys, I'm sorry and I will do it differently if you re-elect me. Sure. [Roy Barnes]

2) vote for a guy who is either really corrupt, really stupid - or thinks we are really stoopid. In the past three weeks we have learned: he didn't put the loan his son-in-law defaulted on and he guaranteed on his political filings because he forgot (over $2M - yeah, I can see that); the political filings were too complicated (he has been a US Representative and can't hire someone to do this?]; he is broke, his son-in-law's business went under and so he will lose his house but he will make good on the $2+ million he owes; his campaign is leasing planes from his business at ridiculous rates compared to the other candidates, but he isn't benefiting; His net worth went from about $3.5M to $5.3M between 9/13/10 and 9/24/10. [Nathan Deal]

3) vote for the third party candidate who cannot win and will throw the election to Roy Barnes.

I don't like anyone running for anything. And I see that no one will get us out of the mess Perdue, the economy, and Kathy Cox (state school superintendent) have gotten us into.

And I don't think it is any better anywhere else.

It is really sad when there is NO lesser evil.

The next Georgia School Superintendent

Meet the next Georgia School Superintendent.

More School District shenanigans

I've talked about the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) fiasco with more than half of the schools being investigated for cheating on the state test (CRCT for grades 1-8).

DeKalb County Schools are having their own fun right now:
* the superintendent Dr. Crawford Lewis accepted a $15K bonus at a point that teachers are being furloughed. He said it would be pointless to give it back because it wouldn't make any difference.
* The Chief Operations Officer Pat Pope has been under investigation for over a year as her husband has won many of the contracts to build new schools. Last week they had a subpoena to investigate the Superintendent's house related to this investigation and he has temporarily resigned.
* They announced last week that DCS will be closing some of the neighborhood schools with small enrollments.

Cobb County Schools are having their own issues. There was a major turnover of the Board a few years back as the Superintendent (now replaced) tried to ram a laptop-for-everyone plan through. The current board is finding its own issues as the approved (without discussion) cell phone towers at several schools and the homeowners are - annoyed.

Gwinnett County Schools are also being investigated for cheating on the CRCT but not on the level of APS. They have closed a cafeteria in a high school for an undetermined length of time because of repeated food fights. The kids are getting sack lunches in the classroom.

Our legislature wants a 4 day week, the governor wants to cut more money out of the education budget. He also wants to tap lottery funds for things that (by law) they cannot be tapped for, but I think that got stopped. The state colleges are saying there will be a 77% increase in tuition. Several of the colleges are talking about letting go part-time staff and some full time staff.

From the Vent : Monday I find out if my major will exist at SPSU {Southern Polytechnic State University}.

Calendars are coming out for next year - and they have the furlough days from this year on them. It will be interesting to see if our contracts are for 180 or 190 days.

Here is an article written by two Fulton County School teachers about merit pay.

[Note: Atlanta proper is comprised of Atlanta Public Schools and parts of DeKalb County Schools and Fulton County Schools. Metro Atlanta includes those counties surrounding Fulton and DeKalb: Gwinnett (the state's largest), Cherokee, Cobb, Clayton (which has the distinction of the first school district in 30 years IN THE COUNTRY to lose its accreditation - but it has gotten it back.) Then there are other school districts in the next ring out - but they are smaller. The seven listed pretty much drive the state.]

Sometimes you're the dog, sometimes you're the hydrant.

We live in an environment where you read in the paper this teacher resigned following a drug arrest or that teacher resigned under suspicion of child abuse. If you teach in a school, you see incompetence (a teacher who is out sick, with regularity, one day a month or a teacher who shows movies unrelated to the curriculum rather than teach) or worse - the male teacher who gropes student teachers or the teacher who parties too hard every weekend with a different partner each time.

So, when your principal doesn't like you and labels you unsatisfactory, this is a hard hurdle to overcome. The teachers who taught with me don't see it this way (that I am incompetent) and my students' test scores were comparable. But, as I apply for job after job after job, I see the principals' eyes glaze over: what must be wrong with me that I was let go? And the funny thing is, I believe he just wanted me gone. Had he ever told me that, I'd be at a different school. Instead, he kept acting as if he liked me and if I just changed this one little thing or that one little thing, all would be well.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a new teacher. Only taught one year. I prepared for one environment (high school) and landed in another (middle school). Do I have much to learn? Oh, yes. Am I a good teacher? That is why I am writing this blog: to reflect on what I've learned over the past year and what I learn during this enforced vacation.

Because I want to be honest and blunt, I am doing this anonymously. I teach, or did, in a moderate sized Southern city. I have applications out in several school districts as well as at private schools. I will go back to subbing until I land another teaching position, but feel confident that I will teach again.

I feel blindsided.

Oh, the other teachers I mentioned are still in the school.