# What should be done in the Medford School District/Teacher's Union Dispute? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 18, 2014, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640 "2014-02-18T18:29:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/61 "2014-02-20T17:24:21Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > That is not how taxes, unemployment insurance, or contract negotiations, work. Yes, it is how contract negotiations work. It’s exactly how they work. If you negotiate, and one side says “give us a break because there’s an emergency” and you do, and then the next time the emergency is over, you say “okay, now the emergency is over, we want to go back to the status quo.” > [@](#): > > They are for the district. That’s a disputed factual question that would require some evidence to back up. Benefits may have gone up, or not really - maybe he’s misrepresenting the truth. Or maybe other costs have gone down, or revenue has gone up. You can’t judge the whole situation just on one little tidbit. > [@](#): > > I also noticed something interesting but unsurprising - the union boss was apparently misrepresenting the offer from the school district. I’ve seen management misrepesent offers from employees too, which also isn’t “surprising.” But let’s see: > [@](#): > > Notice the not-terribly-subtle misstatement - “ **most** of the increase” goes to the pension contributions changes to a decline in pay. If it were really going to be a decline in pay, **all** of the increase, plus more, would have to go to pension contributions. Not if cost-of-living increases are smaller (or non-esistent) in future years, which would result in a decline in pay in “real terms” (after inflation), which is the word he used. It’s likely not a misrepresentation, but rather you not having enough information to judge. Which means you are at risk of misrepresentation now. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/62 "2014-02-20T17:53:52Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > As I am sure you will agree, that is not a cite, and does not reinforce what **crucible** claimed. Yes–I was agreeing that in my experience, 12-hour days aren’t the norm (although neither are 8-hour days, as they were when I worked in nonprofits). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/63 "2014-02-20T18:09:21Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > As I am sure you will agree, that is not a cite, and does not reinforce what **crucible** claimed. I have no dog in this fight, but I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to established that public school teachers work many hours that are, by definition, not included in any calculation. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/64 "2014-02-20T18:58:13Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > This is part of why a free-market model works so poorly for schools. > > With a product like, say, chocolate chip cookies, it’s awesome for folks to choose. If the consumer (and here I specifically mean the person who selects and purchases the goods, not necessarily the person who uses them–that’ll be important soon) decides not to get cookies, that’s cool. If they decide to buy cheap cookies, that’s cool too, and if they decide to buy the world’s awesomest cookies, bully for them. Wanna make their own? Groovy. The market can decide the fate of both cookie and eater (with of course sensible health regulations to prevent rat poison being sold as cookies). > > That doesn’t work with education, for several reasons: > > 1. In a private market, the consumer isn’t necessarily the product’s user. Generally a parent would make a choice, the child would consume. > 2. The consequences for a poor choice on the part of the consumer falls on the product’s user in an extremely powerful fashion. > 3. The quality of a child’s education has a far greater impact on society at large than does the quality of a chocolate chip cookie. > 4. If someone doesn’t choose to eat cookies (or to feed them to their kids), that’s, you’ll recall, cool. If someone doesn’t choose to educate their child, that’s not okay. > > So we can’t have a private market for education and expect good results. Society as a whole makes decisions about education (hopefully with a great deal of deference to what the professionals in the field advise). This works best via a monopoly on education: we’re all in this together. To expand on this point, there is also a tendency to put the cost of poor choices on those least able to resist them, but not those least affected by them. Teacher vacancies mean subs supervising, but usually not teaching, classes. To minimize costs, districts rarely keep one sub in one spot more than 30 days, as at that point a raise in pay often kicks in. Subs are people who do not want the job full time or are not qualified for it–if they were, they could have it. For many people, Suzie not having a real teacher for her entire third grade year is not acceptable. Her parents will complain, persistently. She will be moved. Eventually, the only kids left in the teacher-less room will be the kids whose parents don’t even know there is not a teacher, or that they can complain. And it will be the same kids that don’t have a 4th grade teacher or a 5th grade teacher. If I am running a McDonalds, I can look at the data and know that that 5th worker will generate $12/hour marginal revenue–if I can’t find him at $8/hour, I’ll offer $9 and $10 and $11 until I get up to where hiring him doesn’t get me any return. There’s no such calculation in education. Market forces won’t come to bear to raise salaries until a crisis occurs. