I arrested all these people in order to prove a point.  I was determined to prove that the majority of union bashing people were ones who simply wanted to do away with all unions no matter who or what they represented. I wanted to show that these people were not really concerned about an “education crisis” and about improving our public schools. I was out to prove that the majority of these people had the hidden motive of destroying public sector unions simply because they have always been opposed to unions and they were using the current “education crisis” as an excuse to get rid of public sector unions for once and for all.

I forced every one of the union bashers to take a lie detector test. I asked them questions that would reveal their true reasons for opposing teacher unions. The results surprised even me. Eighty-five percent of the “bashers” were doing so simply because they  were anti union and were using the “education crisis” as an excuse to destroy public sector unions. My suspicions were confirmed.

I immediately released the fifteen percent who sincerely thought teacher unions hindered educational progress. The eighty-five percent who were hypocrites and were just out to destroy unions were given a harsh sentence. Each of them was taken to a classroom where they were forced to write a sentence one hundred times on the chalkboard,” I will never bash teacher unions again unless I really believe what I am accusing them of.” Just as the offenders were beginning to write, my wife poked me in the ribs because I was snoring too loudly and the wonderful dream ended.

The governor of Illinois has also proposed lowering  the pay in Illinois for doctors who provide Medicaid services. It will be interesting to see if this has any success on the state level. Both the federal government and the state government are burdened with unbelievable debt and yet they have never lowered the Medicare or Medicaid pay for doctors.

I wonder how the doctor organizations and lobbyists would have responded if doctors had state pensions plans and they were going to be victimized by the state the way teachers were. I can’t imagine the state violating the Constitution and stealing from the doctors’ pension fund.

Doctors have the power and respect that teachers can only dream about, but it doesn’t hurt to dream. Until then, teachers will have to put up with the wimpy lobbyists and unions who do nothing while their teachers are asked to accept pay freezes, pay cuts, broken contracts, diminished pension plans, and longer working hours. At least teachers don’t have to feel guilty about the massive deficits as they have done more than their share to give back pay and benefits in these tough times. Doctors may have some of the most influential and powerful lobbyists known to man, but I’m sure they feel guilty about not helping to trim the deficit. Doctors probably have trouble sleeping at night, and are embarrassed by the power of their organization and their lobbyists. Guilt and sleepless nights, the price of power can sometimes be very high. Poor doctors, I feel sorry for them.

Imagine the pressure on the teachers who are supervising the dance.  Those teachers must enforce a rule that might be very difficult to define. What if a teacher is too overzealous in enforcing the rule? They would risk alienating vast numbers of students, and no teacher wants to lose rapport with their students. What if a teacher is unsure of what constitutes “simulation of a sex act”, and rarely enforces the rule? That teacher could receive a reprimand from the administration. What if a teacher accuses a student of a violation and the student asks the teacher a question such as, “what exactly was I doing wrong?” How’s the teacher supposed to answer that?  What if an offending student says the following to an accusing teacher,”what are you watching me for if I’m simulating a sex act; are you some kind of pervert who enjoys watching?”

I could think of several other scenarios which might put teachers in an uncomfortable position when enforcing this rule. These are the kinds of added responsibilities that teachers have to deal with. The general public has no idea of the pressures facing teachers on a daily basis, much less the ones that occur while supervising extracurricular activities outside of the classroom.

The general public also doesn’t realize the amount of time a teacher has to put in when it comes to any new policy. I would imagine the supervising teachers had to attend a workshop regarding the policy. I’m sure the workshop was several hours long and included certain video presentations that would help the teacher define a “simulated sex act”. The preparation time is necessary so the teacher would be ready to effectively deal with some of the above mentioned scenarios.  Whether it’s lesson plans or simulated sex acts, a teacher must always put in the necessary preparation. The general public has no idea the amount of prep time needed to be an effective teacher.

I frequently hear from people who mention all types of jobs that might be as stressful as that of a teacher. To all those people I say, “nonsense”.  Nothing can match the pressures of teaching. Would you want to tell a kid that they are simulating a sex act?  I didn’t think so.

