Comments on: Messing with success

By: KateC

KateC — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:15:30 +0000

Oh, and what fantasy world does Jay Mathews ( in WaPo) live in:

“American teachers organized in the last century because of terrible pay and working conditions. They loved kids”

Really? I’d say that’s completely debatable. Let’s get rid of the notion that teachers, esp. in the past, entered the field because they adored chlidren.

By: KateC

KateC — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:07:49 +0000

Grrr. This is the sort of story that destroys any lingering belief that teachers’ unions care anything about students.

By: allen

allen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:37:52 +0000

I know of at least two similar cases in the Detroit Public School district and I’m sure every large, urban school district generates a story like this every couple of years or so. It’s in the nature of public education and these sorts of stories are going to continue popping up as long as education is an unimportant consideration in public education.

By: Independent George

Independent George — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:38:56 +0000

The problem is that the unions are structured under a industrial model, where each factory is assumed to be roughly analagous to the others, and should therefore should operate under the same rules and pay scales. That assumption hasn’t been true of manufacturing in decades, and it has never been true of teaching.

The thing is, I can easily think of a great example of a union which maximizes benefits for its members while maintaining flexibility in employment: the NFL Player’s Association. After 4 years in the league, players are free agents, and can sign with whomever they wish, for whatever teams are willing to pay for them. There are league minimum salaries, but superstars are free to earn superstar salaries, and mid-level role players can sign with teams whose systems match their skills.

The situation cited here is akin to a veteran signing for less than he could command in order to play for a contender, alongside his friends, under a favorite coach, be near his hometown, or any of a thousand other preferences not reflected in salary. Teachers are voluntarily working at KIPP because they feel the improved working conditions are sufficient compensation for the difference from union demands. The union position essentially amounts to the idea that either there is no difference in working environment, or that the teachers’ personal preferences are irrelevant.

By: anon

anon — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:07:18 +0000

We wouldn’t want the kids at the KIPP school to be too successful. Their success would make the kids in the lower achieving schools feel bad and their union teachers look bad. Better to have status quo–mediocrity for all.

By: heroditus huxley

heroditus huxley — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:56:57 +0000

It’s true that effective teachers can do the same amount to have kids at grade level in a 7 hour day–assuming that the kids are at grade level to start with, that they don’t have to put up with sub-standard classroom funding (ie, admin doesn’t take the lion’s share), that they don’t have to put up with a bureaucracy that undermines them at every turn while loading them down with stupid and unnecessary paperwork in triplicate…

…in other words, assuming that teaching conditions are completely ideal at all times. Something that the unions seem to forget never happens in the real world.

Besides. As that individual teacher said, the teachers that work those insane hours at that school choose to do so at the level of reimbursement that the school offers, which implies that they are not being taken advantage of. The union needs to butt out.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:32:06 +0000

imagine a card check law that would let the teachers shed the union with just a card check.

By: pm

pm — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:19:09 +0000

A union leader responds. “Effective teachers can get the same results in a seven-hour-and-five-minute day.”

So this is an admission that many or most teachers in Baltimore are ineffective?