Imagine sending your child to a school where the teachers and administration don’t care because it is nearly impossible to get bad teachers fired. Today a lot of a child’s learning has to do with the teachers they have. Many parents bring up the question to why a teacher who never seems to care and has low-test results is kept in the same position. The simple answer to this is teacher unions. What once was a simple protection of teachers; a time where they were necessary has become one of the problems of education in the United States today. Teacher unions provide many benefits to teachers, but have little to do with helping students receive the best education possible.
Teacher unions have grown into a huge money making union. The amount of money that teacher unions make every year from teachers is quite high. My critics would argue that teacher unions help fund certain political candidates in the senate, congress, and state legislatures so they can help bring educational funding towards their constituents. “Strong teachers unions are more successful in enacting legislation that is preferred by teachers” (Lott 94). This shows how teacher unions are a political structure and are able to get things go their way. Others believe the money teacher unions receive helps the children in learning because they are able to get others to help support education and help the children. They believe the money spent will eventually give more resources to the schools. In addition, the teacher unions would argue that many of the teachers need to be kept in a solid position because it allows the teacher to be in the same position for a while and give them less chaos of having to switch schools every year. Despite some decent claims by teacher’s u...
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...tion. Unfortunately, there has been little to no increase over the past two decades, and a lot has to do with the teacher unions. A big reason behind the gain in spending is there are more teachers getting paid who do not do their job. Because of teacher unions and their ability to save jobs, it prevents many of the bad teachers who do not produce good test scores from their student from getting fired. In my opinion, there needs to be a better system so that teacher unions understand the school district and the problems that a school or teacher has and be able to fix the problem. Others would argue that teacher unions provide teachers with a secure position so that they are able to focus on their teaching. They believe that teachers deserve the pay because teachers are teaching bigger classes thus; they deserve the additional money when compared to private schools.
Defense receives the most support and money. Politicians support military spending, mainly because it is “the only form of large-scale public investment that can consistently win political support” (Pollin). However, the heavy support for military spending is counterproductive for our nation’s economy. Since military spending increased in 2001, several industries and programs have had to “bite the bullet.” The Department of Education often gets fewer funds each fiscal year to cover the military budget. Then again, the United States leads all countries in money spent on education. The U.S. education system is well funded, but that statistic is very misleading. If the high cost of college is excluded, the United States ranks slightly above average in education spending (OECD). Per the OECD, U.S. spending is decreasing at a 1% average (OECD). This doesn’t seem like much, but it is still a step in the wrong direction. Only Mexico, Iceland, and Ireland have cut more (OECD). Coincidentally, the percentage of teachers that quit within five years is extremely high at 46% (OECD)! This isn’t surprising considering all teachers in the U.S. work so many hours and are still underpaid. U.S. primary school teachers spend the most time in the classroom amongst all PISA countries
“Real Lesson of the Chicago Teachers Strike—Fire Them All and Start Over!”, an opinion piece written by Wayne Allyn Root, on Foxnews.com, argues that we need to quit supporting the use of government tax money to fund inefficient teachers and instead should hire replacements at one-third of the cost, but implement a pay based on performance policy. Root claims that Chicago teachers are among the highest paid, yet have the worst performance rates. By increasing their pay during this “Great Depression,” we are increasing the billion dollar debt in chicago’s education system. In order to uncover Root’s underlying purpose, the following articles will be used in contrast which also serve to further complicate Root’s argument. Horace Mann’s Report
The first reason I agree with Matthew Miller’s “A Deal for Teachers”, is that something needs to be done about good teachers not being treated or paid right. I know many (in my opinion) great and intelligent teachers. They are working hard all the time to teach children everything they need to know. Meanwhile, they are getting paid the same as their coworkers who are doing nothing. In poor schools this might be even more important. In some cases, school might be the only place some children are getting taught important life skills, and their teachers might be the only good examples they have. I know a teacher who works in a poorer school. She’s told me about how hard it is to work at a poor school in general, with a lot of children who don’t respect teachers or adults and parents that also don’t respect the teachers. Couple that with low income and awful coworkers. If we keep giving our good teachers reason to leave by not treating them fairly, then we will never fix the problem of having so many bad teachers in our
Teacher Unions are one source of controversy in Education because of how it seems that Teacher Unions have allowed poor performing teachers to remain. In “The Teacher Wars”, it articulates, “Teacher Union movement was (and remains today) a pragmatic, even sometimes
Reform of the teachers union has been in the news quit often over the past year. Teacher tenure has the public frustrated with ineffective teachers and the inability of school districts to dismiss them. “These days, however, many have raised questions about whether tenure actually serves the public good or simply provides job protection for senior teachers regardless of their effectiveness” (Hubsch, 2013, p. 4). Unions represent teachers and protect them from unfair labor practices but the ethic of the profession puts the best interest of the child first. The conflict between these two paradigms occurs when the protection of the teacher interferes with the education of the child. Teachers that are ineffective remain in their teaching positions because of the cost and time incurred when trying to remove them from the classroom; therefore the student receives a substandard education.
