What the fuck is wrong with you, Austin?

[Orange&White 5573]

33 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Austin's best days are behind it, in the opinion of most people in the city who matter. They fundamentally think Austin used to be better and can never be as good as it used to be. They don't want it to change anymore than it has, and they certainly don't want to spend any money on adapting to a world they didn't ask for. The new is treated with suspicion and striving for greatness is perceived as nothing less than a vice.  

You see, this is where you lose a lot of people with your argument. 

There are a lot of people that don't mind change, and don't mind spending money to be great. The problem those people have isn't with change in and of itself, it is the idea of trying to be great and spend that money when there are glaring fucking holes in the current city. But you just choose to ignore that and focus on your same old, tired Todd and Bob jokes.

Having a world class library is great. But spending that much money on a library at a time when there are massive homeless problems, massive infrastructure problems, massive labor contract problems and even more massive problems in public safety response, is flat out ridiculous

That would be akin to spending extra money on your credit card to buy some new jewelry and wonder why your kids are still hungry and you live in a shithole.

You just want to associate people that don't want to spend money freely on frivolous shit as people that are "opposed to change".

 

[texasdago 7771]

25 minutes ago, Orange&White said:

They fundamentally think Austin used to be better and can never be as good as it used to be

Honestly these people just piss me off.  They are constant incessant whiners that can never see beyond their little perfect vision of Austin.  Yeah, I miss a lot of things from my perfect Austin but I also think Austin is awesome today.  Cities evolve and change.  

My Austin of 1989 was perfect.

Some who thought Austin was perfect in 1979 thought my Austin sucked.

Some who thought Austin was perfect in 1969 thought 1979 Austin sucked.

Some who thought Austin was perfect in 1959 thought 1969 Austin sucked.

And so it goes.  There are college students today who think 2023 Austin is peak Austin.  Give them 20 years and they will whine their ass off.  Someone in 2022 probably said Old Austin died when Baby Greens closed its last location.  Actually, not probably... I remember seeing it somewhere stupid like Facebook or reddit.  

Live in the moment - try to fix the Austin of today as it is.  And what is left of your perfect Austin, go spend your money there.  And don't buy into the BS that everything is "Old Austin"

Case in point... noticed "Old Austin" capitalized.  The picture is the chef's kiss.

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2022/06/03/endeavor-plans-to-build-tower-on-s-lamar.html?ana=TRUEANTHEMTWT_AU&csrc=6398&taid=629aaea2802cad0001f69a86&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

 

[texasdago 7771]

I love what they've done with this area with the renovated Seahold, the Independent, Codependent underneath, the hiding of the utilities, etc.  Especially compared to what it looked like 10 years ago.  Sorry... that view of "Old Austin" sucked ass.

Will probably piss someone off.

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by texasdago

[MAUFRAIS 6742]

Thank you for being honest.

[texasdago 7771]

1 minute ago, MAUFRAIS said:

Thank you for being honest.

...but I do appreciate your name being stamped all over town.  Who knew you sold overpriced hats, too.

[MAUFRAIS 6742]

Yeah I was embarrassed to see that hat store. Makes me feel gay. How do I change my name on here?

[texasdago 7771]

3 minutes ago, MAUFRAIS said:

Yeah I was embarrassed to see that hat store. Makes me feel gay. How do I change my name on here?

Why change it when you can walk all over town and yell, "THIS IS MY SIDEWALK!"

 

[PvilleStang 2997]

1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

See the problem with what you wrote there is that it's all bullshit. For example the police just got their largest budget allotment ever, just like in 2022 and 2021, and so on. And speaking as someone who has personal first hand experience with homeless people in Austin I can tell you this from my own personal experience. Outside of the people who directly work on the issue, nobody gives a fuck in this town. 
DEI? Are you serious? Go back to your Todd and Oz and hide in the suburbs, chief. 

Did we not elect CamGirlFaith to office?

Does Vanessa Fuentes not sit on the dais?

How are those two hotels the city bought for homeless doing?  

How does this shit get funded by the community? https://www.austintexas.gov/department/equity/about

We don't have cultural centers? https://www.austintexas.gov/department/museums-and-cultural-programs

$81MM annually for homeless response efforts, for what CoA counts as 5K unhoused people in the city limits.

