Are Teacher Unions a good thing?

Ethereal said:

Good to know...:2razz:

I'm all for good teachers making more money. I just wish we could separate the good ones from the bad; I think labor laws make this exceedingly difficult, though...

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As I mentioned back at the beginning of this thread, we're seeing at least one teacher union relenting on the question of teacher evaluation (see the news article I cited). One system that seems to make sense is to compare the progress made by individual students over time, and cross reference the progress they make with their teachers. Track each of them over three years, then compare the most recent year with the previous three. Those who make better progress in year four than the average of years one through three must have a pretty good teacher in year three, no?

One other thing--we need to make sure that students have some incentive for doing well on whatever tests we give them. Lots of kids don't take the tests seriously because their scores have NO effect on them. They just mark the little bubbles at random, or they make a "Christmas tree" pattern with them.

Catawba said:

They do with the Virginia Education Association.

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They certainly don't here. I don't think even the teachers have any real control over the union. A couple of years ago, the union really wanted to block a proposition on the ballot and so they boosted the "dues" on teachers state-wide. Not only could the teachers not refuse to pay, they couldn't even demand their money not be used for political means.

California is such a screwed up state.

pugetsoundwa said:

yr was a typo...get over it.

minimum wage?? Yet a CEO of a Corp losing money gets multi million is fair???

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Works for me.

It's the stockholder's issue, no concern of mine.

Do the math.....30,000 GM workers each get paid $30,000 too much versus one CEO getting paid $30,000,000 too much. Which costs more?

Oh.

Liberals can't do math.

30,000 GM workers getting $30,000 too much is $900,000,000 dollars too much.

How's that compare with the CEO's measley $30,000,000?

Hmmm?

pugetsoundwa said:

No the FACT is they are innocent until PROVEN guilty. They deserve a paycheck UNTIL PROVEN guilty at which time they can be held accountable in a court of law.

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In the real world, if they're not producing, they're not on the payroll for very long.

Time to make that happen with the schools.

BTW, we're not talking about courts of law, nor are we even discussing guilt or innocence.

We're talking about productivity and expense.

Education is a business.

It's employees should be treated in a businesslike manner.

Rassales said:

I was thinking about the NYC situation that Scarecrow mentions, but that's not California. One of the most common illegitimate debating tactics is to cite an isolated problem and make it seem widespread. I suspect there are lots of situations in NYC that are not typical of the whole country.

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ORRRR....you could do a little research yourself and see that it's not isolated to New York....:roll:

Cephus said:

They certainly don't here. I don't think even the teachers have any real control over the union. A couple of years ago, the union really wanted to block a proposition on the ballot and so they boosted the "dues" on teachers state-wide. Not only could the teachers not refuse to pay, they couldn't even demand their money not be used for political means.

California is such a screwed up state.

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The teachers do not elect their Association officers there? If they do, then they have control.

Why do you stay if it is so screwed up?

Cephus said:

They certainly don't here. I don't think even the teachers have any real control over the union. A couple of years ago, the union really wanted to block a proposition on the ballot and so they boosted the "dues" on teachers state-wide. Not only could the teachers not refuse to pay, they couldn't even demand their money not be used for political means.

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Sure they can, according to the Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court in a landmark decision in 1998, in Communication Workers of America v. Beck,[27] defined the term "agency fee." This ruling applies to both public and private sector employees. A union may require all employees covered by a union security agreement to pay an "agency fee" which is designed to cover the cost associated with collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance administration procedures. However, individual employees may opt out of any additional component of typical union dues that are related to "non-core" matters, such as political contributions and lobbying efforts.

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The Use of Union Dues for Political Activity-Current Status. | North America > United States from AllBusiness.com

Anyone can require that their contributions not be used for political activity, and California teachers can prevent this being done by not joining the union. Their "fair share" required contributions cover only the costs of things like collective bargaining and conflict resolutions--the same benefits that every person in a bargaining unit gets whether they join the union or not. What that initiative would have done is require that every employee sign a statement that they APPROVE of their dues being used for political activity. They've always had the right to deny their contributions for political purposes.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

ORRRR....you could do a little research yourself and see that it's not isolated to New York....:roll:

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I don't seem to have a problem doing research. I do have a problem accepting unsubstantiated assertions. The onus is on the one making the claim, particularly when the evidence provided doesn't match the claim he's supporting.

Rassales said:

I don't seem to have a problem doing research. I do have a problem accepting unsubstantiated assertions. The onus is on the one making the claim, particularly when the evidence provided doesn't match the claim he's supporting.

