Teachers Unions vs. Students | 5 Minute Video
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- There is a dilemma in American education. On the one hand, teachers are essential to student achievement. On the other, teachers unions promote self-interests of their members which are antithetical to the interests of students. So, how do we fix this problem? In five minutes, Terry Moe, Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, delineates this quandary and offers solutions.
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Script:
Shortly after taking office, President Barack Obama's secretary of education, Arne Duncan, acknowledged that America's public school system is broken. "It's obvious the system's broken," he said. "Let's admit it's broken, let's admit it's dysfunctional, and let's do something dramatically different, and let's do it now. Let's fix the thing."
Why are America's public schools failing? Why, after more than a quarter century of perpetual reform, has the nation been unable to bring real change to public education?
While a complete answer, of course, would be very complicated. But at the heart of it lies the power of the teachers unions -- the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and their state and local affiliates.
I don't say this out of some sort of anti-union ideology. I say it as an objective description of the reality, backed by an enormous amount of data. Union power has created insurmountable problems for effective schools.
Why has this happened? Partly, it's because the teachers unions are by far the most powerful groups in American education. More than that, they are special interest groups, which means that they use their power to promote the special interests -- the job interests -- of their members. They are not in the business of representing the interests of children, and no one should expect them to do that.
The purpose of a union is to represent the job interests of its members -- and these interests are simply not the same as the interests of children. How, then, do they pursue these job interests? They do it in two ways.
The first is through collective bargaining, which takes place in local school districts. Through collective bargaining, the unions are able to win countless restrictive work rules, written into binding contracts that specify how the schools must be organized.
Typically, for example, these contracts include salary rules requiring that teachers be paid entirely on the basis of seniority and credentials, without any regard for whether their students are actually learning anything.
Often, these contracts also include seniority rules that allow senior teachers to take desirable jobs when they come open -- even if these teachers are mediocre in the classroom or a bad fit for the school.
There are also seniority rules requiring that, in layoff situations, excellent young teachers must be let go -- automatically -- and their senior colleagues must be kept on no matter how incompetent they may be.
Labor contracts are just filled with these kinds of perverse rules.
No one who's thinking only of what is best for kids would ever organize the schools in this way. Yet this is how America's schools are actually organized.
The other way teachers unions shape the public schools is through the political process -- where they simply have far more clout than any other education groups, by many orders of magnitude. They have over four million members, they're top contributors to political campaigns, they have armies of activists in the electoral trenches, they have lobbying organizations in all fifty states, and much more.
They have used this political clout to block or substantially weaken major reforms.
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wanna fix bad kids? fix the american family and then you'll see a huge change. trust me.
ArwingFighter Yeah, gotta catch 'em all.
+ArwingFighter I'm gonna go out on a limb and say both ends have something to do with the problem. I never came from a bad educational environment and I made 8th in my class, but some of my grades had bearings on who was teaching the class. Course some kids from my school came from bad environments and even when the teacher was good they did bad because they just didn't care. Its a anecdotal example I realize, but even logically there are bad teachers that don't have any repercussions for being bad and there are kids who don't care enough to make a decent grade or pass if they don't have the capacity for straight As and Bs.
Wanna fix the american family? Get rid of the welfare state, and move divorce into the criminal court. Trust me.
Then to ensure this stays this way, take away women's voting rights.
ArwingFighter Teach the parents how to parent and the teachers how to teach and we'll solve almost all of our education problems!
@@orppranator5230 Women's suffrage is not the problem. That's what the major consensus is.
One of my Calculus II teacher was so freaking bad that he has the lowest ratings among all the math teachers for a couple years now. Yet he's still there teaching.
+salvinsam Same, except for me it was a freshman HS English teacher who rode a scooter through the hallways, couldn’t be heard from the back of the classroom, and worst of all had to be re-taught comma placement by his own students. And today he’s still there...
my physics teacher in college did not know the difference between differential and integral calculus, yet, hes still there making 150k a year
@@arieljimenez1074 wtf how??? I'm hoping that he wasn't familiar with the terms and he actually knows calculus
That's not a teacher. That's a textbook definition of a parasite.
Was that because he was in a. Union or the school couldn’t find s new teacher?
Both of my parents are public school teachers and they feel that too much responsibility is put on them. Teachers would be fine with removing certain aspects of their job security if the measures used to judge their efficacy in teaching were objective. A student's test results do not always reflect a teacher's performance. Some children refuse to learn or are dealing with problems at home that hinder their academic performance. My mother faces even more problems then the typical public education teacher because she works with children with special needs. Many of the children my mom teaches on a daily basis cannot be judged by our State's standards or those laid out in common core.
Tenure makes all of that moot. We CAN'T fire bad teachers, no matter how poorly they rate, because of tenure. When we talk getting rid of tenure, I'd be happy to also make better measures for teacher performance.
Yes I agree that grades shouldn’t be the only thing taken into account as the teachers will just cheat the system but it is an important aspect and grade improvement as a year goes on should be a major consideration
@@williammiller6940 What other job would they have the homeless and proverty Problems of america are big enough as it Is no other jobs will ever take them
" Union is just another word for mafia" - Playboy X from Grand Theft Auto IV
CrimsonFury006 do you understand anything about the history of non unionized workers?
WRONG. Hiring a worker, regardless of circumstance, constitutes an agreement.
Wrong again. A corporation is a union that works in the interest of shareholders. The workers deserve a union as well. The process of determining a fair wage is bilateral.
@Professor Liberal Avenger American workers should be allowed to unionize and negotiate as a group under law. But "collective bargaining" turns it into force, where the union forces a package against the company's will. That package is ultimately paid by customers, so unions with collective bargaining ultimately work against the customer's interest (good quality products at good price).
@Professor Liberal Avenger Agreed, unions serve a purpose. But when they force their way, they become corrupt, just like crony capitalists. They protect bad people (police and teachers unions are notorious for this). They get greedy (e.g. United Auto Workers strikes which stifle US automobile industry). They get infested with mobsters. Etc.
Strange how Finland has some of the best Schools in the World and have unionized Teachers.
Where I live, we have the third-best system. I don't believe that Finland is any better than ours because Finland doesn't have the amount of immigrants we do etc. The teachers are unionized here too.
America is pro-employer, yet the profession that a union hurts is the most unionized
I know here in Florida, teachers are forced to pay union dues, even if they don't join the union
TargetToad 64 this is not true. I never paid anything to any Union and I never joined the union. I was a part of the professional Educators network of Florida. Much cheaper membership cost and they provide legal counsel and defense if necessary, but they do not donate to any political parties or anything.
I live in Hillsborough, what county do you teach in
Pinellas, but I quit last year. Check out Professional Educator's Network. Much cheaper and no politics.
Scott Walker did away with required teacher's union dues and collective bargaining, and it's the best thing that's happened to the Wisconsin school system in many years. Of course, the teachers union has kicked and screamed and spat all manner of hateful bile at Walker, but the fact remains that he did the right thing literally for the good of the children.
Johnbobon In Florida union membership isn't required, though it's recommended. I was a member of another legal representation group that was much less expensive and didn't donate to "causes" or political parties.
My father is a union worker and a community college teacher, what doesn't add up is his organization advocates for more student resources as well as better wages for faculty. He is an adjunct teacher, meaning he is paid significantly less than full timers, he puts in the same amount of time and effort but is paid a third of average wages. It is for cases like these he fights for and if anything it's government administration that opposes his effort.
All public sector unions should be abolished.
David n
There's no point in reforming something that simply isn't needed. Unions serve literally, quite literally, no benefit to society or their own members. There are laws in place to protect workers, we don't need unions anymore. So why waste time trying to fix something that we don't even need to begin with? It'd be like getting invasive and expensive surgery to fix your tonsils instead of simply removing them.
War450 I am just trying to find common ground people can agree on. Unfortunately, it seems everyone is too busy being an extremist to actually solve our problems.
War450 Hear! Hear! And at the same time, let's get rid of the freedom of association. We have the internet now for associations. Why should people be allowed to get together and organise support groups or unions whenever they want? There is such a thing as too much freedom, and I'm glad to see yet another good American is prepared to say, "Enough is enough. Too much liberty has destroyed our country."
David n
Really it just comes down to education warfare (heh). The main powerbase of the unions are the parents. Unions spend a lot of money on propaganda, telling parents that if the teachers aren't paid more little johnny wont get into college. And the parents buy into it. The best way to fight the unions is to try and educate the parents that the unions are HURTING their kids' education, not helping. We need to teach parents that simply throwing more money at teachers doesn't bring good education.
You need incentives and risks. Nobody's going to do a good job if there's no risk. Would you work 9-5 and slave away if you knew you wouldn't get fired no matter how piss poor a job you did? Of course not. The risk of being fired is what ensures workers actually work. We need to teach the parents that teachers abide by this same as anyone else. If a teacher can't be fired and gets paid based on seniority, then they have no incentive to actually teach. They just sit there and play video games or read because they can't get fired or lose pay for doing that.
