# A good word for public sector unions **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756 "2012-12-02T13:34:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/41 "2012-12-03T22:54:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Teachers keep making the claim that they work SO many unpaid hours that looking at hours worked isn’t fair. This of course ignores the fact that ALL salaried professionals are expected to do as much work as the job takes, and that they do, even if it cuts into their ‘off hours’. > > Fortunately, the [Bureau of Labor Statistics](http://www.bls.gov/tus/) tracks this stuff, and they clearly show that the claim that teachers work more unpaid hours than other professionals is complete BS. In particular, it found that teachers worked _fewer_ hours on the weekends and evenings than did other white-color professionals. My wife is a health-care manager, and she works at least two to four hours every night to keep caught up, and is generally in the office about an hour before her ‘workday’ starts, and usually doesn’t leave for at least an hour afterwards. I often have to work late hours when on a deadline, and my job often involves travel on short notice when I’m basically giving up ALL my free time for days or weeks on end, with no additional pay. You’ll note that nowhere did I say that working unpaid hours is unique to the teaching profession. I’m simply saying that it’s ridiculous to point to the instructional hours and say that that’s the sum total of the workload of a teacher. > [@](#): > > By the way, don’t teachers get a lot of non-class time during their workday to work on lesson plans and mark tests and such? How many hours a week do teachers actually spend in the classroom? I believe the average is around 20-25 hours. That leaves a significant amount of time for grading and lesson planning. Some do, some don’t. There’s no standard for prep time for teachers, and I know of some that get zero prep periods. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/42 "2012-12-04T01:42:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Every job requires performance monitoring, and other industries have figured out how to do it. And many industries are much more opaque and difficult to measure than teaching, which has plenty of rating systems available. One mistake we’ve made in evaluating teachers is to attempt to do it with student test scores, but that’s fraught with all kinds of problems. The reason we keep going back to ‘objective’ measures like that, however, is because the unions generally won’t tolerate subjective analysis. Read what the major unions are asking for. They don’t have a problem with the subjective nature of analysis as much as the fact that little analysis is actual been done. It’s just based on a supervisor’s vague impression of a teacher, or how much they like them. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If I were doing this, I’d forget about figuring out exactly how to evaluate teachers - I’d figure out a way to evaluate _schools_, and I’d tie the principal’s pay to the performance of the school, then let he or she determine which teachers to retain and which ones to fire. The devil is in the details obviously. I don’t know why you act as though there aren’t plenty of smart people trying to do exactly this. The problem is it’s not so easy to develop a fair and accurate system. Your commentary is like when people say if they were in charge of the government, they would always spend less than they take in, and waste money. It’s very easy (and prudent) to say that, but it’s not always desirable or possible in all cases. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > As an engineer, I get a performance evaluation every year. It doesn’t involve hard measures like test performances or error rates or lines of code written or anything like that. Compare the number of hours these people have interacted with you, given you feedback, and worked directly with you to how many hours a department head of principal spends with a teacher. It’s not that it’s that hard to mimic private sector evaluations in public schools, it’s that nobody wants to pay a principal to 150k to sit in class observing teachers and interviewing colleagues and students. The reality is that sort thing is expensive because the nature of teaching is usually not a collaborative. They will shoulder those added costs in the private sector because they also reap the rewards. When those rewards don’t exceed the costs, as they often don’t in low-skill professions, there is less incentive to spend money weeding the good from the bad. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > This system works despite the fact that knowing how productive an engineer is can be a hell of a lot more difficult than determining who is or isn’t a good teacher. This is your bias showing. The fact is an engineer’s work product is usually more subject to their effort and skill than a teacher’s. That doesn’t mean you can’t effectively evaluate a teacher, but that does mean it’s harder than most professions. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Teachers act like knowing who the good and bad ones are is a big mystery that can’t be solved. No, they don’t. What they object to is someone who often sucked at teaching, based on watching one lesson a semester, questioning their character, effort, and skills. As I said, you can evaluate teacher about as well as you can any other profession. The problem is that people don’t want to pay for good qualitative assessment; they want to take short cuts that will ultimately undermine the profession. