Not an "Ideas Man"
Monday, August 30, 2010
A commenter on the YouTube video embedded below calls this "conservative porn."
I call it, "not good enough."
Here, we have a teacher floating a pretty good idea -- per-pupil compensation -- which would probably be an option somewhere in a fully private educational system.
Does Governor Christie say something like that? No. He pleads that New Jersey "can't print money" and that brings down the house because people are starved for someone who will take a stand -- any stand -- with fire in his belly. This is where a good sense of life can get people unarmed with the right ideas about the proper scope of government into trouble. Continuing on with a socialistic educational system where -- he admits! -- the pay scale is awful is a poor way to serve schoolchildren.
Oh. I nearly forgot. The purpose of this meeting wasn't to propose getting the government off anyone's back. It was to cap the rate of increase in New Jersey's property taxes! So much for this guy being an "anti-Obama"...
-- CAV
Updates
Today: Corrected a typo.
3 comments:
Gus,
The whole episode last week in New Jersey (that was one of some 40 odd states standing with outstretched hands in an attempt to fill large budget holes at their individual states' level), for not getting some of the $4 billion federal loot, had me questioning the governor's political principles -- it led me to the conclusion that he really does not have any. I had been following that loot distribution with some interest for a while, since I thought the success of this for the federal government, i.e. the number of states willing to tow the federal line to get these funds, had far greater implications than just the concrete of the $4.35 billion --it would in a way show if any of the states on principle (even if it was only on the basis of a non-objective principle of states' rights!) were willing to stand up to the federal government meddling in education that is unprecedented. That was the reason I found it particularly surprising that if ten states had chosen (for whatever reasons) not to apply, why would NJ even apply -- this was a state where the governor was perceived to be for reducing the role of government? It could not be that Gov. Christie could not see thru that this was not an attempt at freedom but federal attempt to further centralize and takeover education.
Here is what I posted on Facebook last week: "...Chris Christie is disappointing....it seems he is willing to think only to a point in his political philosophy and then stops...why is he not questioning the government's role in education (state or federal)??...'cause individual rights is NOT the fundamental building block of his politics. I have been vehemently opposed to the increasing federal takeover of education by Duncan and Obama thru this second round of $4.35 bill loot distributiion to states standing in line, only too eager to please....what standard was the federal govt. supposed to apply to send loot to 50 states???!!!"
The NJ episode got even uglier, when within 24 hours of publicly stating that he would not fire anyone in his staff for not receiving the funds, Gov. Christie went ahead and did precisely that!
Jasmine
I am a bit confused as to what you are trying to say.
I watched the video and I think that he should have said something like: "property tax will be phased over the next 2 years" rather than putting a cap on the tax which just implies that the tax is fine and dandy
so how would he have responded to the teacher you reckon ?
R-E,
Oh, so he DID fire someone over this. That's even more disappointing and reduces even what little he did do to mere grandstanding. Thanks for that update.
Mo,
He should have said something like, "I agree that you're poorly compensated, and I think that the best way to reward hard-working teachers like yourself is to leave compensation to a free educational market."
There are probably even better ways he could have indicated that state-run systems handle issues like compensation, resource allocation, and quality control poorly.
Gus
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