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Owen sticks up for teachers

File this one under "Dogs and Cats Living Together": Owen of Boots and Sabers quotes this…

A report from the Education Trust, a widely known advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., released today a study that strongly decried practices that put weaker teachers in front of needier students nationwide and cited Milwaukee and Wisconsin as examples of the problem.

Using data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the study said 26% of teachers in the state who work in schools with high rates of student poverty had less than three years of experience, compared to 12% of teachers in low-poverty schools. Similarly, 28% of teachers in schools with large minority populations had less than three years experience, compared to 11% in schools with few minority students. 

The report said the same pattern held true within Milwaukee Public Schools, where the percent of teachers with limited experience in low-income, high-minority schools was much higher than in other schools.

…and then cuts teachers some slack! 

I can’t blame the teachers for wanting to work in a better environment and using their job experience to leverage a better work situation.  Everyone else does the same thing.

Quite so.  It’s rational self-interest, a quality endemic to capitalism.  Owen suggests a number of potential fixes.  But he omits a critical question: Why do the unions continue to say they’re looking out for your children?  A commenter over at Joanne Jacobs summed it up quite well:

I’m a teacher and member of NEA and UTLA (United Teachers Los Angeles). Unions, whether teachers or auto workers, et al. are about two essential things: wages and working conditions. Period. I’m not naive enough to believe that NEA/UTLA really cares about improving pedagogy or properly spending TAXPAYER money.

While it certainly isn’t coming from Owen, it’s important to point out that the rhetoric about teachers’ unions looking out for the best interests of the children is so much nonsense.  Indeed, when San Diego’s superintendent tried to make one of the very changes that Owen suggests–offering bonus pay to teachers willing to move to troubled schools–the teachers’ union shot it down.  (Follow the link to see more union stonewalling on similar reforms, particularly merit pay.)  When it comes to getting quality instruction to poor kids, the unions aren’t part of the solution, they’re part of the problem.