Unions: Good for bad teachers, bad for kids

Alias said:
I don't know anyone earning $56,000 salary and over $100,000 counting benefits working a part-time job to make ends meet. You're an idiot.
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Hilarious. First of all I never mentioned a number for salary. I stated the FACT that all the teachers I know have other jobs during the summer, and sometimes part-time during the school year. You claim that some teachers are getting almost double their salary in benefits, so it's up to you to prove it.
 
christiefan915 said:
Hilarious. First of all I never mentioned a number for salary. I stated the FACT that all the teachers I know have other jobs during the summer, and sometimes part-time during the school year. You claim that some teachers are getting almost double their salary in benefits, so it's up to you to prove it.
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Read the OP. You do know how to read, don't you?
 
Alias said:
Read the OP. You do know how to read, don't you?
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The OP that doesn't say anything about a base salary being almost doubled due to benefits?

Or your comment that I really don't know what I know about the teachers I know?

Apropos of nothing, if this charter school teacher from the article thinks her comment is grammatically correct, she'd better go back and take remedial English. It's "as many as we must and as few as we can", Ms. Kenny.

"That idea influenced charter school leader Deborah Kenny, and because her schools are non-union, she can fire. It's made a difference. Her students outscore the union school's students on all the standardized tests. "We fired as many as we must and as little as we can."

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/s...ions-good-bad-teachers-bad-kids#ixzz1dW8d8eQr
 
christiefan915 said:
What's your point? Montana teachers average $37,770 in salary. There's more to it than unions.
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That's a good salary in Montana, a state with no sales tax. Unions are getting stronger and our kids are getting dumber and the dropout rate is increasing. The parents and local communities need to be in charge, not the the Feds in DC. It's not working.
 
christiefan915 said:
The OP that doesn't say anything about a base salary being almost doubled due to benefits?

Or your comment that I really don't know what I know about the teachers I know?

Apropos of nothing, if this charter school teacher from the article thinks her comment is grammatically correct, she'd better go back and take remedial English. It's "as many as we must and as few as we can", Ms. Kenny.

"That idea influenced charter school leader Deborah Kenny, and because her schools are non-union, she can fire. It's made a difference. Her students outscore the union school's students on all the standardized tests. "We fired as many as we must and as little as we can."

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/s...ions-good-bad-teachers-bad-kids#ixzz1dW8d8eQr
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Excuse me, must be in a different link. I'll find it. Meanwhile, here is another example from the OP you can address.

"In Patterson, NJ, it's ex-police detective Jim Smith's job to investigate claims against bad teachers and to try to go through the union-created, insane process of trying to fire REALLY bad ones. He says it's so hard to fire anyone that it took years to fire a teacher who hit kids. "It took me four years and $283,000. $127,000 in legal fees plus what it cost to have a substitute fill in, all the while he's sitting home having popcorn," said Smith.

Here is the link for teacher's total salary/benefits over $100,000. http://maciverinstitute.com/2010/03/average-mps-teacher-compensation-tops-100kyear/
 
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Alias said:
Excuse me, must be in a different link. I'll find it. Meanwhile, here is another example from the OP you can address.

"In Patterson, NJ, it's ex-police detective Jim Smith's job to investigate claims against bad teachers and to try to go through the union-created, insane process of trying to fire REALLY bad ones. He says it's so hard to fire anyone that it took years to fire a teacher who hit kids. "It took me four years and $283,000. $127,000 in legal fees plus what it cost to have a substitute fill in, all the while he's sitting home having popcorn," said Smith.

Here is the link for teacher's total salary/benefits over $100,000. http://maciverinstitute.com/2010/03/average-mps-teacher-compensation-tops-100kyear/
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No details in your link. Just another person stating what you stated, but not breaking it down in dollars and cents. This is a public school system, not a corporation, and I want to know what kind of benefits these teachers get that would almost double their annual income.
 
christiefan915 said:
Hilarious. First of all I never mentioned a number for salary. I stated the FACT that all the teachers I know have other jobs during the summer, and sometimes part-time during the school year. You claim that some teachers are getting almost double their salary in benefits, so it's up to you to prove it.
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Teachers I know spend their entire summer marking and preparing for the next term or year. My daughter, who is head of English, is lucky to get two weeks holiday per year. She has school trips, debating championships, school promos, parents meetings and goodness knows what else. She regularly works a 12 hour day and her pupils from ten years ago still keep in touch and consider her to have given them the best start to adulthood possible.
Perhaps American teachers are a little molly-coddled. But it has to be said that American teachers I have met here just do not cut the mustard. They often refuse to accept local conditions, are not team players and always have what they think is a 'better way'! Needless to say they do not last long.
A teacher must love his/her profession. When a private student of mine passed for both Cheltenham and Benenden I was over the moon.
Back to unions though, there are obviously good unions and bad unions, but unions are their membership - a bit like churches. Loony churches have loony members. My experiences of unions in the UK, where sometimes membership is a condition of employment, has been good. I cannot think of an occasion when a union promoted or even tolerated laziness. Go slows - yes, in response to unfair management. If a union member is no good at his job he is at risk of the sack whether he is a union member or not. If he is not sacked then blame weak management.
 
christiefan915 said:
No details in your link. Just another person stating what you stated, but not breaking it down in dollars and cents. This is a public school system, not a corporation, and I want to know what kind of benefits these teachers get that would almost double their annual income.
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Why don't you write to the union and ask them?
 
apple0154 said:
Quite true, however, Bush and his buddies decided it's better to bomb the houses in foreign countries and then build new ones and to hell with the US citizens. The fact is when one considers the trillions of dollars spent on war that would pay for a lot of homes in great neighborhoods.

