Teachers’ Unions Exposed in The Cartel
Bob Bowdon knew that tackling the damaged New Jersey public school system in documentary format would give him plenty of raw material.
He just didn’t know precisely how much material he’d have from which to choose.
“It became kind of like a drug, you’re finding more and more and more of it,” says Bowdon, the mind behind The Cartel, an excoriation of the teachers’ unions ruling New Jersey’s students. “Who at the outset imagines you’d be finding janitors making six figures, or a superintendent making $470,00 one year, the same year he was fired?”
Or, for that matter, a veteran teacher who can barely read?
In The Cartel, out in select theaters now, Bowdon outlines in painstaking detail why the New Jersey school system is a disaster. No other state spends as much per pupil as the Garden State, and what do they have to show for it?
Low test scores. Rampant corruption. Tenure policies that make it all but impossible to fire incompetent teachers. Millions of wasted dollars.
The Cartel connects the dots, Bowdon says, proving that each of the isolated outrages is part of a much more sinister situation fueled by the intractable teachers’ unions.
The situation in New Jersey is a teachable moment for districts across the country, the film argues. And programs like charter and magnet schools offer the kind of school competition that might just yield higher test scores and smarter students.
Bowdon, a former television news reporter, knew The Cartel wouldn’t be an exotic documentary on the surface. He doesn’t have dazzling visuals to share like an environmental film might, nor does he rely on the Michael Moore brand of infotainment.
So he decided to overload his film with talking heads — from both sides of the ideological aisle.
Any project daring to criticize unions will quickly be perceived as a conservative memorandum, but Bowdon is quick to say his allegiances aren’t necessarily with Republicans.
“I’m suspicious of both parties,” he says, adding that he considers himself a libertarian.
That hasn’t stopped some critics for smiting the film on what appears to be ideological grounds. Bowdon knew a first-time filmmaker like himself would receive some credible criticism, and when he reads reviews which break The Cartel down in an analytical fashion he doesn’t bat an eye.
But other reviews have seemed more full of rage than honest critiques.
In a discussion just yesterday about the idiotic rules our district sets, something suddenly clicked for me.
The district in which I teach piles on so many “dog-and-pony-show” type requirements that need to be done to “prove that you’re doing something”, that you generally don’t have the time or flexibility to do anything at all. I am lucky enough to be in a building with extended time, so that I have time to both meet district requirements and actually teach. Not everyone is so lucky. In the past, teachers had been given far more flexibility. A number of teachers, however, abused the flexibility to avoid attempting to do anything academic, especially where special ed students were involved.
Dealing with these individual teachers, however, is next to impossible. A number of years ago there was a teacher who actually entered the office of the then superintendent and fired a bow and arrow at him. Despite there being no argument as to the facts, it still took 4 years to fire this teacher. Setting insane rules that apply equally to everyone, however, is far easier.
It is far more than their own classroom that incompetent teachers destroy.
You will not see an epose’ such as this on 60 Minutes because it does not fit into the left wing story line. However, it is important that this becomes known to as wide an audenience as possible. If you send this to people on your mailing list, and they likewise, who knows into which mind this will fall. Christian Toto’s seed of information could be one of the tipping points that bring this country back into sanity. Spread the knowledge.
While I haven’t seem the documentary, the most telling line from this article, for me at least, is:
“They’ve got to eventually face the facts. Money doesn’t equal quality. Throwing money at the problem doesn’t work.”
Liberal/Progressive/Democrats have been “throwing money” at problems since, well, since money was invented! And at no time has it really done any good. At least any good for the “problem” that they claimed needed the funds.
Good for Chicago-style politicians? Absolutely.
Good for union leaders? You betcha.
Good for kids whose parents want to give them the opportunity to do better than they themselves have done? Not so much.
Good for actually cleaning up the environment? Yeah, cleaning up Love Canal has been really good for the country.
Subsidizing ethanol by causing farmers to turn good, wholesome corn into another form of hydrocarbon, and reducing the food available to not just those in America, but in impoverished nations globally? Somehow I will reserve my right to doubt that.
In all this is a very important article, and I hope it becomes an encouragement to others to make similar documentary exposes of the Liberal/Progressive/Democrat myth that all we ever need to do is spend more money on any problem that they can fabricate.
You are almost right about Liberals and Money. It appears that they believe spending lots of money will solve a problem. That isn’t what they really believe.
They believe that taking money out of the private sector and redistributing it between unions and government will reduce the influence of the individual and increase the power of the Left.
Liberals will brag that they have spent more of our money on schools than Conservatives would. In fact, what they are saying is, “See how badly we can hurt the finances of the individual and the business. Trust us to protect groups without that kind of money.”
When you break it down, their real argument is that they recognize that anyone with the financial resources to fight their agenda is a danger to their agenda. They have correctly determined that the only legal way to gain power is to tax the individual and the company out of their resources.
