Wisconsin, via Wikipedia
Prompted by the contentious political battle now playing out in Wisconsin between state government and the teachers’ union I now submit a question that is sure to be controversial. What would happen to the condition of schools in Wisconsin, or in the rest of the nation, if the teachers’ union was effectively eliminated, just as Governor Walker intended sub rosa? In other words, if the teaching profession were politically limited in exactly the same way as are the armed forces of the United States?
Image by SEIU International via Flickr
As most people know, soldiers and sailors are not allowed to unionize or strike. Are the military not citizens just like the rest of the population? They are allowed to have political opinions and to vote, but may not campaign or otherwise indulge in collectively participating in political activities or in using their positions to wield political influence. Why not? The answer is obvious, isn’t it? This restriction is vital to the national interest because discipline, as in unquestioning adherence to orders, is vital to effectiveness in carrying out the national will.
Also pertinent, IMO, is that, under the Hatch act of 1939 federal civil service employees are not allowed to strike because of past patronage abuses, but are granted generous benefits in compensation. I submit that education is also vital to the national interest, albeit in a more long-term sense.
The present model of education in America is a failure. Average graduation rates are hovering below 70%, literacy is abysmally low, and the NCLB patch is an ineffective bureaucratic paperwork nightmare that simply promotes “teaching to the test”. So I therefore submit that the country should privatize education. I suggest we openly deny collective bargaining to the teaching profession, just as we do for the military, and instead relegate school control to local communities.
To those who might decry this suggestion is purely anti-union, I say that is simply not so. Unions are a natural and needed protection to counter the management motivations of for-profit enterprises. Schools are not for-profit, they are services for our national interests, just as are the armed forces.
One-room School, by State Library and Archives of Florida via Flickr
To make this work and as I suggested in my previous post, teachers, not politicians or businesses, should have individual control of curricula and textbooks and be protected from political or cultural influence by law. Tenure should be prohibited and the teaching jobs made competitive, with generous salary and benefits but term-limited contracts. Teachers would of course be guaranteed the same rights as anyone else for retention of retirement programs such as 401k’s and IRA’s.
Under this concept I perceive that communities would compete for teaching talent, thus would need to offer good salaries and benefits, and retirement plans too. Retirement plans would be vested under ERISA laws just like any other. In this concept parents would patronize the best schools just as they would good businesses. Schools which failed to compete would go out of business.
Why wouldn’t this model work better than the mess we now have? Could it be any worse? I don’t see how.
Still Skeptical After All These Years 
Aren’t the militaries of some nations unionized in at at least a limited way? I suspect they can’t strike for example. I vague recollections this is the case in one of the Nordic nations, maybe Sweden.
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When I googled the question I was surprised to find an indication that there are such in Norway and Germany. I also found a trace of some academic interest by some faculty at West Point. Whether pro or con wasn’t apparent.
Raised as I was I find the idea preposterous, but I suppose everything changes. The concept to me is one which would seriously undermine good order and discipline, strike or not.
Jim
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I agree with the concept of privatized education, with a requirement that all schools meet some standard of performance on some core curriculum, reading and writing as I think Anson has suggested.
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But, Bruce, the problem with a “standard” is the same as is being encountered in NCLB. That attempt to set “standards” is promoting “teaching the test” and IMO is degrading real education.
Who sets the standard? What is truth? Indeed, which knowledge is most worthy of study? Which textbooks are best? I submit that there is no one right answer to these questions. I contend that they are best answered through competition among an ever changing list of individuals who are publicly esteemed for their wisdom and knowledge and in a competitive arena.
Jim
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There was a time when I genuinely believed our representatives in government could and would, after all the back and forth, decide something (anything) in a way that would work best for the greatest number of us. No more, and education is at the top of my list of their utter failures:
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WW,
I agree, but I would add that the fault lies more with American culture than with politicians. We have allowed government to be appointed “in loco parentis”. In other words, allowing government and a self-interested union bloc to define education and educational standards has deprived parents of a feeling of responsibility for the end product.
