Policy Making Process
Today’s belief is that children are looking for more than just the basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are looking for more challenging components such as technology and sciences that encourage them to build on a future that is ever changing and uncertain. The beliefs are it’s everyone’s job as professional educators to give them the support and guidance needed to build a successful student/teacher relationship and to gain a better understanding of what its going to take at being successful when they enter the world as an adult. Everyone wants the same end result ; unfortunately, both sides feel differently about how they must get those results.
The debate continues whether teachers’ unions are good or bad. One method of attempting to answer this question is to look back at history. In 1973, Albert Shanker, the head of the American Federation of Teachers and considered by many to be an educational visionary who fought for stronger accountability for teachers, revolutionized the way teachers and administrators worked together. Rather than having teachers work against administrators, Shanker proposed that teachers and administrators work together for the good of all students. Since administrators and teachers have the interest of educating students in common, the theory was that negotiations would be interest based and would lead to fewer disagreements (American School Board Journal, 2005).
Many school boards believe that teachers unions do not act in the best interest of the students their members are hired to educate. They argue that teachers unions balk at accountability, merit raises, and streamlined termination for inadequate teachers and assignment reforms that place veteran teachers in lower-ranking schools. These factors directly impact the teacher’s themselves and although these types of reforms are meant to help student achievement, teachers unions argue that the reforms do little in the way of helping students...