7 Reasons to Say Goodbye to Teachers Unions

[Cow Poke]

Along with the thread about unions being a detriment to police reform....

7 Reasons to Say Goodbye to Teachers Unions

Every year, my school district hosts a beginning of the year meeting with every employee in the district. Amidst all the pomp are 15 minutes during which my school district provides a platform for the head of the local teachers union. He doesn’t say much, keeping it vague and general. He says the union works with the school board and other leaders to fight for both teachers and students.

He also spends time in the teachers’ lounge occasionally, handing out pamphlets. A note in defense of unions was left at a table in the lounge recently. It details accomplishments of unions past and the evils of corporations. This note and this speech are a nice review of a high school civics course, but they have one glaring flaw: they focus entirely on the past.

Contexts change. For instance, the necessity of stationed US troops in Germany has shifted since the Cold War. The same goes for unions at large as the US reaches historical levels of prosperity. We can appreciate the accomplishments of the past while still reconsidering the utility of unions in the present. There are of course defenses of unions within a modern context. That said, they are ultimately lacking. Here are seven reasons why we should support the dissolution of teachers unions in 2019....

Then I'll summarize, or highlight, the 7 reasons from the article...

1. They are advocacy groups as much as unions
2. They have more money in politics than just about everyone
3. Their policy ideals won’t cut it
4. They block meaningful reform
5. They breed a culture of entitlement
6. They bargain for mediocre benefits
7. We can bargain for ourselves

Just like police unions put the interest of the police officers over public safety, teacher unions put the interests of teachers over the interests of the students and the community.

[Starlight]

US commentators I trust who seem well informed on the topic, seem very full of praise for Teachers unions, and seem to see them as focused on maximizing the well-being and educational successes of the kids, and opposing extremist right-wing policies that would hurt those things (e.g. under-funding education, turning schools into for-profit moneymaking schemes for rich people to own and get richer off by milking them for money, etc).

I'd tend to assume what you're quoting from is propaganda that was paid for by someone mega-rich who wants to get richer by getting their snout in the trough of private investment in schools, and is frustrated that current law doesn't allow them to steal the kids' lunch-money through such investments, and that teachers unions are currently managing to put the brakes on such 'policy ideals' and 'reforms' despite the rich guy bribing every politician he can find in his attempts to change the law.

[QuantaFille]

US commentators I trust who seem well informed on the topic, seem very full of praise for Teachers unions, and seem to see them as focused on maximizing the well-being and educational successes of the kids, and opposing extremist right-wing policies that would hurt those things (e.g. under-funding education, turning schools into for-profit moneymaking schemes for rich people to own and get richer off by milking them for money, etc).

I'd tend to assume what you're quoting from is propaganda that was paid for by someone mega-rich who wants to get richer by getting their snout in the trough of private investment in schools, and is frustrated that current law doesn't allow them to steal the kids' lunch-money through such investments, and that teachers unions are currently managing to put the brakes on such 'policy ideals' and 'reforms' despite the rich guy bribing every politician he can find in his attempts to change the law.

Only good schools make any money. If someone runs a really crappy school, nobody wants their kids to go there and they lose money. Competing with other schools forces them to focus on grades and outcomes just to stay in business. How is that a bad thing?

[seer]

Only good schools make any money. If someone runs a really crappy school, nobody wants their kids to go there and they lose money. Competing with other schools forces them to focus on grades and outcomes just to stay in business. How is that a bad thing?

Leftists seem to like monopolies. It doesn't matter that inner city families have been begging for school vouchers for decades.

[seer]

Just like police unions put the interest of the police officers over public safety, teacher unions put the interests of teachers over the interests of the students and the community.

Defund public schools! Fight the power!

[rogue06]

US commentators I trust

Meaning those who agree with you.

who seem well informed on the topic

Meaning those who agree with you.

seem very full of praise for Teachers unions, and seem to see them as focused on maximizing the well-being and educational successes of the kids

Not too long ago one of the presidents of a teacher's union was very candid about the fact that they are there to serve the teachers and that the kids and their education wasn't their concern.

and opposing extremist right-wing policies that would hurt those things (e.g. under-funding education, turning schools into for-profit moneymaking schemes for rich people to own and get richer off by milking them for money, etc).

Money has been pouring into schools non-stop for decades with absolutely nothing to show for it.

The fact is that the left likes to pretend that their willingness to shovel money at education willy-nilly without any thought of accountability is evidence of their support of kids and families while those mean ol' conservatives want everyone to just go away and die. But this is far more motivated by funneling money to teacher's unions who then contribute huge amounts back into Democrat coffers^[1] than anything else. Am I being too cynical? Then explain if educating children was the goal why do liberals tend to fight tooth and nail against any ideas to improve education that doesn't include massive transfers of money such as charter schools and school choice^[2]?

