3 ms·

Unions

18 points by Garbage 16y ago

redthrowaway 16y ago
Blaming America's dismal education system on teachers unions is a tired and hollow argument. Mr. Adams would do well to consider the chronic underfunding, push toward standardization at all costs, and political interference that directly challenges science education. Are unions good for a small, agile company? No. Are they necessary for monolithic employers? Probably. The U.S. government employs 2 million civilians. (ref:http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs041.htm http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs041.htm) Withouts CBAs, etc, this likely would not work particularly well. Having a organizational structure that completely changes its goals, direction, and attitude towards employees every four years probably doesn't help much.
- vitolds 16y ago
  Since goals change every 4 years and that is a major problem, let's just privatize the whole thing.
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    Because the chief goal of educating children should be profit.
    - vitolds 16y ago
      Because the profit component makes any system more efficient.
      - techdmn 16y ago
        At making a profit.
        vitolds 16y ago
        and at providing the service.
      - crpatino 16y ago
        Only if all of the following conditions are met: 1. There are multiple options for the customer. 2. The customer is able to accurately asses the quality of different offerings. 3. The cost to switch providers is negligible. Otherwise, you will either get a monopoly or a lemon market.
        vitolds 16y ago
        1. at least in the urban areas, there are always just as many schools to choose form as grocery stores (so check) 2. easy, just select schools with good graduation, low crime etc. - just as people are selecting good schools now by relocating to a different(better) neighborhood. (check) 3. people switch schools all the time just as they switch jobs, granted you may have difficulties to do it in mid semester but this is not a serious obstacle. (check) So, all the conditions are met, can we open the market to competition now?
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  I'm not sure that his main argument - "education is a vital national interest" (or "national defense issue") - supports union-busting over increased funding and the like. After all, while the US has no military union, it does spend a lot of money on the military. (Whether the individual grunt is underpaid or not has very little to do with the effectiveness of the organization as a whole, and the US defense system is quite effective, despite its problems.)
- gyardley 16y ago
  Instead of calling an argument tired and hollow, why don't you explain why the argument is tired and hollow? I'm not trying to score some cheap political points off you - I'd love a response that makes me think a bit, because when I hear someone say 'teachers unions are bad for education', my gut reaction is 'well, that's obvious', since any system where pay is based on seniority and poor-performers are difficult to fire has got to create perverse incentives. What am I missing?
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    I'll preface this by saying that I am no fan of unions, although I recognize their utility in some sectors and will go so far as to say that they have done an incredible amount of historic good for the middle class. Blaming teachers for failing educational standards has long been a tactic of those who wish to see public education marginalized. What they fail to point out, however, is that those countries with the best education systems also have strong teachers unions. I'm not implying causality between the two, merely correlation. It's certainly true that the structure of a union is not one that tends to reward or punish based upon performance, but those who hold unions to be the downfall of any organization place far too much weight on the idea of monetary incentives. Take Microsoft, for instance. Here's a company that has tried to implement performance-based monetary incentives, and, by most accounts, failed widely. It's not that people aren't incentivized by money, but rather that those who are really good at what they do care much more about their impact than their paycheque. They care more about doing something great and earning the respect of peers they respect than a 5%/year raise. The education system in America is shameful, something that it seems almost everyone can agree on. The fact is, however, teacher unions are by no means the major culprit. As I said earlier, chronic severe underfunding and a drive toward standardization that values passing meaningless tests over education is the true culprit. As a member of HN, I think I can go out on a limb and say you're either fairly technical, entrepreneurial, or both. Let me ask you: would you want to work for a failing organization that had a terrible product, didn't invest enough in development, and had ridiculous rules governing what qualified as success? The trouble with finding great teachers who take charge of their students' education is not the union, it's the system itself. The union may play a role in that, but it's simply not a primary one.
  - 16y ago
- melling 16y ago
