where's my teacher ?

 

 

Apart from the fact that a substitute teacher position in Arizona pays very well for not working very hard, another advantage is that the position offers a lot of job security. I literally could work every day of the school year if I wanted to – and I usually do.

Although teacher salaries have improved in recent years, teachers in Arizona historically have been on the low end of the pay scale compared to the pay in other states. Even after some pay increases, Arizona teachers are still in the bottom third of average teacher salaries.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state

The Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association says more than 130 school districts and charter schools responded to a survey they sent about staffing.

The data shows that 29.7% of teaching positions remain unfilled across the state. About 53.2% of the vacancies are filled by teachers who do not meet the state’s standard certification requirements.

https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/new-data-shows-arizonas-teacher-shortage-worsening

Arizona, of course, is not the only state that is experiencing teacher shortages, but it IS one of the 10 worst states. The link below provides more information on the states that need improvement.

https://www.universities.com/education/states-with-the-highest-teacher-shortages

Not on the list – yet – is a state that is already be facing a teacher shortfall, and the current issue of “The Nation” tells us which one – and it is a direct result of the actions of the current governor, Ron DeSantis.

When he was sworn in as governor in 2019, there were 2217 teacher shortages in the state’s K-1 public schools. As he started his second term n 2023, the number had ballooned to 5294. This August, the number of unfilled positions had risen to 7000.

The policies of Ron DeSantis have resulted in a “brain drain” in the state. 91% of college-bound high school students disagree with his policies, as do 79% of currently enrolled college students. 13% of graduating seniors in Florida will not attend college in Florida due to his education policies.

The policies of Ron DeSantis have, and will, cost the state a lot of money.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/07/10/desantis-controversial-policies-spark-florida-convention-cancellations-as-tourism-shows-signs-of-slowing/?sh=3040aefcd5a9

A growing number of conventions and conferences are refusing to hold events in Florida in response to the state’s political climate, as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers’ controversial policies involving LGBTQ rights and race have prompted a backlash that could hurt a key part of Florida's economy—adding to a broader slowdown in tourism sectors like theme parks.

At least five groups have canceled planned events in Orange County, where Orlando is located, or announced plans to hold them elsewhere, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Game of Thrones convention Con of Thrones canceled its event due to “the increasingly anti-humanitarian legislation and atmosphere in Florida,” for instance, while the National Society of Black Engineers moved its 2024 convention from Orlando to Atlanta, saying the state’s political climate “seeks to undermine what we stand for.”

Tourism officials in Fort Lauderdale also report at least six organizations have pulled out of holding their events in Broward County, where the city is located, due to concerns about the state’s policies, local outlet 7News Miami reports.

Local officials projected to the Wall Street Journal the cancellations would cost the county’s economy more than $20 million, taking into account lost revenue from hotel bookings, transportation, food and other travel costs.

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning moved its conference from Miami to Chicago, saying it would pay a “steep penalty” for moving the event but members had expressed “significant concerns” about holding the event in Florida, particularly in light of the state’s controversial educational policies targeting diversity initiatives.

 I’m a strong supporter of adequate funding for pubic schools and public libraries.

 According to the research that I have done, the states that spend the highest amount per student on public education also have the highest per capita income.

 Additionally, regardless of what it costs to fund public libraries, the cost is far less than the cost of public ignorance.

 You are probably familiar with the Carnegie libraries, since Andrew Carnegies established more that 2500 of them in the early years of the 20^th century.

 https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2022/09/save-libraries.html

 Part of the reason that teachers are leaving Florida are book bans, an idea that was very popular in Germany in the 1930’s.

 Texas has the most book bans of any state, at 801, but Florida is #2, with 566 books banned.

 https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/banned-books-by-state

PEN America’s new Index of School Book Bans provides a comprehensive list of books banned in the 2022-2023 school year.

PEN America found 3,362 instances of individual books banned, affecting 1,557 unique titles. This represents an increase of 33% from the 2021-22 school year. The bans occurred in 33 states, with Florida leading the nation, according to PEN America’s latest Banned in the USA report.

The 2022-2023 banned book list is a searchable index of each documented book ban in the school year. The Index lists instances where students’ access to books in school libraries and classrooms in the United States was restricted or diminished, for either limited or indefinite periods of time. Some of these bans have since been rescinded and some remain in place. More information about PEN America’s definition of school book bans can be found here.

