White House chief of staff: “Mr president… we’ve found your new Secretary of Education sir”
Might end up attorney general. Have they been on TV before?
Watch the far right rally around this.
I’m sure you are correct, but is there a non-far right anymore?
Neoliberals?
Gotta test that purity. What else would I have to do if I didn’t!?
I’m confused. Calling neolibs centre-right is leftist gatekeeping?
Purity testing is a good thing, quality control is as important for political movements as it is for food
In the US? That’d be the Democrats.
Democrats are right-wing in the rest of the sane world, try again.
Try what again? That’s exactly what I said!
Thank you for identifying yourself
Huh?
when you are that far right you are in Far Reich terroritory
I’m sure it’s theoretically possible to not want to pay your fair share of taxes, while not dunking on any particular minority.
It’s rare though.
It’s always just selfishness with conservatives. It’s not complicated, they’re just selfish assholes through and through. If you wanna know what a conservative will do, just imagine the most selfish move and voila.
Children starving or an extra $50 in property taxes, guess what the conservative picks every single time!
Generally not believing in human rights comes as a package deal.
It’s surprising how quickly they come as well.
I’ve seen perfectly normal people go from “I felt a bit ill after that COVID vaccination, I’ll look it up online” to spreading fake stories about immigrants and having opinions about Hunter Biden. Within months. They’re not even American.
This shit’s a fucking virus, and social media is the vector.
Yeah, they are the ones doing the “No Kings” thoughts & prayers parades
I don’t know how you people don’t get tired of the same boring ass gotchas every day. We get it. You hate everyone who doesn’t have your exact political beliefs.
Anyone who gives a shit that you despise anyone to the right of you is not someone whose opinion I give a flying fuck about.
You care so little that you can’t help but announce it, even
Yes I respond to every 75th message so clearly you GOT ME again. What a genius.
👍 cool. Enjoy continuing to be part of the problem.
You’re helping so much by going around trolling people and doing jackshit else. Thanks a lot FrObOzX.
The people you disagree with are far right… or far left, depending upon your political orientation.
No. I disagree with you, and you’re just an idiot.
What do you disagree with?
You said one thing. Put on your thinking cap, I’m sure even you can figure that one out.
I don’t get the hostility. It seemed like a pretty uncontroversial observation to me. Nobody complains about “the left”, they complain about “the far left”; nobody complains about “the right”, they complain about “the far right”. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together can observe this.
I have no idea why this would upset anybody, but it seems like I’ve triggered some people. Unless you’re just bots, in which case: deuces.
Disinformation actors and tankies complain about the left all the time
If you want a genuine answer, people are upset because you’re expressing a centrist opinion. Centrism more or less advocates for maintaining the status quo. The status quo sucks for most people.
You’re also equating the far left with the far right. To understand why this is upsetting, we can look at some basic definitions. If someone is on the Left, they are generally in favor of more equality, while those on the right want more hierarchy. Equality and hierarchy are opposites. You can see this in a more concrete way by comparing the goals of far-left organizations to the goals of far-right ones.
I think a lot of the confusion comes from the Cold War. Countries like the USSR and China would claim to have far-left intentions while acting in right-wing ways. You cannot achieve left-wing goals through right-wing action.
Even the term “Communist country” is an oxymoron, because Communism advocates for a stateless society, and governments never voluntarily give up power.
the majority of people are not far right.
the issue is that people who are far right, are far more likely to run for office than moderate candidates are. and run better campaigns, and win more votes.
If they’re voting for the far right candidates then they are far right.
I would say they’re heavily misled. What may seem obvious here is invisible on their Twitter feeds, on TV, in their communities, and even Google due to “search customisation”.
Yeah, they are being lied to but part of the problem is they like the lies.
And I would say that’s bullshit.
I find this to be an altruistic if naive mindset.
I think they were asking if there was a non-far “right,” not if there was a non-“far right.”
Ah, so they get elected through divine intervention, then. Logical.
I don’t know. I ask because I cannot explain anyone even tolerating Trump’s actions in any way unless they are far right. I still know people defending his actions… Anyone opposing him in any way, the rest of America thinks is “far left”. So it’s a weird time…
You are captured by the false media narrative that you are one thing or the other.
