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Are Teacher Unions a good thing?

Are Teacher Unions a good thing?

  • Total voters
    51
Catawba said:
It sounds to me like your interest is a selfish one that does not place a priority on education and the benefits that provides to the future of our country.

But, you could prove me wrong by explaining how you would address each of these Virginia Education Assoc. goals without funding,


Virginia Preschool Initiative?

Comprehensive School Reform??

Enhanced Career and Technical Education (Fine Arts - STEM)?

Increased teacher participation in instructional decisions?

Dropout prevention?

Class size reduction?





That is entirely your perception, and not one based on reality.
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Such a hollow and ill-conceived argument.

Save the "your against education" sound bites for people who were born yesterday.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
But lots of people go through similar types of training and earn similar types of salaries.
It's not limited to teachers and however noble ones intentions are, that is what the job pays.

When you accept the job offer, you accept the pay.
There should be no crying after the fact.
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I challenge you to name 3 jobs that require you to have a BA and a 1-2 training in the profession, that pay 30-40K a year.

That's noble of you but in the end you wouldn't do it, if it didn't pay enough.
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...and that's WITH a union. ;)
 
Lightdemon said:
I'm not in it for the money, but to deny that teachers get paid like crap is ridiculous. For all the schooling and training that one goes through to become a teacher, a 30-40k salary is insulting.

I do it because I like my community. I teach where I live, and I want to give back to my community.
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Did you see the salary of those two teachers from my old high school?

The drivers-ed teacher made $144,000 a year before he retired. The other one made $99,000 a year. That's totally excessive.

I could have seriously done both of their jobs without any training whatsoever.
 
Lightdemon said:
I challenge you to name 3 jobs that require you to have a BA and a 1-2 training in the profession, that pay 30-40K a year.
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Scroll down to 10-20

List of Best College Degrees by Salary: What Is Your Major Worth? - The Salary Reporter

Your going to have to clarify what 1-2 training means.

Lightdemon said:
...and that's WITH a union. ;)
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A lot of people want to be teachers, supply vs demand.
The early childhood education majors are everywhere in my state college.
 
Ethereal said:
Did you see the salary of those two teachers from my old high school?

The drivers-ed teacher made $144,000 a year before he retired. The other one made $99,000 a year. That's totally excessive.

I could have seriously done both of their jobs without any training whatsoever.
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Teacher's who have been around for 20+ years are different. And 144k is a lot to begin with too, even for one who is about to retire. The veteran teacher's at my school, who looks like they'll be retiring within the next 3-5 years, all make under 100k. The highest I think is 90k, and he's got about 35 years under his belt.

I think your example may be an anomaly, or maybe it's just your state...:shrug:
 
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Ethereal said:
Such a hollow and ill-conceived argument.

Save the "your against education" sound bites for people who were born yesterday.
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If you cannot explain how you would address our public education goals without funding, than your argument is the hollow, ill-conceived one.
 
Lightdemon said:
Sorry, typed too fast. I meant 1-2 years of training in the profession. Training like the credential that I hold in order for me to be a teacher. Like a license that a real estate agent holds.

EDIT: and I didn't see any specific jobs. All of them are based on majors.
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A lot of these people are required to have Bachelor degree before they can even get an interview.

Average Salaries - Job Descriptions - Average Job Salaries - PayScale

Not to mention their own special certifications for each different job.
Accountants need certs, some Admin asst. need specific computer certs.

Trust me it's not just teachers.
 
Catawba said:
If you cannot explain how you would address our public education goals without funding, than your argument is the hollow, ill-conceived one.
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Except we're not talking about funding public education. We're talking about labor laws that hamstring taxpayers and favor teacher's unions.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
A lot of people want to be teachers, supply vs demand.
The early childhood education majors are everywhere in my state college.
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Not sure why I didn't see this earlier...but I'll respond to it now.


You may be right about a lot of people wanting to become teachers, but the fact is that there aren't enough teachers in the market because many teachers give up after 5 years or less. 50% of new teachers will leave their careers in less than 5 years. You're notion of supply v. demand is inaccurate.

