# Tory plans to commercialise the British education system through academies



## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)




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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)




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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Should have used The Krankies not a real child.


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

Kingstonian said:


> Should have used The Krankies not a real child.


Nicola was busy that day.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

"Call me Dave" has confirmed today that this will still be pushed through, at a cost of £1.3 billion, although there is no evidence at all that academies are better than LEA run schools, and despite the fact that teachers, governors, parents, LEAs and many Tory MPs oppose it.


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## Haffman (Oct 11, 2010)

I think the core issue is that we Brits want world class education (and healthcare) but we are not prepared to pay for it through taxation 

Salami slicing has run its course, and everything that can be sold has been sold, and everything that can be borrowed for or put on PFI type credit arrangements has been 

We now enter a stage of more privatisation so the govt can rid itself of the headache of trying to provide a decent education and health service without funding it properly. The added benefit is that Tory ministers and MPs can look forward to lucrative directorships in said industries in the future :beer:


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Haffman said:


> I think the core issue is that we Brits want world class education (and healthcare) but we are not prepared to pay for it through taxation
> 
> Salami slicing has run its course, and everything that can be sold has been sold, and everything that can be borrowed for or put on PFI type credit arrangements has been
> 
> We now enter a stage of more privatisation so the govt can rid itself of the headache of trying to provide a decent education and health service without funding it properly. The added benefit is that Tory ministers and MPs can look forward to lucrative directorships in said industries in the future :beer:


Quite!


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Academies are essential to improve our education system, aren't they. Aren't they? https://www.theguardian.com/educati...d-by-cameron-falls-apart-executive-head-quits https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-36265495 https://www.itv.com/news/central/20...hes-academy-quits-following-financial-report/ https://schoolsweek.co.uk/perry-beeches-superhead-liam-nolan-resigns/

I love the comment that the "Superhead" in question "has thoroughly enjoyed his time at Perry Beeches since joining in 2007". I'm sure he did, especially the illegally paid extra salary!


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Yes unfortunately it seems he has been found out to have been on the make, if not the fiddle. Clever people can devote a lot of time to, and prove surprisingly adept at finding new ways of making money; however that does not make the entire system of academies wrong.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Langham said:


> Yes unfortunately it seems he has been found out to have been on the make, if not the fiddle. Clever people can devote a lot of time to, and prove surprisingly adept at finding new ways of making money; however that does not make the entire system of academies wrong.


It is, however, one more reason why Academies are not necessary. Commercialising the education system, making running a school or chain of schools such an attractive option for personal profit and gain isn't what education should be about.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Chouan said:


> It is, however, one more reason why Academies are not necessary. Commercialising the education system, making running a school or chain of schools such an attractive option for personal profit and gain isn't what education should be about.


I'm not sure I agree with you. Moving this argument swiftly on, you would agree, I hope, that children benefit from being educated? Why should they (i.e. their parents) not pay for it then? In doing so, it is a given that those doing the educating are raking off a profit.
I paid quite a lot to educate my children but already, even viewed in crudely financial terms, the investment has been returned (by proxy - i.e. to my children). Granted, others may be less fortunate.


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

On this side of the pond, overpaid and underperforming education industry workers are similarly afraid of competition. Oddly, these are the open border and anti-tariff types that seem to enjoy their monopoly.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Langham said:


> I'm not sure I agree with you. Moving this argument swiftly on, you would agree, I hope, that children benefit from being educated?


Of course, but the purpose of education, and an education system, is to educate children, not to provide profit making opportunities for those the Tories refer to as "entrepreneurs".



Langham said:


> Why should they (i.e. their parents) not pay for it then?


No reason at all. Taxation pays for state education, so parents do pay for their children's education. If one wishes to then pay extra for education, in the private sector, then one is free to do so.



Langham said:


> In doing so, it is a given that those doing the educating are raking off a profit.


Indeed, in the private sector they are, even those that describe themselves as charities. However, these "entrepreneurs" in the Academy business are raking off tax payers money to enrich themselves at the expense of children's education. The purpose of education should be education, not profit. Where the profit motive gets involved, as in any business, the bottom line is money. The purpose of a state education system should be education, not profit.



Langham said:


> I paid quite a lot to educate my children but already, even viewed in crudely financial terms, the investment has been returned (by proxy - i.e. to my children). Granted, others may be less fortunate.


I'm pleased for you. Private education is phenomenally expensive; I'm glad that you could afford it and that your children benefited from it. No irony or sarcasm intended; I would have done so for my children if I could have afforded it.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Tempest said:


> On this side of the pond, overpaid and underperforming education industry workers are similarly afraid of competition. Oddly, these are the open border and anti-tariff types that seem to enjoy their monopoly.


I would welcome further elucidation from you on this matter. Can I assume that you have experience in education, beyond having been to school yourself, of course? Unfortunately, many people feel themselves able and qualified to comment on education, with no kind of expertise or knowledge at all.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

^ that certainly doesn't stop you from opining in any number of topics and subjects.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

https://www.theguardian.com/educati...er-of-minister-teaches-in-his-academy-schools


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> ^ that certainly doesn't stop you from opining in any number of topics and subjects.


Touch a nerve elsewhere, did I? I'm not surprised......


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Chouan said:


> Touch a nerve elsewhere, did I? I'm not surprised......


Not at all. I'm just amused by your grandstanding on people opining out of "ignorance" yet there are several threads festooned with your opinions on geopolitical issues.