The vast majority of voters are neither far right or far left. They are moderate. However, moderate people dont’ get any airtime because the extremists here, and everywhere else, paint everyone as either FOR or AGAIN things.
Moderate voters went for Trump because he offered them a better platform to vote for, especially economically. And Trump’s tanking now that his policies are showing to be horrible. But he has 2.5 more years in office.
They’re not moderate, they’re the people who will say “they just need to drop a bomb on that neighborhood” talking about the black neighborhood of course. They love acting moderate in public but they really want genocide against brown people and they want poor people without healthcare to be left in the street to die. Trump is doing exactly what they’ve been saying in private for decades.
You’re talking about the far right, not the moderates. You’re just proving the other commenters point.
Im really not, that’s the average US voter. Idk yeah you can call them far right but then half the country is far right. And his point was that it’s a false media narrative. Completely backwards, it’s literally the mainstream media that works extremely hard to sell these “far right” positions as moderate.
I’m literally citing personal experience.
Why?
Because they can lie with impunity while the rest of us have a conscience.
"He tells it like it is! "
Mr. Ervin has explained that he meant nothing offensive and that we have simply misunderstood his intentions,” the board said.
Uh huh, we just misunderstood (slightly paraphrased) “god you’re hot, what school do you go to?”
There are SO many ways to interpret this, you don’t know what he meant, except for that all those ways are all fucked up in the head
The reply from the petitioner is great. We can’t know his intent, obly he can, so we can only judge his words and actions. Nips that excuse right in the bud.
Maybe he just checked her temperature? And noticed she had a fever? And knew about potential contamination risks, and wanted to know which schuto quarantine?
/s
Oh god, turns out he was an actual doctor who diagnosed her with Ebola by just looking at her boobs!
I became involved because I reside in Washington County, I went to school my entire life in these schools. The things that are happening now have happened for as long as I can remember. It’s the “good ole boy” system. They protect each other and let each other get away with whatever they want, and it needs to stop.
Many such cases, tale as old as time, etc.
Them “good ole boy” s have infested the government at every level. May not be rid of them til they age out.
I’ve been hoping for that for a long time, but for every one that has the grace to age out and die, at least one more ages in.
This is the problem. I’m in my mid-40s and I have seen new “good ol’ boys” move into the system as their predecessors die or retire.
The system is self-perpetuating.
No, this is giving up and letting them have their way with the system until they’re done. Which they’ll never be - they don’t age out because they keep bringing in new good ol’ boys.
They need to be replaced. One by one, step by step, the same way they got in.
And he is sitting next to her and grabs her when he says it… Ewww.
Definitely investigate this guy, i bet he has a BAD history. May be some criminal charges in the future.
He is already not allowed on school grounds unsupervised because of his sexual comments to children from before this incident.
So agreed on the bad history.
sexual comments to children from before this incident.
WTF? Why is he still part of the school board what the fuck
Because in the US pedocracy that kind of behaviour awards you positions of power.
In america, if you are in any sort of position of power you’re not really ‘cool’ unless you travel with the trump/epstein crowd.
I remember trying to be cool. I was 14.
Did it work?
No… :)
Is the girl in question the one blurred out? And is he not touching her? How is that appropriate? It’s not JUST the inappropriate sexual comment, but also TOUCHING of a minor, during a public meeting.
Yup, blurred out cause under the age of 18.
Well… that tells us all we need to know then
Off to the dungeons with him
EDIT: Aaaaaand I’m now finding out they didn’t even stop the meeting. Come the fuck on
Since when is that a thing? Or they didn’t want to be on the news.
Protecting the identity and privacy of victimised children is the default stance for journalists here in the UK. I just assumed that was true in most of the western world… Does Canada identify child victims in news articles then?
The reason this girls been anonymised in this case is likely because she’s already been objectified, and would be subject to further trolling/ harassment from people outraged with the situations outcome and looking for a target to blame.
Just look at what happened to Virginia Guiffre, after publicly coming forward with her allegations she was subject to consistent death threats and harassment. Sparing anyone that situation seems merciful in my eyes.
