[quote]doogie wrote:
Teachers’ unions are part of the evil liberal empire you always scream about.[/quote]
Ding ding ding ding ding!
Steve Jobs is right.
Teacher’s Unions constantly demand more pay. In return for what? Better teaching?
But that would imply that either:
A) The teachers are not performing to their best abilities, and are holding our children’s education hostage until they are paid more.
or
B) That more money would mean we could hire better teachers… but that tacitly admits of the fact that the ones we have now are not good enough. But, of course, we are not allowed to get rid of them.
or
C) That more money would magically make poor teachers into acceptable teachers.
Unions aren’t just a “voluntary association.” They are an association backed by force of law that extorts the community as well as the union’s own members. Try joining a union and refusing to pay the dues, or even demanding to know where your dues are going. Or try to refuse to fund a certain measure that the union is pursuing that you don’t agree with.
Try working as a teacher without being part of a union, in areas that have them. Good luck. Unions rip the spine out of capitalism and dance on the entrails. But public education is a socialist nightmare anyway, so I suppose throwing good money after bad is only natural.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
pookie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
But, I should be fired to save a few thousand dollars?
Steve Jobs was advocating firing the bad teachers, which is different from the costly ones. In the IT industry, the best people generally command the best pay; or they get poached by a competitor.
I think he’s advocating the same principles for schools. So, if you’re good and you’re worth what you cost, I don’t think he sees any problem with keeping you there. I think his problem is with guaranteed employment whether you’re good or not.
I actually agree with lousy teachers being canned, but the problem is that all the school systems are really worried about is cost. They don’t give a rat’s ass about quality, since they’re rewarded by the voters if they keep taxes down.
We actually need to fire most administrators. All they do is think up more BS for teachers to do, in their ‘spare’ time.
[/quote]
I actually agree somewhat. Administrators suck. They become admins because they didn’t like teaching or they wanted more money, and if you don’t like teaching, why the hell should you make teaching decisions?
We still need to can lousy teachers. And the lousy ones are the most pro-union. Thats because the best teachers are the ones who are gonna teach because they love it, not for the benefits or because its a guaranteed jobs (even if they like those things).
This is why school choice makes so much sense.
That costly, veteran teachers get canned in favor of cheap labor is a problem that stems from federal funding of education. Teachers unions are a separate issue. I agree with The Squirrel here. There needs to be accountability on all sides. Bad teachers shouldn’t be able to hide in a union, and budget-minded school administrators should also be made accountable to the people paying for the education.
The logical solution, HH, would be to join a private school. I haven’t studied this issue on my own but I can predict with economic certainty that this problem doesn’t exist when the funding is private, and thus directly tied to teacher/school’s performance.
[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
The logical solution, HH, would be to join a private school. I haven’t studied this issue on my own but I can predict with economic certainty that this problem doesn’t exist when the funding is private, and thus directly tied to teacher/school’s performance.[/quote]
Of course. Because the school is state-funded, you eliminate a good chunk of one indispensable side of the capitalist equation: a free market. The only way the “market” can reward or punish is by moving to better school districts. But since taxes in rich areas are redirected to poorer areas, the state props up even the worst offenders artificially.
An indifferent public gets exactly what it deserves. It wants minimal education for minimal taxation, and it got exactly that.
I teach in a private school and the pay is lower than publics. I do so because public schools are bureaucratic pigpens overridden with everyone telling you HOW to teach. If there were no unions, I suspect that public school teachers would be making what I do now, and private schools would be even less.
Without the unions, I suspect that top pay would be about $30,000/year, or some amount to just keep a supply of young idealistic fools entering the field.
[quote]doogie wrote:
This is why school choice makes so much sense. [/quote]
It is the only solution, that is why it is belittled and resisted.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
pookie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
But, I should be fired to save a few thousand dollars?
Steve Jobs was advocating firing the bad teachers, which is different from the costly ones. In the IT industry, the best people generally command the best pay; or they get poached by a competitor.
I think he’s advocating the same principles for schools. So, if you’re good and you’re worth what you cost, I don’t think he sees any problem with keeping you there. I think his problem is with guaranteed employment whether you’re good or not.
