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No “Redistributing Teachers” to Bad Schools Won’t Work
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On December 23, 2014 @ 8:56 pm In The Point | 23 Comments
Politico has an entire article discussing the redistribution of teachers without considering a few minor possibilities.
More than a decade ago, Congress ordered states to figure out a way to distribute qualified teachers fairly, so low-income and minority children weren’t so often stuck with inexperienced and unlicensed educators.
As it turns out, they’ve done a lousy job.
Actually it’s people who don’t want to work lousy jobs. That’s something Socialist planners never seem to understand.
1. Bad schools get bad teachers because they’re bad places to work. And vice versa. Trying to force good teachers into bad schools won’t change that. It will however burn out good teachers and turn them into bad teachers.
Vice versa, bad teachers may not be that bad, they often are limited by the problems of the student body or have simply burned out.
2. Qualified teachers have invested a certain amount of money and effort into their education. They’re likely to have seniority in a union. And they tend to have a family, children and other reasons that make them want to protect their own safety, live in a nice place, earn more money.
The 38-year-old teacher with a masters and a lot of time spent memorizing the educational theory gobbledygook that impresses yuppie parents has a mortgage, two kids and zero interest in going to teach in the ghetto, which she isn’t even actually qualified for. She will, despite her liberal views, do everything possible to avoid that fate.
The 23-year-old however will be stupid enough and hungry enough to take that lousy gig until she took is a 38-year-old with a house, a car, etc…
3. Whatever grants states get to attract better teachers to bad schools will be nullified because in a free market that just means better schools will spend more money to get good teachers.
Teachers in good schools will always earn more because of organic demand. Subsidies are an artificial demand and can never keep pace with a free market.
4. Any system in which teachers have a good deal of control through a union will mean that they pursue their own interests. Breaking the union will erode the political support that the planners who want to redistribute teachers need in order to stay in power.
They can’t get from here to there, in other words.
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