No
No
waer454 wrote:
Teachers go to college to train how to teach. They get licensed by the state based on said training.
Then they get a job and are TOLD (ordered) by the admins and school boards (not the union):
What to teach (I thought they trained from this?)
How to teach (Ain't they licensed professionals?)
To waste immense time on std test prep and administration (to make the admins and board look good).
To not even think of meting out any discipline in class and simply suffer with the malcontents and troublemakers.
accurate post.
high school xc coach wrote:
waer454 wrote:
Teachers go to college to train how to teach. They get licensed by the state based on said training.
Then they get a job and are TOLD (ordered) by the admins and school boards (not the union):
What to teach (I thought they trained from this?)
How to teach (Ain't they licensed professionals?)
To waste immense time on std test prep and administration (to make the admins and board look good).
To not even think of meting out any discipline in class and simply suffer with the malcontents and troublemakers.
accurate post.
Indeed.
Absolutely. Teachers need a strong voice.
It's ridiculous that they have to buy school material from their own measly wages.
Hell NO.
I'm not opposed to unions necessarily, but the teachers' union is terrible. Do they care about kids? Not in the slightest! They represent the worst in workers: whiny, lazy, entitled, and plain incompetent. Listen to this: they demand to be highly paid, plus huge benefits, summers off, pensions, and they can't show up at work??? And now some of them are scared of a vaccine? Are you kidding me? In any other sector, they would be fired on the spot. I wish we could fire many, not all, of the public school teachers. I do know some good teachers. They actually despise the teachers' union.
Yes, unions as a whole have been a positive for all workers (union or not). However they need to be checked and if I lived in some of the school districts near me I would be angry with them.
100% yes. My union earns every penny of the $135 per month I pay them.
Limousine Libertarian wrote:
I do not support any public sector union.
they should, at the very least, be banned from political activity. Serious corruption of the system
steve. the. addict... wrote:
No. They are trying to manipulate people into thinking they're victims. But this is far from true. They have it better than 95% of the working class. Paid vacation for 4 months in the summer while still making more money than most people. Their work benefits are outlandish. The established teachers can get away with doing ZERO prep work and putting in ZERO effort in class because they know they can hide behind the union. I had some godawful and lazy teachers as a kid--who at the time I loved because I was a kid but then i realized they were just lazy teachers who stunted kids' development for a year.
I'll add to this, their pay is not only better than a lot of people even while getting a few months off per year. But the college program to become a teacher is not very hard, which is why I see a lot of people I went to school with growing up becoming teachers and it makes me wonder how dumb some of my teachers were when I was growing up.
In my state they have great retirement benefits. Maybe they should get rid of those retirement benefits and use the savings to pay them a little more, then they can quit complaining they aren't paid enough. What they get paid in retirement really probably is more than they need and it's wasted money even for them. They'd be better off getting that money when they were actually working.
Separate issues. Teachers should not complain about their pay if they have pensions and retirement benefits. But a union that fights for a safe work environment, manageable work load and class sizes, due process is something else.
I never had a high salary but my pension and other benefits were more than fair well but the conditions were horrible and would have been worse if not for my union.
NO
Teachers Unions are about teachers not kids.
They serve two primary functions;
1. Prevent horrible teachers from being fired
2. To make sure the worst teacher is paid the exact same as the best teacher (communism).
Teachers unions are against school choice, charter schools and any sort of competition (communism). They donate all of there money to the democrat party that protects them at every turn.
The results of teachers unions? The US ranks 40th in Math world wide despite spending the most on education of any country in the world.
I keep my kids out of public schools at all costs.
wazzu1452 wrote:
NO
Teachers Unions are about teachers not kids.
They serve two primary functions;
1. Prevent horrible teachers from being fired
2. To make sure the worst teacher is paid the exact same as the best teacher (communism).
Teachers unions are against school choice, charter schools and any sort of competition (communism). They donate all of there money to the democrat party that protects them at every turn.
The results of teachers unions? The US ranks 40th in Math world wide despite spending the most on education of any country in the world.
I keep my kids out of public schools at all costs.
Essentially none of the above is true. Unions do not decide the educational agenda. The school board and the school administration does.
The US ranks 66th on spending as a % of GDP and is not notably different in actual $$/student than other developed nations.
We probably also (and I'm guessing here) spend more on non ed stuff (ie football) than the Germans and Swiss and whoever else.
We also have a lot of kids who come from homes where education is not a priority and teaching is "not my job". If you have ever been to Japan, SK, CHina, and probably many other countries....this not a thing. NO parent in those countries says "eh, its their job".
Essentially none of the above is true.
