The Republican champions of the oil and gas industry reacted predictably to Governor Schweitzer’s proposal to add a small surtax on oil and gas production to increase salaries for Montana teachers:
House Minority Leader Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, said Schweitzer’s proposal "is definitely a tax increase on the producers of oil and gas." "He’s not living up to his word, that’s for darn sure," Sales said. "If he really wants to shut down the oil and gas industry in this state, that would be a good first step.
It turns out that Republicans are doing what they have always done on education issues in Montana: rhetorically supporting higher salaries for teachers and increased funding for education, but failing to either propose or write any legislation to actually get it done. As Left in the West notes, a large number of Republicans say they support increased funding for teacher salaries and using natural resource development to pay for it, but they haven’t proposed anything to actually make it happen.
So, Dave Lewis of Helena, how do you propose “funding increase to teacher salaries”? What about you, Senator Brown?
Governor Schweitzer is absolutely right. If Republicans who claim to be serious about supporting education don’t support his proposal, they should submit one of their own, instead of continuing to use our schools for political gain.
Three time Merit Scholar Joe Balyeat, so concerned about the plight of restaurant workers, voted to exempt tipped employees from inflationary increases in the minimum wage, to punish servers for their greedy behavior:
One Republican, Sen. Joe Balyeat of Bozeman, said he was supporting it in part because many waitresses don’t share tips with busboys and other back kitchen staff. He said it’s not right that the waitresses earn a lot more.
The measure passed the Senate Business, Labor, and Economic Affairs committee, with all six Republicans voting yes.
The Republicans at the Legislature are willing to simultaneously wail and gnash their teeth at the plight of the poor oil man while refusing to support people who work low-paying jobs. Roy Brown voted to effectively reduce the take home pay of Montanans today, just days after arguing that a $1-a-barrel surtax on oil would devastate oil development in the state.
I wonder if Roy, Joe, and other Republican ‘leaders’ who consistently vote against the interests of working people can imagine what kind of devastation happens when someone loses a third of their paycheck.
I have to have two teeth pulled. It’s a long, sad story that I’m not going to get into, but the point is, that I’m not very happy about it for several reasons:
1. – I have had work done on my mouh my whole life (literally), and have tried very hard to take good care of my teeth, so it seems just sad that the teeth I cared for need to go.
2. – It’s going to be painful as hell.
3. – It would be cheaper for me to pay for my own funeral.
Now, let’s zone in on #3… My dental insurance only help to pay for 1 implant per lifetime. That’s right – if you had your whole face knocked off, it would only help pay for one tooth (so choose the right one). Pulling teeth is one price, but trying to keep your mouth in the correct shape by adding teeth (which seems kind of necessary if it’s part of your smile) is a whole other price. Tooth implants cost about $14,000 each. If I need two… well, think of it.
My plan is to write to President Obama, and our lovely Senator Max Baucus to get on the health care plan, and quick! I’m in college for pete’s sake. When are we going to change the health care industry from the corrupt, money-sucking business that it is to what it should be: affordable and non-intimidating? People shell out thousands of dollars a year, and these big names build lovely high rises with the money. Well, eff that. I’m not suicidal but if it saves me money, then what the heck?
In light of the education theme this week (or was that last week?), I’d like to pose a question, though I myself am unsure of the answer. Local control has always been a key slogan regarding education policy. Those of us who have been to high school recently know just how frustrating local authorities can be, and those of us who have taught high school probably have an even better idea. My question is to what extent local control is still an important concept.
The entire idea behind No Child Left Behind is that the Federal government can better decide what constitutes adequate progress for a student, and in what areas that progress is important. In theory, more centralization and standardization, as well as accountability, is desirous and something of a reformed NCLB (that is, without the obvious errors that have come to light since its initiation) is favorable for the education system.
Normally this would seem correct; some kind of accountability and standardization is key. And as Thomas Friedman points out in The World Is Flat, our system of local funding leaves huge swaths of our students with an education that is sub-standard and unable to compete on a global level (while unfairly advantaging others). Discussing politics with Western Europeans, whose countries are generally more centralized than ours (with notable exceptions), they tended to agree.
However, I think there is room to argue that the very size and diversity of America makes local control practical and perhaps preferable to centralization. For example, in a rural Montana community, where many of the best jobs are based on resource extraction or agriculture, should a high school be allowed to focus more of its energy on giving students the oppurtunity to learn, for example, geology (a class offered at Helena High, last I checked, only in the form of ‘Earth Sciences’; I could be wrong, however)? This would certainly benefit the many students that may want to stay near home and work with natural gas or mineral extraction for relatively high starting wages, whether or not high school prepared them at all for the college courses needed to become a professional in that field, though it would not necesarily benefit NCLD scores. On the other hand, it would be nice to believe anyway that our nation has sufficient mobility that one doesn’t need to be trained in the industries that dominate ones home county (in fact, it could be argued that preparing students for a particular dominant industry is one step towards training citizens of a company town, or setting them up for failure should the economy shift). What does everybody else think?
Some conservatives imagine that destroying public education and replacing it with private, for-profit programs will lead to an educational utopia of outstanding results, happy students, and saved money. Shane Hedges, formerly of the Martz Administration and currently the president of Envision EMI, a direct marketing education firm that runs markets various profitable educational programs to parents has offered up a useful reminder that for-profit schools might just be more interested in profit than schooling.
In a story that is breaking all over the nation, it seems that a Hedges-led company gave some students a truly horrible educational experience in a recent trip to the Inauguration in Washington. Despite the promise of VIP treatment and an unmatched educational experience during the historic week, parents are describing their children not receiving food, rest, access to events, or even proper supervision. A blog created by parents (isn’t the 21st century great?) demonstrates just how poorly run this educational experience was. Parents Tom and Gina Walsh detail an experience that seems worth somewhat less than $2,500:
Logan’s once-in-a-lifetime experience included broken promises, disappointing activities, no historic or cultural sight seeing, lack of supervision, sleep deprivation, an exhaustive schedule, boxed meals, fraudulent solicitation and most of all a disheartened spirit. Your organization is responsible for the abuse, neglect and endangerment of our son.
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