Alex shrugged

These protests in Madison are probably far larger than those in the entire Arab world combined in terms of raw tonnage.

One of the advantages of homeschooling is preventing your child from ever having to encounter Ayn Rand.

well i do declare!

i like the bart d. style overall

there's the wisconsin fat joke! hahahahahaha.

You're quite a prickly pear today.

Give me an example of this.

Keep in mind that I'm not arguing in favor or the unions. I find them pretty useless and ineffective. I'm arguing that trying to blame them for any problems in education is like getting blamed by your wife because your eight year old kid shat on the carpet. Everything they fight for is consistently trending in the direct opposite direction. They simply are not much help to teachers, and no threat at all to legislators or districts. They're a neutered and weak system, so I don't see why either side is acting like they affect anything at all.



There's also a reason America has been heading towards a teacher shortage, why the average age of teachers is so high, and why more than half of all new teachers leave the profession in less than 5 years. But none of this has to do with unions.

a low hanging prickly pear, bart d.

It's not here, but you, as a teacher haven't encountered union teachers that take that mindset? Whenever a debate about teacher compensation comes up, they go to the "teaching children is the most important job a person can have..." defense.

Oh, i dont blame them for problems in education. I do blame unions however, for the cuts to other government issues due to the demands. No specific public union seems capable of seeing the big picture. I guess thats true of all (most) unions. So focused on getting what they feel entitled to.

and i think the teacher shortage and the out of the profession in 5 years only has to do with unions indirectly. Most notably the roadblocks in front of them for the best districts, the best classes, the best schools etc by tenured teachers that are union protected regardless of performance. So they stick around for a couple of years, realize they aren't going to do anything but teach the Dangerous minds class for the next ten years for 30K and move on. Thats where I think the teachers union (and all unions) are a problem. It becomes about seniority and tenure a lot more than performance and value.

Isn't that same thing true of pretty much every person? Of course, unions generally have more power than any one worker and therefore can actualize their demands more easily, but wanting to maximize income/benefits, without regard for the "bigger picture," is essentially true of anyone. Now, pundits and politicians and members of the general public might be chastised for not recognizing that aspect of union action, but I find it hard to criticize unions for acting as anyone else might act.

Yeah, but they have the power to do it to unreasonable levels. A single person can get their pay cut when the company starts to falter... and they can either go work somewhere else, or accept the pay cut, or hours change. Unions however have, over many years, have started to feel entitled. PAY PART OF OUR PREMIUM FOR HEALTH CARE? PREPOSTEROUS!!! And because of the binding arbitration, and lack of good faith collective bargaining (as opposed to the "this way or no way" type that tends to exist with public workers) they are able to hold districts, cities, states, etc hostage regardless of the budget situation being encountered.

The soft landing solution to the problem as presented here is either stuctural: to weaken the unions (either by getting rid of them/stripping bargaining rights or by getting rid of binding arbitration and making other changes), or social/psychological: to change how they conceive of their self-interest (ie convincing them to keep in mind the "greater good") or to convince them that the state just can't afford higher wages no matter what they want. Then there's the hard landing method: big layoffs.

I don't think you're going to see much of the social/psychologyical change without big layoffs. On the other hand, I think structural changes are possible, provided they don't include entirely eliminating union rights.

The soft landing solution to the problem as presented here is either stuctural: to weaken the unions (either by getting rid of them/stripping bargaining rights or by getting rid of binding arbitration and making other changes), or social/psychological: to change how they conceive of their self-interest (ie convincing them to keep in mind the "greater good") or to convince them that the state just can't afford higher wages no matter what they want. Then there's the hard landing method: big layoffs.

I don't think you're going to see much of the social/psychologyical change without big layoffs. On the other hand, I think structural changes are possible, provided they don't include entirely eliminating union rights.[/quote

It took bankruptcy and government loans to convince the UAW that GM and Chrysler to "convince" them.

That was my point: only huge layoffs (or, I guess, government insolvency) will cause a change in thinking. Changing the structure (the laws regarding negotiations between unions and govt) can bring changes without causing the pain probably required to change how the union thinks.

The union members I know, and I will freely grant to having worked as a teacher in only two states, only count on the organization for legal support. Ours did successfully defend our medical coverage last year (which isn't as good as the coverage my father gives his high school educated alarm installers, for the record) at the cost of a two thousand dollar pay cut. Like I said, the union is irrelevant to me, because it never achieves anything. This WI thing is a fight between the wind and fog.



I wasn't talking about you at all. I was talking about the presentation of this little food fight on television and in print. The union has almost no power to prevent any reform or decision the state makes. This is a smoke campaign, aimed at a target I don't see, and the union has willingly cast itself as mirror.



Regardless of movie portrayals and how they make it look, if you can't teach the Dangerous Minds crowd you aren't capable enough to be in ANY classroom. I do absolutely agree that tenure should be eliminated, forever. But you won't get rid of many bad teachers in affluent areas that way, if you base it on test scores.

Well I can buy that Coolio may have overstated things, i refuse to believe that Jake Taylor would mislead me.

YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO