AmazonTania
1 Percenter Wannabe
Apples and Oranges comparison. Public education is not a competitive capitalistic endeavor. It is an essential service. Attempting to rate teachers on the performance of students is a completely false premise. This is akin to rating your job performance on the local rainfall in Peru. There is no connection between the effectiveness of a teacher and the socio-economic status of the students that they are teaching.Where and when has that ever happened?
The teachers union strike in Chicago which happened not to long ago is a good example. Its very difficult to fire a teacher there. It's great if you are a teacher, no so much if you are a student in a classroom before taught by a teacher who is under-performing. The parents want to be able to identify good teachers and reward them with merit pay, but this isn't want the unions want. What the unions want is everyone to have equal treatment, so no one will know the difference.
The unions there weren't fighting for fair treatment. They were fighting for the lack of accountability. When a union has gained enough power to the point of where they no longer want to be held accountable for what they do, they have far too much power.
And this is the problem with public sector unions. At least a private sector union can move out of the state, and then the teachers would be able to decide if their jobs are worth it. In a public sector job, these employers are stuck.
You don't believe that the problem with public education is that it's not competitive based? This is the idea with publicly run entities, such as the Post Office and Public Medicine, the idea that it is created to offer an alternative to private entities, but doesn't have to 'perform' to the same standards because it doesn't make a profit. Profits are the only market mechanism which tells an entity to either do more or less of what it's already doing.
The problem with public schools which America can really learn from is that other nations does treat their school system as a competitive endeavor. Schools which are performing up to standards stay open, while the ones which are not close down, and justifiably, as they are wasting resources.
GE's Jack Welch often says that if a nation is to stay vital, it must reward's it's best workers and the bottom 10% must go. Most workers would be better off with a merit based pay, but most union contracts forbid this. The idea of unions is to promote equality in the workplace. Everyone is treated equal, but not when it comes to work or when it comes to accountability. This makes it very difficult for anyone who is more ambitious than the rest to move up in the ladder. There is no autonomy when it comes to unions. It's either my all of us, or none of us.
Children from homes that place a value upon education perfrom better than children from poorer homes where there is little emphasis on education.
Then why force these children to attend school everyday?
So firing a teacher because the students failed to pass is like blaming your car for not starting when you forgot to put gas in it.
I can't tell whether or not you are placing the blame on the student or something else. I don't understand why the blame shouldn't be placed on the teachers. They are hired solely for one purpose: to educate young students. If there are other factors involved in why a student cannot learn, this should be addressed.
Thank you for making the point. Without unions you would be earning a pittance while being forced to work 16 hours a day 7 days a week. If you got sick you would be fired and replaced.
Thanks to unions who were responsible for ensuring that workers were treated well and provided with essential benefits.
But I am not unionised, and this doesn't happen to me. Not because Unions have made it illegal, but because the terms of my employment is already negotiated between my boss and I. I can work 16 hour days if I really need to. I can also work 5 hour days if I really need to. My hours are really not the issue, but the compensation I receive. If my employee wanted to cut my wages, I can't organise. I can go on strike or anything. I can either except my lower wages or find another job. In which case, I am free to go to the competition who will treat me more fairly than my former employer.
Free markets are a myth. In essence they are just another way to undercut the power of the workers while improving the profitability of the corporation.
Except for Qatar, the economies I have named are good examples of a Free Market. In fact, the only two in the world.
Corporations do a have a responsibility to the people of the community in which they are based. If they are purely 100% profit based they end up destroying those communities. Unfettered capitalism is as toxic as communism when it comes to harming people. Without regulation it will do more harm than good.
The only goal of a corporation is to make money. Corporations do have a responsibility to the community, which are their consumers. By providing goods and services, they are creating value and making others better off than they previously were before. These regulations which are enacted to protect the little guy works in favor of the big guy. They use economies of scale to their advantage to keep most of the market-share.
Every business wants 100% of the market-share, so they can gouge their consumers. This is why every business wants a monopoly, and often corporations use regulation to make this happen. Free markets and open competition prevents this, as there is always some form of competition. The only way someone can truly obtain a monopoly is by providing the market with everything they want, and at the same time lowering the price, thus providing the community.
The federation of trade unions has been around in Hong Kong since 1948. Singapore criminalizes the right to strike. Not exactly a bastion of freedom and individual liberty. Qatar is facing the threat of an international boycott of the 2022 World Cup if it continues to obstruct the existence of unions and workers rights. Soccer fans are very pro union.
The number of unions in Hong Kong are much smaller than any other nation in the world, with 654 trade unions registered, consisting of only 683,000 members. Also, it's not uncommon for many industrialised cities to criminialise strikes. New York has done it to the MTA during 2005 when the entire Transit authority decided to go on strike. New York City is about as union friendly as you can get.
The government does NOT pick "winners and losers". The government is the umpire/referee. Until the myth that the government in the problem is dispelled not much is going to be resolved.
Even the umpire/referee can be paid off. And when that keeper of the rules has it out for you, the only thing you can do is try your best to play by the rules given to you. Either that, or pay them so that those rules no longer apply to you.