I see that Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, has come out against Governor Jindal's education plan.
This is still a conversation we need to have, but if the LFT is against it, then I take that as a ringing endorsement of the plan. Monaghan says, "We need to have a debate over the value of experience." No, Steve, we don't. What we need to have a debate about is the value of teachers unions.
I teach at a low performing public school in Monroe, LA. I do not think we need to debate teachers' unions, we need to debate the fact that we have lost the best teacher-the home! We get students in the classroom who were behind when they stepped in the first school house door. We have so many laws that "protect" special education students that we couldn't help them if we wanted to. We can't require that they perform, we can't require that they even pass a subject area. Students are being promoted without being able to read. You tell me what the problem is when I assign students homework, because I only have them for 53 minutes a day, and they go home and fight with other kids. They don't get meals and no one is watching them. Then they return to me in the next 3 days (because they have been arrested) and expect me to spend hand them everything? This happens each week with at least 3 children. At work I teach students who speak and act as if I am their slave. I have 2 Master degrees?! I could be making money, yet I am struggling everyday to teach students who have no desire to learn. How is this a debate about teachers' unions?
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