If parents understood just how detrimental the unions were then the politicians would have no choice but to dismantle them in order to ensure votes.
War450 It was an effort to be ironic.
Unions are an inevitable result of a freedom of association. In a liberated society, people may freely combine to work for whatever lawful goal or interest they choose. Of course political associations are constitutional. That is what a political party is. Duh.
(I assume you have the same anti-establishment stance toward corporate lobby groups, political parties, and other such associations that attempt to use political influence to gain favourable outcomes. If not, you are being incredibly inconsistent, and if so, your version of democracy must be an exceedingly interesting one.)
There are regulations about the lawful disposal of contracts. A contractual agreement is what an employee enters into with an employer. Once entered into, a government department must abide by law as much as any business. If a person enters a contract stating that they can be freely fired, then there is no problem. If a person enters into a contract that states that due cause must be shown before termination, then the law will back the contract. That said, the myth of being unable to fire under-performing teachers is usually far from the reality in my experience.
The fundamental point behind my comment is one that has been made by great Presidents and Prime Ministers, and echoed by survivors of the Holocaust who (for obvious reasons) had much cause to reflect on the nature of liberty. The point is this: once you start denying anyone fundamental rights and freedoms - even groups that you may personally despise and abjure - you have placed your own freedom in jeopardy. Freedom of association must be for all people, or it is merely privilege extended by the government and not a right.
BTW: The United States Constitution guarantees people the right of association and petition - that is, the "right to petition all branches and agencies of government for action". The Supreme Court has upheld this on the basis of the text in the First Amendment: "[Government shall not infringe] the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances". In addition to this, the United States is signatory to a number of international covenants and agreements in which these rights are defended and upheld, for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In my teaching experience from K-12, this is absolutely true. Innovation is out, protection is in - in every case.
As a current teacher in Texas and a former teacher in Oklahoma, I absolutely agree with this viewpoint! We could begin reforming education by abolishing the Federal Department of Education as well as teachers' unions!
If teachers started being evaluated based on student performance it would simply lead to corruption of teaching curriculum. Students would be given better grades for poorer performance, which would just be adding to the problem.
true! we did it here on Brazil and it is a total mess.. our educational system is one of the WORST in the world., kids recieve grades for doing simple homeworks.. I could keep writing about all the damage this had done to our educational system but I would take hours... forget this idea, its complete bullshit. Find another way to evaluate teacher, but not based on students grades.
Well, there's a thing called centralized exams, and another thing who's name in English I forgot where the brightest children from different schools compete to see who are the best ones. That could be a start for a more objective evaluation. Maybe student surveys could be taken into account as well.
Pat Berry
I suggest you watch the video again. The entire professor's umbrage is taken over a lack of teacher accountability for student performance.
That's why you would not base evaluations on grades teachers give to students but how students perform on standardized tests of what a student should know before advancing to the next grade. There are other ways to evaluate student performance other than the student's grade. This is a strawman argument.
If you have someone who supervise the grading. Someone not belonging to the school, that could solve that concern. It could be someone from another school who teaches the same grade and subject. For instance once the teacher grade his students. That other person from the other school can come and reevaluate if the grading and testing was done properly. That would keep accountability among all schools. And if they're competing they would really make sure they are grading appropriately.
Speaking from experience, during my grammar school years I spent some years in public schools and some years in private schools. The education I received in private schools was vastly superior to the public education. This took place in the state of New Jersey.
Moreover, the private schools had a shorter school day and a shorter school year. We started classes later and went home earlier. We also had FAR less homework, while simultaneously learning more in virtually every subject.
When my parents put me back in public school again, the curriculum seemed easier and less advanced. I began to be given 5 times more homework every night and it all seemed so pointless and unnecessary. It was all just time-consuming busy work rather than useful material.
Seriously people, if it were the kids' fault that the school system was shit then every other country would be shit too but if anyone takes half a second to look, America has one of the worst education systems. It's not because of the students and even if it was then it would be the fault of the way they were taught to think which ironically enough the school is also in charge of teaching.
+culiet mortalis Or wants to be in charge of. More and more governments trying to force our parents, but regardless school quality is a problem and this is why people have problems just giving money to education. Sure it helps them buy better equipment and such, but throwing money at bad teachers won't make them teach better.
+culiet mortalis Finland currently has the most effective school system out of the 40 most developed countries in the world, with South Korea coming in second (we are ranked just shy of the middle at 17). A study was conducted to see what makes them so effective; what are they teaching that we aren't and how are they teaching it? It turns out that the methods of instruction and the curriculum really aren't all that different. Instead, it's the public's perception of teachers and education as a whole that seems to make the difference. In places like Finland and S. Korea, education and educators are looked on with great respect and admiration. This view of education is seen throughout their societies, and filters into the students' view of education. And, when students value their education, they learn. We need to stop blaming teachers and the "school system" and instead be teaching our children the value of education from home. They need to hear it from parents, see it on TV and movies, hear it on the radio and see teachers being praised in the public sector. Think about the difference it would make if our students constantly heard our society praising education instead of disparaging it. (www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/best-education-in-the-wor_n_2199795.html)
Joseph Wheeler Your link just said that there was no magic bullet and also if it is a cultural problem then we'd still have the problem that our teachers don't want to teach.
"Hello kids, welcome to English.... Did you hear Kanye West wants to run for President?"
So yeah if our school system actually wanted to teach us shit.
"The study notes that while funding is an important factor in strong education systems, cultures supportive of learning is even more critical -- as evidenced by the highly ranked Asian countries, where education is highly valued and parents have grand expectation. While Finland and South Korea differ greatly in methods of teaching and learning, they hold the top spots because of a shared social belief in the importance of education and its 'underlying moral purpose.'"
This was the point made in the article I was speaking to. However, you are correct in pointing out that there is no "magic bullet," as also stated by the article. There are many factors involved, and the "want to" of teachers is definitely a big player. Maybe if salaries were better, teachers may be more inclined to put up with students who do not value their education.
As to your point about Kanye, I think it may be a valuable teaching moment to point out that someone like Kanye has plans to run for President. It would be an excellent segue to dive into the importance of being informed on Constitutional jurisprudence and the political system, and the need to be an informed participant in our democratic republic- so guys like that don't get votes.
But most teachers want to teach- I think that's safe to assume considering how little they are paid vs what they have to put up with from students and parents and bureaucracies. Those that don't, usually find another job after the first year or two.
Joseph Wheeler I agree with most of your points, while the ending stands out. I don't think, rather, I know that they do not get new jobs. Often the person will stay in the profession for its job security and the reason that they can talk about any subject that they want. Not just what they are paid to teach in class.
In the end the problem comes down to a compounding of many different factors that range from society, to socioeconomic factors, politics, and the individuals themselves. While I do lean towards one side of the argument I do understand that there is no "perfect" solution and there is no single person to blame.
I would also like to say that funding does not mean higher salaries. The money would be better placed in the materials and research needed for teaching rather than in the salaries of those who do the teaching. Of course, though, the teachers shouldn't be getting paid something small like minimum wage, They should have a middle class salary.
I was lucky enough to be either homeschooled or go to a private school my entire life. I had a wonderful education and am so grateful for it. My boyfriend, on the other hand, went to public school for most of his life. It caused him to hate life, of course, there were other factors, but his bad grades due to terrible teachers made things much worse. Last year he transferred to my school, he is now is getting good grades at a very competitive school, and also enjoying life more than ever! Improving the public school system could literally save lives.
Tenure = 4-letter word.
James Gray only if you spell it "10-yure"... wokkawokka
+David Howard Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
+David Howard "shit"
+James Gray
Tenure (Hippy Fantasy Job)
Commies= 2 letter word
I had 2 really bad math teachers, one who didn't even try to teach because she was always at her damn computer doing god knows what and the other is trying to teach but she is just a terrible teacher. Several students demoted the teacher that was trying to teach and now she can only teach lower levels of math. This made middle school people like me super angry because theres almost nothing that we can do since all the regular math students are in her class. We've tried to get her fired but we can't because of seniority. She said she's going to quit... after we graduate. I need a tutor really badly but the advanced math students don't have the patience and capacity to teach me. Many of her students are failing, and some of us are barely keeping a passing grade. Both teachers are still teaching.
Justin Y. This is the same shit happening to my girlfriend, she has straight A's in all her other classes but has an F in Advanced Algebra 1 because the teacher doesn't teach. He tells them what they need to do but doesn't tell them HOW to get to the answer. Then his tests are so hard she gets an F. Not to mention homework is worth almost no points while tests make up your entire grade in that class. She failed last quarter because she got an F on two tests and there were only two tests for the quarter and they make up 95% of her grade. I even help her study, she knows and actually likes math. She studies for hours on end but still fails her tests. Why? Because the shitty teacher made them of course. But he won't get fired because seniority. And he wonders why there are so many people repeating his class over and over
@@slasheztech5390 If the students are old enough to learn algebra, then they are old enough to get a say in who teaches them.
