Teacher’s Unions
Look: Like it or not, the union is a fact of life. As long as stupid people have jobs, there will be assholes to represent them in unions.
When, say, Ford has a labor dispute, the labor representatives sit down with a representative of the company. The representatives of the people who do the work negotiate with the representatives of the people who write the checks.
In a teachers union the teachers negotiate with school boards and other elected officials. Problem is, those elected officials are often elected with large contributions from the unions they are supposed to be across the bargaining table with. The people who are supposed to represent the Taxpayers are financially beholden to the unions they must bargain with.
Nowhere do the Unions want to negotiate with taxpayers. They know the moment they do, the taxpayers will demand that they do their jobs properly, and for the same kinds of wages and benefits that the taxpayers enjoy. The current relationship is intrinsically corrupt and inbred, and anything we can do to shut this down should be done.
Taking the task of educating children away from the municipalities in which they live, and assigning the task to the state or federal government is the very worst thing we as a society have ever done.
10 comments Og | Uncategorized
and for the same kinds of wages and benefits that the taxpayers “enjoy.”
You caught that little irony, didn’t you?
The worst thing that can happen to ‘our’ schools or ANY school for that is the removal of LOCAL control.
Re: the school boards, I would say in our rural communities the teacher’s unions have zero, as in ‘zilch’, influence on the school board elections or resultant decisions, but then I think for most of ’em once the school board members get elected, they do what they damn well please anyway…
All The Best,
Frank W. James
“but then I think for most of ‘em once the school board members get elected, they do what they damn well please anyway…”
Yep. Pretty much like any damned elected official.
I suffered from a learning disability.
School District 81.
Oh it gets even better when not only do the teachers union contribute to politicians, but teachers get voted into office. Much less conflict of interest, NOT.
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
LVTony,
That’s called the inmates running the asylum. Never a good thing. Nor is it a good thing to have administrators with degrees in ‘leadership’ or other tripe and nonsense.
[What happened to the rest of my comment? IIRC, this was it.]
Then you’ll surely like this Klavan on the culture vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su4PwZCWUdg
as a “grace” note. ;)