Every Point Counts

Every teacher should have a story like this one. If they don't, they should create an apocryphal story like it.

But mine's real.

I'm obviously a softie. I'm entirely too generous when it comes to grading--and if anyone says different, they're mistaken. I crafted a policy this year, one I hadn't had in the past. Any student scoring 98% or more in my classes would not have to take the final exam.

And I allowed a small amount of extra credit in one of my courses this semester--some word problems from the book, each correct answer being worth 2 test points. I assigned 8 word problems for a total of 16 test points of possible extra credit. That's not very much.

But it was almost enough.

See, one student asked if he'd have to take the final. He had less than a 98%--but the extra credit hadn't been put in yet. He asked what grade he'd have if he got all 16 extra credit points, and wouldn't you know it, the answer was 97.9%!!! So I graded his extra credit assignment and he did get all the points. Would he have to take the final, he asked? Of course.

What? What's this? I see in my gradebook that he didn't turn in one of his homework assignments from two weeks ago. Usually I accept no work that's over one week past due. He opened his textbook and found the assignment, complete, just sitting there. Mocking. Smiling at me, knowingly.

Of course I told him that it's over a week past due, and you know what that means.... But I was starting to enjoy it too much, so I gave him 1 homework point (out of 5 possible) for the assignment, a bending of my policy that I do quite often. That one point was enough. He won't be taking the final.

Sometimes, every point really does count.

CTA Finally Admits It's Taking More Of My Money

On March 18 I first reported that the CTA was planning on raising dues $18/month in order to pay for political fights against Governor Schwarzenegger's policies, and that I'd be paying more than $1000/year in union dues as a result. Today the June 2005 issue of California Educator came in the mail, and there on page 31, finally, was an article about the increase. The article is called "Dues assessment under consideration".

Yes, they're "considering" raising the dues like I'm "considering" allowing notecards during tests. The decision's already been made.

The article is 3 columns long. It took the entire first column to lay out the case against the Governor. It wasn't until the 2nd column that we're told about the increase in dues. After spending the entire first column talking about how much the cost of the Governor's special election is going to hurt people, CTA decides to hurt me more by taking more of my money.

Brilliant move.

"For those who fear the assessment will be seen as yet another way to get money for politics, Vogel explained that the money enables CTA to protect Prop. 98 and 'that's not a partisan issue.'" So they'll take my personal money in an attempt to get more funding for schools.

Brilliant logic.

New Teachers *Must* Be Libs

Here's the opening sentence from an article in Today's New York Sun:

Brooklyn College's School of Education has begun to base evaluations of aspiring teachers in part on their commitment to social justice, raising fears that the college is screening students for their political views.

Read the whole thing for yourself. If you see nothing wrong with this you're too far gone for help.

Reasons *NOT* To Kill The President?

The author of this piece in the Oregon Daily Emerald has an interesting point of view. Her article is called "10 reasons not to kill Bush" and with a title like that, I'm sure she's gotten all the attention she obviously desired. I must admit, though, that I liked her closing paragraphs:

In all seriousness, I don't hate President Bush. I dislike a lot of his administration's choices, but I think he's a good man doing a difficult job. As a leader, you're always going to be hated. I am too often shocked by the vitriolic repulsion many people feel for our leader and America in general, especially because the loathing is often poorly informed. I've met people on this campus who see America as the worst human rights abuser in the world (unlike the angelic paradise of Cambodia) and people who sway liberal not because they actually know anything about issues but because it's popular.

Liberalism has to be more than a college fad or a collection of loudmouths whose idiotic comments stir headlines. The rabid dislike some people feel for a man they've never even met makes me ashamed to be a Democrat.

If that's the only reason you're ashamed to be a Democrat....

California State Teachers Retirement System

Here in California, teachers don't pay into Social Security. No, here we pay a higher percentage of our pay into the State Teachers Retirement System, "stirs" for short, and are guaranteed a certain retirement at some distant point in the future.