What do you think?
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Let us know how that's working in Kanada.
 
Lowaicue said:
Teachers I know spend their entire summer marking and preparing for the next term or year. My daughter, who is head of English, is lucky to get two weeks holiday per year. She has school trips, debating championships, school promos, parents meetings and goodness knows what else. She regularly works a 12 hour day and her pupils from ten years ago still keep in touch and consider her to have given them the best start to adulthood possible.
Perhaps American teachers are a little molly-coddled. But it has to be said that American teachers I have met here just do not cut the mustard. They often refuse to accept local conditions, are not team players and always have what they think is a 'better way'! Needless to say they do not last long.
A teacher must love his/her profession. When a private student of mine passed for both Cheltenham and Benenden I was over the moon.
Back to unions though, there are obviously good unions and bad unions, but unions are their membership - a bit like churches. Loony churches have loony members. My experiences of unions in the UK, where sometimes membership is a condition of employment, has been good. I cannot think of an occasion when a union promoted or even tolerated laziness. Go slows - yes, in response to unfair management. If a union member is no good at his job he is at risk of the sack whether he is a union member or not. If he is not sacked then blame weak management.
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I agree with all of this, although I'm surprised by your comment re: American teachers in HK. I thought anybody who was willing to move to another country for a new teaching experience would be a little more open-minded. I have a friend, a calculus teacher, who taught in the UK back in the '90s on a sort of exchange program. He loved it and his students still keep in touch. The UK counterpart, Rona, also did well here. She stayed on for a few years and then went back home to marry a man from her home town.

I've never liked the idea of tenure but I can see the need for teachers' unions. It's common knowledge that teachers are underpaid and under-appreciated for all they do, and that many of them can earn more money by taking corporate or other jobs in the private sector.
 
Alias said:
I think you should run for office on that idea. Serioiusly. Let me know how things work out.
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Several countries have inexpensive education precisely for that purpose but as I've said before the culture of grab all you can and the government doesn't give a damn about the citizens makes it difficult to implement change.

Take medical care. Many grandparents would love to help their grandchildren with education costs but how can they when they don't know if they'll need that money for medical care? Imagine no worry about medical costs. Imagine the money that would be freed up.
 
christiefan915 said:
I agree with all of this, although I'm surprised by your comment re: American teachers in HK. I thought anybody who was willing to move to another country for a new teaching experience would be a little more open-minded. I have a friend, a calculus teacher, who taught in the UK back in the '90s on a sort of exchange program. He loved it and his students still keep in touch. The UK counterpart, Rona, also did well here. She stayed on for a few years and then went back home to marry a man from her home town.

I've never liked the idea of tenure but I can see the need for teachers' unions. It's common knowledge that teachers are underpaid and under-appreciated for all they do, and that many of them can earn more money by taking corporate or other jobs in the private sector.
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Teaching in a HK school is quite challenging and does not suit everyone. Most 'foreign teachers' are employed as NETs (Native English Teachers) and are often the only English speakers on the staff. The teacher HAS to make super human efforts to be accepted otherwise he or she will be given a desk in the corner and will never be spoken to!!! Americans and Australians seem to have major problems - particularly the ladies. Canadians and British seem to settle and stay longer. (My daughter is an L1 teacher, not NET (L2)).
Most foriegn teachers come for the money - not to enhance their careers or to actually encourage the children. Often they arrive on a 2 year contract, are paid several times more than local teachers and bugger off with their stash at the end of the contract.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
It prevents ideological nutjobs and political extremist at the local level from undermining public education who would eliminate every educator that doesn't agree with them. If it wasn't for teacher's unions there wouldn't be a qualified biology teacher working in the entire south. Look what happened in Dover. The entire science curriculum whould have been undermined by a couple of nutjobs on the local school board had not the unionized science teachers told them "No! We will not do that!"

That's how teacher unions benefit education. Other wise you'd have people with lunatic fringe views in positions of power undermining our public education.

That's not to say that the primary beneficiary of a teachers union are the teachers. As any other person they have a fundamental human right to organize and collectively bargain for the appropriate compensation for their services.
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It only does that insofar as it keeps political ideas that are contrary to the union out. There are two unions at my school. One for trades teachers, and one for academic ones. While I've been fairly lucky in my dealings with both houses, I can say that the political nutery is found uniformly on the academic side, which is incredibly left wing.
 
The Dude said:
Horeshit,what are they paid vs other college grads
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If they stay around 7 years they are paid equivalent, if they stay more than 15 they are better paid than those with an equivalent education. Their compensation comes later because that is what the unions negotiated. The idea that somehow "we" don't put enough money into education is a fallacy. We put too much for the return we get.
 
apple0154 said:
Quite true, however, Bush and his buddies decided it's better to bomb the houses in foreign countries and then build new ones and to hell with the US citizens. The fact is when one considers the trillions of dollars spent on war that would pay for a lot of homes in great neighborhoods.

What do you think?
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I think you're trying to deflect the fact that I completely destroyed your argument. :D
 
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