These are people who are literally ruining lives because of their inability to do what they are paid for, if I ran the country for every student that failed a teacher's class they would get a single lashing with a three tipped whip at the end of the year, you know damn well that kids would pass with flying colors.
And I don't mean forced the student along even though they would have failed, I mean they actually truly pass.
Three years later, did you ever get the help you needed in math.
School choice makes a lot of sense. It's disgusting how teachers unions have been allowed to interfere with this becoming available nationwide.
There's propaganda in all my college classes. I just can't imagine what its like in grade school, where children are much more susceptible.
Lol... whenever someone is teaching you, you can call it propaganda if you wish it so badly.
Biology: We evolved from monkeys? - propaganda!
Politics: Democracy is good? - propaganda!
Art: I shouldn't use the bright colors so much? - propaganda! (they want me broken and easily manipulated)
Sports: I should be strong and fast? - propaganda!
Math: 4-5 = -1? propaganda! (it's 0!) (ok, this one is even sillier than the rest)
History: all propaganda!
Philosophy: all propaganda!
Everywhere you look teachers are imposing their views...
Okay, whatever you say... You just love to put words in other people's mouth...
***** Say what? You just love to make random assumptions about strangers.
Whatever you say
***** Saying that doesn't make you right, you know.
NEA's Chapin said in his retirement speech, "It's NEVER been about education or children. It's always been about power & money." Ban unions. They lead to corruption in politics. Even FDR recognized the corruption unions would lead to. You can find Chapin's speech on youtube.
I agree with most of what I've seen from this channel so far except for 1 thing.
Having test scores reflect how competent a teacher is.
I'm a pe teacher now. I was a hs math inclsuion teacher for 4 years. 95% of my math students have a 0% chance of passing the final exam since most of them have some kind of disability. How does that reflect on my co teacher and me?
I have administered tests for many years. It comes down to if the students give a crap. Parents and students need to be hold accountable. I have not seen one teacher who doesn't care. But I guess I came from NC where we dont have teacher union.......or at least I never heard of it until moving to CA.
I really hate teachers that teaches nothing
Like teachers that didn't teaches grammar? :P
So all teachers then.
Roadsguy “teachers that didn’t teaches grammar” 😂
@@Frankincensedjb123 his teacher obviously XD
Maybe you didn't try to learn anything?
Voucher system! And allow private tutors to sign up to the system too, allowing for parents to let kids who want to specialise chose according to their needs
Really! Unions are the problem!
Stanford is a University and has a teacher union as well as collective barging agreements and tenure for Professors!
In 2014 Stanford University joined with the California's largest teachers union the CTA.
Students already have the right to choose any school they want and the money follows them to that school.
The problem with performance base pay is that not all kids want to be there. You can look at Alternative ed. students for example. These students are in the alternative ed program because they are such a disruption in the classroom that they are actually preventing other students from learning. These students simply do not want to be in a classroom; some of these students are so malicious and have no regard for their education, that when they find out that their teacher's pay is tied to their performance. They will actively fail in order to hurt the teacher.
Im not saying that the seniority pay scale is any better. Im saying that Performance base pay does not work. There has to be a better system
+MrSpringey Uh no, they dont want to be there because the teachers are terrible .. they teach horribly because of a lack of competition. its automatic pay, hard to fire. Ask yourself why other school systems are better, yet we spend the most.
Springerstine Collective x
I want this comment so much. You’re absolutely right. Now that the idea is there, let’s make it happen.
My awesome teachers in Texas are being $30,000 to prepare the current generation for adulthood. It's not even sustainable. Many of my teachers work second jobs, and are taken out of focus from instruction. Labor unions keep teachers from being abused. I just don't think it's fair to work so hard and lovingly just be paid scrap.
There's bad teachers, I get that, but it's an overwhelming minority. I'd be offended if anyone called my teachers inadequate.
Julian Escobedo They are paid so poorly because getting a masters is easy. Any average IQ person or better can do it very easily. It's not like a STEM job where you need to be over 110/120 IQ and work realllllly hard.
Julian Escobedo I had shitty teachers in Texas who were paid 50k a year. I would not be offended if someone called them inadequate.
+Vanilla Dazzle But getting into college isn't as easy, especially economically.
+hotpocketpoison Most teachers work on curricula or anaylzing data or doing other work for the schools during the summers. They are also required to continually take courses to keep their credentials to teach. Summers can be used to reflect on what worked and did not work.
*****
oh god, look at this angry little talking head. ok pal listen up, you can't fire somebody because students are being fed the same shit your parents probably fed you to influence you into saying that. Teachers are forced to teach a certain curriculum that they have no say in, deal with hundreds shitty kids (like you) in calm, non confrontational ways in order to avoid lawsuits, and then deal with increasingly red districts who want to do everything in their powers to destroy teachers unions at the expense of the children's education by creating curriculum that's intentionally difficult to teach and putting stress on teachers wages and contracts.
216 bad teachers don't agree with this video.
+GenoAronn 238 now. Ah well... evil buggers.
+GenoAronn now 244
+GenoAronn Now 265
+GenoAronn Actually 268
+GenoAronn 272 and counting
Home schooling if you can do it.
Paying teachers based on their students' grades would only make the educational standards of inner cities worse because that would make it so that teachers would only want to work in schools inside of which the grades are already good so that they can make the most amount of money. This would effectively mean that the teachers of the "gifted" classes would make the most amount of money for doing the least amount of work, while the teachers of special needs classes would make the least amount of money for doing the most amount of work. That would make education worse across the country, especially where the schools are not really all that good to begin with.
Before you say anything, remember, America has one of the worst first world education systems and not the worst education systems in the whole world.
+Steve Jobs
Better throw more money and administrators toward the problem.
There needs to be a billionaire who stands up and builds a completely "free non-public school option" to inner city kids in some big city like Atlanta. Then the poor performing school will be forced to shut down or do better. If I had the money, I'd open that kind of school, with a new building, lots of tech, lots of great top tier teachers and force the unions to bust.
Ann Boylen but the hoops to jump through to open a private school... so you can imagine the hoops for that. You'd need Warren Buffet kinda money.
Vanilla Dazzle That's what kind of money I'd be talking about having. But I'm just a struggling writer so if it's going to happen I'll be like 96 years old lol.
Ann Boylen You'd have to crank out something like Harry Potter
Vanilla Dazzle I've already written 115,000 pages of my first scifi thriller hopefully if it pops you will see me talking about building that free school. And I'll do it in the most right wing capitalist part of America.
Ann Boylen If you are left wing, what's the point of a free school? The schools are already left. We need to raise kids to be against immigration. Black people are always left, but the left is killing you by bringing in immigrants and making it hard to get jobs. Black people are suffering for the jobs the immigrants are taking.
School choice is the only option and best option, I pay taxes and private tuition so I basically pay twice (the public schools in my area are a disaster)
There is a town in upstate New York where 95% of parents send to private schools, in order to get elected in that town you have to be against the public school budget
Since kids learn in different ways, & parents have different goals, there ought to be as many kinds of schools as there are kinds of restaurants. But unions want a one-size-fits-all monstrosity governed by a huge, expensive, useless bureaucracy far away in Washington, DC.
It is not unions, but government that wants one-size fits all.
Robert, there have been many attempts by conservative governments from AZ to Mississippi, trying to reform schools. Unions fight every step of progress.
I hear the "union" argument all the time. Nearly all southern states are right to work states, meaning there really are NO unions - I teach in Texas, there are NO unions for teachers in Texas. So why doesn't the south have the best education?
There are "NO unions"? Really? LOL
I lived 32 yrs in AZ, a right-to-work state, & I did 200+ hours of volunteer work for Chandler schools. There are lots of unions, including the way-too-powerful teachers' unions.
None. In Texas, unions have no power. The few that do exist are in construction and transportation. Teachers often join "professional organizations" but it can not be required and many join no organization. And because there are 3 or 4 different ones, they have less bargaining power.
Well said. This is one of the many reasons we homeschool our kids. They'll never step foot in a public school, no matter what I have to do.
As a teacher, we are burdened with jobs parents choose not to perform. When student homes are too dysfunctional, it is very hard for students to engage in quality learning. More blame toward failing schools should be placed on absentee fathers and apathetic parenting.
