re: #305 Sionainn

No, I just disagree with most the union’s premise.

“The associations/unions ensure that teachers cannot be fired because a principal get a stick up his/her butt and simply doesn’t like a particular teacher.” I object to that, for one. I actually think it’s OK if management fires someone they simply don’t like, or lack confidence in, and I say that as someone who was once let go from a job for being the hire of someone who was fired after quarreling with upper management.

“Unions/associations take care of certain things so teachers can focus on their jobs and students.” In many cases, though, they also defend teachers who have clearly proved themselves incompetent, as well as oppose any measures intended to provide for greater teacher accountability. And while it can well be argued that the union serves its members by doing so, it is also true that those who favor such additional powers for school districts are not ogres, but rather see increased accountability and removal of underperforming teachers as the best way to ensure that students learn.

Schools are about their students, after all. Teachers, like other types of employee in private businesses, ought only to be employed by the school so long as they continue to generate sufficient value for the school. Those who cannot produce the needed value should be dismissed.