SHARE THIS SHOW:
RELATED CONVERSATIONS:
RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
The Portland School Board will vote approved on a 5-1 vote Monday night a new two year contract for teachers in the Portland Public School District. The contract would will give teachers a slight pay increase while also intensifying their evaluations. At the same time, dairy farmers are trying to unionize in rural areas of the Northwest. The Ruby Ridge Dairy in Pasco, Washington is currently embroiled in a litigious unionization process. The workers are calling for better labor conditions and pay, but the dairies claim that unionization would cripple the farms' productivity and viability in the marketplace.
Meanwhile, Governor Kitzhaber is negotiating with Oregon's public employee unions. Despite proposed cuts in wages and benefits, the dialogue between state government and unions in Oregon is expected to be much less heated than the battle currently being waged in Wisconsin.
Are you in a union? Have you ever been part of an organizing effort? Do your employees belong to a union? What benefits and drawbacks do you see to union membership?
GUESTS:
- Rebecca Levison: President of the Portland Association of Teachers
- Kate Swindell: Parent of an 8th grader at West Sylvan Middle School and a 5th grader at Ainsworth Elementary School
- Bob Bussel: Director of the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center
- Chris Lehman: Reporter for OPB News
- Job Pozos: Regional director of United Farm Workers
- Tim Bernasek: Attorney and partner at Dunn Carney and legal council for the Oregon Farm Bureau
Tagged as: agriculture · economy · farming · labor · pers · teacher · union
Photo credit: Eric Allix Rogers / Creative Commons
-
Keep in mind civil servants provide the services that voters demand. Govt growth isn't a trend that dropped from the Heavens. Teachers, and other civil servants have every right to the benefits they were promised. The state has no legal right to deny benefits they agreed in contracts to provide this class of employees.
Liberals especially want Govt poking its nose into every aspect of human activity. As this class never seem satisfied with the degree of intrusion they have already achieved they seek constantly to find other ways and means of extending govt ever deeper into every crack and cranny of society.
This takes manpower, more every year. Since these people have the right to organize and collectively bargain, the state is stuck with the result.
People want a school within walking distance of their kids. They want all the social engineering, the baby sitting functions, the day care of disabled youngsters (Forgot..I mean the 'differently abled').
If the state is spending half of its revenuses on schools and STILL is ginning out a poor product, well, what can be said in its defense? Not much.
I recall a time when civil servants were not allowed to have unions. I have no idea when that changed.
-
There are a few fallacies that seem to be repeated so often that people assume them to be true. The 'permanent teacher' is one of those.
I can tell you that teachers, like any other union member CAN be fired. What you describe as iron-clad job security is actually just a limitation on the employer's right to fire "at-will." This restricts firing or other disciplinary action based on who looks better in a short skirt, who belongs to the same church as the boss, who is the best butt-kisser, who has not reported safety violations, filed a workers' comp claim, and so on. If the employer has reasonable grounds for discipline and it acts fairly, reasonable disciplinary action will and does stand.
It escapes me why all manner of associations, clubs, and advocacy groups (e.g. the Chamber of Commerce) that also engage in concerted action and collective negotiation are not villified like unions. Only when working men and women get together to protect their interests are we told "it is just wrong."
-
Iron Clad Job Security in Teachers is called Tenure.
Tenure originated in universities to safeguard their highest academics to allow them freedom to publish without repercusions. Less Than 10% of University Staff have full professorship tenure. In the average elementary school, essentially all the teachers who have been present for over ten years have Iron Clad Job Security or Tenure--over 80%. It has nothing to do with free speech or academic publication.
Old incompetent teachers have seniority and oppose MERIT hiring. No one wants to have work harder in a competitive world if you can exist in a cush union job. New teachers with great skills and enthusiasm are the first laid off. And the children suffer.
-
for J-
again, a complete tangle of factoids, supposedly leading to a valid conclusion
consistency is the hedgehog of a carrot garden?
for G-
the first paragraph makes sense, then you go over the edge again
for SPHR-
xlnt points
for J-
repeating something does not make it so
-
Let's remember a few of the things that we do have, thanks to organized labour (unions):
+The Fair Labor Standards Act, which gave us:
* the minimum wage law;
* a defined work-week;
* a uniform threshold for determining overtime pay;
* weekends.
+Occupational Safety and Health Administration:
* safer workplaces;
* the right not to be dismissed due to a workplace injury.
Of course, some will argue that with unions we also get:
* higher prices (due to often higher union wages);
* entrenched workers who fail to perform up to standards;
* and the most famous down-side of unions: three public works shovel-leaners for each actual laborer. (Some call this a myth -- is it?)
-
Yes it is a myth.
What people miss when they drive past a public works site and see a couple workers standing still is that there are a bunch of very expensive machines at work that every once in a while need the help of a few relatively inexpensive workers to do what the machine cannot.
