You do have a say! School board meetings are usually public and the board elections are democratic (usually. Some districts, usually in the south still have some at-large boards seats for racism reasons). When I was a teacher and blamed for things by parents I had no power over (e.g. standardized tests mandated by the state) I wished parents would direct their (justified & righteous) rage at the school board and state politicians instead.
“School choice” isn’t school choice unless I’m free choose to send my kids to the rich district across town or the private school the politicians and elites send their kids to.
> “School choice” isn’t school choice unless I’m free choose to send my kids to the rich district across town or the private school the politicians and elites send their kids to.
This is your own partisan definition of school choice. And frankly this attitude is why public schools are so terrible. The current system where people are forced to pay for school through taxes and then are forced to go to a specific public school means the system has ZERO reason or incentive to improve or change because their students are more like prisoners in that they have no choice where to go.
In reality school choice creates competition in the education market. If school choice were allowed to exist there would be no bad schools or they would be around for less time because people would vote with their feet and find a school that is worth it. The bad schools would go out of business.
This has already been proven to work with public and private charter schools which are hot beds for innovation and great student outcomes. Charter schools where students aren’t served well exist but they go out of business quickly due to students leaving.
Would it be perfect? No. Would it be better than what we have, most definitely.
With school choice and vouchers we expect new schools to open up. We aren't permanently limited to just the schools that already exist in rich and poor districts.
People shouldn’t have to choose between “good schools” and “bad schools.” The idea of trying to find a home “with good schools” should be a thing of the past. All schools should good schools. I think that is the goal to work towards, not having parents fight for the too few remaining life-rafts.
Schools will open in neighborhoods that have 8 students and one stellar teacher. You’ll have all the parents coming by and seeing the kids and joining in the education process.
Other parents might want their kid to have a classical education. Other parents might want a traditional Islamic education. Others may want a massive university style education, with half online.
All of these styles can be possible with school choice. I don’t really understand the vitriol. Its better for everyone if everyone is more involved and has a more tailored approach. Even those with special needs, it’s not unreasonable to double the credit. Have them get help.
I like the idea in principle, but one challenge I haven't seen addressed is that the cost of educating a student is not uniform. Students on either end of the bell curve with special needs, unstable home situations, no/broken English, exceptional intelligence, ADHD, behavioral issues, etc cost more than average.
Therefore, similar to health insurance, every organization is incentivized to attract cheaper-than-average students/patients and expel or discourage the expensive ones. You typically end up with the most expensive participants dumped onto the public schools/plans which results in a death spiral.
In my experience, most people love this kind of libertarian approach right up until the moment they find out they're going to be one of the expensive ones, at which point they discover a newfound appreciation for public services.
Public employees don't need unions. If they want better working conditions then they should ask their elected political leaders, just like every other citizen.
And teaching isn't dangerous. Everyone will be exposed to the virus so it hardly matters whether that happens in a classroom or some other setting. The teachers who want to get vaccinated have been for months now.
> Public employees don't need unions. If they want better working conditions then they should ask their elected political leaders, just like every other citizen.
Workers anywhere need to be able to negotiate with organisational management on roughly equal terms, which means a comparable level of organisational backing. Most civil service management is not elected and nor should it be; making every superintendent or subject head an elected position would cause bigger problems.
> And teaching isn't dangerous. Everyone will be exposed to the virus so it hardly matters whether that happens in a classroom or some other setting. The teachers who want to get vaccinated have been for months now.
That's easy to say when you're not the one having to do it. Not everyone can safely be vaccinated, and not everyone has the same judgement of the risks. If there really is compelling medical evidence to support the position of those who want to return to in-person schooling, then they have nothing to fear from negotiating with the union on equal terms.
At the point where you are both a voter and paid out of public money, you shouldn’t get to also have a union. This is a choose two situation, and since I’m not going to tell anyone to give up their voting rights, this is more of a choose one situation.
> At the point where you are both a voter and paid out of public money, you shouldn’t get to also have a union.
Wtf? Why?
Anyone who isn't living in a cabin in the woods is "paid out of public money" to some extent. Most businesses have some government contract somewhere upstream or downstream of them; almost everyone interacts with the tax system, almost everyone is affected by zoning or law enforcement. Why should the employment relationship be a special case, and what conceivable purpose is served by blocking such an arbitrary class of people from unionizing?
> Anyone who isn't living in a cabin in the woods is "paid out of public money" to some extent.
This is objectively false.
