Union buster and rich guy, go figure
Steve Jobs makes a lot of sense when he’s talking about music and copyright protection, but when the topic is schools, he seems to be on a different planet.
The teachers’ unions, Jobs believes, are ruining America’s schools because they prevent bad teachers from being fired.
“I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way,” Jobs told a school reform conference in Texas on Saturday. “This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”
The solution, Jobs believes, is to treat schools like businesses: empower the principal to fire bad teachers like a CEO.
Hiring only insanely great employees and firing the bozos has been one of Jobs’ longest held managerial principals.
“In everything I’ve done it really pays to go after the best people in the world,” he said in a 1995 interview. “It’s painful when you have some people who are not the best people in the world and you have to get rid of them … but nonetheless it has to be done and it is never fun.”
Many good points made (particularly those made about parent involvement – very necessary) – but I think Jobs is speaking about tenure. In no other industry is this used. Why have it just for teachers? If you do a good job, you’ll keep your job, and hopefully advance if you want to. Unions and tenure are shields that protect the sloths.
Despite the shortcomings of teacher’s unions, they need to have one to protect themselves against some truly awful policies that come from school boards.
For example, pay cuts. Or even worse, retroactive pay cuts. I’ve seen school boards try to balance budgets by cutting teacher’s pay. One time in the late 80’s, the Los Angeles USD gave the teachers a retroactive pay cut. That is right. They actually took back money they had already earned.
If your company gave you an retroactive pay cut, you would probably quit, and then sue them. Why can’t teachers protect themselves from such BS?
Here’s Mickey Kaus’ take:
If Jobs is a Democrat,** he’s a New Democrat! …P.S.: In response, Dell CEO and founder Michael Dell–who sells mainly non-Apple Windows-based machines–defended the unions. … Windows, kludgy Old Dem! Apple, New Dem! Just what you would have thought. … P.P.S.: Jobs might have added “no amount of well-meaning educational donations from the Gates Foundation would improve public schools nearly as much as allowing principals to fire bad teachers.” …
I understand there is growing support in China to organize unions in some of these manufacturing sweat shops. It seems they are starting to wise up and demanding better pay, shorter hours, etc. I wonder what Jobs and others are going to do when this comes about? It will certainly put a crimp on the Wally World model.
I send my kids to a private school for a simple reason; the public schools in my area are terrible. Everyone acknowledges it, but nothing is done about it. And it isn’t a matter of funding, as the teachers here are paid better than the state average. But I am not given any choices on where my kids go in the public school system. It’s either where the education monopoly tells you they must go, or opt out. Increasingly, parents that care are opting out, and the public schools are on an accelerating downward spiral. I don’t care if teachers are unionized or not, but give me the chance to choose teachers and schools that are performing well, the education of my kids is too important to accept mediocrity.
Seldom have so many opened their mouths to spew such venom about something they know so little about.
The government is NOT a business. It can not be run like a business. This applies to government agencies as well.
A business is not the government. They may not be run like a government if they intend upon staying in business.
A family is neither a business nor a government.
Each of these have their own reasons of being.
***
Now, can someone cite a case where a TEACHER UNION hurt a student.
If all the under performing teachers are fired, who will replace them? Geeze, our local system is crying for qualified teachers now. But all the wizards out there can’t do the math and figure out that 50% are below average. Cripes !!! A quarter of them are in the bottom 25%. But only 1/10th are in the bottom 10%.
#7, And not one parent complained all year? Whatever happened to all those tests done throughout the year? None of the other classes she taught had any problems? I call bullshit.
#12, if you give that authority to the principal, then you have to give him the resources. You will also have to make him answerable to the parents, which currently he isn’t.
#18, You identified one of the bigger problems. Schools can’t afford to hire the best. So they don’t. Even if schools could hire the most qualified, does not mean they would be the best teachers.
#19, Who is the representative of the indoctrinating bureaucracy ? Check, there may be some commies hiding under your bed. And who the eff is Lew Rockwell and don’t you have any thoughts of your own?
#27, Your wife didn’t take a pay cut because of the union. She took a pay cut because she joined another school district. Shoot, if I leave my job, move, and get another job who do I blame because they don’t pay as much? You don’t like your union dues supporting political candidates? Then say so at the next union meeting. Oh, your wife never went to one did she.
