Unions: Good for bad teachers, bad for kids

Mott the Hoople said:
Oh don't give me that "What's best for the kids argument.". What's best for the kids is that they all get educated by PhD's from Harvard and Yale who accept no salary and work selflessly for free.

Why the hell should educators throw theselves on the alter of your kids? Taking care of the best interest of your kids is your job and not mine or some school teachers. Their job is to competently teach children. The teachers union job is to look after the teachers. It's your job as a parent to look after your childs interenst and just because a person was hired to teach your kids doesn't mean they have to sacrifice their best interest for your kids best interest.

There is definately some down sides to unions, as there are with any human institution. I've been on the merit pay system for a long time and if you think that's a solution to seniorty then you're a fool. Cause the reality is that merit systems are almost always completely subjective and almost solely determined in a one sided determination by management. In my experience "merit systems" puts you almost completely at the mercy of management as they will give you whatever evaluation they damned well want to regardless of how skilled, competently or productively you work. You are completely at managements mercy with absolutely no room for negotiation other then to go work for someone else. So you're bullshitting your self if you think solely replacing seniority with merit pay systems alone is a solution. What you are advocating is a system where management calls the shots and you take your marching orders.

Fuck that!
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Based on your comments everyone ought to home school their kids then if all we demand of our education system and teachers in this country is to 'competently' teach students. And you ask why should we throw ourselves at the alter of children when it comes to education? I guess that depends on what kind of country you want America to be going forward.
 
Alias said:
I know what a leftist agenda is. I can smell it and our public education stinks to high heaven. Some of you forget who the kids belong to. You keep telling us "it's for the kids" every time you all want more money for yourselves. Meanwhile, our level of education keeps getting worse and the dropout rate keeps getting higher while America is being dumbed down. We know who the "dumb fuck's are.
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And your just some uneducated fool who's bought into some right wing bullshit that doen'st know what he's talking about and has his facts wrong.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Oh don't give me that "What's best for the kids argument.". What's best for the kids is that they all get educated by PhD's from Harvard and Yale who accept no salary and work selflessly for free.

Why the hell should educators throw theselves on the alter of your kids? Taking care of the best interest of your kids is your job and not mine or some school teachers. Their job is to competently teach children. The teachers union job is to look after the teachers. It's your job as a parent to look after your childs interenst and just because a person was hired to teach your kids doesn't mean they have to sacrifice their best interest for your kids best interest.

There is definately some down sides to unions, as there are with any human institution. I've been on the merit pay system for a long time and if you think that's a solution to seniorty then you're a fool. Cause the reality is that merit systems are almost always completely subjective and almost solely determined in a one sided determination by management. In my experience "merit systems" puts you almost completely at the mercy of management as they will give you whatever evaluation they damned well want to regardless of how skilled, competently or productively you work. You are completely at managements mercy with absolutely no room for negotiation other then to go work for someone else. So you're bullshitting your self if you think solely replacing seniority with merit pay systems alone is a solution. What you are advocating is a system where management calls the shots and you take your marching orders.

Fuck that!
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I agree, it's our job to determine what's best for our kids. That would be a quality education. They're not getting it and we keep spending more. The USA is falling behind other nations. We are not getting our money's worth. You're failing. You get an F. Get rid of the Teacher's Union and completely take control to the local level and exterminate the Department of Education. Take education back to the local level and get the Feds out. Simple and we are working on it. The movement is growing.
 
Anyway Mott. My argument isn't against the union, it's against a monopoly.

Unions are usually a good thing, teachers should keep them even if the monopoly is broken.
 
cawacko said:
Based on your comments everyone ought to home school their kids then if all we demand of our education system and teachers in this country is to 'competently' teach students. And you ask why should we throw ourselves at the alter of children when it comes to education? I guess that depends on what kind of country you want America to be going forward.
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I see. So Educators should sacrifice their lives so the kids get a good educaton. So they should just work for free or for whatever we feel like handing them? So what your implying is that educators don't a have a right to a say in their conditions of employment?
 
Damocles said:
Anyway Mott. My argument isn't against the union, it's against a monopoly.

Unions are usually a good thing, teachers should keep them even if the monopoly is broken.
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And I'm not opposed to more options in public education as long as those options are not used by those with a political agenda to undermine public education. I think we share common ground there.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I see. So Educators should sacrifice their lives so the kids get a good educaton. So they should just work for free or for whatever we feel like handing them? So what your implying is that educators don't a have a right to a say in their conditions of employment?
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Who said teachers should work for free? You did. If your entire argument is a straw man, then you need a quality education.
 
If they want a raise then they have to perform better. Get rid of the slackers in the organization and institute merit pay instead of union wages. :)
 
DamnYankee said:
If they want a raise then they have to perform better. Get rid of the slackers in the organization and institute merit pay instead of union wages. :)
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Get rid of the monopoly and you can send your kid to a school that does that, while others can send their kids to schools taught by union members. (Look for the union label).

Seriously, the union isn't the evil, it is the government monopoly. The government as the means of production is the worst, we should do as Sweden did and change that.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I see. So Educators should sacrifice their lives so the kids get a good educaton. So they should just work for free or for whatever we feel like handing them? So what your implying is that educators don't a have a right to a say in their conditions of employment?
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I didn't say that. What other jobs allow you after three years a right to not be fired unless you do the most agregious act? I listed changes I supported. Those changes did not leave teachers hanging out to dry. It does not have to be an extreme. You tell me why a better younger teacher should be fired first over a worse more senior teachers? You seem to want to put teachers on an untouchable pedastal and fuck the kids. I strongly disagree.
 
It is funny how so many on the left use per capita spending to compare our health care to European nations. How about our education spending per capita?

http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecd

Looks like we spend about 30% more per student, yet our students are continually falling behind, especially in math and science. Just look at the crap Ohio produces in science. Mott is a 'scientist' who doesn't understand the scientific method. A basic concept... yet he is oblivious. He feels the scientific method is to first shout 'consensus', second 'ignore all contrary data' and finally proclaim any critic a 'science denier'. That's our public education system for you.
 
The Dude said:
Our education system is fine outside of teachers needing more pay. Parenting is suffering to high hell though.
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Our education system is horrid. While I agree teachers do need to be paid more, it should be done on merit, not seniority. The bulk of the waste within education is on the admin side.
 
Superfreak said:
You can't really blame them for being dumb fucks. After all, most are products of our failing public education system.
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I'm a product of our public education system SF. Well, K - 12 anyway. And I'm no dummy. I'm smart. So smart that you are clearly intimidated by me.

So I think some personal responsibility is called for here.
 
Superfreak said:
It is funny how so many on the left use per capita spending to compare our health care to European nations. How about our education spending per capita?

http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecd

Looks like we spend about 30% more per student, yet our students are continually falling behind, especially in math and science. Just look at the crap Ohio produces in science. Mott is a 'scientist' who doesn't understand the scientific method. A basic concept... yet he is oblivious. He feels the scientific method is to first shout 'consensus', second 'ignore all contrary data' and finally proclaim any critic a 'science denier'. That's our public education system for you.
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You really are the only funny conservative I know. Even when I strongly disagree with you, I laugh out loud over some of your posts.

In this post I strongly disagree about Mott, but I laughed. I do agree that we have serious education problems in this country.
 
Our education system is fine, what's fucked is right wing morons trying to push thier twisted views on normal people. If we made college free like high school the economy would boom. We have a shitty parenting problem, as evidenced by the rich private school raised idiots at penn state cheering the molestors.
 
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