I grew up in NJ and have taught in NC for over 30 years. Waste? Absolutely. Federal and State interference? Beyond a doubt! Any teacher could write a book on waste. I will give one example, maybe not considered by most. At the state level in NC we have End Of Course testing (EOC’s). These are used for No Child Left Behind compliance. I teach science at the high school level. Every few years they change the test. Basic chemistry hasn’t changed in a hundred years, why change the test? If they didn’t, the testing bureaucrats would be out of a job! What a waste of money–just use a private test and get rid of an entire department of administrators at the state level.
No, basic chemistry doesn’t change, but if the test is not changed every few years everyone will know all the questions in advance.
One reason to change the test is to prevent teachers from teaching to the test.
I am talking about adding and subtracting areas that are tested (thermal concepts for example) were to be deleted from the physics test 1 year. Lo and behold–still there on test day after we told our kids that they wouldn’t be. The State said they were just not going to count them in retrospect, but tell that to a kid that is freaking there is a whole section on the test that the teacher said wouldn’t be. the military constantly teaches to the test and they stand up pretty well aginst the rest of the world. If a student knows how to do stoichiometry then he should get them all right. And most teachers I know still “teach to the test”.
If you are deciding whether or not to teach stoichiometry at all, based on whether or not it is going to be on the test, then you are teaching to the test. As your first sentence indicates, this is already happening.
Honestly, Mark, it is a blend–the test counts 25% of their total grade for the course. Therefore, I can’t ignore it. But, I see having them prepared to be successful at the college level as personally more important. Being retired and filling in for a year I can pretty do what I want without repercussions. We feel there are “games” being played with testing–in the end a major waste of money and useless stress on the young. And from earlier, there are cheating teachers, if we went to national testing (AP, SAT, ACT) then some of that would be stopped and we could compare apples to apples instead of NC EOCs to NY regency exams, apples to oranges.
I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming the kids. I’m not even blaming the test or the people who make the test.
I am blaming a system that is more interested in whether the kids can pass some arbitrary test then whether they actually know the material.
The question is, how do we get away from that mentality? I don’t know if anyone has come up with a good answer.
I don’t believe the makers of the test should be telling teachers before hand, what areas the test is going to cover.
Unions always destroy any industry that they leach onto.
Sad but true. Everything unions touch nowadays turns to corrupt caca.
I guess that this explains why the governments at all levels is fubar’ed.
If it weren’t for our fearless Governor Christie (who I rank with Thatcher and Giuliani for taking on entrenched leftist fanatics), this documentary and thread probably would gain no traction at all.
And to think the media thought 6 months ago, that the VA Governor would be the rising star of the party.
it’s the result of the “axis of taxes”:
government workers’ unions and politicians.
iow: the congressional/govt union complex.
There is nothing wrong with “teaching to the test,” if the test is valid. As a coach I teach to the test all time, the test being our next game. I teach my players how to win the game by doing their individual parts as well as they can. As a classroom teacher, I would not be serving my students properly if I wasn’t teaching them how to be successful on the test.
I do have a problem with so much emphasis being placed on one test, however.
Looking at the issue from the other side, you are claiming that anything that is not on the test, isn’t worth knowing.
I teach far more than what is on the test. However, my school district, by way of NCLB, says I must only teach what’s on the test. Except for 15 minutes, our school, which statistically is a higher performing school of comparable demographic, must do language arts and math for the entire day minus 40 minutes for required P.E.
No history, science, art, etc. That is dangerous crazy.
The power to impede, corrupt and destroy orchestrated by unions, socialist/Marxists, educational elitists and the dnc.
The greater their power, the greater the damage they do to our nation and the wider the smirk upon their faces.
If you want to know the fate of a country that gives power to unions, just look at Greece.
Amen.
I still want to know why we are not seeing the same kinds of protests in Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain (the rest of PIIGS).
Greece is the only one of the PIIGS that is actively trying to get their deficit somewhat under control.
The communists are a much bigger force in Greece compared to almost any other EU country as well.
Hope this has legs – for the sake of the kids.
I do know firsthand that teachers are well aware of how pathetic their system is and how they know not to go public with their thoughts. I went door to door a few years back to ask voters to reject a p-tax increase for our school district. A majority of the teachers I spoke to were rejecting the increase (it passed). Of course I received the “what, you hate kids” from the Kool-Aid drinking libs who sincerely believe in the “throw more money at it” philosophy.
So, what are the chances this film will lead to the elimination of the DOE? I know. I am dreaming.
Back to the rubber room in NYC.
Bowdon does not realize that policies based on empirical evidence are Conservative by definition. You can be Republican without a grip on reality and some parts of the party are. Once you take firm hold of reality, you are Conservative. Arguments about trade-offs, priorities and costs can lead to different solutions but Mr. Bowdon has made himself a Conservative Opus of legally recognized guilds. Madison, Hamilton and Adam Smith would all have been impressed.