  If you have seen the movie "Waiting for Superman" you'll understand why the union is taking some of the blame. They certainly make a case for it being part of the problem. Also, would it be possible to provide some evidence for your claims about education? It might help us have a better discussion.
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    Waiting for Superman has been criticized for its somewhat less-than-honest depiction of reality. Take a look at this piece from a professor of education at USF: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-ayers-/an-inconvenient-superman-_b_716420.html?view=print http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-ayers-/an-inconvenient-su... Some more reading: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0924/Waiting-for-Superman-A-simplistic-view-of-education-reform http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0924/Waiting-for... http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/09/how-did-davis-guggenheim-become-the-right-wings-favorite-liberal-filmmaker-.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/09/how-... http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-09-22/film/ignoring-the-inconvenient-truths-in-waiting-for-superman/ http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-09-22/film/ignoring-the-inc...
- protomyth 16y ago
  I think the "chronic underfunding" is just as much a canard. $10K per non-special ed student should go a lot farther than it does.
electromagnetic 16y ago
I have a strong dislike for unions, especially when people are forced to deal with unionized companies for contractors. I also feel sympathetic to those who are trapped in a union, who have been making the same wage as everyone else for 30 years and are still forced to walk out of their job for 8 months when talks break down so a union rep can feel important and still relevant.
russellallen 16y ago
Unions for armies aren't a problem because they might make the army less efficient. They're a problem because they introduce a parallel and competing chain of command and undermine the control of the civilian state over the men with guns.
vitolds 16y ago
Maybe instead of comparing military and education in terms of why unions are allowed in one and not in the other, he should just make a comparison between education and any private sector with functioning competition. I'd say the benchmark for education should not be the military but rather retail. Imagine schools as efficient as Walmart or Starbucks.
- borism 16y ago
  if school was a Walmart, would teachers be shipped from China in Panamax container ships?
  - vitolds 16y ago
    If they did a better job, they would.
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
Imagine how things would be different if education were treated as a national defense issue Good grief, Scott. The problem with unions and/or education is that we keep trying to make one-size-fits-all solutions, eventually treating our children (and teachers) like widgets in a factory. So the teachers and children have started acting like we've been treating them. Further nationalizing it isn't going to help any -- it'll just make matters worse. Each student is a complicated problem on his or her own. That makes each class an even more complicated problem. We need to be able to give people the freedom and accountability to leverage local minima and maxima, not come up with imaginations of how various global solutions might work. School boards alone have too much concentrated power and make too many global rules. It just gets worse the higher up the chain you go. The way we got here was through a long string of really smart folks imagining what magic bullet might fix things for everybody -- it will not be the way we get out. EDIT: Interesting trivia point: one of the big pushes for centralized education "reform" originally in the states was that in WWI the soldiers had a hard time working the artillery. It was thought that we had better start having national standards of education so that we could be assured future soldiers would be able to fight effectively. Seems like we will never escape well-meaning people using bad military analogies. La plus ca change...
vtail 16y ago
While unions make it easier for workers to defend their rights, they make it _much harder_ to create a meritocracy in the organization, and so much harder to reward people based on their performance - just ask anybody who have ever tried to transform an organization with a strong union. (Notoriously ineffective PG&E comes to mind first). Here is an example of how "easy" it is to fire a low-performing teacher: http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/lausd-s-dance-of-the-lemons/ http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/lausd-s-dance-of-the...
- vtail 16y ago
  Here is a though experiment. How fast do you think Salman Khan, of khanacademy.org fame, would advance in a US public school system?
psyconn 16y ago
I've heard an interesting argument that states education has become the number one reason for one's under-achievements in today's society (like sinning in the middle ages). The point is that education will always be bad and a LOT of people have and idea (usually wrong) about how to improve it.
fogus 16y ago
Duplicate of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1950695 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1950695 that already has 63 comments.
ugh 16y ago
By the way, civil servants (that includes teachers) have no right to strike in Germany.

