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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIF ONLY WE WERE ASHAMED
This seems like a feel-good story, but it doesn't make me feel good:Comedian Stephen Colbert announced Thursday that he would fund every existing grant request South Carolina public school teachers have made on the education crowdfunding website DonorsChoose.org....
Colbert partnered with Share Fair Nation and ScanSource to fund nearly 1,000 projects for more than 800 teachers at over 375 schools, totaling $800,000....
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Is this a heartwarming story? Yeah, I guess -- but to me it's heartbreaking that teachers in the richest country on earth have to beg for balls to use at recess or therapeutic equipment for special-ed kids.
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If we had a proper sense of values in this country, we'd never want something like this to go public, even if it really was the only way the kids could get what they need. We wouldn't want it known that we weren't doing right by the next generation.
Read More http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2015/05/if-only-we-were-ashamed.html
I thank Stephen Colbert. However, I am pretty ashamed of this Country, it seems we have lost our souls.
AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)however, Stephen Colbert is an incredible human. We haven't lost our souls. Those who "represent" us have.
and... it IS a heartwarming story, I don't guess it is...
And I think Stephen did a FINE job of shaming TPTB for those of us who can't.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)I will add to those who "represent", those that vote them into office again and again.
Thank you for your response.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)The idiots who vote for them too.
newthinking
(3,982 posts)And there still has been nothing done to verify the code in many state's voting machines (proprietary).
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)parked at the local Walmart for people to buy and fill with school supplies. I think it is sad that we have to do that.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)Teachers Spend Own Money On Necessity Items For Their Students: Report (SLIDESHOW)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/survey-many-teachers-repo_n_1822777.html
Hero Teachers Feed Kids Out of Their Own Pockets
The day's lesson isn't the first thing on Marvin Callahan's mind after the first school bell rings. Instead, the Albuquerque, New Mexico, teacher wonders whether his students have eaten.
His routine begins by asking each one of his first-grade pupils what her or she ate for breakfast that morning.
"I have kids that come to school every day, and they're hungry. They come to school, and they're just unsure," said the Comanche Elementary School teacher. "I have seen it with my own eyes,"
Every day, the 20-year veteran teacher spends a chunk of his own salary to feed hungry kids in his classroom. For the kid who came to school on an empty stomach, Callahan either sends the child to the cafeteria or simply walks over to the supply closet behind his desk for some food. Many teachers use $40 a month of their own cash to buy supplemental food for these hungry children.
More
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/making-a-difference/hero-teachers-feed-kids-out-their-own-pockets-n192861
brer cat
(24,576 posts)provides free breakfast with no "qualifying" or questions asked. I have heard people complain about their tax dollars feeding kids whose parents are "too lazy" to feed them before they leave home. Total BS. Many of those children are from homes without enough food to go around, and the school meals are the only way to make ends meet. How can anyone expect children to pay attention and learn if they are hungry? It makes me so angry. Any one who begrudges food for a child is despicable.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)I agree. This makes me cry. 16 cents.
Kudos to your granddaughters school as well.
Two, sweet teachers in my family, young ones. Love them both. One a few years ago took her students to an Obama speech. I can't remember what grade, pretty young, they were to short to see much, she told them to hold up their ipads, that the school provides so that they could watch.
My now, 88 year old mom has worked the food pantry for years, small town. She only recently stopped due to illness. The market in town collects food for them, and they themselves are very, very generous in their donations.
Love you.
herding cats
(19,565 posts)I don't know how the average American isn't outraged by this, but most are not.
NJCher
(35,685 posts)I am doing some work in the school system in my town and the teachers want for nothing. Every school I have seen in the system (and it is a large system) is very well equipped. Supplies are in abundance. There is no shortage of help. In one special ed class I visited, there were 8 children and 6 aids plus a teacher.
It's a matter of paying the price. The property taxes to fund this are around $15,000 a year on an average 3-bedroom house.
Cher
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)newthinking
(3,982 posts)Real estate tax rates vary greatly but even the highest is under 2%.