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In fact, I’ll bet you know who the good teachers in your school are, and who the bad ones are. I am sure I had an impression of who was good and bad, but that was not really based on rigorous assessment. It’s like thinking you know who is a good musician because of how much you like their music. It’s not a terrible metric, but it tells you little about their technical skill. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > They know which ones generate the most parent complaints and the most student complaints. IME, and knowing many people in education, those teachers are often the best teachers. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And they’d know even more if they knew they had the power to get rid of the bad ones and reward the good ones, and that their own evaluations would be based in part on how good they are at figuring that out. In many places, they do have the power. And the fact is that they usually don’t utilize that power any more than administrators who don’t have as much leeway. One reason is because you can’t fire someone without having a reasonable expectation that you can find someone better. No only is that difficult given that the hiring season for teachers is fairly short, but also because turnover is high enough, and there are already enough opportunities to fire people. The main hindrance is that it takes too much effort, or is too costly. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You might be able to attract them, but if they get into the system and realize that their lot in life is to be a substitute teacher or be given all the crap work for years and years because of the seniority system, you might not retain them. What are you taking about? Is this how things work in Canada, because that’s not how it is here. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In addition, the best people tend to seek out careers that reward merit. You are right. Do you think people are willing to pay teacher like lawyers or engineers though? It’s one thing to recognize that the proper incentives are not in place; it’s entirely different to actually put those incentives in place. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You see this in other white-color unionized professions as well, such as nursing. Why are lazy nurses not fired in Canada? > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If instead you always fire based on seniority, that doesn’t happen. Again, IMO schools usually don’t fire based on seniority. The first to be “fired” are those told they are not gonna receive tenure. It has little to do with seniority, it’s that they are easy pickings. They are typically 1-3 year teachers who are not getting it done or are disliked. The second group are teachers who either suck, are making too much money, or have somehow incurred the wrath of the administration. They often have tenure, so firing them without cause is hard. Instead they just try to make you quit. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And this is critical, because the top 20% of employees generate 80% of the value, and the bottom 20% create 80% of the problems. Any system that doesn’t seek to find employees that fit in the top 20% and remove the employees at the bottom will never create a high-performing work force. Even if I accept that this is true (as it is in other sectors), schools to do retain the “profits” as other businesses do. The costs, benefits, and work go to, or our done by, different people. The fact is that a school whose students make 5k more on average in adulthood doesn’t see any of that benefit. So if getting those returns costs more money, are they going to be able to enact those policies? Do you honestly think a school couldn’t have nearly 100% excellent teachers if they paid 150k? The issue is not that we can’t find great teachers, it’s that we want to treat and pay them like high-end waiters. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Unfortunately, a seniority-based system does exactly the opposite. It discourages high performance and rewards mediocrity. The good teachers wind up doing the work of the bad ones along with their own. I love how you proclaim these things as if nobody has even thought of what you are saying before you. The main reason they use seniority is because nobody would keep highly-paid, effective teachers otherwise. Why would a district pay a more effective teacher more money when they don’t really see any benefits? > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You can’t get them out of the system with a crowbar once they have tenure. Again, this is not true. All you need to do is show cause. Unfortunately, most administrators don’t want to do that for a variety of reasons (some good, some bad). > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > How many teachers with 10 years of experience leave? How many leave once they have tenure? You’re making my point for me - being a new teacher sucks when you’re hired into a seniority-based system. Plenty of experienced teachers leave. That is really beside the point. Being new to a profession will always suck. Not only because you usually are less experienced, but also because you are the new guy. That doesn’t change just because you might make more money than you otherwise would. Being a rookie baseball player sucks too, yet you rarely see any of them quit. Being a new congressman, corporate lawyer, doctor, cop, pilot, or consultant sucks sometimes too, but the attrition rates are usually not nearly as high. That said, you misunderstood the value of that factoid about teachers quitting. The point was that teachers who have no talent do not stay in the field for a variety of reasons, so making it easier to fire all teachers doesn’t help much. Your assumption that they stay around, embittering their coworkers who resent them is not really borne out by the facts. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I posted the actual stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics last time we had this debate, and it quite clearly shows that teachers do just as well or better than any other white color professional jobs with similar education levels. Search for it if you’d like. Or you can post them. Either way, we can play dueling cites all day long, but when the rubber meets the road, the current pay, whatever it is relative to other fields is not enough to retain the kinds of teachers we want. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > No, but they can certainly influence politicians and sway the balance. For example, charter schools are supported by close to 70% of the population, and that percentage is even higher in poor inner-city areas. And yet, even politicians who have spoken in favor of them in the past have caved and removed their support after being pressured by the teacher’s unions. Or they realized they get worse results on average while making the remaining public schools worse. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In fact, I thought the argument for unions was that they DO get better pay and working conditions for the workers. Are you saying now that this isn’t the case? An entity that secures higher wages doesn’t necessarily mean higher aggregate costs for employers. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I said what I did because there have been studies showing exactly that. That’s not what your “cite” says, nor does it address any of my points. Yes, if we could magically identify the worst performers, fire them, then replace them with competent people, of course we would be better off. The problem is that the bottom 10% is not a static group of people, and that you often cannot replace the bottom 10% of teachers very easily. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Cite? This [cite](http://madvilletimes.com/2012/04/teacher-unions-do-not-reduce-teacher-firing-rates/) has the union rates vs. firing rates. Look at the states with essentially no tenure and/or weak unions. There are not vastly more firings in those states. Also look at the attached pdf which states the following: > [@](#): > > the National Center for Education Statistics finds that among teachers who left the public school system to work in other industries, 28.2% said they had better job security in teaching than in their current positions. 19.4% said their current positions offered better job security. 52.3% said their job switch brought them neither better nor worse job security. > > Hmm… so despite this rumbling I hear from conservatives about “tenure” and “jobs for life,” over 70% of the people who’ve actually done the job in the classroom and now are working in other fields don’t feel like their jobs were all that secure in public education. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Not doing so is far more expensive that just saying “the hell with it.” But it is not expensive to a school anymore than electing a bad politician is expensive to the government. I bet we could get better congressional representation if we paid them 100x what they currently make, but nobody is gonna do that. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/43 "2012-12-04T02:02:59Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Of course, the best way to evaluate them would be to allow the market to do it. That’s the point with charter schools - let the money follow the students, then let the schools compete for the money. Then let them choose their own HR practices and teaching methods, and let the market decide. The **MARKET** does not ensure outcomes though. That’s the problem. We want to ensure positive outcomes _and_ control the input of money and resources. The market may find a way to do something more efficiently, but it cannot and does not independently guarantee quality outcomes. Look at the major players in most consumer markets. Does McDonald’s make the best or most healthy (fast) food? Does Pizza Hut make the best pizza? Does Coke make the best cola? Does Exxon/Mobil have the best gas? This is why charter schools don’t actually do [better](http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0629/Study-On-average-charter-schools-do-no-better-than-public-schools) than public schools in terms of educational outcomes. Especially since the market allows for, and sometimes encourages [failure](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-28/one-in-five-charter-schools-should-close-on-performance) when the public generally does not. Yes, they work in limited circumstances, but it’s not a real solution because they don’t address most of the problems. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/44 "2012-12-04T02:41:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > My wife is a health-care manager, and she works at least two to four hours every night to keep caught up, and is generally in the office about an hour before her ‘workday’ starts, and usually doesn’t leave for at least an hour afterwards. I often have to work late hours when on a deadline, and my job often involves travel on short notice when I’m basically giving up ALL my free time for days or weeks on end, with no additional pay. Dude, what you and your wife need is a _union_. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’ve seen how unions agitate the work force and constantly propagandize to keep the workers radicalized. I’d hardly say propaganda is needed, given that there are a lot of workers in your situation. When _your_ supposed free time becomes _their_ free resource - they pay you for the first 40 hours, and they get all the additional hours they can screw you out of for free - you \*ought \*to be radicalized. Not to mention, for you as a free market believer, their ability to do so in the first place actually heavily tilts the market their way, since of course if they can get 60 hours a week from you and your colleagues for the price of 40, they need only 2/3 as many workers, pushing into the far future the day when the laws of supply and demand might work in your favor enough to counterbalance that huge thumb on the scale that you seem to basically accept as part of the deal. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/45 "2012-12-04T16:21:32Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > The **MARKET** does not ensure outcomes though. That’s the problem. We want to ensure positive outcomes _and_ control the input of money and resources. The market may find a way to do something more efficiently, but it cannot and does not independently guarantee quality outcomes. Look at the major players in most consumer markets. Does McDonald’s make the best or most healthy (fast) food? Does Pizza Hut make the best pizza? Does Coke make the best cola? Does Exxon/Mobil have the best gas? > > This is why charter schools don’t actually do [better](http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0629/Study-On-average-charter-schools-do-no-better-than-public-schools) than public schools in terms of educational outcomes. Especially since the market allows for, and sometimes encourages [failure](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-28/one-in-five-charter-schools-should-close-on-performance) when the public generally does not. Yes, they work in limited circumstances, but it’s not a real solution because they don’t address most of the problems. The fact that many charter schools fail is the whole point of having a charter school. In a market there will be many businesses which perform poorly for various reasons. These businesses consume resources. When the businesses fail, those resources are freed up for more productive uses. Businesses that are better at using the resources to meet consumer needs grow. This is survival of the fittest. Creating a school that is better than a public school is going to be hard and many if not most are going to fail at it. Those that fail will go out of business and those that succeed will grow. This will continue until the market is dominated by the good charter schools. The alternative is the status quo in which failing schools just keep getting new principals every three years. In my area they are good schools and bad schools. For the most part every one knows which is which. If you are a parent you either need to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a house in a good district or pay tens of thousands for private school. If you are too poor to afford the big house or private school, well if God had wanted you to have a good education, why would he have made you poor? Unfortunately this is not unique to my area but is the default for every school district in the country. Charter schools and vouchers are the only way to transition from the current situation to where poor kids get a shot at a quality education. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/46 "2012-12-04T16:38:31Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The fact that many charter schools fail is the whole point of having a charter school. In a market there will be many businesses which perform poorly for various reasons. These businesses consume resources. When the businesses fail, those resources are freed up for more productive uses. You are right that that is the point, but it doesn’t serve students to waste resources constantly starting new schools that eventually fail. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Businesses that are better at using the resources to meet consumer needs grow. This is survival of the fittest. The fittest in this case are not necessarily those that provide the best education. The goal of a fast food place is not to make the BEST hamburger, it’s to make money. The quality is only if issue if it allows you to make more money. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Creating a school that is better than a public school is going to be hard and many if not most are going to fail at it. Those that fail will go out of business and those that succeed will grow. Again, failing businesses hurt entrepreneurs and investors, the people who decided to take the risks in search of reward. Failing schools waste government resources and hurt kids who can never get those years back. It’s not a matter of disliking failure, it’s that it’s not any more acceptable than a for profit police department that closes one day leaving everyone in the lurch. > [@puddleglum](#): > > This will continue until the market is dominated by the good charter schools. Probably not given that there is no market where that happens. Especially since good schools will not always stay good. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Unfortunately this is not unique to my area but is the default for every school district in the country. Charter schools and vouchers are the only way to transition from the current situation to where poor kids get a shot at a quality education. Except that the don’t work. It would be nice if they did, but they don’t. There is no way around that. The results are in, and they are worse on average. