Teacher Seniority Rules Challenged

With Tens of Thousands of Layoffs Looming, Government Officials and Parents Want to Change the ‘Last in, First out’ System

By BARBARA MARTINEZ

Teacher seniority rules are meeting resistance from government officials and parents as a wave of layoffs is hitting public schools and driving newer teachers out of classrooms.

In a majority of the country’s school districts, teacher layoffs are handled on a “last in, first out” basis. Critics of seniority rules worry that many effective and talented teachers who have been hired in recent years will lose their jobs.

Unions say that seniority rules are the only objective way to carry out layoffs, and that they protect teachers from the whims and bias of managers, who might fire effective teachers they don’t like.

This year, because of cuts in state aid to New York City, the city could be facing a loss of about 8,500 teacher jobs out of a total of 80,000. The last Continue Reading »

When floors were dirt, only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

Yes, it almost make sense…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

I remind myself: the past is gone. Remember it.

-from A Letter, p. 101

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From Farming: A Hand Book by Wendell Berry.

In Myanmar not even the free public education guaranteed by the State Peace and Development Council (aka, the country’s military dictators) is free. The costs seem low — what Americans might spend on school supplies each year — but imagine if it was equal to one half of one month’s salary.

From The Irrawaddy:

Once again, parents in military-ruled Burma are counting the cost of a primary education for their children in public schools. It is an annual ritual that comes with the beginning of a new school year, which coincides with the onset of the monsoon rains in June.

Although the Southeast Asian nation has laws affirming that primary school education is free and compulsory, the economic headaches parents have to cope with at this time of the year suggest otherwise, according to a parent from Rangoon, the former capital, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It is a burden that has persisted even after the junta appeared to reprimand public schools taxing parents to make private payments to keep their children enrolled in the state-supported education system, the parent added.

“Many public schools expect parents who have primary school children to pay for building maintenance, school furniture and school books,” confirmed Aung Myo Min, director of the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, a non-governmental group based in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. “The first month of the school year is the most expensive for these parents. They have to make the annual payment then.”

He estimated that such financial demands for a promised “free” education often is as high as 100,000 kyat (about US$ 100) for the year. “That is a big amount for a family to bear,” he told IPS. That amount already makes up about 50 percent of the monthly wage of a mid-ranking civil servant in Burma, which ranges close to $ 200 per month.

But that is not the only financial worry for an education in Burma, officially known as Myanmar. A parent with a child advancing into the secondary school in the state-supported education system could expect to be hit by a demand of 200,000 kyat ($ 200) at the beginning of the school year.

Anyone care to add up how many students could be educated for the cost of a single fighter aircraft?

When the roof of a house was thatch, there was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

Yes, it almost make sense…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

And a lifetime won”t be enough
to bring it back. A man
would have to live maybe
five hundred years
to make it good again
-or learn something of the cost
of not making it good.
But hard as it is, I accept
this fate. I even like it
a little-the idea of making
my lifetime one of the several
it will take to bring back
the possibilities of this place

-spoken by Nathan in The Bringer Of Water, p. 92

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From Farming: A Hand Book by Wendell Berry.

Today, 20 June, is World Refugee Day. Refugee is a loaded word. When people fleeing the devastation following Hurricane Katrina here in the United States, were referred to as refugees, politicians freaked. In Myanmar, the life of the refugee, both internal and external, has become the norm..

From Today’s Zaman:

As for Burma, it is an open-air prison. In Burma almost the entire population, 50 million people, is politically imprisoned by the junta regime, which promised everyone a better future but then toughened up its attitude partially because the West turned a blind eye to events in Burma, leading many victims to continue to turn to the West. There are 600,000 refugees from Arakan and 500,000 refugees from Bihar who have been displaced by the oppressive Burmese military regime and are now living in Bangladesh.

How do you live in a nation that is homeless?

I haven’t thought a great deal about Vice President Joe Biden since the election. This morning he makes me proud that I voted in 2008.

