Thank You Sir! May I Please Have Another!

It Ain't Me !

The Great "Reformer" Helps to Rob the Pension Again!

What happened to all Christie's talk about pension "abuse" and public employees getting rich in retirement on their "undeserved"pension payments?
What does this  say about the "Pension Reform" proposed by Christie and passed by Assembly Democrats? What does it say about his veracity in trying to "re-reform" the pension again this year?
Did he already have a plan in mind to "re-reform" it while he was agreeing to the original "reform"?
Was he planning to renege on future pension payments when he signed the original "reform" law?
Maybe he should hire Mr. Mastro (his personal lawyer) to investigate these possibilities (for another $1,000,000 fee paid by the taxpayers). I'm sure the investigation would find him guiltless once again?
P.S.
The Dems aren't completely blameless in pension theft either. Far from it!
Take a look at Joe D's pension deal!

Pension Funds For Sale

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time" - Abraham Lincoln
Unfortunately, 61% of the New Jersey electorate was fooled before the election and even now according to the polls over 40% continue to be fooled. Maybe the critics of New Jersey education are right because it appears that a large percentage of the population just isn't that smart !!
 http://www.thenation.com/article/178862/pensiongate-christie-campaign-donors-won-huge-contracts

Teacher Evaluations Don't Add Up

http://www.mathforamerica.org/about-us/mission-and-vision


Bloomberg EDU Radio Show - Jim Simons -Math for America (click to listen)

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I was listening to Bloomberg Radio the other day. A talk show about education called EDU with Jane Williams was playing. The guest was Jim Simons of Math for America. I immediately assumed that it would be just another teacher bashing, education "reform" proponent but I decided to listen anyway.

I'm glad I did, because I think Dr. Simons and his organization made some good points. One was “They (teachers) should know their subject with sufficient depth".  Another was "Much of the current public discourse suggests teachers are untrustworthy and need ever more stringent evaluation".

Both of these statements brought to mind something about which I have written before.  In New Jersey, any person with a Supervisor's Certificate can evaluate a teacher in any area!

This means if I had a Supervisor's Certificate, I could evaluate the performance and competence of a French teacher. I can't even read a menu in a French restaurant!

This idea of allowing people without knowledge of the subject to evaluate and suggest improvement schemes extends all the way to the State DOE. Here we have commissioners and high level staff engaged in evaluating and planning many of whom, have had little or far distant teaching experience themselves. Much of their educational "expertise" was obtained in prestigious university classrooms (book learnin'). How many have taught a significant number of years in the "war zones" or even in suburban public schools rather than sophisticated private schools four all but three or four years?

The idea that education can be improved by the plans and schemes proposed by those who are ignorant of the subjects which they evaluate and the situations which teachers face daily is beyond absurdity!