Apple Inc (AAPL)

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OT- Re: teachers, unions

Wow.

First of all, in a purely self-interested way as an AAPL stockholder, I had to kind of wince when I heard Jobs comment- education is one of Apple's stronger customers, and Jobs poked them in the eye. Really went out of his way, I thought..."over-the-top crazy"?

I'm not a teacher (or a union member) myself (nor my wife, or kids), but I'm always surprised at the vitriol people hold for these folks. For bright young people at least, it's almost a sucker's mistake to think about going into teaching. They'll make faaaar less money than they could in, say, business, and for their sacrifice they get to listen to people bitch endlessly about how terrible and incompetent they are. If they're really altruistic, and teach disadvantaged kids, they'll get even less support from parents, and then get blamed even more for the poor outcomes.

The teachers I know from my 3 kids public schools are almost all dedicated, decent people. Some were, frankly, brilliant, and while I very much appreciated their career choice for the sake of my kids, I had to almost feel sorry for them. Who would not only start, but actually stay in such a dead end job, when they could have done so much better for themselves and their own families? I'm continually amazed that the 90+% of public school teachers that are decent, sentient beings put up with this.

In my state (supposedly one of the more supportive ones for public schools) the last 7 years has seen the per-pupil funding formula change 0%, 0%, 0%, 4%, 4%, 2%, and 2%. Over that same time period, private school tuition has gone up around 50%. (If you don't believe my numbers, go to www.BLS.gov, and take a look at the education component of the CPI (ie private K-12 tuition).

So, yeah, I guess I'm not surprised that at the level we support them, the public schools accumulate a few substandard teachers, since many of the decent ones end up going someplace they'll be decently paid and appreciated.

I'll make Steve and like-minded people a deal. I'll completely support public school administrators' right and ability to fire teachers at will or whim, if society will commit to funding public schools at the levels (or at least the rate of increase) dictated by the "free market"- ie private schools.

Until then, blaming it all on teachers sounds like so much know-nothing noise to me.