No matter how you guys dance around the subject, facts are facts:
(1) public schools have a huge advantage in resources compared to private schools.
(2) publics have a virtual government-mandated monopoly.
(3) teacher unions would not exist unless they were needed; in this case, to fight monopoly.
(4) Until you get rid of your monopoly, you will have unions.
Like Iran and the USA, each uses the other to justify their individual existences.
Here’s my peroration and summary:
Oh! I like this game!
A step toward a workers paradise, comrade!
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
No matter how you guys dance around the subject, facts are facts:
(1) public schools have a huge advantage in resources compared to private schools.
[/quote]
So? Walmart has a huge advantage in resources compared to Hagbergs Country Market in Lake Elmo, MN. Hagbergs seems to be doing pretty well.
Does it matter that it’s gov’t mandated? What if public schools had the same enrollment and resources, relative to private schools, with out federal or state support? What’s your definition of a monopoly? At what point are private schools popular enough not to need teachers’ unions?
Bullshit. They support the monopoly. They are enabled by the monopoly.
Until we get rid of the unions, we will have a monopoly.
How do public schools use teachers unions to justify their existence?
[quote]The Remora wrote:
No matter how you fishes swim around the subject, facts are facts:
(1) Sharks have a huge advantage in resources compared to little fish schools.
(2) Sharks have a virtual top-of-the-food-chain-mandated monopoly.
(3) Remoras would not exist unless they were needed; in this case, to fight the sharks.
(4) Until you get rid of your sharks, you will have remoras.
[/quote]
And, I ask again-- please provide some references to where the remoras have tried to eradicate or even supported eradicating the shark?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
This solves everything:
(1) Make teachers exempt from all income taxes.
(2) A 3% surtax is placed on all other incomes. Said money to be used in the following way:
(a) all teachers begin at $50,000 per year.
(b) each receives a raise of $2500/year, so each earns $100,000 after 20 years.
(3) All teachers receive $1,000,000 after 30 years of service.
(4) All teachers receive a retirement condo in their state of service.
There. We’ll be flooded by brilliant people and America will enter a new Golden Age. [/quote]
You’ve thrown money at the problem like a good little liberal. But, as most of us know it’s not about paying teachers more, it’s not about getting smarter teachers. It’s about getting teachers who actually CARE about helping the kids more than they care about their precious salary and benefits package and time off. As I’ve already said 40 years ago teachers made far less on average than they do today and grades were higher.
[/quote]
Wow, there’s so much wrong with this…
The number of administrators has doubled since 1992. The number of teachers is flat. Ask an ADMINISTRATOR where your money went. Not to the teachers.
You want teachers who care? Care about them! You don’t expect the pediatrician who cares for your child’s body to be happy with $40,000 or $50,000 per year (especially after many years of service). But you expect the person who cares for your child’s mind to wonder where they’re going to get the money to send their own kid to college, get a new roof on the house, or replace the car with 400,000 miles on it.
Since you didn’t believe in free markets (because you got education for ‘free’), you got lousy teaching. Okay. You got just exactly what you deserved.
[/quote]
You keep throwing that comparison to doctors out there.
How many teachers are held personally and professionally accountable for the education of a student (malpractice). None.
How many have to go through 12 years of school to become a teacher? None.
How many people do you know who can perform surgery on their own kid, or diagnose and treat a myriad of illness? None. (unless they also happen to be a doctor)
How many people consistently blow public school scores out of the water with homeschooling?
Enough to make your comparison of teachers to doctors appear as exactly what it is.
Amongst the statements that you have made in this thread that are either complete bullshit or based on bullshit, the comparison of teachers to doctors has to be of the highest content of bullshit.
Also, I know a few teachers. None of them are even remotely worried about putting a roof on their house or replacing a road weary car. They are more concerned with tax shelters, which neighborhood they are going to upgrade to, and what features they would like on their next new car.
These poor attempts at an emotional plea by using hyperbole are also, as should be expected, BULLSHIT!
You know better HH. You don’t need to lie and look like an ass to present a valid point when you have one.
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
Also, I know a few teachers. None of them are even remotely worried about putting a roof on their house or replacing a road weary car. They are more concerned with tax shelters, which neighborhood they are going to upgrade to, and what features they would like on their next new car.[/quote]
My wife’s a teacher, and we either need to move to whatever district these figments of your imagination teach, or you’re a fucking liar.
I’m going with B.
