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Recipient: Cary Jeffries
Sender: Lisa S.
Subject: Brilliant Household Tip
An Absolutely Brilliant Household Tip!
Always keep several get well cards
on the mantle
so, if unexpected guests arrive, they will think
you've been sick and unable to clean.
Recipient: Cary Jeffries
Sender: Marc S.
Subject; Web News Link: NANOPOOL - New "Liquid Glass" Technology
NANOPOOL - New "Liquid Glass" Technology
http://www.nanopool.eu/couk/index.htm
Recipient: Cary Jeffries
Sender: Marc R.
Subject: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM RIP-OFF
THE PUBLIC
SCHOOL SYSTEM RIP-OFF
Carl F. Worden
March
4th , 2010
If
a manufacturer produces sub-standard or unsafe products, as in the current
Toyota debacle, you can take your sub-standard or unsafe product back for repair
or a complete refund, but when a public school district produces sub-standard
students, there is seemingly no recourse. You cannot send your kid back to
school, even if s/he cannot read comprehensively or perform basic
math. Further, there is no means to recoup the property taxes the parents
paid to support the public school system their failing child attended.
Public
school systems in the United States have it made: If tenured, it is
practically impossible to get rid of a poorly performing teacher, and just
like a nation that has a Socialistic form of government, the tenured teachers
who actually care about the job they are doing usually get paid no
more than the teachers who could care less, and this eventually leads to an
entire body of teachers who could care less because there is no reward for
excellence.
You
hear it almost every day: Teachers complaining that the parents aren’t
spending enough time helping to teach their kids, or that their class sizes are
just too big, or that long, never-ending wail about needing more
money. Teachers make one excuse after another, never pointing the finger at
themselves, and all the while they hold a position of undeserved community
respect, as if they were donating their time. I have very little respect for
today’s public school teachers because all they ever seem to do is make
excuses for why they can’t get their jobs done successfully, and it especially
fries me when they try to blame their failures on “uninvolved” parents, when the
parents aren’t the ones getting paid to do the job!
This
is a true story that will illustrate just what a con-job these teachers and
their school districts are pulling on the befuddled public.
In
grade 7, my son brought home a report that he was near-failing in every study
that counts: Reading, writing, math, history and science. He was getting
passing grades in basket-weaving and female recognition (just kidding) so
his teachers were planning to let him graduate into 8th grade. He wasn’t doing
his homework because he knew he’d get it wrong, so why bother?
This
came as a surprise to my wife and I because my son would often bring home test
papers showing he was doing okay, and as this story unfolds, you will understand
why.
Aptos,
California is considered an extremely wealthy area of Santa Cruz County, so
we’re not talking about a broken-down school located in some inner city, and I
called for a parent-teacher conference to discuss the matter.
Only
two of Carl’s teachers bothered to show up: His math teacher and his English
teacher. Carl was with us, and the math teacher made some disparaging remarks to
Carl, indicating he thought Carl was some kind of class clown, but the English
teacher is the one who really made an impression on me. She was overweight with
rather large breasts. She was wearing a white V-neck man’s T-shirt,
a sagging bra you could see ... and a “Save The Whales” medallion around her
neck. She actually taught school dressed like that. This other long-haired male
was wandering around the office wearing a T-shirt, faded blue jeans complete
with holes and ratty Birkenstock sandals. He would later introduce himself
as the boys’ counselor.
During
the meeting I learned that although Carl was in 7th grade, he was being taught
at 5th grade level. I kid you not. That explains why he brought home glowing
test papers, but got a near-failing 7th grade report card. In addition, both
teachers and the counselor rejected any consideration of holding my son
back to 7th grade again, because ... it might hurt his self-esteem!
Self-esteem?? My son already knew he was the village idiot, so I doubt his
self-esteem could be any lower, and both my wife and I realized exactly what was
going on: Those teachers and the administration really didn’t care so
much about my son’s education as they did covering their butts. To hold a
student back is apparently a big black eye for the teachers and the school
district, so those jackasses thought it to be in their own best
interest to just let my kid sail right through into High School,
knowing full well that he was not really fit to take 6th grade over again, let
alone be passed on to 8th grade.
With
that, my wife and I realized my son didn’t have any chance of catching up in
that school environment, and with teachers and faculty solidly circling the
wagons with one excuse after another, I knew I had to remove him from that
environment if he had any chance of getting a decent education.
That
was in 1982, and my wife and I were both working 12 hours a day, often 6 days
per week, and $2,000.00 tuition for one year at a private Christian school in
nearby Watsonville, California tapped us out of every possible vacation
dream we might have had for that year, but to send a young man out into the
world who cannot read comprehensively, who lacks writing skills and basic
math would just about prepare him for a life of drug dealing or panhandling
and little else. We really didn’t have a choice.