Allow me to offer an example, e.g., grade creep. Why do you suppose grades have crept upward? Way upward. I submit that low grades would be an indictment of the education process and therefore of the teaching establishment itself. It doesn’t seem to matter that “honor students” subsequently require remedial courses in reading, writing and arithmetic when they get to college – it only matters that they “graduated” and that their education was therefore declared a success by the establishment that shaped them. QED.
I have posted some of these notions from time to time here and not once have I received a credible counter from a member of a teacher’s union. Either I am considered unworthy of notice or the charges are not defensible. You know which I believe.
Jim
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Jim
“Either I am considered unworthy of notice or the charges are not defensible…”
That, of course, is the point. None of us, are regarded as being worthy of notice, and likewise hail thee well on your point about American culture. What consistently horrifies me is the incessant drum beat from one side to still further alienate our majority, on practically any public issue. It just keeps coming, day after day, in almost all facets of our society.
Something to be said, perhaps, for leaving well enough alone? Maybe innovation and upgrading aren’t really all that special after all.
The President and Congress managed to have DADT repealed. Now, that same President who campaigned (I now believe cynically) on the premise that the sanctity of marriage is between one man and one woman, has just directed our Department of Justice to refuse enforcing an act of Congress which protected that concept. It is a short distance from here to a national tussle over making homosexual marriage the law of the land instead.
And, we wonder for what reason Jihadists attack us? They see that we have no shame whatsoever, and that fits right in with their moral rectitude.
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Salaries paid to professors at American public universities, anyone?
http://www.collegiatetimes.com/databases/salaries
Poor babies. They labor so hard.
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Yipes. Even I am shocked, and I wrote the post. I wonder how many of these professors have TA’s teaching most or all of their courses for them?
Moral: when you have a cash cow . . . . . . .milk it!
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We notice, of course, how scarce those professors are at these public protests, eh? We are led to believe that the poor oppressed teachers of elementary, middle and high school are the only educators being taken advantage of when, one would imagine, if those oh-so-special tenured university professors with TAs doing the work for them earned their money and earned a lot less then things might not be quite as bad, in Wisconsin.
Cannot have our little children not being served, can we.
And yes, I was one of those TAs. My professor showed up in class possibly once monthly, if that often. His other major contribution was to sign the grade cards. He was an arrogant pig, and I was grateful for the $100 a month.
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Let me be clear, I’m not advocating unions for the US military.
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Admiral Dewey: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”
Helmsman: “Er, Admiral sir, let’s take a vote on that. The chief agrees with me.”
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Jim,
What does CDR. stand for in your bio? Is it Commander or Comadore. I think it’s Commander.
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Commander. Army or AF equivalent: Lt. Col. Pay grade O-5.
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First a Hmm? What is the title of an enlisted man that provides medical care in combat, a corpse man or…..?
Again, Jim, I am really uncertain of your call for government to “get out” of education. You seem to call for local control of some sort of schools. Is such control to be in the form of a “business” or a local government? TJ, locally, is a business providing education but it charges about $10,000 per year per student with some “scholarships” thrown in.
As for standards, you again seem to call for some acceptable levels of knowledge, I call such “standards” to be determined individually by each teacher. Hmmm? Would you really put the academic level of knowledge demanded of your child at the “whim” of each and every teacher he/she encounter in the journey of education.
A parent that had difficulty reading, writing or performing arithmetic calculations might think any teacher that tried to upgrade their child’s knowledge in such areas to be untoward and thus take their child out of school to graduate elsewhere.
For sure I don’t think any academic standards should meet a test of political correctness from year to year. But BASIC standards are needed in my view. And establishment of such BASICS seems like a legitimate role of government at some level, local or state for now.
However I would not object to some “nonpartisan” group of real people, not head in the clouds types we see in education today, to set such standards as well. But then without government of some sort, how would such standards be enforced, again at some level.
And what is the overall affect if Jasper County sets standards at the “idiot level” yet Green County sets “good” standards? Or Missouri sets “bad” standards while Kentucky set “good” ones? You and I know the difference in “good” and “bad” in such a case, I hope. But…….?