Say you have a thousand dollars an hour worth of machines operating and you need a few shovels of dirt moved into just the right place that the machines cannot get to in order to complete the job. You could stop the thousand dollars of machines and turn them around and take the time to go back with them and redo that few shovels worth of work, at the cost of many hundreds of dollars or you could pay a few workers under a hundred bucks to shovel and keep the machines going at their most productive rates. Well, duh, you spend the money to save money!
And often, one stander is an engineer overseeing the work and one technical tester who has to take a test every so often to make sure the work conforms to contract. And those guys are there because some contractors have been dishonest in the past and so make all contractors need overseeing.
-
Unions served a purpose and now they are the problem. They drag down everything they are involved in. They are ruining our state and nation. They serve themselves.
Take a look at the people you know in a union and ask yourself if they are even remotely happy and satisfied in their jobs.
The union protects the long term survivors and incompetent at the expense of promoting a independent creative work place for all its workers. The union has to keep control of it's money trough which are the mandatory dues paying members. You don't keep your job without paying your dues. There are work rules, etc. And the union indoctrinates it's membership in how to think and encourages their dependency on them.
An individual is not evaluated on their own merit.
Unions couldn't care less about the quality of education or the other services/products it has control over.
What passes as public education is little more than control over parents right to educate their children so the union keeps control of the money flow.
All the public employees that hate corporations and their waste of monies should look in the mirror at their corporate unions.
-
Looking at the people I know in unions... yes they are happy with their jobs. They are upset that they have to fight every year to keep things that are considered basic human rights in other countries, and in the case of public employee unions, they are upset that they have seen wages stagnate for 20 years while the public and management villify them for being part of a group that asks for respect, but when I talk to employees at safeway, they are happy. When I ride the bus, 90% of my drivers are pleasant and satisfied with their jobs.
I know former lawers who are glad they no longer have to defend "evil", and my friends in non-union retail are uniformly unhappy with arbitrarily rotating sleep schedules, or concerns that they will suddenly not be covered for the cost of an injury. Those that I know who work in tech live sling-shot lives where they work 80 hour weeks for one year and then are paupers (or facing loss of identity) the next, as seemingly secure jobs dry up.
I understand that businesses work differently, and that government is even more different. I think, however, that when voters aren't willing to pay for long term investment in services, when we vote put ourselves billions of dollars in debt because of military operations and pay-outs to big business (I'm talking about subsidies AND tax breaks) and still provide services to even the richest americans at very low cost to them then we can't complain about unions keeping the government down. In fact, if the government wants to opperate more like a business, the first order should be to increase prices, especailly to those best served by subsudies, emergency response, stable marketplaces, well managed currency, rule of law, recourse against fraud... perhaps you are getting the idea that I think that someone on wellfare is neither best served or most costly to the system.
Before we start to point fingers at unions, social equity measures and the results of agreeing to fair compensation for work done for one's country and people as the problems in this country, let's ask who the real leeches of society are. I'm willing to bet they are the ones full of blood, not the ones who join thankless professions where everyone thinks they can do better (but is still miraculously not filling the need by stepping in as a private contractor) because they believe in evidence, that it is the governments job to protect the weak from the strong, and because some measure of national (and personal) stability is important to them.
Finally, unions are businesses. Employees of other businesses are their main customers, but they just happen to serve people outside the unions as well. Unions exist to fill a niche left very open by other structures and if you think that this niche is unfair to managers or customers then maybe you should consider the circumstances that make so many employees feel they need this service in the first place.
-
It's true that in a perfect world, seniority as a system for orderly layoff and recall would not be necessary. But this is not a perfect world. We have flawed and inadequate tools for evaluating performance (assuming good faith exists), favoritism, and arbitrary decisionmaking. Despite its flaws, seniority provides for an objective standard that acknowledges the general correrlation between experience and effectiveness.
-
In addition, workers who have earned seniority have managed to find their way in systems that often force out up to 80% of first year employees. They are prone to thinking about the safety and security of others and bear responsibility for the same. They are required, in most cases, to continue in education and professional development in order to maintain professional liscences. They are subject to performance review at least annually and have learned to deal with the bipolar involement of the community, who are prone to only providing very specific things and then only for a short period of time.
Also, did I hear the parent on this show say she should be as involved in teacher evaluation as other teachers are? Cool. Can I join the committee that evaluates her parenting and the conditions under which she parents, because I actually think she probably has less contact with students than most teachers do, she provided no qualifications of education or expertise in the field, and she didn't once actually talk about the importance of evidence in education and I would at least treat her that fairly when evaluating her ability to parent her children even though I'm not actually a parent myself, nor an expert on parenting skills, and I don't have any actual experience with her children. I'll get my friends in on it, even though they have no experience with children other than having been one themselves. Oh, maybe we can also take over her medical care this way, even though my background is in physics. I have done some evaluating, so that's close enough to do medical evaluations, right?
