EPTThe root problem is not how much teachers make, or the relationship between public sector and private sector--i.e. people defending their utopian or practical vision for capitalism, socialism, or whatever.
The root problem that all this stuff is aimed at is how to have good teachers. We hear every point of view say how their side is going to give the best teachers:
-i.e. "take away unions and we'll have good teachers"
-i.e. "only use private schools and everyone will have good teachers"
-i.e. "let unions make sure teachers get paid enough/more and we'll have good teachers"
Everyone is just shouting their own opinion about what's going to give the best education, but no one is addressing how we can't all be right.
It would be nice is governments figured out how to give people the education they want at the right price (assuming compulsary education--another debate). Unions don't necessarily push for this, they just push as much as they can. So the result can be, as others have said, people getting more than they should (esp. people who aren't doing good jobs).
We rely on governments to figure this stuff out. Pressure from those we are paying to do some piece of that stuff in no way is related to doing it will, or paying the right price for it. It's simply raw pressure from self-interested workers.
Now, it's not bad completely, because the root situation was that they were being undercompensated, taken advantage of, crushed or exploited to begin with. At least that's the idea. Basically, some pushing bumped their status to a better place, and then people were like, hey, unions are good. But that pushing is not always going to be when it's needed, or in the amount it's needed.
So like I said, we rely on governments to figure stuff out. If they suck at it, that's the problem. If we concede that they can figure out the public need and address it, then where do unions play into that?
So if you want to take sides and be practical, then it's like, is the push needed now or not? That's one argument going on, with people taking the unions' side or some other side. But again, ultimately the question is which position results in people having good teachers, I think.
But pushing against or propping up unions, according to the weather, so to speak, is a pretty indirect, and thus probably ineffective, way to getting to the goal. The goal is for everyone to have good teachers. There's got to be a more direct way to make that happen than tightening or loosening the grip on unions. What kind of system of governance is that?
Imagine if a company worked that way, or an army. Some other analagous entity. Imagine if the way your army worked was that groups of soldiers would band together for themselves, refusing to work or otherwise making a stink or a cost for their superiors, until they got their demands. How would such an army achieve their goals? Likewise with a company.
So like, come on guys, the problem of governments analyzing and coming up with solutions aside, assuming they can do that at all, they should go ahead and do it directly. The private sector does better. Therefore, eliminate the public sector? No... therefore, learn from it. There has to be an actual reason why governments fail to learn from and emulate the successes of the private sector.
This is a very specific practical problem. Hire good teachers. Run good schools. Why is it when governments do this, it just implodes? Must be something wrong with the governments. Some are better than others. Learn from them. Fire the bad governments, then the good governments will do a good job. I refuse to believe the answer is no governance, just some hope that free market will balance out. Debating whether the invisible hand works is just troll baiting. I think most trolls are lawyers or business major types who love to engage dishonestly but also blend their own lazy version of what they actually believe into their work--anyways, that's another tangent better left alone. Point is, tons of people are ready to be set off on some huge argument defending the glory days of unregulated markets or at least the glorious potential etc. etc. And that's great but does it need to pop up every time people want to talk about policy changes? Is "take away the policies and everything will be better" really something that needs to be brought up in every policy discussion? Hey, maybe, who cares. Just a blog post.
