From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Subject: Re: =>School Vouchers (Amendment 7)<=
Organization: eklektix - Boulder, Colorado
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 07:21:34 GMT

fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:
>[I wrote, about whether to trust statements of the teachers' union]
>>If you believe that the teachers are objecting to the amendment for invalid
>>reasons, then say so, and say why their objections are invalid.  Don't just
>>attack them because they're teachers.
>
>>There is nothing wrong with the folks who have vested interests in an issue
>>expressing their opinions on the issue. 
>
>However, it is necessary to take their arguments with a grain of salt,
>because of their vested interest...

Nonsense.  Why should their arguments have *less* value when they have
*more* knowledge of the subject than most of the rest of us?

It is necessary to examine their arguments, to see whether they are based
on sound reasoning.  But the same should be true of any opinions; it's just
that, with a group having a vested interest, it's easier to see how they
might skew them.

>...(just as, for example, a policemen's
>union's views on civilian police review boards need to be taken with
>a grain of salt.)

Yeah, why should it matter to whom, and how, the police are accountable?
Who are they to have a say in how their jobs are controlled.  (For the
record, I think civilian review boards are overdue, esp. in places like
Denver.  But it's not something to be set up without listening carefully to
the police.)

It's really a slap in the face to say "you're involved in this issue, so
we're not going to listen to you."

>However, the teachers in question are (for the most part) currently
>employed by the public schools, and might not _want_ to shift to 
>private schools. Further, they might not be _able_ to: Teacher's
>unions have historically been strong opponents of merit-based pay
>increases...

It's not clear what they'd stand to lose, if private schools are so much
better than public schools.  And if the union won't represent them in
private schools, so what?

Frank, you stopped just short of an important concern:  How do the state-
ments of a teachers' union relate to what the teachers themselves feel?
After all, some unions are notorious for having their own political agendas
which have little to do with benefitting their members.  Is this a problem
with the teachers' union?

>Further, even thought teachers in general aren't necessarily to blame
>for the state of public school education, they probably still
>feel some responsibility and the voucher system might feel,
>essentially, like an admission of failure to them.

It might...but I don't see any reason to think so.  It's a pretty long,
thin conjecture.  I'd expect that most teachers are fairly concerned with
doing The Right Thing, simply because there aren't a lot of good reasons to
take a (public school) teaching job if you don't really believe in what
you're doing.  It's low pay and endless hassles; it's even gotten dangerous
in a lot of places.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@raven.eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado
   ...Never offend with style when you can offend with substance.
Newsgroups: co.politics