Protecting One's Own

Guild Socialism, Teacher Unions, and Compromised Professionalism

In the "debate" over the introduction of Partnership (Charter) Schools in New Zealand the teacher unions have been kicking up bobsy-die (as our grandmother's would have had it).  They have been banging on about the terrible dangers that await children being taught by unregistered teachers.  Yes, imagine what horrors await our children. 

Long experience has taught the Western world that guilds and unions exist primarily for the interests of their members in a "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" manner.  One way this is done is to restrict membership in the guild or union, so that competition is reduced.  Another way is to exclude anyone but a union member being able to hang out a shingle and trade.  So it is with the registration of teachers.  The unions want to keep unregistered teachers out of the profession and keep their own members in it.  The teacher unions want an enforced monopoly when it comes to their profession. 

How does that work out?  The Teachers' Council is the regulatory body overseeing the registration of teachers.  Once registered you virtually have to be stark raving bonkers and a fluent gibberish speaker to lose one's registration.
  Hard to get in; impossible to get out.  We expect that soon teacher registration will extend beyond the grave.  Guild socialism at work.  The teacher unions--who effectively control the government schools--have only one commandment, repeated ten times: Thou shalt not employ a non-registered teacher. 

Here is a case in point (not untypical) of how hard it is to get struck off and lose one's registration, as reported in the NZ Herald.  A teacher has recently been found guilty of the following indiscretions:

-She tried to hire a gang member to assault her principal;
-She told a colleague she had arranged for the principal to be "capped", which the colleague took to mean an injury to the knees;
-She also fabricated grades for work not done by students, forged the head of department's signature, and lied about what classes she had taught.

This teacher has had her registration maintained and been allowed to return to the classroom.  She claimed the following extenuating circumstances:

-The teacher feared she was going to be fired and so hatched a plan for one of her students' grandfathers to threaten the principal. (Note to principals and schools which may soon enjoy the services of this particular registered teacher: if you love your knees never fire this teacher.)
-She acted under the extreme stress of "feeling bullied".  (In other words she was deploying the classic, "Hey, I'm the victim here" defence.)
-Comments about knee-capping the principal were made in confidence to someone she trusted as a friend. (The classic "I was only joking around" defence.)
-She was extremely depressed and distressed at the time. (The classic "temporary insanity" defence.)

No defence was recorded for the lying and fabrication of grades and forging a head of department's signature, except, presumably, all of the above.

Now the Teachers' Council have decided that this poor victimised teacher should maintain her registration and be allowed to return to the classroom.  It was, however, a close call.

The tribunal said the "difficult decision" in the case was whether the responsibilities to the public and the profession could be met without deregistering the teacher.  "We have concluded that we can [meet those responsibilities] but only after very careful consideration and by the finest of margins," the report says.

Oh, well.  That's fine then.  But really, what was the final consideration that swayed them in their already pre-determined commitment to maintain the registration of this superb and excellent professional? Her desperation to return to teaching, her passion for the job, and her impecunious circumstances--we kid you not.

 "Finally, the [teacher] could scarcely have made it clearer that she was desperate to return to teaching, both because she was passionate about being a teacher and for financial reasons," the report said.

This is how safe and coseted our children are in government schools--protected, nourished, and superbly taught by the excellent services of registered teachers.  A word to parents: make sure you count your child's knee caps when they return from school each day.  We're just sayin . . .

Will this registered teacher ever work again in a school is New Zealand?  Unlikely.  Why?   Because a modicum of vestigial common sense remained somewhere in the collective head of the Teachers' Council.  They required that the teacher "provide a copy of her disciplinary report to future employers".  No principal or Board of Trustees with the slightest respect for their own kneecaps would ever employ such a teacher again. 

Oh, but wait a minute, who will oversee to ensure that this teacher will actually comply with that requirement?  Of course--no-one.  Remember all those convicted sexual deviants who have been able to teach under the radar screen as registered teachers for years.  Bring on Partnership Schools.  The sooner guild socialism gets stripped away from the noble profession of teaching the better.