People outside NYC and even those in NYC but outside what is going on with NYC Teachers are believing what the Mayor and the Chancellor are saying rather than hearing the facts
State Law for the rest of the State says that before you can bring a tenured teacher up on “charges” you need the School Board (an independent elected body) to vote on each charge.
The law was changed so that in BYC only (where the Mayor got them to change the law so he is in charge) a Community School Superintendent (the Principal’s immediate supvsr) can accommodate the Principal by signing off on that Principal does not like. Now the Chancellor (Klein who was btrought in to get rid of tenure and bust the union --after all he is the most famous and successful “trustbuster” in the US who took on Bill Gates and won–but Klein knows nothing about education!) wants the law changed again so Principals have greater “flexibility” and do not have to get approval of their supervisor.
Tenure once granted is by law a Constitutional Property right that cannot be taken away, and should not be taken away easily. If you want to give no more tenure and you find that you can recruit acceptable level of teachers in the numbers and at the salaries you want teaching your kids --that’s fine with me but this is what teachers have to go through to get permanent tenure in NY.
They need to have a permanent or permanently renewable teaching certificate. To get that they need a master’s degree in a field relevant to their teaching, they need three years of experience for this employer (and most have much more because it takes them longer to get the permanent license which requires the Master’s Degree, at least 36 semester hours in the subject they teach, at least 24 semester hours in teaching methods. Then they must pass 3 standardized tests 1) in their subject, 2) in liberal arts (are they an educated person who can pass a test in all scholarly subjects) 3) a test in teaching methods and trends. They must write essays for part of their grade in at least two of the standardized tests. This is so parents and students can be assured they are dealing with educators who can render excellence of instruction.
If they do all this and they are rated as doing a good job for their students for three or more years,
they used to be granted tenure so that such quality professionals would stay at the wages that they are paid.
NYC teachers salaries begin at $45,500 for a new teacher but one who has earned a first or providional license. Needs the subject area and teaching courses and needs to pass two out of the three standarized tests (the subject mstter test is needed for tenure as is the actual master’s degree).
The absolute top salary a teacher with at least 5 years prior experience and either a Ph.D. or “ebt” (everything but the thesis) can earn is $62,600 entering the NYC schools. It takes 22 years in the NYC school system and the Ph.D. or “ebt” to ever get to the top salary of $100,049. Teachers in NYC work very, very hard to plan lessons that will engage even the most non-academic deprived student who never has had a serious conversation about anything with anyone ever. Middle class kids get instruction from adults and peer 24/7/365. By the time they get in school they have preformed “cubbyholes” in their brains to put every bit one new information in its place and associate it with related information. Students whose parents, friends other contacts do not have this themselves to offer their kids 1) need opportunties themselves for new learning so they can start having real conversations with their kids. NYC teachers get their students for only 8% of their waking hours during the year. It is a Herculean task to make up the difference compared to other students who are exposed to new learning for the majority of their waking day. The changes will come when we spend more on educating the parents who did not get adequate education of their own because they did not “get it” when they students themselves. They at least are mature enough to know what they have missed and with proper incentives will sign up and change the “culture” for the youngsters. Teachers also spend hours and hours grading papers to understand how the students are progressing, give feedback and assistance to the students in what each student is finding difficult and to ensure the students do the work they need to do to master the material.
Then comes along Bloomberg and Klein (B/K)and decide they can better reach their goals of tenure and union busting by promising the Principals to almost double their salaries if they give up tenure and get the standardized scores of the students raised. The Principals agree to this. Simultaneously, B/K open a “Leadership Academy” and start replacing Principals with very young inexperienced Principals who come out of their “1-year wonder” program. These Principals now arrive in the schools and find experienced veteran teachers, who have been building their craft for decades, who have networking contacts to connect their students with all sorts of great social, educational, vocational, opportuities, and who also are able to offer their help to the new Principals. THey know all the Chancellor’s regulations, > 10% hold doctorate degrees. They know what the students can do and what reported stats of students test scores are “pie in the sky.”
The very teachers who most help the new Principals, are the ones the fear and feel most insecure with. Thus when the Principals err and the seasoned teachers grieve it or suggest better ways, these young Principals fear they are losing control of their schools, not respected by the most respected teachers. As incentive B/K do two more things. They change school budgets to include actual teacher salaries not only # of teachers allotted (which was never done before) and they tell supervisors that the actual teacher salary of $70-75,000 p.a. must be reduced to $60-65,000 p.a. and that this can be accomplished by encouraging leaves by higher paid teachers, encouraging retirement of higher paid teachers and BY BRINGING HIGHER PAID TEACHERS UP ON DISCIPLINARY CHARGES.
