“The California Federation of Teachers has invited Apple CEO Steve Jobs to either attend an annual CFT convention next month or offer a public apology for his ‘insulting comments’ to California’s teachers,” MacNN reports.
“Should Jobs fail to apologize or neglect to attend the conference, where he is encouraged to speak with the people who educate California’s children and hear from them what the situation is like, the CFT will create a new award specifically for Apple’s chief. ‘We’ll call it the Rotten Apple, for the individual who best personifies the need to think differently about public education and teacher unions,’ California Federation of Teachers president Mary Bergan wrote in a letter to the executive,” MacNN reports.
Full article here.
See, if you’re not with the union, you’re part of the problem. Unless you agree with the unions’ point of view, you’re not thinking correctly. Therefore, you can expect an invitation to another worthless conference that accomplishes nothing. While you’re stuck there, a bunch of proven education failures will inexplicably attempt to educate you. When that fails (because they’re wrong and you have a mind of your own that’s not susceptible to reeducation), they’ll give you an “award” seemingly named by a kindergartner (private; 8th grader, public) that’s meant to generate publicity while ridiculing your ideas because they differ from the union’s official stance. Isn’t it strange that “thinking differently” to people like Mary Bergan means “think like us or else?”
Related articles:
A clearer picture of Steve Jobs’ thoughts on public education and teacher unions – February 21, 2007
Steve Jobs & Rush Limbaugh agree: U.S. public schools are ‘unionized in the worst possible way’ – February 20, 2007
Apple CEO blasts teacher unions, says US schools are ‘unionized in the worst possible way’ – February 16, 2007
Don’t underestimate these BIG FAT CATS! They can spend 70 millions dollars smear campaign against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, remember? Union is the root of communist evil!! They should be eradicated out of this country!
Botox, how profound. Teachers’ unions are BIG FAT CATs are are the root of communist evil!! Let me respond in kind: Your mother wears army boots, is a Nazi, fascist, and ought to be sent back to wherever it is she came from. (I’m not sure what I said, but I feel perversely refreshed).
@Habeus Guantanamo
While there are anti union comments on this board, let’s once again keep on the topic… Steve flamed the Teacher’s Union in respect to its benefit to the educational system. I support his view and reiterate my previous comment:
In California, the Teacher’s Union cares very little about the quality of education. They care about perpetuating their union. They use membership dues to wage political battles that are outside the purvue of educational issues and fly in the face of large chunks of their membership. Teachers are coerced to join and pay dues, and if they don’t join, they don’t work. Historically speaking, and to a smaller extent today, unions have balanced the scales of workers’ rights vs corporate greed. But not all unions serve the purpose for which they were originally organized and have become corrupt in their own right.
Mack. Don’t get me started on that B.S. rationalization that minority kids drop out of school because of violence. That’s just a big, steaming metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium. Sure, violence is part of the problem for small number of the minorities in the U.S. However, drive-by shootings and school shootings are a relatively new phenomenon. Yet minority kids have been dropping out of school before they graduate at an alarming rate for decades and decades and decades. Places like L.A. are the publicized exception. Though many will try to pin the blame for the high minority drop out rate on “The Man,” the blame squarely lies with the parents (or one parent, or a grandmother sometimes) who doesn’t properly instill into their children, the value of an education so they are insulated from the pressures of a minority culture that makes dropping out part of what makes a guy cool. Find one minority 20-something-year-old who dropped out of high school (or earlier) and challenge them to identify the white guy who forced them to drop out of school.
The government is to blame in part for this too. If there were more minority fathers in the home actively engaged in raising their children, you’d have a hell of a lot more kids in school. As it is though, there is no downside for some guy to get spread his seed all over hell and creation. Down in the South in times past, you had shotgun weddings. The term “shotgun” was for a reason: they damn well meant it and would KILL the S.O.B. who dun it. You don’t impregnate some gal and leave her to raise her child in poverty; the father provides the resources necessary to properly raise the child. Today, the role of a pissed off father is formally institutionalized in government agencies that don’t enforce the law. In practice, the government lets the irresponsible father off scot free and pays the mother (poorly at that too) to raise her children. The result is children in poverty, no father in the home, a broken system that is perpetuated by government indifference. The end result is minorities who fall victim only to the failing that all humans share: blaming our misfortunes on everyone else but ourselves.
No one said life’s fair. No one said it’s easy. No business owner is going to walk up and give you money just because you ASK for it. You’ve got to have a skill, ability, and work ethic that generates gobs of work product that induces a business owner to come to the bargaining table and bid high for your services. That’s they way it works. Deal with it and spare us your “victim” crap.