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/47 "2012-12-04T17:54:53Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > You are right that that is the point, but it doesn’t serve students to waste resources constantly starting new schools that eventually fail. There is no possible way to know what works and what does not unless different approaches are tried. The alternatives are not no waste, the alternatives are the status quo which has plenty of waste in it and never improves or a system in which improvement is possible. > [@](#): > > The fittest in this case are not necessarily those that provide the best education. The goal of a fast food place is not to make the BEST hamburger, it’s to make money. The quality is only if issue if it allows you to make more money. McDonald’s goal is to satisfy their customers by providing hamburgers at a price people value them. They could make a lot better hamburger if they charged 10 dollars for each, but they provide a good enough hamburger for the price to please their customers. In contrast the US has tripled education spending over the past forty years and no one is happy with the results. > [@](#): > > Again, failing businesses hurt entrepreneurs and investors, the people who decided to take the risks in search of reward. Failing schools waste government resources and hurt kids who can never get those years back. It’s not a matter of disliking failure, it’s that it’s not any more acceptable than a for profit police department that closes one day leaving everyone in the lurch. Wasted government resources and failed kids are what we have now. Contrast the situation in public schools with post secondary education. Anyone can legally attend any college in the US that will accept them, and any financial aid they receive goes with the student. Colleges have in effect a system where anyone can start a school and student receive vouchers to attend colleges. The american university system is widely considered the best in the world. The american public school system is widely considered a failure. Why not copy success? > [@](#): > > Probably not given that there is no market where that happens. Especially since good schools will not always stay good. All current markets for schools are rudimentary and still in development. Survival of the fittest takes time, but it works. > [@](#): > > Except that the don’t work. It would be nice if they did, but they don’t. There is no way around that. The results are in, and they are worse on average. The results are much more mixed than you have characterized them. Even in the link you provided the results were that charter schools performed no worse overall and in urban areas they performed much better. [This is consistent with previous research](http://home.uchicago.edu/~whowell/papers/SchoolVouchersAndAcademic.pdf). Since urban schools are generally the worst, finding a way to improve them is a significant win for the poorest and most vulnerable children in america. [Here is a study about the DC voucher system which serves an urban population and has increased test scores significantly while spending one quarter what the public schools spent.](http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094050/pdf/20094050.pdf) What is also found is that charter schools and voucher plans reduce costs and when they are implemented public schools in those jurisdictions start to improve from the [competition](http://educationnext.org/does-competition-improve-public-schools/). ---
**Author:** ![akwally1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akwally1/32/3220_2.png) [@akwally1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akwally1)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/48 "2012-12-04T19:06:28Z")
Why in all of this does no one lay any blame at the feet of the administrators? My wife teaches, and I know who the crappy teachers are in her school, but they are still there because the administration doesn’t do the work necessary to get rid of them because that takes a fair amount of time and resources, which most administrators don’t currently have. I’m sure you can find examples of a teacher’s union protecting a member who screwed a gerbil in front of their class, but I highly doubt that there is any contract out there that forbids firing of a teacher altogether, right? If so, then blame the idiot school board that agreed to that contract. Even tenured educators can be let go, it just takes more paperwork. But it can be done. So yeah, there are crappy teachers out there, but until you provide the administration the resources to monitor them, put them on a plan of assistance, and document everything (which we would expect from any other professional industry), you’re not going to get rid of them. Mark ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/49 "2012-12-04T19:52:40Z")
> [@akwally1](#): > > So yeah, there are crappy teachers out there, but until you provide the administration the resources to monitor them, put them on a plan of assistance, and document everything (which we would expect from any other professional industry), you’re not going to get rid of them. But there are plenty of (non-union) professional industries – say, engineers or dentists – which require much less work to fire someone. ---
