Teacher's Union Hinders Education

[yongrel]

We Don't Need Your Money
May 27, 2008; Page A20
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121184546652121307.html?mod=opinion_main_review_ and_outlooks

The National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) was started by Bill Gates, Michael Dell and other technology titans concerned about the declining performance of American students in math and science. The public-private partnership funds efforts to increase the number of students taking advanced placement courses in those subjects. But thanks to the Washington Education Association, a teachers union, the initiative's recent efforts in Washington state have been torpedoed.

Earlier this month NMSI announced that a $13.2 million grant slated for Washington state was being scrapped. Why? The contract ran afoul of the union's collective bargaining agreement. NMSI wanted to compensate teachers directly and include extra pay based on how well students performed on AP exams. But under the teacher contracts, the union is the exclusive agent for negotiating teacher pay and union officials refused to compromise. They were willing to turn away free money for their teacher members rather than abide this kind of merit pay.

State Representative Bill Fromhold, who was helping to administer the grant, told the Seattle Times, "We worked hard to try to find middle ground." But in the end, he said, "we got caught in the middle of the grant requirements and collective bargaining laws in the state of Washington that have to be followed."

Other heavily unionized states, such as Massachusetts and Connecticut, were able to reach agreements and will receive the math and science money notwithstanding similar bargaining agreements. And while the Washington union is spurning millions of dollars in grant money, it's also suing the state for the alleged inadequate funding of public schools. Hmmm. Could it be that union chiefs care more about protecting their monopoly than what students are learning?

[Kludge]

Even worse, teachers opposed to it have no way of protesting or leaving the Union. I see no solution to this other then the privatization of education, and abolishing mandatory Union membership.

[amy31416]

Unions have long outlived their initial, noble purpose and wreak destruction on every business they're involved with.

[Truth Warrior]

Ya think? :rolleyes:

[Danke]

Unions have long outlived their initial, noble purpose and wreak destruction on every business they're involved with.

Gross over generalization of the year award goes to...

[amy31416]

Gross over generalization of the year award goes to...

Not concerned about an over-generalization in this case, true or not. Unions are horrible for business and weaken our competitiveness in the market. They create artificially inflated income and benefits outside of the market and ultimately hurt some of America's best businesses and sources of jobs. They also water down the quality of products produced by protecting incompetence.

Not only that, all those 18 year olds who decided against getting a higher education because they could make $20/hr + benefits are going to be left in rather desperate situations when they're 40 and get laid off.

[Sally08]

Here's a plug for a long-term education activist's new book:
http://www.whitechalkcrime.com/

She even submitted her case to the Supreme Court of the U.S., pro se, I believe!

I have her e-mails about "teacher abuse" in my archives back to 2001-2002.

She also has seen how parents are "marginalized" - sound familiar?

[Sally08]

Not concerned about an over-generalization in this case, true or not, unions are horrible for business and weaken our competitiveness in the market. They create artificially inflated income and benefits outside of the market and ultimately hurt some of America's best businesses and sources of jobs. They also water down the quality of products produced by protecting incompetence.

Not only that, all those 18 year olds who decided against getting a higher education because they could make $20/hr + benefits are going to be left in rather desperate situations when they're 40 and get laid off.

Hi, Amy

I have a relative in CA construction who uses (ssh-illegal) aliens per his later P/R tax errors.

He actually stated that he could not find Americans who would work in 120 degree attics! Sounds like a slaveowner to me!

What did he do 20 years ago? Have Americans work at night with fans in the attic?

Our real inability to compete is that people in India will work 60-70 hours per week for 25% of what we (used to) make. Those working here are still putting in those 60-70 hours with "professional day" billings (so they work 12 hours, but only get paid for 8 hours vs. my straight time pay for 12 hours).

To a large extent they are also almost "slaves". However, one person sued in CA when TATA (major body shop) required its workers in the US to give TATA their IRS and state tax refunds.

