When all the fluff is stripped away, teacher unions exist so that:
- Teachers who can’t teach can’t be stopped from teaching.
- Those who can teach can’t earn more than those who can’t.
In my book, that makes the PPTA the educational equivalent of a Big Tobacco lobbyist.
They know that a teacher’s ability to explain and fascinate is what determines whether or not a child learns.
They know that the difference between a competent and incompetent teacher is the difference between children’s success and failure.
They know that one boring teacher can kill hundreds of children’s enthusiasm for a subject forever.
They know all this. Yet they still turn out stomach-churning ads claiming that they care about children.
Well, this latest billboard surely confirms that they don’t.
Just when the National government is bringing some real-world standards to our increasingly dumbed-downed education system, what does this supposedly child-centred union do?
Publicly brands education ministers Anne Tolley and Steven Joyce as dimbulbs.
Wow, that’s really bright. The Dale Carnegie negotiation strategy: guaranteed to win friends and influence the employers’ employers.
Now I’m told the dimming campaign is really about the government’s decision to relieve you and me of the burden of paying for other people’s hobby classes.
Hard to say. The billboard gives no clue. But no matter.
Never waste a crisis, as the saying goes. And a grievous (and possibly unprecedented) insult like this can certainly be parlayed into a crisis.
The Nats should grab this slur as the perfect excuse to smash the teacher protection racket the way Margaret Thatcher smashed the miners.
If you ever hear a unionist sounding plausible about how national standards will stigmatise children, remember: their sole interest in your children is to keep the worst teachers in front of them.