Unions are a big problem, but not the *only* problem. I say this as a former (and possibly future) school employee and as someone who's proud to have been a charter school attendee as a kid. The largest problem is schools never change. Imagine if you took someone from 120 years ago and showed them around our modern world. They'd be amazed by cars, roads, cell phones, air conditioned offices with relatively short work days, mechanized farms, hospitals, etc. Nothing today looks at all like it did 120 years ago... except schools. If you brought a person from the 1890s into a modern classroom, they'd immediately know what is was because a modern classroom is no different from an 1890's classroom. It's still 25 kids in a room being lectured by a teacher. Yeah, there's a computer in the corner, the clothing's different and they're using whiteboards instead of chalk boards but nothing's really changed.
If you want to fix schools, stop talking about Finland or Singapore or about teacher cert requirements. Instead, talk about coming up with better ways of teaching.
In our modern world, almost everything is custom tailored to fit my needs. UA-cam can figure out what sort of videos I like and bring me similar ones. Pandora has learned that I like Pantera and Metallica and can create custom radio stations around that. Hell, even the advertising I see is custom tailored to me (or it would be if I didn't block ads). Why can't algorithms be used to custom tailor lessons to individual children? If a computer can figure out that I like X kind of music but don't like Y, why can't schools be using computers to figure out that child A needs more long division but doesn't need as much work on multiplication tables while child B has most of his math down but needs to review history more.
Our schools seem to assume that every child is the same. Somehow we've concluded that elementary school takes 6 years for every child, that middle school takes 3 and high school takes 4. If you're an employer, it's blatantly illegal to use age as the basis for employee rank, yet our schools assume that every child that's X years old is supposed to be in grade year Y. Not only that, we assume that every child is advancing at the same pace. If you've got a 5th grader and he does math at a 3rd grade level but reads at an 8th grade level, don't put him in 5th grade math and 5th grade reading. Remediate his math and put him in a higher level reading course to challenge him.
Yeah, I love the idea of choice, competition, charters and parent power, but think about the modern world you live in. The online ads you view tailor content to individual users. The search engine results you get tailor content to individual users. The music you listen to, the stuff your TiVo records, the purchase suggestions Amazon brings you, the post Facebook shows you. They're all custom-tailored to fit you and your interest and needs. If per-user customization is the hallmark of our modern world, why are schools devoid of it? If one hour on an online dating site can figure out everything about your personality, why can't schools figure out everything about how a kid learns over the course of 13 years?
This is a very underrated comment.
I like where you're going with this, but I think you're missing a much more fundamental problem, one so subtle and insidious that most people don't think to see it because they've been indoctrinated by schools.
Simply put, given that America is a democratic society, schools are almost comically totalitarian in methodology. Compulsory education, scores of unnecessary rules, constant 'discipline', and constantly trying to ram information down the throats of students to the point where they see learning as a genuinely horrible thing are all much deeper issues that normal reform simply cannot fix; we'd need to tear down the current system (based off the old Prussian model) and restructure schools into a system that actually reflects America's societal values. Schools are already behaving more and more like the dystopian worlds writers like Kafka and Orwell have written at length about, treating students more and more like criminals that don't have enough intellectual value to be trusted at all.
Schools just do that if you are in special ed
Did your charter school discover some new and unique teaching methods?
Monsuco, you have a great idea, but implementation is always going to be the problem. Schools are trying to used Personalized Learning using online programs such as IStation, and it is great, except when it doesn't work. Students who get stuck on a lesson need extra help, but one teacher cannot do it all. With a class of 25 students, I got alerts about students every day. I alone was available to teach them one-on-one lessons to get them out of the lesson they were in. The same students got stuck over and over, and the same lessons caught many different students. But never on the same day, so I had to teach the same lesson over and over. Every day I had to teach at least 8 different one-on-one or small group lessons to at least 8 groups. At the same time I had to make sure students using IStation were working and not just clicking through. And I had to make certain all other students were completing the activities or practice assignments. (We didn't have enough devices for all students to be online at the same time). It was impossible. For every student to be able to learn at their own pace on the lessons they need and they want, there will need to be a HUGE financial investment in schools. And neither school boards nor taxpayers have the stomach for it.
Homeschooling.
Problem solved.
+JP Kloess As a kid who was homeschooled... No. Just no. When you're homeschooled you basically have a teacher who has no credentials and is as in the dark about the material as you are. Yes, they care about teaching you, but that only goes so far when you don't know what you're doing.
TheAllBlackMan
That has not been my experience at all, but in fairness my mom has a math degree and my dad is a family practice doctor.
JP Kloess
That's another problem with mass homeschooling. Inconsistency.
+JP Kloess Home Schooling can be very good academically, but almost always lousy in teaching the child about our culture.
David Martin
Well that's totally untrue. The culture is the last thing that needs to be taught, it will be absorbed on way or another. Etiquette and manners maybe, but parents can always teach that.
Public schools will never improve until the unions are gone. That will never happen.
3:09 - Teachers can't control the way students do their classwork, so it would be irrational to evaluate them that way.
The number one problem with schools is forcing students to take classes they don't need. I was forced to learn parabolas for example. NEVER have I used them outside of the classroom. NEVER will I use them again unless someone points a gun to my head and tells me to do them. A fraction of my life was stolen from me. I am not against math; just forcing people to learn math they don't use nor need to know. The establishment benefits from selling more books $$$$$ and loaning more money $$$$$ and instructors (most of whom are not worthy of being called teachers) getting jobs at the cost of their students who don't need the class $$$$$. Greed is the problem.
+Alejandro Teruel And if teachers had more of a say in curriculum you wouldn't be learning any of that. They understand economic hardship, and understand that you need to be equipped for real life, not just your next standardized tests. Trust me, they hate teaching that shit as much as you hate learning it. If they had it their way, classes like personal finance, child development, and law would be mandatory while classes like algebra 2 and chemistry/physics, would be optional.
Naukkat
that doesn't mean he ever had the measure the parabola.
+Naukkat Have you ever stretched your legs? If you say yes, then you have done a ballet technique, so let's force everyone to take ballet. Actually, that's way more useful since you will be more healthy. lol
+Alejandro Teruel Mate you are fking lazy, thats it, lazy people have no right to complain, math is about as simple as doing exercise, procedures depending on the problem, parabolas are so damn easy that for you to be complaining about is like someone saying they didnt need to learn fractions, mcm, decimal division or algebra, your brain needs exercise like any other muscle of the body and math is a good one. It is also general knowledge, be ashamed of yourself, all you need is 2 hours a day of math outside of school to have decent grades, that shows all you did after school was partying, humping bitches or getting wasted.
+Shiroi Tamashi Ballet is also "easy," so let's force everyone to take ballet.
Simple fractions are actually used in real life, such as your compassion is one fourth that of someone who cares about injustice. You are warm, so you don't care about those who are cold, and dismiss them as lazy for not wanting to waste their time on something you happen to enjoy.
If brains think, then gloves write, and wheels drive.
You're confusing correlation with causation.
I'm not ashamed to oppose wasting my time and others'. You should be ashamed for defending the injustice of stealing a chunk of millions of lives. And that is no exaggeration to the umpteenth power times two divided by who gives a damn?
After school I did what I enjoyed, which isn't fornication and the like as you assume.
How "general knowledge" is parabolas when no one remembers them after passing the damn class? Only if you actually use them is it general knowledge. What's general knowledge is that not everyone cares about thwem as much as you do.
If you look at the trends since the 1962-63 Supreme Court decisions to take Bible reading and prayer out of schools this is part of the problem.
Teachers have failed me there so useless
I see what you did ~they're~
He didn't do that purposely...
Your grammar teacher certainly failed you.
I'm a troll!
Cody Golden
Nice one. Now find a real hobby. Picking your nose doesn't count.
Perhaps you forgot to mention the crippling effect socio-economics has on these low performing schools? If students don't have a stable family, inadequate nutrition, or safety, the best teacher in the world can't turn them into a high-performing rich middle class public school student. Unions are looking out for the teachers, because no one else is. The local, state, and national government needs to look after its people. The socio-economic issue we face is not something we can ignore anymore. We cannot afford to place blame on teachers, or any race who isn't white for that matter.
We can in fact afford to blame the teachers. Go to your local public school it's a dump.
Pay based on performance and what not isn't a good idea imo.
You have educational environments especially in the inner city where controlling the classroom itself is a bigger task then actually teaching. Sometimes your not even allowed to dismiss said disruptive students. You can call their parents but that doesn't fix the problem either.
In our society we blame poor performance on our teachers, where as in a lot of Eastern cultures a student's poor performance is blamed on the student thus a poor reflection of the parent, which is taken far more seriously. Now it can always be a factor of both, but the point is when it's an individual reflection of the parents, the parent is far more likely to make sure their child performs.
My father personally never wanted to hear it, a bad grade was my fault alone, and if he had to keep me up until 1am to get my homework done right he would. It's something that's translated over to my attitude in college. Students are always quick to blame their professors when they're not doing well. And yes there are bad professors I've had a few, but a bad professor or teacher is no excuse for getting a damn D. Either you have a learning disability or just aren't trying hard enough.
