June 6, 2005
IS THE SYSTEM TO BENEFIT TEACHERS OR STUDENTS?:
No Child Left Behind is starting to work (Stanley Crouch, 6/06/05, NY Daily News)
Dan Rose, a businessman and philanthropist, recently visited China and became aware of the fact that the Chinese are now graduating 10 million high school students a year who cannot speak English, but who can read and write English. His question was, "I wonder how long it will take the Chinese, at this rate, to end up with more people who can read and write English than we have in the United States?"Those sorts of education "miracles" are fairly easy within totalitarian systems because an unambiguous decision at the top can lead to successful practice if the necessary components are in place. Those who are not attracted to totalitarian methods in order to achieve success should take heed of what is now happening in the world of American public education, where reform is taking place against the will of the teachers union.
The United Federation of Teachers has said that No Child Left Behind is a measure that has been misapplied since it was enacted. But the recent spike in math and reading scores for states including Delaware, Ohio, Maryland, Illinois and yes, New York, says otherwise.
The union is invaluable in terms of representing teachers as a labor group for collective bargaining. But the union also is the greatest enemy of public education.
No public employees ought be allowed to unionize, but letting teachers is especially harmful. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2005 6:18 PM
IS THE SYSTEM TO BENEFIT TEACHERS OR STUDENTS?
Silly question.
Posted by: Mike Morley at June 6, 2005 6:33 PMSpeaking as a public employee since 1965, I agree wholeheartedly.
Posted by: ghostcat at June 6, 2005 6:35 PMBut if teachers can't unionize how can they protect themselves from exploitation at the hands of greedy parent overlords?
Posted by: Luciferous at June 6, 2005 6:36 PMoj:
I agree with you about prohibiting teachers, in particular, from unionizing. I don't know your reasoning. For me, although I don't claim to be expert in labor-management matters, I'd understood that unions were beneficial in industries where (at least in theory) management was responsible to shareholders/owners, and not to workers. Thus, the theory went, management would select negotiators, unions would select negotiators, and through the process of collective bargaining a fair result would be reached (remember, I said 'in theory'). In this ideal process, the idea of labor selecting management negotiators would be anathema. Yet this is the power of teachers' unions, particularly in urban school districts. In San Francisco (I have two teenagers in the public schools), nobody can get elected to the school board without the support of the teacher's union. And, if a candidate takes positions contrary to the union, the union will spend whatever it takes to defeat that candidate (nobody knows, and fewer care, about candidates for school board, so advertising and mailers and name recognition are electorally dispositive). Thus, the union for all intents and purposes gets to select not only negotiators for management (i.e. the school board), but gets to dictate management decisions on labor-management issues. This is of course a perversion of the premise of collective bargaining, but we don't like to talk about it in polite society, given that it's 'about the children' and all that.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at June 6, 2005 8:37 PM