Years ago, before all this testing nonsense, we (those that taught college prep classes)were “judged” by how well our kids did in our courses in college (we could track them in UNC system schools). My school was consistantly out performing the other county schools and the freshman class at both NC State and UNC Chapel Hill. I call that successful. Then testing, controling what and how was being taught and mediocrity set in. If my kids needed 3 weeks on a concept instead of 2 as deemed by the state curriculum guide, then I did. And, I believe, they had a more solid foundation. Now we cover “everything” but only skin deep. I’m not convinced this is right. Let your good teachers teach and if they can’t fire them.
America’s Schools in a Freefall into the Third World
America’s public schools haven’t merely been falling behind. They’re in a freefall compared to other nations, including “developing” nations such as Slovakia, et al. which, almost literally, don’t have a pot to pee in but yet succeed in educating kids far better than we do.
Thing is, it’s not news simply because it’s been going on for a few generations now and, if anyone noticed, they haven’t said much about it and those who try to say much about it are derided as simpleton reactionaries.
The causes of the misedumacation going on in most schools today aren’t complex. They can easily be pinned on the National Education Association, the NEA, which says on its website that, “We’re Fighting for the Right to a Great Public School” when, in fact, it has been the major force behind diluting curriculum, undermining traditional values, endorsing and promoting liberal thought, and pushing diversity, all at the cost of abandoning the primary role of public schools, to provide a good, fundamental education. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1665)
Some years ago a president of Middlesex County College remarked that almost none of the students in the lowest remedial reading course ever graduated. She acknowledged that this was virtual “consumer fraud.”
And so it was. And so it is. And so it will ever remain.
Unions always destroy any industry that they leach onto.
New Jersey has the most expensive per pupil costs?
I lived in Madison NJ & the costs per student were $8,000 per pupil per year (5% state money). (Newark would slam rich suburban schools because they had so much money. Newark spent $8,800 per pupil per year that year (90% state money). Waste much?) I moved to Cumberland Rhode Island & found out they were one of the cheapest school districs in the state – they only spent $10,800 per pupil per year. It’s a terrible school system to say the least.
It’s not just the Unions who waste money on stupidity. I have a friend who teaches science in a school in a middle-class district, where The principal thinks it’s perfectly acceptable for five 5th grade classes,to share ONE that’s right,ONE set of science textbooks.She tried to convince the teachers that she couldn’t afford more;then went out and spent $4000 dollars to bring in an after school tap dance program,which included outfitting several dozen kids with FREE tap shoes.This is the kind of cretinism that characterizes school administrators at the national level.
About 10 years ago, I had a conversation with a teacher in the Oakland, CA school district. She told me how it was common knowledge among the teachers how corrupt the district administration was, how so much money was funneled to family and cronies of high officials through various schemes. But right after that, she tried to tell me how there needed to be more money from the taxpayers for schools. Somehow, by some sort of Orwellian doublethink, she was sincerely unable to see the contradiction in her words. Even after this close encounter, I still have trouble understanding how liberals think.
The pair on ACORN represented themselves a a lady and her pimp. The union is a pimp. They want a cut on payroll. My union experience is in the rail industry. The union is unable to demonstrate increased value for the stakeholdeers.
I have a lot of conflicted opinions about teachers unions. On the one hand, I used to work in a school district with corrupt and devious administrators. The union was the only vehicle we had for standing up to them. In addition, the union did provide crucial liability coverage, and it would be insane to be a teacher in the U.S. without that (especially a male teacher).
On the other hand, most of the union active teachers were liberal identity-politics grievance-mongers, and the state and national union would routinely use our dues to finance liberal activist causes. The national organization of the NEA is so corrupt that is should be a disgrace.
I was a Union member, but I sure didn’t like it. I’m happy to be out of public education now and no longer face the dilemma.
When one looks at any issue and sees it only in black and white there is the danger of becoming blind to aspects of reality that impinge on it. While I’m not a union member, I realize they provide some genuine service. Without union training schools, the quality of electrical, plumbing, carpentry work on new or renovated construction used by the general public would be of uneven quality, bringing potential hazards to users. I am sure there are many other examples of public good provided by unions and union members. Unions or union officials who unduly interfer with mangement decisions about the quality of work performed by its members don’t do any service for the general mambership or the employer. Obviously there are plenty of examples of this, too. becoming too dogmatic in decrying unions alienates folks that may otherwise be persuaded to see political issues in the same conservative light they live the rest of their lives in.
Wolf you have obviously never been to a Union “training”. The only true difference in a union vs non-union job is the cost and that comes directly from a 20 year member. My dues are a right to work license and that just aint right! My rep does nothing to help me do my job better nor am I encouraged to do so. Mediocre on par performance is the norm. Unions have outlived their usefulness and should be decertified.