The Teacher’s Union Reinforces Its Own Power At the Cost of Student Learning
When organizations that are insured against any challenge to their supremacy grow to a certain size, they start to care primarily about retaining their own power. An excellent example of this is the teachers’ union, which is primarily concerned with insuring its own grip on teachers and on the education system. While we should be having a national discussion on how to reward good teachers (this is actually isn’t all that easy to do and will require lots of discussion), the teachers union has us discussing whether or not performance should even be a factor in teacher compensation.
The union is also excellent at weeding out initiatives that could reduce its stranglehold on the workforce. As David Brooks explains in the NY Times:
Democrats in Congress just killed an experiment that gives 1,700 poor Washington kids school vouchers. They even refused to grandfather in the kids already in the program, so those children will be ripped away from their mentors and friends. The idea was to cause maximum suffering, and 58 Senators voted for it.
School vouchers allow students to go to charter and non-public schools, most of which aren’t unionized. The only argument against allowing school vouchers is that it reduces the critical mass necessary to have a functioning education system. There’s merit to that argument, but not enough merit to justify yanking 1700 students away from their friends and classmates.