John Stossel has more to say on what the intrasigence of teachers unions is doing to schools.
Bosses, have I got an idea for you: Don’t pay your best employees more, don’t ease out your least productive workers, and for crying out loud, never fire anyone, not even for the most blatant misconduct on the job.
It works for the public schools, doesn’t it?
Actually, it doesn’t, but since they’re government monopolies, they don’t care. They never go out of business. They just keep doing what they’re doing, year after year, churning out class after class of students handicapped by a poor education.
He recounts a story about a teacher who sent a sexual email to a student but it was next to impossible to fire the teacher.
It’s almost impossible because of the rules in the New York schools’ 200-page contract with their teachers. There are so many rules that principals rarely even try to jump through all the hoops to fire a bad teacher. It took six years of expensive litigation before the teacher who wrote Cutee101 was fired. During those six years, he received more than $300,000 in salary.
Imagine what Stossel would find if he came to Hawaii. Article here.
I got out of teaching secondary school after 5 years total in three states. Public schools are a failure because of the unions. I was forced in California to join either one or the other union. Many quality teachers leave because of the unions and low salaries. 1.Real professionals are not allowed to teach in high schools because they have not taken the required courses or do not have the required undergraduate degrees. For example a doctor cannot teach health courses in high school. Lawyers cannot teach. Professional musicians with masters degrees cannot teach in high school without the proper “Education” courses.
2. Discipline is lost because the effective tools have been removed from both administration and the teachers.
3. Standards are lowered to allow the “Also-rans” to catch up.
4. Parents are not being the honest brokers they should be and do not spend anytime in the classrooms to know what is going on with their children. Few spend time with their kids after school to know what they are doing or share important time together.
5.Socializing is the reason kids are in public schools today and are there not to learn.
6.Teaching is not being done effectively. Example: My children learned German from the neighbor kids when we lived in Germany. They learned Spanish by repeating what their friends when we lived in Mexico. They learned to speak and communicate before they studied the written word just as we all did English. When we returned to the States they would bring words home. They and their classmates were learning to conjugate verbs before they could communicate basically. If this were true with languages it must be true with other subjects. It definately is.
7. The only way to change the public school system is with competition and this is happening with home schooling and charter schools. This should be encouraged more and should be supported.
Parents need to get back in the driver’s seats and take charge and change the system. Take back the schools from the unions. Give good qualified teachers support and salaries and the tools to teach. Parents also need support and education to be able to control and participate with their kids.
Three people cannot live on one salary. Two people cannot live on one retirement. This has to change. Women (or men) should be salaried when they work at home where they can manage the home and kids in the absence of the outside working spouse.