They’d have to blur her because otherwise she’d be doxxed, and have incels claiming she’s ugly and should be grateful that a man noticed her, and worse. As it is, her name is probably readily available and she is probably getting worse attention than the asshole who harrassed her.
“TSSSSSSSS. GOD, YOU’RE HOT. YOU KNOW THAT?”
🤮 🤮 🤮 🤮 🤮
Launch him into the sun.
“God, it’s so hot…”
As a reminder, escape velocity of the sun is far less energy taxing than reducing velocity to zero to launch them into the sun.
Why waste the fuel on a waste of space? Solar sails and the ultimate banishment
This is why local elections matter people!
How would you know he was a creep based on his campaign alone?
Republican
Fair enough
They… just… laughed?
The member would never have said it in the first place, if the school board culture was not already like that.
Everyone in that room is older
?
He probably could have grabbed her by the pussy.
They laughed at the “alriiiigggght” to her going to whatever school.
Although that only makes sense if they ignored the “for you’re hot” as just normal or joking around or whatever bullshit.
Someone should take one for the team and run for school board member, just to replace that creep. Seriously!
School board member is actually a really powerful position. They usually control the majority of a towns budget and are often the first stepping stone into politics.
How about Dog Walker?
Let me guess.
Evangelical MAGA Republican?
“I’m so surprised,” said no one ever.
Thats what you get when you choose your leaders by popularity contest. That wouldn’t be appropriate even if she was an adult.
how else are you suppose to select school board members? should they be appointed by the town/county or something?
In a sane world, by ability and competence
How do you assess that exactly? What are the qualifications or objective measurements of competence as a school board member?
And furthermore, according to whom? your personal assessment in particular?
There isn’t a single right answer to that and I’m not going to suggest there is.
How any organisation operates, be that public or private, is down to the culture of the organisation, and culture comes from people, process, motivation, legislation, and a whole bunch of factors.
If an organisation has a clear mission, is held organisationally accountable in appropriate ways to that mission and makes people feel professionally enriched and valuable, it will attract competent people. And importantly, an organisation full of competent and principled individuals will attract other competent individuals.
On the flip side, if an organisation is subject to decades of mismanagement, has very poor oversight, doesn’t reward people for being good at their jobs and in fact rewards the wrong behaviours then exactly the opposite will happen. People who are competent at what they do will either leave or be crushed down, while those who know how to play the bootlicking game will be raised up, and this type of organisation again becomes self-perpetuating.
None of this happens overnight, in either direction. Failure can take years or decades, and so can the reverse.
The issue is that it’s self-referential. The org itself gets to define what is good management or bad. Outsides parties, have no say.
And that’s how local school boars work. They are local politics and they have very little external oversight, if any at all. Sort of criminal acts, like a board member embezzling school funds, that violate state law, there isn’t really much criteria over which they can be held accountable, other than winning votes from their local voters.
I live in Boston. I can harp all I want about a local school board in TN, but the only power I have is over my own local school board here, where I can vote. And man the candidates we have… are usually a mix of nutbags and slightly less nutbags. School board elections tend to attract weirdos more than sensible people, IME.
Better that people vote for metrics than candidates I would suggest, and measure against those. If we gotta vote for questions too, so be it.
As defined by our able and competent political leaders? Ha ha ha.
By merit??
who judges that merit? how is it defined?
I hear schools are pretty good at giving people these funny things called “tests” to assess an individual’s knowledge on a certain subject. Not only are schools good at testing, I hear there is a WHOLE INDUSTRY built on creating and running them.
You know, they could give those to other people too I’ll bet! In fact, I’ll bet you can use them to qualify doctors, lawyers, barbers, auto mechanics and all sorts of people!
Oh wait, these are politicians. We shouldn’t do that to them. I don’t know why, but it just feels wrong. Never mind.
Absolutely! It’s just a complete coincidence that the people who the school system is failing are barred from fixing it because in order to pass the test you have to have done well in school. It makes perfect sense.
It’s not like the US has a history of refusing to educate people, and then refusing to let them participate in civic matters by gating that access behind tests. The US certainly has never, say, made passing a test a requirement to vote to disenfranchise people.