Just heard from a friend who is a teacher in an upper middle class Chicago suburb.  The administration in her district just offered the teachers a salary freeze for three years and other demands. This came after months of negotiations. Let’s see if the teachers out there are going to accept that. Hope not!

The teachers union in my local district just voted 1,013 to 30 to give the union’s bargaining team the authority to declare an impasse in the negotiations that have been going on for months. Looks like a strike is a real possibility.

It sounds like many teachers have run out of patience with the districts that are trying to use the financial crisis as a weapon to draw out concessions from teachers. I don’t think there are many people who understand the increased pressure and frustration that most teachers have been feeling these last several years. I have never talked to so many teachers who tell me they have reached the end of their rope and are seriously considering leaving the profession. I’m afraid there’s an epidemic of frustrated teachers out there who have reached the breaking point.

The University of Illinois men’s basketball coach is probably going to lose his job at the end of the year. The team has lost several recent close games and the coach had a bit of a meltdown at a post game press conference. He publicly criticized several of his players and then called out himself for not developing a culture that included toughness. He said,”the kids, we’re always mollycoddling them.” I have news for the basketball coach. If he thinks his kids are mollycoddled, he should see what goes on in classrooms today. The definition of mollycoddle is,” to surround with an excessive or absurd degree of indulgence and attention.” Pamper would be a good synonym. The noun, mollycoddle, means a pampered or effeminate man or boy. Coach, you are in major trouble. You committed the one unpardonable sin of any instructor. You criticized your students publicly and therefore damaged their self-esteem. If you are an instructor of any kind, you better keep things on a positive note. I learned my lesson thirty years ago at the start of the “self-esteem movement” in schools. I posted a chart of class test scores on my classroom wall and was told by an administrator to take it down. I was told that the chart would damage the self-esteem of the students who saw their name at the bottom of the chart.

I sure wish there had been a self-esteem movement back when I was in grade school. The nuns damaged my self-esteem on an almost daily basis until I shaped up. It’s a wonder I grew up to be a halfway self-confident man. I think my grade school age is the last time I heard that word, mollycoddle. I can remember the nuns telling my mother that they weren’t about to mollycoddle her son; and that I deserved all the criticism I got.

Let’s see if you readers out there can submit some theories as to why this student income gap has widened. What do you think readers?  I have a theory, (no surprise there), what about you? I would like to hear from you before I explain my thoughts about the income gap. Why are the richest kids pulling farther away from the poorest kids when it comes to testing and college? Why wasn’t that gap so wide before the 1960s ? Let’s hear what you have to say.

Of course the parents have been protesting and complaining about the excessive discipline code. Of course we will never see this in normal public schools, but at least it happened somewhere, and I can die a happy man.

The Noble Network CEO said that by focusing on smaller disciplinary issues, the charter operator keeps a lid on violence.  “We maybe have one fight per year, per campus,” he said.  “It’s an incredibly safe environment… and part of it comes from sweating the small things.”

This fulfills a dream of mine that I’ve had since the philosophy behind student discipline began to change thirty-five years ago. I had a dream, that somewhere, some day, students and parents would actually be responsible for student misbehavior, and not the teacher. That some day when a child misbehaved, it wasn’t the duty of the teacher to come up with some motivational nonsense, it was the duty of the student and the parent to correct the misbehavior. I know it’s difficult for teachers today to understand this, but forty years ago that was the prevailing philosophy, it wasn’t the teacher’s job to waste time on elaborate behavior contracts and clever bribery schemes.  We had strict discipline codes that were enforced and the responsibility for good behavior was solely that of the student or the parent.

I especially like the financial part of this new discipline plan. I have said all along, this is America, if there’s one thing students and parents can understand, it’s when something has a price tag on it. You want something done in this country, nothing motivates like money. Everything has its price, and now at least in one small school group, misbehavior now has a price. I know none of the teachers out there will agree with any of this because you have all been brainwashed into thinking discipline is a highly complicated psychological entity, and you the teacher must be the master motivator and manipulator of behavior. You have been brainwashed to believe that if a child misbehaves it’s due to some failing on your part and you must find a way to remediate and or accommodate the student through some wonderfully positive technique.

