patrick.net

So in other words, your not REALLY leaving the union. Your just sending a symbolic message that has no impact whatsoever on the union.

"Chris Christie is going to make it so that people can withhold their dues in the next year or two."

What do you mean that Christie is going to "make it so that people can withhold their dues"?? Is Christie a dictator? Does he have the power to go around the Democratic controlled state legislature and impose a union busting bill? Because such a scheme would never fly in Trenton.

HousingWatcher says

So in other words, your not REALLY leaving the union. Your just sending a symbolic message that has no impact whatsoever on the union.
“Chris Christie is going to make it so that people can withhold their dues in the next year or two.”
What do you mean that Christie is going to “make it so that people can withhold their dues”?? Is Christie a dictator? Does he have the power to go around the Democratic controlled state legislature and impose a union busting bill? Because such a scheme would never fly in Trenton.

rofl, by your position, there is no way to leave the union. What part of "I won't be a member" don't you understand? And not for nothing. But if a few jobs are saved, it's those people that will look at me and know that I care about them more than $700. That's how you build good working relationships with your coworkers.

marcus says

Another education expert has the easy answers. The idea that the whole thing is broken is insane.
People, please read this.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/09/27/100927taco_talk_lemann

Lemann equates market driven education reform with the malregulation / mislabled "deregulation" of the banking industry?? Demonstrates a misunderstanding of the nature of the highly cartelized banking industry, which has rules and regulations in place that specifically give it super privileges / protect it from competition and inherent market governors against bad behavior. Deregulation was merely reregulation conferring further government privilege on the industry, plain as day.

Or to liken it to intervention in Iraq? Talk about a straw-man non-sequitur argument!

Point is, comparing this to education to drive your point home about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater is pure mish-mash.

What's needed is a freeing up of the system from the monopoly of first dibs on education resources. Plenty of schooling as is works for some people, but it does not work for just as many. Let the chips fall as they may with the market of ideas among educators being put to the test.

Let's face it: Most parents want the best education possible that they can afford. Many schools are bloated with costs that far exceed what's necessary to achieve results, and are far beyond what the market would bear absent the political power-grabs associated always when resources are collectivized and politicized.

Education should be objective driven, and those objectives should be market driven, not politicized and hijacked as they are by powerful special interests. As it stands, government schools that most people have as their only viable solution cover a small spectrum of potential ways to educate children... works for some, but not a whole lot, and turns out a finished product more and more frequently for which there isn't a job. Part of the reason there is no job is because the education process consumes far too many resources.

Note, I said part -- it is one of many many things in the U.S. economy that misdirects limited economic seedcorn inefficiently. That wasn't a problem when we had vast stores of said seedcorn, but these days, it represents a larger and larger portion of it. Collectively, this misuse is bankrupting the nation.

Visit a third world country and you'll see that absent economic security for capital and property, an education is an investment with limited return. It is a useless luxury.

Today everyone has been brainwashed that they need to go to college and blow tens of thousands of dollars as the only way to success, when they need to be trained in what the economy needs for growth, and learn that they are successful by bringing / creating value for society as efficiently as possible. Having everyone saddles themselves or their parents with massive debts is good for those in the education industrial complex (and the bankers, too), though... it is a very, very powerful lobby that tugs on the heartstrings of parents and grandparents -- who doesn't want every opportunity for children? (Meanwhile, college kids spend a great deal of time developing expertise in useless talents, and partying... Degrees in prolonged adolescence for so many.)

marcus says

Let’s put this puzzle together. Educators need to do better. Solution: take away their union, maybe lower their pay and their pensions and take away their job security.

We the people are saying take away the job security for the bottom 6% of poor performing teachers who are reading newspapers, sleeping, late on the job, etc. The Teachers Unions cannot continue to have the power to keep these persons onboard. All others are fine and deserve their tenure.

Could we agree that removal of tenure for poor performers is suitable?

MarkInSF says

I liked that film when I saw it, but the more I thought about it realized there was something very wrong about it.
The narrarative leads you to believe the students performed so well because of superior teachers and teaching methodology. But if you’re paying attention you realize all of the students were HIGHLY motivated, and their families were HIGHLY motivated to support them getting a good education. They were a self selecting group, even if the final entrants were chosen by lottery.

