One of the most drawn-out dramas in the past 25 years has been the decline and fall of the labor union movement in this country. It’s been a sad saga about a once-proud tradition of protecting ordinary working Americans against the excesses and abuses of yesterday’s robber barons and today’s corporate chief executive officers. But unions today supposedly make up only about 12% of the U.S. work force and the numbers continue to decline mostly due to a conceerted effort to demonize them and to make non-unions workers resent the higher wages and better benefits that unions members receive instead of realizing theat they wouldn't have what they've got without generations of people who fought and agitated and even died for such things as a 5-day work work, paid time off, sick leave, vacations, health care benefits and more.
The watershed event came in August 1981, when Ronald Reagan screwed PATCO (the air traffic controllers) to the wall by threatening to fire them and then actually firing them. And since that event, middle class American workers’ wages have stagnated, corporate salaries have exploded, the pendulum of power has swung back to management and we see people losing their jobs all around us because of that phenomenon known as the global marketplace, "free" trade and outsourcing. Furthermore, in order to maintain lifestyles, American families have sent mothers into the work force outside the home, helping to break down that venerable institution.
Another chapter in this pathetic story was written closer to home earlier this month when Hastings teachers were no-shows en masse for the annual Business, Industry and Education luncheon, which each year kicks off the academic year with a boring speech by some corporate executive who usually wants public schools to serve as job training programs to serve business interests. Though billed as a chance for educators, business people and local muckey-mucks to network and gain valuable information, it’s really turned out over the years to be just a way for public schools to perform public relations exercises by sucking up to the wealthy.
Conspicuous by their absence from the BIE luncheon Sept. 6, the teachers were advised by their union leaders not to be present to protest the lack of progress on a new contract after the old one expired June 30. This move aroused the ire of J-Ad Graphics Publisher Fred Jacobs, co-founder of the event with former Superintendent Carl Schoessel. Jacobs wrote an “In My Opinion” piece in the Sept. 14 Hastings Banner that was critical of the teachers’ collective decision, maintaining they were sending the wrong message to students, administrators and businesses.
But what the teachers did in protest Sept. 6 did absolutely nothing to hurt the educational process. They did not strike, which these days is considered illegal by state law. They did not refuse to show up in the classrooms and teach local children. In other words, what they did was not really disruptive to the educational process we cherish, or at least we say we do. What they did, however, was thumb their noses at administrators and business leaders in an effort to call attention to their anger over a lack of a new contract. And now that they’re forbidden to strike, it’s little things like being no-shows for the BIE that are all that’s left for them to fight back.
Reaction among the working stiffs in Hastings and environs has not been positive toward the teachers. Many folks these days resent educators (and other union members) because they still have pretty good health care benefits and they’re getting raises, however small, while too many Joe Lunchbuckets are accepting wage freezes or cuts, or they’re being downsized. It’s interesting that while entertainers, athletes and corporate executives continue to enjoy skyrocketing compensation, ordinary working people are angry instead at the likes of teachers and want to bring them down to the same pay and benefit levels they must endure. The people at the top have found a way to divide and conquer.
Not very many unions go on strike these days, not even the auto workers, because they fear they’ll lose their jobs to someone overseas who will do the same work for a lot less in wages and benefits. Talk about a race to the bottom! The good side of that process is prices for manufactured goods will go down significantly at places like Wal-Mart and all those electronic and computer gadget prices continue to slide.
I'm not going to say that unions haven't been without their problems- bloated adminstrations and corrupt leaders have done their part to bring us to where we are at this point in history. But it's funny how often unions get blamed for the state of the American economy while we ignore corrupt politicians, corporate lobbyists and overpaid CEO salaries' part in all of this. While the winners slice up the spoils, we peasants fight over the crumbs. And the modern age robber barons laugh all the way to the Swiss Bank account.
The Hastings teachers reportedly have been asking for 3 percent raises and would probably settle for 2%. Interestingly, administrators settled for 2 and 3 percent and no one cried fowl, but Superintendent Chris Cooley said it’s easier to handle those increases in the budget because they are much fewer in numbers. Message: There’s too many of you, so you get smaller raises than the few, the proud, the elite- which Cooley happens to be one of now.
