Teachers' Unions Have Outlived Their Usefulness

Check out this video about a teachers' strike...



This is one of those things that I don't like as a parent and Libertarian. Ever since 1983 when A Nation At Risk came out, we started throwing money at teachers to improve our educational system. Teachers' Unions became powerful lobbies and have since bullied local governments and badgered taxpayers with their pay hikes. Has yearly increases in pay improved our children's scores? No. We constantly read about other nations, South Korea recently, outperforming our students in tests every year.

This goes back to free-market principles. If teachers do poorly in public schools, they continue to get paid, but in a private or charter school system that teacher would be replaced very quickly because they have to please the parents (customers) lest they lose the parents to another school. Sure, poorly performing teachers are pulled out and put on administrative duties which can entail sitting in a room doing nothing for up to three years!! That's our tax money being wasted for three years! In a privatized school -- no way. Do the job or take a hike.

As you can see in the video, the teachers refuse a pay cut. They have their jobs, the district is hurting for funds, and 85% of the educational funding is for teachers' pay! I think the only solution left, then, is to fire some of them. How short-sighted those teachers are.