It’s a pretty tough logjam to see our way clear of.

First, I believe that unions no longer serve their purpose and are only out to keep everyone teaching, no matter how good or bad they are at it. They have only their best interests at heart, not the interests of the students. I refuse to support any organization that does not allow families the right to put their kids in the school that is best for them. I have seen too many bad teachers and administrators shuffled from school to school because the unions made it impossible to get them out of education. That is a travesty.

I have taught in a variety of schools, from the rural school with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the county, to a private Christian school, and now at a large public high school. Each school has a different type of student, and each serves its student base in the way it deems best. If a specific student doesn’t fit with that style of school, they should have the option to CHANGE SCHOOLS. My daughter was not a good fit at the Christian school where I taught; fortunately, since it was a private school, I was able to move her elsewhere. It was the best thing for her.

John McCain and I don’t agree on everything, but I do agree with his stand on education. At least someone is willing to give school choice a second look on a much broader scale.

I could introduce you to a friend of mine who’s a teacher and a member of the school board in the district in which he’s employed.

Unions at every level inevitably gravitate toward political influence. A union’s a monopoly on labor and all monopolies gravitate toward the use of the political machinery of the state to expand/maintain their monopoly status.

Do have to respond to a few comments made here, though:

Bad teachers? They are only there for two reasons: 1) community politics…someone who can’t be gotten rid of because of stepping on someone’s toes or 2) administrators not doing their jobs and documenting behaviors that could then lead to dismissal. McCain or Obama…please, start there when cleaning up the schools!

School choice? I live in a state where school choice is already an option and meet busses daily from other districts driving way too many miles out of way to pick up one or two students (especially when gas is the cost it is) and why? Usually because of community politics and rivalries. Hear the echoing theme here? Yes, politics!

Home school? As long as the parents have the minimum education background that I had to have to enter the classroom…than go for it…if the family can afford to take that second income from the family and provide all the other social skills that students obtain at school. Because of school trips, I have had the opportunity to take kids on trips who had never spent the night in a hotel, flew on a plane, rode on the metro system in Washington (okay, that was a new one for me too!), swam in the ocean, visited all these wonderful places, while meeting more the grand people during a tremendous job across our state and nation…and the list goes on.

The rewards are tremendous in this job of mine, and no matter who gets elected in November…all of us will continue to go to school daily and truly assist in making sure your children receive a more than adequate education…so they can then be our next doctors, lawyers, President of the United States…and teachers. Or whoever they want to be!

Remember that there is a difference between the local union that represents the teachers of a district and the state or national unions…
It seems to be the state and national unions that are guilty of becoming political, while the local unions seem to serve their purpose – to protect the rights of teachers.
I remember quite a few stories recently of local unions supporting modified pay scales with the state union opposing it.

Police do not usually provide individual security. They patrol neighborhoods and investigate crime. If some judge were to order some city were to provide individual security to some individual (a Madalyn Murray O’Hare, say), and that individual were to offer to relieve the city f some fraction of the cost by replacing 24-hour police protection with Pinkertons or Wackenhut security, why not “privatize”, if it saves taxpayers money?

Dunno ’bout your library, but it’s possible that the cost, per reader, to taxpayers, to operate the township library is greater than the cost would be to subsidize “book stamps” (like Food Stamps). Come to think of it, Food Stamps are vouchers. Does your county operate restaurants, grovery stores, or cattle ranches? You really want to replace Medicare and Medicaid (vouchers) with the VA? “The efficiency of the Post Office and the compassion of the IRS.”

I’d really like to read the books that best suit me– which might not be the ones in the local library. Also, I’d really like to have the security that best suits me– which might not be the local police. So does that mean I should be able to apply to my city for a check?

Because then you’ll see teachers paid minimum wage and fired for not promoting whatever pet cause the principal has.

You know, it is quite the wonder that the millions of professional workers in America who operate without union protection make much more than minimum wage and aren’t fired for their bosses’ pet causes. Obviously, those bosses and companies are all just suckers for not realizing what they can get away with!

I personally would be thrilled if McCain embraced school choice but he seemed to dance around the issue in the speech. I want to have choice over my kids’ schools *whether or not* the schools are failing (in ways defined by… er, the government, I suppose). What McCain said sounded like a run-up to an enhancement/entrenchment of NCLB instead, which is a long way from the same thing as “supporting school choice”.

Clumsy formal assessment mechanisms and uniform pay scales prohibit schools from paying teachers even close to what they’re worth (more in the case of good teachers, less in the case of abusive or ignorant teachers).

(Walter Wallis): “…Once the primary function of teacher unions, extorting money for the DNC is gone…”
(Stephen Downes): “…That’s simply a blatant misrepresentation of the function of unions.”

Mr. Wallis wrote “teacher unions” (italics mine).

That quibble aside, I agree with Mr. Downs, more, here. Rather than suppose that unions exist to serve the DNC, more like, the primary function of the Democratic Party is to extort money from taxpayers and to transfer it to the public-sector unions.