Union, Teachers and Tenure, oh my

Let me first start out by saying I LOVE teachers. I think the job is one of the hardest. Not thankless. The satisfaction of teaching a child to read, improve reading skill, would be the greatest thank you. And as I am typing this, I am leaving an open ended invitation to add your 2 cents worth. Nicely please, because don't have ill intentions.
What is the reason for a teahers union. Well, the question is for any union, but my mind had been on teachers unions lately. I 100% agree will the movement to get rid of teachers unions and tenure. Why can we not higher or fire a teacher and pay a teacher according to their merit, experience and successes. Mostly I pose this question to the good teachers out there. You know who you are. Most likely, you are the ones that LOVE your job and our kids that you teach. Wouldn't it be better incentive to do a great job, if your raises depended on it.
My oldest has had her share of crummy teachers. As a matter of fact, she had one teacher that didn't even know her name at the 1st SEP 3 months in to the school year. She was a whole grade behind in 2,3 and 4th grade, until we got her a tutor in 5th.Every teacher would say, don't worry, she'll catch up.
My 3rd, couldn't speak intelligibly until this year, and the first time any of his teachers mentioned anything was 2nd grade. Then she asked if she wanted her to initiate a speech eval, and I never heard about it again after she agreed to do it. This was after I took him in to be tested at 4 through the school district, and they told me he wasn't delayed enough qualify for speech therapy.
Anyway, enough about my kids school experience. They are now in a local charter school, and I am thrilled with where they are. #1 is thriving. She is completely caught up, and loves school. They even deal with #2's free spirit pretty well. They are in a group with 10 other kids, so they are better able to customize learning to where they are at.
So, back on topic. I read the other day, the superintendent in NJ schools, when fired, was given a 741,000$ severance package. On top of 120k a year to retire. And that was someone let go.
In this same state. Spending in a class room was 341k for the year. the teachers only made 57k of that. The rest of it went to administration, and school lunches. The janitors are making 6 figures. I don't have statistics on UT schools, but I will look those up also.
Wouldn't it make more sense to cut administration, and give their salary to teachers that were good, no great at their job? Or hire more and cut class sizes?
Why not? tenor. and Unions. My husband isn't entitled to his job. If he sucks at it, he would get fired. It's the way life works.
I could go into why these two things are connected. but do I need to? can you not see the unions fighting for and voting on job security like tenure.
Unions in America were first started for good reason. Child labor, dangerous work environment. Those things are not necessary anymore.
I am betting that if we cut administration, paid teachers on according to their abilities, the ones that loved their jobs would be making 6 figures. I would be happy with that.
Is my view flawed? What do you think? Do you take my thoughts on school reform as criticizing teachers? I think it's opposite. I think good teaches ought to be rewarded. I think crappy teachers should loose their jobs. They do damage to the kids they are teaching. They should not be given an early retirement .(which was the argument I over heard at a dinner the other night. Because as it was stated, by a teacher, that was the only way to get rid of them. How backwards is that)
Please tell me what you think.

We Went, We Saw, We Came Home

Last weekend we picked up and went to Vegas.
This here my friends, is what I consider a trip to Vegas. Not your typical Vegas vacay. We don't gamble. We don't drink. We don't smoke. What we do in Vegas, doesn't need to stay in Vegas. As a matter of fact, that slogan makes me cringe.
Our family has now been without network TV for 18 months. Besides Netflix, we don't watch it. Imagine our shock, when we turned the TV on at the hotel, and what we were bombarded with. The commercials were worse than the shows. We saw one add, promoting a service the cable company provided, to now label the adult movies you paid to view, as something generic. So you could hide that purchase from your wife/ employer/ children. (now that there is a commercial for that service, it's no longer discrete) What happened to morality? Values? If pornography was an honest good activity, there would be no need to hide or disguise it.
This place is called the Valley of Fire. It is one of my favorite places in the world. We spent many a family vacations here. Ward camp outs were always here. When I think about going to Vegas, this is the first place I want to go. It is such a beautiful place. When Trent talks about how much he loves the desert, I can agree with him when I think of here. I was so excited to share it with my kids. Next time we come, we will pull the camper with us, so we can stay here, instead of the hotels in town.
Vegas really is different. It even has a different feel to it. I have family that lives out there, so we will go to see them. But, it will not be a destination for a vacation.
It was a quick down and back, we had dinner with my sister and then my mom. It was a nice weekend away. And in true Whipple fashion, we took the long road back. We came up through Caliente and the back side of the Great Basin National Park. Then up through Wendover. We haven't seen the Ghost towns of western UT, those will be another trip.