Teacher Union Failures Essay

There are many pieces of evidence that can be examined to determine the failures and irreparable damage the public teacher unions have wrought upon on the American students. The reasons of their shortcomings, verified by experts in this field, are but are not limited to, low incentive for hard work and low probability of getting fired. Getting the power and influence of these organizations reduced is imperative to the success of the American education system. Education for the future generations of society should be one of America’s greatest priorities, yet why should students have to suffer the consequences of a broken system?

Competition is a key element for triumph in any successful institution and the U.S. Educational System is no exception. In a union dominated system, there is little incentive to go the extra mile and work harder. Teachers are protected by their union contracts and do not need to worry about losing their jobs due to poor performance. Thomas Toch and Robin M. Bennefield recognized this when they quoted Gil Troutman saying "I wanted to be in a profession that recognizes the level of work you put forth." Gil Troutman was a teacher who won awards for his teaching but eventually quit his job as a teacher to

open his own insurance business. Gil was not given extra pay despite of his extraordinary efforts. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated instance. Teacher pay is not performance based, therefore giving educators much less of a reason to excel in their area of teaching. Their pay is almost all based off of the experience of the employee in college and how long they have been teaching.
The second fact that needs to be pointed out is the incredible difficulty in which administrators have in removing inept educators from their positions.

Even teachers themselves will admit of the immense effort it would require to get removed from their positions. Dante Chinni states that in 1994, looking off the New York State School Boards Association, it took an average of 455 days and $177,000 to fire a teacher in New York. In this state, there are also special rooms for teachers nicknamed “rubber rooms” that they stay in and get paid, because the administrators do not want them near the students. There is a giant web of bureaucracy and union regulations that keep incompetent teachers from getting fired and keeps them in their

positions.
The resolution that needs to be made is the immediate reduction of power for the teachers unions in order to create a competent and healthy group of individuals willing to give it all to guide young people. A course of action relating to this would lead to a more competitive environment, ensuing in better performance from the students. When private and charter schools are closely examined, unions there do not have near as much influence as they do in public schools. Private institutions are proven to be more effective in teaching the student than public schools are.
There are those who claim that voucher schools, which have much less union involvement, perform poorer than public schools. This can be refuted by looking at some cold, hard evidence. Linda Jacobson points out two studies released last year—one by the Colorado Department of Education and another prepared by the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, which found positive achievement trends among charter schools. There is a justly a growing debate surrounding the effectiveness and time will tell for certain the clear advantage charter schools have. In the meantime, pressure needs to be placed on the elected officials to figure out a plan for reform for the clearly failing U.S. education system.
When scrutinizing the facts that make the teachers unions fail the American students, those being low incentive for hard work and a low probability of getting fired, it makes it clear that the teacher unions’ powers must be reduced in order to properly educate young individuals. While unions serve a noble purpose in protecting the rights of workers, their power can be overreaching in the case of the public teachers unions. They suffocate competition and dramatically reduce the overall quality of education we give to the students.