You've hit upon the great paradox. The unions protect the wildly
incompetent and undermine the respect we have for the profession. In NYC,
they have only fired one teacher in the last few years. It is so time
consuming and expensive to fire a teacher, they simly reassign the
incompetent to places where they don't have to teach. Were it not for the
unions, teachers would be more highly regarded because they would be more
highly qualified. There is little or no issue of qualification in private
schools, and the teachers command more respect from students and parents.
Of course, in order to go to a private school, one has to pay even more than
the $10,000 per year per student they extract from us in taxes for each
government school pupil.

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Matt Barrow" wrote

You could say that about every unionized industry in the past 100 years.

The teacher's unions are the newest idiots-at-work.

I feel sorry for you, and the educational institution that has made you
feel this way about teachers.

Where I live, and teach, the vast majority of teachers are hard working,
dedicated professionals. They teach for the love of it, because the crap
pay and respect tossed our way is not enough reason to stay in it.
--
Jim in NC