City Council on Weekend Retreat
The Port Angeles City Council is on its annual weekend retreat, which is being held at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center. During this retreat they'll be discussing the city's ethics policy, economic development and two proposed bond issues for Civic Field and the downtown waterfront project.
posted by Tom Harper at 4:25 PM
16 Comments:
With any luck, they'll be talking about replacing Meyers and Cutler.
Translation: Trying to figure out how to spend money they don't have and where to get it from.
The council also made new committee appointments, including to a newly formed panel to review salaries and benefits for employees along with the city’s leave policy.
"Just another way to balance the budget on the backs of employees."
how about cutting the salaries of Meyers and Cutler and cutting 1/3 of the staff? Make it so that the city government can't make more than 30% of what the median income in the city is.
No waterfront plan, and stop spending money we don't have.
NO MORE LEVIES.
Cut all the salaries of the Unified School District (to reflect what has been happening to the general population of this town) and raise the salaries of the teachers.
That would be a start.
"Cut all the salaries of the Unified School District (to reflect what has been happening to the general population of this town) and raise the salaries of the teachers. "
How about instead of raising the salaries of all the teachers we raise the salaries of the decent ones and fire the rest?
"How about instead of raising the salaries of all the teachers we raise the salaries of the decent ones and fire the rest?"
Yeah, and we'll appoint you the judge to decide which ones are "decent", and which ones are not?
"Yeah, and we'll appoint you the judge to decide which ones are "decent", and which ones are not?"
Don't be silly, no one needs to be arbiter here. It's the students that matter anyways. Tracking student progress will be enough. If a student enters 4th grade completely unprepared there may be a problem with the previous teacher, don't you think? Give the teacher a chance to improve and if students continue to do badly, get that teacher out of there. Unless you want students to continue to fall behind the rest of the world in our screwed up education system?
I spent a lot of years in the public school system (NOT as a teacher) and I can tell you it is FAR, FAR more important to a student's success who their Parents are than who their Teachers are! The students whose Parents take an active interest in their schoolwork, who MAKE SURE that their homework is done, and that they come to school in the first place, those students ALMOST ALWAYS excell, regardless of the teacher involved.
Anon 3:08: I agree with you. Parents play a huge role in their children's development. Too many parents think teachers are nothing more than babysitters and their children are entitled to all As. On the other hand I've been in enough classes where the teacher is just killing time. It's tough getting to the next class in a series and having to learn an extra semester's worth of material just to keep up. That does no one any good and throws some kids off track for the rest of their academic career.
There's no easy answer and no one solution to our education problem. I know liberals like to point fingers to one problem and conservatives like to point to another one problem, but it's so complex it's going to require letting go of a LOT of dogma to solve. As a society I don't think we're ready for it yet.
"Don't be silly, no one needs to be arbiter here. It's the students that matter anyways. Tracking student progress will be enough. If a student enters 4th grade completely unprepared there may be a problem with the previous teacher, don't you think? "
So, if as you say, a student enters 4th grade completely unprepared, then automatically we will assume it is because the teacher is at fault, and they should be fired to cut costs?
Do you think it is possible the child might have learning disabilities? Maybe problems at home?
Again, who is going to be the "judge" to decide which teacher is "good", and which should be fired? Do you think this could be politicized, and teachers fired because they don't teach evolution, or do? That they are Mormon, or Catholic? Or not?
I agree that there are "bad" professionals in every occupation. That is a matter of fact and life. How do we weed out the "bad" ones, without creating a system that can be abused to fulfill the agendas of those with political or religious goals?
"Again, who is going to be the "judge" to decide which teacher is "good", and which should be fired? "
Well, let's just leave the bad teachers in there then, since getting rid of them offends you so much. Then students can fall farther behind, good teachers can get frustrated because they're being paid the same as bad teachers and America can continue falling behind the rest of the world.
Gives you something more to complain about at least.
And why is it that teachers are the judges of a student's performance? Don't you think that could be politicized? Don't you think students could be punished for their religious beliefs? It's all so unfair! Let's give every student an A no matter what they do!
"Well, let's just leave the bad teachers in there then, since getting rid of them offends you so much. Then students can fall farther behind, good teachers can get frustrated because they're being paid the same as bad teachers and America can continue falling behind the rest of the world."
Sounds like you would make a great judge of which teachers should get fired.
Of course, why should we think about cutting back on all the wasted billions the US spends on foreign governments, when we can cut the education funding for our own children? Worried about the US "falling behind the rest of the world"?
We spent billions in Iraq, only to leave it under the cover of darkness for fear of attacks, and now it is descending into civil war. And, the government being elected by all those "freed" Iraqis is decidedly Anti-American. Obviously money well spent.
So, we have bankrupted our own country, and now cannot fund the education of our own children.
Well done.
So, let's just see if I can follow the train of logic here. You mention giving all teachers raises. I think raise should be based on merit, as it is in every other industry. Your response? "Yeah, and we'll appoint you the judge". Nice way to over exaggerate the argument! I decide to parody your strawman approach and you hit it out of the park by twisting education into the Iraq war and more about appointing me judge of all teachers, something I never asked for.
As you say, "well done!"
Speaking of funding for schools (and I agree Iraq was a waste, btw) you might consider that other countries have better performing students while spending far less on per student. Clearly there's something other than funding going on here. But you're welcome to twist it however you want. Appoint me judge, jury, executioner of all teachers if you want.
So??? Did the City council work on the problems of our schools and good or bad teachers at this retreat????
anon 5:09
I never mentioned giving teachers raises, although I do think our society has our priorities completely out of wack! We have no qualms about the salaries of so many "professionals" that make many times what our teachers make, but will rag on teachers at every opportunity, it seems.
Our country`s future relies upon our children, but our country makes almost every other issue more important. You think the sole factor in our childrens`seeming lack of learning abilities is the quality of our teachers. Have you looked around, lately. Our society has made rampant consumerism the most important thing. Few kids can walk across the street without looking away from the screen of their latest smart phone.
Why learn to read a map, when you have GPS. Why learn to write, when all the devices have keyboards. Why try to remember anything, when you can just look it up on Google.
Western culture, which is being exported as part of the American Way, is more the problem than the teachers we can criticize. (Yes, of course there are "bad" teachers, as with every profession).
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