My husband served on our local school board for 20+ years, and, in doing so, became very familiar with the union-dictated procedures that had to be followed in order to fire an incompetent teacher. The number of legal hoops through which the school district had to jump in order to succeed in letting a bad teacher go was daunting. A certain number of poor evaluations were required, followed by mandatory remediation, and several other steps in the never-ending process.
In the 20+ years my husband served on the board, two teachers were fired, and many multiples of that number should have been, if the quality of education, rather than the job security of teachers, had been the focus of the unions.
Our son also taught physics for a time in one of the nearby school districts. He was only one of two teachers in the entire district who refused to join either the NEA or the AFT. As a result, he was immediately treated as a pariah. Fortunately his teaching ability, rather than a union membership, succeeded in keeping him in good stead. Individuality, and a desire to stand for something other than union dictates, are rarely rewarded in modern American education. |
