saw an associated press article about nj congressional races for this november. 13 seats up and the average incumbent has $280,000 on hand for this 2010 race, while the average challenger has only $17,000 available.
thrust of article is that incumbents will win going away due to monetary advantage. an old friend of mine always used to say
"if you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got"
it seems to me that we americans have have two choices for change in our country today.
#1 vote out incumbents
#2 start the second american revolution
to me, the obvious choice is #1. every poll out there says we do not trust congress and do not like where they are taking us. this november we have the opportunity to strike back. if you know how our government elections work, you must realize the only vote you get is to reelect or vote out your own congressman. if we want politicians to take notice, we must get rid of all the incumbents. that means you must vote out your guy! can you imagine the signal that we could send by getting rid of 13 nj congressmen, it would be stupefying.
the election is less than 7 months away. find out who your current guy is (if you don't know) and who is running come november. make up your mind not to listen to the campaign stuff, but just to vote for the new guy. i don't care if he/she is a republican or democrat, vote for the other guy! he/she could hardly do worse, AND has the potential to do much better (if they get the message).
if we do not turn out the bulk of them, there will be no message. the new guys will think they can do whatever they want based on how they run. if we get 13 new people in nj, they will be unable to disregard what we want to happen.
put this blog into your tickle file for october, then act on it in november.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
education in new jersey
there are three op-ed pieces in today's asbury park press, all related to education, plus a reader's letter to the editor regarding taxes. one is about nj funding of education, one is about bullies (not specific to nj), the last is about tenure (somewhat nj specific) and the reader letter is about state and local taxes.
my comments today are specific to nj, although they may apply to other states.
i was taught in college that you cannot begin to solve a problem until you have identified the problem. each of these opinion pieces spoke about the problem or about a solution for their specific problem and none of them tried to provide an overview of the whole. the letter writer tries to separate state and local taxes like they exist in a vacuum. none of them are correct, although the bully piece did take aim at the major issue in education today.
we all know schools in new jersey cost too much, AND, do not provide a good enough education to many of its students. we also know why too many students do not achieve - lack of parental involvement! we could double the amount of money we spend and we will not improve educational performance by very much at all unless we can get the parents of our children to care. that is why it is senseless to continue to pour money into our current system. our second problem is the NUMBER of school districts and their management by local, county and state entities, who do not work toward the same goals.
our new governor has taken the approach that we can no longer afford to tax more and spend more. he was elected to change that approach. he is doing the same things corzine did, with the exception that he is not looking to raise taxes. perhaps because of time constraints, both the current and next fiscal year budgets need to be executed in this manner, but the plan to freeze wages and cut programs will not work long term to lower costs. there must be structural changes to the school system in nj for us to be able to get spending and performance in line.
HERE ARE MY IDEAS - PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN
1. create 21 county districts. this eliminates "abbott" districts.
2. pass legislation requiring there can be no municipal entity of less than 25,000 people in nj and revamp all school districts to match the new municipal maps. this will lower the number to less than 320 districts. it will also provide some municipal cost savings. can make the number higher if you like. we have about 8 million people.
3. standardize administrator and teacher contracts. no more tenure, but some type of protection is necessary.
4. offer new hires 401k type retirement packages, offer a standard "bare bones" health care plan with choices of better coverage at higher contribution levels. only get sick days when sick. no carryover and NO PAYOUTS at retirement. Retirement age same as social security.
5. require an 11 month work schedule. everyone gets either july or august off. the extra to be used for lesson planning, educational self-improvement, etc.
6. set statewide maximum pay level for superintendents, those salaries below will fall in line.
7. limit overall administrative costs to a reasonable % of teacher costs.
8. no state mandates. if a county system is used, eliminate state board of education.
9. pick your tax poison. either we fund education locally or statewide, not both!
10. within new districts (especially county), let students at lousy schools transfer within the district. quid pro quo is performance must improve.
11. if parents will not get involved in schooling, students may not transfer. we are losing them anyway, why prolong the agony.
12. special ed and other programs for the disabled can be better handled on a a county wide basis because resources can be devoted to the educational specialists in these fields. this supports #1.