Of course, if all of us stuck to only what we had expertise in how boring would be the interchange.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> Not at all. I'm just amused by your grandstanding on people opining out of "ignorance" yet there are several threads festooned with your opinions on geopolitical issues.
> 
> Of course, if all of us stuck to only what we had expertise in how boring would be the interchange.


Amused or irritated? 
There is, as I'm sure that you are aware, a significant difference between opinion and knowledge; we are all entitled to our opinion, no matter how ill considered. However, when one presents opinion as fact, in the form of an unsubstantiated assertion, then one is opening one's self to being challenged. If one's opinion can be supported, then one can respond confidently. However, if one makes an assertion that is based on no evidence at all, or merely on ignorance, then one's view is hard to defend. 
If I were to say, for example, that rural Cambridgeshire is as good a place as any in the world to live, without knowledge of what life in urban Illinois is like, for example, then my assertion is based on ignorance. How can I assert that quality of life in rural Cambridgeshire is at least as good as life there without having lived there, without knowledge of what life there is like?
In any case, I would have thought that a reasonable man, as I assume you must be, would be responding in the thread that was appropriate, rather than carrying your irritation to a different thread, and appearing to be making ad hominen remarks that contribute nothing to the subject. Making a post on a thread that merely serves to express irritation caused on another thread is a bit pathetic really.


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## tocqueville (Nov 15, 2009)

You Brits would do well to hesitate before privatizing your education system. There are some pros but also some great cons. Most of those here who beat the drum for privatization do so for ideological reasons: They are dogmatic in their faith that "free markets" and competition = an unmitigated good that trumps (sorry to use that word) all other notions of public good, and to make their case they deride the public education system and harp on its woes. Other proponents are simply out to make money and freely wrap their venal interests in the mantel of serving the public interest. Some might be sincere, which doesn't make them right.

Our private universities--the non-profit ones--represent a different and altogether more positive model in that they are or were more or less foundations created by really rich people for the purpose of the common good. They were and are more or less philanthropic institutions. Thus my graduate education, for example, was underwritten by Andrew Mellon, who sincerely wanted me to be (well, not me in particular, plus he's dead) to be educated and for all the right reasons. Thanks to him, moreover, my graduate education was spectacularly good, as attested by the presence among my classmates of quite a few Oxbridge alumni. The for-profit ones are another thing altogether, and I regard most as scams designed to exploit Federal subsidies. I taught for a few years at one of the biggest in this country, Strayer. It's all about exploiting the Federal government (along with working class men and women's dreams of joining the middle class) and provides remarkably little value to its students, who too often go into debt to pay for their time there.

Anyway, think really hard before doing anything that might wreck your current system. I'm sure there are significant problems, but there no doubt exists a broad range of options for dealing with them. Be careful.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Chouan said:


> Amused or irritated?
> There is, as I'm sure that you are aware, a significant difference between opinion and knowledge; we are all entitled to our opinion, no matter how ill considered. However, when one presents opinion as fact, in the form of an unsubstantiated assertion, then one is opening one's self to being challenged. If one's opinion can be supported, then one can respond confidently. However, if one makes an assertion that is based on no evidence at all, or merely on ignorance, then one's view is hard to defend.
> If I were to say, for example, that rural Cambridgeshire is as good a place as any in the world to live, without knowledge of what life in urban Illinois is like, for example, then my assertion is based on ignorance. How can I assert that quality of life in rural Cambridgeshire is at least as good as life there without having lived there, without knowledge of what life there is like?
> In any case, I would have thought that a reasonable man, as I assume you must be, would be responding in the thread that was appropriate, rather than carrying your irritation to a different thread, and appearing to be making ad hominen remarks that contribute nothing to the subject. Making a post on a thread that merely serves to express irritation caused on another thread is a bit pathetic really.


My friend, it takes a lot to irritate me. Certainly nothing bandied about on an online forum rises to the level of annoyance or irritation.

No..I'm simply amused.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

tocqueville said:


> You Brits would do well to hesitate before privatizing your education system. There are some pros but also some great cons. Most of those here who beat the drum for privatization do so for ideological reasons: They are dogmatic in their faith that "free markets" and competition = an unmitigated good that trumps (sorry to use that word) all other notions of public good, and to make their case they deride the public education system and harp on its woes. Other proponents are simply out to make money and freely wrap their venal interests in the mantel of serving the public interest. Some might be sincere, which doesn't make them right.
> 
> Our private universities--the non-profit ones--represent a different and altogether more positive model in that they are or were more or less foundations created by really rich people for the purpose of the common good. They were and are more or less philanthropic institutions. Thus my graduate education, for example, was underwritten by Andrew Mellon, who sincerely wanted me to be (well, not me in particular, plus he's dead) to be educated and for all the right reasons. Thanks to him, moreover, my graduate education was spectacularly good, as attested by the presence among my classmates of quite a few Oxbridge alumni. The for-profit ones are another thing altogether, and I regard most as scams designed to exploit Federal subsidies. I taught for a few years at one of the biggest in this country, Strayer. It's all about exploiting the Federal government (along with working class men and women's dreams of joining the middle class) and provides remarkably little value to its students, who too often go into debt to pay for their time there.
> 
> Anyway, think really hard before doing anything that might wreck your current system. I'm sure there are significant problems, but there no doubt exists a broad range of options for dealing with them. Be careful.


