We simply can’t have a setting where the teachers unions are able to contribute tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of politicians, and then those politicians – when elected – stand across from them at the bargaining table supposedly to represent the interests of the kids. I think it’s a mistake.” Willard “Mitt” Romney
If the students had a union?
So Mitt, you think that because teacher unions are the number one contributors to democratic candidates, those candidates will unfairly look upon the union requests favorably thus causing a “glaring case of conflict of interest.” Wow, that’s interesting.
You know what? I agree totally, Mitt. Those Democrats are going to favorably look at teachers because they were supported by those teachers. What? You say you were referring to teacher unions, not teachers? You actually think that teachers are pretty great, it’s teacher unions you don’t like. Umm, who do you think belong to teacher unions, Mitt? I have some bad news for you, almost all the members of teacher unions are educational professionals — they’re teachers, Mitt, yeah, the ones you like, the teacher unions are just crawling with them!
I’m sorry, do you need a moment? Here sit down in this empty chair. You got lucky, we have a lot of empty chairs for adults at schools these days. That’s because in response to the current financial crisis, Republican legislatures everywhere are cutting school’s budgets.
What was that? Oh, they have had to cut school budgets because schools are failing. We have to come up with different models? Is that like school choice? Yes, I know, I read about that. A lot of parents were questioned about this problem of America’s failing schools, Mitt. They were asked what was wrong with their schools? Do you know what they said? They said nothing is wrong with their school — it’s all the other schools that are no good. The study found that on the whole, most parents like their own school. 2)
Amazing the things you can find out when you ask the right questions.
There is an interesting fact that has come out of all this studying we’ve done, Mitt. What? A fact is something that is true. Yes. So as I was saying, what has recently been found is that despite the fact that our schools are so horrible, children’s imaginations have actually gotten better. 3) Our students think more broadly, have more new ideas now than in the past and are more creative — yeah, American kids. With our schools being so horrible you’d think that the opposite would be true, huh?
There’s that idea of yours, you know, to push for parental access to Charter schools. You’re going to increase the availability of school choice with vouchers. I see. You do know that in general the charter schools performance is somewhat less than that of public schools, right? 4) It’s not a big thing, just 5-10% below but the studies show that by percentage, there are as many good public schools as there are good charter schools and more of the charters perform below the average than do our public schools. I know, yes, it was a poll and you hate polls.
Now you remember what we really need: better teachers. That is what we need, you are right, good teachers can really make a huge difference, Mitt. I’m glad you noticed that when you looked at schools. Yes, even without funding we really need to stock up on those good teachers. Of course, job satisfaction is at an all-time low for teachers and more are leaving the profession than are joining it. 5) Yes, I’m sorry it is another one of those fact-things. How do we fix that?
Really, money? We pay them for performance? Is that like how we pay Wall Street for performance or how we pay legislators for performance? Now, don’t get defensive. Like you, I’m just trying to get at the answers. OK, say we improve pay for teachers. How do we structure that increase seeing as compensation is set by individual school districts? What we need is an advocate, one that goes state by state and lobbies for teacher salaries and benefits? You know, like a union.
Oh, wait, yes I remember, we talked about those before, yeah, those unions they’re the ones that contribute to Democrats and get unfair consideration in return for their millions of dollars.
Uh, Mitt, one last question, would that be like the corporations and billionaires who contribute to Republicans? Do they get any special consideration, Mitt? Mitt?
I was just asking.
2) http://www.azschoolsmakeadifference.org/A_survey.pdf Page 3
3) http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/06/26/36imagination.h31.html