Regarding the 18 year olds - it's people *with* college educations and many years of experience who are being laid off for cheaper labor (Bank of America coerced its US employees into training their foreign replacements or lose their vested pension plans!)

How many of the online college degree programs are actually staffed in foreign countries, replacing US teachers (and on-campus universities) entirely?

An older woman recruiter I know is now making $12/hour *with a college education and years of experience*. A grocery store clerk mentioned her friend had completed some sort of medical degree, but her first job was $10/hour as a lab assistant.

An article I want to write: "Is college obsolete?"

When people are paying loans back for $500/month for 30 years, while salaries are decreasing and American jobs are disappearing, does the college education even pay for itself, anymore?

[amy31416]

Hi, Amy

I have a relative in CA construction who uses (ssh-illegal) aliens per his later P/R tax errors.

He actually stated that he could not find Americans who would work in 120 degree attics! Sounds like a slaveowner to me!

What did he do 20 years ago? Have Americans work at night with fans in the attic?

Our real inability to compete is that people in India will work 60-70 hours per week for 25% of what we (used to) make. Those working here are still putting in those 60-70 hours with "professional day" billings (so they work 12 hours, but only get paid for 8 hours vs. my straight time pay for 12 hours).

To a large extent they are also almost "slaves". However, one person sued in CA when TATA (major body shop) required its workers in the US to give TATA their IRS and state tax refunds.

Regarding the 18 year olds - it's people *with* college educations and many years of experience who are being laid off for cheaper labor (Bank of America coerced its US employees into training their foreign replacements or lose their vested pension plans!)

How many of the online college degree programs are actually staffed in foreign countries, replacing US teachers (and on-campus universities) entirely?

An older woman recruiter I know is now making $12/hour *with a college education and years of experience*. A grocery store clerk mentioned her friend had completed some sort of medical degree, but her first job was $10/hour as a lab assistant.

An article I want to write: "Is college obsolete?"

When people are paying loans back for $500/month for 30 years, while salaries are decreasing and American jobs are disappearing, does the college education even pay for itself, anymore?

No doubt there's problems other than unions, and you've certainly hit on other ones. I say that unions have promoted some of the laziness and sense of entitlement that you mention, making it more acceptable to work less for more.

College is obsolete for some professions, especially many of the professions left in the US. I think that unions have helped make it so expensive to manufacture in the US that these jobs have left, making it so expensive to stay in business here that they can't justify not going to other countries.

[Sally08]

No doubt there's problems other than unions, and you've certainly hit on other ones. I say that unions have promoted some of the laziness and sense of entitlement that you mention, making it more acceptable to work less for more.

College is obsolete for some professions, especially many of the professions left in the US. I think that unions have helped make it so expensive to manufacture in the US that these jobs have left, making it so expensive to stay in business here that they can't justify not going to other countries.

I don't disagree that unions have created laziness/entitlement; however, I believe they see what remains of the auto industry/unions. The superhighway will destroy the trucking and dockworker's unions, as well. Unions can do little to protect their workers, anymore.

This article is a "classic" I've saved (I have the entire article):

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-outsource6mar06,1,725937,full.story?coll=la-news-learning
From the Los Angeles Times

That Good Education Might Not Be Enough

American workers at all levels are vulnerable to outsourcing, experts say, posing a challenge to the assumption that more schooling is the answer.
By Peter G. Gosselin
Times Staff Writer

March 6, 2006

WASHINGTON * When President Bush met with a group of business school students in the Indian city of Hyderabad last week, he came face to face with the very people whose first-rate educations, rising aspirations and readiness to work for a fraction of U.S. wages were tugging jobs overseas, away from even well-educated Americans.

Bush used the occasion to offer some pointed advice to workers back home: Get more training. "Let's make sure people are educated so they can fill the jobs of the 21st century," he said.