My view entirely. They're not trying to fix a broken system, they're trying to impose a commercial model for ideological reasons, and to provide another profit making system for their chums.


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

Chouan said:


> I would welcome further elucidation from you on this matter. Can I assume that you have experience in education, beyond having been to school yourself, of course? Unfortunately, many people feel themselves able and qualified to comment on education, with no kind of expertise or knowledge at all.


My only firsthand experience is a couple of months of substituting in public schools. Okay public in America means governmental or wholely taxpayer funded. It was amazing how underworked the teachers were. I'd come in and cover for someone that had like four 45 minutes sessions. That's three hours of work a day. And don't tell me about grading and preparing, as I was in the teacher lounge and it was more newspaper reading and gossiping.
My mother worked in the school systems for a few decades. She loathed the teacher's unions that basically prevented people from doing a good job.

The privatization example that I will use is the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. Once it was like all governmental bureaucracies: lethargically overstaffed with unmotivated, underworked and overpaid nobodies. Anything and everything took from three hours to "come back tomorrow." Privatization added incentive to actually perform and they revamped the entire system for efficiency and flow. To say that it is drastically improved is an understatement. What once took all day now takes fifteen minutes or so.

Home-schoolers regularly outperform the public schools by a wide margin, as do parochial schools. Charter schools tend to as well. They have the freedom to oust underperforming teachers and have incentive in student success. Certainly there is opportunity for abuse with privatization, but there is a choice.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Chouan said:


> Of course, but the purpose of education, and an education system, is to educate children, not to provide profit making opportunities for those the Tories refer to as "entrepreneurs".
> 
> .


Of course, the two do not have to be mutually exclusive - providing a good education while others make a profit.

I do see that if profit becomes the sole motivation, education is likely to suffer - of course it will, corners will be cut etc etc.

It is worth celebrating the fact that most of our very good public (i.e. private) schools are instituted as charities. In a few instances I suspect this may be a subterfuge that happens to be advantageous for tax reasons, but in many cases it reflects in a very exact way the ethos and purpose for which those institutions were set up.


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## tocqueville (Nov 15, 2009)

Langham said:


> Of course, the two do not have to be mutually exclusive - providing a good education while others make a profit.
> 
> I do see that if profit becomes the sole motivation, education is likely to suffer - of course it will, corners will be cut etc etc.
> 
> It is worth celebrating the fact that most of our very good public (i.e. private) schools are instituted as charities. In a few instances I suspect this may be a subterfuge that happens to be advantageous for tax reasons, but in many cases it reflects in a very exact way the ethos and purpose for which those institutions were set up.


I don't see it as an either/or proposition, just that privatizing something that most aknowledge is a public good can have all sorts of negative consequences as well as positive ones.

For example: In the US there has been a big push to create "charter" schools which are funded by public money but operate independently of established schools systems, not to mention outside of existing labor union agreements between governments and teachers unions. One reason was that they would provide competition for the existing schools. Another was that sometimes the established schools were just broken, and it was easier to set up something new than fix the existing system. Also, having options can be really important for kids who otherwise would have no choice but to attend their local school, which might be terrible. All of these are often valid. But then, sometimes the charters wreck the public schools systems by syphoning off too many resources, which is a disaster for the many students who remain in the regular system. That has been the case in Philadelphia. The school system there was a disaster for a number of reasons, but by all accounts it is now a total failure because the aggressive spread of charter schools killed the schools budget. Some kids are probably better off, but many are worse off. How many are in each category?


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

tocqueville said:


> I don't see it as an either/or proposition, just that privatizing something that most aknowledge is a public good can have all sorts of negative consequences as well as positive ones.
> 
> For example: In the US there has been a big push to create "charter" schools which are funded by public money but operate independently of established schools systems, not to mention outside of existing labor union agreements between governments and teachers unions. One reason was that they would provide competition for the existing schools. Another was that sometimes the established schools were just broken, and it was easier to set up something new than fix the existing system. Also, having options can be really important for kids who otherwise would have no choice but to attend their local school, which might be terrible. All of these are often valid. But then, sometimes the charters wreck the public schools systems by syphoning off too many resources, which is a disaster for the many students who remain in the regular system. That has been the case in Philadelphia. The school system there was a disaster for a number of reasons, but by all accounts it is now a total failure because the aggressive spread of charter schools killed the schools budget. Some kids are probably better off, but many are worse off. How many are in each category?


Indeed. Sweden tried the same thing, which also failed dismally, yet our government seem to be determined to follow that same route, furiously disregarding all of the evidence that shows how much of a failure the process is.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Langham said:


> Of course, the two do not have to be mutually exclusive - providing a good education while others make a profit.
> 
> I do see that if profit becomes the sole motivation, education is likely to suffer - of course it will, corners will be cut etc etc.
> 
> It is worth celebrating the fact that most of our very good public (i.e. private) schools are instituted as charities. In a few instances I suspect this may be a subterfuge that happens to be advantageous for tax reasons, but in many cases it reflects in a very exact way the ethos and purpose for which those institutions were set up.


Indeed. The previous system where one could choose private education if one could afford it, with an LEA run school if one couldn't worked perfectly well. Handing over state education to "entrepreneurs" to run, with a profit motive, funded by tax payers, with no oversight from parent governors or an LEA is asking for a disaster.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Tempest said:


> My only firsthand experience is a couple of months of substituting in public schools. Okay public in America means governmental or wholely taxpayer funded. It was amazing how underworked the teachers were. I'd come in and cover for someone that had like four 45 minutes sessions. That's three hours of work a day. And don't tell me about grading and preparing, as I was in the teacher lounge and it was more newspaper reading and gossiping.


