Check out an editorial in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that urges Pennsylvania residents to fight for the repeal of Act 84 of 1988, which made Pennsylvania a "compulsory union" state, allowing unions to bargain for extracting "agency fees" from workers who don't want to be members.
From Declaw the PSEA:
The Pennsylvania State Education Association causes untold damage to kids, taxpayers and the commonwealth. Few Pennsylvanians know how costly is this teacher union. But the public has the power to tame the beast.And POLICY BLOG, the official blog of the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, an independent, non-profit public policy research and educational institute based in Harrisburg, has the numbers to show that "compulsory unionism doesn't benefit teachers, students, or taxpayers."
With more than 185,500 members, 281 full-time employees and an annual income above $84 million, the PSEA is one of the state's wealthiest, largest and most politically active labor unions, reports The Commonwealth Foundation, a public-policy, free-market think tank in Harrisburg.
The PSEA has had cancerlike growth because of its ability to organize employees into collective bargaining units, influence legislation through its puppets that the union's political action committee helped to elect, and push for endless amounts of public financing for public schools, which usually ends up in union members' pockets.
From POLICY BLOG:
There is no evidence for (PSEA Head honcho James) Testerman's claim that right-to-work states cannot attract teachers. And as for academic performance, right-to-work states (despite high levels of immigration) perform almost identically to compulsory union states on the NAEP test, and higher on the SAT.Pennsylvania teachers are the fourth highest-paid in the nation, yet Pennsylvania continues to lead the country in teacher strikes.
And as POLICY BLOG notes, "Pennsylvania ranks near the bottom in SAT scores, and only 60% of black males graduate, according to one analysis."
Check out School Board Transparency and Stop Teachers Strikes blogs for more information.
1 comment:
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a tax-paying, homeschooling parent. I have friends and know many well-meaning teachers, who want and deserve good pay and benefits.
Although I have compassion for the teacher as employee, I have more compassion for the students as customer...and the "system" works suboptimally. Although charters and vouchers cause short-term financial distress to the tax base, it should be a welcome addition. Monopolies, in general will not produce the most efficient means of product delivery.
There can not be, will not ever be equality in education, unless social engineers succeed in making more of us poor and dependent on govt. The governing elites will continue to provide the best education for their children, while the poor slobs have to make do with the public "free" system.
For those who may be interested in getting more angry at this issue, I can recommend that you read some book by 1991 New York City Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto. The one I read is "Dumbing us Down". i of course can not vouch if he has axes to grind or is now profiting from the unschooling movement, but I challenge folks to read it and research his premises.
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