bostonbubble.com

[balor123]

I actually wasn't trying to be sarcastic but I expect that I am wrong and published table of fixed wages based on years of experience seems like good evidence that their pay is not very efficient. For private workers, the pay varies significantly from year to year based on the state of the economy and frequent turnover allows for efficient wages. With the turnover so low in government jobs (1/4 of the private sector), government pay in general is not very efficient. I don't imagine you are lying about the dismissal of teachers but do teachers experience more turnover than other government employees? If not, then it suffers from the same problem that others suffer from.

It sounds like you are a good teacher and I would value your opinion on which school districts are good ones. As I mentioned previously, I think a teacher is a much better judge than a parent. Do you think most of your peers are as good as you are? Those who aren't, do you think they make significantly less than you? Do you see you workers who are just as good as older workers and who make the same amount?

Your union may be ineffective but is that the case everywhere, in particular Boston? I'd be happy to entertain the notion that those salaries are necessary battle pay if they weren't negotiated by the union. I'd like to see what happens if the unions were disbanded the wages of each teacher were set separately.

What you are saying about teacher's unions seems inconsistent with what we read elsehwere. Take this article (Newton teachers union opposes pay freeze) from the Daily News Tribute for example. Do the teachers of Newton not seem like jerks to you? Here's some quotes:

[john p]

In my MBA they talked about 4 different types of cultures. These cultures reflected the percentage of two different qualities: a desire to be the best, and a desire to have a genuine social bond with your coworkers.

Mercenary Culture:

High drive towards success but no internal bonds among workers; kind of like a sales culture where "The winner gets a trip to Hawaii and the loser gets fired".

Social Culture:

There is no drive to be the best, but everyone loves eachother. Basically people talk about their past weekend until Tuesday and start talking about next weekend on Thursday.

Fragmented Culture:

People don't care about being the best and don't care about their fellow worker. People claim that this is often the case with poor school systems where teachers are in their own classrooms and there is no way for the teachers to get recognized or compensated for good work.

Communal Culture:

These cultures are like a tribe that depends on eachother for survival. Years ago when we had start-ups that actually became successful companies, the core teams were usually communal cultures. They were driven for excellence and they actually looked out and cared for others.

As a national social fabric, we are devolving from a communal culture to a more fragmented culture. People who actually try feel like suckers who are wasting their time.

The key is to promote the values that make people feel rewarded inside. For example, when people sing "Amazing Grace" they hear certain words that are communal values, values that tie us together. "Us", meaning people before us and among us, values passed down from generation to generation.

T'was Grace that taught...
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear...
the hour I first believed.

When fear comes into the mind of a firefighter, they still need to do their job. This song teaches them to receive fear with Grace and through Grace would their fear be relieved. It is essential to a firefighter to connect with this because they need to be calm in terrifying situations. Heart attacks cause more deaths than anything else in firefighting. In this regard, the bond between firefighters is that of "brothers". The firefighter that steals when they are going through a home or building pollutes the purity of that institution, so that behavior needs to be shunned and purged from it. How you maintain and preserve a culture is important.

Unions help united fragmented cultures, but when Unions lose the drive to be the best, i.e. the best autoworkers in the world, this dissolves the bonds between workers and those that actually care don't have that unifying bond to any higher purpose other than self gratification.

We need to find a way to express our gratitude towards good teachers that care so that glow of Amazing Grace shines on them which helps nourish their giving spirit. As a Catholic, we do this symbolically when we receive our Communion, which is an embodiment of the "Holy Spirit". In a non religious context, we also need to spread our gratitude towards others to keep the will of good men strong.

[BD]

The way it works in all MA school systems as far as I know is as follows. When you're hired by a school system, you have 3 years to prove yourself. You have what's referred to as "preprofessional status".
For preprofessionals, there's a huge turnover. They leave on their own for a variety of reasons, or they don't get renewed.

One can pretty much tell within 3 years if someone is professional, hard-working, and fits into the community and culture of the school.

For professional status teachers (tenured), there's obviously less turnover. Someone earlier mentioned advanced degrees. Since 1993 all teachers must have a masters degree within 5 years of employment.

Now if you have professional status, you can still be fired. Though sometimes or usually it's done the same way it's often done in industry. They take you aside and convince you that this job isn't a good fit after all, and that you should move on. That way you get to save face, and it doesn't look like a firing on paper.

My posting aren't as much to defend unions as to defend the teaching profession. I didn't become a teacher because it's unionized. If someone doesn't like unions, I won't change their mind.

I just didn't want some of the strange comments to go unchalleged.
And maybe without a union, I might personally be better off. Math and science teachers would probably do better.

[Guest]