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> Yes, politicians and teachers' unions share most of the blame. It's unconscionable how long they insisted on keeping schools closed, despite the massive impac

> Yes, politicians and teachers' unions share most of the blame. It's unconscionable how long they insisted on keeping schools closed, despite the massive impact on families and students and the minimal danger posed to kids. I feel sympathy for parents who are trying their best to survive while teachers have taken this as an excuse to work even less. I don't know what to make of the teachers' unions. My personal experience with individual teachers is that they work plenty, and what I saw during remote school was no exception. (Being a kindergarten teacher over Zoom is hard!) And I never heard a particular teacher in my area advocate for closed or remote schools. But school administrators blamed the teachers' unions a fair bit for being slow to reopen. In general I suspect school administrators were looking to blame someone else for their own leadership failings, but there still might be some truth in it. I could see how the unions might have adopted the position of the most risk-adverse (and/or laziest) of the teachers.

suchire 5y ago
Teachers’ unions often have skewed incentives that don’t match the desires of working teachers, because the primary goal of the union is to perpetuate itself, over and above any benefits to teachers themselves.
- ejb999 5y ago
  I have negotiated teacher union contracts, from the non-teacher side - the easiest way to get the union to agree to layoffs was to offer a slight bump in pay to the most senior teachers - i.e. the ones most connected with the union - worked every time. The senior/older teachers were always more than happy to lay off the younger/newer staff, as long as they got even a slight bump in their own pay - i.e. I don't care if class sizes go up, and we have to layoff 10 of the most recent hires - as long as I get a 4% raise instead of 3%. There is nothing about teachers unions priorities that align in anyway with students & parents priorities.
morgante 5y ago
> My personal experience with individual teachers is that they work plenty, and what I saw during remote school was no exception. Yes, there are definitely some individual teachers who care about student learning and work hard to go back to in-person. Unfortunately, the unions adopt the most risk-averse/lazy possible regarding remote learning. Even in 2022 there are unions pushing hard for effectively indefinite remote learning.[0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/08/us/teachers-unions-covid-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/08/us/teachers-unions-covid-...

suchire 5y ago

Teachers’ unions often have skewed incentives that don’t match the desires of working teachers, because the primary goal of the union is to perpetuate itself, over and above any benefits to teachers themselves.

ejb999 5y ago
I have negotiated teacher union contracts, from the non-teacher side - the easiest way to get the union to agree to layoffs was to offer a slight bump in pay to the most senior teachers - i.e. the ones most connected with the union - worked every time. The senior/older teachers were always more than happy to lay off the younger/newer staff, as long as they got even a slight bump in their own pay - i.e. I don't care if class sizes go up, and we have to layoff 10 of the most recent hires - as long as I get a 4% raise instead of 3%. There is nothing about teachers unions priorities that align in anyway with students & parents priorities.

morgante 5y ago

> My personal experience with individual teachers is that they work plenty, and what I saw during remote school was no exception. Yes, there are definitely some individual teachers who care about student learning and work hard to go back to in-person. Unfortunately, the unions adopt the most risk-averse/lazy possible regarding remote learning. Even in 2022 there are unions pushing hard for effectively indefinite remote learning.[0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/08/us/teachers-unions-covid-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/08/us/teachers-unions-covid-...