Some people around town are critical of the teachers by saying they’ve got “that damned union mentality.” Funny, that mentality a century ago was a big reason for creating the most prosperous society in human history, a distinction now apparently in grave peril. And when we’re no longer number one in the world, we’ll probably blame unions instead of corporate greed and a beholden and complicit government that made a lot of stupid decisions on debt and on war and peace.
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The last paragraph would have been prophetic, five years ago.
It is the same denial that gives our great leaders the balls to exclaim that "if" Iraq ever breaks out into civil war we should re-evaluate our situation.
One only has to hear the likes of XKJ (in previous post) gleefully cheer on Dick Devos, as he expands his empire into Chinese communist territory. China is number one. No need to invest in west Michigan, when we can make money in China.
Quoting other popular Devos apologists "in order to sell in China and engage in the market that Alticor wished to engage in, China's Government demanded that they build a plant in China".
He had to. Much the same way the italian mob was "forced" to expand into drugs when their competition would likely have destroyed the operation that had prevailed till then. No we don't like communism, and if we could we would bury it , but till then we will help prop it up, by building plants, and buying cheap goods.
China, (Dick's friend )and Ada's saving grace (according to XKJ) continues to block all proposals to the U.N. for sanctions against Iran.
China ,( Dicks friend) Still blocks all information about the outside world through media censorship, and imprisonment of dissenters.
China (Dicks friend) encourages abortion, through economic sanctions against its own people.
China (Dicks friend) imprisons those that would organize its workers.
China, (Dicks friend), continues its reign of terror, by subjecting its own people to countless human rights violations.
This will help our economy, a rising tide and all of that crap. Of course there is no rising tide, there never was a plan to let that happen. You see it is illegal to give China that opportunity that we had. There are no labor unions in China. By design it is illegal there, and it is illegal here to help that happen. They will never see the income levels that have been promised to level the playing field. People like the great Dick Devos assured that this would be so. The same leaders that tell you that as soon as the rest of the world catches up to us we we can resume with our prosperity, have sold our souls with a little catch that assures our race to the bottom.
No labor unions in China! EVER!
The giant elephant in the room is blocking our view.
Don't say it Grillo!, I'm going to my room now.
Bravo Pol. As a member of that dwindling class of union members, I've mouthed those same words many times. Michigan has the highest number of unionized workers in the nation and its now only 20% of the workforce. Do you see a correlation in the reported lower median income across the state and the loss of union jobs? Yet, union workers get blamed for all the ills of Michigan's manufacturing economy. Its easy to pick on a unionized group of workers because they make more money than you do. Teachers and auto workers are easy targets. Yet, I chose not to go to college to become a teacher, and, having worked a production line before, have no desire to work in an auto manufacturing plant. Why should others begrudge those that have made those choices and the compensation associated with those choices? Do we really want our kids taught by the lowest bidder? How about the vehicles we and our families drive? What's next, medical care? Will we end up choosing a doctor or dentist based on their being the cheapest?
Sentinel,
With insurance companies choosing who and what, is coverd by what doctor, aren't we already appointed the cheapest medical care?
Cheap is relative. The B.I.E. lunch was all about a subject that very few in the audience could grasp, except for the educators who chose to be absent. Their loss of this valuable input will cost all of us in a weakening school system. Missing this class was a bad idea.
By the way Ag and Pol, thanks for focusing on local news. You can come out of your rooms, now, and perhaps you have had enough quiet time to offer some potential solutions to a few of these problems.
Barry County could use some sincere efforts to promote small business start-ups. Regardless of your opinion of direct sales and multilevel marketing, Amway started in a basement and taught lots of people that they could start a business of their own. If you don't use soap it would be hard to appreciate that people will buy soap. Sure, there have been people who were too lazy to sell soap and chose to flim-flam the public, but you have to admit that somebody must be selling something in order to generate billions of dollars.
If Charlatan Park were to manufacture (or contract for) a product and actually collect some money for it, there would be plenty of detractors to criticize. I can hear it now. "That cotton candy ain't no good, it's non-union corn syrup, and the dang Park is making money hand over fist. What theyuns gonna do with all that there money? Probably buy somepin frilly! Takin' advantage of us pore and ignorant folks, I say! They need to get health insurance fer that organ-grinder's monkey, that's what."
Aw shucks, you got me Grill!
I'm one of those pesky liberals, that believes capitolism servs no one if not the worker. We could just forget about them and their trivial problems, but it seems as though without them there would be nothing done. Unless you are a futures guy! With the sale of futures you can create something, without manual labor, out of nothing. Enron sold them, Amway continues to sell them, and (I hate to be so smug) Dick Devos would happily sell Michigans futures as well.
A solution: Stop pretending that the working man is the cause of our fiscal problems.
I don't fault unions. I fault the labor climate in general. That, more than the SBT has hampered the State's economic recovery. Michigan has a labor cost that is 11% higher than surrounding states, unemployment insurance is 232% higher and property taxes 3,000% higher (personal property being the tax that skews that figure). Anecdotal stories in the news about Northwest's labor problems and teacher strikes contribute to this perception. Is it the fault of unions? no. Being slow to transition out of the Rustbelt economy is the main culprit. The State has all but axed its business promotion, so when they look, businesses aren't aware of what's available, and higher labor costs and personal property taxes discourage those that do take a look.
In my perfect world, I wish the State had tackled personal property and unemployment insurance before SBT, but they went after the easiest target.
I don't fault most unions. They still play a legitimate role. I do take issue with the auto and airline unions, because I think they've frittered away their leverage in favor of jumping on the mythical profits of the late 90's. Unfortunately, they are the poster children of our State, deterring any significant economic growth to take fruition.
Far too often those who would tell us that "some of my best friends are in unions" artfully forget that there are two sets of signatures on collective bargining contracts. Most visitors to this site are well aware of the pitiful management of the US auto industry in bringing saleable product to the domestic market place. For far too many years the auto makers brought us per obsolescent junk. The phenominal sucess of first the Germans and later the Japanese in bringing relible and economical products here taught the US industry nothing. They gave us the Pinto and similar junk. The bean counters have long dominated the domestic auto industry. And of course our post popular cars have been built in Canada for years. There has not been an Impala built in the US since the 70's for a single example.
As for teachers I agree that we should compete for the best both in new hires and retention of the fine quality people who have chosen to remain in the system. Quality education requires their retention and morale. The Religious Right Wing Michigan Republicans want only to bring a once outstanding Michigan public education system down to the level of that in Mississippi.
The new economy that we seek is founded on an educational system second to none, contrary to those who advocate the gutting of public education to suport inferior charter and private schools.
Stealing pensions and the destruction of the American worker has been the object of these new robber barons. They have discovered that there is no penalty for this theft and have been quite willing to pass these thefts on to the taxpaying public through the Fedreal Pension Guarantee Agency.
The bright side is that from high tech workers to Dominos drivers, a new awareness of the need for unions and collective barganing is developing as more and more Americans refuse to be kept under control by the eternal insecurity that this economic model has adopted to control and stop the middle class from becomming strong.
Finally it is important for us to understand that the myth of neighboring states being so competitive that we are suffering is just that. A myth. The states with the most economic strength in this country have several things in common. High wages, higher taxes and a deep determination to fund public education.
Locally, Hastings Teachers should become far more militant. The BIE boycott and refusal to work overtime for nothing and cease purchasing school supplies out of pocket is the least they can do.
Without getting too far in depth, I caution students about trusting generalizations. Unions are no more inherently bad than business owners and school boards. Collective bargaining is worth discussion, but union advocates would consider a collective bargaining unit of all auto manufacturers unfair. I have heard that eventually the school boards and teachers will negotiate a state-wide contract, as if one size fits all.
The Michigan education system needs complete reform and I can't see that happening within a confrontational environment.
Charter and private schools are not universally bad. They aren't even the same. They can easily exist alongside an improved public school system.
To digress from the global discussion and focus on something we can do something about, I would like to see a thread that discusses our need for Vo-Tech Education in Barry County. I don't know how many bloggers are from other counties, but perhaps they could also contribute successful ideas from their areas.
