Go Wisconsin!
It’s 1:30 am and Wisconsin Republican State Representative Mary Czaja has a shot of genius: let anybody, including high school dropouts, teach school.
Good Lord, how drunk was she? She’s totally eliminating teacher licensing standards.
“The districts are going to be the ones that hire these people, and I firmly believe that they’re not going to throw somebody in there that isn’t doing a good job,” Czaja said. “This is just flexibilities. They don’t have to use it.”
Czaja couldn’t name any districts that had asked for the broader flexibilities.
So, a high school dropout might work cheaper than a fully licensed teacher, ya think?
Governor Scott Walker does. Walker proposed easing teacher certification provisions in his original budget request.
Mississippi is excited about the possibly of losing last place in eduction.
Thanks to Mark for the heads up.
Typical right winger: no regulation (even where children are involved); no taxes (which can be cut if we use cheaper “teachers”); no common sense.
If she ever needs surgery I do hope she’ll have the flexibility to select a “surgeon” with no training or credentials.
1Well, everybody wins. First, you transform the public schools into glorified day care centers, basically. Then, you use the ignorance of the next generation to convince them that science is a liberal conspiracy. And that is how new GOP voters are made!
2Call it the “Duggar Plan.” Any moron can home school in states with no guidelines or oversight of home schools. So, next “logical” wing nut step would to offer the same ‘standards’ for public schools.
We need a column A and column B universal health care system. Column A for those of us who find some purposes in both the social contract and government. Maybe Rand Paul can head up column B services for those who love the idea of self-certifying Free-Dumb.
3That shit sure won’t fly in Fairfax County Virginia!
4So, is she that evil to make that plan OR is she too ignorant to understand what a bad idea this is?????
5“This is just flexibilities. They don’t have to use it.”
She must have been home schooled by a high school drop out her use of the English language is terrible.
6I’ve been an educator for 50 years. Every now and then some bozo tells me all he needs to know to teach school is to stay one chapter ahead in the book. OMG. How did any of our schools turn out such dumb f@@ks? Teaching is my family business and we are proud of what it takes to teach, and it’s not ignorance.
7Our country has spent the last 200+ years with parents and community leaders pushing for education for our children, and in only 10-15 years the “charter school” idiocy has managed to derail critical and scientific analytical thinking to what can only be described as medieval. Where is the outrage???
8That woman is an imbecile. I’ve got 25 years invested in my teaching profession and I work on improving my craft every year. I’m ready to leave. I’m tired of people who know nothing about education thinking they know so much more than actual teachers, and they make laws showing their utter ignorance…no child left behind, anyone? I don’t know squat about many things, say like fixing a car engine, so I let the professionals do their thing. I wouldn’t dream of thinking I could fix a car just because I know how to drive a car. Yet we have legislators thinking they know how to teach just because they went to school. I tell you what, they make me tired. You just can’t fix stupid.
9I had a high school geography teacher who could not spell Africa. How hard is that…? (“Africia,” since you’re wondering.) When he said that Tolstoy wrote “Doctor Zhivago,” I pounded my head on the table.
And this fool wants standards to be lower?
10She also opposed requiring insurers to cover chemotherapy. Until she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer which changed her mind.
11I think I’ll move to Wisconsin and run for State Senator. Hell, I have a high school diploma and I even passed Civics.
12I usually try to post something slightly witty, but in regards to Walker & the Republican controlled legislature have done to my state in the 5 yeas Scotty has been governor, I am at a loss. They have managed to turn a once progressive state into a laughingstock. Be it education, women’s rights, voting rights, worker protection rights, natural resources, LGBT rights, health care for the uninsured – we are on a downward spiral.
13@Chloe Bear and @PKM have the salient situation, which is home schooled by high school dropouts. If hs dropouts are good enough for home schoolers then they should be good enough for everyone. Cause Choice. Freedom. And a medieval level of “critical and scientific analytical thinking” to prepare the next generation of Teajadists.
One can find as many education quotes attributed to Thomas Jefferson as one cares to. Here are a couple of Tea Party hating quotes I really like attributed to TJ
1. “preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.”
2. “what are the objects of a useful American education? classical knowledge, modern languages & chiefly French, Spanish, & Italian; Mathematics; Natural philosophy; Natural History; Civil History; Ethics.”
I echo JJ’s own quote: “I hate Republicans and I always will.”
