Here is another chapter on "When did out schools change/"
First, you have to understand that our public schools are managed and organized a lot differently from many countries around the world. I think that difference has a lot to do with why our schools have declined so much. I think the most significant difference is that we are one of the very few countries who require that our public school teachers graduate from "Teacher's Colleges". Most countries do not have teacher's colleges. They just have regular colleges that teach content. Our teachers colleges are more like trade schools who narrowly only prepare students to teach in our public schools. Very few of our teachers who graduate from our teacher's colleges could find a real job in our economy.
Here s where I think the big change came. Realize that our teachers colleges are basically trade schools and many of the trades are "unionized". If that is the case, why would we be so surprised that our teachers started forming and joining unions? Many of these unions are also "closed shops" where one has to pay dues to the union in order to have teaching job.
Now that we are starting to focus on teacher's unions we need to look deeper at unions. Can you think of a union that has made their end products cheaper or better? Still thinking? The fact is that I do not know of any. All make what they do cost more and lower the quality of that work. One of the key ways that we make progress is to stop doing things that make a situation worse. If you were to hire someone who turned out not to be worth what you were paying them, wouldn't it be normal for you to fire that person? Well, since our school teachers have become unionized, it has become almost impossible to fire one. If you go to the barber and you get a bad hair cut, you don't go back, do you? In the case of the public school for your children, you have no choice but to send your child back to that same bad teacher.
To verify what I am saying, I had the experience a few years ago to go sailing with two public school teachers. For those three days, the two teachers never once talked about any thing to do with their work. All they talked about was how to "game" the systems on how to get more free stuff from the tax payers. By contrast, when I have lunch or go hunting with some of my "non-unionized" engineering friends, we never talk about gaming our company. We talk about the interesting technical work that we do. We try to share our professional experience with others.
I pointed out in a prior blog how teacher's colleges have much lower SAT score requirements than most other college majors. Recently I saw on the news that in the state of South Carolina several thousand teachers who took a basic math test "failed". Think about that, realizing that we expect our public schools to prepare our children for the "technical" future. Other data shows that we rank no better than 38th in math and science compared to other countries who spend much less on education.
I just saw in the news that the Supreme Court just decided that the "closed shop" is nationally illegal. That means that our school teachers will not have to have union dues deducted from their pay checks unless they agree in writing. I hope this decision marks a change in the quality of our public schools.
Unions have killed our schools and many of us know it!!
PS--Why are Catholic schools better on average than our public schools? Their teachers are "not" unionized!
PS--Here is one for you. Remember how much cost and effort that we went thru to get rid of lead paint? Recall that it was a major cause of mental retardation? Now that we have gotten rid of lead paint, why are our kids now even dumber? Further, if it killed people, then why has our life expectancy gone down? Some thing does not add up here does it? Lesson is that many these big fads are not true! Does this give you any concern about the accuracy of Dr. Spock's books?
First, you have to understand that our public schools are managed and organized a lot differently from many countries around the world. I think that difference has a lot to do with why our schools have declined so much. I think the most significant difference is that we are one of the very few countries who require that our public school teachers graduate from "Teacher's Colleges". Most countries do not have teacher's colleges. They just have regular colleges that teach content. Our teachers colleges are more like trade schools who narrowly only prepare students to teach in our public schools. Very few of our teachers who graduate from our teacher's colleges could find a real job in our economy.
Here s where I think the big change came. Realize that our teachers colleges are basically trade schools and many of the trades are "unionized". If that is the case, why would we be so surprised that our teachers started forming and joining unions? Many of these unions are also "closed shops" where one has to pay dues to the union in order to have teaching job.
Now that we are starting to focus on teacher's unions we need to look deeper at unions. Can you think of a union that has made their end products cheaper or better? Still thinking? The fact is that I do not know of any. All make what they do cost more and lower the quality of that work. One of the key ways that we make progress is to stop doing things that make a situation worse. If you were to hire someone who turned out not to be worth what you were paying them, wouldn't it be normal for you to fire that person? Well, since our school teachers have become unionized, it has become almost impossible to fire one. If you go to the barber and you get a bad hair cut, you don't go back, do you? In the case of the public school for your children, you have no choice but to send your child back to that same bad teacher.
To verify what I am saying, I had the experience a few years ago to go sailing with two public school teachers. For those three days, the two teachers never once talked about any thing to do with their work. All they talked about was how to "game" the systems on how to get more free stuff from the tax payers. By contrast, when I have lunch or go hunting with some of my "non-unionized" engineering friends, we never talk about gaming our company. We talk about the interesting technical work that we do. We try to share our professional experience with others.
I pointed out in a prior blog how teacher's colleges have much lower SAT score requirements than most other college majors. Recently I saw on the news that in the state of South Carolina several thousand teachers who took a basic math test "failed". Think about that, realizing that we expect our public schools to prepare our children for the "technical" future. Other data shows that we rank no better than 38th in math and science compared to other countries who spend much less on education.
I just saw in the news that the Supreme Court just decided that the "closed shop" is nationally illegal. That means that our school teachers will not have to have union dues deducted from their pay checks unless they agree in writing. I hope this decision marks a change in the quality of our public schools.
Unions have killed our schools and many of us know it!!
PS--Why are Catholic schools better on average than our public schools? Their teachers are "not" unionized!
PS--Here is one for you. Remember how much cost and effort that we went thru to get rid of lead paint? Recall that it was a major cause of mental retardation? Now that we have gotten rid of lead paint, why are our kids now even dumber? Further, if it killed people, then why has our life expectancy gone down? Some thing does not add up here does it? Lesson is that many these big fads are not true! Does this give you any concern about the accuracy of Dr. Spock's books?
