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The Rubber Room

Hot Air » Blog Archive » New York City paying 700 teachers to not teach

NPR did a good show about this. They basically pay people to sit in what they call "rubber rooms" and do nothing all day long. In theory they are there to wait until problems they may have had in the classroom are resolved. In reality some spend more than a year in the rubber room, some quit before they are released.

Fire or Books

I hate to put it in these terms, but the truth is that the state is looking at a choice of spending money on saving mansions or funding education. It is my opinion they are putting too much money into saving replaceable houses, at the cost of an irreplaceable education.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Fire destroys California mansions A wildfire has engulfed at least 100 homes in Montecito, an exclusive enclave near Santa Barbara, California, and forced thousands of people to flee.

During a segment on education, Fox News misspells the word 'education.'

The Word

California Faculty Association votes overwhelm...

California Faculty Association votes overwhelm...
Times-Standard Online - Union: CSU has $1.2B reserve

Teachers in the CSU system have voted to go on strike, what does that mean for the students?

First of all there is another meeting on Sunday, in which a settlement could be reached. The vote was not a vote for a strike but a vote to approve a strike motion.

If there is a strike, the strike would not shut down any of the CSU campuses. The agreement on both sides of this has been that the student's education is important. The form the strike will take will be what is being called, rolling strikes. Under this concept, each campus would strike for two days at a time. This could be disruptive to classes, but classes will continue. Teachers have talked about having classes in another location on those days, or in some cases where it can be done, to have class over the internet.

This is going to be an interesting debate, as many schools are operating with budget problems, and there has been talk of making cuts. Teachers are going to have to find a way to show that the CSU system can afford to pay them more. In doing so, the financial workings of the system will be exposed, and we may see some real data about the financial well being of the system come out. An example of this is the report by the union that the CSU system has a cash reserve of $1.2 billion. The administration was quick to defend itself claiming that these funds are not available for salaries, but are set aside for securing debt, and construction costs.

It would appear on Monday that the course of action should be clear on if the strike will take place.