As far as "Mississippi" goes, the best thing that has happened to the New Orleans school system was Katrina. For the first time, somebody has sat down and asked what can be done to develop a good school system from scratch. Perhaps Michigan educators could ask the same questions. With $8,000 per student to play with it won't be a funding problem.
I suspect that "Work Keys" would be part of the discussion.
A highly skilled mathematician would also notice that $8,000 a year for educating a willing student is a lot less than $36,000 a year for one that wandered out of the mainstream.
... and I don't consider building more prisons and jails to create more jobs a brilliant thought. Perhaps outsourcing sex offenders would work. Container ships could be substitute prisons for the outward bound trip, and Toyotas could be shipped back.
Pat said:
Locally, Hastings Teachers should become far more militant.
I agree. Maybe a few could be suicide bombers or they can concock IEDs in the chemistry lab to use on the administration. ;)
Seriously, cooler heads should and will prevail in Hastings.
"The new economy that we seek is founded on an educational system second to none, contrary to those who advocate the gutting of public education to suport (sic) inferior charter and private schools".
Inferior charter and private schools? Most test scores I've ever seen seem to suggest the opposite. I went from a parochial high school to a public college and it was like being back in 9th grade. I did half as much work and got higher grades.
"The states with the most economic strength in this country have several things in common. High wages, higher taxes and a deep determination to fund public education."
Another thing that they have in common is that they tend to be "red states".
"Funny, that (“that damned union mentality”) a century ago was a big reason for creating the most prosperous society in human history,...." I think I know what you meant to say, and find it hard to swallow. A society centered around unions did not create our prosperity. It may have helped the downtrodden like my father rise into a more prosperous life, but it was not the principal cause. The concept of collective bargaining was necessary to counter the abuses of greedy industrialists, etc. but many factors made this country prosperous. Not the least of these was a vast country filled to overflowing with natural resources that could be stolen by the immigrants that showed up with lots of cash and weapons. If your contention was correct, all we would need to do in Darfur is organize a union of widows and orphans.
Unions allowed my Dad to enter an apprentice program, and then he had to work his butt off to become a skilled employee. It wasn't about being the biggest bully on the playground, it was about providing a worthwhile service. Unions today should be leading the way in the effort to educate our sadly deficient Michigan (and Barry County) workforce.
The union at Bradford-White should be the loudest voice in Barry County insisting on Vo-Tech at KCC to train skilled and educated workers. They aren't even on the Workforce Development Board which awards millions of dollars to KCC for training programs. Every month it is reported that there are openings on the Board due to vacancies from Barry County. Eventually, B-W will load up the old E.W.Bliss machinery and haul it to Mexico, and the highest paid workers in Barry County will line the streets of Middleville, with signs of bitching and moaning, and will wave good-bye.
To continue the false rationale, if we wanted to have the best education system in the world we would put the MEA in charge of education. Or, more to the point, we would put the MEA in charge of the "Department of Corrective Education" and the corrections unions could devote some of their money to designing a new education system. They could set up a teachers apprenticeship program where prison guards could take courses and become journeyman educators. With enough seniority a warden apprentice could become a school superintendent, and ultimately a Master Warden. This system would provide the same benefits and perks to teachers as we are now providing union prison guards.
Combining Corrections with Education would make sense from a UniCam perspective, as well.
Just a note of correction. New Orleans is in Lousiana, not Mississippi....but I guess facts are unimportant. As for Charter Schools the truth is that as a group they continue to lag behind in MEAP scores.
Private shools in aggrigate do not exceed test scores in public schools.
As for Jay being outraged that the Hastings teachers actually attended a Board of Education meeting in a large group to POLITELY express their greivances, well, what else could one expect from the source.
Hastings teachers have ALWAYS conducted themselves as educated and gentle people. Since the Hastings School Board decided to retain their $200 per hour out of town legal firm to negotiate, for the first time, talks have slowed to a crawl.
Jay may condone IEDs. A more militant HEA would be doing what Gull Lake and others are doing in advertising and informational picketing.