I believe, looking back in time, that the Dept of Ed was initially established at the federal level because schools in the “south” were in such sad shape as compared to those elsewhere, like Mississippi vs say CA at that time. Good idea, bad implementation that has failed in my view. We seem now to have allowed CA to “catch down” with Mississippi where NO ONE can read, write or do arithmetic!!!
Anson
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You are right, Anson, about the vagueness of “getting government out of education”. What I meant by that is getting federal and state government out of the business and returning control to a grass-roots level. I would envision some sort of oversight committee at the district level, a committee which would organize a competitive forum to display results (as in my post, “Bowling for Brains”), but which would eschew setting specific standards like those in NCLB.
I understand your concern about loose standards, but I believe your fears are overblown. Ever since we came to Joplin I have heard various people opine that Carl Junction schools were better than Joplin’s, but I have yet to see any convincing data to confirm that. I think you underestimate the power of grass-roots public opinion over such things. People are very sensitive to reputations and the power of the internet only adds to that. Even parents whose own educational skills were poor would, IMO, be responsive to such reputations.
“Would you really put the academic level of knowledge demanded of your child at the ‘whim’ of each and every teacher he/she encounter in the journey of education?” Yes, but only after checking on the school’s and the faculty’s reputations. And then I would be fully prepared to move the child to another school if I didn’t like what I saw happening.
If a school’s standards sank significantly I think it would be toast very quickly. That’s how capitalism works too. Let a restaurant’s standards slip just a little in a community and its patronage can dry up in a few weeks just from word-of-mouth. I think schools would be the same. Anyway, my plea is that what we have now isn’t working, so let’s try something else. We won’t really know until we try, will we? But, I am open to other ideas. So far, I’m not hearing any.
Jim
PS – I guess I’m dense, but I don’t get the corpsman thing. Can’t find anything like that in the post or comments.
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Smiling,
Our esteemed President once said, in trying to comliment corpsmen in the military by refering to them as “corpsemen”. Remember that one early in his term as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces. For sure it was all over Fox News!
On the other matter, I will to listen to a whole range of ideas, and you make some good points. Our goals at least are identical. But there are many in my view that will argue even over our particular goals, with a strong and unrelenting focus on BASICS.
But as you also point out, nary a word is uttered in yours or my own blogs from the educational “establishment”. And I think I know why.
The ones that agree are afraid to raise their hands publically, Nonny Moose being an example as she/he so stated. Those that disagree are afraid to have their crazy ideas publicly challenged.
There is a WALL around public education that my best efforts to scale for now about 3 years is very hard to “get over or through” the damned thing.
To really challenge that wall your or I would have to run for and be elected to the BOE to have a real sounding board. And believe you me, if you read my blog on Rocky Flats union issues, we can only imagine the onslaught we would face in such instances.
I’m now too old and “poor” to mount such a public challenge. Tired might be added to that as well. I’d rather launch my concerns herein, take my dogs for a walk, “play” with Janet, and fade off into the sunset later on!
Anson
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Ah yes, Anson, now I remember. You mentioned the corpsman incident once before, although it wasn’t as clearly put as you do now. I get it. The message you get from that incident is, “This guy is from another tribe because he isn’t familiar with a word that is common to me.” How primal that is for us tribal beings. You are right that his background differs markedly from yours and mine, especially in a cultural (read, military) sense. This is also the source of cognitive dissonance over his having to be taught how to salute, again pointing to the stark difference between his background and ours.
It’s not easy to accept a leader from a different tribe, even though he quickly takes a personal obligation to learn your tribe’s customs, as OB did. Any politician knows such things but slip-ups happen anyway, especially in this age of cell-phone cameras. I note with some amusement the importance some people place in so small a thing as how to pronounce Missouri (Missourah?).
I noted with interest that actual tribes are at issue in the unfolding Libyan crisis. MQ is from a specific tribe there, and it is apparently in conflict with others. Tribalism matters on a gut level and I think it often governs over objectivity.