> Most businesses have some government contract somewhere upstream or downstream of them;
A private business providing services that the government purchased as a market participant is not the same as people who are on the government’s payroll. This is not a small distinction, but if you want me to compromise and consider public contractors ineligible to unionize too, that’s a compromise I am willing to make, but it’s unnecessary.
> almost everyone interacts with the tax system, almost everyone is affected by zoning or law enforcement
Zoning is a can of worms that is outside the scope of this discussion, but I would have plenty to say about how this exactly is abused, in another thread actually on the topic. Needless to say, being the market-based beneficiary of poor laws is everyone’s right as a citizen in our Republic today, in a way I find disagreeable, and if they can manage it. This is also why you shouldn’t also get to be both a voter, and on the government’s payroll, and have a union.
> Why should the employment relationship be a special case, and what conceivable purpose is served by blocking such an arbitrary class of people from unionizing?
Because it is a moral hazard to have a class of citizens who are able to vote for both sides at the negotiating table when what’s at stake is somebody else’s money.
Nonsense. We live in a society which is maintained with public money, and very few businesses would be profitable without that. Heck, money itself is a public institution.
> Zoning is a can of worms that is outside the scope of this discussion, but I would have plenty to say about how this exactly is abused, in another thread actually on the topic.
It's absolutely on topic when you're suggesting that we should apply much stricter rules to employment relations than we apply to every other interaction between citizens and government.
> Needless to say, being the market-based beneficiary of poor laws is everyone’s right as a citizen in our Republic today, in a way I find disagreeable, and if they can manage it. This is also why you shouldn’t also get to be both a voter, and on the government’s payroll, and have a union.
> it is a moral hazard to have a class of citizens who are able to vote for both sides at the negotiating table when what’s at stake is somebody else’s money.
Banning unions does nothing to address that - people are still "on both sides of the table" when negotiating as individuals, they're just a lot more reliant on their individual capabilities. Requiring everyone to do their own legal research and individual negotiations is both grossly inequitable and also could never be a full solution to that kind of issue - if there's some principled problem with citizens negotiating with their governments, that needs to apply to powerful individuals (including but not limited to higher-class government employees) too.
(And again, what's so special about the employment relationship? Surely the same logic applies to residents' associations, or advocacy groups, or professional associations - there are all kinds of groups of citizens that regularly find themselves on the other side of negotiations with those same citizens' elected governments)
> Nonsense. We live in a society which is maintained with public money, and very few businesses would be profitable without that.
That we vote to pay for through our elected representatives; the same people who directly determine budgets, salaries and have political skin in the game to get re-elected at the time of contract negotiation and have firing power.
Public projects are not the same as public salaries. A highway is not drawing a salary from the treasury, but the people who work on it are.
> Heck, money itself is a public institution.
Not necessarily so, and also irrelevant.
> It's absolutely on topic when you're suggesting that we should apply much stricter rules to employment relations than we apply to every other interaction between citizens and government.
The market price of your house going up because of restrictive zoning is not the same as drawing a salary directly from the treasury. Restrictive zoning has other issues, but zoning is only one factor of many which can inform the price of your house, it does not set the price of your house. You are conflating something which is unrelated to working directly for the government.
> Banning unions does nothing to address that - people are still "on both sides of the table" when negotiating as individuals, they're just a lot more reliant on their individual capabilities. Requiring everyone to do their own legal research and individual negotiations is grossly inequitable and could never be a full solution to that kind of issue - if there's some principled problem with citizens negotiating with their governments, that needs to apply to powerful individuals (including but not limited to higher-class government employees) too.
People decide all the time whether unions are actually beneficial for them in the private sector and many times vote against it either by choosing non-union employers where both are an option or by voting for or against joining a union when a unionization vote occurs.
Let’s take an example: Google is a large employer where there has been an effort to unionize the workforce (how is that going by the way? Hadn’t thought about it in a while till I was typing this). They are a private employer, and they earn their revenue from many sources: namely anyone that chooses to pay for ads on their properties, and then variously from other sources which can include government contracts. Government organizations may also choose to pay for ads on Google Search the same as if they purchased ads from elsewhere as they have been known to do from time to time. This does not make Google a public sector employer though: they are a publicly traded but private organization with a Board of Directors to represent their owners interests and an Executive team which is tasked with operating the company including whether to take on or pass on government contracts as they so choose. Taking a dollar, a thousand dollars or a billion dollars in revenue from the Feds does not make Google a corporate serf of the Feds and the owners, Board of Directors, Executive team, Employees and 1099s each have their own rights and interests. A Google employee working on a government project did not elect the Executives who approved the project and his salary, even if he may have elected the Senator that said it was a good idea for Google to handle it.