Further, if liberal policies are the best way to improve education then why are they the ones overseeing the worst school districts and systems in spite of massive outlays of money? Could it be that after decades of this that we can now conclude that their policies have failed?

For instance, I cannot help thinking about how when, back in the mid-80s a federal judge ordered that Billions of dollars be spent upgrading Kansas City's schools. The educrats were giddy with delight. They set about adding enormous gyms to the schools, built an Olympic swimming pool, TV studios, a planetarium, a zoo, and even a wildlife sanctuary. After burning through $2 Billion it was discovered that what they did not get was a single new textbook to replace the worn-out sadly out-dated ones they had. And IIRC not a single new teacher was hired although a lot more administrators were^[3].

Results? The schools got worse. Markedly so. Something like five years later the Kansas City school district failed 11 performance standards and lost its academic accreditation for the first time in the district’s history.

I'd tend to assume what you're quoting from is propaganda

As opposed to the "informed" sources that you "trust" (i.e., Hollywood and Young Turks).

that was paid for by someone mega-rich who wants to get richer by getting their snout in the trough of private investment in schools, and is frustrated that current law doesn't allow them to steal the kids' lunch-money through such investments, and that teachers unions are currently managing to put the brakes on such 'policy ideals' and 'reforms' despite the rich guy bribing every politician he can find in his attempts to change the law.

Maybe folks just want a decent education for their children.

After the Chicom coronavirus lockdown a recent poll found that up to 40% of parents forced to teach their kids at home are now thinking of doing so permanently (although I bet only a fraction take that step).

One of the reasons is that the parent's discovered that the schools were just very expensive babysitters. The parent's typically finished a day's curriculum in about two hours, whereas the schools take eight hours and then send the kids home with two to three hours homework. When parents asked what are they doing all day in school one school administrator frankly admitted that the kids learn their lessons from their homework while the teachers grade it during school.

To continue with the liberal love of shoveling money at a problem without getting results...

The top five "states"^[4] when it comes to total Elementary/Secondary Public School spending/student were from the top down New York, Alaska, Washington D.C., Connecticut and New Jersey but in 2017 they respectively placed 40th, 31st, 51st, 44th and 38th in SAT rankings. Yet the state with lowest total Elementary/Secondary Public School spending/student, Utah,which spent about a third or less for each student as those at the top was 10th in SAT scores. The one with the fifth lowest expenditure, Mississippi, ranked 9th.

Overall, the trend for SAT scores reveals that most of the high spending states are doing bad in that measure whereas most of the lower spending states have higher scores. So if throwing money at the problem is the solution then why did many of the states with the lowest per student expenditures do better than many of those with the highest per student expenditures?

This sorta blows a hole in the notion that spending more money means better results, doesn't it.

Interestingly, in 2000 the state with the highest average SAT score was North Dakota, which ranked 41st in per student spending but has since began spending a lot more moving up to 15th in that category and yet has also dropped to 6th for SAT scores.

Further (the last time I checked), Americans spend more on schooling than the vast majority of countries that outscore us on the international tests.










1. For instance, according to Open Secrets, the American Federation of Teachers donated $7,919,897 to politicians and political groups with $7,888,355 going to Democrats and liberals (99.9%) and $6500 to Republicans and conservatives

2. A perfect example of this is what happened at Mollie E. Ray Elementary in Orlando, Florida as the 2002-2003 school year began. The school had received an "F" rating for the past two years (1 of only 10 schools to "earn" such a distinction), as judged annually by the state of Florida so the victims of such failed schools are allowed to apply for vouchers to help them escape. So how did the school react? Vowing to fix the problem? To work on improving education?

Nah.

To start, students were met by teachers wearing T-shirts proclaiming "F = Fantastic." Getting an "F" grade was now considered a positive thing. The union educrats chose to brainwash young minds with Orwellian double-speak into thinking that flunking is actually a good thing. Then school officials attacked the scores of parents, who did choose to opt out, for "abandoning" their schools in a time of need. Excuse me. Apparently some parents had the temerity to want the best for their children rather than sacrifice them on the altar of public "edjumakatun" and were savaged for it. Still it would have been interesting come Report Card time when the little darlings still stuck in that unrepentantly failed school explained this "F = Fantastic" concept to their parents. Trouble is, too many might fallen for it. Especially those in "blue" districts."

3. When I started High School it was so overcrowded not only were there nearly a dozen trailers setting in the parking lot being used as classrooms but we had to go in shifts with juniors and seniors going in the morning and freshmen and sophomores in the afternoon. Yet we only had 4 principals. Now after expanding the building and several new schools being built, resulting in a smaller school population, there are somewhere between a dozen and 15 principals at my old school.

4. this includes Washington D.C. which is not a state.

[rogue06]

Defund public schools! Fight the power!

B-but Democrats need the kickbacks they get

[rogue06]

Leftists seem to like monopolies. It doesn't matter that inner city families have been begging for school vouchers for decades.

