Betsy DeVos wants teachers to drop union membership

https://massteacher.org/news/2018/06/betsy-devos-just-asked-you-to-drop-your-union-membership



Cue the usual "teachers are overpaid anyway, they get three months' vacation, yadda-yadda-yadda" and let's get that out of the way before the grownups consider what this might mean to the future of education.

Yeah, Betsy. We want all of America's children to be as ignorant as you are.

Shit.

Well, at least the Massachusetts teachers' unions were savvy enough to research this. And that image is currently going viral.

I'll just leave this here:

How does being a member of the teachers union fight ignorance?

^People's Exhibit A.

Sounds like collective bargaining where you have the public on one side and public on the other side.

Nothing could possibly go wrong with such an arrangement, even in theory. The Big Bad Employer in this case is the Government and taxpayers, not greedy capitalists.

And "We need to spend on Education" are the first six words learned by politicians right after "the check is in the mail" and "I love you."

So DeVos' numerous "nonprofits" are "government"? Wow.

Well, it'll be your tax dollars paying for the upper-class vouchers for these kids. Enjoy.

DeVos shouldn't even have a job where she can effect this kind of policy.

Imo there shouldn't be a single federal employee engaged in setting policy re education. The "department" on a federal level should not even exist.

Any and all federal spending on education should be in the form of checks sent to states.

My earlier post was referring to the local level, where I questioned (mocked) the need for unions and collective bargaining when the counterparty is the 'state.' [And not the big bad capitalists exploiting labor for profit.]

This from someone who hasn't spent a moment in front of a classroom in the last 50 years.

Folks, I think Dayton here is in a position to offer a unique, first-hand perspective to this debate.

Dayton, I'm going to assume here that, during your employment as a teacher, you were not a member of the local Teacher's Union.

1) Was this optional for you? What I mean is, did a union exist and did you choose not to join it?

2) Do you feel that you were fairly compensated (financially and via benefits) for the work you provided?

3) Do you feel that you were fired too easily?

4) If a union existed and if you had joined it, could it not have at least partially resoled #2 and #3?

Remind us all how many books YOU have published over the years.....

Yes
Yes
Yes
No

Really? Who's that? I was teaching in the NY Public Schools while you were still sucking your thumb.

Very well. I'll edit my post.

Thanks for your answers. I admit that I have absolutely zero knowledge about the goings on and the social politics involved with your school system. And if you say you feel that you were fairly compensated, then I believe you. However, I can't help but think that, had you had the protection of a Union behind you, it would have been much harder to fire you. It may not be comparable, since I work at a University, but, it takes somewhere around 13 steps to fire an employee "for cause". There are exceptions, of course (felony conviction comes to mind).

One thing I want to add....you can disagree with @garamet all you like and nobody will blink an eye. But, to call her ignorant is pretty freaking stupid of you. The woman is a published author, who did so in the era well before self publishing was a thing. This, to my mind, puts her at a level of intelligence that disqualifies the use of the word "ignorant".

Where in this thread did I describe garamet as "ignorant"?

"This from someone who hasn't spent a moment in front of a classroom in the last 50 years."


The implication is quite clear.

This is Dayton's go-to whenever he's cornered. He likes to put people's professions in quotes ("lawyer"; "writer") as if to dismiss these as irrelevant, and also in an attempt - a weak attempt - to wiggle out of a debate where he has no material.

When that fails, he simply leaves the thread. The other day he accused me of plagiarism, then disappeared faster than a fart in a wind storm when I asked him to explain himself. Check @Tuckerfan's sig for several other challenges Dayton wasn't up to.

He has copies of the Bible, Koran, Book Of Mormon, and Dianetics, except with your name from paperback copies of Trek books cut out, and glued onto the covers as the author.
With his dirty fingerprints in the glue.
Out in the chicken coop.

You ignore the fact that I eventually replied to all of Tuckerfan's "challenges".

And I never said you were guilty of plagiarism. It was meant to be a backhanded reference to "Probe/Music of the Spheres" that you profited (and continue to profit from as far as I know) from the work of Gene DeWeese.

Be reasonable garamet. If I were being dishonest I wouldn't have edited my post to reflect the fact that you taught school roughly 50 years ago (that is based only on your comment, I do not possess detailed biographical knowledge of you, I'll check Wikipedia).

And given how often my teaching is attacked and insulted here, why would it be reasonable for me to hang fire?

Here's the thing, @Dayton3

You have said several times over that you are an "Excellent History Teacher". If we are to take you at your word, plus the fact that you agree that you were fired to easily, then does it not make sense to have some kind of union representation in order to keep excellent teachers from being fired for such things? Don't we need more excellent teachers in our schools? What am I missing here? Help me understand the nuance of your situation and how union representation would not have protected you.

What subjects did you teach, @garamet?

Don't worry. No maths were harmed in the making of this career.

"Freddy vs Jason", went through about 15 script drafts.
All of them radically different.
Little to nothing of them made it into the final film that made it to the screen.
All those writers still got credits, and got paid.
You do the work, you get paid, even if they use it for toilet paper.
"Well, that was fun, and I got nothing, but at least I got exposure", is the Youtube model of paying talent.
Strange that you seem to be for it.

*checks her Wikipedia entry

Very interesting...

In most school districts, you much teach full time for four consecutive years before "automatic contract renewal" (sometimes mistakenly confused with "tenure") applies.

Even then, teachers can be summarily dismissed under other circumstances. I was kicked out of Norphlet at one time because the coaching staff was reduced by two and since I (and another coach) were the last two hired, we were the first two dismissed.

IIRC, the "last hired, first fired" policy is something I can thank the teachers union for. I was sent packing from arguably the job I loved more than any before or since, from a community I loved more than any other all because my "hire date" was two days after another coach.

Yeah, I figured. What grades did you teach? During what years? And was this in L.A.?

Yeah, it’s totally a good thing that it’s nearly impossible to get fired from your job no matter how bad you are at it.

Yeah. It's totally a good thing that you can be fired for absolutely no reason no matter how good you are at your job.