Unions are useful because, among other things, they attract high quality candidates who do not want to worry about the security of their job. But having a stron

Unions are useful because, among other things, they attract high quality candidates who do not want to worry about the security of their job. But having a strong union is only one of the factors that a teaching candidate considers. If the pay is awful (and it is awful in most of the United States), you simply aren't going to attract the best students because they will find another job that pays much better. I've found that most schools that are considered "bad" have a majority of poor students. School districts that serve poor people need extra resources, but often they receive less funding than richer districts. But just giving the school districts more money isn't an effective solution, because the real reason that poor students are (often) unsuccessful is because of their parents. Poor students fall behind richer students because in most cases their parents are functionally illiterate, do not stress the value of education, and cannot help their students with their homework. Studies have shown that children with books in their homes are likely to be more successful in school than children that don't. It is likely that the same teacher would be given a lower rating at a school in a poor district than at a school in a richer district. The presence of a union does not guarantee good teachers. Finland, Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada and other countries that are used in the U.S as examples of good education systems. To be sure, it is true that the value of education is stressed more in those countries cultures. But it is hard to ignore the fact that all of those countries have strong unions. I think that teachers criticize MOOCs because they are concerned that they will be replaced with something that has not demonstrated consistently that it is better for students. The teachers that write these articles don't give a shit about "revenues" of their colleges; teaching is their passion, not money. If they were concerned about money, they would not have become college professors in the first place. If you see any articles concerned about the "revenue" of a college, it is likely that author is a president of college, and earns a disproportionately large salary.