"The most recent version for 2018 reports that, in 2015, the United States spent approximately $12,800 per student on elementary and secondary education. That is over 35% more than the OECD country average of $9,500. At the post-secondary level, the United States spent approximately $30,000 per student, which was 93% higher than the average of OECD countries ($16,100)."
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country-spends-most-education.asp
Public sector unions, on the other hand, should be illegal. They negotiate with elected officials who they help elect. They negotiate for a share of coerced tax revenue, rather than for a share of profits, meaning there are no competitive checks on how much they can demand.
More generally, teachers unions promote a strict pay scale that rewards any teacher for years taught—be they exceptional or mediocre or lousy—incentivizing longevity, not performance. They also make it nearly impossible to fire teachers, taking up to two years and costing thousands of tax payer dollars.
While kids are struggling academically and emotionally, the unions are using a pandemic to push their political agenda.
A lot of what he said is true. #1 and #2 definitely are true although you could debate if those are the union's primary function.
Ranking US spending based n GDP is very misleading since our GDP per person well exceeds the rest of the world. When measured in dollars spent per student the US is easily in the top 10 and well above the average in the established world. Money spent is not an issue as we get much better results per dollar spent in charter schools as opposed to public schools.
The teacher's unions in public schools are part of the problem. If they had to face a free market situation I would guess teacher salaries would go up and you'd get more turnover with a lot of the lower performing teachers being replaced by better teachers. The administrative and beurocracy spending for public schools is a tremendous drain on resources and could be easily slashed. The bottom line is this is a complex problem. It is not all the teachers union fault. They are just one cog in the giant mess that is our education system. There are also some very good committed public school teachers making less than they deserve. There are also some very crappy ones who should not even have jobs.
Bottom line is that just throwing more money at the problem will not fix it. Everyone wants to be paid more, teachers are no different. There is no evidence in any industry that raising a person's salary improves performance. Raising salaries can attract better candidates or giving performance-based raises can increase performance. But before you convince me that throwing more money at the thing is the answer show me the plan and agree to implement the plan in a way that makes the investment worthwhile.
Teacher unions are only a hot button issue because it effects everyone wallets. Unions result in higher paid teachers which results in higher school taxes which results in “I’m mad because I have to pay for kids to learn because I’m really greedy and selfish.” Oh and I can’t believe they get summers off. Oh and I can’t believe they get a pension. Suck it up butter cups. If you don’t like it then become a teacher. I guarantee you wouldn’t last a week.
My wife was reluctantly part of the union (she was required to) for the first 15 years of her career.
Those that had tenure and were heavily connected to the union used there power to bump her out of every position she had. She was a really good teacher and enjoyed each new position but was always repairing it for the first few months from what it was.
She literally was bumped every single year and always by someone with seniority who were only motivated by finding an easier job. It only appeared to be easy because of the work my wife was doing. This has been the common thread for every heavily pro- union teacher that she ever worked with. Never working a minute more than they had to. Always about the money only.
Now she is a principal and her best teachers are not heavily into the union. She will have meetings with union reps and they will often vocally say that they don’t care what the initiative is, they will not support it. It’s shameful.
The question for my wife would be whether she would have accepted 20-30k less per year and not to be in the union and her answer would be yes. She is a different breed though.
My background with school systems is being a coach making 3000 for six months and an unpaid volunteer as an assistant for the other 6 months. Union no man.
wazzu1452 wrote:
NO
Teachers Unions are about teachers not kids.
They serve two primary functions;
1. Prevent horrible teachers from being fired
2. To make sure the worst teacher is paid the exact same as the best teacher (communism).
Teachers unions are against school choice, charter schools and any sort of competition (communism). They donate all of there money to the democrat party that protects them at every turn.
The results of teachers unions? The US ranks 40th in Math world wide despite spending the most on education of any country in the world.
I keep my kids out of public schools at all costs.
+1.
Administrators can’t even get rid of lazy staff and they know it. The union literally will support a teacher and provide them with representation when they do something HORRIBLY wrong. This happens all the time in my wife’s school. If they wanted to have a stronger presence with the public they should clear their own waste or at least not support it when children are involved.
The only thing I don’t completely agree with is that you can be a good teacher in a public school system but only if you are resistant to the union’s directives.
Emphatic NO to teacher's unions. An absolute disgrace how they have sacrificed the well being of millions of children with the games they've played.
Its too bad the teachers, the majority of whom I think care about their students and do a great job, haven't directed the union to get back into the classroom long ago.
I'm a teacher, and have been for between 15 and 20 years (I do know how long it's been). I'm required to be part of the union to teach in public schools. I teach at a public school. Thus, I'm part of the union. I don't support the union and would prefer it if we weren't unionized. I also don't live in the USA.
Card carrying member of the Washington Educational Association. That would be a yes.