Day of Rage in Madison Wisconsin

Americans are coming out in unprecedented numbers to protest Governor Walker's  attempt kill the Teacher's Union.  Conservatives want to punish teachers for a recession that was created by Wall St gluttony and insane unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Teachers remain among the lowest paid college educated profession, possibly second only to preachers.

Conservatives are quick to blame union rules for shoddy student performance, yet the facts don't support that claim. CNN reported:  “… conservative governors and mayors want to abolish teachers' right to due process, their seniority, and -- in some states -- their collective bargaining rights. Right-to-work states do not have higher scores than states with strong unions. Actually, the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members”.

America’s teachers are fed up with being under paid and we could be on the verge of a new revolution- a nation wide teacher strike for fair wages- just the opposite effect the anti-unionists are seeking.

If we do get rid of the “bad” teachers, and continue to under pay the good teachers, what can we expect? If the wages for teachers stays low, or even reduced, and benefits are reduced, many people who will end up being hired to replace the “bad” teachers are just more “bad” teachers.  Threatening teachers with the loss of their job based on student performance will not motivate teachers to do their job better. That’s a draconian stick without a carrot.  If the students' performance improves, do the teachers get a bonus or salary increase? No. They just get to keep their job and work with the anxiety of being fired next year.

We seem to lose the perspective of why teachers are given pensions and healthcare in the first place.  Teachers are all under paid. Pensions, health care and job security were benefits provided to teachers for being under paid. Healthcare may have been an affordable alternative to higher pay in the past, but soaring healthcare costs and the large baby boomer bubble of aging teachers is now beginning to break the budgets.  Also, pensions were instituted to offset the lower wages and give teachers a security cushion that governments viewed as a convenient deferred expense- that too, is now coming home to roost.

I’m all for doing away with unions, but only when teachers are paid their true worth- maybe twice their current salary. If a college grad could earn a salary comparable to engineers and other industry professionals, then talented people might be drawn into the teaching profession. Instead of just firing the “bad” teachers, we should be hiring “good” teachers by being competitive with the free market of college grads. Until this happens, the beatings will continue until performance improves, or America’s teachers may have their own national “day of rage”.