Almost all of the 600-800 (not 100) teachers being confined to huge overcrowded germ-infested places where they may not use any electronic devices, are monitored by video and security guards and harassed by low level employees who “boss” the “reassigned teachers” in demeaning ways, are the best not the worst teachers. They are ALL tenured – non-tenured teachers can be fired immediately. Sure there are a handful < 10% who would have been taken out of the classroom 10-15 years ago (and 70% of those were not fired after a hearing but half did get some lesser discipline). This means that out of over 600 teachers about 30 did something that in other district and at other times in NYC worthy of a fine, or a suspension or firing if really bad conduct was involved.
The Mayor and the Chancellor say the process takes years and that is because of the union contract – that is plain propaganda. Sufficient arbitrators could be appointed through the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) to complete everyone of the hearings in 60 days (and remember most are up on ludicrous, ridiculous, trivial and discriminatory charges e.g. unauthorized donation of a plant to the school, poor rug management (the supervisor did not approve of how the 2nd grade teacher arranged the students on the rug for story time), did not update “word wall” (in fact had the observor looked, he would have seen there were two “word walls” last weeks to remind and reinforce those words as well as this week’s), etc. In one shool where less than 1/3 of students in 9th grade make it to the 10th grade in any one year, such observer comments as “one student appeared not to be paying attention,” “not everyone habded in the homework assignment” could be said of any teacher in the school, but is is written about only the teachers the Principal wants to get rid of and is suppressed in the observation reports of teachers favored by the Principal.
B/K want the public to believe that the teachers in the rubber room are all dangerous and that it is the union’s fault they can’t be fired. What the truth is that B/K want to keep all the teachers under “snake pit” conditions away from practicing their profession, depressed and taking anti-depressants because they did nothing to deserve it, going to counselling because they are in shock that after 30 years of winning awards (one teacher was Giuliani’s “Teacher of the Year” and has been there since 2004 and his trial which finally begun last May will not finish before summer.
B/K want the conditions to be so bad that they quit before the trial ever comes up because even their hand picked arbitrator’s won’t fire people who have done nothing wrong! And that is the other reasoon it takes so long to get a trial B/K got the law changed so that instead of getting ad hoc arbitrators picked by the Dept of Ed and the teacher mutually (as for any other arbitration in the State and for teachers outside NYC. No B/K want their little panel of the same tried and true arbitrators that want to keep their cushy jobs at $100,000-$150,000 for 54 days work a year (that is another reason it takes so long) so they bend over backwards to make mountains out of molehills. One teacher was injured by a student, in pain, took pain medication as she had just returned from leave for a back injury and had to fill out an injury report. She printed the Principal’s name on the line where it said “name of Principal or site supervisor” and then to a slightly different cue on another line she also BLOCK PRINTED “MS. ORTIZ.” The arbitrator said it was inadvertent, there was no intent to deceive, there was nothing to be gained. But the Dept. Educ. wanted an acclaimed committed teacher fired for that, because the Principal wanted her out because she made constructive criticism to improve the school environment for her students. So the arbitrator “saved her job” did not fire her but fined her $10,000.00 so she would better proof read what she fills out (while injured, in pain, and on two pain relieving medications one an opiate analgesic Vicodin prescribed by her physician she is fining the teacher so she will proof read better in the future, what to this teacher is an enormous amount of money). That teacher also was confined to a Rubber Room for 3 years. Another teacher who was completely exonerated by her arbitrator who said the students all lied because she failed them because they deserved to be failed had to endure the rubber room for two years
The arbitrator who gave the $10,000 fine for block printing Ms. Ortiz, the Principal, on the wrong line is gone at the union’s request, but also is gone a fair arbitrator whom the Dep’t Ed did not want for any more cases.
There is an arbitrator who fires everyone that the employer wants fired whether justified or not. The Union wanted her out years ago. The Dept. Ed. traded keeping her for an extra seat on the Collective Bargaining Committee (“CBC”). The union took the extra seat on the CBC and the arbitrator keeps on firing people. Some teachers are so afraid of her that they quit as the trial begins – when they were wonderful teachers. In 2008 she fired a teacher who sued the Dept Ed. The Dept. of Ed. settled the case for almost 8 years of net pay. So that is your taxpayer money too. It is in your interest that the wrongdoing against the teachers stops.
