Monday, April 04, 2016

Why Teachers Unions Are So Important


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This from conservative researchers: "Nearly one-­third of professors in the six disciplines we investigated tended to conceal their politics prior to tenure," write Shields and Dunn. The number rises to nearly half when you exclude economics."

It's naive to think that conservative teachers would not be fired by liberal administrators if there were no due process rights. Yes, I know that you believe that there should be minimal due process rights, but it's unrealistic to think that administrators would do this just out of the goodness of their hearts. Liberals would never voluntarily give even minimal due process rights to conservatives.

Darren said...

You could not be more mistaken. This is typical of liberals--they cannot understand how someone could disagree with them, so they have to mischaracterize opposing viewpoints in order to refute them.

I absolutely believe in due process rights. What I don't believe in is what I call "undue" process, wherein it takes herculean efforts to fire someone--even someone who is obviously unfit or incompetent. That it took 4 years of diligent effort to fire a drunk teacher I knew, *that* is what I'm against. And yes, the union not only defended him all the way, but allowed him to pay union dues after he was fired so that he'd still have access to the CTA attorney in order to continue to reclaim his job.

Unions are not required for due process to exist.

Also, I don't think unions should go away. I think they should be voluntary. You know, that whole "choice" thing that liberals always talk about.

Anonymous said...

Umm, I'm actually a conservative. The article I cite is from a conservative publication. I know you find this hard to believe, but I support unions precisely because I think that conservatives including you are at risk if school employees lose due process rights. There is no evidence of a liberal administration extending due process rights to anyone simply out of the goodness of their hearts. Liberals don't think that way.

Darren said...

I think due process can come from law, it certainly doesn't come from a union.

Anonymous said...

Why don't you just move to a state that doesn't have teacher's unions?

Anonymous said...

The California legislature is notoriously liberal. The idea that they would pass legislation to protect conservative teachers is naive.

Darren said...

Due process isn't only for conservative teachers.

Moving doesn't fix what's morally wrong here in California.

BB-Idaho said...

Strongly recommend you move to a state that is losing its best teachers. A state that gave me an excellent K-12 and college education before it turned Republican, anti-teacher,
anti-union, anti-worker, and anti-middle class. Check it out, its
right up your alley.

Darren said...

Why move when I get anti-worker, anti-middle class, and anti-Republican teacher right here in California :)

LeftCoastRef said...

1) Are there any Democrat teachers who would like to get out of the union? I believe the answer to this would be yes.
2) I really don't know the answer to this - In "Right-to-Work" states, are there still rules about when and why an employee can be terminated? Or is it really the whim of the HR departments to decide?
3) I believe that teachers that are doing their jobs instructing students will be appreciated for their work no matter their social/political standing. The Union argument that "higher paid teachers will be replaced by new, younger, lower paid teachers" is an exaggeration. If those higher paid teachers are getting the desired results, what proof is there that a new teacher will be able to accomplish the same results? If those teachers are now coasting and not fulfilling their professional duties, they should be replaced. But not without being told "pick it up or you're out".
As a 20 year veteran teacher, I would be on the hot seat if I were to stop working on improving my craft. In fact, I would say I already am. If I went to the old "Packet" method of teaching, I would not be allowed to stay in the desirable courses that I am in. Teachers respond to encouragement and good morale. When that fades, so does their performance.

Darren said...

There's nothing wrong with "packets"--unless they're your primary method of delivering content as well as of assessing student understanding of said content!

Hard to disagree with what you wrote.

Darren said...

This is from the LA Times, no conservative mouthpiece:
http://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-union-minimum-wage-20160410-story.html
Martinez, a 53-year-old bellhop, has hauled tourists' luggage across the flagstone plaza of the Sheraton Universal in Studio City for two decades. He said he was excited after the council's vote to raise the minimum hourly wage at large hotels to $15.37, which he expected to boost his paycheck by 71%.

He soon found out he wouldn't be getting a raise after all. Under an obscure provision of the city's wage hike, unionized hotels were granted an exemption allowing them to pay their employees less. The result is that Martinez, who pays $56.50 every month for membership in the hotel workers union Unite Here, now makes less than those doing the same job in non-union workplaces.