Let me add a personal observation of the difference between public education and private. St Rose dumped a special needs student on the Hastings Schools, at the close of her first day there. Hastings happily made room for the student who had perviously been a St Rose student.
Pretty sad considering St. Rose herself suffered from assorted physical and mental ailments.
Boy Pat, I see you can't take a joke.
Maybe the better adjetive than millitant would be aggressive? I never knew a "millitant" groups first plan of attack is an informational picket.
Very thoughtful and insightful post. I might add that in addition to better pay and benefits the unions are responsible for safer working conditions, paid vacations, shorter work weeks and shorter work days. In the days of the robber barons, people often worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, under conditions most of us wouldn't send our worst enemies into.
By the way, kudos to the Hastings teachers for creatively and legally finding a way to protest the lack of a new contract.
It's all the buzz around town!
Not!
Truth is, I'll bet there are ten people in Hastings that have actually taken notice.
It may have gotten the attention of business people, but the average joe wouldn't notice unless it interrupted their daly routine.
A surgical strike that may prove to be the best strategy considering the anti-union sentiment in this area.
Pat, "Mississippi" was not in quotes because I had an extra pair.
Kathy, spare us the history of "robber barons", it was before your time.
In the present time, one of the subjects of the BIE Work Keys presentation included an expectation by Dow that their employees would continue to take advantage of educational opportunities. Granted, Dow doesn't employ very many of the "unwashed" but the principle of continuing education makes the assumption that every student intending to make a contribution to the world of work has paid more than average attention in high school. When I worked in the B-W factory as a union employee, I had more than a diploma and a serious work ethic. I suspected that if the union had known my credentials I would have been the target of many rude remarks.
The unions have passed up tremendous opportunities to create a more valuable workforce, perhaps from the fear that a better educated worker wil move on into managerial positions. We need to progress beyond confrontation. Michigan has reached the end of its time for argumentative history and has a desperate need for positive and creative thought.
Rightg you are Kathy. El Grillo thinks that a working knowlege of history disqualifies one from commenting on events that preceeded us.
Unions where employees are treated like part of a team rather than as beasts of burden have contributed billions of value from the hands on people who could see product improvement opportunities.
And Kathy, just think of all those downtrodden workers in Europe who are forced to take 6 weeks vacation. The truth is that American workers work more hours that their counterparts anywhere but China.
"The truth is that American workers work more hours than their counterparts anywhere but China."
That would be a questionable "truth", but may have some truth to it. I would re-state the truth to "...Americans work more hours...". Even that would be hard to support since there is only limited data worldwide. It may be mostly true in the "industrialized" parts of the world, and probably is limited to the folks who get paid by check every week. The tricky word is "counterparts". Americans have few "counterparts" in the rest of the world. Most of the counterparts who could be studied would be found working in the factories that were established years ago by the robber barons.
The more current perspective that I am proposing has to do with the current potential of trade and labor unions to transition American "workers" into the realities of the 21st Century. Eventually we will need to end the bitching about the evils of slavery and robber barons and begin to deal with our true role in the world economy. The leadership of the union organizations (including education) need to recognize that we will never again be able to depend on factory workers as the basis of our economy. Why would we want to compete with China, etal, for repetitious and manual jobs? For that matter, why would we prefer to dig a ditch with a shovel?
Oh, I get it John Henry, it's a macho thing. Save it for the circus.
One of the things we Americans do best is create consumers. While I am no advocate for Little Dick, you have to admit that his company is selling stuff to a new market. Maybe if the union leadership started to ask what skills are needed to create stuff the Chinese will buy from us, and advocate for teaching those skills, we could get caught up with the world that is hungry for more than just food. My bet is that the answer is not to train more factory workers or more standardized teaching people. The word "creativity" comes to mind.
The headline reads, “Prosecutor’s Office Needs Stability”, but the title of “Fred’s Facts” should read “Banner Editorials Need Consistency!”
