What is Digg?275 Comments
- cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -11/+124All this talk about unions, bad teachers, bad administrators. Yet no talk about bad parenting?
Take a child with great parents and send him to the most worthless public schools in America, they'll do what it takes to get the kid up to speed for college.
Take the worst parents and send their kids to the best schools, public ~or~ private and they'll still drop out and not give a *****. - snowbooch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+70this title should be more like "Jobs blasts teacher unions, also in attendence Michael Dell"
- HalBSure, on 10/12/2007, -14/+81Steve's on a roll.
- rqwhitaker, on 10/12/2007, -19/+83I actually am a teacher and while I agree that teacher's unions suck half the time, the other half they spend their time making sure teachers, both good and bad, aren't being unfairly treated. I work in a system where I was less of a teacher and more of a means of taking attendance and ensuring that the kids know what's going to be on the next "big" test. How about we fire some kids? How about we make it so that "good" teachers are able to teach and "bad" teachers are easier to identify by getting rid of the idiots that don't want to be there in the first place.
At this point in the year I have a good group of kids who have missed over sixty days of school or have been suspended for over fifteen or come to school just to hang out. Last year I had a kid who I refused to let into class until he convinced me that he was actually in my class. Why? Because in three months I'd only seen him once, and didn't remember him. All the while I had a principal who knew I didn't have any books so I used up all of my allotted copies to copy passages from books, and she refused to give me more copies once the books finally came in January.
I'm just ranting at this point so I'll stop. But all of you people on the whole fire teachers kick (and I believe bad teachers should be removed, but good teachers NEED union protection) need to spend a week babysitting, breaking up fights (which if you get hurt breaking up a fight, you will not be paid because the system isn't liable so you should just let them beat each other into a pulp), getting cursed at (and cursing back), and being spit at among other things. Once you do that, then you can come back and make your remarks. - gstringjihad, on 10/12/2007, -13/+69@zttrx
so principals shouldn't be able to fire teachers because teachers don't get paid enough? what? - rotten777, on 10/12/2007, -4/+58I'm the son of a teacher so I also have some real world experience.
My mother actually is part of a union and she explains that its horrible when a teacher's aid sucks... It is worse when a teacher sucks... It is even worse than that when a principal sucks... It is even worse than that when someone on the school board sucks...
Moral of the story: the more power the person has, the worse off everyone is underneath them (when they're a moron).... unfortunately the education system has no shortage of morons - hoppdawg, on 10/12/2007, -7/+60The US needs a voucher system. $7500 on the head of every kid and the parents choose where to send them. Entrepenuers will open up new schools that parents want to send their kids too and the public schools will start changing their ways so every child doesn't leave them and the unionized teachers are out of a job.
Just like when the US post office said it was impossible for overnight delivery, then Fedex, UPS, et al, showed them it wasn't. - 10mm, on 10/12/2007, -5/+54"Oh, for *****'s sake, not everything is the parents' fault. I'm sick of this "Blame the parents!" trend that's going on. Sure, a lot of things are the parents' fault but that doesn't mean every single thing relating to a child is also their fault. There are just some things that parents don't have control of."
Everything is the parent's fault. One must learn to take 100% responsibility for your own life, and a parent must take 100% responsibility for their child's until the child is no longer under their guardianship. End of story.
What, should we just throw our hands up and surrender because "it's society's fault"?
It doesnt 'take a village'. It takes a parental backbone. - mitchconnerr, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42Great point to be made with this one.
@grubesteak you have a very valid point about bad principals and school boards, however, working in the school system myself, there are MANY MANY bad teachers as well and both sides feed into the entire problem.
Dont get me wrong there are some VERY good and caring teachers as well but they are truely outnumbered.
The new motto for education over the last 10 years in the U.S. is simply summed up by this --
"Lower the standards" - macbwizard, on 10/12/2007, -5/+39Statistically, education majors have some of the lowest SAT scores of any major nationwide. There obviously is a problem with our lower education system.