You can read a comprehensive (but not complete) list at the link posted below. You won’t see Jodi Piccoult’s name on the list, but Florida has banned TWENTY of her books.

https://pen.org/2023-banned-book-list/

A teacher’s job is never easy, so they need all the support they can get, and that means fighting all the nonsense (bans on books and critical race theory etc.) that they have to contend with.

 

 

 

         

 

 

can you afford to retire?

 

Fresh out of college, I sold life insurance for Northwestern National Life.

The phrase that I heard often when I worked there was " No one plans to fail, but they do fail to plan". As a result, only a small percentage of our population is financially independent at age 65.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/only-1-in-10-americans-are-living-their-definition-of-financial-freedom-achieve-survey-finds-301906121.html

Not much has changed since 1969.

Today,  only 10% of the American population is living their definition of financial freedom.

Amid a challenging economic landscape, including a potential recession, consumer credit card debt surpassing $1 trillion, and the restarting of repayment of student loans on the horizon, it's understandable that many Americans are feeling financially defeated right now. Achieve explored how Americans are feeling about their financial situation. The survey asked consumers to select the ideas of financial freedom that they most agreed with and found the most common definitions were: 

• Living debt free: 54.2%
• Living comfortably, but not necessarily being rich: 50%
• The ability to regularly meet all of their financial obligations and still have some money left over each month: 49.3%
• Never having to worry about money: 46.2%

Surprisingly, the survey also found that far fewer respondents believe financial freedom means being rich (12.6%) or having enough money to give up working altogether (32.1 %)

Over half of respondents (58%) indicated that they are not anywhere close to reaching their personal definition of financial freedom. At the forefront of this challenge is that many Americans lack a well-funded savings account. Achieve found that 40% of respondents don't even have a basic bank savings account. Among those that do, 35.8% said they have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts.

Regardless of how well you plan, there are no guarantees in life.

When I worked at CIGNA in the 1990's, I was saving 10% of my paycheck into a 401-K. If I kept doing that, I estimated that by age 65, I would have $1 million in the bank and a house that was paid for.

Then life happened.

In 1997, my boss (a great guy) was promoted, so I applied for his job. Sadly, the company hired a guy who had worked for another company, and he was the polar opposite of John Platt. Less than a year later, this jerk got me fired (at age  51), and my income never recovered. At one point, I owed the IRS $25,000.

As the saying goes, when karma bites, it bites hard.

Less than a year after I left GIGNA, the department shut down nationwide, and the jerk that fired me lost his job. He got hired as a manager at the company that I had left (Crum and Forster) to work for CIGNA. A short time later, the company caught him viewing porn on his work computer, and he was escorted out of the building by security.

After about 7 years as a commissioned car salesman, I finally achieved a bit more financial security by working as a sub teacher, which I have now done for more than a decade. However I still can't afford to stop working entirely. I know a couple of people who work as sub teachers in their 80's, but I plan to pull the plug when I'm 80. It's the easiest job I have ever had. After taking attendance, I have plenty of time to read books - and I read a lot of books..

One that caught my eye on a recent trip to the library is this one.

The back cover lists the topics it covers, and I plan to start reading it today.

I realize that the title seems a bit far fetched, but the reality is that I DID get hit by a vehicle about a year ago, and you can read that story below.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2023/04/tough-times-do-not-last-but-tough.html

So in closing, I'll leave you with two quick thoughts:

1) Don't put off planning your future

2) Always look both ways before walking across a street or a parking lot. 

freedom is not free

 

In the courtyard of Tucson High School, just north of the main gym, is an area where numerous red bricks have been set into the concrete.

 There is one section that pays homage to the championships of the various sports teams, and another section that pays homage to the Tucson High grads who died in service to their country.

The earliest brick for veterans honors a guy who died in 1949, and the most recent honors someone who died in 2012. The majority of the former students who died in Vietnam were just a year or two out of high school.

Last year, the librarian and his wife put together a display in the library that honored the graduates who died in WWII. Amazingly, they were able to get uniforms and personal stories on a number of vets, but since over 400,000 vets died during the war, they really only scratched the surface.

