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0 pointsmatchbok35h ago0 comments

There are countless counter examples that are obvious. Teacher's unions (hard to fire teachers, poor quality). Transit unions (mandating 2 drivers per subway car, crazy benefits, etc). Auto industry fighting EVs.

Sorry, it just doesn't make any sense to make such a broad statement regarding this at all.

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manmal3h ago

Teachers can be bad without union, and unionized EV manufacturing was never a problem. If you are playing at German auto unions. The lack of European sourced batteries is the problem, unions have nothing to do with that.

VanTheBrand3h ago

so there is no data or there are counter examples to the data? because you seem to have shifted to an entirely different assertion... Also to say the counter examples are countless is a pretty broad statement itself.

karmakurtisaani4h ago

> Teacher's unions (hard to fire teachers, poor quality)

Certainly you can quantify this poor quality and show it's due to unions and not, say, lack of resources?

> Transit unions (mandating 2 drivers per subway car, crazy benefits, etc)

2 drivers per subway car sounds like (at least with old tech) a good thing for everyone's safety.

> Auto industry fighting EVs.

Sounds like this was more the companies themselves, but I don't have the details.

In my view unions are largely a good thing to balance out companies power, but I've also heard stories where they have become too strong. There's nuance to the matter, but I feel like at least the US could use much more and stronger unions.

dcrazy3h ago

Anecdotally, if increasing resources improved outcomes, California would have fantastic education results, as would every purely economic intervention in low-median-income school districts.

Teachers may be underpaid on a time/effort basis compared to other jobs, but paying them more doesn’t actually improve outcomes. I am no expert—not even a parent—but my understanding is that curriculum choice and implementation are really, really important. (Can’t say how important relative to, say, family situation.)

According to one news report I read, 50% of the public school teachers in California are actively ignoring the state’s recent switch back to a phonics-based language curriculum, and the union itself is anti-phonics. Is the union just representing the will of those 50% of law-defying teachers, or are the teachers inferring their behavior from a politicized union?

karmakurtisaani2h ago

I have exactly 0 knowledge of the situation in California, but I'd be curious if they have (on top of my head, might be missing many more factors)

- adequately paid and educated teachers

- small classroom sizes

- available support for special needs kids

If all of these are in place, are the bad outcomes explainable by poorer socioeconomic factors? And are there any forced learning policies like standardized tests that promote rote memorization?

It just seems so far fetched that a teacher's union would single handedly sabotage the whole education system. Even if they push for a certain kind of teaching, it would simply not tank the whole ship, so to speak.

(I know I'm talking slightly past your points, but I'm mostly interested in the point of how much does the union actually affect the learning outcomes, all the other factors considered)

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