The low pay that teachers get is not because demand isn't high enough, it's the fact that we are under budgeted by the state and fed.
 
Lightdemon said:
Not sure why I didn't see this earlier...but I'll respond to it now.


You may be right about a lot of people wanting to become teachers, but the fact is that there aren't enough teachers in the market because many teachers give up after 5 years or less. 50% of new teachers will leave their careers in less than 5 years. You're notion of supply v. demand is inaccurate.

The low pay that teachers get is not because demand isn't high enough, it's the fact that we are under budgeted by the state and fed.
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There seems to be enough to fill in that drop off.

The budgets are more than sufficient, it's not being spent wisely.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
There seems to be enough to fill in that drop off.

The budgets are more than sufficient, it's not being spent wisely.
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Is that why the average class sizes went up by 5 students this year?
Is that why we were having so many teachers getting laid off last year?

But I'll concede your other point about the salaries. It did make me sound whiny. :mrgreen:
 
Ethereal said:
Except we're not talking about funding public education. We're talking about labor laws that hamstring taxpayers and favor teacher's unions.
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The post that I was replying to was talking about the Education Association not seeking policy changes for improved education. That is the context of the conversation that you inserted yourself into.

The goals I listed were those of the Virginia Education Association. What is your opinion of those goals?

Now, what are you talking about? Teaching is one of the lowest paid professions out there, and way more important than most other professions.
 
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Lightdemon said:
Is that why the average class sizes went up by 5 students this year?
Is that why we were having so many teachers getting laid off last year?

But I'll concede your other point about the salaries. It did make me sound whiny. :mrgreen:
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While I may not favor compulsory government schools, it doesn't mean that I don't think there are really good, worth while teachers that deserve more.
Being in a union isn't going to help that though, you are lost in the crowd.

States love to slash school budgets when times get tough, at the same time they don't force efficiency when times are good.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
While I may not favor compulsory government schools, it doesn't mean that I don't think there are really good, worth while teachers that deserve more.
Being in a union isn't going to help that though, you are lost in the crowd.

States love to slash school budgets when times get tough, at the same time they don't force efficiency when times are good.
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The union does some good. For instance, it can get us more money in the budget to hire more teachers to get the class sizes down. A simple thing like this, just hiring more teachers, can improve school conditions. No need to implement new policy or whatever. No need to come up with some fantastic algorithm to determine merit pay scales.

This simple fix can do so much good, but we keep slashing the budget. I'm not saying it's the solution for everything, but it's the easiest thing to implement. Probably the best bang for your tax dollars.
 
Lightdemon said:
The union does some good. For instance, it can get us more money in the budget to hire more teachers to get the class sizes down. A simple thing like this, just hiring more teachers, can improve school conditions. No need to implement new policy or whatever. No need to come up with some fantastic algorithm to determine merit pay scales.

This simple fix can do so much good, but we keep slashing the budget. I'm not saying it's the solution for everything, but it's the easiest thing to implement. Probably the best bang for your tax dollars.
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That sounds fair.

If they cut anything, it should be the sports programs and stadium build projects.
Makes no sense to have those but not enough teachers for academics.
 
Kandahar said:
It wouldn't be difficult to design an algorithm to measure how the student was performing prior to the school year. If a teacher was assigned to a dumb class, where the average student previously learned only 0.8 years of material per year, then it would be considered good if the students learned 1.0 years of material per year under this teacher's watch.

Conversely, if a teacher was assigned to an advanced class, where the average student was learning 1.5 years of material per year, the teacher would not be considered good if they only learned 1.0 years of material under this teacher's watch.


