Throughout these last few days of teachers protesting in Wisconsin, what seems to be missing in the discussion? The children. Education. It seems as though we have lost sight of one fundamental fact: we pay teachers to educate our students. I will spare you of the rant explaining that these government teachers are only doing what is required of them ... teaching students to know and love government. But the fact is that when you get unions involved, the job at hand becomes secondary to being a member of a union. As a member of that union, you will work to get more for less. And in the case of government workers, you will work to get more taxpayer money while sacrificing nothing. Students have become secondary. Is it any wonder why our education system can't keep up with other nations?
Just how secondary are the students? Let me remind you of the words of the late Albert Shanker. Shanker was the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1964 to 1984. A reporter approached Shanker at a union convention to ask about the nature of the resolutions being presented for consideration by the teachers. The reporter wanted to know why the bulk of the deliberations at the convention were about fighting school choice and more benefits and pay for teachers, while very little was being said about the actual students. Shanker's response? "I will worry about the children when they can vote in union elections." That pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
Take this quick example of how collective bargaining has affected the DC school system. Remember Michelle Rhee? She did wonders to improve education levels in the DC school system while she was the commissioner there. That included firing ineffective teachers. The teacher's unions didn't like her .. and they didn't like the Mayor who hired her ... so they campaigned against him and defeated him at the polls. Now, thanks to collective bargaining agreements, DC is having to hire back many of those teachers because of what the union claims is a failure to comply with proper union dismissal procedures. These were ineffective teachers who were fired because of tardiness, unprofessional behavior, "rude and aggressive" demeanor, and so forth. But now they are being forced to be hired back, and D.C. taxpayers will also be required to pay two years in back wages, costing the city approximately $7.5 million. As Michelle Rhee points out, a recent study "concluded the United States would rise to the top among nations in student achievement if the lowest performing 5 percent to 8 percent of teachers were replaced with those who are average." But instead, we are forced to keep lousy teachers in the system, all thanks to unions and their collective bargaining agreements with the government.
(Michelle Rhee is now working for Florida's new Governor Rick Scott! And the voters of Washington DC have shown why we are all better off if they can't elect representatives to Congress.)
The idea that Governor Scott Walker actions in stripping union employees of certain collective bargaining rights violates a basic human right is absurd. They had the opportunity to vote in the last election - the opportunity to elect their union-friendly candidates, and they failed. First, let's remember that in the case of Wisconsin the unions would still have collective bargaining rights over wages ... we are only talking about stripping collective bargaining rights for benefits. Second, it is not as if this country was founded on the notion of collective bargaining as an inalienable right. Collective bargaining with the government did not occur until the 1960s, when both entities realized that they could use each other to their own advantage. Think about it ... both government and unions have the same goals in mind: to grow in size and in power. Meanwhile, they have somebody else's money with which to negotiate: taxpayer dollars. So there is literally nobody to stop them in their perpetual cycle, which enables each other to grow in power and size. Until now. Now we have to put a stop to it, otherwise we are all going to crumble. Our states cannot sustain the level of spending without imploding, leaving us with nothing. So somebody had to be the first one to put a stop to it. In this case, it was the government - a Republican governor. And the unions cannot understand, for the life of them, why someone in government would want to put an end to this cycle.
Just how secondary are the students? Let me remind you of the words of the late Albert Shanker. Shanker was the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1964 to 1984. A reporter approached Shanker at a union convention to ask about the nature of the resolutions being presented for consideration by the teachers. The reporter wanted to know why the bulk of the deliberations at the convention were about fighting school choice and more benefits and pay for teachers, while very little was being said about the actual students. Shanker's response? "I will worry about the children when they can vote in union elections." That pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
Take this quick example of how collective bargaining has affected the DC school system. Remember Michelle Rhee? She did wonders to improve education levels in the DC school system while she was the commissioner there. That included firing ineffective teachers. The teacher's unions didn't like her .. and they didn't like the Mayor who hired her ... so they campaigned against him and defeated him at the polls. Now, thanks to collective bargaining agreements, DC is having to hire back many of those teachers because of what the union claims is a failure to comply with proper union dismissal procedures. These were ineffective teachers who were fired because of tardiness, unprofessional behavior, "rude and aggressive" demeanor, and so forth. But now they are being forced to be hired back, and D.C. taxpayers will also be required to pay two years in back wages, costing the city approximately $7.5 million. As Michelle Rhee points out, a recent study "concluded the United States would rise to the top among nations in student achievement if the lowest performing 5 percent to 8 percent of teachers were replaced with those who are average." But instead, we are forced to keep lousy teachers in the system, all thanks to unions and their collective bargaining agreements with the government.
(Michelle Rhee is now working for Florida's new Governor Rick Scott! And the voters of Washington DC have shown why we are all better off if they can't elect representatives to Congress.)
The idea that Governor Scott Walker actions in stripping union employees of certain collective bargaining rights violates a basic human right is absurd. They had the opportunity to vote in the last election - the opportunity to elect their union-friendly candidates, and they failed. First, let's remember that in the case of Wisconsin the unions would still have collective bargaining rights over wages ... we are only talking about stripping collective bargaining rights for benefits. Second, it is not as if this country was founded on the notion of collective bargaining as an inalienable right. Collective bargaining with the government did not occur until the 1960s, when both entities realized that they could use each other to their own advantage. Think about it ... both government and unions have the same goals in mind: to grow in size and in power. Meanwhile, they have somebody else's money with which to negotiate: taxpayer dollars. So there is literally nobody to stop them in their perpetual cycle, which enables each other to grow in power and size. Until now. Now we have to put a stop to it, otherwise we are all going to crumble. Our states cannot sustain the level of spending without imploding, leaving us with nothing. So somebody had to be the first one to put a stop to it. In this case, it was the government - a Republican governor. And the unions cannot understand, for the life of them, why someone in government would want to put an end to this cycle.
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