Then I don't know what the problem is in TX. We are a non union state. Our schools still seem to have the same problems other states complain about. Of course I think teacher's unions are a waste. But they aren't the entire picture. The courts haven't helped. The ADA is a big part of the problem. General society trends are part of it. The media shares some blame.
It's just not that simple.
susie
Here's the dilemma:
The objective of a good teacher is to teach his student to teach himself -- and thus, there is no job security for such an excellent teacher. If one places his own job security foremost, his objective will be to increase the dependency on his instruction -- and not grow beyond it.
Effective education therefore decreases the need for this kind of education -- which is reliance on the teacher to learn. The new paradigm of instruction is learning without the teacher -- which is now possible because the availability of information sources. It doesn't take six years to learn arithemetic. It doesn't take six years to learn reading. It doesn't take six years to learn economics. It doesn't take six years to learn computers. It's not a time thing but that is the quantitative approach to education and productivity. Understanding is really a qualitative transformation.
The unions are propagating the assembly line approach to work in an age in which work well done eliminates itself. Information age work transforms the work being done; assembly line education merely perpetuates the work without transforming it. Thus the objective, is to keep a student in that incapacitated condition -- which manifests itself as the dilemma of contemporary education.
We need to move to the next level in which we do not need teachers but people teach themselves -- and can learn from each other, and everything directly.