This was well done. I don't know the author, but it's been spreading around Facebook. I had to share it.

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?
by Meredith Menden on Friday, February 18, 2011 at 3:32pm

Are you sick of highly paid teachers? Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....
That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30
students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!

State governments and the State Department must realize that even in times of financial crisis, it costs less and is more efficient to spend the money on education now than it is to have to spend 20 to 100 times as much building and maintaining prisons domestically, and managing wars overseas, twenty years from now.

Indian farmers are committing suicide after going into debt from using genetically modified seeds

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html

"When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even WORSE than he feared."

You often see human skulls used as drinking vessels in horror films. Well, the practice was real, though a little earlier than you might think.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017026

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12478115

"Ancient Britons were not averse to using human skulls as drinking cups, skeletal remains unearthed in southwest England suggest. The braincases from three individuals were fashioned in such a meticulous way that their use as bowls to hold liquid seems the only reasonable explanation. The 14,700-year-old objects were discovered in Gough's Cave, Somerset."

I've used this blog primarily to post URLs of history, archaeology, or education stories and articles. However, the last couple of weekends have been worth jotting a note about. Last Saturday, was the WSCSS teacher conference in the International District with workshops on the Japanese American internment during WWII. The locations included the Nisei Veterans Hall, the Wing Luke Asian Museum, and the Chinese Information Services Center. It was also the weekend after the Chinese and Vietnamese New Year so there were a few other things going on too.

Today, was a teacher conference concerning the Holocaust, antisemitism, Nazi propaganda, and the Rwanda Genocide. There were some wonderful presentations and workshops. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum provided excellent materials and some rather pricey books for us. It was all free. It's pretty amazing the information they provided us.

http://wingluke.org/home.htm
http://www.seattlenvc.org
http://www.cisc-seattle.org/
http://www.ushmm.org/
http://www.wsherc.org/
http://worldoutsidemyshoes.org/
http://www.panzifoundation.org/

The Last Acceptable Racism: Native Americans

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/ict_sbc/the-last-acceptable-racism-native-americans/

This article is worth reading. People are quick to be offended at racist stereotypes toward almost any group except for Native Americans.

http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/answers-to-the-latest-quiz-on-the-baltimore-rhee-miracle/

One of the Michelle Rhee myths is that her students made spectacular test score gains during her brief teaching career in a Baltimore charter school. G.F. Brandenburg, a retired D.C. math teacher/blogger, examined the record: "This study is pretty conclusive evidence that Michelle Rhee was flat-out lying in her resume, in her testimony about her resume, and in her interview last month in the Washingtonian magazine."

- The above statement from the 'NOT Waiting for Superman' Facebook site is better than anything I could have written.

Speaking In Defense Of Science

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/02/09/133591874/speaking-in-defense-of-science?sc=tw

"Although it may seem like old news, science and the teaching of science remains under attack in many parts of the country. This "anti-scientifism" is costing the United States dearly. A country that distrusts science is condemned to move straight back to medieval obscurantism. While many countries are working hard to educate their young about the values of science and of scientific research, in the U.S. countless people are teaching them to mistrust science..."

Americans ignorant of Egypt uprisings.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/02/201128192448625688.html

"More than half of United States' citizens have heard 'a little or nothing at all' about the uprising and violence in Egypt, a survey has revealed. And those who have been following events seem noncommittal about what their impact is likely to be. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center, some 52 per cent of the people interviewed during the past five days knew precious little about the events in Egypt. Only 28 per cent of respondents thought they would have a negative effect, while 15 per cent said the calls for political change in Egypt would be good for the US. Meanwhile, 58 per cent of the 1,385 people polled said the protests were unlikely to have much of an effect whatsoever on the US."

The Curse of the “Smart” Student

http://missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog/2010/01/13/the-curse-of-the-smart-student/

What happens when students who have been doing well suddenly don't do so well when they're challenged?

Why I am not a defender of the ‘status quo’ in education — because the ‘status quo’ is failed ed reforms

http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/why-i-am-not-a-defender-of-the-status-quo-in-education-because-the-status-quo-is-failed-ed-reforms/

This is a great article about how many education reformers like to dismiss anybody who disagrees with their agenda as defending the status quo. And yes, the status quo is failing students. The reality is, however, that the status quo is NCLB, Race to the Top, resources pulled from schools, poor students having fewer resources than their wealthy counterparts, decisions being made by unelected millionaires with no background in education.

The Anthropocene: a new epoch of geological time?

This is an interesting proposal. Humans have made such an impact on the environment, that many millennia from now, it will be very noticeable in the geologic record.

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1938

Why Keeping Little Girls Squeaky Clean Could Make Them Sick

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/02/03/133371076/how-keeping-little-girls-squeaky-clean-could-make-them-sick?ps=sh_sthdl

How girls are socialized may account for some disparities in the illnesses that affect them compared with boys. Young boys are more likely to be allowed to get dirty, which may expose them to more germs that help temper their immune systems.

Should iPads Replace Textbooks?

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/26711276/detail.html?source=lnta

Georgia state lawmakers are considering a pilot program that would replace textbooks with iPads.

On the trail of Vikings with polarized skylight

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1565/772.full

How did Viking explorers navigate through the overcast North Atlantic? The legends spoke of sunstones. One hypothesis stated that polarizing light crystals were used to find the sun. Now, an experiment seems to confirm this.