Part of the reason for last Wednesday's rally, the one I wrote so much about earlier this week (scroll through the May 2005 archives if you're interested), is that Governor Schwarzenegger wants to change from a "guaranteed benefit" type retirement system, which he claims is bankrupting the state, to a "defined contribution", 401k-style pension system. Leading public unions in the state are of course balking at such blasphemy. I admit that the guaranteed retirement I'm currently promised is a pretty good deal for me personally, and I'd hate to lose it. However, I don't have a solution--and neither does the CTA--for what California should do to fund these future retirements as promised. I should have a pretty good retirement, but at what cost to my fellow Californians?

Some would say that such a retirement is the perk for years of working for comparatively low pay, and there may be some merit to that argument. Others would say that the state promised me such a retirement and should keep to its promises. I agree with that argument completely. Interestingly enough, so does Governor Schwarzenegger--his proposal would only affect workers hired after next year, putting them into a 401k-style retirement while keeping the state's promise to us older workers. Seems reasonable to me.

Then along comes an article in today's major Sacramento newspaper, certainly not a mouthpiece for any Republican administration. Here are the first two paragraphs of the article:

The California State Teachers' Retirement System learned in a new report that the gap is widening between what the pension fund must pay future retirees and what assets the fund will have.

The day of reckoning is about 20 years away, but the fund's trustees must either begin feathering the nest now or cut back on benefits for new hires. Current teachers won't see their pension benefits reduced, because the payments are guaranteed by law.

So what does the CTA say California should do about this? It says what any socialist organization says--raise taxes on the rich! And when will I currently be able to retire? In 22 years. Here's more:

The fund's projected long-term shortfall has increased to $24.2 billion, up $1.05 billion from the last year's actuarial report by the consulting firm Milliman.

California has a population of 30-some million, making this shortfall equal to $750 for every man, woman, and child in the state. Staggers the mind, doesn't it? Expect the CTA to fight this proposal as well:

But CalSTRS officials and experts aren't counting on Wall Street to pull underfunded plans out of the financial hole. Instead, consultants suggest raising contribution rates.

By law, the Legislature must approve any changes to CalSTRS contributions made by teachers, school districts and the state.

Currently, teachers contribute 8 percent of their annual payroll, while school districts put in 8.25 percent and the state adds 2 percent.

To bridge CalSTRS' gap, consultants estimate the combined contribution rate must grow by as much as 4.56 percentage points. This figure has increased along with the shortfall.

I don't mind CTA's fighting such a proposal. I just wish they'd come up with a better resolution than the typically socialist wealth-transfer notion of "tax the rich".

And now on to my personal situation.

I didn't start teaching until I was 32 years old. I paid into Social Security from the time I was 18 until I became a teacher, and with over 40 quarters of payments contributed I've earned a Social Security check when I retire. However, now that I have a state pension system, Social Security will only pay me a small fraction of what I've theoretically "earned". They don't want any double-dippers, you see.

But why shouldn't I be able to double dip? I worked and paid into that system for many years. If I had become a teacher right out of college, I'd have been able to pay into STRS for 30 years and retire with a healthy check at age 52 or 53. But since I didn't start teaching until I was 32, I won't be able to get such a retirement until age 62--and then I'll get the same retirement pay as the 52-yr-olds, because we both put in 30 years as teachers. Yes, Social Security will add a small amount, but not near what it would be if, instead of becoming a teacher at age 32, I had just stopped working altogether.

There's an inequity here. Overturning the "Windfall Elimination Provision" law, as it's called, is supposedly a goal of the NEA every year. However, no one really expects this law to change, at least not with a Republican President and Congress. So while I'll agree with the NEA on this particular issue, I fault them for their inability to change the law because all their eggs are in the Democrat basket.


Update 5/30 5:01 pm: To read about some nifty ideas for social security from a man who worked in the Social Security office in 1940, click here.

Update #2, 12/14/08: Too bad the link above isn't active anymore. If anyone knows how to find that original story based only on what is now in inactive URL, I'd love to learn.

Update #3, 5/26/09: Ah, here it is!

Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day, and every blogger is almost compelled to put words to screen, penning, as it were, some great tribute to our fallen veterans. I'm not immune to this calling, and I had such a post in mind. Then I read the following on my West Point class email list and mine seemed trivial, almost mocking in comparison. So with Steve's permission, I offer this Memorial Day post:

Walked by my neighbor's house this weekend, as I often do. His house is on the corner right by the jogging path, so I take the dogs that way 5-6 times a week. And Ralph's usually out there, doing something or doing nothing. Sometimes he's pushing his lawnmower back and forth, or otherwise taking care of his immaculate lawn. Sometimes he's pulling the golf cart into the garage, after getting in eighteen holes. And sometimes he's just sitting in the driveway, half in the sun and half in the shade, sipping on his Jack and Coke, watching his cat Smokey, and saying howdy to everyone who walks or drives by.

(This is Peachtree City, Georgia, the golf cart capital of the free world, so you can actually "say howdy" to someone who drives by.)

Oh by the way, Ralph flew bombers in WWII and served as a squadron commander in Korea. So you do the math on how old he is. If I'm pushing a lawnmower at his age, let alone teeing them up on a regular basis, then things are good.

And more times than not, Ralph asks me how things are going, "what's the news from the Fort?" as he says, and asks what I've heard from the AOR.

"It's a tough one y'all are fighting, yessir, a tough one to figure out" he says. "Not like the ones we fought. Ours were easy. Sure, we were gone for four years straight, with no phone calls or that internet contraption to keep us in touch with the family back home. I read about these video link ups and internet message boards and international cell phones. And care packages that would make every day seem like Christmas. What was that one the other day, the folks in South Carolina mailing air conditioners to soldiers in the desert?

"So sure, y'all have it nice in some ways... but still... I wouldn't trade places with you on a dare. My wars were easier to fight. You knew who the bad guys were, and you were pretty much free to do whatever it took to get them before they got you. I'm not sure how the kids out there keep things straight in their heads over there, not sure at all.

"And my wars, you knew how they were going and when they were over. You could draw lines on the map that meant something, and you could measure how far the front moved. And then someone signed a declaration, someone signed a surrender.

"This one's not so clean, and I'm a-guessing they never will be again, will they?

"So tell them all 'thanks,' willya? And thank you for all you're doing. I can sleep well at night knowing y'all are out there."

How about that? This guy fought two wars, spent six years on foreign soil, freed Europe and all that, and he says "thanks" for my half year in Kuwait.

And we wonder why they're called the Greatest Generation?

But that's not what he was thanking me for, and I'd be 100% cynic (and not just 3/4s) if I really thought that. He's thanking me just for raising my right hand some 22 years ago. After that it's all details. Comparing wars and comparing service is like comparing your children. None of us picked the conditions or the time or the place.

So in the spirit of Ralph, I pass along his thanks and add my own. For those of you eight time zones away right now, stay low and try to bring them all back.

French Reject European Constitution

Snippets from an Associated Press report:

In a stunning rejection of the European Union's latest ambitious move to unite its 25 nations, French voters shot down the bloc's first constitution, dealing a potentially fatal blow to the charter and humiliating President Jacques Chirac.

About 55 percent of voters opposed the treaty — the first rejection in Europe. France's repudiation came ahead of Wednesday's referendum in the Netherlands, where polls show even more resistance to the constitution, and had EU leaders scrambling to do damage control.

Why, you ask, did the French reject this constitution?

Chirac argued that the constitution would streamline EU decision-making and make the bloc more accessible to its 450 million citizens. But opponents feared it would strip France of its sovereignty and generous social system and trigger an influx of cheap labor.

That's right. It didn't guarantee enough socialism.

ChicagoBoyz had this comment:

The fact that anti-Americanism drove much of the vote doesn’t bother me at all. I don't want people to like us nearly as much as I want them to be able to govern themselves the way they see fit, have real elections with real consequences, and get the benefits and bear the consequences of those decisions. If the French don't want capitalisme sauvage or anglo-saxonisme or hyper-liberalisme, OK by me. They are free to have as much socialism as they can get away with.