Tom Evans, according to this week’s interpretation, should “decide finally, one way or another, …on accusations against the 911 director.” My law training is admittedly limited, but I think the Prosecutor is not the Judge, and can’t make “decisions”. I wouldn’t want my tax dollars spent on “deciding” on “accusations”. If the Prosecutor is not given “evidence” enough for a Judge to make a “decision” then I don’t want the Court filled with frivolous gossip mongering.
The editorial then goes on to demand “swift and appropriate action should be taken” IF “there is any substance to these accusations and a violation of law OR SOME KIND OF IMPROPRIETY is found” (caps mine). Well now, I for one have a problem, Mr. Bush, with the exercise of government action against us folks who act in violation of somebody else’s trumped up idea of righteous behavior. This is the whole problem with Guantanamo, and the Freedom of the Press is protected so we can rail against exactly this sort of abuse of power. This blog would not exist if the law would punish those of us who don’t agree with George, or Fred.
Apparently, according to the editorial, the job of Prosecutor in Barry County is different than in the rest of the USA. Here, Nakfoor was required to handle “sensitive POLITICAL ISSUES and QUESTIONS” (caps mine), and “stumbling” on this difference cost her the election. I, too, wish Evans luck in dealing with this unconstitutional reconstruction.
If I understand the editorial correctly, Fred admires “being tough on CRIMINALS” (those who violate the standards set by the Banner for “proper behavior”), is opposed to plea bargaining (which recognizes the failure of 2000+ years of punishment to produce one smidgen of favorable behavioral change), and requires the Prosecutor to follow the strict rules of “common sense” (which allows certain innocent people to live for years behind barbed wire and others to do six years for grand larceny of millions and still others to commit war crimes). The editorial avoids requiring the Prosecutor to be “tough on” CRIME. The week before seemed to be an appeal for being SOFT on CRIME in the case of our dearly loved hospital administrator.
Don’t get me wrong! I’m not asking for Charlie to get an award for his skills as an administrator, and I’m not asking for Harry to get the electric chair for making bad choices. I do think that in the search for the “whole truth”, a newspaper needs to be a bit more consistent. A red flag should go up when situations like this jump on your head. Perhaps the real problems should be identified and addressed by rooting out the “whole truth”. Perhaps there are some basic flaws in our thinking about behaviors. Maybe we have some serious baggage from the Dark Ages that we need to overcome. Maybe if we had the “whole truth” we could solve a few of these issues.
I submit that Charlie seems to need some therapy. Sensitivity training and anger management might be prescribed. He could attend along with Ag3. Harry definitely needs some help, and it could have been worked into his busy schedule without wasting his experience and talents. Neither of these require adding cells on the very adequate, however spartan, County jail. Judge Fisher has amply demonstrated that people can change if properly motivated. President Bush has amply demonstrated that people will do stupid things if wrongly motivated.
Today would be a good time for the Banner staff to begin researching the subject of “incarceration”. When the elections are over, and the current brushfires are extinguished, we taxpayers will be asked to fund more jail stuff. We could focus on the color of paint to apply to the lockers for the deputies and retreat to our dungeon mentality. We could also seek out the “whole truth” by asking ourselves how putting people in boxes improves their perspective. Maybe if we looked outside of our own boxes we would discover a better way of doing things that would actually improve our society, and cost less in the long run.
I-own-ya County, of course, depends on endlessly boxing up people as a major revenue source, so we don’t need to look North. You have to wonder about a society that raises flightless birds in huge boxes and uses flying birds for target practice. It might be a case of fatherland insecurity.
Way out in left field is Ag3, filling in for Charlie "Paw Paw" Maxwell. My self-therapy has been to avoid blogging. I have better things to do, apparently you don't Ellie! You finally admit you are not an expert in everything, as you try to lead us all to believe. Your knowledge of LAW training is FOR SURE lacking, BIG TIME!
The Prosecutors JOB IS to make DECISIONS on cases presented to them for prosecution. He/she decides if there is reasonable cause to believe a crime has been committed and the person
named committed it.
The complaint signed by the Prosecutor then goes before the Magistrate where the police officer gives sworn testimony and signs the complaint. The Magistrate then signs and issues the warrant.
You want a "CITE" (look up in law dictionary what that means). Start with Michigan Compiled Law 764.1 and go from there.
