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From Townhall.com… Schools Shouldn't Be Assembly Lines - By Kyle Olson
As "Waiting for 'Superman'" so eloquently points out, the industrial
assembly-line model of America's public schools, created decades ago,
isn't working. In fact, it's setting us further and further behind our
global competitors.
Today, it is essential that our children graduate high school and
college prepared for the fierce competition they will face in the
global marketplace. Their economic survival will be determined by their
ability to compete with countries like China, India, and other emerging
economies.
This requires that our public schools be innovative and effective.
Instead, our schools are using a failed, one-size-fits -all approach to
education that may actually end up hurting our children.
It's interesting that our slide began in the 1970s. Just ten years
earlier, collective bargaining, the crowning glory of labor unions,
took root in our public schools. Coincidence?
Collective bargaining agreements, which carry the weight of law,
enshrine such policies as seniority (last hired, first fired), tenure
(lifetime job protection in as little as two years) and due process (an
extra-legal process outside the court system). Oh, and automatic yearly
raises-- not for performance, but simply for logging another year in
the system. In other words, we give teachers raises simply for not
dying over the summer.
This is a beautiful system – if you’re a public school employee. But if
you’re a student in the public school system, well, it’s like being
drafted by the Detroit Lions.
By bringing the auto manufacturing mentality into our public school
system, it has turned teaching from a hard-earned, highly-respected
career into a blue-collar, see-you-on-the-picket-line endeavor.
Taxpayers deserve better. Teachers deserve better.
So just imagine my disappointment when Education Secretary Arne Duncan
announced an Education Reform Conference with Dennis Van Roekel and
Randi Weingarten, the presidents of the two national teachers unions.
The unions are taking a lot of fire right now, and rightly so. But
instead of isolating and marginalizing the unions, Duncan is giving
them credibility. And the unions’ purpose is clear: buy enough time
until the outrage caused by “Waiting for ‘Superman’” dies down, and
then quietly maintain the status quo.
What’s troubling is not just that the Obama Administration is going to
link arms with the biggest problem in public education; it's the
mindset with which it’s being conceived.
It's called a conference on collaboration between "labor" and
"management." Is Arne Duncan now the auto bailout czar and I missed
that press release? Or is he using terminology usually reserved for
blue-collar factories?
What "Waiting for 'Superman'" showed us is that this assembly-line
approach to public education is horribly flawed. If its financial
future wasn't guaranteed by tax dollars, it would be fatally flawed.
But Duncan has once again picked up the union song book and will join Van Roekel and Weingarten’s “Amen” chorus.
So much for looking to the Obama administration to get kids off the assembly line.
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