But back to the AP report. As is typical of the ruling elite in Europe, options are presented to the people only when the people will make the right decision. What happens when the plebeians make the wrong choice?

The constitution's main architect, former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, said countries that reject the treaty will be asked to vote again.

Wonderful, Valery. Mark Steyn of the Chicago Sun-Times echoes a similar sentiment:

So, a couple of days before the first referendum, Jean-Claude Juncker, the "president" of the European Union, let French and Dutch voters know how much he values their opinion: "If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again," "President" Juncker told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Got that? You have the right to vote, but only if you give the answer your rulers want you to give. But don't worry, if you don't, we'll treat you like a particularly backward nursery school and keep asking the question until you get the answer right. Even America's bossiest nanny-state Democrats don't usually express their contempt for the will of the people quite so crudely.

Well said.

The Times of London isn't so worried about France's "no" vote:

Yet it is hard to claim that the practical implications of losing the constitution will be huge. The EU will muddle on, as it always has done, implementing only what it chooses rather than what it notionally has agreed. Even if the constitution were ratified, the EU would still ignore bits of it.

You have only to look at the scrapping, in effect, over the past 15 months, of the financial rules supposed to govern the eurozone. Although these are a central part of the constitution, France and Germany have found them inconveniently tough. They have now been watered down until they are almost meaningless.

Translation: the (unelected) bureaucrats in Brussels are going to do what they want to anyway, regardless of these meaningless elections.

And click here if you want to see a red-state/blue-state map of France for this election. It might surprise you.

Politically Correct Battle of Trafalgar

Here at Photon Courier is a post about a 200th-anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Trafalgar--complete with 21st-century PC trappings. It's only a couple of paragraphs so read the whole thing, but here's a teaser:

Who could be "embarrassed" about a defeat that occurred 200 years ago? And why is it "bashing" anyone to call things by their proper names?

When You Lie Down With Dogs....

Teachers, firefighters, nurses--all of us should be embarrassed, upset, and concerned by the participants in Wednesday's rally. I'm not talking about the teachers, nurses, and firefighters themselves, who were for the most part very well-behaved, but rather the "outsiders" who were allowed in as part of the rally--the Stalinists, the socialists, and various assorted other lefties. What was billed as a rally to protest specific policies of Governor Schwarzenegger turned out to be an anti-American, anti-capitalist, far-left-wing gathering.

And union dues, my union dues, helped foot the bill for it.

Now come on Darren, you're thinking. You think everyone who doesn't agree with you is a communist! And while that is somewhat true, it's also true that International A.N.S.W.E.R., an organization with a tent set up within the perimeter of the rally, is an anti-American Stalinist group. Who says? That bastion of conservative media, the New York Times. The Instapundit links to a New York Times article on them here. A.N.S.W.E.R. is not the type of organization we should want to be associated with.

And what about the socialists? I don't understand the appeal of socialism--it's certainly not what made America great, it makes a mockery of the federalism the Founders created, and it should be an affront to anyone who works hard. The extreme socialism of the Soviet Union caused that country to collapse economically, Chinese communism/socialism is giving way to capitalist tendencies, and socialism is choking economic development in Europe. I guess some people don't understand the difference between a utopian theory and lousy practice, but socialism is an example of both. Yet here were avowed socialists, carry signs and handing out newspapers at this rally. These are not the type of people we should want to be associated with.

Unions don't usually admit to being PACs of the Democrat Party, despite the fact that everyone knows they are. The last time I was in the CTA office in Citrus Heights, a calendar from the Democratic National Committee was hanging on the wall. Has the CTA every recommended a Republican for President or Governor? Still, you'd think they'd want to at least maintain the charade of non-partisanship, have some believable deniability. But apparently not. There was the local Democrat machine, registering voters at the rally. I saw no such tent for the Republicans, that's for sure.

