Getting rid of bad teachers
roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com
roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=128... (see act one)
Let me also qualify this by saying I have the utmost respect for educators there. I have a close friend that teaches 4th grade in Harlem--some of her stories are pretty unbelievable.
Basically, I don't see how being employed by 'the public' means that contracts that you agreed to and signed can be ripped up at will by the other party.
Don't get me wrong, I think there is something wrong with the situation NYC finds itself in, but this anti-union response seems like a non-sequitor.
If person E wants my labor, I have the right to trade it with him for money under any conditions we both find acceptable. If E's other employees band together, E and I both lose our rights - I can no longer freely sell my labor to him.
That's as crazy as if Apple and Microsoft merged, and then got the government to declare Linux illegal.
Yeah, and if you want to be that simple-minded about it, banning unions violates the right of individuals to associate to protect their collective interests.
I don't personally find it very interesting to have yet another discussion about libertarianism. I am not a libertarian. I am aware of the arguments for that position and do not find them persuasive. But it's kind of tedious that every argument about every political issue on this site seems to come back to this one discussion. Obviously if you are a libertarian, you will be opposed to unionization in general; I'm sure all of us here take that as read. Perhaps the rest of us can actually be allowed to discuss the issue at hand -- I have a feeling that any minute now someone is going to start copy/pasting Locke quotes.
That's utterly untrue. Libertarians oppose the special legal privileges given to unions, not the right to free association. You have the right to form a union, but your employer is not compelled to negotiate with the union and can still hire/fire at will.
As for your complaint "oh noes, I don't like to hear libertarian's opinions, but hacker sites are full of the libertarians", sorry to hear that. You are welcome to create your own HN-type site which allows limited discussion on politics but forbids libertarian opinions - HN is open source so it shouldn't even be that hard.
The trouble with libertarian opinions is that they're always the same boilerplate whatever issue is being discussed. I've heard the views you're expressing literally hundreds of times previously on this and similar forums, and it inevitably becomes tedious and frustrating to read them over and over again. You seem to be insinuating that this is because I want to be insulated from opposing views -- but why would I be here, or be making this comment, if it were so? Surely you can understand that reading the same boilerplate hundreds of times over is potentially frustrating.
Also, Libertarians tend to address people who hold opposing views as if they were idiots. See e.g your assumption that I am completely uninformed about libertarian views on unionization, which derives from a refusal to adopt minimal standards of charity in interpretation. Do you really suppose I'm unaware that libertarians are not opposed per se to voluntary organization? This is a libtertarian talking point; I have seen the libertarian position on this issue exposited countless times. The bottom line is that you made a comment saying that public sector workers should not be allowed to unionize, but are now complaining that you are characterized as "opposed to unionization". I'm perfectly aware that those three words don't capture every nuance of your position, but I think it should be fairly clear what they mean in this context.
No, it isn't semantics. Libertarians believe in the right to free association, but they don't believe that free associations get to use the threat of violence to prevent competition. It's also an important distinction as it relates to your point, that forming a union is better than buying litigation insurance. Litigation insurance doesn't violate anyone's rights, but a union does.
Libertarians also tend to address people who hold opposing views as if they were complete idiots. See e.g your assumption that I am completely unintormed about libertarian views on unionization,
I didn't assume you were uninformed. I became convinced of that after reading your post:
"Yeah, and if you want to be that simple-minded about it, banning unions violates the right of individuals to associate to protect their collective interests...Obviously if you are a libertarian, you will be opposed to unionization in general;..."
I guess I should have been charitable. I should have assumed you knew this was false, but were saying it anyway in order to cast your political opponents in a bad light? My apologies. In the future, I'll assume you are deliberately lying rather than simply making uninformed statements.
You make a comment saying that public sector workers should not be allowed to unionize...
You have me confused with someone else.
If you say that unions violate rights, a sensible reader will naturally infer that you are opposed to "unionization" in some relevant sense of the word (given the reasonable assumption that you are opposed to rights violations).