#31, C’mon Guyver. That is a phony statistic. If you can’t cite a better source then don’t bring it up. It cheapens the conversation. Besides, a self professed “Libertarian” is just another name for a right wing nut who doesn’t want anyone else to have police or fire protection or paved roads.
Last word.
I have worked in a few places in my time. I have seen some managers who could tie their own shoes. I have seen employees suck up all day doing squat while those actually doing the work just get more crap. I have seen people fired for what their superiors did. I have seen others that were way too good for the positions they were in. And I have seen quite a few just making it through the week, one day at a time.
There will always be the incompetents just as there will always be those that excel. Teaching is no excetion.
#39 You have no idea what you’re talking about. The reason my wife took a pay cut is because the old grey hens in this area never retire and can’t be fired regardless of how much (little) they work or keep up with modern teaching techniques or technology. Their lesson plans from 30 years ago were just fine then, why change now? Now tell me how to send an email again… The work ethic between the strongly unionized school district and the non-unionized district is staggering. The people here don’t care. They don’t care about the school, the kids, or anything else besides how much “planning time” they get during the day and the paycheck they collect while they take their summers off. Therefore, the pay is a matter of supply and demand – there’s a limited number of dollars and the lion’s share go to the grey hens who negotiate the contracts. There’s a ton of teachers and few openings, so they’re willing to work for whatever they can get. Not to meniton the fact that you know damn well that being a teacher is not like other jobs. You get your job where you live because it’s the only game in town. She follows me and my employment. It’s not like she could choose from a hundred employers.
You’re so right about the union meetings, though. I’m sure if she just raised her hand at her school union meeting and said how disturbed she was by their propoganda material, they’d all see the light and the whole NEA would just toss out their agenda. … and that wouldn’t alienate her at all… no sir! You nitwit.
Oh, and who would replace them? Any of the zillions of young, energetic, and eager teachers just waiting to be hired. There is a complete glut of teachers in this area. The local districts hire only minimally each year or not at all. I’m sure you probably think it’s just an aging population or something… nope. We’ve also got one of the highest teen pregnancy rates nationwide.
John Stossel, in a 20/20 program, titled, “Stupid in America: How We Are Cheating Our Kids,” also blamed the outrageous ineptitude of the teachers’ union and their monopolistic control of the schools. ABC September 1, 2006. Original Airdate: January 13, 2006. I believe that Steve Jobs is correct.
The problem with education in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is both government and business. Job’s is the business part of the problem. The fascist society demands that schools condition students of obey reflexively and trains them to be employees and consumers i.e. servants to the fascist machine.
New York State Teacher of the year, John Taylor Gatto exposes the problems of public education in his book “The Underground History of American Education”. It can be read on line at the link below.
http://tinyurl.com/cgcv
Check out this section titled “A New Collectivism”. This brief section outlines a flirtation with Americanization classes, the establishment of the Rockefeller Foundation to control among other things social evolution and the beginnings of America’s obsession with sports.
http://tinyurl.com/3alzd7
The Dream Education system
1) the parents should have more control with who, where and how their kids will be educated. (This will go against segregation, teacher unions, and the type of information imparted on the children)
2) Standardized Teaching Materials (Text book companies will not like this)
3) Shrink or eliminate the federal part of the education system. Let states collect taxes to support schools. (Local citizens paying for the local school system)
4) State a more specific mission the education system is suppose to achieve. (This may eliminate some classes making the studies more fine tuned. Eliminated classes could become special programs the students specifically request to take)
These are just thoughts and could be completely misguided. I do think that number four should be tried. America needs to discuss and analyze what the education system goals are. To achieve a goal, one must know what that goal is. Once the goal is know, the tools and methods will become apparent to achieve such goals.
I find it interesting that,
Churches
State
Anybody that has a gripe on WHAT is being taught
Has more say in How and what Our kids are taught, then the teachers do..
what has changed HOW teachers have taught, in the last 30 years…
another thought,
I wonder WHO is teaching the teachers, AND WHAT they are teaching.
As in…
My teachers knew 6 ways from HELL, how to teach math.