You offer a good analysis about the lack of comments from the education establishment. I agree. And of course I know well that my proposal is radical and has about of much chance of success as Rush Limbaugh’s being invited to speak at the next NAACP convention. Still, it’s somehow fulfilling to toss out a shocking idea once in a while and see if there are any brains not still in ruts. 😀
Jim
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Jim,
Is not it great that anyone can now blog on just about anything, rather than merely grumbling over what we read in newspapers or see on TV. 10 years ago such was not the case.
Much is now being argued over who exactly leads the Tea Party movement. In my view the answer is simply NO ONE. Yet there is a consistency within that movement for more limited government that is “catching on” in varying degrees.
Again, 10 years ago there was no such movement or ability to articulate such views. It was “more and more” for “our side” and “less and less” for the other. At least from the standpoint of the federal government SOMEONE is now calling for less and less for EVERYONE from government. Let individuals once again pick up their own loads.
Watta Country, I note again.
Anson
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Anson,
You are so right, you and Jacov Smirnoff, or whatever his name is! Watta Country!
There are actual thinking people out there in the blogosphere and I am getting a good deal of pleasure from the discourse. One thing interesting to me is how easy it is to distinguish those who are willing to engage in respectful discourse from those who just want to blow off steam, and yet, I get very few steamers. I think it’s due to the control that wordpress provides – the steamers know they will be deleted. Like Wikipedia, who would have thought it could take off like this? And, look at the role the internet is playing across the Middle East now! It is changing the world.
Regarding the topic of this post, I was blown away by an item on ABC News last night and now confirmed in the link below. The president of the American Federation of Teachers is planning an overhaul of the tenure concept and proposing a way to fire incompetent teachers! I think hell just froze over! Whodathunkit?
Link: http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_17477981
Jim
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Jim,
I don’t suppose I need to remind you that the reason there are ruts is because that path is usually, though not always, the best one to take. (!)
In any case, as the comments here in this thread indicate, you can’t build an education system from scratch, Jim. Whose model will you use? Anson’s? Yours? Mine? I once was in a philosophical discussion with one of my college teachers, an Ayn Rand enthusiast who was also a very good teacher, who didn’t like the way the world was structured. I mean, the entire cosmos was not to his liking. So, we began with a thought experiment as to exactly how he would construct a better world. Needless to say, being a Randian, he ended up constructing a world very much like our own! Free will and his dog-eat-dog philosophy almost demanded it. There is something to be said about ruts, I think.
The education system has evolved over a long period of time. It is broken in many places. But in such an organic system, you will not only have a hard time killing it, which is what you want to do, but it will actually fight back wildly when you try. But reforming it, repairing it, “healing” it is quite possible, and there is much going on right now that is hopeful. Many states are experimenting with various fixes to the system, in exchange for federal government cash. Let’s hope some of the experiments will work and improve things.
We just don’t agree about putting full control in the hands of locals. That might work in some places, but in others we would have yahoos running the systems. Yahoos who want to teach creationism, for instance.
And you know I can’t abide your anti-public union stance. I suppose we could categorize nearly every sector of our public life as “vital to the national interest” in some sense or another, and thus prohibit workers from organizing, but that is a rather undemocratic, un-American notion, when you think about it, isn’t it?
I can agree with those who believe there is a danger in public employee unions and government being too cozy in certain cities at certain times, which can work against, to some extent, the general public interest. But reform, not dissolution, is the answer. Make public financing of campaigns a reality, for instance. Get union and corporate money out of politics, then states would not be tempted to give either unions or corporations everything they demand. Public unions, for instance, would find more resistance to work rules that appear unreasonable. Another reform would be binding arbitration in lieu of the right to strike. That takes part of your public interest argument off the table, unless you believe that independent arbitrators are in the pockets of big labor. Trust me. They aren’t.
Finally, this is just a small framing and language objection: I don’t like your characterization of federal employee benefits as “generous.” Some are, some aren’t, I suppose. But I could just as well characterize some private benefits as stingy and tightfisted. Why does the criticism land on those workers who are at least perceived to have better benefits? Why isn’t the default position for EVERYONE to have “generous” benefits?
In my opinion, your plan would be, in its own way, just as “messy” as what we have now. I can’t imagine the chaos with schools going out of business all over the place or schools that are nothing more than little University of Phoenixs or nothing more than places where religious people can sell their orthodoxy for money. You talk about a mess.