Dozens of buses showed up, bringing in people from across the state to attend the rally. There were plenty of people from the San Francisco Bay Area, about 2 hours from here. For a rally that started at 4:00 they had to leave at 2 pm or earlier. Did their schools have minimum days? Did they all get subs? This couldn't have been a wildcat issue--there had to be coordination between those local unions and their respective school districts. Something about that just doesn't sound kosher to me.

http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2005/04/where-arnold-made-his-mistakes-and.html
The Governor made some mistakes, no doubt about it. I addressed them in the post identified here, but to summarize, he crafted his proposals to attack teachers and nurses instead of just their unions. That might turn out to be a strategic error, as it gave the unions something around which to rally the troops.

And then the unions chose to associate themselves with the ilk mentioned above--ardent leftists, socialists, and Stalinists. Let's read again what the NYT said about A.N.S.W.E.R.:

Answer, whose name stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, was formed a few days after Sept. 11, 2001, by activists who had already begun coming together to protest policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Some of the group's chief organizers are active in the Workers World Party, a radical Socialist group with roots in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The party has taken positions that include defense of the Iraqi and North Korean governments and support for Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugolav president being tried on war crimes charges.

As the Instapundit said here:

Antiwar protesters aren't Communists by definition.

But A.N.S.W.E.R. and the WWP basically are. (And of the extra-nasty Stalinist variety.)

Communists are, in my opinion, as bad as Nazis: mass murder, totalitarianism, etc. (And calling them "Marxists" instead doesn't fool anyone.)

Going to a march organized by Communists doesn't make you a Communist, any more than going to a march organized by Nazis makes you a Nazi.

But knowingly going to either one makes you icky. And calling it McCarthyism when people point that out, or point out that the Communists really are Communists, makes you either dishonest, or stupid.

And allowing these people at your rally is not just poor form, it's poor thinking. When you lie down with dogs, you're going to get fleas.


To see the pictures from the rally, click here and (depending on the date you do this) either scroll down to May 27th or go to the May 2005 archives and scroll down to see the pictures.

Update, 5/28/05 10:32 am: In my May 21st post I commented on the flier I received about the upcoming rally, and also predicted what kind of rally it would be. How prescient were my words! Here is a snippet:

That'll rally people to our cause, whatever our cause is. "Bring your own sign or poster. Keep to Alliance message." What is the Alliance message? I guess it's just anti-Schwarzenegger--or, more likely, anti-capitalist/anti-Republican/anti-American.

Could I have been any more accurate? And I'm glad I followed this advice from the flier:

"Do not be provoked by taunts or insults."

Update, 5/31/05 6:37 pm: I wrote here about the CTA's socialism. I'm not making this stuff up, folks--go look at the pictures posted on 5/27. Read the quotes that I quote. See the CTA for what it is, and stop it before it's too late.

This was the first tent I saw set up as I approached the main part of the rally. It's inside the perimeter of the rally, near the SW corner of Capitol Park. What stake does A.N.S.W.E.R. have in the governor's policies? Hmmmmmm. Maybe this is more of a "left-wing" political gathering than just a protest against a few policies of a California governor.

A view of the crowd.

On the Western Lawn of the Capitol, these representatives of California's and Sacramento's Finest protect the protesters while on horseback.

These professionals are working hard to protest Governor Schwarzenegger's policies. Can you read the A.N.S.W.E.R. banner in the background?

These folks were set up within the perimeter of the rally and were thus officially sanctioned. I wonder why they're only signing up Democrats? You don't think these unions are partisan in any way, do you?

Apparently more friends of California's nurses, firefighters, and teachers--or at least friends of their unions.

News trucks were lined up all along one sidewalk and around the corner.

Here's a view from near the back of the South Lawn. As I've said elsewhere, there was a pretty good crowd of several thousand.

Lyndon LaRouche's people were there, too.

Yet another socialist handing out papers at the rally.

Two of California's finest, on duty to keep those vicious teachers and nurses in line. These are *not* the off-duty officers, one of whom taunted me, threatened me, called me vile names, and suggested various sexual activities to me.