Blaming Teachers for Our Low Test Scores Is Like Blaming Doctors for Our National Obesity Epidemic
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/blaming-teachers-for-our-_b_1616007.html
Posted: 06/25/2012 11:08 am
David Macaray
Playwright; Labor Columnist; Author
Two damaging misconceptions about labor unions: (1) Union members tend to be substandard workers (lazy, unreliable, surly, privileged), and (2) union members can't be fired because their "masters" will always go to bat to protect them.
Where they got that first one from, the notion that union members are bad workers, is a mystery. After all, a quick look at the economics should tell us that union jobs -- those, typically, with the highest wages, superior benefits and best and safest working conditions -- are going to attract the best workers in a community. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't the best jobs in a community attract the best people?
And as widespread as this anti-union propaganda is, it's especially virulent when it comes to public service unions. Apparently, everyone and their brother (including President Obama, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, et al.) just naturally assume that it's the teachers' union that prevents conscientious, well-meaning school administrators from firing bad teachers.
People like to believe that if incompetent teachers did not belong to a powerful labor union, if they did not have cadres of union lawyers standing by ready to defend them, the administrators would be free to do the right thing -- to drain the swamp and rid our schools of those union-created monsters who are holding our students hostage and depriving them of a decent education. That may be a compelling narrative, but it's total fiction.
FULL story at link.
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)More from the same article which makes some excellent points:
"We need to understand something. This move we're witnessing against public schools and teachers' unions is being orchestrated not by educational reformers interested in improving our schools, but by greedy entrepreneurs looking to privatize the whole shebang. Having millions of kids leave the public schools and enroll in privates or for-profit charters represents a potential bonanza.
"So the next time someone tries to tell you that it's the unions who are responsible for the problems our public schools are facing, take a moment to set them straight. Make it clear that this whole "union teacher vs. non-union teacher" dichotomy is a hoax. It's a con game. Put it to them in the simplest possible terms. We're being played for suckers."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/blaming-teachers-for-our-_b_1616007.html
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)These last few years have been totally demoralizing.