Is it proper to participate in the teacher "sick-out"?

[logicalpath]

In Florida the legislator has recently passed F.S.B 6 which changes several aspects of the public education system, one of which is accountability for public school teachers in this State. Prior to this bill it was virtually impossible for bad teachers to be fired and there was no incentive for good teachers to excel. The above is more than likely the case, in all public education systems across this country and so the notion of accountability based on performance is something that I agree with completely. As a former public school teacher I know first hand how defective this system was and is.(which is part of why I no longer am a teacher)

As you can imagine the teachers union and other groups are up in arms, so they have announced a "sick-out" which union teachers & non-union teachers are going to execute on Monday. Basically the majority of all Miami-Dade public school teachers will call in sick for at least one day as a form of protest. My wife(a public school teacher) wants accountability standards and would benefit from them, unfortunately like most legislation it lacks details, like how they will determine the standards and how teachers performance will be measured in certain cases. Because of that my wife is considering calling in sick but I'm just not clear that this is proper. We both recognize that the notion of public education is not proper, which is why her and I had decided prior to this year that she should try to get a job in a private-non-religious school.(which may prove difficult as a result of this bill) In the meantime however, by calling out tomorrow she essentially is supporting all the individuals that only seek to impose the will of the union and stop any movement that threatens the "entitlement" element within this particular sector of Gov't run X. She agrees with what the bill is attempting but since we take nothing on faith, then unless we see it in black and white we're not taking a politicians word for it. So if she is out tomorrow then that action puts us on the wrong side of the issue...

Here are the questions:

1. Being that we do not believe public education to be the proper solution to education, should we reject attempts like these because it is contrary to what we believe to be proper?

2. If we agree with what the bill is attempting but not the fact that it does not explain how they will execute "it" and she was to follow through with the "sick-out" then does that put us on the side of evil(ultimately the wrong side) because this will undoubtedly have some affect on the outcome?

*I have attached a copy of the bill to this post.*

SB6.pdf

Edited April 11, 2010 by logicalpath

[Scott_Connery]

When in doubt, do the opposite of what the corrupt statist teacher's union does.

Don't participate in events organized by them. Your wife's absence can only be seen as solidarity with them. This sanction can only further empower the union.

As an alternative, you might consider having your wife publish op-eds and contact the media. A public school teacher in favor of accountability might be enough of a novelty to get attention. Once you have that attention, you could highlight some of the shortcomings of the bill.

[logicalpath]

When in doubt, do the opposite of what the corrupt statist teacher's union does.

Don't participate in events organized by them. Your wife's absence can only be seen as solidarity with them. This sanction can only further empower the union.

As an alternative, you might consider having your wife publish op-eds and contact the media. A public school teacher in favor of accountability might be enough of a novelty to get attention. Once you have that attention, you could highlight some of the shortcomings of the bill.

Unfortunately she elected to opt out of work on that day. I did my best to explain that she was on the wrong side but being that I myself was a bit unsure of what was proper under the circumstances which I explained in my previous post, my overall position was not very strong. Ultimately in my opinion she made the wrong choice but overall the teachers union did not perform as well as they had hoped, with less than 30% of teachers opting out. Gov. Christ vetoed the bill so all the slackers got what they wanted...unfortunately.

Edited May 2, 2010 by logicalpath

[FeatherFall]

That's sad. It sounds like her "opt-out" will give her co-workers the impression that she is in lock-step with the teacher's union. She will now have a much more difficult time explaining to others in her profession why she really "opted-out". Many teachers may listen to her argument, but in a year will likely remember only the absence on her records while forgetting her explicit reasons.

Edited May 2, 2010 by FeatherFall

[softwareNerd]

The good news is that a majority of teachers seem to support the idea of accountability. Presumably this includes many who went to work, and some who did not, because they had objections about the details.

[logicalpath]

That's sad. It sounds like her "opt-out" will give her co-workers the impression that she is in lock-step with the teacher's union. She will now have a much more difficult time explaining to others in her profession why she really "opted-out". Many teachers may listen to her argument, but in a year will likely remember only the absence on her records while forgetting her explicit reasons.

I agree but the reality is a little more discouraging even from what you've described.(read below)

The good news is that a majority of teachers seem to support the idea of accountability. Presumably this includes many who went to work, and some who did not, because they had objections about the details.

I'm not so sure you're right about that, most of the teachers I've spoken with only went to work out of fear of reprisal or because they "didn't care one way or another". The ones(I have spoken with) that did opt-out ended up at South Beach and have cited it as a "day off". According to my wife, she was the only teacher in the school to actually read the bill, what does that say about all the other teachers position on this matter? Two teachers from her school were not even sure what was going on and in a massive contradiction a teacher in her school that is infamous for being a socialist or at least defending those views, went to work. These are the people teaching the future adults of this country!

What I explained to her over dinner is that while he may have contradicted everything he preaches in the teachers lounge, she was guilty of the same thing for having not gone to work. That said, I recognize her concern but in my opinion the stakes are just too high to ever end up on the wrong side of this kind of argument. Now more than ever I see how awful the public school system is, I could go on and on with the things I've seen when I was in the system but it would get really old, really fast. Ayn Rand was 100% correct when she said that the first place we have to win is in the educational institutions.