Chicago high school students may soon need to create a plan for their future in order to graduate.That is pure bullshit. A high school disploma is a certificate of completing a set of requirements. Supposedly the recipients can read, do their numbers and they know some other stuff, as well. If some kids want to go to work somewhere, armed only with their high-school diploma, that should be up to them.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel appeared on “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday to discuss his new proposal, which would require students to develop a post-high school plan before receiving a diploma.
Chicago would be the first city to adopt such a requirement if the measure is approved by the city’s board of education.
This could be a page out of the Trumpist playbook, Distraction 101, to get people to talk about Chicago in reference to something other than their homicide rate and corrupt police force (hell, the whole city). Emanuel is just the sort of political lowlife who would use kids as political propaganda tools.
I predict that this proposal will soon sink out of sight. And hopefully, it'll take that corrupt fuck with it.
12 comments:
Bullshit, indeed! I guess the kids who hope they can work at a nearby fast food place or, if they are lucky, at a grocery store so they can help their family pay the rent and light bill will just not get a high school diploma. I've never had strong feelings about Rahm one way or the other but this makes me want to slap him - repeatedly.
Jill
And the question I asked when I heard about it this morning is "Why doesn't the Chicago School District teach enough that the kids don't need an additional two years to be relevant in the workplace?"
This from the school district that keeps lowering the standards for teacher literacy to keep the Teachers Union happy....
And it takes just two comments before a Conservative tries to drag Unions into this. B., have you ever considered the studies that show that stable homes, food security and attendance are the best predictors of school success? That teachers, as a whole, are doing a pretty damn good job with limited supplies and support. But no, gotta drag the Republican Union boogieman outta the closet. Wanna guess how many teachers a Tomahawk missile can pay for? Are you happy that Donnie flashed his pee-pee by bombing those nasty airport aprons and fueling points...or will you be consistent and condemn Donnie like the Right condemned Obama when he suggested strikes.
I've always thought Rahm was a creep, and education is something Rauner (or as they call him in Illinois "governor hedgefund") is busily trying to privatize and sell off to his friends, so I don't envy those kids trying to go to school there right now.
There are many kinds of value you can get even with a high school education (or there were when I went): I could weld, machine, and fabricate metal when I got out, and if you would have asked me at the time, those would have been my post-high school plan. Didn't turn out that way, though, and really, I can't say my diploma helped me all that much, either. The stuff I learned there sure did, though, and thank the flying spaghetti monster I went to school before the bulk of the effects of the tax revolt eliminated all of the best stuff I got to learn.
-Doug in Oakland
CP: The issue wasn't the unions per se, but the failure of the schools to educate the kids.
And yes, the Teachers Union is a part of that. They rally behind every issue that keeps teachers employed. Yes, they did agitate to lower standards for literacy. How can teacher that barely speaks english teach kids how to speak? How can a kid who can't speak decent english work a job?
The issues with public schools are many, they can't replace family, but they waste a lot of money failing to teach even the basics. Were they doing a decent job, there would be no need for the 13th and 14th years recommended by Rahm.
If you think that the Chicago Teachers are doing a "pretty damn good job with limited supplies and support" then you don't know the system at all. There are a lot of dedicated teachers. There are a lot also who took up teaching because they thought it would be easy. There is huge money spent in the Chicago schools. Wages for teachers (fairly high) are only one part of the problem. The waste is huge in the system.
I'm reasonably sure that the percentage of anti-union conservatives who have ever been union members would be a very low number.
But that wasn't the point of this post when I wrote it.
I'm a member of the IFPTE Local 21.
And conservative.
And am still anti-union.
Not quite as much as I was before, but still.
I'm very well paid, the job is great. But half of us are parasites who don't even work, 44% of us are supervisors (!), and half of them do nothing (the other half sometimes attend meetings, and that's all) so are not motivated to make anyone else work. Promotion is definitely not merit based, my supervisor is also my union rep, and downtown is dragging their feet replacing the 1/3 of our group who retired a year ago.
So I can get annoyed at Cali teachers who are tenured after 2 years, but we are the same in fact after 1 year.
There should be a better way.
You say hit repeatedly with a logging chain?
I was part of logging in Humboldt County in the early 70's. When you say "logging chain" I picture something big enough that he would only be a red spot after the first hit. You could drag that stuff for a bit but if you got hit there was little left.
As to teachers, why blame a Union when it is, or was, and should be, the responsibility of Government to supply Educators with the required resources to educate?
I had a well funded and Union High School and I was one of a number of graduates who could have entered Cal Berkeley directly.
It seems in the real world that the driver of quality education is "Dollars to the school districts" and not political acceptability to any class.
As to a "plan" crap! I was so sick of regimented High School, the street violence all around me and the looming draft, that my plan was "to get the hell out". That would have never given me the diploma that I have now, that allowed me into Junior College 10 years later that allowed me to become a successful automobile Smog and Electronic repair mechanic.
You have to pay for a good education and that is what Government is all about.
We don't need indentured workers.
The current system works fine as long as the funds are provided, you can't educate on the 'cheap', and private sponsored education is for their profit and never the student's benefit.
w3ski
"It seems in the real world that the driver of quality education is "Dollars to the school districts" and not political acceptability to any class"
Which is true, as long as you don't waste money at $100/gallon paint (that costs $25/gallon for anyone else) and $50/bag safety salt, and have overpaid teachers that can't teach and maintenance contractors that are "connected" that overcharge by 2 X or more, and all the other politically motivated wasted dollars that takes place in Chicago schools.
Real "money to the schools" would work. Just throwing money AT the schools doesn't educate the kids, it just enriches the folks who are connected.
I'm seeing so much willful ignoring of the hoary 80/20 rule ( 80% of the work done by 20% of workers, similar ratio customers-to business)by those on the right who would lay it all at the feet of unions etc. that coincidence seems unlikely. I spent 22 years as a Northeastern commercial fisherman & boat owner and 15 years as a Verizon union outside tech & saw no variation in that ratio in either case. Anecdata? Yeah,but...
w3ski: When my brother was setting chokers up there in '70 and '71 they used cables behind the CAT, but they also had a chain behind the skidder that the cables could be hooked to that was large enough that I couldn't lift it. It would probably require the use of a crane to whip someone with it.
-Doug in Oakland
Dinthebeast, I left Humboldt last time in 1989. I still have a Redwood sized choker, a half spool of only 3/8, but usable sized cable and a Tree Bag and Hoedad, just to make me remember my humble beginnings.
I tend to forget, you, were there too.
Most people can't comprehend just how big the Timber and tools were then.
I feel very small and weak now, but I am alive, and "I've got all my fingers still", as they used to say.
W3ski
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