Goddess Rambles about Charter Schools

i do see some successes in the charter schools in my area. there are populations that have been painfully under-served. in my case, Black students... yes i know there are many other students who fall into this niche, but i will only talk about what i know. the goal in the school was to give everyone a chance at a quality college-prep educational opportunity. the downside is the proposal was fought like it was the plague. we had a school, the school was empty. we were not shuffling kids about, we just wanted a place for OUR kids... and we take everyone but hear me out. We had to go grassroots to lift enrollment. we pushed in our churches and through our families and we now have to turn children away. our schools are some of the highest in the state of CA at least if not in the nation for charter schools. now that the schools are doing well, other want to sign up. i was on the waiting list for at least 3 years before my son was admitted. if we could open another school, we would be able to increase enrollment. our high and middle school are on a campus that has the ability to house roughly 2000 students, we have half that. it is almost as if we are being set up to fail because we are successful. there are other schools that have closed down. why not take them over? some points that frighten people. 1. non-union teachers 2. unconventional methods used to educate (sure they don't fit the norm, but they work for certain students and we have studies to back that up) 3. makes other schools in the district look bad (my solution to that is for the regular public schools to step up and make the changes necessary for success for ALL of their students) because a great deal of this is from the perspective of a parent of a gifted child in a public school where there was no GATE program, no instinct from teachers so overwhelmed with extremely high student numbers and lack of funding to manage their classrooms effectively (i rarely fault the educators and i don't fault them in this case either) , I felt i had no choice but to step out of the neighborhood school to help my child succeed. His teacher suggested in the 4th grade that i pull him and try to get him in charter. it is a tough call for administrators, educators, parents, and in many cases even the students. i truly believe that charter schools can be the catalyst for change in the educational system of America.
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Christmas sometimes depresses the fuck out of Goddess!!!

I know I have to put most off this shit in the proper light, but MAN! What I wouldn't give to enjoy a pleasant surprise every once in a while. Christmas has always been one of those holidays when I so look forward to that special day of food, family, fun, and surprises. I am a giver and i truly look forward to those special occasion when i am actually given something. well..... Perhaps my heart is broken and it was my own son who faced the responsibility of handing out broken hearts today. He has been working himself into a frothy mess trying to get his ass to BIG LOTS without me to buy a couple of items of interest. I was excited as most children are thinking i was going to get a cute little something my son really wanted to give me to show me how much he loved me and was into the christmas spirit. he came back with a hand-buzzer and a tube of green and orange Goop! not his fault. i have to lower my expectations of being treated in a special way the way i WANT to be treated. Goddess knows she set herself up for that but you know what i always say......it is a pain in the ass to suffer from an incurable case of HOPE. *claps hands* "that's it kids! Pity party is over. nothin' to see here!" Goddess.
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Fuckwad...Fuckiedoodle...Homewrecking Ikea!

Cleaning this house is going to take a combination of Freecycle, a yard sale from Hades and some Zanax to get done! There is no way I am going to get this house cleaned with all that is in it. I am going to have to start tossing things.
Then I think to myself. What am I going to do with all my books? My lost socks? My clothes that don't fit? my Time? My energy?
I am so sure that there will come a time in the future (whenever that may be) when I need those books for PowerPoint 2000, that they are still in my closet collecting dust.

*do you hear screeching car wheels?*

Well I sure as hell do and it is fine time this house gets a real tearing down.

That little lady on Poltergeist was wrong too so I make note to myself not to call on her. I don't think she would be worth my money.

I came home today and stared and stared at my house.

Laundry in the living room. My work desk items packed from preparing for a strike blocking the patio door. My TV room is just a mess with nothing. It is neither messy, organized or orderly. I don't have a word for that room.

My son's room is full of his mess and I have committed myself to turning that over to his great-uncle for maintenance.

The spare bedroom just begs for attention, but I can't get that far.

My bedroom is where I need to start. But do I want to strip it down to the bare walls and start over or just rearrange it.
Let me start by saying that I have rearranged this room at least 6 times in the past 4 years. Rearrangement is not working. The furniture is cool, but I have just too much stuff in there. I have not enough closet space and the clothes I try to squeeze in there I can't squeeze into myself, so why do I continue to keep them around?

Shit!

I have a 3 day weekend and I am going to dig in. Just one room.
My bedroom.

Anyone up for a yard sale?