-
Except for public service unions that still do have some political clout Industrial and some craft unions are in sersious decline. Unlike the 30s through the 60s political influence has declined in proportion with membership loss. Had the union movement remained strong and politically influential big capital would NOT have succeeded in sending all the manufacturing jobs off shore.
With industrial unions having little of no influence in DC, and in business generally, we have the establishment of the part time job (less than 40 hrs per week) and the consequent disappearance of most benefits, including health care and pensions. This week in Newsweek magazine, Samuelson argued against the idea that social security should be expected by retirees or was in any manner a promise-to-pay contract between Govt and workers. One more nail in the coffin of the middle class and labor generally.
It is another consequence of labor having lost all friends in the Congress and a certain sign that middle class prosperity in America is fast disappearing without a single champion to oppose the plan to turn the nation backward to a new era of labor peonage. A fact that the open borders reinforces with that constant stream of low wage labor entering the work force.
-
G
it almost sounds like you SUPORT THE UNIONS
congratulations - really
-
management once served a purpose but now is the problem -
this is not a "chicken and egg" question - we know which came first
***
had there been the same concerted and well-funded efforts to put an end to corrupt management and ownership, the face of capitalism might have been changed beyond recognition - from a ravenous, cannibalistic beast, into a force more for good among the people, rather than a way of bankrolling incompetent and corrupt owners and their lackeys and henchmen
management/ownership does not mind if you work in contaminated and dangerous environments, as long as you bring home the bacon to them so they and their pampered, non-productive progeny can vacation on little islands they bought from some foreign government as a tax hedge - you, personally, don't even exist in their eyes
the apologists for management incompetence do us all a great disservice with their sniping at the unions and their twisted lies of how good any capitalism is for us, rather than working to make the unions a more just and less corrupt representation for us all - they think themselves as friends of management, hoping for a handout from the oppressor rather than putting their honest work forward
the lackeys trust the beast, then whine when it bites their arm off and blame something other than what actually did them harm
Unions exist because of management incompetence and corruption and disconnection - when management becomes ethical, perhaps only then will there no longer be a real need for unions to represent us
- when do you think the selfish will become generous?
-
..perhaps about the same time that you shut up??
-
thanks for your kind notice G - you reveal yet again your sort of gentleman-hood
-
Given that once a teacher is hired, it is very hard to get a poor teacher terminated, would the union and districts accept a non-binding prescreening for applicants? Such a system would require an independent third party to judge teacher candidates based on their past work and their work in actual classrooms.
-
What about the new teachers who show great potential? Do they ever get a chance? What about the teachers who are given a chance, but blow it in the classroom? Do we change when a teacher is considered for tenure? Do we periodically re-evaluate teachers for continued tenure? Maybe that's the answer...
-
I would like to see teachers unions, and all other public sector unions, work more like the trade unions. In a trade union you start as an apprentice, go through journeyman, and eventually reach the master level. At each level you put in time and continuous learning. The union takes dues and provides pension, acreditation, AND TRAINING, not just bargaining for pay and benefits.
-
Teachers do continually train and update their skills and those are negotiated with the Unions. Quite often those "summer months off" that the public whines about are spent back in college updating their skills and knowledge.
So they are very much like trade Unions.
-
I am so very tired of hearing representatives from or defenders of teachers' unions argue that teacher seniority is the only or best way to decide who gets laid off. This is one of the big reasons why we took our child and donations of time and money out of the public-school system. I think that teachers do amazing work and that their salaries should be raised by at least 50 percent and that they should have much more autonomy in how they go about their work. But this gains need to accompanied by a system of accountability that will reward the people who most deserve it.
-
What - specifically - would this look like?
-
I am a former Salem Keizer school district teacher, and I think there needs to be a better, more complete evaluation of teachers. When I was teaching, my evaluation consisted of being observed for about 10 minutes twice a year. Obviously this isn't enough to be meaningful.
-
Here is a great thing the union that represents the workers at Powell's Books is doing to help members who recently were laid off:
LWU Local 5, the union that represents Powell’s workers, is asking you to show your support.
On Tuesday, March 8th, we invite everyone to join us for a shop-in at Powell’s online store.
When you shop through our link, 7.5% of your sale will go directly to assist workers displaced by recent layoffs.
-
The union representing Powell’s employees is not a good union to mention if you want to achieve support for unions. I buy books at Powell’s at least once a week, and often two to three times. I despise the level of service at Powell’s, the apathy of the workers is appalling. Almost every employee is too good to be working there, their cliched angst leaks from every pore---or at least from the pores of about ninety percent (and that is a generous figure) of the employees I have encountered. Oh, if only they had self-checkout!
