Steve Jobs makes a lot of sense when he's talking about music and
copyright protection, but when the topic is schools, he seems to be on
a different planet.

The teachers' unions, Jobs believes, are ruining America's schools because they prevent bad teachers from being fired.

"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they
have become unionized in the worst possible way," the Apple CEO told a
school-reform conference in Texas on Saturday. "This unionization and
lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

Jobs knows a lot about schools; he's been selling computers to them for more
than 30 years. But don't you love it when a billionaire who sends his
own kids to private school applies half-baked business platitudes to
complex problems like schools? I'm surprised Jobs didn't suggest we
outsource education to the same nonunion Chinese factories that build
his iPods.

Wired News: Steve Jobs, Proud to Be Nonunion

ok, i dunno where this effin' methead, leander kahney came from writin' for wired news all high and mighty like he understands what the fuck jobs means, but whatever, here's reality:

i knew a boy who was thrown into a mirror in the men's washroom of our elementary school by a teacher. a bc teacher named MR. PORTER. anyway, this boy was 11 or 12 years old at the time and the mirror smashed. i can't remember if the kid was injured or not, but that's beside the point. breaking a mirror with a human being can lead to death and that's all we need to know.

what happened to mr. porter? nothing. why? because of the teacher's union. they protected him from being punished in any way.

not to mention being the daughter of a BCTF teacher, sometimes money was tight but the almost yearly strikes by BCTF made my mother lose money on the days she couldn't attend school because she couldn't cross the picket line. she got strike pay. do you know how hard it is to feed a family on strike pay?

this is good? what a sadistic pile of shit kahney is... he goes on to say:

The solution, Jobs believes, is to treat schools like businesses: Empower the principal to fire bad teachers like a CEO.

"What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you
told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that
they thought weren't any good?" he said.

The issues are many and complex, and yes, there is a problem with
firing incompetent or indifferent teachers, but it is not the No. 1
reason schools are failing. It's not even in the top 10.

In California, the most pressing problems are schools that are too
big, too bureaucratic and chronically under-funded. Teachers are
criminally low paid and under-trained. Education -- and school funding
-- has become solely about test scores.

so? medicare is also chronically under-funded but would you avoid firing incompetent doctors because of that? would you allow your child to be examined by a doctor who's been plagued with malpractice suits? what about a doctor wearing his shoes on the wrong feet? would you feel comfortable leaving your child alone in a room with him? i most certainly would not.

i am in total agreement with steve jobs, and not just cause the man's genius innovative mind gives me a femboner. he's simply RIGHT. teachers should be dismissable. you wouldn't let some half-baked dickwad babysit your kids, would you? so why settle for less than the best watching them at school?


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