And we all know that, of course, that any test would be super effective at preventing the abuse the above article is about. You just put the question “are you sexually attracted to children,” on the test. That way you’d keep out creeps. And no one would ever lie on a test. That’d be ridiculous.
I don’t know why people are disagreeing. It’s a perfect system!
How about a polygraph test/examination. I understand they are known to be inaccurate sometimes. I doubt someone could suppress their deeply held lifelong urges enough to fool one with a question about their sexual desires.
Setting aside the fact that polygraphs are pseudoscience mumbo jumbo that don’t work in any meaningful capacity, and the results of which are really just the vibes of the person running it (with all of their bigotry/biases on full display.)
The bigger issue is that there are over thirteen thousand school districts in the US. If each school board is four people on average, that’s over fifty thousand people you’d have to do polygraphs for. And that’s if all you wanted to do was school boards.
Trying to get all of those people polygraphs would be an absolute logistical nightmare. There aren’t that many polygraphers out there.
And we shouldn’t be legitimizing polygraphs anyway. They have time and time again been shown to be absolute bunk, and to discriminate against people with issues like anxiety (or really, anyone who gets agitated when you accuse them of something). The only people who can reliably pass polygraphs are sociopaths, which feels like the opposite of what you want to be selecting for here.
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there is no test to run for, or be on a school board.
what would this test be, exactly? are you saying school board members should have to pass a civil service type of test before they can run, or after they are elected?
Shhhh, don’t overload them with reason, it’s rare to see this kind of naivete in it’s natural form.
edit: some salty salty lurkers around today, come on in, the waters fine, i’m sure you have coherent arguments to add.
Oh come on, but it’s fun!
Yes, but you have to go slowly or it’ll overwhelm them.
In typical fediverse fashion, the users responding to you have no answer so they get stuck on semantics and counter arguing your question rather than the intent.
I genuinely would like a well thought out response to this too. Would merit be someone with many years of teaching experience? Maybe school administration?
Do those things make that person capable of performing board responsibilities? Do those things preclude them from making creepy remarks (I highly suspect they don’t)
For the record, the dude here has been on the board for 12 years, which should be more than enough time to learn the necessary skill set to do the job. Doesn’t make him less creepy though.
Perhaps the argument that it isn’t possible to assess merit for a job position is so far outside the realms of reason that asking for clarification is the only way to formulate an answer.
But if you want a simple, quotable answer for the obvious question as it is written, here you go:
- Asses the criteria for which a job would be considered to be successfully performed.
- Check if historical evidence/experience/current skill/expected future growth gives indication that the candidate could meet or exceed those criteria.
- Rank the candidates, based on how well they match to the success criteria.
- ???
- Profit?
It’s tremendously disappointing to see people act like assessing fitness for a role isn’t a thing that has been going on since the dawn of civilisation.
Get a grip.
Now, if you want argue that this isn’t how things are currently done ? I’m right there with you.
The system is a shambolic remnant of what it should be ? couldn’t agree more.
A lot of it is probably by design ? sure, i’m down for that perspective.
But “It isn’t possible to assess merit for a job role”, is a troll at best or extreme ignorance at worst.
If people weren’t asking “are you sure that this is what you meant?” i’d be worried for the state of basic reasoning.
Since you went generic instead of specific to the circumstance: this man has 12 years experience as a board member. Would he not have the qualifications to perform the job?
It’s not like he did this in his first year, or even first few years… At least not that we know of.
The answer is generic …which means it can be applied to the specific circumstance.
Here is an example, as the answer to your question :
this man has 12 years experience as a board member. Would he not have the qualifications to perform the job?
Going by the example evaluation steps i provided, he would have the qualifications to perform the job , if:
- The success criteria for the position were known
- His history/skillset/experience/future prospects were likely to meet or exceed those criteria
If you want to know if he’s the most qualified for the job you also need to:- Rank all the candidates, based on how well they match to the success criteria.
and he would need to be at the top of the rankings.If you’re going to ask who does these evaluations in the specific example being talked about, it would be the voters, perhaps a final approval board as well, if one exists in these scenarios.