They had TIME for each student.
AND at HOME, Parents made SURE, I did my home work, and understood it.
If schools started paying teachers like Apple pays its CEOs, then maybe Jobs would be making sense.
#40, Patrick, bullshit !!!
You blame the teachers because your wife took a drop in pay. Then you explain that she follows you as you move around the country. Apparently she made more money and was happier in her previous position. So put the blame where it belongs, on you dipshit. YOU had her leave the job she liked for this crappy one. YOU.
Now, if she is a member of the union and doesn’t like the way the union is being run, she is perfectly entitled to raise the issue at a union meeting. If she doesn’t raise any issues then she has no right to complain. The same applies to the School Board. If you didn’t vote, then don’t complain. If you aren’t part of the solution, that leaves you as part of the problem, so get out of the way of the people that are actually doing something.
As a supervisor, I will take a mediocre employee or even a poor performing employee any day over a new hire. With a new hire you never know with any certainty what kind of person you are getting. They could be good, bad, indifferent, a thief, a liar, a lawsuit waiting to happen, non-trainable, good but gone right after the training, after your job, anti social and disruptive, or whatever. You just never know and the status quo will usually remain better. But then, most people who have had to hire or supervise already know that.
Those that think they can just grab anyone off the street have never supervised or had to staff a position. Whenever I have hired someone, one of the key things I look for are those resumes that claim “eager” or “energetic”. Those are catchwords for impatient and untrained. They will be the worst performers. The sure and steady will get the job done, done right, and done on time.
#39 – Most respectfully, you’re wrong. The Gov’t IS a business and needs to be run like one. The populace “pays” the gov’t through taxes to provide collective services. The question then becomes, what is a fair price for those services? My contention is that we’re being seriously shortchanged on the value we get back for what we pay in. Inefficiencies in education spending is a huge part of that.
Here’s a recent example of the public education mentality: Here in MN, school districts get state aid based on # of pupils enrolled. Demographic projections now show that this year or next will be the peak enrollment. The state’s population is aging and the number of enrolled students is projected to start a steady decline. Well, some fool in the state legislature just introduced a bill to freeze the state aid to school districts at today’s level to offset declining enrollment.
WTF kind of sense does that make?!?
I’m so sorry that you failed Civics or social studies back in gr. 5. Maybe you are a good representation of what is wrong with the education system in America.
Governments are the people’s creation. Every two years, at least, we elect people to represent us at various levels. Our representatives do what is in our best interests. Not every decision is best, nor will we agree with every decision. If we disagree enough then we may vote for someone else who we feel will represent our beliefs better. Or, the ultimate, we may run for office ourselves. In short, WE are the Government. The Government is answerable to the people. We all have an equal share and stake in the Government.
A business is run for the interest of its shareholders. A business is not there to do things to make our life easier, better, safer, or more comfortable. They may sell products that make those goals easier to attain, but that is not their goal. They are there to make a profit, regardless of any fancy term you put on it, it is still money back to the shareholder.
I can’t answer for Minnesota or anything they have done. What you describe though is reasonable. If a school district has built an infrastructure based upon a certain level of students then any sudden drop in finances will seriously impede that infrastructure. They still need to be maintained even when they fall to lower capacities. If a school has a class size of 20 students and then falls to 17 students, the costs don’t fall too, they will remain relatively constant. Schools can not be picked up and moved. Buses have to travel the same routes even when there may be fewer students.
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The school board needs to reconsider with the issue dealing with failing schools and successful schools. More successful schools need to get the same amount of money they usually get. On the other hand there is the failing schools, they need to get more money so that they can get more updated books. My daughter goes to a Columbus Public Schhol and it is starting to fail. They have books that were copyrighted in 2002 thru 2005. That just doesn’t make aby sense to me. It is 2008 not 2002 or 2005. My daughter as well as other kids needs a better education than what most Columbus Columbus Public Schools offer.
Mr. Fusion knows what he is talking about. Listen to him. Also, take a look at an on-line paper called: The Daily Howler. It discusses educational policies. As a teacher, I can tell from your comments, which of you actually know something about “education” and which of you sincerely think you do …but you don’t. Remain open minded and learn.