Bowsite.com

"The average Philadelphia teacher is receiving compensation and benefits of $112,700 and 50% of the students dropout, while of the remaining students only 45% can do math, 35% can read, and 30% can write."

All with an avg student to teacher ratio of 11-1.

"The Philadelphia school system educates (I use the term loosely as 50% dropout) 200,000 kids per year with a tiny budget of $2.4 billion. The district has been so poorly run and corrupt that a state commission now runs the schools. They insist that $2.4 billion isn’t enough to achieve SAT scores not much higher than you get for signing your name. How is it that a school district that spends more than the national average per student can’t manage to educate children properly? One look at its personnel costs and perks, including exploding pensions and legal services for union members, gives you an idea why."

It is definite proof of the damage of leftist government policies. Imagine trying to teach students who will soon be old enough to drop out and get more in government benefits than they could from a job - if there was such a thing as a job for a black teen in a leftist city.

I have a friend in the Oakland, Ca school district- a pretty tough assignment. Her classes have student makeup from a multitude of different cultures with kids speaking up to 10 different native languages out of 27 students.

She says the key is getting rid of disruptive kids- one bad apple will screw up her whole class. You have to have an administration that looks out for the majority wanting to learn.

Teaching multiple levels of a subject is just par for the course in her classes. She is a middle school math teacher and as an example she will have kids still working on fractions with others doing mid level algebra.

"You have to have an administration that looks out for the majority wanting to learn." Not to let them off the hook, but it is not just an administration. Many principals and superintendents have lost their jobs because they wanted behavior and academic progress superior to what the community wanted. Start expelling, suspending, or failing/retaining kids without the support of the community and you are out on your ear in a NY moment. That is one reason tenure is not always bad.

Communities get the schools they demand. It is that simple.

People get the government they demand. It is also that simple.

FWIW, I think the majority of teachers do a great job...or at least as good as they can do. Any group has its underperformers, undesirables, whatever you want to call it- Teachers, Bowhunters, everything....and it only strengthens the group to weed them out. GE figured that out years ago by pink slipping their lowest 10% of managers.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.

The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain:

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "greenthing" back in our day. Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief(remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in arazor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the"green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to really piss us off... especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smart-ass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.