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Well, here's what you do. When some presents some seemingly unreliable fact (so they're clearly not me), you look it up yourself and come back and prove it's not reliable.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Well, here's what you do. When some presents some seemingly unreliable fact (so they're clearly not me), you look it up yourself and come back and prove it's not reliable.

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If that hypothetical person could not provide facts to back up their claim in the first place, there is nothing to refute. No case was made.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Well, here's what you do. When some presents some seemingly unreliable fact (so they're clearly not me), you look it up yourself and come back and prove it's not reliable.

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Actually, that's illogical since one cannot prove a negative. I'm saying "Hey, that's an unsubstantiated claim!" and you're saying "Okay, so go substantiate it, then." Not my job. I substantiate the claims *I* make.

Lightdemon said:

You're still assuming that a students output is a direct correlation to a teacher's output. This is an erroneous assumption. No matter how well or how poor a teacher does in their own classroom, it does not guarantee that a student will do well or do poorly. What evidence of merit is there?

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On an individual basis, this is true. It is NOT the case when you're looking at an average of ALL the students. Personal things can affect individual students, but they're more or less random and affect comparable student populations in comparable proportions. If Teacher A's students learned 1.5 years of material this year (compared to an average of 1.0 the previous year), and Teacher B's students learned 0.7 years of material this year (compared to an average of 1.0 the previous year), there is SOMETHING that caused Class A to be more successful than Class B. If the composition of the students is similar, the logical conclusion is that the teacher is the significant variable here.

Lightdemon said:

What's more damning is the fact that administrators get to decide which teachers students will get. Favoritism already abound in every campus, merit pay will exacerbate the already troubled relationship between teachers and the administration. The cooperative teachers will get the good students, therefore better pay, and those who oppose the administration will get the problem students, and therefore lower pay.

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As I said, that could be factored into the algorithm so that it wouldn't affect the results. If Mr. Smith has the remedial class where kids learned 0.8 years of material this year (compared to 0.5 years of material last year), and Ms. Jones has the advanced class where kids learned 1.2 years of material this year (compared to 1.5 years of material last year), then Mr. Smith is the more effective of the two at teaching his students.

Lightdemon said:

Because one does not cause the other, it's as simple as that. A student's effort is what determines their test scores, not how well a teacher can use their pedagogy. The student's choice to study at night, do their homework, pay attention in class, are all choices that a student makes.

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If the teachers have comparable students (e.g. students selected from the same ability/demographic/previous education pool), then on average they should have the same proportion of slackers and overachievers. If the student populations are similar in every other way, why would the students in one class be more motivated to study at night, do their homework, and pay attention in class than students in the other class? Again, the only variable is the teacher.

Lightdemon said:

The teacher is not responsible for a student who chooses NOT to do these things. Student success does not rely on a teacher's pedagogy, it's is merely a part of it. And that's a weak foundation for supporting the merit pay system.

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It is an excellent foundation for supporting the merit pay system if you apply statistical analysis, which is very easy to do with the information technology that already exists.

Lightdemon said:

Furthermore, to measure critical thinking, you have to review written exams and not multiple choice itemized exams. Given how much money is already spent on the latter type of exams, much more money and time will need be spent on the former type of exams, considering how much more reading must be done for review.

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I disagree that critical thinking is not measurable on multiple choice tests. The GMAT and LSAT both measure it. But even if you include a writing section, that would be well worth the cost to measure these sort of things. I'd much rather spend the money knowing which teachers are ineffective (and can therefore be terminated) than on the ineffective teacher's salary.

Lightdemon said:

Even that you are using baseline values, you'll likely have to test these students at the end of every quarter to measure their improvement and update their baselines. You think this may actually be viable?? There's not enough time in the 9 months of the school year to do this, let alone the budget to afford it.

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Why every quarter? Once a year should be plenty.

Kandahar said:

On an individual basis, this is true. It is NOT the case when you're looking at an average of ALL the students. Personal things can affect individual students, but they're more or less random and affect comparable student populations in comparable proportions. If Teacher A's students learned 1.5 years of material this year (compared to an average of 1.0 the previous year), and Teacher B's students learned 0.7 years of material this year (compared to an average of 1.0 the previous year), there is SOMETHING that caused Class A to be more successful than Class B. If the composition of the students is similar, the logical conclusion is that the teacher is the significant variable here.