+fizman22 You're right to a large extent. Students can learn anything they want to if they put in the effort. When I turned 4 and started school, my dad would spend 2 hours each Saturday talking to me about different educational subjects, and by age 10, I was relatively smart. But I went to secondary school, and found myself top in everything for no damn reason. I eventually found out that no kid at my school knew any sort of locational geography, and it was sad.
+fizman22 Teachers get their fair share of disruptive students, personally I've noticed a lack of teaching ability for teachers with seniority. I've also loved some young teachers who were able to educate us and make the subject interesting to learn. Performance AFFECTING pay would be a better system than our current one.
+fizman22 One example is during my freshman year I had one of the worse teachers as my living environment teacher. I got 65s in her class and when I took the regents one day of studying the entire school year's worth of information got me an 84 on the regents. Most students had performed far lower I saved myself from at least putting in some effort.
During my junior year I had a history teacher that EVERYONE loves, he educated us and made the topic fun. I didn't even study for the regents and got a 94 just walking in.
Teachers may not be able to motivate every student but when the entire class performs lower than standards or higher than standards it shows the teacher had a major impact on the results.
ligitinmate I agree teachers need to find a way to entice children to learn the material. I teach programming and show kids what amazing things they can do with coding, therefore relate it to why all that nonsense in math is actually important in everyday life.
However lets be honest history is normally easier then science for most people. If your doing poor in history it means your simply not reading the material, or you have a reading problem.
When I took chemistry in college our professor was this tiny soft spoken Asian woman with non fluent English, who I would say had a hard time getting her lessons across. With most of the students getting poor quiz results the class would frequently challenge her on her ability to teach the material.
One thing she did note however was despite how many people were struggling with her class only so few of us would remain a few minutes after class to ask her questions regarding the homework and what not. Literally only about eight of including my study partner. The eight of us were the only ones doing consistently well.
Honestly though I've never study so hard in my life just to get a B, normally I can put in far less effort for an A. Point is I and many others took matters into our own hands to do the best we could and I'm sure our professor gave us extra points for the noted efforted. You can't expect to completely understand math and sciences within only the time span of a 45 minute or lecture.
Yes I understand, I've had similar teachers such as your chemistry teacher. I've had to take matters into my own hand (online sources such as Khan academy) to succeed in those classes as I got nothing from those teachers.
But it does show people such as your teacher should not have been allowed to keep their job as a teacher as most of the class weren't able to meet standards compared to other teachers especially compared to other teachers (not just that one class of course there's a pattern their teaching ability.)
I would just rather see a hard work=reward system instead of just sticking around giving mediocre or below average performances.
What grade do you teach programming for?
I have been saying teachers unions were at the heart of our education problems for about a decade now! My oldest daughter is in a private school on a government scholarship right now and that was a pain to get her into, but my other kids (4 in total) did not qualify for some odd reason! I feel we should all, as citizens and parents band together and severely limit these powers of teachers unions so they cannot hurt out children anymore! Seniority does not rule when our children suffer, if you are a mediocre teacher at best then you must go and make way for better teachers to help out failing education system!
I have said this before too, we should fire ALL the teachers who are members of any teachers unions and hire only qualified persons as long as they have ZERO affiliations with said unions!
It's strange that even though I'm only 12 I still find these videos interesting.
I see and hear John Malkovich lol.
Great video
Performance based pay? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Are we not expecting a lot out of our teachers? Not only do they have to control a classroom, teach the required materials, but also inspire them to learn. I agree there are some bad teachers out there, but it is up to the student to learn the material, and one person's pay should not be dependent upon a couple of kids who don't want to be there. I am not a teacher.
+Violet Tippet So what union shop are you the steward in?
puppetsock I'm not a steward in a union nor am I in a union. I am just thinking about it logically.
1. Statistically, kids in inner city schools are from lower income, often single parent families with a lot of problems. If you look on the hierarchy of needs, people need to feel safe, and have their basic needs met before learning anything. So what you are suggesting, is that we lower the teacher's wages, for kids in inner city schools,so nobody but crappy teachers want to work there. What a huge disadvantage for kids in inner city schools who do want to learn.
2. How do you determine performance? Standardized tests? Then all teachers will want to do is teach for these kids to pass the standardized tests. Is that really a good education? Hasn't "No child left behind" caused enough problems?
3. The private sector, would then only hire teachers with "good performances" to impress parents. They would have to raise wages for teachers, until there is nobody good left in the public sector. Suddenly you have a huge divide in the quality of education based on income alone.
I agree that there are some HUGE problems with the teacher's unions in the United States, but I don't think performance based pay is the answer.
Violet Tippet There is a future for you in the demonstration sport of "Missing the Point."
puppetsock No, I get that you were telling a joke, but there is usually an element of truth to jokes that people make.
+puppetsock dude I don't know what world you live in but +Violet Tippet is right. Student dosen't want to learn he won't and he'll just mess around and make it so no one learns. Dosen't matter how good the teacher is.
sounds like the whole school system is the problem, and they wonder whats wrong with the youth
Plus, most of what's taught in schools is useless in the real world anyway. What about teaching finance, learning skills, leadership, confidence, presentation skills, business skills, entrepreneurship skills, investment, success skills, sales, and so, so, SO much more that even college grads don't get. No wonder our nation is so messed up academically.
You can't teach confidence, you can't teach leadership, nor success skills. When schools tried to teach us these things, they came off as corny, and vague nonsense. We hear many lectures about it, and it has the same effect as anti bullying rallies. Its something you sit through to get out of class. Business and entrepreneurship skills along with investment is a business course, which most schools offer. And if you think you can teach kids about 529's and the problems with pension funds at such an early age, you'd be damned. Presentation skills are honed through presentations we give in class. Its just something you pick up, and its not necessarily an ability everyone needs. Learning something like calculus or reading literature exposes you to different viewpoints and gives you different perspectives of the world. They're not meant to get you through day to day life, that's the family's responsibility along with your own. How angry would the American public would be if there was a mandatory class on car mechanics. Its something everyone will need, but is it something expected in the work place?
If you want to fix this, expel the disruptive children. They do nothing but bring the rest of the students down, regardless of the teacher's ability. Remove the disruption, stop social promotion and watch the children thrive. As for bad teachers, they can be identified and removed, just like in the real world!!!
So we should only pay teachers decent wages when their students have good grades? Should we only pay police a decent wage when they make an arrest? How about only paying paramedics when their patients survive, or only paying fire fighters after they put a fire out
+SomethingRedundant are you kidding? police get nothing but public flak everytime they make ANY slip up, if its not police brutality then it is failure to deal with crime. Doctors and paramedics get sued all the time.
I've NEVER seen a teacher held accountable for failing to properly teach the subject matter, even if they have been doing a half ass job for thirty years they suffer no consequence.
+SomethingRedundant You do realize that police have ticket quotas to meet right? If they meet or exceed these quotas they are more likely to be promoted or given raises. They get fired if they do poorly or at least reprimanded. Police that break the law are sued, hung out to dry by the media, and generally abused by the community at large. Paramedics who do poorly and get patients killed are sued and fired and never allowed to be paramedics again, etc. This comment is ridiculous.
+SomethingRedundant If you can't teach you shouldn't be a teacher.
Please give me one example of police getting called out for something that was less than assault.
would you rather base teacher pay on attendance? job performance is based on results. poor results earns poor compensation.
that being said, some students don't put in the effort. of the student doesn't maintain a 2.0+ to a he or she cannot continue schooling after say 8th grade. why waste our resources trying to educate those who are unwilling to learn?
Post secondary education requires a C or better on a prerequisite to take the class, why shouldn't high school?
Law & Order S20:EP23, "Rubber Room," involves the abuses of the union. It peaked my interest on this subject. There is no need for unions anymore. They are no different than greedy, powerful corporations.
I actually agree with some of this and I am left of center. In California once you become tenured you basically cannot be fired ever. I mean you'd basically have to rape a student in order to be terminated. BUT I definitely don't want the republican model of corporate style at-will employment for teachers either. I have worked in private schools and basically the pressure to inflate grades and appease the students and parents is tremendous. And no that's not a good thing. Bringing in the consumerism model to education is bad. I worked in Mexico as an English teacher and I had students being promoted into classes that they should not have been in. For example I had a student that couldn't even accurately describe his own age in my advanced English class. Wtf?! When I asked the director why Jose was in my class she said "oh because I'm nice" of course the real reason is because they wanted his pesos to keep flowing in. Also in private schools it almost seems like teachers are expected to be clowns and students expect to be entertained rather than taught. My friend told me she worked at a private school in the US and a student literally told her "fuck you" and she sent him to the principals' office and literally 5 minutes later he was back in her class. What does that say about applying the consumerism model to education?
I never considered teaching in the USA because more so than the overwork and underpayment the main issue for me is the lack of respect. Teachers are just not respected anymore. It used to be if a teacher called a parent to inform them of wrong doing of their child the child would be punished by both the teacher and the parent. Nowadays if you call a parent and complain the parent sees it as your fault and wants to yell at you.
Here's a link by the conservative Washington Post comparing public school and private school performance when it comes to math. I would encourage you all to read it. It might change your mind on a few things.
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/05/are-private-schools-better-than-public-schools-new-book-says-no/
It's not just the government it's the whole system.
How is someone supposed to fix it? When all people are being fooled and blinded
While all the points made in this video are true it isn't all of the problem.
Once upon a time our public school system was the envy of the world. Well intentioned reforms really mucked it up. These reforms came from a source that should not have been involved at all. The Federal Government. The constitution did not name education as an enumerated power or responsibility of the federal government and therefore according to the 10th amendment that power and responsibility fell to the states. It was in the interest of the states to operate high quality schools and it worked until the feds got involved. The more the feds got involved (either through legislation or court rulings that ignored the 10th amendment) the worse our schools got. All this happened at around the same time as the teachers unions gained a monopoly on public education so it is hard to say which had the greater impact on the destruction of the American education system.
Stan, what the heck are you talking about?
First, the US finished 7th out of 8th in the first international assessment: www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2011/02/07-education-loveless
It is only after WWII that a majority of US students who could attended high school.
The unions surely do not have a monopoly on public schools in right to work states. These are the worst states for education. The unionization rate for education workers (teachers) in the NYC area for instance is 2/3 for NY state it is 70% and for the US as a whole it is 42%. CA is highly unionized. That means in most states fewer than half the teachers are often in a union. You can bet in right to work states fewer than half are!
So, try again.
And no, not all the points made in the video are true. See my post above.
chshistoryteacher
Brookings is just one of a multitude of so called think tanks and there is no consensus among them. The unionization rate in the public schools in my state is 100%. If you are not in the teachers union you do not teach in a public school. The private school system is another matter. There are very few if any union members there. Coincidentally the private schools do a superior job in educating students. Less than 10% of public school students qualify for admission into a major university while the percentage in private school is closer to 90%. The private schools also cost less per student averaging 2/3 the cost of public school.
I grew up in a right to work state and my 7th grade education there carried me all the way through high school here.
My son was going to be a high school teacher but after doing an internship at the local high school he decided to teach college instead since in college the students in general wanted to be there.
In the 1970s and 1980s schools were graduating kids that couldn't even read or write. There was little oversight beyond the district level which prompted changes over the years on the federal and state level.
We really have no way of telling what percentage of babyboomers (as children) would pass common core or the many other test that are given to kids today. From my experience dealing with that generation they would do worst. Believe me most don't have a clue about the material kids are being taught today.
Dropout rates were very high until the 1970s. Many dropped out early for work. Truancy laws either didn't exist or were not enforced. Because they are enforced now, more kids are in school that otherwise wouldn't be. Those kids are lowering the scores. No to mention a large amount of kids that can't speak English.
The test and curriculum is much harder now. While test scores have theoretically remained flat, the test have become much harder. If you were to give kids today the test kids took 30 years ago, they would find them very easy. This means test scores should be much higher, but are not due to the test being much harder now and strict oversight to make sure there isn't cheating.
You really have to scrub the numbers. Take out the illegals and the poverty blacks. Look at the same demographics they did in the 1950s. You will find that most kids are in fact proficient and well beyond what their parents and grandparents were.
While many countries are testing better. There is more innovation and creativity coming out of the USA. The USA has better collages which is why people from around the world come here to go to school.
billybassman21
No question about our colleges. Although lots of money is wasted on remedial education. That kind of stuff should have been taken care of before they were accepted to college. Schools are still graduating kids that can't read, write, or do math. That did not happen to the boomers. Either you met the requirements or you failed. Social promotions were not done when I went to school. Poverty was never an acceptable excuse for parents or students when it came to meeting their responsibilities.
I was a boomer. We had to do everything on paper in legible writing. Algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus was done in our head and on paper using memorized formulas. Kids today would be lost if an EMP pulse took out all their electronics. Failing students were held back. Disruptive students were suspended or expelled before they could drag down the performance of others.
Parents were involved in their neighborhood schools. Parents had veto power over questionable topics or actions that a school might want to expose their kids to. Non-English speakers were immersed in English. They caught on really fast. I didn't see a lot of dropouts until the 70s.
I have no doubt the students of my time would cruise through the schools of today. The parents would be a problem. They would not allow most of the crap going on in schools. They would insist that everything the schools did was education centered. Without all the peripheral programs.
Stan Parrish I agree with you for the most part. However not all schools and states back then had the same requirements. The work really got dummied down in many schools after desegregation in the 60s. In the 90s people realized there were problems and more schools started raising the bar. Just in the last 20 years elementary education has become much more strenuous. Kids use to color is kindergarten. Now they are reading and writing. Before algebra wasn't introduced in middle school. Now it's introduced in 5th and 6th grade. Test scores are better on this level. Its high school where its flat.
As for discipline yes they kept things in order back then with it. I graduated in 1996 and had to deal with a lot of kids that didn't want to be in school, but had to because of the law. Once they became of age (16 in Texas) they just stopped going or the school had enough and expelled them (alternative school). Eleventh and Twelfth grade was much better because by then those kids that were disruptive were gone. This is even a bigger issue today. One issue today is schools are paid by attendance. So the schools really go out of their way to make sure the kids are going, to the point of getting the parents fined. This is good for the individual student, but bad for the rest that are getting drugged down with their behavioral issues. Fear of lawsuits and reproductions by the state keeps the schools from taking action.
I guess my point is schools at their core are better today. At least the ones in nice areas and at least on paper. The problem is teachers don't have power over their classroom and parents have too much control over how their kids are disciplined. Here in Texas they would paddle kids regardless what the parents wanted. There was no consent form. They just did it! Now the parents are bring the media and lawyers up to the school over making a kid stand in the corner. Until this is addressed I don't think things will get any better. Zero tolerance also needs to go and trouble students need to be isolated from the rest.
There is absolutely no logical reason to have such huge unions. If a group of teachers working for the same school wish to unionize, they should be allowed to do so. Beyond that limited scope it makes no sense. Why should a gym teacher in LA have any ability to effect an English teacher in Buffalo or vice versa?
Would have been better if he had mentioned the situation in Detroit.
or new york... either way, he hit the overall problem.
Green Acorn some of us michiganders do not want to associate Detroit with our state of Michigan but it is part of our state thank God we're now under Republican government now instead of the failed policies of liberal Democrats. Detroit will rise again as a Republican conservative City one day
Zackary Smith just gonna say that republican policies are what got here in the first place.
Ellie Jackson yeah... no...
Ellie Jackson,
Democrats have literally (look up the definition in the dictionary) been in total control of Detroit since the 1950s. Republicans have had literally (again, look up the definition) no control over Detroit's political or educational policies for over 60 years. Tell me again how the people with all the control are blameless while the people with no control have all the blame.
Why don't we have cameras in classrooms? This means we've got video evidence of abuse, bad teaching, bad children, bullying and can monitor a teachers quality, instead of some person coming in to inspect and the teacher suddenly becoming a saint. Schools should also be less tolerant on bad children who clearly put no effort in. Teachers should be paid based on their student pass rate. This makes the students doing well a genuine incentive to these teachers. Good teachers get good salaries. Bad teachers get fired.
If we could just do an end run, and just eliminate the department of so called education. No wonder Trump is so despised.
This reminds me of a cartoon gag:
"If they survive, THEIR FAIRIES! If they don't, I HAVE TENURE!"
So the man can kill chasing a crazy theory, and tenure means they can't fire him for it. Bout sums it up.
If somebody claimed to me that you are John Malkovich's brother, I would believe them.
This video is the very reason for the teachers union, especially the part where they say that teachers are to be paid by credentials and experience and not if their students are learning. What data do they base this on? How do they measure if students are learning or not? Also, how do they measure an incompetent teacher?
+mclaughlin75 You can do State wide tests. They do this in Canada with grade 12 Math, English, and other courses. You could simply do this for every grade. You have the principal and guidance counselors receive the exams and they administer it in the gym, it worked out really well actually.
+Pixy Wings Here in America, most students just guess on these tests. I'm sorry, teachers should not be paid according to a test that the students themselves do not have to take seriously.
One thing the teachers union does do that harms your children are they keep classrooms overcrowded because they cannot hire as many teachers per school as they should because their salaries are so high.
That's your opinion, but the teacher shortage is saying otherwise. Salary is a reason why a lot of teachers are getting out of the profession. Trust me. I've taught in a school district without the union. In five years, I never received a raise.
mclaughlin75 I think the problem is alot of schools are dangerous and the only ones who teach there either like the big salary or are idealistic. The delusion that you can save them fades after a year.
true freemarket capitalists should keep in mind that corperations and unions are both equal in their destructive power, yet, mot of them support one side while ignoring the other.