18 points by Garbage 16y ago

Blaming America's dismal education system on teachers unions is a tired and hollow argument. Mr. Adams would do well to consider the chronic underfunding, push toward standardization at all costs, and political interference that directly challenges science education. Are unions good for a small, agile company? No. Are they necessary for monolithic employers? Probably. The U.S. government employs 2 million civilians. (ref:http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs041.htm http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs041.htm) Withouts CBAs, etc, this likely would not work particularly well. Having a organizational structure that completely changes its goals, direction, and attitude towards employees every four years probably doesn't help much.

vitolds 16y ago
Since goals change every 4 years and that is a major problem, let's just privatize the whole thing.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  Because the chief goal of educating children should be profit.
  - vitolds 16y ago
    Because the profit component makes any system more efficient.
    - techdmn 16y ago
      At making a profit.
      - vitolds 16y ago
        and at providing the service.
    - crpatino 16y ago
      Only if all of the following conditions are met: 1. There are multiple options for the customer. 2. The customer is able to accurately asses the quality of different offerings. 3. The cost to switch providers is negligible. Otherwise, you will either get a monopoly or a lemon market.
      - vitolds 16y ago
        1. at least in the urban areas, there are always just as many schools to choose form as grocery stores (so check) 2. easy, just select schools with good graduation, low crime etc. - just as people are selecting good schools now by relocating to a different(better) neighborhood. (check) 3. people switch schools all the time just as they switch jobs, granted you may have difficulties to do it in mid semester but this is not a serious obstacle. (check) So, all the conditions are met, can we open the market to competition now?
JoachimSchipper 16y ago
I'm not sure that his main argument - "education is a vital national interest" (or "national defense issue") - supports union-busting over increased funding and the like. After all, while the US has no military union, it does spend a lot of money on the military. (Whether the individual grunt is underpaid or not has very little to do with the effectiveness of the organization as a whole, and the US defense system is quite effective, despite its problems.)
gyardley 16y ago
Instead of calling an argument tired and hollow, why don't you explain why the argument is tired and hollow? I'm not trying to score some cheap political points off you - I'd love a response that makes me think a bit, because when I hear someone say 'teachers unions are bad for education', my gut reaction is 'well, that's obvious', since any system where pay is based on seniority and poor-performers are difficult to fire has got to create perverse incentives. What am I missing?
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  I'll preface this by saying that I am no fan of unions, although I recognize their utility in some sectors and will go so far as to say that they have done an incredible amount of historic good for the middle class. Blaming teachers for failing educational standards has long been a tactic of those who wish to see public education marginalized. What they fail to point out, however, is that those countries with the best education systems also have strong teachers unions. I'm not implying causality between the two, merely correlation. It's certainly true that the structure of a union is not one that tends to reward or punish based upon performance, but those who hold unions to be the downfall of any organization place far too much weight on the idea of monetary incentives. Take Microsoft, for instance. Here's a company that has tried to implement performance-based monetary incentives, and, by most accounts, failed widely. It's not that people aren't incentivized by money, but rather that those who are really good at what they do care much more about their impact than their paycheque. They care more about doing something great and earning the respect of peers they respect than a 5%/year raise. The education system in America is shameful, something that it seems almost everyone can agree on. The fact is, however, teacher unions are by no means the major culprit. As I said earlier, chronic severe underfunding and a drive toward standardization that values passing meaningless tests over education is the true culprit. As a member of HN, I think I can go out on a limb and say you're either fairly technical, entrepreneurial, or both. Let me ask you: would you want to work for a failing organization that had a terrible product, didn't invest enough in development, and had ridiculous rules governing what qualified as success? The trouble with finding great teachers who take charge of their students' education is not the union, it's the system itself. The union may play a role in that, but it's simply not a primary one.
- 16y ago
melling 16y ago
If you have seen the movie "Waiting for Superman" you'll understand why the union is taking some of the blame. They certainly make a case for it being part of the problem. Also, would it be possible to provide some evidence for your claims about education? It might help us have a better discussion.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  Waiting for Superman has been criticized for its somewhat less-than-honest depiction of reality. Take a look at this piece from a professor of education at USF: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-ayers-/an-inconvenient-superman-_b_716420.html?view=print http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-ayers-/an-inconvenient-su... Some more reading: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0924/Waiting-for-Superman-A-simplistic-view-of-education-reform http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0924/Waiting-for... http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/09/how-did-davis-guggenheim-become-the-right-wings-favorite-liberal-filmmaker-.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/09/how-... http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-09-22/film/ignoring-the-inconvenient-truths-in-waiting-for-superman/ http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-09-22/film/ignoring-the-inc...
protomyth 16y ago
I think the "chronic underfunding" is just as much a canard. $10K per non-special ed student should go a lot farther than it does.

electromagnetic 16y ago

I have a strong dislike for unions, especially when people are forced to deal with unionized companies for contractors. I also feel sympathetic to those who are trapped in a union, who have been making the same wage as everyone else for 30 years and are still forced to walk out of their job for 8 months when talks break down so a union rep can feel important and still relevant.

russellallen 16y ago

Unions for armies aren't a problem because they might make the army less efficient. They're a problem because they introduce a parallel and competing chain of command and undermine the control of the civilian state over the men with guns.

vitolds 16y ago

Maybe instead of comparing military and education in terms of why unions are allowed in one and not in the other, he should just make a comparison between education and any private sector with functioning competition. I'd say the benchmark for education should not be the military but rather retail. Imagine schools as efficient as Walmart or Starbucks.

borism 16y ago
if school was a Walmart, would teachers be shipped from China in Panamax container ships?
- vitolds 16y ago
  If they did a better job, they would.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

Imagine how things would be different if education were treated as a national defense issue Good grief, Scott. The problem with unions and/or education is that we keep trying to make one-size-fits-all solutions, eventually treating our children (and teachers) like widgets in a factory. So the teachers and children have started acting like we've been treating them. Further nationalizing it isn't going to help any -- it'll just make matters worse. Each student is a complicated problem on his or her own. That makes each class an even more complicated problem. We need to be able to give people the freedom and accountability to leverage local minima and maxima, not come up with imaginations of how various global solutions might work. School boards alone have too much concentrated power and make too many global rules. It just gets worse the higher up the chain you go. The way we got here was through a long string of really smart folks imagining what magic bullet might fix things for everybody -- it will not be the way we get out. EDIT: Interesting trivia point: one of the big pushes for centralized education "reform" originally in the states was that in WWI the soldiers had a hard time working the artillery. It was thought that we had better start having national standards of education so that we could be assured future soldiers would be able to fight effectively. Seems like we will never escape well-meaning people using bad military analogies. La plus ca change...

vtail 16y ago

While unions make it easier for workers to defend their rights, they make it _much harder_ to create a meritocracy in the organization, and so much harder to reward people based on their performance - just ask anybody who have ever tried to transform an organization with a strong union. (Notoriously ineffective PG&E comes to mind first). Here is an example of how "easy" it is to fire a low-performing teacher: http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/lausd-s-dance-of-the-lemons/ http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/lausd-s-dance-of-the...

vtail 16y ago
Here is a though experiment. How fast do you think Salman Khan, of khanacademy.org fame, would advance in a US public school system?

psyconn 16y ago

I've heard an interesting argument that states education has become the number one reason for one's under-achievements in today's society (like sinning in the middle ages). The point is that education will always be bad and a LOT of people have and idea (usually wrong) about how to improve it.

fogus 16y ago

Duplicate of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1950695 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1950695 that already has 63 comments.

ugh 16y ago

By the way, civil servants (that includes teachers) have no right to strike in Germany.