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I understand that. There still can be any number of reasons that entire classes of students are doing better or worse: New computer lab for instance, will only benefit the type of teachers who will make use of it. Those who are traditional will be at an disadvantage. Class sizes being reduced for disabled and English learner students, will impact classes are that are mainstreaming and those who are not mainstreaming will be at a disadvantage. Classes are not ALL the same like how you describe. How do you figure in all of these confounding variables? Dozens of schools in LA in the last year are going through increased class sizes, expanding campuses, teacher lay offs, charter schools taking the brightest students from the public schools, etc etc, how are you suppose to calculate these factors into that formula?

There are too many things going on for you to isolate teachers as THE variable. There are MANY variables and it does not effect all students, it affects different groups of students. The mere fact that your foundation is just a mere correlation, all the confounding variables destroys your entire premise.

As I said, that could be factored into the algorithm so that it wouldn't affect the results. If Mr. Smith has the remedial class where kids learned 0.8 years of material this year (compared to 0.5 years of material last year), and Ms. Jones has the advanced class where kids learned 1.2 years of material this year (compared to 1.5 years of material last year), then Mr. Smith is the more effective of the two at teaching his students.

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You missed my point. Please refer to my earlier example in this thread where I talk about about my colleague who was waging a war with the administration. The administration can give a teacher 6 periods of hell, make every class horrible, all it takes is 5 or more problem students. These problem students can drive the entire class down in terms of performance, structure, and discipline. This is a tactic that the administration use to "discipline" teachers who do not cooperate and who are untouchable because of the union. Under the merit pay system, the teacher would suffer a dip in their salary because s/he was standing up to the administration (who was then implementing NCLB). Many teachers who opposed NCLB would have been silenced or driven out of their careers under the merit pay system. How well would that have turned out?

I disagree that critical thinking is not measurable on multiple choice tests. The GMAT and LSAT both measure it.

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I guess we'll just disagree here.

Why every quarter? Once a year should be plenty.

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Lots of confounding variables in a school year. Class make-up changes, you get new students, you lose a few students, some classes you only take 1 semester. How will I know whether or not I should make adjustments? How will I know that my students will be tested on the material that I teach them? I only get one chance to prove myself every year? If I get bad luck one year and get crappy classes, I'll have to wait 1 whole year to fix it?

If not every quarter, at least once a semester like final exams.

Cephus said:

They certainly don't here. I don't think even the teachers have any real control over the union. A couple of years ago, the union really wanted to block a proposition on the ballot and so they boosted the "dues" on teachers state-wide. Not only could the teachers not refuse to pay, they couldn't even demand their money not be used for political means.

California is such a screwed up state.

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Nonsense.

The union can't use regular dues to block a proposition, or for any other campaign sort of purpose. They collect a separate, voluntary fee for that purpose. Members are encouraged to pay into that fund, but not required to do so in order to remain a member. When there is pending legislation that might affect schools, the union asks for money to lobby and campaign. Most members donate voluntarily.

Most of the stuff being used to lambaste unions is plucked out of thin air, made up of whole cloth, and then passed on as fact. What happened to the post above saying that teachers were being paid to do nothing since they can't be fired? I never did see any back up to that one. Maybe I missed it.

Dittohead not! said:

Nonsense.

The union can't use regular dues to block a proposition, or for any other campaign sort of purpose. They collect a separate, voluntary fee for that purpose. Members are encouraged to pay into that fund, but not required to do so in order to remain a member. When there is pending legislation that might affect schools, the union asks for money to lobby and campaign. Most members donate voluntarily.

Most of the stuff being used to lambaste unions is plucked out of thin air, made up of whole cloth, and then passed on as fact. What happened to the post above saying that teachers were being paid to do nothing since they can't be fired? I never did see any back up to that one. Maybe I missed it.

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Don't let the facts mess with your wishful thinking or anything.

In 2005, the California Teacher's Association raised the rates of all members by $180, specifically to build a $54 million dollar war chest to fight against Schwarzenegger's proposed educational cuts. The teachers had absolutely no say whatsoever in either the increase, nor in what it was used for. In fact, many teachers spoke out to the media against both the increase and it's usage.

Cephus said:

Don't let the facts mess with your wishful thinking or anything.

In 2005, the California Teacher's Association raised the rates of all members by $180, specifically to build a $54 million dollar war chest to fight against Schwarzenegger's proposed educational cuts. The teachers had absolutely no say whatsoever in either the increase, nor in what it was used for. In fact, many teachers spoke out to the media against both the increase and it's usage.

