Eduwonk describes how the teachers' union in San Diego is doing its utmost to prevent reform and harm children for its own profit.
Superintendent Alan Bersin is poised to reorganize several of the city's chronically underperforming schools. At two of the three schools a majority of teachers have voted to make the schools charter schools to help facilitate this and at all three 60-80 percent of parents voted to do the same. Remember, these are not schools that didn't do well "on a single test" but schools that have not done right by students for years.Yet the school board member who represents these schools has apparently decided to oppose this and in the process force a vote on buying out the remainder of Bersin's contract because he won't play ball. Possible reasons for her move? (A) It's a great way for her to make a lifelong friend of the Bersin-loathing teachers' union there. Or (B) concerns that if several schools in her district become semi-autonomous it will hurt her political clout and power on the board. There is no (C) because it's generally agreed that changes are in the interest of the kids....600 parents showed up at a recent school board meeting to push for these changes.
Note that it's not even the teachers; in two of the three schools the teachers affirmed the proposed changed. It's the unions that are attempting to thwart the will of the parents, teachers, and administrators. It's unfortunate, but teachers' unions (and most unions, these days) are societal parasites that don't benefit anyone but their rulers -- not even their members.
I can say, without a doubt, that this is one of the very small number of things which I agree with you 100% on.
I've found, though, that unions act very differently from one locale to another. Some school districts have very good relationships with their unions.. because the union "plays ball", so to speak..... and some districts have very bad relationships with their unions.. where the unions don't compromise on anything and leave the administration with no options (what I call "not playing ball").
If there were no unions that don't play ball, I think our public education system would be MUCH better off.
I'm glad, by the way, that my job (network administrator) is non-union. Realistically, it can't be a union position, because I have access to the information of not only the administration, but all of the teaching and support staff as well. It would present a significant conflict of interest.
That's not to say that the union didn't TRY to make my job a union job... but thankfully they backed down from that.
Mark: I have read about a time when unions were useful and even necessary, but I think that time is pretty much gone. Everyone, including workers, would be better off nowadays if unions disappeared from America entirely.
Maybe, maybe not. I'm not totally convinced that unions have to disappear entirely for the problems with them to go away... which is to say nothing about the feasibility of it happening in the first place.
If unions didn't:
1. Protect and promote the incompetent or unqualified
and..
2. Hold so much power, especially in public school districts,
then I'd have no problem with them.
The private sector has more resources at its disposal for dealing with unruly unions than does the public sector.
Mark: Well right, I don't think they can be dispensed with until/unless workers get fed up with them. As it is, the percentage of workers who are unionized is shrinking. I think people definitely have the right to form unions, but unions shouldn't get special protection under the law. Employers should be free to fire entire unions if they want to.
I feel we still need the blue-collar unions; perhaps more than ever before; but as far as I'm concerned the unions we need to do away with are the American Medical Association, American Bar Association, and the Teachers Unions.
Frank: I agree that the three you mention are parasitic, but what about blue collar unions like the longshoremen in Long Beach? They make over $100k per year for unloading boxes, and from what I've read they have absolutely no concern for port security. I think unions lead to lazy, greedy workers. Why? Because unions have special legal protection. If employers were free to deal with unions (fire all union employees, for instance) then unions would be a lot more humble, but still more powerful than individual workers.
While unions are a very large problem in education so are truancy and discipline. Truancy must be controled by more money being spend for officiers and being sure that the children lose 2 more hours out of their day than they would have if they had gone to school in the first place. Discipline is another problem and one that is very large. If a teacher spends more time controling the children then where is the time to teach.
What Bush has done is put a thorn in the saddle to try to get education leaders to set up and take notice and get to work on the problems by "Leave no child behind."
Robert