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The Edutopia Poll
by Sara Bernard
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc., made some disparaging remarks about teacher unions a few weeks ago. His comments included the assertion that "what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way. This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy." Though this remark has gotten him some bad press, some say Jobs is right; teacher unions can prevent principals and other management from making the best decisions for schools. Others, however, contend that teacher unions protect educators' rights and in that way effect positive change in the education community. What do you think?
Union Contract caused and abusive teacher to stay
Submitted by C T (not verified) on June 12, 2008 - 11:47.
My son was a unfortunate victum of abuse from a Union Teacher. This mistreatment placed my son in the hospital. He is still being treated today. She got a raise and a new school. I have the bills and a damaged child. Thanks. Abuse was admitted by the school district.
Unions
Submitted by Rebecca Day Petheram (not verified) on June 11, 2008 - 12:08.
The assumption here is that administrators can make those kinds of decisions. Administrators are just as likely to be duds as any others in the system. Unions slow things down, surely. But they are indispensible in protecting teachers, staff, community, and students from whimsical administrative decisions of all sorts.
Steve Jobs and teacher unions
Submitted by Tom Siembor (not verified) on April 10, 2008 - 04:47.
I was in construction for 3 years, 15 years in retail management before coming back to education. Yes, tenure is an imperfect system. But the system does protect against the "at will" dismissals of un-tenured dedicated young people that districts hire and fail to guide. For the long hours, demands of the public and the district, and the accompanying pay scale, I can't say teaching is a great career choice today. I average some 55-60 hours a week and get paid half of what I would be making back in business-and all this to get heat from some dude taking a over-long lunch and padding his expense account. And don't start about the "vacations"-they're spent taking classes or doing course work,or teaching summer school. Get real. We're in the trenches-don't knock it until you've walked a mile in my size 13s, Steve.
Steve Jobs fails to realize
Submitted by Stephen Rahn (not verified) on March 6, 2007 - 20:08.
Steve Jobs fails to realize that not every state has a teacher's union. Are any of them perfect? Absolutely not. It is typical of people who don't really know much about a subject to latch onto one aspect and think that fixing that one thing will fix everything. Jobs is just feeding his massive ego here.
The issue is truely double
Submitted by Raj (not verified) on March 6, 2007 - 20:43.
The issue is truely double edged - unions protect teachers from admins who would make choices based only on $$s, but also make some people complacent and not willing to change. If I had the choice, I would say that while unions certainly help maintain a minimum standard in the classroom, they don't really push people to get further than that minimum. Admin on the other hand is saddled with having to deal with more money choices than anything else, making it hard for them to promote innovation.
The other part of the equation is that in many parts of the North Atlantic, teachers and school admin are not very well respected for their work, whereas in other parts of the world, teachers and related staff are highly respected. We have to look into changing that as well.
It's hard for people to do the extra bit, when people outside (parents et al) don't even care about the basics of what they do.
Larry Leverett's post, Are
Submitted by Diane (not verified) on March 6, 2007 - 21:16.
Larry Leverett's post, Are Teacher Unions the Problem?, as well as the interesting reader comments made in response to his post are worth considering.
Granted, some local teacher
Submitted by mtm (not verified) on March 6, 2007 - 23:51.
Granted, some local teacher unions stand in the way of the kinds of drastic change we need in today's schools, but the changes that are necessary today need to be TEACHER DRIVEN. Teachers need to feel free to try new things and use new technologies at their professional discretion, without fear of losing their jobs. Many teachers who are on the cutting edge of change in education, are doing so without much support from their colleagues; not that these colleagues are necessarily against change as much as the fact that many are tapped out physically and emotionally (too many students, NCLB, other obligatory state tests). These teachers who are champions of change need union protection and support, because they will occasionally step on toes. Without unions, teachers can be fired for anything at all.
What do we do to get rid of the "dead weight," (bad teachers who are just hanging around for retirement bennies)? Because these people are protected by unions also. Well, that's another subject for another day.
I have been a teacher for 36
Submitted by Ken Messersmith (not verified) on March 7, 2007 - 04:12.
I have been a teacher for 36 years and have taught in both union and non-union schools. I have seen many union member teachers fired because they were poor teachers. In none of those cases was the union able to save the teacher's job. The union could insist that the teacher's due process rights were honored but they could not save the teacher's job if there was well documented evidence of poor teaching.
I have also seen poor teachers retained because their administrator supervisor didn't have the courage to confront the situation and to document the evidence. Once a gutless administrator gives a poor teacher acceptable reviews for several years it is hard to get rid of that poor teacher.
I believe we are all to blame for the lack of school reform. Families and athletic organizations insist on shorter school days and school years so kids have time for sports. Teachers want their summers off. School boards believe "if it was good enough for me it is good enough for today's students." Communities don't want to spend the money it would take to make changes. The blame should not fall on the unions alone.
The charter school that I
Submitted by Ann Marie Wellhouse (not verified) on March 7, 2007 - 05:15.
The charter school that I founded and taught at with my teaching principal husband is the highest scoring high school in San Diego County. We have mostly blue-collar to low income kids. Our teachers are paid a higher wage (with full benefits) than the other high schools and have much better working conditions (15 kids in a class and a total student load of about 100 kids).
We don't have a union and our teacher turnover rate is extremely low. We do have a great contract with our teachers but they are held accountable to school success including but not limited to test scores. They may use any instruction and curriculum that suits them and works for their students.
So accountability plus freedom to innovate equals everyone wins. Who needs a union?
As I see it the teachers
Submitted by Harriet Winters (not verified) on March 7, 2007 - 14:01.
As I see it the teachers unions have done what they set out to do:
• Insure that teachers and administrators have lofty pension plans;
• Excellent health care benefits;
• Wages significantly higher than the average wage of their districts inhabitants, and they only work 9 month out of a year;
• And don't forget job security, as long as they don't date their students they will be secure in their position no matter how ineffective their teaching methods are.
Where is the incentive to do a better job of educating in a public school system that is protected by legislation that legally supports this initiative with all the financial resources? As I continue to read the Edutopia articles I see that there are teachers that are passionate about their work, and they are a credit to their profession. However, the United States is plagued with average and below average teachers in K-12 that are just putting in their time working toward that goal of retirement. It is human nature to do as little as possible when the competitive incentive is not there.
There is no mystery in why the United States is lossing its competitive edge. Competition is the key word. An unfair advantage has been given to the public school teacher and underachievement and predominantly poorly educated children are the result (according to the Nations Report Card provided by the NAEP and the TIMSS report).
I predict that there will be talk for the next ten to twenty years about trying to fix public school within the parameters of the public school system for two reasons:
• The teachers unions come out strong against any measures that would reform education, and because the teachers unions paid for the political clout that has given them unfair advantage—the ever widening poverty gap, diminished credibility from the international community, and a predominantly low level workforce will continue to be the consequence;
• And cultural relativism and paradigms—we are creatures of habit and conventional ideas.
Unconventional wisdom and initiative outside the parameters of public school is the only way that education as we know it today will be reformed.
Think about it—if we only had one car manufacture and had no choice but to purchase the only model car that was produced by this one car manufacturer what would the result be? Would this car manufacturer make a superior automobile? No there is no incentive to make a superior automobile because of the lack of competition. Our society would be stuck with a very plain simple car.
The concept of one manufacture of goods is a realistic presentation of our education system that is controlled by the teachers unions forcing our society into mediocrity to protect their member's benefits.
Steve Jobs ROCKS!!!
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