But the president's assertion that the answer to foreign outsourcing is education, a mantra embraced by Democrats as well as Republicans, is being challenged by a growing body of research and analysis from economists and other scholars. Education * at least as delivered by most of the nation's colleges, universities and technical schools * is no longer quite the economic cure-all it once was, nor the guarantee of financial security Americans have come to expect from college and graduate degrees.

"More education has been the right answer for the past few decades," said Princeton University economist and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan S. Blinder, "but I'm not so convinced that it's the right course" for coping with the upheavals of globalization.

Not that Blinder or other experts think workers would be better off not going to school. Rather, they point to emerging evidence that education may not offer as much protection against the effects of globalization as Bush and others claim.

"One could be educationally competitive and easily lose out in the global economic marketplace because of significantly lower wages being paid elsewhere," said Sheldon E. Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education, an umbrella group that represents most of the nation's major colleges and universities.

Some analysts think that something like what Steinbach described is already underway.

Starting in 1975, the earnings difference between high school- and college-educated workers steadily widened for 25 years. But since 2000, the trend appears to have stalled. Census figures show that average, after-inflation earnings of college graduates fell by more than 5% between 2000 and 2004, whereas the earnings of those with only high school degrees rose slightly.

Most studies suggest that beyond the manufacturing sector, the "offshoring" of jobs has been comparatively modest. But some analysts say the ground has been laid for a substantial pickup. In a recent paper, Blinder offered a rough estimate that suggested that as many as 42 million jobs, or nearly one-third of the nation's total, were susceptible to offshoring.
These analysts warn that more education alone will do little to stop the flow of jobs to other countries.
-snip-

[clouds]

I've been wondering what the point of me going to college is hehe. I'm going to finish, but I get the feeling I'm just aiding a pattern I don't want sustained.

[pinkmandy]

NEA: Trojan Horse of American Education is a fanstastic read. It is disgusting what they have done.

Back in the day when homeschooling was making a comeback it was the NEA who admonished homeschoolers, the NEA who was behind jailing parents and other such actions. At the time they openly denounced homeschooling as educational neglect, far inferior to public education. Then the test results started coming in and they changed their tune to it being socially inferior. After all, isn't that why we have public schools? Social training? I think it's incredible that anyone can try to argue that a child should spend 13 years in public education for social education.

[Agent CSL]

Yep. Washington state's teacher unions are horrible. *is an 18 year old Washingtonian with an 11 year old sister*

The union is corrupt as anything. I wish I could find out what happened to my 6th grade teacher. Cliff McCleod I think his name was. He was the best elementary teacher. He was also very opposed to the school unions. During 6th grade he'd let us work outside, he chose more creative teaching methods and we even learnt about Canada. Apparently none of this was approved by the school board or the union. So just before the Teacher strike in Sept 2002 - which he didn't support - they fired him for having an affair with a student's mom (which is none of their business. Especially since they heard it through the grapevine. He wasn't hurting anyone-- Well, maybe his marriage, but it wasn't grounds to fire him.)


I know first hand the horrible state of Washington State's education practices.

[angelatc]

Not concerned about an over-generalization in this case, true or not. Unions are horrible for business and weaken our competitiveness in the market. They create artificially inflated income and benefits outside of the market and ultimately hurt some of America's best businesses and sources of jobs. They also water down the quality of products produced by protecting incompetence.

Not only that, all those 18 year olds who decided against getting a higher education because they could make $20/hr + benefits are going to be left in rather desperate situations when they're 40 and get laid off.

Yes, you are right. I think the only time that a union serves a real purpose is in coal mining towns, really, where there usually is only 1 employer.



Back in the day when homeschooling was making a comeback it was the NEA who admonished homeschoolers, the NEA who was behind jailing parents and other such actions. At the time they openly denounced homeschooling as educational neglect, far inferior to public education. Then the test results started coming in and they changed their tune to it being socially inferior. After all, isn't that why we have public schools? Social training? I think it's incredible that anyone can try to argue that a child should spend 13 years in public education for social education.


Especially when the social training is so restrictive. No other place in society sorts people by age.