Demand that NYC teachers get all the rights that tenured teachers have in the rest of the state --because it is the best for kids and teachers. a) an independent board reveiws the charges before teachers are taken from the classroom and before they are charged but after they are removed when there is an arrest, b) teachers and employer mutually chose an arbitrator from a list from the AAA of qualified labor arbitrators c) arbitrators work everyday or almost everyday until the case is over --stop this 54 day/yr to drag out the agony have long backups and blame it on the union.
Revoke all the amendments for NYC (including that the Union contract superceded the state law so they can nkame the union while denying teacher rights according to state law as originally written and revert to the same laws and rules as the rest of NYS. Enforce the state law that requires the trial to take no more than 60 days and the whole process no more than 120 days as the law and the union contract and the letter of engaging the arbitrators all requre.
Do not go with Kleins plan to not speed up the process but only pay for 120 days – if the law was followed it would be over in that long but Klein wants conditions for the teachers worse without promising to get ad hoc arbitrators to take up the back log.
Do not go with Klein’s intent to hire Administrative Law Judges that all work for him and limit the trials to 5 days. Right now the Principals are piling on (with the help or Klein’s Army of lawyers) more and more silly nonconsequential charges to undermine the time limit. The investigations by the Special Commissioner for Investigation are worthless. They do not investigate they see if they can made a case against the teacher somehow and the the Deputy Commissioner writes the allegations have been substantiated and the teacher should be fired. The investigators do not investigate exculpatory evidence, or interview anyone but the accusors. They do not ask basic questions that would inform on whether the person could have even done the misdeed, or could have any motive.
The NYS Association of School Districts has adopted the seven part test of “just cause” that was formulated in a now famous employment case. The Dept Ed must begin to use all of it not just the first prong which is did you prove that the person did what they are accused of. The other parts include is everyone who does it get the same punishment. Is the conduct disruptive to the operation of the school system. Was the person warned or instructed that discipline would result from the conduct. Does the punishment fit the deed or misdeed. Is there progressive discipline so that the offenses and the penalties are not arbitrary from arbitrator to arbitrator. Etc. The way it is right now if the teacher accidentally dropped a paperclip on the floor and the Principal wanted to use the incident to fire the tenured teacher the Dept. Ed attorney would stomp and posture that they have proven by the preponderance of the evidence that the Teacher did it and they must be terminated – when charges should never have been brought in the first place if there was review of the charges by an independent board before they could be brought as is in the law for the rest of the State but the Dept. Ed got it changed for NYC.
Finally tenure confers a constitutional property interest in the tenured employment by the tenure holder. It is just like if you took a job that was not competitively paid for your education and experiece compared to other opportunties for your skills, experience and knowkedge–but the employer gave you a house to make up the difference and if you stayed on the job for a certain number of years it would be yours. If you stayed for less than that you would have to give the house back or buy it out at sliding scale e.g. 10% vesting per year. Then 20 years later they want to build a road where your house is. The constitution says that the government can take the house by eminent domain but they must pay you fair value and sometines there has to be a trial if the two sides cannot agree on what is fair value. The government can’t suddenly take your house because you got it from the Govt in the first place without due compensated. Twenty years later the owners want to be treated fairly just as their neighbors do. So firing tenuredteachers to save money is stealing what they have earned and wht they have a constitutional right to. In fact, making their life so miserable that many quite is nothing short of stealing what is the property of the teachers. If you can get good teachers while giving no new teachers tenure, for a salary you can afford that is fine with me–but you cannot steal the property as recognized by the U.S. Constitution as the property of the tenured teacher. But that is exactly what B/K are doing to hundreds of teachers and blaming it on the Union. It has nothing to do with the Union. What is going on is exactly what B/K want to happen to enrage the public to accept stealing tenure rights from teachers who earned their tenure decades ago and weakening the union that it has already weakened the union fatally in the last decade.
Joy Hochstadt
Well then, if life is just so horrible with the government jobs, why the extreme opposition of the teachers’ union to vouchers?
“WAAAAAAH!!! That would be competition! There should be no competition where children are involved! That’s just wrong!”
(Not that I’m saying you’re saying that, but it is the typical argument.)
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Let me reiterate that my wife was (is still licensed to be) a public school teacher (as well as almost half of our family. I’m not “anti-teacher”, nor do I think they should be paid minimum wage. They are professionals, and important ones. However, I do NOT think they should be exempt from market forces and performance review (and receive bonuses or demotions based on performance).
[/quote]
‘Market forces’? What ‘market forces’? The government runs a monopoly and even taxes those who send their kids elsewhere.
