February 23, 2004
More Terrorists Among Us
I guess that hanging around the Bush White House long enough makes you see every conflict in stark, good vs. evil terms.:
Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation’s largest teachers union a “terrorist organization” Monday, taking on the 2.7-million-member National Education Association early in the presidential election year. Paige’s comments, made to the nation’s governors at a private White House meeting, were denounced by union president Reg Weaver as well as prominent Democrats. Paige said he was sorry, and the White House said he was right to say so.
Clearly, if we don’t switch to a voucher system then the “terrorists” have already won.
Calling Greenpeace a terrorist organization might fool a good number of people, but no one will swallow a teacher’s union in the same category. Laughable!
Posted by: Gaelen Burns at February 23, 2004 08:40 PMWoo Hoo! Get out the rope and the liquor! We’s gonna have a lynching….WOO HOO!
Although, I do have to wonder about the response I would get walking into a NEA meeting with a “Bush in ‘04” button on my lapel. I’m guessing four flat tires and a kid repeating second grade. ;-)
Posted by: Brian at February 23, 2004 09:42 PMObviously this was out of line and he apologized, but the teacher’s union is a BIG problem for American kids. I know many good, dedicated teachers, and every one of them believes the teachers union does more harm than good for America’s children. The best system would encourage and monetaraly reward young, bright dedicated teachers rather than just those who have been there a long time. it would also allow poor parents to explore the option of sending their kids to a school of their choice that actually works, rather than forcing them into the same failing system over and over again. But why propose improvements other than throwing money into the same system captured by the same union who is looking out for itself and not the kids, that would be CRAZY…
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at February 24, 2004 12:17 AMTo be fair, Mr. Paige has actually run a school district, so he obviously knows more about the teacher’s union than I do. Having attended public schools, I do agree that they could stand to be more meritocratic and rely less on seniority. One of my teachers in high school had obvious psychological problems that made him almost completely incompetent. Not only did he manage to hang onto his job, but when there were budget cuts a younger, competent teacher of the same subject got laid off.
In short, I don’t think Rod Paige is crazy to criticize the teacher’s union, but his language shows that he’s probably been hanging around with the Bushies too long.
Posted by: Woody Mena at February 24, 2004 10:26 AMSec. Paige apologized for a poor choice of words considering the climate of war that we find ourselves in these days. However, Paige was attempting to point out that teachers unions are the greadtest impediment to change in our schools. Teachers unions have their place to protect teachers from having to work for a pitiance like in the past, but those days are over and its time that we extended the school day to reflect the 8-5 society that we live in and have rigorous testing of students to make sure that they are learning. The teachers union, which we have to separate from teachers themselves, only care about keeping wages high and hours low (that is what unions are sapose to do) the problem is that these teachers unions have no countervailing force of equal magnitude. they take local politicians to task every time it comes to negotiations time because they have their good negotiators and the politicians are at best inspired amatures. it is time that teachers become engulfed into the federal or state employee unions and have them go up against real negotiators.
Posted by: Miguel at February 24, 2004 01:57 PMThe United States is a free, capitalist country. As such, trade unions are part of our country’s infrastructure. As bad for kids as the teacher’s union may be (and I do have a lot of sympathy for that perspective), we cannot blame them for our country’s education problems. We have to create a public education system that permits both unionized teachers *and* high quality education for kids.
Not that I know how to do this, but it seems to me that railing against the teacher’s union ain’t gonna help. I mean, they’re not going away unless we decide to throw away the Constitution or something.
-Cf
