The mayor-elect of the City of Chicago wants to lengthen the school day and the school year including expanding the school day from five hours and 45 minutes to six hours and 45 minutes, a little over a 17% increase.
“We’re not going to negotiate or discuss whether children get more instruction — we will work together so that gets done. I’m not deviating from that. I was clear about it.”
The speaker? Former chief of staff and mayor-elect of the Windy City, Rahm Emanual.. (more…)
Mar 10, 2011
Posted by AAfterwit on Mar 10, 2011 | Comments Off
Amidst the turmoil of the public sector unions fight in Wisconsin comes news that teachers in Milwaukee are suing the local school district over performance issues.
This would be considered a normal thing if we were talking about teacher evaluations or class performance.
However, we are talking about Viagra, or rather the lack of Viagra in the school district’s prescription plan.
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association has filed a civil suit claiming that MPS’ exclusion of Viagra and other drugs that treat erectile dysfunction from its health insurance plans constitutes sexual discrimination against male employees.
Now I don’t want to say that erectile dysfunction is not a serious problem. I don’t want to make any jokes here about teachers “raising performance levels,” or “teachers satisfied with level of performance.”
I won’t even comment on the teachers’ union fighting for a better “union.”
It is a tenant of faith in this country that no one – and I mean no one – wants bad teachers in classrooms. Parents don’t want them. School administrations don’t want them. Schools don’t want them. Kids don’t want them. Other teachers will say that they don’t want them.
So why is it that unions only give lip service to getting rid of bad teachers?
A few years ago, CommonGood.org came out with a chart showing how difficult and time consuming it is to fire a teacher in New York City.
The process is long and expensive.
The Chicago Tribune has come out with a similar graphic showing how it can take between 2 to 5 years to get a bad teacher fired in the Chicago School system. That 2 – 5 years includes a trip to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Why in the world should anyone have to go to a state Supreme Court to fire an employee?
Not only that, who do you think is paying for the lawyers for this circus? (more…)
The mayor-elect of the City of Chicago wants to lengthen the school day and the school year including expanding the school day from five hours and 45 minutes to six hours and 45 minutes, a little over a 17% increase. 
