What can be done to stop the obscenly powerful teachers unions?

Question

The collective bargaining power and political clout of teachers unions allow teachers to receive contracts that often run to more than 100 pages, and are filled with provisions for high wages, fantastic health benefits and retirement packages, generous time off, total job security, teacher transfer and assignment rights, restrictions on how teachers can be evaluated, restrictions on nonclassroom duties, and countless other rules that shackle the discretion of administrators. These contracts make the schools costly to run, heavily bureaucratic, and extremely difficult for administrators to manage. They also ensure that even the most incompetent teachers are virtually impossible to remove from the classroom. The public school system, as a result, is not even remotely the kind of institution one would design if the best interests of students were the guiding criterion. What can be done to fight these organisations?

Fine. Pay for teachers may not be great (average 25,000 dollars a year to start, I believe), but so what? I wouldn't want a teacher that only cares about a paycheck. I made about the same as new teacher when I was in Iraq being shot at every other day, and I didn't complain.

Answer 1

In the eighties, the U.S. taxpayer paid millions for an incredible study done by the Carnegy Foundation that investigated, objectively, what this nation could do to regain our strength in math and science and technology. Local control of public schools and Christian fundamentalism had diminished our national scores to below Rowanda's. The Carnegy study presented several conclusions. The most important step that we could take to regain our lead in the world was to pay teachers more in order to attract the best minds. We didn't follow a single suggestion from that study. Today, we are still behind Rowanda and China owns us in trade deficit, debt and technological advantage. We are now anticipating a shortage of engineers so severe, we can no longer expect to maintain our standard of living and world advantage.

Answer 2

I teach in Texas and it is against the state law for teachers to be part of a union. Therefore there is no collective bargaining, no strikes and teachers have very little clout. Therefore it would seem that Texas could be your model for the "ideal" non-union educational system. Unfortunately, things are not as great as you think they might be. My contract is one page in length. It has taken me 30 years of teaching to finally get to $50,000. I wouldn't call my health benefits anything but adequate. The state keeps trying to use my retirement to build prisons and fund new businesses. I suppose you have a point about the time off; two weeks at Christmas a week in the spring and twelve weeks in the summer. My district can move me to any school anytime they want to whether I like it or not, and our administration always has the final say. So in summary, the school situation you describe must be somewhere other than Texas.

Answer 3

Sorry. I believe you've asked an unanswerable (but extremely well stated) question.

Short of firing ALL of the teaching staff, preparing for a district/taxpayer wide financial disaster caused by the endless lawsuits that would be initiated by the NEA and district EA, and then meeting the challenge of hiring new teachers that would agree to remain non-unionized ---- there is no other solution. And even this would be dependent upon your district WINNING the lawsuit.

Plus, it would only solve the problem in one lone district. However, take courage, there would only be just a few thousand more to go.

Believe me, I am not being facetious, this is my honest (and hopeless) opinion.

I would add however that GOOD teachers could be hired regardless of the union naysayers who may respond to this post. Heck, even some of those fired teachers who were "the good ones" might be some of the best candidates for the newly established, and union free, school district.

If you are Christian (I am not), pray for very large miracles.

By the way, rider3171 has given you a very good, and a very practical answer. Unfortunately, you don't kill a snake by cutting off its' tail bit by bit.

Thanks for the question!

Answer 4

The short answer would be to send your children to a private school. Here in Canada there ARE affordable private school options.

As a teacher, I have no choice as to whether or not I join the union. In fact, I had to become a member while I was still a university student in order to attend some optional workshops held at the university for students. Back then it was a trade-off: either join the union and get the extra training, or don't join the union and don't get the extra training. I felt that joining the union and going to the workshops would ultimately benefit my students, so I joined. Later, I had no choice. If I wanted a job in the public school system I had to join the union. As a new teacher there were virtually no jobs in private schools.

I think you'll find that a lot of teachers sign the contract and then let a lot of it slide. For example, you mention "generous time off". On Monday of this week I taught from 7:30 to 3:00 with a one-hour lunch break. For half of that lunch break I supervised students in the computer lab. I stayed in the school until 3:45 marking assignments, then headed to a nearby school for a 90-minute professional development seminar (for which I don't get paid). That's 7:30 am to 5:30 pm, with a half-hour lunch break (no recess!) and a fifteen-minute drive between schools. About 10% of my days are like that, while the rest of the time I work about nine hours in total. I also run an extra-curricular club that meets weekly. I don't complain because I know it's part of my job. I knew what teaching was like when I decided to get into it. I don't go back to my contact and highlight every section about working hours. And I also don't consider six weeks at summer and one week at Christmas (we spend the rest of the supposed "holidays" marking and planning) to be "generous time off" when you factor in the actual hours I work during the school year.