$1.3MM guaranteed income, in partnership with UpTogether, an Oakland, CA, nonprofit...

And APD budget might have increased, but they've eliminated so many head-count from their ranks, civilian and LEOs, eliminated too many departments due to Watson reneging on the 4 year APD contract.  Part of the approval this year elimintated numerous civilian positions.

 

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

1 hour ago, Orange&White said:

But spending that much money on a library at a time when there are massive homeless problems, massive infrastructure problems, massive labor contract problems and even more massive problems in public safety response, is flat out ridiculous

But that's the thing. They library is great and at least that works. We spend money, otherwise. We just spend it dumb, on dumb shit or halfassing things, because the voters of the last 30 years demanded dumb, and a dumb dollar is the most expensive kind. We don't spend nearly enough on transit. We should have had a mobility bond that was 2X as big and for that matter if you want a better council in this city you should be happy to pay themn 2X as much, because nobody good will do that job for what it pays. 

Take the homeless problem, for example - the people who demanded the homeless stay out of sight in the woods are just the other side of people who demanded we give them hotels - two versions of not giving a fuck about human beings as long as they don't see the problem, even though both of those things are massively expensive because of the pressure they put on the system. We have the best paid cops in the state, but they are poorly led, and their feelings got hurt a couple years back and they don't live here in the city, we're patting them on the head while they are being used by GOP politicians and these parasites who whine from their perch in Leander that it's like Walking Dead meets The Warriors out here.  Meanwhile, neighborhood cranks work their asses off to ensure that cops and teachers and EMTs cant afford to live in the central city in order to protect their view, and so-called  law and order types join them while simultaneously screeching about how police are underfunded. All versions of hostility to change.

The same people who killed the 2000 rail plan because the city hadn't grown up enough to need it are now against project connect because they say the city is too grown up around cars now to invest in transit. After passing the city finally passed a new code,  the vocal minority that used to run things killed priority program #1 (simply put - build more housing in the city) of our comprehensive plan in the courts after smothering it in the crib for a decade and our most powerful environmental group is now explicitly pro-sprawl, for crying out loud. Virtually the entire establishment leadership class of the last 30 years with the exception of Kirk Watson has failed and I'm not sure how the city will recover from their mismanagement. If there's a hope, it's that millenials will rescue us.
How's that for a confidence builder?

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

55 minutes ago, texasdago said:

I love what they've done with this area with the renovated Seahold, the Independent, Codependent underneath, the hiding of the utilities, etc.  Especially compared to what it looked like 10 years ago.  Sorry... that view of "Old Austin" sucked ass.

Will probably piss someone off.

 

Damn right. PLEASE Dallas my Austin. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

7 minutes ago, PvilleStang said:

Did we not elect CamGirlFaith to office?

Does Vanessa Fuentes not sit on the dais?

I hate to burst your bubble here, but both Fuentes and Kelly (for different reasons) are both good, productive members of council and significantly better than average compared to previous members since 2014. And the current council is on the whole the best since the Wynn era. 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Bozo_Casanova

[PvilleStang 2997]

Just now, Bozo_Casanova said:

I hate to burst your bubble here, but both Fuentes and Kelly (for different reasons) are both good, productive members of council and significantly better than average compared to previous members since 2014. And the current council is by far the best since the Wynn era. 

Not bursting my bubble.  I appreciate Kelly for what she's done in the last few years, being the voice of reason in a room full of idiots, but still doesn't mean she really needs to be in there.  Anyone with half a brain could have pulled the story from the old site and summed it up in one commercial, and most her district would have burned her at the stake.  Really don't understand why no political advisor for any the other candidates didn't do their homework.

 

Fuentes, well, she hasn't missed an opportunity to make everything about her on social media.  And continues to spit out vitriol about the legislature targeting her with the death star laws.

[Brisketexan 106948]

10 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The same people who killed the 2000 rail plan because the city hadn't grown up enough to need it are now against project connect because they say the city is too grown up around cars now to invest in transit.

FTR, I opposed rail back then for a very, very, very good reason: it would be built and run by CapMetro, which is incapable of putting together and running a pre-packaged birthday party for a 5 yr old at Chuck E. Cheese.