-
re: Powells,
i think perhaps just a little of this is 'portlandishness' - a special je ne sais quoi that some here haul around with themselves like a little dog that yaps from their purse
it is precious, isn't it?
however, if anyone deserves this attitude, it's librarians, especially at the ref. desk, actual artists, real critics, not like me, philosophers of a high calibre et c, - book store emplo are low on the list who deserve such airs, especially if you knew what it is they are reading (and trying to write) - such angst
support your local book store, tho', or they'll all become like Borders/B&N, unlocal AND bankrupt and best seller coffee table books to trip over
-
I think the issue of why teacher's unions were formed is the same as for coal miners, factory workers, dockworkers etc.: low pay, poor working conditions, benefits, retirement, political hiring and firing. Unions did not solve all those problems, but they improved many. The problem with teaching is that it can not be quantified like a factory worker's job: do this and do it right, do it again. That said, where teacher's unions have gone awry is not staying involved with the issues that do separate teaching from factory work. Training for workers is an even bigger issue for teachers. Looking at other college degree required professions, its obvious that the American education model did not allow for private practice as for lawyers, doctors and engineers who work with publically funded resources, but may not be public employees. Following the guild model, teacher unions needed to promote professional development, promote evaluation models that are not one size fits all (i.e., a PE class and a 3rd grade class need different assessment features) and duh, promote administrator training to do fair assessments that promote quality learning not only quality teaching. Instead, teacher unions got way too involved with defending bad teachers, and blaming everyone and everything except their lack of leadership in improving the learning of students. Time for game change, or let's move on to voucher based education with teachers working in a private practice model.
-
beutifully put. what other profession out there is there where we consider ourselves experts simply because we have been consumers? I have been to the dentist for the majority of my life, but I don't tell her/him how to fill a cavity; I don't tell my lawyer how to prepare my will; and I don't tell the person at the DMV how to file my paperwork. examples are endless. for some reason, we don't trust our teachers, the training they have received, or the skills they have developed. that is sad. Ironically, some of the loudest voices from parents who consider themselves experts b/c they have been students (decades prior to offering their expert advice) -- or because they pay property taxes -- are also parents who can't handle working with more than one or two students at a time. Parenting, being a student, and paying property taxes offer us all tremendous insight and life skills; but these experiences do not offer ANY insight into the world of teaching large groups of children at one time. In Eugene, a perfect example is the general call for maintaining class size at any cost - but do you really want small classes at the cost of music, PE, art? or do parents really want smaller classsizes without teachers getting the preptime they receive when students attend "specials?" sometimes what we see as parents is only a portion of the vision. so few parents are in schools regularly and when they are it is typically for a few hours, not the entire day, on a daily basis. It is time to respect the experts we have hired and who our children often expose as gems or duds.
-
In an article by George Will, a few weeks ago, he discussed the fact that in the Asian nations with whom we now compete, ONLY the top 10% of univerity students are allowed to become teachers.
In the same article Wills mentiond that according to data supplied, our teachers mostly come from the bottom half, in scholastic standing, of their graduating classes. If his data is accurate- and he is a pretty thorough columnist- we are getting what we pay for in the classrooms of America.
Just how we expect to successfully compete with the oriental countries that count teaching as one of the most important jobs, while we hire teachers from the bottom half of our graduating classes is a matter of grave national concern.
If unions are the chief impediment to improving the profession, the topic should be part of the public debate.
-
G- your final paragraph is a NON SEQUITUR, thereby skewing any possible valid conclusion
the rest of your assumptions and supposedly relevant quotes/gleanings do not take into account that the money is offered by BB (big business, which is turning into big brother, rather than the govt. taking that role) and there is a societal brain drain from the nobler professions into the cannibalistic capitalist professions - consider that fact, and your other "facts" will point us in a more reasonable direction
by the way- would you like to be told to SHUT UP!- and when would be the best time to do it for you?
-
I'll point out that the teachers are at work while this show is on and so cannot defend themselves.
Teachers are the most underpaid workers in our nation.
If you paid them for the value that they create in the form of educated and productive workers and managers and consequently job creators and so wealth creators, well, they really deserve to be at the top of any pay scales, right along with those overbonused bankers!
-
Completely agree Tom and yet, the bankers are all non union!
-
Yah but, the bankers collude as a group, AKA collectively.
So they are very similar.
-
Yah but, the bankers collude as a group, AKA collectively. -- Tom D Ford
As do the oil companies, though you'll never get them to admit it, of course.
-
In the past I've been influenced by people who were anti-certain-unions and pro-other-unions.
Immigrant farm workers needed unions to get better wages and work conditions. Unionized American automotive workers were paid too much to produce crappy cars in the 1970s.
I've had a few jobs where I was threatened with having to pay union dues even if I wasn't represented, but that made no sense. I've worked technical jobs without union representation. If I didn't like how I was treated by management I found another job.
In current times management of private and public entities are anti worker so I'd consider joining a union today to advocate for being treated fairly. The voice of the individual worker needs to be augmented by the power of group representation.