Seeing teachers in a staff room sitting around doesn't mean that marking and preparation wasn't being done, of course. How much contact time, actual teaching time, do teachers in the US do over a week? If it is only 4 x 45 minute lessons a day I'd rather be teaching in the US!



Tempest said:


> My mother worked in the school systems for a few decades. She loathed the teacher's unions that basically prevented people from doing a good job


She may have done. On the other hand, some people loathe unions on ideological grounds, and will blame them for everything. How did the unions prevent people from doing a good job?



Tempest said:


> Home-schoolers regularly outperform the public schools by a wide margin, as do parochial schools.


Why is that, do you think?



Tempest said:


> Charter schools tend to as well. They have the freedom to oust underperforming teachers and have incentive in student success.


I would suggest that the evidence is that Charter schools don't do as well as conventional state schools, as Toqueville has indicated.



Tempest said:


> Certainly there is opportunity for abuse with privatization, but there is a choice.


But if all state schools are made into academies, the British version of Charter schools, where is the choice?


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Chouan said:


> How did the unions prevent people from doing a good job?


By stifling competition.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> By stifling competition.


Interesting (perhaps) but pointless post, as it doesn't explain anything. Please could you explain how, in education, unions prevent people from doing a good job. Not just with a throw away assertion, a politician's soundbite, but an explanation.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

^ It's no meaningless.

Unions, at least here, serve to even the playing field amongst their members through collective bargaining. There is little incentive for a union member to work hard or to excel with the hope of a promotion, increased pay or any other type of financial incentive.

Unions also breed inefficiency and increase costs. A few years ago in Chicago there was quite the kerfuffle between the MPEA and the trade unions over re-negotiating contracts for large conventions and expositions. Chicago had been losing business to lower cost alternatives such as Las Vegas and Orlando. Why? These are right to work states that don't have the same restrictions.

For example, a display of such and such size "must" hire at least this many or that many of each tradesperson. Even if one or two people could do the work.

In education, teachers are protected by unions and once they have tenure, they pretty much have to commit a crime to be released. Teachers accused of misconduct in some school districts can't even be fired. They are relegated to "Rubber Rooms" where they collect full benefits and salary; money that could be spent on students.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/rubber-rooms-in-new-york-city-22-million_n_1969749.html

(Before you accuse me of posting from sites friendly to my way of thinking, please note the website in question).

There was certainly a time in this country where unions did good work. No one wants exploitation of workers and child labor. They had their time and have slowly been in decline, at least in the private sector. It is in the public sector that they have their strongest foothold. And why not, they are negotiating with people who are not spending their own money. In fact, it is in their interest to keep them happy so as to have their vote.

I don't know, nor do I really care, how the system works in your country. That's how it is here.


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

Chouan said:


> Interesting (perhaps) but pointless post, as it doesn't explain anything. Please could you explain how, in education, unions prevent people from doing a good job.


Is teaching a very individualized skill with very differing outputs? The factory labor union system used in this country wishes to treat all teachers as interchangeable cogs to be compensated and benefitted identically. There is outlandish resistance to any measurement of performance or capability and screams of murder and larceny if one suggests that maybe better teachers should be paid better and poor teachers should be paid less well (or maybe even be fired as a poorly performing employee would be anywhere else).
Instead of fostering job skills, they create a stagnant lowest common denominator attitude. If one shows up around 150 days a year and doesn't actually physically harm a student, they are utterly indistinguishable from the teacher of the year.
Charter schools ruthlessly cull out teachers that are not working out well and reward those that excel. Competitive environments lead to advancement and noncompetitive ones lead to complacency.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> ^ It's no meaningless.
> 
> Unions, at least here, serve to even the playing field amongst their members through collective bargaining. There is little incentive for a union member to work hard or to excel with the hope of a promotion, increased pay or any other type of financial incentive.
> 
> ...


If you don't know or even care how education works in the UK, why are you wasting your time arguing about it?


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

^ I'm not. I'm answering your question on unions.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Unions are a useful counterbalance to the power of the employer.

Any benefits an employee has is thanks to a union.

There is probably a UK US divide on this - but anybody who has been shafted by an employer knows the value of a union.

Mainstream media will tell you otherwise - but in the words of Mandy Rice Davies
'They would say that. Wouldn't they?'


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Kingstonian said:


> Unions are a useful counterbalance to the power of the employer.
> 
> Any benefits an employee has is thanks to a union.
> 
> ...


Define "shafted". Does shafting include firing someone for misconduct?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/chrysler-workers-drinking_n_2272291.html


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## Balfour (Mar 23, 2012)

Indeed. Or look at the horrendous state of affairs in the 1970s in the UK when unions brought governments to their knees. 

Kingstonian - I detect a distinct corporatism in your posts - am I right in that? (Genuinely curious - I generally like your take on things even when we disagree.)


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> ^ I'm not. I'm answering your question on unions.


But would you not acknowledge that stating that you know nothing of a subject and aren't interested in it, on a thread specifically dedicated to that subject is more than a little churlish?
In any case, you didn't really answer the question. You gave your view on unions, but you didn't explain how unions prevent people from doing a good job.