- grunion, on 10/12/2007, -6/+36Make academics a bit more like the real world - enable good teachers to be rewarded, and the bad to be rewarded appropriately as well. Personally, if Jobs is going to seize some sort of bully pulpit on this issue, I really wish he'd push school choice. That way his vision of bookless classrooms could come to pass and could compete directly with the traditional model. The winner should be obvious over time, and the competition would drive ALL types of teaching forward and benefit all schoolchildren.
Yes, I DO happen to agree with John Stossel's "Stupid in America" thank you. - mochaman, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31I think it has been well documented that bureaucracies are inefficient, and what Jobs is saying is that, school administrators can't do their job because they have their hands tie into their backs, because of unions.
The criticism is not been latched at teachers rather at the system in which schools are failing to provide a good education. - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -10/+35summed up as
bad teachers = lower education standerds
unions protect the bad teachers
thus get rid of union - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+29We are churning out morons with factory like efficiency. Somethings got to give!
- RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -7/+31Grubesteak, Did you even read the article? Jobs is saying that teachers suck because administrators can't fire them. Administrators suck because anyone with half a brain won't work in an environment where unions make it impossible for them to get rid of bad teachers.
fta: "What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?" he asked. "Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.'" - jasonj75, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21Link.... http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338
This quote from the article says it all...
"Here's just one example from New York City: It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student. Klein said, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract."
Only after six years of litigation were they able to fire him. In the meantime, they paid the teacher more than $300,000. Klein said he employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what are called rubber rooms. This year he will spend $20 million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms. It's an alternative to firing them. In the last four years, only two teachers out of 80,000 were fired for incompetence. Klein's office says the new contract will make it easier to get rid of sex offenders, but it will still be difficult to fire incompetent teachers."
I have no doubt that unions are full of people wanting to do good things for children, but they've taken their eye off the ball and now equate what is good for the teacher = good for the student. - Lixie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22 Direct link to article:
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/16717129.htm - SniperGX1, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23The problem is teachers aren't paid enough to tempt competent people to accept the jobs. This is why you can never find a decent computer teacher in school. If you have the skills you can get paid at least twice as much somewhere else. The only people who accept the teaching jobs are the ones who cannot get a job anywhere else. Either that or a retired industry professional that just wants to get out of the house once in awhile.
- NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20I will point out that the NEA isn't really a teacher's union per se. It's a government schooling cartel, whose members include all of the administrators who are getting in your wife's way. The teachers are at the bottom of the pecking order, just like the truckers in the Teamsters' union.
-jcr - doctorcaligari, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15@jprater
As a teacher, I find your comment mostly correct. I get to work with the entire school system, from teacher assistants to assistant superintendents, and I see inefficiencies and ineffectiveness at every level. There are many good, hardworking people at every level, and then there are bad apples that make everything harder.
The biggest problem that I see at the school level today is discipline, or the lack thereof. Lack of discipline can destroy a school, and it really depends on the administrator of that school. I have seen very tight ships fall to pieces in 6 months because a good disciplinarian was promoted to another school, and lenient first-timer brought in as a replacement. At the elementary level, I have seen students punch and claw teachers worse than some adults, and 5-year olds who brought needles to school to "prick" (stab) students and teachers. In all of the cases, little was done to the students.
To sum it up: How is the teacher supposed to teach, the students learn, if the administrative levels refuse to provide a safe environment? - d00ley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Schools should be controlled by the teachers and parents. Period. The money and time wasting layers of bureaucracy is what is destroying the educational system. This includes teacher's unions, of which most decent teachers have serious problems with and whose membership is mandatory. Again, if the schools were not administrative and bureaucratic juggernauts and were controlled solely by the teachers and parents, education would be better off.