-
The owners, the management, inherently hold the power, they are after all the employers, unions are a way to keep that power in check, they are an attempt to balance that power. Unions attempt to stand up to power, by creating a power of their own, the power of the collective. But like the power of the owners, the collective power of a good number of people can also be abused, it can also get greedy. It is fighting fire with fire, or brute force with brute force. In most cases the potential for ‘evil’ is lower on the side of the unions, then the side of the owners. Because the union is inherently on the defensive, the unions were created in response to ownership. But both sides have the power to hold one another hostage, it is an imperfect system, but what other system can it be replaced with? If the people don’t stand up for themselves, who will?
-
The other reason I'd like to see public unions be more like trade unions is about the process description I'm listening to now. When the union is all about bargaining, and not also training and acreditation, it creates a structure that is inherently adversarial because that's where you "prove" your worth by "winning" something instead of creating a valuable workforce and getting them fair compensation.
-
I am a grandparent, want my grandchildren to get a great education--one that gives them the basic skills that every adult needs and one that engages and inspires them. I am also a citizen who feels labor unions are VERY important, and I think teachers unions are in danger if they do not demonstrate their commitment to good teaching. We all--well, hopefully all of us, want great teachers and want those teachers well rewarded for their incredibly important work. And we want bad teachers either to brought up to a good standard or let go. Openly supporting that goal will help PRESERVE unions, not hurt them. That will help all the good teachers to get the respect they deserve, and children the eduations that will enhance their lives and the lives of all they touch. -Virginia
-
Conservative leaders have demanded and gotten pay raises for their wealthy in the form of tax cuts and now they are demanding that the workers give up their wages to pay for those tax cuts.
Conservative leaders are busy dividing the American People against each other and getting their base to attack their fellow american workers.
There is a lot wrong with this picture!
Whatever happened to the ideals of our Nations Founders, "United We stand, Divided We Fall"?
-
Actually, it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
The Second Continental Congress did, however, resolve that no one could sit in the Committee of the Whole without signing the Declaration of Independence. (Ironically, King George III wrote in his diary on July 4, 1776, "Nothing of Importance happened today.")
-
Did I just hear Emily Harris say that public employees "don't pay anything towards their health benefits and pensions"?
It is exasperating to hear the perpetuation of anti-union rhetoric on TOL. Health benefits and pensions are part of our negotiated PAY.
I was recently asked by my union how I wanted to prioritize part of my compensation for my job : on wages, health insurance, or penions. It is not an "extra"!
I feel lucky to have the choice to divert some of my wages into a group health insurance plan, etc. Why are we not talking more about giving these group health and retirement options to ALL of our citizens, not be taking then away!
I get paid SIGNIFICANTLY less now than what I earned in the private sector. I left to serve the public, and agreed to less pay in exchange for these "benefits."
An op-ed blog on Forbes better explains how benefits work than I can: http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/25/the-wisconsin-lie-exposed-taxpayers-actually-contribute-nothing-to-public-employee-pensions/
-
I am a progressive and support the rights of workers generally. However, human nature cannot be overcome: When a person knows they cannot be fired, they have no incentive to improve or amend behavior. Unless they are the type of person who is self-motivated to improve and grow, lack of accountability is a recipe for stagnation. Where the question of teacher accoutability gets difficult is that evaluating teachers is very subjective. Does one use test scores, supervisor evaluations, etc? How do you evaluate an art teacher? There needs to be room for subjective as well as objective evaluations of teacher performance. It's like the Supreme Court justice once said about pornography (and apologies for the off-color comparison): I know it when I see it. Similarly, one knows an engaged and creative teacher from a poorly skilled, indifferent or even abusive one. And decisions on promotion and retaining teachers must take these subjective factors into account -- just like in most other professions.
-
As a parent of three daughters educated in the public education system, I witnessed a parade of jaded teachers that did nothing to control bullying of the weaker citizens in out society...our children. I did not realize how tramatic my girls' education was until they reached adulthood. As a dedicated healthcare worker, I do not have the protection being tenured without demonstrating my ability of performin my job at top prerformance everyday. How to evaluate teachers? That is a tough question...lots of damaging education experiences happens behing closed doors. Maybe there should be a team approach to teaching where the strengths of all that are apart the team is utilized with a age range being involved. The will also be required to evaluate how well everyone on the team are functioning with the students. I agree, it is electric when go into a classroom with a involved competent, creative teacher. The students also exhibit this electirc excitement for new education experinces. I heard lots of good stories about excellent teachers...some of these excellent where a focus of jealousy and eventually left the system...this behavior with the heavy reponsibility of our future should not be tolerated. I really would like to support unions but I would like to see union work to uphold standards and establish a way of evaluating teachers.....just like I would like to see physicians monitor poor physician practice through the AMA.
-
If the workers can choose unionize, it follows that the employer can choose to reject the union.
-
no, it does not follow
-
Yes, lolo have it your way, LOL!
