Post by TW on Dec 17, 2012 8:37:24 GMT -5
First, about teachers, and how they are evaluated. I saw six adults associated with young people who gave their lives heroically, to protect their children. We can argue semantics on how we want teachers judged, but I can say from my own knowledge of the people I know, who became educators, all but one would be like those that gave their lives for the children at Sandy Hook Elementary.
No evaluation to determine how they'll react in a bad situation can be given that would show them due for a merit award from what I see. You either are someone like them, or you're not, and the system itself will weed out the bad ones pretty consistently from what I've seen. There may be one, here and there, who slip through the cracks, but the people I know, who are decision makers in school districts, seem to find ways to get rid of these people eventually, even if it's difficult.
Secondly, the idea that we need massive cuts in police protection, because it's a "luxury." Nothing could be further from the truth. It's essential that we maintain a superior level of vigilance in fighting crime, and we need to maintain a police presence in our schools, to protect everyone. The fact that six adults who devoted their lives to educating children had to die heroically to drive that point home is a bitter pill for all of us to swallow, but swallow it we must, for we are the people who whine about paying taxes, and the cost of living today.
The greatest generation of Americans have been pissed at times about taxes, but not once did they make an attempt to undercut the protection of society and it's safety, or undermine the schools to reduce education levels, or leave them vulnerable to attack.
Although I doubt that an on-duty Police Officer could have stopped a man with semi-automatic pistols, before anything happened, I'm reminded that it may have stopped him, and could have saved countless lives.
Of course I realize that if a police officer had been there, and had shot and killed the man prior to what he accomplished, the police officer would have been called a murderer, and the killing "unwarranted," because the assailant wasn't really a bad guy to a some people in society, and the media would have played that up to the hilt.
There's a case right now in Madison, where a group of vigilantes is trying to nail a cop for killing a man that tried to take the officer's gun from him. They want him at least "fired," and feel prosecution is needed. To me, the man was doing his duty.
We have three pending cases of "wrongful death" in Rockford right now, with officers on furlough, because they killed someone who attacked them. When you attack a cop, my theory is, you expect to die. You've asked for it. A Police Officer cannot be counted on to be able to duke it out with every miscreant who decides he wants to take him down.
Anyhow.... right now, if I was a believer in right-wing philosophy on Federal budget, school expenses, and yapping about too many teachers..... I'd keep my freaking mouth shut. It's time people start owning up to their responsibility to their communities, and for communities to start owning up, and pushing the Fed, to do what's right for people, not the small minority at the top of the income chain.
No evaluation to determine how they'll react in a bad situation can be given that would show them due for a merit award from what I see. You either are someone like them, or you're not, and the system itself will weed out the bad ones pretty consistently from what I've seen. There may be one, here and there, who slip through the cracks, but the people I know, who are decision makers in school districts, seem to find ways to get rid of these people eventually, even if it's difficult.
Secondly, the idea that we need massive cuts in police protection, because it's a "luxury." Nothing could be further from the truth. It's essential that we maintain a superior level of vigilance in fighting crime, and we need to maintain a police presence in our schools, to protect everyone. The fact that six adults who devoted their lives to educating children had to die heroically to drive that point home is a bitter pill for all of us to swallow, but swallow it we must, for we are the people who whine about paying taxes, and the cost of living today.
The greatest generation of Americans have been pissed at times about taxes, but not once did they make an attempt to undercut the protection of society and it's safety, or undermine the schools to reduce education levels, or leave them vulnerable to attack.
Although I doubt that an on-duty Police Officer could have stopped a man with semi-automatic pistols, before anything happened, I'm reminded that it may have stopped him, and could have saved countless lives.
Of course I realize that if a police officer had been there, and had shot and killed the man prior to what he accomplished, the police officer would have been called a murderer, and the killing "unwarranted," because the assailant wasn't really a bad guy to a some people in society, and the media would have played that up to the hilt.
There's a case right now in Madison, where a group of vigilantes is trying to nail a cop for killing a man that tried to take the officer's gun from him. They want him at least "fired," and feel prosecution is needed. To me, the man was doing his duty.
We have three pending cases of "wrongful death" in Rockford right now, with officers on furlough, because they killed someone who attacked them. When you attack a cop, my theory is, you expect to die. You've asked for it. A Police Officer cannot be counted on to be able to duke it out with every miscreant who decides he wants to take him down.
Anyhow.... right now, if I was a believer in right-wing philosophy on Federal budget, school expenses, and yapping about too many teachers..... I'd keep my freaking mouth shut. It's time people start owning up to their responsibility to their communities, and for communities to start owning up, and pushing the Fed, to do what's right for people, not the small minority at the top of the income chain.
