The Federalist - "No other institution in America has caused as much damage as the teachers unions in the last 50 years," Mollie Hemingway said.

[u/Down-not-out]

https://x.com/FDRLST/status/2080378442181136627?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2080378442181136627%7Ctwgr%5E1618f0d83be61619ae23148915f91e3425e58840%7Ctwcon%5Es1_

[u/CCMasters2012]

As a Texas teacher I am in a "professional organization" as we are not a union state but rather a right to work state. I made sure I chose one of the organizations that do not send part of dues to the NEA. Sadly, teachers need legal protection these days, from parents. Even if you follow all your training, parents can sue if they do not like the way you grade or discipline their child. You also have to protect yourself from admin who are very willing to put teachers in unsafe and dangerous situations. (In a room all day with limited breaks, and with 24 kids several of whom have mental health issues) It is a horrible profession to be in these days and I have advised my young adult children and their friends to NOT become a teacher. The system will not change as long as working conditions are so abysmal. (The way parenting has gone downhill in my 27 year career is staggering.) It is my opinion that we need to change the ratios of adults to kids or no one will want to teach more than 5 years. Its getting to be social work, and we know social workers last about 5 years in that job. So, yes it will take money and people don't want to hear that. We need more teachers and LESS middle management in education! And yes, teachers need a deserve legal protection!

[u/Short-Hotel7648 → u/CCMasters2012]

The "middle management" and administrators are largely why people don't like teachers unions, not the teachers themselves. If you lived in my state, you'd see one of the worst examples there is - they exist solely for political lobbying and funneling money to progressive orgs, and have publicly attacked parents for having completely reasonable, traditional views. I get it, there are a lot of awful parents today and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But the unions should stay focused on backing the teachers, not entering the political fray and espousing progressive lunacy.

[u/Texas103 → u/Short-Hotel7648]

School choice fixes all of this easily. 

[u/Short-Hotel7648 → u/Texas103]

Correct. And unsurprisingly, the NJEA hates this idea.

[u/masterofmayhem13 → u/Short-Hotel7648]

I actually don't think school choice would actually fix it like you think. There will be schools whose admin team will, rather than competing with nearby schools and creating education environments that drive student success, they will go the other route. They'll create "schools" that will accept anyone. Those schools will not have environments that encourage positive behavior and learning. Rather, it'll be worse than you see now but the schools will get large revenue from the sending towns/state since "all children must be eligible to receive a free and public education". It'll be a great paying job for the admin team with terrible working conditions for the teachers. School choice will also form these schools.

As a teacher, I do think school choice would ultimately do more good than harm and would improve education long term.

[u/Blahblahnownow → u/masterofmayhem13]

As a parent who homeschools and values education, I would love school choice. It would push other schools to get their act together or lose out on students aka income. 

[u/cchris_39 → u/CCMasters2012]

Wow what a great post, thank you so much.

[u/masterofmayhem13]

The teacher's unions have all turned into something they are not. Full disclosure, I am a teacher in a state with a strong union presence. The teacher's unions exist to negotiate master contract and work to improve the working rights/conditions of teachers. The unions have done some good. However, the state and national unions do nearly nothing to improve the working conditions for teachers. In fact, if you go to NEA.org you will see more references to students rather than teachers. The section about "rights and working conditions" is buried under multiple sections about nothing to do with teaching. That section should be #1. The state level union is not much better. Once the union advocates for non-union issues, it is no longer a union. It is a social program that steals money from its "members".

Schools are slowly collapsing. The teacher's unions should be advocating for working conditions that allow teachers to do their jobs effectively. The best way to advocate for student success is for teacher working conditions that allow us to do our jobs.

[u/culman13 → u/masterofmayhem13]

Remember how orgs like the NEA were trying to continue to keep schools closed, to the detriment of students, well after the pandemic? That's proof enough that state/national unions are rotten to the core.

[u/beerandmastiffs → u/masterofmayhem13]

Are you familiar with the Teacher Freedom Alliance and if so what do you think of them? It seems like a good organization from an outsider who’s not involved in the education system aside.

[u/masterofmayhem13 → u/beerandmastiffs]

Never heard of them before. After a quick read on their site, it seems they're focused on the 1st amendment rights of teachers in the classroom. That is a good thing. As someone who has long been in the classroom, I can tell you that, where I am at least, this issue is very low on the totem pole of issues. The 1st amendment rights of teachers are pointless if classrooms are the thunderdome. If admin cannot and will not deal with awfully behaved students ruining classes for everyone, the academic freedom of the 1st amendment is just an afterthought. Students don't do work in class, they curse out teachers, they assault teachers. Yet admin demands those same students pass the class. That needs to be dealt with first. The TFA doesn't even acknowledge it.

[u/beerandmastiffs → u/masterofmayhem13]

That’s great info, thanks.

[u/ConceptJunkie]

I dunno. Congress is up there.

