Ah. Another broad brush stroke artist, armed with more prejudice and emotion than facts. In NYC, teachers are required to get their masters degree within a few years or lose their position. And then, they are required to take some pretty stiff exams covering their pedagogical expertise as well as their expertise in their license area. News flash: The union has NOTHING to do with these requirements.
The union has NOTHING to do with the curricula used in schools either. It used to be in the hands of administrators. Now it's in the hands of politicians who are blatantly ignorant about the education paradigm, who snap up unproven, usually leftist-progressive "panaceas" and who then force these on administrators who then force it on down the line. Commie Core was music to the ears of both the leftist moron governor Cuomo and his leftist moron counterpart mayor of NYC, Comrade Bill DeBlASSio. They ate that unproven garbage right up and forced it on all the teachers they controlled. Never mind that many states promptly shed that garbage after it proved to be a miserable system, NY had to keep its Commie Core to the bitter end. That's politicians you should be pointing your little finger at, not the union.
More doctrination (higher degrees) isn’t what makes a teacher great or even good. What we need is a way to remove bad teachers. Removing common core and bringing education and teaching careers back under local control is the answer.
The unions have everything to do with getting those leftist politicians in office.
My husband was a teacher for 24 years. Every time the NEA/AFT mag came in the mail was like lemon juice in a paper cut, drove me nuts that were forced to contribute to that garbage. Look at what your dues pay for. IIRC, the largest chunk of the pie chart was political activism. The unions invest heavily in getting leftists elected.
The unions are complicit in turning the education system into an indoctrination system. That’s a goal of leftists.