I actually agree with lousy teachers being canned, but the problem is that all the school systems are really worried about is cost. They don’t give a rat’s ass about quality, since they’re rewarded by the voters if they keep taxes down.
We actually need to fire most administrators. All they do is think up more BS for teachers to do, in their ‘spare’ time.
[/quote]This same thing has been happening out in the real world for 25-30 yrs. now,now that its coming round to your teachers, cops, firemen,and govt employees all these smug comfortable people that basically retired when they took these jobs are going to wake up and realize whats going on.My children’s schools have a proud gay, male teacher thats been spewing his crap to the kids for at least 10 yrs. and shows up late everyday,and nobody in the school system has the ball’s to do anything about it,I know plenty of teachers at my childrens school who have a great list of degrees but no common since and cant deal with reality.i say their institutionalized,they have been in the school systems their whole lives and dont know what is really going on because they have never been out of their little enviroment.
Most of these teacers make about $50,000 a year and think they have it rough.LOL.Sure I know there are some good dedicated teachers,but the majority around here SUCK,They are even to lazy to grade papers etc. and have the kids doing it.
I live in a Highly conservative area and the majority of these teachers are proud republicans .Also Most of the private schools in my area get the teachers that dont have good enough qualifications to teach in the public schools.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
An indifferent public gets exactly what it deserves. It wants minimal education for minimal taxation, and it got exactly that.
I teach in a private school and the pay is lower than publics. I do so because public schools are bureaucratic pigpens overridden with everyone telling you HOW to teach. If there were no unions, I suspect that public school teachers would be making what I do now, and private schools would be even less.
Without the unions, I suspect that top pay would be about $30,000/year, or some amount to just keep a supply of young idealistic fools entering the field.[/quote]I Think you are correct,Our school system barily? past its last tax issue.And the people that spoke against the most were the ones who own the business,lots of property etc. in our community.It was a wage earnings tax not a property tax.
Whats funny is in my community ,the majority of business and large property owners inherited their wealth and they were the ones against it.You couldnt get it thru their heads what the issue was about,what helped it pass were the old blue collar retirees that wernt going to be taxed but wanted the kids to have better schools.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Without the unions, I suspect that top pay would be about $30,000/year, or some amount to just keep a supply of young idealistic fools entering the field.[/quote]
If there were no public schools, or they were run like businesses in fair competition with private schools, school quality would go up. If it went down, that particular school would go out of business.
Remember when you cut the free market out, you are also eliminating demand, or the means to make demand known, which is going to drive quality. Yes, things might start out as you say, until parents decide that these 30K per year teachers just aren’t cutting it, and start to demand better service.
But teachers want a free ride. Not that I think they’re bad people - they are like everyone else in wanting job security in addition to higher pay. But to expect that a socialized system will produce great educators - or great anything else - is pure folly.
There are a million shit teachers that don’t give a crap about anything because they have tenure and cannot get fired.
It is one of the most ridiculously powerful unions around…and it should not be. The kids learn alot less because of it.
Tenure is one of the worst things to ever happen in teaching.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
An indifferent public gets exactly what it deserves. It wants minimal education for minimal taxation, and it got exactly that.
I teach in a private school and the pay is lower than publics. I do so because public schools are bureaucratic pigpens overridden with everyone telling you HOW to teach. If there were no unions, I suspect that public school teachers would be making what I do now, and private schools would be even less.
Without the unions, I suspect that top pay would be about $30,000/year, or some amount to just keep a supply of young idealistic fools entering the field.[/quote]
Welcome to the Real World HH. Sorry it’s not as nice as you thought it was.
Every company is about the bottom line…why does it surprise you that schools would be too?
No pity here. If they deserved it in the least, I wouldn’t mind. but they don’t. And if I fuck up at my job…I get fired. It’s time for the civil servants to have it the same way.
You guys are all missing the point.
HH is precious. He shouldn’t run the risk of being fired. He’s special. One of the chosen few.
Remember how Bush became a hero while dodging the draft and going AWOL?Remember how Kerry became a coward while dodging bullets in Vietnam and earning a couple of purple hearts?
That’s the kind of treatment HH insists on.