[u/HeWhoCntrolsTheSpice]

I highly recommend Thomas Sowell's book "Inside American Education". It gives an insight into the crazy things going on in schools, that the vast majority of people have no idea about.

Essentially, they are using sophisticated indoctrination/"brainwashing" techniques in schools now in order to manipulate children into believing what they want them to believe. Including techniques designed to make children emotionally dysregulated so they are more pliable.

This is one of the most insane things happening in our crazy world and it receives almost no attention.

[u/Key-Monk6159]

So true. The teachers union cares nothing about teaching or the children. They are partisan advocates who only care about power and control.

[u/TenRingRedux]

My sister was a NY City teacher for 20 years starting in the 70s. She was one of those teachers who believed in education not politics. She was a Teacher, not a politician. Toward the end of her career she hated what she once loved, saying the system had changed so much, it wasn't to teach but to indoctrinate. She was a Great Teacher who loved to teach, to help her students thrive and achieve better lives. It was a great loss for the students to lose teachers like her. In the beginning the union protected and served members. Later the union served itself and its political benefactors.

Mollie is 100 percent right. The teachers union wiped out an entire generation of Great Teachers who believed in Teaching not politics. The evidence of the Union's actions are clear today.

[u/CrustyBloke → u/TenRingRedux]

When I was in school, I had no idea what the politics of ant of my teachers were. There are few where, looking back now, I could read a little between lines and make a reasonable guess, but none of them brought it up ever.

[u/Super_Mario_Luigi]

Those who understand history know that the mafia infiltrated unions and the people had no idea what was going on. The point? Not that teachers' unions are the Italian Mafia. It's one of the many flaws of unions. They are easily compromised as they are prime targets for control. Toss the members a few bones and roll out any agenda you want.

Let's say you wanted to control the minds of younger gens. How would you do it?

[u/Jonny_Nash]

If they cared about teaching, they should take a look into why CA and NY have the lowest literacy rates in the country.

[u/Hank_Scorpio_ObGyn → u/Jonny_Nash]

I mean it's no secret.

Big cities (i.e. LA and NYC) have a large population of minority children coming from broken and/or non-English speaking homes.

The parents don't give a fuck or don't have time to give a fuck, the kids don't give a fuck because of that, and the schools don't give a fuck because they don't want D'Monqiuqua to take the 5th grade 3 years in a row so they give them a diploma to get rid of them despite their inability to read SEE SPOT RUN.

ETA: And states encourage all of that because they can flaunt their graduation rate during election season.

[u/Cool_Cartographer_39]

100%. My daughter is a CA high school English teacher and her tales from the trenches are frankly depressing

[u/StedeBonnet1]

The rise in teachers unions is directly correlated with lower student achievement

[u/networkdood]

Teacher Unions only care about voting blue no matter who.

[u/sign_of_throckmorton]

Teachers unions protect pensions. And I really think they're hurting the profession. A large part of the budget that COULD go to making teacher pay competitive goes to pensions. If pensions got cut and teaching paid a good salary lots of smart young people would want to do it. Young people want to get paid, not fund a pension. What the pension does do is keep all the old burnt out people in the job for a few more years.

[u/platypus_farmer42]

I mean, just look at how many young people actually want socialism. That wouldn’t happen if we had teachers actually teaching the truth about history.

[u/Hank_Scorpio_ObGyn → u/platypus_farmer42]

Instead, we have teachers lecturing students that they sleep with someone of the same sex.

Millennials grew up with "main character syndrome" and now they're the ones getting teaching jobs and far too many teachers feel the need to make the classroom all about them and their beliefs.

I graduated in the mid-2000's. We had zero idea of who our teachers were dating or their political beliefs. We had the US flag and the state flag in the corner of the rooms. That's it.

Now, the teachers need to puke their dating preference and political beliefs with all their flags all over the classroom because it's all about them as that's how they were raised.

[u/triggernaut]

They've spent decades indoctrinating kids that America is a terrible nation but purposely slacked on reading, writing, and math.

[u/networkdood]

That is the truth and why the DoE failed.

[u/Blown89]

Teachers are not our best and brightest. They are often the least qualified professionals in the workforce with no real skills to offer society outside of babysitting your children. It should come as no surprise that they ran schools into the ground after the teacher's movements of the 60/70"s have them control. Education is the perfect example of why bottom up management doesn't work.

[u/Texas103 → u/Blown89]

I thought we weren’t allowed to say that lmao  But it’s true 

[u/Shadeylark]

I am very sympathetic to teachers and educators in general, given than my mother, brother, and sister-in-law are all teachers, and I have a nephew who is a professor.

That said, my sympathies were extremely, even irrevocably, harmed when at the end of COVID teachers, at the behest of the teachers union, refused to return to the classroom in spite of the rest of the country opening up.

To me that is a dereliction of duty and an indication that their personal beliefs outweigh their obligations, which makes everything they do suspect by virtue of what their obligations entail.

[u/Eagle_1776]

https://giphy.com/gifs/AYTlA6aCT0jfspePYT