Your gracious comment that Charlie might not be the best Administrater, and therapy would help, shows a vast lack of knowledge concerning his past with the State Police, or at least that you're on the 911 Team and need to cut the Sheriff and others down for complaining about something WE LIVE! Why would we show you any proof?
I'll be back in a couple weeks. As I've said before, politics is not my game, Bond is not my name, 911 and Officer Safety is my HEART!
"Why would we show you any proof?"
I suspect that you would show a smidgen of proof to somebody to demonstrate that you have more on hand than wishful thinking, but then you may be happy just turning up the volume.
I can tell from your citations that you must be a lawyer, along with your other areas of expertise, and I'm really impressed.
Capitalizing the word "decision" doesn't place it in the courtroom. Neither has the Attorney General or the Prosecutor. Their lack of interest is similar to mine.
They might be impressed with a little proof, but like you said, I'm not a lawyer.
Does the Sheriff really LIVE to rant? I'm surprised!
Good luck on the hunting trip. We will all look forward to a big feast of 4 & 20 mourning doves baked into a pie. We can't wait for more grand and wonderful stories featuring your fantasies.
Don't forget the self-therapy appointment.
Imagine, expertise in all those other areas and an expert in treatment of psychotics as well. Very impressive!
Back to the subject.
The conditions in which unions were formed have changed dramatically. At one point in time unions had a place, in today's world not so much and I say this as someone who works in a union hospital under the Michigan Nursing Association. The vast majority of our members believe the union does nothing for them, ah but a union is also only as good as it's members.
The days of robber barons do need to be remembered, we should also remember without the rose colored glasses on the history of unions and the violence they operated with many times, not to mention crawling in bed with organized crime.
A few things to toss out there now. The NEA is perhaps the most powerful union out there today, approximately 68% of teachers are unionized compared to (from 1998) 9.4% of the private sector work force. In the beginning of public school education, actual education truly took place. Then the progressives and THEIR big money took over. If unions truly meant better education why are schools were they are now? Where they have been since at least the late 1960's, unable to perform any better for years.
I'm going to quote a book by John Taylor Gatto, who by the way was voted New York City Teacher of the Year three times, he very publicly quit his teaching career in an op ed in the New York Times stating he was no longer willing to hurt children. Pol Watcher seems to think it is a new phenomenon that business is requesting the schools turn out drones for their businesses, in fact that started in the early 1900's with Rockefeller and Carnegie money and "Progressives" ideas as well as ideals.
From the book.
Occasional Letter Number One
Between 1896 and 1920, a small group of industrialists and financiers, together with their private charitable foundations, subsidized university chairs, university researchers, and school administrators, spent more money on forced schooling than the government itself did. Carnegie and Rockefeller, as late as 1915, were spending more themselves. In this laissez-faire fashion a system of modern schooling was constructed without public participation. The motives for this are undoubtedly mixed, but it will be useful for you to hear a few excerpts from the first mission statement of Rockefeller’s General Education Board as they occur in a document called Occasional Letter Number One (1906):
In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.
Make you feel a bit ill to read that? It should because that in a nutshell has been our public school system since. Take the time to look up what I am saying here, and realize that the teachers unions have been very focused not simply on educating our youth but on a political agenda that makes more than just myself uneasy. Pol Watcher likes to rant against the Christian Right and wealthy Republicans, I say take a deeper walk into history and understand that for approximately a century a specific political AND religious agenda has been imposed on the American people, to a very large extent it came from those with large amounts of money, people who make Dick Devos look like a pauper, who believed they were doing the good Christian thing, just the liberal Christian good thing. Lots of old Episcopal and Presbyterians in there.
