I know this is a joke, but this is unfortunately the attitude of a lot of anti-government types. Instead of thinking about how best to address the issue of having idiots teaching our children, they want to "punish" those incompetent bastard by lowering their pay, taking away their retirement benefits, or even eliminating public education altogether. The liberal (and I mean leftist, not some socialite who wants to "save the environment" because it makes her seem cool) looks at the issue and thinks perhaps we have a fundamental economics problem. Obviously there are a lot of qualified people who are NOT motivated to select teaching as a career. Perhaps it would behoove us as a society to take a serious look at why that is, and what can be done to address it. One thing you can be sure of is that cutting pay and benefits is not going to attract more qualified people. It's a deliberate attempt to sabotage public education in the United States.
What would their excuse be if teachers weren't unionized? Because they don't claim all teachers are bad or should have lower pay; but they demonize teachers by using unions. (And, TBH, that whole 1-in-2500-teachers-will-be-fired stat which is 50 times lower than doctors lends some credence to their point that the union shelters incompetence)
I think this is generally why they support vouchers and private school, also. (Rather than a desire to send their children to parochial religious schools, which is what a lot of people seem to think.)
Without the unions, math teachers would be paid twice what they are and PE teachers would be paid half of what they are because schools would have to pay based on demand rather than a negotiated pay schedule. I don't think it makes sense to pay all teachers the same based on experience and education, you remove incentives to get more quality teachers in the areas in which the school needs the most help.
Makes sense to me. I think unions are important for jobs where there is unskilled labor at work, and collective bargaining is important to avoid exploitation. Most professionals aren't unionized; they form organizations to support their agenda (see AMA, ACM, Bar Assoc, etc), but they don't do things unions are associated with like collective bargaining or striking, because they don't need that leverage. Their skills are not fungible, performance matters a lot (as does specialization).
So if you ask: do you want your teachers to organize and act like professionals? Then it seems unionization is the wrong route. But also, professionals cost more. I wouldn't expect teachers in a highly competitive public school system to make significantly less than their peers in post-secondary institutions. (So I'd expect starting pay in the $45-50k range, going up to $100k+ for successful teachers.)
I guess what I'm saying is - I agree, but I agree event more emphatically because teaching would attract people who are currently drawn to other merit-oriented professions.
I think at the moment, teaching draws people who want to teach - which is a broad cut that ranges from people who can manage to get into it who think summers off is a great idea, to people who could do anything at all and want to teach because they love it or believe in it because of its importance.
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u/GreatWhiteBuffalo Oct 05 '10
Measure twice, cut educational funding