Labor groups slow progress, act as barrier to improving public education system
Many people within the field of education are against measuring teacher accountability. Their concerns are easily understood — one of the largest being objectivity. How would one measure teacher effectiveness? Would it be determined by test scores? A jury of their peers? District panels sitting in on classes? Some have even suggested student observations, though I fail to see how that would be even remotely objective.
Teachers’ unions are especially against accountability measures and fight dirty when it comes to people who take a stand against them. Many states have required unions for public school teachers, meaning that just to teach in the state means you must pay dues, attend meetings and not act contrary to the beliefs of the union.
In fact, 30 states require teachers to join unions. So much for living in a country where we have freedom to make our own choices.
Many of these unions are holding back opportunities to better our schools. Ineffective teachers are paid to sit alone in New York classrooms, which requires that their salary continue to be paid while these teachers literally clock in and sit with other ineffective teachers. They can read, socialize, twiddle their thumbs — do anything but work.
There are even some teachers in these areas who have not been in a classroom since 2006 and are still being paid. Firing incompetent teachers has become next to impossible due to teachers unions.
So, how can we get away from the influence of the unions? Even in South Carolina, where less than 4 percent of teachers belong to unions, the teacher attrition rate is incredibly low, with less than 1 percent of teachers fired. This is caused by the U.S. political climate, which is a result of the majority of states having unions. Decisions are made on the federal level that affect all of us, and most of the individuals making these decisions are very well-paid by the unions.
It’s not that 99 percent of teachers are amazing and don’t deserve to be laid off — it’s that firing anyone but new teachers is a long, difficult and often impossible process.
So, what sort of teacher accountability could we have if unions wielded less political power? Perhaps we should look to private schools who, according to national averages, fire around 10 percent of their teachers after three years.
The best option is to re-examine evaluations. Have students improved from previous years? Have their test scores or reading levels risen? Many unions try to stop this information from going public, as the states and cities that have had that information released were met with public outcry.
Your tax dollars are paying for education. When you order food from a restaurant and they don’t give you what you paid for, you send it back — why not use the same standard for your children’s education?
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