Union Damage: Teachers Union Edition

If it were up to me, I fire every union teacher in my schools.  And hire back the good ones on the condition that they consider themselves “management”.

I’m tired of unions holding up the schools and the kids.  I’m tired of unions making it hard to keep good teachers.  And I’m tired of unions making hard to get rid of the crappy ones.

It is time to get unions OUT of the schools.

Consider California:

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California’s budget crisis could cost nearly 22,000 teachers their jobs this year.  State school districts had issued 21,905 pink slips to teachers and other school employees by Monday, the legal deadline for districts to send preliminary layoff notices.

This sounds horrible–heck it IS horrible.  But it doesn’t have to be.  And because it doesn’t have to be but will be done is the reason California’s educational system is in the toilet:

California schools rank at or near the bottom nationally in academic performance, student-teacher ratios in middle and high school, access to guidance counselors and the percentage of seniors who go directly to four-year colleges…

But, but, but this can’t be.  Certainly California, the Leftist’s dream.  And there are few things more important to the Leftist than education.  How can it be this bad?

Because unions make everything they touch worse.

Look, California is going to have to make some tough decisions.  They simply don’t have the money and no amount of Obama money is going to close that gap.

But it doesn’t have to be this bad.  There are other ways.  For example, due to union rules, teacher layoffs occur via seniority.  The new teachers have to be let go first leaving the older teachers left.  This creates several problems:

1. There are a lot of young teachers that are fantastic.
2. There are a lot of old teachers that are horrible
3. Using this system alone results in ONLY the most expensive teachers left on the pay role.  Only the cheapest teachers are eligible to be cut.

Further, California could offer to freeze pay and benefit increases.  Teachers may be willing to freeze their salary rather than lose it; I would, and in fact, this year I did.  But guess what, teacher’s unions say no.

Last, allow the system to fire teachers for non-performance.  Many many teachers are kept on roll either while they teach and are horrible or have been disciplined and removed from the classroom but can’t be fired.

Look, teachers didn’t cause the problem in California, but their unions are only making it worse.  Ironically, the union that claims to help its members is only causing more and more of them to be fired.