Duane
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Duane,
I don’t want to build an education system from scratch, I want to return to basics, just like Anson does on this topic. Ruts? In this case the ruts lead to an educational system purged of controversy and thus of the most brain stimulation. In this case I must agree with WW’s comments. He stole some of my thunder. 🙂 I too do not fear creationists in a local system, nor libertarians either, so long as the “system” is free-ranging and competitive. I know I am really thinking outside the box on this, or outside the ruts if you prefer, but I believe the government-regulated system is moribund.
Let me suggest an analogy. It was believed for many decades that “germs” were bad for health, but the latest findings indicate just the reverse. Children raised in an environment purged of most germs are found to have weaker immune systems and are much more prone to problems like asthma. I think it is the same for education. A school purged of controversy is BORING.
Some of my first memories of elementary school include saying the Lord’s prayer and singing God Bless America with my classmates. You know pretty well by now that I have trouble taking anything on faith, that is, without a rational basis, but I do not feel that those childhood experiences brainwashed me. I can envision some scholastic environments that would brainwash, but I am not convinced that most communities would tolerate such. At any rate, I would like to see the experiment happen. The essential element, in my opinion, is the ABSENCE of control amidst free-wheeling expression of diverse opinions. That is the model to which I aspire.
So, you ask, if we do away with the established model, what is the replacement? In addition to reading, writing, arithmetic and civics (the Constitution and basic American and world history) I have faith that community leaders, in committee, would rise to the challenge with a diversity of material, hopefully including the great authors of Western Civilization. There are talented people out there, even some who will produce quality input while working for peanuts. (Hint: look in the mirror, Duane.) 😆
As you know, I am not anti-union, not even anti-public-service-union, but in the case of education government has had its bite at the apple and it is a failure. I will stick with the reasoning in my post on that one. As for “generous” benefits, the teachers’ unions have wielded their power to achieve benefits, as in Wisconsin, that are considerably higher than those in the private sector. While there is evidence that Governor Walker did manipulate the state budget to make it seem worse than it is, as Juan pointed out, nevertheless I am also sure that the state budget was stretched imprudently for years by union pressure to achieve that significant edge. Why were they able to do this? I suggest that it was because both the union and the state government eschewed a rigorous budget process whereas a private business could not afford to act that way. This has been a common pattern all over the country. What, for heaven’s sake, makes a tenured professor, classes taught by a TA, worth $300,000 a year? Sure, I too would like to see universal generous benefits, but I don’t think it’s practical in America now. Like the lady said, “Where’s the beef?”, only it’s not the beef, it’s the BUDGET. To do that we would have to change our society and our government to look like Finland’s.
The change of thinking by the president of the AFT, mentioned several comments ago, give me some actual hope of change on this important topic. Let’s get out of the rut, wallow in some germs and see what happens. As I said in the post, how could it be much worse?
As always, thanks for the work you put into these exchanges, Duane.
Jim
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Duane, although I’m not a direct member of that conversation, this comment of yours made me want to offer a contrary thought:
“We just don’t agree about putting full control in the hands of locals. That might work in some places, but in others we would have yahoos running the systems. Yahoos who want to teach creationism, for instance.”
First off, there is a valuable notion that makes a great deal of sense to me – having to do with “Chaos Theory” which says that anytime a human endeavor or system grows beyond a “certain point,” then the probability of failure increases quickly and exponentially. We see this in action with great regularity. Small groups making decisions seem to do a better job, and compromises seem to be closer to the common good. Obviously, a system so unimaginably vast as our federal government issuing rules for 300,000,000 irritable free-speechifying gun-toting Americans is, in some ways, tantamount to throwing gasoline on the kitchen stove fire to make it hotter.
Local control, vis a vis education as an example, and using the thorny issue of Creationism being taught, is an excellent choice of case in point. From what I have seen of the dispute, the Creationist will not always insist that it be the sole idea taught, but rather that the notion ought to be available for our offspring to consider.
