Newt Gingrich has been described as having some wierd ideas over the years.

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

Recently he challenged our system of federal judicial judges but here he has an idea for public schools.

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December 28, 2011 · Vol. 6, No.51

Schools should serve our children--not interest groups
by Newt Gingrich

New York City is home to more than 220,000 children living in poverty. Many live in households with at least one parent who is not employed--and as I wrote recently, two-thirds of those in extremely poor households don't have even one parent who works. Hope and opportunity, for many of these children, must seem a distant promise.

For generations, America has entrusted our schools with the futures of our children. Education, we have rightly told our kids, can help them get ahead. Yet for the thousands of poor young New Yorkers who make their way to school each morning, this, too, must seem hollow. More than one-third of their schools are classified as "failing." Students pass through the years despite struggling with basic skills like reading and writing. Fewer than one in four is ready for college by the time they finish high school.

Some people, however, are thriving in the city's failing schools. In many of the same neighborhoods where children go home to extreme poverty and households without a single working parent, custodians in the schools make six figures. In fact, their union contracts guarantee many of them salaries far in excess of teachers in the same schools.

As the New York Post discovered last year, 20 public school janitors make more than $140,000 a year. And the disparity is not limited to a few odd cases: the base salary for a first year custodial engineer is almost $80,000, while new teachers without graduate degrees make about $45,000, NBC New York reported recently, teacher salaries max out at around $100,000 in base pay, while the custodial engineers can make up to $114,000 in base pay.

Wouldn't it be great if New York City schools served their students as well as they serve some of their custodians?

Students--especially those from very poor families--would be better served if they had the opportunity to earn money part-time at school by doing some of the tasks custodians are now performing so expensively.

Dozens of poor students could have part-time, paying jobs for the $100,000 a year New York schools pay some custodians. For that amount, more than 30 children could work just two hours each school day and each take home $3,000 a year by the time they are 12 or 13 years old.

Some of this work could be clerical; other tasks could be janitorial, such as cleaning the cafeteria, or emptying the trash, or vacuuming the classrooms. These are similar to the chores many parents require their kids to do at home, and it would allow 12- and 13- year olds to make money they desperately need. Giving children the opportunity to earn money would help teach work habits, and letting them do so in their schools would build a stronger commitment to that community.

This idea is not far from a proposal Time's Joe Klein made two decades ago. As he recalled recently, he wrote "that the school janitors had a contract that paid them more than teachers received (nearly $60,000--and now nearly double that) but, according to said contract, they only were required to mop the cafeteria floor once a week. I suggested at the time that maybe the city could save some money by contracting out the heavy-duty janitorial work, but also build some character and community spirit by having the kids and their parents help keep the schools clean."

Klein makes another excellent point about the work schools already require students to do, observing the oddity that although "many high schools now require some form of public service--often community cleanup programs--said service can't take place within the school itself."

America's poorest students need the world's best education system, strong work habits, opportunity, earned income, and a little hope.

Compared with using taxpayer money to pay custodians more than teachers and multiple times the average income of neighborhood families, giving students the opportunity to work hard and earn money at school makes a world of sense.

Your friend,
Newt

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Is Newt a nut, or is Newt presidential material? And what about his personal life?

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

If a presidential candidates private/personal life should NOT be considered when choosing the best candidate, what happened to Herman Cain?

Was what happened to Presidential candidate Herman Cain a product of institutional RACISM . . . .  by Republican conservatives or was it a democrat machine HIT job?

In fact, are the changes in "front runner" a product of real changes in voter perception or is it all a facade behind which the "puppet masters" are pulling the political strings?

[Darlene Littlejohn]

I agree with you, Beverly.  I don't know if I will vote for Gingrich, but if I don't it won't be because of his personal life.  I understand people saying that he didn't keep vows and all, but I learned a long time ago that I have no idea what is happening in other peoples' marriages... nor do I care.

As far as kids doing some of the work at the schools, I don't know why that is considered weird.  I went to country school until junior high (yes, that was a long time ago).  Before we got an oil furnace, the teacher fired up the furnace with coal; the students did all of the rest of the work, including standing on ladders and scraping the wax off the windows after Halloween.  OK, that would probably considered too dangerous, but it didn't hurt us any to do the cleaning and sweeping.  BTW, I wonder if the teacher knew that we, the students, had waxed the windows so that we could be outside cleaning them instead of being inside doing schoolwork.

[Beverly Huffman]

Yes and what about his personal life? since when is it fair game to go after a persons personal life, I don't know about the rest of you but the operative word here is "personal"..I am not choosing a husband, I am choosing a president one who can lead the Country with a proven record of accomplishment and intelligence..I have yet to see Ron Paul accomplish a darn thing and as far as Romney is concerned,that is just a bad joke there, the man changes positions more than he changes his underware. As far as having "weird Ideas" tell me what is so weird about teaching personal responsibility to America's youth? It is obvious there are too few Americans that even give a darn about personal responsibility and that is because they feel they are entitled to what ever someone else works for. I say Ideas are good and so are solutions to some of the countries failing practices..like for instance handing over an unemployment check to people who sit back and collect it for 99 weeks without having the ambition to not only look for a job but to actually going to work when they have a job...America has become the sesspool of the entitled society..I'ts about time the people ask themselves, what has this fight for the last three years really been about? Are we going to sit back and let the left dominate our existance or are we going to let the republican establishment dictate who our nominee is going to be?  We have only one really good choice in this election and it IS Newt Gingrich, a proven record of accomplishment and a conservative ACU rating of 90% is going to earn my vote.