Article from Reason by Reason Staff.
If you’re looking for a stellar example of teachers’ unions ongoing commitment to mediocrity or worse, then you need only look at their reaction to now-defeated California GOP gubernatorial candidate John Cox’s idea last month of paying top-notch teachers much higher salaries—perhaps even rivalling those earned by ballplayers and rock stars.
The unions, of course, pan the idea. One union official told The Sacramento Bee that “education should not be a competitive endeavor.”
Cox seemed to suggest in a statement to the newspaper that he engaged in some hyperbole: “Of course our teachers will never approach the pay of a Beyonce or a Lebron, but quite frankly, our classroom teachers influence, inspire and change the arc of more lives than even these music and athletic superstars.”
His idea of instituting a form of merit pay makes a lot of sense. Despite the naysaying, every successful enterprise is, to some degree, competitive.
Read the entire article at Reason.
Image Credit:Â By Pax Ahimsa Gethen [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons
wpDiscuz
The teacher’s union(s) is a mistake. Just how much worse off could the kids be if all public schools were closed? They can’t even read their diplomas.
Unions are for mediocrity don’t you know that. They are afraid of members capable of independent thought.
When I graduated from college with a post-grad degree in special education, we became teachers because we loved the kids and the profession. We didn’t do it for the money, and decades ago, before the advent of teachers’ unions, we put in extra hours and purchased supplies for the kids from our own meager salaries. But the reason we did it was to help them learn and become better human beings. It is the most gratifying thing for a teacher when he/she sees this happen, and all that time invested in the kids was worth everything – and more – than what it cost us. My advice to young people who are in college and contemplating a teaching career: If you are doing it for the money, i.e., nice paycheck, great retirement benefits, etc. etc., then please don’t go into teaching. Only do it if you are willing to put your whole heart into it.
All of us that are older, can remember a few great teachers, a lot of mediocre ones, and a few really bad ones.
Why should they and all students be treated the same.
We should be taught to excel and I agree that the best should be paid more.
WE NEED A WALL
BUT WE NEED IT BETWEEN CALIFORNIA AND THE UNITED STATES
The worthless and corrupt teacher’s union should be abolished. All they do is protect those who don’t do their job. Get rid of them.
If all public schools were closed and the parents got vouchers then you would soon see great schools competing for those vouchers.