**Author:** ![akwally1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akwally1/32/3220_2.png) [@akwally1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akwally1)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/50 "2012-12-04T21:29:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But there are plenty of (non-union) professional industries – say, engineers or dentists – which require much less work to fire someone. Well, everywhere that I have worked (2 non-union, non-professional places) has always required some sort of paper trail and intervention before firing someone. If there are engineering firms or dentists that just fire people without any sort of preamble, then I suppose those places are getting the quality of workers that they deserve. Mark ---
**Author:** ![akwally1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akwally1/32/3220_2.png) [@akwally1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akwally1)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/51 "2012-12-04T21:35:35Z")
(Damned 5 minute window!) Don’t get me wrong, I think there are plenty of teachers out there who should be fired (and I’m not a fan of tenure either), but after having a pretty close view of both K-12 and higher-ed systems, there has to be some safeguards to protect folks from politically or ideologically motivated disciplinary actions. Mark ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/52 "2012-12-04T22:32:48Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > There is no possible way to know what works and what does not unless different approaches are tried. The alternatives are not no waste, the alternatives are the status quo which has plenty of waste in it and never improves or a system in which improvement is possible. No, the alternatives are trying to improve the public school via similar means. Why introduce a third party who motivation is often to make a profit at public expense? > [@puddleglum](#): > > McDonald’s goal is to satisfy their customers by providing hamburgers at a price people value them. They could make a lot better hamburger if they charged 10 dollars for each, but they provide a good enough hamburger for the price to please their customers. Exactly my point. The argument that the market is going to produce better outcomes (ie. better burgers) is clearly false for a variety of good reasons. If it is not cost effective to spend more to improve the product, there is little reason to do so. With a business, the only incentive to provide a better product is to make more money. With a school, there is no way direct way to make more money. > [@puddleglum](#): > > In contrast the US has tripled education spending over the past forty years and no one is happy with the results. The vast majority of people ARE happy with the education their children receive. The vast majority of kids here get a first rate education. They do well, go to college, and live productive lives. What is broken is the system, mostly in poor, minority areas that doesn’t serve the student’s as well as they should. This situation is a parallel of how people feel about congress. They think congress sucks, but they love their representative. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Contrast the situation in public schools with post secondary education. **Anyone can legally attend any college in the US that will accept them** , HELLO! Do you realize if schools could turn away any kid who they thought might fail, they would all be great? If Harvard had to accept every asshole that happened to live in Massachusetts, how good do you think the school would be? > [@puddleglum](#): > > Colleges have in effect a system where anyone can start a school and student receive vouchers to attend colleges. The american university system is widely considered the best in the world. The american public school system is widely considered a failure. Why not copy success? Do you actually think about these things before you post them? I’ll bite, let’s copy success. First, we will only accept 70% of [students](http://www.good.is/posts/more-high-school-students-are-going-to-college-than-ever-before), and only see 58% of those students [graduate](http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40) in 6 years. Then we will privatize schools and “charge” students an average of $29,056 in tuition, even though that number nowhere near covering the actual costs of providing a college education. Like I said, there are plenty of reasonable, logical, and straight forward solutions to our public education problems, but the issue is that nobody wants to pay for them. > [@puddleglum](#): > > All current markets for schools are rudimentary and still in development. Survival of the fittest takes time, but it works. They aren’t that new. More importantly, please point to ANY consumer market that has managed to ensured the highest quality for all participants at the same, relatively low, cost. > [@puddleglum](#): > > The results are much more mixed than you have characterized them. Not really. I think the results are pretty clear that they are not doing better on average. Do you understand what that means? Yes, some of them are great. But many aren’t. They point is that there is no indication that you couldn’t have acheived the same thing within the public schools. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Here is a study about the DC voucher system which serves an urban population and has increased test scores significantly while spending one quarter what the public schools spent. Your link seems to be talking about the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, which gives vouchers to private schools. That is not really the topic at hand. > [@puddleglum](#): > > What is also found is that charter schools and voucher plans reduce costs and when they are implemented public schools in those jurisdictions start to improve from the [competition](http://educationnext.org/does-competition-improve-public-schools/). That link is talking about private schools, not charters. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/53 "2012-12-04T23:28:27Z")