I shouldn’t have to keep explaining over and over again how THIS IS NOT A FREE MARKET SYSTEM. It is a monopoly wherein wages were (are) set below market. Why do you think the government set it up as a monopoly in the first place?
I also shouldn’t have to explain over and over that teachers formed unions as THE ONLY WAY to battle a monopoly which was (is) underpaying them.
Hello? H-E-L-L-O…
[/quote]
They set it up because Protestants wanted a mandatory or compulsory school (free of course) to in-doctrine the youth into their heretic religion. Like prohibition, slavery, etc. wish those damn Protestants would leave everyone alone trying to force salvation on people.
No, it’s the 10th plank of the Communist Manifesto.
Your posts are generally sensible but it’s utterly moonbat to claim that our government school system exists because of Protestants trying to force their religion on others. You have a little bit too much hate going on there, for some reason, and a little too little concern for facts.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
<< … something … Protestants … something [/quote]
No, Horace Mann was a prototype for the modern New England “do-gooder” mold. Education was his pet mission and he’d be damned if he didn’t use government as the vehicle to fulfill his vision on the taxpayer’s nickel. He was going to educate your children whether you liked it or not.
Mann accepting Presidency of Antioch College (ever know anyone that went to Antioch, the UC Berkely of Ohio?):
“Henceforth, as long as I hold this office, I dedicate myself to the supremest welfare of mankind on earth.”
(1848)
Hence it is, that the establishment of a republican government, without well-appointed and efficient means for the universal education of the people, is the most rash and fool-hardy experiment ever tried by manSuch a Republic may grow in numbers and in wealth. As an avaricious man adds acres to his lands, so its rapacious government may increase its own darkness by annexing provinces and states to its ignorant domain. Its armies may be invincible, and its fleets may strike terror into nations on the opposite sides of the globe, at the same hour. Vast in its extent, and enriched with all the prodigality of nature, it may possess every capacity and opportunity of being great, and of doing good.
How’s THAT quote for some heady do-gooder shit?
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
No, it’s the 10th plank of the Communist Manifesto.
Your posts are generally sensible but it’s utterly moonbat to claim that our government school system exists because of Protestants trying to force their religion on others. You have a little bit too much hate going on there, for some reason, and a little too little concern for facts.[/quote]
Bill,
Even though I do believe Protestants are wrong when it comes to religion, I do not hate them they are still brothers in Christ. However, HH or one of his flip flopping buddies once said that the free and compulsory government ran schooling system was brought on by the Protestants. I thought this topic was outrageous (especially with HH’s strange opinion on this matter), that I should just make it more outrageous.
Some Protestants have sided with the big government over the years, and yes some of their pet projects were instilled into the government as a way of force-sanctifying people, but you’d be hard pressed to even pin a minority of projects on the Protestants, let alone a large share of the government projects on them as they sole culprits.
However, I do stand to say that my solution to this problem, is to remove government funded schooling immediately.
This would allow people to make their own choices and stop bickering at their neighbor for voting for some politician that can’t find his own dick who raised/lowered taxes that increased/decreased the amount that those Union thug teachers receive as a salary. Because everyone would be solely responsible for choosing which school they sent their kids to, if it was too expensive, they’d have to go to another school. Not a good enough quality, go to a better school. If we had anarchy, we wouldn’t have to worry about how much teachers are getting paid because if it wasn’t high enough they’d go somewhere else. Just saying.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
<< … something … Protestants … something [/quote]
No, Horace Mann was a prototype for the modern New England “do-gooder” mold. Education was his pet mission and he’d be damned if he didn’t use government as the vehicle to fulfill his vision on the taxpayer’s nickel. He was going to educate your children whether you liked it or not.
Mann accepting Presidency of Antioch College (ever know anyone that went to Antioch, the UC Berkely of Ohio?):
“Henceforth, as long as I hold this office, I dedicate myself to the supremest welfare of mankind on earth.”
(1848)
Hence it is, that the establishment of a republican government, without well-appointed and efficient means for the universal education of the people, is the most rash and fool-hardy experiment ever tried by manSuch a Republic may grow in numbers and in wealth. As an avaricious man adds acres to his lands, so its rapacious government may increase its own darkness by annexing provinces and states to its ignorant domain. Its armies may be invincible, and its fleets may strike terror into nations on the opposite sides of the globe, at the same hour. Vast in its extent, and enriched with all the prodigality of nature, it may possess every capacity and opportunity of being great, and of doing good.
How’s THAT quote for some heady do-gooder shit?
