You Cannot Serve

Two Masters

To the Editor:

We have heard much about the plan by Governor Malloy to restructure education in our state. Governor, it is much worse than you think. At the root of much of the problems are the teachers’ unions. I say this to my friends who are teachers: “You cannot serve two masters. Either you dedicate yourself to education or to making as much money as you can for as little time as you can and then your master is the union. Neither you nor any other professional can serve two masters.”

As long as the union controls vital aspects of education, and, kid yourself not, they do, just as long will education decline and decline some more while your taxes keep climbing as they have been. You can draw more while your taxes keep climbing as they have been. You can draw a direct parallel between unionization, collective bargaining, decline of education and tax levels.

There can be little hope for improvement as long as the teachers’ unions control education. These unions are destructive in their effect on education. Teachers must be treated as professionals and not as assembly line workers. A principal must have the ability to fire the incompetent, the care-nots, and reward those that perform. There can be no automatic pay raise both for the goof-off or a hardworking professional. These words are not mine, but mainly a quotation from the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaakson, and if you have an iPhone, an iPad, or watch an animated film by Pixar, you owe it to Steve Jobs. He made these statements in a meeting between President Obama and himself in 2010 (p. 455-456). So I am in good company in recognizing the malaise that our children face in our schools.

The new kindergarten routine? More teachers, what else, in reality glorified babysitters, but you pay the bill.

Kindergarten was introduced by Froebel in Germany to prepare children for school not for earlier studies. My wife attended the Froebel Seminar in Germany.

My fellow Newtowners, take the unions to court for violations of both state and federal monopoly laws. When a single source (the union) controls a vital asset (education) which cannot be replaced, you have nothing short of a monopoly. Karl Marx said, “Workers of the world, unite!” In this case it portends the decline of our educational system!

Oscar Berendsohn

34 Appleblossom Lane, Newtown                                 April 11, 2012