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Just one man's opinion, but labor unions in education (on both sides of the pond) have done more to make the educational process not much more than a quest for personal and institutional mediocrity, than has any other input to the educational process. The union provides employees with the excuse to abdicate any personal sense of responsibility for their own success or ultimately the success of their students.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

eagle2250 said:


> Just one man's opinion, but labor unions in education (on both sides of the pond) have done more to make the educational process not much more than a quest for personal and institutional mediocrity, than has any other input to the educational process. The union provides employees with the excuse to abdicate any personal sense of responsibility for their own success or ultimately the success of their students.


Could you explain how that is the case in the UK? I can't speak for the US, not having worked in US education.


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## Balfour (Mar 23, 2012)

Don't take the bait, eagle. Sufficient to say that standards of public education in the UK are highly variable and shocking in some places (where there is a poverty of ambition). Educational reforms are invariably fought tooth and nail by the National Union of Teachers (the acronym being highly appropriate). Even a Labour Party (centre-left) Prime Minister spoke about having the 'scars on his back' from trying to push through public services reform.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Chouan said:


> But would you not acknowledge that stating that you know nothing of a subject and aren't interested in it, on a thread specifically dedicated to that subject is more than a little churlish?
> In any case, you didn't really answer the question. You gave your view on unions, but you didn't explain how unions prevent people from doing a good job.


I commented on the subject of unions. I provided an example. Sorry, my time is taken up with my day job, and on this particular day taking a well deserved nap, so I won't be able to write a book on the matter.

Tell you what, join the UAW, get a job in a car factory on the assembly line. You go into the break room to have a cup of coffee an relax and you notice that a light bulb is out. Your instinct is to replace it. You just committed a violation as you should have called for the electrician. You've betrayed your fellow union brothers.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> I commented on the subject of unions. I provided an example. Sorry, my time is taken up with my day job, and on this particular day taking a well deserved nap, so I won't be able to write a book on the matter.
> 
> Tell you what, join the UAW, get a job in a car factory on the assembly line. You go into the break room to have a cup of coffee an relax and you notice that a light bulb is out. Your instinct is to replace it. You just committed a violation as you should have called for the electrician. You've betrayed your fellow union brothers.


An interesting story, but you still haven't explained how unions prevent people from doing a good job. People often have a negative view of unions, and often present anecdotes, such as this, showing how unions can make things less simple. There were plenty of anecdotes about how demarcation of work in shipyards could be ridiculous at times. However, this doesn't show that unions prevent people from doing a good job.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Balfour said:


> Don't take the bait, eagle.


Again, the arrogance of those who can only imagine that views that don't coincide with their own *must* be being expressed to cause trouble. I'm surprised that you haven't used the "shtick" word.



Balfour said:


> Sufficient to say that standards of public education in the UK are highly variable and shocking in some places (where there is a poverty of ambition). Educational reforms are invariably fought tooth and nail by the National Union of Teachers (the acronym being highly appropriate).


Indeed, some Academies have been found by Ofsted (the independent schools inspection service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted ) to be shockingly bad, several of them have been found to have all kinds of financial improprieties, unqualified teachers etc etc. Free Schools, the Tory favourite system, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_school_(England) ) have generally been found to be the worst in terms of value and educational achievement, often having been set up as what appear to be vanity projects, with incompetent management, founder's relatives employed as staff etc.
Schools are, by their very nature, variable, dependent as they are on the varying socio-economic groups in the area where they are. Surprisingly, it would seem, schools in areas of very high long-term unemployment tend to not have very good exam results, whilst schools in prosperous middle class areas do rather better.
Why do you think that there is "poverty of ambition"? What do you imagine that "poverty of ambition" means?



Balfour said:


> Even a Labour Party (centre-left) Prime Minister spoke about having the 'scars on his back' from trying to push through public services reform.


Tony Blair "centre-Left"! He was a Thatcherite Red Tory, carrying out, or trying to, Tory policies under the label of "New Labour".


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

Chouan said:


> However, this doesn't show that unions prevent people from doing a good job.


What is interesting is that in most professions, a union will do something that advances the trade, the craft. Safety, best practices, or some form of professional advancement is part of the mission. The unions for the education industry seem to be under no such burden and seem to focus entirely on extracting more taxpayer money for themselves as well as any other perk imaginable while providing absolutely no real benefit.

To counter, can one present a case as to why a teacher union could in any way be responsible for teachers actually doing a better job?


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Tempest said:


> What is interesting is that in most professions, a union will do something that advances the trade, the craft. Safety, best practices, or some form of professional advancement is part of the mission.
> To counter, can one present a case as to why a teacher union could in any way be responsible for teachers actually doing a better job?


Unions do two things, advance the profession or trade, as a sort of focused pressure group, and protect the members of that profession or trade. Perhaps unions in the US are different, but the main teaching unions in the UK are very much focused on education and educational developments whilst at the same time protecting teachers from attacks on their pay and conditions.
For example, a couple of years ago the then Education Secretary decided that the National Curriculum followed by all state schools in the UK had to be changed, for reasons best known to himself. His idiot proposals were put forward and the teaching unions in the UK told him how stupid they were. I can't speak for other subjects, but his proposed changes to the History curriculum were ridiculous! The teaching unions, along with another educational group, The Historical Association, firmly opposed his new curriculum. In the end he backed down and accepted that the National Curriculum stayed pretty much as it was. Teaching the new NC would have involved no more of a workload on those who would have to do the teaching, apart from them having to design entirely new schemes of work to teach it. However, it was unworkable and, by showing how and why it was unworkable the teaching unions prevented the introduction of a new NC that would have harmed kids' education. 
Having negotiated an agreed table of pay and conditions with the state, the unions are, obviously, keen to maintain and protect those agreed conditions, teaching hours, class sizes, other duties, etc, etc.



