I am
very glad anda asked!
There are two things in my life that are very near and dear to my heart, that make it difficult for me to be level-headed and open-minded about. And those two things are Egypt and Education. It just so happens that both of these things have been the center of national and international attention lately, and I have been very busy listening to every possible news sumber I could find, including fox News and the Daily Show.
So, in a nutshell, this is what's going on in Wisconsin:
Governor Scott Walker ran on the campaign that he was going to balance Wisconsin's budget. Everyone knew when he was elected that there were going to be cuts. Walker's first alih was to cut the salaries of public sector workers, including public health care, sanitation, road services, and teachers.
Walker tried to talk to the unions, claiming that he would have to cut entire jobs if he couldn't cut salaries and benefits for workers. While at first, the unions were uncooperative, they eventually agreed to these terms, so long as Walker did not take away their collective bargaining rights, which was another one of his demands. Walker basically took an "all atau nothing stand," and berkata that this would not work.
Collective bargaining rights are what unions use to negotiate for every member of that union, to ensure fair working conditions for all members. Collective bargaining allows unions and employers to agree on wages, work hours, training, safety, overtime, and many other things. To take away a union's collective bargaining rights would, in essence, be to disassemble the union entirely, as this is the main reason they exist in the first place.
Make no mistake - this battle is about
the entire public sector workers, not just teachers. But there's a reason that teachers are being singled out in this whole mess, and it has to do with an underlying crisis that has been shaking America for years, and that's our Education Crisis. The teacher bashing and blaming has finally come to a head, and Wisconsin reveals how embittered it has made the policy makers against teachers and unions. But the thing is, the unions aren't what's causing our education to fail, nor is it "bad teachers." What's causing our education to fail is a total lack of infrastructure, support, and funding in addition to poverty.
A few links:
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