Stevie boy insulted unions which support teachers. I’d like to know what is a good teacher? I’d like to know just how much Stevie knows about teaching. No Stevie, they don’t place students infront of computers or stick iPods in their ears. No Stevie, they all don’t teach Rhodes Scholars. No Stevie, they all don’t have nice cooperative students who are willing to learn. No Stevie, they all don’t have students who never bring the crap from their home lives to school. NO Stevie, they all don’t teach kids to pass a test which means that there is no time for computers or lesson enhancement. No Stevie, they all don’t teach hungry students with no pencil or pens or notebooks or clean clothes or….NO Stevie, you just don’t have a clue. APOLOGIZE; prove that you are a man and not a computer geek!
Man, somebody better call the whaaaaambulance… Wait, looks like we’ll need a few dozen. What a bunch of reactionary wankers you are.
Seriously:
1. (@Opie) The U.S. ranks second on per capita spending on education (after Norway, if you’re curious). Of course even that is not a very indicative figure. To get a more accurate picture of education spending disparity, you would need to divide spending per student by per capita income for each country, beacuse the U.S. has a significantly higher per capita income than many countries. If you did that, I suspect the U.S. would start falling very far behind.
2. There are, believe it or not, states and districts without teachers’ unions. And, believe it or not, the educational system is as bad if not worse than anywhere else.
Benton: “Steve was invited to showcase Apple’s vision for the education market. He was not invited to quarrel with or slander attendees.”
That’s what he did. He told the audience that spending huge amount of money to equip students with high tech stuff was meaningless if the teachers were incompetent. Too many people think that you can improve education simply by buying kids laptops. Things like laptops are just tools. They don’t educate, they make educating kids easier if they are used properly and the teachers know what they are doing.
Technology can’t solve education problems. Good teachers can. What prevents this from happening? The inability to replace bad teachers with good ones because that means firing the bad ones and the unions get in the way.
If I’m going to drone, I might as well proofread better.
Mack. Don’t get me started on that B.S. rationalization that minority kids drop out of school because of violence. That’s just a big, steaming metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium. Sure, violence is part of the problem for small number of the minorities in the U.S. However, drive-by shootings and school shootings are a relatively new phenomenon. Yet minority kids have been dropping out of school before they graduate at an alarming rate for decades and decades and decades. Places like L.A. are the publicized exception. Though many will try to pin the blame for the high minority drop out rate on “The Man,” the blame squarely lies with the parents (or one parent, or a grandmother sometimes) who doesn’t properly instill into their children, the value of an education so they are insulated from the pressures of a minority culture that makes dropping out part of what makes a guy cool. Find one minority 20-something-year-old who dropped out of high school (or earlier) and challenge them to identify the white guy who forced them to drop out of school.
The government is to blame in part for this too. If there were more minority fathers in the home actively engaged in raising their children, you’d have a hell of a lot more kids in school. As it is though, there is no downside for some guy to get spread his seed all over hell and creation. Down in the South in times past, you had shotgun weddings. The term “shotgun” was for a reason: they damn well meant it and would KILL the S.O.B. who dun it. You don’t impregnate some gal and leave her to raise her child in poverty; the father provides the resources necessary to properly raise the child. Today, the role of a pissed off grandfather-to-be is formally institutionalized in government agencies that don’t enforce the law. In practice, the government lets the irresponsible biological father off scot free and pays the mother (poorly at that too) to raise her children. The result is children in poverty, no father in the home, and a broken system that is perpetuated by government indifference. The end result is minorities who fall victim only to the failing that all humans share: blaming our misfortunes on everyone else but ourselves.
No one said life’s fair. No one said it’s easy. No business owner is going to walk up and give you money just because you ASK for it. You’ve got to have a skill, ability, and work ethic that generates gobs of work product that induces a business owner to come to the bargaining table and bid high for your services. That’s they way it works. Deal with it and spare us your “victim” crap.
Sparky
Almost all the comments about Jobs and unions were just anti-union diatribes. Whatever the particulars of the California Teachers Union, they were not discussed. I don’t recall Jobs giving a lecture or paper on the topic either.
Regarding teachers and politics: To be political is every citizen’s right; it is also a right of interested groups of citizens. Teachers are part of the system, and political decisions often affect their circumstances, both personal and pedagogical. Some members of the union will disagree with their leaders; but that’s inevitable with any group. Some citizens of the US disagree with the actions of their elected government, too. But the government has to act, nevertheless. The citizens can eject them if they don’t do their jobs to their satisfaction. Union leaders can be ejected in the same way.
The point is: Thoughtless generalizations about teachers or any other group reflect on the thoughtless generators. There’s too many of them here, including Steve Jobs. Would that he were more ruthlessly critical about his own political thoughts as he is about the quality of his commercial products.