- SOAB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12My wife is also a Teacher. Yes the Admins are totally out of touch. But the biggest problem is Tenure for both Admins and the Teachers. Where else can you not be fired for doing a poor job ? My Wife comes home sometimes in tears over the lousy teaching that goes on at her school. The Admins can't fire these burnouts and floaters waiting for retirement. The kids pay the price. She winds up tutoring other Teachers students for hours after school long after the burnouts have gone home. Calif tried to extend the Tenure period from two to five years a couple years back and were soundly rebuffed by the Unions. Being a Union member (closed shop) she refused work phone banks working to defeat it. She and I both voted for it but it didn't pass. Guess as long as the Unions a running education in Calif the situation will remain the same. Sad... :-(
- scubajim, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13@grunion,
Amen to that. It is unfortunate that the very political groups that SHOULD be for the economic underdogs are supporting their demise. Competitive schools raise all. (the converse is true also) People with children who can afford to choose where they live make local school quality a major factor in their decision. (ask any Realtor) Those on the lower end of the economic scale have a lot less choice about where they can live. Thus their main factor is affordability. (pragmatically, not because they really want to live in a neighborhood with an under performing school.) At the very LEAST we should have school choice for people making under $X dollars per year.Those people should be given a voucher equal to what the public school receives for their children. That voucher would be good at any school. (public or private; Supreme Court already ruled this is legal) They could use it at the school they normally attend if they wish. Schools would improve and the customer (students) would benefit. Utah recently put in a program like this into law. - fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12...because a person's full potential can be recognized before age 18. Jackass.
- questionable, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I live in a union-free state for teachers, Virginia, because teachers are considered integral part of the state and cannot join unions or strike, unless they want to violate state law. And according to this random study: http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank06.htm Virginia is ranked 6th, which isn't too shabby. (It doesn't hurt that Thomas Jefferson and Maggie Walker are in top 10 schools in the nation).
But I feel like a lot of teachers are getting the short of the end of stick. Funding for them has always fallen through. It's always in the papers about how education and teacher raises get shunted to road repairs and random bridges. It was a major victory last year that the lottery money would finally be alloted to education, which was promised for the last seven years. Somehow, the money kept on disappearing.
I used to visit a lot of other high schools in Virginia for academic and athletic reasons, and I'd always run into teachers buying stuff for their students with their own paycheck, because the school doesn't have enough money to support them. It's not like the principals don't want to give the money, but they don't have it to give.
So, the flip side without unions is that teachers don't get a choice or voice. Most of teachers I've met really love thier job. They care. They honestly do. How many people would be open to tutoring from 5 AM to 7 AM and 2 PM to 8 PM? Or stay until 11 PM to help a group of theatre students finish? Or invite us to her house for dinner during exam week? I had those high school teachers, and the amount of money they made was paltry. The only way they could earn more than the small raises each year was to get a PhD or National Board Certification, which were an major investment and they could probably get more money doing something else, but they didn't. They loved teaching and felt they were doing something that was important.
A lack of unions isn't too helpful here. Of course, but the altenate isn't that much better. I guess it's the same for everything. When anything grows to a certain extent, it all goes downhill. - jprater, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12my wife is a teacher and she spends several thousands of dollars a year on school supplies the school will not buy. she has to completely decorate her entire classroom b/c the school will not buy posters. plus she is teaching the ENTIRE day. The only time she can do her planning, lesson plans, get activities together, or other pointless stuff the administration wants is after school from like 4-7. with all the extra time she spends working, she spends just as much time a year as i do. if anything, teacher's are greatly under paid and under appreciated. plus she is required to go to classes during the summer to maintain and retain her teaching certificate. where people get this idea that teacher's hardly work is besides me.
she used to work in a private school and was paid much less. the private school also paid for everything as well. she did not have to pay any money out of pocket for anything. - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I started school a couple weeks late my freshmen year of high school, and as a result of there being no room left in any other English classes, I was put into the class of the worst teacher in the school.
She only had around 10 students but like 4 teacher's aides, the only assignment we were ever given was to -copy- the grammar text book, word for word and she spent most of her time staring off into space or having her aides completely cover every inch of the room with black history posters; I can only assume she did this so if she were ever somehow fired she could claim the administration was racist.
The one advantage of her gross incompetence was that we actually took her grade book and changed our scores when she left the room, and were never caught for doing this. I once actually asked her why she didn't even attempt to teach us anything and her response was: "The book is sponsored by the state, so the book is better then me."
My senior year, when I was doing basically volunteer work for the district building/administrating computer labs, I was actually approached on separate occasions by the principle and another English teacher, both times they came to apologize that I had been put into that class and explained to me that this woman would have been fired in an instant if it were possible under the union. As I became more of an employee and less of a student I found out that the vast majority of the faculty absolutely loathed this woman. Apparently she had been doing this for a few decades and all they could do was try to give her as few students as possible.
