Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Also, we need to pay cops more - risking themselves for our safety.
And firemen. And emergency room nurses and docs. And prison guards.
And those guys who search out weird diseases in the public health sector. And the poor Wal-Mart checkers who hardly get enough to live on. And . . .
Problem is, you can make this case for each and every one of these jobs, and for a whole lot more. You can almost always make a case for "they add so much to our lives, and we pay them peanuts, and they deserve more . . ."
But, looking at the macro view, it doesn't work to do that. If you simply deal with each emotional argument in turn, you end up with . . . well, . . . California.
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Did I say any of this? Turn off your bleeding heart autoreply. I'll emote at you about those other public safety employees when the time comes.
The fragment you quoted was my response to someone who said that AS's education "reform" proposals, which amount to taking educ money to plug other holes while putting up a merit-based pay system as a smokescreen, were "bold". I have been on record here, in discussions with you, that I support a merit based teacher pay system, and that I have teacher friends (all at charter schools, so this should be taken with a grain of salt) who support it too. But if we're going to do that I think we need to provide a living wage for those teachers who are getting it done.
I blame Prop 13. It's strangling poorer school districts to the benefit of longtime homeowners, who are already reaping the benefits of an unprecedented rise in home prices. I say this as a childless homeowner, in house I can barely afford and property taxes to match.