I know these are the rants of an old teaching dinosaur who wishes things were like they were forty years ago. I need to get with the times and realize the days of student and parent responsibility are long over and they’re never coming back; but an old man can dream, can’t he?

I know that a strong teacher union supporter like me should be against charter schools, but I like the direction they are taking when it comes to discipline. I therefore bestow a Golden Chalk Award on The Noble Network of Charter Schools. Thank you for making an old man’s dream come true.

I’ve seen opinions submitted by teachers to the editorial pages in newspapers, but we need to do a lot more to win the public relations battle over this pension issue.  I haven’t seen anyone explain how badly the pensions were hurt by the State’s “borrowing” from the pension fund over a period of many years. When the money was removed from the pension fund, it left that much less money for the fund to invest. I haven’t heard anyone explain this fact to the public.  The money that WASN’T invested, (because it wasn’t there), cost the pension fund dearly. Those were the years when the stock market was soaring and the pension fund could have reaped millions of dollars from stock investments.

It’s time for the N.E.A. and the I.E.A. to spend some of their money and a lot of their time to make sure people understand how badly the pension fund was hurt by the money that wasn’t there to be used as an investment vehicle. The millions of dollars that the State “borrowed” resulted in the potential loss of many more millions of dollars in investment money. Let’s be sure people understand that.

What are the biggest differences between the Chicago public schools and the private schools ?  The biggest differences are in the area of structure and discipline; they always have been. We are now seeing the new public charter schools take a page from the private schools and emphasize structure and discipline.  There are many reasons why most Chicago public schools are lacking in structure and discipline.  Many of the reasons are very difficult to overcome, but there is one factor that I find ridiculous and inexcusable.  Many so-called experts in education have encouraged teachers to accommodate certain types of student misbehavior because of the ethnic or cultural background of the students.

I can remember a workshop I attended on discipline and the instructor gave us many reasons why we should “understand” and be “tolerant” of student problems because the students were black or hispanic.  The students in my school were primarily hispanic and I rarely had any discipline problems with them. For my entire career I treated all students exactly the same when it came to discipline. I always believed that any group of students was certainly more than capable of following simple rules and regulations.

I believe our inner city public schools have done a grave disservice to our students by not insisting on basic structure and discipline. I see many reports about these new charter schools and the reports always rave about the “turn around” in student behavior. Half the battle in discipline is to expect nothing less than acceptable behavior and then provide the structure and discipline to ensure that behavior. We must get rid of these ridiculous notions that certain groups of students can’t be expected to behave most of the time because of their poverty-stricken background, their race or ethnicity.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if our military approached discipline by expecting less of a response from certain recruits because of their background or race?  I can hear the drill sergeant now,” everyone drop down and give me twenty push ups, except for those of you who are black or hispanic, you only need to do ten push ups.”

Illinois legislators stole from the state teachers’ pension fund for many years and called it, “borrowing”. They also violated the state constitution and failed to meet the state funded share of the pension system for many years. Then legislators blamed the pension deficits on “lucrative teacher pensions”. Now, rather than deal with the problem, they’ve decided to shift the burden to local school districts. I have to give these legislators credit, they’ve got some nerve. In fact, so much nerve, I need to start a giving out a new award. In addition to giving out “Golden Chalk Awards”, I am now instituting the “Ultimate Chutzpah Award”.

The first “Ultimate Chutzpah Award” goes to the Illinois legislators who conceived the new “pension solution”.  Just when I thought this group of clowns couldn’t possibly mess things up any worse, oh no, they found a way. To make matters worse, I had to read about this new idea on Lincoln’s birthday. I think we need to switch our state slogan from “Land of Lincoln” to “Land of Chutzpah”.