She is not currently listed on ratemyteachers.com, and I find it hard she would actually ever retire from a job in which all she did was collect a pay check, so perhaps she was promoted or has died. - sw17ch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Goofy as this may sound, if these schools are being run by corporations, lets make them run like that all the way.
Schools are alloted money based on the number of kids that go there. Say we allow kids to go to any school they want to in some area, and not just the one they are assigned. Suddenly, if a school sucks a lot, they loose money, can't stay open and 1) either have to restaff, or 2) close.
Harsh, but it might work. (Yes, I realize Joe PoorKid can't have his parents drive him to school, but think of something better to rip on my post for than that.) - SvenHammerstahl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Something already has: the quality of education offered in schools.
- sencha5, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16See, this makes a great debate. I'm personally against teacher's unions because only 15-20% of the people teaching actually have a drive to do it, and inspire results in people. If you were a corporate trainer for the private sector, would you still be in a job if you had the same role for 30 years and gave up on it long ago? Probably not, companies need proper training to remain in business. Why can't we extend that to education?
- scubajim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Certainly, their are a ton of bad administrators. I bet the ratio of good to bad administrators is worse than that of teachers. You have hit the nail on the head with one of the major problems in schools today.
- BassMastr, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Show me an industry/sector that has unions that hasn't been screwed up. Unions were great back in the day when they were needed. Now they just ***** ***** up...
Baseball
Teachers
Airlines
Manufacturing (look at the auto industry)
I have an electrician buddy who spends every 4th week unemployed b/c of his union. (granted he's guaranteed work the other 3 weeks.)
The list goes on and on...
Granted I know I don't know all the unions out there...that's why I asked...show me one that hasn't screwed up the industry they are involved with. - nebrfan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I can't believe how many people out there think that teachers don't get paid enough. According to the American Federation of Teachers, the avg. salary for *9 MONTHS* of work is $46,597 - which, when converted to the 12 months that everyone else has to work is a little over $62,000 - not bad for a 4 year degree and 8-4 workdays.
- nixonrichard, on 10/12/2007, -9/+18"Unions protect bad teachers, but that isn't their sole intent or effect."
You're right, their sole intent and effect is to overpay bad teachers AND protect them from being fired. Oh, and they funnel millions of dollars to politicians to pass laws making it easier for them to overpay bad teachers. - ambrosious, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9He has a point. Although unions can be very a good thing, and I agree they are a very necessary institution - the current state of teaching unions has gotten very out of hand. In grade school I had some teachers that were so unqualified and acted so unprofessionally it was border-line child abuse. I remember one year in 6th grade there was a huge struggle between the PTA, the principle, and the entire school district in trying to fire a teacher because finally after 20 years of horrible teaching there was enough of an outcry from the community to do something about it. If schools were like any kind of privatized institution there would be more selectivity, which would mean a better education for the students.
If schools recieved a) more funding, b) the ability to distribute that funding to qualified individuals, and c) a more democratic (checked and balanced) system for electing/firing teachers, the students would benefit tremendously. - hiPpymIck, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14FTA
"Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.
"What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?" he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.
"Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.'"
"Dell responded that unions were created because "the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good.
"So now you have these enterprises where they take good care of their people. The employees won, they do really well and succeed."
...good cop.. bad cop..??? - kada, on 10/12/2007, -8/+16You know if the teachers unions did not protect bad teachers good teachers could be paid more because there would be incentive to work harder. example. i have one employee who makes 100 dollars a day and one that costs me 20 he costs me 20 because he doesn't bring in sales and i have to pay him to be there but he is not adding benefit. so i fire the bad employee give the good employee 10 more dollars and I'm still making more money. this is one of the key reasons behind support for privatization. i personally think privatization is a bad idea because you have a company more concerned with profits then you child's education. i goto school at a private college and i have to fight for every nickel and dimes worth of my education. Lets face it though no child or at least very few children in K-12 are going to fight for that they'll help in lowering the bar on themselves just like most of us did I'm sure. if i had more knowledge in the matter i would suggest a way to fix the issue but since i do not i cant make a comment in that matter but i do think what needs to happen is a national conference with one elected non government official. so somebody like an educator of the state. and they come up with a comprehensive set of requirements for education including teachers rights and equal access to funds that other governmental agency's have access to. this may also be a bad idea because it could become a permanent ruling council of people we have to pay which would be bad. Lets just face that the fix will not be easy for our education system no matter what the fix is. We do need to fix it though and soon or America is going to be be so screwed its incredible. what happens when your country has only blue collar workers? you become a ***** hole.
- JettaMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@Grunion: Steve Jobs supports a voucher system of schooling instead of public schools. The theory is that when parents have a choice of where they spend the money, they tend to choose better over worse. With privately owned schools, the bad ones would go out of business/go under new management. The system would steadily improve, rather than staying at this level of mediocrity. That's the theory anyway. I tend to agree with it, since it seems like the worst private school is always better than the best public school. I mean, would you rather send your kids to a private school or a public school?
- chicoer2001, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Our education system is based n tests, tests, tests. Teachers teach so their student gets a good score. It's like robots in a classroom
- valvin47, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Perhaps because he's one of the few people in this country that cares about issues, not political affiliation?
- darkecho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"Think about how many 3 day weekends students have."
I work for a public high school (not a teacher) and let me tell you this. The majority of those 3 day weekend for at least public high schools the teachers are having some sort of in-service day. Yesterday was one for our high school, all the students were home and the teachers were there. I know this because regardless of no-school during the weekday I am there. On holiday break such as Christmas Break, there are a lot of teachers that come in on days of those 2 weeks and get work done and this includes summer vacation as well. So until you are at your school all year round (Summer included) you don't need to comment on how much they work.
I am not saying that all teachers work like this. Most of the good ones in my school do, however there is always the few bad ones that should have been fired long ago.
Not only do they have to teach but they also have to babysit because some people are to immature to sit there an learn.
Generally, I am not a fan of Steve Jobs, but I think his statement was quite well said. Good job! - jprater, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17my wife is a teacher. she is in the teacher's union b/c it's a requirement. why the general public thinks the us is full of such bad teachers is besides me. there are VERY FEW bad teachers. my wife has had many problems with the administrators for her school. they have some of the craziest ideas. if you are an administrator and have a PhD, then you are god. her principal said this: "all kids are the same. it doesn't matter where or how they are raised--all kids are the same". my wife teaches in a lower section of town. most of her kids are not well behaved, do not listen, and have many discipline problems. however, the kids who come from better neighborhoods are generally better behaved and listen better. her principal has a freakin PhD!! and she says ***** like this!! the us does not have bad teachers--WE HAVE BAD ADMINISTRATORS!!! for christ's sake, my wife's school doesn't even have a discipline plan!! and to make things worse, my wife's teaching abilities is based on how well her students score on the CRCT test. her class is full of kids that get no help outside of school and have a small chance on passing that test. but if she has many kids that fail the test, she will get blamed for it. there is only so much our teachers can do. she is constantly spending her evenings doing lesson plans, finding activities, etc. i hardly ever get to see he b/c she's always doing work for school. she's always constantly buying ***** for school as well. the school seems to think that teachers are required to provide EVERYTHING for their classrooms. DON'T BLAME TEACHERS---BLAME THE SUPERINTENDENTS, PRINCIPALS, ADMINISTRATORS BUT NOT THE TEACHERS!
- phil.busch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9You obviously haven't thought about how much grading a teacher has to do.
From tests to homework to papers to finals, they have to grade them. I remember my AP Econ teacher in high school would tell us about the grading she did when we asked her about her weekend. It made my weekend of homework seem like a heck of a lot less work.
So yeah, it's nine months out of the year. But they work non-stop, and if a teacher sponsors some extra-curricular activity (this is the sign of a teacher who cares), then they are doing even more.
Ferrar1 - I know you think you understand the entire world at 18. Trust me - you don't.
Please don't ever say that teachers aren't hard working. The truth is that it is exactly the opposite. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Wow, I just got my first shred of respect fir Steve Jobs.
