Union Places It's Needs Over That Of The Kids
[February 26th] -- Every once in a while, a story makes headlines that reflects my concern about teachers unions. We all know that unions, paticularly in certain market segments, are a positive force. But teachers?
A high school principal in the Kenmare, North Dakota school district was having a difficult time filling a speech pathologist position in their high school. The salary agreed to by the district and the union just wasn't enough. A state fact-finding commission recommended that the position receive an additional $15,000 per year so that the school district could compete with the private sector. The principal liked the idea and hired a pathologist for the union pay plus the $15,000.
The Kenmare Education Association quickly filed suit to stop the hire. Said President Donna Schmit, "For one individual to negotiate an additional $15,000 in salary is wrong." Luckily, a district court judge saw differently and ruled in favor of the district's attempt to help their special needs students.
The union seems to be more concerned with keeping it's collective bargaining power intact than it does seeing to the needs of it's students. Without that speech pathologist, children who need help wouldn't get it. It is stunning that the union would rather let a child continue to have difficulty with their speech, and possibly be held back than lose any appearance of being the all-powerful, monolithic voice of all teachers.
It's no wonder that teacher's unions are losing members in record numbers as professional organizations are growing exponentially at the same time.
It's about the kids, everyone.
Left-Leaning Education Unions Not Just An American Problem
[February 18th] -- This is not an attack on the left. Although I am a Republican, I have always believed that for a democracy to work, all beliefs and values must be represented at the altar of government. I have lived in both Washington D.C. and the state of Idaho. Both have governments overwhelmed by a single party (Democrats in D.C. and Republicans in Idaho). I couldn't handle being in such a minority in Washington and moved to Idaho, where I would become part of the great majority. Well, it's a majority, but it's not "great" by any stretch of the imagination. My "side," unchecked by the "loyal opposition," make decisions every bit as damaging to the welfare of the people as do the "left-leaners" in Washington. The ideas are different, but the outcome is the same. And while conservatives have certainly done some damage in the world of education, it's the left that's trying to recreate it in their own image.
The National Education Association hasn't supported a Republican president since Richard Nixon. With each passing year, the NEA continues to align itself with groups that are well to the left of mainstream America. Groups that advocate abortion rights and the gay lifestyle are welcomed into the NEA's "big tent." That tent, however, is only big if you espouse an idea that the NEA supports. But the NEA isn't the sole education union trying to change the world by indoctrinating it's students with a liberal-specific lesson plan. Meet Pat Byrne.
Byrne is the President of the Australian Education Union, that country's equivalent of the NEA. She goes farther than does NEA president Reg Weaver in trying to change the world. She admits exactly what she is trying to do.
Byrne said that the world took a step backward two years ago when Australia, England and the United States re-elected their conservative governments. "This is not a good time to be progressive in Australia; or for that matter anywhere else in the world" she lamented soon after George Bush's reelection in 2004. Anyone familiar with AEU policies will know the teacher union, along with other cultural elite groups such as the ABC, teacher academics and assorted artists and intellectuals, consistently attacks Australian society as socially unjust and champions a range of left-wing causes. Teachers are no longer asked to teach the facts as written by science and history; rather, they are pushed down a road of political correctness and causes of social justice, often at the expense of reality. Australian children are "all winners" in the public schools as "feeling well" has replaced "learning well."
Worse than teaching children to just feel good about themselves are the new, anti-bias curriculums that are popping up throughout the western nations. Part of this new type of education is "enthnomathematics,' which emphasizes the sociocultural context of mathematics education and suggests that the study of mathematics (as it is traditionally known in western societies) may exhibit racial or cultural bias. The problem with this new way of learning is that there simply isn't any time left for 2+2 after the children learn the "warm and fuzzy" aspect of math.
If Byrne and the AEU were serious about strengthening government schools, the way forward, as in the US and England, is with innovations such as charter schools and vouchers. Empowering local communities by allowing parents to establish charter schools improves standards and builds the types of values embedded in social capital.
Teachers Losing Ability To Control Classroom
[February 10th] - It's stories like this that make me question if I really want to be a teacher.
Larry Neace has been a teacher in Gwinett County, Georgia for 23 years. He is loved by his students. A physics teacher, he is called "doc" by his students. What happened to Neace is every teacher's nightmare.
Neace handed out a work assignment with twenty minutes remaining in class and told the students to begin work on it -- it was a class project. Twenty-one students broken into groups and began to answer the questions that dealt with astronomy. The problem was that there were twenty-two students in the class. One young man, a star football player, put his head down and promptly went to sleep. He turned it in the next day, expecting to receive full credit.
He was given a "zero."
When the school year began, he had all the students sign the class syllabus, the same one he's been using for ten years. It specifices that part of the student's grade was based on class participation. Everyone in Mr. Neace's class understood that. So did the slumbering linebacker. When the boy complained to his teacher, he was reminded of the class rule and told the zero stood. The next day the parents were complaining, demanding that the grade be changed, that sleeping in class should have no effect on their child's grade.
Here's the part that scares teachers. The principal agreed. So did the school board. The school district has a rule that specifies that a student's grade cannot be reduced or harmed in any way because of "disciplinary" circumstances. They told the teacher to change the grade and he refused. He was fired. His students signed petititions and staged sit-ins. It all went for naught.
This is the new way of teaching where students' grades reflect 100% their actual school work. There were many times when I was young and in school that I received a "zero" because of my attitude and actions. And boy, did I learn from those times. The fear of failure made me "sit up and pay attention." Because I understood that my actions could affect my grade, I did my best to act in a manner that my teacher wanted. Oh sure, most of the time I didn't like it. But I learned a valuable lesson. I understood that their would be times in my life when I had to act and react in a manner that was foreign to my wishes.
Progressive principals and superintendents are teaching today's students that they can use profanity, sleep in class, wear inappropriate clothing and generally wreak havoc in the classroom and still pass the class and graduate from high school. Sure, there are mechanisms in place to punish this type of bad behavior, but sympathetic administrators give the student a "wink and a nod" and send them back to class.
Teachers have seen still another tool in their arsenal taken from them. They are required to teach the children but now have no say in their developing into adults. "Just get 'em to pass the test" is what they're being told.
And that's such a shame.