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/65 "2014-02-20T19:22:58Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I have no dog in this fight, but I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to established that public school teachers work many hours that are, by definition, not included in any calculation. The Census Bureau did a survey of teachers and they reported working an average of 43.7 hours per week, approximately one hour less than the average non-teacher with a college degree. According to an even more exhaustive study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, teachers average slightly under 40 hours per week. ([PDF)](http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf) All of this is from talking to teachers and specifically asking about work done away from the classroom. The average teacher works very close to 8 hours per day, not 10 or 12. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/66 "2014-02-20T19:31:24Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > To expand on this point, there is also a tendency to put the cost of poor choices on those least able to resist them, but not those least affected by them. > > Teacher vacancies mean subs supervising, but usually not teaching, classes. To minimize costs, districts rarely keep one sub in one spot more than 30 days, as at that point a raise in pay often kicks in. Subs are people who do not want the job full time or are not qualified for it–if they were, they could have it. > > For many people, Suzie not having a real teacher for her entire third grade year is not acceptable. Her parents will complain, persistently. She will be moved. Eventually, the only kids left in the teacher-less room will be the kids whose parents don’t even know there is not a teacher, or that they can complain. And it will be the same kids that don’t have a 4th grade teacher or a 5th grade teacher. > > If I am running a McDonalds, I can look at the data and know that that 5th worker will generate $12/hour marginal revenue–if I can’t find him at $8/hour, I’ll offer $9 and $10 and $11 until I get up to where hiring him doesn’t get me any return. There’s no such calculation in education. Market forces won’t come to bear to raise salaries until a crisis occurs. This shows how awful the school monopoly is for students. If your kids class has a long term sub, if you complain enough you can usually get your kid transferred to a classroom that now has a higher student teacher ratio to make up for the lack of a full time teacher. If you complain and are ignored by the administration, you can keep fighting all the way to the school board. If you don’t like what the school board says you can sell your house and move to a different county. If you go to a private school, the school district you just left still has your tax money and now has one less pupil to spend it on. If competition was allowed and your child is in a classroom with a long term sub, you can meet with the admin and if you don’t like what you hear your child can be in a different school the next day. When your child is gone the money is out of the school as well. That is a powerful incentive for the school to please you. Money always speaks louder than words. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/67 "2014-02-20T19:37:21Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This shows how awful the school monopoly is for students. If your kids class has a long term sub, if you complain enough you can usually get your kid transferred to a classroom that now has a higher student teacher ratio to make up for the lack of a full time teacher. If you complain and are ignored by the administration, you can keep fighting all the way to the school board. If you don’t like what the school board says you can sell your house and move to a different county. If you go to a private school, the school district you just left still has your tax money and now has one less pupil to spend it on. > If competition was allowed and your child is in a classroom with a long term sub, you can meet with the admin and if you don’t like what you hear your child can be in a different school the next day. When your child is gone the money is out of the school as well. That is a powerful incentive for the school to please you. Money always speaks louder than words. What, so you’d just transfer to another private school every time you have a problem? How’s that a good solution? And you don’t think all the other kids would transfer too? Then they’re all in the overcrowded classroom with your kid. Oh, wait, there are no slots open at the new school, since it’s the school everyone wants to go to (and it’s the middle of the year anyway and they aren’t taking new students). And because it’s so popular, it has jacked up tuition and you can’t afford it. This “school choice” crap isn’t as simple as it sounds. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2014, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/68 "2014-02-20T19:43:31Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If competition was allowed and your child is in a classroom with a long term sub, you can meet with the admin and if you don’t like what you hear your child can be in a different school the next day. When your child is gone the money is out of the school as well. That is a powerful incentive for the school to please you. Money always speaks louder than words. Absolutely true. And for children of highly involved parents who know how to work the system, this is a great idea. If we’re comfortable providing a terrible education to children whose parents are either not very involved or who don’t know how to work the system, you’ve solved our problems. Competition, the free market, will serve the luckiest children beautifully. If, however, we want a good education for all children, this solution is horrifyingly flawed. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/69 "2014-02-20T19:50:07Z")
Absent any valid data, my guess would be that teachers are slightly underpaid. There are two reasons to think so. 1. It’s a field dominated by women, as noted above. (I imagine this would be less of a factor than it was back when my math teacher made the point, but it’s probably still something.) 2. There are some sincere people who go into it for reasons other than money, and this tends to depress the prices. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Absolutely true. And for children of highly involved parents who know how to work the system, this is a great idea. If we’re comfortable providing a terrible education to children whose parents are either not very involved or who don’t know how to work the system, you’ve solved our problems. Competition, the free market, will serve the luckiest children beautifully. > > If, however, we want a good education for all children, this solution is horrifyingly flawed. Competition serves everyone. The school - like anyone else - wants to stay in business. They will be forced to improve if they know all the most motivated parents are going to switch their kids out, leaving them with fewer kids, and the toughest ones to educate to boot. Having a captive clientele is not a big motivator. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/70 "2014-02-20T19:55:37Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Competition serves everyone. The school - like anyone else - wants to stay in business. They will be forced to improve if they know all the most motivated parents are going to switch their kids out, leaving them with fewer kids, and the toughest ones to educate to boot. And then the good schools will jack up their tuition, leaving the poor kids in the bad schools and with no choice to get out. How’s that different? > [@](#): > > Having a captive clientele is not a big motivator. Do you want to have two or three governments too? People could pick the one they like and vote for and pay taxes to it. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/71 "2014-02-20T20:02:13Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Competition serves everyone. The school - like anyone else - wants to stay in business. They will be forced to improve if they know all the most motivated parents are going to switch their kids out, leaving them with fewer kids, and the toughest ones to educate to boot. > > Having a captive clientele is not a big motivator. No, they won’t be forced to improve. Businesses make money by maximizing income while minimizing costs. One approach to doing this is the 4-star restaurant approach: offer a premium product at a high price for the wealthiest or most driven customer. The other end of the spectrum holds Qwik-e-mart hot dogs: barely usable, nasty product at rock-bottom prices. Qwik-e-mart hot dogs continue to be sold, because there’s a market for them among people too poor or insufficiently motivated to buy better food. There will certainly be a market for lousy schools. They’ll be attended by students whose parents don’t know how to navigate the system, or who can’t be bothered to navigate the system. And that’s setting aside such confounding factors as deceptive advertising (hellOOOO, Phoenix University!) that can persuade people to make suboptimal educational choices for their children. I’m not a Marxist. I think the free market does a lot of stuff well. But I’m also not an ideological free-market zealot. I can recognize that it’s not always the answer to every problem. Education is one of those problems poorly solved by the free market. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/72 "2014-02-20T20:09:04Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > Not wanting your effective pay cut is not quite the same as wanting ‘More’. And the counterargument is that if GM had built the cars people wanted to buy, the benefits desired by the union wouldn’t have been so bad. In this case, the school district doesn’t have control over what tax revenue they get (or so I am led to believe) The other counter-argument is that unions should not trust their employers to manage retirement/pension funds. My union local has our own pension fund that employers contribute to (along with us workers), but WE manage it; any fiscal problems with our pension fund are our own, and we deal with them. But at least we know that our clients aren’t mismanaging it or appropriating it for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/73 "2014-02-20T20:13:06Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > leaving them with fewer kids, and the toughest ones to educate to boot. Oh, yeah, forgot this - they will just dump those harder-to-educate kids. To save costs. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/74 "2014-02-20T20:45:23Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > And then the good schools will jack up their tuition, leaving the poor kids in the bad schools and with no choice to get out. How’s that different? Yeah, but things wouldn’t generally come to that point, because the admins of the other schools would have a stronger incentive to keep that situation from happening… > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Oh, yeah, forgot this - they will just dump those harder-to-educate kids. To save costs. If they fail to keep the better kids and dump the harder-to-educate kids, there’s no one left, and they close down. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I’m not a Marxist. I think the free market does a lot of stuff well. But I’m also not an ideological free-market zealot. I can recognize that it’s not always the answer to every problem. Education is one of those problems poorly solved by the free market. I agree that free market is not a panacea for all the problems facing the education system, and that it would bring its own challenges. But it would have its advantages, and I don’t think things would get as bad as you suggest, for reasons given. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/75 "2014-02-20T20:52:23Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Yeah, but things wouldn’t generally come to that point, because the admins of the other schools would have a stronger incentive to keep that situation from happening… Why? And what could they do about it? In the free market, this happens all the time. Some products are better, and more expensive. > [@](#): > > If they fail to keep the better kids and dump the harder-to-educate kids, there’s no one left, and they close down. No, I mean ALL the schools dump them. They have no incentive to try to teach them – not worth the money. > [@](#): > > I agree that free market is not a panacea for all the problems facing the education system, and that it would bring its own challenges. But it would have its advantages, and I don’t think things would get as bad as you suggest, for reasons given. At least I got you to think harder about this. It’s hard to have universal, free education in a privatized setting. Either some kids will pay more, or get less, or no, education in that case. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/76 "2014-02-20T21:42:24Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I agree that free market is not a panacea for all the problems facing the education system, and that it would bring its own challenges. But it would have its advantages, and I don’t think things would get as bad as you suggest, for reasons given. I’m not sure you’ve given clear objections to what I’ve said. Moreover, my understanding is that the nations with the best-performing public schools actually have significantly **fewer** kids in private schools than the US does (due in large part to the “white flight” that occurred in response to integration during the seventies). Suggesting an expansion of private schools seems to be driven more by ideology than by facts on the ground. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/77 "2014-02-21T14:27:24Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Yeah, but things wouldn’t generally come to that point, because the admins of the other schools would have a stronger incentive to keep that situation from happening. Just read this again - you realize that this doesn’t work in a competition model, right? What could the admins of competing schools possibly do about it? Private schools that want to make money will give the best educations to the wealthy (maximizing revenue) and those who are cheapest to educate (minimizing costs). ---
**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:** [February 21, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/78 "2014-02-21T15:26:13Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Absolutely true. And for children of highly involved parents who know how to work the system, this is a great idea. If we’re comfortable providing a terrible education to children whose parents are either not very involved or who don’t know how to work the system, you’ve solved our problems. Competition, the free market, will serve the luckiest children beautifully. > > If, however, we want a good education for all children, this solution is horrifyingly flawed. A system that fails children whose parents are not involved or don’t know how to work the system is what we have now. 45% of black students drop out before high school graduation. Of the black students that do graduate 11% are proficient in math, and 13% are proficient in reading. If you look at test scores in low poverty school they are as good as scores in countries like Finland and Japan, but test scores in high poverty schools are abysmal. Keeping the current system intact for the benefit of poor children is like keeping KFC open for the benefit of chickens. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/79 "2014-02-21T15:34:38Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > A system that fails children whose parents are not involved or don’t know how to work the system is what we have now. That doesn’t mean privatization is the right solution. ---
**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:** [February 21, 2014, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640/80 "2014-02-21T15:56:49Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’m not saying their pay should be lower. I’m saying their negotiating tactics have to be modified. It’s pretty obvious that police officers and EMS workers can’t be allowed to strike, and in countries with unitary healthcare systems the same is true of medical personnel. One error I tend to see in these threads is linking all public employees together in regards to “right to strike” and public safety. While there may be a logic to preventing first responders from striking, I don’t think teachers and DMV employees are crucial to life and death. Also, first-responders put in their 20 years and retire with an awesome pension because of the nature of their jobs. Teacher and other government workers need to work to age 65. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-in-the-medford-school-district-teachers-union-dispute/681640.md?page=5)