It wasn't about the idea/plan.  It was about the leadership executing it.  Not much has happened to change my evaluation for the better.  Problem is, that evaluation runs across the board: it doesn't much matter what the concept might have been, we haven't had leadership we could trust to execute it.  For a LONG-ASS time.

[DalTxHornFan 3130]

I'm still looking forward to taking my granddaughter for a ride on a kiddie railroad in Zilker Park.

[Orange&White 5573]

11 minutes ago, PvilleStang said:

Not bursting my bubble.  I appreciate Kelly for what she's done in the last few years, being the voice of reason in a room full of idiots, but still doesn't mean she really needs to be in there.  Anyone with half a brain could have pulled the story from the old site and summed it up in one commercial, and most her district would have burned her at the stake.  Really don't understand why no political advisor for any the other candidates didn't do their homework.

 

Fuentes, well, she hasn't missed an opportunity to make everything about her on social media.  And continues to spit out vitriol about the legislature targeting her with the death star laws.

Ummm...most of her district fucked her, so I think you may be overestimating that part.

[Deej 77852]

29 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I hate to burst your bubble here, but both Fuentes and Kelly (for different reasons) are both good, productive members of council and significantly better than average compared to previous members since 2014. And the current council is on the whole the best since the Wynn era. 

Like praising Tom Herman because he was an upgrade from Charlie Strong. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

I'm still looking forward to taking my granddaughter for a ride on a kiddie railroad in Zilker Park.

Just hold your horses there. We're only on the fourth year since they removed it.

The entire $$$ that Bozo is talking about... I see his view as one-sided if I'm reading it right. Seems he is saying we half-ass it with the money, but 1) seems to me that Austin never met a bond it didn't love to vote yes on and 2) every single time the city does try to do something big, it never goes smoothly. 

I don't think anyone except the biggest policy wonks can point to anything that the last mobility bond provided to improve things. The homeless stuff is a mess and the hotel that was bought up near Lakeline was just sitting empty the last I checked. Project Connect is an absolute fiasco... and frankly, I think voters were sold a false bill of goods based on the "proposed plan" versus what the plan is now. All the while, we're still paying a fortune and will for years before there is anything to show.

So you can blame it on the citizens, but I see it as there is zero reason to trust our city leadership. I hope that we are moving in a better direction but the jury is still out.

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

27 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

FTR, I opposed rail back then for a very, very, very good reason: it would be built and run by CapMetro, which is incapable of putting together and running a pre-packaged birthday party for a 5 yr old at Chuck E. Cheese.

It wasn't about the idea/plan.  It was about the leadership executing it.  Not much has happened to change my evaluation for the better.  Problem is, that evaluation runs across the board: it doesn't much matter what the concept might have been, we haven't had leadership we could trust to execute it.  For a LONG-ASS time.

Why would anybody good would lead it without an ambitious future and supportive voters? Before the DART election, the Dallas bussing agency wasn't great either. 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Bozo_Casanova

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

5 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

So you can blame it on the citizens, but I see it as there is zero reason to trust our city leadership. I hope that we are moving in a better direction but the jury is still out.

The leaders of the last 30 years didn't just emerge from a pod behind the dais. They were elected. 

[YGIFS 19458]

But you admit, they are Pod People?  

[PvilleStang 2997]

1 minute ago, YGIFS said:

But you admit, they are Pod People?  

[Armybrat 41420]

Quote

Some who thought Austin was perfect in 1959 thought 1969 Austin sucked.

I didn’t. 
We were extremely happy & relieved to move back to Austin after spending 2 forlorn years in Giddings.

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

13 minutes ago, Deej said:

Like praising Tom Herman because he was an upgrade from Charlie Strong. 

No - both of those guys were big time coaches who competed to get a top tier job. This is more like praising Steve Kragthorpe for being better than Keith Burns. The pool of people willing to do that job for what it pays is not exactly top tier. 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Bozo_Casanova

[DalTxHornFan 3130]

12 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Why would anybody good would lead it without an ambitious future and supportive voters? Before the DART election, the Dallas bussing agency wasn't great either. 

