Blaming Teachers for Our Low Test Scores Is Like Blaming Doctors for Our National Obesity Epidemic

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/blaming-teachers-for-our-_b_1616007.html

Posted: 06/25/2012 11:08 am

David Macaray

Playwright; Labor Columnist; Author

Two damaging misconceptions about labor unions: (1) Union members tend to be substandard workers (lazy, unreliable, surly, privileged), and (2) union members can't be fired because their "masters" will always go to bat to protect them.

Where they got that first one from, the notion that union members are bad workers, is a mystery. After all, a quick look at the economics should tell us that union jobs -- those, typically, with the highest wages, superior benefits and best and safest working conditions -- are going to attract the best workers in a community. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't the best jobs in a community attract the best people?

And as widespread as this anti-union propaganda is, it's especially virulent when it comes to public service unions. Apparently, everyone and their brother (including President Obama, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, et al.) just naturally assume that it's the teachers' union that prevents conscientious, well-meaning school administrators from firing bad teachers.

People like to believe that if incompetent teachers did not belong to a powerful labor union, if they did not have cadres of union lawyers standing by ready to defend them, the administrators would be free to do the right thing -- to drain the swamp and rid our schools of those union-created monsters who are holding our students hostage and depriving them of a decent education. That may be a compelling narrative, but it's total fiction.

FULL story at link.