Pension Pigsty

I saw this cartoon in the Ledger the other day and I just had to add some annotations!

Guess Who's Next !

"Hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts, grants, loans, concession agreements and property leases go to private companies that pay low wages, provide few benefits, and offer employees little opportunity to work their way into the middle class."

This is just the plan politicians have for public education going private. The whole thing is being set up by the constant degradation of teachers, attempts to end collective bargaining for public workers, elimination of tenure and unreasonable evaluation parameters. What are teacher unions doing about this? In my opinion, not much except whining ! It appears to me that the honchos in the unions might be more concerned about protecting their big salaries than really confronting the situation head on!

http://teachersdontsuck.blogspot.com/
http://freebooksbywalt.blogspot.com/

I Have a "Conflict in Understanding" !

When I was elected to the BOE, I was required to give up a little part time job videoing the high school football games (which I had done for twenty years prior) because it was considered a "conflict of interest" and an "ethics violation"?
The "conflict of interest" was not $317,000. It amounted to about $800 per year !

The "State" of Education

                   

43% win average ???

The RU football coach - Shiano- record 68-67 - salary $2M + plenty of bennies.

The RU basketball coach - salary $650 and a "firing bonus" of over $400K.

The RU AD is given a "quitting bonus" of $1M.

The RU "athletic lawyer" (whatever that means) - $400K a "resigning bonus".

The new basketball coach - salary $1M per year for five years.

The women's basketball coach - $900K per year (at least she's winning).

The retired college Prez - $335,000 per year for teaching 15 hours per week.

The football stadium renovated for $102M with a capacity of 54,000 and the largest attendance ever

was 47,000 five years ago.

I spoke with someone the other day about the outrageous salaries of college coaches. He told me that the reason was that successful athletic programs brought alumni dollars to the school. He said that he had been to a Penn State football game a few years back and the alumni there were throwing money at the school hand over fist.

Well, I happened to look up some info about Penn State and it seems that they are not only number one in athletics but also number one in tuition costs for in-state students. In-state tuition is over $17K.

Doesn't it make you wonder where all that alumni money (if it is really being donated as he claims ) is going ??

And

If  "big time" athletics helps a college's finances, then why has RU's tuition doubled during the past ten years over which time RU has been aspiring to become part of the"big show"?

Christie Reelection Ads

Another trick to use public funds for a reelection campaign.
This is like when Whitman "borrowed" from the pension fund to lower taxes and thereby enhance her reelection efforts. Another use of public funds to pump up a reelection campaign.

And when McGreevy "back-doored" the pension by not requiring towns to contribute thereby lowering local taxes and again enhancing reelection chances.  

It seems they all figure out a way to use public monies to enhance their own image at the taxpayer expense.                                      

Just Another Stop on the Union Busting / Privatization Tour

*  "an American original" bully and loud mouth - is this a person that we should teach children to emulate ?
 

** "with children fidgeting in their seats" - evidently he didn't "engage" the children in the lesson very well !

*** "who he said cares more about pensions" - so no one should care when the State fails to make good on the decades old promise of a reliable pension ?

**** "consistently good grades" - as assigned by whom and on what basis ?? 

PS

Having been educated by such a poor public system how did our Governor rise to his current station ? Does he think it was all accomplished exclusively by his own efforts and his public school education played little if any part?