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...

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Anyone???

Goddess














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Technical snag but i still support my union.

WOW! I have to try not to be pissed when I sit here unable to sign on to the union meeting that is being held online. grrrrrr

something tells me that I am just going to have to wait and watch a recorded version of the biggest union meeting in the history of the CWA union.

I registered, I waited for the instructions and I went to the site and logged on around the designated time and I am still hour glassing after 45 minutes.

hmmmmm. Did they do a test run? nah.

Today at work must have been the last straw for the management staff. They are on call and ready for anything and the company starts to refer to them as lesser employees by trying to get the union members to get their drift by telling us that what they are asking from us is far better than the shitty plan they stuck their managers with. Usually, you see comments on the company sites about union bargaining littered with messages from managers saying good things about the company. After they dogged out the managers two days in a row by mentioning that the health plan they have sucks rocks, they finally lashed out.

I was waiting for Big Brother to swoop down and wipe out the messages, but not today...I think the company computer guy must have gone on a vacation... or has stopped following the company rule of wipe-it-out-if-it's-not-towing-the-company-line.

Some of the comments really got me thinking about how management gets screwed and how we cannot be mean to them because part of their job requirement is to follow company policy and work during strike.

Does it make you anti-company if you don't subscribe to all of the company's policies?

Maybe it is time for the managers to consider walking out with us. Now that would stick it to the corporation. From what I understand, managers have a 2500 deductible which means that they have to see the doctor a total of 65 visits per year in order to have the company pick up the tab at that point. Some of the comments from the managers stated that the only cost savings they had from their medical plan was the small discount they got on each doctor visit price.
If there were to be any type of catastrophic illness a family would be wiped out by having to pay medical bills up front before the company would take over and pay their share.

I am very disappointed by ATT for the way they have put down their management staff as well as the core wire line persons who keep this business running even if we aren't making as much money for them as we used to.
What the union and the company need to do is come to an agreement that is fair for ALL employees.

Why not have the employees, managers and executives share the medical cost. I think that if they worked it out, it would balance out quite well.


Shame on ATT

what would I give up to have a contract RIGHT NOW!

what would i give up RIGHT NOW for a contract.

I would give up that paid FLMAwithout a doubt. They do need to back down on some stuff because some of them are still thinking like it is 1980. You can't always get what you want. The worst part is that they are ripping us off on the health care. There is no way to get them to hear what we are thinking. That is the problem.
If we speak out against the union, they point us out to be union crashers. So be it I say. I have no shame in telling them that they are asking for to much and fighting a fight that I don't think we can win on the backs of the employees.
The employees are stuck in the middle between the union and the corporation and the only folks who will suffer will be us.
I would love to get the jobs back to CA and the people who got screwed out of jobs a good deal too. We can handle not having more money. We just need to be able to take care of our health without having to file for bankruptcy.

Sometimes I feel like the union did not take enough time to hear how we felt and what we really wanted to fight about.
We got a survey out that gave us an opportunity to vote on what we were willing to strike for but we never got a return on that survey when it came time to authorize a strike. I would have felt more comfortable making a decision on something that might send me into bankruptcy court.

Was my decision to vote "no" appropriate? yes. Did it make a difference? Not to the union or the members who voted yes but doing the best and voting your conscience is the best that you can do.

I have enjoyed a wonderful Easter and hope that we don't have to go through the whole crucifiction thing again during negotiations.

g

Mrs. Bhutto and Mr. Blitzer

imagine how Mr. Blitzer feels...

What would you do if someone sent you an email stating to share with the public only in the event of death?

Would you have accepted the email without reading or at least finding out what was in it?

Mr. Blitzer did. he did what he was trusted to do. i don't think many people would have honored her wishes.
if Paris Hilton had sent an email stating that her grandfather was a selfish son of a bitch for having left her family with only 63 mil in an inheritance in his will.

Who would spill?
Who would keep their mouths shut?

i for one am very sad and distressed that she felt that the only way to make a statement about the security provided to her by the opposing government was inadequate. i know why she did it this way. like so many people who feel that their voice has not been heard. who feel that their opinion was not trusted. who feel that what matters is a posthumous stab at those she KNOWS are responsible for her death. i don't thin Benazir Bhutto was paranoid. i know she must have been very afraid, but very conscious of the necessity of change.

i am so very saddened..
g