I love the DART example.  They now use CNG-powered busses that are around $300k a pop, have plenty of range, and are not so heavy that they tear up the streets.  Capital Metro, OTOH, is doing the virtue-signaling EV busses, purchased from the bankrupt manufacturer at around $1.2 MM a pop, can go around 150 miles per cycle, and are quite heavy.

Edited August 23, 2023 by DalTxHornFan

[Ghost of LL 15699]

27 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Why would anybody good would lead it without an ambitious future and supportive voters? Before the DART election, the Dallas bussing agency wasn't great either. 

I don't think you ought to hold up DART as a particularly successful rail model.

[YGIFS 19458]

6 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

I love the DART example.  They now use CNG-powered busses that are around $300k a pop, have plenty of range, and are not so heavy that they tear up the streets.  Capital Metro, OTOH, is doing the virtue-signaling EV busses, purchased from the bankrupt manufacturer at around $1.2 MM a pop, can go around 150 miles per cycle, and are quite heavy.

Yes, the 3 riders plus the driver really weigh them down.  The fucking chokepoint on Guadalupe now between West 8th and West 3rd with that fucking bus only lane while the other two previous car lanes are taken up by traffic.  Those fucking drivers just veer back out into the western most lane before/after that big stop by Republic Park.  When there's an inevitable serious accident, there'll be more fatalities in the passenger car involved than on the fucking bus.  

EV bus technology just isn't there yet.  They'll get lighter and better range, but we don't have to be the fucking beta test fleet for a city of our size.  I knew CapMetro was at the vanguard of transportation disruption when they seriously contemplated modifying the bike carriers to carry a handful of e-scooters and big e-bikes.  The rationale being if you were on a route where you had to get on busier roads/ramps/highways, you could bring your Lime/Uber/CoA electric scooter/bike with you, ride the bus, and have the scooter/e-bike ready to go when you arrived.  Or, you could just not pay for your scooter to take a ride across town, just ride the bus without the hassle of loading a machine that big onto the rack, and just rent another scooter/bike when you arrived at your stop.  

Still, I am absolutely fascinated by the some of the lone scooters I see left behind around town in the strangest of places.  I want to know the story behind some of them, because they're not just drunken sprees.   My favorite one will always be Barton Skyway and Mopac access road.  NW  corner.   in the grass by the crosswalk.  Lime on its side, and one lone crutch laying on its side.  During SxSW (may have been ACL).  I still have so many questions.  

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

2 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I don't think you ought to hold up DART as a particularly successful rail model.

Eh, we're in the land of tall midgets here

[Texas Jeff 1999]

12 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Still, I am absolutely fascinated by the some of the lone scooters I see left behind around town in the strangest of places. 

[Deej 77852]

38 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

No - both of those guys were big time coaches who competed to get a top tier job. This is more like praising Steve Kragthorpe for being better than Keith Burns. The pool of people willing to do that job for what it pays is not exactly top tier. 

What's the pay once you figure in all the grifting and back room deals? 

[YGIFS 19458]

I'm guessing some of them run outta juice or whatever.  And some are drunk idiots thinking, "If I stop here, and walk the last block...they won't know I came home late, all fucked up."  But somebody has to be doing this as some kinda weird coffee table book idea.  And it's not a bad idea. 

Or the reboot of "The Leftovers" on HBO is gonna be fucking awesome.  Opening Title Credits:  "The Second Sudden Departure took just 437 people this time.  All of them riding electric scooters in Texas.  The Guilty Remnant was happy to be reached for comments and threw the leftover scooters into myriad rivers along with vape pens.  This is the story of what happened next..."

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

6 minutes ago, Deej said:

What's the pay once you figure in all the grifting and back room deals? 

The pay for administrators of the East India Company and the Texas legislature were both low for exactly the same reason: the expectation that smart members would develop alternative sources of income. There's a lesson in there for employers.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Bozo_Casanova

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

Getting back to "What the fuck is wrong with you Austin": The New McKinsey report just dropped.
highlights from Mr Mayor

 

[crash_davis 23470]

4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Is Wang still jewish in this scenario?

This is important.

[Anastasis 23723]

How much did Austin pay McKinsey to tell them that water is wet. 

[atomheartbevo 90660]

This is absolute shit and these people need to be put on blast, but I understand why the media doesn’t want to give them attention.