I served during the Vietnam era, but my obligations as a member of the National Guard meant that I never had to leave the country. However, my training as a helicopter repairman enabled me to qualify for the military discount at both Lowe’s and Home Depot, and it also saved me $500 on the car that I purchased in the spring of 2017.

Outside the gym is a flag that needs replacing. Although I don’t think that kneeling during the national anthem is a sacrilege, I’m of the opinion that the flag does need to be treated with respect, even though children in schools (due to a 1943 Supreme Court decision) are no longer REQUIRED to salute the flag, However, virtually all schools broadcast the pledge every morning.

 

In less than two months, we’ll be celebrating Veterans Day. By all means, enjoy your day off – but never forget the sacrifices that our troops made for us.

 

Amen.

lessons learned from Grace Slick

 

Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing; October 30, 1939) is an American painter and retired musician whose musical career spanned four decades. Slick was a prominent figure in San Francisco's psychedelic scene from the mid-1960s to the early 1970’s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Slick

Few people symbolized the psychedelic era better than Janis Joplin, whose psychedelic painted 1964 Porsche sold for $1.76 million at auction in 2015. Although Joplin’s death was likely caused by her heroin addiction, she was also very fond of Southern Comfort.

https://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/luxury/janis-joplin-porsche-auction/index.html

Like many musicians of her era, Grace Slick was no stranger to illicit drugs, which earned her the nickname of “the acid queen” – but that was not her only vice.

Few people thought Grace Wing would become one of the premier wild children of the newly hatched phenomenon we call rock and roll, but she did, a woman Louder Sound characterized as a "psych rock legend" out of the San Francisco music scene. She was born in Chicago, says Biography; her mother was a former actor and singer, and her father an investment banker. It was partly that upbringing that helped her survive the '60s, at least financially — she credits her father with teaching her to save her money. "My dad, who was a merchant banker, always told me: put one third into savings, one third for bills and screw around with the rest."

She'd done some modeling before she joined Jefferson Airplane as a replacement for their pregnant (and quitting) lead singer. Slick was married to drummer Jerry Slick and brought with her songs of her own, including the enormous hit "White Rabbit," which she'd written after dropping acid and listening to a Miles Davis album "for 24 hours straight." There were more drugs in her future — she was especially fond of Quaaludes — and alcohol. And cocaine.

https://www.grunge.com/228112/the-tragic-real-life-story-of-grace-slick/

 

“White Rabbit”, coincidentally, paid homage to the drug culture.

A hookah smoking caterpillar?

Yep

The pills that mother gave you do nothing at all.

Yep

And you’ve had some type of mushroom, and your mind is moving low.

Yep

Feed your head?

Yeah, baby.

Bing Videos

David Cosby (who just died at the age of 81) once marveled in a concert that he was amazed that he was still alive, since his younger years were a bit on the wild side.

If you read Grace Slick’s bio (see below) it’s a bit of a miracle that she is now 83 years old, and will be 84 in October.

Due to careful money management and smart investments, Jimmy Buffett (who just died at the age of 77) had a net worth of $1 billion.

Grace wasn’t quite as prudent with her earnings. Her net worth of $20 million would be enough to satisfy most of us, but it could easily have been a lot more if she had led a more moderate lifestyle.

Here’s a few examples of her excesses:

Slick was arrested at least four times for what she has referred to as "TUI" ("talking under the influence") and "drunk mouth". One incident occurred when a police officer encountered her sitting against a tree trunk in the backwoods of Marin County, California, drinking wine, eating bread, and reading poetry. The officer asked what she was doing; she gave a sarcastic response and was arrested and jailed. She was arrested in 1994 for assault with a deadly weapon after pointing an unloaded gun at a police officer. She alleged that the officer had come onto her property without explanation.

As Ultimate Classic Rock tells it, the band had transitioned from Airplane to Starship and were about to play a show in 1978 in Germany. Grace "tore into an alcohol-fueled tantrum, throwing bottles, refusing to get ready for the concert and demanding more booze from room service." Once onstage she taunted and insulted the audience, a night of what she called "dumb, drunken decisions." One of the decisions the band made that night was to fire Slick — she was asked to resign, and did.

