*sigh*

Dear insurance companies, cover contraceptives and voluntary sterilization procedures and you avoid the cost of paying for a pregnancy, something I believe is required coverage in the new bill. Why are you so dumb?

No love,
Women

Well, they'd like to remove those programs too, I bet. But I suspect there's some "OMG CONTRACEPTION IS MURDER" along with some "DO NOT REGULATE BUSINESS" plus the theme of this year it seems: "HEY GUYZ, LETS VOTE ON ANYTHING THAT TARGETS WOMEN. MAYBE THEY'LL GO BACK TO TEH KITCHEN AND MAKE US SAMMICHS."

Seriously.

Also, Walker already tried to cut the Medicaid program for these children. This was in his original proposal. When someone pointed out that this is highly illegal, he admitted he hadn't really checked on that.

He failed to graduate college, and has been accused of plagiarism IIRC. I don't think research was one of the things he valued.
If you'd just keep your legs closed, you slut, it wouldn't be a problem.

I forgot which thread I was in. I saw that response and the pink text and let out a "What, WTF!?"

/carry on

I know, you're used to us calling YOU the slut. ;)

EXACTLY

Shit hit the fan tonight. I don't even think I can put the mood in Wisconsin into words right now. If you're interested in seeing how the initial meeting of the special committee went down, you can watch it here. The video really helps show the process and it's less than 5 minutes because that's how quickly things went. Nobody saw this coming.

But he is still pretending it was about the budget.

Since I can't sleep anyway, I started looking up some things about collective bargaining and found this excellent FAQ. http://clear.uhwo.hawaii.edu/CB-FAQ.html#Q1

Frankly, I don't see how what they've done is legal. The National Labor Relations Act seems pretty clear to me. The only "gotcha" could be the line at the end.. that it applies to members of unions in the private sector and members of unions that represent both public and private employees. It looks like AFSCME is the *the* public employee union for federal, state and city employees. So... they take ONE private employee group in and they become a union that represents both, right? I know, probably not that simple, but it seems they can get around this somehow.

^^^I think you are correct in that the wording is "public" versus "private". My understanding is that the public sector does not have the same options under Unionization as the private sector. This is not particular to our times and has been the case as with the Air Traffic Controllers etc. The public sector is allowed options to bargain at the behest of the states. There are several states that absolutely do not allow collective bargaining on the part of the public unions. My state being one.

General Statute (GS) 95-98, the North Carolina law prohibiting collective bargaining for public workers

There is some other piece that was referenced, that suggested there's a federal prohibition on removing union rights from the point at which some law was passed. I believe it referenced employees who would be covered under Depts of Transportation. Something about losing federal money if they removed union rights that had existed when that law was passed. I'll look into it and see if I can find the reference.

ETA:
Found it referenced from the HuffPo
Source

This said, the Assembly exempted transit unions at some point but I'm not 100% sure that it passed there or if it was included in the senate's bill.

You thought Wisconsin was out of control. Our new Governor's plan now:
The governor or his administration can declare any city or school district to be in financial emergency and can then dissolve or disincorporate them and appoint people to be in charge of them. The emergency person can strip the town of union rights unilaterally AND suspend or dismiss elected officials. There are two different versions of this bill .. one in the House, one in the Senate. So we would lose our right to elect local government. In the meantime, he is cutting state funding to cities and school districts drastically, putting them in dire financial straits.

A YouTube video explaining it all, from MSNBC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUpO1QFMDtM

This is absolutely unbelievable.

And, in the interest of fairness.. his defense. We have to trust that he will only use these powers in a dire emergency. http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/nationa...l-manager-bill

I've been trying to learn more about this...thanks for the info! Will you keep us updated?

I saw that! That seemed like straight out of The Onion...except, it wasn't.

dictatorship?

Put them in the shoes of a teacher for a few days...then they will understand.

just posted that MSNBC clip on my facebook. I wonder what kind of response I'm going to get.

You bet. I am very riled up about this one.

A teacher friend of mine had posted it on hers and I shared it.. three more of my friends have shared it since. The staunch Republicans have been very quiet, even those who usually issue rebuttals pretty quickly. I think this goes too far, even for them

As appealing as a businessman with no political experience sounds when we're hating "politics as usual", said businessman needs to at least understand that he is not the CEO of the state and government is NOT the same as a business.