-
and god made the employer on the sixth day and said "All will be just fine, now"
oops!
so in other words, you have no good argument to support a rather one-sided statement, and employers are closer to heaven than the mere employee?
are whips, stockades, hot irons, the like, permissible in this world you imagine?
read a little on what the 'social contract' is - no where is the employer a more privileged class except in dystopia, i.e. here and now
but thanks for giving it up with no fight - you really didn't have anything to stand on except unfounded opinion, and perhaps a wistfulness that employees should be beaten if they do not cower - isn't that the upshot of what you suggest?
if one can't run a business w/o exploiting the workers, then one should get out of business, because, for one thing, if he succeeds in this exploitation with the employees, he will next attempt to exploit the buying public - sound familiar?
advertising is next -
-
WoW!
Reading that was like being forced to watch an hour of Glen Beck in twenty seconds.
-
lolo makes sense to Charlie Sheen
-
looks like the two of you, deafened and despoliation, should form a mutual self-admiration club - 'cause ain't nobody else gonna do it for you -
don't expect agreement until you write intelligently, don't expect no reply when you write something full of unadmirable 'ideals' with nothing but bigoted 'opinion' and biases to 'back it up'
in your writing, you each seem the sort to take to violence easily - you'll just have to ask yourself and answer to yourself if that is true, or not - because in writing you do not seem able to defend or explain what you write, and that is a telling flaw and weakness - it is obvious neither of you spend the time to think deeply - and 'off the cuff' is not a strong point for either of you as well
i feel like i am playing catch and release with you - ugh!
you should really only be caught once and fried right away, like any sucker - and cooked hot to kill the worms
clear enough what i think of most all of what you two write yet? i can only hope your next lives are not so bad for you as what you seem to have made of this one
-
putting up with parents surely must rate high up on the list of dangers teachers face - imagine trying to explain to the uneducated adult what it takes to bring out the best in a child, rather than the tried and true form of it - i.e. literally kicking the kid in the pants - and we see how effective that has been, don't we?
it is a shame that most have no appreciation at all for what teacher training is - and give them a big word like 'pedagogy' and they go cross-eyed - a real shame - way too many have found a niche in the back of the class and still made it through and then crow about how all they needed to learn, they got in the sandbox - then they wonder what the matter with their kid is? it must be the teacher!! ??
excuse me while i go out back and laugh loudly
-
MAKES SENSE TO ME >>>> CAN I QUOTE YOU??
-
X
-
America's debt and unions ARE NOT CONNECTED.
Compare the two:46 states combined debt is 126 Billion.
1 week of war in Afghanistan alone, costs $2 Billion.
The unpaid for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the unpaid for Trillions in tax cuts for the rich, the trillions in corporate tax cuts, the unpaid for billions in TARP funds broke this country.
The blame lies with the republican party and on wall street, not main street.http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2011/03/watch_video_of_michael_moore_a.html
-
"The blame lies with the republican party and on wall street, not main street."
Exactly.
Conservative Republicans are attacking Unions to divert The American Peoples' attention away from what Conservative Republicans have done to us all. They are using the Unions as a "Red Herring", just like in mystery stories.
Grr!
-
Why don't people attack Corporations? Why not limit their power and scope of operations? They are groups of investers "collectively" doing business and with increasingly unlimited and De-Regulated power.
Giant Global Corporations have done far more financial harm to The American People than any few "less than perfect teachers" ever could.
Anybody remember "derivatives" and the great recession they did to us? They are still not regulated.
Let's get our priorities straight!
-
With regard to teachers' unions:
I currently teach Computer Science at Portland Community College. In a previous life, I did research in Artificial Intelligence.
What I know from my teaching experience is that teaching is a talent-based activity. When you walk into a room where good teaching is taking place, it is (as a previous speaker on this show said) an electric experience. People are awake. They're having fun. They're participating. You can tell.
What I know from my experience in AI is that even the smartest computers are amazingly stupid when you look "behind the screen." The trick to Artificial Intelligence is that if stupid runs very quickly, it can sometimes look very smart.
There are things that only a human can do. Experiencing the feel of a classroom is one of them.
Teachers' unions want an objective process of teacher evaluation. That objective process is going to be a set of rules written down in a union contract. The problem is, you can't reduce the feel of excellent teaching to a set of objective criteria.
Once you take away the possibility of subjective evaluation, you've entered the realm of AI. You've lost the advantage of having a human in the loop. You've gone from the intelligence that humans are capable of to the catastrophically lower level that computers and bureaucratic processes are capable of.
There is no AI-like set of "objective" bureaucratic criteria that can operate at the level that humans are capable of -- not seniority, not a teacher's list of academic degrees, not anything you can write down in a union contract.
Teaching is important. Teaching takes talent. Teaching deserves to be managed at the highest level of excellence that humans are capable of. Reaching that level requires that we let humans evaluate the quality of teaching.