And she decided to get sober, realizing that "the only person I can change is me." She attended AA meetings and stopped drugging. And with those decisions came the decision to quit the stage. Rolling Stone quoted her this way back in 2012: "All rock-and-rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire." She's emerged a few times — she took part in a benefit for victims of 9-11 — but mostly she creates art in her home in Malibu. She paints various subjects. Though lots of white rabbits, of course.

https://www.grunge.com/228112/the-tragic-real-life-story-of-grace-slick/

She eventually became a competent artist, and her work can be viewed on her website.

Home (graceslick.com)

Grace Slick came to mind the other day when we had a conversation with our daughter Kelly, who is a psych nurse in Colorado.

She mentioned that one of her associates at the clinic has been treating her patients with psilocybin, which are also called “magic mushrooms”.

In 1955, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson and R. Gordon Wasson became the first known European Americans to actively participate in an indigenous mushroom ceremony. The Wassons did much to publicize their experience, even publishing an article on their experiences in Life on May 13, 1957. In 1956, Roger Heim identified the psychoactive mushroom the Wassons brought back from Mexico as Psilocybe and in 1958, Albert Hofmann first identified psilocybin and psilocin as the active compounds in these mushrooms.

Inspired by the Wassons' Life article, Timothy Leary traveled to Mexico to experience psilocybin mushrooms himself. When he returned to Harvard in 1960, he and Richard Alpert started the Harvard Psilocybin Project, promoting psychological and religious studies of psilocybin and other psychedelic drugs. Alpert and Leary sought to conduct research with psilocybin on prisoners in the 1960s, testing its effects on recidivism. This experiment reviewed the subjects six months later, and found that the recidivism rate had decreased beyond their expectation, below 40%. This, and another experiment administering psilocybin to graduate divinity students, showed controversy. Shortly after Leary and Alpert were dismissed from their jobs by Harvard in 1963, they turned their attention toward promoting the psychedelic experience to the nascent hippie counterculture.

The popularization of entheogens by the Wassons, Leary, Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and many others led to an explosion in the use of psilocybin mushrooms throughout the world. By the early 1970s, many psilocybin mushroom species were described from temperate North America, Europe, and Asia and were widely collected. Books describing methods of cultivating large quantities of Psilocybe cubensis were also published. The availability of psilocybin mushrooms from wild and cultivated sources has made them one of the most widely used psychedelic drugs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_mushroom

Timothy Leary was also a proponent of LSD.

Timothy Leary died in 1996, nearly 30 years after the Moody Blues recorded the song “Timothy Leary’s dead” on their “In search of the lost chord” album.

THE MOODY BLUES-R.I.P. RAY THOMAS-LEGEND OF A MIND (TIMOTHY LEARY'S DEAD)-1968 - YouTube

Like “magic mushrooms”, LSD has also gained a degree of respectability in some circles.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6985449/

A new study found that psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) may be effective at reducing symptoms of stress-related anxiety and in mental health treatment.

The study’s research team was led by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center (RI-MUHC) in Montreal, Canada.

The study, published in the journal NeuropsychopharmacologyTrusted Source, also involved eight other neuroscientists and a collaboration between RI-MUHC, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Italy, and the Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences center at the University of Padua, Italy.

Dr. Danilo De Gregorio, an assistant professor of pharmacology at San Raffaele University, was the lead author of this research paper. Previous studies by Dr. De Gregorio and Dr. Gobbi to pinpoint the neurobiological mechanisms by which LSD relieves anxiety had been elusive and unclear.

One study (Trusted Source) on healthy human subjects showed that treatment with LSD produced feelings of happiness, trust, empathy, positive social effects, and altruism when used as an adjunctive to psychotherapy.

More studies are needed to show LSD’s efficacy and mechanisms of action in treating depression and anxiety in humans. Earlier studies by Dr. Gobbi and her colleagues explored the adverse side effects of LSD.

Preliminary randomized controlled trials (RCTs)Trusted Source also demonstrated the effectiveness of LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy in cases of individuals with life threatening illnesses. Participants reported sustained improvements in anxiety and stress for up to 12 months following two LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/psychedelic-drug-lsd-may-be-effective-as-anxiety-treatment#Studies-with-humans

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2021/07/timothy-learys-dead.html

So, what are the lessons to be learned from Grace Slick?

1)    Under controlled circumstances, drugs that were once considered dangerous can actually be beneficial.

2)   Over time, many people who had previously been considered unstable can become respectable citizens in their old age.

To quote Hunter S. Thompson, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.”