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By law, all they had to do was ask for an accounting and for their contributions not to be used for politics. That's the law.

Rassales said:

By law, all they had to do was ask for an accounting and for their contributions not to be used for politics. That's the law.

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Funny how the law doesn't seem to stop unions, especially when the state is solidly in their pocket.

Ah, I see my thread is progressing nicely. *Smiles fondly*:mrgreen:

After reading all the interesting posts, it would seem that:

• Teacher Unions (And indeed, all Unions) are in general, neither good nor bad, but somewhere in the middle. Some are worse than others, some are better. Quality seems, to some extent, to vary by state, or even county/parish/whatever.
  
  
• By no means are teacher unions (or teachers) the only issue with the currently declining (I think) quality of public education.
  Other factors would seem to include:
  
  
  1. Family environment, as in: Parental involvement, quality of home environment, quality of neighborhood environment, etc.
  2. Individual student motivation level, as in: Anti or neutral-education peer/parental pressure, lack on interest, etc.
  3. School environment, as in: Other students, quality of education materials, quality of education environment, etc.
  4. Curriculum limitations/restrictions, as in: Curriculum standards too stringent, overly restricting teaching style rules, etc.
  5. Individual student intelligence.
  
  
• Any changes proposed will have a negative effect on someone.
  
  
• In too many cases (as in, any), education quality is not the priority.
  
  
• Property taxes should be eliminated as a means of funding public schools.

The Mark said:

Ah, I see my thread is progressing nicely. *Smiles fondly*:mrgreen:

After reading all the interesting posts, it would seem that:

• Teacher Unions (And indeed, all Unions) are in general, neither good nor bad, but somewhere in the middle. Some are worse than others, some are better. Quality seems, to some extent, to vary by state, or even county/parish/whatever.
  
  
• By no means are teacher unions (or teachers) the only issue with the currently declining (I think) quality of public education.
  Other factors would seem to include:
  
  
  1. Family environment, as in: Parental involvement, quality of home environment, quality of neighborhood environment, etc.
  2. Individual student motivation level, as in: Anti or neutral-education peer/parental pressure, lack on interest, etc.
  3. School environment, as in: Other students, quality of education materials, quality of education environment, etc.
  4. Curriculum limitations/restrictions, as in: Curriculum standards too stringent, overly restricting teaching style rules, etc.
  5. Individual student intelligence.
  
  
• Any changes proposed will have a negative effect on someone.
  
  
• In too many cases (as in, any), education quality is not the priority.
  
  
• Property taxes should be eliminated as a means of funding public schools.

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I would agree with this--although the last item needs some modification. What needs changing is differentiated funding of schools based on location. If property taxes in a large area were pooled and the money distributed to schools per student, that would help. At least it would help create better parity among schools--which is admittedly only one of many goals articulated in the thread.

Cephus said:

Funny how the law doesn't seem to stop unions, especially when the state is solidly in their pocket.

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Who is "the state?" The legislature? The courts? The people? Unless you think the courts are in the pocket of teacher unions, the best thing would be for those complaining teachers to hire an attorney and file a cause of action. That they didn't suggests they were more interested in public complaining than in actually getting their money back.

Rassales said:

I would agree with this--although the last item needs some modification. What needs changing is differentiated funding of schools based on location. If property taxes in a large area were pooled and the money distributed to schools on a per student basis, it would help. At least it would help create better parity among schools--which is admittedly only one of many goals articulated in the thread.

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Interesting point.

However, it would seem that anything less than a nation-wide pool of this sort would still cause some disparity.

As even state-wide would feel the affect of lower property values state to state.

But as a temporary bandage job, it has some merit.

However, any kind of funding method relies on the prosperity of the area which funding is drawn from.
Example: If you live in a high-income area, income tax funding for schools would cause the same issues as property tax.
Example: If you live in a high-income area, sales tax funding for schools would cause the same issues as property tax. Because higher-income persons almost invariably purchase more, as well.

So a pool method might be the best in any case.
Nation-wide, however, would produce far too massive a bureaucracy.
So state-wide or smaller would be best.

On a side note, is there not already a half-assed version of this idea in place?
As in, federal or state grants to boost a low-income school district?
At least, I think this is the case in some school districts, here in Pennsylvania.

The Mark said:

On a side note, is there not already a half-assed version of this idea in place?
As in, federal or state grants to boost a low-income school district?
At least, I think this is the case in some school districts, here in Pennsylvania.