Tempest said:


> The unions for the education industry seem to be under no such burden and seem to focus entirely on extracting more taxpayer money for themselves as well as any other perk imaginable while providing absolutely no real benefit.


Is this a reality, or a perception? The late Education Secretary, Gove, referred to the educational establishment in Britain as "the blob", not the best way to get that educational establishment to enthusiastically cooperate, and he made some allegations about them, mainly from a ideological viewpoint. Is your perception of educational unions an objective one? Or is it based on a similar ideological dislike of unions? Your countryman SG asserted that unions prevent people from doing a good job, but has been unable to explain how. Are you writing from a similar perspective? I have noticed that many Americans seem to have a serious dislike of unions.


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

My opposition is solely against governmental employee unions, as they negotiate against the taxpayer. 

I'd like to believe that the situation is better over there than in the States. I'd have to look up the quote, but a teacher union bigwig essentially said that he'd start caring about students when they started paying union dues.

Seeing the utterly uniform pay rates based solely on seniority (at least over here, as that is very much the case), is there even a case to be made that higher pay results in better outcomes of any sort?


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Balfour said:


> Indeed. Or look at the horrendous state of affairs in the 1970s in the UK when unions brought governments to their knees.
> 
> Kingstonian - I detect a distinct corporatism in your posts - am I right in that? (Genuinely curious - I generally like your take on things even when we disagree.)


Depends on your definition of corporatism. Salazar in Portugal and 'Third way' notions of Belloc & Chesterton have a lot of merit. American paleoconservatives sometimes are of similar mind. In the UK there is no equivalent.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

SG_67 said:


> Define "shafted". Does shafting include firing someone for misconduct?
> 
> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/chrysler-workers-drinking_n_2272291.html


Shafting would include what happened at Grunwick, what happened to the building trades workers on a secret blacklist :-https://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/oct/08/blacklisted-construction-workers-move-closer-to-huge-damages-payout
and what was done to the miners through police misconduct during the Thatcher era strike.

That said, it is pointless trying to persuade someone who believes unions are always a bad influence protecting the feckless and incompetent at all costs.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

I've not particular aversion to unions. Let them exist.

My problem is with the heavy thumb of government tipping the scales in their favor. People should be free to join unions and not be forced by law to do so as condition for employment such a such factory or workshop. Right to work should be the law; let the unions compete like everything else in the market. If they are so good and so helpful and so needed, they should be able to fill their ranks just fine. 

The kerfuffle in Wisconsin a few years back was about the state not automatically deducting union sued from the paychecks of teachers. This is akin to colonial days when the state would tax the individual on behalf of the church.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Kingstonian said:


> Shafting would include what happened at Grunwick, what happened to the building trades workers on a secret blacklist :-https://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/oct/08/blacklisted-construction-workers-move-closer-to-huge-damages-payout
> and what was done to the miners through police misconduct during the Thatcher era strike.
> 
> That said, it is pointless trying to persuade someone who believes unions are always a bad influence protecting the feckless and incompetent at all costs.


Indeed, when a person is ideologically opposed to unions, then nothing one says will change that view. 
When a Tory Party member who was a Master in the Merchant Navy, working for P&O, asked Thatcher at a conference why she was happy to see the destruction of Britain's Merchant Navy, she told him that it was because of the unions. The Merchant Navy Officer's union, the MNAOA had never taken any kind of industrial action in its entire existence, and when he tried to explain this, he was ushered away by minders.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> I've not particular aversion to unions. Let them exist.
> 
> My problem is with the heavy thumb of government tipping the scales in their favor. People should be free to join unions and not be forced by law to do so as condition for employment such a such factory or workshop. Right to work should be the law; let the unions compete like everything else in the market. If they are so good and so helpful and so needed, they should be able to fill their ranks just fine.
> 
> The kerfuffle in Wisconsin a few years back was about the state not automatically deducting union sued from the paychecks of teachers. This is akin to colonial days when the state would tax the individual on behalf of the church.


That may be so, but how do unions prevent people from doing a good job?


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Tempest said:


> My opposition is solely against governmental employee unions, as they negotiate against the taxpayer.


Surely any worker should be able to negotiate with their employer to gain the most favourable pay and conditions?


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Chouan said:


> Surely any worker should be able to negotiate with their employer to gain the most favourable pay and conditions?


Yes, when both parties assume a certain measure of risk in the transaction. Private employers negotiating with a union are negotiating with their own money.

Government negotiating with a union is negotiating with someone else's money. Also, said union is likely to mobilize the vote for those politicians who showed support and gave the union what it asked for.

Again, I'm not inherently opposed to unions. People certainly have a right to associate with whomever they want and to collectively bargain, but it must be done on a level playing field. The Taft-Hartley Act should be repealed and Right-To-Work should be the law of the land. Let unions compete for membership instead of workers being forced into them as a condition of employment.