Outside of that example, it can vary.
I shouldn’t have to but I’m going to point out that i said this is a simple quotable answer, not that it was the only answer, or even the best answer.
My argument has always been that evaluation of fitness for a role isn’t impossible. Not that there is a perfect method, nor that these methods are being used competently or at all. Just that they do exist.
As for personal opinion, this guy sounds like an asshole, i personally know lots of incompetent people in positions they neither earned nor are qualified for, I’m not saying the current state of things is good, because i don’t think it is.
Just to be clear, you’re arguing that merit/competence can’t be accurately judged and therefore should be ignored in favour of popularity ?
it can’t be judged without well-defined criteria, no.
seriously, what is the qualification or criteria for being a good school board member? tell me. I’d like to know.
because as far as I am aware, there absolutely is none. anyone can run for school board.
it can’t be judged without well-defined critical, no.
That’s a partial answer at best , a nice deflection though.
So your argument is that there is no possible criteria by which competence/ability can be judged for a school board position so popularity is the best option ?
seriously, what is the qualification or criteria for being a good school board member? tell me. I’d like to know because as far as I am aware, there absolutely is none.
Once you answer the original question or the newly revised version above i can give you some idea on this.
anyone can run for school board.
Who can run for a school board and how a school board member is evaluated for the position are unrelated.
It’s not an argument. It’s a fact.
My local school board anyone can run. The only requirement is you are a resident of the district you represent, and you are over 18, and you are a registered voter. That’s literally it. There are no other requirements, qualifications, or criteria for running for school board.
You should ask people in a professional setting that work with schools this instead of demanding the answers from the black box of the internet.
No u!
Seriously, do you even vote in your local school board elections? I do. If so, what criteria do you use? I vote according to the educational platform they propose.
None of that has anything to do with merit of qualifications that are hypothetically being raised as criteria for evaluating a school board member’s performance or competency.
It’s not demanding answers, it’s pointing out the typical lemmy/reddit hypocracy of sitting on a illusory high horse, getting outraged, and refusing to actually deal with the problem on your local level where you do have the ability to make a difference.
or if you want to be really extreme, you could move to this district in TN and run for school board yourself.
That’s not even required (though it would most likely be more accurate ) , there are some easy , low-hanging fruit answers to this question that don’t need expertise.
I’m just interested in seeing if they really think popularity is the best option here.
Do you know what a bad faith argument is?
Yes, and it’s not this. I’m not making an argument either. I’m asking you a clear and obvious question.
Pretending you don’t know what merit is is a bad faith argument
So your general point is a concern. Who can you trust to make the judgement. But that doesn’t mean you should just toss up your hands either. As was pointed out, tests of various sorts could be done and the results presented to the voters so that they have more to go on than the number of lawn signd they have seen for a person. The write ups in the guides are nearly pointless. They can say anything they want in there. For a person running for reelection, their voting record would be nice to give voters easy access to. There are lots of ways to present the voters with objective information so that they can choose based on thier preferences. But none of that happens today.
it’s a democratically elected position.
the judgement is the judgement voters of that district.
do you vote in your own local school board elections? I do, and yeah you vote based on the person’s policy stated positions. however, just because I do that, doesn’t mean lots of candidates I don’t vote for, don’t get elected and push policies I don’t agree with… because they get more votes than the candidates I vote for did.
Also, why do you assume that the voters in this school district, don’t want this guy? He may very well be who they think is best for the job. If you don’t live in this district… you don’t get to vote for the school board there.
As a voter, I have found that there is a significant lacking of useful information to make a decision on. I put in a fair bit of effort and often feel like I have nowhere near enough. And that is how the politicians want it. That way the majority of voters to have very little information of substance to go on. That way they can win on charisma. And they don’t have to do anything positive for the voters to move up. They just have to please the political powers in the area to get endorsements, campaign help, and straight up donations so they can move to the next level. But when it comes to school boards. Most won’t move to the next level. But they take advantage of the way the system is set up to get elected. They probably even believe that their opinions are the will of the voter, when the voter barely knows anything about their real opinions.
lol wtf
oh yeah, this is America
he loves god, so what
