TEACHER UNIONS vs. GOOD SCHOOLS

New York Post ^ | April 19, 2003 | MYRON LIEBERMAN and DAVID SALISBURY

[Eva]

The quality of public school education is inversely proportionate to the growth of the NEA.

[TxBec]

p.s. if you use the java chat (I use mIRC), there is a dropdown window for you to pick #homeschool. Otherwise, if you use mIRC, just type /join #homeschool

[general_re]

In my Westchester NY school district the sepnding per pupil is 20,000 per student, per year, and the schools system barely recieves a passing grade.

Ah, but New York has the second-highest teacher salaries in the nation, so therefore the system is working perfectly. From a certain point of view, that is...

[Eva]

Here is my plan for eliminating the influence of the NEA on local public schools.

The quality of public school education is inversely proportionate to the growth of the NEA.

I have been repeating this statement for fifteen years, every time the subject of the NEA or failing public schools arises. Fortunately for Washington State, we have been saved from some of the worst abuses of the NEA by the super majority rule for raising school taxes.Unfortunately for Washington State, we have some of the lowest paid teachers in the country.

I have a proposal to do a kind of end around play on the NEA. My plan stems from an article that I once read in the Los Angeles Times that described a professional as one who follows a career which necessitates a university degree and puts public service before financial remuneration. By this definition there can be no such thing as a professional union.

I propose that we have two levels of teachers, a professional level and a union level. The professional level would be paid at a higher rate, would work a year around schedule and would be expected to work a professional work day, from eight to five. The union level teacher would continue to work the union schedule at union wages. The schools would be operated on a year around basis with summer sessions being offered by the professional level teachers. Special class offerings in AP classes, the arts, athletics, FFA, as well as remedial classes could be offered by professional level teachers.

Students could be offered the option of completing their education in less than the usual twelve years, or offered the possibility of attending year around classes on a part time basis while taking classes at a technical school or working part time or staying in school and receiving college credit for high school work. Schools which opted for this program could open their summer courses to students from outside the district for a fee.

The benefits of this type of program would be that the local school district would regain control of curriculum; better teachers would be inspired by the more professional level of pay; the choices and opportunities that would be offered to students would be greatly multiplied and hopefully inspire them to excellence. At the same time the union wage positions would still be open to teachers who prefer the shorter hours and long vacations while raising a family of their own.

[Slyfox]

In my Westchester NY school district the sepnding per pupil is 20,000 per student, per year,

Parents could send their children to top notch private colleges with that kind of money.

[tcostell]

We could yes, except that we're already paying it once to the town in the form of property taxes. (also among the highest in the country)

The only real solution is vouchers for everyone, not just those school systems that fail. I see no reason why my child should be discriminated against just because we aren't poor.

She should have the same chance for a good education as anyone else, and the only thing that will do that is vouchers.

The NEA is the real enemy of America.

[ladylib]

They certainly could. And suckered parents are willing to be taxed to the gills for a mediocre education for their public school students. I would like to know how much of that $20,000 goes directly to the class room and how much of it goes to who knows what.

The little Catholic church school across the street from me provides a better education for $4,000 a year (subsidized by the church) than the public school right next door to me ($12,000 per student). The little Catholic church school sends its students to the best Catholic and private prep schools in the New York City metropolitan area. Those kids don't even think about the local public high school.

My late father always said (and he died in 1979) -- Public education is a racket!!! And I always said to him, "What are you talking about? Public education a racket????" I know better now. I know better now because I check out the educationnews.org website every single day and I surf the web on education issues and I find that public education is sadly lacking today.

[Lady Eileen]

My late father always said (and he died in 1979) -- Public education is a racket!!!

That's the whole point.

[ladylib]

It's unfortunate that people don't realize it, but when you have a child who goes to a public school (and you are paying in taxes) you are going to believe anything that the school tells you.

[ladylib]

I like the idea of vouchers (rattles the teachers' union cage)but I'm afraid that private schools will eventually have the same problems of public schools. Whoever takes the King's gold is the King's man.

[k2blader]

Bump for later read.

[Lady Eileen]

It's unfortunate that people don't realize it, but when you have a child who goes to a public school (and you are paying in taxes) you are going to believe anything that the school tells you.

ladylib, you are right on the money.

--Farsighted Christians in the nineteenth century saw what was coming. The founders of the government schools were hostile to the historic Christian faith from the very beginning. R.L. Dabney was able to predict in the nineteenth century that all Bibles, prayers and catechisms would ultimately be driven out of the schools. A.A. Hodge said that if the government schools were established, they would prove to be the greatest engine for propagation of atheism that the world had ever seen.