Its rather funny. Because "greed is good" seems to have its limits, even when it comes to capitalists, which is the true irony of it all.
All unions are about money and power.
Yeah, what good have unions done anyway?
Unions in general?
Unions were originally established to protect workers from businesses that treated them as expendable. Industrial revolution was built upon the backs of people who were very much misused and poorly compensated for often dangerous work. While unions can cause problems, I disagree that it is the heart of this issue.
Jen Saw 'twas merely a ruse
You can thank a union for factories not allowing 7 year olds to work for them and for enforcing safety rules that kept workers from losing life and limb. You can thank them for sick leave, medical benefits, 5 day work weeks, vacation leave, disability leave, and holidays off. People working public sector jobs in unionized states vs non unionized states make about $20K more per year. Would you like more?
Teachers unions like police unions aren't in themselves the problem. The problem is what "we've" allowed these unions to get away with for so long.
I want to see a video about Student Accountability. I want to hear Terry Moe's thoughts on that topic.
The same happens in many countries where teachers organizations are the worst enemies of students
Love it when people call themselves objective
Nobody is completely objective but they can make objective claims
I've never heard a teacher call themselves objective.
I never really understood unions. Its basicaly someone walking up to their boss and saying "hey, I know im not a good employee, but im entitled to cash." there are 3 thing people are entitled to in this world, thats a name, food/water, and shelter. Everything else you should work to get. The harder you work the more you get.
Teachers are the laziest people! They get all holidays with pay off, 3 months of summer payed vacation off and still complain that they are underpaid and overworked. Unbelievable!
Then become a teacher if you think that is the case!! I love the schedule of a teacher, most certainly, but I also need a mental health break often!! You try to work in a business where you are required to force your services on people that mostly want nothing to do with it. You step in front of 30 kids with a variety of skills and needs, behavioral issues, administration that doesn't help, lack of resources so you purchase most stuff with the meager salary you are provided. YOU DO IT IF IT'S SO EASY!!!! Really easy to say things through a computer when you have no idea what you are talking about. Experience is quite the teacher- so get off your butt and go fix it if you know everything!
Melissa Ann no I work 12 hours a day with no holidays off.. I’m not lazy that’s why I would never be a teacher.
Now aside from everything this guy said, there is also the issue that educational standards are unfit for this century. I believe that sir Ken Robinson is correct in his assessment that while industrial-like education was good for the past 2 centuries, it is woefully insufficient for a lot of kids for the future and thus, a massive investment into both rebuilding and upgrading schools with better and more diverse facilities and changing the way we teach students who don't respond to the way teaching is done thus far has to be performed. Otherwise, even though say, by a miracle, you get rid of the teachers unions and do all those reforms with pay and all that, it may be better, but still insufficient.
Using test scores to test teacher performance doesn't really work because the teachers can then give easy a's.
Peter Chen that's true. In the U.K., I personally saw teachers giving all their attention to the A students because for every A grade a student gets, the bigger the bonus the teacher gets. The Bs and Cs and Ds are left to drown while the teachers give the lifeboat to the kid with the life jacket
It wouldnt be like that. The students would be tested by another institution.
There are schools that give bonuses for pupils getting As? I heard it the other way around, that back when schools were judged based on how many pupils got A*-C, all the attention was given to getting D-grade pupils up to a C and everyone else was ignored.
Test scores do not equal grades.
Teachers in Philadelphia public schools haven't had a pay raise in 4 years, I don't know how that gets solved without a union.
I'm a teacher, and I don't do it for the money. I teach because it's the right thing to do.
Cut teacher salaries and show us a little respect (maybe pay for our meal if you see us in a restaurant once in a while), and problems with education (self-interested teachers, bureaucrats, centralization) will all go away.
Then go work for a private school. You'll be free from bureaucracy
John Isaac Felipe Currently teaching abroad, but will be looking into private and charter schools in the US soon.
+Yoxiso You didn't even bother reading his comment. (Also school teachers get discounted lunches, but mainly bring their lunch anyways, no one wants the crappy school lunches.)
+TheSnorkeler Good for you! I'm glad that you have a heart! If I can implement excessive life funding, I plan on becoming a teacher for the sake of teaching too!
once you come back to america and see the real problem, you'll realize that even then we are underpaid
DAAAMMMMMM HE SAID CLOUT
Great video. And this guy is very John Malkovich-ian...
Contrary to the Professor’s statement the unions don’t represent the teachers, the union represents the union and the unions power.
Years ago I was a teacher and experienced first hand what the union really cared about. It's not the children. It's about protecting the union.
Excellent, Terry! Thank you so very much!
And in the meantime, Seattle teachers went on strike because the state was not allocating the funding that the supreme court mandated. They went on strike TO GET MORE FUNDING TO HELP MAKE SCHOOL BETTER FOR THE KIDS. Teachers unions don't just have teaches' interests at heart, that is like saying, "people become teachers for the pay." Anyone who knows anything about teacher pay realizes how ridiculous that statement is.
Unions: The group that brought you The Weekend
This video claims to hit at the fundamental problem with American education but it really doesn't. It doesn't really address the major issue. Practically yes, unions have caused stagnation in terms of reform of our education system. But we aren't even asking if its the right kind of reform. How about asking the bigger questions. How do kids learn and how do we want them to learn? How do we integrate rapidly changing social, technological, and economic paradigms into a system that at its core is a millennia old? How do we coordinate K-12 education, vocational training, and college so that it produces the most effective and educated populace that is up to date with the needs of the economy? Do we specialize early and fix paths for students at earlier ages so they are more competent in their desired field? Or do we make a system that allows for greater general knowledge and encourages everyone to be a scholar, emphasizes life long learning, and likely would last until the early 20s?
Asking is the traditional model of the teacher still even valid is infinitely more interesting and more productive than asking the pros and cons of teacher's unions.
The biggest question that will forever change education is, how can we solve poverty? That is the biggest factor affecting education in America today. If you only look at test scores of our wealthy students, they are #1 in the world.
How do you change a culture that says that succeeding in school (acting "white") is bad, and it is better to remain mired in poverty than to work hard? How do you change cultures that don't want to assimilate into American schools or other culture? How do you teach students who come from such a culture?
As a non-american student, I'm always so confused when I hear anything even remotely political. I was brought up liberal, but when I hear this sort of thing, the conservative argument makes more sense to me. But then reality. I mean, in my classes, where performance based pay is a thing, some students deliberately fail tests with teachers they don't like to 'punish' them. It's despicable, but so are the kids.
Terry Moe is a professer of Political Science at Stanford.
I am a parent of four kids. All of whom are products of Public Schools. All of whom are successful, contributing members of society.
I am also a Member of the School Board of our local School District.
Prof. Moe and I both have opinions about Public Schools in general, and Teachers Unions, specifically. Our perspectives, knowledge, and experiences are what form our opinions. I won't be so disingenuous to say that mine are right while his are wrong, but...
At the beginning of his presentation he says two things that need to be addressed.
1. "Why after a quarter century of perpetual reform..."
That is one of the biggest problems for Public Education today. Politicians who have no clue about teaching children have been dictating to Teachers how to do their jobs for almost as long as I've been involved with my local schools. No one, in any Profession, is going to be able to do a "good job" if the Federal Gov't. is constantly changing the rules and requirements.
2. "Well, a complete answer, of course, would be very complicated. But at the heart of it lies the power of the Teacher's Unions..."
Here, he is being less than candid. In fact, it almost sounds to me like he is using a kind of double-speak to sneak a shaky point across. If the question requires a "very complicated" answer, then only one item can't simply be "at the heart of it". Either the whole issue is, not just complicated, but "very complicated", or it's caused by one key issue, which means, it's simple. (not easy, but simple.)
Prof. Moe, as a (presumably) tenured professor at Stanford, is already out of real, day to day, experience with k - 12 education. His students are already pre-screened and are the best and the brightest this Country has to offer. Otherwise they wouldn't be going to Stanford. He doesn't know or have to deal with the reality that Public School Teachers have to deal with daily.
Namely, they have to teach every student that shows up on the PS doorstep. All of them! The talented and gifted, and those that are a little slower than 'normal'. And everything in between. Those who have had a good breakfast that morning, and those that haven't had a decent meal in three days. Those who got a good night's sleep the previous night, and those who spent the night with their parent or parents and one or two other siblings in the back of a van because the primary breadwinner got "downsized" and hasn't been able to find a job for months to years. Those who come from a loving and supportive family, and those who have to fend for themselves because their parent(s) is a crackhead or a pedophile. Those who are healthy and able to learn, and those with mild to severe disabilities, requiring the constant care and attention of a caretaker.