Always found it interesting that the profession most likely to send their children to a private school are teachers.


It is almost like they know something that we don't.

[Starlight]

Only good schools make any money. If someone runs a really crappy school, nobody wants their kids to go there and they lose money. Competing with other schools forces them to focus on grades and outcomes just to stay in business. How is that a bad thing?

Charter schools typically have entry criteria to ensure they only get good students. Starting with above average students gives the school a self-reinforcing reputation as a 'good school' and in turn attracts the above-average in wealth and intelligence, and this means the school does fine on grades at exam time compared to other schools regardless of whether or not particularly much effort or money is being put into good teaching, because their students are above-average students from the start and probably have support from educated parents at home in their learning and homework. The school in turn can charge the parents slightly less than an equivalent private school would, due the government subsidies, even with the owner diverting some of that money into their own pockets.

So such schools can thrive even if they offer worse teaching than equivalent state schools. Meanwhile the state schools are having their best students siphoned off and being left with all the problem students, thus meaning that per-class they have more problem students, and even if the state schools have better quality teachers and more highly paid ones and better funded classrooms, their outcomes can still be worse as a result of losing all their good students.

An underlying issue is that quality of teaching is very hard to measure, so it's hard to determine what is or isn't a 'good school' in that sense. So people have a tendency to select 'good schools' based on the demographics of the students attending, or the grades of students graduating from them, and both those metrics tend to snowball, and tend to cause other schools to become worse as a consequence of the good students being moved away from the 'bad schools' to the 'good schools'.

[Starlight]

Always found it interesting that the profession most likely to send their children to a private school are teachers.

I doubt it's true. The stats I can find on the internet suggest teachers are more likely to send kids to private schools than the average person, but the primary cause is probably just that the average teacher in the US earns twice the average wage in the US, so they can afford private schools more than the average person. I can't find anything to suggest teachers send their kids to private schools more than other professions, e.g. lawyers, bankers etc.

The specific articles I can find of teachers discussing why they have sent their children to private schools seem unanimous in saying that they believe the teaching itself at private schools to be worse, but the social environment to be better due to the private schools drawing on a better class of student and they note that the peer-group of students has significant influence on their lives and educational outcomes. As I noted in my previous post, if you pack the good kids into one school to make the social environment there better, yet tend to make the social environment in the other schools worse as a result. While it might be beneficial for the specific kids that are being moved to a school with 'better' kids in it, it makes for worse outcomes on average if this starts to snowball, so you tend to want to design the system to prevent this happening too much.

Meaning those who agree with you.

I have learned to trust them because they are consistency correct on other topics I know enough about to judge them on. I have no personal experience or direct knowledge of teachers unions in the US, but people I trust seem to know a lot about this topic and seem very sure that teachers unions are a very positive force in ensuring the quality of educational outcomes in the US.

Something they've been mocking a lot in the last couple of years was the failed Gates Foundation teaching experiment, where the Gates Foundation burned through half a billion dollars of its own and taxpayers money to test a 'great new idea' that teachers unions had told them over and over wouldn't work, only to have their own report conclude it didn't work.

[seer]

Always found it interesting that the profession most likely to send their children to a private school are teachers.


It is almost like they know something that we don't.

Exactly...

[Cow Poke]

US commentators I trust who seem well informed on the topic, seem very full of praise for Teachers unions, and seem to see them as focused on maximizing the well-being and educational successes of the kids, and opposing extremist right-wing policies that would hurt those things (e.g. under-funding education, turning schools into for-profit moneymaking schemes for rich people to own and get richer off by milking them for money, etc).

I'd tend to assume what you're quoting from is propaganda that was paid for by someone mega-rich who wants to get richer by getting their snout in the trough of private investment in schools, and is frustrated that current law doesn't allow them to steal the kids' lunch-money through such investments, and that teachers unions are currently managing to put the brakes on such 'policy ideals' and 'reforms' despite the rich guy bribing every politician he can find in his attempts to change the law.

And your "US commentators you trust" are probably part of, paid for by, or in support of unions.

[Cow Poke]

Only good schools make any money. If someone runs a really crappy school, nobody wants their kids to go there and they lose money. Competing with other schools forces them to focus on grades and outcomes just to stay in business. How is that a bad thing?

Which is why teachers unions very actively oppose school choice, charter schools, etc.

[Cow Poke]

Leftists seem to like monopolies. It doesn't matter that inner city families have been begging for school vouchers for decades.

Leftists preach FREE CHOICE, as long as they get to choose which choices you are allowed to make.
They are for FREE SPEECH, as long as you don't oppose anything they preach.

[Cow Poke]

Charter schools typically have entry criteria to ensure they only get good students...

Let's stop right there, because many charter schools actually target those with the greatest need -- there's pride and joy in taking a failing student and making him/her a star student.