Public schools today face several issues that affect the standard of education our children are receiving. They face issues such as teachers with limited experience. Budget cuts, dilapidated facilities, not enough teachers, and school violence, lack of parent participation, and
Office Space depicts an exaggerated view of a big corporation’s organizational behaviors. At Initech, such behaviors are misused, ineffective, and unhealthy practices which ultimately lead to the collapse of the organization. The ideal organization would allow employees to obtain job satisfaction through the use of employee input and autonomy, feedback, well-defined organizational roles, clear goals, and effective group structures in the workplace.
In his piece titled Idiot Nation, Michael Moore depicts many faults of the American education system. One quote that caught my attention was “teachers are politician’s favorite punching bags” (pg. 160). Teachers in the public school system are grouped together as the number one predicament when it comes to America’s lack of worldly knowledge. He goes on to discuss the much more egregious and omnipresent issues. I enjoyed Moore’s counter arguments, because I have always disagreed with this myth without knowing the actual problems in our schools.
Teaching is a wildly contentious profession in America, one attacked and admired in equal measure. (Goldstein) Teachers are authority figures meant to educate students. To be educated means to remember an idea, having the ability to apply it, and to understand it. And because this exists, everything about the public schools; how they are staffed, funded, mainly how they are organized to do their work should be based within the best interests of the children. By examining history throughout teaching we can see the rise of teacher unions and the equality within the system.
There are many pieces of evidence that can be examined to determine the failures and irreparable damage the public teacher unions have wrought upon on the American students. The reasons of their shortcomings, verified by experts in this field, are but are not limited to, low incentive for hard work and low probability of getting fired. Getting the power and influence of these organizations reduced is imperative to the success of the American education system. Education for the future generations of society should be one of America’s greatest priorities, yet why should students have to suffer the consequences of a broken system?
A study conducted by Marguerite Roza, a University of Washington professor and a Gates Foundation Advisor, was reviewed by Jay P. Greene, a professor at University of Arkansas and a member of the George W. Bush Institute; it has shown that money in school systems is placed in places that differ from where educators say it will go. While teachers say that they want more funding for low-income individuals in the school system, most spending per student goes towards the students with higher incomes; similarly, other educators say that resources should be focused on core academic subjects such as history, reading, history, or math, but “per-pupil spending tends to be much higher for electives [and] extracurricular activities” (Greene). Also, teachers tend to be paid unequally; they are paid “according to their credentials, seniority, and ‘additional’ work assignments and not at all according to subject taught, number of students served, or the difficulty or importance of their assignments” (Greene). Since salary may be based on an educator’s past and not on their present, a more educated teacher may choose to serve a school or district that offers them more money. This means that the less-learned teachers with lower funding may generally end up teaching the low-income students, allowing for less pay for the subjects that these teachers teach. Schools like these, and the schools with the more experienced teachers, receive “slightly more funding from the district, with higher WSI (Weighted Student Index) by 0.01 and 0.04, respectively. In other words, these schools typically received 1 to 4 percent more than the district average, or $15,000 to $60,000 per school of 500 students in a district where the average school expenditure is $3,000 per pupil” (Guin et al). The inequality of expenditures in
According to Allie Bidwell, writer for US News, studies show that nearly “16.1 percent of teachers hold additional jobs…and in some states it closer to 25 percent” (Many Teachers). Having seconds jobs, and maybe even third jobs for some, can be difficult. It will often cause teachers to become tired, irritated, overwhelmed, and overworked to their limit. Teachers struggle to earn every penny that they make. Meanwhile, Americans value athletes, musicians, and actors higher. Americans will not hesitate to go the movies, pay for a concert, or go to a sporting event. Teachers are providing education and preparing students of the next generation to succeed and better the lives of everyone. Yet, society as a whole is uncertain about providing more funding for their local school districts. Without the backing of the local community, teachers will never be able to devote all their time to just one job and focus on enhancing their students’
In fact, it can easily be argued that unions play a very significant role regarding the direction reform movements go. Furthermore, it must be noted that they do not completely shut down all reform efforts. While one might argue that collective bargaining is a particular significant threat to current reform efforts, teacher unions ultimately serve to improve the quality of education for all stakeholders beyond simply focusing on employee benefits and rights.
Today, education is one of the most highly debated areas in America. Schools all across the nation employ teachers to make children and young adults ready for life, college, and the workforce. According to http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/breakdown, the federal government is set to spend 1 trillion dollars on education in the fiscal year of 2014. But the increasing pressure that is put on to teachers is actually harming the education system. The ongoing dilemmas that are the lack of incentive for teachers, the tenures of teachers, and the focus on the “outcomes” of students, are causing the students’ education to be lacking.
The first lady I interviewed said that the lack of control over the students and lack of supplies needed to teach was causing major issues in her community. She noted that many of the children are just passed along through the system until they eventually drop out. My second subject said he was happy with the education his children received but noted the classes are much larger for his children than what he had in his rural home town. The final subject I interviewed said that the lack of preparedness the public system has for college caused him to place his children in a private school to receive the education he felt they needed. Urban teachers described their classrooms as overcrowded and noted that in many instances there were not adequate resources available to teach the children (Goldring, 2002). Students in urban schools have a 50% chance of being taught by a certified mathematics or science teacher (Foote, 2005). Some of the teachers were under qualified to teach. Not only are urban teachers less likely to be prepared in their content areas, but these teachers also score lower on literacy skills measures on teacher certification examinations (Goldring, 2002). All of these finding combined lead to the inability to properly teach children and prepare them to pass exams (Ihlanfeldt,