Re: Teacher Unions

1

I hope this doesn't involve the governor finding one-time surplus that evaporates in a year or two. But yes, great organizing muscle. (We're facing an Oakland teacher's strike in the near future and somehow I don't think it's going to turn out as good.)

I think we're inching closer to a point where the role of charters. There's already a consensus to ban for-profits, whether the schools themselves or as subcontracting "management companies", but those are relatively few schools; there remains a huge nonprofit-industrial complex about as self-serving as nonprofit hospitals. It's a drain on the public system, cherrypicking students and arrogating public facilities (Prop 39).

And public school administration needs some kind of progressive housekeeping, because it's not just an anti-taxer assertion that they're often top-heavy and badly managed. (The Oakland School Board has repeatedly made the decision to open new public schools before working with its finance department to find room in the budget for them, and done so during ostensible budget freezes.) I tried to get data on the percentage of costs going to teachers and other staff working directly with students, but that was surprisingly opaque. (Not that there aren't vital back-office functions like, say, IDEA compliance.)


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 9:37 AM
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2

*housecleaning


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 9:38 AM
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3

arrogating public facilities

I learned a new word.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 9:41 AM
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4

It's like irrigating, but with air instead of water.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 9:42 AM
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5

Now don't be arritating.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 9:45 AM
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6

Arritatingly, I think that's transitive.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 9:48 AM
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7

Angrate.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 10:02 AM
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8

I had high hopes that Garcetti's very able handling of the strike would vault him to the presidency, because I like the idea of Mexi-Jew sailor POTUS, but he seems to be too sane to want to run for that office at this point.


Posted by: von wafer | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 10:05 AM
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9

Also skillful resolution of strikes is not something that the national media tends to elevate as heroic.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 12:12 PM
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10

Mayor to President is not a path that's ever worked directly, is it?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 1:44 PM
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11

10: Game show host to President never worked before. Also non-white to President never worked before. None of the rules apply anymore!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 1:50 PM
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12

You still need qualifications if you can't use racism.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 1:59 PM
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13

Guy with national recognition, high-level connections, personal wealth, and a base that's rejected the idea of political qualifications, has worked, yes.

Anyway, yay teachers!


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 2:07 PM
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14

Wink Martindale is tanned, rested, and ready.


Posted by: Kreskin | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 2:25 PM
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15

14: Over my dead body.


Posted by: Opinionated Pat Sajak | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 2:49 PM
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Mayor to President is not a path that's ever worked directly, is it?

Grover Cleveland was elected president only 2 years after leaving the job of Mayor of Buffalo to be governor of NY. That's the closest I think.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 3:02 PM
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17

DI_D PR_TTY BOY

I'd like to buy a vowel.


Posted by: Opinionated Banana White | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 3:07 PM
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18

Stupid phone


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 3:07 PM
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19

Presidents that never held elective office before being president: Taylor, Grant, Hoover, Eisenhower, Trump. Taft was on one such list, but he was elected to a local judgeship before moving up via appointments.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 4:09 PM
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20

I have wondered why more mayors don't run for President, but I guess a lot of them are like Julian Castro---not much experience and not much support among party elites.


Posted by: Kreskin | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 4:51 PM
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21

One of those is not like the other. There's elective office, and then there's General, Cabinet member, etc. And then there's long time prominent buffoon.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 6:50 PM
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22

Granted, I don't think any other long-time prominent buffoon could've done it.


Posted by: Kreskin | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 7:14 PM
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23

PT Barnum could have done it.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 8:42 PM
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24

In fact, the timeline where he did is fucking crazy. Flying cars and shit.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 8:45 PM
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25

Yeah, why didn't he run? Was he scared of Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison?

Possible counterpoint: there was no TV then.


Posted by: Kreskin | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 8:46 PM
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26

Huh:

Barnum served two terms in the Connecticut legislature in 1865 as a Republican for Fairfield, Connecticut. He spoke before the legislature concerning the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude: "A human soul, 'that God has created and Christ died for,' is not to be trifled with. It may tenant the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an Arab, or a Hottentot--it is still an immortal spirit".[5] He was elected in 1875 as Mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he worked to improve the water supply, bring gas lighting to streets, and enforce liquor and prostitution laws.

Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 8:50 PM
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27

Chinaman

Guess he was not aware of the preferred nomenclature.


Posted by: Kreskin | Link to this comment | 01-30-19 9:00 PM
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28

He was elected in 1875 as Mayor of Bridgeport

See, that's where he went wrong.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-31-19 12:05 AM
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29

PT BARNUM WAS THE GREATEST MAYOR WE EVER HAD


Posted by: OPIONATED BRIDGEPORT TEMPERANCE UNION | Link to this comment | 01-31-19 11:44 AM
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30

Oh right, P.T. Bridgeport!


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 01-31-19 11:58 AM
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31

26 is interesting!

Separately,


Dors claimed to have hidden away more than £2 million in banks across Europe. In 1982, she gave her son Mark Dawson a sheet of paper on which, she told him, was a code that would reveal the whereabouts of the money. His stepfather Alan Lake supposedly knew the key that would crack the code, but he committed suicide soon after her death and Dawson was left with an apparently unsolvable puzzle.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 01-31-19 12:09 PM
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