-
Hear hear! Wonderfully said, thank you.
-
I would have liked to hear about some of the Northwest's labor history, from violence against unions in Centralia, Tacoma, and Everett, to the Seattle general strike and more.
as far as teachers, I have to agree that they have tremendous power to shape future economic actors. with that power, they perpetuate the current state of affairs wherein humans are thought of primarily as producers and consumers, employees and employers. until that changes, I can't imagine how disputes between labor and management will ever end, or even become less acrimonious. teachers are not responsible for the commodification of education and I'm not trying to blame them, but they certainly have a vested interest in maintaining that arrangement.
basically, as I see it, the problem is an extreme lack of imagination.
-
Originally, the idea of Public Schools was to give kids a "liberal education" to help them become knowledgeable, educated, contributing, and participating citizens. But Conservatives have always attacked schools and demanded that they only teach the three "Rs", Readin', Ritin', and 'Rithmetic, leaving behind things like actual unrevised history, PE, civics, the arts, etc.
And so now we only get workers and consumers out of our schools and only a very few with a good education to be a knowledgeable and contributing US citizen.
It is the politics that has screwed up what teachers can teach, not the teachers who do the teaching.
Teachers do not have a vested interest in maintaining that arrangement at all and it is against what most of them went into the teaching profession for. Get conservatives off of the school boards and turn the teachers loose to do their jobs of educating American children.
We need to protect teachers and other Union workers from Conservatives, not the other way around.
-
the arrangement I believe teachers have a vested interest in maintaining is institutional education. I wasn't at all clear about that.
I believe that arguments over the content of that institutional education are a distraction from the real issue: priveleging formal education over all other kinds of learning is detrimental to our society.
-
For as many teachers as I liked, I disliked an equal number. There is nothing particularly noble about the profession, or any more noble the most other professions. I don’t understand the need for some people to view teachers as sacred cows, or why they revere them so. I think much of this love for teachers is an illusion, because of the inherent aspect of what teaching is, in a way it is the ultimate in customer, or human, service. The job description and the dynamics themselves create this illusion. Sort of in the way you might fall in love with your shrink, it is nothing the shrink is actually doing, it is just the inherent function of the relationship, to me this dynamic is similar to what goes on with teaching. When it is done well it makes us feel great, but if it is done poorly it can make us feel intense frustration. Learning or education is fundamental to human development, to human life, and teachers assist in this process, and we tend to confuse the process with the people carrying it out. Really what is important is the actual ‘teaching,’ the teachers are merely the ones who carry this out. I don’t dislike teachers, and generally find myself aligned with them, but I don’t think they should be deified---people writing the textbooks or building the schools, or serving the lunches are also important. Teachers are closer to the front lines and because of this we, perhaps unfairly, hold them in higher regard.
-
Scott,
What a informing perspective you have presented. I hadn't thought about this and yes it's true for me too.
For myself I think most real learning is done outside of the "enforced classroom time" these days. Kids (and adults) learn from so many sources now, so much more exposure to so much.
And the real critical ingredient to me is the quality and quantity of time in the personal relationship with a teacher. This mostly does not last for any length of time in the school building environment.
-
Oh no! No! No! I am most regretful to hear of your personal situation, but consider more carefully what you write of and the consequences further on down the line-
name another profession which is so selfless in its ideals AND its reality - doctors anymore way too often do it for the big bucks, not their innate desire to heal; the same for the shrink you fall in love with; regardless of our need for just laws and intelligent interpretation, let us not bother with the lost profession of the noble lawyer and judge; shall we consider the grocery clerk? Could the real farmer know when to plant, how to milk the cow best, without some sort of good teacher?
Life is so short - imagine the time you’d take getting a relevant education on your own - no one has a life that long, of necessity we would revert and become even more like the feral human
no one in this society does more with less than teachers - name a rich elementary or high school teacher - and yet most of them fulfill roles and perform functions many parents in one way or another are unprepared, unable, unwilling or incompetent to fill -
and if you think a mad dog is dangerous, just put yourself in before of an (unjustifiably and too often ignorant) angered parent once or twice -
Nothing supports, and even makes possible, civilization like teachers - they are somewhat like our collective memory, remembering what we learned from our mistakes and remembering as well how we found our way to where we are. Teachers, tutors, academics used to be a luxury reserved only for the most rich and powerful - granted, there are many people who simply cannot take advantage of a fraction of what a good teacher has to offer, but without the teachers available to the general public, we close the doors for advancement by merit for future generations - soon enough we would again have the corpulent, rich, retarded but well -tutored idiot in control of too many things - “but, we have that now” you say - yes indeed, so just imagine how that class of privileged would lord it over the rest of us if we did not have teachers-
No one, no profession, no institution is more sacred than the one which helps us on the way to self-discovery, self-knowledge, discovery of the world around us and remembrance of what the past may have discovered before us which is still relevant -
-
IF YOU CAN >>. DO
IF YOU CAN'T >>> TEACH
-
deafened
since you never have anything intelligent to write, deafened, i would not have expected anything new from you, and again you have surprised no one - but i am glad you have an interest in CS - why not write him a letter - he might notice you, if you use all caps and make threats-
-
Iolo,
1. What are you saying exactly? Or where do your ideas lead? That teachers are better then doctors? Hum, what about the teachers that teach doctors to be doctors? So, they are also better then the doctors they teach? Sounds like a futile occupation, if what you give birth to is always employed in an inferior profession to you, unless of course your pupils decide to become teachers! Are the teachers at Harvard inferior to the teachers are PCC because they are better paid? Following the reasoning that teachers are even better then they already are, because they could be making more money elsewhere, or because they sacrifice to be teachers, leaves us with the question of why raise their salaries, because in the process we would degrade their selfless-worth.
