State of Education

I try not to get political in my blog but I am so frustrated with the editorials and comments regarding education in WI.  For those that don't follow Wisconsin politics, our governor and legislature passed a bill that limits union negotiation power to salary alone (not working conditions, benefits, etc.) and requires that all unions re-certify.

In general, I do not believe unions play a very important role today, however in teaching they play a huge role.  In private business management has an invested interest in the success of the company and typically has a good knowledge-base of the industry.  In teaching, management is elected officials from the community who likely have no or very little knowledge of education and what it means to be a teacher.  Additionally, their interest is typically focused only on saving the taxpayers money (which unlike private business is not tied to creating a good product at all).  Allowing a union to negotiate, reminds those elected officials of the importance of also creating a good product.

With the passing of this bill, the general public (the ones with no knowledge of teaching) have come out in greater numbers than before bashing teachers, complaining they make to much and don't work very much at all.  What this does is discourage bright students who are considering going into teaching from ever entering the field and it encourages current teachers to leave the field.  Who would want to be in a field where every day you are hearing how awful teachers are and how they have such lavish benefits???  Add to that the difficulties that parents aren't interested in their children learning (either they are only interested in good grades or they don't care at all) and administrations who cater to parents by forcing teachers to lower standards so the kids can get higher grades and not supporting teachers with discipline problems.

This new bill like just about any new bill will take many years for the effects to be clear.  But we are already seeing lots of good teachers retiring, moving to the few districts that still value their teachers, or leaving the teaching profession all together.  What will this mean for our students?  What will the changes to class sizes and student learning conditions mean for our students?  Time will tell.