[/quote]
It gives me the willies.
[quote]Joy Hochstadt copy/pasted:
<< wall of text >>
[/quote]
THE Joy Hochstadt?!? IS THAT YOU??!
Joy, welcome to T-Nation! I had no idea you lurked here. Are you lifting a lot these days? What’s an old girl like you doing hangin’ out at a place like this?
Have you tried HOT-ROX? Man, they are the SHIZNIT!
Joined just for this thread, eh? Awesome.
[quote]tme wrote:
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
Also, I know a few teachers. None of them are even remotely worried about putting a roof on their house or replacing a road weary car. They are more concerned with tax shelters, which neighborhood they are going to upgrade to, and what features they would like on their next new car.[/quote]
My wife’s a teacher, and we either need to move to whatever district these figments of your imagination teach, or you’re a fucking liar.
I’m going with B.
[/quote]
Without thinking much, I’m able to recall about several teachers in NJ that are either family or friends, and NONE make less than 50k per year.
Most of those are in the 60-70’s with the accompanying cadillac bene’s. There’s not much disparity between PA/MD/DE/NY/NJ/CT. Skyzyyzyks claim is not in the least bit outrageous.
A two income teacher family can easily gross a six-figure income with a hefty pension plan.
NJ: http://teacherportal.com/salary/New-Jersey-teacher-salary
PA: http://teacherportal.com/salary/Pennsylvania-teacher-salary
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
No, it’s the 10th plank of the Communist Manifesto.
Your posts are generally sensible but it’s utterly moonbat to claim that our government school system exists because of Protestants trying to force their religion on others. You have a little bit too much hate going on there, for some reason, and a little too little concern for facts.[/quote]
Bill,
Even though I do believe Protestants are wrong when it comes to religion, I do not hate them they are still brothers in Christ. However, HH or one of his flip flopping buddies once said that the free and compulsory government ran schooling system was brought on by the Protestants. I thought this topic was outrageous (especially with HH’s strange opinion on this matter), that I should just make it more outrageous.[/quote]
Oh, OK, my mistake. I should have figured.
Bill,
I think you are having some sort of ‘47 year old’ breakdown.
If someone says that unions and monopoly government are two sides of the same coin (repeatedly) and somehow you construe this to be that that someone is an ardent supporter of unions, then, quite frankly, you are deranged.
2 + 2 make 4, Bill. You have some fantasy in your head and are arguing with that.
Of course, it does make for light entertainment. Please continue.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Well then, if life is just so horrible with the government jobs, why the extreme opposition of the teachers’ union to vouchers?
“WAAAAAAH!!! That would be competition! There should be no competition where children are involved! That’s just wrong!”
(Not that I’m saying you’re saying that, but it is the typical argument.)[/quote]
So?
What did you expect?
You build a system where the government takes away half of your money and distributes it as it sees fit.
Of course people are going to specialize in getting favors from government and of course some will be more succesful than others.
You can hate the teachers unions all you want but I would prefer a system that does not require angels to work, instead of demonizing people who are just looking out for number one.
The reason we don’t have vouchers in most of the country is the extreme opposition from the teachers’ unions.
HH keeps ducking the question of just how it is that supposedly these unions are fighting government monopoly, because of course the answer is that the unions (not each individual teacher) are fundamentally crooks feeding off of the public trough and are absolutely insistent on continuing to do so, rather than having teachers compete in a free marketplace.
The latter would of course result in far better education.
There are any number of private schools that do phenomenal jobs with 50-70% of the money per student that is burned through by the government schools.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
If someone says that unions and monopoly government are two sides of the same coin (repeatedly) and somehow you construe this to be that that someone is an ardent supporter of unions, then, quite frankly, you are deranged.
[/quote]
Yawn.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj30n1/cj30n1-8.pdf
Public school employee unions are politically partisan and polarizing
institutions. Of the National Education Associationâ??s $30 million
in federal campaign contributions since 1990, 93 percent has gone to
Democrats or the Democratic Party. Of the $26 million in federal
campaign contributions by the American Federation of Teachers, 99
percent has gone to Democrats or the Democratic Party (Center for
Responsive Politics 2009).
Teachers unions actively and disproportionately contribute to the ‘more government’ party.
Additionally, teacher unions consistently oppose anything related to moving toward ‘school choice’ for families.
I can’t tell if you’re serious, or playing a really bizarre devil’s advocate, but your insistence that teachers unions do not contribute to and further enable government powers in education (thereby perpetuating the so-called ‘monopoly’) is absurd.