Standardized test scores would be the most universal and objective measure.
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was trying to figure out how your algorithm would work in a couple of common situations:
1. where the students had just entered the school system (say first grade) and were without the baseline test data to identify which were the advanced and which were the slower students
2. where the students are not ability tracked into the same class, causing the students' abilities to range from very low to very high
 
Lightdemon said:
All of this is under the assumption that student output is the same as teacher output. As I pointed out, it just isn't that simple. What if the student's parents are undergoing a divorce? What if one of their relatives had died? What if their boyfriend/girlfriend broke up with them during testing week?There can be any number of reasons that a student may not do well that is not related to what a teacher has to offer in their classroom. This alone shows us how vulnerable a teacher can be. Why should my job security depend on my students parents divorce, or their relationship with other students, etc?
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As I said, it would be based on the AVERAGE performance of all the students in a teacher's class, not any individual student. So none of these variables would actually influence the outcome.

Lightdemon said:
Secondly, standardized testing is not a good way to assess a students ability to learn. Standardized tests are designed to make sure the content standards are followed. It is not designed to assess a students ability to think critically, use analytical skills, and it certainly doesn't show the teaching style nor the effectiveness of the teacher. This is not an appropriate use for standardized testing.
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There are standardized tests that measure critical thinking and analytical skills. And why don't you think they measure the effectiveness of the teacher? If the students in a certain math teacher's class can't do math, it's fair to say that the teacher is ineffective.
 
Catawba said:
It sounds to me like your interest is a selfish one that does not place a priority on education and the benefits that provides to the future of our country.

But, you could prove me wrong by explaining how you would address each of these Virginia Education Assoc. goals without funding,
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When did I say I opposed giving them more funding? Stop changing the subject. The point was that the teachers' unions only advocate for those things because it benefits their members, not because they care about improving the education system.
 
justabubba said:
was trying to figure out how your algorithm would work in a couple of common situations:
1. where the students had just entered the school system (say first grade) and were without the baseline test data to identify which were the advanced and which were the slower students
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It probably wouldn't work as well for the first year they were in the system. You could start measuring it the first year, but perhaps not use it to hold people accountable until the second year.

justabubba said:
2. where the students are not ability tracked into the same class, causing the students' abilities to range from very low to very high
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If the students are randomly assigned to classes without regard to ability, then any two teachers should have roughly the same distribution of student abilities in their class, and you could still use performance as a rubric to measure teacher performance.

This would actually work for students just entering the system too, now that I think about it. If first-graders are just randomly assigned to classes since teachers don't know their abilities yet, the distributions would be roughly equal.
 
American said:
The only problem with that is that when the kids go to multiculturalism class the good teacher will teach the definition of the subject and explain its significance, while the bad teacher will have the students get out their prayer rugs during Kwanzaa while while she talks about how Jesus was born a bastard.
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While I don't see the second being any worse than a teacher who does the reverse, talking up Christianity and telling kids that Muslims are murderers, the bad teachers need to be weeded out regardless. To be real honest, I don't see much need for a "multicultural" class to begin with. That ought to be taught as a part of the history curriculum.
 
Morality Games said:
Aren't they able to do that?
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Unfortunately no. In many cases, the employers are unable to legally fire striking employees, the best they can do is temporarily hire non-union workers to fill positions during negotiations.
 
Catawba said:
I know of no mechanism to defend incompetent teachers. They are usually weeded out by the school administrators.
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Wrong. There are hundreds of teachers in California who are paid full salaries to sit around all day and do nothing because the union will not allow them to be fired and the schools will not allow them to teach. There are some who have been sitting in empty classrooms daily for 5 years or more now and the latest development is they aren't being required to show up at school, they just call in the morning to say they're "working" and again in the evening to say they're done.
 
Ethereal said:
Yea, unions make America strong by artificially driving up the cost of doing business by demanding higher than market wages.

I mean, look how well unionization worked for Detroit!
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Detroits problem was management not employees or Unions. GM 10 and a changing market brought havoc on Gm for example. Had nothing to do with the fine employees or their union but management..
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
When did Mary marry Joseph?

Before or after Jesus's birth

If after ( I cant remember it has been a long time) then he was a bastard
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It's a myth. Who cares?
 
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