14Can I just gently sob? I went and took six different certification exams not counting professional practices (Government, History, Social Studies composite, English, Special Education, and school counselor). I taught with an idiot that got a 12 on the Economics test. I wrote his lesson plans for him. Sure, why make sure that teachers actually know the material they are teaching?
15South Dakota has been at the very bottom of teacher pay for the past 10 years, much to Mississippi’s relief. (I grew up in SD) The state’s government, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Kochs, takes repulsive pride in how badly they can treat the state’s citizens without getting booted out of office. They’ve been looking for the bottom for 4+ decades, but haven’t found it yet. (I moved to MN 8 years ago and found sanity and self-respect.)
16“I firmly believe that they’re not going to throw somebody in there that isn’t doing a good job,” Czaja said.
Why not? The voters in her district did with their representative.
17You summed it up nicely, Rick. I have worked as educational support (as a school registrar)for 30 years, and have listened to the educational staff talk about the recertification courses they are required to take (on their own tine). Even in my job, I need to update my skills in making the most of the database, and of school law. To have some jackal suggest that even a dropout could take on teaching is disheartening at best. Someone else on this thread mentioned that if she needs surgery she shouldn’t have to inspect the credentials of the doctor. Good plan, maybe she can have Ben Carson do a lobotomy in the back seat of her car.
18These folks have been hiding in a cave since Day One. They never heard of the teacher hired back in Fairfax County some years ago who turned out to be an escaped convict. You never would have guessed to look at him. The county simply did not do an adequate job of vetting his background. Yep. That was bad. It burned me even worse because at that time I was trying like mad to get a teaching job with the county. Had to go on their wait list and accept a subbing job. The county’s excuse at the time was they needed to put more men teachers on the payroll. Well, with what they got, they shot themselves in several places of their anatomy. And this Wisconsin chick thinks waiving the rules is going to work? One way to prove her chops is to put her kids into a classroom taught by somebody who left school with a huge load of negativity. Whoopee.
19OH, all you naysayers, stop it! This woman is clearly the kind of forward thinker who is angling for a slot in President Walker’s cabinet. Edumacation Secretary, you betcha’ . . . . .
20This has got to be the twilight zone. She and Walker want LOWER standards for teachers so they can pay them minimum wage, while anyone with a brain knows we need HIGHER standards to educate our most precious natural resource.
21It boggles the mind. My heart goes out to the people of that sorry state.
I graduated high school, but me teaching is a joke.
22A couple of years ago, in rural east Texas, I asked a local elementary school teacher about her husband. She responded, “Him and the baby are sick.” She was no more qualified to teach than I am to fly a space shuttle, but school districts in Texas can get away with filling teaching vacancies with anyone drawing a breath.
23Uncle Dave, are you sure they’re required to be breathing? I mean, zombies come cheap.
Of course, zombies want brains, so they probably should steer clear of Texas and Wisconsin schools.
24We have someone on our staff that has never heard of the past tense. She’s credentialed (or should I say credential) but reading her emails makes my head hurt. Sadly, command of the English language is optional in many walks of life.
25She has the sort of vacuous stare that says the only brain she has ever had in her head is the one she is eating.
26Irish, you’re overqualified.
27It’s really classic conservative, let the market determine worth, economics at work. In their world, there are no public goods that should be regulated by the government. By their logic, I should be a Navy Seal. Sure, I’m not strong or fast and I’ve never fired a gun, but I can do it when we eliminate all standards for anything.
28I seems to me that both Walker and this bozo were educated in the schools they advocate for. Wisconsin has, traditionally, been a blue state. Walker and Czaja are working as hard as they can to turn it aquamarine just in time for the next election.
One good thing we can say about a democratic system: the majority of people get exactly the government they deserve.
29I recollect reading a very well-written, but currently little-known, novel about a dust bowl family, called “Now in November “, by Josephine Winslow Johnson. In the rural community to which the Depression had forced them to return, standards were exactly that low, and the eldest daughter, Kerrin, consequently got the position of sole teacher at the elementary school. Her sister had to go to the schoolhouse one day and found Kerrin babbling schizophrenically to the class. This state of affairs had gone on for some time, and–because the kids were too scared to talk about it– would have continued indefinitely had another adult not walked in on it. Well, eighty years later, we look like returning to the Good Old Days…
30does this woman have a high school dropout nephew in need of a job?
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