The
private Christian school was a client of mine, and I knew the
teachers were paid only $600.00 per month plus room & board at the school.
They had some health insurance and no retirement benefits at all. By
contrast, the starting salary for a teacher in Carl’s public school was
$36,000.00 per year for only 9 months work, and they had “Cadillac” health
insurance benefits along with a rich retirement plan. If the public school
teachers wanted to, they could hold other jobs like construction contracting,
teach Summer School or whatever during the 3-month summer break to augment
their ”insufficient” salary, but that was up to them.
By
the end of that private school year, my son held Honor Roll status in at least
two critical classes and he was completely caught up enough to go back to public
school in 8th grade the following year. His self-esteem never suffered the
slightest bit. He never fell back again once he was caught up, and he graduated
public High School with flying colors.
So
what was the difference? The difference was that the private Christian school
teachers dearly loved teaching, and they took my son under their wing for no
other reason than that. They were motivated and they really cared, and no amount
of money could replace the pride they clearly felt when my son graduated from
their 7th grade class with such outstanding -- and true -- grades.
That
is exactly what is missing in too many public schools, and just recently 85
public school teachers in Rhode Island were fired during their negotiations for
better benefits because the students they were graduating just weren’t
cutting it. Mass firings like that should be happening all over the United
States, and any public school teacher who whines about class sizes, money and
displays a “can’t-do” attitude should be replaced by a teacher who accepts
the conditions of their employment with a “can-do” attitude that produces
real results. Further, public school teachers who have 80% of their students pass
muster on independently administered tests for that grade level need to be
paid meaningful bonuses for their efforts that year and any other years they
achieve the same standard of excellence. Do that, and watch the slacker teachers
sit up and take notice!
The
current public school system in the United States is almost entirely
Socialistic, and Socialism always fails because human nature and Socialism just
don’t work together. If we were born into this world with selfless genetics
like ants and bees, Socialism would work, but we humans don’t operate that way
successfully. We humans are basically very selfish in our approach to life and
we need to be rewarded for our successes and suffer the consequences for our
failures! That is what makes us strong! That is what places the human race
at the top of the food chain on this planet!
Finally,
if our public school students are going to succeed in this ever-more-competitive
international market, we have to get back to concentrated teaching of only the
most critical basics like reading, writing, advanced math, history and science
-- and stop this silly nonsense of teaching art, music or any other
elective if the students don’t have those basics solidly mastered. If a High
School graduate cannot attend college for whatever the reason, they can still
self-educate at the public library so long as they have learned to
read well, but they don’t have a snowballs chance in Hades if they
can’t, and that’s the undeniable truth.
Carl F. Worden
For another prefect
example of what Mr. Worden has just written about,
please give the following video link a click. --- Cary
The Fountainhead - Roark's Courtroom Summation
Recipient: A Whole Passel of Fine Folk
Sender: Cary J.
Subject: Three Oldies But Goodies
Below you will find one joke and two riddles that I've latched onto well over a dozen years ago. Except for the first riddle (which was called into Kurt's short-wave radio talk show sometime during our first 3 month's of broadcast way back in 1993/94), I've got absolutely no memory of who originally sent me the other two items. --- Cary
One bright sunny Summer morning while out jogging with his entourage of secret servicemen, President Clinton notices a young boy setting in a lawn chair in his front yard, reading a book next to large cardboard carton. When he got a little closer he noticed that there was a sign over the carton that said "Free Puppies". As he approached the boy he looked into the box to see six young puppies suckling at their momma's side.
"They're a little bit young to be given away, aren't they son?", asked the President. "Yes sir, but I just bring them out here 2 or 3 times a week to let the neighborhood see them and let them know that they'll be ready for a new home in a month or so", said the boy. "What kind of puppies are they?", Willie asked.
"Well Mr. President, their momma here is a basset hound and their daddy was a beagle, so I guess you could say they're purebred Heinz 57s. But they're all Democrats", said the boy. "All Democrats", chuckled Willie, "That's cute".
After saying goodbye to the boy, the President and his SS men continued their morning jog. Latter that evening at the dinner table Bill told Hillary about his meeting with the young kid and his Democrat puppies. "This I've got to see", said the first lady.
Early the next morning Hillary had a secret service agent drive her to the young man's home. And there was the boy and his box of puppies. As the first lady approached the young man she said, "my husband told me last night that you had a litter of Democrat puppies, I'd love to see them".
"Oh I'm very sorry Mrs. Clinton, but sometime during the night they opened their eyes, so they all woke up Republicans."
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Q: During the eight years of the Clinton administration, why was it impossible for the children and grownups in Arkansas to celebrate Halloween or Thanks Giving?
A: Because the "Witch" took the "Turkey" to Washington!
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Q: What's the Spanish translation for once famous brand name of wine coolers, Bartles & Jaymes?
A: Dos Okies
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