Me too, after 2 weeks of thought it has led me to believe it is a union busting one sided film. However, I still believe we should relieve the bottom 6% of poor performers of their tenure and duties as a teacher. All others should remain the same.

In the end good teachers will not make up for bad parents. A good student will perform regardless of who you put in front of them to guide their journey because they will go home and commit to their homework assignments. A good student with the proper parenting will be actively engaged in the classroom and will aggressively study for their exams. You can put a good student in a so-called “bad” school and they will still perform well. It’s the parenting skills that actually need the most work as a good teacher cannot reverse the bad habits being taught at home and in the streets.

That being said, the Teachers Union would win 100% support if they stopped blindly supporting “lemon” teachers and started holding them accountable for their misbehavior in the classroom. The unions have created a win at all cost brotherhood/sisterhood that has actually worked in reverse to create an environment where it is easy to stigmatized teachers as holding the key to all single students future when in fact it is the parents that hold the key.

I think the reason we see so many students doing so well in elementary is that they have not developed opinions, attitudes and cultural preferences until middle school where they may choose to hang with other disengaged students at school. Often times, a student is not engaged in school as a result of a poor, disengaged parent that is either mentally ill, addicted to drugs or outright uninterested in their childs future. No political party will ever openly hold parents (they account for too much of the voting population) accountable for their actions so the teachers are next easiest target. If the teachers unions want to get that target off their back they will need to pull the plug on tenured teachers that have been proven to have poor performance (Sleeping, Reading Newspaper, etc.) alleviating the bottom 6% (worst performers). This gives the naysayers no room to speak negatively.

I am not sure we can judge a teacher on a student’s test scores as test scores are a direct link to student motivation and motivation is linked to the parents ability to steer their children in the right direction. If test scores were a factor then we would be forced to remove even good teachers in poorer neighborhoods of their jobs.

kentm says

Absent from basically ALL of the posts from the ‘conservative’ members on this list is the context provided by a comparison to what works in other places. But the realities of any situation, in this case the US education system, are not nearly as important to them as the opportunity to launch another of their endless factless attacks in support of whatever bug happens to be in their bonnet at the moment, always in the service of wanting to break down whatever public support system remains in the US in favor of some mythical ‘free market’ private for profit replacement. In this case its Clarence’s continuing creepy obsession with unions.

Lets just say we remove the bottom 6% from their positions and alleviate tenure for poor performers altogether.

In the end good teachers will not make up for bad parents. A good student will perform regardless of who you put in front of them to guide their journey because they will go home and commit to their homework assignments. A good student with the proper parenting will be actively engaged in the classroom and will aggressively study for their exams. You can put a good student in a so-called “bad” school and they will still perform well. It’s the parenting skills that actually need the most work as a good teacher cannot reverse the bad habits being taught at home and in the streets.

That being said, the Teachers Union would win 100% support if they stopped blindly supporting “lemon” teachers and started holding them accountable for their misbehavior in the classroom. The unions have created a win at all cost brotherhood/sisterhood that has actually worked in reverse to create an environment where it is easy to stigmatized teachers as holding the key to all single students future when in fact it is the parents that hold the key.

I think the reason we see so many students doing so well in elementary is that they have not developed opinions, attitudes and cultural preferences until middle school where they may choose to hang with other disengaged students at school. Often times, a student is not engaged in school as a result of a poor, disengaged parent that is either mentally ill, addicted to drugs or outright uninterested in their childs future. No political party will ever openly hold parents (they account for too much of the voting population) accountable for their actions so the teachers are next easiest target. If the teachers unions want to get that target off their back they will need to pull the plug on tenured teachers that have been proven to have poor performance (Sleeping, Reading Newspaper, etc.) alleviating the bottom 6% (worst performers). This gives the naysayers no room to speak negatively.

I am not sure we can judge a teacher on a student’s test scores as test scores are a direct link to student motivation and motivation is linked to the parents ability to steer their children in the right direction. If test scores were a factor then we would be forced to remove even good teachers in poorer neighborhoods of their jobs.

Ronnie Honduras says

marcus says
Another education expert has the easy answers. The idea that the whole thing is broken is insane.
People, please read this.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/09/27/100927taco_talk_lemann

I think it was a good article, however, we should still remove the bottom 6%.