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

SG_67 said:


> Yes, when both parties assume a certain measure of risk in the transaction. Private employers negotiating with a union are negotiating with their own money.
> 
> Government negotiating with a union is negotiating with someone else's money. Also, said union is likely to mobilize the vote for those politicians who showed support and gave the union what it asked for.
> 
> Again, I'm not inherently opposed to unions. People certainly have a right to associate with whomever they want and to collectively bargain, but it must be done on a level playing field. The Taft-Hartley Act should be repealed and Right-To-Work should be the law of the land. Let unions compete for membership instead of workers being forced into them as a condition of employment.


This is totally correct.

The old model of government employment was a tradeoff where modest pay was tempered with near absolute job security, ample perks and a generous pension. Once they learned to bully effectively with their votes, and use students as bargaining chips against the taxpayer, they kept the previous goodies while alos being higher paid than their private counterparts. Needless to say, no sign of improved education is to be seen.


Tempest said:


> Seeing the utterly uniform pay rates based solely on seniority (at least over here, as that is very much the case), is there even a case to be made that higher pay results in better outcomes of any sort?


Anyone? Bueller? Chouan?


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Tempest said:


> This is totally correct.
> 
> The old model of government employment was a tradeoff where modest pay was tempered with near absolute job security, ample perks and a generous pension. Once they learned to bully effectively with their votes, and use students as bargaining chips against the taxpayer, they kept the previous goodies while alos being higher paid than their private counterparts.


Curiously, in the private sector in the UK pay and conditions for teachers are generally better than in the state sector. Pay can have increments over time, but only up to a point, and then there are performance targets to be met for each step (3 steps in total).
You appear to think that people become teachers solely in order to make money.



Tempest said:


> Needless to say, no sign of improved education is to be seen.
> Anyone? Bueller? Chouan?


Really? You're sure that improved education is a mechanical product? Teacher does x, student achieves y. Teacher does x+1, student achieves Y+1? As simple as that?


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

Chouan said:


> Curiously, in the private sector in the UK pay and conditions for teachers are generally better than in the state sector. Pay can have increments over time, but only up to a point, and then there are performance targets to be met for each step (3 steps in total).
> You appear to think that people become teachers solely in order to make money.


What are these performance targets? There is some measurable outcome? Won't the privatized schools maintain this?
As with the video, teachers always get all sanctimonious and act like they are saintly slaves saving the world via glorified babysitting. But there are other factors to remember. Education is a pretty easy course of study. There are gobs of teacher jobs available, they pay decently and demand little. Working a mere 180 days a year and having summers off has appeal. They act like every other employee in the world has no challenges and never works late. I suspect that the worse a teacher is, the more smug they get a la the Dunning-Kruger effect.


> Really? You're sure that improved education is a mechanical product? Teacher does x, student achieves y. Teacher does x+1, student achieves Y+1? As simple as that?


Note that at around 2:40 he finally gets to measurable product, math and spelling. Has anyone seen how children spell nowadays? At what period of time have schooled children had such low standards? Are we to blame students, parents, or the school system? Again, are other employees worldwide not held responsible for things not entirely under their control? Why are teachers always asking to be treated as this protected species to be handled with kid gloves?


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Ah, so its jealousy that is the problem! If being a teacher is so easy and pays so well, with such good terms and conditions of employment, why don't you become one?


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

I should ignore this ad hominem attack that totally ducks every question that I have asked. 

But I, unlike most teachers it would seem, actually want to do something valuable and not just suck in taxpayer money. Is that not what this thread is about, the teachers having their plush positions threatened by the free market system in which the productive world works?

And feel free to answer any of the other evaded questions too.


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## Gurdon (Feb 7, 2005)

Tempest said:


> I should ignore this ad hominem attack that totally ducks every question that I have asked.
> 
> But I, unlike most teachers it would seem, actually want to do something valuable and not just suck in taxpayer money. Is that not what this thread is about, the teachers having their plush positions threatened by the free market system in which the productive world works?
> 
> And feel free to answer any of the other evaded questions too.


My mother was an accomplished teacher and school principal. I am the father of an accomplished teacher. Several of my friends are teachers or school administrators. I have four children to whose mostly public education I paid considerable attention.

Based on what I know, from over 60 years of participant observation, you don't know what you are talking about. Your comments seem driven by a fantasy world-view based on nonsensical propaganda and a regrettably simplistic and mean-spirited ideology.

There is a need for serious discussion of education, and other public issues as well. Such a discussion is unlikely, if not impossible, when the participants substitute beliefs for facts.

Gurdon


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

What have I said negative about teachers? I've stated their situation, which nobody is really disputing.

And I must add that when someone's only counter is that "you don't know what you are talking about" I usually find it to actually be the other way around. An inability to see the bigger picture due to myopia seems not to be my problem, but that of others.

Does anyone dispute that there are several substandard teachers for every magical, noble, beloved one? That's the way it is in every other line of work. Why are teachers always put on this implausible pedestal? 

I assure you all that it is virtually impossible to have a higher opinion of any teacher than they have of themselves (see video posted above by Chouan), so pardon the transgression.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Gurdon said:


> My mother was an accomplished teacher and school principal. I am the father of an accomplished teacher. Several of my friends are teachers or school administrators. I have four children to whose mostly public education I paid considerable attention.
> 
> Based on what I know, from over 60 years of participant observation, you don't know what you are talking about. Your comments seem driven by a fantasy world-view based on nonsensical propaganda and a regrettably simplistic and mean-spirited ideology.
> 
> ...


