When Did Teachers Unions Become the Enemy for Orthodox Liberals?

The teacher's union gave $80 million dollars to the Obama campaign. Why? Was he suppose to help their schools? Give teachers more money? The head of the union visited the White House over 150 times in the first year and now has left the union. Why are teachers spending their hard earned money on a political action committee and someone please tell me the benefits to them of this union.

I don't think people realize the manpower it takes to to educate every single child in this country, which is what we in the USA are attempting to do. Not very many countries try this. In the school where I teach there are about 80 paid adults for 600 students which works out to about 1 adult for every 7.5 children. This includes around 40 certified teachers ( and and 40 full and part-time classified staff - clerical, playground monitors, crossing-guards, custodians, food-service; but not the several thousand volunteer hours. We are not overstaffed; to meet the expectations of education, safety, and cleanliness that our society has decided is necessary, these are all necessary positions. That is also why education is such a high part of most jurisdictions' tax budgets. So, before you begrudge the school districts the amount they spend; realize that, for every 8 children you pass in the mall, there is one paid adult in a school and we, through threats of lawsuits and actual legal actions, have told schools that all of them are necessary.

As a teacher and a parent, I am frustrated on both sides. When you take the ability to discipline and hold accountable the students and teachers (and parents!) things literally start falling apart. We have administrators that are afraid of parent backlash and lawsuits because a child was accused, or worse yet "reprimanded" by a teacher or administrator for something that was done in school. You have parents who have no idea what is going on in their own kid's life, and make excuses for everything. You have administrators who don't have the backbone to do what is needed to provide a safe, structured environment. Kids recognize incompetence and weakness! They should not be the ones in charge!

Geez, soooo there are "too many Men on T.V."? Nice to see that you don't have any gender bias issues. I take it then, that you don't watch FOX NEWS? If you did, you would see many, many women's faces. Women who are not only articulate and educated intellectuals, but who are also, for the record, smoking hot appearance-wise.

Oh, I forgot, conservative women are dumb, right?

Unions are threat to every aspect of America's well being, including as regards Education. They are an anachronism whose only purposes seem to be to drive manufacturing out fo the U.S.A. and to protect substandard educators from being held accountable for their ineptitude.

Since the LBJ administration every President has boasted they are 'spending more than ever on education'. Since the 1960's the US has been at or near the bottom of industrialized countries in the world in math and science. The US has thrown money at education and herded generations of children through schools for nearly 50 years and, based on test scores, we have little or NOTHING to show for it.
NCLB has flaws but was intended to find out why a school in Houston with 2,000 students, 60% of whom were hispanic tested much higher that a school with the same demographics in Florida or New York. Instead of shoveling more money to NY and FL schools NCLB holds district administrators responsible to go to that Houston school and find out what they are doing that WORKS rather than ask for more money and herd yet another generation through a failing school.
The teachers unions OPPOSE school vouchers because many private businesses would LOVE to receive 10-15K PER CHILD and only have to beat current public school test scores. This RESULT BASED competition would take the public school teachers unions out of the drivers seat in negotiations for new contracts.
Liberals are attacking teachers unions NOT because they are suddenly concerned about education after YEARS of the US ranking at or near the bottom of industrialized countries in the world in math and science..............the teachers union is a POWERFUL Democrat voting block and this is nothing more than an INTERNAL power struggle.

In the American employment model, management is responsible for productivity and outcome. Period. No union contract that I have ever seen (and I've seen quite a few) has ever contained a clause or language that does not allow a manager to manage.
The bosses are the bosses and the contract, in "management rights" clauses , states that specifically. There are no contracts that bar an employer from firing a crappy employee... none. If the manager is doing his/her job, the employee either gets right or they get gone. If the manager is lazy, stupid or untrained, the crappy employee sticks around. The "un-fire able" employee is a myth... much like Sasquatch; lots of people think they have seen him or her but there is no real evidence that they exist. If they are bad employees and the boss does his/her job, there is nothing anyone can do to save them, including the Union (which is legally bound to represent even poorly performing employees).

Blaming teachers and their associations for the mess the education system is in is counter-intuitive. The education system was there before the teachers were unionized. That system had its inadequacies before the employees unionized. Teachers formed unions as a response to problems with the system. It's blaming the response to the problem for the problem.

Liberals taking shots at teachers organizations is a response to the teachers not falling over themselves to embrace more of the Liberal's paternalistic cures to the problems they created in the first place.

Get rid of the bosses at the schools, let the teachers determine how things hget done on a local basis and many of the problems would disappear.

Let us not forget that the current United States Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is himself an academic ADMINISTRATOR. Although Mr. Duncan's parents were indeed teachers, Arne Duncan HAS NEVER TAUGHT A CLASS IN HIS LIFE (President Obama met Arne Duncan on the basketball court in college during a pickup game)...How can we properly even broach this topic when the man in charge of this country's education system has never been nothing other than a student himself???

We keep "catagorizing individuals and their organizations" into an almost good and evil mindset. As a country we continue to become more polorazed by extreme ideas on both sides. In many cases the reason something is failing is multilevel and may be quite complicated. Never is one particular group or individual entirely responsible. By painting each side as evil how are we ever going to get to the task of saving this country literally from itself!

In my opinion there is no use for ANY union activity within any level of government! Period. They have the Civil Service Act to protect them. Unions are there for one reason only - to force management to give pay increases and other unaffordable perks with a fear of a strike. WE elect Boards of Elections to fiscally represent us - and then when they try to pull in the reigns - are threatened by the unions. The BOE's run the schools NOT the labor unions. And considering teachers only work 182 days a year (vs. 260+ for most of us) their pay and benefits are VERY high!

Bad teachers do exist. It's really silly to suggest that if we did away with unions and gave management/administrator full rein that we lose more bad teachers than good. Adminsitrators are the most cowardly, uniformed, and self-serving people on earth. Most wouldn't know good teaching if they broke a tooth on it.

Al that said, the unions arose because of abuses by using power politics. They now are seen as abusdive, so it's time for them to switch to smart politics, because they are easy targets.