Teaching those children is not an option. The Law requires that the PS accept and educate every Student that shows up. Private, charter, and magnet Schools don't have that requirement. Those Schools get to pick and choose which Students they will accept and which Students they won't. Usually, they have provisions in their Charter or Policies to send any Student who falls below their level of expected performance back to the Public Scool. It is, therefore, not credible to compare them with Public Schools. But people do it all the time.
Time and lack of sleep and energy prevent me from going any farther right now. But I will say one more thing, briefly: in some ways, the Teachers Unions do represent the Teachers. But I have been on enough Contract Negotiations Committees over the years to become convinced of two things...
1. The Union frequently DOESN'T always represent the best interests of the Teachers. Frequently, they're negotiating for the continued good of the Union, not necessarily the local Teachers.
2. The Teachers in the classrooms of this Country are there because they want to teach. They want to impart knowledge to our children and instill in them a desire for learning. They don't want to indoctrinate our kids into some philosophical or political mold. (OK, I admit, some of them do. But they are few in number.) The vast majority of them just want to teach!
Thank you for this comment. You put more thought into your response than pragerU did into this video.
I live in north Georgia and have alway been empresses how good our schools are. My son graduated at 18 years old from high school with an associates degree in Engineering already. How much better can it be. I think most problems are where kids don’t want to learn and/or have a bad home environment that make it difficult to learn.
i disagree. i believe happy teachers = happy students. teachers fighting for better working conditions is equivalent to them fighting for better student environments. less students per class better teaching aids etc.
you see, most times it makes teachers more happy to hand out worksheets then go play on their phones, than to pay attention to what the students are doing with those worksheets.
+Kusalin Thanyakullsajja my math and biology teachers...
All unions I ever encountered do this same thing described in this video; chemical worker's union, health care seiu etc... DONT JOIN A UNION!!!
All I hear is a theory that it all the unions fault with very little evidence that it is. Regardless the solution is simply apathetic to unions anyways: computerized teaching. We have the technology now to replace a antiquated Socrates technique of a teacher in front of the class lecturing to students for hours on end, with a terminal in front of every child and teaching software. The teacher now only need direct students in using the computer and the computer can do most of the teaching.
"All I hear is a theory that it [is] all the unions fault with very little evidence."
Really? Did we just watch the same video? Just about 90% of the video was evidentiary examples, with the remaining 10% being divided between a disclaimer stating that they are not demonizing the concept of unions but the activity of teacher's unions in particular for their specific bad behavior, and also a few emotional appeals at the end of each example. The examples provided are easily verifiable by looking into said teacher's unions, policies, and past efforts to reform the public school system and who opposed them. Or are you saying you wanted them to provide links and do all of that hard leg work for you? Here's an idea, use this as a starting point and go do the research yourself.
***** Cherry picking is not evidence. Also this is a highly conservative channel, yeah sure they are not demonizing unions, suuuurrrrreeeee.
frbe0101 So, I am going to take that as a no on whether or not you will follow up on the evidence they provided. Just as I thought, all you want to do is mindlessly bash these guys in order to make yourself look smart.
It won't work on a large scale. Generally the only students who are as, or more, successful than a student taking conventional classroom based instruction are the well disciplined ones with a strong desire to learn. Even then the social aspect of physical schools is a very valuable aspect that enables one to function well in society. I'm not saying it isn't possible to develop these skills elsewhere but physical school does a much better job than online school does at this.
My experience with both methods of instruction and observations of other students causes me to disagree with your comment.
Doug Patterson I don't agree, an android tutor on your ass 24/7 sounds like an effective teaching aid even for the lazy or stubborn, but since we are decades way from that at the very least, let me talk about what we have now: A school TODAY can consist of hauling students to terminals, put them in front of the terminals and the terminal teaches the student for 6 hours plus 1 hour lunch/recess, and then hauling them home, there is your PHYSICAL school. Now there is no need for an unionized teacher, just someone to keep the students in front of the terminal working. I guess there is still a need for gym teachers or art teachers, but those will be slowly automated out as well. A machine will never abuse the child, never give up on the child, never tire, and most important to implementation: a machine will never ask for higher wages, never demand medical coverage, never sign contract obligations, etc. Regardless if the machine still has some inferiority to humans, the machine's superiority is outweighing, and every year as they get more advanced, that superiority grows, and the validity of human teachers shrinks to smaller and smaller nitchmarkets.
Bring school vouchers. Let parents shop for their perfect public school. Make schools compete. Teachers will get better, parents will be more involved in their child's educational lives. etc.
This is bull shit! Public schools are a great democratic victory, that the "school choice" advocates want to destroy. They want to "privatise" schools, not for kids but, to squeeze profits out of the people. Just look at college tuition for the so called great schools, only the rich can afford to go to them. If it's social security, public schools, having a voice at work, Mr. anti-union I went to Stanford and his class will be against these democratic advances.
David n Bull Shit! Take a look at the living standards or quality of life in any other industrial country and it beats the shit out of the United States. Now there are a number of reasons BUT the one that raises above all others IS union density ("their's" is in the high double digits)
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
David n And? I want the "people" to have more, yes. What's wrong with democracy? Why at work should your democracy stop?
Now you don't have to have a union, it can be a worker co-op I would be happy with that and so would the workers.
Why should .01% have more money than millions of Americans and poverty be so wide spread in a rich country.
Thank you
David n Blame free? It depends what you speak of, specifically. What I see as a serious problem, and I m not a teacher, but have been an instructor of law enforcement folks, is the manipulation of the system. The manipulation is focused on blaming teachers and making the system function poorly to then propose that "private" schools are the only way to save public education. I have traveled all over the world (that surly does NOT make me an expert) but, many industrial countries have and do great things in education and they are truly public institutions.
Which makes them democrat and for me that is a laudable goal.
Thank U
"They want to "privatise" schools, not for kids but, to squeeze profits out of the people."
However its completely fine for government to squeeze its citizens for tax money to fund these shitty schools which forces every child to attend.
"Just look at college tuition for the so called great schools, only the rich can afford to go to them."
That's because of FASFA watch?v=Cx_4svbYaDE
"Take a look at the living standards or quality of life in any other industrial country and it beats the shit out of the United States"
Now I know you're full of shit because the poorest americans have more in household square footage, car ownership, untilities, tech, pay, than the middle class Frenchman.
David n There is NOTHING in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead aarmadillos
I'm support staff for a school district in the LA area, and this is on point. I see first hand how teachers unions and politics ruin student's chances of actually learning anything useful and sometimes it can be downright painful to watch knowing I can't do anything about it.
just have teacher's get paid based on their students standardized test scores
That don't work bud it just leads to massive cheating scandals and how do you pay teachers that are responsible for special education students and non native English speaking students that are starting an american education at a disadvantage already. How will these kids get teachers if the Teachers know my kid are slow or behind and that's going to limit my income.
remove the outliers. you need to look at overall trends when doing a statistical analysis. also non English speaking students should be in non English classes at least in elementary school.
Sparsh Agrawal do that and the only thing they teach is how to pass the test
Sean Lutzke No they should be forced to learn English. Assimilate then.
Unions don't like that
If the government is paying for your education, you are being educated to serve the government. End Government schooling altogether and you open up education to serve the needs of parents, industry, and the students themselves.
Forcing teachers to join is another problem.
One solution would be to abolish the Federal Department of Education. That way the greedy teacher's union would have no one to bribe.
Former TX teacher and counselor; also worked in Virginia. Thank God I am out of that line of work...loved it at first. Loved the kids and helping them learn, grow, and find paths to a successful like (and what "success" is different for us all and also different at different life stages) - wanted them to stay the course so that they could have as much opportunity as possible - then they could also reject the "status quo" later - if they rejected it too early ( and some of course do) - then as the years go by they have fewer and fewer options/opportunity. Teaching, along with policing, nursing, firefighters, etc. - most under appreciated underpaid professions...if you don't agree, try it - and not for a day - for 30 years. Good luck.
PragerU, this is one area where I can't agree with you completely. I think the basic premise - that our public schools are failing our children - is mostly false. The truth, at least in most cases, is that the students are failing our public schools. Many kids these days come to school having been "parented" in an bizarrely overpermissive home where disrepsect and misbehavior are viewed as forms of personal expression (something for which we can and should place the blame on the moral relativism espoused by the left). Their parents shift blame to the teacher when the child's actions disrupt the learning process, and even the well-behaved ones come with brains that have been so habituated to digital entertainment media that focusing for even a few minutes on an intricate math lesson is out of the question. Add to that all the emotional and psychological issues schools contend with due to the breakdown of the family. The abuse of power that can and does occur in teachers' unions is a problem, for sure, but those unions, whatever their faults, are also trying to protect working conditions for people who are on the frontlines of every problem society faces.
Thank you Terry, well done.