I agree, we can't cut tax revenue as we have in the last 30 years and expect things not to fall apart. But we also need to decrease administrative salaries in many states.
Administrative staff can live like the rest of us.
secondwind
(16,903 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)financial resources to the 1%, but we need to turn it around and make them pay their fair share. As I believe you said earlier, there should be no reason for charity. We need jobs.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)yet not at the expense of social justice. They go hand in hand. We need it all and we sure as hell needed it yesterday. If they do not go hand and hand then we got nothing. What good is one without the other?
Yup, I have said we need jobs. We need them at a living wage. We also need to stop discriminating against women and people of color. We all need a fair wage as well. Equal pay for equal work. NOW! Women and PoC matter.
We have age discrimination in the work place, that has to stop. We have people with disabilities being let go from their jobs....yes, they always find a reason which of course has nothing to do do with said disabilities.
So for me, they go hand and hand for me. Social Justice and Financial Justice.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)sheshe2
(83,788 posts)We can do this. I know we can.
The younger players need to came to bat, and I believe they are.
Lol~ I ain't getting any younger here.
You know the saying...Only the Good Die Young. Not really true. My mom at 88 has worked the food pantry for a zillion years, only stopped recently due to illness.
Thank you.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)sheshe2
(83,788 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)mother earth
(6,002 posts)okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)Hoppy
(3,595 posts)Any supplies or equipment I could think of, I could ask for it and it would be in my classroom. The shame of it was that the kids' home lives weren't always sufficient... Homelessness, alcoholic parents and so forth.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)We must get representatives who represent the good-spirited people who believe in full funding public education!
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)Thank you.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)Thanks for your great post!
valerief
(53,235 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Which budget expenditure does the most for the people? Which does the least?
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)The cost that we could take from military spending and put into education. It's amazing when one looks at that chart. All the politicians argue about all those tiny slices of pie. While the majority of the pie - the genuine hogs who take more than half of the entire friggin taxpayer money - is soundly and repeatedly ignored. That should change! We should have a peacetime economy. Peace and prosperity at home and abroad!
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)matt819
(10,749 posts)For medical care - we see the collection cans in local convenience stores. There's a lot to be ashamed of.
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)THey admire people who are dumb and brag about it.
Teachers they hate the most, because you know they get summers off and only work til 3 each day
They dont know what a teacher actually does, but they dont care
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)for schools and other things. We have to prioritize sheshe, and the war budget comes first.
Plus we have to keep taxes very low on the job creators you know.
Excellent post, by the way.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)It is time, guillaumeb. I do believe I will hit the next person that says they won't vote upside the head. No, I am not a violent person, I have seen enough of that in my lifetime. Yet we have to vote.
Thank you for your post~
diabeticman
(3,121 posts)Dr. Xavier
(278 posts)My wife's a teacher, a library teacher, she has won awards at every school, she has ever taught in and her libraries are considered the centerpiece of the schools. I am very proud of her but she has to bust her rear end to raise money to buy books. I see her colleagues, mostly women, who could be running multi-million dollar corporations because of their brains and talent; but who chose education and are having trouble making ends meet. It is PATHETIC.
CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,084 posts)It's is sad. And note that this is just for one state. Multiply that x 49 other states in the same or worse shape.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)When the hell are we going to wake up
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/survey-many-teachers-repo_n_1822777.html
It's a practice that isn't uncommon in the nation's schools. In fact, 73 percent of teachers have hungry students in their classes, according to a report issued in 2013 by the advocacy group No Kid Hungry.
For two years, New Mexico has ranked No. 1 state in childhood hunger, with 1 in 3 children growing up without a steady supply of food. More than 60 percent of the students qualify for the federal free or reduced-priced lunch program at Callahan's school.
Hey, BRDS, do you think we will they ever wake up?
