Forum Overview :: Balance of Power :: Re: Rubber Room

[quote name="blackwater"]Thanks for doing more research on "rubber rooms." I wasn't aware that they pre-dated teachers' unions. New York City was a notoriously corrupt place under Tammany Hall, and it makes sense that tenure might have been viewed as a safeguard against cronyism in that context. I agree with you that it does seem odd that the Bloomberg administration failed to find enough arbitrators to hear cases in a timely fashion. You are implying that this was entirely under the control of Bloomberg; however, the article you referenced cites the increase in arbitrators as part of "an agreement" between Bloomberg and the union. Again I have to ask the same set of questions. Whatever else happened here, it's clear that there was a difference of opinion between the union and the elected government. Why do you always side with the union and assume that they known better than the your elected leaders? If this were a case of the prison guard's union arguing against sentencing reform, would you still feel the same way? (Yes, there is one, and yes it does... especially in Calfiornia.) And now I'm waiting for the inevitable "why do you hate prison guards" post by #CousinIt... :) What this whole fiasco does highlight for me is that there is no reason for the government to be directly running schools. The city could just pay a fixed rate to charter schools, and give parents real choices about what school they wanted to send their kids to. Obviously there needs to be some certification and testing process for schools, but the schools would be much more insulated from cronyism and political influence that way.[/quote]