>
VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 17:13:00 08/02/03 Sat
Author: Mt. Healthy Mountaineer, member of the NEA and the ISTA
Subject: Some meandering (the kind I do best) comments as a member of a teacher union
In reply to: Mt. Healthy Mountaineer, your intrepid reviewer 's message, "ANHOW Book Revw: "The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education"" on 16:21:31 08/02/03 Sat

This book was mostly correct in its assertions that teachers unions do not help education. Part of that is because they are unions and no matter what industry you are in, the union wants more pay and better benefits. The United Auto Workers don't care about more efficient production or better auto safety - they want more pay and better benefits. That is good - it is their job to get more pay and better benefits for their members. It is the duty of the engineers to design safer cars and more efficient assembly lines. The union should be focused on pay and benefits.

Brimelow criticizes the NEA for not doing much along the lines of improving education. This is rather unfair, in that the union spends most of its time doing what it does best: pay & benefits. However, the NEA sets themselves up for this because its leadership is continually blathering on about how it is in the forefront of helping improve education. I know of no teacher that takes that seriously, unless you look at it in a hyper-big picture way and think that better medical insurance for teachers = better teaching. I don't necessarily see that corrolation. I want better insurance just because I want better insurance, as does everyone else.

One thing he complains about is how difficult it is to get rid of bad teachers. This is true, but how does one judge a bad teacher. I once had a school board member go after me and my job because I did not inform her that her daughter got below a "C+" on an assignment. It would be rather unwieldy to have to inform all 100+ students' parents about every single grade they receive on every single assignment - but that was the standard she wanted (unless she just wanted a special standard for school board members). The union rep explained her position to her as an equal (I was the employee and was not being listened to) and she dropped it.

He also laments that teachers can keep their jobs while being investigated for criminal activity. The example he uses is a teacher who kept getting paid while he was being investigated as a child molestor. It turns out the guy was guilty and he did jail time as well as losing his job. However, I worked with a guy who was falsely accused by a group of girls of having sex with a girl only because these girls wanted to make the girl look bad. His reputation was ruined, but he kept a position in the school system (he was transferred after the truth came out several months later). The girls were not transferred at all, even though they'd shattered a fellow human being.

Back to the NEA - I would not be a member of it except that you have to join the national union to be a member of any local. My national union spends lots of money on national candidates that I do not support, supports national and international causes that I do not support and mostly makes my profession look like a bunch of left-wing goofs. However, I want to support my local and I want someone to cover my ass in case I'm ever falsely accused (they have a $1 million dollar legal insurance clause)

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Post a message:
This forum requires an account to post.
[ Create Account ]
[ Login ]
Forum timezone: GMT-5
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.