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Job security, compensation, benefits, necessary resources to perform the job, freedom and authority to execute job related actions and excellent work environment are critical for good performance in any job. Everyone doing a job needs these influencers, well in place, including teachers. But, there is a naturally embedded hazard in public education system. It must confirm to the government policies, regulations, targets and goals. There is always an ideological indoctrination associated with every public school system, in the world. If you believe that governments spend so much money in public education because they are interested in your kids’ education, you must be living in a La La land. Governments spend that money to keep their subjects loyal to basic ideology of government.
This indoctrination sets certain goals that are always considered as higher than the actual academic goals and standards. For example, in most school systems across the United States the goal is to graduate most students as liberal, American patriots who are completely loyal and subservient to government and big media. They must believe everything government and big media tells them. In other words government and big media are new prophets of God. More than anything else, teachers are expected to achieve these goals. So, that is what we see, in results. Government and big media can drag the whole nation in favor of a totally useless, endless and expensive war, without even being too many questions asked.
Most of the teachers are members of unions. Unions are good in the sense that they provide a platform to workers against tyranny of management. Unfortunately, just like political parties and big media, our unions have become a power display of big money. Since, we started allowing governments to regulate everything and hence, pick winners and losers, unions are no exceptions to the rule. Union laws and regulations are designed to provide monopolies to big, rich and powerful unions.
Although unions, very much, guarantee some of the basic elements required for good job performance, the hidden agenda is very different from advertised policies. The reason corporate lobbies like laws and regulations which favor monopolies, are not just because these laws and regulations guarantee their own monopolies, but, also, because it is always much easier to buy and influence a couple of big players, rather than a whole array of smaller and honest competitors. This is why we cannot get rid of two party duopoly in our political system. This is why smaller competitors find it very difficult to compete and grow against corporate owned media.
Big unions have a relationship of mutual benefit and interests with liberal corporate media and political parties. Media and government strangle smaller competitors of unions through competition killing laws and regulations while unions guarantee them more confirmative members and votes in elections, as long as the union leaders are kept happy. Most big unions are working only for their own vested interests and corporate lobbies. A very good example is United States Postal Service. Currently, Post Office hires almost all of its new workers on temporary contracts of few months, without any benefits. At the expiration of the contract they send the worker home for about a week without pay, and then re-hire the employee on brand new contract.
This goes on for years, unless employee finds another better job and says bye-bye to post office. In the mean time employees get not benefits, no raises, no promotion. They are denied for mortgage, car loans, credit and most other loans due to their temporary job status. Does postal union cares and does anything about it? Of course, not. This is huge mockery of federal labor laws and post office’s own regulations. This is necessarily an evil circumvention of related labor laws and regulation, by a federal agency, itself.
Teachers’ unions are a bit different. Since, most teachers are educated with a college degree, this is not in possible public schools. Here the union policies are totally opposite. Teachers in most school districts get confirmed in less than eighteen months which is very short period to access the annual performance of a newly hired teacher even for two consecutive years. Job security is very important. We all agree that it shouldn’t be very easy to fire, anyone. But, the firing of low performance teachers is next to impossible, in most school districts.
Unionized teachers get higher compensation and better benefits compared to non-unionized teachers. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as good compensation and benefits boost performance. I believe all teachers must be paid good which only possible if the schools are privately owned and are competing for business. To stay competitive, school owners will have to offer better pay and benefits to more competitive teachers, as it happens in private colleges and universities. In public school systems, they are being paid by tax payer dollars. So, they can be paid only so much.
Less regulated or unregulated private schools will also be free of state indoctrination. Expenses can be taken care off by providing hundred percent tax credit, in the form of vouchers, to the parents of kids in school.
I am sure that will be far more successful, efficient and cheaper. In a highly competitive and unregulated environment most private school will be able to teach our kids for less than twelve thousands dollars which is current average cost in public schools. Parents will have lots of choices, and if you do not perform, you are out of business. If you consider the continuously falling standards in our public schools, you find no reason to keep those public except for the state indoctrination purposes.
Seriously! Think about it. It doesn’t matter what your real concern is. State indoctrination, falling standards, teachers unions, cost to the tax payers, whatever. Every single of these concerns gets addressed by privatization of public school systems. Legally speaking, private schools will also be responsible for kids security. If they fail, they will have a liability, and as a parent, you can sue them. Due to the demands posed by free markets they will teach the most contemporary and jobs related stuff.
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