BumRushDaShow
(129,084 posts)while looking for a job in my field, I actually signed up to be a substitute teacher in the Philly school system. Since I had a science degree, I was in demand in the junior high and high schools, and the schools that I was sent to (and later became a long-term sub at) were the very types of schools being discussed here - i.e., in the poorest parts of the city with the most need for subs. I had classes with 40 students, kids falling asleep in the back of the room etc. Many of the kids were literally just a year or two younger than me at the time. I brought in my own materials to use to teach (and worked the mimeograph like the dickens! LOL). I opened up closets and cabinets full of books and scientific experiment kits that none of the previous teachers bothered to break the wrapping off of, and the kids were grateful that someone "cared". Before I left for my permanent job in my field, I had kids who were cutting other classes to be in mine. From their standpoint, they were looking for someone who appreciated them, gave them the correct amount of discipline, and could relate and show them what they were missing out on. And this was over 30 years ago.
I's like a broken record in school systems... even when I was in the public schools, and it's only gotten worse.
But sometimes when the pendulum has swung so far to one side, it eventually is going to snap and go back the other way. It's just a matter of getting it moving.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)Someone to appreciate them. Someone who actually cares. You brought it to the poorest. I so thank you for that.
And~
I just hope it is in my lifetime.
BumRushDaShow
(129,084 posts)These children are human beings. I tried to give them something to look forward to when coming to school as sadly, many had to deal with harrowing experiences at home or even on the way to school.
WhaTHellsgoingonhere
(5,252 posts)"charities" will provide the social safety net, ergo no one will slip through the cracks.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)Supporting? Nope. It is shaming all of them. For all those that are slipping through the cracks.
WhaTHellsgoingonhere
(5,252 posts)You can't.
They'll just say, "See, we told you. 'Charities' will provide the safety net. That's what we've been saying all along. Now stop taxing us!"
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)niyad
(113,336 posts)I used to wear a tee shirt with this on it whenever the recruiters came around. pissed them off for some reason!
It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber.
Robert Fulghum
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertfulg389087.html#pkfdjUiui0DWP1k8.99
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)niyad
(113,336 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,084 posts)niyad
(113,336 posts)Thespian2
(2,741 posts)when the NC legislature was with-holding pay raises for teachers, we independently spent our money to make sure our classrooms had adequate materials...Cost were rather high for us each August
Omaha Steve
(99,658 posts)sheshe2
(83,788 posts)d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)since to them "charity" is a better alternative than paying taxes and funding our commons. Remeber when Zuckerburg and a bunch of billionaires gave 0.01% of their fortunes to schools in Newark, New Jersey? How did that work out? Unbelievable...
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)Shame is exactly what we should feel. And it should motivate us to act.
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)If we made corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. Who's going to push for that?
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)What do you propose we should do?
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)certainot
(9,090 posts)this kind of crap all day long on a national level- that is the main reason there is no national shame
heaven05
(18,124 posts)it's collective soul a long time ago...and it's just getting worse. Those who say "we haven't lost our soul, those who represent us have", who voted them in? nuff said. We should be ashamed. Colbert did well, yet the problem, as you intimated, goes much deeper.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)I don't even have the little bastards, but it's goddamn shame to deprive them of being a kid.
Yes, in the richest country in the world, we're severely lacking.
calimary
(81,306 posts)I'm crushingly ashamed. I'm ashamed of the voters who somehow see fit to send idiots and jerks like ted cruz and louie gohmert to higher office (I'm talking about YOU, Texas!!!) and that IIIIIIIDIIIIIIOT james inhofe, and scott walker and chris christie and mitch mcconnell and paul ryan and joni ernst and rick scott and sarah palin and sam brownback and mike pence and the rest of that human scum up to higher office, too.
Hell, I'm ashamed for my beloved California! Because WE stuck this country with the likes of ronald reagan, richard nixon, ahnold, darrell issa, dana rohrabacher, and that FUCKED howard jarvis shell game Proposition 13 back in 1978. That's where the shit really started hitting the fan from out here - spreading like a frickin' cancer or swarm of locusts across the rest of America. HIDEOUS! I take very little comfort from the whole idea of having NOT voted for any of them, myself. But WAY too many others did.
sheshe2
(83,788 posts)We practically gave our beloved Teddy Kennedy's seat to Scott Brown. Now here we go again another R Governor Charlie Baker. Don't forget, shudder, RMoney as well.