Schools should be a safe place for kids, and not have to deal with a bunch of adults showing up and bothering them because they are LBGTQ

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/protesters-stood-outside-austin-high-school-with-anti-lgbtq-abortion-messages/

Quote

As students were released from McCallum High School Tuesday afternoon, the district confirms roughly eight protesters stood outside with anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion signs. 

“The protesters were on the sidewalk but were blocking the buses, so they were asked to move,” a spokesperson for AISD said. “Austin ISD Police officers were on-site to ensure everyone’s safety, and the protesters left after about an hour.”

 

[DalTxHornFan 3130]

11 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

How much did Austin pay McKinsey to tell them that water is wet. 

Give them some credit -- they said that it was "very" wet.

[YGIFS 19458]

how much to tell them water is "moist"?

[Bozo_Casanova 26869]

31 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

How much did Austin pay McKinsey to tell them that water is wet. 

Austin paid nothing. 

But there's a catch.
 

Quote

McKinsey did this preliminary review for free –– a common lead generation tactic –– but on next week's Council agenda is a $2.5 million contract for the firm to do another six months of work.

So it's a bit of a Rorschach test, isn't it? If your response to that information is that it's too expensive, by implication you are fine with how things are, or at least too cheap to invest in making things better, or too cynical to believe they can get any better, which in turn costs the city tens and hundreds of times that much.

On the other hand, if you are fine with spending the money on the report in the hopes that the results of the studies will be action, I can point you to dozens of examples of excellent plans and clear recommendations made by both city commissions and consultants alike that have never seen the light of day or substantive public debate, let alone action because a vocal minority spun up huge PR efforts to kill anything that didn't go through them and poisoned the atmosphere with bullshit, "death panel" style, before they were ever heard, and the council simply ran away from the controversy. 

Either way - the problem isn't the money, and it's not really the council, but the people who elect them. 

[Anastasis 23723]

1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Austin paid nothing. 

But there's a catch.
 

So it's a bit of a Rorschach test, isn't it? If your response to that information is that it's too expensive, by implication you are fine with how things are, or at least too cheap to invest in making things better, or too cynical to believe they can get any better, which in turn costs the city tens and hundreds of times that much.

On the other hand, if you are fine with spending the money on the report in the hopes that the results of the studies will be action, I can point you to dozens of examples of excellent plans and clear recommendations made by both city commissions and consultants alike that have never seen the light of day or substantive public debate, let alone action because a vocal minority spun up huge PR efforts to kill anything that didn't go through them and poisoned the atmosphere with bullshit, "death panel" style, before they were ever heard, and the council simply ran away from the controversy. 

Either way - the problem isn't the money, and it's not really the council, but the people who elect them. 

 

LOL. Fucking consultants. Well played. 

 

[MissingInAction 25562]

I should be a consultant for CoA.

[TKthunder2 5059]

Not sure why anyone thinks TRS is not enough to live off of. I literally just went with my dad to TRS and helped him file for retirement.

He started teaching at 22 years old. At 62 he started teaching summer school for his last 3 years. He just retired at 65 with 105% of his highest 3 year’s salary (which was his last 3) that’s is good until the day he dies.

I’m not sure what you mother fuckers are smoking but there is no reason someone like him would need social security.

He was a career teacher doing exactly what the system was designed for. It was NOT designed for people who only teach for 20 years (and neither is social security for that matter).

[demos 3038]

Scratch this BS idea and use a portion to buy all the cyclists fuks Pelatons and get them off the roads.  

The only time you really see people cycling in Austin is on the weekends. Rarely you see anyone using those bike lanes during the week.

[Deej 77852]

3 minutes ago, demos said:

The only time you really see people cycling in Austin is on the weekends. Rarely you see anyone using those bike lanes during the week.

Even the homeless don't use the bike lanes after stealing bikes.

[956 Worldwide 35598]

13 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

A note on that - like most other things that are broken about Austin, this one comes down to the housing shortage. Enrollment is declining for several reasons, but the main reason is that the young middle class families who work in the city can't afford to live in the footprint of the district, and are being replaced by DINKs and affluent immigrants with fewer or no kids. This is also the reason  2/3+ of our police force does not live in the city they patrol. 

