4 ms·

Even if that is a cause, so? But the real issues revolve around a lack of oversight, small budgets, corruption, and exclusionary practices that hurt already mar

by dvdhnt 6y ago

Even if that is a cause, so? But the real issues revolve around a lack of oversight, small budgets, corruption, and exclusionary practices that hurt already marginalized groups. Edit: "your mask is slipping" isn't a productive characterization. What I meant was, your statement comes off as bias - "tribes", "the left", "protecting itself against competition" all scream pro-capitalist propaganda on a topic that, frankly, should stay as far away from capitalism as possible. That's my interpretation of your remarks and I am well aware that my own biases may distort your message. But typically, when someone introduces "competition" to a discussion on education and laments teach unions, they have an agenda. Again, I could easily be wrong.

bpodgursky 6y ago
There's fundamentally no connection between the health of a union and the quality of the product. That's not the point of the union -- the point is protecting workers! Nobody argued that meatpackers should unionize so they could pack more meat! So it's entirely reasonable to separate the reasons for the NEA to (1) exist, and (2) dislike charter schools -- that is, because their job is to protect teachers -- from the educational merits of charter schools. We shouldn't expect a teacher union to balance the merits of charter schools, because it's _not their job_. We can talk about those points separately, but we need to expect that those talking points are completely independent of whether a teacher protection union (and I don't mean that negatively) objects to the schools which cut them out of the picture.
- morelisp 6y ago
  The current situation in US education strongly suggests that whatever other failings you want to ascribe to teachers unions, the interests of teachers and students are much more closely aligned than the interests of administrators who are planning to murder both other groups.
DenisM 6y ago
>Also, your mask is slipping What are you insinuating?
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  It's pretty funny whatever it means, because I'm pretty much the least masked person on the internet. Here you go! https://twitter.com/bpodgursky https://twitter.com/bpodgursky bpodgursky@gmail.com https://github.com/bpodgursky/ https://github.com/bpodgursky/ I have one username, and it's my name. It's all in my profile too. I don't pretend anything.
- dvdhnt 6y ago
  That was a poor choice of words; I amended my comment.

by dvdhnt 6y ago

bpodgursky 6y ago

There's fundamentally no connection between the health of a union and the quality of the product. That's not the point of the union -- the point is protecting workers! Nobody argued that meatpackers should unionize so they could pack more meat! So it's entirely reasonable to separate the reasons for the NEA to (1) exist, and (2) dislike charter schools -- that is, because their job is to protect teachers -- from the educational merits of charter schools. We shouldn't expect a teacher union to balance the merits of charter schools, because it's _not their job_. We can talk about those points separately, but we need to expect that those talking points are completely independent of whether a teacher protection union (and I don't mean that negatively) objects to the schools which cut them out of the picture.

morelisp 6y ago
The current situation in US education strongly suggests that whatever other failings you want to ascribe to teachers unions, the interests of teachers and students are much more closely aligned than the interests of administrators who are planning to murder both other groups.

DenisM 6y ago

>Also, your mask is slipping What are you insinuating?

bpodgursky 6y ago
It's pretty funny whatever it means, because I'm pretty much the least masked person on the internet. Here you go! https://twitter.com/bpodgursky https://twitter.com/bpodgursky bpodgursky@gmail.com https://github.com/bpodgursky/ https://github.com/bpodgursky/ I have one username, and it's my name. It's all in my profile too. I don't pretend anything.
dvdhnt 6y ago
That was a poor choice of words; I amended my comment.