Do Unions have a positive or negative affect on our kids education?

 

 Recent attempts at abolishing collective bargaining in Wisconsin tie into the current education reform attempts, in particular with the “Race to the Top” Federal grant program.  I was reading an article from the New York Times;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23Race-t.html?pagewanted=all0 and although this article is from last May, I was reminded of it as I am attempting to keep up with the attempts at passing laws against collective bargaining.  
The author of the article sites ample research that points to the quality of the teachers as the most effective difference in quality education.  While there are several points in the article that people disagree on, I think that this is the most important point made in the article.  More resources and smaller class size are subjective. There are some classes and some teachers who can truly improve with smaller size and more resources, especially technological resources, but the teacher must be effective or nothing will change.  The article itself did not discuss family situations, but the letters following do address it.  The effect of family issues directly impacts student focus, thereby increasing or decreasing their resource potential. The idea that teachers should be evaluated on their abilities by test scores is the biggest point of contention to all.  Some of the opponent’s complaints are that this is unfair because creativity, reasoning and conception are hard to evaluate in a standardized test, which I agree with, but their claim that this makes the weight unfair dismisses the fact that the test scores are  no more than 50% of the weight at the most. While I cannot make a sound judgment as to how much is too much, I do appreciate the fact that other factors are being considered in teacher evaluation.  
I think the bottom line is that for the sake of the future of children, we must try to increase teacher effectiveness and we simply must find ways to evaluate and improve on this. One of the respondents made a very good point;  “If we want good teaching in our schools — and this is as true at the university level as it is in elementary and secondary schools — we need to design a system in which teachers are encouraged, and expected, to be active scholars, not just in their subjects but also in pedagogy. Teachers need to be up on educational research about what works; they need to get feedback on their teaching from people who are genuinely interested in their growth and development; and they need to keep studying with master teachers. In short, if you want better teachers, find ways to keep teachers in school.”
DAVID HLAVSA
Professor of Theater Arts
Saint Martin’s University
Lacey, Wash.
I agree that the unions at this point have too much political power and as such are creating a double standard that is detrimental to the families, teachers and the success of education.  By mandating wage and pension increases based solely on seniority we are condoning the Peter Principle.  If doing away with collective bargaining is truly a solution, then I am for it, although I cannot truly say it will.   What are your thoughts?   (Btw; in case you’re interested- New York did rank 2nd in round 2, while Wisconsin ranked 27th)


Julie