CITIZENS AND STATES DON’T WANT TO PAY TEACHERS A DECENT SALARY TO ATTRACT OR KEEP TOP TALENT
Citzens know the people in charge in government are mostly crooks, giving their “friends” choice jobs and deals, wasting their hard earned money and getting little in return.
You want a better education for your children? PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL OR HOME SCHOOL.
Steve Jobs shouldn’t be butting in school politics, but rather think of ways to sell more Mac’s to schools instead.
If I didn’t use a Mac in grade school, I would have wound up another of Bill Gates Windows Drones.
Windows makes you dumb.
The unions don’t give a rat’s ass about education or your children
—
Brilliant, except when they lobby for things like… oh… I don’t know… smaller class sizes?
Genius.
Until teacher’s unions support the public right to expect a minimal standard of performance, enforce accountability in public education, and encourage the use of vouchers the unions need to apologize for wasting taxpayers’ money and students’ time.
Thanks Habeus, right on the money. I wasn’t saying anything against Jobs, because like I said, something needs to be done to eliminate the problem of bad teachers. My comment was more at the union bashers from the last thread about this and so on. Nothing more, see ya’ll next pointless arguement.
‘A sizable portion of Apple’s business is education-based. Could this affect their sales?’
I do believe he went on to say something to the effect of, ‘We may have lost some business here today, but . . .’
I admire him for not being cowardly in his convictions, FWIW.
How many times do you have to hear it on this message board- every teacher in California goes through a 2 year probationary period when they can be fired at any time. After that, you can fire them with just cause, based on previously agreed upon contracts and education law. Teacher unions think that better salaries and better teaching conditions might attract better teachers-why all the anger?
mike,
Smaller class sizes also mean less work for the teachers.
So, which U.S. public schools did you attend, mike?
Oh Jesus… Are we having this stupid argument again?
mike,
Smaller class sizes also mean less work for the teachers.
—-
hardly. if there’s 30+ kids in a class, they’re going to be cutting back the curriculum and paying less attention to each individual student.
They’re pretty much going to put forth the same effort regardless of the number of students, the only loser with a bigger class size is the students, and you know it. What? You think these teachers have time off to sit around and twiddle their thumbs with a 25-seat class? Pfft.
I went to public school until grade 8, was in French Immersion, then went to private school, had a 92% average at the end of HS, hold a BA in Economics, and am currently in an Int. Business post-grad program. I was bilingual at about 9, pickup up Spanish in HS, and have been speaking Mandarin for about 10 years.
Don’t even bother questioning my education.
The trouble with public education isn’t the teachers’ union, it’s fools like SJ and MDN and 2/3 of the posters here who clearly spend too much time with drool on their chins mindlessly staring at the TV watching O’Lielly and his ilk on Faux News, then regurgitating the spew they’ve heard instead of making any attempt to use their hopelessly shrunken brains to examine the situation. Pitiful.
Well, I’ve taught for 25 years and I’ve seen an incredible number of dedicated teachers. BUT I’ve also seen the the product of the Colleges of Ed that really know all about “5 point lesson plans” and “individual assessment structures,” but who don’t know squat — and don’t care to learn — about the subjects they teach. The real problem is the sham education provided by the teachers colleges where content is sacrificed on the alter of educational theory. At my local university, over 50% of the ed majors graduate with honors. They must be so much better than the rest of the class — or maybe there’s no content to the ed courses…
TEACHER UNION… or for that matter, any UNION can KISS MY REAR END
LONG LIVE STEVE AND THOSE WHO HAVE THE SAME OPINION ABOUT UNION.
FYI:
California has TWO big teachers unions. CTA has 300k members. CFT has 100k members.
This is the smaller CFT union making all the fuss.
One thing is fairly obvious…the teachers unions can dish it out, but they sure can’t take it. A little criticism, I mean.
AFAIC, no…and I mean absolutely no, human institution is above criticism, although it appears some like to assume they are.
Jobs didn’t say that teachers unions (let alone any unions) or teachers were bad, just that teachers were “unionized in the worst possible way.” Translation: there is a better way to be unionized.
Jobs didn’t tar and feather all teachers with a brush of incompetency (or any negative attribute), but the way a lot of teachers (and some others) are commenting, one would assume he did.
It appears that a lot of dedicated, highly educated instructors of our young people may be lacking in a basic understanding of the English language.
Let the CFT know that tenure should be abolished – only then will the “good teachers” get the respect they deserve.
CFT Communications Director Fred Glass
cftoakland@igc.org
HAB
Gee, another CEO blasting a union. I thought that Apple (Steve) was pro-education. If you look hard enough, you’ll find people in education, policemen, firemen, politics, web-site commentators, and even priests/pastors, who need to update their resumes and move on to another job. I resent being painted with such a wide brush. Are all educators, policemen, firemen, politicians, web-site commentators, or others scum?