> [@akwally1](#): > > Why in all of this does no one lay any blame at the feet of the administrators? My wife teaches, and I know who the crappy teachers are in her school, but they are still there because the administration doesn’t do the work necessary to get rid of them because that takes a fair amount of time and resources, which most administrators don’t currently have. > > I’m sure you can find examples of a teacher’s union protecting a member who screwed a gerbil in front of their class, but I highly doubt that there is any contract out there that forbids firing of a teacher altogether, right? If so, then blame the idiot school board that agreed to that contract. > > Even tenured educators can be let go, it just takes more paperwork. But it can be done. > > So yeah, there are crappy teachers out there, but until you provide the administration the resources to monitor them, put them on a plan of assistance, and document everything (which we would expect from any other professional industry), you’re not going to get rid of them. > Mark I agreed with you until that last part. You know what it takes to fire a teacher in California? 1. A properly done pre-Stull meeting. 2. Some observations with post-interview meeting 3. A written intervention plan 4. Observations that document adherance to WIP with followup meetings 5. Year-end Stull evaluation done at the approprite time So what resourse does an administrator need other than a crowbar to get their fat asses out of their chair and into the classrooms? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/54 "2012-12-05T01:16:25Z")
I wonder how folks think of the clientele of schools. I see my duty to the following groups, in order: 1. The student. 2. Society. 3. The parent. Obviously the student comes first; that’s why I’m there. But I put society second, on purpose, because all of us benefit from a robust public school system. The parent comes in third: they’ve got a vested interest, but not as vested as society as a whole, and definitely not as much as the individual kid. And this is where the capitalist impulse fails. The primary client is the child, but the child gets no say in the product they receive, even under a voucher system. By going to vouchers, we cut society out of the loop as well, meaning that it’s the tertiary client–the parent–who’s making the choice. But don’t parents have the best interests of their children at heart? If you think that applies across the board, I encourage you to speak to some public school teachers. A voucher system might benefit children whose parents are involved; I’ll stipulate that. But it’s death to kids whose parents are uninvolved in their education, you know, the parents who send their kids to school only because they’ll be thrown in jail if they don’t. The parents who never attend conferences, who don’t tell the school when they change phone numbers, who neglect their kids in every way: their kids under our current system have the protection of society at large, which chooses a good school for them. A capitalist system will be very likely to funnel these kids to the very worst schools. It won’t lift all boats. And the primary and secondary clientele of the school will therefore be sacrificed to serve an ideological goal. Not a big fan. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/55 "2012-12-05T20:02:39Z")
I just don’t get why conservatives want to take more power away from the individual workers and hand it over the government. Then again, I don’t understand why people act like unions should be eliminated because they cause one thing they say is bad–that not as good workers get to hang on. Never does anyone advocate to fix that particular problem. It’s always the case that we should get rid of unions altogether, completely ignoring what actually happened when we didn’t have unions. And I love how everyone acts like it’s so hard to fire a teacher. I got a teacher fired in 10th grade. It’s not hard to fire teachers–it just has to be with cause. Something that works in many places in the private sector without our economy coming crashing down. The horror stories about how hard it is to fire a teacher are similar to what happened with Hostess–the administration negotiated a stupid, stupid deal, and now they pay for it. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756/56 "2012-12-05T20:05:26Z")
I just don’t get why conservatives want to take more power away from the individual workers and hand it over the government. Then again, I don’t understand why people act like unions should be eliminated because they cause one thing they say is bad–that not as good workers get to hang on. Never does anyone advocate to fix that particular problem. It’s always the case that we should get rid of unions altogether, completely ignoring what actually happened when we didn’t have unions. And I love how everyone acts like it’s so hard to fire a teacher. I got a teacher fired in 10th grade. It’s not hard to fire teachers–it just has to be with cause. Something that works in many places in the private sector without our economy coming crashing down. The horror stories about how hard it is to fire a teacher are similar to what happened with Hostess–the administration negotiated a stupid, stupid deal, and now they pay for it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-good-word-for-public-sector-unions/642756.md?page=2)