--Doug Wilson

[TxBec]

Just a quick ping

P.S. The chat room is open and very quiet :)

[Carry_Okie]

1. Enforce the U.S. Supreme Court decision re Communications Workers v. Beck (487 US 735, 1988).
2. Assist formation of corporate service associations. Offer State funding for local school districts to divest into smaller, more personalized institutions.
3. Use the private and home education market to develop and test learning tools and services. Private validation services could assess product performance against product claims. School boards would be free to select guaranteed products for use in public schools.
4. Insurance on the guarantee would cover the cost of remedial education if the product fails to meet warranted performance.
5. Veto any bill requiring home and private educators to conform to State teacher certification standards.
6. Veto any bill requiring State supervision of home schools.
7. Analyze any Federal program for insufficient funds and unintended consequences suspecting unfunded mandates. Cite New York v. United States (505 US 144, 1992).
8. Publicly excoriate Bill Lockyer at every opportunity.

[Carry_Okie]

Farsighted Christians in the nineteenth century saw what was coming. The founders of the government schools were hostile to the historic Christian faith from the very beginning.

It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the NEA was founded by Scottish Rite Freemasons, would it?

[Lady Eileen]

Vouchers are our only hope.

I hope not, because that is the same as saying government, which got us into the present mess, is our only hope. That's because in every voucher system, government politicians decide who gets what, when, how much, etc.

This is not the same as parents keeping their own money and deciding how to spend it on their children's education. The state is still controlling the money and handing it out on its own terms. Sure, vouchers are better than providing only one local school alternative. But they are not freedom. And they are not the state acknowledging its usurpation of parental authority. So they are a small bandaid on a wound that won't heal without surgery.

If we are wise, we won't be distracted from what should be our goal of complete eduational freedom from the state by the siren song of vouchers.

For more specifics about educational freedom generally, please see http://www.sepschool.org.

For an article focusing on vouchers, please see: http://www.sepschool.org/misc/vouchers.html

[Lady Eileen]

Education reform and tort reform in my opinion are the most important domestic issues needed to strengthen America.

In my opinion, the only education reform that will work is educational liberty, which is complete separation of the state from education. Vouchers, however better than the current regime, don't restore this liberty, because they still require the state to coercively extract money from taxpayers, including many who don't have children.

[Lady Eileen]

Change the NEA "from the inside"? What koolaid have you been drinking?!

They need ALL power removed that has anything to do with a parent's and voters rights to determine what happens in our schools.

The koolaid comment is right on point, but you're still missing something. So-called "public schools" aren't "our schools." They are government schools, run by an alliance of the NEA and educrats. We'll never win the war against such people until we stop fighting it with their language.

They want us to think that the schools are ours so that we'll join them in efforts to protect the schools, however illegimate. But collectively owned schools are, by definition, socialist. They don't belong to individual people. They belong to the state. So we must call them what they are: government schools. When we do so, we become more free in our minds to consider real private alternatives.

Otherwise, all the "reform" in the world will just end up protecting the state-dominated system.

[Lady Eileen]

The NEA was founded by the ideological cohorts of Mann and Dewey. Their purpose in initiating public schooling was to bring socialism to the US. This wasn't some kind of high-jacking, it was planned from the start.

Absolutely. And, as the old political adage says, "You can't beat a plan with no plan." Which is what conservatives and Christians have been trying to do. We bemoan the evils of the present system but don't have the vision of our opponents to propose and promote the same level of systematic change that Mann, Dewey, and their ilk accomplished generations ago.

And perhaps the main reason we don't have such vision and determination as a whole is that we are almost all products of their socialist educational scheme and its inherent indoctrination. They designed the system to produce passive supporters of the state, good little citizens that would work hard, pay whatever the government demanded in taxes, and not complain too much...

After all, the government is generously giving you a "free" education, aren't they? You should be more grateful.

[Carry_Okie]

You should be more grateful.

LOL! That's what they tell me.

We pay $6,000 a year in property taxes and educate our kids at home. They bitch about losing the per diem; I explain that our taxes go into the pool from which the extra money is allocated to their kids. Then they whine that I am depriving the rest of the kids from the help my over-achieving children might give them!

I tell them that as long as they are complaining that the problem in education is a lack of money, they should be more grateful. ;-)

What do you think of my program?