Workers unions are communist. Teacher unions however are a completely different matter.
Am I right HH?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
An indifferent public gets exactly what it deserves. It wants minimal education for minimal taxation, and it got exactly that.
[/quote]
HH,
I’m sure most of us would approve a slight increase in our tax rates if the result would be better teachers and brighter students. The fact is that we’d wind up with larger tax bills and the exact same teachers and students we have now.
Paying a teacher 75K for working 7-3 with three months off, not to mention every holiday known to man, spring break, Christmas break, Thanksgiving break, will only produce teachers that take better vacations and drive better cars.
[quote]Go-Rilla wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
An indifferent public gets exactly what it deserves. It wants minimal education for minimal taxation, and it got exactly that.
HH,
I’m sure most of us would approve a slight increase in our tax rates if the result would be better teachers and brighter students. The fact is that we’d wind up with larger tax bills and the exact same teachers and students we have now.
Paying a teacher 75K for working 7-3 with three months off, not to mention every holiday known to man, spring break, Christmas break, Thanksgiving break, will only produce teachers that take better vacations and drive better cars.
[/quote]
EXACTLY ! ! !
So let’s get HH a better car and send him on a better vacation . . .
[quote]Wreckless wrote:
You guys are all missing the point.
HH is precious. He shouldn’t run the risk of being fired. He’s special. One of the chosen few.
Remember how Bush became a hero while dodging the draft and going AWOL?Remember how Kerry became a coward while dodging bullets in Vietnam and earning a couple of purple hearts?
That’s the kind of treatment HH insists on.
Workers unions are communist. Teacher unions however are a completely different matter.
Am I right HH?[/quote]
I’ve said twice in the thread that I teach in a private school, without tenure. If I was the ‘precious coward’ you make me out to be, wouldn’t I be tenured at some place and reading porn on the net, instead of teaching?
You are letting your frothing emotions get the better of you.
[quote]Wreckless wrote:
So let’s get HH a better car and send him on a better vacation . . .[/quote]
In Belgium? I can’t bring my car there for you to open the door for me at the hotel, but you can carry my bags.
I’d even give you a Belgian franc tip.
As much as like Steve Jobbs and I agree with getting rid of people at any job who are not performing well, there are some holes in Steve?s reasoning.
- Public education is not a business and it was never designed to be a business.
- Asking for more money is not going to make anyone a better teacher, but a higher salary will eventually attract a better pool of applicants. Imagine how many parents would wish for their children to become lawyers or doctors if their starting salary was $30K and let?s say $70K after 15 years.
- In his speech he is confusing unions and tenure.
- Two professions with a highest burnout and dropout rates are nurses and teachers so obviously there are some problems there.
- The biggest issue in education in the US is how we fund our schools.
It?s ass backwards.
Not that I have any answers as to how to fix any of this.
[quote]ron33 wrote:
This same thing has been happening out in the real world for 25-30 yrs. now,now that its coming round to your teachers, cops, firemen,and govt employees all these smug comfortable people that basically retired when they took these jobs are going to wake up and realize whats going on.My children’s schools have a proud gay, male teacher thats been spewing his crap to the kids for at least 10 yrs. and shows up late everyday,and nobody in the school system has the ball’s to do anything about it,I know plenty of teachers at my childrens school who have a great list of degrees but no common since and cant deal with reality.i say their institutionalized,they have been in the school systems their whole lives and dont know what is really going on because they have never been out of their little enviroment.
Most of these teacers make about $50,000 a year and think they have it rough.LOL.Sure I know there are some good dedicated teachers,but the majority around here SUCK,They are even to lazy to grade papers etc. and have the kids doing it.
I live in a Highly conservative area and the majority of these teachers are proud republicans .Also Most of the private schools in my area get the teachers that dont have good enough qualifications to teach in the public schools.
[/quote]
Just trying to read that makes me wince. Are you a product of said education system? If so you deserve a refund, at least for the English portion, since they failed to teach you basic grammar, punctuation and spelling. Are your math skills equivalent? Hopefully you can at least make correct change at the register you will be manning for many years to come.
I’m probably going to hell for this, but I agree in principle with HH on this matter.