He did promise to re-invent Michigan. I didn't know he would re-invent Democracy.

School districts in Texas are laying off teachers in huge numbers. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, districts are being forced to let go of anywhere from 200+ (Irving schools are not renewing 1st year teachers) to 3000 (Dallas school district, Fort Worth is only letting go of 1000). Yes, some positions maybe redudant or teachers who teach smaller classrooms.

We've been told that our classroom numbers will increase by 10-20 students.

The districts are begging the Texas governor to release funds from the state's Rainy Day Fund. It's a $9 billion fund for emergencies.

Gov. Rick Perry's (aka, Gov. Goodhair) response: "The school districts need to solve their own problems and not run to the state to solve them." He is refusing to release any funds.

Meanwhile, Gov. Goodhair has pushed through a bill that requires any woman seeking an abortion to have her doctor give her a mandatory sonogram, discuss what is seen, and to sign a paper that they discussed the sonogram and exactly what they saw.

I thought Republicans were all about government not interfering in people's lives.

And, yesterday after school, I found out that I may lose my job. 15 years of teaching. A Master's. Department Head. 5 areas of certification (meaning I have licenses to teach in 5 areas). And I was told that my department will be one of the first ones affected along with Special Education.

That's awful :mad:

A few days ago, I read that PWSH was preparing to increase enrollment by ~50%. Is the district planning on closing down schools too, or is the focus on releasing administration/teachers?

Teachers in PISD thought we were pretty safe - we're opening a new 9-10 high school next year and the projection that PWHS will go from 2000 to 3400 students. But, no. We find out the week after Spring Break who will be laid off.

^^

No. Teachers in my district thought we were safe. A new 9-10 high school is opening next year and the projected increase of PWHS from 2000 to 3400 in the next 2 years. But, we were told that layoffs are definite. We find out after Spring Break who will be let go.

Sorry for the double post. The original post did not show up for me for some reason.

:( This is terrible. I'm so sorry.

I think that will be happening in Michigan too because the gov is cutting the special ed budget by 5% and the regular ed budget only by 4%. Such a good guy.

ETA: It dawned on me. These whacko Republican Governors in these swing states may just help Obama get re-elected in the end.

One of the things that puts ESL and SpEd on the chopping block is our smaller class sizes. People look at them and say, "Oh, you only have 5-10 kids in your classes." We have smaller classes for a reason.

They are saying that a regular history class in high school will be 40-50 students next year.

Yet they'll gripe and complain when the students test scores fall and kids aren't learning what they're supposed to.

The Dems are showing their true colors. The politicians in Wisconsin are now getting death threats from the radical left.

Don't bet on it. The wacko union thugs national membership was down to 14% and that was with a Democratic controlled House, Senate and White House. I am probably not as smart as you liberals but I think 86% is bigger than 14%. Most of the country is behind the Wisconsin Governor and Obama is a one term President.

Hardly. Spending has skyrocketed.

How much do they spend per student in China?

Hi madmax!

Read my posts above because the stuff in Michigan isn't about unions. It's about a governor trying to take the power to take over any city or school district that HE deems to be in a financial crisis and fire all of their elected officials and appoint his own manager to that city. Elected officials are NOT unionized.

As to China's education system, they have increased their funding of it by 1% every year since 1998. Education is only compulsory through age 15. It is 100% government run. They spend $2867 per student. Some students only go to agriculture school after age 15, where they learn Chinese, Mathematics and Morals. Students have to take an entrance exam to get into a college prep high school. Is that better? Really?

Our education spending in Michigan has not skyrocketed. It has gone down significantly over the past 3 years. It's been cut more than $2000 in some districts.

^^ It's max, don't bother.

I figured it was, but answered anyway...lol.

Hehe, yeah I never want to come off as 'telling' people to shut up, it's more a 'don't waste your energy and get upset' over a troll, thing ;)

I rarely get upset on here. I AM very upset with governor Snyder. (intentional lower case of his title)

FYP

After seeing the kids in my wife's classroom (ECSE), I totally understand why the class size is small. People only look in from the outside and not from within. This is my wife's first year in the school district. I guess we'll see what Snyder is going to do here in Michigan.

Good luck.