In NY union teachers only have to work 130 days out of 180 to be considered full time. Thats 50 days off out of 180. Nice.

No one is saying that teachers arent very important and have made a noble career choice. But they need to take some of the blame for poor results. Many teachers union stances are directly opposite to improving the quality of education in this country. Bad teachers need to go. Good teachers should be rewarded. But that isnt how it works.

cutting class sizes necessitated hiring more teachers-when you dig deeper into the pool to hire, guess what you're going to get? i doubt there's a discernible difference from when class size was larger-but the union has more $, since they had more paying in-so they're happy.
and yes, a good teacher is a good thing. but there could definitely be improvements in public schools. parental involvement would certainly help as welll, with less parents taking their 'little angels' side when junior messes up.

unintended consequences?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...critics-claim/

Our schools best work

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...official-says/

I sincerely apologize the the President for suggesting that the teachers unions were behind the newly proposed school schedule for kids. It seems as though the teachers have been actually going the other way and want to spend less time in school in order to avoid layoffs or paycuts. I feel bad that the President and his team actually seemed to come up with thier own idea for a change and underestimated the unions chutzpah.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...shorter-weeks/

Since 2000, he said, school districts nationwide have hired teachers at twice the rate that they have added new students.