You mention "high wages", but my hourly wage is only about $28 when you average it out. Considering that I went to university for six years to become a teacher (as one must do in Canada), that's pretty shabby. My friends who did four-year degrees in Engineering make twice that. I have no problems opening my classroom doors with a moment's notice and letting administration or parents observe what is happening. I do all sorts of "non classroom duties", from running a club to cleaning the staffroom (staff have to clean the staffroom themselves on a rotating basis) to spending my own evenings (and my own money) previewing possible field trip locations.

I think that if you spent time in a school you would find that teachers like the union because it ensures they earn a living wage, but they're pretty flexible about the other stuff.

Answer 5

Until I retired as a public school teacher, I was the district representative to the Michigan Educators Association. I naively thought I could have an influence, but the administrative structure was so stacked against an individual having an influence, I gave up. The result of the union excesses is very evident in the Michigan schools. The quality of a public school education has deteriorated to the point that parents eagerly attempt to enroll their children in charter schools. As children leave the public schools, the number of education association members decreases, and as the number decreases, the power of the association decreases. So, the teacher unions are in effect destroying themselves.

Answer 6

Where I live, teacher salaries are less than what average business pay for similarly educated people doing professional jobs. Health benefit are no better. Vacation and sick day policy in par with businesses EXCEPT for the long summer break, perhaps make up for less days per year at work.

I don't know where you got the idea that their unions are OBSCENELY powerful.

Do you really think giving administrators who are not in classroom dictating education system is a good idea?

What our education really need are parents who will take personal responsibility on kids behaviors and education. Teachers and schools are not day care system. Today, teachers has to fight with parents who will protect their kids when they do wrong. Parents will fight for kids who get bad grades as a result of them not studying. We need to stop blaming schools and teachers for every problem in education.

After all, kids are with parents a lot longer than teachers. If they don't send kids with basic discipline and make sure they do the home work, what do you expect school can do?

Answer 7

We could start by hoping that teachers will want the job without the aformentioned securities. There is already a teacher shortage. Most college grads earn way more than teachers, so I suppose we could eliminate the requirement for a college education. That would probably not improve things. I just quit teaching in America because I was sick of the workload and I could get a much better deal teaching in a university abroad with the same qualifications I had in America. Get rid of the teachers' union power and you'll get rid of more qualified teachers.

Answer 8

I guess they failed you! You spelled obscenly wrong.

Where did you get the idea that there are high wages and fantastic health benefits? Those are just a couple of your misconceptions. The administrators have added just as many contract provisions as the teachers unions. If they were fair in their dealings with teachers the contracts would not have to be as complicated. Fight them never- fight for them yes.

As for giving tax credits to parents who are ""home schooling"" their children - NO NO NO. In my opinion they should be fined and charged with neglect. When these children get to college they are ill prepared.

Answer 9

If you look at simple pay scale, you may have been paid equivalent to a teacher's salary to be shot at in Iraq, but you also only need a high school diploma or GED to do so. I mean no disrespect by this as all of my family has served in the military and my mother and brother are currently serving. Remember you also got room and board, however horrid it may have been, your other basic needs were met.

Looking at the amount of education that a teacher must now have under NCLB, teachers are completely underpaid. I have friends who make two to three times my salary with less education and who work about half as much as I do simply because they are in the corporate world. What about the CEOs who give themselves millions worth of bonuses each year? Shouldn't their power be cut.

Answer 10

Stop bowing down to them. Allow true open enrollment. Give tax credits to parents who home school. Allow open enrollment in alternative schools (Christian, etc) and have the government give the money for that student to that school as at least partial tuition instead of making the parents pay for the public school, which they dont' use, as well as the school they do use.

Make schools compete for the students and money. If a school, and thus a teacher, has to compete in an open marketplace, they will excell or leave. Right now, the classes are "dumbed down" to the level of the lowest child at worst, and at best, down to the level of the "middle" group. The children aren't challenged, and don't excell.