David B. Shemano wrote: > I think you are are referring to the school reform movement (as seeking to > convert teachers from artisans/professionals to assembly-line workers), but > to be fair, isn't it more accurate to say that the public school unions see > the teachers as interchangeable assembly-line workers? <
When a teachers' union is operating at its best, it's highly responsive to the democratic will of its members.[*] So this would be a case where the teachers _themselves_ see themselves as interchangeable parts, which is totally absurd, straight out of Monty Python's "Life of Brian."[**] Now, it could be argued that the CA teachers' unions aren't at their best, but from all I've read and experienced directly they are not significantly worse than their best at representing their members (which, after all, is their job). The two main CA teachers' unions (the California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers) are pretty good, in terms of representing their members. This is partly because the members are educated, but it's also because the teaching profession has been under repeated attack over many years, which drives people to favor unions. In any event, California teachers themselves really seem to want their unions (though they may want to change them a bit). In contrast, much of school management (especially the higher-level bureaucrats) and the so-called "school reform movement" want to abolish unions, because it benefits their special interests. This movement seems to think, in the spirit of TINA, that there's only _one_ kind of "reform," i.e., market- and bureaucracy-driven efforts to turn teachers into commodities, so that other methods of reform need not even be mentioned. As with most simplistic visions, it's either/or. Either you're _for_ "reform" as "we" define it or you're _against_ any effort to improve schools at all. And "reform" sounds so _good_. It's propaganda, like calling a missile a "peacekeeper." If the "school reform movement" _really_ wanted successful reforms, they'd be lobbying for the public schools to get much more money than they get now. Changing methods of teaching or ways of organizing schools is much easier when people aren't fighting over crumbs (and feeling resentful about the fact that teachers have to buy school supplies for their students). If the school system had bigger budgets, they could attract better people rather than having to apply punitive methods. But no, the self-styled "school reform movement" wants education on the cheap, especially when it's other people's kids who are involved (and those people don't fit with "mainstream American culture"). > Is there any other basis to defend seniority protection other than teachers > are interchangeable assembly line workers? < Michael and Sean have made very good points, so I don't have to say much. The key point is that having seniority job protection prevents people from being put into the cookie-cutter and turned into interchangeable parts. The more experienced teachers can be a good source of knowledge for management on how to run the school, while advising novices on how to do their jobs, etc. In contrast, if they always have to worry about being fired by managers (who often have no experience with teaching these days) on "merit" grounds, they have to hunker down and toe the management's Party Line (which is currently "teach to the test"). Ideally, a school should act a lot like a workers' cooperative, except that parents would be on the board, too. Instead of always fighting cut-backs, the PTA would be running the place. In a different missive, David wrote: > Once we get away from piecemeal production and into the world of knowledge > and information production, productivity becomes more subjective and > difficult to evaluate, but here is nothing special about this with respect to > teaching. It applies to lawyers, etc., and every other (non-unionized) > profession manages to get along with managerial qualitiative review.< Strictly speaking, lawyers are not "non-unionized." (Sean also makes this point.) Like unionized plumbers or carpenters, they keep their remuneration up by restricting the supply of lawyers. (Of course, they do so hand in glove with the government, which is packed with lawyer-politicians.) Also, lawyers can and do get "tenure," making them immune from lay-offs (to the extent that anyone is truly immune). Once you're a "partner," you're part of management and make personnel decisions, so you're most likely to fire or lay off the non-partners rather than yourself. That's like having tenure. In academia, one seldom-mentioned reason why professors can get tenure is because then they can participate in management-type decisions. Untenured folks don't have enough stake in the institution -- and have too much of an interest in protecting their livelihoods, which are always threatened -- to do this. Of course, tenure is also one of management's motivational tools, one that is significantly less expensive than simple monetary incentives. (Disclosure: as a tenured prof at a privately-owned college, I'm part of management _by definition_, according to the Yeshiva decision. Does that give me the ability to act like the administration? no. ) David: > In fact, precisely beause of standardized testing, it is easier to include an > objective criteria in the evalution of teachers than most other > knowledge/information producers. However, the ultimate issue is who decides. > You think the decision should be in the hands of the teachers, while I think > the decision should be in the hands of the principal, who has the managerial > responsbility to ensure that the school attracts students and performs its > function.< The principal? why the love of one-person dictatorship?[***] it doesn't work well in corporations, so why should it work well with schools? And to whom is the principal responsible? do the people who actually do the work, deal with students on a day-to-day basis, etc. get no respect, so that they can thrown away like used Kleenex? don't the parents have some right to influence the principal's decisions? > An inevitable consequence of the government provided unionized school system. > Compare to private schools/catholic schools.< This is a big question. I'd like to see David's evidence for private and Catholic schools being better than the public ones. (I'm hoping that it's not just dogma, a fundamental faith that government can do no right.) By the way, not all government-provided are unionized, while some charter (i.e., privatized) schools have unions. The evidence I've seen indicates that a major reason why private schools have such a good reputation is that they cream-skim (cherry-pick), attracting what they see as the best students and dumping the others (including those with special needs) on the underfunded public system. The charter schools aren't supposed to do that, but I'm convinced that they do. By the way, the reputation of charter schools seems much exaggerated: there are lots of bad ones, just there are a lot of bad private schools. It's not the charter schools that are clearly better than the standard public schools. Rather, it's the _magnet_ schools, which are "government provided." -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. [*] I know that money libertarians don't care about democracy, but this is addressed to a more general audience. [**] Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say. The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them! Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals! The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals! Brian: You're all different! The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different! Man in crowd: I'm not... [***] I don't quite get the love that money libertarians have for dictatorships, like Milton and his Augusto. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
