The menace of public-sector unions is a cruel hydra. Taxpayers suffer, and so do young Americans, as the Detroit News reports on the tentacle known as teachers unions.No other big city needs great teachers more than Detroit, home to the nation's worst-performing urban schools. Yet the city's teachers union is trying to undermine efforts to bring some of the country's brightest young educators to the Motor City.
Leaders from both the Detroit Public Schools and city charter schools are working to lure Teach for America -- the nonprofit that supplies highly motivated young college graduates to poor urban classrooms. But the effort is threatened by opposition from the Detroit Federation of Teachers.
The union has succeeded in blocking Teach for America before. About 50 of the nonprofit's members taught in the Detroit Public Schools from 2001-03, when the union successfully demanded they be thrown out, saying they took union jobs.
Teach for America is a two-year program that recruits high-achieving volunteers to be specially trained and placed in poor schools that are difficult to staff.
The University of Michigan produces more Teach for America volunteers than any other college--but they can't work in Michigan. TFA has greatly improved schools in troubled New Orleans and across America.
The Detroit Federation of Teachers stands in the way of better education.
Related post:
Detroit mayor on unions: "Either they can't read, they can't add or they can't comprehend"
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