Re: [Phys-l] Kozol fasts to protest NCLB - defense of unions

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

"Finally, I would argue that teachers unions have
generally been unsuccessful at maintaining the
standard of living of most teachers, relative to the
rest of the workforce."


That's because they're mostly women, a corollary to the lack of women's 
"rights".   The CNA (Calif. Nurses Assoc.) is an exception.  Perhaps 
teachers could learn from them.

bc, married to a former Alisal Teachers Association president and chief 
negotiator.

John Barrer wrote:

> --- Larry Smith <larry.smith@snow.edu> wrote: See
> after SNIPs
>
>
>  
>
> > It is true that generally all teachers get the same
> > raise, regardless of
> > quality.  Maybe that needs to be examined with merit
> > pay in mind, but while
> > philosophically in favor of merit pay, it seems hard
> > to carry out in
> > practice, especially with the unions around. SNIP
> >    
>
> Several valid (IMHO) reasons that unions could oppose
> "merit pay":
> - teachers have NO control over quality of the inputs
> to "production" (ie, the kids), both initially and
> throughout the year. Would you expect assembly-line
> workers to accept a system where their wages were tied
> to final quality when they were supplied parts of
> wildly varying quality?
>
>  
cut