Teachers on the Big Screen
The Foundry asks: Is Hollywood Turning on Teachers Unions?
How did we get to the point where The Foundry is even asking the question?
It seems to me that the unions are facing opposition on two fronts.
One is the growing antipathy towards unions in general. Economic realities are forcing city and state governments to rein in pay-and-benefit packages that government workers receive. The general population is noticing that while private sector jobs are stagnating or disappearing, workers in the public sector have been getting regular raises.
The second is dissatisfaction with the state of American education and the growing sense that teachers’ unions are not only the problem but are also the very thing that is standing in the way of solutions to the problem.
The Foundry links to Politico:
Unlike past battles over the high cost of labor, this time pitched battles over wages and pensions are being waged from Sacramento to Springfield to New York City and the conflict is marked by its bipartisan tone, with public employee unions emerging as an intransigent public enemy number one in cities and state capitals across the country.
“We have a new privileged class in America,” said Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who rescinded state workers’ collective bargaining power on his first day in office in 2006. “We used to think of government workers as underpaid public servants. Now they are better paid than the people who pay their salaries.”
“It’s a part of a very large question the nation’s got to face,” Daniels told POLITICO in an interview. “Who serves whom here? Is the public sector—as some of us have always thought—there to serve the rest of society? Or is it the other way around?”
The Foundry poses the question – has Hollywood turned against teachers’ union?—in response to three documentaries that have come out this year: The Lottery, The Cartel and Waiting for Superman.
All three are critical of teachers’ unions, but not critical of all teachers. (After all, who helps kids learn so well in the schools that are successful?)
Bob Bowden , the producer and narrator of The Cartel – the title alone ought to give you a little chill– says:
Those good teachers deserve our respect. Wanting lousy teachers out of the classroom doesn’t mean you’re against all teachers. A point so obvious, I can hardly believe it needs to be made. This absurd idea that you have got to support every teacher, or else you hate all teachers, has been an effective myth put forward by the union for years.
And one of the interviewees in Waiting for Superman says:
“When you see a great teacher, you are seeing a work of art.”
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