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Education is Not About Education Thought for the Day
January 30, 2011 Education

“When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”

That’s from former AFT President Albert Shanker.

"2" Comments
  1. Douglas J Bennett

    Then he can start now. The teachers’ Unions bid up the price of hiring teachers, and enable worse teachers to stay in their positions. The children pay partly in the form of enduring a worse education than they could otherwise have gotten if it were not for the government- and union-imposed monopolies. More relevant to this quote is the fact that when the unions bid up their wages (and especially through the fact that teachers will demand higher wages partly just to cover their union dues), the property (and other) taxes that their parents are forced to pay directly reduce the schoolchildren’ inheritance. Thus, there is in fact a transfer of wealth from the schoolchildren’ present value of inheritance to the teachers’ union.

  2. Good point Douglas. That was a remarkably honest quote by Shanker, maybe he hadn’t got the talking pointst that day. The usual blather is “we need good pay for good teachers, it’s all about the kids.”

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