(That said this should come with the caveat that government projects have their own moral hazards all the time, they’re just usually not this one that we are discussing.)
> And again, what's so special about the employment relationship? Surely the same logic applies to residents' associations, or advocacy groups, or professional associations - there are all kinds of groups of citizens that regularly find themselves on the other side of negotiations with those same citizens' elected governments
Private advocacy groups have to compete with other moneyed interests. Public-sector unions do not. There is no one else that is going to pay government salaries except the government, and they get their money by taking it from people who earned it. Unionized employees of all stripes tend to vote as a bloc because taking collective action is their raison d’être. The government is not approving contracts between private sector companies and private sector unions. They are approving contracts between themselves and public sector unions, and have hiring and firing power over the negotiators at the table representing the public’s interest.
> That we vote to pay for through our elected representatives; the same people who directly determine budgets, salaries and have political skin in the game to get re-elected at the time of contract negotiation and have firing power.
All of that applies to employing people just as much as to other ways of spending public money. (Yes it's hard to fire a public employee - but it's also hard to cancel a public works project).
> Public projects are not the same as public salaries. A highway is not drawing a salary from the treasury, but the people who work on it are.
Public money is spent, private individuals and/or businesses benefit. Whether it's structured as an employment contract or a public works project seems pretty irrelevant.
> People decide all the time whether unions are actually beneficial for them in the private sector and many times vote against it either by choosing non-union employers where both are an option or by voting for or against joining a union when a unionization vote occurs.
Which is their right (I think it's foolish except maybe for upper-class people in fields where individual performance is directly measurable, but it's their choice), but how is that any different for a public employer vs private employer?
> A Google employee working on a government project did not elect the Executives who approved the project and his salary, even if he may have elected the Senator that said it was a good idea for Google to handle it.
What difference does that make though? That executive is hardly going to turn down a profitable contract even if they think it's for something stupid, so you're not bringing in any more accountability on any aspect that's actually relevant. (And in practice a public employee is going to be in a very similar position: there will be several layers of unelected civil service administrators between the person they vote for and the decision about how much they get paid).
> Private advocacy groups have to compete with other moneyed interests. Public-sector unions do not.
There are plenty of moneyed interests opposing public-sector unions.
> There is no one else that is going to pay government salaries except the government, and they get their money by taking it from people who earned it.
Your bias is showing. Many government employees earn their money (including many teachers) and many taxpayers don't.
> Unionized employees of all stripes tend to vote as a bloc because taking collective action is their raison d’être.
Sure, but that's exactly the same for advocacy groups, neighbourhood associations and so on.
> The government is not approving contracts between private sector companies and private sector unions. They are approving contracts between themselves and public sector unions, and have hiring and firing power over the negotiators at the table representing the public’s interest.
Right, but they negotiate contracts or quasi-contracts with all sorts of collective organisations - businesses, business groups, professional associations, residents' associations, advocacy groups - all the time, under the same kind of conditions.
They're finding new jobs. Good luck replacing them when the working conditions and pay are terrible.
> More than 270,000 public school teachers are projected to leave the profession from 2016 to 2026, according to government data, and recent polling by a prominent national teachers union showed that nearly 1 in 3 teachers said Covid-19 had made them more likely to resign or retire early
> Is there a surplus of quality teachers in the US?
There must be a surplus, at least of qualified teachers, if not quality ones. Otherwise how do we find enough people with a master's degree willing to take 45K a year to teach 25-30 rambunctious kids all day long? It baffles me that we still manage to find people willing to enter the career field, frankly.
Over there you can find educated people who are willing to work in Seely, MT for 30 kUSD/year. On a J-1 visa, with no possibility to settle permanently in the US.
I imagine ot varies by region, but there are definitely more people looking for teaching jobs than there are jobs available where I live (my sister in law is a teacher and getting a new job is a very long process indeed).
There would be if we shifted funds from administrators to teachers. Like in healthcare, administrators are hoarding most of the funds and driving up the cost.
To clarify businesses should be allowed to do things that will needlessly kill employees?
After all they could just go elsewhere or be homeless right? It is after all there freedom to choose: risking their life or homelessness: it’s their choice.