- UberC, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9As less and less people want to babysit your bratty, punkass kids, I guess the standards have to be lowered or there would be 70 psychotic, Ritalin-fuled teenagers in each class.
- endgame, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Those of you complaining about teachers not getting paid enough are CRAZY. In LAUSD the second largest school district in the country a beginning teacher fresh out of college with no experience starts at 64K per year. Each year they get a merit increase & IF they decide to "specialize" then they get another bump. They can max out as a teacher within the first 6 years at 86K per year.
- valvin47, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I question teacher's unions myself, but these wages per hour arguments are flawed.
First of all, they assume 36.5 hours of work per week, meaning about 7 hours a day. Say, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Do you honestly believe teachers only work during those hours? After school is out, they must spend hours grading, formulating grade plans, and preparing for the next day. For a good teacher, I would estimate that adds at least 3-4 hours to their day. So, now we're up to 11 hours of work per day, or 55 hours per week during weeks they are working. Now, what about the number of weeks worked? Again, the $34 an hour number comes from assuming teachers only work about 36 weeks a year. That's just enough to account for the school year. The summer is not the vacation time many people believe it is. Many teacher must attend training programs and other requirements in order to maintain certification. I haven't even begun to account for the time some teachers put into extracurricular activities.
So, yes, perhaps bad teachers are getting paid $34 an hour. But the best certainly are not. - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Wow this has provided quite the discussion personally I agree completely with Jobs. My wife is a teacher so I'll give my 2 cents like every one else, and we've followed this topic very closely. Ultimately teachers should be judged based on performance, they should be given significant raises for performers and should be fired if they are bad teachers. The teachers unions any more wield too much control. A long time ago they stopped caring about the welfare of the kids they should be teaching.
There is a reason why teachers get paid so little though. It simple supply vs. demand. The supply of teachers is way too large. For every teacher in the school there is another one trying to get a teaching position. If you don't believe me go to an education career fair, there are thousands of licensed teachers that can not get their first job teaching in school.
The problem comes down to district policies which have been set based on the teachers union's input. A teacher that works at a school is very difficult to fire, and current teachers also receive priority for other openings in the district. What this comes down to is rather then getting rid of the bad, they are forced to transfer to a different school. Soon the worst teachers are all in the inner city schools, because district policy is that they receive priority over a new teacher even though all the other principles won't take them.
There was an excellent article in the Washington post about a month ago that described the problems. I was also very impressed with Mitt Romney in Massachusetts because he had the political bravery to say the exact same thing, and at the same time press for raises for teachers and top performers. Of course the unions hated him for it even though he pushed for a larger teacher raise then any governor in a long time. - ChrisWebPub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5When I was in high school I had a French teacher who was utterly incompetent. This is high school french and one of our assignments was to watch Disney's Beauty and the Beast, seriously. Not a French version of the movie, we watched it simply because it is a tale that takes place in France.
Even the other teachers hated her, the Spanish teacher who was quite good complained that there is no way they could ever get rid of this woman because of the union. They couldn't even force her to go teach kindergarten (she used to do puppet shows too).
I think we should do two things, do away with teachers unions, and pay teachers more. When I have children in a few years I'm probably going to send them to a private school where teachers both get paid more and can be fired for poor performance.
Of course the responsibility of educating a child falls upon parents, teachers, family. But that doesn't change the fact that teacher's unions protect bad teachers at the expense of tax dollars and our children's futures. - Lynxpro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5
Funny thing is, as Digg users passionate about education regardless of our political affiliations, we probably only amounted to 1% or less of the students when we went to school with back-in-the-day. The problem not only lies with teachers and administrators, but with a culture that shuns education and anyone who is smarter than the average norm. Idiot bullies who will amount to nothing after K-12 basically hold the system hostage by influencing others not to succeed in school. Compared to the educational systems of the other industrialized nations, we in America have it pretty easy, but these morons hold the majority down and ruin it for practically everyone. The bullies and the children who refuse to learn should earn a ticket straight to the front line - when they become of age - of whatever military action our nation is involved with at the time. However harsh that might sound, it would probably also have the effect of curtailing future Columbine-like incidents in the future... -
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