Jessa Crispin writes:

Wisdom is not the same as knowledge, and so it seems odd it has attracted the attention of science. There is such a thing as “wisdom studies” now, and in his book Hall talks to researchers and neuroscientists in a search for the latest information about wisdom. Scientists treat wisdom the way they treat anything else. They break it down into its smallest components to identify and test, and they attempt to figure out how it works, how to obtain it, and what it is. There are, according to Hall and the researchers he meets, eight attributes of wisdom: Emotional Regulation, Knowing What’s Important, Moral Reasoning, Compassion, Humility, Altruism, Patience, and Dealing with Uncertainty. Tests are designed, studies are lined up, and college undergrads short of cash or in need of class credit are recruited as lab rats in our pursuit of wisdom.

When houses had thatched roofs — thick straw piled high — with no wood underneath, it was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

Yes, it almost make sense…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

It’s not what I wanted.
It’s what was here to be had,
and what I could afford.
It’s my fate you could say.

-spoken by Nathan in The Bringer Of Water, p. 91

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From Farming: A Hand Book by Wendell Berry.

Today is the 65th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Lauriate known by her people simply as Our Lady. People need leaders who are greater than they think they can be so that they might become as great as they might be. I like to think Suu Kyi is one such leader. To echo the Pesach seder, Next year in Yangon.

Also, The Guardian…

Next Saturday, 26 June, I will mark a milestone of my own when I publish my 1,000th post on Myanmar. Rather than write about the evil that is daily done there, I would like to write about the day-to-day courage of the people who rise up, work and love and lie down each day.

If you have any thoughts or memories that you would like to share, please email them to me at the address at the top of the right-hand column.

Before indoor plumbing, baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all came the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!”

Yes, it almost make sense…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

But you can’t escape life by loving it.

-spoken by Nathan in The Bringer Of Water, p. 86

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From Farming: A Hand Book by Wendell Berry.

Nearly three years ago, the State Peace and Development Council (aka, Myanmar’s military dictators) raised the price of gasoline and sparked a the Saffron Revolution. First hundreds and then thousands then tens of thousands of monks took to the streets to peacefully protest a regressive tax that punished the poorest of Myanmar’s citizens.

While the SPDC has money for fighter jets, missiles and nuclear weapons, it appears that it lacks funds to fuel its own basic economy.

From Mizzima:

Burma’s ruling military junta has imposed rationing of fuel sold at the country’s new private petrol stations, two days after it privatised its retail oil sector, according to a sales manager at one of the stations yesterday.

The Ministry of Energy ordered the stations to limit sales to no more than 12 gallons (45 litres) of fuel per car per day from June 12 onwards.

A sales manager from a Dagon International private petrol station in Kyaukmyaung, Rangoon, said the Burma Petroleum Products Enterprise, a department of the ministry, was failing to meet private petrol station fuel demand.

The junta had said it planned to allow private companies to distribute and import fuel, but the private petrol stations must still depend on supplies from the Energy Ministry during their 60-day trial period. Distribution of natural gas is still controlled by the government; the stations can distribute only petrol and diesel to end users.

The ministry sells petrol to the private stations for 2,350 Kyats (about US$2.35) per gallon and all private stations are required to resell to end users at the fixed price of 2,500 Kyats (about US$2.5) per gallon and 20900 Kyats (about US$2.9) per gallon of diesel. The limitation, however, will last two months after which the price will be deregulated, allowing the private stations to sell fuel at variable prices.

“They [stations] record all transactions in their databases. If a customer tries to buy [fuel] two times within a day, they will not sell”, a private petrol station customer in Rangoon said.

I burn through 12 gallons of gas in maybe 10 days during a school year driving 300-350 miles, so the limit seems generous. Which makes me suspicious that the SPDC has other plans in the works.

Will the monks march again?

When hot water was a luxury, most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Yes, it almost make sense…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.