I am not so easily confused by ambiguous words as you think, and I understand the libertarian position on this issue: unionization in the sense of voluntary organization is fine, unionization in the normal sense of the word is not.
As for your somewhat confused and bitter comments on my uninformedness, I think they illustrate my point. It is simply impossible to have a sensible discussion with someone who holds other people in such contempt. I think I've already explained what I was saying. Why are you trying to rake over the semantic issues yet another time?
http://educationnext.org/files/ednext20033_20.pdf
Most importantly, read the section "The Case of Iftimie Simion". I was lucky enough to have been one of Simion's students, and can attest to his stellar talent. I also saw some of the fireworks that erupted between the principal and the UFT representative — they don't exactly keep students well-informed, but I knew all the parties involved, and believe that the facts of the story are completely true.
Because "the public" can't take their money elsewhere if it doesn't like the decisions made by management. And, public employee unions can drive tax dollars into their members pockets.
If Ford makes crap, for whatever reason, I can take my money elsewhere, so I don't care what stupidity it engages in.
And this: > And, public employee unions can drive tax dollars into their members pockets.
Makes no sense to me at all. Of course they can. That's kind of their purpose...
No, but thanks for raising a strawman.
As I wrote, I think that public employee contracts should be limited in ways that private employee contracts aren't limited.
> Makes no sense to me at all. Of course they can. That's kind of their purpose...
I agree that that's their purpose. As a member of the public I object. Ford can't get my money without my agreement. Since govt can, I want different rules.
And, if someone doesn't like those terms, they're free to find an employer that has the terms that they do like. As long as tax money isn't involved, I don't care.
>> Basically, I don't see how being employed by 'the public' means that contracts that you agreed to and signed can be ripped up at will by the other party. >Because "the public" can't take their money elsewhere if it doesn't like the decisions made by management.
I also don't see where you are referring to when you say > As I wrote, I think that public employee contracts should be limited in ways that private employee contracts aren't limited.
In any event I find it hard to grasp your position. You don't think that being employed by the government means that you shouldn't have the protection of a contract, and you do think that public employee contracts should be limited in ways that private employee contracts aren't.
It's quite easy to grasp. I think that public employee contracts shouldn't have certain provisions.
The "right" to a contract does not imply the right to any possible contract. We already restrict private employee contracts - I'm just saying that there should be somewhat different restrictions on public employee contracts. Folks who object to the restrictions specific to public employee contracts are free to seek private employee contracts more to their liking.
The public has a choice whether or not it pays private sector union workers. If I don't like the UAW, I don't have to buy GM. I don't have the same choice with public school teachers. I'm forced to pay their salaries no matter what.
The real world isn't black and white. Unions can do harm, to be sure, but a balance must be struck between the needs of the employer--public or private--and the needs of the employees, and it's never as simple as saying "we shouldn't have unions".
For instance, in my local school district, the superintendent is being criticized for seeking a raise in the middle of budget cuts. Among his most vocal critics have been the teachers. In response to their criticism, the superintendent proposed new rules that would effectively require teachers to take dozens of hours of useless(1) "technology training" on their own time, without pay; thankfully we have a union capable of protecting teachers against such abuse.
(1) Literally, useless. These courses are part of an ongoing initiative the only point of which, as near as I can tell, is so the superintendent can say X number of teachers have participated in Y number of hours of additional training under his reign. The teachers who already have a clue about computers get nothing from these courses; and unfortunately, the courses are so poorly designed that those who actually do have a thing or two to learn get nothing out of them, either.
I'm not arguing against public schools, but observing that the incentive structure is broken. Administrators of a public school district are hardly held accountable at all, so there's little downside to taking the easy way out and buckling to whatever demands the teachers' union makes. Charter schools seem to manage to strike a compromise, with the administrators and teachers held accountable by the school's stakeholders (usually parents).