Kudos to your family for such devoted public service. I've concluded that there is no profession, or area of endeavour, except perhaps social work, that has more vocal, yet entirely unqualified experts who, apparently, know far more about how things should be run than the experienced trained professional practitioner than education in general and teaching in particular. People whose experience of the education process is limited to having been to school themselves, and perhaps occasionally visiting a school for parents' evening, seem to believe that they are far more expert on teaching than teachers are, yet this view seems to be pretty much limited to the anglophone world.


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

Chouan said:


> I've concluded that there is no profession, or area of endeavour, except perhaps social work, that has more vocal, yet entirely unqualified experts who, apparently, know far more about how things should be run than the experienced trained professional practitioner than education in general and teaching in particular.


Yes, we've already established the highly self-congratulatory nature of many in the teaching profession, and their dismissal of all criticism. Let us note that when a professional is actually successful at their job that amateurs have no reason to offer advise. And that perhaps if stubbornly failing workers heeded good advise the first time, they would no longer keep hearing it.

I must also note that, if I understand correctly, the OP has claimed this academy move is a cost-saving trick...while stating that privately funded teachers are higher paid. Explain.

I apologize for not being impressed by the sheepskin but, as with MBAs, there is zero evidence that it makes a person any more capable in the field.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Tempest said:


> Yes, we've already established the highly self-congratulatory nature of many in the teaching profession, and their dismissal of all criticism.


Especially when the criticism is either specious, fallacious, based on prejudice, jealousy of conditions, ideologically driven, based on ignorance, and where the criticism is displaying ignorance.



Tempest said:


> Let us note that when a professional is actually successful at their job that amateurs have no reason to offer advise.


Indeed, where is the evidence that education professionals are not successful at their job? Further, to what extent are the ignorant qualified to offer advice?



Tempest said:


> And that perhaps if stubbornly failing workers heeded good advise the first time, they would no longer keep hearing it.


Where is the evidence, beyond the opinions of the ill-informed, the ideologically driven and the jealous that education is failing, or that advice from the ill-informed, the ideologically driven and the jealous will be of any value?



Tempest said:


> I must also note that, if I understand correctly, the OP has claimed this academy move is a cost-saving trick...while stating that privately funded teachers are higher paid. Explain.


Perhaps this is the first example that education in the US may not be universally successful. I urge you to re-read the posts, when you will realise that this question has already been addressed. Perhaps English comprehension is not your strong point? However, reading the posts and reflecting on their meaning will show you the basic error that you've made here.



Tempest said:


> I apologize for not being impressed by the sheepskin but, as with MBAs, there is zero evidence that it makes a person any more capable in the field.


Could you elucidate please? You appear to be suggesting that MBAs are useless, an assertion that I'm not qualified to assess, but I'm mystified by the sheepskin reference.


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## Gurdon (Feb 7, 2005)

Tempest said:


> What have I said negative about teachers? I've stated their situation, which nobody is really disputing.
> 
> And I must add that when someone's only counter is that "you don't know what you are talking about" I usually find it to actually be the other way around. An inability to see the bigger picture due to myopia seems not to be my problem, but that of others.
> 
> ...


I wrote of teachers whom I know or knew personally. I did not say anything about the teaching profession as a whole.

I disagree with your blanket mischaracterization of the entire population. In my experience there are more than a few excellent teachers, some horrible ones, and many quite competent ones. Your experience may be different.

Gurdon


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Gurdon said:


> I wrote of teachers whom I know or knew personally. I did not say anything about the teaching profession as a whole.
> 
> I disagree with your blanket mischaracterization of the entire population.* In my experience there are more than a few excellent teachers, some horrible ones, and many quite competent ones. Your experience may be different. *
> 
> Gurdon


Your point is well taken and completely true. What's frustrating, however, is that there are few mechanisms to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

Within the rules of most teacher's unions, it's seniority that determines who stays and who goes when it comes to potential cuts.

Whether someone is a "good" teacher or a bad one seems to matter little.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> Your point is well taken and completely true. What's frustrating, however, is that there are few mechanisms to sort out the wheat from the chaff.
> 
> Within the rules of most teacher's unions, it's seniority that determines who stays and who goes when it comes to potential cuts.
> 
> Whether someone is a "good" teacher or a bad one seems to matter little.


Indeed. Where cost is the most important driver, the most senior, most experienced and most effective teachers are the ones who go, as the newly qualified, least experienced and least effective are so much cheaper to employ.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Chouan said:


> Indeed. Where cost is the most important driver, the most senior, most experienced and most effective teachers are the ones who go, as the newly qualified, least experienced and least effective are so much cheaper to employ.


What I'm implying is that, at least here, sometimes the most senior and experienced are not the most effective. Especially when said senior teachers are tenured.

I'm not implying that every senior teacher is by virtue of seniority also ineffective. What I am saying is that there is no mechanism within the system to make those judgements on an individual basis.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

SG_67 said:


> What I'm implying is that, at least here, sometimes the most senior and experienced are not the most effective. Especially when said senior teachers are tenured.
> 
> I'm not implying that every senior teacher is by virtue of seniority also ineffective. What I am saying is that there is no mechanism within the system to make those judgements on an individual basis.


In the US perhaps that is true. In the UK it is quite easy to remove a teacher that the management of the school wants to be removed, and I would imagine that in the US there are similar management techniques to those in the UK that can make a teacher's job so difficult that they will remove themselves.


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