And, how many teachers are full of ego? And, how many teachers chose the path as a first option? And, how many teachers have dreams outside of teaching and would give up the profession if only they could? And, how many teachers are driven by an overwhelming zeal and thrill for education, the advancement of civilization, and an altruistic goal that motivated their decision to join the profession? I don’t criticize teachers, you choose to applaud and exalt them, I choose to say it is a fine profession, but it is no better then many others. Teachers don’t exist in some bell jar, they are dependent on many others, like we all are. Computers can do much of the jobs of teachers, yes, right now! I am not proposing that as acceptable or preferable solution, but it shows the limits of their functional value.
-
2. Teachers don’t advance society they merely perpetuate the status quo, they teach what has already been taught, what has already been decided. They are not the ultimate makers of society. In a way they do the dirty, rote, repetitive work. Yes, it has a role---yes, there can be an art to it---yes, it is important---but, teachers will always be the chicken, never the egg. There are others out there, doing, and creating, the things that build and expand our civilization, and teachers are the ones that help the next generation learn those things. Knowledge had to be created, or figured out, before it could be taught. And, so much valuable learning occurs within the mind, and is self-created. And, so much learning occurs by being challenged by other competing ideas. There are many ways in which we learn, and they don’t all require the formality of a teacher. What we really admire is the education itself, this is what we value, and there are many ways to acquire an education that don’t directly require a physical teacher. We value the acquisition of knowledge, it is this act of learning that is important to human civilization, teachers can guide students through this, and expedite the process, but they are not the knowledge itself, it is this knowledge that is of ultimate importance.
Then we have the question of what about all the teachers in the world that teach asinine topics, like the strategies of war? Or, the instructors at the terrorism training camp? Are those not the teachers you mean? Just the teachers that teach the things you believe are valuable? Of course this line of thought is extreme, but it leads to a valuable point. It is not the teaching that is important, but rather what is being taught.
-
Are we lost in our generalizations yet?
-
Here are a few of my generalizations to add to the mix.
All people tend to be self-absorbed and short-sighted, Union or Management.
Power differences between these groups tend to translate into abuses over time.
If a specific Union is negotiating with an employer that is not up to holding their own, there will just as likely be abuses as when the power differential is in the other direction.
This is a problem that will always be a moving target.
Our goal should be to strive for power parity in each specific negotiation. Remember, even in a court of law, with a lawyer for each side, fairness is still up for grabs if the lawyers are not equally skilled.
We shouldn't ask; are Unions getting too powerful? Or even; are teachers Unions, or Public Employee Unions too powerful? But, rather; is there parity in this or that negotiation, and, is the outcome reasonable/sustainable?
And where some teachers, taxpayers, or anyone else gets stretched too thin, we need to sort it out and regroup on a case by case basis.
-
One last generalization to add to the mix:
"No generalization is any damn good, and that includes this one." -- Mark Twain
-
Comments are now closed.
Union membership is declining, less than 10% of American workers. Now the largest component of unions is the public sector: teachers, government workers, police and fire.
Government workers have been insulated from the Great Recession in 2008.
In many cities including in Oregon, ONE-THIRD OF THE ENTIRE MUNICIPAL BUDGET goes directly to Retirement benefits. One half of the State Budget goes to Education.
-Defined Benefit Retirement plans enable police and fire officers to retire in their 40's with full salary. Many other officials retire in their 50's with a fixed pension that is 50%-60%-70% or more of their salaries.
-Iron clad Job Security. If a foreign country took over our K-12 Education system and ran it as poorly in the past 20 years as we have witnessed, then we would have terrorist conspiracies, violent revolts and open rebellion. Incompetent teachers cannot be fired because of union rules for anything short of a felony.
-Government is a monopoly. There is no alternative providers. Shoud essential civil workers be allowed to strike and hold a society hostage?
Money is NOT UNLIMITED. Whether Democrat or Republican We are spending our children's future and they will suffer unless we act.
Sustainable also means FINANCIAL SUSTAINABLITY.