13. i'm sure there's more!
my comments today are specific to nj, although they may apply to other states.
i was taught in college that you cannot begin to solve a problem until you have identified the problem. each of these opinion pieces spoke about the problem or about a solution for their specific problem and none of them tried to provide an overview of the whole. the letter writer tries to separate state and local taxes like they exist in a vacuum. none of them are correct, although the bully piece did take aim at the major issue in education today.
we all know schools in new jersey cost too much, AND, do not provide a good enough education to many of its students. we also know why too many students do not achieve - lack of parental involvement! we could double the amount of money we spend and we will not improve educational performance by very much at all unless we can get the parents of our children to care. that is why it is senseless to continue to pour money into our current system. our second problem is the NUMBER of school districts and their management by local, county and state entities, who do not work toward the same goals.
our new governor has taken the approach that we can no longer afford to tax more and spend more. he was elected to change that approach. he is doing the same things corzine did, with the exception that he is not looking to raise taxes. perhaps because of time constraints, both the current and next fiscal year budgets need to be executed in this manner, but the plan to freeze wages and cut programs will not work long term to lower costs. there must be structural changes to the school system in nj for us to be able to get spending and performance in line.
HERE ARE MY IDEAS - PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN
1. create 21 county districts. this eliminates "abbott" districts.
2. pass legislation requiring there can be no municipal entity of less than 25,000 people in nj and revamp all school districts to match the new municipal maps. this will lower the number to less than 320 districts. it will also provide some municipal cost savings. can make the number higher if you like. we have about 8 million people.
3. standardize administrator and teacher contracts. no more tenure, but some type of protection is necessary.
4. offer new hires 401k type retirement packages, offer a standard "bare bones" health care plan with choices of better coverage at higher contribution levels. only get sick days when sick. no carryover and NO PAYOUTS at retirement. Retirement age same as social security.
5. require an 11 month work schedule. everyone gets either july or august off. the extra to be used for lesson planning, educational self-improvement, etc.
6. set statewide maximum pay level for superintendents, those salaries below will fall in line.
7. limit overall administrative costs to a reasonable % of teacher costs.
8. no state mandates. if a county system is used, eliminate state board of education.
9. pick your tax poison. either we fund education locally or statewide, not both!
10. within new districts (especially county), let students at lousy schools transfer within the district. quid pro quo is performance must improve.
11. if parents will not get involved in schooling, students may not transfer. we are losing them anyway, why prolong the agony.
12. special ed and other programs for the disabled can be better handled on a a county wide basis because resources can be devoted to the educational specialists in these fields. this supports #1.
13. i'm sure there's more!
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Monday, April 5, 2010
Purpose
today is april 5th, 2010. i have been meaning to do this for quite some time now, and i am finally getting to it.
i have been interested in world events since childhood, but never thought to get involved in politics or political commentary. over the last twenty years or so, i have watched the news with increasing anger. the news of who, what, when, where and why has been replaced with more commentary and more interpretation of what happened and too much opinion of why it happened. additionally, the news now strives to tell us how complicated things are, and tries to make the point that it is much to complicated for us to understand without their interpretation and perspective. reporters and columnists continually tell us what to believe and introduce nuance to slant the event or events they produce. they all say they ask the "hard" questions, most often i am interested in the easy ones.
so, this forum is being introduced so that we, normal citizens, who really do not have the time to spend investigating all that occurs, can ask some of these questions, propose some simple solutions and can introduce some common sense into the conversation.
several times a week i will put something out about an event, a news report, a quote or whatever with my comments about that item. anyone interested will be able to post a response to my remarks and ultimately i will post a consensus of my readers regarding the original post. i will reserve the right to comment about that consensus without further argument.
please, please remember, this is not a blog for extremism on either side. if you are venomous or extreme, you remarks will not be published here. this is my way of letting the world know how we the regular people feel, AND more importantly, how and what we think.
i am looking forward to getting to know many, many people in this effort and hope it succeeds in its purpose and perhaps even influence our politicians to work toward a better country.
i have been interested in world events since childhood, but never thought to get involved in politics or political commentary. over the last twenty years or so, i have watched the news with increasing anger. the news of who, what, when, where and why has been replaced with more commentary and more interpretation of what happened and too much opinion of why it happened. additionally, the news now strives to tell us how complicated things are, and tries to make the point that it is much to complicated for us to understand without their interpretation and perspective. reporters and columnists continually tell us what to believe and introduce nuance to slant the event or events they produce. they all say they ask the "hard" questions, most often i am interested in the easy ones.
so, this forum is being introduced so that we, normal citizens, who really do not have the time to spend investigating all that occurs, can ask some of these questions, propose some simple solutions and can introduce some common sense into the conversation.
several times a week i will put something out about an event, a news report, a quote or whatever with my comments about that item. anyone interested will be able to post a response to my remarks and ultimately i will post a consensus of my readers regarding the original post. i will reserve the right to comment about that consensus without further argument.
please, please remember, this is not a blog for extremism on either side. if you are venomous or extreme, you remarks will not be published here. this is my way of letting the world know how we the regular people feel, AND more importantly, how and what we think.
i am looking forward to getting to know many, many people in this effort and hope it succeeds in its purpose and perhaps even influence our politicians to work toward a better country.
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