Should teachers union be abolished

"Verizon and general motors aren't teaching the future." Of course they are not but a union is a union. If it is my opponent's argument that the teachers union should be abolished because they have the ability to strike, perhaps my opponent can state how many times teachers have took to the picket lines, the length of time of the strikes and exactly how these strikes hurt the future of America. Please elaborate how this is relevant to the debate. The barrier to entry into the profession is relevant to this debate. A teacher in New York City has a to achieve a level of education comparable to doctors and attorneys. New York is a right to work state, meaning that employees can be fired at any time for any reason, except if the employer violates the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. With this being said, it is my argument that it would not be beneficial to society if a teaching professional who has obtained a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, passed state licensing exams, and completed an internship to be terminated simply because a principal may not like the teacher personally. A principal could do this if it were not for the protection that the teachers union provides. "Your right. There are a lot more variables to why a student might fail. But when you have a teacher who is show over and over again to be proven ineffective, that's not a coincidence. But because it's nearly impossible to fire that teacher due to the unions, there's a problem." It takes 3 years of teaching in a classroom before tenure is awarded. When a teacher becomes tenured the teacher is considered to be qualified to continue as a teaching professional. In the event that a school board or city wishes to terminate a teacher, the first step in the process is remediation, where the teacher is given a 1 year period in which to improve his or her job performance. In the event the teacher fails during the remediation period a series of hearings take place to ensure the reasons for the teacher to be fired are warranted. This process takes approximately 10 months but only takes place if the teacher requests the hearings. At the end of the hearings, which again take approximately 10 months if the school board agrees with the finding the teacher is terminated. [1] As you can see, this process takes approximately 2 years in which a majority of the time is spent trying to correct the teacher's deficiencies. It's not impossible, it's called due process. "That's not a sufficient enough argument to justify why teachers deserve union protection." Fair enough, "the point of tenure is to protect teachers from arbitrarily being fired. Teachers need protection from over-zealous bosses and ideological politicians. This is the same thinking behind seniority rules, which protect more expensive teachers from being laid off due to budget cuts. Teaching is not a high-paying job compared to jobs in the private sector, and one of the benefits is some job security. Occasionally this means bad teachers take longer to fire." [1] I have an idea! How about we make teachers unions illegal, and if a teacher is show to be effective we give them a pay raise, if not we fire them. Simple. Merit pay is a topic for another debate but if a teacher is not performing as he or she should they can be fired via due process. I fail to see how abolishing the teachers union will have a positive effect on the education the future of America receives. [1]http://www.forbes.com...