It’s hard to imagine a teacher’s union making themselves even more despicable and obstructionist, but they’ve found a way. First, the Los Angeles Times published an analysis on teacher performance:
With Miguel Aguilar, students consistently have made striking gains on state standardized tests, many of them vaulting from the bottom third of students in Los Angeles schools to well above average, according to a Times analysis. John Smith’s pupils next door have started out slightly ahead of Aguilar’s but by the end of the year have been far behind.
In Los Angeles and across the country, education officials have long known of the often huge disparities among teachers. They’ve seen the indelible effects, for good and ill, on children. But rather than analyze and address these disparities, they have opted mostly to ignore them.
Most districts act as though one teacher is about as good as another. As a result, the most effective teachers often go unrecognized, the keys to their success rarely studied. Ineffective teachers often face no consequences and get no extra help.
…Though the government spends billions of dollars every year on education, relatively little of the money has gone to figuring out which teachers are effective and why.
This is exactly what one would expect from an industry shielded from the competitive pressures of the market, and instead dominated by the influence of powerful unions. In a free market, understanding what makes one teacher successful over others would be a top priority, as schools sought to attract students by providing the highest quality education possible. But our public education system is more like a jobs program for union members, and it’s too much of a bother for them to worry about the little things like whether or not students are learning, and why.
Rather than attempt to improve upon their performance and learn from this analysis, the LA Times reports that union leaders are threatening to boycott the paper.
The Los Angeles teachers union president said Sunday he was organizing a “massive boycott” of The Times after the newspaper began publishing a series of articles that uses student test scores to estimate the effectiveness of district teachers.
“You’re leading people in a dangerous direction, making it seem like you can judge the quality of a teacher by … a test,” said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, which has more than 40,000 members.
Duffy said he would urge other labor groups to ask their members to cancel their subscriptions.
Measuring teacher quality based on student performance, how outrageous!
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The recently passed $26 state and public union bailout bill, which Pelosi called Congress back from recess to pass in an emergency session, sparked some deserved criticism on the House floor:
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Here’s what your Congress Critters are up to these days.
Sen. Jon Kyl calls the federal lawsuit against Arizona “baloney:”
Rep. Joe Pitts says on the House floor that uncertainty caused by big government is slowing job growth:
Rep. Charlie Rangel posts a video response to the ethics committee finding that he violated House ethics rules in his financial dealings:
Hailing from California, itself fiscally destroyed by excessive union power and influence, Rep. Linda Sánchez defends the protectionist and economically destructive Jones Act, which prevented foreign help from being accepted to fight the Gulf oil spill:
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This guy is too good for New Jersey:
Hat-tip: Viral Footage
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While Illinois, like so many state governments, is already struggling to pay for overly generous public pension plans, 15,000 union members marched on the state capital demanding yet more money in the form of higher taxes.
According to ALEC’s Rich States, Poor States, Illinois is ranked 47 out of 50 for its economic outlook. It also already has the 10th highest worker compensation costs among the states. Raising taxes to pay public workers yet more would be a disastrous move for the state, and likely foster continued migration of the wealthy out of the state in search of lower tax jurisdictions.
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Andy Stern, the most frequent visitor at the White House and head of SEIU, has a pension plan:
One of the nation’s largest labor unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is promoting a plan that will centralize all retirement plans for American workers, including private 401(k) plans, under one new “retirement system” for the United States.
In effect, government pensions for everyone, not unlike the European system and regardless of personal choice.
Centralizing is the first step toward control. When the Obama administration finally decides to nationalize pension plans, ala Argentina, they’ll know right where to go to get them.
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Well-paid Rhode Island teachers get the heave-ho for refusing to work more to improve student outcomes:
A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system.
Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers’ union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.
The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000…
The school superintendent has responded to the union’s stubbornness by firing every teacher and administrator at the school.
If they won’t do the job that’s asked of them, I’m sure there are plenty of knowledgeable people currently unemployed who will. There is no reason to keep pandering to these teachers unions.
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Not for the first time, a union is targeting volunteering. At Big Government, Liberty Chick reports:
Warren Eschenbach, an 86-year-old a retired Wausau Water Works employee volunteers his time as a crossing guard at the Riverview Elementary School in Wausau, Wisconsin. After the Wausau School District built an area just outside an intersection at the school’s location for parents to pickup their kids from the school, the intersection became busier than usual for a short time every day. So, Eschenbach did a noble thing. He went over to the school and spoke with parents, kids and administrators, and he volunteered to patrol the area at pickup time to make sure kids got to their parents’ cars and that others crossed the streets safely. After all, he worked for five years as a crossing guard at the Franklin Elementary School up until three years ago. He lives two doors down and it’s for a half hour every day. Who could take issue with that?
Well, apparently union bosses can.
John Spiegelhoff, a local union rep for American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1287 (AFSCME) wants to know if the 86-year-old retiree has undergone a background check. And if he has liability insurance. AFSCME insists that Eschenbach is “undermining the union” and has demanded that the city get rid of him and replace him with a paid union worker at $12.65 an hour. The city has been cutting back crossing guard hours from 15 hours a week to 10 a week. Of course, the elderly volunteer isn’t a volunteer with the city, he volunteers with the school. Since the pickup location is newly restructured, there hadn’t ever been the need to have a crossing guard there. There was no prior job this gentleman has taken away from the union. Really, the guy just lives right there and thought he’d help out.
Unions are about ensuring jobs, regardless of whether they are actually productive or can be fulfilled by another means. They will also use the tools of the nanny state (background checks! liability insurance!) to ensure that no good deed goes unpunished.
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You can bet that any legislation which requires this many despicable, backroom deals is bad for America:
Leave a commentIn their latest effort to pass a health care bill by any means necessary, Democrats have struck a “tentative deal” with their big labor allies to exempt union benefits from a tax on high value health care plans, CongressDaily reports.
…
If this policy is adopted, it would mean that there could be two Americans receiving the exact same benefits, but one American may be taxed and one wouldn’t, and the only difference would be one of them being a member of a union…
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These people are despicable:
In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.
Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city’s largest municipal union.
Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.
“We’ll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails,” Balzano told the council.
Balzano said Saturday he isn’t targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city’s decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said “there’s to be no volunteers.” No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.
Are we not told by the leftists, ad nauseum, that unions are a great blessing to modern society? Hogwash. Their thuggish tactics and myopic agenda are a cancer on our once flourishing civil society. They ought to be banished to the ash heap of history.
That’s a nice Boy Scouts program you got there…shame if something were to happen to it.
Union thug Balzano eventually admits that, “we are probably going to let this one go.” But don’t expect such favors in the future! Let this be a warning to you all: no positive social action without subsequent lining of our mobster pockets will be tolerated. Capiche?
Hat tip: Michelle Malkin
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science and work in public policy, but please don't hold that against me.
