Second SNS as a poster— I’m thrilled that I was offered a VAP at a small liberal arts school that has a salary, benefits, discounted housing, and will pay for me to move there. It’s much more of my teaching style than the university I’m at right now and I’m starting to feel more adultish. Or, that could just be the…

I was in an early primary state and voted for Bernie, but it was more out of the fact that I wanted the Democratic primary to go on longer than any great passion for him as a candidate. I was really hoping that if the Democratic primary dragged on a little bit more, it would allow Hillary to iron out some of the…

Maybe because they fought for those employment rights— both in terms of tenure and unionization. And that if other industries and sectors had bought into, particularly, unionization, they too could have similar protections?

I really am unsure where the myth of per pupil funding by the state means that all districts receive equal funding. I mean, even if they did— it still would be uneven because school districts naturally have uneven distribution of students across the socioeconomic classes which is going to mean some districts will need…

Hell, my dad was just involved in the unionization of the support staff and then all of the sudden, he was getting all sorts of evaluations, members of the community/school board dropping by his classroom, and escalating to constant phone calls in the middle of the night. The union was key in providing support—…

I just looooove seeing the people that back these efforts are also the ones that are invested in charter schools. So predictable.

Tenure doesn’t make it impossible to remove the bad teachers. But getting rid of tenure protections don’t guarantee that you’ll receive better instruction. I would argue that it can result in the opposite— the best teachers will go to where there are protections in place because there’s nothing that will secure their…

Yeah, my immediate thought when anyone attaches bonuses to state testing is what about those who teach in under-privilege districts or districts with a lot of non-English speakers or special needs students.

There are still variations district-by-district and never mind that California was also lagging behind in overall funding for students until quite recently (or still is, I’d have to look).

And the mean age for a teacher (in 2004) was 43.1 and the average age of retirement is 61.7 (in 2013) with some of the most expensive cost of living, too. Consider the fact that they also have to have a master’s degree and suddenly $70,000 isn’t that great.

I have the same experience— my dad was the union rep in his district and fought to unionize the support staff over the protests of the school board. Because of peculiarities of the school district, they basically made his life a living hell and he was forced to take a mental health absence and never truly had the same…

And I see absolutely nothing that addresses one of the main sources of inequality in schools— taxes. I’m shocked.

But I’ve also seen that these protections help protect deserving teachers where a school board has taken aim at anyone who isn’t on the “correct” side. Frankly, I’m always skeptical of any group that wants to reduce the tenure rights for those in education. There can be a balance reached, but if (and fingers crossed…

Agreed with In Bruges. I basically captioned all of my photos from there using quotes from the movie— it made the trip so much more entertaining.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is absolutely one of my favorite movies. Ugh, love it.

I thought the writing on the show was really sharp and pretty self-aware— like Casey watching a rerun of Frasier or the casual mention of how weird that Cyprus Rhodes never has snow even when it’s in Ohio.

Now, I’m really trying to think about what kind of career/job Cappie would be good at but I just feel like he’s a bit of Max and Brad (only when he was working at the day care center) from Happy Endings and I’m just confused.

I figured he’d just pull a Cappie and end up in some sort of a job that was basically a perfect fit for him.

Ashleigh does too— Fingers crossed.

Ugh, of course it is. All the separate TV channel apps (with the exception of HBO Go) are crap. I’d gladly trade The Secret Life of the American Teenager for Greek on Netflix.