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I'm not sure about Pennsylvania. I grew up there in the 70's (suburban Pittsburgh) and I remember that some arrangement was made for funding Philadelphia schools more on the state's dime than other areas, so you may be thinking of that.

In the Allegheny County of my youth, there were almost 50 school districts, each serving a distinct, relatively small community. Some, like Upper Saint Clair, Mount Lebanon, North Allegheny, North Hills, and other wealthy communities were very well funded (I lived on one of those) while other districts (Pittsburgh Public Schools, East Liberty, McKeesport) had considerably less. I remember one teacher suggesting that, if PA were involved in forced busing of students, they'd divide the county like a pie, putting one portion of the City of Pittsburgh in each slice. I remember being appalled, but then I grew up.

Rassales said:

I'm not sure about Pennsylvania. I grew up there in the 70's (suburban Pittsburgh) and I remember that some arrangement was made for funding Philadelphia schools more on the state's dime than other areas, so you may be thinking of that.

In the Allegheny County of my youth, there were almost 50 school districts, each serving a distinct, relatively small community. Some, like Upper Saint Clair, Mount Lebanon, North Allegheny, North Hills, and other wealthy communities were very well funded (I lived on one of those) while other districts (Pittsburgh Public Schools, East Liberty, McKeesport) had considerably less. I remember one teacher suggesting that, if PA were involved in forced busing of students, they'd divide the county like a pie, putting one portion of the City of Pittsburgh in each slice. I remember being appalled, but then I grew up.

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Problem is, even with a pool, schools in an area with higher income families would have better facilities.
The reason being, that some of those higher income persons, seeing the quality of the school facilities, would donate funds to build better, outside of any funds extracted from them by the government in that area.

The Mark said:

Problem is, even with a pool, schools in an area with higher income families would have better facilities.
The reason being, that some of those higher income persons, seeing the quality of the school facilities, would donate funds to build better, outside of any funds extracted from them by the government in that area.

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That's true, and it happens that PTAs in wealthy districts do a lot for schools to improve things like art and music and field trips. Capital investments like you're speaking of are more rare, and would continue to be rare because they are so expensive. Schools are usually built with bonds, after all.

Mostly people just move into more expensive homes whose value is partly supported by the reputation of the schools. That's why the "pool" idea is unlike to gain traction--those who are already invested in "good neighborhoods" don't want to lose the the economic advantage they've invested in. More cynically, they also don't want to support the schools of working class people in depressed areas.

Lightdemon said:

I understand that. There still can be any number of reasons that entire classes of students are doing better or worse: New computer lab for instance, will only benefit the type of teachers who will make use of it. Those who are traditional will be at an disadvantage. Class sizes being reduced for disabled and English learner students, will impact classes are that are mainstreaming and those who are not mainstreaming will be at a disadvantage. Classes are not ALL the same like how you describe. How do you figure in all of these confounding variables? Dozens of schools in LA in the last year are going through increased class sizes, expanding campuses, teacher lay offs, charter schools taking the brightest students from the public schools, etc etc, how are you suppose to calculate these factors into that formula?

There are too many things going on for you to isolate teachers as THE variable. There are MANY variables and it does not effect all students, it affects different groups of students. The mere fact that your foundation is just a mere correlation, all the confounding variables destroys your entire premise.



You missed my point. Please refer to my earlier example in this thread where I talk about about my colleague who was waging a war with the administration. The administration can give a teacher 6 periods of hell, make every class horrible, all it takes is 5 or more problem students. These problem students can drive the entire class down in terms of performance, structure, and discipline. This is a tactic that the administration use to "discipline" teachers who do not cooperate and who are untouchable because of the union. Under the merit pay system, the teacher would suffer a dip in their salary because s/he was standing up to the administration (who was then implementing NCLB). Many teachers who opposed NCLB would have been silenced or driven out of their careers under the merit pay system. How well would that have turned out?




I guess we'll just disagree here.



Lots of confounding variables in a school year. Class make-up changes, you get new students, you lose a few students, some classes you only take 1 semester. How will I know whether or not I should make adjustments? How will I know that my students will be tested on the material that I teach them? I only get one chance to prove myself every year? If I get bad luck one year and get crappy classes, I'll have to wait 1 whole year to fix it?

If not every quarter, at least once a semester like final exams.

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The student population would follow a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_probability_distribution"]normal distribution[/ame]. This means you could compare and contrast teacher averages relatively easily; you could also eliminate students who fall several standard deviations outside the mean from the data set; that way, the statistical outliers wouldn't skew the results.