The Bloated Issue of Bloated Teach Unions

Being a mere observer of Chicago Public Schools and their union drama over the years, I could never get over the feeling that kids were being of held hostage. It's this duplicitous "We are educating the future, we are noble crusaders to teach the masses, we love our jobs, we are passionate about educating, now pay us more or we don't do it!".

Of course, talking like that puts you in a tricky position. I've tried writing a couple of different posts about this and different ways to navigate the fact that this is such a difficult issue because it's so multi-faceted. The issue is a blend of labor, education, tax payer dollars, and urban management all blended into one too hot to touch topic. Teacher's Unions wield a great deal of power. They have the advantage of saying "If you're not with us, you're against the better education of your children" and nobody, not even Da Mare himself, wants to be on the receiving end of that editorial come Monday morning. It takes a lot of guts to stand up to them.

I'm not sure whom, if anybody, would seriously give a critical look in how Teacher Unions operate and how they may be harmful to education in general. And then Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and iPod iDol, gave it to teacher unions with both barrels:

"What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?" he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.

"Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.'"

[...]

"This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

I just want to get it out in the open here and say, WHAT KOHONES! Wow. Who's this guy's taylor? Does he need special pants for those? I might just go out and buy an iPod nano now just because their CEO has got some serious guts. Apple is the number 2 provider of education computers in the country (next to Dell). He basically just told a large chunk of his customers that they're they biggest swine at the public trough. I've got a lot of respect for anybody who's willing to come out and drop a body slam like that, knowing full well that if there's one thing about teacher's unions, it's that they're fanatical about being teachers and will respond to criticizm in a fanatical way. And oh yes, yes they did.

Fanatical teacherism and the unfortunate framing of the debate as 'teachers vs. parents', I think there's something to be said for Balmer's comments, at least to the point where if we're going to be assigning blame for the poor (or just obscenely mediocre - depending on whom you're talking to) condition of our schools at the Mayor and the administration, some sort of accountability must be placed on CTU which is an undeniably a potent part of the structure of how the schools work.

Balmer's comments, however distasteful to the Education crowd, have merit. As the Mayor continues to push to change acknowledgement of CPS from a public service to a business model - most obvious change was the title of CPS's head honcho to 'CEO' - people like Jobs and other business streamliners are bound to start offering a critical voice as to what is ailing the school system.

That being said, it's an open invite. If you're a teacher and you've got some perspective that doesn't match, drop me an email with some thoughts, and I'd be happy to post them as a follow up. I don't want this to turn into a flaming crap storm of various levels of wingnuttery.

I think one of the primary things that gets missed in this talk is that Teacher Unions are essentially a product of Job's perspective in the first place. Tax payers expect that the schools produce political pressure for schools to perform. Political pressure results in weak teachers getting canned or of course, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Teachers largely unionized as a method of shielding themselves from political pressure, kind of a 'brick wall' to obscure the ability for the political pressure to hold them unfairly accountable for often impossible results. Unions create organizational firewalls of often laughable nature to protect their own.

I've come to the conclusion that's how they started. Good intentions all around, but over the years, be it the SEIU/Andy Stern influence or just City Hall giving inches which have amounted to miles over the years, I'm certain that teacher unions were never intended to be the cancer that they are today.

The origins of Job's comments wasn't talking about holding teachers unfairly accountable for their product, he was talking about how Unions make teachers (and to a greater extent - the schools) unfairly unaccountable to the tax payers resulting in a systemic tumor which taxes resources and otherwise obstructs good education. That of course brings up a fundamental discourse between parents, unions, and politicians - who should otherwise be all on the same page - ya know - for the children.

Hey you. Yes you! Teacher guy. I know you're bringing up the comment box right now ready to light into me to tell me about how "teachers can't be measured because there are too many variables including the nature of the students, the participation of the parents, and that in the end CTU is collection of well meaning individuals who want to do nothing more than educate your kids better". Save it. Like it or not, we don't pay parents to participate in their kids education. We pay you instead. If you want to complain about having the most mild expectations of your performance, then we don't need you. We need 9.00 an hour baby sitters. You're a professional. Act like it.

I'm aware that this isn't popular. With Red Line cheerleaders now going giggly Big Labor, (yay!, Daley is so corrupt let's cheer for different corruption!!), there will be an increasing desire for average tax payers to continue myopically blaming the Mayor for school woes (a portion of which, admittedly is legitimate), with little to no regard for getting into actual root causes in which at least a portion of the blame must be placed on CTU. Time to start passing the blame to the Union....for the children.