This is an issue everywhere. It’s important to understand that the housing crisis is entirely manufactured. It is a natural result of treating housing as an investment and not as places for people to live. 
 

Lots of examples of all this, but one good one is old empty nesters clinging on to houses they don’t need that they should be turning over to young families with kids. But they’re squatting on for dear life because the house is an appreciating asset. And then these same people constantly blocking multifamily developments, smaller plots, etc. because they don’t want to live in house near other people who live in houses, they want to make money off their investment. 
 

Until there is intervention to ensure housing policy and city planning is targeted at providing places for people to live above Al else, we will see more of this shit. 

[Armybrat 41420]

2 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

Not sure why anyone thinks TRS is not enough to live off of. I literally just went with my dad to TRS and helped him file for retirement.

He started teaching at 22 years old. At 62 he started teaching summer school for his last 3 years. He just retired at 65 with 105% of his highest 3 year’s salary (which was his last 3) that’s is good until the day he dies.

I’m not sure what you mother fuckers are smoking but there is no reason someone like him would need social security.

He was a career teacher doing exactly what the system was designed for. It was NOT designed for people who only teach for 20 years (and neither is social security for that matter).

There is a reason most teachers these days will not stay in the profession as long as your dad did. Big kudos to him. 
That recent survey of Texas teachers revealed that 77% were thinking about quitting the profession at the end of the year. This trend may have improved with recent salary increases being approved, but I’ll bet it is still high.
I only lasted 30, but my SIL did 44 at Round Rock HS and also taught night & summer classes for ACC.

FWIW, my DIL has worked in HR teacher recruiting with AISD, LISD, and RRISD for over 20 years. Up until about 5 or 6 years ago her office was flooded with tens of thousands of applicants, now she is scrambling to find qualified people, even with the state loosening some of its requirements. 
Look at Manor ISD - they have had to recruit scores of foreign teachers to fill positions in their district.

Sad to say, but it isn’t as much a desirable job these days as it used to be. It does take a special dedication ….. and a decent environment  to keep them in the classroom.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Armybrat

[956 Worldwide 35598]

12 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

There is a reason most teachers these days will not stay in the profession as long as your dad did. Big kudos to him. 
That recent survey of Texas teachers revealed that 77% were thinking about quitting the profession at the end of the year. This trend may have improved with recent salary increases being approved, but I’ll bet it is still high.
I only lasted 30, but my SIL did 44 at Round Rock HS and also taught night & summer classes for ACC.

FWIW, my DIL has worked in HR teacher recruiting with AISD, LISD, and RRISD for over 20 years. Up until about 5 or 6 years ago her office was flooded with tens of thousands of applicants, now she is scrambling to find qualified people, even with the state loosening some of its requirements. 
Look at Manor ISD - they have had to recruit scores of foreign teachers to fill positions in their district.

Sad to say, but it isn’t as much a desirable job these days as it used to be. It does take a special dedication ….. and a decent environment  to keep them in the classroom.

 

 

I have a theory on the teacher recruitment issue, as someone who comes from a family of teachers. My grandma sent two kids to college (private!) and retired and lived nicely on TRS after my granddad died when mom was young. Long career as an elementary school teacher, she lived frugally but owned her home and retired dependent on no one and launched kids into the solid upper middle class. 
 

Many teachers, the “recruiting base” as it were, were smart women who were wives and moms and teaching was a socially acceptable career in their milieu that engages your brain and offers social status and getting out of the house while still being completely ok with accepted norms of what women and moms should do. This was pretty much my life in school, aside from a few coaches (and families with two teacher parents), most of my teachers were smart wives of professional men in town. 
 

Now, any career is open to women and wives and tons of the best and brightest women who in past years would have been teachers are now in boardrooms or doctors or lawyers or whatever. And at the same time, it’s really goddam gross how the profession is under attack from some segments of our society. 
 

The solution here is not to return to the old expectations because I am not a Cro-Magnon. The solution is to treat teaching like a fucking PROFESSION and pay people like PROFESSIONALS and respect them like professionals. You want people who love the job but love don’t pay the bills. You want people who love the job and who see it as a path to a good middle class livelihood and social status and to make it attractive to people who want to go places. Cause teaching kids is an important fucking job and we skated far too long on women’s uncompensated labor. 