Admittedly, there are those “yahoos” as you call them, who might well demand that it be the only thing our kids learn. But, to them, it might be every bit as insane for those same kids to be taught, as an example, that the sole cause of our Civil War was slavery.
And, there are hundreds of such examples to be shown.
It isn’t that religious people want for everyone to practice Christianity (etc.), but rather that they rightly believe it to be within their constitutional rights to be free of government making ANY rules which prevent the free exercise of faith.
There needs to be room in our society for them to live, too. I would not send my kids to their school because I feel evolution is the more probable explanation for how things work. Yet, as a father of four, it would be delightful to know that someone might seriously and thoroughly discuss Creationism – for no reason better than to have the thing on the table of possibilities for all.
I severely object to federal control, even knowing that there are “yahoos” out here. I do whatever I can to stay away from them, and to protect my children from them too. That, is my personal responsibility and I will exercise it to whatever degree (including moving) necessary.
It is a very large topic…
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From time to time, even as in this post, I have advocated moving the education process to some kind of competitive footing, but I have not been able myself to envision just what that might look like. Until last night.
In a segment titled, “Charter school’s $125K experiment”, the CBS TV magazine shows just such an experiment. A New York charter school is hiring the best teachers by paying them $125,000 a year and holding them to a standard of satisfying the principal and the school board.No tenure, no job security. Two teachers have already been found wanting and let go.
This is a new experiment and it’s too early to see any change in test scores, but subjectively it seems to be working. One little boy in the fourth grade entered illiterate and in one year has advanced two grade levels. I’m excited.
Here’s the link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7359538n&tag=contentMain;contentBody
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Jim,
Sorry, but I watched that program last night. Seems to me you are overlooking the last part in which it was revealed that there just wasn’t that much overall improvement. “On average other schools in the district scored better…”
The head of the charter school, though, defended himself and said he should be judged by something like a time scale of “four years” Okay. Why not the teachers? And you didn’t mention the fact that those involved were working 80- to 90-hour weeks for the increased dough. Just how long do you think most folks will continue to do that for even $125 grand? They’re essentially not making that much more money for the time spent.
I’m all in favor of experiments and I do believe that teachers should be well-compensated. But if you take a look at the size of the classes in that featured school, I believe you will see why students don’t improve much or why a teacher, in order to get them to improve, must work 90 hours a week. There’s too many kids and not enough teachers.
Heck, if you cut the class in half and paid the teachers half of $125,000 and allowed them to work a normal week, you’d probably get better results and happier teachers.
Duane
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If Duane (above) is right, then Anson Burlingame and I are wrong, but I’m sure not ready to throw in the towel yet. I didn’t get the 4-year part and I gather isn’t that firm on it either, but in any case the experiment continues and I for one am keen to see if it can succeed. Duane mentions a pertinent factor, the long hours the teachers are working for their money, but the other side of that coin is how the teachers are in fact rising to the challenge. That is exactly the magnitude of effort that is often lacking in a tenured faculty, IMHO.
Another factor, not mentioned by Duane, is that the children in the charter school are from one of the poorest districts. The challenge of overcoming unstable home lives as an element of education is not a factor to be taken lightly, so let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water just yet.
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To all,
Having been distracted I have not followed all the blogs of late with my usual interest. But I still have the interest for sure, particularly in matters related to education.
To me the problem is very simple. Kids in public education do not learn the knowledge required, actually the BASIC knowledge required to function and contribute to modern American society. America has always been a society of GROWTH in many things.
Well the knowledge of citizens and the ability to apply that knowledge is DECLINING in America and such has been the case for several decades now by just about any measurement standard made.
Solution? Set strong and enforcable standards in basic education that must be achieved by every student. Then teach and test to those standards. When students FAIL to learn or teachers FAIL to teach, then figure out how to get them out of the mainstream system of education where those that can and well learn and teach to HIGH STANDARDS can prevail and even thrive.
Coddling students or teachers that FAIL to PERFORM has lead us to where we are today, a DECLINING system in every sense of the word. And the decline has extraordinarily far reaching effects on America.
And the decline in the “quality” of our citizens will drive us over the “cliff” faster than a Chinese decision to stop “investing” in America will.
Anson
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