By the 80's and Ronald Reagan a large swath of America had had enough. I won't say Reagan was overly bright, but he did understand that discontent, valid discontent. In terms of what that meant for schools and their unions was this, those who did not wish to have an outside party teaching values deemed appropriate by the state decided it was time for them to teach their own values to their children. It is not up to the state to decide what values my children learn, it is up to me. My oldest is now just short of 23 and my youngest nearly 11, I have bumped heads with various school officials as well as teachers over years. These are my children, not the states. Over the years people like me simply can't feel sorry for a system or it's union that have make a damn sorry mess out of the public school system. Most certainly there are outstanding individual teachers, my children have had some who were so very good. They have also had some who weren't worth the powder to blow them to hell, but you surely know they will be there next year and the next year and so on, poisoning young minds against education through their sheer stupidity and laziness, completely supported by their union in this.
Americans like fair play, and unions who are unable to do that deserve to die just as much as the robber barons who helped to create them in the first place.
...and so your positive suggestions for improving the situation might be....?
Take the politics out of education, stop using education as a social experiment. Take every bit of old John Dewey and his philosophy of education and throw it out. Involve children in learning, instead of making them passive creatures who are supposed to sit there for 8 hours a day and absorb what the teacher Gods deign to throw their way. Expect decent manners and behavior, there is such a thing as right and wrong and it can be taught without bringing in religion. Not every behavior should carry the same weight as other behaviors. Punish bullies, not those who are bullied. Abolish tenure, what other profession has a job for life just because you managed to hang on for a predetermined number of years, and then get rid of the bad teachers. Reintroduce an old fashioned novelty of disciplining poor behavior.
What that all boils down to is this. Pay teachers to teach their subject matter, and take the NEA out of it all unless they can clearly be a professional organization instead of a bully whip for social planning. Very actively reach out to involve the community in education. I know many teachers wish parents were more involved, yet many aren't because they don't believe they really need to be. Leave education to the experts, who after all inform us they are the experts and know what our children need to be taught better than we do. Just give that kid another pill so he will be quiet while I teach the rest of the passive children.
Why should any school be as big as this little town I live in? We should be asking some hard, hard questions of our educators and we do not. The above question is only one of those. Money is not always the answer by a long shot.
Once upon a time in healthcare if the Dr. said you were to do something People did it even if it seemed stupid and they would continue even if the results were poor because this is what the Dr. said, it was a very paternalistic system and there was no such thing as patient rights. That system led to many abuses. Right now the education system is much like the old healthcare system. They complain there is so little participation by the parents, yet in truth they don't really want too much participation, it makes them uncomfortable. This is what I tell my patients who are uncomfortable with their physicians but won't leave because they don't want to hurt their feelings or make the Dr. mad. If you bring your car to a mechanic and it seems fixed but wasn't and then you take it back, but the same thing kepts happening do you keep going back to that mechanic or do you worry about his feelings or that he might get mad if you take your car to the mechanic around the corner. Aren't our children worth more than the car? If what they are getting is not working why do we continue to send them to the same system expecting different results. Thats the definition of stupidity. Keep doing the same thing that doesn't work expecting different results with each try.
I think a complete overhaul of education is necessary, and the NEA gets to stay only if they can prove they don't bring the same ole same ole that have proven primarily ineffective over and over.
Very good. You sneaked in a few good thoughts.
By the way, it was Einstein, and the word was "insanity" which is different than "stupidity".
If I may further tweak your remarks, the teachers would prefer that you stay out of their face at school and set better example at home. Home, as I recall, was where we used to learn the difference between right and wrong, good manners, personal hygiene, self-control, discipline and respect, among other things. The best method was by setting a personal example. Expecting each teacher to perform parenting at the same time as explaining geography, etc. would be no different than expecting parents to explain that Costa Rica is not an island while giving a kid a time-out.
When teachers do a failing job in the classroom they fail to get tenured (insert your anecdote where this didn't happen). When parents do a failing job at home we just blame the schools and send the kids to the Allegan County Juvenile Detention Facility to be "corrected".
According to todays news, a teacher in Mexico was hacked to death for objecting to the teacher's union. Probably by fellow teachers trained in the School of the Americas.
Tenure is fundimental to academic freedom. The abuses educators have and do recieve despite a union and tenure are well documented.
Teacher at all levels need and deserve tenure. We might look at the administrators who grant tenure should we truly feel it to be a problem.
Heaven forbid that the contracts with teachers unions and school boards would require binding arbitration one week prior to the first day of school!
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