Teachers and Their Unions: Victims or Complicit?

As a public school teacher (non union) I can tell you saddly most teachers are in co-hoots with the unions and the union agenda. However I am speaking strickly about the NEA. Many teachers who are union are NOT part of the NEA and are doing as much as they can to improve public education. The problem is they are fighting against a HUGE group who is well funded and even better connected and just like anyone else who needs their job they are only so willing to rock the boat.

I state this everytime a poll on teachers and public schools comes up. If teh public really wantsto improve public education than the public needs to get into those schools and see what is going on in them. The public needs to stop looking at schools as free daycare (k-5) or juvi hall (6-12). The public needs to stop dropping teh kids at teh door and forgetting about them for 7.5 hours or more. The public needs to start taking responsibility for what is being taught by attending school board meetings and voting wisely on school board members and school admin. the public wants to complain but what is teh saying about its better to light a candle than curse the darkness... get in your local schools shine a light. Ask teachers about the text books and about their lesson plans and about standards then start talking to your neighbors, other parenst, write articles in the paper

Because as my last principal total me when I went public on something I saw and caused a big brew hahah.... "IF the public KNEW what happended in here [public schools] the lid would blow off"

In part I agree, unions make it very hard to just teach. I am a teacher (non union) so I am well aware of the struggles educators face. However; ability to teach is very hard to determin.
If you want to just go based on test scores then you would have to fire every single teacher out there including me, yet I have great success with many of my students, especially the "low preforming ones" because my philiosophy is to teach using connections to experences. (Oh I teach social studies which covers everything from history/govt to psy/mental health and street law).
There is no place in business where what the guy in the cubical next to you does determines if you keep your job. There is also no place in business where when employees fail the company president gets fired. The problem with tests they are not determinate of a students ability and many times students do not invest in the test results (this is what happends with standards testing) because the results of the tests do not go on the students records.
I have fellow teachers who ONLY grade based on test scores more than 45% of their students are failing or on the brink of failing, classwork, projects, partisipation, none of those count towards the students grade. Mostly because the teachers are to lazy (yes I went there) to grade other works.
I also have teachers who do not test at all because the content doesn't lend itself to testing.
I only count tests scores as 30% of total grades and I allow several testing methods because when tests are the determination you have to consider things like is the student a poor test taker, does the student have other learning issues (more than 50% of my students read below a 3rd grade level, did I mention I teacher 9-12) is the student being cared for at home, sleep, food, security (maslows needs list) do they HAVE to hold a job to support the family? all this impacts students ability to learn successfuly.

BUT what has the most impact on student success is what is said about education and practiced in the home. If parents do not ask about what happened in class on a daily basis, if they do not ensure students study and do homework, if tehy tell the student the teachers are stupid and can't fail them or otherwise undermine the teachers authority in and out of the classroom then the student has no reason to sit up, be quiet, listen, take notes and learn. If parents do not come to parent teacher meetings if parents do not get involved with the school board if parents do not police the schools then education will never improve.

Its not the teachers who have total control. This is at least a 3 person system, the teacher, the student and the family. If we all do not take responsibility equally where we need to nothing happends.

Teachers spend 7.5 hours at least in the class room, that "hour doing various... tasks" is rotational and many of my fellow teachers do not grade seatwork/homework at all or grade it only for completion. Teachers who have several years in re-use lesson plans and rarely update them. Yet teachers will sit for 18 hours in a classroom so 8 of 300 parents can come to parent teacher meetings and teachers will spend 15 hours a week sending emails and making phone calls to parenst who tell the students the teacher is a bitch ratgher than speak with the student about sleeping in class or not finishing assignments....

Look I teach, I am non union, I love my work and I really love my students (high school) and I use my weekends to write plans because most of my classes are non deteminant classes such as current events, government affairs, and street law (I teach social studies) which means the news cycle decides what will be taught in class the following week. I stay at least 3 hours after school every day to correct papers to imput grades and to be there if a student wants to talk about a bad break up with a gf/bf or just to see if I have an extra yogurt in the fridge because they won't get feed at home that night.

There are some sucky aspects to teaching but the aspects that dove me to teach after 12+ years in the army and several years private sector are so very worth it... seeing that student everyone gave up on walk up and take that diploma or getting an announcement a former student graduated cum lauda... its not about money its about knowing I did something that benefited my society and will continue to do so even if I am no longer around.