[We’reTexas 1477]

29 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This is an issue everywhere. It’s important to understand that the housing crisis is entirely manufactured. It is a natural result of treating housing as an investment and not as places for people to live. 
 

Lots of examples of all this, but one good one is old empty nesters clinging on to houses they don’t need that they should be turning over to young families with kids. But they’re squatting on for dear life because the house is an appreciating asset. And then these same people constantly blocking multifamily developments, smaller plots, etc. because they don’t want to live in house near other people who live in houses, they want to make money off their investment. 
 

Until there is intervention to ensure housing policy and city planning is targeted at providing places for people to live above Al else, we will see more of this shit. 

Great account to follow in the trenches of the housing crisis. 
 

 

 

[956 Worldwide 35598]

2 minutes ago, We’reTexas said:

Great account to follow in the trenches of the housing crisis. 
 

 

 

Thanks for the follow. And it’s not just homelessness, it’s the biggest single contributor for cost of living crisis among working people, even professionals. 
 

The solution is absolutely the one that a six year old could figure out: build more houses/housing, and build them close to where people need to work. 
 

But that’s also the solution that upsets almost everyone who is already living somewhere. 

[TKthunder2 5059]

27 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

There is a reason most teachers these days will not stay in the profession as long as your dad did. Big kudos to him. 
That recent survey of Texas teachers revealed that 77% were thinking about quitting the profession at the end of the year. This trend may have improved with recent salary increases being approved, but I’ll bet it is still high.
I only lasted 30, but my SIL did 44 at Round Rock HS and also taught night & summer classes for ACC.

FWIW, my DIL has worked in HR teacher recruiting with AISD, LISD, and RRISD for over 20 years. Up until about 5 or 6 years ago her office was flooded with tens of thousands of applicants, now she is scrambling to find qualified people, even with the state loosening some of its requirements. 
Look at Manor ISD - they have had to recruit scores of foreign teachers to fill positions in their district.

Sad to say, but it isn’t as much a desirable job these days as it used to be. It does take a special dedication ….. and a decent environment  to keep them in the classroom.

 

 

I agree with everything you said I come from a family of teachers (all 4 grandparents, dad, sister, and 2 aunts all teach/taugh) and I honestly think I should have been a teacher but I knew the money wasn’t great so I went into tech.

Still I don’t understand how people think TRS is not sufficient enough when properly utilized. If cost of living in Austin is high (which it is) the how is paying into both TRS and SSI help with that problem.

[LCHorn 2751]

8 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I have a theory on the teacher recruitment issue, as someone who comes from a family of teachers. My grandma sent two kids to college (private!) and retired and lived nicely on TRS after my granddad died when mom was young. Long career as an elementary school teacher, she lived frugally but owned her home and retired dependent on no one and launched kids into the solid upper middle class. 
 

Many teachers, the “recruiting base” as it were, were smart women who were wives and moms and teaching was a socially acceptable career in their milieu that engages your brain and offers social status and getting out of the house while still being completely ok with accepted norms of what women and moms should do. This was pretty much my life in school, aside from a few coaches (and families with two teacher parents), most of my teachers were smart wives of professional men in town. 
 

Now, any career is open to women and wives and tons of the best and brightest women who in past years would have been teachers are now in boardrooms or doctors or lawyers or whatever. And at the same time, it’s really goddam gross how the profession is under attack from some segments of our society. 
 

The solution here is not to return to the old expectations because I am not a Cro-Magnon. The solution is to treat teaching like a fucking PROFESSION and pay people like PROFESSIONALS and respect them like professionals. You want people who love the job but love don’t pay the bills. You want people who love the job and who see it as a path to a good middle class livelihood and social status and to make it attractive to people who want to go places. Cause teaching kids is an important fucking job and we skated far too long on women’s uncompensated labor. 

Not to totally thread shit off topic in a different direction, but one flaw in your theory is that 50 years ago one might have compared both teaching and nursing as comparable employment for a skilled female otherwise underemployed elsewhere due to her gender.  I'd think most nurses make 2X over a teacher today, to the point where it's diversifying by pulling a greater proportion of males into it (than earlier generations; it's still overwhelmingly female). 

Anyway, no disagreement here with prescription, but I think your diagnosis may be off.